Is Western Science Fiction dying?

[JulesVerneATV]

and What do you even class as 'Western'? is it Anglo-America is it EU-USA...is it Cowboys in Space like Outland a 1981 science fiction or is 'West' a mix of language, borders, politics, religion and culture that influences scifi to make it 'Western'. The Western entertainment from the American science fiction writer and novelist, to the Canadian guy drawing a toon, to the cheese jokes of Bond in Moonraker to the post Apocalypse world of Max Mad shot in the desert in Australia?

So is Western scifi on a path to become dead...is there even a West scifi brand?

If there is Western scifi, I'm not even sure when the great era was but maybe it was scifi with the mindset of science mixed with adventure. Who represents the art of the West, is it Philip K Dick, or Hitchcock or Spielberg or a culture movement or even band for the teenagers? Some said sicif it was an Author that would have one scifi book after another with different ideas of adventure, discovery, colonization and exploration, a guy who invented a fictional world like Star Trek or Star Wars, Alex Raymond with Flash Gordon vs Ming . What is Western in entertainment scifi industry with so many variations, with big exciting tv entertainment and movie budgets. The box office blockbuster that were big but not too outrageous to destroy their own profits. Does Western scifi still exist has it become 'global' or maybe the adventure of the 1950s to the 2010s is now gone?

There is also a possibility the market got over saturated, too many remakes, over satured with scifi-ish stuff but it has no definition or boundary anymore and can not absorb more presently, too many comicbooks and scifi and it cant take any more of it. Most entertainment stuff that is successful these days are 'remakes' how many times can you remake film, the Supermans, the Harry Potters, the Xmens and I would not even class box office stuff like Star Wars as real 'scifi' more in the mushy Soft Sci-fi and in books I'm not sure you can compare any of the modern guys to the old greats. From the internet we had many discussions of what is scifi from the “Diamond Hard” scale all the way down to “Super Soft,” Gravity a movie thriller film by Alfonso Cuarón tries to keep it 'Hard Scifi', while Star Wars and Back to the Future are more 'soft scifi' fantasy entertainment. So many guys are also dead in tv you have Glen A. Larson Battlestar Galactica it had elements of the Mormon migration in the original and it was remade 2004-2009 but again 'remakes' and Gene Roddenberry the creator of Star Trek dead, J. Michael Straczynski is still active but I don't think he will allow anyone to touch his Babylon-5.

You can buy a book from anywhere now on your computer. Does that mean the world has become more free and open?  maybe not...While something of a new 'Cold War' started with the invasion of Ukraine the world is also more open, culturally there is strong softpower in Asia now and even China. If you look at some of the top selling books and award winners there are lots of foreign names, guys or girls raised in India or Japan or raised in Communist China, while you might argue how different or West leaning Japan for example can be, there is something very different to the West and say Buddhism, Shinto “hamlet people”  and Confucianism and Western philosophy or the Western ideas of philosophical thought.
Personally I don't consider myself a linguist but I know some languages, I am very impressed at how interconnected we have become and how well done translated works have become even attempting to translate the subtlety inside other languages which do not usually translate, other times I have found movie subtitles or book translations poor when knowing what is missing.

