Essay Example on Exploring the Genre of Science Fiction: Time Travel, Superheroes & More

Introduction

Science fiction also known as sci-fi or SF refers to a genre of speculative fiction that comprises of futuristic and imaginative concepts, such as progressive science and technology, time travel, comparable planets, space exploration, and extraterrestrial creatures. Science fiction explores the prospective concerns of scientific, technological, and social inventions and innovations (Candelaria 1). The genre spans back to ancient times and involves horror, fantasy, and superhero fiction with a lot of subgenres. Science fiction film, television, literature, and other media have continued to become widespread and significant across the globe.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Besides entertaining, SF also criticizes contemporary society and encourages a sense of fantasy. One of these science-fiction entails an American mature animated sitcom produced by Dan Harmon, and Justin Roiland called Rick and Morty for Cartoon Network's evening TV show block Adult Swim (Candelaria 1). The series involves the adventures of an alcoholic, cynical, and mad scientist named Rick Sanchez and his good-hearted but unintelligent grandson Morty Smith. He divides their time between home life and interdimensional escapades. The purpose of this paper entails the analysis of three episodes of Rick and Morty (TV show).

General Overview of Rick and Morty

The original release of Rick and Morty happened on the 2nd of December, 2013 and got aired in the United States on Cartoon Network's late-night programming block, Adult Swim. There exist four seasons in the series, with season 1 having 11 episodes. Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland created the series about the infinite explorations of Rick, a brilliance, drunkard, and insensitive scientist, with his grandson Morty, a 14-year-old anxious teenager who is stupid (Kitchen 53). Rick and Morty, together, explore various universes, causing havoc and running into trouble.

The main characters in the series include Rick Sanchez, whose role depicts an eccentric, alcoholic, mad scientist and father to Beth, and grandfather to Morty and Summer. He goes to live with his daughter after the death of his wife, where he continually takes his foolish grandson, Morty, on high-concept sci-fi rigmarole (Kitchen 53).Another character in the series includes Morty Smith, a young teenage boy that prefers living a healthy life, but gets involved in Rick's escapades. Morty remains kind although he suffers from distress.

Besides, Jerry Smith is Beth's husband and father to Morty and Summer. His characteristics depict an insecure, simple-minded man who disapproves of Rick's influence over his family. Furthermore, Summer Smith is the older teenage sister to Morty, who worries about improving her status among her peers (Kitchen 53). Beth Smith is Rick's daughter and Morty's and Summer's mother. Beth loves her father, but ultimately has little issues with her father. She is a generally levelheaded person with an occupation as a horse heart surgeon and remains dissatisfied with her marriage to Jerry.

The two main themes in the series entail an incredibly selfish, alcoholic grandfather dragging his grandson along for interdimensional adventures, intercut with domestic family drama. The series uses science fiction and comedy to develop the structure of the cartoon. The developers explore scientific fiction potentialities with each episode (Kitchen 53). They create new adventures, hence an original method of introducing experimental tropes.

The general setting of the series occurs from 2012 to 2028 on Earth, where the family resides outside Seattle in Washington (Childs 62). The voyages of Rick and Morty, however, take place across an infinite number of realities, with the characters traveling to other planets and dimensions through portals and Rick's flying car.

The fact that Rick exists as the smartest character (thing) on the universe in all realities and possesses the ability to invent makes the entire tropes believable. The science-fiction metaphors vary from watching interdimensional cable to visiting a miniature theme park inside a human body (Childs 62). The application of a portal gun and Rick's flying car takes the characters to various destinations in several universes.

Season One, Episode One Analysis

'Pilot' refers to the title of Season one, Episode one of Rick and Morty (TV show). Rick and his grandson, Morty, take a ride in Rick's invented flying car. Rick discusses, in a drunken state, how he intends to deploy a neutrino bomb to exterminate life on Earth. Rick lands the flying vehicle when Morty commands him to do so, and he passes out. The neutrino bomb activates automatically and remains unchecked; however, life on Earth usually continues (Childs 62). After family breakfast, Rick and Morty set up on a journey to another planet to gather seeds of 'Mega Trees.' Morty smuggles the seeds by hiding them in his rectum to avoid getting arrested by intergalactic customs officials.

The customs officials uncover Rick and Morty's plan, which results in a shootout with extraterrestrial creatures, however, the two escape. Besides, the seeds momentarily make Morty highly bright, despite the idea that he did not attend a semester of learning. Morty took his schooling period traveling with Rick, thus missing a semester (Childs 62). The transient time which Morty became extremely gifted deceives his parents that he has gained his acumen. However, the seeds no longer exist. Hence Rick convinces Morty that they need to go back and get more seeds. The side effects of the seeds leave Morty squirming on the ground.

The first episode of season one emphasizes on how the characters relate to one another and the dynamic of Smith's family. The audience witnesses the family's disordered life. The series introduces Rick as an egocentric alcoholic. Rick wakes up Morty in the middle of the darkness only to show him a bomb as a surprise (Schneider 32). The series then highlights the breakfast scene that showcases each character's persona. Rick shows a high level of manipulative intelligence in which he employs words to influence the situation to get out of misfortune or to focus the attention on another person.

