Should There Be a Sci-Fi Category At the Oscars?

An anonymous reader writes "In this chat with the originator of the light-saber in Star Wars and the Nostromo in Alien, director Roger Christian argues that the Academy Awards needs a special category for 'best science-fiction film.' It's a thorny subject, since such a new category would inevitably either get lumped in with fantasy/horror or further 'ghetto-ise' the genre. But with 2001 and Avatar snubbed for best picture, among many others over the years, does ANY sci-fi film ever have a shot at Best Picture?"

Comments

Every time a bell rings

[alphatel]

Avatar was about as sci-fi as Lord of the Rings which won the Oscar. Just because we geeks love sci-fi/fantasy/gore/zombies/pizza doesn't mean they all need categories. If you want to change the over-65 AA voters, become one of them. Get Cameron in there, Lucas, Spielberg, etc. You will have your own category and they will destroy it like everything else. Then of course we'll all be complaining that we need a true sci-fi category while we watch Forbidden Planet for the 40th time.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Suferick]

'Proper' SF (which I dare not attempt to define, but feel free to have a go) will always be too 'niche' for the general public to appreciate in this way. Perhaps there should be a Best Picture category at the Hugos instead.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[scottrocket]

Who cares whether or not Science Fiction films receive Oscars? I just enjoy watching them (aside: I just ordered another copy of "Forbidden Planet" : ) ).

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Joce640k]

Sort version: NO

Longer version: If we start down the 'categories' road then everybody will want one.

The Oscars are bullshit anyway. eg. Look at how many winners weren't released in the couple of months leading up to the awards, it's close to zero. Conclusion: We're asking a bunch of fashion designers what the best movies are.

Which is also why geek movies never win unless they're exceptionally pretty or family oriented.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Z00L00K]

You still have the Hugo and Nebula awards for Science Fiction.

But the sad thing is that sometimes a movie is done in a Science Fiction style with no concerns about providing a good story and is just using the genre to permit an overabundance of special effects.

The best special effects is when the viewer thinks it's a natural part of the set and it appears realistic. A lot of the computer generated special effects you see today are still not having a natural appearance, even if there are cases where it's hard to tell. One example of a good computer generation is the much hated figure JarJar Binks in Star Wars (not perfect, but a well done), but sometimes you see animations of snakes in other movies where the snake looks like it's levitating.

B.t.w. if you want to see a movie in the Science Fiction category that's good and has very little special effects I suggest that you watch K-Pax with Kevin Spacey.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Richard_at_work]

Actual "proper" scifi is extremely hard to get both correct and entertaining at the same time - very few authors have achieved both.

Which is why scifi is generally accepted and tolerated to have elements of fantasy rather than be chained to actual science.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[alphatel]

Which is why scifi is generally accepted and tolerated to have elements of fantasy rather than be chained to actual science.

We tolerate nothing!

Signed,
the Zombie Apocalypse
P.S. - No we aren't sci-fi either but we occasionally eat Bladerunner enthusiasts

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Zediker]

When you get down to it... "Proper" Sci-Fi is a thought experiment (philosophical or otherwise) made manifest through media.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

This. And it is why I hate SyFy so incredibly much for what they have done in recent years.
And just generally destroying shows as well, changing times around, etc.

I actually want them to die. They have done more damage than good to SciFi.

I'll stick with amateur productions, online productions and the like. Hell, even animation (anime in particular) has more hard SciFi than anything put out the last decade in film. That's just sad.
They are better than the trash put out these days. It is all action action action now to try pull in the action kiddies. No thanks, I like substance. (Even if it was acted by people in school for an English class!)

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

What K-Pax has to do with science fiction?

Re:Every time a bell rings

[wisty]

Not really. There's endless debates over what constitutes "proper" sci-fi. It can be "hard" (nothing which a few engineers, and slightly better tools can make), "medium" (hard, with one or two "breakthroughs"), "light" (lots of breakthroughs, ancient powers, remnant gods, aliens with unlimited power) and fantasy (anything goes).

Some of the best Sci-Fi is set ~30 years in the future.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Xiaran]

Sci-fi can be succinctly defined as speculation, whether based on established scientific facts or on logical pseudo-facts consistent with the framework of the fiction in question, involving smelly green pimply aliens furiously raping or eating, or both, beautiful naked bare-breasted chicks, covering them in slime, red, oozing, living slime, dribbling from every horrific orifice, squeezing out between bulbous pulpy lips onto the sensuous velvety skin of the writhing sweating slave-girls, their bodies cut and bruised by knotted whips brandished by giant blond vast-biceped androids called Simon, and written in the Gothic mode. -- Peter Nicholls, True Rat 7 (1976)

Re:Every time a bell rings

[wisty]

Minority Report, Equilibrium, Firefly, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Serenity, District 9, Inception, Sucker Punch ... it wasn't all bad.

OK, the best were TV series. And yes, I was trolling with that last one.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Sci-Fi, stands for science fiction. If you have both, then you have Sci-Fi.

But they shouldn't bother with a category. Hollywood seems to turn out more crap than ever. How about instead of nominating what they think is good, instead of arranging everything they got and pick the top few? Oh, wait! That would mean some categories would stay empty for years at a time ...

Re:Every time a bell rings

[zippthorne]

"Proper" SF isn't "hard SF" Although they're both difficult to get right, especially if you also want to be entertaining.

The idea of sci fi in general, and its main strength over other forms of literature, is to explore some social issue using fantastic elements to disguise the bits that would prejudice the reader. Like the film Gattaca, which explorers racism without prejudicing white viewers with actual race differences. (speaking of which.. why does the title have an extra letter?)

Hard scifi doesn't necessarily don't explore real issues, but instead plays with the what if [thing that's impossible] were everyday and commonplace scenario. Sometimes you get a story that's engrossing. Sometimes you get a product manual for products you can never buy. Frequently, you miss out on the "permanent and universal interest" part of enduring literature, though.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Tseax]

Here here!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort version: NO

ok, fine I'll do it

"eiNnOorsv:"

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

It has Kevin Spacey!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[SuricouRaven]

Note that all of those tend towards the soft end of the scale, ranging from 'marshmellow' for Minority Report to 'thick fog' for Dr Who. Hard sci-fi tends to have less mass-appeal and so be less likely to get the big-budget movie or TV treatment.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Kjella]

The obsession over "proper" sci-fi is to me a bit like wanting more fancy graphics over game play in computer games. Yes, a hardcore scientific look at the feasibility of a Ringworld is great, but put it on Discovery or National Geographic and don't call it a movie. Any good movie depends on the characters and the story, not the scientific accuracy of the setting. A good sci-fi movie is to me one that makes a good connection between the technology and the storyline, if it's just a normal series put in a futuristic setting with lasers instead of bullets then that doesn't get any points with me. Like they say, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic so I consider both of them forms of "what if" stories. Some are closer to technological advances we can imagine than others, but that in itself doesn't make it a better movie.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[BarryHaworth]

Perhaps there should be a Best Picture category at the Hugos instead.

There already is. The Hugo award for Best Dramatic Presentation has been in operation since 1958. 2001 won the award in 1968, Avatar was nominated in 2010, but lost to Moon (which is arguably a better movie).

I discovered this category a couple of years ago, and have found the list of winners and nominees very instructive. It's alerted me to a lot of good movies which I would otherwise have missed.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[vlad30]

I always liked this definition Spoken by the character Douglas Anders "Grell" in the SG1 episode 200

Science fiction is an existential metaphor that allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Isaac Asimov once said, "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."

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Boscrossos]

Hey! I enjoyed Sucker Punch. It was, above all, a beautiful movie (in the visual sense). The story was meh (but had some nice ideas), though I did enjoy trying to link what was happening in the different levels of "reality" (I tried to use the word thought provoking in connection with this movie, but reality overwrote me). They could have done a lot more with it, though, maybe switch back and forth a couple of times to the real world (asylum). However, you can not deny that all the "dream travel" parts were action-packed pieces of delicious, sweet eye-candy (and I don't mean just the boobs). With some better writers, that movie could have been a classic.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[jellomizer]

Pocahontas errr ummm Avatar only Oscars it would deserve to get are Oscars for Special Effects... As for Best Picture... No... It was a popular movie, However it was a cheesy predictable plot redone over and over again.

Man is an outsider goes to a new area with a group of people who trust him.
Man meets up with a chick in new area who he connects with and a culture he feels like he is less of an outsider in.
Man finds the group that he was with are actually doing bad things to the new group he likes.
Man Burns the Candle at the both ends for a bit.
One side and/or the other find out about him.
Man gets separated from both groups.
Man chooses which side he should be on.
Man kicks the butt of the opposing side.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[SerpentMage]

No actually you are wrong and missing the intent of science fiction. Take Star Trek for example, which went from good ol SciFi, to hand waving fantasy land. Yes I blame the writers.

Let's say I am writing a story and in the story I hit what I would call a dead end. In the case of Lord of the Rings it is when Gandor is taken down the bridge and "dies". At this point the question becomes how does the story adjust when it hits a dead end? In the case of fantasy a wand is waved and Gandor comes back as a new Gandor the white, who has progressed to the next level. In fantasy we accept that, but from a story line its hand waving and taking a short cut to get out of a story.

In contrast when a story hits a dead in with science fiction you can't hand wave. You HAVE TO figure it out as a puzzle with limits and boundaries. This is what makes SciFi so hard because it has limits on what is believable and what is not believable. Getting back to Star Trek in later episodes there was a quite a bit of hand waving. When the plot became difficult and hitting a dead end some magical technology appeared and all is ok in the Federation. That is violating the rules of Science Fiction.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

this really is the place to find self-important nerds, isn't it?

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Boscrossos]

Well, if they got Oscars, arguably more people might bother making them, put more money into them, and we might get more (some might even be good).

Re:Every time a bell rings

[shadowrat]

I wish I had some mod points for you. You deserve a 5 Knows SF.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Oswald McWeany]

Well- there are three types of sci-fi.

Those that explore social issues; (Gattaca was excellent. I like Well's work too- even though his books that were made into films were dumbed down on the social-issue side).

There are those that try to predict the future- or use hard science facts to tell stories.

Then there are the silly "Made For SyFy channel" features and their ilk. The ones that don't use science, don't really tell a social story; they're just dumb entertainment. Sometimes fun- but often just campy. They're the equivalent of romance stories for men. Same plot lines told over and over again cranked out on an assembly line by uninventive authors.

Honestly- although there can be entertainment in all three- I prefer the ones that make you think. The ones that speak out about today. I don't care if the science-or the facts or off...make me think once in a while.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[bigstrat2003]

Yep. The effects were good, but the plot was terrible.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[SerpentMage]

Everything, did you not watch the movie???

The premise is that advanced humans travel via light. I think the movie was getting at the wave particle duality theory; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality

In essence energy can either be a wave or a particle. The entire theory of the movie is based on the idea that this alien travels from place to place using this theory. However the pyschologist does not believe him.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Oswald McWeany]

Very good point.

I think the kind of people who actually pay the slightest bit of attention to the oscars arn't *usually* Sci-Fi people to begin with.

(yes I know there are probably exceptions) I know I personally have never sat down to watch the oscars. I've never even cared enough to see who wins what after they're over. Often times if it is on the news I hear who won- but it's not information I actively seek. I really don't care.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[digitig]

Sort version: NO

Longer version: If we start down the 'categories' road then everybody will want one.

My thoughts exactly. If we have best Sci-Fi then why not best Rom-Com, best road movie, best fantasy, best drama, best gay cowboy movie and so on. Heck, why not have a category for every film made, that way everyone's a winner.

If they want an award that films like Avatar could win, maybe an award for "highest grossing". But I can see why the Academy doesn't see a need for that.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Chaos Incarnate]

That's what Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) is.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Medium version: The Oscars don't *deserve* a Science Fiction category.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[jd2112]

Sucker Punch was bad. Not nearly as bad as the critics made it out to be but other than eye candy it didn't have too many redeeming values.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Tom Christiansen]

Avatar was about as sci-fi as Lord of the Rings which won the Oscar.

Say what? There was nothingThe Lord of the Rings, — at all.

Tolkien actually enjoyed hard sf, especially Asimov, but his roots were in Beowulf and the Eddas, not in H.G. Wells. It’s like comparing apples with aardvarks: not even in the same kingdom.

Tolkien’s work is fundamentally mythologic in scope, looking to the past and recreating a series of tales out of old myths and half-remembered memories. Science fiction is a completely different beast. It extrapolates possible futures by applying known principles to unknown possibilities, all the while keeping within the laws of nature as we understand them. Yes, both are story-telling, but that is as close as it gets.

Science and myth are truly about as far apart as you can get, so I cannot see how you could possibly make such an outlandish statement.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[dtmancom]

Yes, Avatar wasn't sci-fi. But then I watched the cut without the alien planet, human hibernation during a multi-year voyage between stars, mind-transfer pods, VTOL aircraft and bombers, battlemech suits, massive, remotely piloted strip mining machines, and alien races and ecosystems. The version I watched was kind of short. ;-)

Re:Every time a bell rings

[icebraining]

Moon and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind easily top any of those, in my opinion.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Comboman]

They tried to have a Best Western category, but they were sued by some hotel chain.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

(speaking of which.. why does the title have an extra letter?)

The title is based on the initial letters of the four DNA nitrogenous bases (adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine). During the opening and closing credits, the letters G, A, T, and C are all highlighted.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

The self-important nerds being the ones who, roped in as the followers of any religion, think that fiction is more than a mechanical appeal to emotion designed to elicit attention and payment?

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Phrogman]

Yeah, none of my friends were even remotely interested in seeing it, but I decided to pony up the cash to go see Avatar. The special effects were pretty decent for the most part, although it didn't quite blow me away as I had hoped it would, but the plot, OMFG the plot was so insipid. It was so identical to so many other films I have seen. With all the hype I had expected an intelligent and complex plot - but instead got "Corporations bad, control the military, exploit indigenous people, destroy their culture". Yes, and I already knew that, except that when the natives fight back, the forces of "civilization" always win in the end and get to do their best to destroy the indigenous people, their culture, and in particular their language.
I would say Avatar was an okay film, but I doubt I would recommend it to anyone and I certainly don't think it deserved any awards outside of Special Effects or Animation, where it obviously excelled.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

because avatar had very little 'sci' in its 'fi'

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Frenzied Apathy]

Man is an outsider goes to a new area with a group of people who trust him. Man meets up with a chick in new area who he connects with and a culture he feels like he is less of an outsider in. Man finds the group that he was with are actually doing bad things to the new group he likes. Man Burns the Candle at the both ends for a bit. One side and/or the other find out about him. Man gets separated from both groups. Man chooses which side he should be on. Man kicks the butt of the opposing side.

