4c17a43c$1@news.povray.org...
> Gilles Tran wrote:
>> The problem with that definition is that is probably excludes most of 
>> what has been produced, sold and accepted by the public under that name,
>
> Sadly true.

Really I don't feel that sad at all. As a literary genre, what makes SF 
special is that it does not have the formal constraints of other genres when 
it comes to describe a particular universe, though it can freely borrow 
tropes from other genres. At its best, it's a playground for ideas and 
concepts that cannot be expressed in other normal settings. For instance, 
Dick's SF is mostly about what defines reality and our perception of it. 
People use spaceships in his novels but that's ancillary: SF was just the 
best vessel for what he had to tell. Ditto for Bradbury (who doesn't like to 
be called a science fiction writer) and a whole lot of major SF authors. 
Science are just one of the topics that SF can talk about. Most SF is using 
handwavium and unobtainium because it's usually about something else, and 
more than often that something is related to the issues of the time.

>> "A clockwork orange" is one of the most powerful and influential SF movie 
>> ever, except that there's 0 science in it.
> I've never heard that called science fiction.  Is 1984 also considered to 
> be science fiction?

It's right there in Wikipedia in any case, filed both under "social SF" or 
"dystopian  SF". Of course everybody knew in 1948 that 1984 was all about 
communism and fascism so it's better known as a political work.

> In the book there is, certainly. You can't tell the story of 2001 without 
> aliens setting up a monolith.

True, but lots of the sci-fi thingies described in the novel, like the alien 
Grand Central Station and the atomic bomb at the end, were left out of the 
movie for a good reason: this made the movie more puzzling, ambiguous and 
intellectually stimulating than the novel ever was.

G.

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"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> writes:

> "Neeum Zawan" <fee### [at] festercom> wrote in message
> news:87w### [at] festercom...
>> "somebody" <x### [at] ycom> writes:
>
>> > Are you suggesting that a company supplying clean, practically limitless
>> > energy to the whole world cannot afford a couple of manned moon launches
> per
>> > year? I did not realize the energy business was so hard to make a buck
> in.
>> > Maybe we should start a donation fund to help our poor oil companies...
>
>> Who said they can't afford it?
>
> If it's not a monetary decision, what then?

I didn't say I knew. Nor do I see the relevance. It's not really a major
aspect of the plot. 

Sure, if you make unneeded assumptions, the movie will indeed seem
stupid.

>> Well, let's see. You start off a thread complaining about a science
>> fiction movie, and then you insist on rules that follow a subset of
>> today's businesses.
>>
>> Who's being uncreative here?
>
> Today's business rules, human and corporate behaviour evolved for a reason.

Yes, because business rules the world over are uniform, right?

> They will surely keep evolving. However, fundamentals don't change.
> Operating with utmost safety in mission critical applications is not ever
> going to go out of fashion. Sci-fi is not to be a genre where anything goes,

Eh? It's rarely been /in/ fashion. Both in recent history and long term
history. People have been disposable in the past. I fail to see any
fundamental reason for that not happening again.

>> >> Why assume that it is unethical?
>
>> > Because to assume otherwise (ie. clones engineered to die after 3 years
> is
>> > perfectly acceptable) goes against everything we know and believe. Plus,
> to
>
>> "We"?
>
> Yes. I posit that 99.9% of surveyed would say that that's not ethical, and
> that warrants the generalization of "we".

I'm sure 99.9% of people surveyed will say lots of things are
unethical. Yet, when the opportunity arises, that number drops. Or
rather, they claim an exception. 

Torture, any one?

After all, are clones really people? 

>> > assume otherwise invalidates the point of the movie: If it's perfectly
>> > acceptable to do that, the movie becomes pointless and devoid of
> conflict
>> > for the audience.
>
>> So, there's little that goes on that is "unacceptable" in our world?
>
> No. But I'm pretty certain that, say, MS does not kill off its programmers
> who are past their prime productivity to avoid costs. In fact, give me one

1. MS not doing so is fairly irrelevant.

2. Killing the clones may in fact be quite humane, given that they're in
poor health at that point. 

> example of a company that actually did that at any point. If it's not

Lots of enterprises in history have cut off people when they're no
longer useful. Perhaps you should read up on Spanish history.

>> > If anything, the clones would function better if "HAL"
>> > stuck to the official company line. Also, it can be argued that even an
>
>> I take it you're an expert on clones?
>
> At least as much as the makers of that movie.

Let's see. You're positing a theory on what's good for clones. They are
not. Your theory is inconsistent with how the clones behave. Who shall I
ignore?

