Intersecting interests: movies and science fiction
For the IndieWeb Carnival for February Zachary has posted the theme of intersecting interests and the obvious two things for me would be science fiction and movies. My passion for both lies more in where they differ than combined.
I like science fiction movies and have watched a ton of them, and many of my favorite movies are science fiction. My favorite movie of all time is Contact which released when I was 12, also called The Golden Age of Science Fiction. But the vast majority of science fiction movies aren't very good, as the most innovative and exciting are almost always better found in the written form of the genre. I often find the script in science fiction movie to be lacking, and often decades behind where the genre is in written form. Many of the absolute best science fiction movies, like Contact, Arrival and Blade Runner are based in literature. There are fantastic exceptions, like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Her, but they are rare exceptions.
I look for very different, almost opposite things, in reading science fiction and watching movies. I like science fiction for high concepts, thought provoking extrapolations, and sense of wonder. I appreciate a story with a strong narrative plot and clear concepts and ideas. With movies I am looking more for atmosphere, for emotion, for poetic visuals, and provocative art. To put it bluntly, reading for me is more about intellectual thinking * and watching movies is about *feeling what can't be put into words. And to circle back to Contact, being one of the few notable exceptions that does both for me.