Robert Zemeckis' Saturn-Uranus square

Robert Zemeckis loves technology. His films feature technological themes, or his films have used state-of-the-art special effects. Uranus rules innovative technology, the sky (airplanes), outer space, electricity, disruption of the status quo, the rebel and revolutionary, progress. In his chart, Uranus is in a 90-degree aspect (square) with Saturn. Saturn rules the process of crystallization of whatever planet it aspects; structure, authority, the past, the father, time, old age, restriction, obstruction. It also adds a negative light to whatever it touches.

In a square, there is a lot of tension, a sense that the archetype of innovation and technology works at cross-purposes with the archetype of structure and authority. This square translates into the difficulty and hard work of making innovative technologies real; the negative use of technology; bad accidents; the destruction of structures by revolutionaries and radicals.

Back to the Future

Back to the Future reflects this Saturn-Uranus aspect in numerous ways:

• Marty McFly experiences his father [SA] as unconventional/different: a geek who writes science fiction [UR]
• the contrast between the old (1955) [SA] and new (1985) [UR]
• disruption [UR] of the past [SA] alters the present--his father, who in the first present was subordinate to Biff, is in the altered present a confident man who is "above" Biff
• Doc as the eccentric scientist [UR] who through 30 years of hard work [SA] crystallizes his innovative idea of the flux capacitor [UR] into a working machine.
• When Marty McFly plays a Van Halen-esque electric guitar solo to fifties era teenager, he experiences resistance [SA] to the innovations in music that will come. [UR]
• The key to returning the time machine "back to the future" without plutonium is harvesting the power of the lightning bolt [UR] that hits the clock tower [SA]. At the climax of the movie, the image of Doc climbing the clock tower to attach two cables together perfectly captures the interplay of these two archetypes. Lightning, which is inherently unpredictable [UR], is now predictable through McFly's gift of hindsight [experience=SA]. The clock tower, which a woman at the beginning of the movie wants to preserve, symbolizes the slow passage of time [SA].

Contact

In Contact, Ellie Harroway receives a transmission from extra-terrestrials, and figures out, the brilliant scientist [UR] that she is, that "they" want her to build a machine to contact them. Contrast this insight with Michael Kitz (James Woods), a senator (?) who obstructs her every step of the way, fearing that "they" want humans to build a machine to destroy the human race [SA]. Harroway's benefactor is S.R. Hadden (John Hurt), an eccentric who literally lives in the sky [UR]. Like in Back to the Future, there is a disruption in time, in which Harroway experiences 18 hours of experience in "the ball," whereas everyone who observes the ball drop sees nothing happen--no time has passed.
The bad accident in this movie is of course the suicide bombing of the machine by a religious zealout.

Castaway

Richard Tarnas associates Uranus with the Prometheus archetype. Prometheus stole fire from the gods. It is interesting that even though most of Castaway is bereft of technology--because Tom Hanks is stranded on a desert island--he creates fire from scratch through hard work (Saturn) and ingenuity (Uranus). And of course, the bad accident is an airplane [UR] crash [SA].

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

The negative [SA] side of Uranus is that which plows on with technological progress despite the effect it has on nature and indigenous peoples. In this film, Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) plans to destroy Toon Town in order to build a highway.

Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump is Saturn: consistent, unchanging, conservative, slow. Saturn also is the significator of Presidents, many of which he met. His best friend Jinny is Uranus: countercultural, unstable. Contrast obedience to the military with the Berkeley war protesters during Vietnam.

Making Movies

One can see the dynamics of Zemeckis's Saturn-Uranus square crystallizing in the process of making the movies, as well as the content of the movies themselves. He has used cutting-edge technologies in making his films, from the combination of 2-D animation with living actors in Roger Rabbit, to computer animation in Death Becomes Her, to the creation of life-like computer-animated people in Polar Express. Of course, the latter two films were panned by several critics. In the latter case, the characters felt cold and lifeless [SA] despite the numerous reflective dots affixed to Tom Hanks' face.

What accounts for the prevalence of this archetypal combination in Zemeckis' films? Neither Saturn nor Uranus are personal planets. Without an exact birth time, one cannot know if either of them sit on an angle. However, Zemeckis' Sun is exactly sesquiquadrate (145 degrees) Saturn, and semi-square (45 degrees) Uranus with a three-degree orb. This Saturn-Uranus square involves his creative self-expression (Sun); due to the "hard angle" nature of the sesquiquadrate and semi-square, much tension is generated, which he feels driven to discharge through creatively expressing the dialogue between the principles of innovation and resistance.

[This entry was revised 1/1/05.]

Birth Time: 5/14/1952 Chicago, IL Source: IMDB.com