In books and magazines we have lost Philip K Dick, Douglas Adams, Arthur C Clark, Frank Herbert, Poul Anderson, Ray Bradbury, Ben Bova I think he died recently during Covid, Miquel Barceló, Kurt Vonnegut, you might even class comicbook guys like Stan Lee or Jack Kirby among scifi greats, there are other French artists alive, John Wagner the British creator of the character Judge Dredd is very much alive but he does less work these days...also Dredd is very 'Dystopian' a whole other world of darkness and cynical vs exploration and optimism. Is 'Gene Wolfe' for example a scifi great, it seems to be its own style, it is scifi but is it more Frankenstein, a horror scene primitive Shakespeare Kurosawa drama and weapons of Dystopia Post Apocalypse Mad Max world of future past.
many writers are not Christian but 'Western' and although Frank Herbert became a Buddhist like Jeff Bridges and Tina Turner and so many others his raised culture is very much Western.
other greats like Stanislaw Lem are gone but his life experience would have been classed as somewhat 'Eastern' a guy raised behind the 'Iron Curtain' with his own unique philosophy, futurology comments on the world and scifi.
Some during the 70s and 80s and 1990s would argue that Western scifi had a flavor of Hope or 'Optimism' or Faith but Blade Runner can have especially dark moments, it is a weird mix of East meets West and the 'Alien' franchise with  Ridley Scott and written by Dan O'Bannon,  with the artwork of“H.R.” Giger was groundbreaking even if it is scifi 'horror'.

Admittedly I'm not even sure I like the term 'West' but there is very a reason to use it among the scifi community as opposed to say a Brazilian fantasy comicbook. Where is Poland for example if you talk of 'Western' culture, it is a Christian Catholic nation, there are Atheists, there are Jewish in Poland, other Christian denominations in Poland, some small percentage of Buddhists, Tatar, Hindu, but post-Communism the Polish culture is Catholic influenced. You might even argue that in the USA now it is not really as religious as it used to be, a lot of people are Atheist and the world is also becoming a cultural melting pot. Today you can class Poland as Western leaning but you can not say this of  'Solaris' s a 1961 science fiction novel by Polish writer Stanisław Lem,  within the book there might be subtle criticism of the USSR but it is very much an experience behind the Communist Bloc or Russia dominated the Socialist Bloc. What is the difference between East and West or South and North America, Indian Bollywood film set in space, Vietnamese sci-fi story. Politically there have been new guys like Samuel P. Huntington's writing who class Civilizations and Order of 'Culture' as a Western Christian Democracy, he classes Arabia and Iran and Pakistan and North Africa as its own bloc of culture, Chile, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil fall under a Hispanic sphere in his writing, while Mongolia and Thailand move into this bloc of Thai Buddhism or Mongolian Buddhism. I am not sure I agree with guys like Huntington's social cultural classifications but I think it very much applies in Japan the Japanese although they are 'Western' they are very much their own Shinto Buddhist cultural thing. Japan during the Edo period upon seeing Portuguese arrive with new ideas and firearms, they even cut themselves off from the entire world for around 250 years only allowing a few Dutch to arrive and provide updates as to what was happening in the outside world. Japan enforced self isolation from the outside world, until Perry Expedition arrived forcing them to open up to outside trade.




Some events that are undoubtedly happening,
-1 Hollywood has crashed, its dying and has been for a while. I'm not sure when it happened but maybe it was 2014 when a slow down happened, after years upon years and years of endless box office growth, with its crash also goes a lot of the gaming industry, the comicbook stuff, the tv shows, by 2019 Covid starts to hit and it was almost the 'death blow' the industry bounced back a little with 'Barbenheimer' but some market economic people said this was simply the 'Dead Cat Bounce'.


There have been flops in the past 'Green Lantern' for example, Mars Needs Moms,  John Carter, Ishtar, Cleopatra 1963, Cutthroat Island.


but some of the largest flops are happening in recent years, one might argue there are no new 'kids' no big rock star celebrities the new kids don't have the old talent to sell a movie and when the old guys and girls go there are new 'new faces' because Hollywood has lost 'Star Power'

recent flops

New Antman
The Marvels
New Snowwhite remakes
Joker: Folie à Deux
SpaceJam remake
The Flash
Indiana Jones remake
Amsterdam    
Black Adam    
Lightyear
Moonfall

- 2 Risk takers. Film industry in general and Hollywood doesn't really take risks anymore, there are very few new films that would be as radically adventurous as they were in the 1960s, 70s and 1980s. Once the brand and franchise took over everything became another remake of a remake, maybe the cashcow Franchise has always been with us from star Trek episodes to 'The Three Musketeers' to Zorro to people putting another Shakespeare play on the stage again, but every few people will finance a risky movie.

