Persistence and Hope in Science Fiction Films Pt. 2 (Things to Come)

Produced around the outset of WWII Things to Come presents a transitional view of the future, from a moment when outcomes were unimaginably tenuous. Written by the acknowledged father of science fiction, H.G. Wells, it envisions a world where WWII drags on for decades, plunging the world into a fractured dark age.

Taking long swathes of screen time for speeches both idealized and sinister, its effect is more of a futurist morality play, a sort of Science Fiction pageant with elaborate costumes and solemn lessons to be learned.

It is particularly notable for its resoundingly industrial/colonial attitude toward utopianism. Its vision of an “aggressively pursued peace” and desire to “…direct our energies to tear out the wealth of this planet.” Its ideal becomes a giant mechanical utopia where people are an assumed resource that require no maintenance or consideration in the building of scientific monuments and the piling up of achievements.

By 2036 Things to Come supposes a completely built, engineered, and organized optimal society where nonetheless discontent brews over a vague sense that progress has gone too far. A plan is nearly complete to send man into space by means of a giant gun. This becomes a symbol over which factions struggle. The opposition are shown as a blinkered unthinking force, just another challenge for the scientific heroes to overcome.

What is ultimately baffling about Things to Come, the thing that translates least well now, is not the stilted grandiose acting or the dated visions of “future” technology but the belief in a nebulous technical “progress” as an axiomatic good. The film’s ultimate position seems to be that humans are a minor concern in the face of the progress they can affect. At the end Raymond Massey as the visionary leader of mankind delivers a speech equating progress and conquest without quite expressing the innate necessity of either. His vision of human capability is inspiring but his view of human destiny seems hardly distinct from megalomania.