Tired Sci-Fi Tropes That Must Be Retired!

POSTED BY: cljohnston108
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 16:47
VIEWED: 10267
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CLJOHNSTON108

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 2:51 PM

Just found this blog posting, and I really liked how Firefly was frequently mentioned as the antidote!
(Actually, the replies provided more "food for thought" than the article did (for me, anyway)!)

Tired Sci-Fi Tropes That Must Be Retired!
http://www.ggl.com/kunochan/2006/09/tired-sci-fi-tropes-that-must-be.h
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"Spry for a dead fella!"

SHINYED

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 3:52 PM

I read it & found it very enjoyable...thanks for posting it!

DONCOAT

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 5:36 PM

I can't get to that site from here, so I'll have to check it out later.

In the meantime, not having seen his list, here are a few I'd put on it:

- solving every problem by reversing the polarity of the deflector array (or more generally, Treknobabble).

- bumpy-headed humanoid aliens.

- aliens that all seem to be at exactly our technological level.

- easy faster-than-light travel.

- humans who can't resist imposing their cultural and moral norms on every alien race they encounter, while giving lip service to "prime directive" ideals.

- so many alien races that we meet one (or more) new ones every week. Come on, Trek, pick a dozen or so ET species and give them a little complexity instead of bringing in this week's version of the "half black, half white" species just to hammer home a lame point about racism or the theme-of-the-week!

- SCIENCE fiction that totally ignores SCIENCE.

- aliens. Hey, it might be nice to wait until we actually meet some before we make up stories about them... okay, that's not really serious. But since I've listed various other problems with aliens I thought I'd just wipe out the whole category in one swell foop.

- cardboard-cutout, one-note, cliched human characters. I just put this on my list because it's so not Firefly.

- lack of a sense of humor or fun. Stargate, anyone? (the original movie, I mean)

- big-name actors playing their wisecracking selves. Men In Black anyone? Not that I didn't enjoy those flicks, but they're comedies, not SF.

- movie adaptations of classic SF works that bear little or no resemblance to the originals. I, Robot springs to mind.

Now I'll have to check the link to see if we're on the same wavelength...

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I'm pointin' right at it!

CRUITHNE3753

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 7:58 PM

Ships with huge powerful engines that apparently work with no fuel whatsoever.

Edible alien food - slight differences in biochemistry would almost certainly render food poisonous across different biospheres. Our vitamin C could possibly (although not neccesarily) be a deadly nerve toxin, whilst strychnine could be play a vital part in an alien's brain function. At least it would give you bad indigestion, and smell really bad too. It might be blue though.

Warlike races that have managed to survive to develop space travel without nuking themselves as soon as they've worked out how to bang bits of plutonium together.

No matter how many times your ship's been hit in combat, destroying half the equipment on the bridge, you never lose air pressure.

Has anyone mentioned sound in space yet? :)

Visible lasers in space - you need something to scatter the beam off to make it visible. Noticed all that dry ice at concerts?

Androids. What's the point? If you want to create something that looks human and acts human, there are already well documented ways of going about it.

FLYVOTE

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 8:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cruithne3753:

Warlike races that have managed to survive to develop space travel without nuking themselves as soon as they've worked out how to bang bits of plutonium together.

Most likely us.

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GUYWHOWANTSAFIREFLYOFHISOWN

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 8:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cruithne3753:

Has anyone mentioned sound in space yet? :)

I've always been willing to allow for sound in space. Plus, in the case of small ships no bigger than Serenity it can be explained somewhat as audio feedback generated by the ship's computer in order to allow the pilot/gunner(s) to engage more of their senses in tracking a threat.

Why is the rum always gone?

CRUITHNE3753

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 9:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by FlyVote:
Quote:
Originally posted by Cruithne3753:

Warlike races that have managed to survive to develop space travel without nuking themselves as soon as they've worked out how to bang bits of plutonium together.

Most likely us.

Races more warlike than us, particularly those that begin with a "K".
(I usually realise the oversights in my posts the moment I hit the Post button and edit them straight away, but Life on Mars had just started)

REGINAROADIE

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 9:36 PM

Of the ones that were listed in the two, the one that I was so happy that they listed was the "alien baby" cliche.

Lately, that has been the one sci-fi trope that pisses me off. That anytime someone's pregnant in a sci-fi series or franchise, it's because they're carrying some messiah or special baby that'll change the course of the future or some shit like that. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, THE 4400, PLANET OF THE APES, STAR WARS, the list goes on and on. The only time I've seen it actually have weight was in CHILDREN OF MEN. Other than that, should be retired.

FUTURAMA was a good show in that it not only made fun of the different sci-fi cliches but tried to be more scientifically accurate. Like the ep when Zapp became an employee of Planet Express and they went to the planet with the almost crushing gravity. Or in "Godfellas" when they accidentally shoot Bender out and they can't catch up to him because they shot him out when they were going at full speed, so he'd be going faster than they could.

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"Have you ever fired two guns whilst jumping through the air?"
"No."
"Have you ever fired ONE gun whilst jumping through the air?"

KHYRON

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 9:56 PM

Excellent points by Doncoat, Cruithne and the guy who wrote the article. But then again, I don't really like sci-fi, I only like character-driven sci-fi that doesn't revolve around the fact that it's sci-fi, like Firefly, BSG, and maybe Macross. And call me a bigot if you want, but I hate aliens.

A point one could argue about is this one:

Quote:
If Marty McFly goes back in time and prevents his parents from meeting, there is no way to fix it. Even if Marty gets George and Lorraine to kiss at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, and they get married, and buy the house in the Lyon Estates, and have three kids, and buy a 4x4, Marty and his siblings will still never be born. The sperm that makes Marty will never be joined with the egg that makes Marty – too many details have changed. No Universal Cosmic Force will ensure that Marty is born, and the McFlys will give birth to a different son, perhaps one with the good sense not to hang out with crazy old inventors.

Right, but if he hadn't been born, he couldn't have gone back in time in the first place and the past wouldn't have been changed. Hence he was born.

Time travel is full of these sort of paradoxes, so if one doesn't believe physics when it says time travel is impossible, at least submit to logic and the fact that the universe hates paradoxes. But I digress...

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

IMNOTHERE

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 10:41 PM

Quote:
Races more warlike than us, particularly those that begin with a "K".

Notice that said races are usually depicted as having a culture based on a warrior ethic.
No Klingon Woyyer worth his prune-juice would use a WMD - it would not be honourable and deprive them of the glory of battle. Its the races that talk about peace and security tht you've gotta watch :-)

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