"Total Recall" bombs at the box office.

[gorobei]

if you want to talk about unwatchable for the quickcut edit generation, just watch Bullitt and see how poorly it has aged.

i caught a remastered version airing on pbs in highish res, and the pace on that thing is unbearable for me(and i grew up with old black and white movies on tv). the pace of dialogue and the general lack of secondary meaning to any of the lines means there is absolutely nothing else to chew on mentally as they take 5 times as long to deliver a line as a modern edit would take today.

add to the fact that as a police procedural it is just absurd in some of the decisions the people make in it. i cant tell if it is just a function of 60's cop traditions or the sophistication we've grown used to in modern productions, but every scene involving police policy just offends my sensibility.

the nutty part is i understand that bullitt was revolutionary for its time, people have written dissertation length papers on its praises. but for anyone who doesnt have a full working knowledge of how primitive police equipment was back then, and who knows what an actual IA investigation into an on duty weapon discharge involves, the movie is just impossible to get into regardless of how 'classic' the car chase was.

 

[zinfamous]

not sure why you are trying to make the definition of sci fi be something it isn't. it's simply "science fiction" and doesn't have to meet these special rules that you have in mind to be sci fi.

oh, you think this is my definition. It is not

It is culled from the words of one of my writing mentors from years ago (a sci fi writer) and various opinions within the genre.

 

[JimKiler]

I think you are sort of correct with this. Since robots and space ships are things that exist in this world currently, simply having a Roomba and a space shuttle in your movie does not make it Sci-Fi. However...



Here is where your definition falters. Science Fiction is meant to encompass ideas and objects that don't exist, but we don't question the fact that they could eventually exist. In other words, they aren't outside the realm of possibility, and that's what makes Sci-Fi so wonderful (...depending on the application ). Do you remember those Popular Science magazines where they would talk about the flying cars of the future and such? That's pretty much the kind of wonder that Sci-Fi can invoke.




I'm pretty certain that Star Trek is considered Sci-Fi by just about anyone. While some aspects of the show may be far less believable than others, it still exists in the Sci-Fi "Realm of Possibility!" (You have to say that in a booming voice for effect. )



I'm... pretty certain that every movie in your list is a science fiction movie. Now, I can understand why someone would be slightly hesitant to call Star Wars Sci-Fi, and I would assume that's because of the inclusion of The Force. Quite simply, The Force = magic, and magic is generally not accepted as staple of Sci-Fi. As much as people hate it, Lucas's Midochlorian crap from Episode 1 actually fixed that problem and made it closer to Sci-Fi.



If you knew me personally, then you would know that the topic of the movie is actually something that I find very intriguing. As a software engineer, one of my personal interests (in the field) is human artificial intelligence. Sometimes I find it fascinating just to think about how we think. Why do we do certain things? What makes us draw certain conclusions? Arguably, to ever create a passable human A.I., we need to be able to answer those sort of questions.

Also, it helps that I'll watch just about any movie with a robot or a person that invents robots.

I think the part that made the movie harder for me to watch was simply that it's an 80s movie. Not that I mind older movies, but sometimes they just seem to include scenes that seem to provide little to no benefit. Probably the worst part of the movie for me was closer toward the end. I can still picture the weird female, gymnastic replicant flipping around that poorly-lit apartment. That scene was so damned weird. :|

Dark City is another Sci-Fi movie that I found to be a little too boring to really watch. I watched it because it was recommended as a movie that was overshadowed by The Matrix.

As i learned in 12th grade english class, sci-fi is really about us today but transplanted into another world, time, universe, etc.

Movies like Star Wars and the newest Star Trek reboot are great but they are action movies set in space and not true sci-fi movies. But the general categorization would say both those movies are sci-fi and I will not argue that. In other words we need two categories for discussion, sci-fi and cerebral films. Of course there are a non sci-fi films that are cerebral as well like Memento.

Here is what Wiki describes sci-fi as:

Science fiction is a genre of fiction with imaginative but more or less plausible content such as settings in the future, futuristic science and technology, space travel, parallel universes, aliens, and paranormal abilities. Exploring the consequences of scientific innovations is one purpose of science fiction, making it a "literature of ideas".[1] Science fiction has been used by authors and film/television program makers as a device to discuss philosophical ideas such as identity, desire, morality and social structure etc.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

no, robots and spaceships does not make sci fi.

sci fi needs none of that to be sci fi. Sci Fi is a genre that challenges one's notion of humanity and/or reality through realistic, fundamental problems that arise when we consider very specific questions generated through current scientific or "futuristic" discoveries, research, problems.

