A cosmic conundrum: how the space opera became sci-fi’s toughest nut to crack
Sci-fi continues to be a haven for immersive world-building, technological innovation, eye-popping spectacle, and timely thematic explorations, but for whatever reason, the space opera has inexplicably become the genre’s toughest nut to crack.
They might be cut from the same cloth, but the two are also completely different things, and the clue is right there in the nomenclature. As the name suggests, space operas are more theatrical and melodramatic, carrying a high degree of camp and a brazen disregard for subtlety or realism. It’s escapism, first and foremost, but a curiously tricky thing to pull off in the modern age.
It didn’t always used to be this way, but the ‘Golden Age’ has long since passed. There are still excellent sci-fi flicks released on a regular basis, but none of them are space operas in the truest sense. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune duology is an incredible two-hander that left no stone unturned in its pursuit of greatness, but it’s not really silly enough to qualify. David Lynch’s was, and it flopped, ironically.
Think of George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy – and even the prequels – along with the likes of cult favourite Flash Gordon, Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars, Jane Fonda’s Barbarella, Nick Castle’s The Last Starfighter, and the first couple of feature-length Star Trek movies. All are very different in terms of story and execution but equally indicative of what the space opera should be.
There are far-flung worlds, archetypal characters, kitschiness galore, enough cheese to kill the lactose intolerant, stilted dialogue delivered with hammy relish by a cast typically comprised of relative unknowns and jobbing veterans – preferably with a Shakespearean background – obvious romance, and a lightness of touch that would be tongue-in-cheek if everybody involved wasn’t playing everything with an admirably straight face.
In that respect, the closest spiritual successor to those halcyon days that comes to mind is arguably James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, and even then, the trio are comic book adaptations squeezed into a larger universe first and foremost, as opposed to a flight of spacefaring fancy hailing directly from the vivid imagination of an auteur.
The Star Wars sequels and spinoffs have felt more like standard blockbusters than the Akira Kurosawa and serial-inspired jaw-droppers Lucas used to build his own empire. While it’s entirely in the eye of the beholder, James Cameron’s Avatar franchise takes itself far too seriously to embrace the spirit of camp—intentional or otherwise—that makes the space opera such a riotously undemanding burst of cosmic tomfoolery.
If everyone decided to pitch their performance to the same needlessly histrionic degree as Eddie Redmayne, then maybe Jupiter Ascending would have fared better than it did. He was value for money, inhaling the scenery whole, but the Wachowskis became two of just many victims to fall foul of failing to strike the perfect middle ground between sci-fi solemnity and unabashed absurdity.
That film also bombed spectacularly, another recurring theme that might help explain why the sweeping space opera is in danger of fizzling out altogether—that, and the fact the majority of them haven’t been very good. In isolation, that should be a deal-breaker, but everybody knows the best films are very rarely the ones that top the box office and earn the most cash.
Disney’s lavish John Carter? A space opera through and through, but also the biggest flop in cinema history. Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets? Most definitely a space opera with a staggering opening sequence, albeit one crippled by the fatal miscasting of its two leads, with the most expensive independent production of all time, another cursed by commercial catastrophe.
Vin Diesel delivered a star-making performance in Pitch Black, so it was decided the obvious next port of call would be for the sequel The Chronicles of Riddick to cost five times more and refit itself into a portentous space opera. The end result? In a shocking development, it tanked. Starship Troopers? Does most of what a space opera should do, but it was too intentionally subversive to breathe the same rarefied air of the classics.
Besson’s The Fifth Element? Absolutely, but it hit cinemas in 1997, which is kind of the point being made. Battlefield Earth? Single-handedly killed an entire studio, ended John Travolta’s post-Pulp Fiction renaissance in one well swoop, and is deservedly known as one of the worst movies ever made. Ender’s Game? Harrison Ford ventured back into outer space for his first-ever intergalactic adventure where he wasn’t playing Han Solo or Rick Deckard. It was crap, and it flopped, so an unwanted double whammy there.
Rebel Moon? Zack Snyder sought to channel the spirit of Star Wars by channelling the spirit of the films that inspired Star Wars in the first place, in a Netflix original that began life a decade previously as the pitch for a Star Wars spinoff. On paper, the ideal space opera. However, in their original 134 and 122-minute forms, A Child of Fire and The Scargiver are terrible, but in their expanded 204 and 173-minute forms, the rebranded Chalice of Blood and Curse of Forgiveness are unbearable.
It shouldn’t be hard, given that the building blocks have been in place for so long, but it’s telling the majority of cinema’s greatest space operas released between the 1950s and the 1980s. Serious sci-fi is great and remains in rude health, but the stupider side of space-set storytelling has been found curiously wanting.
