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.'"

Comments

'Twas always this way

[Mikkeles]

'points the finger at the ultimate culprit: George Lucas... Star Wars ... '

It was always this way even before Lucas, with the possible exceptions of 'Things to Come' and '2001 A Space Odyssey'.

Re:'Twas always this way

[georgewad]

How about 'Forbidden Planet', 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', 'Silent Running', 'Soylent Green', 'Dark Star', 'Logan's Run'...
Even 'Deathrace 2000', 'Running Man' and 'Robocop' had socio-politcal statements to make.

Re:'Twas always this way

[charleste]

...Bladerunner?

Re:'Twas always this way

[erroneus]

Even Star Wars was hard get get moving though. I don't think Star Wars itself was necessarily the reason for this. Lucas had to make all sorts of concessions to make the movie happen and it just happens that one of the concessions made him billions of dollars and very powerful.

The industry just seems unwilling to depart from established formulas. The result is that everything they do frequently is a beat-down version of something else done before. It's ironic that the industry behaves this way when the rare departure often results in movies that are ridiculously popular... example, Napoleon Dynamite. (Let's face it-- "quirky" would be an understatement to describe the feeling of this movie.) Another example might be clerks... hrm... weren't both of those independant films? I know Clerks was. Perhaps what this shows is that the movie machine is uncreative and cares nothing about the audience save that they surrender their dollars.

Re:'Twas always this way

[abandonment]

I-Robot was a special case - it wasn't SUPPOSED to be based on the story, was written & created completely independently, and then the movie studio threw the license onto it afterwards.

There should be some kind of law about abusing licenses...*cough**shadowrun**cough

Re:'Twas always this way

[Seumas]

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.

Re:'Twas always this way

[georgewad]

Man! I should hand in my geek card.
Bladerunner is one of those very rare movies that deviates greatly from a great book and still kicks ass.
Can't believe I forgot to list it.

Re:'Twas always this way

[mackil]

Soylent Green wasn't "about" people, it IS people!

Re:'Twas always this way

[jimstapleton]

Agreed. Independantly, I Robot wasn't bad. But you had to completely ignore any of the references to Asimov's work for it not to suck. Independantly it was good, but on the lines of Asimov, the butchered it. It would have been a better movie, if
(1) It had a different title
(2) It didn't have a character named Susan Calvin

or
(1) Susan Calvin was the main hero and actually solved the problems
(2) The solution was through thought and insight, not action and computer virii

Re:'Twas always this way

[nomadic]

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.

Next time say that in Klingon, it gets the point home more forcefully.

Re:'Twas always this way

[mrbooze]

More importantly, why is it George Lucas's fault that audiences don't go to cerebral sci-fi films? It's not like they haven't made any over the years since then (Solaris, etc), they just usually don't get many people into the theaters.

Frankly, audiences don't clamor for cerebral films of any genre. The Fault, Dear Brutus, lies not in our Star Wars, but in ourselves.

Re:'Twas always this way

[vague disclaimer]

I haven't seen "I, Robot", but if it's even a little bit like the book...

Don't go there....just don't go there.

Re:'Twas always this way

[theStorminMormon]

How about you RTFA?

After the serials of the '40s and the atomic monster movies of the '50s, science-fiction cinema seemed to grow up right alongside the literature itself in the '60s, culminating in the ultimate marriage of the two: "2001: A Space Odyssey." Director Stanley Kubrick went right to the source for his visionary classic, enlisting Arthur C. Clarke to write the screenplay with him and presenting perhaps the most serious, adult treatment of science-fiction themes to that date. Other literary adaptations followed. Kubrick did it again in 1971 with "A Clockwork Orange," while "Logan's Run," the remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "Soylent Green" and the cult favorite, "A Boy and His Dog," all brought real science-fiction novels or novellas to the screen with varying degrees of success. Even nonliterary offerings such as "Silent Running" and Lucas' own "THX 1138" made sobering statements. But "Star Wars" effectively ended all that, substituting space battles, nonstop special effects and simple good-versus-evil archetypes for the more complex shadings and themes that marked science fiction to that point.

Seriously - this would be an interesting article to discuss if people actually read the article instead of treating this as another opportunity to publicly flaunt their indie cred. "Wath me list of sci-fi movies that show I'm so hardcore sci fi."

There goes any hope for an interesting discussion... /me cranks up "indier than thou"

Re:'Twas always this way

[kalirion]

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.

Re:'Twas always this way

[Beardo the Bearded]

I, Robot was butchered because:

1. Will Smith vs. killer robots. Explosions and stuff! Ooh, and product placement. He can do a rap number - perfect! Ha ha, look at the funny rapping black man.

vs.

2. People thinking out their problems and using their brains. Oh, and the lead character is a woman... and she's the world's smartest person and leading expert on robotics...

But it wasn't just "I, Robot."

Look at The Postman or Starship Troopers. (These three are the best (worst?) examples of butchery I can think of right now.) I haven't seen I, Robot. (I've heard that it would remind me of Vanilla Sky - GIVE ME MY TIME BACK!)

You might be thinking, "Wait, what? The Postman was scifi?" Yeah, it was. It was a pretty good book.

Don't get me started on ST.

Gah.

Re:'Twas always this way

[EggyToast]

And the audience seems perfectly happy to do so. Witness the success of such future classics as Norbit.

Re:'Twas always this way

[DeadChobi]

What a lot of people don't realise about Starship Troopers(movie) was that it was actually written to satirize the book and the whole idea that the ideal society is one in which class stratification is enforced through military service. The book was about Heinlein's ideal society, while the movie was about tearing it apart by pointing out everything that could go wrong with his society. It seems like such an "off" movie precisely because it's supposed to give you that feeling that something is wrong with their way of life.

Re:'Twas always this way

[smbarbour]

How about Gattaca? Very sci-fi, few action scenes, excellent story.

And for the really geeky... The announcements in the background are in Esperanto.

Re:'Twas always this way

[ajs]

The industry just seems unwilling to depart from established formulas. There is inertia to be sure, but unwilling?! Hardly. I watch creative and innovative films all the time. The fact of the matter is that most people WILL NOT go to see a creative and innovative film unless a) it has something they already like (e.g. The Matrix, for all its SF plot was largely seen for its huge explosions and bullet-time fight scenes) or b) peer pressure is involved. What this means is that creative films that don't toe the line and add bombs, blood, breasts and beasts will remain relegated to the smaller, big-city-only theaters. THIS is why I live in a city, where there's a diverse enough audience within a close range that the financials for non-mainstream film works.

If you want to prove me wrong, all you have to do is make a truly original SF film that does not contain bombs, blood, breasts or beasts and hit it big at the box-office.