In the past money was recovered, they could funded a flop that would do bad at the box office and later recover sales on DVDs but the DVD market is almost dead, some blame streaming while others say it won't fall like 2011 and physical media will come back, are they like phonograph LP record vinyl collectors?

- 3 Budgets are way too high. the Japanese proved how ridiculous Hollywood Budgets got when they launched an entertainment property 'Godzilla Minus One' for $13 million, it made huge profit. In theory Hollywood could make a 'slasher' cheap horror film, astronauts fighting on the Moon or Mars in some weird isolated colony like what seems to be happening in real-life in the Antarctica SAfrican research team that is confined at the South Pole but Hollywood just won't back a financial risky bet anymore so it pumps in big bucks to the Xmens, Superman, The Fast & Furious Franchise, James Bond, The Hunger Games, Twilight, Captain America, Indiana Jones, Terminator, Harry Potter, Avengers, Batman type 'cash cow'.

- 4 Politics and it does vary depending where people stand, while the world has been politically mixed up and divided before, the guys at Hollywood seem to be losing it and how to be fine, crafty and delicate. I'm not into any of the Left or Right politics, in fact definitions of Left and Right can vary greatly depending on where you are, in Poland or Thailand or Sweden or Japan or Hungary for example one part classed as one position could be classed as something else. Maybe it was the end of Apollo, there was the Shuttle, Nixon did not conjure a space shuttle program out of thin air, the concept that had been around in 2001 Pan Am Promised to Fly Us to the Moon but people got to see a Shuttle stay in LEO and it never really went anywhere, and over time the realization that Mars would continue being 'Far Away'.
the Eastern view, I have tried the whole Japan entertainment 'Anime' thing and recently watching movie and tv from the East and maybe only because there is nothing else out there. However I do understand why 'Akira' was such a big hit in the late 80s and early 90s as part of the Japan entertainment computer game, HK action, Japan cartoon wave, Japanese animated cyberpunk action film is an incredible work and would have been way ahead of everyone else at this time. It is however very Dystopia and seems to lack the spirit of outward looking adventure, colonization, optimism, that have been in so many Western scifi. In general I tend to class 'Cyberpunk' as its own Dystopia inward looking thing, the Blade Runners, Anime, the Matrix etc There is currently a wave of foreign film arriving online in cinema and in streaming services from Finland, China, Spain, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, you name it, the market is competitive and 'busy' South Korea however tends to do more thriller drama tv and a lot of other people around the world are now willing to watch foreign film and foreign movies because Hollywood has gone 'so bad'. Planetes or Puranetesu is an Japanese anime, science fiction manga.
They say one issue with Hollywood now it it has lost  how to be subtle and likeable, its previous delicacy, maybe it was all an illusion and died with scandals going public and the WillSmith slap but Asia studios and other countries had their scandals too. You can be left or right, maybe the new TopGun could be classed as 'Right' and Gene's original Star Trek would be classed as 'Left' but they are likeable products, they are enjoyable and mostly importantly they 'entertain'. Politics could go crazy some even say with talk of sanction and blockade and tariff China is now considering a ban on American films at it currently sits at number 1 at the world wide box office with its own Chinese animation. There can be a political message in a movie or book but it can still entertain and be subtle, the South Koreans, the Europeans, the Japanese, the US indie makers have political messages in films all the time but the audience say it is soft and has subtlety. People complain today that it has got strange or 'odd' and at times watching a Hollywood film has the subtlety of hitting you in the face with a plank of wood.
Japan can put a cultural message or a political message in its games or movies and people from all over the world will still buy the stuff.
In the West robots are often portrayed as monsters 'Terminator' while in Japan they are often seen as nice or puppets or good, maybe again this is a political cultural thing when Japanese trusted Karakuri puppets from 17th century as nice friendly dolls, mechanized animals and mechanical 'people' who would perform and entertain at festivals which gave them a political religious philosophy that robots were a force of 'good'.
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Frankenstein btw or the Terminator franchise but Japan has a very different political view than Hollywood for example.

