Star Trek being the prime example.

I have to agree. I love the genre, I've seen some miscarriages of justice in regards to nostalgia.

@tetracycloide: But I think this is where the problem lies: the division between "sci-fi" (which Star Trek, BSG, and the like belong to) and "science fiction". When I think science fiction, I don't think popular media, I think of the classic writing of the Golden Age greats and the generations of new writers bringing fresh ideas to writing. I think "sci-fi" is a bastard off-shoot of science fiction. It's what happens when Hollywood takes something beautiful and benign and turns it into smarmy, pulpy crap. Look at how more and more sci-fi movies are becoming so laden with special effects that plot is nary to be found.

@NefariousNewt: so science fiction is grimm's fairy tails and sci-fi is disney movies. i like it.

@tetracycloide: Well put -- wish I'd thought of it.

I would have to atleast partially disagree, alot of promising new Sci-fi has been squashed by corporate types that don't know the first thing about sci-fi. The prime example being Firefly and FOX.

i think both you Harris at EW miss the point. fanfic shouldn't actually produced, granted. i'd argue these failings, the lack of fresh ideas and general stagnation have more to do with the business side of things than anything else. sci-fi, generally costs more. even if you do it on a small scale things like cgi, costumes, set design are all expensive ventures if you want them to look good. so, the investors are usually only willing to bet on something bankable, like an existing franchise.

but that doesn't mean that sci-fi fans should be hands off. harris, argues that 2007 saw the resurgence of the western. but what he's forgetting is that it's resurgence is due in no small part to the critical success of hbo's deadwood. they dumped a lot of money into creating a great drama that lead to this revival. that's what is needed: a ballsy investment to reinvigorate a the genre. preferably by a premium cable channel that can provide funding and an outlet that wont be primarily concerned with ratings and ad revenue. yeah, abc scored big with lost. and heroes and BSG have helped pull sci-fi to the mainstream. but they suffer from the same trappings. heroes is a gussied up fanfic version of the xmen. BSG is a god damn remake. and lost nearly collapsed under the pressure of churning out 22 mediocre eps for season 2. thankfully it seemed to regain some of it's footing in season 3 when they realized that they wouldnt actually have to go all gilligans island.

the closest we've gotten to good new sci-fi are some of the indie film-makers who have gone sci-fi. things like children of men and sunshine are proof that there is some life in the genre. but then again, sometimes a gem like pitch black comes along and then we get stuck with the chronicles of riddick.

also, while i've enjoyed his novels and some of the adaptations (blade runner, screamers, total recall) hollywood really needs to stop going back to the dick well. because we wind up with drivel like payback or impostor.

the point is that it's not the writers fault. are fans of comedy supposed to stop writing comedies? it's the producers' fault for not willing to roll the dice on something fresh.

also, in future, if you're going to link to a multipage article, you might want to link to the FIRST page of it.

Aye, Dallin. I've been trying to say that for hours but my submitted comments never got posted. Speilberg uses the term 'speculative fiction' instead of 'science fiction' because it doesn't have the pulpy residue. And pre-Minority Report, his spec fiction was awash with new ways of looking at things, even MR had it's good moments. But the nail on the head is that Speilberg can command Hollywood, and yet his last three speculative fiction pieces were based on hit books(radioshow) and thus had a 'built in' audience. Studios won't throw money at something for a 'niche' market unless it has a large built in audience. Which is why we get another Dune remake, and Star Trek, while Outlander gets sat on by the Weinstein Company. I'm not saying Outlander will be great, but it's vaguely 'newish.'

haha, i meant paycheck and NOT payback. whoops.

also, firefly, while it was a bold idea that had promise it was ultimately just "buffy in space" and serenity's absurdly tacked on morality and space zombies destroyed any claim to being reputable.

There should be a law preventing non-science fiction fans from writing science fiction. The fan-boy geeks may be guilty of being overly reverent to the past, but at least they're being reverent to the good stuff of the past. You can count on non-SF types to come up with "original" ideas that were done to death, or not done to death because they stank 60 years ago. Space virus, anyone?

@NefariousNewt: Me too!

Sci-Fi is like the top 40 version of Science Fiction.