Summer throws her younger brother under the bus showing her dramatic nature. Jerry dislikes his father-in-law, Rick. It appears that Beth continually fights with her husband concerning the adventures of Rick and Morty. Jerry does not favor the voyages as he believes they distract Morty from school (Schneider 32). However, Beth defends her father, creating a family conflict between Beth and her husband. At the end of episode one of season one, Rick hints at their next adventure with Morty as he goes on a riot that defines Rick and Morty TV series, Rick and Morty Forever. It depicts that each new episode contains an entirely new world of science fiction that will overflow when Rick and Morty remain together.

However, as the series develops, every episode has its plot and narrative, indicating that it does not progress into the next adventure or leave the audience in suspense about what will occur next. Whenever there exist conflicts or strains in the episode, they get decided finally and begin again with a new whole adventure (Schneider 32). The series builds on the interactions with the characters. The characters in this episode include Jerry, Rick, Morty, and Beth. In the event, Jerry hates Rick and suggests confining him in a nursing home to prevent him from taking Morty out of school.

Jerry feels insecure, hints on having an affair, and committing suicide. Rick exists as a cunning and manipulative character, while Beth has just received her father back into her life and cherish him immensely. Morty's parents believe their son has learning problems. Science and technological figures in the episode include the flying car, Portal gun, freeze ray, special graveling shoes, various medicines, outer space, and 'Mega Seeds' for research purposes (Geraghty 289).

The space cruiser looks like a UFO flying vehicle owned by Rick and contains several devices and the capacity to fly through outer space. The portal gun refers to a gadget in the series that permits users to various transit universes (dimensions or realities). The freeze ray refers to one of Rick's instruments. The device could freeze organic targets until they formed an icy statue (Geraghty 289). The freezing effect existed as a reversible phenomenon but made the object exceedingly breakable and prone to crushing. Rick invented the grappling shoes that allowed the user to walk on any surface, irrespective of the texture or slope.

Rick travels to another dimension to collect an advanced drug to use in treating Morty's leg that had multiple bone fractures. Morty had fallen off a cliff in the 'pilot.' The serum healed both of Morty's legs instantly. Mega Seeds exists in Dimension-35C inside the fruit of the Mega Trees, and Rick claims they possess particular properties that make them exceptionally significant to his research (Geraghty 289). Rick asserts that he has smuggled them across several interdimensional customs many times. There exist several universes (dimensions or realities) in the series that indicate discoveries of outer space with its extraterrestrial creatures.

The cinematography appears fresh, colorful, and very wacky as the script. Rick, one of the main characters in the series, has pale blue hair, a matching blue harmonious brow sailing lazily across his gray skin. The Mega Trees appear phallic and grow in a yellow submarine dimension where Morty and his grandfather visits through a swirling portal. The humor looks offbeat and often coarse (Vint 43). The scene also contains orange clouds, which differs from the Earth setting where Morty and his family resides.

The Mise-en-scene in the series depicts a formalism kind of film depending massively on special effects to create the various dimensions, with the editing of speeds to speed up or slow downtime. The lighting and sound generate a pronounced impact on the audience and breaks the illusion of reality. The mise-en-scene shows an artificial universe (Vint 43). The producer of the series saturated color to convey fantasies and idyllic scenes. Besides, the producer used a diegetic sound effect.

The editors of Rick and Morty combined various techniques like pace, rhyme, graphical matches, continuity, and transitions to create one of the most inventive and darkly humored late-night TV shows. Sound effects help in emphasizing the importance of gestures (Vint 43). The mood in the series involves both happy and antagonistic feelings depending on the character's relationships. The series entails a mixture of cynical and sunny and borders something like a dumb or nihilistic TV show.

Season One, Episode Two Analysis

'Lawnmower Dog' refers to the title of the second episode of season one of Rick and Morty (TV show). Rick provides Snuffles, the Smith's family dog, with an intelligent-improving helmet on request from Jerry. Rick and Morty, in an inception-esquire setting, get into the fantasy of Morty's educator, to compel him to give Morty an 'A' in a mathematics class (Vint 43). However, the duo finds themselves in a life-threatening scenario, where they have to enter fantasies within fantasies to escape continuously.

Finally, they get pursued by a dream personality called Scary Terry, a 'lawfully safe' imitation of Freddy Krueger. They successfully enter Scary Teddy's fantasy, where they challenge him against his bully educator. Scary Terry get convinced and offers to help Rick and Morty to realize their objective (Poltronieri 304). In the meantime, at home, Snuffles creates a mechanical suit and gathers a dog crew with the plan to conquer the Earth. On returning from their ventures, Rick and Morty get inside Snuffles' dreams, where Rick takes Morty to fall unconsciousness. The incident prompt...