Do people even know what Science Fiction is?

[Ukko]

A remote outpost of soldiers is attacked by extemists. They escape in a plane/boat/on foot and arrive at a place where they can't escape because they are lost. That storyline is hardly sci-fi.

A strange vessel drifts down the coast of south america, gets stranded on some rocks. Curious Native Indians board the ship, find nobody on board. They realise that soon the ship will become dislodged and dont want to get carried away with it to an unknown destination, so they stay as long as they can, investigate and explore, find strange clothes and tools made from unknown materials and so on. They escape just in time and the ship sales on its way out reach and their lives.

That was hardly SciFi, but im not going to move Rendezvous With Rama to the historical fiction section though.

[Greenfire32]

A strange vessel drifts down the coast of south america, gets stranded on some rocks. Curious Native Indians board the ship, find nobody on board. They realise that soon the ship will become dislodged and dont want to get carried away with it to an unknown destination, so they stay as long as they can, investigate and explore, find strange clothes and tools made from unknown materials and so on. They escape just in time and the ship sales on its way out reach and their lives.

That was hardly SciFi, but im not going to move Rendezvous With Rama to the historical fiction section though.

Actually that was Science Fiction (at least from my understanding). Today, we think of SciFi as space and lasers, but just imagine if this were the year 1492 and Columbus' ship was empty on arrival. The Natives would be literally surrounded with "alien technology" (technology is not just machines and such. It is any tool created by man). Since technology can't progress without science, and Columbus' ship wasn't empty at all, you have yourself a wonderful Scifi story!

We've grown so accustomed to Scifi being space and lasers that we forget there are other forms of Scifi out there.

[carmencatalina]

We've grown so accustomed to Scifi being space and lasers that we forget there are other forms of Scifi out there.

Well said. All of the excellent work of Jules Verne, one of the fathers of science fiction, would fall into the category of "science fiction without space and lasers".

[thekillman]

"I don't like SF, but I do like Superman, but he's not SF even though he's an alien..."

people will claim it's Superhero Fiction and therefore it's not SF.


just as they'll call Lost survivor genre and supernatural.

people will do everything in their power and their imagination to not call it Sci Fi. even if it involves calling Star Wars "more fantasy than science" and other bogus things.

[Nehesi]

Seinfeld was Science Fiction right?

Yes! It was set in a mythical universe called "New York" without Black or Latino people - not even cleaning the streets!

[hercthx]

for me, the first scifi/speacial effects movie was 1902's a trip to the moon (although I found the 1890's alice in wonderland had better speacial effects but it was not sci-fi) but i would have to say the first popular one would have to be the german 1920 something's metropolis.
@ snookie as far as 2001 goes which is popular book or film that really depends on who you like more clarke or kubrick as the book and film became a bit of a compitiion between the authour arther c clarke and the screen writer stanley kubrick, as they both started together developing the story as a partnership, quickly they realized that they both had a different vision as to what the story should be. midway through the writing proccess they parted ways and continued to develop the story seperatly, in the end it became a race as to who would get their vision release the soonest. kubrick won as the novel was released shortly after the film. to this day the debatre continues as to wich is better. i came across the complete screen play a while back, and man that would have made a really cool movie but due to time and film making technique constraints and the fact that the film already had a dialoug free 20 min sequence at the begining of the film alot was cut out. I myeslf am still on the fence, I find kubricks visual representation of the story gripping to this day, however clarkes version gives a more complete understanding of the story. so the film lover in me prefers the movie however the scifi fan in me prefers the book.
here is the origional screen play it is worth the read for more insight into the film
http://www.palantir.net/2001/script.html
I enjoyed it, and thought you might as well.

[BOTA:99]

Anyone remember The Outer Limits (either series)? To me, that is the quintessential definition of television science fiction.

