Mary Shelley became the inventor of science fiction when she wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus in 1818; though the famous tale was inspired by then-contemporary medical and scientific developments, many have since argued that the genre’s origin was, and still is, rooted in anti-science. Arguably, this trend has continued in present-day Hollywood science fiction, where scientific overreach or technological advancements are all too often portrayed as the cause of conflict.
Not only did the renowned novel birth a new genre, the Frankenstein story itself has innumerable offshoots. Jurassic Park, the influence of Shelley’s work knows no limit. However, these works have something else in common: all make the science part of science fiction the problem. Is science fiction just a mask for anti-science?
It may not be so simple. As often as science fiction movies and television shows frame scientific advancement as a dangerous thing, the threat is rarely science in itself but rather humans’ propensity to abuse it; science fiction tends to act as a cautionary tale against human overreach. For that reason, the "science" part of science fiction often works as a narrative structure within which to ask theological and philosophical questions about human nature and humanity’s place. Science itself is neither good nor bad, but a tool that can be used and misused. Science fiction is only anti-science insofar as humans’ involvement in science is concerned.
Frankenstein Is Anti-Science
Shelley knew about all this: two of the era’s leading electrical researchers were friends of her father, William Godwin.
From there, it is easy to read Frankenstein as a story on the dangers of science as a disruptive force to the natural order. the creature’s victimhood. This would mean that the origin of sci-fi is not anti-science, but pro-morality.
The Many Sci-Fi Films Frankenstein Inspired Are Anti-Science
Interestingly, many science fiction films inspired by Shelley’s story are more straightforwardly anti-science than Frankenstein. Minority Report and even the less than stellar I, Robot.
However, just as often, if not more so, science fiction movies inspired by Frankenstein echo its moral lesson: to mistreat one’s creation and to pursue power through science but forgo one’s humanity is the real source of evil. Take for instance Deep Blue Sea; the clones kill Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean) and escape in The Island. The sci-fi genre is full of such examples. Thus, what science fiction treats with distrust is man’s ambition, greed, and pride, rather than scientific progress and technology itself.
Even Superhero Films Fall Into The Same Trope
Though not strictly science fiction, the superhero genre adopts many sci-fi tropes. In the case of the This causes Ultron to gain sentience and believe that eradicating humanity is the only way to instil peace; the delightfully chilling “I had strings, but now I’m free; there are no strings on me” speech hammers home the idea of a creator’s hubris being the danger. Stark wrongly assumed he could control his creation and did not believe that a being he brought into the world could desire freedom or power. It is human arrogance mixed with technology that causes destruction, not technology alone.
The superhero genre also relies on supervillains. Captain America (Chris Evans) and Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) are both made "super" by versions of the Super Soldier Serum; Spider-Man versus the Green Goblin follow the same trope, as do the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom, Ant-Man and Yellowjacket. Though each side have the technologies in common, what makes them hero or villain is how they use that technology. Their sense of right and wrong is what dictates whether they are the protagonist or the antagonist, rather than the science or technology. The science fiction genre is a warning against human arrogance more than it is one against science.