As was jellomizer's point, you can break down EVERY story you've ever heard/read/watched to a small set of basic plot points. There is no such thing as an original plotline. Stories have been around since Man could think and reason. You can only come up with a different visual context in which to tell the story.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[icebraining]

You mean Gandalf.

While I agree with your point, I don't think that was a good example. It's unfair to Tolkien to call it mere hand waving to fix a problem in the story, when his death and rebirth is obviously done on purpose, and the whole background is explained in The Silmarillion, which he had written years before.

There's still no real boundaries - after all, it was a direct intervention by Eru Ilúvatar - but it's not just hand waving.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[InsertCleverUsername]

Exactly. The only reason the wife and I can both enjoy BSG and The Walking Dead together (and that's about all we can agree on) is that the sci-fi worlds these series are built around create such a rich ecosystem for real human drama. Good sci-fi creates truly novel, yet believable, situations that plumb the depths of what it means to be human.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Moon was absolutely fantastic and deserving of that award in every way. if you haven't seen it, you must!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Moryath]

Indeed. Star Wars is "sci-fi". Or is it "space opera"? Or is it "modern fantasy/mythology"? I've seen it described in each way.

The other thing you have to get over, if you want the Academy to accept sci-fi as relevant, is the special effects. The over-65 academy voters came from a time when special effects weren't that grand. They couldn't do many of the things we can do today. So they look at a movie like LOTR, which is extremely driven from a book, and they love it. Then they look at sci-fi and... I'm sorry, but Avatar was crappy, shitty done story with too much politics covered over by extremely well-done special effects. Strip out the effects, leave in the story, and Avatar is just boring. Likewise, the Academy looks at the genre in its entirety and we're looking at the likes of The Last Starfighter, or the alternating passable/awful/passable/awful Star Trek line that peaked with Wrath of Khan (though I did like the reboot). Or they look at ANYTHING AT ALL MICHAEL BAY HAS DONE... why the fuck do studios keep letting him keep ruining franchises?

The point being, the over-65 AA crowd voting looks at sci-fi and they assume (because it's true 99.9% of the time!) that there isn't a story there, that it's all barebones covered up in special effects and explosions. Serenity was cool, but if you didn't watch Firefly beforehand (note: I've never been able to see Firefly in sequence, and my friends took me to see Serenity anyways so I have this perspective) you didn't know what the fuck was going on going into it and you probably, like me, walked out half confused as to what the point of some of the characters was at all. "Pivotal moments", like Wash's flight/death or River's badass moments, mean NOTHING if you haven't seen the TV show. The movie just doesn't stand on its own - kinda like trying to watch Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith, where if you didn't watch the Clone Wars animated series, you have NO FUCKING CLUE who half these characters are and Lucas is too lazy to give even the most barebones of exposition to why they're storyline-relevant.

You want sci-fi to be respected in the Academy, you need to do 3 things:

#1 - you need to let the explosions and CGI take a back seat. That's one of the major things in LOTR that worked: the CGI didn't make Gollum, it just made Gollum possible - Gollum was totally the acting work of Andy Serkis (especially the schizophrenia scene!).

#2 - you have to make sure your movie contains the entire story. Big one here. Drop in a bunch of characters, fail to introduce them because "well the audience knows them from the TV show", and you run the trap that both Star Wars and Serenity failed on: the academy is not your fucking audience and has no goddamn clue who the characters are or why they should care because you left the entire character development process out of the fucking movie. Take a clue from Pixar - they made a better love story in 10 minutes than that hack bitch Stephanie Meyer did in 4 whole movies, AND without that 10 minute montage, the entire rest of the story in Up just doesn't work.

#3 - you need to be sure your story is accessible to the older Academy viewers. Again, this is something Pixar are geniuses at - they can make a G-rated movie that 5 year olds and 65 year olds alike watch, and love, and enjoy because it's accessible to all ages. And they can do it without even shooting the dog or giving someone cancer.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Moon is a better movie. No argument about it.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Moryath]

That reminds me:

Hey engineers/scientists, you've got 3 years to come up with Mr. Fusion and hovercar conversions or else Marty McFly will never get home to 1985!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[hal2814]

Looking at the list of nominees tells me exactly why the Oscars doesn't have a scifi category. Flesh Gordon? Zardoz? Outland? Brainstorm? These were all Hugo nominees! There just aren't enough good scifi movies in any given year to guarantee enough viable nominees. There are some bumper crop years (1983 for example), but if you're scrounging so much for material that you're willing to consider Sean Connery in a red leather codpiece, you need to just burn the damn awards show to the ground.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[tophermeyer]

Also concur. Good drama is stories about people. Sci-fi allows authors incredible opportunities to set whatever backdrop they wish to tell, at the core, stories about people. There are also great opportunities to address current social issues in isolation. BSG had some great story arcs that dealt with terrorism and the moral issues surrounding how societies respond to terror. BSG was able to address this irrespective of our current political context, and made the issue a little more generalizable.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[frost_knight]

And, yet, fantasy where 'anything goes' is usually terrible, in my opinion. I think good fantasy remains consistent to its own internal laws, whatever those laws may be.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[mr_gorkajuice]

Primer:
Men invents time machine.
Men create paradox.
Drama ensures.
Openended final leaves you to make your own conclusions.

Wow, you're absolutely right. And it's not even hard.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Canazza]

They've got Roland Emmerich doing Asimov's Foundation trilogy.
We're all fucking doomed.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Moryath]

It can't be as bad as Will Smith's absolute butchering of "I, Robot"...

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

And in the end it turns out there probably wasn't any reason to believe him. If you made a movie about some deluded patient who thought they were an elf you still didn't make a fantasy movie. If you made a movie about mental patient who thought they were a vampire that doesn't make it a vampire movie. Having the patient disappear at the end doesn't mean all the delusions were real.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[JoeDuncan]

You mean like in the Babylon 5 season 3 finale, where Sheridan jumps to his death on Z'ha'dum and is brought back to life to lead the alliance against the Shadows and Vorlons?

Oh wait, that's the opposite of what you were trying to say.

And Babylon 5 was the best SF to ever hit TV...

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Hard? Soft? Who cares!

Let's have the Academy segregate it all into a little ghetto!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

UMM.. shouldn't this person like hand in his geek creds and stuff at the door and then leave this place, hopefully letting the door hit him firmly in the ass! I mean really?! Gandor!? And then using it as an example of hand-waving when he doesn't even understand anything about Middle Earth.. aye yi yi. Pick a better example you tool!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why so many people praise Gattaca. The whole movie is one big caricature, including the would-be astronauts who don't do anything convincing as part of their training, the investigator sniffing hairs, the overly sentimental cripple character, the missions whose nature is never revealed, the relationship between the brothers and pretty much everything else in it. It doesn't show the true lives of any characters, nor does it reveal any depth in their social interactions or the mechanisms of how the DNA-aware world works. It is all a cardboard stage with matchstick characters, designed for emotional manipulation rather than intellectual stimulation. It's not a bad movie overall, but due to the lack of depth and plausibility, I don't think it can be treated as serious entertainment or hard sci-fi.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that Avatar wasn't a very good movie. It was pretty, but not engrossing.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[rilian4]

Avatar didn't win because it was a bad movie. It had great special effects, for which it did win. It went viral and thus made a lot of money. It was NOT snubbed. That's not to say other movies haven't been snubbed. LOTR:FOTR was snubbed. It was by far the best of the 3 movies but didn't get much come Oscar time. The film studio therefore campaigned hard *cough* bribed *cough cough* for more notice and got it for ROTK. As for sci-fi pictures getting Best Picture nods, Star Wars in 1977 was nominated for it but lost. For those too young to remember, SW was a freaking big deal in 1977. It was nominated for 10 or 11 awards and actually won 6 or 7.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[MogNuts]

Nah, we still need it. Alien(s), Sphere, that movie with Ed Harris in the underwater science enclosure (can't remember the name), etc. All not niche.

But we need it because honestly I can't find much good sci-fi lately. How many times can you watch Aliens, 2001, Star Trek? Honestly, there is more good sci fi in video games now (Dead Space, etc.). I can't find anything good nowadays. Last one I saw was Sunshine and that one with Dennis Quad (can't remember the name). Enough to satisfy my fix, but c'mon, they were pretty terrible. Well sunshine was good until they turned it into Event Horizon but it was tacked out and out of nowhere.

We need it because we need to know what good sci-fi to see. Or even just to find ANY sci-fi! If anyone can name anything good, please prove me wrong.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Creepy]

I was surprised, as I agree, Sucker Punch wasn't nearly as bad as the critics made it out to be. It wasn't a great movie by any means, but certainly better than the 1/2 out of 4 stars the local critic gave - I'd have given it 2 stars - average mindless comic-book entertainment, and that same critic gave 1 star to Dragonball Z, which was worse. Of the rest of those, only Inception really was best picture quality, IMO; District 9 kinda fell into typical sci-fi/action movie tropes by the end (incidentally, I recall Roger Ebert saying something along those lines, as well).

Personally, I don't think Avatar deserved an Oscar, as I thought the plot was a lame rehash of Ewoks vs empire, but with giant smurfs vs the evil humans (because humans are mindless evil creatures unless they become giant blue smurf hippies). OTOH, the Hurt Locker didn't deserve to win as parts of it were as much fantasy as Avatar - I think it won either on a "support our troop" vote in a weak field of candidates. I've seen all the movies up for that year except An Education and none of them I felt was deserving of best picture. It was kind of like 2007 when No Country for Old Men won - I didn't feel like that movie deserved to win, but none of the others were deserving, either (I did predict it would win).

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a motion picture category at the Hugos Wikipedia. Specifically, there is one category for best long form (movies) and one for short form (tv). Two problems though: no one in Hollywood cares about Hugos (they never seem to be mentioned in movie promotion), and even people who vote on the Hugos have questionable taste in movies (in 2010, Avatar won over Star Trek).

Re:Every time a bell rings

[elrous0]

Producer: We've obtained this thoughtful science fiction story about the passengers finding meaning in their lives aboard a generation ship, dealing with relationships and aging in lives where they know they will never live to see their ship's destination. It's a very thoughtful story on human individualism and purpose vs. the common social good.

Studio: Great. Cast an A-list action star. Call Michael Bay and see if he's available to direct. Add a subplot with a murder investigation...no fuck it, make that the main plot. Write in at least four good chase scenes. Cast a hot young actress, see if you can get one with nice tits--just not Lindsay Lohan, no way the insurance would cover us on that. Have the CGI boys start working on the chase sequences, tell them we need it yesterday. And make sure there's a happy ending and all that shit.

Producer: But what about the story of humanity on the generation ship?

Studio: What the fuck is a generation ship? Look, just put one of those young guys with the 6-pack abs in the lead and don't even worry about a script. And tell the marketing boys to get to work on some internet viral promotion crap. See if you can get some decent product placement deals in place before we start filming this bastard too. All that CGI ain't going to be cheap.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Creepy]

I think you mean Flash Gordon... Flesh Gordon was a pornographic spoof of Flash Gordon. I remember watching that back to back with Andy Warhol's Frankenstein and Andy Warhol's Dracula when I worked for a video distributor (seriously - we had to verify the quality of the video tapes, and while it sounds fun and some of it was, I'd probably pass on the hardcore gay porn - it also wasn't an idle job, we also were adding security tags to new videos at the same time). Wild stuff, probably better with lots of LSD.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[elrous0]

He, Brainstorm was actually a pretty good movie. Outland was too, but not really science fiction (more like a western with a futuristic setting).

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair enough... it's also noteworthy imho that several years didn't give the award in that category...

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Dishevel]

To be fair Will was just acting the part given to him. If you want to place blame I would put it on the director and the screenplay writers.
They are they problem with that movie.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[AshtangiMan]

IMO Moon, Another Earth, and BSG are the creme of the recent SF fare (District 9 too). I think it's hard to make a good SF movie because of the time constraints. BSG had the luxury of doing a 5 year run where they could take a lot of time setting up the Cylon humanity thing, and they did it really well (much better than the original series, which I have tried to watch again recently and can't). I wish we had more good stuff like that coming out, but because it is so difficult I'll take a few gems a decade and stick to literature in the lean years.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Moryath]

Bullshit - Will Smith, Executive Producer. He didn't just "act the part given to him", he was involved in ruining it and defining his own part.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[thrich81]

I know I'll be demolished for this but, "I, Robot" takes a lot of undeserved criticism because it took some of the Asimov themes and characters but wasn't a direct copy of an Asimov story. I heard it got retitled at the last minute to drum up interest. The movie had some good, insightful moments (interview where the Robot asks Will Smith's character if HE could write a symphony, etc). By the way, the Asimov 'I, Robot' and 'Foundation'' series both jumped the shark when he tried to bring them together at the end. The movie was better than that.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[MrTester]

Oh dear god NO!!!!
Are you freaking kidding me? Emmerich doing Foundation?
WTF!??!?!?!!?
Who the HELL would let that man get the rights to it?

You just ruined my whole frigging day.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Moryath]

You're not referring to the right books.

It wasn't "I, Robot" (which was a short-story collection) he merged with Foundation. It was the Daneel Olivaw line (Caves of Steel / The Naked Sun / The Robots of Dawn / Robots and Empire) that he merged with Foundation at the end. At best, the I, Robot short stories (along with several other short stories, novelettes, and novels like Pebble in the Sky) provided a theoretical "history" of the human-centric universe he eventually wrote the Foundation series within.

