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[runequester]

1: Movies that aren't afraid to be science fiction, and make that a proper part of the story, without a bunch of mumbo jumbo

2: Old fashioned action movies ala Commando and Rambo. Expendables was a nice throwback to that.

3: Movies that are genuinely funny. There's been funny movies lately, but most "comedies" just leave me cold. Where's stuff like Ghostbusters and Hot Shots?


So yeah. Thats a bit of me yearning for the past

[Kesa]

Originally Posted by runequester

1: Movies that aren't afraid to be science fiction, and make that a proper part of the story, without a bunch of mumbo jumbo

2: Old fashioned action movies ala Commando and Rambo. Expendables was a nice throwback to that.

3: Movies that are genuinely funny. There's been funny movies lately, but most "comedies" just leave me cold. Where's stuff like Ghostbusters and Hot Shots?


So yeah. Thats a bit of me yearning for the past

I'm not sure what you meant in point 1 but i think i know. Sci Fi goes in cycles from conventional to Star Wars type Sci Fi. Old fashioned Sci fi was pushed aside by Star Wars and changed it forever so you get things like Men in Black passing for Sci Fi which it isn't. But i can think of a few examples of proper Sci Fi in the 2000's. Try i robot with Will Smith or maybe Astroboy.

I agree with point 2 completely.

As for point 3 what's wrong with Scary Movie?

[odin]

Star Wars is SF but Men in Black isn't? I could argue that Star Wars is nothing more than a Dam Busters in space/Western crossover. Here's a challenge for you, define the term science fiction =).

[TheBilgeRat]

Yeah, but then theres offerings like "James Bond in the Wild West and Aliens"

[Kesa]

Originally Posted by odin

Star Wars is SF but Men in Black isn't? I could argue that Star Wars is nothing more than a Dam Busters in space/Western crossover. Here's a challenge for you, define the term science fiction =).

Star Wars is accepted as Sci Fi in popular culture even though technically it isn't. I consider it a Fantasy. But i think you were right in calling it a Space Western. Actually i think the correct term for it is Space Opera. Star Trek was a Space Western too - "Band Wagon to the Stars"?

Define Sci Fi? Easy. Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with the impact of imagined innovations in science or technology, often in a futuristic setting.

P.S. SF actually means Speculative Future and is not Science Fiction. SF is the same as Sci Fi but minus the science.

[KThunder]

I like scifi that doesn't try to have some big over-riding moral or anything. Avatar was good but I pretty much ignored the moral behind the story. I thought about it afterwards of course, but during the movie I just want a good plot, good acting, lots of action and good believable effects.

I don't think movies have to be "life changing" or even thought provoking to be good. Star Wars wasn't. It was just cool, with different worlds, and different creatures, and action and stuff.

A lot of movies today think that they need to have some big moral or else they are just driven by special effects.

[TheBilgeRat]

Originally Posted by Kesa

Star Wars is accepted as Sci Fi in popular culture even though technically it isn't. I consider it a Fantasy. But i think you were right in calling it a Space Western. Actually i think the correct term for it is Space Opera. Star Trek was a Space Western too - "Band Wagon to the Stars"?

Define Sci Fi? Easy. Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with the impact of imagined innovations in science or technology, often in a futuristic setting.

P.S. SF actually means Speculative Future and is not Science Fiction. SF is the same as Sci Fi but minus the science.

Ah, like "Hackers" then!

[Kesa]

Originally Posted by TheBilgeRat

Ah, like "Hackers" then!

I don't care what anyone says. Hackers is cool. I think it's funny when he is impressed when she tells him her laptop has a 33 kbps modem!

[KThunder]

Originally Posted by Kesa

Star Wars is accepted as Sci Fi in popular culture even though technically it isn't. I consider it a Fantasy. But i think you were right in calling it a Space Western. Actually i think the correct term for it is Space Opera. Star Trek was a Space Western too - "Band Wagon to the Stars"?

