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

[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

[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

[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

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort version: NO

ok, fine I'll do it

"eiNnOorsv:"

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

[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

[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

[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

[Canazza]

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

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

[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.

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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).