The Sci-Fi Genre Being Abandoned By Movies And TV
Science fiction is going through a modern renaissance thanks to the rise of high-concept sci-fi streaming series like Silo, Three-Body Problem, and Foundation, but one of the most popular and most inventive sub-genres has been left in the dust, with no major movies or shows released in the last five years. Steampunk, the retrofuturistic and anachronistic genre of steam-powered inventions, historical fiction, and usually a smattering of mystery and horror, has been tossed into the dustbin of history. Despite the lack of interest from Hollywood, fans are still going to dedicated conventions and showing off amazing outfits on social media, so what went wrong?
The Sudden Rise And Fall Of Steampunk
Steampunk was coined after the rise of cyberpunk in the 1980s, but it has its roots back in the 1950s movie adaptations of classic sci-fi novels, including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Time Machine, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Dr. Who’s Daleks and Wild Wild West brought the genre to television, proving that combining Victorian London with steam-based technology was a winning formula. It captured the imagination of sci-fi fans who embraced the large overcoats, tall hats, and abundance of goggles as a new wave of fashion for science fiction conventions.
Soon, there were steampunk novels, such as The Difference Engine by William Gibson, and even graphic novels, including Hellboy and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, while Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes films helped take steampunk into the back half of the aughts. Even anime dipped its toes into the genre, with Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress and Fullmetal Alchemist fully embracing the look, feel, and even sound of steampunk. We didn’t know it at the time, but that’s as good as it was going to get for the genre.
Why Hollywood Kept Failing
In 2018, the big-screen adaptation of Mortal Engines arrived in theaters, bringing to life the wild post-apocalyptic story of cities on wheels, but it didn’t just flop; it lost so much money, an estimated $190 million, that Hollywood has not touched steampunk since. The closest we’ve had since is Poor Things, a twist on the classic tale of Frankenstein, but even that is more of a gothic horror. In literature, it’s been a similar story, with no steampunk novels breaking through in the last six years the way Worldshaker or The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack did in the late aughts.
The problem with steampunk is that it is such a visually intense genre, and creating the feeling of a living, breathing world is hard to do on a budget. It’s easy in literature when talented writers can paint pictures using nothing but words and weave a wildly inventive story without concern for how expensive it would be to depict a two-ton steam-powered cannon in live action. Even in anime, as Kabaneri shows, the most basic of scenes become visually intense when there are countless moving gears and pipes filling up the background.
Beyond the cost of bringing steampunk to life is the difficulty of explaining the intricate settings in the span of a 2-hour film. Embracing alternate history and retrofuturistic technology may make the genre a hit with sci-fi fans, but it’s usually too dense to count as mindless entertainment and typical plots can quickly get very confusing for the average movie-going audience. Even movies like the 2011 Three Musketeers, which layered steampunk trappings on the classic story, get dragged on review sites for confusing plots.
The Future Of Steampunk
If steampunk can’t catch on with Hollywood studios, it’s no wonder that so many classic sci-fi authors like E.E. Doc Smith, the father of space opera, have never been adapted. With intricate visuals and complex plots, fans can’t trust studios that struggle to bring the most generic of sci-fi to life and have to look elsewhere for the future of the genre by going back to where it started: novels. Authors like Jennifer Haskin (The Clockwork Pen) and Dan Willis (Pound of Flesh) are among the many keeping the genre alive in the one medium that still lets imaginations run wild, creativity can flourish, and characters can wear giant goggles and cool dusters while putting the finishing touches on a steam-powered airship.
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