Is Science Fiction Dead?

[SmileOfTheShadow]

I'm looking around and really noticing over the past couple of years every piece of science fiction kind of slipping away.

Sure you can point to Avatar, Caprica and a whole host of comic book movies coming out...but it seemed for awhile on TV and in the movies we had a real surge of what I consider more real science fiction: B5: The Lost Tales, Firefly, Stargate SG-1, Endless Trek Shows, Farscape, Battlestar...all of which have trickled off the air over the past few years leaving our base with nothing really to latch onto.

There's no book series like a Pern for us to latch onto. Harry Potter and Twilight don't count!

I've noticed a decline in message board content for almost all these series that used to be buzzing all the time dwindle down and a lot of the sites that I once frequented have shut down. JMS rarely posts himself anymore.

The difference is with these newer "science fiction" shows that are more reality based...it doesn't give that core latching on feeling that really brought groups together for conventions, meetup groups, just hanging and talking. I can't really see myself going to a Caprica convention.

I don't know what it is, or what's missing about it, but I noticed it with the most recent re-envisioned Star Trek film as well. Though it was a cute homage to Trek, it wasn't Trek in the way that got me obsessed with Trek and watching the movies over and over and talking to people about it on the internet.

And honestly, I felt nearly the same way about Battlestar, which I believe is sort of a hybrid between the new and the old. It featured everyone in very realistic, gritty circumstances. I wonder if it's because of the way our society is now with information - that the characters in the newer shows or movies aren't "heroes" in the classical sense, so they're not people to idolize. Peter Petrelli doesn't give us that inspiring leadership that Captain Sheridan did that causes us to watch the show for many repeat viewings. So is that just harder to latch onto perhaps? Is it that moral ambiguity between heroes and villans?

So I pose the question: What do you think changed? Is it just a problem with our culture? Is it just us getting older? Is there any way to have new series or movies that inspired us like the ones of old?

[I love Lyta]

So I pose the question: What do you think changed? Is it just a problem with our culture? Is it just us getting older? Is there any way to have new series or movies that inspired us like the ones of old?

I'd say it's kind of both. Lemme elaborate...
For once new shows seem to be targetted at only one demographic group. Teenies and young adults. So what we get is the upzillionst vampire story instead of anything remotely sci-fi.
And we've simply grown out of that target group.

Face it! The only real sci-fi show recently released, namely SG: Universe failed miserably so far. And I don't expect it to become any better.

Is it that moral ambiguity between heroes and villans?

Well, there is a tendency to that in most shows - I give you that. Best example being the portrail of Hawkman - the leader of the Justice Society of America - in last friday's episode of Smallville as someone who has stepped over moral lines so often that they simply faded out of existence for him.
Not to mention Michael Shank's bad imitation of Batman's voice.
Even Superman/Clark himself is noone to inspire us. Why? He is such a boyscout that it's ticking people off more than it appeals to them.

[Zoltan]

So I pose the question: What do you think changed? Is it just a problem with our culture? Is it just us getting older? Is there any way to have new series or movies that inspired us like the ones of old?

(since I only have time for a short answer or two)

The writers of that generation had the Moon landing.

What do we have today? A culture of fear (from *everything*). But maybe I'm wrong since the Cold War generation had one as well?

Perhaps the answer is one of the simpler kind: we as humans tend to be interested in something we don't know yet, in the sense of: you can't eat pizza 365 days a year; sometimes you gotta eat something different between the pizza slices.

[WorkerCaste]

I think you've posed a really interesting question with a very complex answer. And just to be up front, I don't believe I have the answer, so expect this post to be rambling and incomplete. First, I think there are two parts that have to be looked at separately: Visual media and books.