Unlike the definition that these forums seem to get hung up on, The Outer Limits touched on all of the bases. It had alien overlords curbstomping humanity; humanity reaching out to the stars, robotics, time travel, and even kids day dreaming about what the future brings.

In those stories, science was often used as a background to get the heart and soul of the story into focus; as the OP says, to explore humanity's strengths or weaknesses and our interaction with the world around us.

I'm in season 6 of the newer outer limits series right now (in fact just finished the one with Michael Shanks where they are in the Earth Warship infected by the Aliens electrically who are taking their revenge on us for destroying them) and I would agree that show is an excellent example of scifi television, and dozens and dozens of stargate actors and staff on that series too!

[BasharTeg]

SciFi is just a setting, not more. It's showing the same problems our society has, just in a different setting. Like Frank Herbert made Dune about the Oil problem (or "Melange" as in the books). Any story can be told in a SciFi setting. Unfortunately many people think that scifi are just space battles and techno talk (some good friends from school are still thinking like that). Instead SciFi is something that shows the problems of our time in a new setting where everyone can look at it without being prejudiced.

[hercthx]

agreed i would further say scifi is a look at the human condition, in a fantasicle setting. we can thank the filmakers of the 70's for turning it into summer blockbuster eye-candy.

[Eternal Density]

Would anyone argue that Inception isn't science fiction?

[carmencatalina]

Would anyone argue that Inception isn't science fiction?

Totally science fiction. Nice and mind-bend-y, the way good science fiction is supposed to be, too. (My opinion, of course.)

[Eternal Density]

Totally science fiction. Nice and mind-bend-y, the way good science fiction is supposed to be, too. (My opinion, of course.)

Now that I've finally seen it (last night) I would agree with that sentiment.

Avatar on the other hand is 'story that could have been told in the regular world - and has already - IN SPACE'.

[mpa]

Excellent post.

I often think that the people who define "scifi" only as having spaceships and aliens and are action-oriented have never really read literary science fiction.

Only a small subsection of the science fiction literature landscape is like that.

That is exactly that I was thinking as I read this thread. The entry point for a significant portion of television SF fans is, unfortunately, television SF.

It echoes my original reaction to the "Sci Fi" channel back in the 90s which sortof went like this:

"Oh cool, they are announcing a 'Science Fiction' channel."

"Oh wait, that *are* calling it 'Sci Fi' and not 'SF'. That can't be good."

By the time I got around to getting cable TV a few years later (I was an Internet-only guy back then, in the first days of the WWW) and watched it, my worst fears for it were realised and there was far more horror, fantasy and schock than there was SF, and that the SF that *was* there was almost all what we used to call "laundry list" Science Fiction. (ie, "spaceship", "check". "aliens", "check", "space cowboys", "check")

People who have been exposed to the breadth of literary SF see the genre for what that acronym's alternate expansion is: "Speculative Fiction". Like all good art, good SF either takes us somewhere that we haven't gone yet, somewhere society hasn't gone yet (a la 1980s cyberpunk), or it takes us back somewhere from a point of view that we didn't have access to before (perhaps Steampunk, before it became cliche)

It isn't about the trappings. Those are just devices.

I have to admit that SG-1 was for me, as a supposedly serious SF afficionado, a guilty pleasure at times. I enjoyed it thoroughly just the same, from the Showtime years on, as I did when I finally got around to watching SG-A a couple of years ago.

Many of the complaints about SG-U have some validity: painfully slow story pacing, pandering to diversity checklist wonks, and near total absence of humour come to mind. Those are failures in execution and vision at times, not the result of its mis-characterisation as SF. (btw, I still dig SG-U despite its flaws)

But any attempt to call it "not science fiction" because one can't squash it into a box with its predecessor SGs tells me far more about the critic than the series he is criticising.

[Eternal Density]

Speculative Fiction is probably a more useful label, and as far as I'm concerned it works fine for SGU

[Aragon101]

No. Even Science Fiction doesn't know what science fiction is anymore.