There are 9 plots that science fiction movies typically fall under
1. Time travel
2. Robots
3. Human vs. nature
4. Artificial intelligence
5. Apocalypses/ post-apocalypses
6. Dystopia
7. Space travel
8. Alien invaders
9. Strange, fictional lands
Today I focused on researching a movie opening from science fiction that has a plot surrounding time travel, or predicting the future, since that is something we want to include in the plot of our film.
The movie begins with a documentary style, showing an elderly woman discussing her past experiences and memories. Right off the bat, this gave me a sense of curiosity and mystery, because it is unclear to the viewer what the woman being interviewed is referring to, and it makes you want to find out. It is also clear in this opening that the world they are depicting in the movie is facing a lot of environmental challenges. The elderly people being interviewed specifically mention the dust storms and clouds of dirt they remember, and scenes of dry, desert looking land is shown to give context to what that environment looks like. This provides the problem that the characters in the movie will likely face and have to fight against, which is the environmental problem of dust storms.
There is also an introduction to characters, showing a man and his daughter interacting, who are more than likely the main characters of the film. The man is shown looking out the window at the world, shortly after being awakened by his daughter, and how it has been affected by the environmental problems. He is clearly stressed out, and shown sweating profusely, which shows immediately that he is going through something. The sounds in this opening are also notable, because of how many varying sounds there are just in the first few minutes of the film. Specifically harsh sounds of wind and aggressive planes flying are used, and as the man looks out the window, foreboding music is played.
What I took from this opening that can be incorporated into my own is the immediate introduction of characters, as well as starting to give context in a way that does not give the whole plot away. Just off this introduction, it is not obvious that the movie deals with time travel, but it is obvious that the world is different than what we see in real life, and that there is an underlying problem that will be solved in the movie.
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