Ridley Scott is an accomplished film-maker – a man who has managed to transfer a practically obsessive desire for visual verisimilitude and a god-complex into commercially stellar and critically respected career. In terms of his films the brilliant claustrophobia of Alien, the enduring beauty of Blade Runner and the fantastic scale of Gladiator all stand out as movies anyone would be proud to have on their CV. Add to that Thelma and Louise and the most convincing portrayal of modern warfare yet to grace celluloid in Black Hawk Down (while not ignoring the problematic elements of that film) and it’s a history that can encompass the occasional stumble (Black Rain, Kingdom of Heaven, A Good Year) without losing any of its gloss.

What do we make of it, then, when the man responsible for two of the greatest genre films of all time argues that sf as a film genre is so tired and unoriginal that it may be going the way of the Western in today’s The Times.

Well, first I’d be a dull pedant and point out that the Western isn’t dead and that the last few years have seen a small but significant revival in oat operas with a number of significant new additions to the tradition – even as I write the rather good Seraphim Falls is in cinemas and 3:10 to Yuma will be released in a week or two, and films like Three Burials For Melquiades Estrada, The Proposition and even Costner’s traditionalist Open Range (all released in the last five years) show there’s still life in that old dog (or horse).

I’d also look at the piece and wonder how anyone can say of modern sf films: “There is an overreliance on special effects as well as weak storylines,” and then go on to praise 2001: A Space Odyssey (a film that almost entirely relies on the visual impact of its effects for its affect) as “the best of the best”.

Of course, as he troops through the no doubt hellish repetitiveness of the press junkets that surround the Vienna film festival while promoting the launch of a new cut (restored and remastered, buffed up and extended) of Blade Runner – the film that will surely outlast whatever else he does – it is possible that Scott’s famous grouchiness combined with a journalist’s desperation for a story turned throw-away remarks into something more obdurate than was intended.

But let’s take Scott (and the reporter) at face value and assume that when he says of modern sf:  “There’s nothing original. We’ve seen it all before. Been there. Done it,” that he means what he says. We’ve no way of knowing whether the films that the report then lists (The Matrix, Independence Day, War of the Worlds) were actually then named by Scott as examples of movies that sell tickets but contain no new ideas – they are attributed only by implication – but is he right? Have we run out of new futures in cinema?

When I think of excellent US media sf these days, my thoughts first go to television – shows like BSG, Heroes, Lost, Firefly even back to Buffy – as shows that have really significantly shaken up what genre productions can be. When I think of American sf movies of the last five years or so the ones that stick out in my mind as really worthwhile – Donnie Darko, Primer, Children of Men, V for Vendetta, The Prestige, A Scanner Darkly, The Fountain, Slither, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,  – none operate in the Ridley Scott “blockbuster” arena. Of the huge budget, huge box-office genre movies in that period most have been superhero movies – the only really traditional sf (spaceships, the future, maybe aliens etc) blockbusters worth mentioning in that period have been Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (which I think stands up rather well) and Serenity (and Serenity was actually rather modestly budgeted).

At the same time there’ve been a string of strong non-US sf films that I’ve enjoyed and that have offered more than rehashes of the same-old-same-old: Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2, Paprika, Steamboy, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Renaissance, Cypher.

That’s a pretty strong line-up of films – and certainly not a list that’s short on ideas or different visions of the future.

Of course Scott’s not totally wrong. The same period has seen the main Hollywood studios invest in a long line of “blockbuster” movies that have terminally failed to deliver in terms of entertainment or to offer anything approaching a new idea. For me the list that includes: Rollerball, The Time Machine, The Core, Paycheck, Timeline, Terminator 3, Alien Vs Predator, The Day After Tomorrow, I, Robot, Thunderbirds, The Stepford Wives, Aeon Flux, Hitchhikers GTTG, The Island, King Kong, Stealth, War of the Worlds and Superman Returns is undeniably pretty damning. Some of these films can be enjoyed on a visceral level – like this summer’s Transformers – because of their technical excellence, but none offer anything more.

Of all the big studio, big budget productions I’ve watched in this period only Spielberg’s Minority Report – flawed though it undoubtedly is – withstands repeat viewing as a piece of science fiction, although again rather like 2001, its greatest strength is its visualisation of the future.

Perhaps Hollywood has lost the knack of producing really great science fiction, but then one might argue that the best sf movies have always tended to come from the fringes of the studio system or had to battle against remorseless meddling by studio executives to see their vision realised. Take the story of the production of Scott’s own Blade Runner or Gilliam’s Brazil – the production of both was interfered with and the final versions butchered by studios nervous and unable to understand the material presented to them.

Science fiction cinema, at least in the form produced by Hollywood, seems to work best when it is allowed to be produced as middle-budget fare where studios don’t feel the need to interfere. Most of the great films of the fifties were churned out at low budgets to fill a market the studios didn’t take seriously. One might make an argument that all the best sf on film has been made as B-movies or low-budget independent productions that never had to deal with the kind of interference or expectations that accompany huge budgets and studio “tent-pole” ambitions.

 Looking forward, there’s no sign that the big studio offerings are going to get significantly better. There’s a thin scattering of big studio sf movies until the end of the year and none of the list – I Am Legend, Alien Vs Predator 2, The Day the Earth Stood Still – inspire any kind of confidence and I just can’t get excited by fantasy offering Stardust and The Golden Compass though I’ll concede these look to be the best of the big-budget bunch. It remains the smaller or riskier productions – Doomsday, The Nines, Southland Tales – that I continue to look at with hope for entertainment and more.