Right, so not sci-fi.
News Discovery isn't on TV because no-one would watch it
- Thread starter Captain of the USS Averof
- Start date
Right, so not sci-fi.
Considering this is back when gods walked the Earth, it's actually a documentary.
It is considered by many to be the earliest work of literature we know of, and has survived in several forms. If it's considered literature, it is then by definition fiction. Whether or not we call it scifi or fantasy is a talking point, I like to think of it as scifi. Considering it's cast of characters, it could also be horror. LOL
I don't think we (as twenty-first century people) can call something "science fiction" if it predates everything that we (as twenty-first century people) would consider "science." Since the earliest instances of modern science (by a very generous estimate) appear in the 1400s-1600s--Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Newton, etc.--I wouldn't class anything earlier as science fiction. Much earlier fiction was directly and indirectly influential on the science-fiction genre, of course, just as much earlier alchemy and natural philosophy had its influence on what we'd call "science."
Try convincing a congregation of baptists that Jesus was obviously an Alien.
Discovery probably won't get CBS-level ratings, that's true. It would get the kind of ratings that would be fantastic on a cable network but poor on a major network. I think the reason they started it on All-Access the way they do is that they think there might be some outside chance it will catch on but not good enough a chance to take a slot away from Crime Procedural #6185.
CBS All-Access is completely accurate numbers. They know which house is watching which shows, and if the house bothers with individual logs in, they even get demographics to a degree.
Nielson Ratings = 10,000 houses in America fiddled with by math/statistics = guestimation on actual viewing numbers that there is no proof that is even close.
Also ratings are to impress advertisers. CBS AA instead wants to renew subscriptions month to month, which is similar, but a little different.
Also CBS all access has an advertising free option, for an extra 4 dollars a month.
Nielson Ratings = 10,000 houses in America fiddled with by math/statistics = guestimation on actual viewing numbers that there is no proof that is even close.
Also ratings are to impress advertisers. CBS AA instead wants to renew subscriptions month to month, which is similar, but a little different.
Also CBS all access has an advertising free option, for an extra 4 dollars a month.
hmm good to know, last I checked (admittedly not recently) that wasn't an option. Still haven't made my mind if I am willing to pay for it but that was a major stumbling block.
That was actually true in 1978.In 18 feet of snow. And we liked it.
And it's so easy when they're so uptight.Half the time old folks act senile is just to irritate the irritating people they are dealing with. It seems to work very well.
I learned about Pulp magazines, OTR, and Saturday-morning movie serials from my Uncles. Their stories inspired my imagination so much that I fell in love with these things before I had seen or heard a single one. I was so excited to know that there were precursors to the books and comics and TV shows of the time.
You took the words right out of my fingers.Who do you think was watching and reading all these sci-fi movies, film serials, TV series, novels and comic books all those years ago? The Millennials of today?
Can I get an Amen to that?
I'm pretty strict about the definition of Science Fiction, but I'd definitely consider myths and folklore to be the precursor of SF. These stories and beliefs all evolved from people who were doing their best to explain the mysteries of the universe, people who were curious enough about what was out there to extrapolate from what they knew, and people who were imaginative enough to create things outside of their experience-- so it was the same intellectual impulse that led to the existence of SF.
Yeah but sci-fi isn't about explaining the mysteries of the univere. It's about science and technology applied in fiction. I don't think the Epic qualifies. Don't want to derail further. Maybe we need a thread for that.
It's a long time until next summer, plenty of time for side discussions. Although the discussions of what scif actually is, as compared to fantasy or horror or epic is in the mind of the beholder. If it didn't come with so much personal distaste for me, the term "speculative fiction" could apply to all of it. I blame Harlan Ellison for that, who, in my mind, was a real elitist prick who also happens to be a really good writer. He came up with that term with his Dangerous Visions anthologies.
In any case, it is my hope that Discovery does NOT do what that all series after TOS were guilty of, and that is trying so hard to be Star Trek they forget that they have a TV show to do. I know that might sound strange, but I just want to be told good stories with good characters first, and then secondly those good stories and characters are alive in a Star Trek setting. It is the very trappings of Star Trek that will do in a series. It is possible to be a very good TV show that just also happens to be Star Trek, because all the series have done episodes like that, and we all love to list those episodes in our favorites.
