of the Clones (Lucas, 2002) and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
(Lucas, 2005)) and The Chronicles of Narnia (Adamson and Apted, 2005-2008)
suggests that spectators also find satisfaction in the absence of reality. This
is not in contradiction with our fears of technology and the perception of
(un)reality but should be understood as an alternative to them. In fact, the
disavowal of reality produces in the spectator the avoidance of present
threats. In this way, due to its connection with the unconscious, fantasy is
especially open to psychoanalytic studies, suggesting a confrontation
between the laws of society and the unconscious resistance of the mind.
The extraordinary events that we perceive in fantasy are admitted as
genuine in the fiction, although the spectator does not believe in these facts
in his real life. The strategy of fantasy is to immerse the spectator in a
delimited-unlimited reality-unreality. This is a place we will inhabit for a
certain, though usually prolonged,27 amount of time before coming back to
the real world, not believing that the fantasy continues there. In other words,
in fantasy, we are always aware of what constitutes the real world, our lives
and what does not; reality and unreality are clearly bordered. This is in
distinct contrast with SF in which the ideas of the film tend to continue in our
minds after we finish watching, simply because it has a stronger link with our
reality. This is the ‘exit strategy’ that for Darren Tofts (2003: 4) frames
fantasy in opposition to SF. Ironically it also reflects the experiences of the
characters in some SF films of the last decade: Neo in The Matrix, Quaid in
Total Recall and Allegra Geller in eXistenZ. These characters try to find an
exit and they ‘escape’ (or believe they do) from virtuality to return to the
real world, something that is illustrative of both the escapist idea of SF and
of the moment we are living, in which new virtual technologies fascinate us
but simultaneously threaten to take us to labyrinthine places from where we
cannot return.
SF does not offer audiences an escape, but, like a distorted mirror,
many SF productions of the last two decades showcase the problems that
27 Indeed, many fantasy films are known for their long run-times. At a run-time of 201 minutes (251
minutes for the special extended edition), a film such as Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings: The Return of
The King (2003), the third in the trilogy, is indicative of the protracted immersion offered up by the
fantasy genre.
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