Science Fiction Films

On September 11, 2001, many people reacted to the news reports as if these were advertisements for another Hollywood blockbuster like Independence Day. All of it seemed like a movie, including a scene with the WASP president addressing the nation in a moment of maximum danger. Not since December 7, 1941 had Americans felt so threatened on their own soil, although in general they had been spared the worst horrors of the 20th Century that so many other countries had experienced. This time, however, the movie was real and the outcome was not necessarily going to turn out like a Hollywood ending. Science fiction films like Blade Runner (1982) and The Matrix (1999) had certainly reflected various strains of fear, anxiety and paranoia in American culture and society. So had the bug-eyed monster (BEM) movies of the 1950s and 1960s, when nuclear war seemed a very likely...
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