Best viewed at 800x600 All characters © and ™ Dark Horse Comics and/or their respective owners « # Joss Whedon's Fray ? »

Sci-Fi Versus Fantasy     The term science fiction encompasses a wide range of visual and literary media. At its most fundamental, science fiction refers to media, which involves speculations based on current or future science and technology. Not surprisingly, works of “science fiction” are often conflated with the even broader moniker of ‘speculative fiction.’ Speculative fiction incorporates imaginative fantasy elements not found in contemporary reality. The following exploration of the linked genres will address the function of each narrative and what experiences they offer by utilizing examples from separate science fiction/fantasy media: film – Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (1997); and, Joss Whedon’s comic book Fray (2001).     Science fiction differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, science fiction’s imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature. Put plainly, science fiction is (while not actually real) fundamentally rooted in the real world. For many, its appeal lies in the fact that it is primarily cognitive, exploring the “part of the brain that enjoys speculating on technology, gimmicks, and the perfectible future.” This tendency stands in stark contrast to fantasy, which is typically more concerned with exploring human emotion. Viewers seek meaning in the settings and objects within science fiction films, which would perhaps have less intrinsic meaning in the fantasy genre. The premise of science fiction makes the viewers question the precepts of our world.     An iconographic analysis in visual science fiction media creates graphic shorthand understood by both filmmaker and audience, due to a constant reiteration of the same visual content in film after film. Numerous visions of the future have all entailed similar highly stylized, radically streamlined costumes, technologies and cityscapes. Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element depicts flying cars, space ships, alien encounters and scientists. Though foreign to contemporary audiences, these settings and objects have become “readily approachable and comprehensible” because they appear over and over again in science fiction films. A frequent, if not mandatory, icon within science fiction cinema is the spaceship/flying vehicle. Accordingly, the opening sequence in Element features a massive alien spaceship, that appears to be twice the size of the Empire State Building in scale, its “sleekness visually cold and menacing, its surfaces hostile to human warmth.” “In science-fiction cinema, place often assumes a special significance.” Element gives birth to a new vision of New York City, one that is “radically different from the ordered urban airways envisioned by both Metropolis (1927) and Just Imagine! (1930).” This city is a “dizzying and densely layered labyrinth of architecture and motion,” with has no a visible skyline and appears to also be bottomless.     The science fiction genre is generally used to critique the notion of a utopian state by examining the costs inhabitants bear to achieve that existence. Stories such as 1984, Brave New World, Minority Report and THX-1138 all feature a police state that is run by an unseen force, a ‘Big Brother’ who sees and knows all. This state of political and social perfection is achieved by removing people’s individuality and freedom with the help of technology and/or drugs. This state of being is impractical if not impossible to achieve, as these stories typically chronicle a flaw or chink in the armor which, in the end, dismantles the state. Element acknowledges the oft-explored phenomenon of over reliance on technology to solve problems, when the villain Zorg chokes on a cherry, and all the world’s technology cannot save him. He is saved instead by the primitive (but apparently still effective) slap on the back to get the cherry out – demonstrating technology’s shortcomings. This poignant scene is reverberated throughout the film by the fact that Earth’s most powerful technologies fail to protect it from the ultimate evil.     Fantasy narratives, on the other hand, are “based neither in the natural world nor in the supernatural,” but rather the supranatural, which entertains ‘alternative impossibilities’ of what could happen. As such, fantasy narratives push the science fiction envelope in order to explore the fantastic. To achieve this, fantasy typically relies on other narrative types, occupying the space of what can or cannot be, “where reality itself seems a puzzle.” Therefore, many stories that deal with fantasy are intertwined with science fiction. Though principally a science fiction narrative, The Fifth Element’s plot revolves around the fantastic, involving the survival of humanity, where a taxicab driver named Korben Dallas is charged with unleashing a divine light to destroy the ultimate evil before it can collide with Earth.     