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Films

Metropolis

Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis is a classic thanks to its timeless warning about the perils of technological mastery without social justice, says Scott O’Reilly.

“Science fiction films are not about science,” Susan Sontag writes, “they are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art.” I’m sure not every aficionado of the genre would agree with Sontag’s assessment, but many of the best science fiction stories deal with the perils posed by technological advances that threaten to outstrip our ability to control these very advances for humane ends. Plato wrote “where there is danger there is opportunity,” and this thought seems to capture something of why science fiction is so appealing. New technologies – like stem cell research and human cloning – carry inherent risks, but they also present tremendous opportunities for improving the human condition. Exploring this tension, and alerting us to the promise and peril we may face in the future from scientific and technological progress, is one of the qualities that can make science fiction so rewarding from a philosophical point of view.

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