The science fiction film has long been unique due to the fact that it can bring up certain topics that may seem taboo, or culturally offensive, in a normative dramatic narrative. There is a distance that the term science fiction brings with it that allows the viewer to take down the politically correct fences that may have been put up by the society one lines in. Makers of science fiction realize this and take the time while developing their films to insert certain questions about life, origin of life, what it means to be human and other ethical and moral issues. Two such films that have done this are Star Wars: A New Hope and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this essay we will undertake the understanding of what it is to be human in a set environment where naturally born humans and created droids/computer beings exist, and how this relates to the understanding of the human in control, and the non-human subservient.
When defining human for these two films we have the mental image of characters like Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Dr. Dave Bowman and other people in the two films. We see them as human because they look like us the viewers and we associate ourselves as such. Then there is the non-human that is involved with the films. I want to specifically look at the droids and robots in Star Wars and not the other alien types that populate the film. For the most part the other organic aliens are accepted as normal and not inferior in the universe. Then there are the robots and androids in the films; we have characters like C-3PO, R2-D2, and HAL 9000. These characters are treated like mechanisms that will do a set task and nothing more. However the reality of the situation is that the droids have artificial intelligence and have an opinion as to how they are being treated, or to the task that they are going to do. Here is where the conflict begins between the organic and the mechanic. In Star Wars the droids are purchased and put into the care of Luke Skywalker and his family. While Luke takes them on many journeys through the galaxy he never sees them as equals.
There is a scene in the film where R2-D2 is hiding a message from Luke while he is being cleaned, and Luke is literally thrown away from R2-D2 as the droid reluctantly reveals the message that he was hiding. All the while C-3PO berates R2 for not giving the master the message immediately. Here is an example of how the droids are simply used to facilitate a purpose, there is no messing around for Luke, and he wants his answers now. Similarly there is a scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where Dave and HAL 9000 have an argument.
It has been established that Dave thinks HAL has made a mistake and they are going to shut HAL down. HAL is resistant and attempts to kill Dave. HAL was programmed as a caretaker of the ship and crew and now it is going rogue in attempt to sustain its own life. In the article Replicants and the Mental Life by the British Film Institute, they are talking about Blade Runner and how it makes its own definition of what it means to be human; “humans simply have feelings while non-humans simply do not. Blade Runner denaturalizes that division and subtly inverts it: what has feelings is human.” Here HAL is made human by his simple ability to have emotions. If a computer can have emotions then it can be a potentially very dangerous thing. Humans have emotions and have a hard enough time controlling their own. There are some other anxieties here being brought up that people in the 1960’s through to the 1980’s were feeling. IBM was quickly becoming the world leader in computer and processing power and in 1964 introduced the IBM 360 system which revolutionized the computing era. The 360 system used multiple computers to quickly operate a task. People thought that computers were going to eliminate the need for humans at all, especially in the workforce and people were threatened by it. The anxiety was felt so much that HAL was birthed by going one letter down from each letter in the alphabet from IBM. I-H, B-A, M-L. People saw themselves being reproduced only in mechanic form; in essence people were eliminating the need for people. Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner discussed this in their book Technophobia. Here they discuss the “choice of nature, as an alternative to the technological collectivity” Where people are in need of individuating themselves and not creating likenesses of themselves. In reality the computer and the controls of the computer are only as unlimited as the human creating it. HAL and R2-D2 were created to do jobs that humans at one point did. So these films took that anxiety and told the audience that these tools are only as powerful as we allow them to be.
In the same vein of what it means to be human there was also discussion in these two films about race and ethnicity. Each film is very direct in its assumption that the robot is the servant to the human master. In Star Wars we see that droids are not allowed in some establishments.
When Luke and Ben Kenobi enter a cantina to find safe passage to Alderaan, they are told by the bar owner “We don’t allow their kind in here”. They might as well have a sign outside that says “Humans Only”, and in context of the social setting of Star Wars only a few years earlier did that generation see signs that read “Whites only”. The second class of the mechanic robot is clearly seen again when R2-D2 and C-3PO are in the Death Star and Storm troopers come and find them hiding in a control station. They are brushed off by the troopers as a non-threat, when in reality they are controlling the operation from that room. They are not taken seriously and that is the Imperials undoing. In 2001: A Space Odyssey HAL is not treated as one of the crew or as an equal until he shows how much control he has over the humans. The humans only then feign to like him while they plot his demise, so that he will not kill them before they get the chance to shut him down. There is such a hierarchy that is established in the films that it is hard for them to overcome them.
In 2001 the hierarchy is never overcome and in the end HAL is shut down and literally killed. Star Wars took another route and in the end the droids were accepted and even given rewards for their braveness and cunning in the battle against the Imperials.
Here are a few examples of how human and non-human ideas can be displayed and discussed in the context of a science fiction film. Anywhere in the discussion the term human and non-human could be changed out for a people group, ideology, social or political stance and been able to make a statement on the culture. Science fiction, although wrought with special effects and superstars, can and will continue to make a mark on the social climate of cinema.
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