The problem with this false dichotomy isn't that you should be able to have good characters and good science, but that most mass-media sf has bad characters and bad science.
Good characters or good science?
- Thread starter blockaderunner
- Start date
True, but what frustrates me is that even the shows and films with good characters generally still have bad science. Or at least inconsistent science.
Star Trek has been relatively good with regard to science when Roddenberry was in charge, and particularly in the first few seasons of TNG, but far too much of it has been pretty sloppy scientifically. Andromeda was a terrific hard-SF show for its first season and a half when Robert Hewitt Wolfe was running the show, but once he was fired, its science became sheer gibberish and incoherent nonsense. Sliders had decent science in its first season, but then became more fanciful. Same with SeaQuest DSV, whose first season was actually promoted as "not science fiction" but was a pretty good example of genuine science fiction, and which then became sheer fantasy without a trace of science in the second season when they tried to make it "more sci-fi." Stargate has at times had excellent science, especially in "Tangent" when the orbital physics, lightspeed time lag, and the like were all handled superbly, but then they turn around and do stupid things like establishing that humans descended from aliens from another galaxy.
Primeval (which has recently begun airing on SciFi and is up through Episode 4) is turning out to be a similarly mixed bag; the time travel stuff is fanciful, but the show is grounded in some pretty decent paleontology, albeit with considerable poetic license taken. But that's a valid approach to science fiction: to postulate one implausible thing and use it as a vehicle for exploring more solid science.
But most of what passes for SF on TV is fantasy. The science on Heroes is particularly egregious. Any show where a solar eclipse is seen everywhere on Earth at the same time and lasts for hours is not in anything remotely resembling reality.
I would choose good characters over science. As for science, I agree that it really just needs to be consitent. I also think the type of show is important. I think it's okay to get away with bad science more in a show like "Star Trek" than "Fringe." Once your dealing with aliens and space anomolies and whatnot you can get away more unrealsitc stuff because the universe itself is basically unrealistic.
Jason
Jason
Nope. You CAN have both. Because one doesn't have to preclude the other.
You can have good characters, good action, AND good science.
Case and Point, out of the blue: Apollo 13.
And I'm saying this only to be an asshole, but Apollo 13 actually happened. Because it actually happened, they could base the science in the movie off of the science from the real life story.
That is harder to do when you're creating a brand new work of fiction in what is usually a more fantastical universe.
Yes, I know Apollo 13 really happened, obviously, but it shows how your science can be "realistic" AND you can have good characters.
One doesn't have to eliminate the other.
It's possible for the "science" in a movie to be as realistic as possible AND to have good characters. The two have nothing to do with one another and neither eliminates the possibility of the other.
Well, yeah, I definitely agree with you there.
But I would imagine it is a lot easier to write good characters than it is good science, especially depending on the type of universe in which your story takes place.
Well, every movie doesn't have to have perfect science. Even Apollo 13 internationally did things wrong so it made sense to the audience less familliar with science (for example, they had the Apollo craft do a correcting burn at one point to prevent them from "skipping off the atmosphere" in the real world they did the burn AWAY from the planet (as this would slow them down) in the movie they rocket TOWARD the planet -which would only make their problem worse in the real world.
You don't have to have a PhD to have good science just five minutes and Google. At least put forth an effort to show you tried and if you MUST break science to make your story work then you need to properly suspend disbelief.
You don't have to have a PhD to have good science just five minutes and Google. At least put forth an effort to show you tried and if you MUST break science to make your story work then you need to properly suspend disbelief.
Entertaining characters and a good sotry will get you past bad science more than good science will get you past boring characters and a lame story.
In other words you can tell me the most ridiculously implausible scientifically inaccurate story you want, as long as I am being amused or entertained. When i watch sci-fi I'm not looking for an education. That's what the Discovery Channel is for.
Bonus points if you can tell a scientifically accurate story which is also fun and entertaining, though.
In other words you can tell me the most ridiculously implausible scientifically inaccurate story you want, as long as I am being amused or entertained. When i watch sci-fi I'm not looking for an education. That's what the Discovery Channel is for.
