Poll: Excuse me, waiter there appears to be politics in my sci-fi

[Mr. Doe]

TL;DR Sci-fi is cool and shouldnt be a way to tell me how you feel about politics or religion or w/e
Addendum: Im not saying they just cant be in there Im just saying they shouldnt play center stage to the laser fights.
Im sick and tired of Science fiction being less about Sci-fi and more about "making a point" Like how Avatar was just a "What we did to the Native Americans was wrong!" or how Moviebob wants Predator to turn into Ted Nugent with arm blades and Dreadlocks. When did Sci-fi stop being good enough on its own? Why arent there movies that have a genuine Sci-fi feel to them anymore? Why is Mass Effect about morality instead of Woosh bang space adventure its the final frontier for gods sake it shouldnt need additional shit to attract people. If a movie gets made where the premise is Humanity is dying and needs a strange new matter that was discovered on an alien world but the natives are hostile and the air is poison so we develop technology to make our clones of the species so we can fuck them up I should decide if I want it on those merits, if I hear theres a franchise where there is an entire species devoted to warfare that are also dinosaurs and theyre nearing extinction because a race of frog people needed them to kill space crabs but then couldnt contain the numbers I should buy that immediatly I shouldnt need a moral choice system to help me decide if its worth 60 dollars. Where are the green skinned space babes? Where are the space pirates? Where are the Sentient AIs bent on human eradication? Why is Sci-fi being reduced to a channel for people to pour political/religious diatribe instead of being about Aliens and lasers and foward thrusters?

 

[The Amazing Tea Alligator]

Messages are okay, provided the movie isn't so childishly obvious, yet so hipsterly pretentious as Avatar. I'm running on a theme today, and use Brazil as case-in-point.

I guess that if handled competently, messages are fine, but James Cameron is NOT competent, though I suspect that he'd be great at making travel brochures.

 

[Lust]

They're trying to control you. Oooooo...........*waves hands*.

Edit: It's so we can relate to something we're not familiar with.

 

[Mr. Doe]

Movies have always been a media with social messages, even if they are there sometimes unintentionally. This will never change.

Maybe you're only noticing them more now because you're growing up. Go back to the movies that you mentioned that you think don't have any sort of message and rewatch them, they all do.

Star Trek (the original series) had one message and that was "Space is awesome!" and the original Predator had one message "Arnold Schwazenagger is a bad ************" Sci-fi had usually been left alone becuase it was proud of things with these kinds of messages but nowadays that gets fucked by people trying to make statements but dont want to step on toes so they recycle the movie in space.

 

[Dexiro]

Old Sci-fi's were about exploration right? New Sci-fi's can portray that same thing perfectly well and additionally have some sort of social commentary within it.

You're still visiting exploring space or messing about with futuristic technology, whatever underlying meaning it has in addition isn't harming it.

Whatever we have now and what we had back then really hasn't changed if you think about it.

 

[VivaciousDeimos]

Movies have always been a media with social messages, even if they are there sometimes unintentionally. This will never change.

Maybe you're only noticing them more now because you're growing up. Go back to the movies that you mentioned that you think don't have any sort of message and rewatch them, they all do.

Definitely agree with this. Also, I don't really see why you can't have both. Mass Effect asks you to make different choices, and to shape your own philosophy, but there's lots of whoosh bang and blue skinned space babes to go around as well.

What I have a problem with is when the message isn't put in tastefully; when the author railroads the work and uses the protagonists as their own personal soapbox. That gets on my nerves to no end.

 

[RaphaelsRedemption]

*Sigh*

Everything has a message and a theme, even the "bang woosh!" stuff the OP mentions. I quite like that sci-fi seems to be growing up a little - that it has grown to a point where it can explore the impact humans would have on a sci-fi environment, and vice-versa, instead of simply describing the environment, relying on it's descriptions of strange and alien peoples and places to keep the audience's attention.

Today sci-fi seems a bit more self-aware. Ok, some of it is propaganda wrapped in fiction form, but that's been happening for decades, if not centuries. Every writer has his or her own set of beliefs, and, like it or not, those beliefs will spill over into the writer's work. If you, the audience, don't like one set of beliefs, feel free to find another sci-fi vision that is closer to your own.

The other thing I really like about today's sci=fi is the level of self-awareness it has gained. Now science fiction can parody itself, which is great! It means there are "norms" in the sci-fi genre that can be challenged and shaken. That's awesome. I like that Avatar sympathised with the aliens rather than the humans and chose to try to make us think about the implications of humans moving into some other race's planet. True, I consider it was done really badly, but I appreciate that it tried.

OP: If you do not like what you are seeing in sci-fi, go elsewhere. There should be room for both my preferred style of sci-fi and yours. But there is enough depth in the sci-fi genre by now that we should both be able to be satisfied without having to complain about the stuff you do not like.

 

[Ph33nix]

Movies have always been a media with social messages, even if they are there sometimes unintentionally. This will never change.

Maybe you're only noticing them more now because you're growing up. Go back to the movies that you mentioned that you think don't have any sort of message and rewatch them, they all do.

