Science Fiction has permeated popular culture in its long history. In certain cases, it inserts itself into other genres: with strong roots in horror. This essay will bridge that gap once again—as an exploration of Space Operas, Reanimation, Cyborgs v.s. Androids, tabula rasa, SF Tropes, and Time; concerning Jason Voorhees and the plot, ideas, and visuals of Jason X.
Jason X is a 2001 Horror movie installation in the Friday the 13th series centered around supernatural, serial-killer Jason Voorhees. Directed by Jim Isaac, it is the tenth movie in the franchise following Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and followed by Freddy v.s. Jason. It begins in the year 2010 after a 2 year manhunt; the U.S. government has finally captured Jason Voorhees and are holding him in their base known as the Crystal Lake Research Facility (self-referencing Camp Crystal Lake , where Jason Voorhees became Jason). Rowan LaFontaine, a government scientist, believes that Jason Voorhees should be frozen into a “cryogenic stasis” where he would live but be unable to move. Dr. Wimmer and Sergeant Marcus think otherwise—and hope to study Jason for rapid cellular regeneration present in his body and contain him in a temporary holding. Expectedly, Jason is able to break free from his restraints and hunts down Marcus, Wimmer, and the henchmen–eventually killing them all. LaFontaine is then hunted by Jason, where she is able to chase him into the cryogenic pod. She manages to commence the cryogenic liquid dispense action, but Jason stabs through the chamber into LaFontaine. Cryogenic liquid spills into the room, freezing Jason and LaFontaine together in a cryo-stasis.
A group of students and their professor, Brandon Lowe, visit Earth 445 years after the accident. Earth is now a deserted planet and humans live on Earth II. They enter the deserted Crystal Lake Research Facility and find Jason and LaFontaine frozen in cryo-stasis. The professor and the students bring LaFontaine and Jason’s body onboard Lowe’s research spaceship, to revitalise LaFontaine and dissect the supposedly dead Jason. While using nanite technology to thaw LaFontaine and bring her to life, they begin to dissect Jason in the laboratory next door, ignorant of his deadly abilities. Once LaFontaine is revivatilised, Jason slowly reawakens next door. LaFontaine quickly realizes that the personnel aboard the spaceship underestimate Jason and begins to plan their escape. Jason begins to kill the students one by one. Tsunaron, one of Lowe’s students, upgrades KM-14, the humanoid android, into a weapon to kill Jason. KM-14 manages to subdue Jason and overpowers him by blasting part of his head off and knocking him into a medical station area of the ship; but the medical station rebuilds Jason turning him into a cyborg, where he easily punches KM-14’s head off. Tsunaron then creates an artificial holograph of Crystal Lake Camp by using KM-14’s head processor to temporarily distract Jason; but he quickly diffuses the mirage. Tsunaron, Rowan, and KM-14 manage to contain him and escape into an emergency pod ejecting themselves into Earth II’s atmosphere. Brodski, one of the soldiers, manages to distract Jason. The ship self-destructs, propelling them towards Earth II. Brodski and Jason’s corpse disintegrate into Earth II’s atmosphere.
Jason X offers a speculative new frontier for the horror genre using Science Fiction tropes and principles to create a Science Fiction movie. SF’s history has existed before it was called Science Fiction as is evident in horror. This can be seen through Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley’s 1823 novel about an alchemic scientist who works tirelessly to animate a creature that ravages north-western Europe in search of self-meaning. The creator, Victor Frankenstein, begins a quest to kill the Creature after it kills his whole family. There is a prometheus-like connection between the Creature and Jason. In Friday the 13th: Part VI: Jason Lives, Jason is resurrected via lightning rod; symbolic of the Frankenstein trope where the Creature was animated through electricity. In Über Jason’s (cyborg Jason) case, instead of given life, he is given a nanite supersuit which turns him into the ultimate killer (i.e. The greatest power is the gift of technology, J.G. Ballard said “Technology defines the conventions by which we view the world”(Vale)). In the Creature’s case, he is given life through technology. Both, the Creature and Über Jason, reference the power of the metaphorical fire that Prometheus gave the humans. In the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, androids have reached a level of consciousness that parallels humans. They possess empathy, nostalgia, and advanced human emotions. John Locke theorised “the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? […] To this I answer, in one word, from experience; in all that our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself” (Locke). He uses the idea of tabula rasa, which combines the androids of Blade Runner, the Creature of Frankenstein, and Jason Voorhees. Jason Voorhees is essentially androidic in nature such as the Creature is; and combined with his cyborgian personality Über Jason, create a Science Fiction villain that plays on the human fear of the mind’s inability to decipher the unknown: we ultimately can’t control consciousness even if we create the “blank slate” for it to be given unto.
