Some of you guys really need to read a bit more history. The "stigma" against sci-fi didn't start in the 2000s. There was a stigma against it in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. If you read about the history of science fiction and culture, it was considered marginal, kids' literature for a very long time. Science fiction conventions, which for a long time were only about written sci-fi, were considered gatherings of nerds and outcasts.Sci-fi only started to become more mainstream over a long period of time. Star Trek appealed to a wider audience in the 1970s, Star Wars an even wider audience in the 1970s and 1980s. But even in the 1980s and 1990s people talked about science fiction as if it was kids' stuff, not serious, not "art." Even when the biggest grossing movies were science fiction, they were often looked down upon by people in the literary establishment and the arts. You can go look at what movies won the Academy Award for Best Picture for the past 50 years and you'll see that often science fiction movies won technical awards, but didn't get the big awards.The perceptions really only started to change by the 2000s or so.
Quote from: Blackstar on 02/20/2023 05:15 pmSome of you guys really need to read a bit more history. The "stigma" against sci-fi didn't start in the 2000s. There was a stigma against it in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. If you read about the history of science fiction and culture, it was considered marginal, kids' literature for a very long time. Science fiction conventions, which for a long time were only about written sci-fi, were considered gatherings of nerds and outcasts.Sci-fi only started to become more mainstream over a long period of time. Star Trek appealed to a wider audience in the 1970s, Star Wars an even wider audience in the 1970s and 1980s. But even in the 1980s and 1990s people talked about science fiction as if it was kids' stuff, not serious, not "art." Even when the biggest grossing movies were science fiction, they were often looked down upon by people in the literary establishment and the arts. You can go look at what movies won the Academy Award for Best Picture for the past 50 years and you'll see that often science fiction movies won technical awards, but didn't get the big awards.The perceptions really only started to change by the 2000s or so.If anyone has played Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun or puts the notion of a space war in the context of international law, they will see that a large orbital military command and control center like the GDI space station Philadelphia or a gigantic military galactic spaceship is a far-fetched space fantasy proposition beyond humanity's technological capabilities.
Regarding the Star Wars franchise - and I will get flamed for this - the original Star Wars movies were in my view never science fiction. You have a dark lord, a princess, an evil emperor, a brave young ‘knight’ a wise ‘wizard’.Set that lot in medieval England and replace the space battles with jousting. Not SF.I liked episodes 4 and 5 though.
Sci fi and fantasy are all in the same place in the studio bosses mind it was the success of Buffy the vampire Hunter that killed everything else . No a stigma at all the books were brilliant at the time .
As someone who watched the cartoon Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! in the first decade of this century as a kid, did you stigmatize movie and TV show makers for portraying gigantic manned spacefaring robots that you knew required astronomical sums of money to be built and used for interplanetary or interstellar space travel?
In a 2006 interview, Dorf told the Union-Tribune he had no idea Comic- Con would ever grow into what it is today, the largest convention held in San Diego.