Like R&B v. Rhythm and Blues or Country v. Country and Western.

Or how real Literature became (niche)-Lit.

Apparently when you no longer have the discipline to say the whole word you've also lost the discipline to master the craft.

@tetracycloide: You are correct, sir. The genre needs less singing by Phil Collins and more dancing in hot iron shoes, so to speak.

Fighting so hard against rolling my eyes right now, you guys.

I love how Speculative Fiction gets all chopped up into the pieces the speakers feel comfortable owning. It's all just made up, entertaining stories. Some of them are deep, some of them are kitsch, some of them "could totally happen," and some of them could not.

The big problem with adaptations is that the money goes to the familiar rather than the innovative. But how is that in any way surprising? Most things work that way. Architecture for one. We never see the really cool designs get built.

futurama summed it up best:

Fry: "Married?! Jenny can't get married."
Leela: "Why not? It's clever, it's unexpected..."
Fry: "But that's not why people watch TV. Clever things make people feel stupid and unexpected things make them feel scared."

@jennaw: But you have to agree, that good science fiction is often butchered when it makes its way into the realm of sci-fi. My favorite examples: The Bicentennial Man and I, Robot. Horrible adaptations of solid science fiction stories; in the latter's case, the original script had nothing to do with Asimov's story!

What happens is that Hollywood gets a "science fiction" script and immediately applies some sort of filter to it which requires it to be effects-laden, filled with hokey dialog and vapid characters, thereby killing the original story and making it unrecognizable. You only get good sci-fi movies when you get a director/producer who gets it and is willing to go against the Hollywood system (2001, Blade Runner).

Clearly you haven't seen Children of Men, which is EXACTLY this. Cuaron is new to the Sci Fi genre (HP is fantasy), helped mold the script, and created a brilliant film, yet no one went to go see it. How about Danny Boyle with Sunshine? Complete B.O. failure. STFU EW and come back when you have something meaningful to say.

I totally disagree with this. The biggest problem that Hollywood and television have with Sci-Fi is that the writers either DON'T REALLY KNOW real science fiction, or if they do, the various media heads force them to dumb it down to either a) cartoon idiocy, b) soft-core soap opera, c) mindless rehash of "proven" successful plot formula.

Even worse, this has spilled out into the SF&F literary world as well. A publisher finds a recipe that makes some money and sticks with it, and if there's anything good that comes out of it, it's almost accidental.

Science Fiction and Fantasy is the one area that is wide open to all possibilities and ironically it is also where you find an amazing lack of originality. It's not the writers fault. It is the fact that those who hold the cash in their hands are not willing to find the publication or filming of something that they just don't understand and is not proven.

"fund" not "find" (I wish I could go edit my comments)

@NefariousNewt: This is a truism for nearly every book-to-film adaptation, not just speculative fiction. Better directors (producers, people in decision-making roles) make better adaptations even if they veer well away from the source. I, Robot was a very standard case of Hollywood buying the rights for the title and little else. Happens all the time.

And fans can be so fannish that even when given the chance to create in their beloved genre, they do derivative work. Very true. But since they are doing familiar work, they have a good chance of getting financed: the "Yeah, I've heard of that!" school of story pitching.

My eye rolling had more to do with the genre-eats-itself conversation about the "good" vs "bad" types of speculative fiction.

[The above should read "fund" not "find"]

@PVIII: And EW was never heard from again... ;)

@jennaw: Well, there's a spectrum in anything: science fiction, sports, medicine, etc. Some good, some bad, some meh. I admit to being fanboyish about some things, but I try to remain objective. I've been the editor and publisher of a small science fiction journal for years, so I've learned to turn my preconceptions off to be able to give honest evaluations of things.

@PVIII: Children of Men was such a good film, both as adaptation and as a movie in itself. I like the fact that it was able to weave a compelling story about gloom and doom without losing a sense of humor, and also without resorting to wall-to-wall special effects to make their point.

@NefariousNewt: I agree totally, but chopping things up into SF vs. SciFi vs. Science Fiction is just insider pretentiousness -- what the heck does it even mean? Most of the stuff that gets shafted by the cool kids is the stuff everyone else enjoys (good or bad).

