第91期杂志——《我爱科幻电影的4个原因》

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Four Reasons I Love Science Fiction (as Experienced Through Prometheus)

我爱科幻电影的四个原因（观《普罗米修斯》有感）

David R  7 Years Ago
大卫·R  2012.6

                               
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I thought Prometheus was a heck of a movie. The review Paul posted yesterday accurately illustrates its occasional tendency to bite off more than it can chew, but I for one am just so happy that it got made in the first place that — for me — those complaints are pretty inconsequential.
在我看来，《普罗米修斯》是部很了不起的电影。昨日保罗发表的影评确切指出了其中稍显力不从心的场景。但是于我而言，这部电影能拍出来就已是莫大幸事；些许差评，无关紧要。

Why? Because it’s a great example of why I love the sci-fi genre above any other. So I thought I’d write an article that went through the things that make me keep coming back to this genre, no matter what I find elsewhere.
你问为什么？因为这部电影本身就能完美解释为何我最爱科幻片。在此我便来谈一谈，到底有什么吸引我，让我始终对科幻片情有独钟。

And, for simplicity’s sake, I’m only talking about the good ones. But, here’s what the good ones allow us, the audience, to do…
简单起见，我只讨论优秀的科幻片。以下是好片子能为我们观众带来的体验：

Travel the world… and beyond.
探索世界……飞出太空

                               
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Let’s go ahead and get the obvious one out of the way. Science Fiction is THE genre that explores new worlds. Whether it’s the coolly dangerous streets of Dark City, the arid desolation of our own satellite in Moon, or the inside of the human bloodstream in Fantastic Voyage, the settings in these stories are unique and compelling — often independently of the story that takes place in them. Even something as grounded as War of the Worlds shows us a different view of familiar places — a field covered in red alien vines, or a neighborhood destroyed by an errant airplane.
我们先挑明显的来说。科幻电影的主题就是探索新世界。无论是《移魂城市》中危机四伏的街道，《月球》中荒凉破败的卫星，还是《神奇的旅程》里主角的血管内，这些电影布景都是独一无二，引人入胜，虽然常独立于故事情节之外。就连俗套如《世界之战》，也为我们展示了寻常之地的异常，比如外星红藤蔓覆盖的田野，或者飞机偏离航线后坠毁破坏的街区。

This aspect of Science Fiction is often classified as mere escapism. While that’s certainly part of it — who doesn’t just want to get away for two hours every now and then? — there’s much more to it than that. Humanity has always been looking for the new frontiers. We explore the depths of the oceans and the vacuum of space for science, but also because, well, “they’re there.” Sci-fi worldbuilders are doing the film equivalent of exploring a foreign wilderness, and as anybody who’s traveled will tell you, having new experiences is important in and of itself.
科幻片的这一特点通常归为纯粹的逃避现实。虽然这么说有一定道理——毕竟谁不想偶尔有一两个小时能从身边的现实逃开呢？——但肯定不止如此。人类总是在寻找新的疆界。我们潜入深海，探索宇宙真空，固然是由科学驱使，但也是因为，“它们在那儿”嘛。科幻电影的设计团体拍摄一部作品，等同于探索异境荒野；正如有旅行经验的人也会说，新的旅行体验本身也很重要。

Gain a new context
获取新的故事环境

                               
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It’s hard to see anything from another perspective. Novel ideas rarely get much consideration before getting filtered and sorted according to our preconceived notions. Having a productive discussion about something like the death penalty can be nearly impossible with all the baggage that entails. And when watching a film about hot-button issues, we’re unlikely to consider the issue on its own terms unless you can really show us something NEW.
换新角度来观察事物并不容易。在根据已有观念进行筛选和排序之前，人们很少会对新颖的理念仔细考量。比如说，关于死刑这样沉重的话题是不可能进行卓有成效的讨论，因为它本身携带的包袱太多。所以假使观看的电影与热点问题相关，我们也不太可能仅考虑事件本身，除非电影展现出来的是我们从未接触过的全新事物。