The result is that everything they do frequently is a beat-down version of something else done before. It's ironic that the industry behaves this way when the rare departure often results in movies that are ridiculously popular... example, Napoleon Dynamite. Perfect example, in fact. N.D. (one of the worst movies of all time, IMHO, but that's just me) cost about $400,000 to make and grossed $116,666 on its opening weekend. This, in the math of Hollywood is considered a flop. Now, it just so happens that it found an audience on DVD and fared much better in later sales, but DVD sales are so very hard to predict that there's almost no way to plan for them. If you think that's untrue, then I can trot out a list of 30 quirky movies that were fairly original, and yet didn't gain any following on DVD at all.

Another example might be clerks... hrm... weren't both of those independant films? I know Clerks was. Perhaps what this shows is that the movie machine is uncreative and cares nothing about the audience save that they surrender their dollars. First off, "independent" is an abused word, but pretending for a second that that word means what you think it means, there's still a problem. "The movie machine" as you call it cares ONLY about the audience. In fact, most of the problem that you're talking about relates to the fact that the audience is being given what it wants, not what challenges or surprises it. What the audience actually wants is THE single most important thing in the Hollywood "move machine" process.

Second, Clerks is a case of talent over subject. Smith is a very talented writer when it comes to building a rapport with a young audience, and most anyone else tackling Clerks would have failed to produce a movie that was as popular. To Hollywood's credit the result was that Smith was allowed subsequently to damn near anything he wanted up to and including insulting major religions. The man was an unquestionable and untouchable director for a time, and that's saying quite a lot. Hollywood recognizes that they can't manufacture writing talent, but they recognize something else: Pulitzer Prize winners, 9 times out of 10, can't write a successful movie to save their lives. The skill sets are too different.

Now, is there political infighting that hurts the industry? Sure. Are there stupid decisions, and even stupid people? Sure. Does the money hurt the art? Sure. All of these are true, but the widely held belief that Hollywood doesn't "get it" as a general rule is rather short-sighted.

Re:'Twas always this way

[Seumas]

Here is what I, Robot was like:

Robot (does something or whatever).
Will Smith: Dayamn! You did NOT just do that! Nuh-uh! You be trippin'!

And no, I'm not kidding. That is exactly what the movie was like.

Re:'Twas always this way

[jdray]

How about "Children of Men" ? It's quirky and quite cerebral. I'm not sure how much it's grossed so far, but it seems to be getting good reviews. All sci-fi doesn't have to have spaceships and androids.

Re:'Twas always this way

[noewun]

The movie machine" as you call it cares ONLY about the audience.

No, the "movie machine" cares only about money.

Re:'Twas always this way

[jedidiah]

ANY book turned into a movie is going to be butchered. That's just the nature of the beast. They are two media that are about as opposite from each other as you can get. The real question is whether or not the screenwriters at least try to uphold the spirit of the original material and make the movie version and adaptation rather than a complete departure. "I, Robot" catches far too much flack for allegedly being the latter.

ANY thing cererbral is going to be shunned by Hollywood. That's the way it's always been. It's gotten a little worse lately and that hast NOTHING to do with the success of Star Wars and everything to do with megacorps buying up movie studios.

Want "real sci-fi"? Go to Sundance.

Re:'Twas always this way

[vimh42]

Starship Troopers was a superb film on so many levels. I highly recommend getting a hold of the collectors edition and listening to the full length commentary by the directors.

Re:'Twas always this way

[rhaig]

If only the movie had accurately described the Heinlein's ideal society before it began satirizing it.

The movie was entertaining, the book, which was a completely different story, was excellent.

Re:'Twas always this way

[geek2k5]

I'm not sure that Starship Troopers would qualify as Heinlein's 'ideal' society. It was more of a controversial political statement than anything.

It may have also been his way of getting out of a contract for writing so called 'juveniles' since it was the last he wrote for that genre. (I seem to recall reading somewhere that he intentionally wrote a book that was good fiction and technically fit the genre, but was too controversial for them to publish.)

Now when you get down to it, the current administration's off and on proposal for mandatory 'civil service', which can include military service, is a trend toward what Heinlein brought up in Starship Troopers.

As a long time Heinlein fan, I watched the movie and listened to the commentary, wondering if the director did much more than skim the book. I also had my doubts that he had read very much Heinlein, especially the stuff after 1959, when Starship Troopers was published.

As with many Hollywood productions of SF classics, I would have to give Starship Troopers a D minus with regards to how well the movie matched the book. While it did cover the suffrage through military service concept, with an iron hand, it missed a lot of the interesting things like the fighting suits. (Budget restrictions, according to the director.)

Re:'Twas always this way

[Stewie241]

Yes but the money comes from the audience.

Re:'Twas always this way

[Frumious Wombat]

And that's the pity. Nobody with talent will touch ST for a decade at least, and the Powers That Be aren't going to listen when someone comes along and wants to give Joe Haldeman's anti-war "Forever War" the full-scale treatment. FW was (allegedly) Haldeman's response to ST, inflected by the different wars that were the formative events for the two authors, and a much better response to the militaristic original. I like Starship Troopers as a book, and I'll admit, I was hoping for more time spent in the History and Moral Philosophy class for the film. On the other hand, just the first third of Forever War (training through first mission ambiguity and disillusionment), would be an appropriate response to the current culture. If someone was willing to treat the material seriously, you could end up with a good "we have some issues here...." film along the lines of Full Metal Jacket or Three Kings.

Re:'Twas always this way

[geek2k5]

A few hours ago, while talking to a friend, she made the observation that SF tends to be read by more intelligent people. She mentioned a family member of hers as an example. I've found, through experience, that SF readers tend to be people with a lot of different interests and are probably more intelligent than the average. While they may not be blazingly successful in life, you can talk to them on a variety of cerebral topics and have some really fun conversations. That said, I figure that Hollywood, in order to maximize profits, dumbs down their SF so that a larger population is likely to watch it. This, unfortunately, makes it cheesy to those of us who enjoy the good stuff. About the only way we will be able to get the 'good stuff' is to make it ourselves using computer arrays, graphics programs and actor AIs. But that is in the future and will require some talented non-Hollywood directors and a low cost distribution system, in addition to the hardware/software.

Re:'Twas always this way

[DragonWriter]

What a lot of people don't realise about Starship Troopers(movie) was that it was actually written to satirize the book and the whole idea that the ideal society is one in which class stratification is enforced through military service.

What a lot of people don't realize is that Starship Troopers (the movie) was made by someone who didn't understand the book in the same way that you don't. Most importantly, like most of the wide varieties of societies in Heinlein's fiction, the main society at the center of Starship Troopers was not Heinlein's "ideal society".

