《阿凡达》能创造历史吗？
这将是科幻电影赢得奥斯卡最佳影片的一年吗？
泡沫剧，喜剧，任何以摇滚为主题的电影—这些都是没有任何希望得到学院奖项的。而从传统来看，奥斯卡的禁飞名单上还包括科幻电影。获得学院类奖项的电影必须是严肃慎重并且具有历史性—如果你的电影是发生在很远很远的星系，那么，你可以将你的晚礼服留在衣柜里直到去接受某种没什么价值的奖项，比如最佳飞船造型奖。
今年，却似乎是科幻电影的突破年，像星球主题的《阿凡达》，《第九区》还有《星球大战》都赢得了业界团体的赞誉和好评，而这却往往预示着奥斯卡的提名。由于各种因素，比如奥斯卡最佳影片提名由5部增加到10部，还有受《星球大战》影响的这一代人的力量，还有票房神话的导演詹姆斯-卡梅隆，这部罗德尼丹杰菲尔德体裁的电影看起来似乎最终会迎来奥斯卡的时代。
“学院一直认为科幻电影是二流的不需要开发的电影，”罗杰-科罗曼说。他是11月奥斯卡终身成就奖的获得者，他所创造的大量低成本的科幻电影给类似卡梅隆这样的导演开了先河。“他们才刚刚意识到，这个流派的严肃性和深度。”
科幻电影从来没有赢得过最佳影片奖，而对某一代学院派的动作影片艺术家和科技人员来说，这个流派的电影还是低劣的非影院电影、塑胶衣服套还有二流演员。在1968年，具有影响力的电影评论家伍凯尔称斯坦利库布里克的《2001：太空奥德赛》是“一个有着异常想像力的电影。。。。如果大电影导演因为资金不足而要花好多年来完成一部著作，而比不过一些资金充足的大屏幕电影，那么商人重于诗人，盗贼就是艺术。”
似乎在许多学院派同意凯尔对《2001年》的评价，因为库布里克现在标志性的电影只赢得了最佳特效这一个奥斯卡奖，并没有获得最佳影片提名。
学院主要奖励科幻电影的无线技术，因为它是必要条件。因为大部分这样的电影，他们的创新来自于艺术家们对外星球的描述和未来主义的战争。但是多年来一直忽视了这个流派其他方面的因素，好莱坞在1977年被迫承认了科幻电影。“一只
一个不可否认的文化现象，“星球大战”被提名10个学院奖项提名，包括最佳影片，不过最终输给了脑喜剧《安妮霍尔》。1982年的奥斯卡，另一部科幻电影，史蒂芬斯皮尔伯格的《外星人》输给了《甘地》，一部由理查德阿滕伯勒指导的长达3小时的历史人物传记片，换句话是输给了一部专门为奥斯卡拍摄的电影。
在获奖感言中，阿滕伯勒表示反对这项荣誉，他说：“我敢肯定，《外星人》不仅会胜利，而且它一定会获胜。这是发明，强大，并且无比精彩。”
也许妨碍科幻电影得到奥斯卡的接受最大的因素就是演员。因为演员奖项在奥斯卡奖项中占据很大的一块，所以相对于表演来说，过多的特技是很不讨喜的。只有少数的科幻片中的演员被奥斯卡提名过。亚历克吉尼斯在“星球大战”扮演的圣人欧比旺肯诺比，西格尼韦弗在《异形》中扮演的勇敢的太空女英雄艾伦李普利，她的最近的与詹姆斯卡梅隆的合作正是在《阿凡达》。
“如果只是拿着光线枪射击并且躲避别人的光线枪，那你就不会在演员奖项上获得提名……。”学院执行理事布鲁斯戴维斯说。
甚至是和科幻沾点边的电影，比如《美丽心灵的永恒阳光》，有关于记忆被抹去的故事情节，都被简单的分类为剧情。“对于科幻影片人们一直存在认知偏见”，斯卡尔奇说：“按照这种观念，如果片子很好，那就不被认为是科幻片。”
但是如同好莱坞的人口组成一样，学院派的人口组成也在改变。2009年进入的一批新的会员包括像迈克尔格拉这样的年轻演员，他们甚至都没有赶上《ET外星人》震撼屏幕。对于年轻的好莱坞来说，科幻电影在他们的娱乐项目中占有了很大的比重。“新一代人具有着早期的兴趣和激情，”戴维斯说：“他们认为《星球大战》都是一个老经典了。”
最近学院派的评审标准貌似在向新一代倾斜了。奥斯卡最佳影片以及其他十项记录都授予了彼得杰克逊改变的J.R.R. Tolkien的《指环王：王者归来》，标志着评审标准对幻想故事态度的一种软化。去年，华纳兄弟为克里斯托弗诺兰的《暗黑骑士》展开了对最佳影片的角逐，这个故事来源于具有科幻色彩的一部漫画。对学院派来说，那些获奖的，但却票房不可观的电影使得他们不得不做出一些改变，重新审视像《暗黑骑士》这种对观众具有很大吸引力的影片。
但是，尽管获得了广泛的赞誉和8个其他类别的提名，诺兰的电影仍然不能冲击最佳影片的前五名。 黑暗骑士的落选，使得人们对于一直出于奖项边缘的电影引起了关注，并促使去年六月学院派对电影类别进行了一次扩充。“我们想给一些特定类型的电影更多的机会。”戴维斯说。
科幻可能正是奥斯卡的需要。在目前的好莱坞厌恶风险的环境中，很难想象哪个工作室会给像《飘》或者《宾虚》这样经典的且具有很大影响力和吸引力的电影所要消耗的大量成本开绿灯。
科幻小说可能已经成为大制作电影的最后避难所，像《阿凡达》这样的电影，具有英勇的蓝皮肤角色，背景设置在外星球潘多拉的宏大故事，吸引了来自梵蒂冈以及美军的批评，其中充满了寓言含义，环境话题以及精神。学院派的人长久以来都认为科幻电影是小儿科，但是这次他们也很难否认卡梅隆带给了成年人很多思考。现在它已经打破了全球的票房纪录并且获得了多项金球奖奖项，《阿凡达》同样也是奥斯卡的夺冠大热门。
Neill Blomkamp的《第九区》同样也包含了大量的政治元素。这部影片是一个构想的纪录片，讲述了甲壳虫一样的外星人将南非作为他们的家。《第九区》获得了美国制片人协会的最佳影片提名。
Slasher films, pot comedies, anything starring the Rock -- there are some movies that no one expects to win Academy Awards. And traditionally, Oscar's no-fly list has included science fiction.
Academy Award-winning films are supposed to be serious, weighty,
historical -- if your movie takes place in a galaxy far, far away,
well, you can leave your tuxedo in the closet until it's time to accept
