What tropes in science fiction annoy you?

[Greg Cox]

I would argue again that some works can belong to multiple genres at the same time: an SF caper film, or a sci-fi detective story or whatever. Somewhere in Time is undeniably a fantasy, a time-travel story, and a swoony, romantic love story, for instance. (It's also been made into a musical.) See also The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Alien is science fiction (spaceships, aliens) and horror. There's no rule that says any given work is only allowed one label or genre.

Meanwhile, I suspect we're talking past each other by using the word "style" differently. I think of "style" as a matter of technique, not content or theme. So an SF novel written by Tanith Lee was likely to be written in the same style as one of her fantasy novels or horror stories. Her prose style was quite distinctive, regardless of the subject matter or genre. See also Bradbury, Moore, Sturgeon, Matheson, Zelazny, King . . .

And I'm sure there are cinematic equivalents as well, as with, say, Hitchcock. "The Birds" is possibly the only one of his films that actually contains a fantastic element, but, as an exercise in suspense, it's very much in the same "style" as his other films, which ranged from espionage, crime thrillers, horror, etc. Different subject matter, arguably different genres, but the same recognizable "style" . . . which, to my mind, is matter of execution, not subject matter.

Another example: "Batman" (1966), "Batman" (1989), and "Batman Begins" are all about the same subject matter but are wildly different in style. No one is ever going to confuse a Tim Burton movie with a Christopher Nolan movie, let alone the campy 60s TV version.

 

[Discofan]

One thing I can't stand is multiple exposures and unfortunately, we have a lot of that in ST. I, as a normal viewer, take offense to the idea that I need to be told the same things two or three times throughout the episode. Plus it's time-consuming and it slows the action down... IOW, it's all bad.

 

[Greg Cox]

Ooh, another example of a movie that clearly exists in two genres: The Man in the White Suit. It's definitely SF in that the whole plot revolves around the effect on society of a radical new invention, but it's also undeniably a comic farce. And to insist that it's not really SF or not really a comedy fails to accurately describe the movie. It's a comedy about a new piece of technology turning society upside-down.

 

[Discofan]

Ooh, another example of a movie that clearly exists in two genres: The Man in the White Suit. It's definitely SF in that the whole plot revolves around the effect on society of a radical new invention, but it's also undeniably a comic farce. And to insist that it's not really SF or not really a comedy fails to accurately describe the movie. It's a comedy about a new piece of technology turning life upside-down.

You think it's a comedy? I took it as a pamphlet about how a great invention can be dismissed by a society because it inconveniences too many people that were attached to the old ways. It's a harsh criticism of how society works.

It's not really sf because the invention itself is immaterial. It could have been anything from a revolutionary garbage disposing system to a new kind of vacuum cleaner.

 

[Greg Cox]

You think it's a comedy? I took it as a pamphlet about how a great invention can be dismissed by a society because it inconveniences too many people that were attached to the old ways. It's a harsh criticism of how society works..

Comedies are often about human folly and absurdity. "Lord, what fools these mortals be . . . ."

Although I suppose we can split hairs between satires, farces, and comedies in general.

And one of the textbook definitions of SF is that it's about the impact of technology on society.

Not that I particularly concern myself with textbook definitions.

 

[Discofan]

Comedies are often about human folly and absurdity. "Lord, what fools these mortals be . . . ."

Comedies make you laugh or at the very least smile. When I watched that movie I never felt like laughing or smiling and certainly not at the end when the guy is about to be lynched by an angry mob, saved only by one thing.

Spoiler: spoiler

Turns out the invention doesn't work

 

[Greg Cox]

Thought of a pet peeve of my own: books, be they SF or fantasy, in which it's painfully obvious that the author has put 90% of their effort and concentration into world-building, at the expense of characterization or plotting.

And speaking as somebody who has read and rejected mountains of slush, I can testify that bad SF and bad fantasy are often bad in the same ways.

(Bad horror tends to tell you way more than you want to know about the author's personal hang-ups.)

 

[stj]

Well, final word on style: Fantasy and SF approach mimesis in pretty much the opposite way. SF wants to fake it, fantasy wants to break it. The individual voice of the writer has little to nothing to do with genre in any sense except the difference between prose and poetry, or maybe fiction and nonfiction. I suppose it all boils down to, do you object to technobabble because it's big words? Or do you object to technobabble because it's babble, just stupid bad writing?

(Can't resist one last diversion, because I'm scattered, but character is what you do in real life and in fiction and drama. If the fantastic world what the character do don't make any sense in the fictional universe, the world isn't built, and the characterization is nothing but lines.)

 

[Greg Cox]

But the voice of the writer is a big part of the work and its appeal. A plot is often just the plot; it's the style and execution that matters. The same story written by two different writers is not going to read the same, especially if those writers have their own distinctive prose styles.

And, honestly, the premise of a story often tells you nothing about what to expect. "Boy versus dragon" is a plot, but what kind of book is it? A mythic High Fantasy a la Tolkien? A brawny, sweaty barbarian adventure? A light-hearted, pun-filled romp? A literary allegory in which the dragon symbolizes Nature or God or whatever?

This, to digress, is why it's so silly when would-be writers worry about somebody stealing their "ideas." Ideas are a dime a dozen. It's the style and execution--and, yes, the author's voice--that matters in the end. IMHO.

In short, aesthetics matter. Sometimes as much or more than content.