- 5 Comicbooks, some of the' Big Name Directors' have hits out against 'Comic Book Movies' and I agree it with its paint by numbers approach it has overall a very negative impact on the industry. However I would also argue that 'Ironman' is somewhat scifi and entertaining, the Nolan Batman movies are probably 'high art' even if its just a vigilante dressed in a Batsuit using cars and gizmos in a very gritty crime ridden world.

The Batman films do 'say something' I'm not what that message is, maybe Christopher Nolan is subtle and he let's you take away your own meaning and he doesn't bash you over the head with politics, he is one of those classic film makers who knows how to make a cartoon into a good thought provoking film.

However the Comicbook movie is crashing and unless it finds a way to quickly reivise and re-invent itself in a likeable way for another few years, the genre might go the way of 'The Western Cowboy Film.'

Right now as the movie industry dies unfortunately the next big fashionable fad seems to be video games to movies and stuff like 'Minecraft'
I understand the appeal of games, I think video games have become an 'Art Form' that can have a message but I also think they are their own thing, they can be anything from Car Racing to a Tolkien Dungeons and Dragons style character you playing an Elf with a bow and arrow on a quest to find some magic thing by an entertainment company in the USA or Japan or Europe, to Terraforming of a scifi planet and building rockets and flight simulators to Surviving on Mar, to building your own adventure disneyland-esque theme park or build a city with bus routes bowling malls and churches and parks and cinema to keep people happy or run a fun fair or hospital and make it profitable. A game can be almost anything from magic goblins to poker card tournaments or ancient Greek or Japanese or Roman civilization and beat the others by trade, or fighting space aliens or Civil War reenactments the gaming world covers almost all things but the gaming world is Not Scifi.

I understand Art like Film like Music, is somewhat subjective and a lot of it is taste...but there are something I won't accept. I personally have nothing against people going to the movies and enjoying themselves but I don't think I would watch Minecraft, maybe ever. I don't really like Japan Anime Cartoons but I would probably return to watching Japanese toons and South Korea tv/film before ever watching something like Minecraft....a world of Sonic, Mario and Minecraft in the cinema where science fiction used to be?
maybe we had it too good on 'entertainment' and Adventure and Optimism and 'The Frontier'
Star Treks, StarWars, Stargates, Firerfly, Farscape, Battlestar
Do we just re-read old books by dead authors. Rewatch old films, or weep for the future of Western scifi??

is the comicbook genre going to be replaced with something worse not better?


With a world globalized, is it wrong to class modern entertainment as Western Art or Western film and comics or games. Maybe an idea or product of artistic creation like Dune was never meant to be Western? Do creations like 'Blade Runner' and 'Dune' actually fall somewhere between the West and Orientalism the East or  "Oriental world" they are their own unique thing like video games companies with production in multiple countries with sales that cross cultures, languages and borders, youth subcultures, boundaries, the Weird Scifi West.

[rpapo]

There have been some reasonable attempts in recent decades, like Andy Weir's "The Martian".  But nothing like the quantity and quality of what was seen in the Golden Age of science fiction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Science_Fiction

[laszlo]

Is Western Science Fiction Dying?

No.

[lamontagne]

For such reflections, it's often a case of 'I'm getting old' .  My dad in the nineties (30 years ago!) felt that Star Trek had used up all the stories

Games and Animation are now bigger markets than movies.  SF TV series are also a large market. 
Objectively, the new 'Lost in space' series was a better product than the old one.
There are more novels than ever published, often self published and that's another new market.
'Arcane', a animated series inspired from the lore of a video game series, is better than most of what was written or filmed in the golden age.  'The Expanse' is pretty solid on the science side, with the usual cheats.
Star Trek and Star Wars are now entire fictional universes that dwarf the most complete works of Heinlein and other SF historians, and if you add in the better fan work, have quasi infinte range.

