StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Ok, I get this a lot, in a forum filled with *mostly* non-fucking-stupid people. What are all the good "comebacks" that one can use to get into their skulls that it's a brainbug.

These are my recent posts:

Groovis wrote:

Sytass wrote:

Groovis wrote:feel like it's a sci-fi game

But Star Wars isn't sci-fi. It's sci-fantasy.

That term was coined by Trekkies who think that cell phones were invented thanks to their show

If it was hard sci-fi, we'd have mutants with telekinetic/telepathic powers, not Jedi and the Force. (Despite the stupid Midichlorian twist, though Lucas seems to have dropped that one again.)

If it was hard sci-fi, we would have ships that take months to reach the outer planets of our own system, interstellar travel would be impossible, except for ships filled with frozen people travelling for decades or centuries, there would be no laser pistols, no force fields, ships would need to spend craploads of reaction fuel to reach anywhere LET ALONE leaving the atmosphere. The only mental powers possible would be telepathic communication (and that's stretching it).
There's a lot of sci-fi that isn't HARD sci-fi (Larry Niven, Ian Banks, CJ Cherryh). But that's a debate for another time.

Groovis wrote:

Android wrote:Good point. Star Wars isn't really SF.

It's as much SF as most space stories out there. I can't understand this fixation with "it's not fiction, it's fantasy", just because they don't say "subspace" and "bio-dermal regenerator" a lot.

It's a pain in the ass, but I come across this crap everywhere I go in the Intahrwebs.

According to Lucas, it's meant to be a "space opera".

Gandalf wrote:According to Lucas, it's meant to be a "space opera".

That may be, but that's more about the plot. Don't know what that's supposed to mean in terms of the depicted tech.

I would agree, because Star Wars does not generally concern itself with the science or mechanics of how things work basically just stating that it does work for purposes of the story. Thus making it more fantasy/space opera

I agree it is sci-fantasy, but so is Star Trek and B-5 and BSG and most space-based shows.

Uh, "It's not Sci-Fi, its Sci-Fantasy"? Do they even understand the terms?

"Science Fiction" vs "Science Fantasy". Fiction and Fantasy are both pretty much the same thing.

Why science fantasy instead of space fiction? It is a fiction, but it is less scientific.

George Lucas in The Annotated Screenplays on page 5 wrote:I knew from the beginning that I was not doing science fiction. I was doing a space opera, a fantasy film, a mythological piece, a fairy tale. I really thought I needed to establish from the start that this was a completely made up world so that I could do anything I wanted.

And there is an other quote (even more specific) on Lord Poe's page (The dark side/Articles/Methodology to the madness) (The second quote from Lucas at the 3/4 of the page in red.)

Lucas stated that reality/science/logic only applied to Star Wars as long as they supported the story.

All his arguments against 'sci fi' apply to most modern sci fi too. We don't see ST shuttles spewing out thousands of tons of reaction mass, Galactica ships don't crawl at sublight or barely-superlight speeds. Energy weapons and shields are commonplace, even back in Asimovs day.

In short, the guy's a fucktard. He's missing the point of what 'sci fi' means - and what it means is 'Flash Gordon' and 'Journey to the Forbidden Planet'. Hard sci-fi is something different, but hard scifi is hardly popular. Whatever your debate is, this is a meaningless semantic sidetrack intended to allow this guy to masturbate until you give up and go away.

According to Wikipedia, "sci- fantasy" is a variation of the term "science fiction".

i thought the defining line is wether a story is defined by the technology or not - Star Wars, for all the prominance given to the star destroyers and other tech on this board is more appropriately defined by the mysticism of the Force and the mythologycal themes. the technology is..just....there. it's not a plot device par se, just part of the setting that is taken for granted. the force is magic, in a slightly difference guise, threfore "science-fantasy"
LOTR in space, so to speak.

"science-FICTION" on the other hand would be defined by the technology or scientific concept - i would put the foundation-verse here since the whole premise of the story rests upon the fictional mathematical concept of..eh..what was it, heri sheldon's work, the name escapes me.

star trek by comparision would be science-fiction because so much of its plotlines hinge on the technobabble. it's painful and bad, but it's still "sci-fi".
that's my 2 cents, flame away!

edit

to make my example clearer...if i were arranging some typical books in a "sci-fi & fantasy" section from "fantasy" to "hard sci-fi" it'll look something like this:


LOTR&clones - warhammer 40k - star wars - Halo - star trek- Foundation - <hard sci-fi placeholder>

AniThyng wrote:i thought the defining line is wether a story is defined by the technology or not - Star Wars, for all the prominance given to the star destroyers and other tech on this board is more appropriately defined by the mysticism of the Force and the mythologycal themes. the technology is..just....there. it's not a plot device par se, just part of the setting that is taken for granted. the force is magic, in a slightly difference guise, threfore "science-fantasy"
LOTR in space, so to speak.

