The Return of Sci Fi?

nyarlothothep

Ok so theres been BSG, Firefly and SG1, but I think there is a prevailing disinterest with sci fi. There hasn't been any particularly groundbreaking sci fi movies in years. The Matrix was good but Fantasy has become far more popular with LOTR and...Harry Potter... Tbh I think the kind of Fantasy (hoho, flame retardant mode activated) which uses medieval trops with magic is decadent in that it idealizes a past which was bloody and vicious while not looking forward to the future. However there have been excellent works within that genre but its just something that impresses on me. Maybe it reflects the general decadence of Western culture, bling etc, Maybe not, its just a sense or vague impression.

I guess its that if you compare say, Star Wars, Star Trek, Robocop, Blade Runner, Total Recall, BTTT or even Ghostbusters, a lot of recent sci fi comes up very short. For that matter a lot of films don't measure up either which isn't to say this decade hasn't produced some excellent films. I'm not a nostalgia head, when I see something commendable in a film I will accept it, for example I really dislike Dark Knight with a passion, its self indulgent in its own darkness, constantly labouring this with all subtlety of a sledgehammer, but Heath Ledgers performance is incredible and easily rivals Nicholsons, I won't say surpasses as they are two different takes.

Brimmy

Don't see how you thought TDK was indulgent to be honest. And it's a comic book film that has mass appeal. They don't contain much subtlety really.

Also your thread title asks the return of Sci Fi but you say it's dying?

There are some good Sci Fi films that have come out recently. Time Crimes and Sunshine have been out not to mention Cameron's Avatar is FINALLY being released at the end of the year.

If anything I'd say it's on the cusp of another boom.

Johnny Storm

Sturgeon's law: "90% of SF is crap."
Don't worry about it

Queen-Mise

TBH I think fantasy is going through a real boom at the moment with the introduction of CGI (is that right, the blue screen thingy).
It has made possible to make all the fantasy movies that couldn't really be made otherwise namely LOTR to start with, Narnia movies etc etc.

Star Trek finishing probably put a hole in the Sci-fi though. Sci-fi will come back though, it is just too good to let it lie on the shelf though.

I don't really enjoy some of the real blockbuster sci-fi movies though, the product placement in I, Robot was really annoying. I did enjoy Transformers, didn't expect to enjoy it so much. The other futuristic movie I enjoyed too, was the one where there was no children being born - can't remember name of it. That was ok also.

pH

I've often wondered why the disparity between Sci-Fi and Fantasy in books and TV.

For a while now, if you go into Easons their section is 90%+ fantasy, it's almost the same for amazon's bestsellers list.

For films (cinema releases) it's getting fairly balanced, with fantasy showing up primarily as film versions of successful novels, very little original fantasy is produced.

However TV seems to be the opposite of books, outside of kids TV it's really hard to think of any fantasy based series except the obvious few (Xena etc), and there have been quite a few Sci-Fi series.

Why is this, why is Fantasy dominating the reading market, yet hardly getting a look in on TV?

nyarlothothep

Queen-Mise wrote: »

TBH I think fantasy is going through a real boom at the moment with the introduction of CGI (is that right, the blue screen thingy).
It has made possible to make all the fantasy movies that couldn't really be made otherwise namely LOTR to start with, Narnia movies etc etc.

Star Trek finishing probably put a hole in the Sci-fi though. Sci-fi will come back though, it is just too good to let it lie on the shelf though.

I don't really enjoy some of the real blockbuster sci-fi movies though, the product placement in I, Robot was really annoying. I did enjoy Transformers, didn't expect to enjoy it so much. The other futuristic movie I enjoyed too, was the one where there was no children being born - can't remember name of it. That was ok also.

CGI is computer generated imagery, the blue screen is used as a "blank canvas" on which to impose the imagery.

The film is Children of Men if I recall correctly.

ixoy

pH wrote: »

For a while now, if you go into Easons their section is 90%+ fantasy, it's almost the same for amazon's bestsellers list.

Yep - I've never seen a Sci-Fi break into the normal Top 10 for example but fantasy authors can do (Feist, Gemmell, Pratchett, Eddings to name a few). Science fiction is a particularly hard field to do well in literature it would seem (I'd love to know how many copies Hamilton shifts say next to Feist) yet it does very well on screen.

