November (Web-only) 2002 Commentaries Movies & TV

ARTICLE TOOLS

Find similar articles E-mail this page

Most fans of science fiction and fantasy love envisioning other planets and distant forgotten lands, encountering aliens and monsters, imagining combat with Excalibur or lightsabers, and thrilling to action and suspense. But these significance of these overlapping genres runs deeper. Imaginative storytellers have mapped out countless imaginary environments in which we can ponder lasting dilemmas of the spirit and the intellect. In recent years, filmmakers have seized upon this context with renewed vigor, more interested in the human experience than in extra-terrestrial adventure.

Signs turns a typical alien-invasion premise into a surprisingly intense story of one man's argument with God. Minority Report makes a futuristic cop thriller into a contemplation of freewill, predestination, and the ethics of "pre-emptive military action." The latest Star Wars episode raises questions about how love and duty can conflict, and the way that hate can lead to violence and self-destruction. In Tolkien's saga of the One Ring, The Fellowship of the Ring offers parables about humility, friendship, courage, greed, the value of the environment, the corrupting nature of power. Harry Potter's adventures examine how we use the talents we have been given, and the difference between ability and choice.

This week, we can add two more to that list: Solaris and Treasure Planet. Like Signs, Steven Soderbergh's Solaris is about a man who has lost his wife, and it takes an unexpected confrontation with an alien intelligence in order to bring him peace and resolution. Like Fellowship and Potter, Treasure Planet gives us a small hero caught up in a big quest where he learns courage and virtue.

These films are playing an important role in a year when more ...