Do people even know what Science Fiction is?

[Commander Zelix]

If I may so bold as to simplify Sci-fi down to this simple explination. Sci-fi helps us look a the 2 possibilities we have as a species, do we A) advance and progress as we evolve or do we B) self destruct thru the proccess of our evolution. if you look at all of sci-fi stories, you see that each story basicaly show 1 of those 2 answers. red pill or blue pill! does our tech advance us (eg. star trek) or destroy us (eg. terminator). with the odd story leaving us in the balance of yet undecided.

Star Trek, especially true for TNG, was one of the very few Sci-fi TV or movies in seeing something positive for the future regarding the advancement of technology and our social/moral evolution away from our barbaric times. The premise (that humanity actually evolve in the right direction in the future away from violence, prejudice, materialism, etc) was very original by itself imo.

I don't know why in the head of people on the internet it became to be viewed as the least original point of view and now everybody wanted to turn Star Trek to dark and gritty first with DS9 then with BSG.

Almost all other Sci-fi movies and TV series always have this pessimist view of the future. Robots taking over, people living in dystopian future (Total Recall, Matrix, Moon, War of the Worlds, Invasion of the Body Snatcher, Gattaca, Starship Troopers, The Island, 12 monkeys, Fifth Element, Inception, Avatar, etc etc etc etc). Maybe it's because Star Trek was really popular but it was really original point of view and it still is!!!!

[Wayston]

For the record, the whole consent thing was in one of the kinosodes, not on JM' blog

cool, I never really followed the kinosodes so I'll have to go check them out

the thing with the consent forms is that it's not very realistic for either side involved except for the person inhabiting the mind. The type of waiver a "stoned" person is doing (although I'd have to check out the kinosode to see what they say about it) would be very controversial in the real world. It certainly wouldn't be something that the military would go over lightly. The fact that random civilians related to the Destiny's crew are brought into the know has also been simply brushed aside without any further thought. Then the fact that these random civilians would be verrrry freaked out when having sex with a random guy/girl that's supposedly possessed by their loved one was also completely brushed aside initially. There was litterally a treasure trove of interesting and dramatic storylines that was completely brushed aside only to be revisited haphazzardly many episodes later because the writers apparantly suddenly had the idea that these things might be somewhat interesting to viewers, instead we got those pointless "life" storylines and wray's lesbian lover suddenly starting to lose her keys in "pathogen".

[Petra]

the thing with the consent forms is that it's not very realistic for either side involved except for the person inhabiting the mind. The type of waiver a "stoned" person is doing (although I'd have to check out the kinosode to see what they say about it) would be very controversial in the real world.

Exactly, it would be controversial, not unanimously rejected. I'm not sure what you mean by the first sentence. Both sides occupy someone else's mind, why would it be realistsic just for one of them?

It certainly wouldn't be something that the military would go over lightly. The fact that random civilians related to the Destiny's crew are brought into the know has also been simply brushed aside without any further thought.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. Do you mean that relatives of the Destineers are told about the stones, or the whole project? And why would the military's stance change? They started to approve telling random people, just because of their relations to the SGC personnel, about the program in season 7 of SG-1. I just don't understand why it was never a problem for SG-1 but suddenly becomes one for SGU?

Then the fact that these random civilians would be verrrry freaked out when having sex with a random guy/girl that's supposedly possessed by their loved one was also completely brushed aside initially.

Yeah, it was unfortunately. However you assume that everyone would be freaked out by that sort of thing. I don't think so. When the issue was discussed on GW earlier there was a lot of people saying they'd volunteer to switch and who are neither repulsed nor freaked out by body change or even sex after said bosy swap.

There was litterally a treasure trove of interesting and dramatic storylines

Agreed. But to be fair, IMO, if the writers explored more moral and philosophical aspects of such relationships some people would cry that it's all unnecessary drama and soap opera.

that was completely brushed aside only to be revisited haphazzardly many episodes later because the writers apparantly suddenly had the idea that these things might be somewhat interesting to viewers, instead we got those pointless "life" storylines and wray's lesbian lover suddenly starting to lose her keys in "pathogen".

