The Most Controversial Age Gaps In Sci-Fi
Despite what the "manosphere" tries to say, society is far more aware of the influence of age and power dynamics in relationships than it used to be. Sometimes to a disastrous point, as young fans who are less trained than ever to deal with media critically may overreact and miss the point of a piece of fiction. And then there are the people who believe that the existence of LGBTQ+ people is a danger to children. That is, of course, nonsense of a cruel and bigoted kind.
What's true, though, is that an older person can hold all kinds of sway over someone younger, from financial threats to abuse of power in a work or life situation. In fiction, an age gap romance or a relationship with imbalanced power dynamics can be used to explore important themes. Not all stories have aged well, though, and sometimes the behind-the-scenes tales are even worse. These are examples from science fiction that raise our eyebrows. Many of them are still beloved, and most are worth revisiting. We learn from discussion, and that's we're going to do.
Jurassic Park puts a Stone Age between Laura Dern and Sam Neill
Age isn't something we thought about when Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" stomped theaters back in 1993. We were too busy being reminded that Tyrannosaurs are frickin' sweet. It's not something Sam Neill and Laura Dern thought about either, until it was pointed out to them around the release of "Jurassic World Dominion" nearly 30 years later. Decades ago, large age gaps between leading men and their romantic partners were the norm. Just look at the James Bond franchise (but have a barf bag ready).
20 years is a big gap, though. Dern was only 23 when "Jurassic Park" began filming, while Neill was 43. That math is wild, and it's worse with current science in hand. Neurologists now know that the human brain is in an adolescent state until age 25, with all the impulse control and decision-making issues that implies. "Jurassic Park" was a safe shoot, because Spielberg is a director attuned to the needs of his cast and crew, and knows the best ways to work with young people. We can still look back and enjoy Ellie and Alan, knowing that the cast was okay. Today, however, we respectfully suggest that the single Dr. Grant hunt in his own epoch.
The Island explodes the years between Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson
Michael Bay isn't a tactful guy, as the bevy of shots of Megan Fox bent over a car in "Transformers" will prove to you. None of his films are put on this Earth for depth and nuance, and hey, y'know, he does know his way around a good explosion. 2005's "The Island" wants to trick you into believing it's a smart thriller about capitalism consuming our humanity. Mostly it's about beautiful people running around while looking concerned.
Those beauties are Ewan McGregor, 34 during filming, and Scarlett Johansson, 20. This isn't the most egregious casting moment in Johansson's life; that was her at 17 in "Lost in Translation," opposite the AARP-eligible Bill Murray. It's still noticeable, as Ewan already bears the weathered, stoic expression that makes him a treat to watch today while Scarlett is a perfect teacup. In defense of "The Island," there's something interesting to unpack about younger women being at a premium in its world of body-focused sci-fi horror. On the other hand, there's no way in hell Michael Bay thought of that when he put his cast into skintight bodysuits and started collecting boob and butt shots.
Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins have a Big problem
1988's "Big" is a modern fantasy charmer, a riff on the body swap trope that puts a wide-eyed child in an adult's body, all to learn that you have to enjoy your childhood while it lasts. It's a product of its time, and director Penny Marshall wasn't trying to create an "Oldboy" style horror out of a sweet-natured romance between Tom Hanks, acting as a believable 12 year old, and Elizabeth Perkins as a corporate executive. At the time, it was way more innocent than the teenage sex comedy "Weird Science."
Hanks, as the large adult child Josh, crashes into adult life, and there's only one moment where the budding relationship causes a cartoonish brake squeal in our heads. It's the scene in which Josh tries to tell Perkins' Susan that he's out of his depth, frightened, and pressured into adult behaviors. Susan dismisses his fears, an act that we now recognize as problematic even if Josh was an adult. Josh really is just a kid, though, and while Susan isn't cast in a predatory light, it's a scene that pops our eyebrows into our hairlines. As an executive, she also wields all the control in this power dynamic. It's no wonder that the climax sees Josh hauling for the beach, begging the wish machine to let him be a kid again.
Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford have their own Star Wars
Carrie Fisher was more than our favorite space princess. She was also a storyteller for the ages, writing down raucous tales of the industry in between punching up scripts for directors like Joe Dante ("The 'Burbs") and Steven Spielberg ("Hook"). Near the end of her life, she spilled the details on her life in space in "The Princess Diarist," and among those spicy deets was her time with Harrison Ford. He was a married, 33-year-old man during the filming of "A New Hope." She was only 19.
Worse, the tale of how their affair starts involves multiple older men taking advantage of the naïve young actress. According to Fisher, she'd gotten drunk at the behest of crew members at a birthday party for George Lucas, and Ford intervened before several of them could take her somewhere private. But this very special episode of "Law & Order: SVU" doesn't have a hero. His intervention lands them in his car, where a serious bout of necking leads to a full-on affair. As time goes on, Fisher struggles with Ford's emotional remoteness and intimidating behavior. You want a morally gray scoundrel in your magic space opera? Unfortunately, here he is.
Tom Cruise faces the Edge of Tomorrow instead of a senior citizen breakfast
The teacher-student romance trope is as old as recorded history, with instances going back to Ancient Greece. A comfy staple, it mostly only irritates in power fantasy stories where the younger student — usually male — surpasses their (female) mentor and then the mentor is turned into a depowered mascot. "Edge of Tomorrow" puts its own spin on this, with the good news being that Emily Blunt, as the Full Metal Rita Vrataski, maintains her competency throughout the film.
