Let's Talk Sci-Fi, and it's Portrayl in Media - It's Sins

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Important! Read the gorram OP before you comment!

Note: While this thread covers all mediums of science fiction, the vast majority of it will be focused on TV and movie appearances.

Note 2: My humor is pretty much @#&%; yes I admitted it, but I'm not going to make any amends for it either.

Note 3: I'm reviewing the fiction not off of what I want it to be, but what the fiction it'self wants to be, and is. Don't screw me for that.

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Alrighty! Let's talk... (Spoiler alert! Long discussion coming up ahead)

So...one day a writer wakes up, and says; "I'm going to write a deep, massive science fiction universe and make a TV show/film set in it! It's going to have an original form of FTL, space lasers, really cool aliens, and all the other must-have crap!" And so (Don't screw me for starting a sentence off with "and", because I don't have time explain the Laws of Quick Typing of a Thread on an Internet Forum) our writer locks himself away in his room for a week or two, compiles a two-thousand page book of notes on lore and a 100 page treatment for a show/film. He browses for a company to produce it, gets his meeting with the board of executives, who say; "Great! More recycled crap that has tons of words in it for the lore-addicts to get involved in and tons of action and excitement for the general audience! We approve your hundred million dollar budget." And (Don't screw me I say!) continuing on, the company sends down a thousand or so people, get's four dozen different actors to play four dozens different characters that no one will ever remember, a team of stupid creative writers, brings out the props from last year's sci-fi production (Which, because most of the budget has to be spent on CGI, the props are the reused stuff that look post-apocalyptic, and so the lore has to be changed to reflect such). They film for two weeks, spend a year in post production, get approval for a second season/sequel movie before the first has even aired, and off we are to the races! Yet another science fiction production to join the crowd of them only to be struck down a decade later because it outlived it's novelty!


(Note to self: I will give no apology to these people for the long, drawn out paragraph that their eyes just strained to read, because they'll hate me anyways).


Now that we (Meaning "I") have established the current state of affairs in sci-fi production (Read: It's pretty bad), let's get on to the point shall we?

The Writers Give No Thought to the Story Logic of their Creation, and the Shows and Films are Produced without Passion.

We (Not "I" this time) have entered a loop gentlemen; the writers are blindly creating worlds that, although they strive for originality, are just flat out not; and the production companies give not thought themselves to how they run the show.

It's the same formula in episode format over, and over again. This is the design process for a TV show: "1. Establish an awesome opening pilot detailing our world, then introduce our immortal characters and futilely explain why we should care for them. 2. Make each episode a (Mostly) standalone adventure so that the audeince can drop in any time without going 'Waagh? They are treating me like I should know this crap.'; where our heroes discover some strange, new world or uncover an evil plot that they shall stop. 3. Insert some random two-parter where someone dies, but we keep the actor on the payroll so we can bring him back later after we've figured out some @#%&y way to explain his resurrection. 4. Rinse and repeat."

Or, if it's a movie: "1. Establish an awesome opening sequence that'll be better than the climax of the film to instantly 'wow' people with lasers and giant exploding thingies. 2. Take an hour and a half to develop our stock characters so that our stupid audience will attach to them. Also, send those characters on some journey typical of the Sci Fi genre. 3. Dramatic plot twist! Kill one or two characters, hero goes off to sacrifice himself to save the 'verse. 4. Leave a secret ending in the credits to tell the audience that we'll be producing more @#$& for next year."


*Whines* I hate it when they do that! *Whines more*


Seriously, almost every single Sci Fi production does that now. In fact, I can't name one in the past ten years that didn't do that.

The shows; their all reskinned Star Treks. Bablyon 5, Stargate, Farscape...even Battlestar: Galactica...

The movies; their all reskinned Star Wars'. Elysium, Prometheus, Oblivion...

*Wails* I'm sick and tired of it! And damn it man, you better be too! (Don't take that too seriously)

So...let's break this down, shall we?

Even the Fiction's own Physics and Logic is Screwed Up.

We have three different genres of science fiction, so let's categorize the stuff before we ("I") start complaining about their problems.

Science Fantasy - Star Wars, Star Trek (It's close enough). Stargate after Atlantis happened.
Typical Science Fiction - Star Trek (If you 'forget' about all the magic in it), Babylon 5, Stargate before Atlantis, Mass Effect, Farscape.
Realistic Science Fiction - Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Avatar

We will completely dismiss Science Fantasy altogether.

We will look at Typical Science Fiction very closely. (No, we won't drag 'Trek or 'Gate into this, because their logic was too @#%& to begin with anyways. Why? Because Tribbles. And space vampires.

We will penalize Realistic Science Fiction the most.

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Typical Science Fiction: Basically everything that has aliens, FTL, and people can walk on the floor of their spaceship. Also follows the 'Trek model of running a TV show.