Sci Fi is Sci Fi if it is "possible," meaning--we recognize this world in the sense that, OK, are there humans? Yes, but if no, do these critters represent a social order or set of circumstances that are highly relatable to how we perceive the world? Yes! If not--meaning, if there is no humanity--then it is not Sci Fi--it is fantasy.

2nd, is the science absurd and impossible? If so, not completely outside sci fi, but it makes the labeling difficult. As such, something like Star Trek teeters on that edge--I'd call it Sci Fi, but there are plenty of valid arguments that push it more towards the realm of fantasy. Star Trek focuses on current social topics and common, repeatable dilemmas and issues that we face in the real world, so to me, that is what makes it pretty good sci fi--even though the tech and "distance from reality" are absurd. (another issue. great sci fi is great because it takes place in a recognizable time period. say....within 30-40 years is a good sweet spot, so that technology makes sense to what we know, as do geopolitical events that make perfect sense to us).

So, some of the best Sci Fi: 2001, 1984, Children of Men, Moon, Blade Runner, Total Recall*

Action movies that have robots and monsters and stuff: Alien movies, Terminator movies, Star Wars (this is pure fantasy), etc.

Total Recall, of course, because it is Philip K Dick. This is how you know blade Runner is true Sci Fi. I advise the doubters to actually go to the source and read the originals. Hollywood tends to pervert his work to some extent--BR is very different from DADoES?, but the film adaptation retains the spirit and central theme while creating a perfect atmosphere for that world, if not directly addressing the larger questions--what are the things we use to define ourselves as human (not simply: what is human?)

I can confirm that, from the perspective of a literature-academic friend of mine that focuses on SciFi, this is all true.


From the perspective of joe pop-corn SyFy's ArachnoQuake, with its deadly fire breathing spiders that are unearthed after a massive earthquake in New Orleans, is Sci-Fi.

 

[gorobei]

I can confirm that, from the perspective of a literature-academic friend of mine that focuses on SciFi, this is all true.

double confirmed.


scifi ≠ space opera/space drama ≠ syfy schlock.

sci fi usually starts with a premise/possibility/alternate-reality/extrapolation that is used to reflect on humanity/human culture.

space opera(star wars) or space drama(star trek/gate/b5/andromeda/etc) typically dont care about the science part and will sacrifice any scientific basis in service to the story. if you can cut out any of the science trappings and the story can be done a magic/fantasy, then it isnt traditional scifi.

 

[zinfamous]

I think you are sort of correct with this. Since robots and space ships are things that exist in this world currently, simply having a Roomba and a space shuttle in your movie does not make it Sci-Fi. However...



Here is where your definition falters. Science Fiction is meant to encompass ideas and objects that don't exist, but we don't question the fact that they could eventually exist. In other words, they aren't outside the realm of possibility, and that's what makes Sci-Fi so wonderful (...depending on the application ). Do you remember those Popular Science magazines where they would talk about the flying cars of the future and such? That's pretty much the kind of wonder that Sci-Fi can invoke.

this is exactly what I'm saying, actually. You phrased it more directly.

I'm pretty certain that Star Trek is considered Sci-Fi by just about anyone. While some aspects of the show may be far less believable than others, it still exists in the Sci-Fi "Realm of Possibility!" (You have to say that in a booming voice for effect. )

I am also certain that just about anyone considers it sci fi, including myself (which is why I mentioned that). It stretches the boundary because we do understand the technology as it exists to be more or less impossible, though very cool in theory, as possible as it sounds. It cheapens this detachment of reality by putting the universe at a timepoint far beyond our scope to simply make these absurdities possible. call that cheap, if you will, but it is a simple tool to suspend disbelief. I call the entire series space boardroom politics, but for my money and as campy as it was, Star Trek was the best in TOS.

I'm... pretty certain that every movie in your list is a science fiction movie. Now, I can understand why someone would be slightly hesitant to call Star Wars Sci-Fi, and I would assume that's because of the inclusion of The Force. Quite simply, The Force = magic, and magic is generally not accepted as staple of Sci-Fi. As much as people hate it, Lucas's Midochlorian crap from Episode 1 actually fixed that problem and made it closer to Sci-Fi.

