Like Star Wars and their Clone Wars animated series, is the genre running out of ideas? Their is not(in my opinion) that much good Sci-Fi anymore. Am I the only one who thinks Sci-Fi is reaching the bottom of the barrel?:shrug:
No. Peter F Hamilton. Ian M Banks. Neal Stephenson. Greg Bear. Pat Cadigan. Timothy Zahn. (When he's not writing his Star Wars franchise shit). William Rotsler. Mike Moorcock. And many more.
What i'm saying is that the major franchises aren't really coming up with good stuff. And who is that in your avatar?
Major franchises only ever steal stuff from more obscure writers. And they have to fight for the money (which means convincing execs who probably aren't into Sf at all). Forget movies, look for writers and good publishers. Whatever's in there will eventually (funding permitting) be on the big screen, and if you've read the book you'll be way ahead of the curve. (And you get to sneer knowingly at the parvenu wannabes in the queue for tickets: when I went to see the first X-Men film I was surrounded by teenagers who thought they were "really cool" for knowing the names of most of the team, and I'm there wearing my "Xavier's School for Gifted Students" badge that I'd owned for over 20 years. Ho hum... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!) It's Grifter, from the Wildcats.
I'm not familiar with Wildcat. But anyways, if I understand you right you're saying that it's all about the writers?
Yep. Find good writers: subscribe to an SF magazine (they're usually willing to take a "risk" and publish new authors). Haunt second-hand bookshops for old paperbacks - you'll be surprised at some of the ideas in "old SF". What becomes BIG (especially movie-wise) is what's established (at least in the psyche). And most especially in the SF genre: studios won't risk big money on something genuinely new (because they'd have to establish some sort of base so the public can relate to it) ans SF is generally seen as a "fringe" market anyway (witness the disclaimers when the new BSG started - oh yes, we have aliens and spaceships, but it's not really science fiction, it's a people show). Dave Langford's Ansible "magazine" has a semi-regular feature on denials of SF in SF*. For anything to get big in movies it needs an established audience - hence not new. Star Wars may have seemed new, but it was little more than repackaging of old ideas. You'll rarely find new ideas in any movie. * For example, this piece of specious denialist crap: "First of all, I don't write fantasy. I write stories that have important human themes. They have elements of romance, history, adventure, mystery and philosophy. Most fantasy is one-dimensional. It's either about magic or a world-building. I don't do either." Terry Goodkind, the author of Debt of Bones Wizard's First Rule Stone of Tears Etc etc. Yeah, they're human theme stories that just happen to have wizards and magic and, what's the word? fantasy sort of slightly there. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
SF? Science Fiction (can also sometimes include Science Fantasy). "Sci Fi" is usually seen as a derogatory term among hard-core fans. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I was a BIG SF fan for over 50 years. Read all the books and watched all the movies. But when they started saturating them with so much computer-generated graphics I totally lost interest in them. Rather than being a movie, they became little more than cartoons. Phooey! So I now am satisfied by watching reruns of genuine movies - things like the Terminator series, Alien(s), Predator, and others from the 80s, 70s, 60s and earlier.
Oh yeah, and there's some new book called Moddy Fido or something. Probably rubbish. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
SciFi will never be as good as it was when I was a kid, not because SciFi is getting any worse, but because my standards are getting higher. Does anyone here, as an adult, think he or she wouldn't have panned the original Star Wars as "somewhat" simplistic with bad acting and awful dialogue. When I was a kid I saw the original "V" and thought it was awesome. Same for the original Battlestar Galactica. Only years later, watching them again do I see how bad they were, but I sytill experience them through the lens of my childhood.
You seem to be referring only to science fiction movies, whereas most of the responses are about books. I think that tells you something. There's plenty of good literature out there, regardless of your definition of "good." I love Alan Dean Foster and he writes about four novels per year. But if you go for the "serious" stuff like "Dune" or the masterpieces by Heinlein, Asimov and Bradbury, there are writers of that caliber working today. Sci fi is a ghetto because the best of the genre is all about the situation that the author invents: another civilization, another planet, a strange future. Most readers want their fiction to revolve around interesting characters, whereas in good sci fi the characters are subordinated to the interesting story. Larry Niven is one of the most celebrated sci fi novelists and his characters are very thinly drawn. But sci fi movies have to appeal to the mainstream audience in order to recoup the production costs and make a profit, and the tastes of the mainstream audience are different from ours. What excites us bores them or even turns them off. Every now and then you get a "Star Wars," that is loved by both the sci fi community and the general public, but that's rare. And frankly "Star Wars" was only mediocre sci fi with really good production values, it just had an archetypal story that everyone could relate to no matter what their taste in entertainment. Sci fi does marginally better on TV than in movies. The small screen makes the effects easier and cheaper to produce, and if you don't hire big-name actors you can make a profit without a gigantic audience. And the series format allows the writers to build good stories and flesh out the characters without shortchanging the science/future/speculation component. Babylon 5 and Farscape were good literature and good theater while still being excellent sci fi. So was Stargate SG-1 for several years, for all of its 1930s-style flaws (e.g., aliens who all spoke English). The more recent Star Trek series achieved the same, and at least tried not to insult our intelligence. All of these shows had good characters, to appeal beyond the hard core sci fi fans. Patrick Stewart (the bald British Shakespearean actor who starred in Star Trek:TNG) was once voted the Sexiest Man on Television. So "the problem with sci-fi" is your focus on movies. There's plenty of good sci fi out there, it's just on the small screen and in print.
Yup. Not all of us here were kids when SW came out. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Dywyddyr, do you have any suggestions for SF mags? You seem to be in the know about these things. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Depends where you live. I always find Interzone to be worthwhile (and they have a policy of accepting new writers). In the States, Asimov's and Analog are good (I've seen more Analog than Asimov's though). And webmags are usually pretty good. Locus would be a start. Baen's is also worth a look (especially for combat SF).
I must admit I've never seen the original "V". But since my Dad is a big Sci-Fi geek from the 70's I've seen Buck Rogers in the 25th century, BSG(original and new), Star Wars(both trilogy's), and Star Trek(TNG Voyager and the original).
Yes the Sci-fi series especially the new ones are just remakes of the old ideas. Its horrible to watch all that garbage they show on SyFy channel.
