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Post by legios on Oct 29, 2011 21:56:29 GMT
Real Steel is on the way out of cinemas. My local has it down to just a morning showing as of Monday so get in quick. I plan to catch In Time next week. We usually get one proper SF movie a year and we've already had one (Source Code). Could this be 2 for 2? -Ralph I am in two minds about In Time. It has a really nice trailer which makes it look like the cast is making a decent fist of things (seriously, Justin Timberlake I do think has a future as an actor), the central idea is one that has some legs depending on how they treat it. On the other hand, it looks like the metaphor is quite close to the surface and that is a delicate balance to maintain. I remain hopeful though - we might actually luck out twice this year and beat the odds. I think that will probably be my film for next weekend - I was in a place that needed a tosh movie this week so it is just as well it wasn't out yet in one respect, Karl |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Oct 29, 2011 22:07:04 GMT
An interesting point here.. Source Code, In time... sci-fi films. Adjustment Bureau and Limitless... not so? I would suggest that they arguably are in which case we have been pretty spoilt this year already!
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Post by legios on Oct 29, 2011 22:29:35 GMT
I can't comment on Adjustment Bureau or Limitless as yet - missed them at the cinema and my rental service has yet to obliged. Judging by the promotional campaign and the source material I do have my doubts about The Adjustment Bureau though (the short it is based on is, as far as I recall, one of those that hail from Philip K Dick's periods of experimentation with chemically induced altered states and a lot of those tend closer to the harder edge of urban fantasy than to Science Fiction I'd tend to feel).
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Oct 30, 2011 0:46:13 GMT
An interesting point here.. Source Code, In time... sci-fi films. Adjustment Bureau and Limitless... not so? I would suggest that they arguably are in which case we have been pretty spoilt this year already! Both were decent, though The Adjustment Bureau was very light SF, more of a romantic yarn with a hat related twist. Limitless also good though it's more of a magic mcguffin movie than a Sci-fi. -Ralph |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Oct 30, 2011 5:09:21 GMT
Limitless impressed me by its use of innovative camerawork. I enjoyed it immensely in the cinema and bought it for £6 to watch at my leisure a few more times. Still good, but I don't think I'll keep it.
Rather than pass it on to Oxfam, I'll bring it to ScotCon and pass it on to Karl instead.
Edit: Right, I've fixed the forum's default (logged-out) time to GMT and my own time likewise on my profile, which is something everyone will have to do for themselves. If they care about such things.
Martin
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Post by jameso on Nov 2, 2011 1:31:39 GMT
What counts as sci-fi is muddled by all the comicbook/superhero/boys toys movies we get now too. Green Latern, Cowboys and Aliens, Transformers, I am Number Four, Paul and Super 8 are all full on scfi in terms of content if not in style and execution. X-Men and Thor to some extent contain sci-fi elements. And if Limitless is sci-fi then so is Captain America and Planet of the Apes.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Nov 2, 2011 6:59:26 GMT
What counts as sci-fi is muddled by all the comicbook/superhero/boys toys movies we get now too. Green Latern, Cowboys and Aliens, Transformers, I am Number Four, Paul and Super 8 are all full on scfi in terms of content if not in style and execution. X-Men and Thor to some extent contain sci-fi elements. And if Limitless is sci-fi then so is Captain America and Planet of the Apes. All the above are largely sci-fi, except Thor which is a mythology spin-off. Some superheroes are sci-fi (some of the X-Men are scientifically improbable mutants, Spider-Man is a lab experiment gone wrong, Iron Man has futuristic tech), some superheroes are mythology (Thor, Hercules), some are fantasy (some of the other X-Men are scientifically impossible mutants, some other superheroes have no scientific justification for their powers - e.g. Superman being able to fly and do those things with his eyes). Really Optimus Prime is as much a superhero as Superman - both are aliens stranded on Earth, who have secret identities (a lorry, Clark Kent). The only difference is that one looks like a human. The Autobot Pretenders in Masterforce are even more like Superman. Batman is sci-fi because of his gadgets... so is James Bond. The only way you can say Optimus Prime and James Bond are not superheroes is if you require all superheroes to wear skintight costimes - but that's a fashion choice and has nothing to do with being super or a hero. And would exclude some superheroes like Professor X, Iron Man and the Shadow.  Martin |
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Post by Jaymz on Nov 2, 2011 9:27:14 GMT
some other superheroes have no scientific justification for their powers - e.g. Superman being able to fly and do those things with his eyes He can do those things thanks to his alien biology, counts as science. |
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Post by legios on Nov 2, 2011 13:24:39 GMT
I must admit I do question the usefulness of "sci-fi" as a categorisation.
