Modern sci-fi vs classic sci-fi shows

[Christopher]

Did you watch any pre-Star Wars 70's sci fi movies? They aren't exactly full of unicorns and roses.

Quite so. The '70s were a very dystopian time for sci-fi movies. Star Wars totally reset the board and redefined the "default" SF/fantasy/space opera movie as a lightweight, kid-friendly fantasy adventure with lots of action and visual effects. There were many critics and fans at the time who despised Lucas's and Spielberg's films for their dumbing-down influence on screen SF. Although in retrospect, they deserve credit for bringing back some fun and optimism, even if it's the kind of superficial optimism based on the good guys winning by killing as many bad guys as possible.

 

[Kor]

Did you watch any pre-Star Wars 70's sci fi movies? They aren't exactly full of unicorns and roses.

And yet, that was immensely more entertaining than today's grimdark movies.

Kor

 

[Christopher]

And yet, that was immensely more entertaining than today's grimdark movies.

That's just the recency illusion again. There's always the same mix of good movies and bad movies -- as Sturgeon's Law says, 90% of everything is garbage. But the bad and mediocre movies are mostly forgotten, so when we think of the past, we only think of the few good movies that stood out from the forgettable mass. So that creates the false perception that there were fewer bad movies in the past. All you have to do is watch some Mystery Science Theater 3000 to debunk that perception.

 

[Kor]

That's just the recency illusion again. There's always the same mix of good movies and bad movies -- as Sturgeon's Law says, 90% of everything is garbage. But the bad and mediocre movies are mostly forgotten, so when we think of the past, we only think of the few good movies that stood out from the forgettable mass. So that creates the false perception that there were fewer bad movies in the past. All you have to do is watch some Mystery Science Theater 3000 to debunk that perception.

I actually enjoy many of the movies that have been used for MST3K fodder, purely on their own merit and without the MSTK3 commentary. I adore '50s B-movies. I find that even truly bad movies of decades ago were fun and entertaining. Today, when a movie is bad, it's just bad.

Kor

 

[Christopher]

I find that even truly bad movies of decades ago were fun and entertaining. Today, when a movie is bad, it's just bad.

And every generation of moviegoers before you has been just as convinced of the exact same thing. Humans are far more predictable than we like to think we are. You can find writings going back millennia of people lamenting that this generation's theater or epic poetry or whatever is hopelessly degenerated from the stuff they grew up with.

 

[Marsden]

Cheap bad when people were really trying without resources compared to big buget bad where everyone was just lining their pockets. I'm not saying every old movie was made with dedication and every new movie is terrible but there's more cash incentive today to just put something out.

 

[Christopher]

Cheap bad when people were really trying without resources compared to big buget bad where everyone was just lining their pockets.

I think there have always been expensive bad movies where people were lining their pockets; they just weren't usually SF/fantasy movies in the past. They were more likely to have been musicals or costume dramas or Westerns or all-star disaster epics or the like. The only real difference today is that SF/F is mainstream now rather than a ghettoized niche.

 

[Phoenix219]

Which 70s cop shows are you referring to?

 

[Marc]

For me Batman is where I first was really irritated by it. There is no need for Batman to be so overly gritty, I find it ruins my suspension of disbelief, I'm happy to swallow the ridiculous premise as long as it's allowed to be entertaining. The content in those films is ludicrous. Shot differently it could be an old school campy bit of nonsense. (Batman buying a hotel to swim in the pool. Gun getting into the courtroom "If you wanna kill a public servant, I suggest you buy American.) Come on, it's so, so stupid and OTT, crack a smile for God's sake.

The origin of Batman is a 10yr old kid seeing both his parents murdered and he fights villains like the Joker who have killed hundreds of people and living in a city where corruption is a part of life?

How can it not be dark and gritty?

Sure you can write the main character in a different way but at the end of the day the material isn't exactly rainbows and unicorn farts.

 

[Boomstick]

The origin of Batman is a 10yr old kid seeing both his parents murdered and he fights villains like the Joker who have killed hundreds of people and living in a city where corruption is a part of life?

How can it not be dark and gritty?

Sure you can write the main character in a different way but at the end of the day the material isn't exactly rainbows and unicorn farts.

Serious subjects don't have to be presented in a serious way. Nor does a film in which the protagonist became an orphan after his parents are murdered need to be 100% po-faced throughout it's runtime. It could well contain rainbows and unicorn farts if the writer so wished.
The proof is in the pudding, look at more or less every other big screen depiction of Batman.

And Batman was only originally brought up as an example of an observable trend. Grave of the Fireflies isn't dark and gritty at all and is full of moments of humour, and it's one of the saddest depictions of WWII Japan I have ever seen, it's content is much more serious than Batman.

 

[Christopher]

The origin of Batman is a 10yr old kid seeing both his parents murdered and he fights villains like the Joker who have killed hundreds of people and living in a city where corruption is a part of life?

How can it not be dark and gritty?

Well, for one thing, the Joker didn't become a mass murderer on the scale of hundreds until The Dark Knight Returns and after, aside from one early-'40s story where he suborned various Gothamite "practical jokers" to commit more and more extreme pranks until they had death tolls in the dozens or hundreds (e.g. switching medicine for poison or arranging for passenger-train crashes). But his own personal death toll was usually in the single digits per story. After the first few years, he was toned down to a colorful thief, essentially the version of the character Cesar Romero played. In the '70s, they started making him a killer again, but again in the single digits. The mass murders in TDKR were meant to be an escalation beyond anything he'd done before, though later creators missed the point of TDKR and made that his default level of violence.