Asimov's stories were a lot like Tolkien's stuff in a way. He had an idea of a long-running universe, and he would place various stories at various points within the universes. The long-running character Daneel Olivaw is really not so different from Gandalf in a way, doing a lot of things "behind the scenes" that are hard to ferret out until you start looking at the long view as well - and they take much the same turn, with Gandalf bailing out to the East with the Elves at the end of LOTR just like Olivaw tries to get "a few more years" to finish his work and set humanity onto a new evolution before he has to finally die.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

There is hardly a difference. Setting in time is just a feature and not a genre. Same as Star Wars are mainly fantasy ( if You can explain anything in scientific manner then .. uhm no ... ) for a change it is now called science fantasy but it changes nothing. No fantasy even Tolkien's recreates any past. They create whole new worlds. Be it past-like or future-like.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Grishnakh]

Drop in a bunch of characters, fail to introduce them because "well the audience knows them from the TV show", and you run the trap that both Star Wars and Serenity failed on

I'd like to make a side point here: Serenity was never meant to be Oscar material, or even a movie for people who've never seen Firefly to watch. It was meant to be a final episode of Firefly, to satisfy all the angry Firefly fans who had their series canceled so abruptly. Serenity was a decent movie from that standpoint, because it tied up the loose plot ends and answered all the questions that were left open in the series. It wasn't great, because it couldn't be: it only had two hours to do what was originally planned for another half-season of episodes, or perhaps another full season or two. Don't think of Serenity as a stand-alone movie, because it isn't; think of it as an extra-long episode #15 that ends the season and the series, which Joss Whedon managed to con the movie execs into showing in theaters instead of on TV. It was a nice treat for the fans, but that's all it was for, the fans of the series. It wasn't meant for other people.

The Star Wars prequels were never Oscar material, of course, because they were crap. I don't care how good your FX are, when the story, acting, and dialog are that horrifically bad, the quality of the FX are irrelevant.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[tlhIngan]

Good sci-fi creates truly novel, yet believable, situations that plumb the depths of what it means to be human.

Exactky, It's why Star Trek was popular and many other Sci-Fi TV series and movies seem very real.

The "technology" behind it only exists to lend background. E.g., GATTACA explores what it means to be human in a world where genetic testing is so cheap and easy it's done religiously - the technology enables exploration and thinking on the human condition.

Ditto BSG - the technology exists merely to explore humanity in situations that may not exist now, later, or ever, but to see what reasonable actions may occur and draw parallels to normal life.

Good sci-fi is really just a form of social and political commentary, often re-imagined to make it easier to see it "from the outside". It's often easier to tackle difficult subjects if the situation is reframed (especially if the subject is controversial and can lead to people digging in their heels).

Heck, one of Star Trek's recurring themes (back in the Roddenberry days) was to explore how the Prime Directive conflicts with basic human responses to help and provide for the less fortunate.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

I have got the weirdest boner right now...

Edit - captcha: frolic ---- classic!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[braindrainbahrain]

I hear ya, but science fiction is rarely about the characters. Quick, name these characters:

- The narrator in "War of the Worlds"

- The narrator in "1984"

- Any character in a Jules Verne story

- Any of the astronauts in 2001 A Space Odyssey (Okay, we remember the one dude, but that's because the computer said his name when he wouldn't open the door)(OK, the computer is a character, and I'll bet you know its name)

- The narrator in The Handmaidens Tale

- The Blade Runners love interest

My point being that the best science fiction is about ideas/extrapolation/tech/etc and how it affects Man, rather than being about any particular man. This is true (though to a lesser extent) even today. Weeks after reading a novel by Alastair Reynolds, I remember the plot, the setting, the interstellar voyages, the biotech, but the characters... they are really just everyman, trying to make their way in a brave new world (pun intended).

PS: I use "man" as a generic term to mean human being, no affront to women intended. I'll leave it up to /. ers to guess what my gender is, or if that matters.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Elendil]

> Tolkien actually enjoyed hard sf, especially Asimov

Huh? Could you please tell us your evidence for this? I was under the impression (based on JRRT's letters and novels) that he wasn't too keen on technology and the so-called modern world. So I have some difficulty imagining him interested in a distant future filled with spaceships and robots.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[thrich81]

Thanks for the analysis (and non-flaming reply). I had considered the "I,Robot" collection as a predecessor to the "Caves of Steel" since they were both robot centric, but it's been a long, long while since I read them. Maybe need to reread, but I recall I really didn't like the last of the Foundation novels.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[lister king of smeg]

i almost killed some one the other day for saying the book I Robot sucked because it was nothing like the movie I Robot.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel brisk, brisk me!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[lurking_giant]

Please don't mention "The Core"... one of the poster children for bad Sci Fi.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Filip22012005]

I think his point is that bases in triplets code for an amino acid. Gattaca has 7 letters.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[sensationull]

Community quote, nice #sixseasonsandamovie etc :)

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I don't think it can be treated as serious entertainment or hard sci-fi.

Like you, I think Gattaca was basically a lousy movie and I don't understand why so many people like it so much -- but IMO its problem is exactly that it tries to be "serious" rather than just telling the damn story. If it had been contemporary rather than near-future, all of the problems you mention would have written Oscar Bait all over it. As for "hard," well, that's generally about as hard as Hollywood science fiction gets.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Too True. Makes you wonder if the Studios have CGI guys working on generic scenes, based on a formula, that they can just insert into any movie.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[JeanCroix]

I will always hate SyFy, and can never forgive them for three simple reasons:

1) Riverworld

2) The Prisoner

3) Riverworld

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Rakarra]

#1 - you need to let the explosions and CGI take a back seat. That's one of the major things in LOTR that worked: the CGI didn't make Gollum, it just made Gollum possible - Gollum was totally the acting work of Andy Serkis (especially the schizophrenia scene!).

Not entirely. That was the film's publicity message, because they wanted to push for Serkis to get a best actor nomination. But we've seen over and over again that if you just try "performance capture," it's always missing something. The very best CG-character-in-live-action performances (like Gollum) have been old-school character animation interpretations of live actors' work. If you just do a just do an actor capture and call it a day, the results (as they are in most movies) are abysmal. But animators take special care with facial expressions and hand gestures, and I assure you a massive amount of post-production effort went into making the Gollum character work.

You need good animators, and you need to not be afraid to use them. But actors tend to hate animators, so they don't want anything overlaid on their poorly-captured performance.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Mac Scientist]

'Proper' SF (which I dare not attempt to define, but feel free to have a go) will always be too 'niche' for the general public to appreciate in this way. Perhaps there should be a Best Picture category at the Hugos instead.

There is an SF film award. From Wikipedia: "The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video."

They break the award down by category. Started in 1972. Impressive list!

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Say what? There was nothing [science-fictional-about, I assume you meant to say] The Lord of the Rings

That was kind of alphatel's point, I think: Avatar was fantasy with futuristic trappings. It's easy to say, "If it's got horses and elves it's fantasy, if it's got spaceships and aliens it's science fiction," but it's also lazy.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Rakarra]

Bullshit - Will Smith, Executive Producer. He didn't just "act the part given to him", he was involved in ruining it and defining his own part.

I'd love to know how much Will Smith was involved (honestly). "Executive Producer" is a very vague term in Hollywood that means almost anything. Steven Spielberg was the executive producer on Poltergeist and he partially directed it behind the scenes. Harvey Weinstein was an executive producer on the Lord of the Rings and all he did was pass on the movie and sell the rights to New Line. It's a title that can literally mean any level of involvement.

The non-executive producers are usually the ones calling the hiring/writing shots, and I can't really blame their hiring choices either. Alex Proyas directed it, and his previous two major movies were at The Crow, which was nice, and the brilliant Dark City. Yeah, I would have given him a shot too. Writer Akiva Goldsman had just gotten a Best Screenplay Oscar, so would you expect that he'd mess it up? In hindsight... yes, they all messed it up, but going into the project, these guys seemed like good bets to visualize a sci-fi story. Granted, co-screenwriter Jeff Vintar's previous project was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within so maybe that was a red flag, but otherwise...

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Rakarra]

Oh dear god NO!!!!
Are you freaking kidding me? Emmerich doing Foundation?
WTF!??!?!?!!?
Who the HELL would let that man get the rights to it?

You just ruined my whole frigging day.

Whomever owned the rights and wanted to sell them for a lot of money?
Emmerich makes movies that make money.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[jellomizer]

Why yes, you can summarize most stories to basic plot elements. However Avatar did it in a way that was much too predictable.

What made "Classic" Pixar Movies so much more interesting then their Disney counterparts wasn't as much the CGI but the details in the general story plot.

For Pixar their normal trend is making the main characters, unlikable at first, they are usually very flawed you really are not sure if they are going to end up being the good guys or the bad guys. If they turn out to be a Bad Guy they often have a reason to be as such. Then the interesting part of the movie is seeing how the characters change and grow over time and often they will end up in a more of an unexpected growth.

For Avatar, there wasn't that much growth, it was more of yea I picked which side I want to be on.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing that impressed me most about Moon was that there *is* a story. A rather human story. The effects were nice, and sufficiently well done to be believable, but they weren't IN YOUR FACE OVER HERE LOOK AT THIS EXPLOSION BOOM!!! like Avatar was. They made the right call.

In fact, the grand parent is right that this is a good list to look at. Two back-to-back wins for Babylon 5 episodes even, and those are good episodes too.

Can't quite figure out picking "Galaxy Quest" over "The Matrix" in 2000, though. That's just freaking bizarre.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Dr. Gamera]

Quick, name these characters:

- Any character in a Jules Verne story

Unfair to Verne. Captain Nemo and Phineas Fogg leap immediately to mind, and I haven't read any Verne since I was a child.

Your larger point is not without merit, though.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

"Everyone has to piss in it."

I'm acquainted* with a well known SF author who told some stories about going through the book-2-movie gristmill. His first book won both Huga and Nebula, and some years later, someone got a project going to make a movie out of it. His take on the process was (paraphrasing): "Everyone has to piss in it. You know, there's the screenwriter, and the producer, and the director, and the stars... each one has to piss in it, you know, to mark their territory. Everyone has to 'add' something to the story... and at the end of the process, what you end up with is a bucket of warm piss."

* "Acquainted" means: We have a lot of mutual friends, but only ever meet at SF cons every few years.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Rakarra]

Boy you entirely missed the point with Gandalf. Tolkien's world is very religious, though it's mostly hinted at. That Gandalf had been walking Middle Earth for two thousand years by the time of the events of the Lord of the Rings should have been the first clue that he wasn't a man. Even mortals have spirits in that world which persist, though they are almost never let back like Gandalf was. But Gandalf, Saruman, Sauron, their type are seen being destroyed and reforming over time -- Sauron is "destroyed" at the flashback which starts the films, and yet he'd returned by the events of the Ring.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

That movie had 5 Executive Producers, 4 Producers, and a Co-Producer. They give those credits to anyone with a few dollars to donate to the film and throw "Executive" on it if you're one of the stars. So I call bullshit on you! Blame the correct people. An Executive Producer credit doesn't translate into "blame me for the entire debacle".

Re:Every time a bell rings

[rk]

" Serenity was never meant to be Oscar material, or even a movie for people who've never seen Firefly to watch."

I agree on the first point, but I don't know about your second point. I know several people who saw Serenity not even knowing at the time it was based on a TV show, and who liked it quite a bit. They appreciated it as a science fiction movie that was a little bit different. In one case I got to tell one of them that it was based on a TV show and gave her my DVDs to watch, and thus created another browncoat. :-)

Re:Every time a bell rings

[mattcoz]

They both received nominations.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[cyberchondriac]

I don't know if you can even really classify those SyFy made for TV movies as SciFi. Most of them are just the most retarded monster movies imaginable, trying to ride the coat-tails of current theatre releases, like "Monster Fish" and "Megashark vs Gigaman" type schlock. Is there such a thing as a "C" movie? If not, there is now.
And lots of the stuff is fantasy.. mostly, really awful fantasy with the worst CGI and acting ever.

I think the only thing I watch on it now is "Merlin", which despite it's inherent campiness, for some reason I'm into; but that's really a BBC production.. and definitely not SciFi.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do that when you can just do fantasy? pick another marvel character or just do another Twilight.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[puto]

Top of my head and I can name Jules Vernes characters, 3 astronauts in 2001, and of course Rachel in Blade Runner. And I am 42 and havent picked up any of those books in at least 20 years.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Rakarra]

Look at how many winners weren't released in the couple of months leading up to the awards[...] eg. Look at how many winners weren't released in the couple of months leading up to the awards, it's close to zero

If we're talking Best Picture nominees:

Moneyball: September 2011.
Tree of Life: May 2011.
The Help: August 2011.
Midnight in Paris: July 2011.
Hugo: November 2011.
The Artist: Jan 2012 (that's when it got its wide release.. its limited release came back in November).
War Horse: December 2011.
The Descendants: December 2011.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: December 2011.

There's a decent spread. Is it likely that one of the November/December releases is going to win this year? Yes it is, because those films were better. The studios don't let the smaller, usually more well-made movies out during the summer where they'll get crushed by summer movies. People don't go to the movies as much in Jan/Feb or Sep/Oct, so those are the months when studios dump films that they're contractually obligated to release but are likely to suck. So you have two main periods in the year that are good for movies: the summer months when the young-uns are likely to be out of school and able to see movies on the weekdays, and the end-of-year holidays.

In previous years there were some pretty fantastic geek-oriented films that would have been good choices for Best Picture, but I'm hard-pressed to think of any this year. Not even Harry Potter. Though hell, it was probably better than The Help. I definitely thought it was better than the horrible Tree of Life, but critics disagree with me..

Longer version: If we start down the 'categories' road then everybody will want one.

I agree, and what's more, the Best Animated Feature category should not have been created. Unlike what the general public might have heard, it was created as a ghetto with the intention that animated movies would no longer be eligible for Best Picture (Beauty and the Beast's nominations sent shockwaves of anger through the acting branch, the largest voting block of the academy). Over a decade later and Toy Story 3 was nominated, but the talk was that it could "settle" for Best Animated Film.

If ever there was a Sci-Fi category, it would doom the chances of a science fiction film ever being considered for Best Picture.

AND if there was a Sci Fi, I mean SyFy category, you just KNOW that Twilight would be raking in the awards.

Doubtful! I mean, does anyone actually like Twilight? I've yet to meet a single person who did besides 14-year-old girls (a sadly powerful demographic), and there aren't too many of them in the Academy voting block. This isn't the MTV movie awards, fortunately.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Rakarra]

Whoops, that second quote should have gone down to the poster below you.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[careysub]

He, Brainstorm was actually a pretty good movie....

