So now it seems Hollywood is turning back to sci-fi. Just so we’re clear, I will only be talking about sci-fi films from the past decade or so. The history of sci-fi films themselves is long, filled with ups and downs, and in order to give them any kind of justice, I’d have to talk about history and national psychology as well. But for now, let’s just say that great Sci-Fi movies of the past decade number very few. The Matrix could be included, certainly, for its revolutionary ideas and contributions to the arts of cinematography and computer graphics. The Matrix was truly something no one had ever seen before. But there wasn’t a lot more. Other sci-fi movies were hated by critics and audiences alike. The Star Wars prequels had the name-power, certainly, but most film experts would agree they could not be classified as “great” film.
The result of all these genres becoming popular enough is that aspects of nerd culture are gaining mainstream popularity. The best example is probably San Diego Comic Con. In recent years, ComicCon has become one of THE places Hollywood goes to push its media and drum up hype. Fifteen years ago, it was hard to explain to someone who didn’t go what a fan convention was. Now it’s common knowledge.
As far as geek culture goes, otaku still have kind of a bad rap. In general, the population is more open to things like Sci-Fi and Comic Book movies, because they see that many of these movies have characters they can identify with. But when they see otaku fandom watching cartoons, they can’t really identify with that. Sure, you could show them live-action Death Note all you want, but they probably won’t pay much attention because they’re not a fan, and to them it looks like Mean Girls with a guy from a Tim Burton film floating around in the background. They don’t have a reason to identify with high school kids having a go at each other, even if they are homicidal psychopaths.
Which brings me back to my point. It is hard to guess where Hollywood might go next, but we’ve already seen some indications. Hollywood will probably grab up more sci-fi scripts if Star Trek proves to be successful, but we’ve now started to see them grabbing up sci-fi scripts that also overlap with anime.
Let’s face it, no one was impressed with Dragonball: Evolution. Not critics, movie-goers, or even fans of the original series. Next on the list of anime adaptations is a CGI version of Astro Boy, and we as a community can only wait apprehensively for this to grace our movie screens, and what a general audience will think.
Unfortunately, the general audience will probably think it’s just an imported kids show, like Pokémon, and they’ll have no knowledge of the incredible history behind the boy robot all otaku love.
