And just a head's up, there will be spoilers for Interstellar, but I'll try and stick them near the latter part of this article and give you a warning beforehand.
"Science fiction" seems to be a thing that people don't like admitting interest in, probably due to certain negative associates that don't have anything to do with the actual definition itself. It's sorta like how some people don't like saying they're feminists because they think it means something very different than it actually does. When most people hear "science fiction" they think of Star Wars and Star Trek, and while those are certainly famous examples of the genre, not all examples of science fiction are limited to stories of intrepid space adventurers. The actual definition of science fiction - according to the dictionary app on my phone - is "literary fantasy involving the imagined impact of science on society." That's a pretty big goddamn spectrum, and a lot of movies and books which you probably never considered sci-fi certainly fall into that category.
My personal love of science fiction comes from one word in that definition: impact. What I love isn't necessarily the science, but the moral/philosophical/existential implications that come up as a result. I couldn't give a rat's ass about the technical aspects of creating a true artificial intelligence, but you bet your balls I'm interested in thinking about how such an advancement would make us evaluate what it means to be human.
There seems to be a bit of a resurgence in quality science fiction lately, or at least a resurgence of a particularly introspective form of the genre which I refer to as "classic" science fiction because it epitomizes that whole "impact on society" part of the definition I quoted above. Franchises like Star Wars and Aliens may be popular, but they're more of an entertainment spectacle than an introspective journey plunging the depths of the human condition. When I talk about classic science fiction, I'm talking about stories that make you think about yourself as a person and society at large. Such notable recent examples include Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men, Neill Blomkamp's District 9 and Elysium, Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, and Ridley Scott's Prometheus (a prequel to the Alien saga which most people seemed to dislike, which I would argue is because it dared to be introspective instead of an action/gore fest). These movies pose the audience with a lot of personal questions that aren't always that comfortable to contemplate, and won't you watch how the fanboys start throwing around the word "plothole" to dismiss such films as garbage instead of meditating on them and maybe admitting that the world extends beyond their fragile little psyches.
While I love those movies with a passion that borders on the erotic, I have a particular soft spot for stories that take their speculations a bit further (as some of the above do). I love stories that flirt with the spiritual and that seek to offer explanations for the origins of life and the universe beyond the typical religious explanation of intelligent design. These types of stories seek to circumvent standard notions of why we are who we are and how life on earth came to be, and trying to comprehend such an overwhelming concept on such a magnificent scale strikes me as the epitome of true science fiction because it challenges all notions of the human condition by speculating on the very nature of existence itself.
My favourite book is Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which many will no doubt know as the Stanley Kubrick film of the same name. The novel is not some cheap tie-in either; it was written concurrently by Clarke while he simultaneously worked on the film script with Kubrick. I particularly like the book because it provides a narrative perspective that you don't get in the film, although the film is more a visual spectacle than anything else. The book also makes a lot more sense; the film takes the prize for "most confusing movie that can be easily explained with one sentence" award in the annals of film history. In short, a hyper-evolved race of aliens plant black monoliths on Earth and the surrounding solar system to push human development forward (from prehistory to space travel), ultimately ushering in a new stage of human evolution.
The book had three sequels (the first of which was also competently adapted into film and the last of which is soon to get the TV mini-series treatment). The sequels explore the further development of mankind, as well as hint at the intentions of the hyper-advanced race of aliens. What I particularly like about the sequels is that there is never a full degree of disclosure regarding the designs of the aliens and their ultimate agenda with mankind. It leaves a giant question mark revolving around the purpose of human existence, which coincides nicely with a little rant I'm about to take about religion.
The main issue I have with religious institutions is that they presume far too much about the nature of life and the universe. The idea that the will and intentions of a supremely powerful being responsible for the whole of creation can be summed up in a single book is preposterous to me. We barely understand the science of our own world and the infinite depths and complexities it presents us on a daily basis, and yet there are millions of individuals the world over who believe they have a concrete understanding of the origins of life based on excerpts from a book written during a time when wiping your ass with your hand was considered hygienic. Don't get me wrong; most religious texts serve as a great moral compass that get the whole ethics thing (mostly) right, but they should only ever be taken with a grain of salt. I always get stuck in a tight spot when trying to describe my personal affiliation with religion, because I am utterly fascinated with the idea that out in the infinite wonders of a universe that is quite literally beyond our human comprehension there might possibly be a definitive explanation for life and all existence, but I can't bring myself to label such a notion as "intelligent design" in the popular sense of the term.
Instead, I love to speculate. I hold the same opinion regarding ghosts/spirits and all other matters of the supernatural. While I'm not willing to totally dismiss the possibility that some form of existence awaits us once we shake off this mortal coil, I am not willing to believe such a state of being exists in the traditional sense that modern day psychics and shitty horror films would have us believe. There is a simple fact that I constantly feel the need to reiterate during debates on such subject matter: the universe is literally incomprehensible to us. It is beyond our capabilities to fathom the physical scale of our galaxy, let alone the universe at large and the forces that exist beyond. Speculations regarding the existence of dimensions beyond our mental ability to process abound in science, which is why I can't bring myself to accept the simple explanations given by individuals who wouldn't know science if it ran up and bit them on the ass.
