1st Edition
Science Fiction Film, Television, and Adaptation Across the Screens
While film and television seem to be closely allied screen media, our feature films and television series have seldom been successfully adapted across those screens. In fact, rather than functioning as portals, those allied media often seem, quite literally, screens that filter out something that made the source work so popular in its original form. Differences in budget, running times, cast, viewing habits, screen size and shape all come into play, and this volume’s aim is to track a number of popular texts in the course of their adaptive journeys across the screens in order to sketch the workings of that cross-media adaptation. For its specific examples, the volume draws on a single genre—science fiction—not only because it is one of the most popular today in either film or television, but also because it is arguably the most self-conscious of contemporary genres, and thus one that most obviously frames the terms of these technological adaptations. The essays included here mine that reflexive character, in both highly successful and in failed efforts at cross-media adaption, to help us understand what film and television achieve in screening science fiction, and to reveal some of the key issues involved in all of our efforts to navigate the various screens that have become part of contemporary culture.
Introduction: Across the Screens: Adaptation, Boundaries, and Science Fiction Film and Television, J. P. Telotte I: Cross-Screen Dynamics 1. Domesticating Space: Science Fiction Serials Come Home, Cynthia J. Miller 2. The Cinematic Zone of The Twilight Zone, J. P. Telotte 3. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: Big-Screen Spectacle and Compressed Television Images, Mary Pharr II: Case Studies: Film to Television 4. Finding Sanctuary: Adapting Logan’s Run to Television, Gerald Duchovnay 5. Stargate SG-1 and the Visualization of the Imagination, Sherryl Vint 6. She’s Just a Girl: A Cyborg Passes in The Sarah Conner Chronicles, Lorrie Palmer III: Case Studies: Television to Film 7. Star Trek and the Birth of a Film Franchise, M. Keith Booker 8. "I want to believe the truth is out there": The X-Files and the Impossibility of Knowing, Rodney F. Hill 9. Serenity, Genre, and Cinematization, J. P. Telotte IV: Issues in Science Fiction Adaptation 10. Doctor Who: Adaptations and Flows, Mark Bould 11. Déjà Vu All Over Again? Cowboy Bebop’s Transformation to the Big Screen, Michelle Onley Pirkle 12. Fan Films, Adaptations, and Media Literacy, Chuck Tryon Notes on Contributors Videography/Filmography
Biography
J. P. Telotte is a professor of literature, communication, and culture at Georgia Tech. Co-editor of the journal Post Script, he has published widely on film and television studies. His most recent books are The Mouse Machine: Disney and Technology, The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader, and Animating Space.
Gerald Duchovnay is professor of English and film at Texas A&M University-Commerce.