Children?War of the Worlds = 119 year old sci-fi novel
John Carter of Mars = 104 y.o. sci-fi character
Buck Rogers = 88 y.o. sci-fi character
Flash Gordon = 82 y.o. sci-fi character
The Hobbit = 79 y.o. fantasy novel
Superman = 72 y.o. superhero comic
Godzilla = 62 y.o. fantasy movie
Forbidden Planet = 60 y.o. sci-fi movie
Star Trek = 50 y.o. sci-fi TV series
Star Wars = 38 y.o. sci-fi movie
etc, etc, etc…
Who do you think was watching and reading all these sci-fi movies, film serials, TV series, novels and comic books all those years ago? The Millennials of today?
Can I get an Amen to that?
So, don't you think that the children who were watching Star Trek in the '60s and Star Wars in the '70s are parents and grandparents themselves now?
To be fair it's an owl made of metal..smithing. It probably worked by magic rather than tech.
Nope. (Someone will be by with cumberbatch I am sure.) I also wouldn't condoer it fantasy as it was originally presented as factual belief. It's the same sort of thing with Ancient Gods and whatnot...if it comes from the time when they were held in belief, it's neither fiction nor fantasy, it's only when they turn up in work after that, that they are. Historical fiction is a grey area, if it's totally true to a given period, then the presence of mythological figures doesn't also make it fantasy. To put it in context, Newtons Principia won't suddenly get shunted into the fiction aisle if it eventually gets totally disproved. All those books with Pluto as a ninth planet aren't suddenly fantasy books because astronomy changed its mind...and things like Edgar Rice Burrows Barsoom books are still Science Fiction, and not fantasy, because they are based in the known facts of the time in which it was written.
Some things (like the epic of Gilgamesh) are from so far back that you can't categorise them as truth or fiction, but you can only go with the weight of history and how the work was regarded through the ages. (Which probably pisses off people having arguments about religious books all the time, with bending to suit their chosen argument.)
There are really two genres that are called 'scifi', hard scifi and space operas. Hard scifi deals with the implications of technology that could possibly exist based on our knowledge of science on human culture. Space operas use spaceships and aliens as a setting for drama and adventure.
I was a kid when I got into TNG, even though I was never into Star Trek. No reason to assume they can't do the same for current kids. Hell, if there's any time thoughtful, idealistic kids have ever needed a message of hope for the future that mankind will overcome its differences, it's exactly right now.
I was a kid when I got into TNG, even though I was never into Star Trek. No reason to assume they can't do the same for current kids. Hell, if there's any time thoughtful, idealistic kids have ever needed a message of hope for the future that mankind will overcome its differences, it's exactly right now.
That bolded part I strongly agree with. Too long, at least to me, Star Trek has lived in it's own shadow, fearing that its best days are behind it and scared to try anything different lest it loose it's own identity. So, they put on the Star Trek name and all the safe Star Trek elements without consideration of making a good, well written, show.
And, if Discovery makes the same mistakes, it will not last.
I agree, but then you'll have people saying things like "it's not REAL Star Trek." I find those comments to be incredibly dull and self-serving, but any time Trek veers an inch from a person's preconceptions, it gets the "not real Star Trek" dig. It's dumb, but it happens.
Science fiction is not just literary speculation about things outside the realm of experience. It is literature that uses (to some degree and with varying levels and kinds of effectiveness) the language and discourse of disciplinary science.
People can write imaginative fiction about the gods in which they believe, as Homer probably did when he composed the Iliad, and as John Milton certainly did when he wrote Paradise Lost. Most of our knowledge of folklore and myth comes from literary fictionalizations of ancient beliefs, not theological or philosophical accounts of the beliefs. The reason epics and literary representations of folklore don't qualify as science fiction is not because they contain no fiction but because they contain no science. Though "science" was once a mere synonym for knowledge, that's not what contemporary people including science fiction writers mean by the word. Science is a disciplinary system based on empirical evidence and repeatable, controlled experiments (hence testable hypotheses). Science is not synonymous with any and every worldview taken by some to be factual.
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