a somewhat less prestigious prize shaped like a rocket ship.
This year, however, is looking like a breakthrough for sci-fi, as the alien vehicles "Avatar," "District 9" and "Star Trek"
have earned critical praise and accolades from the industry groups that
tend to foreshadow Oscar nominations. Thanks to a convergence of
factors, including the expansion of the best picture category from five
movies to 10, the ascendance of the post-"Star Wars" generation in Hollywood and the imposing box office success of James Cameron's "Avatar," this Rodney Dangerfield of movie genres looks like it may finally win some respect come Oscar time.
"The academy has always thought of sci-fi as a secondary type of exploitation film," says Roger Corman,
who was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in November, in large part
for his role in producing the low-budget sci-fi films that gave
directors like Cameron their start. "They're only beginning to realize
that there is seriousness and depth in the genre."
A sci-fi film has never won best picture, and to a certain generation
of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members the genre is
still the ignoble territory of the drive-in, the rubber suit, the B
actor. In 1968, influential film critic Pauline Kael called Stanley Kubrick's
"2001: A Space Odyssey" "a monumentally unimaginative movie. . . . If
big film directors are to get credit for doing badly what others have
been doing brilliantly for years with no money, just because they've
put it on the big screen, then businessmen are greater than poets and
theft is art." It seems many in the academy agreed with Kael's
dismissal of "2001," because Kubrick's now iconic film earned only one
Oscar, for its special effects, and was not nominated for best picture.
The academy primarily rewards sci-fi in its technical categories, as it
must, since so much of cinema's innovation comes from artists depicting
alien worlds and futuristic wars. But after years of largely ignoring
the genre in its other categories, Hollywood was virtually forced to
acknowledge sci-fi in 1977. "There was this 800-pound gorilla in the
room and that was 'Star Wars,' " says John Scalzi, author of "The Rough
Guide to Sci-Fi Movies."
An undeniable cultural phenomenon, "Star Wars" was nominated for 10
Academy Awards, including best picture, but lost to the cerebral comedy
"Annie Hall." At the 1982 Oscars, another sci-fi gorilla, Steven Spielberg's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," lost to "Gandhi," a three-hour Richard Attenborough-directed biopic of a beloved historical figure -- in other words, a made-for-Oscar film.
