BOOK REVIEWS
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study, which makes Projecting Tomorrow much more informative and
convincing than many current postmodem, stylistically challenged essays
on populär culture.
The selection o f films that Chapman and Cull choose to analyze
is sound and representative o f the gerne, although some may question
their decision to treat Robocop over Blade Runner or Avatar over
Matrix— there might even be a few purists who deplore the absence o f
any mention made to John Boorm an’s, Zardoz. The selection o f a corpus
o f study is no easy task and the authors o f Projecting Tomorrow explain
in their introduction the factors that led them to their choices. I
personally applaud the selection o f Robocop over Blade Runner and
rejoice at the fact that two serious scholars have recognized the
significance o f this particular film— it takes more academic courage to
rehabilitate Robocop than to rejoin the cohort o f critics that have already
discussed the filmic adaptation o f Phillip K. D ick’s Do Androids Dream
o f Electric Sheep? Analysis o f Terminator, Matrix or Zardoz would have
indeed been welcomed, but not to the detriment o f any o f the existing
chapters. In the space allotted, the authors could simply not treat
everything; hence their selections might disappoint some hard-core fans
here and there, but will on the other hand satisfy any serious Student and
amateur o f Science fiction cinema.
Chapman and Cull’s conception o f the Science fiction genre is
wide and includes dystopian fiction (Logan ’s Run, Robocop) as well as
space opera (Star Wars) and fantasy (Avatar), which naturally prompts
the question o f generic definition. It could be argued that Robocop and
Avatar represent each a very different treatment o f the relationship
between reality and the narrative universe, and therefore do not fulfill the
same type o f function nor occupy the same space within the collective
exchange— whereas Star Wars and Avatar are suited for young
audiences, it would not appear recommendable to take a child to a
Robocop retrospective. However, the authors’ flexible con ception o f the
genre allows them to address many different aspects o f what is
commonly understood as “science fiction” and makes Projecting
Tomorrow a more complete essay about the importance o f anti-realistic
cinematic narrations in our society and upon our collective consciousness
than if it were solely devoted to one specific type o f science fiction.
Furthermore, in these times o f considerable generic disorientation,
mostly rooted upon the fashionable, if ill-conceived, post-structuralist
notion that “Everything is a Text,” which tends to even obliterate the