Considering that the term as used apparently encompasses both "what if the electoral franchise was limited to those who had undergone military or other government service, and therefore political power was in the hands of those with an outlook shaped by Military and Paramilitary organisations, what would that do to society?" (Starship Troopers, the original source material not the mostly unrelated film) [Science Fiction] and "Boy living in desert oasis receives a message that sets him off on a journey of destiny to team up with a retired Swordsman/wizard and fight the minions of an evil lord and rescue an imprisoned Princess" (Star Wars) [Fantasy], two things which don't really seem to share much in the way of narrative rules or common characteristics I do wonder about the term's utility.
I've yet to actually get a definition of "Sci Fi" (as opposed to "Science Fiction" or "Fantasy") that has really felt to clearly defined to me mind you.
As to James Bond being a superhero... I can see where you are going with that definition - and I'd certainly agree that you don't need a costume to be a superhero. I would observe that including him in the definition would likely also include King Arthur as well - capable of more than human feats, has a piece of equipment that means he cannot bleed, a blade that is specially designed to cut through anything and, in some versions, something that can make him invisible to the eye......
Karl
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Post by jameso on Nov 2, 2011 13:32:28 GMT
Yeah, Star Wars shouldn't really be called sci-fi, it only is because in the Star Wars story that we saw they had spaceships, robots and a giant space station. If the first story we had was one of the earlier set stories where that technology didn't exist yet, but the Force did it would just be considered fantasy. Interestingly enough when you look up Star Wars on wikipedia it describes the Star Wars films as Space Operas, not sci-fi or fantasy.
I class Superman as sci-fi, again maybe not so much in execution, but in terms of content purely on the basis of he's an alien.
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Post by blueshift on Nov 2, 2011 15:01:23 GMT
Of course it is sci-fi, it has spaceships and aliens robots!!
And laser swords!
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Nov 2, 2011 17:37:18 GMT
Karl, I just use sci-fi as short-hand for science-fiction. I find it too confusing to consider sci-fi, SF and science-fiction as different genres. I can never remember which is which for one thing. some other superheroes have no scientific justification for their powers - e.g. Superman being able to fly and do those things with his eyes He can do those things thanks to his alien biology, counts as science. No it doesn't. For it to count as science, there would have to be a pseudo-scientific explanation for his means of staying aloft. There isn't one. The original Superman's ability to leap tall beings at a single bound had a pseudo-scientific explanation - Krypton had higher gravity, so Kryptonians have evolved stronger leg muscles that allow them to leap higher than Earthlings when on Earth. But there is no pseudo-scientific explanation for how a man can hang in mid-air without flapping wings or some technological assistance. Biology can't contradict physics. Only magic / divine intervention can do that. To expand on this point, I see the X-Men as falling into two categories - the sci-fi ones and the fantasy ones. Wolverine, Beast and Angel are sci-fi because you could in theory have people with accelerated healing, wings on their back, stronger muscles and blue fur by altering their DNA. But whatever mutations your DNA undergoes, it is impossible to grow a telepath or a teleporter. Those 'mutants' are pure fantasy. 'The Phantom Menace' blurred the line between fantasy and sci-fi by attempting to explain the Force in terms of microscopic life-forms called midi-chlorians. I prefer to see the Force as a mystical/divine power, but I did think the idea would be right at home in Transformers as a means of explaining the Creation Matrix through nanobots. I prefer to keep Transformers firmly in the sci-fi arena. (Telepathic and teleporting robots could theoretically exist - unlike telepathic and teleporting mutant humans.) Martin |
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Post by legios on Nov 2, 2011 19:17:23 GMT
