Recently, and largely in response to my reviews of the new series of Doctor Who, I've been challenged by some friends to define what it is I don't like about science fiction. I must say, it wasn't always this way; I was quite a fan when I was younger, but increasingly it seems to be the genre that turns me off more than any other
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Alien is a horror. Aliens is an action film. Nineteen Eighty-four is a political thriller. And I have no idea what genre Death and the Compass is, but I don't think it's sci-fi; it certainly didn't strike me as such. 2001 is much closer to sci-fi, admittedly, but then it's directed by Stanley Kubrick. Enough said.
As someone with close on no interest in sci-fi either, I began thinking of Solaris, which as you know is my favourite film. Suddenly it hit me; these films, and to a large extent Doctor Who use sci-fi as a peg. They want to get somewhere - make you think, scare you, thrill you - and the easiest way to do that is to use sci-fi trappings. Take Doctor Who, for example; the creation of the TARDIS was a stroke of absolute genius as it meant you ( ... )
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(Of course, it doesn't hurt that the sci-fi is more in the vein of 1970s British telefantasy, rather than Hollywood sci-fi)
I would argue that the Alien franchise is sci-fi if it is anything; the common denominator in Scott's horror movie, Cameron's war movie, Fincher's religious tragedy and Jenuet's drivel is the science fiction elements. And 1984 and 2001 were almost certainly regarded as sci-fi when they came out because their titular years were so distant; the fact that they endure now is not, I would argue, proof that they weren't really sci-fi, it's proof that an intelligent writer or director can always transcend genre ( ... )
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So sci-fi's being treated as a peg for all the separate films to hang on?
I'm not saying, by the way, that 2001 and Nineteen Eighty-four endure because they aren't sci-fi; Asimov endures, for example. I'm merely saying that Nineteen Eighty-four has never struck me as a sci-fi. Even when it was released in 1948, televisions had been created. Totalitarian regimes were nothing new. Yes, Orwell did extend, bend, develop and create some elements, but calling it sci-fi, in my opinion, goes rather too far.
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Don't let the thought of rampant robots and space dogfights put you off, the sf is limited to the setting. The meat of the writing is in the twisting of politics, religious beliefs and dogma, and personal relationships in the middle of a war. The writers have been taking ethical beliefs of any political stripe and putting them in very uncomfortable poses. People who hate sci-fi are calling it the best thing on tv. I agree with 'em.
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From what I saw of Firefly - three episodes in quick succession - it's not any worse than your average Buffy episode if you take away my personal preference. But, however much I pretend otherwise in my reviews, the personal continually leaks into the critical, which is why you're unlikely to see the Star Trek Project appearing any time soon on my LJ.
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Firefly was great straight off the bat. Partly no doubt because the writers had a lot more experience by that point (although that wasn't so evident in late Buffy and Angel), partly because they had a much better cast. A lot of the actors in Buffy weren't very good, and while they certainly grew into the roles I think there was always some deficiency.
Of course Firefly only got half a season (although it included single episodes to rivel the quality of much more long-standing shows), and as far as I can tell the stumbling block was the spaceships. Buffy and Angel fans by and large did not transfer to Firefly because they thought it wasn't their thing. One year after it was cancelled a lot of them get round to watching it on the DVD release and suddenly start going "Hey! This is great!" but far too late ( ... )
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I'm not trying to compare them with each other; I'm comparing them with other science-fiction and explaining why they work so much better than most of the genre.
The science in The Pirate Planet doesn't bother me. I have no interest in physics at all, so it's a measure of Adams's achievement that I can happily sit through the Doctor or Ford Prefect or someone discussing matters of physics in his work. If that sort of thing does interest you, fair enough, it's a little added bonus. But even though it doesn't interest me, Adams is capable of talking about it in a way that makes me understand his passion. That's why he's a brilliant writer and Clarke and Asimov - IMNSHO - are not.
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