(Getting back to slush, I always read the first chapter before even looking at any sort of synopsis or proposal. Because if the writing wasn't compelling, it honestly didn't matter what what the book was about. A submission could have the best idea in the world, but it was worthless if I didn't get caught up in the pages.)

EDIT: It occurs to me that I possibly missed your point about the author's voice having nothing to do with genre. But to the author's voice is what I mean by "style." So, yeah, style has nothing to do with the content of a story, regardless of whether it's sf or fantasy or a murder mystery.

 

[JD]

I just remembered another one, but it's not specific to SFF, when every bad guy a hero who uses martial arts runs into is an expert fighter. It always kind of bugs me in shows liker Arrow and Daredevil how every street level thug they run into seems to be a black belt level martial artist. Same is true for non-genre shows and movies like Martial Law, and most of Jackie Chan's stuff.

 

[Greg Cox]

Comedies make you laugh or at the very least smile. When I watched that movie I never felt like laughing or smiling and certainly not at the end when the guy is about to be lynched by an angry mob, saved only by one thing.

Spoiler: spoiler

Turns out the invention doesn't work

For what's it worth, the movie was certainly intended as a comedy--one of several from Ealing Studios back in the day--and marketed as such. And I see that Wikipedia describes it as a "science-fiction satirical comedy."

YMMV.

 

[Discofan]

For what's it worth, the movie was certainly intended as a comedy--one of several from Ealing Studios back in the day--and marketed as such. And I see that Wikipedia describes it as a "science-fiction satirical comedy."

YMMV.

Well, I saw it a long time ago, so maybe I am misremembering a little. I remember that I saw it the same week as Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (a classic that was an open criticism of the McCarthyism), so maybe I watched it with more gravity than it deserved.

 

[Discofan]

Janeway speaks of "Deus Ex Machina" as of an outdated plot resolution device, it's possible that four hundred years from now it will be but so far we're not there yet (which is an understatement) and I wish we were because I can't think of a more annoying way to end a movie.

 

[Greg Cox]

Well, I saw it a long time ago, so maybe I am misremembering a little. I remember that I saw it the same week as Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (a classic that was an open criticism of the McCarthyism), so maybe I watched it with more gravity than it deserved.

True story: I once ran into a fan who didn't realize that the original GHOSTBUSTERS was a comedy. Seems he'd seen it as a small child, been terrified by it, and remembered it as this really scary horror movie.

 

[Discofan]

True story: I once ran into a fan who didn't realize that the original GHOSTBUSTERS was a comedy. Seems he'd seen it as a young child, been terrified by it, and remembered it as this really scary horror movie.

Yes, as a kid I was sometimes scared by movies that I find now trite and ridiculously overplayed. I don't know how I would have reacted to Ghostbusters... I was never a big believer (if at all) in the "supernatural"... So I think it would have been with a dose of skepticism, this assuming that I would have missed the comedic aspect of it.

 

[Greg Cox]

Yes, as a kid I was sometimes scared by movies that I find now trite and ridiculously overplayed. I don't know how I would have reacted to Ghostbusters... I was never a big believer (if at all) in the "supernatural"... So I think it would have been with a dose of skepticism, this assuming that I would have missed the comedic aspect of it.

A lot depends on the circumstances, too. Horror movies I saw late at night while babysitting, which terrified me at the time, turn out to be much less scary when revisited on DVD decades later.

I've never believed in supernatural stuff either, but that doesn't mean I wasn't spooked by "Planet of the Vampires" . . . or The Wicked Witch of the West.

 

[JD]

Yes, as a kid I was sometimes scared by movies that I find now trite and ridiculously overplayed. I don't know how I would have reacted to Ghostbusters... I was never a big believer (if at all) in the "supernatural"... So I think it would have been with a dose of skepticism, this assuming that I would have missed the comedic aspect of it.

I don't really see where believing in the supernatural really effects how scary you find something. For me there's no intellectual element at all for whether I find something scary, it's a purely visceral emotional reaction. As long as it's realistic or believeable enough in the context of the movie, then it'll probably get a reaction from me.

 

[Discofan]

I don't really see where believing in the supernatural really effects how scary you find something. For me there's no intellectual element at all for whether I find something scary, it's a purely visceral emotional reaction. As long as it's realistic or believeable enough in the context of the movie, then it'll probably get a reaction from me.

I completely disagree. if you don't believe in something, you don't find it scary. For example, I was never scared by any vampire movie.

 

[Greg Cox]

Gotta side with JD. That's just how fiction works. It tricks your brain into believing in stuff you know is make-believe and caring about imaginary characters and situations. Suspension of disbelief and all that.

I mean, I know that the dog that played "Old Yeller" didn't really get shot; it was just a movie. But I cried anyway.

There's a big difference between being scared of something in real life and being scared by a movie or TV show. Do I worry about vampires when I'm walking home at night? Of course not. But if I'm at the drive-in and Count Yorga's vampire brides are lunging at their victim? That's completely different.

(Gave me nightmares . . . literally.)

 

[Discofan]

Gotta side with JD. That's just how fiction works. It tricks your brain into believing in stuff you know is make-believe and caring about imaginary characters and situations. Suspension of disbelief and all that.

I mean, I know that the dog that played "Old Yeller" didn't really get shot; it was just a movie. But I cried anyway.

But a dog dying is a situation that you could see yourself into. I could never picture myself surrounded by vampires or zombies or whatever.

"Misery" for example is the kind of scary situation that could really happen! In fact, it could happen to any of us. Someone you don't know, for example, has a crush on you and won't take no for an answer... that's the kind of thing that could easily turn into a nightmare.