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Wed, Jul. 14th, 2004 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterThoughts sparked by the discussion on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kijjohnson's LJ on that old sci-fi versus fantasy thing, as well as I, Robot the movie versus Asimov books.
I was reading an NYTimes article on the I, Robot movie, which mainly discusses how the movie goes through the old action movie evil artificial intelligence out to conquer the world schtick, rather than staying with Asimov's usually peaceful and rather logical robots. (one reason why I'm not going to see the movie -- sure, make an evil robot movie, but why refer to Asimov if one is not going to stick with Asimov?)
I wonder why sci-fi is generally thought of as forward looking. Granted, there's that whole future thing, but haven't lots of papers been written about how sci-fi generally reflects the fears and concerns of the time the book or story was written? I always think of sci-fi as more now-oriented than future oriented, because so much of it is extrapolation of present day problems. In part, people laud sci-fi for being good social commentary, and isn't that by definition very firmly in the present day? Also, I don't think social commentary is limited to the futuristic setting, although in general, sci-fi seems to have been more engaged with the socio-political than fantasy. But I'd say Harry Potter does do a good deal of social commentary as well, despite the pseudo-medieval wizarding world setting. And from the commentary I've seen on Laurie J. Marks' Fire Logic, it deals very much with issues like war and its broad impact on society and on individuals.
Also, I wonder why this argument always pops up, or seems to? I mean, who cares if something is backwards looking? I don't understand -- do the sci-fi supporters disregard historical fiction as well? Obviously I am biased, since I am mainly a fantasy fan and have read little golden age sci-fi. I usually only read sci-fi if it comes highly recommended because I'm mostly interested in interiority and in character. I don't know. I just think it's a rather silly argument, given that a lot of the speculative elements in sci-fi can be given a fantasy spin (immortality, alien life forms/races, religious governments, etc.) by just switching the "scientific" rationale to a magical one (i.e. Asimov's psychohistory or whatever it's called vs. Card's idea of torches and reading heartfires).
The clinging to the social commentary thing is what gets me the most. I feel that if a book has something to say on the human condition, it doesn't really matter how forward or backward looking it is.
kijjohnson's LJ on that old sci-fi versus fantasy thing, as well as I, Robot the movie versus Asimov books.I was reading an NYTimes article on the I, Robot movie, which mainly discusses how the movie goes through the old action movie evil artificial intelligence out to conquer the world schtick, rather than staying with Asimov's usually peaceful and rather logical robots. (one reason why I'm not going to see the movie -- sure, make an evil robot movie, but why refer to Asimov if one is not going to stick with Asimov?)
I wonder why sci-fi is generally thought of as forward looking. Granted, there's that whole future thing, but haven't lots of papers been written about how sci-fi generally reflects the fears and concerns of the time the book or story was written? I always think of sci-fi as more now-oriented than future oriented, because so much of it is extrapolation of present day problems. In part, people laud sci-fi for being good social commentary, and isn't that by definition very firmly in the present day? Also, I don't think social commentary is limited to the futuristic setting, although in general, sci-fi seems to have been more engaged with the socio-political than fantasy. But I'd say Harry Potter does do a good deal of social commentary as well, despite the pseudo-medieval wizarding world setting. And from the commentary I've seen on Laurie J. Marks' Fire Logic, it deals very much with issues like war and its broad impact on society and on individuals.
Also, I wonder why this argument always pops up, or seems to? I mean, who cares if something is backwards looking? I don't understand -- do the sci-fi supporters disregard historical fiction as well? Obviously I am biased, since I am mainly a fantasy fan and have read little golden age sci-fi. I usually only read sci-fi if it comes highly recommended because I'm mostly interested in interiority and in character. I don't know. I just think it's a rather silly argument, given that a lot of the speculative elements in sci-fi can be given a fantasy spin (immortality, alien life forms/races, religious governments, etc.) by just switching the "scientific" rationale to a magical one (i.e. Asimov's psychohistory or whatever it's called vs. Card's idea of torches and reading heartfires).
The clinging to the social commentary thing is what gets me the most. I feel that if a book has something to say on the human condition, it doesn't really matter how forward or backward looking it is.
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Wed, Jul. 14th, 2004 06:07 pm (UTC)This month's Wired magazine has two articles about I, Robot - one about Asimov's legacy and the other about Will Smith. I was alternately amused and irked by the former article, as it described the Asimovian robot (even used the story about Robby the robot as an example) ideal and then wet itself about how fabulous the movie's going to be. And yet, the previews for the movie have all be of the Evil Robots try to conquer the world/only one guy, our plucky hero, doesn't trust them/the Evil Robots try to kill him! variety. If that made sense.
The other article, about WS - very lame. Wired's totally pandering to the non-techy audience these days.
(no subject)
Wed, Jul. 14th, 2004 06:44 pm (UTC)Come to think of it, it's funny how reactionary a lot of the sci-fi action movies are.
Part of the reason I stopped reading a lot of sci-fi was because there were so many dystopian futures. Me, I like technology and the internet and everything. I think there was an interesting article posted on [Unknown site tag] a while back on how sci-fi is losing the teenage audience because of the dystopian, things-were-better-back-then bent.