Then it wasn't necessary.
RDM VS Technobabble, vol. 2
- Thread starter Mach5
- Start date
I think the difference is that the technobabble wasn't at the dramatic or emotional center of the story. It was about a son's quest to save his father, even at the expense of his own life and happiness.
When they're pushing it out in front, and the viewer is supposed to follow and care about how they TECH the TECH, that's when it gets to be too much.
Which was the one where Cylon blood cured cancer? Is that the one where Cylon blood cured cancer?
I mean, of course he's right, but it's a trivial point. Saying technobabble shouldn't be used as the centerpiece of any given story is like saying you should point the camera in the right direction if you're trying to film it.
YARN
Fleet Captain
Serious/hard science fiction involves a certain amount of technobabble too.
As sci-fi writer, you are imagining the future and stuff which has not yet been invented or discovered. Even if you restrict yourself to speculating about what the logical next step of technology will be and seriously ponder the ramifications (sociological, economic, environmental, and so on), you will still have to take a step into the unknown, and that is where technobabble comes in.
Trek is notorious for its Treknobabble, because Treknobabble classically involves creating a problem with jibberish and then solving it with jibberish.
As sci-fi writer, you are imagining the future and stuff which has not yet been invented or discovered. Even if you restrict yourself to speculating about what the logical next step of technology will be and seriously ponder the ramifications (sociological, economic, environmental, and so on), you will still have to take a step into the unknown, and that is where technobabble comes in.
Trek is notorious for its Treknobabble, because Treknobabble classically involves creating a problem with jibberish and then solving it with jibberish.
Of course it was, otherwise the story wouldn't have had a starting point or a solution.
Technobabble resolving a personal jeopardy plot is bad when it's bad science. The length of the words has nothing to do with it. The main problem is idiot writers who think jeopardy is interesting drama. A lot of them are also hacks who don't realize that even fake science should be done stylishly. Even worse are the dolts who think nothing is too stupid if you just don't use big words. The writers who use bad science had better not take themselves too seriously (SG-1, Dr. Who,) or shamelessly go over the top (Farscape, Sanctuary.) Even then the unrelenting silliness can take its toll, especially in Dr. Who, which has gotten boring because it keeps genuflecting to its glorious past, Daleks and all that crap, which it keeps recycling and recycling.
A horror story tries to scare you or gross you out.
A Western has a hero on the US frontier sometime in the nineteenth century.
A mystery has, surprise!, a mystery.
A Gothic has a heroine in peril in exotic surroundings.
A romance has a heroine finding true love.
A war novel has a war in it.
SF and fantasy have....Why, you can't say! Which prove the idea that SF and fantasy are genres is stupid. SF as a subgenre of fantasy makes as much sense as saying fantasy is a subgenre of fiction, i.e., is a pompous way of saying zip.
There's SF romance, writers like the late Kage Baker, Catherine Asaro, Justine Robson, Sandra Macdonald. And there's fantasy romance, with some very popular authors like the True Blood woman, Laurel K. Hamilton, Sherrily Kenyon, etc. Remarkably enough, the fans of the fantasy romance don't see the SF romance as just another subgenre.
A horror story tries to scare you or gross you out.
A Western has a hero on the US frontier sometime in the nineteenth century.
A mystery has, surprise!, a mystery.
A Gothic has a heroine in peril in exotic surroundings.
A romance has a heroine finding true love.
A war novel has a war in it.
SF and fantasy have....Why, you can't say! Which prove the idea that SF and fantasy are genres is stupid. SF as a subgenre of fantasy makes as much sense as saying fantasy is a subgenre of fiction, i.e., is a pompous way of saying zip.
There's SF romance, writers like the late Kage Baker, Catherine Asaro, Justine Robson, Sandra Macdonald. And there's fantasy romance, with some very popular authors like the True Blood woman, Laurel K. Hamilton, Sherrily Kenyon, etc. Remarkably enough, the fans of the fantasy romance don't see the SF romance as just another subgenre.
If a Western takes place on the American frontier sometime in the nineteenth century, what are THE WILD BUNCH (1913, Mexico) or OUTLAND (the future, Io)? And what of the Urban Western, such as FOUR BROTHERS (2005, Detroit)? Your definition doesn't allow for the breath of the Western genre, and it's not the only one that's flimsy.