And the "corruption as part of life" angle was also introduced by Frank Miller, in Batman: Year One -- which basically swiped the Green Hornet's backstory (rich vigilante fighting racketeers as an outlaw with a single police ally because the rest of the police and government were too corrupt) and grafted it onto Batman. Before then, Gotham's institutions were generally portrayed as legitimate and respectable. If anything, in the '40s, there was more institutional corruption portrayed in Superman comics and radio adventures than in Batman comics, because Siegel & Shuster were more interested in speaking out for social justice, as were the writers of the Superman radio series.

Just in general, there's no reason why a dark origin requires a dark story. Superman's origin story is deeply tragic and horrible, yet it inspired him to become a great symbol of hope. The same goes for Batman -- he was inspired by his parents' murder to become a force for good and justice, fighting to protect innocent people from having to endure the same loss he did. The fact that Robin turns out so upbeat and positive despite having the same tragic experience as Bruce is a testament to the beneficial effect of Batman's efforts to help other victims of crime.

 

[Timewalker]

I find this inability to remember character names in new TV intriguing, perhaps it's not the quality of TV writing that's dropped off, but the attention span of the viewers, do you find yourself getting distracted by the internet when watching tv now more than you did 20 years ago?

It's probably both. I can't name all the main characters of Enterprise. It wasn't until the recent finale of Survivor that I learned all the names of the contestants who took part.

 

[The Realist]

For me Batman is where I first was really irritated by it.

My personal poster child for the tedious modern grimdark trend is James Bond. The Craig-era movies have taken a fun, exciting, colorful character -- the personification of politically incorrect male wish fulfillment -- and turned him into a miserable, joyless thug.

For me, Blofeld's line in the last film -- "James, I am the author of all your pain" -- is emblematic of how off-course the current movies have gone. If you said that line to Connery's Bond, he would look behind him to see who you were talking to. Certainly not him -- Bond, after all, is King Shit and loving every minute of it, and the last character in the world to be defined by his personal "pain."

(And before anybody says it: Yes, yes, Fleming, I know. And I don't care. The books are great, but the cinematic Bond has been his own thing for a very long time now.)

 

[Boomstick]

My personal poster child for the tedious modern grimdark trend is James Bond. The Craig-era movies have taken a fun, exciting, colorful character -- the personification of politically incorrect male wish fulfillment -- and turned him into a miserable, joyless thug.

For me, Blofeld's line in the last film -- "James, I am the author of all your pain" -- is emblematic of how off-course the current movies have gone. If you said that line to Connery's Bond, he would look behind him to see who you were talking to. Certainly not him -- Bond, after all, is King Shit and loving every minute of it, and the last character in the world to be defined by his personal "pain."

(And before anybody says it: Yes, yes, Fleming, I know. And I don't care. The books are great, but the cinematic Bond has been his own thing for a very long time now.)

I agree with this. I remember enjoying Casino Royale at the cinema, but I've never really gone back to it, and the Craig follow-ups have been somewhat lackluster.
Although I will say the two Timothy Dalton Bonds were quite dark, especially when contrasted to the hyper-campy end of the Roger Moore era, but I really enjoyed those. They're a lot better than the arguably more fun Pierce Brosnan's, outside of maybe Goldeneye.

 

[The Realist]

Although I will say the two Timothy Dalton Bonds were quite dark, especially when contrasted to the hyper-campy end of the Roger Moore era, but I really enjoyed those.

Despite what I wrote above, Dalton is perhaps my favorite Bond. (My head says Connery, my heart says Dalton.) The thing is, Dalton's angst and anger is applied as seasoning, a touch of new flavor to the classic Bond character. (In The Living Daylights, he also gives us Bond as romantic hero, to a greater degree than any of the other films save maybe OHMSS.) Craig's stone-faced, perpetually sullen interpretation makes misery the whole meal.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Although I will say the two Timothy Dalton Bonds were quite dark, especially when contrasted to the hyper-campy end of the Roger Moore era, but I really enjoyed those. They're a lot better than the arguably more fun Pierce Brosnan's, outside of maybe Goldeneye.

Well, yeah, especially Licence to Kill, obviously.

But I have to say that The Living Daylights has campy elements in it. Entering Austria on the cello case, for example. The shenanigans with the key chain are arguably another (cat call? really??).

Still, both were improvements over most of the Moore Bonds.

 

[Tuvix5675]

I wonder where the line is being drawn here between classic sci-fi tv and the modern era, Enterprise wasn't that long ago and it was basically the same structure as Star Trek: TOS and TNG, except better visual effects.
I would say what defines the modern era is viewers' habits brought about by tech like Tivo, DVR, on Demand internet video streaming, not how characters are written.
However, I do think Cable TV and internet streaming services have contributed in giving us higher quality, more adult oriented series compared with Network television (ABC,NBC, FOX,CBS) of yesteryear.

 

[tomswift2002]

However, I do think Cable TV and internet streaming services have contributed in giving us higher quality, more adult oriented series compared with Network television (ABC,NBC, FOX,CBS) of yesteryear.

What you might consider “higher quality, more adult oriented series” could also be considered more easily-accessible R-rated porn by others. I’ve seen some of those shows like “Boardwalk Empire” and “Rome”, and while the premise is interesting, when viewed the scenes of full blown sex and cursing just turns me off, and others that I know are turned off as well. And yet similar shows and movies from the past that did not feature foul language and sex did just the same for entertainment.

 

[JD]

I don't mind some sex and nudity and stuff like that, but some of the HBO/Starz/Showtime shows do go a bit overboard at times. Game of Thrones is probably one of the biggest offenders right now, and Spartacus definitely got carried away at times too.
I've watched quite a few of the shows from those networks, and those are only two that really got on my nerves at times.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

Babylon 5 is classic Sc-Fi? Damn,I'm old.

It's been 30 years, I think.