(Neither was the main society in Stranger in a Strange Land, the cult/subculture contrasted against the main society in the same book, the revolutionary society on the Moon in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, or, really, any of his other societies. Many of them were vehicles for portraying particular ideas he found interesting, overlooked, or potentially dangerous in current socieities.)

The book was about Heinlein's ideal society, while the movie was about tearing it apart by pointing out everything that could go wrong with his society.

No, the book was about making you think about things. The movie was ridiculous, broad-brush, thoughtless trash.

It seems like such an "off" movie precisely because it's supposed to give you that feeling that something is wrong with their way of life.

No, it seems like an off movie because the director skimmed the book, noted that there was a culture with a strong role for the military featured in it, from essentially that alone connected it Nazi Germany, and decided to make a film taking the title of the book, no real plot or characters, and the novel moral message "Nazis are bad, even in space."

It's a piece of crap that fails as entertainment, social commentary, morality play, or parody of the book.

Re:'Twas always this way

[prockcore]

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.

Re:'Twas always this way

[CodeBuster]

Seriously - this would be an interesting article to discuss if people actually read the article instead of treating this as another opportunity to publicly flaunt their indie cred.

Perhaps you are simply asking to much, this is Slashdot after all, but in response to your selected quote from the article I would offer the explanation that the movie business, like the music business and indeed the rest of popular entertainment, has become increasingly focused on the blockbuster or "hit" concept where an extremely large budget, and therefore risky (financially) film, has to appeal to as many people as possible in order to generate the types of box office returns that cover the costs of the film AND the substantial risk premiums that the studio accepted in order to make the film in the first place.

It is therefore not surprising that many films of the science fiction genre in recent years have relied upon the simple good vs evil archetypes, zany antics in the "Space Balls" and "Galaxy Quest" style (which can be entertaining, but only to a point), and less complex characters with less development and more action. It is very difficult to avoid this temptation when producing a science fiction film. Even the Wachowski brothers found it difficult to resist dumbing down the Matrix, especially in the second and third films, to make time for more action and stunts, culminating in the completely over the top final showdown between Neo and Smith. Although, the Matrix series at least had some substance beneath the veneer where so many sci-fi films have none whatsoever.

Having said all of this there have been some interesting efforts in recent years, Primer comes to mind, which actually mounted a serious challenge to the space opera stereotype, but they are few and far between. It seems that the more sophisticated amongst us will have to be satisfied with novels, independent films, some television series (the remake of Battlestar Galactica isn't bad), and perhaps computer games until the tyranny of the blockbuster and the pigeon hole of the space opera style is broken, but if history is any indication then we will have a long time to wait. I am not going to hold my breath.

Re:'Twas always this way

[Yvan256]

Colossus: The Forbin Project is an apocalyptic science fiction movie based on the 1966 novel Colossus by Dennis Feltham Jones. It tells of a massive defense computer which becomes sentient and decides to take control of the world. Although not very successful when it was released, the film is generally well respected by science fiction fans and critics.

While the movie was produced in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and released as such on Laserdisc, the DVD release was changed to a 1.33:1 ratio using pan and scan, which is considered detrimental by movie audiences. As the LD (packaged with Silent Running) is the only high-quality version of this movie, it fetches high prices on auction sites such as eBay. Unofficial 2.35:1 ratio DVDs also exist, having been copied from the Laserdisc version by fans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_ Project

Please send angry emails + snail mail to Universal. They botched the DVD release (no widescreen) and couldn't even spell the title of the movie properly on the cover.

Re:'Twas always this way

[swv3752]

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.

No

[stoolpigeon]

As fun as it might be -- George Lucas is not the ultimate reason for this. The ultimate reason is that the major film studios are afraid to innovate and want every film to be a sure thing. He didn't make hollywood that way.

Re:No

[jimbobborg]

Not sure if my memory is correct, but this was one of the first "blockbusters." Hollywood got the idea that they could make hundreds of millions of dollars per movie, so they started banking on this concept, especially during the summer.

Re:No

[ajs]

Very, very true.

It's also true that Star Wars was more responsible for a mental-block on the part of those looking back at film history than it was for a change in later films.

Some films that came before Star Wars:

• Invisible Man, The (1966)
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
  
• Planet of the Apes (1968)
  
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
  
• Time Machine, The (1960)
  
• Andromeda Strain, The (1971)
  

Some films that came after Star Wars:

• Blade Runner (1982)
  
• Back to the Future (1985)
  
• Twelve Monkeys (1995)
  
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
  
• Gattaca (1997)
  
• Pi (1998)
  

You will notice that when you search for movies from these different periods, the primary thing that leaps out at you is that movies that treated science fiction as a serious genre (Pi, Gattaca, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain) are about evenly spaced. There aren't a lot of them, but they get neither more nor less frequent over the decades... We just have rose-tinted glasses when it comes to history.

Re:No

[Stormwatch]

I read somewhere that Gone with the Wind started this concept.

Re:No

[xerxesVII]

See, I was going to mod you up for mentioning Children of Men. Then you had to go ruin it by mentioning The Day After Tomorrow. Serious science fiction? Psh.

Re:No

[idontgno]

Actually, GP's analogy doesn't suck.

The analogy points out that American movie audiences would probably lack a proper appreciation for a critical piece of classical history and legend encapsulated in the set phrase "philosopher's stone": that the philosopher's stone was the holy grail of alchemy, the key to transmutation of the elements and the source of an elixir of immortality.

That's the way the phrase "philosopher's stone" is meant in the book. But the benighted masses of 'merka wouldn't recognize the philosopher's stone if I bounced one off their heads. So marketing went "wait wait, they're not philosophers, they're sorcerers!" and renamed the movie.

And yes, I am a proud American. I'm just not proud of the appalling ignorance of classical culture among my fellows.

Re:No

[houghi]

I read somewhere that Gone with the Wind started this concept.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Solaris

[wiredlogic]

The best recent "cerebral" Sci-Fi movie has been the Solaris remake with Clooney. I found it much more preferable to the Soviet version. It has better actors and an interesting twist was added in the end.

Re:Solaris

[qbwiz]

Science Fiction doesn't have to occur in space. For example, novels where it doesn't:
Brainwave, The Caves of Steel, Blood Music, Queen of Angels, The Demolished Man, Fahrenheit 451, Childhood's End, Camp Concentration, Permutation City, Beggars in Spain, and a thousand other novels. There are some relatively legitimate reasons why you would want to set it in space, though: you want to depict a possible future, and you believe that having people in space will be an important part of that future, or you believe that, for things like first contact, colonization, or isolation stories, that space is the best place to depict those ideas.

