The Eternal Future of the 1950s

<p> Science fiction cinema once relegated to the undervalued B movie slot has become one of the dominant film genres of the 21st century with Hollywood alone producing more than 400 science fiction films annually. Many of these owe a great deal of their success to the films of one defining decade: the 1950s. </p><p> Essays in this book explore how classic '50s science fiction films have been recycled repurposed and reused in the decades since their release. Tropes from Don Siegel's <I>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</I> (1956) for instance have found surprising new life in Netflix's wildly popular <I>Stranger Things. Interstellar</I> (2014) and <I>Arrival</I> (2016) have clear though indirect roots in the iconic 1950s science fictions films <I>Rocketship X-M</I> (1950) and <I>The Day the Earth Stood Still</I> (1951) and <I>The Shape of Water</I> (2017) openly recalls and reworks the major premises of <I>The Creature From the Black Lagoon</I> (1954). Essays also cover 1950's sci-fi influences on video game franchises like <I>Fallout Bioshock</I> and <I>Wolfenstein</I>.</p>