James White, currently streaming on Netflix, announces its focus right away, in its title. Probably, prospective audiences might rightfully imagine, this will be a film about a guy called “James White”. There’s something vaguely old-fashioned about it, Victorian. Not even “The Sorrows of James White” or “The Continuing Adventures of James White.”
There are many ways to approach science-fiction narratives, but one of the best has always been to create a lived-in world, filled with strange events and logic that often go unremarked upon by the characters. That’s always been part of the charm of the original Star Wars trilogy, for instance – you didn’t need to know what, exactly, a “nerf herder” or a “gundark” is, or where Ord Mantell is located, to get the points being conveyed.