Re:Solaris

[gorehog]

Check out Children of Men. It's excellent.

Re:Solaris

[raddan]

Yuck. I disagree. Maybe it was a good film, but it was nothing like the book. In fact, I'd say it was only tangentally related to the book, which is a masterpiece of sci-fi and psychological horror, and I think, the best example of the genre. The Russian version is waiting for me when I get home (Netflix), so we'll see if I change my mind. "2001: A Space Odyssey" is, to me, the only movie that has accurately captured the essence of a good sci-fi book.

Damn you Lucas!!!

[VitrosChemistryAnaly]

Noooooooooooooooo!

wtf is this guy talking about ?

[unity100]

Hollywood's willingness to fund science-fiction movies that actually said something about the human condition

"human condition" what is that ?

what "human condition" does Flash Gordon series contain ? or early superman series ? they are run-off-the-mill american dream robotized characters that are fighting absurd evil characters that contain no humane feelings - just evil, for evil's sake.

im not a star wars fan, but boy, star wars contain heaploads of stuff for "human condition" than any of the sci-fi stuff this guy is talking about - its about humane fears, good and evil, greed, comradeship, high ideals and lowly cravings.

Might this yet change (Re: Ender's Game)?

[HikingStick]

I am waiting to see if the movie adaptation of Ender's Game (by Orson Scott Card) will receive similar treatment (be actionized). It has much to say on the human condition, and would be a great catalyst back toward intelligent science fiction as commentary on the human condition and current events.

Re:Might this yet change (Re: Ender's Game)?

[thrawn_aj]

Bad example IMO. While Ender's Game was brilliantly written, to say that

It has much to say on the human condition is a stretch. The fact is, and SF fans (like myself) should get used to it, most serious SF is NOT simple enough to be adapted to a 2 hour movie without serious losses in clarity. "2001" was understandable only if you'd read the book. Well, by understandable, I mean, all the nuances and the undercurrents. I would say that SF is more suited to the mini-series arena, with Dune being a perfect example. The ill-fated Riverworld is another. SF has a LOT to say about the human condition. However, I feel that the best medium for it will remain books because unlike other genres, which are fairly easy to visualize, the SF writer is precisely the person who goes beyond current memes, else he/she is a failure. Instead of blaming Lucas for the current state of SF cinema, I would applaud him for bringing at least one facet of SF into the public perception, Gordonian though it may be :P. Perhaps if the Sci-Fi channel focused on promoting more intelligent shows instead of the mindless dribble that panders to the paranoid schizoid crowd (wtf do psychics or Government conspiracies have to do with SF? :O), we have a better chance of seeing some of the greater SF works (Asimov's Foundation or Clarke's RAMA - a superb PC game was made of this a decade ago) showcased in all their glory. Of course, the sad fact is that most "SF fans" or at least people who call themselves that are simply X-files fanbois who never grew up.

Bladerunner

[khasim]

One of the better movies.

And don't just look at Hollywood. There's some great Science Fiction coming out of Japan. Such as Ghost in the Shell.

Re:Bladerunner

[podperson]

Bladerunner is almost the exception that proves the rule.

It's a a good action movie that uses ideas from the book it's based on as texture. It has some excellent dialog, almost none of which comes from the book.

Oddly enough, Philip K. Dick is pretty much the most filmed SF author, and every one of his books, including Bladerunner, ends up being an action movie, despite the fact that none of his books even remotely resemble something that might be made into an action movie.

Bladerunner is perhaps the most faithful rendering of a Dick novel in that the hero of the book is a bounty hunter who shoots androids for a living. That's about the end of the resemblance, since every detail of the book at best is snuck in through a back door. Roy Baty isn't a philosopher poet uber warrior -- he's a victim, gunned down matter-of-factly by a guy who finds it easier to kill people than face his wife's scorn.

The fundamental problem -- as always -- has been economics. SF movies were expensive to make (today, it's almost cheaper to make them since virtual sets are getting to be cheaper than filming on location) and expensive to make means you need a mass audience (including overseas non-English speaking markets) which means dumbing your content down to the lowest common denominator.

Going back to Bladerunner -- it was made very cheaply for what it is, it was mangle by the studio in an effort to reach a mass audience, and it was a commercial disaster anyway. "Gee," thought the studio execs, "we ought to make more of these."

The one hope for SF fans is that Studio Execs will look at Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and think, "maybe it's better to base movies on well-loved books than on something George Lucas pulled out of his ass". More likely they'll produce Eragon. D'oh.

I partially blame...

[nebaz]

The SCI FI channel. They seem to cancel all the good series and throw on mindless movie of the week drivel. (And WRESTLING? What's up with that?) It's too bad, I used to like the network.

Re:I partially blame...

[MightyMartian]

I have some seriously mixed feelings about the Dune miniseries. While it by and large does stick much closer to the books (though why Irulan's part was so heavily expanded is beyond me), it felt very wooden. The atmosphere seemed wrong.

Lynch's film, while being an abomination in almost every sense of the word, did have the atmosphere right, and the acting was much better. If they could have put the actors and director from the movie into the miniseries, I think we would have had a spot-on Dune, but as it is, both versions so severely miss the mark that I have a hard time watching them.

oh dear lord

[geekoid]

I remember pre-SW sci-fi.
With only a few exceptions, it was all cheesy, and almost all action based. Lucas just made the action part look damn good for the time.

1970 Science fiction movies:
"The Andromeda Strain" (1971)
"Silent Running" (1972)
"Soylent Green" (1973)
"West World" (1973)
"Futureworld" (1976)
"Rollerball" (1975)
"Omega Man" (?)
"Planet of the Apes"

Some thinkers, mostly action based.

Re:oh dear lord

[ettlz]

"The Andromeda Strain" (1971)
"Silent Running" (1972)
"Soylent Green" (1973)
"West World" (1973)
"Futureworld" (1976)
"Rollerball" (1975)
"Omega Man" (?)
"Planet of the Apes"

Zardoz!

You forgot Zardoz!

You did it on purpose, didn't you?

Re:oh dear lord

[SnarfQuest]

Don't forget:

It.
Them.
Return to the Planet of the Apes.
Escape from the Planet of the Apes.
Yet another Planet of the Apes movie.
The recent "Planet of the Apes" remake.
Star Trek the Movie (#1,2,3,4,5,6,....)
Star Trek the Next Generation (#1,2,3,....)
Flintstones, the movie.
An Inconvenient Truth.
Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Earth Girls are Easy.

Human condition?