Two-thirds of it were a pretty good movie. It was in fact an unusually close model of a classic approach to hard SF - postulate a technological innovation, and follow the consequences as its impact is felt. The movie was crippled by the death of Natalie Wood and led to a very unsatisfactory mish-mash of an ending that let them patch together the footage they had of her.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Rakarra]

Man is an outsider goes to a new area with a group of people who trust him.
Man meets up with a chick in new area who he connects with and a culture he feels like he is less of an outsider in.
Man finds the group that he was with are actually doing bad things to the new group he likes.
Man Burns the Candle at the both ends for a bit.
One side and/or the other find out about him.
Man gets separated from both groups.
Man chooses which side he should be on.
Man kicks the butt of the opposing side.

Please do not break down movies in this fashion. EVERY SINGLE MOVIE can be oversimplified as such to make it sound childish. Every one. I'm not saying Avatar was Best Picture quality (meh, it wasn't), but I've seen this done for movies of all types, and it always does a disservice to the actual movie.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Rakarra]

Tolkien certainly had a dislike for the physical effects of the Industrial Revolution upon rural life, but science fiction doesn't rely (thought often features) the pillaging of the countryside.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I don't think Avatar deserved an Oscar

Amen. It was a very "pretty" movie, visually speaking, but the story wasn't particularly interesting, new or compelling. I liked Avatar better when I read it as a short novel by Ursula K. LeGuin named "The Word for World is Forest."

It wasn't particularly new, it wasn't particularly engaging storytelling - "humans are bad and destroy the environment, we should all be peaceniks like the Na'vi, because you can still be a badass and love mother nature." The characters took a back seat to the explosions & the computer generated environments. And the dialogue was... boring as fuck.

Overall, I'm not sure why Avatar - easily consumed pop culture - is considered by the submitter to even be in the same category as 2001. And this is not to say that "only old sci fi is good sci fi." It's possible to write compelling, story-driven science fiction and fantasy stories that don't just rely on "super icky zombie effects" or "extra special computer-generated battle scenes!"

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Rakarra]

LOTR:FOTR was snubbed. It was by far the best of the 3 movies but didn't get much come Oscar time. The film studio therefore campaigned hard *cough* bribed *cough cough* for more notice and got it for ROTK

One thing worth noticing is that the Oscars frequently award people who had previously been snubbed (even if that creates a snub that has to be corrected in future oscars).

You are right about "campaigning," but it gets a lot more complicated than simple bribery. Harvey Weinstein is famous for his incredible campaigning, party hosting, and arm twisting which resulted in some of his sub-par movies getting Best Picture. His reputation by now is pretty tarnished, so he doesn't hold the same sway he used to..

Re:Every time a bell rings

[desdinova 216]

ba-dum-tish

Re:Every time a bell rings

[careysub]

...

I agree, and what's more, the Best Animated Feature category should not have been created. Unlike what the general public might have heard, it was created as a ghetto with the intention that animated movies would no longer be eligible for Best Picture (Beauty and the Beast's nominations sent shockwaves of anger through the acting branch, the largest voting block of the academy). Over a decade later and Toy Story 3 was nominated, but the talk was that it could "settle" for Best Animated Film.

If ever there was a Sci-Fi category, it would doom the chances of a science fiction film ever being considered for Best Picture.

...

Disagree. So... despite the existence of the ghetto that ensures no animated movie will be eligible for Best Picture, one was nominated (for the second time ever) anyway? Logical disconnect.

And what you are saying is that it would be better than no animated movie ever win an Oscar -- since only two have ever been nominated at all, and the Academy's well-known biases guarantee that however good it might be, it can't win.

Animated movies are sufficiently different in fundamental ways from live action (i.e. in a way that any live action genre movie - like SF - is not) that a separate category is not only deserved, but needed to allow their qualities to be appreciated, and to allow the whole discipline of animation to get its due recognition.

This is similar to the existence of best foreign language category, the nominees in some years are all better than any on the English best picture list, but have never one an Academy Award for Best Picture.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[rsborg]

Who cares whether or not Science Fiction films receive Oscars? I just enjoy watching them (aside: I just ordered another copy of "Forbidden Planet" : ) ).

Close the loop. Oscars (and other awards) drive sales, which are basically promoting the film. Without adequate representation, SciFi films suffer from depressed potential turnout and lower overall response - this in turn drives film-makers to not avoid the subject (ie, I can make a police-buddy flick that could gross $300M or a scifi flick that would likely gross 1/2 to 1/3 the cost - oh, and the special effects for the scifi film will add a lot more overall cost to produce).

You want more SciFi films? They should be rewarded similarly... if you like them you should care.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Zombies have a lot to eat with all those replicants. They can be replicated, after all.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

"Executive Producer" is a fairly meaningless term that's given out like candy to stars who want a little extra money or a little extra "ownership" of a film:

An executive producer (EP), also called executive in charge of production, is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production. Typically an executive producer handles business and legal issues.

So great, Will Smith helped them handle some business or legal issues - likely exchanging some up-front cash for a small percentage of the box office and a "title" on the movie. It's very unlikely he had a say in much of the writing or direction of the movie.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[blahplusplus]

"Hard sci-fi tends to have less mass-appeal and so be less likely to get the big-budget movie or TV treatment."

There is a reason for this, most sci-fi usually sucks and or is too dragged out (too long) and you could sum up many of the main points sci-fi tries to make much more succinctly in less time.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[kikito]

Ah, Gandor. Always the shadow behind Gandalf. People tended to not notice him - even Tolkien forgot to mention him.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[hal2814]

No, I meant Flesh Gordon. Thank you for seriously helping me make my point.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Mateorabi]

Technically, CGI is "Visual Effects." "Special Effects" are things like gasoline bomb 'explosions', squibs, etc.--effects/illusions that happen in front of the camera and are captured on film.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[AJWM]

Galaxy Quest was fun, and a parody that needed to be done. The Matrix was a rehash of SF memes that had been around forever, with a premise that didn't make a whole lot of sense (people as batteries? srsly?). Not that it wasn't great eye candy.

Perhaps it was simply that Galaxy Quest had spaceships and aliens, and The Matrix didn't. Actually, considering that the Hugos are fan-nominated and fan-voted (you just need to buy a membership in that year's Worldcon), the direct fan-appeal of Galaxy probably heavily influenced the vote. Heck, "Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury" was nominated last year -- up against episodes of "Dr. Who".

Re:Every time a bell rings

[ynp7]

Avatar also doesn't deserve an Oscar for Best Picture; it's a fine enough film, but nothing brilliant. What it is, particularly in 3D IMAX, is a visual spectacle of spectacles like nothing else ever produced. The Oscars have special affects awards for films such as this, which Avatar swept if my memory serves.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree that a lot of these movies are enjoyable.
But, they are not and by far incredible movies. To be fair, half of them are not even great movies.
Their story line is usually really simple. The level of reflexion and emotion carried usually quite low.

I mean, cinema is freakingly incredible medium.
In 90 minutes, you can completely overwhelm your viewers.
You know, this feeling when after viewing a movie, you have the sensation that the world you are living is not exactly the same. Or, these movies you keep thinking about over and over pondering their true meanings.
Actually, a good movie is exactly like a good book only more condensed.

And, to be honest, sic-fi movies usually fail to carry these feelings because they are to obsess about CGI and effects.
Avatar is a perfect exemple of that. It's not really artistically pretty. The work on light and settings is properly done but not really innovative. The story is completely dumb. It's closer to a technical demo than to a movie and it will probabely aged really badly. From my point of view, it's quite normal it didn't get the oscar.

On the other hand, Blade Runner is exactely what a good movie should be.
The plot is really good raising interesting questions without trying to force an answer on you.
The characters are well developed with convincing motivation.
The setting is just mind blowing. Scott is a master of light.

So, to answer raised by the article, no we don't need a special sic-fi category at the Oscars.
We need good sci-fi movies.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[wisty]

I've been trying to think of good sci-fi movies since making my post. Blade Runner was the obvious one. 2001. There's really not many others. Some of Cameron's stuff is fun. Jurassic Park. The Fifth Element.

The best sci-fi has great special effects, or great writing and acting, or both. It probably gets more special effects awards than acting awards, due to a certain amount of snobbery against it. Gollum being barred (for acting through CGI) was totally unfair, but it's usually just an occupational hazard - actors in sci-fi or fantasy won't get as many awards.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. While I can usually remember the protagonist in most novels, I can't for the life of me think of the hero's name in Snow Crash.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, was just listening to the audio book a few weeks back: 'Hiro Protagonist' :)

(stopped about a 1/4 of the way in - just couldn't grab me & too silly 4 my liking; hope Stephenson's other books r better, but I doubt it, after also trying his mental masturbatory Anathem a while ago, bleh).

Re:Every time a bell rings

[chromeronin]

Avatar might have had a shot if it had an original plot rather than copying Pochohontas and dances with wolves.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[jaymz666]

For Avatar to win it would have to be a good movie, and it wasn't. It was a BAD movie with good press.

Re:Every time a bell rings

[jaymz666]

They didn't even try very hard, when the item the big evil corporations wanted was called unobtainium. Seriously?

Um, no

[Y2KDragon]

And while 2001 is a fantastic movie, comparing it to the other movies in question, it's not even close. It's like making the equivalent of an NIT tournament in College Basketball. No, if a Sci-Fi movie cannot stand on it's own against the other top movies, it's not worthy of a "best movie" award. This, from a long-time sci-fi fan, who wants to see a sci-fi movie win because it really was the best movie of the year. Sci-Fi movies already clean up in most of the effects, makeup, and other technical fields. Even soundtracks from sci-fi movies get nods. This is the big league. Step up to the plate or go home. But don't whine about not going to the All-Star game when you are just average (at best).

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a very real problem of genre movies not being taken seriously, though. Even if a film is as good or better than works done in realistic modern or period settings there is a bias towards the non-genre film.

Re:Um, no

[Richard_at_work]

I agree with the parent.

There is no special category for romance, comedy, action or other types of live action film, so why should there be one for science fiction? As much as I love scifi myself, its not worthy of an entirely separate category at the awards, over and above every other sub-category within the live action category.

The fact that Avatar was "snubbed" has nothing to do with it being scifi, as it simply wasn't the best actual film - it won "Best Cinematography" and "Best Art Direction" because it was a treat for the eyes, but as a film it was really quite poor.

As for 2001, it won "Best Visual Effects", but wasn't even nominated for "Best Picture" - again, there were better films that year.

So no, it doesn't deserve a special category all of its own. This meritocracy only goes so far.

Re:Um, no

[Richard_at_work]

In addition, Avatar won "Best Visual Effects" as well - so basically it won in every category in which people were talking about it before it was released anyway. People didn't go to the cinema to see Avatar for the plot, they went to see it because of the fantastic visual elements that were being raved about - and surprisingly, Avatar won in all of those categories at the awards...

Not much more to say really.

Re:Um, no

[Ginger Unicorn]

Never having seen Dances with Wolves or Ferngully the Last Rainforest, I even enjoyed the plot of Avatar when I went to see it. I was convinced it would be the new Star Wars, then I came out of the cinema and everyone thought it was shit. I still thinks it's brilliant though, in my own little world...

Re:Um, no

[tverbeek]

A friend of mine bitches about the Oscars because movies like The Hurt Locker, No Country For Old Men, and Crash win Best Picture instead of Trasformers, Night at the Museum, or Meet the Fockers, which did so much better at the box office. In other words, he complains that the Oscars are.... the Oscars. The Academy isn't interested in presenting awards for Best Screwball Comedy or Best Action Film. They aren't trying to re-reward financial or popular success. They're honoring what they consider achievements in acting, direction, etc. If you want an award for Best Science Fiction Film, look to the Saturns or Hugos.

Re:Um, no

[SuricouRaven]

I've not seen DwW, but I have seen FG, and they do have huge simularities:
- Western Guy goes to some wilderness to do environmentally destructive stuff.
- Circumstance and luck lead to western guy meeting the natives.
- The natives are shown to be some perfect culture, in-tune with nature, loving of all living things, peaceful and generally all-round nice.
- Western guy falls in love with native culture (And native hot chick).
- EVIL CORPORATION wants to destroy the wilderness!
- Western guy switches sites, and together with the natives fights off EVIL CORPORATION.
- Wilderness saved.

Only the endings really differ. In Avatar he goes native fully to spend the rest of his life with them, while in FG he realises that for all he has achieved he really only managed to break a single logging machine and so the best way he can protect the natives is by leaving them to return to his own people and become an environmental activist.

Re:Um, no

[itsdapead]

Never having seen Dances with Wolves or Ferngully the Last Rainforest, I even enjoyed the plot of Avatar when I went to see it.

All these people saying that Avatar was just a ripoff of "Ferngully, the Last Dances With Pocahontas" are completely missing the point.

...which is that Avatar was a dumbed-down version of Dune :-).

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

My situation was the reverse. I had previously seen Fern Gulley and to be it felt like someone smooshed that saturday matinee kids movie together with a two hour video card tech demo, I was absolutely bored to death and it remains the one movie at the cinema which I have ever fallen asleep during. At the end it got applause from the rest of the cinema, I was speechless, convinced they'd somehow seen a different movie (or that the five minutes I slept through somehow revealed a deep and meaningful understanding that the rest of it failed to deliver. Not only am I not surprised it didn't win the Oscar, I'm surprised anyone else is surprised, or even that we're still talking about it two years later.

Re:Um, no

[dj245]

And while 2001 is a fantastic movie, comparing it to the other movies in question, it's not even close. It's like making the equivalent of an NIT tournament in College Basketball. No, if a Sci-Fi movie cannot stand on it's own against the other top movies, it's not worthy of a "best movie" award.

The winner of the Oscar and the Golden Globe that year for best picture was Oliver. Nobody has ever asked me if I saw Oliver. Nobody has ever told me I should watch that movie. 2001 became the classic. That isn't even just my opinion. 2001 is on the National Film Preservation Board registry. Oliver, while it may be a good movie, was mostly forgotten after 1969.

You can argue about these awards actually choosing the best picture or not. But they don't seem to be choosing the memorable movies that become classics in many cases.

Re:Um, no

[0xdeadbeef]

And while 2001 is a fantastic movie, comparing it to the other movies in question, it's not even close.

Well that's just a giant katamari ball of retarded. Have you actually seen Oliver? Or any of them?

Ok, Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet was pretty good, but the plot is basically Fern Gully in medieval Italy.