As far as a preliminary definition of sf, why not a story that contains a fantastic element with a scientific explanation? Fantasy is the same, except the explanation shifts to magical or supernatural reasons. Of course, the two (like any genre) can overlap, leaving you with films like STAR WARS.
More to the point, what does your usual argument that sf isn't a genre have to do with anything?
As far as a preliminary definition of sf, why not a story that contains a fantastic element with a scientific explanation? Fantasy is the same, except the explanation shifts to magical or supernatural reasons. Of course, the two (like any genre) can overlap, leaving you with films like STAR WARS.
More to the point, what does your usual argument that sf isn't a genre have to do with anything?
^^^A tragedy about the end of the West (which is one thing The Wild Bunch is) unsurprisingly is set in a fringe area (temporally and geographically.)
The Urban Western is something I've never heard of nor have I seen the supposed representative example.
I will suggest sight unseen that the theme of a single hero triumphantly imposing civilization by personal might (or tragically failing to do so,) is indeed a common Western theme. The similarity to a single hero triumphantly re-establishing true civilization in the face of systemic corruption (or tragically failing to do so,) is undeniable but they just aren't the same thing. Which means Outland taking the plot from High Noon doesn't make the movies the same thing thematically. They just aren't. This sort of contradiction between theme and setting is why Firefly was an artistic failure. Seeing Outland as a Western means misinterpreting it.
As for defining SF as a story with a fantastic element that is supposedly somehow connected to our natural world, while fantasy is one in which the fantastic is supposed to be, well, supernatural, unlike our boring reality, the problem is that this definition really is iffy. For example, the submarine Nautilus in Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath the Sea is no longer a fantastic element, it's just badly written science. By your proposed definition, it isn't SF, which is preposterous. Similarly, H.P. Lovecraft's extradimensional aliens make his stories with them SF, not horror. Which again is preposterous.
The point should be perfectly obvious. If SF is just a sub-genre of fantasy, then the science doesn't matter; the creativity and style of the exposition doesn't matter; most of all, any interest in how the world really works or how the future might be different is foolishness, by definition. People who have a total commitment to the reactionary proposition that the way things are is the way they've always been, and will always be (implicitly because God/Human Nature legislate it so,) must expel any concern with rationality from their entertainment, even pretended rationality that dares use big words.
Why else would anyone get all worked up about big words, except a besotted love of ignorance?
The Urban Western is something I've never heard of nor have I seen the supposed representative example.
I will suggest sight unseen that the theme of a single hero triumphantly imposing civilization by personal might (or tragically failing to do so,) is indeed a common Western theme. The similarity to a single hero triumphantly re-establishing true civilization in the face of systemic corruption (or tragically failing to do so,) is undeniable but they just aren't the same thing. Which means Outland taking the plot from High Noon doesn't make the movies the same thing thematically. They just aren't. This sort of contradiction between theme and setting is why Firefly was an artistic failure. Seeing Outland as a Western means misinterpreting it.
As for defining SF as a story with a fantastic element that is supposedly somehow connected to our natural world, while fantasy is one in which the fantastic is supposed to be, well, supernatural, unlike our boring reality, the problem is that this definition really is iffy. For example, the submarine Nautilus in Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath the Sea is no longer a fantastic element, it's just badly written science. By your proposed definition, it isn't SF, which is preposterous. Similarly, H.P. Lovecraft's extradimensional aliens make his stories with them SF, not horror. Which again is preposterous.
The point should be perfectly obvious. If SF is just a sub-genre of fantasy, then the science doesn't matter; the creativity and style of the exposition doesn't matter; most of all, any interest in how the world really works or how the future might be different is foolishness, by definition. People who have a total commitment to the reactionary proposition that the way things are is the way they've always been, and will always be (implicitly because God/Human Nature legislate it so,) must expel any concern with rationality from their entertainment, even pretended rationality that dares use big words.
Why else would anyone get all worked up about big words, except a besotted love of ignorance?
If you're not going to include stories that are about the end of the West (shunting them off to tragedy, instead?), your definition is too narrow to be of any use or interest, sorry.