“Space Operas” are a long-standing tradition of Science Fiction: from Buck Rogers to Star Wars and The Fifth Element to Dune. The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction says “by analogy to soap opera and horse opera Science Fiction with an interplanetary or galaxy-wide setting, especially one making use of stock characters and situations; a work of this type” (Prucher). To maintain “space-opera” status, the movie employs specific Science fiction tropes which I have listed here (the movie even contains 800 special effect shots(Thurman)):
- Cryogenesis and Cryogenic pods
- Spaceships and the spaceship’s ability to land on the harsh planet Earth
- Earth II existence; human life on another planet
- Advanced Androids (e.g. KM-14)
- Very strong Anaesthetic drugs
- Nanite Technology in rapid cellular regeneration
- Virtual Reality Video Game
- Virtual Reality Holographic Presentation
- Advanced Weapons
- Advanced Armor
- Advanced Terrariums
What furthers its authenticity as a “Space Opera” is the movie’s willingness to present Science Fiction Tropes explicitly. They consistently break Joseph Campbell Jr’s fourth rule of good SF: “No scientific facts may be violated without reasonable explanation”(Ellis, Lecture 8). The conditions of the universe are simply given to us through a Friday the 13th installation such that the universe can only exist around Jason Voorhees—more specifically, in the future. By solely presenting the movie in the future, the writers can toy around with the cyberpunk pastiche aspects of science fiction; present in the list above. By being self-gratuitous in its use of “Sci Fi”, Jason X offers its audience something different from other classic science fiction horrors like Alien, the 1979 movie directed by Ridley Scott. It doesn’t stand alone and works itself into the whole universe of Friday the 13th.
Below is a narrative framework to highlight Jason X and its existence within the Friday the 13th universe. Jason X can only exist within the context of the whole Friday series:
Jason X works in its own multiverse. By adding itself to its own tradition of movies through “time” (year 2455), makes it solely science fiction. Much like “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells, a multiverse can only exist through time itself: Jason is the living (or dying) example of this. The conditions of its previous universe exist for 9 movies. The larger multiverse where Jason exists in is an example of science fiction.Â
Jason X makes a great example of science fiction and horror interplaying, besides being a slasher. The way it quickly glazes over its own science is representative of what it is: a space opera set in Jason Voorhees’ world.
Works Cited
Jason X. Directed by Jim Isaac. Crystal Lake Entertainment; Friday X Productions, 2002.
Friday the 13th: Part VI: Jason Lives. Directed by Tom McLoughlin. Terror, Inc. 1986
Cairns, Bryan. “An Interview with Jason X Writer Todd Farmer.” IGN, IGN, 20 May 2012, www.ign.com/articles/2002/04/23/an-interview-with-jason-x-writer-todd-farmer.
Magerstädt, Sylvie. “Love Thy Extra-Terrestrial Neighbour: Charity and Compassion in Luc Besson’s Space Operas The Fifth Element (1997) and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017).” Religions 9.10 (2018): 292. Crossref. Web.
Vale, V and Ryan, Mike. J.G. Ballard Quotes. RE/Search Publications, 2004.
Locke, John. The Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes, (London: Rivington, 1824 12th ed.). Vol. 1.
Prucher, Jeff. Brave New Words: Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. Oxford University Press, 2009.
Thurman, Trace. “This Doesn’t Suck on So Many Levels: A Look Back at ‘Jason X’.” Bloody Disgusting!, 26 Apr. 2017, bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3433796/doesnt-suck-look-back-jason-x/.
Ellis, Jason. “Lecture 8”. Online Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R1_pHUL_6g