Re:Um, no

[Hatta]

It's like making the equivalent of an NIT tournament in College Basketball.

I don't follow. Could you restate that as a car analogy?

Re:Um, no

[MikeBabcock]

Also, there's a reason we have Peoples' Choice Awards -- the Oscars aren't. Its like going to a steakhouse and complaining they don't serve your favourite quiche.

Re:Um, no

[icebraining]

As for 2001, it won "Best Visual Effects", but wasn't even nominated for "Best Picture" - again, there were better films that year.

Really? "Oliver!" is better than 2001?

2001 wasn't nominated because it wasn't an easily understandable musical. And nowadays the critics agree that 2001 is a better movie.

Re:Um, no

[JSBiff]

Great points all. I watched Avatar not too long ago (didn't see it when it first came out). The world and visuals were engaging, but the writing kind of sucked. Should a movie where the writing sucks get Best Movie?

As for the categories - another great point - if we gave category awards, there'd be like 40 or 50 more Academy Awards and the show would have to be extended two or three nights.

Re:Um, no

[iluvcapra]

I've seen Oliver!, The Lion in Winter, Funny Girl and Romeo and Juliet, Rosemary's Baby, The Battle of Algiers, Faces, Star!, Ice Station Zebra and many, many of the films released around then and in direct competition with 2001. Lion in Winter and Rosemary's Baby are amazing movies, and it's a crime people don't talk about The Battle of Algiers as much as they talk about 2001. Oliver! is competent and really crowd-pleasing entertainment, and you don't have to be high to get anything out of the last two reels (though it's an interesting idea).

2001 is just the beneficiary of being ahead of the curve and appealing to critical constituencies and tastemakers. It got a ton of free press from critics trying to stake themselves out on the countercultural vanguard, and despite the fact that it's not really fun, or has anything like intelligent characters, or human drama, or a social message, it became a sort of shibboleth for people who wanted to talk about modernism in cinema.

I mean it IS a great film, but it's not for all tastes, and it's a far cry from "entertainment," MGM was basically thrown into bankruptcy making it and the company was disassembled by Kirk Kerkorian a couple years afterward. Movies that win Oscars generally have to make money and not blow up any studios in the process, Academy voters have not interest in burning the village to roast their favorite pig.

Re:Um, no

[Dynedain]

By that argument, Dune is a sci-fi version of the Gospels.

Re:Um, no

[iluvcapra]

You might want to consider actually watching all of these movies before rendering any sort of summary judgement. That you haven't seen the Best Picture nominees of 1969 doesn't mean they aren't good, it just means you haven't seen a lot of really good movies.

Re:Um, no

[iluvcapra]

Fuck-- Bullitt, the Faye Dunaway Thomas Crown Affair and Planet of the Apes were up for Oscars in '69 too. That was an amazing year.

Re:Um, no

[excelsior_gr]

They're honoring what they consider achievements in acting, direction, etc.

Sadly, it is not that simple. There have been major blunders, with, IMHO Hitchcock not ever winning the best director award.

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. The Oscars are trying to drum up publicity for the newly-released blockbusters, to help at the box office.
That's why they're always movies that just came out the week before the Oscars.

Re:Um, no

[itsdapead]

By that argument, Dune is a sci-fi version of the Gospels.

OK, never really finished those, but I don't remember a bit where Mary Magdalene teaches Jesus how to survive in the desert, or where Jesus leads the Jews to victory over the Romans mounted atop a giant sandworm/pterodactyl/whatever (ISTR it was more about reasons not to rise up and fight the Romans). However, I do vaguely remember a bit about riding a donkey, and I know they can be tricky sometimes...

I guess the sequel, Dune Messiah, where the whole thing had got corrupted and caused millions to die in pointless holy wars, was a fairly blatant ripoff, though.

Re:Um, no

[sammy baby]

I don't know - 2001 is sort of in a category of its own, in my opinion. Although , in the Best Picture category, it would have been up against The Lion in Winter. I'm not sure I'd want to go up against that.

(And even The Lion in Winter lost to Oliver! Meh.)

But anyway - Avatar? Seriously?

Look, I liked the special effects as much as the next guy, but for God's sake, it's just not even on the same playing field.

Re:Um, no

[Rakarra]

2001 was a fine movie, but I'd say the Lion in Winter was the true snub that year.

Re:Um, no

[jfengel]

The Emmys distinguish between comedies and dramas, and a bunch of other things. And that diminishes their value: there are nearly 100 Emmys and only 24 Oscars. That's why the Emmy broadcast draws in the low teens, while the Oscars draw as much as 40 million people.

The Oscar Sci-Fi category would thrill genre viewers and bore everybody else. And they'd turn it off when they got to the Rom-Com Genre, the Historical Genre, the Biopic Genre, etc.

Everybody watches the Oscars because of the three big categories: best pic, best actor, best actress. The rest is filler, sometimes entertaining, sometimes not. Best pic is at the end, to keep viewers all night. More awards would make the telecast even less interesting than it already is. You want sci-fi awards, go to Worldcon.

Re:Um, no

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing the kinds of brain-seizured non-sequiturs you can read on this site.

Re:Um, no

[tverbeek]

You have it backwards: some movies are released shortly before the Oscar balloting in an attempt to get nominated, because they're fresh in people's minds.

The nonsense about Oscars always going to blockbusters is just too stupid to be answered.

Re:Um, no

[DragonWriter]

agree with the parent.

There is no special category for romance, comedy, action or other types of live action film

Untrue. The categories for films (aside from Best Picture) are:

Best Animated Film
Best Animated Short Film
Best Documentary Feature
Best Documentary Short
Best Live Action Short Film

Except for the first two those are all types of live-action film (or, at a minimum, types of film that can include live-action films), and except for the last they are distinguished thematically.

Re:Um, no

[Richard_at_work]

Yes I saw those, and no they are not the same as having categories for genres.

Re:Um, no

[DragonWriter]

Yes I saw those, and no they are not the same as having categories for genres.

If you meant "genres of fictional subject matter", you probably should have said that and not "types of live action films", particularly when, as you claim here, you were aware of the fact that the latter was false.

Special Effects

[SJHillman]

Science Fiction films tend to be subsets of either action or drama films, but with more special effects. Just because it's a different setting doesn't change that it's an action and/or drama with a lot of special effects.

Re:Special Effects

[Tom Christiansen]

Science Fiction films tend to be subsets of either action or drama films, but with more special effects.

Not necessarily. Gattaca certainly was not full of special effects; neither, really, was Blade Runner, and both were better movies than 99% of the dreck that purports to be science fiction.

Re:Special Effects

[Anonymous Coward]

That's tend to be subsets not just subsets

Re:Special Effects

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not necessarily, not necessarily.

Re:Special Effects

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree fully. Science Fiction isn't a genre like comedy, drama, musical, horror, action, etc. SF is more like a setting (time/place).

Take something like the original Asimov robot stories and novels. Genre-wise, most of these are simply whodunit mysteries. They're much more similar to Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories than they are to other contemporary SF stories from Clarke, Bradbury, or Heinlein; rather than being set in Victorian England, Asimov puts his stories on another planet in a distant future, but it's essentially the same thing: mystery happens, someone investigates, mystery is solved (and explained) in the third act.

The classic movie example of the genre flexibility of SF would be "Alien" versus "Aliens". Same setting, same principal character, but completely different genres: horror/thriller vs. action/adventure.

Sadly, science fiction is, by many, still seen as pejorative. While the situation has improved in recent decades, those that consider science fiction serious art are still in the minority. To lump all SF together into a single "science fiction genre" tends to marginalize the stories that are being told. (Sure makes it easier to find in the bookstore, however!)

Re:Special Effects

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps instead of a "sci fi" genre, they should have an "army recruitment" genre. That seems to be how most "sci fi" is employed these days, anyway.

Re:Special Effects

[SJHillman]

Building on what you said, I think it would work to define a genre as being tied to a specific emotional state. All horror movies (should) make you nervous/anxious/scared. All comedy should make you laugh. All action movies get the adrenaline flowing. I sure as hell had different emotional states between Star Wars and Blade Runner. Science Fiction belongs in the same group as historical, non-fiction or fantasy. Rather than being tied to a specific emotion or reaction, it's more closely tied to the setting or plot devices. Unless you're going to recognize every movie that takes place in the 1800's as being a genre, then science fiction isn't a genre itself so much as a subset or variation of specific genres. Of course, there's more than one way to define "genre".

Re:Special Effects

[Rakarra]

Agree fully. Science Fiction isn't a genre like comedy, drama, musical, horror, action, etc. SF is more like a setting (time/place).

It is more like a setting, but frequently these SF movies are -about- the setting, and not any character or plot points.

And the light saber goes to...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I find your lack of faith disturbing!

Would be kind of cool to receive a really well done, authentic light saber as a "statuette" instead of the usual boring artsy-fartsy shapes no one knows what resemble anyway.

Simple answer

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Creating a ghetto-like category so that science fiction prizes can be awareded each year is stupid.
A science fiction film is still a film. There are historicals films, realistic films, war films etc... Science fiction films are not a special category.
The reason most of them don't get a prize can be reduced to 2 reasons :
- one is that they suck and suck royally
- two there is still a prejudice to look at science fiction films as class z films.

Re:Simple answer

[dargaud]

Yeah, if you want to make oscar categories there are some that deserve their own even more: Best comedy. Best 'bad guy'. Best kid/family movie, etc...

Re:Simple answer

[Stoopiduk]

Best 'bad guy'.

"And for the 35th consecutive year, the award goes to... Darth Vader!"

Re:Simple answer

[iluvcapra]

They have these, they're called the People's Choice Awards, and they're a fucking disgrace.

Apples and apples

[Patchw0rk F0g]

I'd like to see more sci-fi win the big ticket, but I don't think we need, nor even want, a new category. Whether a movie is set in Cow-tip, New Hampshire or a galaxy far, far away, it's the merit of the movie itself, the characterization, cinematography, direction etc. that makes a great movie. Let the science fiction be graded on the same merits as other movies. If it's good, it'll be rewarded as such. Otherwise, perhaps the musical numbers from Mr. Lucas might be compared to "Chicago"?

Ugh. Just grossed myself out there.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

[Rik Sweeney]

I'd like to see more Sci-Fi movies getting a nomination for best film, but from the looks of things unless it's about 9/11 or the War on Terror(TM) you're just going to be passed over.

Re:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to kind of agree. After ten years, it seems it's finally "ok" to use 9/11 to try to get yourself an Oscar.

Re:Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

[RazorSharp]

Yeah, The King's Speech and Black Swan and There Will Be Blood and The Departed and No Country for Old Men and all the other recent Oscar grand slams really pandered to that whole War on Terror thing. . .

The Hurt Locker, Babel, and Syriana are the only films I can think of that received the Academy's attention that were based on these themes and they were all really good films. Being relevant is an important part of a story's emotional impact. However, if Oliver Stone would have won an award (or even been nominated) for World Trade Center, I would share your cynicism (and I haven't seen it or United 93 b/c to me their subject matter is shameless).

Not gonna happen

[Garybaldy]

The Academy has stated repeatedly that it does not consider Sci-Fi to be real work. That Sci-Fi is for children and being for children is not worth giving the top awards too.

Re:Not gonna happen

[KiloByte]

Don't worry, I don't consider Hollywood to be worth a sliver of my time. Including those few Sci-Fi flicks they make: the comparison of Avatar and Pocahontas can tell you much.

Seriously, even cesspools like 4chan are so much above that kind of prolefeed: at least there is some sort of creativity from all participants, unlike Hollywood's politically correct drivel: "content" to "consume".

And you don't need hundreds of millions of dollars to tell a good story: compare recent Sci-Fi movies with Howard Tayler's Schlock Mercenary.

Re:Not gonna happen

[Garybaldy]

All that drivel makes money. If you were an investor you would probably be like most and insist your invested company keep doing what continues to make but loads of cash. You know rehashing the same old crap over and over.

Those that only want the fresh new stories are welcome to only invest in the small independent stuff. You know the films that are about as likely to make money as winning the lottery. Oh sure we have several independent films that become blockbusters each year. Out of how many independent films made each year.

Re:Not gonna happen

[Hatta]

I do invest in small independent stuff. I give them money, and they give me a product that's worth more than I can get for that money anywhere else. Certainly a better value than mainstream crap. Investing in indie media pays off.

Re:Not gonna happen

[iluvcapra]

Sci-Fi is simply the modernization of Western, Pirate, Horror and Exoticism genre films -- the audience demographic, the plots, and the stock characters are all comparable, and genre films have never been given much respect either.

Most genre filmmaking is for children -- if you think they're going to hand out Oscars to people who simply take Lost Horizon and stick apostrophes in all the character's names, you have another thing coming.

Re:Not gonna happen

[Garybaldy]

If you say so, I am a Rigging Grip. My experience does not jive with your experience.

Indie is lucky if it pays off.

Re:Not gonna happen

[Rakarra]

"The Academy" has said that? Do you have a citation?

Re:Not gonna happen

[Rakarra]

Indie frequently pays off, just not to the people who made the movie.

Re:Not gonna happen

[RazorSharp]

I think "adventure" is the word you were looking for.

Re:Not gonna happen

[Garybaldy]

Nope. i heard it from j michael straczynski. Which means its not true In your eyes.

Inception

[TheKnave]

To be fair, I think a lot of geeks are quite forgiving of scifi because it's scifi. However imaginative the story, often it's just not that well done. On top of which the awards tend to be about acting i.e. it's hard to get a best picture nod without an actor/actress also, and it's hard to justify one of those when the protagonists spend their time in suits / cgi.

Look at the reception that Inception and LotR have received.

At the Oscars?

[pcardoso]

I'd settle for decent shelf space at the local book stores.

As I see it, sci-fi get relegated to the bottom shelf on a hidden corner of the store, while esoterism, alternative medicines crap, and the latest celebrity endorsed diet gets to the front window.

Re:At the Oscars?

[freedumb2000]

Books primarily targeted at women in general seems to get top shelf-space. This is not some sort of conspiracy though, the self-help addicted female crowd are probably the best customers, so you have to cater to them. Just be happy your book store even still carries sci-fi. So really the fault is not in the book store, it is the fact that males in general seem to read a lot less these days.

Re:At the Oscars?