Bonus points if you can tell a scientifically accurate story which is also fun and entertaining, though.
Science knowledge and assumptions change with time. Good characterization doesn't.
Characters, hands down, as long as the science is cartoony bad (Armageddon, anyone?).
Characters, hands down, as long as the science is cartoony bad (Armageddon, anyone?).
Good characters definately. Without them, a sci-fi book becomes nothing more than a glorified textbook. I also place plot far above realistic science. If ignoring a basic rule of physics to tell a good story is necessary then by all means do so.
I'm sorry, what???? The universe is unrealistic? No. The universe is a real, physical place. It obeys the same rules everywhere. We have a good understanding of those rules, and a good understanding of what a lot of other places in the universe are like. Doing the basic research to depict Mars or Titan or Alpha Centauri or the center of the galaxy in a manner consistent with known science is no different from doing the basic research to depict Paris or Tokyo authentically. Same with aliens. They'd follow the same laws of physics, chemistry, mechanics, thermodynamics, and natural selection as life on Earth, and it's possible to postulate aliens that are completely consistent with known science. I know because it's what I do for a living. It's no different from researching architecture and construction techniques before writing a novel about the construction of the new tallest building in the world. It's just a matter of gathering what we know and applying it intelligently to a hypothetical scenario. It's just a matter of being a conscientious enough writer to do your legwork before putting words to paper.
Indeed, I think you have it backward: the more removed from everyday reality your scenario is, the more important it is to develop it credibly and consistently in order to overcome the audience's suspension of disbelief. Too many TV and movie writers use a fanciful setting as an excuse to abandon basic standards of good writing, to skimp on the research and just make up random crap. That's just being lazy. And it's giving the audience too little credit, assuming they'll be too ignorant to know the difference.
Not really. Science isn't just specific facts. It's a model for how the universe works as a whole. The whole point of science is to extrapolate beyond the facts on the ground, to construct a systematic understanding of why those facts are the way they are, and to use that understanding to make testable predictions beyond the known facts and find your way to new facts and new understandings.
So if you understand science, you're not limited to the known and the real. It opens up endless possibilities beyond the known, makes it easy to extrapolate into the unknown and make informed conjectures about future discoveries and advances. That's why so many real discoveries and technological advances over the past century have been anticipated, at least approximately, by science fiction writers.
Even if you're constructing a more fanciful universe, scientific thinking can help. Because you can take a few basic ground rules and extrapolate their logical consequences, build a coherent framework that helps you understand how that fanciful universe works and what the possibilities are within it. If you're just making up random stuff as you go, that's hard, because there's no connective tissue, no logical progressions leading you from an initial idea to its many ramifications.
Not to mention other intentional errors, such as changing Jim Lovell's line "Houston, we've had a problem" to "Houston, we have a problem." Which I guess the filmmakers thought sounded more urgent or something.
^But such a central line, one that became the film's tagline, would have been heavily scrutinized. I doubt it would've been a random error. Unless Hanks flubbed the line and they were running too late in the schedule to reshoot it or something.
Characters are the show. Even if the show is considered plot-driven, we have to care about the characters and what they're doing.
Now considering that this is a board where one poster said the new Star Trek movie would be completely ruined for him if Gary Mitchell wasn't in it, I expect more than a few "science should be 100% accurate in all situations" responses.
Now considering that this is a board where one poster said the new Star Trek movie would be completely ruined for him if Gary Mitchell wasn't in it, I expect more than a few "science should be 100% accurate in all situations" responses.
3D Master
Rear Admiral
Both.
If you have bad characters, no amount of good science will save the story.
However, in the same vein, if you have truly bad science, no amount of good characters are going to save the story either. If you roll your eyes, or even outright laugh at the science, or just sit their hating the bullshit that goes for science, you're so far out the story, the characters are screwed.
Case in point: Signs. Aliens come to a world that's essentially two thirds acid and it comes falling out of the sky; and they go there naked. The rest of the movie was also shit, but even if it was good and the characters were good; me laughing out loud in the cinema at the idiocy of aliens coming down to a planet where acid falls regularly from the sky naked, would have ended the movie right then and there.
