What Makes Great SciFi?

Discussion in 'SciFi & Fantasy' started by Prince_James, Jan 2, 2007.

  1. Enterprise-D I'm back! Warp 8 Mr. Worf! Registered Senior Member

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    I was told Farscape was awesome...never followed it up though.

    DS9 is highly underrated, granted it started very slowly, but it is the Trek that actually did character explorations and a flowing story. It's the only Trek where Ferengi actually got personality, where the Starfleet commander is an actual emotive person and where there is a continuing challenge in the conniving baddies Dukat and Weyoun. I recommend "In the Pale Moonlight" as a great episode in duplicity, high emotions and getting down-and-dirty.

    B5 was the only sci fi that nearly brought a tear to my eye (when they blew up - read decomissioned - the station, the musical score was soul shaking, the procession off the station was honorable).
     
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  3. draqon Banned Banned

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    Star Treck Enterprise is awsome
     
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  5. mabufo Registered Senior Member

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    The setting!
     
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  7. Dr Lou Natic Unnecessary Surgeon Registered Senior Member

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    A good original idea.
    As seen in things planet of the apes, the omega strain, those creepy white haired kids that all the women started having after the whole town passed out, etc.
    Not just the bold and the beautiful on a spaceship, that's bullshit.
    Being in space doesn't make something good sci-fi.
    If asked if I was a sci-fi fan I'd say "fuck no" because the genre has become associated with this endless line of carbon copies where there's people living on spaceships in outerspace.
    But, sci-fi is potentially one of the greatest art forms. It's more about "what if this weird thing happened?" not "what if there were some dudes and some hot chicks on a spaceship? What would there lives be like?". That's just crap, a nerd's fantasy where he can escape from the planet that mocks him so.
    Real sci-fi has to be so much more, it's high time the genre was split into spaceship crap and actual sci-fi.

    Ps: I don't want to hear about how "starquest galaxy 6 enterprise: a new vision for the future in a spaceship" is different, fuck off.
     
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    If you appreciated the drama on DS9 and the emotion on B5, you'll just love Farscape. It's got be out on DVD now. Start at the beginning. Not every episode was an A+, but they were all good and there were enough A+ to carry the whole series. They were very good at characterization, the whole interstellar-civilization-at-war story was thoughtfully done without a lot of actual battle scenes... and the sub-plots were jaw-droppers.

    The most moving episode of B5 for me was when that entire civilization refused to admit they had an STD and they were all just going to let themselves die. Dr. Franklin finally synthesized the cure and came running back into the hold where all the sick people were waiting for him... and they had all died. The Minbari had been left to tend them and they were just shaken by the experience.

    TNG had its moments. When Picard spent a lifetime on the planet whose sun was about to explode, came back and found the tiny satellite approaching the Enterprise... and the little flute he had learned to play was inside. They kind of lost me when the Borg storyline hijacked the show, but I'm sure they picked up a couple of million new viewers with it.
     
  9. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    I dont think a truly realistic sci-fi film has ever been made. People walk around on spaceships as if there was gravity.

    It would also be difficult to market any film with silent spaceships...people cant get excited without noise.

    I suppose 2001 was the most realistic because its space station revolved to create a kind of centrifugal gravity, and space itself was almost dead silent.
     
  10. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    I missed most of this series when it was originally on because my cable company dropped UPN. Yesterday I saw an episode that starts with the captain in the shower when the artificial gravity fails. He's floating around in the shower surrounded by globules of water and calls the bridge. They tell him the gravity plating should be operational in a few minutes. Suddenly, gravity kicks in, he's dropped like a lead weight to the floor of the shower as water comes crashing down on top of him. Hilarious. The kind of problem they never had on any of the other series. Definately a fresh perspective.
     
  11. Pete It's not rocket surgery Registered Senior Member

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    Done, back in the '40s.

    Spaceship Crap = Space Opera
    Actual Sci-Fi = Hard science fiction or just SF.