[Richard_at_work]

You need a better book store - at my local chain (Waterstones), there is about 50 meters of shelf space given over to scifi and fantasy, with about half of it being scifi. At both of my local independents, there is about 20 meters of shelf space for scifi and fantasy, again with a good leaning toward scifi.

I have no trouble picking up a new scifi book these days.

Actaully, this might be a good place to ask - does anyone know the name of a scifi series based around humanity being enslaved by an ancient alien race who created a huge empire out of thousands of enslaved races, with the series starting as the very last member of that master race dying and the rest of the series involving a civil war within the now leaderless empire? The main characters were a male and a female, with the male going on to revolutionise tactics within the fleet.

I read it ages ago but can't remember what its called.

Re:At the Oscars?

[Shimbo]

Actaully, this might be a good place to ask - does anyone know the name of a scifi series based around humanity being enslaved by an ancient alien race who created a huge empire out of thousands of enslaved races, with the series starting as the very last member of that master race dying and the rest of the series involving a civil war within the now leaderless empire? The main characters were a male and a female, with the male going on to revolutionise tactics within the fleet.

I read it ages ago but can't remember what its called.

You are thinking of the Dread Empire's Fall trilogy by Walter Jon Williams.

Re:At the Oscars?

[Richard_at_work]

Brilliant, thats the one - thankyou :)

Soon everyone will want their own category . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . best Drama, best Romance, best Action, best Boy & His Dog, best Thriller, best Childrens', and even the Best of the Best . . .

The Academy Awards will become a week long event.

So many fake smiles in the news would kill folks.

If Sci-Fi films were good enough, they would win

[BillCable]

No need for a new category... the notion itself is ridiculous. Are Sci-Fi geeks really pining so badly for an Oscar for one of "their" films? Do they need that validation? I don't. I'm just happy to see a good film from time to time. Hell - be happy we're going to see Avengers, Dark Knight, and Prometheus this year. I'm a hell of a lot more excited about that than I am the prospect of someone getting a little gold man.

If someone ever creates a Sci-Fi film that deserves an Oscar more than all the other films that year, it'll win one. Win because of quality, not because the suits created a little sub-award to placate you.

PS: Avatar didn't deserve a nomination, much less the award. I think that was a gesture for making a couple billion dollars while hitting all the correct political points.

Avatar wasn't that good.

[Nyder]

I saw Avatar and it's not that good of a movie. Sure, it's not bad, but movie of the year good? Oh, hell no.

It was a 3D Selling Gimmick, not a great movie.

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur, there is a reason that Avatar didn't win an Oscar. It was shite and the Hurt Locker wasn't

Simples

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

Agreed. "Dances With Smurfs" in 3D is what it was. "2001" deserved to win, as did the original 1977 "Star Wars," but not "Avatar."

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[Tyler Eaves]

Trying watching Star Wars with a fresh mind. It's a terrible, terrible movie with bad dialogue and worse acting. It was a novelty that many of us remember fondly because we saw it when we were kids, but it's very much a B-movie.

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[MikeBabcock]

The original trilogy is very entertaining unrealistic tripe with a horrible plot. We get no secondary character development, no explanations for plot developments and most of the people who disagree will do so because they've spent too much time in the secondary media (fan fiction, books, etc.) and can't isolate the movies in their minds.

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[michael_cain]

Yep. I was in graduate school when it first came out, and saw it with my housemate who wasn't a sci-fi fan. On the way out of the theater, we agreed that it was fun and the effects were great (for the time), but the plot was a B-grade western with some odds and ends tacked on.

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The plot isn't anything special, but it's a fairly common trope witch which people can easily identify and be comfortable. It's just a brave youth saves the girl and world trope rehashed to take place in space rather than some fantasy kingdom. It's not complex, but not everything needs to be, or even should be.

What really makes compelling are that the characters are likable and fit into various archetypes quite well. The movies generally focus on the main characters, and give the tag alongs just enough development to make them memorable, but the series doesn't have that many important characters. Most of the secondary characters don't need extensive development, they're just there as plot pieces and they get enough development to accept their roles.

I've never viewed/seen any of the secondary media, so I don't think I fit into that category either. I'm pretty sure it can objectively be said that Star Wars isn't as good as 2001, or really a lot of other really great movies, but that doesn't make it a bad movie.

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[Patch86]

It makes me incredibly sad that TFS includes it as an example alongside 2001. 2001 was a genuinely innovative, ground-breaking film. Avatar was a 3D CGI remake of Pocahontas. There are so many genuinely worthy scifi films out there, and Avatar is not one of them.

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[JeanCroix]

But that would make Star Wars: ANH into... the Avatar of its day...?

(Having a Quagmire-esque "Oh god... OH GOD!!" moment here.)

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[gmhowell]

Trying watching Star Wars with a fresh mind. It's a terrible, terrible movie with bad dialogue and worse acting. It was a novelty that many of us remember fondly because we saw it when we were kids, but it's very much a B-movie.

Funny you mention that. Last week I went to see Episode I in 3D with my son. I tried watching it with fresh eyes. His eyes. And it was pretty fucking cool.

Let's face it, we all got old. That's why we don't like the prequel trilogy.

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[toddestan]

Well, part of Star Wars is that at the time, nothing like it had been seen before. Nowadays, it has to compete in a crowded field with a bunch of movies that try to be like Star Wars, but at the time it was a very fresh and genre-defining movie. That the quality of the special effects were top-notch for the time didn't hurt either.

Re:Avatar wasn't that good.

[quantaman]

Trying watching Star Wars with a fresh mind. It's a terrible, terrible movie with bad dialogue and worse acting. It was a novelty that many of us remember fondly because we saw it when we were kids, but it's very much a B-movie.

That could be the case, but it could also be possible that it's a lot of damn fun.

I think there's more to a movie than good dialogue, acting, and strong plots. Sometimes in spite of those flaws, or maybe because of them, a movie just manages to be a lot of fun.

For the record I wasn't a huge fan of Avatar or 300, I didn't really like Serenity, and while LOTR was good, I certainly didn't think it was nearly as spectacular as most people.

An alternative

[windcask]

Start ignoring Hollywood's self-congratulatory circle jerk events (Golden Globes, Oscars, Grammy Awards, etc) and start forming your own opinions on art and media. They won't think twice about deputizing the FBI to kick in your door if you so much as rip a DVD to your computer, so why do you feel you owe them your attention?

Re:An alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Don't confuse the Oscars to be designed for movie fans. It's the industry's marketing department.
F@ck them and just create our own Sci-Fiction awards with all their own categories. No need to televise them since anybody can stream/torrent/youtube it.

Why would that be hard at all?

Re:An alternative

[JasterBobaMereel]

Who gets to vote

Golden Globes : 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Oscars : 6,000 motion picture professionals mostly American
Grammys : NARAS a U.S. organization of musicians, producers, recording engineers and other recording professionals

So no bias there then ... amazing that US movies mostly win with the occasional English language movie from elsewhere

Re:An alternative

[westlake]

They won't think twice about deputizing the FBI to kick in your door if you so much as rip a DVD to your computer, so why do you feel you owe them your attention?

Money. Talent. Technical resources.

In 100 years there have been two feature length films based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Princess of Mars." The first was an obscure direct-to-video indie release in 2009. The second is Andrew Stanton's first live action film for Disney --- with a budget of $250 million.

If there is anything better in Sci-Fi than the opening chapters of Wall-E, I have yet to see it.

Re:An alternative

[JeanCroix]

They won't think twice about deputizing the FBI to kick in your door if you so much as rip a DVD to your computer, so why do you feel you owe them your attention?

In 100 years there have been two feature length films based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Princess of Mars." The first was an obscure direct-to-video indie release in 2009. The second is Andrew Stanton's first live action film for Disney --- with a budget of $250 million.

So Disney takes from the public domain yet again for its own financial gain, and uses that gain (in the form of lobbying, campaign contributions, and lawyers) to directly prevent any of its own IP from ever entering public domain. Awesome. I'd make some sort of Borg reference here, but my right to do so is rather dubious for at least the next 75-100 years.

Re:An alternative

[toddestan]

That's something I don't get when people get all worked up about the Oscars when their favorite movie doesn't win. I figured out a long time ago that what won at the Oscars and the types of movies I like to watch don't overlap much, so I just ignore the Oscars. The Oscars are more or less just the opinion of a bunch of Hollywood insiders anyway.

Dances with Wolves Won

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's remake "Avatar" didn't. HOW RUDE!

Sure, why not?

[Zorque]

Then we can have categories for all the movie genres that don't win awards and nobody will have to feel left out! Picture it, "Best Romantic Comedy", "Best Direct to DVD Action Movie", "Best Teen Fantasy", etc. Maybe we could just give an Oscar to everybody who's upset they didn't win.

Just kidding, that's a terrible idea and you should feel bad for having it.

Re:Sure, why not?

[Cytotoxic]

Actually, I think they already have this award show. It is called the MTV movie awards. They also have categories for "best kiss", etc. See also: "Teen Choice Awards".

Marketing gimmick

[clyde_cadiddlehopper]

The academy awards serve a purpose. Just as the Superbowl is more about the ads than the game on the field, And Oscar night has evolved to become more about the red carpet than the statuettes. SciFi = Summer Blockbuster (generally). Blockbuster summer films just don't seem to require the type of hype machine that the Academy dishes up.

The problem with 2001 and Avatar

[Anonymous Coward]

is that, as stories, they're shit. Avatar was like watching a film written by an eight-year old being forced to be oh-so politically correct - it was painful to watch. The special effects were fantastic, production values were through the roof, and it deserved technical Oscars but.... best film? For that shit? Not a chance.

As for 2001, at least it watches like it was written by people with brains. Indeed, it's one of the most well-thought through films I've watched. Unfortunately it's also deathly boring and the pointless trippy shit at the end, doubtless just pandering to the times, completely ruins it. I could very happily take a knife to 2001 and trim 90 flabby minutes from it and end up with a reasonably tight, albeit still rather dull, film. 2001 deserved as many technical Oscars as it could get, and if they had a "scientific veracity in science-fiction" category then it would be a well-deserved winner, but best film? Not a chance.

Re:The problem with 2001 and Avatar

[Sectoid_Dev]

As for 2001, at least it watches like it was written by people with brains. Indeed, it's one of the most well-thought through films I've watched. Unfortunately it's also deathly boring and the pointless trippy shit at the end, doubtless just pandering to the times, completely ruins it. I could very happily take a knife to 2001 and trim 90 flabby minutes from it and end up with a reasonably tight, albeit still rather dull, film. 2001 deserved as many technical Oscars as it could get, and if they had a "scientific veracity in science-fiction" category then it would be a well-deserved winner, but best film? Not a chance.

Seriously. This.
Thanks, somebody had to say it.
I enjoyed reading 2001 immensively and really appreciated the whole left turn Clarke threw into the idea of human evolution both past and future. But the movie? No. Sorry, but the movie really begins when they are on their way to Jupiter. The previous bit is just head scratching filler.
I guess I'm not properly schooled to appreciate it. This is the text book example of why you have to throw some characters or something relate-able into a movie rather than just relying on long visuals. Maybe something was lost on me by not being part of the movie going generation of that time: like someone today seeing SW:ANH for the first time instead of back in 77 when it wowed an entire generation - despite being a very basic plot film.

Yes why not, there is already a category for every

[Anonymous Coward]

See headline.

Twilight would win big time.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Academy would never vote for a film like this: Primer.

Too heady and too much thinking and mind warping. THAT movie was science fiction in the classic sense.

SyFy (intentional use of SyFy channel's bastard name) in Holllywood are action adventure/fantasy/present day issues with fancy CGI.

Avatar? An environmentalist movie with a romantic primitivism or noble savage theme on steroids.

Star Wars and Star Trek are not much better.

AND if there was a Sci Fi, I mean SyFy category, you just KNOW that Twilight would be raking in the awards.

Re:Twilight would win big time.

[SuricouRaven]

Fern Gully.... in SPAAAACE!

Re:Twilight would win big time.

[Rakarra]

I accidentally misposted this in response to someone else above. Sorry!

AND if there was a Sci Fi, I mean SyFy category, you just KNOW that Twilight would be raking in the awards.

Doubtful! I mean, does anyone actually like Twilight? I've yet to meet a single person who did besides 14-year-old girls (a sadly powerful demographic), and there aren't too many of them in the Academy voting block. This isn't the MTV movie awards, fortunately.

Re:Twilight would win big time.

[Anonymous Coward]

does anyone actually like Twilight? I've yet to meet a single person who did besides 14-year-old girls (a sadly powerful demographic)

Way to answer your own question.

God, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the sci-fi section on Amazon Prime or Netflix? They're hideous, and you want to give that stuff a category? God, no.

Snubed?

[chrismcb]

How was 'Avatar' snubbed? The movie didn't deserve a nomination, let alone win. The movie wasn't very good. It looked good, but that was about it.

Avatar?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the crappy Dances with Wolves remake that had nice CGI? Sorry, but special effects do not a best picture make. It's story was utter crap...

Oscar is useless

[TheDarkMaster]

The Oscar is mere self-promotion in a "voting" as impartial as the elections in Florida. I've had enough of seeing movies that deserve to go to the garbage winning an Oscar for having paid well for the "judges" or fall into the good graces of "film critics", while the audience hated it. And those who matter most: The public that pays for movie tickets and rentals of DVDs or professional critics?

The Oscar is a circus for vanity, nothing more than that.

Re:Oscar is useless

[tompaulco]

I'll agree and add my two cents. These people already get paid crap-tons of money, and then they feel the need to have half a dozen or more awards shows a year to "recognize" them for what they were already paid for. We don't have awards shows for chefs, computer programmers, or sanitation workers. Why should we for actors?
I heard an interesting statistic on the radio the other day. Apparently the average celebrity receives $200,000 in donations and gifts a year. Given that there are literally thousands of celebrities, this means over $200 million is freely given to people who can afford to buy stuff on their own. Why not take all the money that is given to celebrities and give it to people who need it instead?

I see how you are

[Garybaldy]

Just ignore Babylon 5. Probably to old for you.

Mmmm....

[Cornwallis]

Who cares about the Oscars?

No, never

[PopeRatzo]

Should There Be a Sci-Fi Category At the Oscars?

Absolutely not.

They'll just fuck it up. In 2002, for example, the Richard Gere musical Chicago won best picture. It was the second year in a row that a musical won best picture.