[Anonymous Coward]

You want human condition? That franchise was driven into the group *points to Star Trek*. For as much crap as some people like to give ST for not sticking to science too well, go watch any series (except Voyager or Enterprise, they may make you gouge out your eyes) and tell me the series did not cover the human condition. Paramount paid for that franchise, though it probably also helped keep Paramount afloat on a few occasions. You might even see some of the human condition in the ST films. Actually, the films that are most panned (yes the Odd numbered ones) are the ones that often deal with more of the human condition and less action movie with Star Trek thrown in. (Not to say the others didn't have human condition issues either. Look at First Contact and Wrath of Khan.)

It might be hip or even fun to blame George Lucas for ruining science fiction films, but this is just a big mistake. Hollywood was unwilling to any science fiction before George Lucas, so honestly, some sci-fi, even overly "opera-ish" is better than none. Honestly, this isn't a trend that sticks to science fiction. Look how many books they've screwed up in Hollywood.

There's plenty of SF movies

[L. VeGas]

There is quite a bit of popular science fiction cinema that's not space western. It's simply not marketed as such. Off the top of my head...

The Truman Show

Being John Malcovich

Manchurian Candidate

Movie makers and marketing companies want their films to attract as broad an audience as possible. To call something "science fiction" automatically creates expectations in people's heads.

It happens in publishing as well. Margaret Atwood is a very famous example of someone that has intentionally distanced themselves from the label.

To name me is to limit me.

Re:There's plenty of SF movies

[Anonymous Coward]

BJM was pure fantasy, no science-related aspect to it. It was still an intelligent, thought-provoking film.
Of course, describing it as "fantasy" has the same troubles as "science fiction" - most people would define fantasy as "anything with elves in".

Re:There's plenty of SF movies

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

There is quite a bit of popular science fiction cinema that's not space western. It's simply not marketed as such. Off the top of my head... The Truman Show Being John Malcovich Manchurian Candidate

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.

Re:There's plenty of SF movies

[FridayBob]

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.

But...

[jeevesbond]

But what about Blade Runner? That's about as serious as Sci-Fi gets and was made later than Star Wars.

I believe the problem is more with Hollywood studios not wanting to take any risks, always sticking to the same formula. The genre is irrelevant.

Three things

[Otter]

1) The science fiction audience spends its time online now. The few people who still go to movies aren't interested in exploration of the human condition.

2) Related to #1, thoughtful drama is the province of television now. Movies (and this is where Lucas and Spielberg are responsible) are about explosions.

3) Realistically, how good, or how thoughtful, a movie was 2001, anyway? It's as overblown and boring as Heinlein novels that the sci-fi fanboys also insist are Really Important.

Re:Three things

[geek2k5]

I'm curious as to what Heinlein novels you have read if you consider them overblown and boring. I've read and reread most of what he has written and find them enjoyable, if dated in some cases. (There are some I enjoy more than others. The others might be the ones you consider overblown and boring.) I will admit that Sturgeon's Law applies as much to Heinlein as it does to everything else. While he was a major influence on SF, and one of the reasons good SF writers can get big money, he was also highly opinionated and wrote about a number of controversial subjects. Furthermore, in order to do things like keep food on the table, he wrote to get published, which involves certain compromises. As far as 2001 is concerned, I would say that its biggest benefit was that it was an 'art' film that had realistic space ships and space technology. Those who were looking at the hardware could imagine themselves on the moon or in space, a year before the first moon landing. At the same time, critics could ponder the story and wonder if humankind had somehow been influenced/created by 'others'. I would be curious as to why you, yourself, consider 2001 to be overblown and boring. It is certainly not an action flick. But it was a big thing when it came out. My junior high english class made a special trip to see it and we had a long discussion about it the next day.

right

[mastershake_phd]

Hollywood are a fickle bunch anyway. They rarely take chances, and when one succeeds, they copy it for for years. How many movies have there been about the urban kid who no one believed in who was good at dancing? Flash and 30 second trailers sell more than substance. Oh and Star Wars says nothing about the human condition? Are you kidding?

Science Fiction?

[Etherwalk]

Science Fiction, hell. Star Wars (And Jaws, was it?) changed the way the production studios looked at film. The amount of money involved got so much bigger suddenly that it overwhelmed the vestigial idea that movies ought to be pieces of art. It's similar to the move in publishing over the last half-century, away from a climate where your goal, when looking at a book, is to decide whether it ought to be published because it's well-written or well-crafted or has an important message, towards a climate where you decide how many dollars it's going to rank in according to a simple formula or two. Does it catch my eye on the first page? Has the author written twenty books in the genre before? Does it have a snappy snyopsis? Will the language hold someone's eye, even if it's not saying anything, because it's snappy enough?

There are still good films and good books made, but greed has pushed the idea of being "good" rather far from the central idea of the major production houses, to the point where "good" and "bad" become conflated with "popular" and "unpopular." It's all about the money. The most popular actors are generally good, but there are countless incredible actors who never attain that sort of popularity, including some who are far better than some among the popular... because the popular people are part of the formula, and tend to bring in more money, even if their acting is worse than the acting of an unknown. The same applies to writers, and to almost all art where it's a producer/distributor generating the money, and more in it for the money than for the quality of the product. If art and culture really are the metrics we ought to use to measure the output of our civilization--if it wasn't just the Industrial Revolution that mattered, but also the Renaissance--then greed can be a terrible enemy to the quality of our productions.

(Though I'll admit it can also help, at times--the rich artist can grow soft, with no need to change and grow. Look at how comedians change as their success does.)

catering to the audience

[fred fleenblat]

The pattern for the last 20 or 30 years has been for movie studios to create movies that appeal especially to teenagers. They are the most likely to want to get out of the house on friday and saturday evenings, and the most willing to part with $10 for a movie ticket. It's fun, they get to hang out with their friends, see a movie, have some popcorn, get away from homework and the parents. Whatever.

The only reason the studioes release anything else is because they make money on DVD sales and rentals downstream. You want more sci-fi? Buy every battlestar galacta, star trek, star wars, dr. who, dune, LoTR, etc DVD. Individually they are about the same as a movie ticket + some popcorn; it will look awesome on your widescreen LCD; and it sends the message that sci-fi will be supported by the audience. (Star Wars actually went against this model because it took so long to get ep 1-3 onto DVD)

Not confined to movies

[Billosaur]

Mrs. Carroll, my English teacher in high school, was unconvinced that science fiction was on a par with classic literature, even though I trotted out examples like "Farenheit 451", "Foundation", and "Childhood's End". I got very sick of Shakespeare, Henry James, and that lot as they were continuously pounded into my head as "great writing." And now that I am partner in a company that releases a science fiction journal, I can look back and laugh. If there's any problem with science fiction right now it's the scarcity of good writers; I have to say I don't read as much current work as I did when I was kid, when I absorbed Clarke, Asimov, Heilein, Niven, Pournelle, etc.

