From “Multiverse” to “Abramsverse”: Blade Runner, Star Trek, Multiplicity, and the Authorizing of Cult/SF Worlds
From “Multiverse” to “Abramsverse”: Blade Runner, Star Trek, Multiplicity, and the Authorizing of Cult/SF Worlds
Cult films inhabit four categories that are not mutually exclusive and may come into tension with one another. These categories depend on differing processes of cult development: world-based, auteur-based, star-based, and production-based. This chapter focuses on the first two, examining how world-based and auteur-based cults operate in relation to two exemplary science fiction (sf) texts, Blade Runner (1982) and the rebooted Star Trek (2009) franchise. What is so fascinating about auteur-based and world-based cults is that these potentials can be activated around the same series of texts — whether Star Trek or Blade Runner — and yet exist in tension with one another, as some fan audiences stress authorial vision while others emphasize the narrative universe that they love exploring, documenting, and speculating about. Cult/sf is not just a doubling of categories; cult sf really can mean different things to different (fan) readers.
Keywords: cult film, cult cinema, cult status, Blade Runner, Star Trek, science fiction
Liverpool Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