The movie it beat? Martin Scorsese's epic masterpiece The Gangs of New York.

If "The Academy" were to give one Star Wars movie best sci-fi picture, it would have been Phantom Menace.

Secondly, we only occasionally have a year where there are four really good sci-fi movies worthy of nominating. So movies that are not sci-fi would end up getting into the competition. "Pirates of the Caribbean"-style movies (or Transformers!) would get in, just because they have SFX. Does anyone believe Transformers was sci-fi?

Better we don't let the Hollywood establishment screw around with this. Not everything has to be a competition. I like that sci-fi movies are the red-headed stepchild of the movie business because that means occasionally really interesting movies get made, like Moon and Werner Herzog's The Wild Blue Yonder.

Anyway, the Oscars suck. Why would we want science fiction associated with the Oscars?

Re:No, never

[Dr. Gamera]

They'll just fuck it up. In 2002, for example, the Richard Gere musical Chicago won best picture. It was the second year in a row that a musical won best picture.

There must have been a lot more singing in A Beautiful Mind than I remember.

Re:No, never

[PopeRatzo]

There must have been a lot more singing in A Beautiful Mind than I remember.

I'm sorry, you're right. Moulon Rouge was nominated the year previous to the one where Chicago won, but Moulon Rouge did not win best picture. However, Moulon Rouge did get 8 nominations that year (2002).

Still, I stand by my point that the Motion Picture Academy would screw up any special "Sci-Fi Oscar", and the people who make sci fi movies would end up trying to tailor their work to the Academy's horrible standard.

I like that Sci-Fi is something of an outsider genre.

Re:No, never

[Rakarra]

They'll just fuck it up. In 2002, for example, the Richard Gere musical Chicago won best picture. It was the second year in a row that a musical won best picture.

A Beautiful Mind was a musical? How did I miss that?

For the record I have no problems when musicals win Best Picture, just as long as they're not crap musicals. Like Chicago.

Re:No, never

[PopeRatzo]

Sorry, I was thinking of Moulon Rouge, which had gotten EIGHT nominations the year A Beautiful Mind won best picture.

If you think Chicago was crap, don't see Moulon Rouge.

Personally, I don't mind musicals, either, but it would have to be a pretty exceptional musical to win Best Picture, IMO.

Something like the South Park movie, for example. That was a musical I can really get behind. The tunes were first rate, it was hysterically funny, etc. The Producers (the real one with Zero Mostel) is another musical that was very very good.

Re:No, never

[Rakarra]

I suppose I'm a little different. I really liked Moulin Rouge, but strongly dislike Chicago.

Does anyone believe Transformers was sci-fi?

Yes, most people would say Transformers was Science Fiction. Sci-fi doesn't need to be set in the future, nor does it need to be "hard sci-fi." It's a pretty broad category type.

And while I would heap tons of awards on the Producers with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, I wouldn't say it was a musical, since it only had two songs -- Springtime for Hitler and Prisoners of Love. Sure, they were great songs, but I don't think that's what makes a musical!

Re:No, never

[PopeRatzo]

I wouldn't say it was a musical, since it only had two songs -- Springtime for Hitler and Prisoners of Love

No, there were more songs. How can you forget "Love Power" as sung by Dick Shawn? It was best song in the movie.

Also, you've got Mostel singing "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" and at least the partial singing of "Das Lied der Deutschen".

The Producers (1968) was a musical comedy. It's not Bye Bye Birdie, or Oklahoma, or Golddiggers of 1933, but it's a musical, with at least three original songs sung by the cast.

Oscars are massively biased

[JasterBobaMereel]

When was the last time a non-english movie won, a horror movie, a bollywood movie (Slumdog was a British/American movie) etc. etc ..

When are people going to wake up that Oscars are voted for by an Elite cliquey non-elected panel of Hollywood insiders known as the Academy

They are not reflective of actual success, some of the most popular, and most successful movies did not win, some well know actors and directors have never won ...

Re:Oscars are massively biased

[rudy_wayne]

Oscars are voted for by an Elite cliquey non-elected panel of Hollywood insiders known as the Academy

They are not reflective of actual success, some of the most popular, and most successful movies did not win, some well know actors and directors have never won ...

Yes, this is true. So what?

Get over it already.

Re:Oscars are massively biased

[Actually, I do RTFA]

When was the last time a non-english movie won, a horror movie, a bollywood movie (Slumdog was a British/American movie) etc. etc ..

Well, it's an award given out by Americans. So, you know, bollywood/non-english speaking titles won't fair well.

When are people going to wake up that Oscars are voted for by an Elite cliquey non-elected panel of Hollywood insiders known as the Academy

Of course they're not elected. They're an industry award. It's a self-selecting group selected for their theoretical competence. See also the Royal Society in London, etc.

Why?

[hargrand]

Sound's like you're trying to turn the Oscars into the Grammys.

no

[Charliemopps]

The oscars are a joke and would ruin sci-fi movies as directors scrambled to try and win.

Also, the Oscars definition of "Sci-fi" would almost assuredly piss most real Sci-fi fans off.

ghetto-ise ?

[rudy_wayne]

'ghetto-ise' the genre?

Are you referring to Gay Niggers From Outer Space?

Oscar nominations by genre

[ethorad]

The BBC has an article up which shows the breakdown of nominations by genre:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17074585

Sci-Fi does seem to be one of the smaller genres by nominations.

However, does it really matter? I know I stopped reading critics reviews of movies decades ago, because largely they all review from a particular viewpoint. A more action/sci-fi/fantasy film may not be up for winning an oscar, but if it does it's job (ie entertains) then its genre shouldn't be held against it. As such I'll only read reviews of films which are penned by people interested in that genre and the film's objective.

Avatar sucked

[gatkinso]

Some neat special effects can;t cover up the fact that Avatar was simply a blatant plagarism of Pocahontas.

Re:Avatar sucked

[HelioWalton]

...Or Fern Gully

Re:Avatar sucked

[ukemike]

Some neat special effects can;t cover up the fact that Avatar was simply a blatant plagarism of Pocahontas.

Which in turn was a blatant plagiarism of Dances With Wolves.

Re:Avatar sucked

[ukemike]

Some neat special effects can;t cover up the fact that Avatar was simply a blatant plagarism of Pocahontas.

Which in turn was a blatant plagiarism of Dances With Wolves.

Which in turn was a blatant plagiarism of the Mission.

Re:Avatar sucked

[gatkinso]

Aside from the fact that the legend of Pocahontas dates back to the 1600's, I agree with you.

Re:Avatar sucked

[Anonymous Coward]

http://uptill1.com/2010/01/11/pocahontas-vs-avatar/

Re:Avatar sucked

[Anonymous Coward]

More of a plagiarism of ERB's John Carter plagiarising Pocahontas.

Comparing 2001 to Avatar???

[eternaldoctorwho]

What is this I don't even

Re:Comparing 2001 to Avatar???

[alex67500]

Honestly, 2001? A good film? The fact that the director of a film is Stanley Kubrick shoud disqualify the film straight away !!

Re:Comparing 2001 to Avatar???

[pz]

2001 has to be viewed in the context of its time when, specifically, the public's attention span was longer than 30 seconds. Moreover, much of the movie is trying to depict not story, but lack of story. The savanah scenes are there to show the apparently interminable stasis that existed for millenia prior to being shattered in the minutest of ways by the arrival of the obelisk, the tipping point of the evolution of primate toward man. How do you show stasis? Through scenes that, from today's generation used to sound bites and twitterisms, are interminable. How do you depict the incredible ennui of long-term space travel? Through scenes that depict seemingly vain attempts to occupy time. 30 seconds of Poole jogging would show how they exercise on the craft; you show him jogging and jogging and jogging, and the scenes carry deeper meaning, revealing more about life on Discovery One. A mark of great movie making is where the story is shown, not told.

That said, I still think the movie would be improved by editing down the star gate sequence from 20 minutes of psychedelia to perhaps 5 to 7 without losing the primary visual impact and while also retaning the key element of the story.

Also, while the movie stands on its own, it is one of the few that, being adapted from a novel rather than the other way around, enriched by reading the book.

I realize that these ideas are anathema to the current generation that needs to have continual, immediate sensory feedback, but, really, being able to pay attention for a full two hours to something and experience the intricacies and rich patterns over longer scales is a valuable skill that repays greatly.

I have a bad feeling about this.

[shadowrat]

The concept of best scifi film at the oscars is pretty silly really. Is there an oscar for best world war 2 film? Is there an oscar for best romantic comedy? best horror? no because the academy awards aren't for genre of story, they are for some technical aspect of producing a film. How well can you engage the audience without using english? without using photography? just overall tell a really good story? none of these categories are genre specific.

I'd think that best scifi film would be a horrible thing. First it would segregate scifi as somehow wholly different from every other kind of film. That will probably just reinforce stigmas that it's the realm of nerds and geeks. Second, there is not a good scifi film every year. It would have to pick from films like Transformers. Does anyone really want there to be a record that one year Transformers was the best scifi film?

I would like to see a scifi award show though. One that can give out awards for best overall, most feasible tech, best speculation on what human personality trait technology X would bring out. best laser battle. best zombies. etc.

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Comedy

[geoffrobinson]

If a genre is going to get its own award, it should be comedy. A genuine comedy has no shot of winning Best Picture.

fdsfgs

[cforrester]

Human civilization will make its greatest stride on the day that we finally choose to stop giving a shit about the fucking Oscars.

Re:fdsfgs

[Anonymous Coward]

The Oscars is a retarded puppet show about how to award yourself with 50(?) prizes each year.

And while we're at it ...

[Rambo Tribble]

... could we have a category for "Best Left-handed Actor"? I mean, it isn't like the awards are already bloated, largely meaningless, self-congratulatory or just plain boring, is it?

Of course, the awards are really for the public. The studios only care about the money.

.

ya they should

[Anonymous Coward]

and every year nominate nothing cause all ive seen for last few years is utter trash

BULLSHIT!

[Anonymous Coward]

It was shite and the Hurt Locker wasn't

Hurt Locker is a pile of aimless, unconnected crap with zero message, plot or meaning which won its Oscars on political (support R boyz) and politically correct points (she has a womb - she wins).

Avatar MAY not have been the "best picture" that year, but Hurt Locker wasn't even released that year.
They've stretched its release date in USA to shoehorn it into 2009, after it got played around Europe, Canada and Argentina. So it would "pick up steam" before the US release.

And Cameron NOT getting the Oscar for directing is pure political correctness bullshit.
Why give an award to a guy who basically invented new technology (his use of face-capture tech and virtual camera was revolutionary) and pushed the existing tech to the limit in order to make a ~$3 billion box office hit, when you can score points by giving it to "the first woman in Oscar history to win the Best Director award"?

But hey, the guy already has one. And he made $4.5 billion with that movie and the Avatar.
And his movie even got some consolation Oscars.

Wanna know which movie really got fucked at those Oscars? District 9.
It even lost the best adapted screenplay to that Oprah piece of shit "Precious".

Re: Should there be a sci-fi category

[Internetuser1248]

No

Baffled

[tthomas48]

I'm baffled that people don't think Sci-Fi is rewarded with Oscars. It most certainly is. Now is stupid bad sci-fi rewarded with Oscars? No. Are we really asking this question the year after Inception?

Re:Soon everyone will want their own category . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even see why anyone gives a shit about the Oscars.

Any movie witht the Internet, or a Cell Phone...

[DontScotty]

Any movie witht the Internet, or a Cell Phone... would instantly fall into this category.

We KNOW the internet isn't that fast.

And, there is NO WAY they could move that much on a cell phone and not drop the call.

#COMPLETE FICTION

It's mandatory!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Because those films have real followers, should I say fans? We believe the genre/movie belong to us and are fanatic about it...
To say it in another terms, The Sixth Sense is a very good file, it has very good actors, acting, story, etc., but I believe nobody gets fanatic toward that film, but we get fanatic towards Star Trek movies & series, Star Wars movies, Matrix movies & derivatives, Lord of Rings movies & books, Avatar movies, Alien, etc.

The real issue

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue with the oscars is that the category, while titled "Best Sci-Fi", would really be "Best Sci-Fi with a $10+ Million Budget". Movies like Moon would not even be mentioned.

That's like asking if the earth should have air ..

[mallyone]

and water. The question is is implicitly answered and thus moot ... next!

The Academy is the issue

[snsh]

The best reason I heard why The Hurt Locker beat Avatar is that the Academy members who vote on the awards, are themselves mostly actors. So, they are more likely to give awards to "actors'" movies which are usually dramas featuring characters showing a range of emotions that can show off the lead/supporting actors' talents. On the other hand, your typical sci-fi movie where the acting is secondary to the story, special effects, action, or epicness of the production is not going to resonate with your typical professional actor as much as a character film. So, the Academy won't value it as highly as you might.

The problem is not that the Academy awards needs to adapt, but that the world needs to recognize that the Academy's perspective is not necessarily representative of the audience's perspective when it comes to picking the 'best' films of the year.

No, No, No....

[PortHaven]

And not for any of the other reasons posted:

You're limiting to a specific genre. Rather what is needed is

"Best New/Fictional World"

This could apply to many genres. But the main factor is that the world must be significantly different from our own reality in some way.

This would allow fantasy, science fiction, and even other genres to win.

This would allow movies like LotR, Avatar, Inception, and others to get credit for their rich depth of worlds they have created.

Avatar didn't get snubbed...

[HelioWalton]

It just sucked.

Avatar wasn't snubbed. IT SUCKED.

[jsepeta]

My daughter and I enjoyed Avatar, but it wasn't a great story. The visuals may have been cutting-edge, but I didn't find it any more appealing of a story than anything on the SyFy network.

Calling something Sci/Fi or Fantasy certainly brings with it a bunch of cultural baggage. Shouldn't Sci/Fi movies work harder to be good films, ones which resonate with viewers, rising above the ghetto of genre? Star Wars was a great film not because it was about spaceships, but because it told a larger tale of how a farmboy can grow up to achieve great things - that touches people across cultural divides. Great movies do that. Avatar, not so much.

Snubbed?

[thesandtiger]

Avatar was a beautiful film with interesting technology behind it, but the story was trite, the dialogue was inane, and the acting was adequate to the task without anyone standing out.

