Now before you answer my question with the question, "why can't there be both?", you have to remember that this isn't a perfect world. Sometimes, most of the times, we can't have it both ways. Having said that, I'm wondering what makes entertaining sci-fi to you. Good characters or good science. This question is inspired by shows like Fringe and the late Threshold. I like these shows not because of the science, which purists on this forum have been critical of, but the characters. They make it palatable, fun and entertaining. But where do you stand.
Good characters or good science?
- Thread starter blockaderunner
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Characters. They are who I'm following, not the science. While, yes, I would like the science to be good--but it doesn't matter if a great story is told, and for me, that comes down to the characters.
This.
If I can't get interested in the characters in a show - any show, not just SF - then I find it almost impossible to give a damn what they do. Really bad science will kill suspension of disbelief so it's good for it to be as realistic as possible, but if the characters aren't interesting I won't watch long enough to care about the science.
If good science were half as important as good characters, Firefly wouldn't have had half the following it did.
That said, if science is key to a storyline, they should make an effort to get it right. And getting something right unexpectedly (that most shows get wrong) just counts for bonus points.
That said, if science is key to a storyline, they should make an effort to get it right. And getting something right unexpectedly (that most shows get wrong) just counts for bonus points.
This thread needs a poll!
but I say good Charactors come first!
but I say good Charactors come first!
QFT
The characters are what bring me to a universe and keep me there. The science? Sure, it'd be great if it were as real as it can be, but after dealing with some of the questionable geographical layouts of New York City that I've seen in big-budget science fiction flicks, questionable science isn't nearly as big a thing as long as it's internally consistent. Geographical problems bother me more because all you need to do there is look at a frikking map. The easier the research that doesn't get done is to do, the more it bugs me when it isn't done.
Characters, however, are what keep me watching. If I don't care about the characters, I'm not going to pay enough attention to the universe to care.
Good characters. I can overlook crappy science, but the characters are often what makes up the story, and if the characters suck, then there's not much hope left for the show or movie.
This thread needs a poll!
I wonder if a poll is necessary...everyone seems to be in agreement: characters.
Even if you can't always have both, why must you invariably favor only one? I like turkey and cucumber sandwiches, but sometimes I have a turkey sandwich without cucumber and sometimes I have a cucumber sandwich without turkey. I don't consider one superior to the other. It's just a matter of what I have a taste for at that particular moment, or what's available in the fridge at that particular moment.
Good characters make good fiction, in any genre. But science fiction is kind of unique in that the setting can carry the weight even if plot or character disappoint. If the science is really engaging and imaginative, if it makes me think or teaches me new things or is just really cool, that can be entertaining even if the characters are shallow. I still like reading fiction with good characters, but that doesn't mean I'm incapable of enjoying SF with compelling science and mediocre characterization, at least from time to time.
The quality of a story isn't in its category; if it were, then anyone could make a successful story just by following some familiar formula. The quality lies in the execution. Well-executed science and worldbuilding can be satisfying in their own way. Good characters stimulate the emotions, but good worldbuilding can stimulate the imagination, and that's worthwhile too.
After all, as I said when a similar issue came up in another thread just recently, look at fairy tales and myths. There's not a lot of character development in "Little Red Riding Hood" or "Sleeping Beauty" or the Labors of Hercules. Yet children and adults have been drawn to these stories down through the ages because they fire the imagination.
Good characters. If I want science, I can read a science book. Fiction is about characters.
No, it isn't. Fiction is about plot, character, theme, and setting. Different works of fiction emphasize each in different degrees. Fiction is not, never has been, and never should be uniformly one thing.
Yes, character is important. But that doesn't mean it's good writing to just blow off the other three aspects of storytelling as insignificant. The modern emphasis on character is something of a counterreaction to trends in the past that de-emphasized it too much, particularly in SF. But that counterreaction tends to become an overcompensation, fixating so fanatically on character that everything else suffers. The healthy response to one extreme is not to race to the opposite extreme, even though that's the default response of Western civilization. The healthy response is to seek the happy medium, the balance between extremes.