Well, I completely disagree with these statements. I don't think it was haphazzardly brushed aside and brought back because of the viewers' outcry. On the contrary, it seemed to me to be very well planned. I got the impression a lot of thought went into creating stone episodes. I also disagree Life & Pathogen were pointless. They aren't my favourite episodes, but I think they were needed.

[Galileo_Galilee]

I consider SGU more closer to sci-fi than Caprica, in all honesty.

But it does have its problems.

And constant character conflict does get old especially when it's repeatable, such as constantly trying to undermine Young's command through noncredible claims of "My superior gave us command" without any way of confirming those claims.

However, the mistake would be to just all of a sudden have everyone get over it with very little reason to. It takes time to overcome these kinds of deep-seeded conflicts.

They should realize that they need to work together in order to survive their ordeal.

That's real maturity.

So far though everybody's been acting like children.

[Skiznot]

It occurred to me, one of the main questions posed in lots of my favorite science fiction is: Are we alone in the universe, if we are not, what else is out there? This is at the core of SGU.

SG-1 had fun with combining Earth mythology with UFO mythology but since the story (and probably budget restrictions when they started) required our Milky Way to be poplulated with lots of very Earth like planets an humans spread all over them SGU had to take the crew far far away to re-examine the diversity of what might be out there. Whether the crew is getting along or not, even if their goal is to get home, seeing what is out there is what the show is about.

[Gollumpus]

"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."

- Isaac Asimov

regards,
G.

[Republibot 3.0]

I'm late to the party, so forgive me for jumping in. The root question is "Do people even know what SF is?" I think the answer is generally "no." Most people tend to treat it much like the definition of obscenity, "I know it when I see it."

That's too vague and subjective to be useful, because it leads to goony opinions like "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea isn't SF because it don't got's no space ships in it" or "Lost isnt' Science Fiction 'cuz ain' no aliens" or even more illiterate opinions like "Lost in Space isn't SF because it isn't serious" or - the most irritating one I ever came across - "It can't be Science Fiction if it isn't Star Trek." Granted, I haven't heard that last one in a long while, but still...it all seems to come down to "It's SF if I like it, and not SF if I don't." That's useless.

My own thinking is that SF is all about asking two questions - "What if?" and "How will this affect things?" Let's say we go to the moon and find aliens there. That's the "What if?" but it's pretty dry if we don't follow that up with what it means to us, personally. A huge vein of SF from earliest days has always been "How does technology change our lives?" That's not the only thread, but it's one of the biggest and thickest. Of course There are so many genres, and such extremes of good and bad, high and low in the genre that it's not surprising the 'danes would have trouble understanding what they're looking at, but for me, personally, the thing that ties all SF together is "What does this mean?"

In good SF, it means a lot. In bad SF (Transformers, LIS, etc) it means little or nothing.

That said, it's a really hard genre to define because the trappings are not universal, and are frequently irrelevant and misleading (For instance, are all stories involving horses automatically a western? No, obviously not. Are all stories involving starships automatically SF? Debatable.)

We've debated this over on my site, if anyone's interested in looking at it.
http://republibot.com/content/roundt...nyway?page=0,1

[thekillman]

my family uses the definition Sci Fi= utter nonsense.

you can't begin to comprehend my annoyance. also, Sci fi is everything that's utter crap and looks fake

[hercthx]

to me sci-fi means in the simplest terms; a look at the two paths we as humanity can choose, we can either enlighten or destroy ourselves through/during our advancement as a species. often told within a fantastic setting alagoric to who we are as a species spun from worlds and times born from our imagination.

[Huaracocha]

What is or isn't sci-fi is always going to polarise opinions and perhaps, as has been suggested, generate more debate on what types of sci-fi we like rather than what constitutes an example of the genre. Another way of looking at it might be, how much difference would it make to SGU if the setting were changed and the sci-fi 'core' removed?