2001 was a beautiful film with interesting technology behind it the story was novel, but much of it was plodding, the dialogue was serviceable and quotable but not particularly brilliant, and the acting was - well, pretty much anyone could handle that.

To be honest, if you wanted to talk about a sci-fi film getting snubbed, you would be be better off throwing out Moon - well crafted visually, interesting and well written story, very solid performances, realistic dialogue and by and large a superior film all around.

Hell, Wall-E was a superior sci-fi film to both Avatar and 2001 (at least the first part while on Earth).

Science-fiction -or- fantasy?

[RogueWarrior65]

IMHO, there's a lot of content out there that's not "science" fiction but rather fantasy and the two tend to get lumped together. If you're going to go down this road, you need to separate the two. Imagine if you had to pit Fellowship of the Ring against A New Hope or Avatar against Wrath of Khan.

Why does anyone care?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do sci-fi fans feel they need the mainstream's seal of approval of their genre? Like what you like, fuck the critics. The only thing they like is "heartfelt" stories about self-destructive people in failed relationships.

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Science Fiction is not big enough for its own category, and without enough releases for any competition in its slot.

Besides that, Avatar was not a good movie and did not deserve best picture.

Seems silly to me.

[AtomicDevice]

What's the purpose of a movie? Makin' Monay. Plain and simple.

If making money is the purpose of movies (which it is, investors don't pump millions into movies to NOT make money), then it seems clear that the best movie is the one that makes the most money.

You can argue it any which-a-way, and I'm not saying movie's aren't works of art, but much of the great art that's ever been made was done so the artist could get paid.

Who cares about character development and a great plot? Sometimes those things fill seats, sometimes it's awesome explosions. Saying things like "without the special effects that would have been a bad movie" is like saying "Without the dead jesus, the Pietà is just some lady sitting there, pretty boring." I think even the marketing and promos for a movie should be considered part of the movie. It's all part of the performance and experience for the audience.

golden globe drama/comedy separation too much

[peter303]

If your add genres like scifi, adventure, crime, etc. you'll run into various problems. One is the shear number of extra awards. Another is pigeon-holing: maybe a film crosses boundaries. We see this now with the special animation category. Should a great animation like Disney's Beauty and Beast be up for the general movie Oscar too?

major scifi conventions give awards

[peter303]

The give awards for films, books, stories, etc. Maybe they should put one of this on TV as the Nth award show of the season.

Tolkien was an avid F&SF reader

[Tom Christiansen]

Elendil wrote:

Huh? Could you please tell us your evidence for this? I was under the impression (based on JRRT's letters and novels) that he wasn't too keen on technology and the so-called modern world. So I have some difficulty imagining him interested in a distant future filled with spaceships and robots.

Certainly. In Letter #294, Tolkien himself wrote:

I read quite a lot - or more truly, try to read many books (notably so-called Science Fiction and Fantasy). ... I enjoy the the S.F. of Isaac Asimov.

That's as straight-from-the-horse's-mouth as it gets.

Re:Tolkien was an avid F&SF reader

[mvdwege]

I was not surprised when I first heard this, and it still surprises me not at all.

One of Tolkien's avowed aims was to instill in his readers a sense of joy and wonder at meeting creatures other than ourselves.

Now take Asimov, who deliberately took our worst fear of technology, that it would turn on us, and then turning it around, telling us stories about how technology might give use strange creatures that we can convers with and that are friendly.

Now also take into account that Tolkien feared technology a lot. He'd seen industrial slaughter on the Somme, he'd seen industrialisation destroy his beloved Midlands countryside, and he was not shy in expressing his fear and disgust.

And now a kindred soul, a writer who wants to show joy in contact with the Other, shows up, and gives a bright side of Tolkien's greatest fear.

I don't think Asimov is as great as some people make him out to be, but that sense of joy in just simple contact, that is something he did well. Lijeh and Daneel are one of fiction's greatest friendships.

I saw Pandorum

[Tekfactory]

it wasn't as bad as you make it out to be.

I'd just want an "intelligent" category

[Snaller]

Not that Hollywood really make any movies for that category.

Re:Soon everyone will want their own category . .

[jodio]

Funny that you should mention "best Boy & His Dog", as I consider "A Boy and His Dog" (based on a novelette by Harlan Elison" One of the best SF movies I have seen. Well worth watching (or reading)

Define Sci-Fi 1st.

[bussdriver]

The whole thing is stupid but if they did create that category they need to define it clearly. Just about anything taking place in the future is called sci-fi today; along with anything involving "the unknown."

There need not be a hint of science; possibly not even some educated expert character (that excludes victims...) Its more like fantasy, mythology, or action but somehow a lot of things get labeled "sci-fi".

Star Wars is mythology set in the future, it is not science fiction. I'm sure somebody will disagree with that because it has space ships and is in the future. It could have taken place in ancient times; it just couldn't be pulled off by an old George Lucas (see the Mr. Plinkett review of ep1.)

Re: Don't Stop the Serenity

[billstewart]

I hadn't seen the Firefly TV show, because my cable company wasn't carrying the Skiffy Channel on analog cable on my side of town that year, and I haven't watched much of it on DVD because there's some stupid copy protection thing that either doesn't like the DVD player in my Tivo or the built-in VCR in my TV or something.

But even without having seen the TV show, the movie still rocked. Sure, maybe I missed some context, emotional back-story, and in-jokes, and there's less complete world-building shown in the movie than in the TV, but I do read science fiction, and the skills for reading it carry over into watching movies. And enough of the theater audience had seen the show that there may have been some extra cues. And, well, Nathan Fillion, and Summer Glau!

And it means that when I'm watching Castle, I at least get most of the in-jokes about Castle speaking Mandarin because of a TV show that he used to watch and having a space cowboy Halloween costume that his daughter rolls her eyes about.

Re:Best Actor Oscar is preciiiioussss

[billstewart]

Gollum worked not only because of the CGI-postproduction-over-motion-capture covering Serkis's motions, or because of the work Serkis did on how Gollum would move, but more importantly because of Serkis's voice work and his understanding of the character filled with desire and madness.

Re: Don't Stop the Serenity

[Grishnakh]

Um, IIRC, Firefly was broadcast on the Fox network, not Syfy. It should have been available to anyone with rabbit ears.

And (It's been a little while since I last watched Serenity, though I do have it on DVD) I do admit that they obviously threw some extra stuff in there so that people who hadn't seen the show could still enjoy the movie, but the fact remains it basically is a continuation of the show; I was just addressing the previous posters' criticism of the movie in that regard, my point being that it wasn't made to be an entirely self-contained movie. It's sorta like criticizing the Star Trek movies; every single one of them relies on the viewer having watched some of the previous shows or movies to have a full understanding of the characters and situation. They can be enjoyed by people who've never seen any ST before, but they won't really understand the dynamics between Kirk, Spock and McCoy (or between Picard and Riker and friends in the TNG movies) if they haven't seen some of the TV episodes that preceded them.

The problem with Hard Sci-Fi

[billstewart]

The reason hard sci-fi tends to have less mass appeal is that the authors often care more about their rockets and robots than about their characters, especially some of the military-style scifi that obsesses about the 4-dimensional BFG-9000 that the 2-dimensional protagonist is using against the 1-dimensional Bad Guys. (That's not to say that other genres of sci-fi don't have similar problems, it's just yet another restatement of "Sturgeon was an optimist".)

On the other hand, it can work just fine with big-screen summer blockbuster movie treatments - somebody's got to hand Michael Bey a plot to fill in the spaces between explosions. Or with anime, whether it's just giant-mecha-robots-in-space or shows that do a better job with mood and character. (For instance, I really like some of the episodes of Cowboy Bebop, with nice moody noir stuff, and find others to be pretty boring.)

There's good hard sci-fi out there that could be made into movies, mostly at the novella or short story length. The question is whether it can compete for funding with formulaic romantic comedies, teenage gross-out pictures, and the rest of the stuff that's going to make money but not get nominated for Oscars. Not many movies are aimed at the huge LOTR or Avatar scale, and some of the movies that think they're artistic enough to aim for Oscars are more like Solaris. Too bad Moon vanished from theaters before I got to see it.

Of Course you can Hand-Wave

[billstewart]

Red Dwarf would often parody things from other science fiction over the years. For instance, the Star Trek "Keptin, there's a Massive Energy Field Ahead" gets turned into Cat saying "Whoa! Swirly Thing Alert!", and the crew throwing themselves across the set a few times.

And Late For Dinner (a low-key Mel Gibson movie) dealt with the cryonics in a low-budget-DIY-Frankenstein style rather than trying to use high-tech-looking special effects, and it really worked well. It was basically saying "the cryonics thing is a tool to let us create the story, and we're going to focus on the story itself."

Then of course there's early Dr. Who, where they'd be using big paper-mache rocks because they didn't have the budget to make them out of real Styrofoam(tm) the way Star Trek did.

Just to be technical

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it interesting that Star Wars would be considered scifi while zombie films aren't. Star Wars is obvious fantasy where as at least some zombie films are scifi. 28 Days Later while not considered a true zombie film was a fairly realistic film about a disease which even showed them starving to death a month later. Most zombie films go too far but the basic idea of a disease reanimating the brain stem or more to the point keeping an otherwise brain dead person alive has been considered plausible to even medical experts. Even some of the more out there aspects like nearly impossible to kill would be plausible if a virus were to keep individual cells alive even after some body systems broke down. Several things cross the line like not breathing, the cells would not be able to function chemically without oxygen and even the brain stem would die and cease functioning. The other issue is they'd need to be able to digest food. The Romero idea of them going for years or decades is fantasy since they are expending energy and would be little more than skeletons in as little as a month or two. Like I said 28 Days Later handled that very well. I'm a scifi fan and believe in hard core science fiction but even Star Trek is more implausible than some zombie movies. Warp travel, hand phasers and matter transportation are all out there as far as being down with any none technology while there are already diseases that have aspects of the proposed zombie virus.

Just trying to be realistic and make a point of why the category may be impossible to define.

Sci-Fi Movies we remember from that year

[billstewart]

No, I won't get off your lawn.

I was too young to watch 2001 with the drugs that it really needed, but it was a great movie. But Planet of the Apes was popular and had some good content, and lots of people at least remember the title of Ice Station Zebra even if we're vague about what it was about.

A friend of mine rates Bullitt as a 6 - it's mostly a 4, but a 9 for the car chase down the hilly parts of Mission Street in San Francisco. And while I never actually saw The Thomas Crown Affair, the music is still an effective earworm.

Tinker Tailor vs. James Bond spy genre

[billstewart]

Most sci-fi movies that get made by Hollywood may be just recycled other-genre films, because that's the kind of movie Hollywood knows how to make, and you could say the same kinds of things about spy movies. But Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is literature, and James Bond isn't. (I'll leave categorization of Little Drummer Girl up to the reader, along with arguments about whether Casablanca belongs in the same genre.) And much of Hitchcock gets taken seriously, though certainly not all.

Oh, you meant that request seriously

[billstewart]

Sorry, I wasn't sure whether your request was really about a specific novel, as opposed to a snarky comment about "Do you remember the one where $SETTING with $STOCK_DETAIL_1 and $STOCK_DETAIL_2 and $STANDARD_CHARACTERS does $X", similar to the fantasy version "An elf and a dwarf walk into a bar, a fight ensues, and they end up helping $YoungAdultProtagonist go on a Quest."

At the larger bookstores around here, F&SF gets a lot of shelf space as well, though it's subject to the usual Sturgeon's Law and the "Volume 1 of a 5-part-series is no longer on the shelf" problems. And robots, aliens and medieval-world elves have been getting pushed aside by vampires, zombies, and modern-urban-fantasy-world elves, but on the other hand, some of those zombies and elves are written by people like href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seanan_McGuire">Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire, so there's still awesomeness to be found. And while there's new work coming out from Steven Brust, apparently his publishers think that they can get us all to buy it in trade paperback instead of smaller, cheaper mass-market paper.

Why Star Wars was good at the time

[billstewart]

Star Wars wasn't just a standard movie trope, it was everything Lucas could borrow from Joseph Campbell, plus westerns, war movies, space opera, Casablanca, anybody else who's borrowed The Hero's Journey from Campbell, etc., done fairly well.

And when it came out, it was the first movie in a while that had well-defined good guys (Yay!) and bad guys (Boo!), as opposed to a whole string of popular movies that had disgruntled anti-heroes, typically a morally grey gritty cop protagonist taking down some darker grey more corrupt cops or gangsters. But even then, in the movie that I saw, Han shot first, unlike the bowdlerized SW4:ANH.

Re:Why Star Wars was good at the time

[MikeBabcock]

I'm confused, uncomplicated good and bad? A dark evil lord who was once a good Jedi and a hero who's a smuggler to start ... but I see where you're coming from. Personally, I see what you said and read "rip off of better movies and better stories that could've been incredibly good if someone else had written it."

you wouldn't have to call it best sci-fi

[Anonymous Coward]

Give an academy award for best second unit direction, that would pretty well cover any sci-fi or action films (and make the awards a bit more relevant to the modern film market)

Re:Soon everyone will want their own category . .

[Anonymous Coward]

A Boy and His Dog is definitely a classic, a must watch for any fan of the Fallout video games.

SOMEONE SAY STARGATE UNIVERSE !?

[Anonymous Coward]

PLEASE SAVE SGU!

Oscar for a fridge

[Walt Dismal]

Why yes. Any picture that includes a guy in a refrigerator surviving a nuclear explosion deserves to win best sci-fi category for totally implausible rank stupidity.

I may be a little biased here...

Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that all the Star Trek/Gate/Wars series are dead, why bother?

What's In A Name?

[jman.org]

As any TruFan will tell you, it's pronounced SKIFFY. ;)

The phrase Sci-Fi came from beloved fan and editor Forrest J. Ackerman, who coined it in honor of Hugo Gernsback, an early 20th century radio enthusiast and pioneer in Science Fiction publishing, who himself coined the audio term "Hi-Fi" for use in one of his other magazines. (He's also the namesake behind Science Fiction's version of the Oscars, called of course the "Hugo").

Alas, Forrey's term stuck.

Names aside, no, Science Fiction does NOT need its own category. It's a genre. Opening that door would mean we'd need a Fantasy Oscar, a Western Oscar, one for Murder Mysteries, Romances, Action/Adventure, Comedy...