I am also certain that none of these are true sci fi. Terminator and Alien are classic horror films with robots or space aliens. it is the "robots and space ships = sci fi" problem that many simply assume. Every single turn in these films is classic, classic horror. I love terminator, and I think when it goes to T2 and T3, and especially with SCC, it gets into the sci Fi realm. I love these, btw, but they are actino flicks. Aliens, espcially, is action movie with space lasers.

Star Wars takes place in a world that is not our own, and is never possibly our world. It is pure mythology as much as one assumes Greek mythology to be mythology. Every single conceit in that franchise is pure myth. Midiclorians fixed nothing--because that is outright shit science. It is no less magic than what the force was before, so it might as well not have been added. Also, this skywalker kid was, suddenly, a divine birth--imitatio christi.

Star Wars = Beowulf, it is Gilgamesh.

If you knew me personally, then you would know that the topic of the movie is actually something that I find very intriguing. As a software engineer, one of my personal interests (in the field) is human artificial intelligence. Sometimes I find it fascinating just to think about how we think. Why do we do certain things? What makes us draw certain conclusions? Arguably, to ever create a passable human A.I., we need to be able to answer those sort of questions.

Also, it helps that I'll watch just about any movie with a robot or a person that invents robots.

I think the part that made the movie harder for me to watch was simply that it's an 80s movie. Not that I mind older movies, but sometimes they just seem to include scenes that seem to provide little to no benefit. Probably the worst part of the movie for me was closer toward the end. I can still picture the weird female, gymnastic replicant flipping around that poorly-lit apartment. That scene was so damned weird. :|

Dark City is another Sci-Fi movie that I found to be a little too boring to really watch. I watched it because it was recommended as a movie that was overshadowed by The Matrix.

you should read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, then. Or other PK Dick novels. The film is quite a bit different, but I think it's a more or less perfect adaptation. It also helps to understand where Ridley Scott was coming from with BR--classic Noir. So, yeah--it either helps to be of that time when audiences appreciated actual pacing and character-driven stories, or at least in to film to some degree where one can appreciate specific tools of these genres.

I also find Blade Runner to be very "sleepy" at times, but that makes it no less awesome for me. Hell, I tend to snooze through parts of my favorite film: 8 1/2, whenever I watch it.

 

[BladeVenom]

If you knew me personally, then you would know that the topic of the movie is actually something that I find very intriguing. As a software engineer, one of my personal interests (in the field) is human artificial intelligence. Sometimes I find it fascinating just to think about how we think. Why do we do certain things? What makes us draw certain conclusions? Arguably, to ever create a passable human A.I., we need to be able to answer those sort of questions.

Also, it helps that I'll watch just about any movie with a robot or a person that invents robots.

Dark City is another Sci-Fi movie that I found to be a little too boring to really watch. I watched it because it was recommended as a movie that was overshadowed by The Matrix.

So have you seen Robot and Frank yet?

Dark City was great.

 

[preslove]

no, robots and spaceships does not make sci fi.

sci fi needs none of that to be sci fi. Sci Fi is a genre that challenges one's notion of humanity and/or reality through realistic, fundamental problems that arise when we consider very specific questions generated through current scientific or "futuristic" discoveries, research, problems.

Sci Fi is Sci Fi if it is "possible," meaning--we recognize this world in the sense that, OK, are there humans? Yes, but if no, do these critters represent a social order or set of circumstances that are highly relatable to how we perceive the world? Yes! If not--meaning, if there is no humanity--then it is not Sci Fi--it is fantasy.

2nd, is the science absurd and impossible? If so, not completely outside sci fi, but it makes the labeling difficult. As such, something like Star Trek teeters on that edge--I'd call it Sci Fi, but there are plenty of valid arguments that push it more towards the realm of fantasy. Star Trek focuses on current social topics and common, repeatable dilemmas and issues that we face in the real world, so to me, that is what makes it pretty good sci fi--even though the tech and "distance from reality" are absurd. (another issue. great sci fi is great because it takes place in a recognizable time period. say....within 30-40 years is a good sweet spot, so that technology makes sense to what we know, as do geopolitical events that make perfect sense to us).

So, some of the best Sci Fi: 2001, 1984, Children of Men, Moon, Blade Runner, Total Recall*

Action movies that have robots and monsters and stuff: Alien movies, Terminator movies, Star Wars (this is pure fantasy), etc.