Define Sci Fi? Easy. Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with the impact of imagined innovations in science or technology, often in a futuristic setting.

P.S. SF actually means Speculative Future and is not Science Fiction. SF is the same as Sci Fi but minus the science.

By your definition, why isn't Star Wars and SF scifi? If we had interstellar spacecraft (technology) we would likely have the impact and intrigue displayed by the empire and republic, of different worlds interacting as they do in SW.

I would define Space Operas (my favorite are by Alistair Reynolds) Space Westerns (SW) and SF (Star Trek) as all genres of scifi.

SciFi is just fiction with lot's-o-science.

[Kesa]

Originally Posted by KThunder

By your definition, why isn't Star Wars and SF scifi? If we had interstellar spacecraft (technology) we would likely have the impact and intrigue displayed by the empire and republic, of different worlds interacting as they do in SW.

I would define Space Operas (my favorite are by Alistair Reynolds) Space Westerns (SW) and SF (Star Trek) as all genres of scifi.

SciFi is just fiction with lot's-o-science.

Well no. Because Star Wars isn't a story about technology or science. It's about good vs evil. Just because it's in space doesn't mean it's automatically Sci Fi. But that just enforces what i was trying to say before about old school and new school Sci Fi. You are obviously new school

In my opinion old school Sci Fi uses technology/science as the foundation of the story whereas new school the technology/science aspect is not a part of the story it is just put in there for no obvious reason except that it looks good.

SF in my opinion is where they imagine a certain type of technology/science and visualise it in a future setting where it is prevailent in society. An example of SF would be Steampunk. A society where everything is run by steam. This is my favourite genre in SF. But i also like Clockpunk. An example of Steampunk is Wild Wild West with Will Smith. Other examples of SF include Metropolis and maybe Astroboy. I don't understand how Star Wars is SF or Sci Fi but people just called it that.

But i do agree that it can be hard to identify genres because they overlap so much...

[odin]

Originally Posted by Kesa

Star Wars is accepted as Sci Fi in popular culture even though technically it isn't. I consider it a Fantasy. But i think you were right in calling it a Space Western. Actually i think the correct term for it is Space Opera. Star Trek was a Space Western too - "Band Wagon to the Stars"?

Define Sci Fi? Easy. Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with the impact of imagined innovations in science or technology, often in a futuristic setting.

P.S. SF actually means Speculative Future and is not Science Fiction. SF is the same as Sci Fi but minus the science.

Potato, potato. It's nigh impossible to define SF, SciFi, science fiction, Science Fiction, Scientifiction, speculative fiction, speculative future (that's a new one for me btw =), scientific romance, voyages extraordinaires etc etc, although it usually is easy to look at a specific title and say whether or not it is SF.

With your definition works from the new wave of the sixties like Dune or The Left Hand of Darkness or even Hyperion of recent years could be argued not to be part (since the estrangement in these novels for the most part isn't really based on science) of the same genre as The War of the Worlds (although it could be said that WotW can't be SF since the genre SF didn't even exist in the 1800s) or The Forever War.

I'm quite partial to Darko Suvin's definition: 'SF is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment.' In my opinion this estranging device, or novum as Suvin also refers to it, doesn't necessarily have to be a technological or 'hard' scientific object or event. It can as well be sociological novum.

If you ask 5 different literary critics to define the genre you'll end up with 5 different answers. In the end Damon Knight probably phrased it best with the oft quoted definition 'science fiction means what we point to when we say it.'

[runequester]

Slight tangent, but since you mention it.... Forever War is one of my favourite books ever.

Forever Peace was pretty damn good too, if a bit trippier

[Plaz]

Firefly, great stuff. The Core http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/ , good old fashion 50's type scifi disaster flick not afraid to dazzle you with lots of imaginary tech. Mixed reviews but I though it was a good popcorn movie.

Plaz