Visions of the Future: The 1990s- Mainstream

Despite the fall of the Soviet Union, and the beginning of the end of the Communist experiment, the world of the 1990s was still rife with conflicts and tragedies. Formerly Soviet nations struggled to find order in their new freedom, and ethnic conflict in places like Rwanda and Bosnia led to mass genocide. The situation in the Middle East continued to be tense. In spite of these tumultuous events, however, the 1990s were a time of great multicultural reconciliation in other places. For example, in 1998, the Good Friday Agreement ended thirty years of violence between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Computer technology was completely revolutionized with the advent of the World Wide Web, which has affected the course of education, entertainment, and social interaction ever since.

Science  Fiction:

Literature-

Kim Stanley Robinson began his award winning Mars Trilogy in 1993 with Red Mars. The novel and its sequels- Green Mars (1994), and Blue Mars (1996)- as well as an anthology set in the same universe- The Martians (1999)- describe a future history in which humans terraform and colonize mars.

Permutation City was released by Greg Egan in 1994. It explored concepts of virtual reality, and uploading human consciousness, and won the John W. Campbell and Philip K. Dick Awards in 1995.

The next year, Neal Stephenson published The Diamond Age- the story of a girl in the lowest class of society raised by an interactive book intended for an upper-class child. It won the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1996.

Mary Doria Russell won the Arthur C. Clarke and British Sci-fi Association Awards, (among others), for her 1996 novel, The Sparrow. In it, a Jesuit priest is the sole returnee from an expedition to investigate music coming from the Alpha Centauri area. She followed it up in Children of God, published in 1998.

Television-

A wildly popular television incarnation of Batman, produced by Warner Brothers, and run by Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski premiered in 1992. Though it was geared towards young audiences, it held to the dark mood, and many of the important plotlines of the comic books. The show was the first in a long string of DC Comics animated shows, including Superman (1996), Batman Beyond (1999), Justice League (2001), and Justice League Unlimited (2004).

The X-Files, a crossover between science fiction, paranormal/horror, and government investigation television was first broadcast in 1993. It starred Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny as agents Dana Scully, (the skeptic), and Fox Mulder, (the believer), respectively. The two agents solved dark and mysterious cases reminiscent of shows like The Twilight Zone, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Star Trek continued to have a strong fan base and cultural impact, as demonstrated by the two spin-off shows released in the 1990s. Deep Space Nine (1993), followed the crew of one of the Federation’s space stations; and Voyager (1995), told the story of a Starfleet ship lost in the far reaches of the Delta Quadrant.

A Star Trek-esque series, Babylon 5, started in 1994. This show, created by J. Michael Straczynski, was set on a space station that housed five different species from around the galaxy.

Farscape was a bizarre, sometimes even surrealist science fiction show that premiered in 1999. It starred Ben Browder as an astronaut catapulted to another part of the universe. He is taken aboard a living ship named Moya. Some of the main characters of the show were Character Shop designed animatronic puppets.

Movies-

The story of the original crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise was concluded in 1991 with the release of Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country. Creator Gene Roddenberry died that same year, though his vision continued on after him. A film that introduced Captain Kirk to The Next Generation’s Captain Picard, called Generations, came out in 1994, and was followed up by the first The Next Generation solo film, First Contact (1996).

Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg, stunned audiences in 1993 with incredibly realistic computer animated dinosaurs. The prehistoric eye-candy was complemented by an interesting sci-fi plot about a theme park genetically engineering dinosaurs.

In 1994, MGM  released Roland Emmerich’s Stargate. The plot revolved around an eccentric professor named Daniel Jackson, and a bitter and retired colonel named Jack O’Neil as they investigated an interstellar transportation ring discovered at an archaeological dig in Egypt. The film spawned a spinoff television show, Stargate: SG-1 (1997), that starred new actors plating Daniel Jackson and Jack O’Neill, as well as their new team members, Samantha Carter and Teal’C. The show lasted for ten years, and endeared itself to fans by its ability to make fun of itself and still remain a serious science fiction story.

Independence Day updated the type of alien invasion story found in H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds for an action-movie loving public. It was released in 1996, was directed by Roland Emmerich, and starred Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, and Mary McDonnell, (among others).

The 1990s would have missed out on having a Star Wars movie altogether, were it not for the release of the first prequel movie, The Phantom Menace, in 1999. It began the tragic tale of Anakin Skywalker, the boy who would become the man who would become both Darth Vader, and the father of Luke Skywalker.

The Matrix, released in 1999, was a mind-bending movie about virtual reality. Directed by the Wachowskis, it questioned the nature of reality, explored a myriad of spiritual themes, and pioneered “bullet time” cinematography.

Keep on glowing in the dark,

Elora

Visions of the Future: The 1920s- An Unexpected Future

The Roaring Twenties. The Jazz Age. The Golden Age. The Crazy Years.

The 1920s was a decade of many names and great transformation. Much of the western world experienced an economic and cultural boom after the Great War that changed daily life and worldview forever- whether for better or for worse.

History:

Much of the technology and thought developed in the previous decades was realized in the mainstream during the 1920s.

Automobiles, motion pictures, telephones, and electricity were accepted by the general public. Media began to be a focal point of popular culture, and celebrities such as actors, musicians, and sports stars became public icons.

In the western world,there was a general migration from rural areas into urban areas. Also, women were given the right to vote in many nations.

The ideas of the past decades were also tested in the real world during the 1920s. The Communist state, The Soviet Union, was created in 1922. In 1925, a schoolteacher was declared guilty of teaching evolutionism in a public school, fueling controversy over the debate between creationism and evolutionism.

The prosperous times of the 1920s could not last, however. In 1929, the economic boom ended, and the stock market crashed, leading to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Science:

In 1922, the BBC started broadcasting on the radio.

The first mechanical television was created by John Logie Baird in 1925. He also worked on the first color television in 1926.

Film technology developed rapidly in the 1920s. Warner Brothers released the first movie with a soundtrack, Don Juan in 1926,and the first all-talking, all-color movie, The Lights of New York, in 1929

The first liquid-fuelled rocket was launched by Robert Goddard in 1926.

Stories:

In 1920, Czech playwright Karel Capek wrote the play R.U.R.: A Fantastic Melodrama. R.U.R. stands for Rossum’s Universal Robots, and this play was the first work ever to use the word “Robot”.

The same year, David Lindsay published A Voyage to Arcturus, a philosophical science-fantasy that inspired both C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien.

In 1923, Hugo Gernsback released an entire issue of Science and Invention based around science fiction. This led to the creation of the magazine Astounding Stories, which changed its name to Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and continues as the longest running science fiction magazine to this day.

A very early science fiction film was released in Russia in 1924. Yakov Protazanov directed the silent space adventure, Aelita: Queen of Mars, based on a novel by Alexei Tolstoy.

In 1926, the first solely science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, began publication.

One of the most cinematic and iconic science fiction science films ever, Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang, was released. The German film portrayed a dystopian society where workers were oppressed by the upper class. It also had a really cool robot.

Pulp writer Edgar Rice Burroughs published another science fiction novel, The Moon Maid in 1926. It was originally intended as a commentary on Soviet Russia, but had to be changed from its original version, because editors viewed it as too controversial.

Influential comic strip, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century- the story of a Great War veteran put in suspended animation until the 25th century- began publication in 1929.

Strangely enough, the name “science fiction” was not used to define the genre for the first hundred years of its existence. Short story author, and magazine founder Hugo Gernsback  coined the term in 1929.

Keep on glowing in the dark,

Elora