Not just what makes good, decent, readable/watchable SciFi, but what makes -great- SciFi?

The present.

tits, aliens, spaceships, things being threatened to be blown up, supernovas, nanobots out of control, annihalation of the USA, boobs in zero gravity, insectoid aliens with an appetite for human babies, asteroids, colony ships, AIs out of control, sex change, a reference to Heinlein, a youngman having lots of sex with a spaceship, space marines, travel into the future, life extension, planet busters.

Spuriousmonkey:

In essence, "Lexx"?

Not just what makes good, decent, readable/watchable SciFi, but what makes -great- SciFi?

Interesting... I was thinking about exactly that after just finishing The Reality Dysfunction (Peter Hamilton).

It's a gripping story... but it's not high literature. And the science part is not completely satisfying.

I don't know if "greatness" can be objectively measured (remember the introduction to "Understanding Poetry" by J. Evans Pritchard in Dead Poet's Society?), but here are some things that might be involved...

Science.
Obviously. We're talking SF, not fantasy, horror, or whatever.
The supernatural has no part in SF... anything that looks supernatural must, in fact, have a natural framework.
The science should expand on known science, speculating about possibilities. The framework of the expanded science should be revealed to some degree, but not necessarily explicitly.

Art.
The work should be a pleasure to experience. A great story can be ruined by poor writing, acting, camerawork, or direction.

Story.
This is the most important, I think... if there are plot holes, loose ends, no surprises, or a lack of credibility in character actions, it's going to suck, even if everything else is great.
On the other hand, if the story is good then the rest doesn't matter that much.

Oh yes... nudity is good. I find it very frustrating that there is so much more nudity in written SF than in films. :mad:

I'd like to see The Puppet Masters, Stranger in a Strange Land, Split Infinity (yeah, fantasy, I know :)), and The Gods Themselves in faithful film adaptations.

Pete:

To what extent science? Should it be Star Trek: The Next Generation-like science problems?

Would you consider such things as "The Force" or things like Dune's prescience "supernatural"?

Hmmm.... yeah, dunno.

I'd certainly classify Dune (Frank Herbert's first trilogy) and Star Wars (the films) as great science fiction, and probably TNG as well (haven't seen too much of it).

Dune's prescience has some description of a natural framework behind it, although there are holes. The spice somehow allows a degree of perception of higher dimensions (Paul seeing 4D spacetime billowing in higher dimensions like a tapestry... great stuff :)). It's supernatural in that there is no explanation of how this perception is achieved, but it's science in that there is at least a framework involved, with some rules (ie it's not compleat magick).

Same goes for The Force and mitochlorions.

There was a movie called The Puppet Masters. With Donald Sutherland and... Dustin Hoffman. Pretty good. Not sure if it's based on the book you're talking about though, never read it.

Split Infinity would be kinda cool. It's sci-fi and fantasy, by the way.

Xanth would also be cool.

How about Bio of a Space Tyrant? That'd need to be a mini-series... and on HBO or a channel with boobies.

I'd like to see the rest of Dune get turned into mini-series.
God Emperor, Heretics, Chapterhouse.
Scifi did an excellent job with the first two... well, some of the costumes were kinda dumb, but other than that...

There was a movie called The Puppet Masters. With Donald Sutherland and... Dustin Hoffman. Pretty good. Not sure if it's based on the book you're talking about though, never read it.
Yeah, it wasn't bad... but no nudity!
In the book, nudity became compulsory to make identification of the possessed easy.

Xanth would also be cool.

How about Bio of a Space Tyrant? That'd need to be a mini-series... and on HBO or a channel with boobies.
Haven't read them. Haven't got around to seeing the Dune mini-series yet either... I'm still recovering from David Lynch's effort :)

Not just what makes good, decent, readable/watchable SciFi, but what makes -great- SciFi?

I think what make great sci-fi is when the technology, or situations, can be percieved as a possibility one day. For example...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0789466929/ref=sib_dp_pt/002-7601277-4956030#reader-link

see how you can get an idea of how a spaceship would really work? It makes me all tingly inside.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0789434806/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-5915515-1437767#reader-link

http://www.theforce.net/SWTC/lambda.html this last one is gold....

Great Sci-Fi has to be the story. The story is essential. It has to have a human story running through it even if all the characters are robots. Heinlein wrote wonderful science fiction becuase of the all too human stories.

A good story is enough to make good Sci-Fi, but I think it needs more to be Great.

Maybe we could deconstruct a great piece of short SF...
Any suggestions? Is analysing Nightfall too hackneyed?

Interesting... I was thinking about exactly that after just finishing The Reality Dysfunction (Peter Hamilton).

It's a gripping story... but it's not high literature. And the science part is not completely satisfying.

Have you read Pandora's Star by Peter Hamilton? Better than Reality Dysfunction, in my opinion.

What spoils an otherwise good sci-fi is the inevitable insertion of 20th/21st century culture, especially the americanized sort.