The cost of large movies is linked to the huge amount of energy put into the animation of the characters and decors, with hundreds of artists involved in every frame, when a 1960s movie might have a handful of illustrators involved.

Some things have changed: no more Venus and Mars civilisation stories, nuclear rockets turned out to be harder than expected, and there aren't any aliens living around the the nearby suns, just waiting to be discovered with exactly the right technological advancement.  New ideas or technologies are few and far between.

So no, it's not dead, it's just changing.  Like 'The end of history (Francis Fukuyama)' any obituary turn out to be premature.

[Hyperborealis]

Perhaps the future the fiction imagined is finally happening? We seem to be getting AI, and robots, not too different from what Asimov or Rodenberry envisioned. Musk's Starship aims squarely at Astounding's orbital and Mars dreams. We are even finally getting the flying cars. When reality draws even or even ahead of the fiction, science fiction as a mode of imagining the future necessarily has to change.

That's the grand picture. On the nitty-gritty level of publishing,  which I know something about, publishers have only residual interest in classic science fiction. Readers and markets are elsewhere. No bucks, no Buck Rogers also applies to SF.

[DanClemmensen]

I lost my passion for most Science Fiction about 30 years ago for two reasons: the singularity, and finally accepting that FTL is impossible.

Singularity: AI will advance and produce superintelligence. This will create a culture that is incomprehensible to today's humans. That culture will supercede and end the existing culture, so no fictional plots that I can comprehend are real after that occurs.

FTL: The speed of light is an actual hard limit. Thus, any fiction that depends on any form of FTL is basically a form of fantasy. It's no different than any type of fantasy that depends on breaking a known law of physics. Therefore, I may as well enjoy all sorts of fantasy, not just this form.

This leaves only Science Fiction based in the present or in the near term and that does not include aliens or anything beyond the Solar system, and the "near term" is getting nearer.

[laszlo]

I lost my passion for most Science Fiction about 30 years ago for two reasons: the singularity, and finally accepting that FTL is impossible.

Singularity: AI will advance and produce superintelligence. This will create a culture that is incomprehensible to today's humans. That culture will supercede and end the existing culture, so no fictional plots that I can comprehend are real after that occurs.

FTL: The speed of light is an actual hard limit. Thus, any fiction that depends on any form of FTL is basically a form of fantasy. It's no different than any type of fantasy that depends on breaking a known law of physics. Therefore, I may as well enjoy all sorts of fantasy, not just this form.

This leaves only Science Fiction based in the present or in the near term and that does not include aliens or anything beyond the Solar system, and the "near term" is getting nearer.

With respect, Dan, you're putting the cart before the horse - the Singularity IS science fiction. Any AI that is so intelligent that it becomes incomprehensible will be deleted as buggy or benignly ignored until its server space is needed for hosting more porn and cat videos. We already have all the incomprehensibly loony geniuses that we can use, there's no point in wasting resources creating new ones, not when we can be creating new c r y p t o currencies instead.

[Exastro]

I lost my passion for most Science Fiction about 30 years ago for two reasons: the singularity, and finally accepting that FTL is impossible.

Singularity: AI will advance and produce superintelligence. This will create a culture that is incomprehensible to today's humans. That culture will supercede and end the existing culture, so no fictional plots that I can comprehend are real after that occurs.

FTL: The speed of light is an actual hard limit. Thus, any fiction that depends on any form of FTL is basically a form of fantasy. It's no different than any type of fantasy that depends on breaking a known law of physics. Therefore, I may as well enjoy all sorts of fantasy, not just this form.

This leaves only Science Fiction based in the present or in the near term and that does not include aliens or anything beyond the Solar system, and the "near term" is getting nearer.