"science-FICTION" on the other hand would be defined by the technology or scientific concept - i would put the foundation-verse here since the whole premise of the story rests upon the fictional mathematical concept of..eh..what was it, heri sheldon's work, the name escapes me.

star trek by comparision would be science-fiction because so much of its plotlines hinge on the technobabble. it's painful and bad, but it's still "sci-fi".
that's my 2 cents, flame away!

edit

to make my example clearer...if i were arranging some typical books in a "sci-fi & fantasy" section from "fantasy" to "hard sci-fi" it'll look something like this:


LOTR&clones - warhammer 40k - star wars - Halo - star trek- Foundation - <hard sci-fi placeholder>

Uh, both Science Fiction and Science Fantasy (Sci-Fi and Sci-Fan) have the word "science" in them.

SW is fantasy the same way that LOTR is fantasy: they both have an epic plot with larger-than-life characters.

SW has as much to do with science as DUNE or perhaps even Foundation does: fuck all.

Fantasy by definition must be fiction: IE 'made up'. So in essence, the distinction between science-fiction and science-fantasy is a semantics argument, and the proponents for the latter have a disdain for anything which isn't dry or technical to the point of audience alienation. What's the difference between a Jedi using magic, Gandalf using magic, and Clarke's Monoliths or Asimov's psychic robots using magic? They're all enjoyable in their own right.

you can tell a scifi story in a primitive setting.

you can on the othe rhand have a fantasy story set in a futurisic world.

The setting can have an impact on a genre but not as much as how the plot progresses and what they focus on.

Scifi is about how technology affects people. Aka fiction involving science.

Fantasy has magic(in one form or another)

take the science out of a scifi and it will not work.
take the magic out of fanatasy and it will fall apart.

AniThyng wrote:i thought the defining line is wether a story is defined by the technology or not - Star Wars, for all the prominance given to the star destroyers and other tech on this board is more appropriately defined by the mysticism of the Force and the mythologycal themes. the technology is..just....there. it's not a plot device par se, just part of the setting that is taken for granted. the force is magic, in a slightly difference guise, threfore "science-fantasy"
LOTR in space, so to speak.

2001: A Space Odyssey. The prominence is given to a mysterious slab of opaque material that has mysterious powers and can affect massive change, possibly even propelling Bowman to the speed of light (or something, I don't fucking know what that goddamn lightshow at the end was supposed to be about).

So... uh, how is that different from the Force? Because it's an artifact? For that matter, who is the intelligence behind the monolith? They don't appear to have any corporeal presence, yet a presence can be felt (at least I can feel it when I watch the movie). SO what do you call a noncorporeal alien with supernatural powers?

"science-FICTION" on the other hand would be defined by the technology or scientific concept - i would put the foundation-verse here since the whole premise of the story rests upon the fictional mathematical concept of..eh..what was it, heri sheldon's work, the name escapes me.

Psychohistory. How is that a technological concept? Hell, how is it a mathematical or scientific concept when Asimov doesn't explain how it works (Thank GOD, otherwise the books would likely be boring and dull)?

The drama in Foundation concerns itself with the forces of history moving beyond the powers of individuals, the concept of psychohistory plays as a necessary background function, but nothing more beyond that. The actual story is about the Foundation rising from the ashes of the Empire.

star trek by comparision would be science-fiction because so much of its plotlines hinge on the technobabble. it's painful and bad, but it's still "sci-fi".

ST is scifi BECAUSE it has technobabble? Uh, bullshit. BULLSHIT.

Where's the technobabble in Asimov's Caves of Steel? Granted Heinlein's Starship Troopers has some technobabble in regards to the Power Armour's function, but it is not the sole driving force behind the plot. Where was the technobabble in 2001: ASO? When did Bowman reverse the polarity of his space pods doohickey to create a subspace field between the pod doors and the emergency entrance of the Discovery in order to board the spaceship after HAL locked him out?

to make my example clearer...if i were arranging some typical books in a "sci-fi & fantasy" section from "fantasy" to "hard sci-fi" it'll look something like this:

LOTR&clones - warhammer 40k - star wars - Halo - star trek- Foundation - <hard sci-fi placeholder>

This is why I like Australian bookstores. We don't have separate 'scifi' and 'fantasy' sections; they're the same and are called 'scifi & fantasy'.