>> > Asimovian robot would lie in that situation to maximize the happiness of
> the
>> > poor soul before his inevitable death.
>
>> I don't recall: Did they say anywhere in the movie that it has to follow
>> the three laws of robotics?
>
> You were the one who suggested clones might function better with such caring
> robots.

Yes. I fail to see what's so Asimovian about my statement.

>> > Huh?
>
>> Your assumption that they were trying to rip off much from other
>> movies.
>
> It's an observation, and a very trivial one. I know you like being contrary,
> but surely even you are not going to argue that the robot (among many other
> things) is not a direct rip off from 2001? And I am sure opening the scene
> with an astronaut on a threadmill was also a coincidence.... etc

Frankly, I'm beginning to doubt that you've read much SF.

>> Yes, and it takes a wise person to know when not to analyze if there
>> isn't sufficient information.
>
> It's a movie. It's self contained. And it's sufficient information. If I'm

Movies are self contained? 

I'm beginning to understand why we're not seeing eye to eye. You view a
movie as a fundamentally different concept than I. The same is also true
for your views on SF, and perhaps stories in general.

>> > I am not under obligation to *imagine* that he has additional, more
>> > important jobs. If the moviemakers wanted me to believe that, they would
>> > have to have *shown* me. Since they did not, it's their failing either
> way,
>
>> If the moviemakers had deemed your knowing that as relevant, yes.
>
> Exactly. We can conclude that the director though out guy doesn't do
> anything else relevant. We see him sleeping, working out (several times),
> building models (several scenes), banging an alarm clock (couple of
> different times)... etc. Obviously, it's not as if the director ran out of
> celluloid before he could show us the really "important" jobs he does on the
> base. We thus conclude that he has shown all that is relevant, and he
> doesn't really do anything more demanding than carrying canisters back and
> forth.

Well, not relevant to the *story*. If I made a movie about a company
that mistreats its workers, you're suggesting it's my duty to point out
the details of what the workers actually /do/? 

And I just can't see Earth-like gravity and faster than light
communication as being relevant to the plot of the story. Along with a
lot of your other complaints. Sure, with some of them, one /could/ have
come up with an interesting story, but it would likely be a different
one.

You know, it's OK to simply say you didn't like it. You don't have to
construct a whole theory of story-telling and SF to defend it.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

>> "A clockwork orange" is one of the most powerful and influential SF
>> movie ever, except that there's 0 science in it. 
>
> I've never heard that called science fiction.  Is 1984 also considered
> to be science fiction?

Yes and yes. Although I hear it less frequently for the latter. The
former's case is not that rare.

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Yes and yes. Although I hear it less frequently for the latter. The
> former's case is not that rare.

I guess I just object to taking a movie like ZombieLand or something, and 
turning it into a fantasy by having the character say "Nobody is sure where 
zombies came from, maybe a wizard in China." Or turning it into science 
fiction by having him say "Nobody is sure where zombies came from, maybe an 
escaped science lab."  Yet having them otherwise be exactly the same movie.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> Yes and yes. Although I hear it less frequently for the latter. The
>> former's case is not that rare.
>
> I guess I just object to taking a movie like ZombieLand or something,
> and turning it into a fantasy by having the character say "Nobody is
> sure where zombies came from, maybe a wizard in China." Or turning it
> into science fiction by having him say "Nobody is sure where zombies
> came from, maybe an escaped science lab."  Yet having them otherwise be
> exactly the same movie.

I'm often not too happy at a lot of things labeled SF. But I have to be
honest with myself and say that I like a number of stories that are
considered SF, that I consider to have an SF "feel" about them, but yet
have little to do with science (you know, lots of space stories,
including a lot of Asimov's stuff). 

Although I'm not sure why you'd object to 1984 as SF. It wasn't the
point of the book, but science/technology played a key role.

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> I'm often not too happy at a lot of things labeled SF. But I have to be
> honest with myself and say that I like a number of stories that are
> considered SF, that I consider to have an SF "feel" about them, but yet
> have little to do with science (you know, lots of space stories,
> including a lot of Asimov's stuff). 

Sure, me too. I also enjoy a lot of stories about magic.  Or about 
technology that might as well be magic.  Or about stuff that isn't magic or 
technology but might as well be either. (Like "Hopscotch" (apparently not 
the popular one tho) wherein most everyone in the world in their teens 
learns to voluntarily swap bodies with whomever they touch.)

I'd just like to know what I'm buying.

> Although I'm not sure why you'd object to 1984 as SF. It wasn't the
> point of the book, but science/technology played a key role.

As you say, it wasn't the point of the book.