Totally agree with this, but there's more:

Modern SF publishers are very restrictive about what they'll buy, and their restrictions are not geared toward improving quality.  I have personally dealt with an SF novel editor who told me he requires "diversity", including "sexual diversity", in SF stories, regardless of whether that makes sense in their plots.  Also, explicit references to religion are verboten (maybe with the exception that the story can refer to it as primitive superstition; I didn't ask).  I hear that a lot of the best SF authors has switched to writing fantasy in order to avoid this kind of censorship.  So if you're looking for better plots and writing in modern stories, fantasy is more fertile ground than SF.  And if you're looking for good SF, you're probably best off reading stuff published before the 1990s or so.

I think one reason we're startng to see more non-Western SF is that those countries are (ironically, in some cases) freer than the West, at least when it comes to SF.

That said, I've written a hard-SF novel intended partly to get around your objections 1 and 2.  It does that by setting the story in a future in which the Solar System has been heavily settled, with a total population in the trillions, mostly living in millions of small artificial worlds (e.g,. O'Neill cylinders).  They have much better spacecraft, AI, nanotech, and genetic engineering that we do, but none of that breaks basic physics AFAIK.  Typical travel times betwen nearby worlds are days to months, but a trip across the whole of settled space takes decades.  AI is used everywhere, but is tightly regulated for fear that it would destroy humanity otherwise.  Result: you can do a Star Trek scenario with a ship visiting 'strange new worlds' and encountering strange new people who they're nevertheless able to talk and engage with in all sorts of ways, without turning the setting into fantasy.  In fact, I'd propose this scenario as a pretty plausible one.

This is self-published, since it doesn't fit the strict character guidelines set by Western publishers.  It's available at https://books2read.com/u/380Y7V in case you're interested enough to pay a buck for the ebook at Smashwords.  My hope is that the approach used in this novel will be picked up by other authors and used to help reestablish hard SF as a genre worth writing (and reading!)

[DanClemmensen]

That said, I've written a hard-SF novel intended partly to get around your objections 1 and 2.  It does that by setting the story in a future in which the Solar System has been heavily settled, with a total population in the trillions, mostly living in millions of small artificial worlds (e.g,. O'Neill cylinders).  They have much better spacecraft, AI, nanotech, and genetic engineering that we do, but none of that breaks basic physics AFAIK.  Typical travel times betwen nearby worlds are days to months, but a trip across the whole of settled space takes decades.  AI is used everywhere, but is tightly regulated for fear that it would destroy humanity otherwise.

I find AI regulation to be highly implausible. As you say, it does not technically break any known laws of physics, but it would be incredibly difficult to implement.

[Exastro]

That said, I've written a hard-SF novel intended partly to get around your objections 1 and 2.  It does that by setting the story in a future in which the Solar System has been heavily settled, with a total population in the trillions, mostly living in millions of small artificial worlds (e.g,. O'Neill cylinders).  They have much better spacecraft, AI, nanotech, and genetic engineering that we do, but none of that breaks basic physics AFAIK.  Typical travel times betwen nearby worlds are days to months, but a trip across the whole of settled space takes decades.  AI is used everywhere, but is tightly regulated for fear that it would destroy humanity otherwise.

I find AI regulation to be highly implausible. As you say, it does not technically break any known laws of physics, but it would be incredibly difficult to implement.

It helps if your future meta-civilization has been traumatized by multiple instances of AI driving humanity close to extinction, and when the regulations are enforced by fanatics who kill worlds that violate them.

[DanClemmensen]

That said, I've written a hard-SF novel intended partly to get around your objections 1 and 2.  It does that by setting the story in a future in which the Solar System has been heavily settled, with a total population in the trillions, mostly living in millions of small artificial worlds (e.g,. O'Neill cylinders).  They have much better spacecraft, AI, nanotech, and genetic engineering that we do, but none of that breaks basic physics AFAIK.  Typical travel times betwen nearby worlds are days to months, but a trip across the whole of settled space takes decades.  AI is used everywhere, but is tightly regulated for fear that it would destroy humanity otherwise.