For films (cinema releases) it's getting fairly balanced, with fantasy showing up primarily as film versions of successful novels, very little original fantasy is produced.

As you say though it's largely adaptation. I think there's more original output though from Sci-Fi or, at the very least, it's more prepared to explore from a concept/short-story.

However TV seems to be the opposite of books, outside of kids TV it's really hard to think of any fantasy based series except the obvious few (Xena etc), and there have been quite a few Sci-Fi series.

Why is this, why is Fantasy dominating the reading market, yet hardly getting a look in on TV?

Good question. Partially I think that fantasy tends to be quite epic in scale - most series consist of a number of thick volumes detailing one long story. It's not episodic and that's harder to sell whereas sci-fi lends itself to having more freedom to tell a "story-of-the-week".

As you say there was "Xena" and "Hercules" (and a number of weak clones) but the majority of those stories are fairly light on arc and so don't fit the mould from literature. The scale may put people off too - large scale battles are common but very expensive to replicate on screen. For example take HBO's "Rome" which had to re-create an old world and some large battles - it was so expensive that, despite decent ratings, HBO had to abandon it. To do a large fantasy world, one more realistic than ancient Greece, might just cost too much.

Having said all the above though, I'd still like to see someone try outside of animation and see what we can achieve. If the adaptation of George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" goes ahead, it might open the way for a more adult and complex take on what fantasy can offer.

Nebride

nyarlothothep wrote: »

There hasn't been any particularly groundbreaking sci fi movies in years.

I suppose that would depend on what you consider an sf movie to be exactly... if we're talking purely futuristic-technology/alien/outer-space type thing then I see your point. However, if you consider sf to include speculative fiction as a whole then there have been lots of amazing films in recent years - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Truman Show, The Final Cut (yes it has Robin Williams in it but still...), Children of Men etc etc. It all depends on what you're looking for I suppose

Mal-Adjusted

Nebride wrote: »

I suppose that would depend on what you consider an sf movie to be exactly... if we're talking purely futuristic-technology/alien/outer-space type thing then I see your point. However, if you consider sf to include speculative fiction as a whole then there have been lots of amazing films in recent years - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Truman Show, The Final Cut (yes it has Robin Williams in it but still...), Children of Men etc etc. It all depends on what you're looking for I suppose

science fiction, by it's very definition, could not include the likes of "the truman show" as the events of that film are possible in today's world (though, of course, not probable)
compare that with "Eternal Sunshine" or "Children of Men" which are not possible (at least not yet)

ocianain

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Ok so theres been BSG, Firefly and SG1, but I think there is a prevailing disinterest with sci fi. There hasn't been any particularly groundbreaking sci fi movies in years. The Matrix was good but Fantasy has become far more popular with LOTR and...Harry Potter... Tbh I think the kind of Fantasy (hoho, flame retardant mode activated) which uses medieval trops with magic is decadent in that it idealizes a past which was bloody and vicious while not looking forward to the future. However there have been excellent works within that genre but its just something that impresses on me. Maybe it reflects the general decadence of Western culture, bling etc, Maybe not, its just a sense or vague impression.

I guess its that if you compare say, Star Wars, Star Trek, Robocop, Blade Runner, Total Recall, BTTT or even Ghostbusters, a lot of recent sci fi comes up very short. For that matter a lot of films don't measure up either which isn't to say this decade hasn't produced some excellent films. I'm not a nostalgia head, when I see something commendable in a film I will accept it, for example I really dislike Dark Knight with a passion, its self indulgent in its own darkness, constantly labouring this with all subtlety of a sledgehammer, but Heath Ledgers performance is incredible and easily rivals Nicholsons, I won't say surpasses as they are two different takes.

I think you're quite right regarding a disinterest in sci fi, I've read sci-fi and fantasy for nearly 40 years, I long ago lost interest in sci fi. The only sci fi writer I enjoy is James P Hogan, his Giant books are classics and I'm at a loss as to why they're not movies. Sci Fi, to me at least, is so materialistic
a genre it leaves me cold. Fantasy is much more human/humane. Even what most people call sci fi is really fantasy (Star Wars), or, westerns (Star Trek, Roddenberry call Star Trek "Wagon Train in space") gussed up for moderns. Real sci fi, hard sci fi, leaves me cold, there are exceptions of course