On 24/06/2010 8:42 PM, Warp wrote:
>    I'm beginning to think that there are*no*  good sci-fi movies in existence.
>






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Best Regards,
	Stephen

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On 24/06/2010 8:46 PM, Darren New wrote:
>
> Alien? (I never really heard any defensible complaints about it.)

How about I fell asleep before it finished?

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Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Warp wrote:
>   Well, that assumes that the book itself can be considered good sci-fi
> in the first place... :P

Well, sure. Obviously, there are some books that *are* considered good 
sci-fi, at least by a large number of readers. There are even books that I'd 
consider good sci-fi but which I personally didn't enjoy.

But many of the complaints I hear about "hard" science fiction, like 
complaints about Blade Runner for example, are along the lines of "that 
wasn't the same story as the book."  Not that there was anything 
particularly wrong with the story as told, but only that it didn't meet the 
expectations set by the book.

Of course, some complaints are completely valid. Like "why didn't the 
department of pre-corrections turn off the eyeball access granted to the 
fugitive murderer that used to be allowed in?" in Minority Report. A movie 
which, I'll grant, was nothing at all like the book, and indeed completely 
missed the entire point of the actual book story.

Didn't they make a Farenheit 451 movie? Was that any good? Or an Illustrated 
Man movie?

There are huge numbers of "good" science fiction books that could be made 
into decently good movies nowadays. Even some decent sci-fi I've read that 
you could make suspenseful and all that good stuff without a huge budget.

What I want to know is why virtually every monster movie is zombies, 
vampires, or werewolves? With maybe an occasional killer robot or black 
lagoon creature thrown in.  Can't a horror writer come up with a decent 
original monster?

-- 
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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On Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:05:39 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 24/06/2010 8:46 PM, Darren New wrote:
>>
>> Alien? (I never really heard any defensible complaints about it.)
> 
> How about I fell asleep before it finished?

I thought the second was better than the first, but I think the first 
could be counted as better Sci Fi.

Falling asleep doesn't mean it's bad Sci Fi, though - I fell asleep 
during Amadeus the first time I watched it, but it was still a good 
film. :-)

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> I thought the second was better than the first, but I think the first 
> could be counted as better Sci Fi.

I don't know why people really thought that. There are few movies where the 
sequel is as good as the original, and I'll grant Aliens held its own. But I 
didn't like it as much as Alien. Perhaps it was just because I was at the 
right age for Alien and too cynical by the time Aliens came out or something.

-- 
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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somebody wrote:
> I just watched Moon. 80% on IMDB, 89% on RottenTomatoes. People compare it
> to 2001 and Solaris. Those people should be shot.

While the comparison to 2001 and Solyaris is clearly insane, I did 
rather like Moon, but I tend to not be bothered by inconsistencies in a 
movie.  I also think that there have been some pretty good sci-fi films 
recently.  Although not on par with, say, the mid-80s, it seems like 
there are about as many "good" sci-fi films as is average.  For 
instance, in the past 5-6 years I've greatly enjoyed all of the films:

Children of Men
District 9
The Fountain
Primer
WALL-E

Also, even though they're not movies, I think there's been some very 
good science fiction television shows recently.  Firefly and the remake 
of Battlestar Galatica come to mind.

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> a écrit dans le message de groupe de 
discussion : 4c23b627$1@news.povray.org...
> I'm trying to think of a (hard-ish) sci-fi movie that was as good an 
> adaption of the book as (say) Harry Potter was.

A boy and his dog? Harlan Ellison himself was rather pleased with the 
adaptation, and the guy isn't exactly easy to please.

G.

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Warp wrote:
>   Every time a sci-fi movie comes out, somebody will complain and point
> out how ludicrous some detail about it is, 

Well, actually, thinking on this, I think part of it is that sci-fi has a 
relatively unique place in art.

For example, if there's some ludicrous event in a romantic comedy, like the 
same couple running into each other in the airport every time they go on a 
trip, that's just "part of the story."  Sure, it's ludicrously unlikely, but 
that's part of the story.  In a magic story, if the sorcerer can't get five 
fireballs off in a row and there's no explanation for why he's limited to 
four, people just accept that.  But if someone has a blaster and it only 
shoots four times and then needs to be dipped in water, people will say 
"that's stupid - why would anyone build a gun that only fires four times?"

People make fun of westerns where the cowboys fire dozens of times from one 
revolver without reloading, but it doesn't really spoil the movie, because 
the focus of a western isn't the wonders of the gunplay per se. (At least, 
not usually.)

But I think in a SF movie, people are going to examine every tiny aspect of 
the science and find something that they'd let pass in any other genre. 
Nobody complains that Clouseau outrageous accent, so strong that *nobody* he 
lives near can understand him, wouldn't disappear and normalize in a few 
weeks. But everybody complains when aliens speak english, and then complain 
more when they have an accent (or don't use contractions, or don't 
understand slang, or whatever).

Another place this nit-picking happens is mysteries, especially murder 
mysteries. You wouldn't accept a murder  mystery where the murderer set up 
some long convoluted rube goldberg series of events to kill someone, unless 
the point of the mystery is how awesomely intelligent the murderer is.

The whole point of Ocean's Eleven (at least, the new version) was how 
awesome everyone was to be able to pull off something like that, not that it 
was a normal and expected heist. So the fact that the victims responded in 
exactly the predicted way needed to make it all come together doesn't ruin 
the film.

You don't give the potential murderer an alibi, but then in the last chapter 
point out how, while he was at the restaurant with friends all evening, he 
was actually in the restroom at the restaurant for over an hour and nobody 
noticed. (Unless it's a French murder mystery, I guess.)


Most genres people will go with the flow for the sake of the story. Nobody 
really cares if a slapstick comedy's participants would really be seriously 
injured by falling off a roof. Nobody cares if a ghost in a ghost movie can 
sometimes move things and sometimes can't.

A handful of genres (like, comic book remakes) will expect the movie to 
match the book closely, because that's how the fans are. (Cue complaints of 
movie-Spiderman not needing technological web shooters.)

Another handful of genres (SF, mystery, to name the two I can think of 
offhand) tell stories where the accuracy and believability of every detail 
is important to the enjoyment of the story itself. It's a matter of "how 
clever was the author" and not just "tell me an entertaining story."

So maybe that's what I'm actually interested in in my more intellectual 
reading: something clever and detailed, beyond just the flow of the story. 
Not necessarily technology, but something that falls apart if the author has 
to ham-hand the story to make it turn out.

-- 
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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On Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:46:50 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> I don't know why people really thought that. There are few movies where
> the sequel is as good as the original, and I'll grant Aliens held its
> own. But I didn't like it as much as Alien. Perhaps it was just because
> I was at the right age for Alien and too cynical by the time Aliens came
> out or something.

For my wife particularly it was Ripley's maternal instincts with regards 
to Newt - they resonated really well with her - as in "mommy's going to 
protect you at all costs".

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> For my wife particularly it was Ripley's maternal instincts with regards 
> to Newt - they resonated really well with her - as in "mommy's going to 
> protect you at all costs".

Better character development.  OK, I can see that, sure.

-- 
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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