Yes, character is important. But that doesn't mean it's good writing to just blow off the other three aspects of storytelling as insignificant. The modern emphasis on character is something of a counterreaction to trends in the past that de-emphasized it too much, particularly in SF. But that counterreaction tends to become an overcompensation, fixating so fanatically on character that everything else suffers. The healthy response to one extreme is not to race to the opposite extreme, even though that's the default response of Western civilization. The healthy response is to seek the happy medium, the balance between extremes.
Frankly, it's a false choice, because most of the mistakes in sci-fi shows and movies aren't at the expense of characters, they're just because no on on the production end gives a flying fig. Quite often the things they screw up are just ignorant, and could easily be righted without affecting the characterization or story at all.
the science has to be JUST CREDIBLE ENOUGH that it doesn't strain our disbelief
I.e. lightsabers may (for the sake of arguement) be impossible to physically exist.
BUT the movies establish the rule that "one lightsaber can block another one"
if they BREAK that rule, it would be annoying
Science should be no more than the complicated magic rules in Dungeons and Dragons: they mean absolutely nothing; what its really about is "PLAY BY YOUR OWN RULES WITHOUT BREAKING THEM" (Final Five crap in Battlestar Season 3 onwards, for example)
Otherwise you get Voyager's thing of "literally stop the narrative for 2-5 minutes at a stretch to explain the science...AS IF SOMEONE IS CHECKING" (Well, we do check, but I mean WITHIN an episode's one hour run time?)
I.e. lightsabers may (for the sake of arguement) be impossible to physically exist.
BUT the movies establish the rule that "one lightsaber can block another one"
if they BREAK that rule, it would be annoying
Science should be no more than the complicated magic rules in Dungeons and Dragons: they mean absolutely nothing; what its really about is "PLAY BY YOUR OWN RULES WITHOUT BREAKING THEM" (Final Five crap in Battlestar Season 3 onwards, for example)
Otherwise you get Voyager's thing of "literally stop the narrative for 2-5 minutes at a stretch to explain the science...AS IF SOMEONE IS CHECKING" (Well, we do check, but I mean WITHIN an episode's one hour run time?)
Good science would actually tend to ruin most sci-fi and definitely almost all comics. A staple of sci-fi is faster than light travel. You simply can't have people going around the vastness of space without it. Yet in the real universe it doesn't seem to be allowable. Same with FTL communication.
Characters. I don't give two shits about the science.
You're totally wrong. At least you're basing your assumptions about science fiction on the mass media and ignoring the preponderance of print science fiction. There's a whole thriving genre of hard SF that's predicated on good science. And yes, it takes poetic license, but that's not the same thing as bad science. Good science in fiction doesn't mean slavish and absolute adherence to real physics. It means being sufficiently knowledgeable of real physics that your divergences from it are the result of deliberate and considered poetic license rather than ignorance or laziness, and that you're able to justify those divergences in a way that's convincing enough to encourage your audience to suspend their disbelief.
For instance, in hard SF, FTL travel is often justified by reference to things from actual theoretical physics, such as wormholes, higher dimensions (hyperspace), and quantum tunneling. While those things probably don't actually work the way they're described in the story, and probably wouldn't be able to achieve practical FTL travel in real life, they're still a good scientific grounding for a work of fictional speculation. It's not bad science, it's good, informed science applied in a fictionalized manner. It's only bad if it's the result of ignorance or carelessness. Poetic license is fine.
For that matter, there are works of science fiction that don't involve FTL travel or communication at all -- and which may often use the lack of FTL as a driving element behind the storytelling. Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is one example, dealing with the sense of displacement experienced by a veteran returning from an interstellar war to an Earth he no longer recognizes. Another example in a different vein is Poul Anderson's Tau Zero, set aboard a ramjet starship as it slowly accelerates toward the speed of light and deals with the ever-increasing time dilation. There is plenty of SF that has "people going around the vastness of space without" FTL travel. To find it, you just have to turn off your TV and your video player and visit a bookstore or a library.
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