Thoughts on sci-fi fanstay that is super over the top/pulpy/cheese ball (i.e. Aquaman currently, The Last Starfighter in probably our early childhood, and other ones of such ilk)? And here's a fun one: best female leads in sci-fi?
Oh. Well, just one thing to start. To me there’s a vast, heavily distinguishable difference between today’s Aquaman and The Last Starfighter of 1980s cult fame, and not only because of their tremendous differences in budget and funding (something like $35 million in today’s value for The Last Starfighter versus a modest $200 million for Aquaman).
Both are coming from distinct sub-genres of sci-fi, Aquaman from the mythology of DC comic books a type of film so popularized by Disney’s Marvel brand with credit due to progenitors like Sam Raimi and Bryan Singer, and The Last Starfighter from the space opera adventure archetype revitalized in its time almost singlehandedly by George Lucas with Star Wars, though a great deal of credit goes to Kubrick in proving over decade earlier that high concept science fiction films were marketable product which could be executed with no want for class.
Prime of all, each film is coming respectively from a very different creative direction and visionary perspective, Aquaman has a decades-old established fanbase in comic book readers. And though they’d never admit it even under intense acupuncture torture, all those Marvel fanatics are buying tickets to watch it too, if only so they can shriek all over the internet that it blows every dick in a five block radius. It can be argued that The Last Starfighter, though obviously not highly lucrative in its earnings, was far more creative a film in that it’s written by the same guy who did Escape From New York and Hook, for instance, the director was a nobody (unlike James Wan), and while capitalizing on the clamouring space opera fever of its time, it was an original property not unlike Star Wars in that its inspirations were strong but it was trying to break into the genre by creating its own unique story in that ex nihilo sort of way. Given these, to my mind incredibly important distinctions, I’d thus be led to conclude that, if both Aquaman and The Last Starfighter are in fact over-the-top cheesy, this is incidental not intrinsically corollary, and equating the two would be something like equating the super talented fat kid in art class with the high school’s star running back who’s getting more ass than a toilet seat.
In the case of Last Starfighter I’m not sure if it could be described as totally cheesballs by the standards of the time, though clearly less dour in tone than The Empire Strikes Back say, and perhaps not aging well because of this, it seems to fit comfortably into the niche it’s carved out for itself. In the case of Aquaman, do think being over-the-top cheesy is perfectly acceptable in a comic book story, because that’s the sort of world those stories inhabit regardless of however much grit or glamour in which they try to dress it up. This isn’t to imply there can’t be paramounts of the genre which push things forward and raise the bar, even redefine how such stories are told, but at the end of the day it still takes place in a world where people dress up like bats and wear spandex outfits in outer space while fighting robots and alien shapeshifters. That’s just ridiculous, and the best sort of those stories are likely the ones which are so engaging for the audience they forget how ridiculous it all is for becoming so connected to the characters and narrative. This sort of potential for surprise is why I’ll always love comic books, and it puzzles me why so many older people act as if such fondness is idiotic when comic books existed long before even they were ever born.
Still, cheesy is a slippery slope, some films verge that direction but I ain’t sure how many fall over the edge. Myself, I always think of it as something like Planet Terror or Demolition Man (both of which I adore), or whatnot. That said, I got absolutely no problem with cheesy movies, speaking of Escape From New York, and dare I say L.A. as well! I tend to drift all over the map in terms of entertainment, with a particular affinity for science fiction, medieval war stories, sword and sorcery, and cyberpunk. But if a piece of fiction entertains me, I’m all for it, regardless of whatever it’s supposed to be. Why, I just finished reading a pretty stark and serious sci-fi book called Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel and goddamn not at all action-packed a story, but I couldn’t put the damn thing down.
Oh, man. That thing about best sci-fi female leads though is a whole other bowl of spaghetti, yo. Out of the gate I’m always wont to mention Samus Aran, since she was one of my favorite heroes to play as a child (and has had a far more profound impact on me than most video game characters from that era). Dr. Banks from Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival was the first one who popped into my head when I read your question, but “best” is such a tough quark to glimpse if you catch my drift. Plus, you know more, cliché examples like Ripley and Jill Valentine of course, and no proper nerd would bring up sci-fi protagonists without mentioning Commander Shepard of Mass Effect’s culturally significant influence (my original Shepard was a woman). But that’s such a huge subject I think I’ll need to think about that one for a little while. Ask me again some time, I’d be down to explore that subject more thoroughly. For the sake of any readers’ poor eyeballs and brains, I’ll shut the hell up for now.
