Spoilers What are your unpopular Sci-Fi & Fantasy Opinions?
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I like all the Star Trek series.
You are not of The Body!!!
Yeah. Again, it's a good show. Joss Whedon's comedy writing is just as sharp here as it was on Buffy & Angel. But where Firefly fails to resonate for me is that it's not really about anything relatable. Buffy has the obvious "High school is hell" metaphor. Angel is always struggling with various existential crises and his vampirism could be seen as a metaphor for alcoholism. Firefly seemed to be more about the external world building rather than drawing parallels to real life. That's not a bad thing but it does make it a lesser show compared to the other two. And that wouldn't bother me as much except that I have a lot of friends who are huge Firefly fans who refuse to even give Buffy/Angel a chance because they don't like vampires. I'm not much of a horror guy myself but good writing is good writing.
Alternate history should not be classified as science fiction.
I agree. Has there been any attempt to name that type of genre? What about something like The Handmaid's Tail? Definitely not science fiction, and it could be called "alternate history" but it's more like "alternate present." I'm curious as to how people classify stuff like that.
I think that it is an unpopular opinion. Lately, I've been running into loads of people who won't quit talking about how much they love Donna, even to the point where she got her own fan panel at Phoenix ComicCon a couple years ago despite the fact that she left the show a decade ago! Personally, I like Donna but that has less to do with the character and more to do with my residual good will towards the actress thanks to The Catherine Tate Show. (Also, I met Catherine Tate last year and she was very sweet and friendly.)
Yeah, Catherine Tate is fine in other roles, but Donna was terrible--always needy, never serving a true, independent purpose other than convenient writer shoehorning to make her "the most important" woman in the universe, when her original character profile was just wanting to get away from her boring life.
Rose's fate was only a tragedy because she was separated from the Doctor. Given that I can't stand that romance, cry me a River! (Pun intended.)
Yeah...ugh. The constant chasing after the Doctor's affections made her appearances during the Tennant period as pleasant an experience as root canal. ..and the way the showrunners seemed to think she would be endearing after the way she disregarded / trampled all over Mickey's relationship with her, so she could explore her "better option"/fan-girling? That made her one of the worst companions.
Yes, but Martha--unlike Rose and Donna--was highly intelligent, resourceful and did not have to cry "Doctor" every other minute; from being a medical student to eventually joining UNIT, she was her own woman--not someone exclusively living to be romantically involved with the Doctor (Rose), or chasing after him to give excitement and meaning to her mundane existence (Donna). Martha deciding to leave the Doctor was a bod character move--she actually weaned herself off of him, and did not leave in a pool of tears against her will (we know who did that), ready to move on with a life full of potential. She is easily one of the best DW companions in franchise history.
I like the SW Special Editions.
Also I never really cared for nuBSG. I prefer the original. (I'm not one of those GINO types, though.
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Also I never really cared for nuBSG. I prefer the original. (I'm not one of those GINO types, though.
)
The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in the “Immediate future”. The day after tomorrow. Dystopian SF.
I do as well.I like the SW Special Editions.
Also I never really cared for nuBSG. I prefer the original. (I'm not one of those GINO types, though.
As for BSG, the only thing that appealed was the designs of uniforms and ships. The rest was too depressing.
In that case, on the plus side, Donna rarely got any episodes where she got to be the sole companion. Of the 13 episodes in Season 4, she really only got 4 of them to herself ("Partners in Crime," "The Fires of Pompeii," "Planet of the Ood," "The Unicorn & the Wasp"). The rest of the time, she had to share screentime with someone else, either Martha ("The Sontaran Strategem," "The Poison Sky," "The Doctor's Daughter"), Rose ("Turn Left"), River ("Silence in the Library," "Forest of the Dead"), or everybody ("The Stolen Earth," "Journey's End"). The only other time when there wasn't another companion competing for attention was in "Midnight," where Donna only makes brief token appearances while the bulk of the story is about the Doctor trapped on an alien tour bus with a bunch of strangers.
Out of all of the characters during the Eccleston/Tennant years, Mickey was the one that I most related to. So it bothered me that Rose & the Doctor treated him so badly. When Rose started to get a bit jealous about the Doctor's feelings for Madame duPompadour in "The Girl in the Fireplace," I just thought, "Serves you right!"
I think that's part of the reason why I prefer Matt Smith's Doctor. When he saw that Amy was going to cheat on her fiancé on the night before her wedding in order to indulge her childhood crush on the Doctor, he immediately started bringing Rory along in order to head off a repeat of the whole Rose/Mickey situation.
Depends on how the history is alternate. Is it just exploring a different but plausible sequence of events? Or is there time travel involved or something? IIRC, one of the big alternate history series involves time traveling Neo-Nazis going back and giving AK-47s to the Confederacy. There's another set during the 1940s where both the Allies & Axis powers have to put aside their differences and make an alliance to repel an alien invasion. (It had a really cool cover where Churchill, Hitler, et al were gathered around a conference table strategizing together.