Science Fiction, more than any other genre, allows us to see familiar ideas in a fresh context, so that the ideas themselves can come to the forefront. A movie like Splice reframes the potential dangers of experimental genetics. Minority Report makes us question the invasion of privacy via technology. Heck, even Jurassic Park makes you admit the logistical problem of seeing that particular fantasy lived out in the real world, if only for a few minutes before you get back to the fun of it all.
比起其他任何类型的电影，科幻片更能让我们在新的环境里观察熟悉的观念，而这些理念也借此浮出水面。比如《人兽杂交》这类电影就重新界定了基因实验的潜在危险；《少数派报告》则令我们质疑侵犯隐私的技术；就连《侏罗纪公园》也能让你发觉那些神奇动物出现在现实世界时的逻辑难题，尽管几分钟之后我们还是可以忘掉这些问题重新沉浸于电影当中。

                               
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Prometheus was a great example of this. I’ve had more than one conversation since seeing it about some of the issues it raises — faith, sacrifice, our place in the universe — that genuinely felt like new conversations. Instead of having to draw on my own limited experience on earth, I could draw on my interpretation of events from across the galaxy. The ideas rose to the surface.
《普罗米修斯》就是个典型的例子。看完它之后，我曾多次与人讨论片中提出的一些话题，如信仰，牺牲，以及我们本身在宇宙中的地位——这些问题常谈常新。我可以引用个人对银河系中各种事件的解读来交流，而不必局限于自己在地球的有限经历。各种理念也就由此清晰明了。

And on a more basic level, Science Fiction is really the only genre that allows us to deal with problems that haven’t come up yet, and particularly technology that hasn’t been perfected yet. If you want to talk about the ethics of artificial intelligence or the isolation of space travel, there’s nowhere else to go.
从更基础的层面讲，唯有科幻类别能让我们关注处理尚未出现的难题，尤其是关于现阶段还未成熟的技术。如果你想讨论人工智能造成的道德问题或太空旅行的孤独感，你只能靠这个。

Come to terms with the human condition
妥协于人类的条件限制

                               
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If seeing ideas from a new perspective is difficult, seeing ourselves objectively as human beings is nearly impossible. Science Fiction is the genre that asks the big questions about our role as people, both on a scale small and cosmic.
如果我们很难换个新角度来看问题，那么作为人类想客观地看待我们自己本身就近乎不可能了。而科幻题材提出的就是这类大问题：不论是从微观层面还是宇宙范围来看，人类到底扮演什么的角色。

Sometimes this involves pointing out our deepest fears. Invasion of the Body Snatchers plays with our fears of alienation; a movie like The Thing takes the threat of trust issues to an entirely different level. Where science fiction differs from traditional horror is the creeping suspicion that this could happen. Let Me In doesn’t feel plausible in the slightest, but if an extraterrestrial being got involved on earth or a spacecraft… who knows?
有时这种思考会暴露出我们最深的恐惧。比如，《天外魔花》表现了我们对异化的恐惧；《怪形》这样的电影则从完全不同的层次表述信任危机带来的问题。科幻片跟传统恐怖片的区别就在于，里面令人毛骨悚然的场景是有可能发生的。像《生人勿进》中的戏码虽然看似不可能，但是如果真有外星生物闯进地球或登上太空船……谁知道会怎样呢？

Another cool version of sci-fi horror is the self-inflicted kind. Halloween’s Michael Myers is just an escaped lunatic; he’s not under our control. Splice’s Dren, however, is the creation of the two main scientists. While Halloween is scary in an unearthly way, Splice feels eerily plausible.
另一种科幻惊悚则是人类自己创造出来的。《月光光心慌慌》里的麦克尔·麦尔斯只是个逃离精神病院的疯子，人们无法控制他；然而《人兽杂交》中的德伦，则诞生于两位科学家之手。《月光光心慌慌》的可怕更多是充满神秘感的，但是《人兽杂交》的可怕却有可能成真。

