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The Sci-Fi Movie Stigma
An anonymous reader writes "MSN has up an article that explores why Sci-Fi is associated with cheesy Space-Operas and children's movies, and cerebral Sci-Fi films don't make it unless they are adulterated into 'Action' flicks. The piece covers upcoming projects like 'The Last Mizmey' and 'Next', and points the finger at the ultimate culprit: George Lucas. 'When Lucas made Star Wars in 1977, he was paying tribute to a subgenre of science fiction that he loved dearly as a boy: the space opera. But although the breathless serial adventures of Flash Gordon and his ilk had their pleasures, they were often treated with tolerance, at best, by more serious science-fiction writers and readers. Nevertheless, the success of Star Wars changed the movie industry's perception of science fiction forever. As much as we love Star Wars for what it is, it nearly killed Hollywood's willingness to fund science-fiction movies that actually said something about the human condition.'"
Go to a Star Wars, Star Trek or comic book convention.
If one can't figure out why the sci-fi genre isn't taken seriously by the time one gets back home, they'll never get it.
Check out Children of Men. It's excellent.
The first modern-type blockbuster film was Spielberg's Jaws. Star Wars just took the phenomenon up a level.
I, Robot was nothing like the book of the same name, though in spirit it shares some familiarities with the Robot Detective series (Caves of Steel, Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn, Robots and Empire.) I'm talking about whole thing about the Three Laws having a loophole and robots evolving a 0th law:
Zeroth Law (New):
A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
First Law (Modified):
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, unless this would violate the Zeroth Law of Robotics.
Therefore robots could kill humans as long as they believed it to be for the good of humanity.
I was coming into this discussion with my own opinion about the subject, and I didn't even think about the movies the parent mentioned. I think the issue is that some really really good sci-fi movies don't immediately jump to mind when you think about sci-fi because you're looking for things like Star Wars or Star Trek. Meanwhile, really great movies are not being considered. Another poster mentioned the following movies as well: Twelve Monkeys, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Gattaca, and Pi. These are amongst my favorite movies (except for ET, I thought it was over-rated), yet I didn't even think of them. There's also the issue that I hear people bring up all the time that Star Wars is more fantasy than sci-fi, it's Lord of the Rings in space. So the given proto-typical example isn't even a good one.
The other problem is that general audiences don't like math and science heavy movies. The first good sci-fi movie that came to my mind when I read the summary was Primer (which I would highly recommend to any slashdotter), but a friend of mine who isn't into science was not a big fan, she also hated Pi. Even though these movies were way more about curiosity, human behavior, the human condition, and issues like trust, paranoia, and power; all she could see them for was math and science. For a sci-fi movie to not be cheesy it has to have good science, and to have good science, it's going to bore a lot of people.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
How about Gattaca? Very sci-fi, few action scenes, excellent story.
And for the really geeky... The announcements in the background are in Esperanto.
So, really, it's about a possible movement shift in the public perception of the term Science Fiction into being something that exclusively refers to a certain comfortable old shoe called Space Opera. The irony here being that Star Wars isn't science fiction really (it has magic in it after all, and is therefore fantasy with space ships) although it is Space Opera whereas Children of Men is Science Fiction but not Space Opera.
Science Fiction is actually every bit as powerful a fiction category as it ever was, it's just the category name that is tarnished. And it's not tarnished based on not being mainstream or not selling. The term "science fiction" tarnished as a category name that can include serious movies... in other words movies that don't make Star Wars kind of money, or get put in kids Happy Meals.
So, the problem is you go to a movie producer with an idea for a science fiction movie, and he gets stuck on the words science fiction and tries to shoehorn your movie into a comfortable action adventure type movie rather than the more cereberal movie you had in mind. See I, Robot for this principal in action.
My response? "Welcome to Hollywood." Most producers would toss away a hundred Children of Men for one Star Wars, even if privately they felt that Children of Men was the more worthy film.
Most of the responses here are stirring defenses of Space Opera, but the thing is Space Opera is healthy, happy and eating many of other kind of science fictions' lunches (and beating them up and stealing their milk money as well).
Though it doesn't mess with it's younger brother, Superhero, lately, cause he's really bulked up. He must've been doing strength training or something.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Have you seen Primer (2004)? This is Sci-Fi the way it ought to be. Everything in a story like this seems normal except that little bit of scientific speculation. Or might that actually be possible as well? And weeks/months/years later, you're still talking/thinking about it.
Movies like Star Wars may be entertaining in their own right, but they have little to do with science. That stuff has more in common with Lord of the Rings: Fastasy-Fiction, except with spaceships and lasers. Star Wars is basic Swords and Sorcery... err, light sabers and The Force.
Le Guin? Hello? Left Hand of Darkness? Lathe of Heaven?
Please don't tar her with the same brush...
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
Did you even read the article? The whole article was about how Children of Men isn't being marketed as "sci-fi" because of the stigma.
I just saw an ad that was saying it was "Bladerunner for the 21st Century". Would seem to me they are advertising it as Sci-fi.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life