RSNO Sci-Fi Spectacular - Live Review

Tonight the Filibuster team from The Nerd Party were invited to the Usher Hall for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra's Sci-Fi Spectacular show celebrating some of the greatest and most iconic music cues from science fiction cinema.
For the last four years, the RSNO have performed at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, providing live scores to cinematic classics such as Back To The Future, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Jaws.
These events are always hugely popular and the Sci-Fi Spectacular was no different with a packed audience eager to hear the tunes from their favourite films and it always seems like the orchestra are having as much fun playing them as the audience do listening to them.
If you noticed a theme with the film choices for the live score events, it would be no surprise to learn that the first half of the show was dedicated to the music of John Williams and the Star Wars saga (prequels and originals).
From the Opening Titles of A New Hope (including Fox fanfare) through Across The Stars to Princess Leia's theme, Williams's contribution to the success of the saga is undeniable with the images and soundtrack unseparable in the mind.
In fact, based on tonight's concert, you would be forgiven for thinking that Williams soundtracked the entire genre as the second half also included his suites for Close Encounters Of Third Kind and E.T.
Yet other composers did make an appearance, from James Horner's work on Avatar to Michael Giacchino boldly going where one man had gone before with his rousing reinvention of the Star Trek theme to Jerry Goldsmith's work on Alien.
But there was time for the RSNO to take us back to a galaxy far, far away for an encore of the Imperial March.
Now that's value for money. A trip through the galaxy and time and space and you don't even have to leave your theatre seat.


The RSNO presents Sci-Fi Spectacular plays Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Saturday 26th January, 3.00pm & 7.30pm. For more details visit rsno.org.uk/film. 

Listeners of The Nerd Party can get a 20% discount on tickets for the show by using the code JEDI20.

Days of Future Past: Has Science Fiction become Science Fact?

If by some miracle a prophet could describe the future exactly as it was going to take place, his predictions would sound so absurd, so far-fetched that everyone would laugh him to scorn. The only thing we can be sure of about the future, is that it will be absolutely fantastic" 

      - Arthur C. Clarke, World's Fair, New York, 1964

It all started with one simple question: “Why don’t we have hoverboards yet?”
It was January 2015 and film journalists were already preparing their articles ahead of the 5th October 2015. The date that Marty McFly and Doc Brown travel to the future in 1988’s Back To The Future Part II.
Science Fiction films were previously the work of fantasy. Writers and filmmakers creating a vision of the future that they imagined *could* potentially come true but never really thought they would be held accountable for.

"Science fiction was an expression of 20th century man's hopes, dreams and aspirations. A heavy percentage of science fiction is merely rubbish. Big eyed monsters, space battles or something of that nature. However science fiction has one thing in its favour, that even a story that from a literary standpoint is complete trash may prove very prophetic"

While the science fiction films of the past have earned their place in history, the clock has kept ticking and time has begun to catch up with these works of fiction, whether they are novels, television shows or films.

Outside of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Terminator 2 Judgement Day, Back To The Future Part II was the first science fiction film to have a set date that people could finally analyse and compare fact to science fiction.
It presented a vision of the future that featured flying cars, self-tying laces and the release of Jaws 19. To be fair, they got the resurgence of 3D correct. They were also a year out with the Chicago Cubs World Series Win but we’ll let them off because they weirdly kindly of predicted the rise of Trump.

The year is now 2019 and we have reached a time when science fiction is becoming a reality.
The science fiction films of our past are becoming the present. The year 2019 is the setting for films such as Daybreakers, The Road, The Island, Akira and one of the most influential films of all-time, Blade Runner.

What, if anything, did they get right about the future? And what can they teach us about technology, science, health and politics?
Arthur C. Clarke said "One mark of a first rate scientist is an interest in science fiction and conversely, the mark of a second rate scientist is a lack of interest in science fiction."
Where films got their predictions correct, was it because scientists were inspired by the technology seen in the movies? A sort of self-fulfilling prophecy so to speak?

Over the course of 2019, I will examine in detail a series of science fiction films to determine how prophetic they actually were.

The criteria for selection was they had to be set in a specific time period in history or the near future i.e. 2001, 2019, 2032, etc.

Also the films must have been released at least ten years prior to their setting to allow for a reasonable period of time for their predictions to take effect (sorry Geostorm, set in 2019 but released in 2017).

The films that will be analysed are as follows (in chronological order of setting):

1. 1984
2. Escape From New York
3. Death Race 2000
4. 2001 A Space Odyssey
5. Timecop
6. Back To The Future Part II
7. Barb Wire
8. V For Vendetta
9. Rollerball
10. Akira
11. Daybreakers
12. The Island
13. The Road
14. The Running Man
15. Blade Runner
16. Johnny Mnemonic
17. The Purge
18. Soylent Green
19. Her
20. Metropolis
21. Children of Men
22. Snowpiercer
23. Moon
24. Demolition Man
25. Twelve Monkeys

2001 A Space Odyssey - review

It is a true landmark moment in cinematic sci-fi and it is easy to see where the inspiration for several elements of Christopher Nolan's Interstellar came from, particularly the trippy final act.

And that is what the experience of 2001 A Space Odyssey is. Whereas other sci-Fi films can take you on an adventure or a journey into outer space, Kubrick takes you on the ultimate trip.

Whilst stunning to look at and immerse yourself in on as big a screen as possible, I can't help but feel as emotionally distant and detached to the story as HAL 9000 is to his crewmates aboard the Jupiter mission.

4 stars

Interstellar - review

With 2010's Inception Christopher Nolan explored the inner mind. With Interstellar, Nolan has decided to "dream a little bigger darling" and has set his sights on outer space to deliver a grand, awe-inspiring, wondrous 2014 A Space Odyssey.

The McConaissance goes out of this world as Cooper, a former pilot/engineer who now makes his living as a farmer on an Earth that is dying. He is given the chance to lead a mission to search for inhabitable planets beyond our solar system using Interstellar travel.

This leads to the central crux of Interstellar. Humanity versus the human race.

Several times Cooper is reminded of the sacrifices he must make to complete the mission:

"I've got kids, professor.
Then get out there and save them. We must reach far beyond our own lifespans. We must think not as individuals but as a species."

"You might have to decide between seeing your children again and the future of the human race."

On the one hand you have a mission to save the human race, on the other it is boiled down to our humanity and own individual survival instinct and Cooper's will to keep his promise to see his children again.

The awful truth of what this will take is demonstrated following a message from home after a visit to one of the new planet's surface.

To go into the plot and science in any more detail would do the movie a disservice and also possibly require a PHD as there is so much more to this film than the trailers have given away.

This is the type of film where plot and dialogue can take a back seat in the space shuttle as you strap in for the audio visual experience that Nolan, Zimmer and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema have dreamed up (sometimes literally as there are times when Hans Zimmer's booming score overpowers the dialogue).

It also wears its influences on its sleeves like a host of NASA mission patches, with the biggest patch belonging to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Not only are there certain themes and plot similarities between them but also the A.I. robot companions resemble the black monoliths plus both films reliance on practical effects in filming that ground them in reality whilst simultaneously taking us to galaxies and universes we could only dream of.

It is said that Man's reach exceeds his grasp but when that man is Christopher Nolan and he is reaching for the stars, the result is still an extremely powerful, moving, exhilarating cinematic experience.

4 stars