Total Recall, of course, because it is Philip K Dick. This is how you know blade Runner is true Sci Fi. I advise the doubters to actually go to the source and read the originals. Hollywood tends to pervert his work to some extent--BR is very different from DADoES?, but the film adaptation retains the spirit and central theme while creating a perfect atmosphere for that world, if not directly addressing the larger questions--what are the things we use to define ourselves as human (not simply: what is human?)

This is fucking idiotic.

oh, you think this is my definition. It is not

It is culled from the words of one of my writing mentors from years ago (a sci fi writer) and various opinions within the genre.

Your writing mentor is an asshole. SF works are stories that in some way use speculative science and technology in their plot. That's it. There are MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF SF! There was early SF (Jules Vern, HG Wells), pulp SF, Space Opera, Hard SF, New Wave SF, Cyberpunk, Neo Space Opera, and more. These are all SF, and not a god damn one of them is "fantasy." In fact, FANTASY is a fucking genre that arose in OPPOSITION to SF.

If you actually want a good analysis of the genre, instead of the idiotic opinions of some failed SF writer, try reading this: http://www.amazon.com/Science-Fictio.../dp/0745628931

 

[preslove]

I am also certain that none of these are true sci fi. Terminator and Alien are classic horror films with robots or space aliens. it is the "robots and space ships = sci fi" problem that many simply assume. Every single turn in these films is classic, classic horror. I love terminator, and I think when it goes to T2 and T3, and especially with SCC, it gets into the sci Fi realm. I love these, btw, but they are actino flicks. Aliens, espcially, is action movie with space lasers.

Are you really so limited in your capacity for abstract thought that you can't understand that genres can be blended?

 

[zinfamous]

Are you really so limited in your capacity for abstract thought that you can't understand that genres can be blended?

so you like robots fighting robots?

got it.

:thumbsup:

 

[preslove]

so you like robots fighting robots?

got it.

:thumbsup:

Your straw man reinforces what your stupid babbling about SF already demonstrated.

An adequate definition of science fiction should not eject most of the literature from the category and place it in another one, fantasy, that has completely different genre conventions. If you think fighting robots is 'fantasy' then you know nothing about the Fantasy genre.

Has your writing mentor actually published in peer reviewed literature journals? The book I posted a serious academic work. Seriously, read this book if you want to actually learn about the genre: www.amazon.com/gp/product/0745628931?tag=at055-20

 

[vi edit]

Librarian vs Lab Rat fight....

LET'S GET IT ON!

 

[zinfamous]

Your straw man reinforces what your stupid babbling about SF already demonstrated.

An adequate definition of science fiction should eject most of the literature from the category and place it in another one, fantasy, that has its own conventions that have nothing to do with robots fighting robots. If you think fighting robots is 'fantasy' then you know nothing about the Fantasy genre.

Has your writing mentor actually published in peer reviewed literature journals? The book I posted is peer reviewed and a serious academic work. Seriously, read this book if you want to actually learn about the genre: www.amazon.com/gp/product/0745628931?tag=at055-20

so your straw men are acceptable?

and yeah, John Kessell is a Nebula award winner, and tends to be preferred among the literary minded with functional literacy.

So sorry I challenged your pre-concieved and apparently incorrect notions about something. You obviously don't take kindly to that. Perhaps you can learn to adjust better, when life confronts you with more serious issues.

 

[preslove]

so your straw men are acceptable?

and yeah, John Kessell is a Nebula award winner, and tends to be preferred among the literary minded with functional literacy.

So sorry I challenged your pre-concieved and apparently incorrect notions about something. You obviously don't take kindly to that. Perhaps you can learn to adjust better, when life confronts you with more serious issues.

What strawman? I just said that your definition was idiotic. I see this "If it doesn't conform to my conception of SF, it's fantasy" argument all the time, and it gets on my nerves. SF has many different sub-genres, and people are constantly claiming that such and such sub-genre isn't really science fiction. It's a facile way of reading literature. Prescriptive definitions like this aren't really useful


It's not like he's a Jonathan Lethem, who actually published novels that were well received and sold enough to keep up a career as a novelist. If you want an a good analysis of SF, try: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/228/the-art-of-fiction-no-177-jonathan-lethem Have you read any of Lethem's SF work?