Want to out yourself as editor and publisher of ________? ;)

@jennaw: My friends and I started a company called Hadrosaur Productions many moons ago, and are currently putting out a mag called Tales of the Talisman. Comes out three times a year. We try to give science fiction/fantasy writers who might not otherwise get published an outlet. Our authors aren't busy winning Hugos and Nebulas, but we've published some interesting stuff.

Children of Men is amazing.

Jennaw: yes, it is pretentious, but when talking to someone who hasn't read good sci-fi/spec fiction, you have to make up classifications between good and bad other than simply good and bad, cause some pulp is actually good- Fifth Element fore example. And fanboys do regurgitate a lot, but really good writers can also regurgitate really well- i.e. BSG by Ron Moore. It's like the good elements of Firefly with the good elements of BSG with the space opera aspect of later DS9. But altogether it becomes something people like to call 'original'.

I'd be shocked if there weren't a lot of writers, editors, and publisher lurking here.

@aspiringexpatriate: What I hear fans doing to non-fans they want to convert is a lot of blathering that is off-putting (in all my fandoms; not just SF).

I'm an ex-librarian, and that is just not the way to do what's called "reader's advisory." When trapping unwary nonfans, it's best to try to match the person to the thing she'll like that will on-ramp her into the brave new world of SF. What *fans* tend to do is try to foist the thing (book, film, etc) they think is the bestest ever and will prove the greatness of the genre to the nonfan prey -- which generally just scares nonfan away.

@NefariousNewt: Very cool! I'll check it out.

good point well made

@PVIII:

"Sunshine" and "Children of Men" = <3

I saw both of those in theatres, can't saw that I'm not doing my part. ;)

@jennaw:

I totally agree. Sometimes it's best to ease someone in with something closer to a cross-genre. That's one of the things that frustrates me when BSG fails to capture a wider audience, seeing that they deal with contemporary issues like voter tampering/ torture/ marshall law etc. I have a feeling it has something to do with being named BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, which makes my friends laugh everytime I bring it up (and it won a peabody!). Oh well.

@NefariousNewt: I've actually heard that Cuaron used quite a bit of CGI in that final track shot (through the building), but he won't tell anyone how he did it! What an impressive film.

Off the top of my head, "The Fountain" was another sci-fish film in the last year by a non-sci fi director/writer that really moved me. I'm not sure if it was great film, but I appreciated that it was trying to do something different.

Have you looked at the top ten or twenty movies list? All SF and F except Titanic. (!)That critic is doing the usual critical game, setting up straw men and knocking them down.

Waste of time.

Take I Robot. Good bunch of very dry short stories in 1950, totally unsuitable for a movie that expected to make its money back. The Movie was an enjoyable piece of fluff, and its only redeeming virtue was that the Widow Asimov got a nice fat check. (i hope)

Fans are the worst judges of what a movie made from a book is; they always want the book word for word. Sometimes it works, but very rarely. The Potter Movies were good, the Ring Movies i thought were less successful. They were overwhelming, but too many shots of stone-faced Frodo losing for my taste.

The map is not the territory, the book is not the movie.

And i must be the only person in the world who thought "Pitch Black" was ruined by all the logic holes, while "Riddick" was SOP Space opera, with an admirably different artistic look.

Both worth a few bucks. I don't expect or demand transcendence for my $8.00. I just want some non-pretentious amusement to eat popcorn to.

Shallow of me, i know. But it's my $8.00. Rather a good Space Opera with a few jokes and a few explosions than a dreary, pretentious, crapfest like Narnia.

PVII: it was definitely a great score. And I guess seeing it in the Chinese Mann at the AFI premiere with Arronofsky, Shreiber, Jackman, Weiss, and Ray Liotta in the audience kinda biases me. But I thought it was a great film. Just no one else did.

Though that night everyone in the theater loved it. When it ended you could hear about a third of the audience choking up. That was a fun experience, almost as enjoyable for me as watching Dear Wendy at Sundance with Jamie Bell going up to the podium and shocking everybody with his incomprehensible Northern monkey accent. (I know now that he was Billy Elliot, but in the film it was such a good southern american accent no one realized who he was.)