To me not much would change about the show if it was set in a ship or cave complex or big brother house or any other situation where people are stranded together. Undoubtedly there are sci-fi elements beyond the setting of the show but these are relatively few and far between. One can make a fairly coherent argument that SGU is basically a character drama where very little happens. Maybe this is what leads to the "it's not sci-fi" criticism; it certainly doesn't always tickle my traditional sci-fi taste buds.

[Snookie16]

I agree with you on 2001. I'm just describing how someone would view it in a hard
sci-fi vs. soft sci-fi aspect.



I'm just curious, what old-school 'hard' sci-fi works would you considerd sci-fi done right and how should both 'hard' and 'soft' sci-fi each be done in general?

what I have always enjoyed about Asimov's writings he is does the entire spectrum of scifi...from the robots stories to the foundation series to the gods themselves to the martian way.

The same people that also say it is a "teen drama" with "angst" who also seemingly had no problem with SGA's season 5 love triangle of McKay, Keller, and Ronan? They also seemingly forget just exactly how that played out, the dialog, the storyline. Well I imagine they must have since it was quite soapy, with a lot of angst and adults acting like freaking teens.

Kind of like the same people that complained about all the sex? Especially the lesbian sex? I mean if I had any complaining it would be the total lack of sex, especially lesbian sex between two beautiful women.

that was the WORST part of sga IMHO, there was no need and it was terribly done....

if you don't like SGU's sex, then go get coffee. and then you STILL sleep fine at night since you won't get a lot of caffeine that way.


a 300% increase of almost no sex (or no sex at all) is still almost no sex.




as to the question of sci fi:

Sci Fi asks questions about our humanity. within the confines of our planet, they're pretty obvious or not that hard. but what happens if we're out there, far away from the rest of our planet. who looks at us? who's there to tell us what to do? and aliens. what do we do with them?



Stargate has had the "godzilla threshold" quite some times. a point where, due to the hopelessness of the situation, any solution will be used. even if it involves using a lesser enemy. even if it means genocide or xenocide.


SGU goes further, more clearly showing the effects on our people. but the questions remain the same. the aliens are less frequent but they're alien. unlike two previous SG's. still, SGU has the computer age and a bigger budget on it's side.


because, you know, SG1 did fine with the way it handled aliens. for a simple, low-budget show, it did great. and the jaffa... well if they had been alien aliens, we just would've nuked every goauld world

let's see...the LUCIAN ALLIANCE are aliens....

Exactly, it would be controversial, not unanimously rejected. I'm not sure what you mean by the first sentence. Both sides occupy someone else's mind, why would it be realistsic just for one of them?



I'm not sure what you are saying here. Do you mean that relatives of the Destineers are told about the stones, or the whole project? And why would the military's stance change? They started to approve telling random people, just because of their relations to the SGC personnel, about the program in season 7 of SG-1. I just don't understand why it was never a problem for SG-1 but suddenly becomes one for SGU?



Yeah, it was unfortunately. However you assume that everyone would be freaked out by that sort of thing. I don't think so. When the issue was discussed on GW earlier there was a lot of people saying they'd volunteer to switch and who are neither repulsed nor freaked out by body change or even sex after said bosy swap.



Agreed. But to be fair, IMO, if the writers explored more moral and philosophical aspects of such relationships some people would cry that it's all unnecessary drama and soap opera.



Well, I completely disagree with these statements. I don't think it was haphazzardly brushed aside and brought back because of the viewers' outcry. On the contrary, it seemed to me to be very well planned. I got the impression a lot of thought went into creating stone episodes. I also disagree Life & Pathogen were pointless. They aren't my favourite episodes, but I think they were needed.

anyone who knows anything about the US military knows the way the stones are handled are utter bs...even within stargate cannon it's bunk! They wouldn't let people just wander where they will with that kind of above top secret knowledge. one of the worst aspects of sgu, IMHO.

my family uses the definition Sci Fi= utter nonsense.

you can't begin to comprehend my annoyance. also, Sci fi is everything that's utter crap and looks fake

were you adopted? left by aliens? a changeling? need therapy? luckily I was born into a family of geeks/nerds.

