Abstract
This is the only academic journal article devoted to the historical, stylistic and aesthetic understanding of the musical scoring of science fiction film. It combines a general overview of the repertoire with several specific case studies, in order to identify a number of hitherto uncharted creative issues and problems that characterize and beset the genre. Using science fiction film as a model which by nature combines the 'progressive' with the 'reactionary', the article also offers a diagnosis of the wider cultural issue of the sometimes spurious claims of postmodernism.