What is "real" Sci-Fi and would people know it if they saw it today?

[John Morgan]

Looking at the course what is called sci-fi in recent years, I have noticed that many of the movies and shows are just "action films set in space."   In fact, you can take the same story line from many of these shows and set it in the middle ages.  (Try it with Star Wars Ep 2, you'll see what I mean.)  The short lived TV show Space above and beyond could have been set an Aircraft Carrier during WW II.  

To me, true sci-fi needs to tell a story and not emphasize the special effects of technology.  Now I do beleive I grew up not knowing what good sci-fi is.  I was a big Star Wars fan and if any other movie didn't have equal special effects, I didn't like it.  But I also grew up watching Dr. Who.  They did not have super special effects but they were used to help the writers tell a story.  It worked, the story was main part of the show.  (Sounds stupid to have to say that but now it looks like some writer pictures a ship drilling it's way to the center of the earth and then decides to come up with a story so they can use the effects shot.  The Core)

What are some examples of GOOD Sci-fi?  What would happen if the Sci-Fi channel started showing some of these great works of Science Fiction and not the fantasy/horror blabber they show today?

[Gerry]

Good recent sci-fi:

GATTACA - what if everyone could be perfect...what would it mean to be imperfect?

DARK CITY - reality is what we make it...or is it what it makes us?

CUBE - put people in a death trap and see if they can find a way out.

PI - I still don't know what in the hell it's about but it was good.

A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - hate it or love it...it is good science fiction.

BICENTENNIAL MAN - a little over-sentifmental, but good.  What makes us human?

AVALON - Mamoru Oshii's Japanese-Polish live-action anime. Another contemplation of the nature of reality...with kick ass anime-style action!

[raj]

Babylon 5.
The science element is important (faster than light travel, telepaths), but the heart of the story could be set in any age.  Just substitute the Nineteenth Century Great Powers (France, Austro-Hungary, Russia, Britian) for the various races, and you'll still have the same basic milleu:  different groups plotting 7 backstabbing in order to be number one.

[The Burgomaster]

Good and/or great sci-fi:

* War of the Worlds
* When Worlds Collide
* The Andromeda Strain
* 2001: A Space Odyssey
* Invasion of the Body Snatchers
* Colossus: The Forbin Project
* Fantastic Voyage
* The Day the Earth Stood Still
* Planet of the Vampires (Directed by Mario Bava! It has cheap, yet imaginative special effects and creepy scenes of buried bodies rising up out of the ground)
* Journey to the Center of the Earth


Although, Colossus and Invasion of the Body Snatchers are probably better examples of Cold War fables than sci-fi.

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[lonecorndog]

Gattaca, Dark City, Fifth Element,  2001, A Clockwork Orange, and Stargate are among my favorites.

By "real" Sci-Fi do you mean "hard" Sci-Fi or just Sci-Fi that must be Sci-Fi to tell the story?

For really good and hard Sci-Fi, I recommend mostly skipping movies altogether (with a few great exceptions) and reading instead. Try Robert Heinlin.

As far as what would happen if the SF channel starting actually showing some of these great SF films? Well, I would actually watch the channel is one thing that would happen.



"Supplies!" (UHF)

[Pete B6K]

I really like 'concept' Sci-Fi, the stuff that really makes you think or raises issues in an analogical kinda way.  Problem is as far as I can see their few and far between, with too many, as you put it, 'action films set in space'. 'Gattaca',  'Cube' and 'The Andromeda Strain' all previously mentioned would be the one that spring to my mind.  Please let me know what others come under that category.

Pete

[Scott0]

How do you figure Pi to be sci-fi? I've done a lot of study on the movie, and I don't see how it could be sci-fi. --The movie was about Max, our narrator and resident mathematical genious who goes through life trying to find patterns everywhere, and uses his home made super computer "Euclid"  to try to find patterns in the Stock Market. Then one day, it spits out a 216-digit number which is promptly thrown away by Max thinking it is just computer jargon. He then spends the rest of the movie trying to find the same number when he realizes the number he saw might be the numeric translation from Hebrew of the true name of God. Pursued by Hasidic Jews looking for the number for their personal religious gains, and by stock market execs for personal financial gain, Max is driven him to the brink of insanity-- There isn't much science involved except for a high emphasis on mathematics.