LOL boobs in zero-g

Good scifi:

1. Well executed special effects don't hurt. Even if it's not high budget, well done effects are really helpful (see the new Doctor Who series for example). That Ann-Droid was PRICELESS.
2. a continuing theme (connecting stories <--great, a consistent hero, some element for the viewer/reader to relate to)
3. Surprises! Give us something to gasp at once in a while. Predictability is so 19th century.
4. Specs that DON'T read "a thousand lasers at a bazillion frillion super-duper megawatts each" ;) ;) right TW? jk couldn't resist teasing.

Meanwhile, agreeing with Meanwhile...too much current culture kinda kills it.

Not just what makes good, decent, readable/watchable SciFi, but what makes -great- SciFi?

smooth blending in of special effects and reality, action and adventure, with scientific purpose in mind...that seems to form perfect logic in the film

smooth blending in of special effects and reality, action and adventure, with scientific purpose in mind...that seems to form perfect logic in the film
Custumes, facilities(big importance), paramilitary culture, and good story.

One example of great Science fiction that does not get heavy handed with explaining the tech is definately Farscape.

I know some people would argue if John Crichton of Earth could start understanding the tech it could not be so advance, but then you have to remeber that boy had two PhD's and his own space shuttle mission. He litteraly was a rocket scientist.

Seriously the whole thing was well done form the concept of translation microbes to Leviathans, to the Aquatic Hynerians, and fire breathing Sheyang

"Farscape" was one of the best TV shows ever. And I've been watching TV since the days of "I Love Lucy." For a movie that has the same sense of wonder and the same ability to make you (well me anyway) feel like you're there: "The Dark Crystal." Interestingly, they both feature Muppet technology.

I don't get or look for the same things in written sci fi. I like ideas that I'm still thinking of thirty years later, like "Code of the Lifemaker" by James P. Hogan (I wrote more notes in that novel than in any of my textbooks), or almost anything by Robert L. Forward.

A couple of my other favorite sci fi TV shows affected me more in the way of written literature than theater: Babylon 5 and TNG. Sometimes I find myself pondering the questions they raised. Even TNG's ugly stepsister DS9 pulled off a number of episodes of that caliber.

In print media the "science" in sci fi can be a major component, but almost never in TV or movies. There it's more human science than hard science. The technology is just too hokey to take seriously. "Farscape" was an exception and so was "Babylon 5," because the characters didn't walk around explaining to each other how everything worked for the audience's benefit. In fact nobody on Babylon 5 knew how anything worked, which was a nice touch. The only Earthman on Farscape was in pretty much the same boat.

I was told Farscape was awesome...never followed it up though.

DS9 is highly underrated, granted it started very slowly, but it is the Trek that actually did character explorations and a flowing story. It's the only Trek where Ferengi actually got personality, where the Starfleet commander is an actual emotive person and where there is a continuing challenge in the conniving baddies Dukat and Weyoun. I recommend "In the Pale Moonlight" as a great episode in duplicity, high emotions and getting down-and-dirty.

B5 was the only sci fi that nearly brought a tear to my eye (when they blew up - read decomissioned - the station, the musical score was soul shaking, the procession off the station was honorable).

Star Treck Enterprise is awsome

The setting!

A good original idea.
As seen in things planet of the apes, the omega strain, those creepy white haired kids that all the women started having after the whole town passed out, etc.
Not just the bold and the beautiful on a spaceship, that's bullshit.
Being in space doesn't make something good sci-fi.
If asked if I was a sci-fi fan I'd say "fuck no" because the genre has become associated with this endless line of carbon copies where there's people living on spaceships in outerspace.
But, sci-fi is potentially one of the greatest art forms. It's more about "what if this weird thing happened?" not "what if there were some dudes and some hot chicks on a spaceship? What would there lives be like?". That's just crap, a nerd's fantasy where he can escape from the planet that mocks him so.
Real sci-fi has to be so much more, it's high time the genre was split into spaceship crap and actual sci-fi.

Ps: I don't want to hear about how "starquest galaxy 6 enterprise: a new vision for the future in a spaceship" is different, fuck off.

I was told Farscape was awesome...never followed it up though.If you appreciated the drama on DS9 and the emotion on B5, you'll just love Farscape. It's got be out on DVD now. Start at the beginning. Not every episode was an A+, but they were all good and there were enough A+ to carry the whole series. They were very good at characterization, the whole interstellar-civilization-at-war story was thoughtfully done without a lot of actual battle scenes... and the sub-plots were jaw-droppers.

The most moving episode of B5 for me was when that entire civilization refused to admit they had an STD and they were all just going to let themselves die. Dr. Franklin finally synthesized the cure and came running back into the hold where all the sick people were waiting for him... and they had all died. The Minbari had been left to tend them and they were just shaken by the experience.

TNG had its moments. When Picard spent a lifetime on the planet whose sun was about to explode, came back and found the tiny satellite approaching the Enterprise... and the little flute he had learned to play was inside. They kind of lost me when the Borg storyline hijacked the show, but I'm sure they picked up a couple of million new viewers with it.

