The Sci Fi Guy

Well, I’m always interested in finding out more about the people behind the movies that make science fiction come to life, and recently I realized that Christopher Nolan might be a screenwriter & director worth keeping a close eye on.

His work so far is limited, but extraordinarily psychological. His first mainstream success was found in Memento, a dark psych-thriller about a man that can’t form new memories. Visually Memento is a great film to watch, and the character interplay is definitely well written. It’s not scifi, of course, but the premise could fit extremely well in a Phillip K. Dick story as easily as it does this murder / memory thriller. However, since Memento he was also given writing credit for some interesting scifi: Batman Begins and The Prestige. I know what you’re thinking: neither of those count as scifi! Well, I disagree.

Batman, and in fact most comic-book based characters, are heavily rooted in science fiction themes. The alternate world, the unique blending of technology and varying history, as well as characters that are capable of things ordinary humans aren’t. Of course X-Men is far more science fiction than Batman (after all, Batman is just a man), but there’s definitely a scifi tilt to his work. Also, The Prestige, while set 100 years ago, definitely makes the cut as a scifi thriller. I won’t disclose much here, but I do recommend that you take the time to watch it. It’s a great movie, and once finished it leaves you saying, “I gotta see that again!”

Now Mr. Nolan is working on the Batman sequel, The Dark Knight, which I’m certain will be another great adventure for the black bat. I’m looking forward to seeing what he will work on after The Dark Knight, and I’m hoping he’ll continue working on dark psychological films.

As another note, make sure you keep an eye on JJ Abram’s “Cloverfield” project… Here’s a trailer if you didn’t happen to catch it during the Transformers. Rumors are spiraling, as our favorite Lost creator is known to do, and odds are throughout fall there’ll be lots of easter eggs peppered around the web. Who knows if we’ll even get a name for it!

Have a great and safe Labor Day long weekend!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Science Fiction Movies, Horror / Thriller, Christopher Nolan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.