


Those pure in heart see me making a visual argument of Shakespeare in science fiction. Those of perverted minds see a reason why I should burn in hell.
The talents that a Shakespearean actor can provide to a science fiction role can be an essential when dealing with an esoteric material that is science fiction. In some respects, the dialogue of science fiction often operates on the realm of Shakespeare, where an actor must be very successful at conveying emotion to help the modern day audiences understand what is going on.
The olde English that occupies most of Shakespeare becomes replaced with technobabble and the names of bizarre inpronounceable worlds and alien races, and conveying information through emotion may be hard for some of hack actors that occupy space in Hollywood. No, I didn't use photoshop for this
Another aspect to consider is the role that genre film plays in Shakespeare's home, England. In Orson Scott Card's book How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Card describes the history of science fiction in its early stages. Card describes the categorization of the genre saying that while early American science fiction was seen as inferior to say, the works of Mark Twain, British publishers did not make any distinctions in regards to seeing science fiction as inferior.
The works of H.G. Wells were seen as equivalent in quality to the non sci-fi based works at the time. Even acclaimed authors like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote novels such as "The Lost World" (however, Doyle was often mocked for his belief in fairies that later turned out to be a hoax) and many plays were based around the works of Dracula and Frankenstein which were popular at the time.
The British need for science fiction and fantasy was essential to the political climate England was experiencing in the pre WWI era where thoughts of war and invasion run rampant. Alternative history and invasion literature where England fights fictitious battles and wars with neighboring empires played on the fears on the community at large.
The same concepts were played to an extent in H.G. Wells's "War of the Worlds" and similar allegories of invasion in fear were repeated in America at the height of the Cold War with Invasion of the Body Snatchers and stories of Atomic Monsters and UFOs attacking Washington.
Perhaps the impact that Shakespeare has on science fiction has less to do with Shakespeare and more due to with England. Today the practice of British writers taking what we Yanks see as "inferior genres" and making them worthwile is experienced in the writings of Alan Moore and Mark Millar.
But Superman and the Max Fleischer cartoons that followed were our idea, so points for us.
Besides, Shakespeare himself was a genre writer. The story of a gifted individual that falls to corruption on the promise of supernatural power is the story of Macbeth (which Orson Welles would later give a Voodoo flavor to) but it's also the story of the Star Wars prequels and the rise of Anakin Skywalker and many politicians who thought they were God.
Then again, I doubt that Shakespeare would churn out a couple sequels for a buck, but he stole his best stuff from the Greeks so you can never know.