Why Firefly is not good Science Fiction
POSTED BY: cljohnston108
UPDATED: Friday, May 9, 2025 03:51
VIEWED: 14459
PAGE 4 of 7
This person and I will never see eye to eye.
I started reading science fiction initially because much of it DID have honest portrayals of homosexual relationships. It was the only genre where I felt I was finding honesty and thoughtful viewpoints about sex, religion, and all of the other things that our society seems to get so bound up in that we can't communicate about honestly.
I kinda think this person feels threatened by viewpoints that are different from his own, and thus claims that it's not science fiction. I'm not sure how that equates, but then I'm not sure how I got to be so open-minded about such things either. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by baptismo:
I dont really think Firefly is science fiction at all.
...
What "science" does Firefly attempt to provide? Little to none. Thats not what the show is about. It is about relationships and character interaction.
...
Space is just the setting, science/physics doesnt come into it.
Defining science fiction is something many people consider impossible, yet we still try.
If I understand what you've said properly, and I may not, you define science fiction as fiction that is about science. I get this impression because of the second excerpt above.
So, if I'm right, you would not classify anything with a so called sci-fi setting as science fiction, even if it went to great lengths to be correct in it's science (which is how some people define science fiction) if it did not dwell on the science.
Is that right or am I way off?
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The great thing about science fiction is the door is wide open. It is about imagination. Creating your own world or universe, depending where you want to take it. You can place your story anywhere and at any time. A lot of H. G. Wells' stories are filmed as if it took place in the period he wrote them in. I think "The Time Machine", which begins in the late 1800's, is great.
There were a lot of things not explained in most of the Star Trek series. I heard "Make it so" so many times I wanted to punch Pecard's lights out. Watching Kaylee keep the engine runing on Serenity was much more interesting and real to me than Gordy punching a keyboard on a counsel and spouting terms that make no sense.
I have read and watched science fiction that crossed all forms of boundaries. If science fiction is held to a certain formula we would not have one percent of the stories that are produced for this genre.
This article is written by a very narrow mind. This person needs to start at one end of the Science Fiction section of their local library and start reading until they reach the other end.
Has this person ever read authors like Brian Jacques, Felecity Savage, or Marion Zimmer Bradley. No rocketships in RedWall. If Firefly has to much sex, then this person should stay away from reading a Felecity Savage story.
Better not watch "Invader Zim", to much meat and water balloon fights. Gotta love "The Wettening".
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler
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Quote:
Originally posted by traveler:
No rocketships in RedWall.
In all fairness I would classify that as fantasy. Then again I would classify Stranger in a Strange Land as fantasy.
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Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:Quote:
Originally posted by baptismo:
I dont really think Firefly is science fiction at all.
...
What "science" does Firefly attempt to provide? Little to none. Thats not what the show is about. It is about relationships and character interaction.
...
Space is just the setting, science/physics doesnt come into it.
Defining science fiction is something many people consider impossible, yet we still try.
If I understand what you've said properly, and I may not, you define science fiction as fiction that is about science. I get this impression because of the second excerpt above.
So, if I'm right, you would not classify anything with a so called sci-fi setting as science fiction, even if it went to great lengths to be correct in it's science (which is how some people define science fiction) if it did not dwell on the science.
Is that right or am I way off?
From my way of looking at Star Trek is Sci-Fi. There is a lot more science involved in their stories. The story itself doesnt have to be about science in particular, but in general they have a bigger focus on adhering to science "fact". FTL drives, phasers, warp drives, transporters etc
Take this for a difference:
Have you ever watched Red Dwarf? One of my all time favourite shows. Based in space, but its a comedy.. I would call it a "Space Comedy" rather than "Sci-Fi". In one episode they had a "Giant swirly orange thing in space", or a "Time Hole".
Star trek would have called the same phenomenon a "Space Time Continuum Vortex" (or something), they would have scanned it and worked out what it is and some Vulcan science officer that knows too many big words would have explained what it was and how it worked.
Its all about "Giant swirly orange thing in space/Time Hole" vs "Space Time Continuum Vortex/with scientific explaination"
Sci-Fi attempts to give scientific reasons and explanations and attempts to ensure that the verse they have created works within accepted scientific and physics laws. Faster than Light drives, inertial dampers, vast distances.
Space Opera: Who cares how I get there. Turn her on, foot to the floor and go. I am flying to xxx planet on the outer rim of the solar system and Im having an adventure along the way.
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Traveler
It's H.G Wells, not Orson Welles. The only bit of sci-fi Orson ever did was the Mercury Theatre radio version of WAR OF THE WORLDS.
And I'd like to throw in my argument that science fiction is such a nebulous thing that it can accompany any sort of viewer demands. And while I may disagree with specific opinions of an individual writer, I can support the universe they create based on that specific idea. While I like the idea of only humans in the FIREFLY verse and think it's a great antithesis to alien heavy universes, I think it's downright arrogant to think that we are the only sentient life forms in the universe. Obviously Joss has never read Carl Sagan, or at least seen CONTACT, which to me is real, legitimate science fiction since it gives the most realistic telling of what first contact would actually be like. And that I find so refreshing after seeing so many flying saucers hover over Washington D.C. and blow up the joint.