Tom Cruise, as Major Cage, is 20 years older than Blunt, and his lack of competency on the field at his full grown age of 50 makes Cage even more hilariously inept a student than perhaps Cruise intended. Vrataski babysits him through dozens of time loops, until the desperation of the movie's final act gets him hyper-competent enough to survive where she couldn't, and end the cycle of Mimic attacks. As power dynamics and imbalance go, this one is humorously bizarre, an upended series of mentor tropes that mostly happen because Cruise, annoyingly one of the best actors in the industry, refuses to let his age stop him from taking certain types of roles.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer highlights the issues with vampire romance
"Twilight" is easy pickings, so let's go after one of the biggest and most beloved pairings on TV. Surely that won't upset anyone. Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Spike (James Marsters) epitomize everything we love about the enemies-to-lovers trope. For those of us still trapped in the Buffyverse, Spike's Season 3 rant of "I may be love's b****, but at least I'm man enough to admit it" lives rent free in our heads every day. We're not going to stop loving this ship.
We're also not going to stop wincing at the 15-year age gap between Gellar and Marsters, much less Spike's century of age while Buffy's a literal teen. This amplifies the power dynamic of ageless vampires seducing young prey. It's also a taboo that makes vampires intriguing to read about, even though it'd be smart to stake them on sight if they existed in real life. Buffy and Spike make it work because Buffy, as young and occasionally naïve as she is, can hold her own against the forces of evil. It still suggests she can be moved against her own interests — Angelus gets to live because Buffy feels too much to end him, for example. To be fair, Spike's relationship with Buffy only grows more supportive and healthy as time goes on, even through break-ups and their lasting reunion in the comic book seasons.
Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo have a Hulk-sized problem in Age of Ultron
The relationship between Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) in "Avengers: Age of Ultron" gets weird for a lot of reasons. We're meant to assume it's been building quietly in the background, like a normal relationship. But these aren't normal people — they're Avengers. Not only is Johansson once again linked with an older man (she's 29 to Ruffalo's 46 this time out), but while Bruce is a chill dweeb who Nat can easily cope with, he's also bringing a hulking power imbalance to the table.
It's clear that the Hulk frightens Natasha more than Loki (Tom Hiddleston) does in "The Avengers," and while "Age of Ultron" opens with her having learned a few tricks to soothe the beast, that doesn't change what he's capable of. Add in that age difference and a life that's only been lived free for a decade or so, and the "we're monsters together" scene isn't the only thing that comes off poorly. Looking back, there's a lot of young, "powerful" girls hooking up with mature guys in director Joss Whedon's work, from the agency-less Dolls in "Dollhouse" to the headstrong teens of the Buffyverse. It's long past time he unpacked that baggage.
The X-Men's Jean Grey has loved Wolverine since she was a teen
For decades of comic book history, the love triangle between Scott Summers, Jean Grey, and the frequently amnesiac Logan, better known as Wolverine, has been a focus of debate. Summers and Grey are teen lovers when Logan enters the picture – sometimes classified as college kids, but always young. It takes time to piece hard numbers together, but Logan is definitely a grizzled adult when he enters the scene. The revelations of his solo "Origin" series in 2006 not only affirm that he's well over a hundred years old when he hits up Xavier's place, but that Jean is a replacement goldfish for Rose, his childhood love.
Even the worst "X-Men" movie, "Dark Phoenix," knew that portraying an age gap like this one, with the 23-year-old Sophie Turner representing a canonically college-aged Jean alongside the centenary Wolverine (Hugh Jackman was 51), was a questionable idea. The first filmed crack at this storyline in 2006's "X-Men: The Last Stand" made it a key part of the story, but Wolverine doesn't appear at all in "Phoenix." And that's just fine — the crucial relationship in the original Dark Phoenix comic saga is between Jean and Scott Summers, not Wolverine.
The Time Traveler's Wife has not aged well
Audrey Niffenegger's bestselling novel, "The Time Traveler's Wife," became a juggernaut for its romantic premise of a love that persists through shifting time. So much so that it earned both a movie and a TV adaptation, as well as more than a few slap fights over whether or not the almost-too-soulful story is science fiction. Overshadowing the fights is the fact that neither adaptation stuck the landing. The HBO Max series died on the vine and has since disappeared from the service, and the movie, respectfully, sucked.
It's also a story that's earned new skepticism over the years, from the quality of the novel itself (not our interest here) and in regards to several scenes where the temporally-troubled Henry encounters Clare as a child, knowing he loves her, and preparing her for that future. She's six at their first encounter (that's six years old, for horrified emphasis), a young teen at another, and they make love for the first time on her 18th birthday. Henry, my guy, we call that grooming. Let's also call it questionable that your "uncontrollable" time malady dropped you at her feet the very day she was, as the male grotesqueries of the internet like to say, street legal.
Harrison Ford does it again to Sean Young in Blade Runner
As she once discussed in detail for a profile in The Guardian, Sean Young's promising career took a number of unfair turns. She ostensibly became Britney Spears' memetically mocked predecessor in the 1980s, shunned for being "hard to work with," "eccentric," and accused of stalking by the then-41 James Woods (who, A: lost his lawsuit, and B: is known to hit on teens, as chronicled by People and other outlets). Young was 23 on the set of "Blade Runner," a volatile shoot under the fist of the persnickety Ridley Scott. Young didn't get along with co-star Harrison Ford, then 38, and it comes through during the infamous "romantic" scene in Deckard's (Ford) apartment that looks more like a date rape tutorial.
Young was a new actor, nervous, barely out of her teens, and today she's still blamed for two grown men's behavior on the set. Ford, fried by the slow shoot and Scott's combative nature with the crew, intimidated Young in just the way Carrie Fisher described in "The Princess Diarist," discussed earlier. Scott, a veteran director in his 40s, had full power over the set. He remains one of the figures to blame for Young's tough times in Hollywood ever since. Try telling that to film fans, who always find it easier to mock her despite debunked rumors and the failures of the adults in charge.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).