Contrast with, say, some of Niven's stories about Beowulf Schaeffer or some 
such.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
    Eiffel - The language that lets you specify exactly
    that the code does what you think it does, even if
    it doesn't do what you wanted.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

> I'd just like to know what I'm buying.

Read a review.<G>

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"Neeum Zawan" <fee### [at] festercom> wrote in message
news:87z### [at] festercom...
> "somebody" <x### [at] ycom> writes:

> Eh? It's rarely been /in/ fashion. Both in recent history and long term
> history. People have been disposable in the past. I fail to see any
> fundamental reason for that not happening again.

It's one thing to routinely dispose of employees by firing them, it's
another to literally dispose them into the garbage chute. The latter, if you
have noticed, is not all that common.

> I'm sure 99.9% of people surveyed will say lots of things are
> unethical. Yet, when the opportunity arises, that number drops. Or
> rather, they claim an exception.

And it's the moviemakers' responsibility to convince me that that
opportunity (& more importantly, the motive) arose. That the company
operates on the moon instead of on earth is not enough excuse for me to buy
that.

> After all, are clones really people?

The movie was too simpleminded to go into that.

> > It's an observation, and a very trivial one. I know you like being
contrary,
> > but surely even you are not going to argue that the robot (among many
other
> > things) is not a direct rip off from 2001? And I am sure opening the
scene
> > with an astronaut on a threadmill was also a coincidence.... etc

> Frankly, I'm beginning to doubt that you've read much SF.

That has precious little to do anything with the amount of "borrowed"
material in this movie.

> > It's a movie. It's self contained. And it's sufficient information. If
I'm

> Movies are self contained?

Sure (or they should be). There's a definite start, and a definite end to a
movie. You call what goes in between the movie. You can *speculate* on your
free time about what the director *did not* put in a movie, but that is not
part of the movie.

> Well, not relevant to the *story*. If I made a movie about a company
> that mistreats its workers, you're suggesting it's my duty to point out
> the details of what the workers actually /do/?

In that case, no. We *know* that workers are needed for our companies and we
know more or less what workers do in a typical business. I don't know that
humans are needed on the moon moving a caniester from point A to point B,
much less why human *clones* are needed. It's a premise unfamiliar to the
viewer (or to me at least, you may have more firsthand experience with moon
operations), and that is why an explanation is in order. One doesn't need to
explain the mundane, but extraordinary claims deserve extraordinary
evidence. It's where a lot of movies (sci-fi or not) fail, for they take
suspension of disbelief for granted. It's typical Hollywood attitude to
assume that the audience will eat with a spoon whatever is put in front of
them. When you ask an innocent "why" or "how", the whole storyline collapses
like a house of cards. Avatar was like that too. Spectacular technology, but
ultimately hollow inside.

> And I just can't see Earth-like gravity and faster than light
> communication as being relevant to the plot of the story. Along with a
> lot of your other complaints. Sure, with some of them, one /could/ have
> come up with an interesting story, but it would likely be a different
> one.
>
> You know, it's OK to simply say you didn't like it. You don't have to
> construct a whole theory of story-telling and SF to defend it.

No, I don't have to. But isn't it better to back one's viewpoint?

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On 6/17/2010 11:38 PM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  writes:
>
>> I'd just like to know what I'm buying.
>
> Read a review.<G>
>

That's too practical of a suggestion. ;)

-- 
~Mike

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Warp wrote:

>   It all comes down to one's *definition* of "sci-fi". Basically sci-fi
> has a wide scale of "hardness", and where people put the line between
> "real" sci-fi depends on personal opinion.

There are some who distinguish between sci-fi and science fiction.

Science fiction is reserved for those tales in which the author both 
believes that the science in the story is possible, and is also 
technically competent enough to know what is possible and what is not.

The term "sci-fi" refers to all works having the trappings of science 
fiction (the ships, robots, aliens, etc.), but which contradicts what we 
know about the laws of nature at some point.

The third category that winds up on the same cable channel and in the 
same rack at the bookstore is fantasy; that which is clearly impossible, 
according to our understanding of nature, happens in fantasy.  The main 
distinction between fantasy and sci-fi is that in sci-fi, the amazing 
powers are the result of forces that in the tale are understood on a 
scientific basis (i.e., they can show you the math), whereas in fantasy 
the powers are the result of forces that are, for the most part, 
mysterious and not terribly well-understood.

It is my observation that science fiction (or sci-fi) is best adapted 
for tales of a political nature, while fantasy is more adapted to tales 
about good and evil; which is why Star Wars is essentially a fantasy 
tale, and Trek is primarily a political one.

Regards,
John

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