Re:Not confined to movies

[MightyMartian]

I don't think we should knock guys like Shakespeare. Now there was a writer who understood the human condition. It's quite possible that, in English literature, no one knew it better. It's largely the Elizabethan English that makes him a tough sell.

But I agree that the problem now is that SciFi just doesn't have any superstars left. Asimov was, at his best, one of the best writers out there (though ironically he could also be one of the worst), and the Foundation series could make some pretty good movies, in the right hands. The Golden Age writers were an incredible bunch.

Dune

[dedazo]

I think Dune represents a good example of why people don't take Sci-Fi movies seriously. Here's an incredible literary masterpiece that combines ecology, sex, religion, politics, technology and the ultimate essay on the fragility of the human spirit. Yet the movie and the two TV series that have been published not only do not do justice to the depth of the books, they ended up being, for lack of a better word, corny.

Lynch's movie captured the "ambiance" that many people associated with Dune, but slaughtered the story. The SciFi channel series, with more time on their hands, did more justice to the story, but completely slaughtered the ambiance.

Battlefield Earth for example, once you take out the scientology crap out of the ecuation, is a eminently fun and well done sci-fi novel. Yet the movie was a fucking disaster.

What's the difference between the success of say, the Harry Potter and LOTR movies and the failures that are Dune and all the other crappy film treatments of fantasy/sci-fi books? I'm not sure, but hopefully someone will figure it out soon. There are a lot of excellent books out there - who wouldn't want to see a movie based on Niven's Ringworld series? Or Saberhagen's Berserker opera? - that would make fantastic movies.

they're not alone...

[sammy baby]

Cuaron and James aren't the only ones who shy away from the title. Even hacktastic authors like Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman don't like the term science-fiction. In their introduction to the "Star of the Guardians" series (if you haven't read it? Don't.) Weis used the term to distinguish their books - which took place in space but only peripherally involved science - from books like, say, those by Greg Bear or David Brin.

Of course, regular folks like you and me would call the one variety of books "science fiction," or maybe "space opera" (or, if you've read them, "bad"), and the other books "hard sci-fi." But if you're inherently ashamed of the genre you're exploring, I suppose such a distinction isn't sufficient.

Bah, I say.

Obligatory Star Trek Troll (Trowl?)

[gorehog]

I'm a fan of Star Trek. All of it. Even Nemesis and Enterprise.

However, I am also a fan of Frank Herbert, Isaac Asmiov, Kurt Vonnegut, William Gibson, and Phillip K. Dick.

With all that said I'm going to reiterate something I said in college.

Star Trek killed science fiction. With a phaser. Star Wars helped, but Gene Rodenberry has a lot to answer for.

See, what they both did was take the science out of the fiction. Dune too, to a great extent. More and more often these stories are less about how science changes the human condition and instead are about how science simply enables a new setting for the same old story. The fiction goes from involving the scientific aspect to working around it.

For instance if anyone ever tells Oedipus Rex as a science fiction story you will know it's horseshit. In any scientific culture Oedipus would have had his DNA tested to reveal his ancestry.

IEEE Spectrum had an article on this many years ago where they pointed out that for all the SCIENCE in TOS it was always the captain and rarely the science officer or engineer who finally saved the day.

In all fairness maybe we shouldnt blame the writers but the publishers. Whose idea is it to put Sci-fi and fantasy in the same section of the bookstore. There's nothing more iritating than browsing in a bookstore for a good scifi book and finding something with sword laden dragon hunters or somesuch. What I'm saying is that Tolkein, Leguinn, and Pratchett should go find their own damn shelves.

Re:Obligatory Star Trek Troll (Trowl?)

[RealGene]

What I'm saying is that Tolkein, Leguinn, and Pratchett should go find their own damn shelves.

Le Guin? Hello? Left Hand of Darkness? Lathe of Heaven?

Please don't tar her with the same brush...

Re:Obligatory Star Trek Troll (Trowl?)

[Watson Ladd]

Pratchett isn't really fantasy, more parody. And part of the issue is that some books cross the line. Take Dune for instance. The Benne Gessirit have supernatural powers, and the sandworm ecology needs to be taken with a huge amount of salt, but the suits of the Fremen are pretty rigorous from a scientific standpoint.

Re:So...

[Paulrothrock]

Firefly, may she rest in peace, BSG, the new Dr. Who and Torchwood are "grown up" Sci Fi with a wider appeal. This is evident by the ratings they're getting. Either that, or there are many more nerds now than there ever were.

Re:woah now wait

[Penguinshit]

if you don't come in a whore, do you get your money back?

Logistical Hurdles

[Shadow Wrought]

Part of the problem with translating prose to screen has to do fundamentally with the differences in the medium. Books are about their charactes development and emotions as they confront conflicts. Movies have to show this, so they automatically have less depth in characterization. Since SciFi includes new worlds, universes, boundries, and societies, all of which have to be explained; there is less time to shape the characters. Which makes for an even shallower story. Couple that with the grand vistas that SciFi can shape and there's an even greater temptation to focus on eye-candy instead of characters.

I think SciFi lends itself more readily to taking the easy way out. Throw in some lasers, a sweeping scene of an alien world, and you're good. But if you look at the LoTR, you can also see how well a movie of this type can be made. (I realize that Fantasy is different from SciFi, but from a Hollywood perspective they are essentially the same.) But doing so requires enormous effort and great risk- the two things for which Hollywood is least known.

Star wars is not...

[budword]

future based. Are you new here ? A long time ago......

There's no real -stigma-, It's just expensive

[*weasel]

Ignore the scifi angle, and compare something like Dark City to Memento.
Both were really good mysteries, both did 'meh' business. Guess which one cost more to make and therefore, made the studios more dough?

The only real 'stigma' against SciFi/Fantasy is that it's expensive. As a general rule, the bigger your budget, the more the studios insist on playing it safe. They aim at the big audiences more likely to earn back the investment and dial down anything challenging/quirky/contentious/etc.

The natural target? The 18-25 action/adventure crowd.

Why should a studio spend the extra money doing a SciFi mystery, if they cost more and gross about as much as a contemporary mystery? Similarly for a drama, comedy, horror, etc.

Didn't stop Alien, Blade Runner, et. al.

[elrous0]

On the other hand, sci-fi movies that are not space operas may be judged as differing too much from the "Star Wars" archetype and canned as being too risky.