In his speech, Attenborough demurred the honor, saying, "I was certain
that not only would 'E.T.' win, but that it should win. It was
inventive, powerful [and] wonderful."
Perhaps the biggest impediment to sci-fi's acceptance at Oscar time has
been actors. With actors accounting for the largest branch of the
academy (1,300 out of the body's 5,800 members), a genre that showcases
ideas rather than performances is at a disadvantage. Only a handful of
actors have been nominated for a sci-fi performance -- Alec Guinness for playing the sage Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars," Sigourney Weaver
for the role of intrepid space heroine Ellen Ripley in "Aliens," her
last pairing with director Cameron before this season's "Avatar."
"If you're just shooting ray zappers and ducking at other people
shooting at you, then you're not going to get a nomination any more
than the actors . . . in a western did," says academy Executive
Director Bruce Davis.
Even films with sci-fi premises, like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," with its erased memory story line (and for which Kate Winslet
was nominated), are often categorized more simply as dramas. "There's a
cognitive bias against sci-fi," Scalzi says. "In that, if it's good, it
can't possibly be sci-fi."
But the demographics of the academy, like the demographics of
Hollywood, are changing. New academy members in 2009 included young
actors like Michael Cera,
who wasn't even born when "E.T." hit theaters. For young Hollywood,
sci-fi has been big-budget entertainment their whole lives. "New
generations maintain their early interests and passions," Davis says.
"They may think of 'Star Wars' as an old classic."
There have been recent signs the academy is inching toward an embrace
of the genre. The awarding of best picture and a record-tying 10 other
Oscars to Peter Jackson's
2003 adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings: The Return
of the King" signaled a softening toward fantastical movies -- albeit
ones with a literary pedigree. Last year, Warner Bros. mounted a best
picture campaign for Christopher Nolan's
"The Dark Knight," a comic book movie that shares some of sci-fi's DNA.
For the academy, which has been concerned in recent years with the
shrinking audience for its award telecast, having a hit like "Dark
Knight" in the mix was attractive.
But despite earning widespread critical praise and eight nominations in
other categories, Nolan's film couldn't crack the top 5 for best
picture. "Dark Knight's" omission prompted a hue and cry in some
corners of Hollywood and helped push the academy's expansion of the
category last June. "We wanted to give certain kinds of films more of a
chance," Davis says.
Sci-fi may be just what the Oscars need. In Hollywood's current,
risk-averse environment, it's hard to imagine a studio green-lighting a
film as lavish and elaborate as "Gone With the Wind" or "Ben-Hur" --
the kind of grand, epic movies that have historically lent the ceremony
glamour and mass appeal.
Science fiction has become the last refuge of epic filmmaking and
"Avatar," with its heroic, blue-skinned characters, sprawling story set
on the alien moon Pandora and extravagant, 3-D spectacle, is closer to
"GWTW'S" burning of Atlanta or "Ben-Hur's" chariot race than any of its
competition. The blockbuster is also, as everyone from the Vatican's film critic to the U.S. Marine Corps'
newspaper has pointed out, stuffed with allegories about war, the
environment and spirituality. For academy members who have long
considered sci-fi kids' stuff, it's hard to deny that Cameron's film
has given adults plenty to think about. And now that it's broken the
worldwide box office record and won best dramatic motion picture and
best director honors at the Golden Globes this month, "Avatar" is emerging as a best picture front-runner.
Neill Blomkamp's "District 9" too is rich with political metaphor. A faux documentary
about crustacean-like aliens who make their home in a hostile South
Africa, "District 9" earned a best picture nomination from the
Producers Guild of America and screenplay nods from the Golden Globes
and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. As a sleeper hit
with a pointed message about xenophobia, "District 9" gives academy
voters a chance to acknowledge the art and the business of moviemaking.
Even "Star Trek," J.J. Abrams'
slick rebooting of the ultimate geek franchise, has earned love from
both the producers and writers guilds. There is, apparently, room this
awards season for a popcorn film that simply does what it's supposed to
do -- entertain.
It's safe to say that none of these directors set out to make
Oscar-bait movies or they surely would have chosen more earthly stories
to tell. But if multiple sci-fi films are nominated for best picture
this year, or if one wins, it will be a landmark for the genre.
"I felt I was being accepted to a club I never thought would accept
me," Corman says of receiving his Oscar last fall at age 83. "I just
never thought it would happen." Not in this galaxy anyway.
Keegan is the author of "The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron."
