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Warp wrote:
> Out of curiosity: Do you consider Terminator and Terminator 2 to be SF?
I would say so. The idea that a humanoid robot comes back in time is pretty
central to the story, and it's about her reaction to being chased, having to
grow up to defend herself, etc.
About the closest you could really come would be a story about a guy who
invents medieval armor or something the first time, and I'd class *that* as
SF too, even if it's set in the past.
> Do you consider them to be good SF?
I enjoyed them, yes. :-) It was also sufficiently believable that I didn't
say "Oh come on." At least, not too often.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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On 10/13/2009 2:06 PM, Darren New wrote:
> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/10/why_i_hate_star_trek.html
>
>
> This pretty much says why I consider science fiction to only be that
> where you couldn't write the story without the technology. Could Star
> Trek be written as a western or a Spanish Armada kind of story? Yes.
> Could Ringworld? Not hardly.
>
> If you can still tell the story without the technology, it's not SF.
> Oddly enough, most of the original Star Trek series that people liked
> the best (say, the one with the Horta) were ones where you couldn't take
> out the tech and tell the same story.
I'm OK with Star Trek on TV and in the movies (OK, maybe not so much in
the last ten years or so...). I'm a lot less tolerant of sub par science
fiction novels.
Mike
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On 10/13/09 20:50, SharkD wrote:
> I'm OK with Star Trek on TV and in the movies (OK, maybe not so much in
> the last ten years or so...). I'm a lot less tolerant of sub par science
> fiction novels.
I haven't read that much SF. Read most of Clarke's and Asimov's works,
but then just a smattering here and there.
My experience is that the novels are *much* more "valid" SF than
typical movies and SF TV series. To give you an idea, go search for my
posts regarding District 9 and why it's poor SF (although still a good
movie).
--
AAAAA - American Association Against Acronym Abuse
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SharkD <mik### [at] gmail com> wrote:
> I'm OK with Star Trek on TV and in the movies (OK, maybe not so much in
> the last ten years or so...). I'm a lot less tolerant of sub par science
> fiction novels.
BTW, just yesterday I saw on TV a fun movie called "Galaxy Quest" with Tim
Allen, Sigorney Weaver. It parodies and criticizes heavily Star Trek. Very
good, specially the implicit mock on juvenile fans as the naive squid aliens...
I'd say it's one of the best scifi parody movie ever, along with Men in Black
and Spaceballs...
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/10/why_i_hate_star_trek.html
>
> This pretty much says why I consider science fiction to only be that where
> you couldn't write the story without the technology. Could Star Trek be
> written as a western or a Spanish Armada kind of story? Yes. Could
> Ringworld? Not hardly.
>
> If you can still tell the story without the technology, it's not SF. Oddly
> enough, most of the original Star Trek series that people liked the best
> (say, the one with the Horta) were ones where you couldn't take out the tech
> and tell the same story.
While I agree in principle, I think there is too much variation in what is
considered 'proper' SF. I personally would classify Niven & co's "Lucifer's
Hammer" as SF, even though there is absolutely no science or tech extrapolation.
Likewise, Harris' "Fatherland", or McCauley's "Pasquale's Angel". These latter
are both extrapolations of a real society given a single small difference in
recorded history, again without any novel tech or science.
I'm sure you could say that these belong in a different genre, given that the
'science' in SF explicitly demands there to be some scientific whatifs. But I
think the speculation and extrapolation central to SF is the same process
regardless of what one is extending. I think the genre was named poorly, and
perhaps 'speculative fiction' is more apt (as someone else suggesed) - it just
so happened that science was the big society-changing thing in the genre's early
days.
As an aside, although I agree that much of star trek is indeed a soap opera that
could take place anywhere and anywhen, there are some genuine SF stories in
there. The same goes for Doctor Who. And personally I found a large proportion
of B5 to be good, if not original, SF.
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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message
news:4ad4c199$1@news.povray.org...
>
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/10/why_i_hate_star_trek.html
>
> This pretty much says why I consider science fiction to only be that where
> you couldn't write the story without the technology. Could Star Trek be
> written as a western or a Spanish Armada kind of story? Yes. Could
> Ringworld? Not hardly.
>
> If you can still tell the story without the technology, it's not SF. Oddly
> enough, most of the original Star Trek series that people liked the best
> (say, the one with the Horta) were ones where you couldn't take out the
tech
> and tell the same story.
Sci-fi is inherently a very difficult genre to work with, since there are
several conflicting goals to simultaenously satisfy, and good and
half-original ideas are exceedingly rare. Entire Star Trek soap opera
franchise has maybe one hour's worth of sci-fi. For that matter, Asimov had
maximum of half a dozen good ideas in his lifetime. Commercial reality
necessitates fluffing it up, but variations on delivery and formula scripts
can only go so far before it becomes a waste of reel or paper.
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > Do you consider them to be good SF?
> I enjoyed them, yes. :-) It was also sufficiently believable that I didn't
> say "Oh come on." At least, not too often.
I liked how T2 succeeded at points to be quite philosophical (in a very
scifi'ish manner), but without sounding cheesy.
"Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The
terminator wouldn't stop, it would never leave him. It would never
hurt him or shout at him or get drunk and hit him or say it was too
busy to spend time with him. And it would die to protect him. Of all
the would-be fathers that came over the years, this thing, this
machine, was the only thing that measured up. In an insane world, it
was the sanest choice."
(I think that's one point which would be hard to express in a non-scifi
story.)
--
- Warp
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nemesis wrote:
> I'd say it's one of the best scifi parody movie ever, along with Men in Black
> and Spaceballs...
And it's deep and philosophical, wonderfully acted, and with characters who
are stereotyped without being unbelievable.
One of the very few movies I've seen twice in the theatre. (Joe vs the
Volcano being the other that springs to mind.)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> While I agree in principle, I think there is too much variation in what is
> considered 'proper' SF.
Sure. But they're all WRONG!
> I personally would classify Niven & co's "Lucifer's
> Hammer" as SF, even though there is absolutely no science or tech extrapolation.
> Likewise, Harris' "Fatherland", or McCauley's "Pasquale's Angel". These latter
> are both extrapolations of a real society given a single small difference in
> recorded history, again without any novel tech or science.
I'm happy calling such "speculative fiction" without calling it "science
fiction." I don't call Harry Potter "science fiction" either even tho it's
speculative and couldn't tell *quite* the same story without the magic. (At
least in some of the novels.)
> As an aside, although I agree that much of star trek is indeed a soap opera that
> could take place anywhere and anywhen, there are some genuine SF stories in
> there. The same goes for Doctor Who. And personally I found a large proportion
> of B5 to be good, if not original, SF.
Yup. Star Gate would be hard to tell without the science, for example. (By
which I mean the original movie.)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I don't call Harry Potter "science fiction" either even tho it's
> speculative and couldn't tell *quite* the same story without the magic.
I thought Harry Potter falls into the genre of fantasy, not the genre of
science fiction.
--
- Warp
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