1. Everything I said from the earlier part on what you can expect from show development. Basically, the "We found this strange planet and are going to investigate and save these guys from their enemies!" and the "Let's have a bomb plot we have to foil!" crap. Oh no; I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with that, but when it becomes your bottom line routine, you've basically made a reskinned 'Trek.

2. They all speak English! Even the aliens! Should speak for it'self.

3. The aliens are reskinned Humans. Yes; I know how little money goes into the costume and makeup departments, but can you list a single series where the aliens that you saw all the time didn't have two arms, two legs, a posture like a Human, a mouth and nose and eyes all in the same place as a Human? God, it's like all the aliens in the 'verse somehow evolved to look like the exact same! Just different minor features like skin color and antennae!

4. The space fighters fly exactly like an airplane, in space. I was about to rant for a page on this one, but Scott Manely summed it up pretty much in this:



At least Babylon 5 got it right with the Starfury. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfury

5. They say phrases and words in the 'verse that the audience can't possibly understand. This so much! "I'd be like recalibrating an antimatter containment field while it's in operation, with a tricorder's resonater's, from a lightyear away." - Miles O'Brian on Star Trek DS9. Okay, I understand the point you writers are trying to get across: that 1. people in the 'Trek 'verse live in a different world and thus would understand different phrases than we do, and 2. That Miles can't fix it this time. I have news for you: JUST STOP IT! It doesn't take a completely over complicated explanation using crap we will never understand as an analogy to tell the audience that he can't do it! Of half the audience that does have an in-depth knowledge of 'Trek lore, I guarantee you that 99.9% of them don't even know how Roddenbery explained anti-matter contianment fields, let alone the full extent of a tricorder's functions. The other half of the audience doesn't care! Either just use more modern terms that the audience can identify with, or just don't even try using that trick!

(Note: Yes, I know I brought 'Trek into this. I'm a moron. Screw me.)

6. They can't even keep their own 'verse's logic straight! Do you know how many times I've seen contradictions in a Sci Fi show's workings? Star Trek had, three completely different ways of calculating warp speed that, somehow, all three of them are universally used (even though they all contradict each other), and they keep bouncing between in the series. Another example is during a an fight between the Enterprise and the Cardassians, when Data says they can't track the Cardassians due to passive technical problems but the next second after Picard tells him to he immedietly find him! It's...Oh my God; the writers can't even keep their own logic straight!

7. Nobody every dies. Ofcourse, you dummie! Since when did characters in Science Fiction ever die? Since never. Hell, they killed Carson with a bomb, yet he came back (As a clone). They killed Geordi, but they picked up an alternate La'forge from an alternate universe to replace him. They would've killed Archer a thousand times over had not the screen writers inserted all this crap as an excuse to keep him alive, then made it look like he died when the weapon exploded, only to bring him back again during all the alternate Nazi timeline bull@#%&! Need I continue?


By the time you've watched your thousandth or so episode of Typical Science Fiction, you begin to recognize a pattern. You can instantly tell how the story is going to play out. In fact, you even begin to recognize that you've seen this pattern before. In fact, all stories are the same, regardless of the series. Same plot, different names.

Got more sins for Typical Science Fiction? Leave them in the comments and I will put em up!

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Realistic Science Fiction: Thank God; this is where we step away from the sterotypical plots of Typical Science Fiction, but make no mistake: those plots are still there, and there's a lot more hell coming it's way.

1. It's called; "Realistic Science Fiction" and yet it ain't even realistic. The ship movements in BSG and Firefly, for example, don't even follow the laws of Newtonian Physics. For some reason, the ships have to continually burn their engines to get to their destination, even when in RL the ship would only have to burn for a little bit until it's trajectory took it to their destination. If those ships were still burning their engine while enroute to their destination, they would have to burn that same amount of fuel retrograde in order to come to a stop when they did get there. And that's just the start of it, but I'm going to save that for later.

Oh, and one thing: Artificial gravity! Yes, the ships have artificial gravity, when that's just flat out impossible. Sure, you could stick an engine on to a Stanford Torus and start accelerating, but then your gravity instantly shifts and everyone's standing sideways, which would defeat the point of having a torus in the first place. The most frustrating example of this is Firefly, which I praise very much for it's brute realism, but the very fact that Humanity was some how able to create the impossible gravity plating and yet not able to create an FTL drive is immersion breaking.

Got more sins for Realistic Science Fiction? Leave them in the comments and I will put em up!

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Hooray! It's Over!


But it's only the beginning! Over the next several weeks, I will begin discussing in detail the specifics of Science Fiction's ideas and their sins!

And again, if you have a sin to add, just say so and I will add it!

