Images in Color and Shades of Grey

If you subscribe to the Criterion Channel, there are couple of interesting SF bits that might be worth checking out.

Johnny Mnemonic: in Black and White is, well, what it says on the tin, the 2021 release in black and white, where the director attempts dial to back the studio’s late interference to rework the film into a “summer blockbuster” , and return to his original goal of doing of a speculative noir inspired by Alphaville.

The new presentation does, to my mind, change the tone of the work, and also elevates the mid-90s special effects to something more abstract. The film still descends into a slog of not-very inspired action scenes after the grand “I want room service” monologue, but if you haven’t seen the flick, or seen it recently, it may be worth checking out in this format.

Speaking of blasts from the past, Criterion also has recently restored versions of Georges Méliès’ films, included the hand-colored version of 1902’s A Trip to the Moon. If you’ve only been aware of the film, vaguely, say as black and white illustration in an article of the history of SF films, it is worth an investment of 12 minutes of time.



It was neat to see the ways in which art from the 1920s was like and unlike what we later think of as science fiction. It was interesting to see “technology” represented as people hammering on blacksmith anvils to create the space craft, just as it was cool to see the film maker imagine “earth rise” as a set-piece moment, decades before the Apollo program.