Star Trek (the original series) had one message and that was "Space is awesome!" and the original Predator had one message "Arnold Schwazenagger is a bad ************" Sci-fi had usually been left alone becuase it was proud of things with these kinds of messages but nowadays that gets fucked by people trying to make statements but dont want to step on toes so they recycle the movie in space.

I didn't watch star trek, but there were a number of messages in Predator

1. Enemies are willing to work together against a greater threat

2. Don't trust authority

I'm quite sure Star Trek had a number of messages about diplomacy.

yeah startrek had alot of make love not war going on but then it also had if you want war we will fuck you the hell up

 

[BlackWidower]

Star Trek (the original series) had one message and that was "Space is awesome!"

Are you sure about that? Maybe you need to rewatch some of the old episodes because from what I've seen every one had some kind of moral.

Pick one at random, A Taste of Armageddon [http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon_(episode)], who's moral was a simple "war is fucked up no matter how you slice it" message.

But I got a question. Can you name a single film, outside the science fiction genre, that you consider good, that didn't have a message of some sort?

 

[Mr. Doe]

Star Trek (the original series) had one message and that was "Space is awesome!"

Are you sure about that? Maybe you need to rewatch some of the old episodes because from what I've seen every one had some kind of moral.

Pick one at random, A Taste of Armageddon [http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon_(episode)], who's moral was a simple "war is fucked up no matter how you slice it" message.

But I got a question. Can you name a single film, outside the science fiction genre, that you consider good, that didn't have a message of some sort?

Full Metal Jacket didnt have a message (or at least one that I saw) and it stands as one of my favorite movies of all time.

 

[Slaanax]

Movies have always been a media with social messages, even if they are there sometimes unintentionally. This will never change.

Maybe you're only noticing them more now because you're growing up. Go back to the movies that you mentioned that you think don't have any sort of message and rewatch them, they all do.

Star Trek (the original series) had one message and that was "Space is awesome!" and the original Predator had one message "Arnold Schwazenagger is a bad ************" Sci-fi had usually been left alone becuase it was proud of things with these kinds of messages but nowadays that gets fucked by people trying to make statements but dont want to step on toes so they recycle the movie in space.

They changed the old Klingons into the New Klingons ,because of their resemblance to Muslims. There is always a message in your movie.

 

[BlackWidower]

Here's the problem, I think: A lot of people have this view of Sci-Fi as a stand-alone genre. It's not. What I mean by that is simple, the term mystery describes the plot, so does thriller, action, romance and adventure; all those words describe the plot. Sci-Fi describes the universe, the setting, not the plot. So typically science fiction is coupled with other genres. For instance, take Star Trek, Doctor Who, the early episodes of Stargate, they all can easily fit in the Adventure genre. Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, were war stories (hence the name). FlashForward and Lost had an overarching mystery and conspiracy, making them fall into the mystery genre.

You can't shove any story into sci-fi alone, there's more to them then that. Unless they suck.

 

[Mr. Doe]

Movies have always been a media with social messages, even if they are there sometimes unintentionally. This will never change.

Maybe you're only noticing them more now because you're growing up. Go back to the movies that you mentioned that you think don't have any sort of message and rewatch them, they all do.

Star Trek (the original series) had one message and that was "Space is awesome!" and the original Predator had one message "Arnold Schwazenagger is a bad ************" Sci-fi had usually been left alone becuase it was proud of things with these kinds of messages but nowadays that gets fucked by people trying to make statements but dont want to step on toes so they recycle the movie in space.

They changed the old Klingons into the New Klingons ,because of their resemblance to Muslims. There is always a message in your movie.

thats less of a message and more of a "I dont want the censors on our ass." kinda thing.

 

[knumpify]

Star Trek (the original series) had one message and that was "Space is awesome!"

Are you sure about that? Maybe you need to rewatch some of the old episodes because from what I've seen every one had some kind of moral.

Pick one at random, A Taste of Armageddon [http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon_(episode)], who's moral was a simple "war is fucked up no matter how you slice it" message.

But I got a question. Can you name a single film, outside the science fiction genre, that you consider good, that didn't have a message of some sort?

Full Metal Jacket didnt have a message (or at least one that I saw) and it stands as one of my favorite movies of all time.

Full Metal Jacket was all about how war fucks you up in the head. It takes rational people and makes the fat guy shoot himself, the guy who can laugh it off a journalist reporting body counts, and Pvt. snowball is sad with lack of watermelon. in the end, they all sing the mickey mouse song. It's about war being insane for everyone.

 

[BlackWidower]

Full Metal Jacket didnt have a message (or at least one that I saw) and it stands as one of my favorite movies of all time.

Wasn't that one a parody?

 

[Mr. Doe]

Full Metal Jacket didnt have a message (or at least one that I saw) and it stands as one of my favorite movies of all time.

Wasn't that one a parody?

The story of a Marine corps rifleman following him from parris island to vietnam experiencing everything he does without any moralising or aesops. I dont think a single thing is supposed to be parody in that.

 

[Cody211282]

If you want Sci-fi without any messages watch Red vs Blue, there are aliens and lasers, and absolutely zero politics.