Even during its golden age, science fiction was a niche industry. Genre was a polite way of saying "small." Visual media has always been targeted at "the masses" because that has the highest return on investment. Not only are the producers going to do whatever they can to attract the largest audience possible, they're going to focus on the most profitable, which is why I think I Love Lyta is right with her comment about the target audience. Starting from that position, I don't think it's surprising that the most successful (from a business perspective) Sci-Fi is mixed with more popular elements. The latest Star Trek was an action extravaganza, because action has a great track record. Harry Potter and Twilight have young protagonists so they appeal to that demographic with the money and the time. Sometimes it seems like the more relevant question is "How does and real Sci-Fi get made at all?" The original Star Trek tried to ask some of the big questions concerning war, race relations, etc. It made the effort to create a fully realized future world we could use as a backdrop to explore ourselves. That gives it cred among many Sci-Fi afficionados. But it was kind of brought in under the radar. It was originally sold as "Wagon Train to the stars." And, it had its share of elements meant to appeal to a larger audience. Also, let's not forget, it failed. Sure, eventually it became a tremendous money maker, but it took a while. It was then a good long time before anything with the same stature in the Sci-Fi world appeared on TV. Movies, too, have been very spotty. Because of profitability, I think Sci-Fi in the visual media will continue to be hit or miss -- with mostly miss.

Books were always the refuge of the "hard" Sci-Fi. A book could make a profit in the much smaller genre market. Now, here, I have to profess ignorance because these days I don't have anywhere near as much time to read as I used to. That means I'm not terribly aware of what's happening in the SF publishing arena. I can speak with great nostalgia about the trinity of Heinlein, Asimov and Clarke. I used to be in a book store once a week or more. I do know some people who read more than I, and it seems they're still finding new authors to follow. If I had to make a guess, I'd say that Sci-Fi and other speculative fiction is still alive and well in the publishing realm.

Finally, I think the prevailing tone in fiction of all kinds is a response to the times in which it's produced. Flawed and gritty heroes are more common because we have trouble believing in the truly heroic hero. During the golden age of Sci-Fi, as Zoltan pointed out, we had the moon landings and new inventions were dramatic and coming fast. It was easy to believe that utopia was somewhere out there waiting for us. That contributed to a more positive tone. Today advances are broader and seem more incremental. It's difficult to envision our basic way of life changing because we don't feel it has changed. Back then there were actually public figures that people believed were better than they themselves were. Every day today we read about someone in the public eye who is flawed. Looking back we even see that the heroes of yesteryear were flawed, too. Now we're all just people -- warts and all. Tough to have the same kind of heroes in that environment. Even so, the flawed heroes were there in yesterday's fiction, too: Boromir, Thomas Covenant, Slippery Jim DeGriz. They're just more the norm today.

I like to believe these things are cyclical and at some point the tone will again become more positive. Then again, I like to believe that jelly doughnuts are fruit and fibre.

[Truth66]

Interesting thread. I know my wife always bugs me that I'm a huge Sci fi nut. Yet, I always remind her that I like quality Sci fi. The key word here is quality and I agree that we haven't really seen anything pop up on the radar lately. Perhaps we can have some hope that the sci fi trilogy that JMS has been reported to be working on will really do well and trigger a new wave of quality Sci Fi.
That's why I started a thread a while back of my hopes that JMS or someone under his direction would do some quality full cast audio drama CD's set in the Babylon 5 universe. That way we could at least have some quality Sci fi out there to fill our void.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

Great thoughts from everyone. Well I hope you're right about this trilogy. I am just thinking that in an environment like now as far as tv studios go, we'd never get anything like a star trek or a babylon 5, something that we can latch onto and really care about even when the show's off the air.

[Capt.Montoya]

SF is not dead, it just moved out of the series in niche channels into places like History Channel:
UFO hunters? UFOs are SF, not reality.
Mythical beasts? (monsterquest), those come out of SF too.
Ghost hunters? that's fantasy or SF too.

Life After People? SF too. It speculates on what if... (a classical SF starting point)... humans disappeared.

That's Impossible? SF too, it extrapolates from current science and technology to future tech.

Science fiction is no longer the niche product we grew up with, it's become part of the general culture.

Even chick series (Drop Dead Diva) borrow from Fantasy & Science Fiction concepts (resurrecting in another person's body).

I'm sure there are similar examples in "mainstream" movies borrowing from SF (I'm too lazy to think of some).