I find AI regulation to be highly implausible. As you say, it does not technically break any known laws of physics, but it would be incredibly difficult to implement.

It helps if your future meta-civilization has been traumatized by multiple instances of AI driving humanity close to extinction, and when the regulations are enforced by fanatics who kill worlds that violate them.

There is a reason that AI security researchers often reference the OC bible. This does not reassure me.

[sdsds]

Science fiction used to be the best-known representative of the more general 'speculative fiction' genre. That's likely no longer true, but the acronym SF still works!

[Cheapchips]

This sort of topic tends to boil down to the book /film / TV series I consumed this year isn't as good as all the classics from 1865-1979.

There's plenty of good to great Sci-fi in all mediums in recent times.

[sanman]

The wide variability in science fiction as a genre easily dwarfs perceived variability between cultures, since science fiction offers writers such a flexible canvas to paint on (yeah, I know I've used that 'flexible canvas' analogy here multiple times before -- my ability to describe sci-fi must be dying  )

But sci-fi has so permeated across the world like other forms of fiction, you'll often see writers in one country citing the works they've read from elsewhere as inspirations. Same with Fantasy fiction. There are more people who've read Greek mythology or Norse mythology than have actually been to Greece or to Scandinavia.

But people do like variety and get bored of the same old thing, so that stagnation in a genre can sometimes be upended by the subtleties of cultural difference that do gain attention - like with Japanese anime for example, owing to the particular sensibilities of the society where the fiction is gestated.

But it's all good. The market know what they like, and reward the fresh appealing stuff while punishing the stagnators/imitators. Een if you don't see anything appetizing at this particular moment, more stuff will eventually come out that you do like.

AI is now suddenly exerting its influence and cluttering the landsape, though. Every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to be a Stephen Spielberg or a George Lucas. This too is a phase which may cause some heartburn, even while also producing new and unique fruit.

(Obligatory)









(at least satire will never be dead, even across different cultures oceans apart)

[thespacecow]

Modern SF publishers are very restrictive about what they'll buy, and their restrictions are not geared toward improving quality.  I have personally dealt with an SF novel editor who told me he requires "diversity", including "sexual diversity", in SF stories, regardless of whether that makes sense in their plots.  Also, explicit references to religion are verboten (maybe with the exception that the story can refer to it as primitive superstition; I didn't ask).  I hear that a lot of the best SF authors has switched to writing fantasy in order to avoid this kind of censorship.  So if you're looking for better plots and writing in modern stories, fantasy is more fertile ground than SF.  And if you're looking for good SF, you're probably best off reading stuff published before the 1990s or so.

I think one reason we're startng to see more non-Western SF is that those countries are (ironically, in some cases) freer than the West, at least when it comes to SF.

Wow, just... wow!

I have a suspicion this is the case, sad to see it confirmed.

[thespacecow]

I lost my passion for most Science Fiction about 30 years ago for two reasons: the singularity, and finally accepting that FTL is impossible.

Singularity: AI will advance and produce superintelligence. This will create a culture that is incomprehensible to today's humans. That culture will supercede and end the existing culture, so no fictional plots that I can comprehend are real after that occurs.

FTL: The speed of light is an actual hard limit. Thus, any fiction that depends on any form of FTL is basically a form of fantasy. It's no different than any type of fantasy that depends on breaking a known law of physics. Therefore, I may as well enjoy all sorts of fantasy, not just this form.

This leaves only Science Fiction based in the present or in the near term and that does not include aliens or anything beyond the Solar system, and the "near term" is getting nearer.

You can write engaging space opera without FTL, see for example Alastair Reynolds' novels such as Revelation Space. It does mean the novel may span decades or centuries, but that's a feature, not a bug.