There aren't a lot of examples, but the idea is pretty straightforward: transposing the western into an urban environment. FOUR BROTHERS, in fact, is a loose remake of THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER, a western starring John Wayne and Dean Martin. It just transposes the action to contemporary Detroit.
I have to confess outright that I haven't seen OUTLAND. That said, your argument is that OUTLAND has a subtly different theme than its antecedent, HIGH NOON, and therefore it cannot be a Western. That seems crazy to me--why limit the genre so strictly thematically?
Sure it's iffy. Which is why I called it "preliminary."
A submarine was fantastic when the story was written and published. That submarines have subsequently been invented is incidental. If this wasn't implicit in my original definition, I suppose it will have to be revised.
On the matter of "bad science," if that is to be your criterion in defining SF, you'll have dismissed so much of the genre that it will hardly be worth categorizing.
What is preposterous is the assumption that a story can only be defined in terms of a single genre. The fact that Lovecraft's extradimensional aliens were so easily included into BABYLON 5 in the telemovie, "Thirdspace" is a good indication that many of his stories fit perfectly well into SF.
Perhaps because, rather than bothering to write resolutions to their stories, many of the writers on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION (including Ronald D. Moore!) would just write dialogue where the characters "[TECH] the [TECH]," to be filled in with pseudoscience by an advisor at a later date. Characterizing that criticism as a fear of big words seems a bit of a stretch to me, and a lot of other posters here, I think.
Black people in ghettoes are not wild Indians rampaging against settlers. Transposing plots from Westerns has Unfortunate Implications.
The Western is thematically limited to the US frontier, because the classic Western is very much about a fantasy version of the US, where Indians were savages to be killed, there were no Blacks or Chinese or even very many Mexicans and White settlers built a new nation, rich in rural virtues and free of sinful urbanity, under the wise rule of natural heroes with sixguns. Modern Westerns that break some or all of these rules are increasingly just regarded as period dramas, instead of Westerns as such, to the point some forget that "Westerns" in the general sense are still being made.
Outland may have stolen some of the plot of High Noon. But it's SF setting is not the mythological (or should I say ideological) West, which makes it a very different movie. The corporate bad guys in Outland are worlds apart, thematically as well as literally, from the gang in High Noon.
The extradimensional aliens in Thirdspace are indeed science fictional, just as they were in Lovecraft. But Thirdspace was not a horror movie, while Lovecraft wrote nothing but. Science fictional elements are detachable, and can be put into stories of any genre easily, precisely because they are not a genre. They are fantastic things that are purportedly in some sense still natural, still in some sense connected to our reality (if only by being a vaguely possible future.)
Classification of genre is important because it is indicative of the writer's intent. (There are genuine cross-genre works but they are generally unsuccessful because the writer's aims tend to work at cross-purposes.) The notion that science fiction is a genre begs the question of what the writer intends, which makes it truly useless.
Are there any kinds of stories uniquely science fictional? Possibly one could argue that science fiction stories that are genuine attempts at extrapolation are the core science fiction story. There's just one huge problem: These kinds of stories are a minuscule part of the supposed genre, they are the least popular kind and they are frequently criticized as not being stories at all!
Practically all science fiction stories are hypothetical cross-genre works. How absurd. I say, science fiction is more of a literary technique, like realism. Or a mode, a term I tend to favor as connoting both style and form.
I am not the one saying bad science is the defining hallmark of science fiction. It is other people (who really should know better!) who have defined bad science as the hallmark of fantasy and therefore concluded science fiction is a subgenre of fantasy. I repeat, if bad science is just an inevtable part of the fantasy, then it cannot be a stylistic or thematic failure.
The Western is thematically limited to the US frontier, because the classic Western is very much about a fantasy version of the US, where Indians were savages to be killed, there were no Blacks or Chinese or even very many Mexicans and White settlers built a new nation, rich in rural virtues and free of sinful urbanity, under the wise rule of natural heroes with sixguns. Modern Westerns that break some or all of these rules are increasingly just regarded as period dramas, instead of Westerns as such, to the point some forget that "Westerns" in the general sense are still being made.
