The focal image of the film "The Black Hole" functions as a visual metaphor for the sacred, order, unity, and eternal time. The black hole is a symbol that unites the antinomic pairs of conscious/unconscious, water/fire, immersion/emersion, death/rebirth, and hell/heaven. The black hole is further associated with the quest for…

"Star Trek II" is a treatment of the penultimate stages of the monomyth in which the hero descends into the underworld and is reborn. This psychological sense of rebirth is evoked in modern audiences by the film. In particular, the doppelganger (psychic double) motif, so often associated in film, literature, and myth with the…

Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" (1927) is a seminal film because of its concern, now generic, with the profound impact technological progress has on mankind's social and spiritual progress. As in many later science fiction films, the ascendancy of artifact over nature is depicted not as liberating human beings, but as subjecting and corrupting…

Intended to provide a paradigm for teachers planning a course in science fiction film, the instructional approach outlined in this paper examines films in relation to each other and to culture. The paper provides a course outline, a discussion of lecture topics, a suggested reading list, and a film list. The instructional approach suggested by the…