If you're going to do the Jihad of the Day, and post something everyone agrees with, you should use the right title. :P
I'm probably even more of a purist than you.
I haven't seen real SF on tv, and very little in the theater for years.
For authors, and examples:
Arthur C Clarke writes hard SF. His characters suffer for it, but his science is excellent.
Asimov writes good SF, with decent characters, and a good grounding in science.
Heinlein writes borderline SF, with emphasis on the characters, and science which occasionally teeters on the edge of fantasy.
Niven and Pournelle can write some decent SF, but they can also play around with fantasy. The nice thing about them is, they are almost always eminently readable, either together or solo.
And yes, Star Wars is science fantasy, just as is Star Trek, and movies like the Aliens series. (which was simply a horror movie with a microthin veneer of 'science' to make it play for the Star Wars crowd.)
Finally, one of the absolute worst movies with a "SF" theme in decades; Signs.
(yes, I'm off and ranting all on my own now, all thought of the original TLP forgotten. Just ignore me while I froth and foam at the mouth.)
The 'science' in this movie was so bad it made the movie Armageddon look like a Carl Sagan production. Aliens which find water even more caustic than hydrochloric acid, coming to a world covered in it, to harvest creatures (for food, apparently) which are made almost entirely out of it. They are equipped with a toxic spray, which they apparently evolved, just so they could use it on humans. And I loved the plaid camoflauge. Your basic chameleon has a nervous breakdown if you place him on plaid. :P
And yet, people love this film. It has almost a cult following, apparently. I am unable to grasp this concept. Even if you grant the "spiritual" message it intends to get across, the science is so wretched that you can't even begin to focus on anything else.
ok.. /foaming, etc. We now return you to your original post. |