You know, "We've had a problem" just sounds wrong. If I were sitting in Houston and the astronauts told me that, my reaction would be, after yawning and comfortably leaning back, "Oh, and? You know, you could have contacted us when you still had a problem. We could have helped solving it you know. What was the problem and how did you solve it anyway?"
If you have bad characters, no amount of good science will save the story.
However, in the same vein, if you have truly bad science, no amount of good characters are going to save the story either. If you roll your eyes, or even outright laugh at the science, or just sit their hating the bullshit that goes for science, you're so far out the story, the characters are screwed.
Case in point: Signs. Aliens come to a world that's essentially two thirds acid and it comes falling out of the sky; and they go there naked. The rest of the movie was also shit, but even if it was good and the characters were good; me laughing out loud in the cinema at the idiocy of aliens coming down to a planet where acid falls regularly from the sky naked, would have ended the movie right then and there.
You know, "We've had a problem" just sounds wrong. If I were sitting in Houston and the astronauts told me that, my reaction would be, after yawning and comfortably leaning back, "Oh, and? You know, you could have contacted us when you still had a problem. We could have helped solving it you know. What was the problem and how did you solve it anyway?"
Thank you. That's very well-said. Everyone's quoting the conventional wisdom that characters are the most important thing, and they pretty much are, but that doesn't mean the plot, setting, and theme can be approached negligently. Characters exist within a world and their actions and decisions are affected by it. So if the world isn't believable, it undermines the believability of the characters. Ergo, if you want the character story to be strong, it's incumbent upon you to make the world your characters occupy as solid and believable as possible so that it doesn't distract from the characters.
What you said about Signs goes even more strongly for Heroes. True, the character work in Volume 3 was dreadful, but that incredibly idiotic episode where the eclipse was happening all over the world simultaneously and lasted for hours, not to mention the total retcon claiming that the eclipses gave and removed powers even though virtually all the characters in the pilot already had their powers before the first eclipse, so totally destroyed the credibility of the story that it would've dragged me completely out of it even if the character work had been worthwhile. I would've been too busy screaming "ECLIPSES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!" at the screen to pay much attention to the character drama.
Except it's not wrong, because it's what Jim Lovell actually said to Mission Control on that day in 1970, and Mission Control understood exactly what they meant.
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/AS13_TEC.PDF
And what you're describing would be "We had a problem." "We have had a problem" describes an ongoing situation, not a concluded one. It means "A problem has occurred and its effects are still unresolved."
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Yeah, IIRC in the real world after the tank burst they radioed Houston and said "We've had a problem." -the explosion. They HAD a problem and now were going to damage control on it. They didn't know at that point they had an ongoing problem.
It's very likely in the movie Howard -who did a great directing job in the movie, I feel- changed the line for two reasons, 1 it makes more sense to the audience that they "have" a problem. It's an ongoing concern.
And, also, it's "more marketable."
It's very likely in the movie Howard -who did a great directing job in the movie, I feel- changed the line for two reasons, 1 it makes more sense to the audience that they "have" a problem. It's an ongoing concern.
And, also, it's "more marketable."
Shit, acid falls from the sky and the planet is 75% acid in liquid form, but not even that this "acid" permeates our planet so much it's in vapor form in our very atmosphere! Just walking around naked on our planet should've killed them.
I had a similar problem with Alien Nation, where seawater (but not fresh water) affected the Newcomers like acid. The chemistry inside the cells of terrestrial life is essentially the same as that of seawater; basically aquatic life evolved the ability to take the ocean with it when it went onto land. So eating the meat of Earth animals, which Newcomers were shown to do regularly, should've killed them. Not to mention human perspiration. There was an episode of the series where George was playing basketball with his human colleagues, and I kept wondering why their sweat on the ball didn't burn his hands.
But that was definitely a show where one could forgive the screwy science, because it was such an intelligent exploration of the aliens as a culture and as an allegory for exploring human nature. Signs, not so much.
But that was definitely a show where one could forgive the screwy science, because it was such an intelligent exploration of the aliens as a culture and as an allegory for exploring human nature. Signs, not so much.
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