@wishnevsky: Yes, yes, yes.

The trick to enjoying movies is to take them at what they are trying to be, not what you want them to be. People seem to bring such big old bags of expectations to movies and then get upset when the movie fails to live up to the movie in their head.

But the fairest way to judge any work is against the standard of what it's *trying* to do. Does it succeed? If not, does it still entertain? I also think a movie should try to do *something* and not just show up. I, Robot is a pretty darn good little movie (I wouldn't call it fluff but it's not high art, either) which is what it was trying to be; as an adaptation it totally fails, but it does tell the story it's trying to tell very well.

I agree whole heartedly with you both, I just can't go back and remove my expectations before seeing the lotr films, and no matter how much I try, I still find huge gaping flaws in them.

I do my best to go into films with no expectations, or really low expectations, so I can replicate an opening night screening of the first Pirates film. Which, I have to say, was great fun. That introductory shot of Depp rocked everyone in the theater's world. Cause no one, well at least not me, knew anything about it.

@aspiringexpatriate: Yes, we were all going into the theater thinking the same thing, "Well, Johnny Depp's in it for SOME damn reason, so even though it's based on a RIDE, we'll give it a shot."

And it was MADE OF AWESOME.

I agree with the quote above, "I wish a great writer or director with no particular affection for the genre would let his imagination loose."

Nostalgia always stagnates imagination and progress. It's the reason I abhor retro anything. Retro is done to death. The prefix RE is always the death knell of an original thought.

Part of the problem, I think, is that there's a huge gap between pop sci-fi like Star Wars and the ultracerebral, kinda precious stuff coming from a lot of respected contemporary sci-fi writers (e.g., Accelerando by Charles Stross). I think it's hard to find that place in the middle, where your average horror or action or thriller fan enjoys the robots but doesn't feel nerded out and where there's enough substance for fanboys, too.

And I think the reason reboots and the like are so popular is because the generation that's coming into its own in the entertainment industry is the first generation for whom sci-fi isn't really considered nerdy, in a negative way. You can admit to playing D&D as a kid now, and you might laugh about it, but there's no stigma, and you run into more jocks and girls who know what you're talking about too. And we grew up with all these mythos that seemed very cool but never were explored in depth the way we would have liked. That's why, as a young viewer of Superfriends and He-Man, I loved Justice League and the 2004 Masters of the Universe reboot cartoon (which, frankly, was brilliant and ended before its time). And I think it's the same for BSG and everything else.

@jennaw: right..if you tried to do a cerebral SF like Aldiss' "The Dark Light Years" it would be tedium squared. But something kinda dumb like oh, "The Long Afternoon of Earth" could be great.

It's simple, really. One page of screenplay is one minute of movie. So a screenplay is 200 pages long max. And those pages are mostly blank.

They keep pushing video as the new internet, but video is low density information content, on a verbal level. So gotta have those CGI's.

Same bottom line; now that you can tell any story, show any picture, what do you want to say, and why, to whom?

@aspiringexpatriate: I agree. and the movie was made out of an amusement park ride. It's all visuals. The critic wanted people with no history of SF&F to do movies, Pirates is one, and what do you want to bet he panned it.

Johnny Depp's hair was worth 3 out of my 8 dollars. The plot was just an excuse for the actors to chew the scenery.

So then Rowling's and GG's war against fanfic is in the name of science fiction? Odd - I thought it was in the name of douchebaggery and protect IP.

I agree that genre films are getting worse, but there have always been crappy, bombastic Hollywood sci-fi. How does it follow that sci-fi loving creators are to blame?

That said, Ridley Scott does need to get off his ass and make another sci-fi film.

I just want to throw in a good word for Doctor Who here (no, really! yes, really!). The new series is entirely fan-based, but they are all fans who digested the classic format & reconstituted it as something totally palatable and relevant to the current TV landscape. They throw in the little nostalgia references, but have never been chained or constrained by them - in fact their iron-clad rule has always been that if John Q Public won't get it, it doesn't go in the program. So maybe Doctor Who is the exception that proves the rule that sci-fi fans shouldn't be writing.