Making  Futures

From  the preceding section there are several conclusions that can be drawn about the  nature of futuristic design in science fiction...

Nothing  is created in a vacuum, everything, however tenuously relates to cultural,  artistic or thematic inspiration. Also, not all futuristic design is meant to be  predictive of the future. The designs of Star Wars do not in any way  represent humanity in the distant future. They are simply an exploration of the  visual and thematic language of science fiction. The nature of this language,  how it forms and changes over time is the key to its understanding, and the  understanding the significance of what it communicates.

One  approach to the analysis of visual language used in film genres is iconography.  Critics like Jim Kitsen and Colin Mcarthur have used iconography to study  westerns and gangster films. Vivian Sobchack in her book Screening  Space argues that science fiction being of much broader scope than these  genres is impossible to analyse through studying icons.

"Rocket  Ships are not in themselves necessary to science fiction. One could create a  list of such SF 'objects' as the spaceship which do indeed evoke the genre, but  which are specifically and physically- not essential to it"

This  is certainly true for the whole genre, as has been described in the previous  section, directly after 2001: a space odessey, spacecraft were 'old hat'  and did not feature in much SF film till Star Wars.

However  futuristic design is either all pervading (as in Star Trek and Blade  Runner) or almost none existant ( E.T., Robocop). There is generally no grey area, a film generally looks  like 'now' or it looks like a different world, with all the usual SF icons.  Therefore it is not unreasonable to treat the future world' sub-genre as being  separable. Being more readily broken down and viewed in terms of visual  patterns.

In  looking for SF icons there are three most suited to analysis. They are the three  founding elements; spacecraft (futuristic vehicles), robots (artificial people/sentient machines) and ray guns (devices,  destructive and otherwise.)

The  most famous and recognisable spacecraft in science fiction is the U.S.S  Enterprise. From the Star Trek TV series in the sixties, through the slew of  films and into the 'Next Generation' series, Set some thirty years  after the first 'classic' trek.

There  are three main interpretations of the Enterprise class of ship. One reflecting  the 60's, another reflecting the late 70's and one reflecting the late  80's.

The  original starship Enterprise was a radical piece of futuristic design though,  made up of elements people could relate to, such as the saucer section and the  rocket like engine pods.

Its creation was long and  meticulous, so much so that the studio got very pushy about its completion.  Their attitude was "come on baby, what's so difficult about designing a  spaceship? You take a cigar shape, out some windows on it, now there you've got  it. Lets get in with the next thing."

Gene  Roddenberry would have none of it. He insisted on spending a lot of time  intelligently 'designing' the ship. He had Chilean art director Pato Guzman and  his assistant Matt Jeffries working overtime to produce a star ship the audience  would believe in. They first sifted through sketches from the corporations  involved in the real space program. These were rejected because they would  result in a ship too close to current thinking.

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