in the Star Trek film series. The year 1979 also saw Walt Disney Productions' venture into the science fiction genre with The Black Hole, which was poorly received but praised highly for its special effects. 1980s Following the huge success of Star Wars, science fiction became bankable again and each major studio rushed into production their available projects. As a direct result, the Star Trek Television series was reborn as a film franchise that continued through the 1980s and 1990s. Thanks to the Star Wars 1977 and Star Trek 1979 franchises, escapism became the dominant form of science fiction film through the 1980s. The big budget adaptations of Frank Herbert's Dune 1984 and Arthur C. Clarke's sequel to 2001, 2010 in 1984, were box office duds that dissuaded producers from investing in science fiction literary properties. Ridley Scott's Alien 1979 was significant in establishing a new visual styling of the future. Far from presenting a sleek, ordered universe, this alternative presented the future as dark, dirty and chaotic. Building on earlier films such as "Mad Max" 1979 this Dystopian vision became prevalent in many science fiction films and novels of the period. These included "The Black Hole" 1979, "Saturn 3" 1980, "Outland" 1981, "2010" 1984, "Enemy Mine" 1985, "Aliens (film)" 1986 through its sequels, and Scott's Blade Runner 1982. The strongest contributors to the genre during the second half of the decade were James Cameron and Paul Verhoeven with The Terminator 1984 and RoboCop 1987 entries. Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982 became one of the most successful films of the 1980s. An influential film release was Scanners (1981), a film that would be imitated several times over the next two decades. From 1980, the distinction between science fiction, fantasy, and superhero films blurred, thanks in large part to the influence of Star Wars 1977. From 1980 on, every year saw at least one major science fiction or fantasy film, which critics disparaged and were ignored on Oscar night, except in the technical categories. Disney's 1982 film Tron had a unique visual style, being one of the first major studio films to use extensive computer graphics. The 1980s and later saw the growth of animation as a medium for science fiction films. This was particularly successful in Japan where the anime industry produced Akira (1988) and Ghost in the Shell (1995). Serious animation has not yet proven commercially successful in