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*Clears throat* And now, I will accept your snide remarks and unkindly retorts. May the comedy begin!

[apepi]

I think it is not portrayed very um...serious. Star wars and etc does not seem very serious to me, some of it just seems very silly(eureka, doctor who, warehouse 13, men in black), seems like to me only the silly ones really only get attention. Though some I think have been better at it, like firefly or the ender's game movie.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I think it is not portrayed very um...serious. Star wars and etc does not seem very serious to me, some of it just seems very silly(eureka, doctor who, warehouse 13, men in black), seems like to me only the silly ones really only get attention. Though some I think have been better at it, like firefly or the ender's game movie.

Well, ofcourse; because SW is a science fantasy.

Ender's game was a vast improvement over previous typical science fiction films (the book was great too!) but suffered from a misuse of screen time that could've been better used fleshing out the world and it's characters.

[apepi]

Well, ofcourse; because SW is a science fantasy.

Ender's game was a vast improvement over previous typical science fiction films (the book was great too!) but suffered from a misuse of screen time that could've been better used fleshing out the world and it's characters.

Though I do find even if they do get serious and use um...harder core sci-fi people just brush it off and try to not understand it and just try to make fun of it. Kind of like in Avatar.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Though I do find even if they do get serious and use um...harder core sci-fi people just brush it off and try to not understand it and just try to make fun of it. Kind of like in Avatar.

I thoroughly enjoyed Avatar. Many people compared it to Pocahontas, but I found the plot to be quite different. It was also original: setting up humans as the main enemy who are the bad guys not because they wanted to rage a take over the world but because their greed led them to trash up people's backyards. It was also very realistic. I look forward to a sequel.

[Kaleredar]

science fiction is just vaguely more plausible fantasy.

[The Stormbringer]

TL;DR.

Okay, that's just a joke. I'll read the rest of it later, when I'm not about to collapse and go to bed.

If I had to vote a good series for sci-fi on TV/Movies, I'd go for the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. He has considerably better science in his science-fiction, where many series lean towards the fiction aspect.

[apepi]

I thoroughly enjoyed Avatar. Many people compared it to Pocahontas, but I found the plot to be quite different. It was also original: setting up humans as the main enemy who are the bad guys not because they wanted to rage a take over the world but because their greed led them to trash up people's backyards. It was also very realistic. I look forward to a sequel.

I was okay, not my favorite, but it was good. But how it was handled was bad.

I think firefly was an okay representation of sci-fi. One of the good things about it was not only sci-fi people liked but it also brought new people into the world properly.

[AeneasBK]

They just don't make good Sci-fi books into good movies/series they take the ideas and shove them through some sort of "Hollywoodifier" and these are the results you get.

Cities in Flight ( http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Flight-.../dp/0575094176 ) would make an AMAZING multi-series drama.

[apepi]

They just don't make good Sci-fi books into good movies/series they take the ideas and shove them through some sort of "Hollywoodifier" and these are the results you get.

Cities in Flight ( http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Flight-.../dp/0575094176 ) would make an AMAZING multi-series drama.

Granted I have found a book that is very hollywoodified, the expanse series. It seems very cinematic book to me, they are even making it to a tv series(which I am totally hyped up for and am going to be disappointed).

[AeneasBK]

(which I am totally hyped up for and am going to be disappointed).

Pretty much how I felt when they announced the first Transformers movie

[apepi]

Pretty much how I felt when they announced the first Transformers movie

Wait, the animation one or real action one?

[AeneasBK]

Wait, the animation one or real action one?

Fair point :P I mean the Michael Bay one. The original animated movie is freaking awesome and I listen to the Vince diCola tracks from the OST most days.

[apepi]

Fair point :P I mean the Michael Bay one. The original animated movie is freaking awesome and I listen to the Vince diCola tracks from the OST most days.

I rmeber watching that when I was a kid, me and my sister watched the old transformers and x-men cartoons.

Granted they don't really treat fantasy much better, game of thrones is giving it some credit though.

[Dhrizzle]

How is Firefly realistic science fiction? If anything I'd call it more of a Space Adventure, closer to Star Wars than Star Trek if anything.

A lot of your criticisms come from the limitations of the media (artificial gravity to cut down on special effects, "reskinned humans" for the same reason and so people can empathise with the characters better) or liberties taken to make the story more compelling for the audience.

By "typical science fiction" I assume you're meaning space opera (which Star Wars and Firefly can loosely fit in with) how "realistic" or "hard" science fiction they are depends on how they deal with the sciencey bits. The hardest forms only use accepted science or things which are looking theoretically very likely (space elevators, AI, no lightspeed or artificial gravity). As it softens "space magic" technology starts to appear, the most important usually being the method of FTL travel used (wormholes, warp bubbles, inertialess drives or hyperspace being the usual methods). Hardness is determined not only by how far-fetched the technology is but how consistently it is applied and how important it is to the story. For example in Star Wars the technology exists purely to serve the story. In series like Star Trek the plot still trumps "realism" but they take great lengths to keep it consistent. Babylon 5 tried to keep hard sci-fi concepts (you already mentioned ship movement and a lot of Earth's tech is using spin to simulate gravity) but in a typical nearly-fantasy space opera story.

