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Special Effects in science fiction films

 

            Science fiction is an incubator for imaginative minds to create visions that help us to glimpse not only the future, but also something about ourselves in the present. Fueled by the extrapolation of "what is" into "what can be", science fiction transports us beyond the horizon of our current technologies enabling us to observe the possible incarnations of scientific progress and to experience and appreciate the many ways this may impact upon us.
             There are various definitions of artificial intelligence. According to McCarthy (2002), of Stanford University's Computer science department, "[it] is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. . Intelligence is the computational part of ability to achieve goals in the world. Varying kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals, and some machines." .
             For a long history in the cinema, the possible dangers posed by intelligent machines have inspired countless science fiction films. The term Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) was first defined in 1956, though, in The Mechanical Statue and the Ingenious Servant (Blackman 1907), Robby the Robot is undoubtedly an A.I. being; as is in The Rubber Man (Lubin 1909)'s Proteus IV. The plots of these two films centered on the artificially-made men going uncontrollable, which is a theme being repeated throughout the century v/s the fear of the crazed A.I. beings. (Walters 2000).
             Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is the film which brought A.I. into public awareness. One of the astronauts is being killed by the supposedly perfect HAL-9000 computer which controls the space ship, but consecutively, it is killed by the other astronaut by removing his memory boards. By the 1970s, the fear of A.I. enters everyday life by the Star Wars (Lucas 1977) trilogy, which made A.I. creatures, C-3PO and R2D2, into household names. In the 1980s, A.I. becomes ever more sophisticated.


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