Clarke speculates a lot in his novels (especially Childhood's End and the Rendezvous with Rama series) about the origin and purpose of life, but like the best science fiction, it's grounded in concrete notions of science that lend it an air of plausibility instead of putting it in the realm of far flung fantasy. Clarke was too steeped in science to write compelling characters (they are often far too rational and lack emotional depth) but I always find his existential ideas remarkably profound. Like the best science fiction authors and directors, he speculates without offering concrete explanation, leaving it up to the reader/audience to carry the speculation further. I get the sense that modern audiences are uncomfortable being left to contemplate such things for themselves instead of being handed an answer, which is why I hypothesize there was an overall lukewarm reception to Prometheus and the ending to the TV series Lost, both of which left a significant amount of details to the audience's imagination. If anything though, I think that's reflective of how complacent we have become as a species, preferring to have the answers handed to us rather than spend any significant time meditating on such mysteries of life for ourselves (which kinda forms the whole basis of organized religion).
SPOILER ALERT! I'm about to dig into Interstellar and its ending, so avert your eyes if you don't want to know what happens.
Interstellar stars Matthew McConaughey as Cooper, a former engineer and pilot turned farmer on a near-future earth that is ravaged by dust clouds and blight. He is asked to pilot a ship into space through a wormhole near Saturn to investigate potentially habitable worlds in a distant galaxy. In doing so, he is forced to leave his family (in particular, his young daughter) as he faces the wonders of uncharted space. What the film does beautifully is meld the scientific and the emotional, grounding concepts such as relativity so that we as an audience are able to comprehend in a rather overwhelming fashion the absolute awe that exists in celestial phenomena like nothing else in cinema before.
There is a particularly guttural scene in the middle of the film where Cooper and a few scientists take a small shuttle to investigate a potential planet that is orbiting a black hole. It is established that the physical nature of the black hole warps gravity and time the closer they get to the planet, and thus exploring the surface has potential consequences; in a nutshell, time passes more slowly on the planet's surface, so for every minute they explore, several months will pass in real time. Shit goes wrong naturally and their mission is delayed forty minutes on the planet's surface. Upon returning to their main ship, they learn that twenty-three years have passed as a result. An entire film could have been made about the isolation suffered by the single crew member left behind while they were exploring the planet's surface, but the biggest emotional gut punch comes when Cooper rushes to check the messages from Earth that have been piling up over two decades, and essentially witnesses his children age twenty-three years in front of his eyes over the course of a few minutes. McConaughey delivers in this scene, as do Jessica Chastain and Casey Affleck (who play his middle-aged children, respectively). This scene makes you feel the consequences of this force of nature. It's like standing before a hurricane - you can't help but be filled with awe and terror.
Throughout the film, it is hypothesized that the wormhole has been placed near Saturn by a race of fifth-dimensional beings that have mastered manipulation of the previous four dimensions (time being the fourth, for those unfamiliar). At the end of the film, Cooper is thrown into the center of a black hole, which in the realm of real science remains completely unexplored, and thus is where Christopher Nolan takes the greatest liberties with his speculation. In the film, Cooper is stuck in a three dimensional representation of the fourth dimension; he is able to manipulate events through the past and present, and uses this to communicate essential information to his daughter back on Earth that ultimately allows her to save the human race.
While in this strange space between dimensions, Cooper theorizes that these mysterious "fifth-dimensional beings" are actually a hyper-evolved form of humanity that has developed past the point of being able to manipulate space and time, and thus deposited the wormhole in the past so that humanity could survive to thrive into whatever they ultimately become. It's a mind-bending paradox, but what's great about is that - like the best stories of science fiction - it never comes right out and establishes his hypothesis as the concrete state of things. Cooper is only saying what he believes to be true, but the entire film reaffirms that the mysteries of the universe are ultimately beyond human comprehension, so the real answers aren't within humanity's grasp or understanding. These beings could be an evolved form of humanity, or they could be any number of other things so fantastical that they exist beyond the realm of our imagination. Whatever they are, they simply have an investment in humanity's survival.
It is left entirely up to the audience to deliberate and reflect on the nature of such beings as well as their intentions. I particularly enjoyed this because to me it is the closest idea I can come up with when I think about what sort of "intelligent design" or "God" might exist - grounded in science, but utterly incomprehensible to us. Interstellar does what the best science fiction stories do - it proposes without insisting, encouraging introspective meditation while ultimately leaving its audience humbled.
We will never, ever have all the answers, and we should never pretend like we do. The fun is in the speculation, and in considering the scale and unfathomable mysteries and wonders that exist in an overwhelmingly massive universe that we will never fully comprehend.