It's like Thomas Disch said "science fiction conquered the world" (the subtitle to his book "The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of"). I think that in so doing it lost some of its uniqueness, but in exchange ideas and concepts we had only in the field are now used and known more widely.

Now, as for books, as Worker Caste said, that's another story.
New Science Fiction books of great quality are still being published, if you miss the SF you grew up with, read some from new(ish) authors and you can find them better than what you grew up with.

I never hesitate to recommend the "Year's Best SF" paperback series edited by David G. Hartwell as a cheap way to sample new authors (and rediscover old ones too) and learn about what they publish. The one defect these books might have is collecting short stories, so there would be no mention of good authors that excel only on the long form writing... but for that you can always look at the winners (and runner ups) of the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novels.

But in all media there's one thing to ponder, and it's another legacy of SF: Sturgeon's Law.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

Montoya you inadvertently had a really good idea

I think it'd be really cool if someone would start a "year's best in sci-fi" thread with their opinion of the best book, tv and film for us to peruse and discuss

[Jonas]

No, I don't think it's dead. Avatar pretty much proved that. The most successful film of all time is a science fiction film, and one where the science matters. So no.

But is it a great time for science fiction? No. Humanity has lost perspective and has forgotten the stars. We're obsessed with a neverending war against invisible enemies and our public institutions are more interested in taking away our last bit of privacy (and money) than in the future of our species, and throw money at their banker friends instead of giving it to NASA.

The only science fiction writer I'm still interested in is Iain Banks; too much of sci-fi has become cynical and boring. As for TV... well, good science fiction on TV has always been rare.

[RedEyeSky]

(since I only have time for a short answer or two)

The writers of that generation had the Moon landing.

What do we have today? A culture of fear (from *everything*). But maybe I'm wrong since the Cold War generation had one as well?

The enemy then was more clear-cut though - and further from home. Not in your fridge, or a government database, or in the hidden anger of that nice young man next door...

Going along with some of the ideas mentioned already, I think we're too familiar with technology to have some new show like Star Trek come along and wow us with warp speed, "beam me up" type tech - we're talking to people across the planet at the click of a mouse button, using mobile internet on the bus on the way home, and so on in our everyday lives already.

I think sci-fi can and will still exist and have its ups and downs in the future, but I think the era when the technology was the star (as with the Enterprise, and Babylon 5's station & jumpgates) is over, at least in that incarnation.

But science fiction existed before space-flight (and a lot of that early stuff was brilliant) and it will exist even as we move forwards in our understanding (and daily use of, and fear of) new scientific innovations.

Sci-fi was never really about the technology anyway, but about the what-ifs, human dilemmas and so on, that it facilitated (imo).

Bladerunner for example is a story that has high-tech replicants and space colonies, but it's a story that could have belonged in the slaving times every bit as well, about what makes a person human, and to what extent we're happy to deny that humanity and limit someone's potential in pursuit of greed.

RedEyeSky

[Jonas]

The enemy then was more clear-cut though - and further from home. Not in your fridge, or a government database, or in the hidden anger of that nice young man next door...

Actually, if you think of anti-communist propaganda, that's exactly where the enemy was - potentially everywhere.

Going along with some of the ideas mentioned already, I think we're too familiar with technology to have some new show like Star Trek come along and wow us with warp speed, "beam me up" type tech - we're talking to people across the planet at the click of a mouse button, using mobile internet on the bus on the way home, and so on in our everyday lives already.

I think sci-fi can and will still exist and have its ups and downs in the future, but I think the era when the technology was the star (as with the Enterprise, and Babylon 5's station & jumpgates) is over, at least in that incarnation.

I don't think technology was ever the star. I certainly don't care a whole lot about B5's jumpgates, and I only care about Babylon 5 and the Enterprise in terms of what they represent: potential visions of the future and of the human condition.

That's why science fiction is more important today than ever before. We are so close to being able to achieve some of these future visions, but also so close to completely and utterly destroying ourselves. A good new Star Trek series could remind us that we can use our technology to create a world with millions of possibilities for all humans, a world where our spirits can be lifted by exploration and discovery; that the future is out there, and not down here fighting each other over resources and power that are sooner or later going to run out anyway.