Karl, I just use sci-fi as short-hand for science-fiction. I find it too confusing to consider sci-fi, SF and science-fiction as different genres. I can never remember which is which for one thing. That's a fair enough position to take. I suspect I have probably spent too much time thinking about this in the past - read a bit of lit-crit at one stage in the distant part and I think it had a lasting effect/did lasting damage on/to me [delete as applicable] For me Science Fiction, at root, needs to advance a postulate (humans start manufacturing tank -bred humanoids as a worker class for example) and then explore the consequences on some level of that being the case. Which is why Star Wars isn't science fiction - it isn't really concerned with the impact of any of its technologies (expect in so far as you can stab/cut people with lightsabers) just that they exist and do cool things. I actually think that there is a lot of crossover between the general definition of "it's got lasers in it" and Space Opera - I'd probably be quite comfortable with things like Star Wars and the Lensman books timesharing back and forth between the two categories - both being from that same sort breathless adventure heritage of the movie serials. [For clarity, I'm not saying that I dislike Star Wars at all - I think it is a great film, I just don't think that it is in the same genre as a film like Moon or a book like Cyteen]. I'll grant that Speculative Fiction is also a slippery genre to define, and like yourself it is a definition that I tend to avoid using. I think the current handwave is probably that he can subconciously manipulate gravity (amongst those writers whose answer is "because he can"). But I'd agree that it really isn't even vaguely scientifically-plausible. Karl |
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Nigel
Thunderjet
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Post by Nigel on Nov 2, 2011 20:36:58 GMT
You'll never get a truly satisfying definition of what is science fiction because it can never be fully separated from fantasy and the lines will forever be blurred. This is because science fiction was originally a form within fantasy. (Strictly speaking, you could say that all fiction, whatever the genre, is fantasy.) One of the earliest science fiction stories is one that we would generally refer to as a fantasy: the story of Icarus. This can be considered science fiction because it uses scientific ideas as the basis of the story. Another example is golem mythology, which evolved into the Frankenstein story; the latter again uses scientific principles, as its means of creating artificial life in the story. But Frankenstein is generally regarded as horror rather than science fiction; horror is also often indistinct from science fiction and/or fantasy.
Personally, I refer to something as science fiction if its internal logic and paradigms are based on science (whether actual science that conforms to phsical laws as we understand them, or convenient "science" that doesn't stand up to examination in reality) while if its world is built on magic or supernatural principles then I consider it fantasy. But both can exist in the same universe; Buffy the Vampire Slayer is clearly fantasy but it has occasional and prominent science fiction elements, such as the Buffy robot. The DC universe has both scientific and magic characters.
Star Wars? I consider it to be science fiction because of its prominent use of genre archetypes: robots, spacecraft, lasers, advanced technology, etc. But, perhaps more so than much science fiction, it uses fantasy character and story archetypes.
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Post by Jaymz on Nov 4, 2011 0:55:30 GMT
No it doesn't. For it to count as science, there would have to be a pseudo-scientific explanation for his means of staying aloft. There isn't one. Gravitons. Wiki says: "Lex Luthor once theorized that Superman had to stem from a gigantic planet with enormous gravity, where his species had developed natural anti-gravity organs to be able to function; on Earth, this would allow him to control his own gravimetric field in order to fly." So he has some alien organs that can produce gravitons. |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Nov 4, 2011 21:51:18 GMT
When someone can show me a graviton I'll believe a man can fly.  |
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 28, 2016 14:26:12 GMT
I haven't got one though.
-Ralph
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