Break through limitations & seek the unknown
America's supernatural horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft once said, "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
However, in the unknown, there also lies deadly temptations, which mankind could never resist. Curiosity lies in human nature.
Therefore, in the sci-fi films, we saw that the fear of the unknown never stops mankind from going deeper into outer space, seeking extraterrestrial intelligence, or exploring the deeper psychological and physical boundaries of their own lives.
Christopher Nolan is a master in exploring the unknown. In "Interstellar," human beings are risking their lives to penetrate the mysteries of gravity, time and space, blackhole and dimensions, trying to decipher the puzzles that have not yet been solved by science. In "Inception," Nolan dives into dreams, seeking the secrets and possibilities within the sub-consciousness.
Matt Damon, who starred as astronaut Mark Watney in "The Martian," successfully grew potatoes on Mars in the film and therefore colonized the Red Planet. In "Arrival," linguist Louise Banks has managed to penetrate through time and see the future, after successfully interpreting an alien language. In "The Wandering Earth," human beings even try to push their mother planet out of the solar system and find another sun for it.
What's more attractive about sci-fi films is that the magnificent scenes on the big screen are not groundless at all. Most of them have solid basis in science. And to the surprise of many, an increasing number of technologies depicted only in film decades ago have now appeared in our daily lives.
To some extent, the imaginary worlds have inspired technological developments, and vice versa. Thinking beyond human cognition, and who knows, maybe the worlds of higher-dimensions, superluminal spacecrafts, wormholes and blackholes, cyberpunk…and a more convenient future society are not that far away from us.
Of course, there is a "but" here. Things are not always optimistic, especially with the increasing threat to the environment on Earth.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released a flagship report on global warming on March 28 this year, calling for world leaders to come to a September summit with concrete plans to deal with climate change.
And according to the United Nations' weather agency, extreme weather hit 62 million people worldwide in 2018, and forced two million to relocate, as global warming worsened. The World Meteorological Organization predicted that the planet may see temperatures increase three to five degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
Doomsday caused by human behaviors are quite common in sci-fi films. In the 2004 film, "The Day After Tomorrow," the world and all species are almost wiped out due to the extreme weather caused by the climate change. In "Interstellar," sandstorms almost devoured every living things on Earth, and forced humans to drift in space while seeking a new planet.
Philosophical and ethnics studies are the eternal themes in sci-fi films of mankind and artificial intelligence.
While it is impossible to see in real life how mankind's destiny would end up, sci-fi films have offered various possibilities and at the same time mirrors that could trigger human reflection.
Even though the strength of sci-fi films in changing the reality is quite limited, the shocking scenes would serve as an alert to everyone who watched themt o show more respect to nature and be modest.
After all, as Chinese novelist Liu Cixin writes in his "Three-Body Problem" trilogy, "weakness and ignorance are not barriers to survival, but arrogance is."