Outland may have stolen some of the plot of High Noon. But it's SF setting is not the mythological (or should I say ideological) West, which makes it a very different movie. The corporate bad guys in Outland are worlds apart, thematically as well as literally, from the gang in High Noon.
The extradimensional aliens in Thirdspace are indeed science fictional, just as they were in Lovecraft. But Thirdspace was not a horror movie, while Lovecraft wrote nothing but. Science fictional elements are detachable, and can be put into stories of any genre easily, precisely because they are not a genre. They are fantastic things that are purportedly in some sense still natural, still in some sense connected to our reality (if only by being a vaguely possible future.)
Classification of genre is important because it is indicative of the writer's intent. (There are genuine cross-genre works but they are generally unsuccessful because the writer's aims tend to work at cross-purposes.) The notion that science fiction is a genre begs the question of what the writer intends, which makes it truly useless.
Are there any kinds of stories uniquely science fictional? Possibly one could argue that science fiction stories that are genuine attempts at extrapolation are the core science fiction story. There's just one huge problem: These kinds of stories are a minuscule part of the supposed genre, they are the least popular kind and they are frequently criticized as not being stories at all!
Practically all science fiction stories are hypothetical cross-genre works. How absurd. I say, science fiction is more of a literary technique, like realism. Or a mode, a term I tend to favor as connoting both style and form.
I am not the one saying bad science is the defining hallmark of science fiction. It is other people (who really should know better!) who have defined bad science as the hallmark of fantasy and therefore concluded science fiction is a subgenre of fantasy. I repeat, if bad science is just an inevtable part of the fantasy, then it cannot be a stylistic or thematic failure.
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As far as I can tell, Indians (wild or otherwise) aren't involved in THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER. The villains in FOUR BROTHERS certainly aren't wild Indian surrogates. Your charges of racism could stand to do better, I think.
I'm not sure who, exactly, is increasingly regarding Revisionist Westerns as period dramas. I see neither a trend of this in studio advertising, nor in audience response to these films. Your definition of the Classical Western is certainly correct, but the Western film genre hasn't been tied down to such rigid a definition for fifty years.
If MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER could have corporate bad guys in the Western genre, I see no reason why OUTLAND couldn't have the same. But I haven't seen the film, so I shouldn't speak so definitively about it.
The Musical, to, can be put into stories of any genre easily. Would you also argue that it was not a genre in itself? When we last had this debate, I listed a number of crime films, all of which crossed over into other genres. Does this mean the Crime Film does not exist?
(I must apologize for continuously bringing up Film Genre, but that's where my background lies, not in literature).
Genre labels, indeed, do not have to pertain at all to intent. When Richard Zanuck was producing several films in 1933, he thought he was making "Headline" films (i.e. films that were most identifiable because they were ripped from the headlines). Only later did these films begin to be considered part of the Gangster genre, instead.
What are FORBIDDEN PLANET and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY if not Science Fiction? Shakespeare Adaptation and Religious Movie?
Is anyone making the claim that bad science is a defining hallmark of Science Fiction? The Fantasy genre is one that excludes scientific explanation, be it "good" or "bad," at least as I've defined it here.
Haven't seen McCabe and Mrs. Miller. When it came out the word I remember is that it wasn't really a Western, except of course being set in the nineteenth century West it had to be. The rediscovery of the West in the urbs (Fort Apache: The Bronx, sic) seems like some sort of recovery of the racial mythos of the Western to me, but I can't conclusively comment. The Sons of Katie Elder is also about Katie Elder, who is a figure in the Western pantheon. Dimly I remember the sons different relationship to their mother being metaphorically about different attitudes to the mythos. How Four Brothers fits in is a mystery to me. To nitpicking a little, the Classic Western hung on, in the more conservative medium of television, considerably longer than we'd like to remember.
No, the "musical" is not a genre in itself, it too is more of a mode or a form. The suspension of disblief in the invisible orchestra and unrehearsed dance is generally too difficult for even the most willing of suspenders to allow the musical to become a drama, without the trappings of classic operatic tradition. Most musicals I would guess to be romances or comedies. Lumping things like Joe's Apartment or Rocky Horror Picture Show or Little Shop of Horrors with things like Kismet or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or The Sound of Music or Cabaret all together? Indeed, how isn't Little Shop of Horror not science fiction, as well as a musical. I say it's a love story with satiric elements, done science fiction style in the musical format.