It's rare to see hard sci-fi space operas in films or TV because it doesn't really translate well onto a screen. "Realistic" space battles would be fought at distances where opposing ships would hardly be visible, and the crews would likely be locked in some sort of system to stop their squishy bodies being annihilated. Communication between officers would be an incomprehensible array of vectors and forces instead of the more naval-inspired orders you see on things like Star Trek (that's if humans are even involved, more far-fetched sci-fi would likely have everything run and sorted by AI in micro-seconds). These are all concepts that work great in novels but lack the excitement of space represented as a cross between dog-fighting planes and ocean-going battle-ships.

[Adam Jensen]

2. They all speak English! Even the aliens! Should speak for it'self.

Well, there has to be a translation somewhere because otherwise language creates a very difficult barrier to the story. That's why shows like Doctor Who and Farscape have technologies that automatically translate things for the characters (the TARDIS has some sort of translation field.)

Oh, and one thing: Artificial gravity! Yes, the ships have artificial gravity, when that's just flat out impossible. Sure, you could stick an engine on to a Stanford Torus and start accelerating, but then your gravity instantly shifts and everyone's standing sideways, which would defeat the point of having a torus in the first place. The most frustrating example of this is Firefly, which I praise very much for it's brute realism, but the very fact that Humanity was some how able to create the impossible gravity plating and yet not able to create an FTL drive is immersion breaking.

Creating artificial gravity is impossible? That's why this is science fiction. Sci-fi includes technologies that we as of today either regard as impossible or we don't know how to build.

As to the space battles . . . sure the Vipers and Cylon raiders of Battlestar Galactica wouldn't really operate that way, but damn those battles are fun to watch!

I think you have a serious case of being unable to suspend your disbelief.

[haxartus]

About the aliens being human...
Imagine a TV show about

and it's best friend:

By the way, these are way too normal to be alien.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

...These are all concepts that work great in novels but lack the excitement of space represented as a cross between dog-fighting planes and ocean-going battle-ships...

People watch documentaries on monkeys narrated by Morgan Freeman. People stare at fishtanks. People watch Mike Row dig up poop. If there's a fanbase for those shows, than there will be a fanbase for 200km space sniper battles with robots.

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Well, there has to be a translation somewhere because otherwise language creates a very difficult barrier to the story. That's why shows like Doctor Who and Farscape have technologies that automatically translate things for the characters (the TARDIS has some sort of translation field.)

See Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Stargate; for some aliens they didn't just auto translate but they changed it so that you could still understand the aliens, and + it was far more immersive. And it wasn't reading!

Creating artificial gravity is impossible? That's why this is science fiction. Sci-fi includes technologies that we as of today either regard as impossible or we don't know how to build.

I'm not asking them to build a set on a plane, and nose dive every time their on a spaceship just so they could simulate gravity, but the least they could do is try an attempt at a zero-g spaceship, and it's thoroughly possible. If you saw the development diaries on Avatar, Ender's Game, and others, you'd see they can use pullies and ropes to simulate zero-g. And, I'm not even asking them to go that far; they could just put tons of handle bars on the interiors of their sets and just have the actors just pretend to use the handlebars to move around, even if their standing upright.

As to the space battles . . . sure the Vipers and Cylon raiders of Battlestar Galactica wouldn't really operate that way, but damn those battles are fun to watch!

They sure are!

I think you have a serious case of being unable to suspend your disbelief.

I honestly try Adam; I really do. But...when a series is incredibly inconsistent with lore either through continuous contradictions or inconsistent levels of technology, ie having gravity plating on ships but you still travel at 3% lightspeed. And when the storywriters ask me to continue like that, I make an effort to pull myself together and try to mentally break down this new information, but ineviebly when you see so much of this happening you just stop, and not only do you stop immersing yourself in it but you begin to start thinking "Hm...let's start counting down all the cliches, inconsistencies, and try to predict what's inevitably going to happen."

[haxartus]

You can actually produce the same affect as gravity by rotating sections of the ship. Babylon 5 did that.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

You can actually produce the same affect as gravity by rotating sections of the ship. Babylon 5 did that.

I know that, and stated that in the OP. The problem is that when your maneuvering ship around; accelerating to move your trajectory to your destination and then decelerating once you get there to create an orbit would offset the gravity and then suddenly everybody will be standing sideways.