Respect for sci fi

[N7OperativeAlpha]

I try to explain space opera and couldn't get people to stop making jokes.

Is the reason some people can't take this genre seriously is because they been exposed to light hearted fare like Star Wars and can't imagine the genre being anything more?

Would a solution to this is to give American viewers a high quality dark and gritty space epic without any humanoid aliens that would cover adult themes like war and politics?

Should we stop calling the genre space opera and find a more PC name for space opera like the term graphic novels for comic books?

[bearfax]

N7, I know how you feel but there seem to be too few of us who like hard core SciFi. To make it mainstream at the moment, the only thing that seems to be successful are superheroes, vampires, lycans, ghouls etc or something with gee whizz action scenes. Just look at the amount of trouble Morgan Freeman has had for years to get Rendezvous with Rama off the ground that may finally be making some headway but its taken a decade. Best thing to do is collect the best SciFis on DVD or whatever format, so you can at least enjoy those few good ones that are made. My favourite was Forbidden Planet and that's around 60 years old.

[Queen Guinevere]

Hi! Methinks that's an interesting topic, don't know if for many people. I think space opera (Farscape being best of a kind, IMO) should stay space opera, fairy tales like Star Wars should stay fairy tales, and Sci-Fi like Stargate (even when mixed with some other genres) and 2001: A Space Odyssey should be called Sci-Fi, no?

[Wyrminarrd]

N7, I know how you feel but there seem to be too few of us who like hard core SciFi. To make it mainstream at the moment, the only thing that seems to be successful are superheroes, vampires, lycans, ghouls etc or something with gee whizz action scenes. Just look at the amount of trouble Morgan Freeman has had for years to get Rendezvous with Rama off the ground that may finally be making some headway but its taken a decade. Best thing to do is collect the best SciFis on DVD or whatever format, so you can at least enjoy those few good ones that are made. My favourite was Forbidden Planet and that's around 60 years old.

To be fair about the difficulty getting "Rendazvous with Rama" made, the story isn't exactly the stuff of Blockbusters Hollywood movies. I loved the book and I´m very afraid that if Hollywood ever did make it they would butcher the story in order to make it more action packed...

As for space opera, I have never used that description to describe a sci-fi show so I´m skeptical that a re-branding would change anything. I think what the genre needs is a big hit, one that manages to get mainstream audiences hooked and thus make them more receptive to other sci-fi shows. I´m hoping that "The Expanse" will manage to do this but since it is on a small station like Syfy I´m not holding my breath.

[ecgordon]

I don't see a problem with the term space opera. That's been a legitimate sub-genre of speculative fiction for as long as I've been reading it (about 50 years). There are millions of viewers who won't watch anything approaching SF no matter what you call it, so why bother? Even if The Expanse proves to be one of the best ever produced it doesn't mean it will attract an audience outside of the one already inclined to give it a chance.

[Annoyed]

To be fair about the difficulty getting "Rendazvous with Rama" made, the story isn't exactly the stuff of Blockbusters Hollywood movies. I loved the book and I´m very afraid that if Hollywood ever did make it they would butcher the story in order to make it more action packed...

As for space opera, I have never used that description to describe a sci-fi show so I´m skeptical that a re-branding would change anything. I think what the genre needs is a big hit, one that manages to get mainstream audiences hooked and thus make them more receptive to other sci-fi shows. I´m hoping that "The Expanse" will manage to do this but since it is on a small station like Syfy I´m not holding my breath.

On the contrary, I think the RAMA series would make an excellent trilogy of films.

[thekillman]

I try to explain space opera and couldn't get people to stop making jokes.

It's the tons and tons of cheap, bad, B-rated movies that destroyed the genre and killed all credibility. (SyFy had a big hand in this)

People hated fantasy until Game of Thrones made it cool again.