Here's a good part of that interview:

Pulp SF of the 1930s magazine type is folk art. Then Dick comes along and isolates those tropes that connect it to literature, surrealism, film, comic books, rock and roll. He’s George Herriman, he’s Buster Keaton, he’s Bob Dylan. Dick discards the uninteresting stuff, the pedantic explanations, and preserves precisely the dreamlike, surrealist, evocative, paranoiac reverberations that were all I ever cared for, when I found them scattered elsewhere. I couldn’t imagine that someone else would think Dick had thrown out the wrong stuff, which is exactly what many who exalt the genre think.

Pulp SF is SF folk art. The book I referenced above has the same approach. Space opera isn't 'fantasy' it's just pulpy SF, or SF for the average people, i.e. 'folk.'

Just because a work is cliche and not 'literary' doesn't mean it isn't SF.

 

[Aikouka]

It cheapens this detachment of reality by putting the universe at a timepoint far beyond our scope to simply make these absurdities possible. call that cheap, if you will, but it is a simple tool to suspend disbelief. I call the entire series space boardroom politics, but for my money and as campy as it was, Star Trek was the best in TOS.

I can understand your point here. Sci-Fi movies do feel easier to relate to when you could see them occurring within the next few decades or so. A good, recent example of a Sci-Fi movie that's also easier to relate to would probably be Looper.

I am also certain that none of these are true sci fi. Terminator and Alien are classic horror films with robots or space aliens. it is the "robots and space ships = sci fi" problem that many simply assume. Every single turn in these films is classic, classic horror. I love terminator, and I think when it goes to T2 and T3, and especially with SCC, it gets into the sci Fi realm. I love these, btw, but they are actino flicks. Aliens, espcially, is action movie with space lasers.

I think I see where our disconnect is (and the same with JimKiller). To me, Sci-Fi is not a genre. It simply can't be because it doesn't contain enough description alone to describe the general concepts behind the story. That's because Sci-Fi merely establishes rules and guidelines behind the story's people and settings. What we disagree on is whether (true) Sci-Fi establishes rules that define the plot. I don't think Sci-Fi does, which is why I say that Aliens is a Sci-Fi movie, or more accurately, it is a Sci-Fi Horror movie.

It sounds like you're attempting to stuff a cerebral drama plot requirement onto Sci-Fi movies, but I don't think that's the case. I think your bias might have come from simply being used to these Sci-Fi movies, and how good they are.

you should read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, then. Or other PK Dick novels.

I can give it a shot, but I'm not a big reader by any stretch of the imagination.

So have you seen Robot and Frank yet?

Nope. I didn't recognize the name at first, but when I looked it up, I do remember looking at it before. Maybe I'll have to take a peek.

 

[marmasatt]

Am I such a dork that I'm the only one who thought this movie was great? Nice, dark sci-fi kind of in the flavor of Blade Runner (or the newest Deus Ex game I suppose). I thought it was definitely worth watching. Quite surprised to hear this.

 

[preslove]

Sorry to blow up at you Zin.

Art is not like the laboratory, where processes are composed of distinct chemicals that react in a linear progression that can be measured down to an amazing level of precision.

That's why it's fun.

In art and culture, the map is not the territory, my friend.

 

[halik]

Holy shit, i didn't even realize they made another one

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Sorry to blow up at you Zin.

Art is not like the laboratory, where processes are composed of distinct chemicals that react in a linear progression that can be measured down to an amazing level of precision.

That's why it's fun.

In art and culture, the map is not the territory, my friend.

Baudrillard eh?

I think he's wrong; I prefer to think that there's no such thing as the territory(Berger & Luckman), only the pragmatic use we make of the map (Dewey), which can then be accessed through the hermeneutics Heideggerian existential ontology...

But that's just me.

 

[zinfamous]

Sorry to blow up at you Zin.

Art is not like the laboratory, where processes are composed of distinct chemicals that react in a linear progression that can be measured down to an amazing level of precision.

That's why it's fun.

In art and culture, the map is not the territory, my friend.

well, this is why I hate the lab...but I also see order everywhere.

but at the same time, I don't think order is finite, in all places, and being required at all times. I like structure. and it always exists in every conceit whether one likes it or not. And, structure is only fun if it is toyed with and attacked--maybe assaulted, even...but, at the very least: respected.

Had I my druthers, I wouldn't be killing myself doing boring research, but writing crappy books that no one reads. that doesn't pay, though....