Searching for Something in Sci-Fi Movies

Ion INDOLEAN


Abstract:

This article seeks to understand the way in which the Canadian director Denis Villeuneve sees his protagonist, Paul Atreides from Dune (2021)—based on the eponymous novel by Frank Herbert, as a starting point for almost every successful sci-fi movie in history: a good story, full of theological myths, where a chosen one has to demonstrate his virtues, in spite of all the evil lures. After establishing this narrative context, the article embarks on a mission to observe how the space epic genre (better known as space opera) established itself in cinema and how it has come to look now, by analyzing movies from successful series such as Blade Runner and Alien.

Keywords: Dune, Frank Herbert, Dennis Villeneuve, Ridley Scott, Alien, Blade Runner, sci-fi sagas, space epic genre, good, evil, humanity, artificial intelligence, robots

DOI: 10.24193/ekphrasis.28.3

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