)I think that the technical term is "speculative fiction." It's a broad umbrella that covers any story that depicts a world different from our own. "Science fiction" is a subset of that, depicting a world changed by scientific advances that we don't have yet. But when it's less technological and more about alternate social developments, then it's just speculative fiction, not sci-fi. Some examples include V for Vendetta, The Book of Eli, and the Mad Max series. (Be honest, we have enough weapons that we could totally desolate the planet to Mad Max levels if we wanted to.)
Next Sunday A.D.?
(Those handmaids got off easy. At least they weren't kidnapped by some mad scientists, sent into space, and forced to watch bad movies.)
The page and the stage may be a different matters, but Rowling's Wizarding World movies will probably never work unless the protagonists are kids, because waving sticks and yelling faux Latin (or just grimacing) as CG light flares is inherently silly. Also, the basic conceit of the franchise - wizards hiding from the general public that's far weaker than they are - has nowhere to go except Light Side vs. Dark Side stuff. It can't pull a Mandalorian and tell an unimportant side story, because the status quo is too dang orderly. On the screen, at least, it's a creative dead end.
Indeed. This is my preferred term for the genre.
When I first saw it in theaters, I really liked Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them. I would have even gone so far as to say that it was my favorite movie in the Wizarding World. I especially loved Queenie & Jacob. But when I rewatched it recently, I just didn't feel any of the spark that I did the first time. Not sure why.
OTOH, The Crimes of Gindlewald is just shite. (This is probably my most popular opinion. )
OTOH, The Crimes of Gindlewald is just shite. (This is probably my most popular opinion.
)
By "alternate history" I was more referring to stories that feature an alternate version of the past, which IMO, would be more appropriately classified as historical fiction than science fiction.
As a huge fan of urban fantasy, I've gotta disagree very, very strong. Some of my favorite TV and book series wizards (and vampire, werewolves, fae, ect.) hiding from the general public.
Hell, my own story that I've been working on the for the last few years involves that very thing, and in my early brainstorming sessions I came up with basic plots for at least eight or nine story. The Dresden Files has released 15 books so far, with a 16th coming later this month, out of a planned 25.
On the TV front Buff and Angel have gotten 245 episodes out of the concept, and the Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and Legacies have gotten 295 and counting.
And all of these have been more than just Light Side vs Dark Side, so I'd say it's definitely not a "creative dead end".
I’m a huge fan of Buffy, but when you run those kinds of shows where it gets less and less plausible the general population doesn’t know what’s going on.
And the justification for a single super strong human being better at fighting monsters than an organized group with the backing of all the government’s resources gets thinner and thinner the longer you go.
It works when it’s as well written as Buffy, but it is still irksome when you have to constantly ask “How did this job fall to a bunch of high schoolers?!”
A single slayer can keep the vampire population down, but you’d prevent even more deaths by letting people know they exist, arming everyone with holy water guns and crosses, and bringing in a trained and funded team to patrol.
That core conceit of urban fantasy can be ignored if it’s as good as Buffy, but if it’s not, really breaks the immersive ness and believability of the world.
And the justification for a single super strong human being better at fighting monsters than an organized group with the backing of all the government’s resources gets thinner and thinner the longer you go.
It works when it’s as well written as Buffy, but it is still irksome when you have to constantly ask “How did this job fall to a bunch of high schoolers?!”
A single slayer can keep the vampire population down, but you’d prevent even more deaths by letting people know they exist, arming everyone with holy water guns and crosses, and bringing in a trained and funded team to patrol.
That core conceit of urban fantasy can be ignored if it’s as good as Buffy, but if it’s not, really breaks the immersive ness and believability of the world.
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Kinda like how, much as I enjoyed the first Fantastic Beasts movie, the whole concept of Fantastic Beasts is nonsense. They're animals. How would they have the wherewithal to keep themselves hidden from the Muggle world? Indeed, one of the key plot points is how the niffler is constantly in danger of exposing everything because it can't stop itself from stealing stuff. If these animals really existed, their existence would be well known because they would inevitably bumble their way into the path of nearby Muggles without the constant active intervention of wizards to keep them hidden.
The only way that this makes sense is if they're so rare and only came into existence very recently. Perhaps, a thousand years ago, a wizard was experimenting with various animals and created whole races of magical creatures. The other wizards tried to keep the existence of them under wraps but a few would occasionally escape and make their way into the local ecosystem.
The only way that this makes sense is if they're so rare and only came into existence very recently. Perhaps, a thousand years ago, a wizard was experimenting with various animals and created whole races of magical creatures. The other wizards tried to keep the existence of them under wraps but a few would occasionally escape and make their way into the local ecosystem.