Or take The Fly. The story is devastating, largely due to its speculative trappings. A struggle for identity in a movie like Citizen Kane can certainly be compelling, but all of us have met a megalomaniac. It’s too easy to think of Kane as “someone else.” But when that identity struggle involves a man slowly transforming into a giant insect, the audience is forced to confront something they haven’t seen before — and it’s much easier to put ourselves in his shoes. For me, the questions (and answers) posed in sci-fi stories tend to feel more universal than similar quandaries in other movies.
或者以《变蝇人》为例。故事剧情能如此震撼，大多归因于电影中各种胆大敢想的造型。在《公民凯恩》中，挣扎于身份认知的戏码确实引人注目，但是我们见到的是一个自大狂，所以人们很容易就把凯恩当作“别人”。然而一旦把对象换作是一个慢慢变成巨型昆虫的人，这种从未见过的事物直接摆到观众面前——他们反而更容易代入自己。对我来说，科幻片中的问题（及答案）比其他影片的类似难题更为普遍。

Contemplate what we don’t understand
思考我们尚未明解的事物

                               
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All the other points in this article have been circling this one, which I consider to be the ultimate gift of sci-fi storytelling. Science Fiction allows us to tell stories about things we don’t understand yet.
其实本文所有观点都是围绕这点展开的。在我看来，这才是科幻故事能给予我们的至高赠礼，因为我们能在科幻片中谈论尚未明解的事物。

I’ve heard it referred to as the most spiritual genre, which I think is absolutely true. Prometheus was a great example. This is a movie that essentially makes us think about what it would be like to meet our creator, and what that creator might think of us if we did. Another Ridley Scott thinkpiece, Blade Runner, asks us to find the definition of humanity itself. And in Contact, the presence of alien technology questions the validity of miracles.
据说科幻片被视为是最关注精神的电影类型，我十分同意。《普罗米修斯》就是个极好的例子。这部电影其实是让我们思考：如果人们遇到了自己的造物主，会是什么样的情况？造物主又会怎么看待我们？雷德利·斯科特的另一部大作《银翼杀手》，促使我们去定义人性本身。而在《超时空接触》中，外星科技的出现则质疑了神迹的真实。

This genre is also right at home with unanswerable philosophical conundrums. Whether it’s the nature of reality and perception in The Matrix, fate and free will in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, or the simple quandry of good and evil in Star Wars, the genre seems to lend itself to taking on bigger questions than other stories typically allow. And as I said, a lot of these questions are more or less unsolvable, yet Science Fiction grapples with them anyway.
科幻片本身还附带各种难以回答的哲学难题。无论是《黑客帝国》中现实和感知的本质、《终结者2：审判之日》中的命运和自由意志，还是《星球大战》中简单的善恶选择，科幻片似乎比其他题材更能承担大问题。就如我之前所说，这类问题大多都是无解的，但科幻片依旧热衷于挑战。

That’s ultimately why I liked Prometheus. No, it doesn’t have all the answers, but it took the time to pose the questions. Science Fiction, the “what if” genre, has a responsibility to explore what other genres cannot.
Now, you’re on this site; you obviously invest in the genre to some extent. What is it about Science Fiction that keeps you coming back for more?
这也是我喜欢《普罗米修斯》的根本原因。确实，这部电影并没有给出所有答案，但是它花了时间把问题提出来。科幻片就是提“假如”的类型，负责进行其他类型所不能的探索。
好了，既然你看到了这里，说明你也关注科幻片。不如想想你为何流连于科幻故事？

文章来源：https://unrealitymag.com/four-re ... through-prometheus/

翻译 by Kimming
校对 by 旺仔
终校 by 何以

penz

我也爱，原来有这么多讲法