Is science fiction dying?
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Is science fiction dying?
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Re: Is science fiction dying?
#2Giant wall of text, so I skimmed, but I think, no. Art never dies, it just finds a niche when the general public finds a new fad.
Commercially, sci-fi seems to be doing well. Moon, District 9, Avatar, Star Trek. As a forecast of tech-to-come, who can say if it's as accurate as it once was, we'll have to wait for the future to arrive to really know, right?
Aside from an enjoyable read, sci-fi is still inspiring people to get involved in the sciences. So sci-fi, I think, is doing fine on many fronts.
Re: Is science fiction dying?
#3Giant wall of text, so I skimmed, but I think, no. Art never dies, it just finds a niche when the general public finds a new fad. Commercially, sci-fi seems to be doing well. Moon, District 9, Avatar, Star Trek. As a forecast of tech-to-come, who can say if it's as accurate as it once was, we'll have to wait for the future to arrive to really know, right? Aside from an enjoyable read, sci-fi is still inspiring people…
As a forecast of tech-to-come, it seems like science fiction hasn't managed to really predict anything radically different than it was predicting in back in 1990 or so. The accuracy has gone up because everything is now "five minutes in the future" rather than "in the year 5000." Even if we look further ahead, today's far future is just like yesterday's far future: filled either with spaceships (albeit carrying ems, ala Accelerando or Diaspora) or grey goo, and with not much room for real retroactively-falsifiable speculation, which I think is the key to good sci-fi.
Re: Is science fiction dying?
#4For some reason, this is linking to Salon's mobile version. The standard version is available at http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/12/16/21st_century_s...
Re: Is science fiction dying?
#5When Syfy is adding shows about the paranormal, there is reason to worry.
Re: Is science fiction dying?
#6When Syfy is adding shows about the paranormal, there is reason to worry.
It's their cancelling shows that bothers me.
Re: Is science fiction dying?
#7Re: Is science fiction dying?
#8Giant wall of text, so I skimmed, but I think, no. Art never dies, it just finds a niche when the general public finds a new fad. Commercially, sci-fi seems to be doing well. Moon, District 9, Avatar, Star Trek. As a forecast of tech-to-come, who can say if it's as accurate as it once was, we'll have to wait for the future to arrive to really know, right? Aside from an enjoyable read, sci-fi is still inspiring people…
I agree - the article kind of lost purpose midway in the first paragraph, so I skimmed it too and found it with an atrocious closing paragraph.
My wife is generally averse to sci-fi, so what I always make sure to do is point out when an 'ordinary' movie is using sci-fi and it becomes disturbingly long.
I like to point out movies like Inception (being a big one people don't see as sci-fi even though it is pure sci-fi), Donnie Darko (a movie about time travel), V for Vendetta, Frankenstein, Jurassic Park and the funniest I've had to point out has been E.T. And that's without even having to step out into the 'grey area' where movies are using sci-fi 'concepts' or just using mild sci-fi elements.
It also works to point out that almost 3/4 of horror movies are still solidly sci-fi.
I think sci-fi's death will be when it becomes so mainstream it's rarely differentiated from regular fiction, which with a lot of movies it's still hard to convince people it's sci-fi. I mean 'Click' with Adam Sandler is a great example. It's sci-fi through and through, but because it's using only 1 element people won't believe it's sci-fi.
Re: Is science fiction dying?
#9Giant wall of text, so I skimmed, but I think, no. Art never dies, it just finds a niche when the general public finds a new fad. Commercially, sci-fi seems to be doing well. Moon, District 9, Avatar, Star Trek. As a forecast of tech-to-come, who can say if it's as accurate as it once was, we'll have to wait for the future to arrive to really know, right? Aside from an enjoyable read, sci-fi is still inspiring people…
For due diligence:
"Where is my flying car?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMPH0tlC5K4
Sci-fi generally fails at future predictions.