I am Killing Science Fiction
January 15, 2008
By: 
rollerkaty
Category: Science Fiction
It’s no secret that I’m somewhat intrigued with the science fiction genre. SciFi movies, books, television shows, action figures, the occasional wall calendar… you get the picture.
(This is actually a new obsession for me - five years ago I devoured mystery novels like they were made out of dark chocolate. Maybe in a few years from now I’ll be on to bodice-ripping romance novels - who knows?).
Thus it was with great interest that I read a recent article in Entertainment Weekly by Mark Harris entitled “Is Sci-Fi Out of Ideas?”
In the article, Harris worries that science fiction is in trouble, because none of the ideas are getting any newer. In fact, the fans of SciFi are so caught up in nostalgia over the past that they are in effect causing the demise of the genre. Harris states:
It’s one thing to revere and refresh a genre’s history; it’s another to live obsessively in the past, especially if science fiction’s whole purpose is to extrapolate elements from today’s world to create a future we’ve never imagined…Perhaps science fiction needs to be saved from the very people who love it the most. Nostalgia for a form can be annihilating to creativity, so while its devotees are swamped in their own canon, trying to mine now-sacred texts for any new material, I wish a great writer or director with no particular affection for the genre would let his imagination loose and see what it yields.
That gave me pause, as I suppose I could be considered a culprit of perpetuating the cult of nostalgia. I don’t disagree that it would be cool to see some brand-spanking new ideas in the genre. But in the meantime I’m going to go on ahead and obsess about the utterly silly, ridiculously tacky, and outrageously weird SciFi from the past.
Because, really, how can we truly appreciate the future until we are fully acquainted with our past? Especially when the past is so much fun?
Tags Science Fiction . Entertainment Weekly
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January 15th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
All that article does is focus on Hollywood and scifi. OF course it’s from EW which is to be expected.
Hollywood doesn’t make movies they make products. If it really was about entertainment they wouldn’t have tacked on the BG name to a show that could have succeeded without it.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:35 am
Good point, Chris
January 16th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I love your blog. My favorite type of music is the 70’s.
Thanks for stopping by my site!
January 16th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Thanks for your comment, Kim - I keep discovering new bands from the seventies every day
January 16th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
SciFi has traditionally been a genre where concept trumps all else, thus much of the silliness that you rightly associate with it. Then, in the sixties, the house of SciFi got a round thrashing by the likes of Samuel Delaney (introducing gender issues, linguistic excursions), JG Ballard (taking inspiration from the Beats and the avante garde resurgence in France), and Stanislaw Lem (layering spirituality against cosmic absurdity and flights of philosophic wonder).
The later cyberpunk movement, for all its attitude, was really a step backwards for the form, and from which SciFi has yet to recover. Not to say there isn’t some greatness still being created…
Watch the movie Primer, an enjoyable and engaging SciFi movie. Donnie Darko is a wonderful twist on SciFi weirdness. Children of Men is the best example of how the genre is alive and well. The greats are few and far between, it is true, but that’s generally the case whatever time period you happen to live in.
Lost is a great SciFi soap opera, as is Battlestar Galactica.
Sorry, I could go on and on…
January 17th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Love Donnie Darko, Children of Men, and Lost. But can you believe I’ve never seen Battlestar Galactica? I’ll have to remedy that…
January 17th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I don’t believe you’ve never seen BSG. I refuse to believe it!