First things first.
I will express my personal opinions about Science Fiction. Keep it in mind: you will read my ideas about it.
Maybe you won’t agree. Maybe you will get offended. Maybe whatever. Yada yada yada.
I have no monetization constraints. I have no followers to please. I can say whatever I think without any risks.
Said that, a little foreword: I have been reading Sci-Fi since I was 7. Now I am 50. I have been watching Sci-Fi from the same age and my first movie has been 2001:A Space Odyssey (I admit I had been scared to the bone at some scene, I was a very sensitive child!) followed by Star Wars. Thank you daddy…
I ran a cultural association for 5 years promoting the Sci-Fi culture thru lectures, role playing games and events and thanks to that I came in contact with writers, editors and publishers of my country. Well, not that big deal, to be honest, but still a great experience. I also wrote a couple of tales that has been published.
One of them I still like it a lot. The other one… I prefer to delude myself thinking that has been write by someone else!
I have come to read thousands of books and watched hundreds of movies. And played dozens of games, both on PC and pen&paper RPGs.
And yes, I have grown my very personal idea of what is Science Fiction.
Science Fiction is the story of when, in a pre-established balanced society of any kind, something happens that destabilizes that aforementioned balance, for better or for worse. And, of course, that “something” have to have the most plausible scientific cause (Science Fiction, not Abracadabra Fiction). That destabilization lead to unavoidably and most of the time irreversable repercussions.
Science Fiction is not about space ships or laser sabres. If I watch a movie where space ships are the everyday normality and laser sabres are just an ancient weapon, that’s not Sci-Fi. There is nothing “scientific” there that shake the foundation of the environment we are watching at. It doesn’t matter that we don’t cut the ham with a laser knife or we don’t go skiing on Olympus Mons on Mars. Even the huge weapon of mass distruction is not so astounding in a setting where immense starships and FTL travels are normal. That is something just oversized (and horribly horribly designed so no Science at all!). We all know what I am talking about here, right?
Here, the director want us to open our eyes in awe. It’s the willing suspension of disbelief in full effect. Nothing to think about. This is cloack and dagger coated with excellent eyecandies. “Please”, says the director, “Belive in these things without questions. Leave reality behind and dive in the world I made for you”. Everything here is highly higly unlikely if not entirely impossible. And that’s ok. Just don’t call it Sci-Fi.
Ditto for the TV serie where you can fix things thanks to some overwhelmingly funny technobabble and some deus-ex-machina shoved in your face every given episode. Again, FTL travel are normal, food replicator can make you anything you might dream of. And the galaxy seems awfully overcrowded so encountering an alien species is… Absolutely normal. You even expect it. No big deal, really!
Even time travel is (sorry people but I have to state it once and for all) ridiculized at the point that you can just accelerate with a spaceship, form a breach in the space time (how? Oh, right. Technobabble saves the day!), slip into the breach and stroll happily back and forth in time. How many time you saw that happen? Nothing really shockingly new… Aliens, time travel, FTL… Again we are asked to belive in the almost totally unbeliavable (just like dragons, fairies and elves). But hey! Spaceships!
Let’s talk for a while about a movie I just adore: Primer. This is Sci-Fi at it’s finest and it has no eyecandies, no swoooshes no pewpews and nothing like that. But it goes straight to the point: in our present world, something astounding happen and that something could change our world in an inimaginable way. Some guys in a garage, with a lot of effort and failures, build a time machine and the first thing they do is… Messing up their lives. Yes, the premise is totally unbelivable. But the director put it in a higly plausible way! It’s our world where this thing is happening! It’s now! And there’s no technobabble to save the unsavable, just hardcore Science! Well… Not really hardcore and the suspension of disbelief is still powerful but at least there is a lot of Science coupled with the fiction and not just a shower of jumbled words to justify the unjustifiable. Gosh… I really don’t like that series, can you believe that? A scientific breakthru can undermine the fabric of society as we know it. Now. And it makes you wonder about it, not just swallow the pill.
Another one: Transcendence. A man upload it’s consciousness in a highly sophisticated computer to survive the death of his body. With all the consequences that this thing can have: initial confusion, delirium of omnipotence, knowledge. Yes, again this is so improbable but not impossible. And again, a scientific breakthru can undermine the fabric of society as we know it. Now. And it makes you wonder about it. What if you was in the place of dr. Caster? What if that technology will come (and there are some chances that will come, if quantum computer will really become a reality)?
What about Arrival? Another masterpiece where humanity is forced to confront its own ability to communicate because of the arrival of an alien race with a very peculiar way of communication. Here the concept of “alien species” is mind blowing because it’s unique and not a common and nearly boring, daily routine. This movie fits like a glove in my definition of Science Fiction.
As well as Interstellar. I am particularly in love with this one because of two main reasons: the first one is because this movie relays a lot on Science. Kip Thorne helped the director to make it as realistic as possible. Yay! Science!
The second one is because unlikely a lot of other movies of the same genre, this time there are no aliens or supernatural beings that saves us from our self created doom. We saves ourselves with our own forces and that’s a huge positive message. Sci-Fi is not just about “wars”. At all.
Sci-Fi must inspire. Must shock. Must make us think and look forward (that’s why I think that steampunk is… Ugh! Come on, really?). Sci-Fi must break the boudaries with a solid foot in Science or else why the heck “Science” is there for? Just for the hovering skateboard and the weird goggles? No way. And no, the similarity to a well known ’80 mobile phone with a tv gadget is totally not enough.
Some movies are just not that. Some books are just not that. Those are fantasy with a metallic paint on and some leds on the dragon’s tail. Nothing else but that.
And I haven’t spent a word about books. Masterpieces of great writers are simply Masterpieces. Whoever has read “Farenheit 451” will surely remember it for the rest of the life. Philip K. Dick wrote about society in a way so harsh that it’s hard to read it today. Ray Bradbury was a visionary as well as Hal Clement. David Gerrold wrote one of the most lysergic saga ever (even if he is most remember for his “furry” contribution to a tv saga….), Isaac Asimov still shows himself in bookshelves and if you read him… Surprise surprise you will discover how actual directors have stolen quite a lot from him! Did I mentioned that Avatar has way too many resemblance with a novel wrote by Clifford Simak? Waaaaaay too many….
So.
This is it, in very few words.
- There must be plausible Science
- There must be something to think and ponder about
- Eyecandies are not required (think about “The Man From Earth”)
- Aliens are not mandatory
- Suspension of disbelief must not be “toxic” to the point that we are asked to blindly believe to the totally impossible, implausible, unachievable
- The event must be a breakthru a social or cultural shock, for good or for bad: not a princess kidnapped by a bad guy (as an example)
I hope I made you think.
