Why is science fiction so hard to define?

BBC ^ | July 30, 2014 | Quentin Cooper

[EveningStar]

A recent list of top science fiction films had some unusual choices and left out some well-regarded classics. But, says Quentin Cooper, that's part of the problem – sci-fi is such a broad church it's often very hard to define.

Time Out, the weekly listings magazine, recently ranked the 100 best sci-fi movies of all time. They did it by polling 150 "leading sci-fi experts, filmmakers, science fiction writers, film critics and scientists" and getting them to each provide their 10 favourites.

As lists go it's a decent one. It's hard for me to take issue with a top three of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner and Alien. Especially as my not-quite-four-year-old is named Hal partly after the homicidal computer in 2001. If we'd had a girl it was toss-up between Pris and Ripley.

Once you begin to get away from the top though, things soon get less clear cut. With only 150 people voting, some of the films near the bottom of the chart will only have had a vote or two, so if you'd asked different "leading" figures you'd have likely got different results.

[reformedliberal]

Yeah. Guilty. Pages in any novel that read like a Cabela’s catalog, complete with SKUs, are also skippable.

There are also a LOT of SHTF-type novels written by proud former military logistics officers and they include the spread sheets to prove it. These are the sorts of stories that presuppose that the survivors have millions of dollars to spend, are all Marines/Seals and had the foresight to begin their redoubts in 1980.

The scary side of all the above is even with every fictional advantage and toy, the potential survival rate is 50/50. And that’s if they avoid war with a still-functioning government.

So, bottom line, especially if you don’t have all this knowledge, equipment and training (and likely even if you do): embrace the suck.

You have to just read this stuff for entertainment, anyway. They aren’t tutorials.

[GeronL]

very true

[Impy]

Neil deGrasse Tyson?! I’m not surprised he likes the boring “Contact”.

I tried to watch that “Cosmos” show but he is soooooooooooooooo boring.

[Vaquero]

SciFi is many different sub genres. As far as the printed word, there were the pulp guys who started and continued writing in such organs as Fantasy And Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, and the like. Azimov, Heinlein and Bradbury got there start there. Guys like Kurt Vonnigut did not. His type of writing was not recognized by the pulp guys and was called by some Ghetto SciFi. Of course that was back in the 70s when I was still reading the pulps. I don’t know nor necessarily care what the dominant paradigm is in SciFi.

[Vaquero]

Which of the umpteen version of Blade Runner do you speak??
They present different realities.

[Vaquero]

I finally watched Blade Runner after hearing it praised for decades. It really did nothing for me. I didn’t understand what was going on and found it quite leaden. But, maybe I too should give it another try.

DONT watch the directors cut unless you've read the book. Watch the theatrical cut. It is narrated by Ford and explains what's going on.

[Vaquero]

Unless you have read the book DONT watch the directors cut without the narration. Unless you’re a mind reader you will have no idea.

[Vaquero]

Foundation should have stayed a trilogy. Period

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

All versions have the clues to the secret, but the Director’s cut has them laid out best.

[fieldmarshaldj]

“Contact” was ridiculous. More like a comedy. The superrich crazy guy who can single-handedly build a launch pad/ship (and hide it, too !). The right-wing Christian terrorist (played by Gary Busey’s lookalike son, no less), because we all know how often they blow-up stuff, right ? Worst of all, we don’t get to see space aliens and civilizations, we just get to see Jodie’s dead father, the doctor dude from “St. Elsewhere.” And, of course, Matthew McConnaughey as the charming/romantic hippie-dippie rev.

If I had paid money to see this in a theater, I’d have wanted to make “contact” with the producers via a well-placed right hook.

I saw “Cosmos” over 3 decades ago as a kid, I had no intention of watching what was a pretty open leftist circle-jerk of a remake.

[Vaquero]

I generally don’t like directors cuts....Riddley Scott is no exception. A good editor makes a movie as someone should have impressed upon Scott with the horrible Prometheus.

[Impy]

If I had paid money to see this in a theater, I’d have wanted to make “contact” with the producers via a well-placed right hook.

:D

I don't recall if mom took us to see it in the theater or not. All I know is I never watched it a second time. Pointless garbage, I don't get how anyone could like it.

I wouldn't have minded the leftist propaganda on "Cosmos" that much if it had at least been REMOTELY interesting, I was watching it and found my self examining spots on the wall, "hmm is that moth I killed yesterday", and then I fell asleep. Whoever decided to put Tyson on tv should face a firing squad.