I dont think a truly realistic sci-fi film has ever been made. People walk around on spaceships as if there was gravity.

It would also be difficult to market any film with silent spaceships...people cant get excited without noise.

I suppose 2001 was the most realistic because its space station revolved to create a kind of centrifugal gravity, and space itself was almost dead silent.

Star Treck Enterprise is awsome
I missed most of this series when it was originally on because my cable company dropped UPN. Yesterday I saw an episode that starts with the captain in the shower when the artificial gravity fails. He's floating around in the shower surrounded by globules of water and calls the bridge. They tell him the gravity plating should be operational in a few minutes. Suddenly, gravity kicks in, he's dropped like a lead weight to the floor of the shower as water comes crashing down on top of him. Hilarious. The kind of problem they never had on any of the other series. Definately a fresh perspective.

Real sci-fi has to be so much more, it's high time the genre was split into spaceship crap and actual sci-fi.
Done, back in the '40s.

Spaceship Crap = Space Opera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_opera)
Actual Sci-Fi = Hard science fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction) or just SF.

But, it's a tricky categorization... some sci-fi successfully supposedly combines both the originality, cohesiveness, self-consistency, and idea development of hard SF with the fun, action, and close to campiness of space opera.

Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction (and presumable the rest of the Night's Dawn trilogy) is an example, although to my mind it is too much space opera and not enough SF.

Some of Isaac Asimov's work has space opera elements as well, although I personally don't think he was very good at it.

Robert Heinlein also did some space operatic stuff... interestingly, Starship Troopers became much more soap opera when it was (heavily) adapted for the 1997 film. I haven't read the novel, so I can't say how much hard SF was lost.

Some movies and episodes of Star Trek manage to achieve the right balance, I think.

But Frank Herbert is the master. That's why Dune is so brilliant, I think. I haven't read any other Herbert except Whipping Star, but it was also a heavy blend of soap and originality.

I wouldn't call starship troopers hard SF. It was pure political.

Fair call.

But it is hard SF in the sense there were no hobbits in it or elves. Actually there is not much left of the political message in the starship troopers film

Another big subdivision in SF is between proper SF and fantasy. I just hate fantasy and unfortunately most people seem to like it.

But it is hard SF in the sense there were no hobbits in it or elves.

Another big subdivision in SF is between proper SF and fantasy. I just hate fantasy and unfortunately most people seem to like it.
How would you define proper sci-fi? Some people would call Aliens or backto the future, fantasy sci-fi.

I think a good story line makes good sci-fi. I seem to prefer the classics these days, as opposed to new big budget superficaldom.

How would you define proper sci-fi? Some people would call Aliens or backto the future, fantasy sci-fi.

It's a bit difficult to label films as proper SF for me. I see them as pure entertainment and proper SF always has some kind of message. It makes you think. It is a statement on human society in some sort of a way.


let me explain it to you:
Alien was more proper SF than aliens. Aliens 3 was ok SF. Aliens 4 was not proper SF.

let me explain it to you:
Alien was more proper SF than aliens. Aliens 3 was ok SF. Aliens 4 was not proper SF.
And Aliens vs Predator?:D

And Aliens vs Predator?:D

I saw that in Buenos Aires in one of those really crappy theatres.

Aliens vs Predator is similar to aliens 4.

It's a bit difficult to label films as proper SF for me. I see them as pure entertainment and proper SF always has some kind of message. It makes you think. It is a statement on human society in some sort of a way.
Hmmm... In no particular order, I'd consider these great SF:

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Planet of the Apes
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Man Who Fell to Earth
12 Monkeys
Blade Runner
Contact
E.T.
A Clockwork Orange
Brazil
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Westworld

Perhaps also...
Star Trek Insurrection
The Matrix
Minority Report
2001: A Space Odyssey+
The Abyss+
Starman*
The Fly*
Soylent Green*
Scanners*
Invasion of the Body Snatchers*
Alien, Aliens, Alien 3*
Pitch Black*

+ These ones I'm not sure of, because they had strong novelisations that accompanied the film which I think added significantly to their power.

* I haven't seen these all the way through, but they stand out as SF icons. I've seen some of Aliens, and all of Alien 3. I think that the three stand together as a single work of great SF.



It's kind of a short list, really. I don't know how many pages I'd fill with a similar list of novels.

Proper SF would be some of the stuff that stephen Baxter writes. Well, as long as it isn't the crap on evolution.

Proper SF is 'the moon is a harsh mistress' and 'starship troopers' by Heinlein. Starship troopers the film is poo SF.

Proper SF is Ian Banks and his 'culture' novels.

Proper space opera is Peter Hamilton's night dawn trilogy.

Proper proper SF is John Varley's 'steel beach'.

Proper SF is Asimov.

Proper SF is 'Marrow' by robert Reed.

Not just what makes good, decent, readable/watchable SciFi, but what makes -great- SciFi?

Scarves.

And big teeth.

Some good reads are not as good on the film, I. Robot was a classic Sci-Fi by Asimov but the film, although the effects were great it did not do the book justice..