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A review by mburnamfink
Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies by Andrew Maynard
4.0
Films from the Future begins with the premise that science-fiction cinema has something important to say about the relationship between science and society. That underneath all the whizbang special effects, the psuedo-scientific technobabble, and two-dimensional characters, thinking about these stories can help us grapple with the impacts of real technologies, under a rubric of responsible innovation or risk innovation.
To do this, Maynard has assembled a unique set of case studies. Some of the films are enduring futuristic blockbusters like Jurassic Park and Minority Report. Intellectual heavy hitters are represented by Ex Machina and Ghost In The Shell. The are truly obscure choices, like the 1951 Alec Guinness comedy The Man In The White Suit, and schlock like Inferno and Transcendence.
At its best, the writing dances between the film in question, recent scientific developments which might make the film real, and Maynard's personal experience. He writes with real passion about his early career in the mechanics of atmospheric dust (more interesting than it sounds), about growing up in England and falling in love with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio play, and his current globe-hopping life as an technology ethicist and futurist. The problem is that all too frequently, Maynard makes a rhetorical leap that the reader has difficulty following. There's a choppiness to a lot of the chapters that leave the book feeling stitched together, rather than a cohesive whole.
More seriously, the advantage of narrative futurism and stories like these is that it allows us to examine a given issue from multiple perspectives. The validity of multiple viewpoints, including non-expert viewpoints, is at the root of the last four decades of science and technology studies scholarship, and responsible innovation as a policy argument. I wish I'd seen more of that multiplicity, because all too often the argument retreats to a stance that the protagonists of the films were arrogant and should have consulted more stakeholders. The story of the overweening scientist being punished for his unnatural pursuit of power is one of the oldest in science-fiction (see Faust and Frankenstein), and I hoped to see a more interesting take on that basic narrative in at least one of these essays. Instead, we have replaced God with public engagement workshops and faceless regulatory committees.
And two notes. If you have a choice, get the ebook version. The typography in my paper copy is notably cramped. And second, in the interest of disclosure, Andrew is a friend, I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, and I had some minor comments on one chapter.
To do this, Maynard has assembled a unique set of case studies. Some of the films are enduring futuristic blockbusters like Jurassic Park and Minority Report. Intellectual heavy hitters are represented by Ex Machina and Ghost In The Shell. The are truly obscure choices, like the 1951 Alec Guinness comedy The Man In The White Suit, and schlock like Inferno and Transcendence.
At its best, the writing dances between the film in question, recent scientific developments which might make the film real, and Maynard's personal experience. He writes with real passion about his early career in the mechanics of atmospheric dust (more interesting than it sounds), about growing up in England and falling in love with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio play, and his current globe-hopping life as an technology ethicist and futurist. The problem is that all too frequently, Maynard makes a rhetorical leap that the reader has difficulty following. There's a choppiness to a lot of the chapters that leave the book feeling stitched together, rather than a cohesive whole.
More seriously, the advantage of narrative futurism and stories like these is that it allows us to examine a given issue from multiple perspectives. The validity of multiple viewpoints, including non-expert viewpoints, is at the root of the last four decades of science and technology studies scholarship, and responsible innovation as a policy argument. I wish I'd seen more of that multiplicity, because all too often the argument retreats to a stance that the protagonists of the films were arrogant and should have consulted more stakeholders. The story of the overweening scientist being punished for his unnatural pursuit of power is one of the oldest in science-fiction (see Faust and Frankenstein), and I hoped to see a more interesting take on that basic narrative in at least one of these essays. Instead, we have replaced God with public engagement workshops and faceless regulatory committees.
And two notes. If you have a choice, get the ebook version. The typography in my paper copy is notably cramped. And second, in the interest of disclosure, Andrew is a friend, I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, and I had some minor comments on one chapter.