So I think that if you don't like a specific kind of sci-fi, you can always switch to something else. If you find GALACTICA to dour and grim, you can always switch to The Doctor smiling and cracking jokes in the middle of a Dalek invasion. And if you don't like FIREFLY, than switch to something else, although great sci-fi on TV is a real diamond in the rough nowadays.
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"And it starts with a sentence that might last a lifetime, or it all might just go down in flames. If I let you know me, then why would you want me? Each day I don't is a shame. Each day I don't is a great shame."
Loudon Wainwright III - "Strange Weirdos" off the "Knocked Up" soundtrack
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Quote:
Originally posted by xardoz:
So both the activist Left and the reactionary Right think FF sucks. Humorless, imagination-less twits the lot of them.them.
Actually, I gotta disagree a teeny bit with this one. The first place I heard Firefly lauded was on a conservative humor site, www.imao.us, Frankj loved the show because it goes to prove that BIG government, touted so vehemently by the left, is a bad thing. He's even got an article up on his site today how the liberal congress is going to put LSD in the water to make us all not notice what kind of bills they're voting for.
Me and the hubby saw the movie first and we both said it was the BEST scifi movie we ever so...because there was no technobabble. "Put it in dumb Captain speak" Mal told Kaylee(or something similar, I'm not looking up that quote). That was why we appreciated it. Seemed like it was written with the blue collar working guy in mind.
The storytelling was what got us to buy the series. These are some awesome "sitting around the gaming table" stories. "Tell the part again about Jayne getting knocked out by a 90lb girl" stories that you sit around laughing about with your buds until your eyes are watering.
Yes, Joss, does like his perv girl-on-girl action, typical of most guys. I use the freedom of my remote and fast forward those scenes as anyone with practical common sense can do. But if the guy wants to waste his time writing a whiny article about it, then he may figure it out if no one bothers to visit his site at all.
EDIT: BTW link to "LSD in the water article" http://www.imao.us/archives/008013.html
MIND YOU THIS IS PARODY!! HUMOR!! If you have no sense of humor, don't bother, you won't get it.
Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. ~ Psalm 144:1
Jayne Cobb: Shepherd Book once said to me, "If you can't do something smart, do something RIGHT."
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Quote:
Originally posted by baptismo:
Sci-Fi attempts to give scientific reasons and explanations and attempts to ensure that the verse they have created works within accepted scientific and physics laws. Faster than Light drives, inertial dampers, vast distances.
You are aware that the second part of that, "ensure that the verse they have created works within accepted scientific and physics laws," totally fails to describe Star Trek, and if you ignore the, "ensure," and just say, "the verse they have created works within accepted scientific and physics laws," actually describes Firefly better than most of Star Trek? You know that right?
Even with that little bit of nitpick, I think I might see where you're going. In real life people don't usually ask how things work, they hop in the plane/car/boat and accept that the fact it works means there is a perfectly logical, rational and scientific explanation for it working. Science fiction is not real life, and so does not need to agree with that trend. Instead there are explanations, even when it makes no sense to explain people don't say, "I need to fix the engine otherwise we don't breathe," they say, "I need to reroute the [ technobable ] through the [ technobable ] with a variance of less than [small number] otherwise the [ technobable ] will interact with [ technobable ] causing a meltdown in the [ technobable ] and life support will fail." (Star Trek script writers are famous for actually using the word technobable and letting other people fill in a realistic sounding word.)
(The following assumes you have seen the show "Eureka".)
The point is that, if I'm understanding correctly, Science fiction is the people in Eureka who give explanations unnecessary to the plot but interesting in a sort of "That almost sounds vaguely plausible" kind of way, and all other similar things which are not science fiction are represented by the Sheriff who says, "Why don't you just say, 'Death Ray'?"
I have another question though, once again returning to: "Sci-Fi attempts to give scientific reasons and explanations and attempts to ensure that the verse they have created works within accepted scientific and physics laws." Is that really an "and" or should it be an, "or"?
I ask because a lot of Star Trek (which I like by the way) makes no attempt at the latter but makes up for it by giving scientific reasons for everything.
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Exactly in regards to the Space Comedy idea. You wouldn't describe MEN IN BLACK, GALAXY QUEST, HITCHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, GHOSTBUSTERS and the Bill and Ted movies as legitimate sci-fi, even though there are sci-fi elements in it. They're more concerned with making people laugh. Barry Sonnenfeld once described MEN IN BLACK as a comedic re-make of THE FRENCH CONNECTION with aliens in it. So if the director doesn't say it's sci-fi, then you can't consider MEN IN BLACK a legitimate sci-fi movie.
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"And it starts with a sentence that might last a lifetime, or it all might just go down in flames. If I let you know me, then why would you want me? Each day I don't is a shame. Each day I don't is a great shame."
Loudon Wainwright III - "Strange Weirdos" off the "Knocked Up" soundtrack
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Thank you Reginaroadie. I have edited my error. I guess I was blinded by my own rant and got my Orsons tangled up. I have made worse mistakes.
I think Orson Wells, the man, is science fiction at times.
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=28764731
Traveler
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