I don’t give a huge amount of consideration to genre when I write a novel. I have a story in my mind that I want to tell, so I write it. It ends up to others to see which shelf it fits best. So, when I wrote my latest book, Kill Them with Kindness, an alternate reality of the pandemic where a virus is released that makes everybody more compassionate, it never occurred to me that I was writing a speculative novel.
I do not read a huge amount of speculative fiction – though Project Hail Mary is one of the best things I’ve read this year, and I can’t wait to see it on the screen – but I do watch a lot, both film and television. In fact, it’s fair to say that almost everything I write is influenced by either The X-Files or Twin Peaks.
There are obviously some great sci-fi films and franchises – Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek – but they are largely influenced by fantasy. When it comes to speculative fiction, there has to be a sense of plausibility, to imagine and examine what life could be like with advances in technology and innovation.
Many science fiction films that are footed in fantasy also seem dated now because some of the elements of their stories have come to pass, so we may all only be a decade away from realising that we are in The Matrix.
Here are five films that fall into that speculative arena, that imagine and examine a possible future, that scare and intrigue because they sit so (un)comfortably within the realms of possibility.
HER
It seems crazy that this film came out over a decade ago. At the time, the most believable and plausible aspect seemed to be that a person could fall in love with Scarlett Johansson’s voice. But now, with such advances in the world of AI, this film almost plays out like a RomCom. We are having conversations with our phones, creating things on ChatGPT that would have taken hours before. And skill. And training. Everybody can talk to everybody, all the time, yet mental health issues are more prevalent. This film deals with loneliness, emotion, technology and a near-distant future that, if we watch now, feels like the present.
EX MACHINA
Again, another riff on the idea of artificial intelligence. AI could probably have its own genre at some point, and while many are afraid of what it might be able to do and whose jobs it may be able to perform, it could work wonders in the film industry. This is different from HER in the way that the AI takes form as the humanoid, Ava. A young programmer wins the opportunity to spend time at a remote facility owned by a reclusive tech CEO who wants him to perform a Turing Test on his creation. He wants to know whether machines can think. It’s a cerebral film but I dig that. There are themes of free will and consciousness, but it also ponders the ethics of AI. In ten years, we may look back at this in the same way we look back at HER, now.
PRIMER
Talking of cerebral films … wow, this is a low-budget mind-bender. It’s difficult to have a time-travel film in a list of speculative movies because there should be some plausibility. I thought about 12 Monkeys because it’s brilliant, and it also deals with a virus, but scientists seem to stand firm on not being able to travel back in time – though travelling forwards is still open to debate. However, I think that Primer attacks the subject in such a different way, it deserves a mention. A couple of engineers accidentally create a time machine in a garage/lock-up. This isn’t about going back to get winning lottery numbers or forwards to play around on a hover board. They create several machines that work on a loop to spit out duplicates of themselves, one of whom it seems has the sole job of looping. There is mistrust, there are paradoxes, timelines converge, and it is more about the confusion and ethics of time travel, and that’s what makes it seem so realistic. At least, that’s what I think. I’ve only seen it a few times and I’m still not sure that’s enough.
WALL-E
I know. This is a Disney film. It’s for kids, right? Well, yes. But it’s also charming and visually beautiful. A story about a solitary robot who endlessly roams the abandoned Earth, compacting the rubbish left behind by apathetic humans with no sense of social or environmental responsibility. It’s so on-the-nose, it’s scary. Another robot travels back to Earth in search of life and finds Wall-E. They strike up a relationship. The machines have feelings. They also discover a plant, meaning that humanity may be able to return to their planet. All the humans have, in the meantime, become lazy, overweight and stupid. Look at social media. Look at the obesity epidemic. Look at our planet. If this was a live-action movie, it would be a devastating piece of speculative cinema. It’s a love story but also a film about environmentalism and what it really means to be alive.
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
I wanted to make sure I covered the idea of memory. I have something of an issue with hashtag #MakingMemories because I think you should have memories. You should cherish memories. But the problem is that we are now making them. When we take a photo of something to ‘remember’, it is so often staged, or touched up in some way, that, when we look back on that photo, what we remember never actually occurred. At this moment, I don’t believe there is a way to remove specific memories from our brains; all social media seems to be able to do is obscure our memories and blur them around the edges. But, in this film, following a painful break-up, a woman decides to remove the memories of that relationship. On hearing this, her former partner attempts to do the same. However, as these memories are removed, he starts to relive those moments, both good and bad, realising that he doesn’t want to forget. He wants to experience the love AND the pain. I don’t know how far away we are from such technology, but it feels plausible and ultimately relevant, which all good speculative fiction should.
Will Carver is the author of the satirical speculative thriller, Kill Them with Kindness, published by Orenda Books. Read our review here.