Didn't seem to stop Ridley Scott from making Alien and Blade Runner right after Star Wars. There is and will always be smart sci-fi out there. And there is and will always be pulp. I would actually argue that Star Wars is more than just pulp, especially in Empire Strikes Back, but nonetheless smart sci-fi continues to be made.

In fact, I can think of several recent films like The Fountain, Sunshine, and Solaris just off the top of my head; none of which could be described as "space opera" by a longshot.

-Eric

Re:Didn't stop Alien, Blade Runner, et. al.

[Khaed]

Okay, this is the third or fourth time I've seen you whining in this discussion about "RTFA." HEY-ZEUS CHRIST.

Dude. This is Slashdot, okay? People don't always read the article. You haven't figured out yet that basically how it works it, the title and summary set the tone for the conversation, and the article is only involved in a tenth of the posts? It works like this:

FLASHY TITLE TO GRAB ATTENTION.
Summary of article.

(HUNDREDS OF POSTS of us talking to each other, bitching about the summary, TFA, the title, the spelling and grammar in all of them, a Soviet Russia joke or ten, a few Beowulf cluster jokes, jokes about not getting sex, at least one fanboy flame war, people talking out their ass, a GNAA post moderated down to ALL hell, and maybe even an ASCII representation of a man spreading his anus open)

We're geeks, we're bullshitting, we're just talking and airing our opinions and Sci-Fi is one of those things a majority of Slashdotters have opinions on and most of us are like, to hell with the article, this is what I think.

So what if people mention movies the article lists? So what if we're discussing things the article does?

To quote a Sci-Fi movie:

"This is what I do, darlin'. This is what I do."

WELCOME TO SLASHDOT
Your acne and body odor are being fedexed to you.

Prejudice

[digitalhermit]

I've always wondered the same thing... IMHO, the problem is that there's a misunderstanding of what constitutes science fiction. It's almost like watching a play versus a movie. In a play you don't think about the set so much as the story and the acting. If the clouds in a play look like pillows it's OK. But in a movie we want a lot of visual realism.

Many science fiction movies do a similar thing with theme. In a conventional movie it's desirable for the theme to be hidden. Apocalypse Now is only a war movie on the surface; same with Platoon or Saving Private Ryan. But with science fiction it's quite different. It's expected that the theme *is* the story. What are the consequences of genetic manipulation? What are the consequences of atomic power? If machines could think, should we give them the same rights as humans?

But critics have been trained since high school to look for the subtext, the hidden theme. Confronted with something new, they fall into their learned prejudices. Maybe they should red more literature from non-European, non-dead authors instead of being so closed-minded.

It's not just Sci-Fi channel; it's the market, too

[CleverNickName]

A few years ago, some friends of mine and I pitched the Sci-Fi channel, and I heard directly from a very highly-placed executive that the network was actually making a conscious effort to move away from SF programming and do more "Scare Tactics" style programming in an effort to capture portions of the SpikeTV market.

I foolishly (for the goal of selling a show to them) observed that running away from the very thing that made the network popular -- and was in the damn name, by the way -- probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but the geek in me overpowered the hopeful businessman. Oh well.

Those craptacular movies you're referring to (I did two of them: Python and Deep Core) used to go directly to video in the USA, while also being sold to foreign markets to make back money for their investors. However, with the advent of basic cable and channels like Sci-Fi, they usually are produced by, and air on one of those stations (think Lifetime, TNT, etc.) before heading off to the bargain rack at the car wash.

One of the points made in TFA is that intelligent movies have been replaced with action movies, and thoughtful plots have been replaced with explosions and spectacle. One of the reasons I tend to agree with the parent on Sci-Fi being part of the problem here is that they still translate these movies into several different languages, and distribute them all over the world; an explosion and a scantily-clad starlet are essentially the same in any language or culture, so it's easier to sell those films (to Sci-Fi and to the foreign markets) when they're simplistic, "four-color" 90-minute packages, instead of complex 2001-esque masterpieces.

Battlestar Galactica has turned into DS9.

[raehl]

I think I'm turning into an old sap, but I liked BSG better when the humans were the good guys and the cylons were the bad guys. Seasons 1 and 2. I'll even give them the 2nd captain showing up and being a bitch since they disposed of her in a couple episodes.

Now BSG definitely IS a soap opera. We've got custody battles, affairs, elections, trials, family squabbles...

I liked it better when it was a Sci-Fi show about ships in space, not a daytime soap opera that just happens to take place on ships in space.

Just scan something and shoot it, damnit!

Re:Deep impact, The Day After Tomorrow

[bsandersen]

At the risk of enticing you to make your tenth posting on this subject, let me try to clarify: Storytelling is the thing. Having a compelling story about people, hopes, dreams, obsticles, heros, antiheros, and the like are what makes good fiction, and good cinema. Bladerunner had great special effects, but it was also a compelling story. Serenity (and Firefly) was a fabulous vehicle combining the Wild West and the lonely ship's captain. If the characterization and storytelling were weak, we wouldn't love it as we do. My point was simply this: the best examples of science fiction (in print or screen) emphasize good fiction. When the elements of fiction are good, the science part is just a backdrop, part of the scenery. There are plenty of examples where the science (gizmos, ray guns, space ships, and time machines) came first with plots and characterization akin to "It was a dark and stormy night..." that leave us embarrassed for the work's creators. (Millennium [1989] with Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd comes to mind.) Interesting stories, like the ones I listed, have something to say and the science doesn't get in the way. The very best have people suspending their disbelief easily and comfortably, as with Firefly and its horses and space ships mixed up in the same scenes. Give me the good story, then we'll work on the backdrop. My two-cents.

Re:It's not just Sci-Fi channel; it's the market,

[blitz487]

"One of the reasons I tend to agree with the parent on Sci-Fi being part of the problem here is that they still translate these movies into several different languages, and distribute them all over the world; an explosion and a scantily-clad starlet are essentially the same in any language or culture, so it's easier to sell those films (to Sci-Fi and to the foreign markets) when they're simplistic, "four-color" 90-minute packages, instead of complex 2001-esque masterpieces."

It couldn't have been that hard to translate 2001, as it had what, 2 minutes of dialog in it?

The bell curve

[SophisticatedZombie]

You can't really blame the content creators for this problem. It is a business, and in business, high sales volume typically brings greater success. Unfortunately, stories about how science and human nature interract in the world do not appeal to most people. Most people tend to think in terms of high level social heuristics: familial ties, social hierarchies, sexual webs, etc... It takes a certain type of "intelligence" to integrate non-social heuristics into one's understanding of the world. Hence, stories that try to explore how such non-social phenomena impact the human condition do not make sense to most people. They literally can't follow along. Hence, if you realisticly want to change the nature of the movie industry, I would propose the following two pronged approach: genetic engineering and massive forced cyberization. By setting a standard intelligence level for all people, and using genetic and cyberized co-processor attachments to bring all people up to par, we would be able to create a market for intelligent science fiction.