Forbidden Planet is an adventure story, with a beautiful girl as a prize for the hero and a villain to escape. It's slightly more sophisticated than some but it fits squarely into the space opera genre. 2001: A Space Odyssey is not a religious film (barring bad faith redefinitions of religion as any sort of feelings or thoughts not directly subservient to personal gain.) It is a philosophical parable or allegory. Not being a story in any currently popular genre is why it is so frequently dismissed as dull.
As to whether anyone is defining bad science as the hallmark of science fiction, well of course not. Asking the question seems to be a red herring. The issue has been whether bad science defines science fiction as a subgenre of fantasy. That claim has most definitely been made. Star Wars in particular is cited as cross-genre because the science is outrageously bad. The logic is that therefore it must be fantasy.
The more knowledgeable you are, the less good science in science fiction there is, even the so-called "hard" science fiction. Much nonsense asserted to the contrary notwithstanding, practically no one has tried to write a science textbook in place of a story. We could I suppose try to unilaterally redefine science fiction as any fiction in which the supernatural is totally, explicitly denied, even when there is some fantastic element. Which is to demand science fiction be atheist.
This seems excessively ideological to me. I would merely require that science fiction that brings on the frankly supernatural honestly address the inevitable issues, such as the problem of evil or how one knows it's God talking to you or why this one is blessed, etc. In practice, just as their are people who use science and technology every day of their lives and would laugh to cast out demons or pray for miracle, until just at the end, when dying they look for heaven, there will be science fiction that does the same thing. It'll be terrible science fiction, like Lost or the new BattleStar Galactica, but science fiction it will be. Also, an enlightened world view does inform many other kinds of fiction.
No, the "musical" is not a genre in itself, it too is more of a mode or a form. The suspension of disblief in the invisible orchestra and unrehearsed dance is generally too difficult for even the most willing of suspenders to allow the musical to become a drama, without the trappings of classic operatic tradition. Most musicals I would guess to be romances or comedies. Lumping things like Joe's Apartment or Rocky Horror Picture Show or Little Shop of Horrors with things like Kismet or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or The Sound of Music or Cabaret all together? Indeed, how isn't Little Shop of Horror not science fiction, as well as a musical. I say it's a love story with satiric elements, done science fiction style in the musical format.
Forbidden Planet is an adventure story, with a beautiful girl as a prize for the hero and a villain to escape. It's slightly more sophisticated than some but it fits squarely into the space opera genre. 2001: A Space Odyssey is not a religious film (barring bad faith redefinitions of religion as any sort of feelings or thoughts not directly subservient to personal gain.) It is a philosophical parable or allegory. Not being a story in any currently popular genre is why it is so frequently dismissed as dull.
As to whether anyone is defining bad science as the hallmark of science fiction, well of course not. Asking the question seems to be a red herring. The issue has been whether bad science defines science fiction as a subgenre of fantasy. That claim has most definitely been made. Star Wars in particular is cited as cross-genre because the science is outrageously bad. The logic is that therefore it must be fantasy.
The more knowledgeable you are, the less good science in science fiction there is, even the so-called "hard" science fiction. Much nonsense asserted to the contrary notwithstanding, practically no one has tried to write a science textbook in place of a story. We could I suppose try to unilaterally redefine science fiction as any fiction in which the supernatural is totally, explicitly denied, even when there is some fantastic element. Which is to demand science fiction be atheist.
This seems excessively ideological to me. I would merely require that science fiction that brings on the frankly supernatural honestly address the inevitable issues, such as the problem of evil or how one knows it's God talking to you or why this one is blessed, etc. In practice, just as their are people who use science and technology every day of their lives and would laugh to cast out demons or pray for miracle, until just at the end, when dying they look for heaven, there will be science fiction that does the same thing. It'll be terrible science fiction, like Lost or the new BattleStar Galactica, but science fiction it will be. Also, an enlightened world view does inform many other kinds of fiction.
This. Probably hates SF writers like Niven and Clement as well.