Tzvetan Todorov delineates that one of the fascinations with the fantastic is  “the impact of forces outside the human realm, of encounters with alien beings and other worlds.” With this, fantasy narratives tend to share both techniques and some narrative conventions with the horror genre as both explore the unknown or unacknowledged. Joss Whedon’s Fray was an eight-issue comic book series, a futuristic spin-off of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which followed a slayer in the 26th century where vampires are commonplace and the rich-poor divide is greater than it has ever been. Fray takes elements of fantasy and horror, and successfully integrates them into a science fiction narrative. While the story does also incorporate visual iconographic science fiction elements with flying cars, oversized skyscrapers and futuristic weapons, it is more invested in the fantasy/horror genre, merely using the science fiction elements as its backdrop. The title character, Melaka Fray, is the latest in a line of young women chosen by fate to battle against the forces of darkness. Rather than an army of cyborgs, Fray battles against vampires (or ‘lurks’ as they are known in the story) with a primordial battle scythe in place of a futuristic weapon, and is charged with stopping a cult leader from opening up a gateway that would trigger the apocalypse.     A frequent image commonly associated with the fantasy genre is monsters, which signify the “return of the repressed,” harboring a deadly power that can be used to threaten all life on earth.” Vampires are among the various mutants, awakened monsters and world cataclysms depicted in science fiction stories that “proceed to carry out nature’s revenge on a reckless, environmentally heedless human culture.” These stories frighten audiences because they articulate “cultural anxieties” in what can be an extremely serious fashion. The climax of Fray features Melaka going up against a monster of Cloverfield (2008) proportions, the BEM (‘bug-eyed monster’), a staple of fantasy films and stories.     The fantasy genre has been often been lauded for its portrayal of strong women. These characters frequently assume an active role without having to be saved, upstaged, or lectured to by a male character. In this way, they move away from science fiction’s BBBs (‘big bosomed babes’) archetype. Melaka Fray and Element’s Leeloo both fall into this category. Both are strong superwomen operating within pop culture, and owe something to famous heroines before them such as Jane Fonda’s Barbarella, DC Comics’ Wonder Woman, Alien’s Ellen Ripley, Terminator’s Sarah Connor, Æon Flux and many more.     Science fiction and fantasy share many of the same “generic elements (iconography, character types, conventions).” Special effects are perhaps the most commonly associated trait of the fantasy science fiction hybrid. This allows the story to transcend reality as realistically as possible as realistically as possible. The Fifth Element uses special effects to paint a vision of the future, in which buildings stretch out for miles and cruise ships float in outer space. By virtue of it being a comic book, Fray effectively has an unlimited budget at its disposal. That is, unlike cinema, which needs to cast, shoot and edit all images, print fiction writers of the science fiction genre need only imagine the impossible, which can then be rendered easily at the hands of one artist. Another feature common to both genres is that the stories are unfixed in their “dependence on [an] actual time or place.” Star Wars, perhaps the quintessential science fiction/fantasy hybrid film of the twentieth century, begins with the tagline, “A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Way.” Fray takes place in a city called Haddyn in an unspecified century of the future, where it is never clarified if the city is actually supposed to be Manhattan. This nebulous setting of the time and/or place frees the artist from having to justify technological leaps within the work. On another level, it serves as something of an ironic harbinger for the viewer that while the story they are about to see has not actually happened, it subtly implies that the setting is not actually all that different from society as we know it.     As a whole, science fiction and fantasy are genres, which continue to defy convention. Fantasy has a wider range of emotionally driven states, ranging from lighthearted children adventures such as The Never Ending Story (1984) or Peter Pan (2003) to the more adult oriented films such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-3) or Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). Overall, science fiction tends to generally have a darker quality to it, exploring the desperateness of the human condition. There is an implicit social commentary that is ever present in this new future, where new horrors are emerging, be it technology –  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); or monsters – Alien (1979). Fantasy rather, employs myth and folktales, a decidedly non-scientific reality. The fantastic is more about mortality and immortality, super powers and magic, love and greed, good versus evil. These innovative genres will continue to capture both the attention and affection of youth and adults alike by embracing other newer techniques, tropes and ideologies. If science fiction and fantasy does not key in on their demographics’ interest, the genre will not thrive in the near and not so near future.      1. The Fifth Element. Dir. Luc Besson. Writ. Luc Besson, and Robert Mark Kamen . Perf. Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, Milla Jovovich, Chris Tucker, and Luke Perry. Gaumont, 1997.     2. Whedon, Joss. Joss Whedon’s Fray. Milwaukee: Dark Horse Comics, 2001-2003.     3. Kuhn, Annette. Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science Fiction Cinema. London and New York: Verso, 1999.     4. Tellotte, J. P. Science Fiction Film. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.      5. Redmond, Sean. Liquid Metal: The Science Fiction Film Reader. London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2004.