Re:So...

[sesshomaru]

Actually, the article is about how people are making science fiction movies that don't fall into the Space Opera subcategory. But these people don't want their movies labelled as science fiction even though that is what they actually are.

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.

Re:It's not just Sci-Fi channel; it's the market,

[Thumper_SVX]

I agree completely. However, this isn't just a problem with the TV market; the book sci-fi market has taken a similar tack in recent years. Honestly, I look at the shelves of recent sci-fi novels, and the ones I've read (an unfortunately much smaller number since I've had kids!) and I found that many of them are rather vapid regurgitations of earlier works, or action crap-fests that essentially try to boil a movie down into printed words.

I honestly am starting to feel that the problem is cyclic; that the "dumbing down" of science fiction in general, and the fear exhibited by investors when those "terrible words" are used result in the inevitvable; people start hiding science fiction behind other plot devices or other means, essentially slipping sci-fi in through the back door. Although excellent in its own right, this is exemplified by the current Battlestar Galactica, which is only sci-fi in the extent that the backdrop is in space; the rest is pretty rote drama. This results in a lot of action movies and TV shows that portray a bad idea of what science fiction should really be to the young. Those young then take this flawed idea of what is science fiction, create a book / TV show / movie and create what they THINK is science fiction without actually creating anything scientific.

What does it say about the current science fiction book market that the last four books I read and enjoyed were (in order) the last three of the original Dune books (not the prequels), and "The Light of Other Days" by Arthur C Clarke; an old-school writer? Everything else I've picked up has been terrible.

What you encountered with sci-fi was further evidence that the market is indeed the problem, but that market's problem extends far beyond TV and movies. By the way, I do know what you're talking about; I've been on your side of the table a few times with Sci Fi and investors. Selling a good concept is hard, even when the stuff's good. Sci Fi particularly don't want to know. If they can't make it cheap and sell advertising high, hang the "Stargate" brand on it or cater to the lowest common denominator then they don't want to know. It's a pity because they HAVE produced some good stuff. Unfortunately they tend to be the exception rather than the rule these days.

And just FYI, a little pandering to our "celeb" here... I'm probably one of the few people who really enjoyed Mr. Stitch. I think I've got it on a VHS tape around here somewhere ;)

Primer

[guinsu]

Wait, all these sci fi movies listed (good lists too) and no mention of Primer? If you thought Pi was indi-sci fi, this movie is a total mind fuck. It's an interesting story and well written but makes no concessions to a mainstream audience. I wish there were more like it (not that I don't like mainstream, but it's nice to see a movie push the envelope).

Re:It's not just Sci-Fi channel; it's the market,

[Rakarra]

This is something I could never get about network executives... They treat humans like a homogeneous blob which can be attracted, and never like the subgroups with diverse interests that humans actually are. SpikeTV has the SpikeTV market because it's aiming for that subgroup. If the Sci-Fi channel desires it, it can have an almost exclusive stranglehold on the sci-fi market by making more good shows like Battlestar Galactica or the Stargate franchise.

Here's the thing though -- crappy "reality" programs like Scare Tactics using random people or C-list actors are -dirt cheap-. Plus, you don't need any actual plot, so instead of hiring writers and actors, all you need is Joe Rogan. Science fiction can be expensive not only to shoot, but the special effects budget can be pretty hefty too. For the cost of one Battlestar Galactica, you could make five Scare Tactics or wrestling shows, and the TV executives want the largest return on their investment.

TNG was all about science changing the hc

[master_p]

TNG was all about how science changing the human condition. That's why it was the best Star Trek show. DS9 was a simple soap opera, Voyager was a simple adventure in space, Enterprise was...better not tell, and TOS was cheesy.

Where to start from...let's see...

artificial forms' rights? the whole story of Data was about that.

AI? Data, again. He even created a child.

3d hologram technology and consequences? lt Barcley's holodeck excursions, LaForge's love with a virtual character.

The consequences of very advanced weaponry? lots of stories here about balance of war.

Racism? Federation values and mistreatment of alien races.

Sexuality? Riker's affairs with asexual races, the trill woman and the doctor.

Cloning? Riker's brother, Lore.

What reality means in the presence of technology? Riker's episode in the hands of alien mind benders.

The consequences of nanotechnology? the episode with the nano-machines.

History and archeology? the episode where Picard finds out the common ancestor race for most races of the A and B quadrants.

Sociology and biology? unification.

Cyborg technology? the whole Borg story was about that.

Religion? many episodes where Picard was treated as god.

Politics? quite many episodes.

Money? the structure of the Federation as an advanced form of society that does not need money.

Evolution of civilization? Federation citizens evolved into people that aim to better themselves and not simply consume resources.

Strange stellar and time-space continuum phenomena? plenty of episodes as well.

Time travel and consquences? yet again, many episodes.

Terrorism and 'cause justifies the means'? season 3, episode with terrorists possessing a super-transporter device. Maquis.

Anti-gravity? Star Trek's home.

Psionics and telepathy? besides Deanna Troi, there were lots of episodes where telepathic races did various things with various consequences.

Espionage? plenty of Romulan-related episodes.

Tortures and human rights? 'I see 4 lights'.

Parenthood and what it means to raise children? lt Worf, his wife, his child Alexander.

Actually, La Forge and Data saved the day in quite a lot of episodes...in fact, in more episodes than Picard did.

See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek:_Th e_Next_Generation_episodes for the list of episodes and the tremendous catalog of topics TNG dealt with.

TNG is above and beyond all other sci-fi shows.

Odyssey 2001? was HAL science? it was more magic than science. Artificial gravity in Odyssey 2001? yeah, it could work, but man will not go to the Stars in rotating cylinders. The monolith? increbible black magic box.

Blade Runner? yeah, cloning. Big deal. Seen and discussed a thousand times in TNG.

Doctor Who? let me laugh. The doctor, travelling in time, battling injustice? with a ship bigger from the inside? what kind of science is this? where is the science, actually?

Farscape? nothing that Star Trek has not shown before.

Galactica 2003? firearms instead of lazer guns, Christian God preaching instead of ancient Gods? no thank you sir. It is ridiculus. Galactica 1978 was much better.

So...Star Trek did not kill Sci-fi. TNG was the most popular show, because of its tremendous diversity in topics.

Sci-fi was killed by the mindless stupid and silly shows that followed.