You don't think the moral and ethical dilemnas Star Wars deals with are intellectually meaningful? Besides, even if it wasn't, I think your definition of science fiction is too limited, or too broad, however you want to look at it. If it required science (explained) there would by any number of movies which wouldn't count. Back to the future, Starship Troopers, Matrix, etc... If it need only be intellectually respectable, then you could consider Pulp Fiction science ficition. I think instead good science fiction needs only be scientific insofar as it tells a story that has a central plot element which is only explainable through science - i.e. it is set in space, or it is set in a "matrix".
Yeh, I supose youd include only 2001, Capricorn 1, things like that.. But the Matrix - perhaps that more 'cyber-fi' than sci-fi..
Yes, I am inclined to apply Sturgeon's Law to science fiction. 90% of everything is crud. First the genre is referred to as Fantasy and Science Fiction. It is lke a spectrum spreading from one to the other. STAR WARS is much more like LORD OF THE RINGS than it is like 2001. The hard science was very realistic in 2001. Any so called sci-fi has some degree of fantasy if it involves Faster Than Light travel. So far that is still regarded as physically impossible. If there were a way to test it I would bet most people with degrees in physics don't UNDERSTAND Einstein's relativity. I consider THE MATRIX to qualify as sci-fi not because it is scientifically accurate but because it is intellectually meaningful and thought provoking. To what extent do we actually live in a society that hides information from the majority of its members? I did a search on "how computers work" and got 61,000 hits. I did a search on "von neumann machines" and got 6,480 hits. I worked for IBM for 4 years and never saw the term "von neumann machine" on any documentation and never heard anyone say it, but all of the machines I was trained on were "von neumann machines." A CPU selects memory locations with address lines. Each memory location has an address. So to explain how a von neumann machine works you MUST talk about the address lines. A search on "von neumann machines" and "address lines" goes down to 31 hits. So what is with these 60,000 hits about how computers work? You have to learn to see past the bullshit of THE MATRIX to know what is going on. Why was Phillip K. Dick regarded as paranoid? The more you know the more you learn bullshit is flying around. So we can use the matrix of the internet to mess with the matrix of society. Like the Wiggin kids in ENDER'S GAME. LOL
Good characters you can relate to....... Realistic Twists of scientific fact, realistic being the key word there. A good storyline that goes somewhere. Little to no repetivity, which is where stargate went wrong. Original ideas, we've all seen time travel way too many times.
