Ridley Scott’s next Alien,current Blade Runner Ryan Gosling and a return of the Jedi are highlights in a year full of dark visions of the future[br]Does pop culture science fiction merely reflect humanity’s hopes and fears for the future, or can it act as an early warning sign designed to relieve us avoid the impending techno-apocalypse? It’s hard to imagine anyone ever handing over the nuclear codes to a super-clever machine after watching James Cameron’s Terminator films, and while movies such as Ex Machina and Blade Runner – and TV shows such as Humans and Westworld – might just invent us think twice approximately the ethics of developing artificial lifeforms merely to satisfy cruel sexual appetites. If there is a cultural hive intellect in place doing its best to relieve humanity avoid self-destruction in 2017,it appears to be rapidly shifting towards Defcon 1. For this year’s crop of movies is dominated by darkling, sombre and often downright sinister entries: stories in which humans find themselves threatened by otherworldly forces, and whether extraterrestrial monstrosities or techno-doppelgangers who can carry out everything we can carry out,only better. There is fear everywhere – a sign of the times, perhaps. Even Pixar’s big film of 2017 is approximately dead people. Related: Worse than a whitewash: has Ghost in the Shell been Hollywoodised? Related: Is The Lego Batman film the Deadpool your kids are allowed to see? Related: Why so serious? Power Rangers' first trailer ditches the kitsch Related: All hail Tom Cruise and the era of the equal opportunity action film Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com