    But, it's a tricky categorization... some sci-fi successfully supposedly combines both the originality, cohesiveness, self-consistency, and idea development of hard SF with the fun, action, and close to campiness of space opera.

    Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction (and presumable the rest of the Night's Dawn trilogy) is an example, although to my mind it is too much space opera and not enough SF.

    Some of Isaac Asimov's work has space opera elements as well, although I personally don't think he was very good at it.

    Robert Heinlein also did some space operatic stuff... interestingly, Starship Troopers became much more soap opera when it was (heavily) adapted for the 1997 film. I haven't read the novel, so I can't say how much hard SF was lost.

    Some movies and episodes of Star Trek manage to achieve the right balance, I think.

    But Frank Herbert is the master. That's why Dune is so brilliant, I think. I haven't read any other Herbert except Whipping Star, but it was also a heavy blend of soap and originality.
     
  12. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    I wouldn't call starship troopers hard SF. It was pure political.
     
  13. Pete It's not rocket surgery Registered Senior Member

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    Fair call.
     
  14. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    But it is hard SF in the sense there were no hobbits in it or elves. Actually there is not much left of the political message in the starship troopers film

    Another big subdivision in SF is between proper SF and fantasy. I just hate fantasy and unfortunately most people seem to like it.
     
  15. imaplanck. Banned Banned

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    How would you define proper sci-fi? Some people would call Aliens or backto the future, fantasy sci-fi.
     
  16. imaplanck. Banned Banned

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    I think a good story line makes good sci-fi. I seem to prefer the classics these days, as opposed to new big budget superficaldom.
     
  17. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    It's a bit difficult to label films as proper SF for me. I see them as pure entertainment and proper SF always has some kind of message. It makes you think. It is a statement on human society in some sort of a way.


    let me explain it to you:
    Alien was more proper SF than aliens. Aliens 3 was ok SF. Aliens 4 was not proper SF.
     
  18. Nickelodeon Banned Banned

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    And Aliens vs Predator?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  19. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    I saw that in Buenos Aires in one of those really crappy theatres.

    Aliens vs Predator is similar to aliens 4.
     
  20. Pete It's not rocket surgery Registered Senior Member

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    Hmmm... In no particular order, I'd consider these great SF:

    Close Encounters of the Third Kind
    Planet of the Apes
    The Day the Earth Stood Still
    The Man Who Fell to Earth
    12 Monkeys
    Blade Runner
    Contact
    E.T.
    A Clockwork Orange
    Brazil
    Terminator 2: Judgement Day
    Westworld

    Perhaps also...
    Star Trek Insurrection
    The Matrix
    Minority Report
    2001: A Space Odyssey+
    The Abyss+
    Starman*
    The Fly*
    Soylent Green*
    Scanners*
    Invasion of the Body Snatchers*
    Alien, Aliens, Alien 3*
    Pitch Black*

    + These ones I'm not sure of, because they had strong novelisations that accompanied the film which I think added significantly to their power.

    * I haven't seen these all the way through, but they stand out as SF icons. I've seen some of Aliens, and all of Alien 3. I think that the three stand together as a single work of great SF.



    It's kind of a short list, really. I don't know how many pages I'd fill with a similar list of novels.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2007
  21. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    Proper SF would be some of the stuff that stephen Baxter writes. Well, as long as it isn't the crap on evolution.

    Proper SF is 'the moon is a harsh mistress' and 'starship troopers' by Heinlein. Starship troopers the film is poo SF.

    Proper SF is Ian Banks and his 'culture' novels.

    Proper space opera is Peter Hamilton's night dawn trilogy.

    Proper proper SF is John Varley's 'steel beach'.

    Proper SF is Asimov.

    Proper SF is 'Marrow' by robert Reed.
     
  22. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Scarves.

    And big teeth.
     
  23. sidalby Registered Member

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    Some good reads are not as good on the film, I. Robot was a classic Sci-Fi by Asimov but the film, although the effects were great it did not do the book justice..
     

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