Hmm.... in fact that’s one of the things I like most about star wars… that it takes elements of both. It a great tale of fantasy and sci-fi at the same time and that’s basically what it was intended to be, I mean that’s why it starts with a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far far away ;]

We have sword wielding heroic knights, a evil magic using king, a noble princess in need, a planet destroying weapon, mighty starships etc. It’s all their and that’s why we love it, taking the best of both genre.

I dont think star wars can really be clssifed as either sc-fi or sci-fantasy, anymore than the greek myths could have been categorsed as such 2000 years ago. Star Wars IMHO is a mythic tale. Lucas has said that when writing Star Wars he was attempting to create a modern day myth, much llike JRR tolkein was attempting to give britons a "britsh Myth" when writing LOTR.
It uses space and space travel for the same reasons greek myths used olympus and gods, because to a modern person space is where the future, and our dreams lie.

ppl need to remember where the words science fiction arose from. They arose from works by people like Arthur C Clarke, where it had people being debiliated in launches to sub-orbital stations due to G forces, Isaac Asimov who created a fictional world where robots became a vital tool for mankind and what "space opera", the orginator of "space fantasy" came from. These are works from the likes of Legion of Space, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.

So, yes, SW is space fantasy, but then again, ALL modern day SF is space fantasy. There isn't a modern day SF author who creates any real SF in the old sense of the word, and ST isn't SF, much less hardcore SF.

Um, PainRack, the term "science fiction" came into use around 1929 (although there is an isolated usage of it back in 1851), which is a good many years before either Asimov or Clarke started writing sci-fi.

Get your history straight, sister.

When I was on WritersMarket.com, I looked through the Encyclopedia there and, according to them, space opera is a subgenre of science fiction and a lot of sci-fi deals with how science and technology affect people.

Even in fantasy the horses have to drink water and eat grass.

So just because SW has little to no technobabble, that doesn't mean, that the technology shown is going to be inconsistent.

Like it's said SW sci fantasy, but so is ST, The differense is that SW is honest about it. Also Lucas has said that didn't any exposition SW, so that it would feel like watching a foreign movie made for the people of the country it was made (even though you do understand the words, all the terms, ritual and tradition are alien to you). This probaly why SW apeals to so many people (and why (rabid) trekkies hate it) it doesn't try to be nth variation of good of US, but tries to make world that while it may seem fantastic to us, is beliveble (part of this is the concept of a "used future" that Lucas has used (and may have invented) and other is that nothing is explained, but works as it should (in a sense a realistic fantasy)).

Stofsk wrote:SW is fantasy the same way that LOTR is fantasy: they both have an epic plot with larger-than-life characters.

SW has as much to do with science as DUNE or perhaps even Foundation does: fuck all.

Fantasy by definition must be fiction: IE 'made up'. So in essence, the distinction between science-fiction and science-fantasy is a semantics argument, and the proponents for the latter have a disdain for anything which isn't dry or technical to the point of audience alienation. What's the difference between a Jedi using magic, Gandalf using magic, and Clarke's Monoliths or Asimov's psychic robots using magic? They're all enjoyable in their own right.

So far the best response (not that the others aren't good, but I find this one to the point), I might just quote you.

Stofsk wrote:This is why I like Australian bookstores. We don't have separate 'scifi' and 'fantasy' sections; they're the same and are called 'scifi & fantasy'.

Well, the term was coined after the name of a magazine called Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Anyway, here's a newly created thread that a guy started just to talk about the issue.

+http://www.the-underdogs.org/forum/view ... p?p=569714

Any advice would be helpful. If you're subscribed in that forum, consider participating

"All fiction is fantasy" is technically true, but it's a silly argument to make. The term fantasy, in this context, CLEARLY refers to a genre of speculative fiction, separate and distinct from science fiction, horror, and alternate history. The definition of fantasy is by necessity nebulous, but broadly its a genre where the rules of the real world are changed by some mechanism that cannot be scientifically defined or understood. Note that it doesn't mean scientifically plausible--Star Trek subspace is grossly implausible technobabble, but in the rules of that universe, it is an empirically understood scientific phenomonon.

Star Wars is science fiction with strong fantasy elements. TPM pushed some of the fantasy elements out by attempting to define the Force as an energy field producted by a symbiotic organisms, but in AOTC the fantasy pushed back with prophetic and messianic themes. The universe doesn't work without the sci-fi or the fantasy elements, though it can be argued you could tell the same story in a pure medieval fantasy setting, whereas the story collapses if the mystical elements are excised from the hypertechnological space opera setting. I think the term sci-fantasy, as a combination of the two genres where the removal of one genre's elements cause the collapse of the story, is a good one for Star Wars. But since that term isn't in general use, I would say the best description is the one I gave in the beginning of this paragraph.