Bicentennial Man was a much, MUCH better short story than it was a feature length movie. In the 45 minutes it takes to finish the story, more is explained and described than the 2 hours of film. Read the short story!

Scottie

[nshumate]

I don't know that Dark City really qualifies, as it seems that the technology and setting were invented to support the visuals and theme, instead of the other way around.  It seems to me that honest, hard science fiction imagines an innovation or possible situation, and then constructs possible themes and issues from that.  (Just the part with Sutherland designing whole personalities and memories with blots of chemicals in a petri dish took it out of the strict SF category for me.)

On the other hand, I think that Pi is very defensible as "real" SF, simply because it plays by those rules.

[nshumate]

Your question contains a contradiction in terms.  "Sci-fi" is not "real" SF -- it's the pulp version, the TV version, the Star Trek and Star Wars version.  It's the trappings and the whizbang, the "westerns with aliens" version.

"Real" SF is extrapolative fiction, constructing the premise by making a rational, believable "what if?" hypothesis, and then following it through and seeing how it affects society and, ultimately, individuals.

[Drezzy]

Donnie Darko, I feel, can be considered sci-fi.






**SEMI-SPOILERS**







It deals with the possibility of time travel, and what it's effect could be on the world. It's also an incredibly great story, with enough humor (albeit usually somewhat dark) thrown in to keep your attention in case you started feeling bored.

[Andrew]

"The Time Machine" (the original one)

How about "Ghostbusters?"

"Alien," "Aliens," and "The Thing" probably qualify.

I am not certain if "Donnie Darko" is science fiction, but it is a great remake of "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge."

As was said, I mostly read when I want to get a "good" science fiction fix.  Along those lines, a movie based in the world of Peter Hamilton's "Reality Dysfunction" would be very cool.  Nanonics, voidhawks, Edenism...

[Newt]

Thank you Nathan!

Often the people who disdain SF are really familiar only with "Sci Fi" - a situation which does 'real' SF a great injustice.

Mind you, while I think the differentiation is important, I enjoy both varieties.  Which probably explains why  I come here...

[Evan3]

I am shocked with you people. You have left off Ray Bradbury, possibly one of the greatest Sci Fi movies ever.

I always considered the Omega Man good Sci Fi. But you leftout possibly two of the best sci fi movies recently made.

Pitch Black and Minority Report. If they are not sci fi, than nothing is. Come on guys think.

[Fearless Freep]

The difference Nathan is talking about is the difference between what I call "Sci-Fi" and "Science Fiction"

I think Sci-Fi is probably a lot easier to write because you can deal with established storylines dressed up in futuristic settings with aliens and spaceships.  Granted, if you try, you can still put a lot of creativity into making the settings and characters interesting with unique effect on the situations.  That's still a far cry, though, from something like Asimov's "The Stars Like Dust" that takes what was known at the time about intersteller gases and postulates forward the implications and builds a whole story around it.

[nshumate]

Evan3 wrote:
>
> I am shocked with you people. You have left off Ray Bradbury,
> possibly one of the greatest Sci Fi movies ever.

Personally, I'd consider Bradbury a writer, not a movie.  And frankly, I consider him a fantasist, but not so much an SF writer.  Very few of his stories are based on hard extrapolation, such as you would find with the body of work by Asimov et al.  Which is not to demean the man; Bradbury is one of the finest writers of any kind, bar none.  But his work doesn't really fit the confines of the genre except in the sense that publishers have no other label to give him.
 
> I always considered the Omega Man good Sci Fi. But you
> leftout possibly two of the best sci fi movies recently made.
>
> Pitch Black and Minority Report. If they are not sci fi, than
> nothing is. Come on guys think.

Personally, I thought Minority Report was overinflated and overrated.  The premise had a logical flaw at its center which everyone tried desperately to ignore like the proverbial elephant in the living room.  The photography had that "look at me, I'm so edgy" color scheme that became annoying beyond all reason after about five minutes.  And speaking of the five-minute mark, that's about how long it took me to figure out the big "whodunit".  From where I sit, Minority Report was a well-meaning misfire.