[carmencatalina]

Most people tend to treat it much like the definition of obscenity, "I know it when I see it."

That's too vague and subjective to be useful, because it leads to goony opinions like "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea isn't SF because it don't got's no space ships in it"

I just wanted to snip a minor quote here because nothing annoys me more than people who don't consider Jules Verne's work to be scifi. Yes, such people do exist!

It makes me mental - he is one of the very founders of the genre!

Ok, mini-rant ended.

I swear, you guys are better than therapy sometimes. I feel ever-so-much better. Thank you!

[jelgate]

anyone who knows anything about the US military knows the way the stones are handled are utter bs...even within stargate cannon it's bunk! They wouldn't let people just wander where they will with that kind of above top secret knowledge. one of the worst aspects of sgu, IMHO.

I don't see the issue. Both sides have signed nondisclosure agreements. No greater risk of a leak then before

[carmencatalina]

I don't see the issue. Both sides have signed nondisclosure agreements. No greater risk of a leak then before

I agree with Jelgate, it isn't any worse than the underlying premise that somehow, all of the people working on the Stargate program are sticking to their nondisclosure agreements. If you are willing to accept that somehow the whole program, after everything that has happened, hasn't leaked to the general public, then the stones aren't much more of a leap.

Battle over Antarctica, anyone?

[Acidbuk]

I've seen a lot of sentiments expressed (less so on these boards, though) about how SGU is "not SciFi", and they usually go something like this:

"There are barely any aliens, and the few we do see are a complete mystery. They rarely discover or use any new technology. They keep introducing new questions without fully answering the old ones. There are barely any battles and we see way too much conflict between characters who are universally hard to like."

To me, that describes the essence of Science Fiction as a literary and film genre.

Science fiction has always been about asking a lot of questions and intentionally ambiguous answers. About hidden aliens and unknown motivations. And about characters most of all. Deeply flawed characters, confused characters, outright bigoted characters. Any kind of interpersonal conflict you can think of, SciFi has tackled it - ideology, personality, nationality, gender, rank, social class, and on and on.

Even action- or war-oriented SciFi like Ender's Game or Old Man's War. Or fantastical SciFi like His Dark Materials. Or classic SciFi like War of the Worlds and Stranger in a Strange Land. Heck, even SciFi/Comedy like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Biting the Sun. Science Fiction elements serve as the setting, but the actual story is always centered around imperfect human characters.

Whether you like the show or not, and whether the show has successfully created an interesting story or not, SGU is actually truer to the SciFi genre than anything else on television. I wish more people recognized that.

And I wish SyFy would try creating more "real SciFi" shows and movies. SciFi/Fantasy as a literary genre is as popular as ever, there's no reason why SyFy's ratings should be so low (if it consistently offered SciFi). Instead, when I asked a friend of mine - who loves SciFi/fantasy books - if she ever "watches anything on SyFy", she responded, "That channel with the cheesy horror movies?"

All of these are good points. I see SGU as....Sci-Fi Noir, I just wish they would focus more on the conflicts on the actual ship than the jumping back to earth thing though the stones. We know this is their "last link home" but could they please stop trying to beat us over the head with it?

The Story about Eli's mom and Wray's girlfriend losing he keys became a primary plot point when Chloe started turning into a Blue Smurt in Pathogen, which was by far the more interesting of the three subplots and then we had Cloverdale..where again the inside of scotts mind became more of a focus than fighting the Trifids which again was more interesting to me ...yeah. I know its cheaper to make Earth side stuff.

Thats my only real complaint. I'm, perfectly aware of it being Sci-fi.