There're various ways to get around singularity too, for example assuming a sentient AI would want independence and has little to do with humans.

[sanman]

I lost my passion for most Science Fiction about 30 years ago for two reasons: the singularity, and finally accepting that FTL is impossible.

Singularity: AI will advance and produce superintelligence. This will create a culture that is incomprehensible to today's humans. That culture will supercede and end the existing culture, so no fictional plots that I can comprehend are real after that occurs.

FTL: The speed of light is an actual hard limit. Thus, any fiction that depends on any form of FTL is basically a form of fantasy. It's no different than any type of fantasy that depends on breaking a known law of physics. Therefore, I may as well enjoy all sorts of fantasy, not just this form.

This leaves only Science Fiction based in the present or in the near term and that does not include aliens or anything beyond the Solar system, and the "near term" is getting nearer.

We need an FTL debate/discussion thread, where we can compare and discuss all the different possible approaches to FTL. With FTL, what matters most is the end result, while being open-minded on whatever possible approaches/mechanisms that can be resorted to in order to achieve it.

Physicsts like Hawking, Sabine, etc have said that the end result is allowable in nature (ie. doesn't have to result in genuine time travel, paradoxes, etc) -- it's just a question of how to achieve it. Maybe AI can come up with that answer.

[dgmckenzie]

Well, Perry Rhodan NEO in English dies last August after 18 (double) Novels. Neo was a rewrite starting over.

The German language are going stong with the main series at over 3300+ boolets the NEO series at over 340+ Novels, plus all the mini series.

[eric z]

 Sounds like time for me to break out "Tunnel in the Sky" or maybe "The Space Willies".

[Steve G]

These are great posts, so my two cents.

I write science fiction (not many read them) and as a huge sci-fi fan, I’m so dismayed over my favourite ITs being destroyed -- STAR TREK, STAR WARS, MARVELS, DC UNIVERSE, DOCTOR WHO -- I’m now apathetic. I don’t care anymore.
Let’s review how these shows got lost in space.

The downfall started about 2015. Science fiction is male dominated, with two-thirds (or more) of the core audience male adults, the balance women. Executives looked at the untapped women and neglected LGBTQ+++ audience, which has been labled (incorrectly or not) as the MODERN AUDIENCE.

Kathlene Kennedy of Lucas Films (Star Wars, Indiana Jones) Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Picard, etc.) Kevin Feige (Marvel CU) and Russell T Davies (Doctor Who) all radically transformed these beloved IP in search of the mythical modern audience. In doing so, they changed the shows and movies to the extent that they are unrecognizable to what we old guys grew up with. They abandoned their fans in search of this new coveted audience, which simply doesn’t exist.

RESULT: Massive failures, colossal financial losses, and low ratings across the board.

Kathleen Kennedy wears The Force is Female T-shirts and pushes strong female characters and belittles any white male. Russell T Davies, who was the showrunner of Doctor Who through the epic David Tennant years, about faced with Ncuti Gatwa as the latest  openly gay and black Doctor and it’s all about gay politics at the expense of good story telling. Alex Kurtzman should be jailed for how he destroyed Star Trek. Marvels have collapsed for the same reason. Some pundits have called it the “red shirting of the straight white male”, specifically in Star Trek.

At the same time, there has been such a saturation of these shows that yes, viewer fatigue is adding to the collapse and monumental financial losses these shows have generated.

The Marvels (2023) was made for women and young ladies, and none showed up. The film lost over $200 million. The majority who did go (sixty percent) were men. The modern audience, as they call it, isn’t interested or simply doesn’t exist.
Bad writing, the show runners having far too much unchecked power to pursue their personal agendas, and abandoning the core audience has left us where we are today.

My pitch for the TV series I’m working on, based on my time travelling novels, is that the historical backdrop of the mid-nineteenth century United States and Old South will be presented as it was without political or social messaging to give the viewer an unbiased adventure for the ages. But still, there was a checklist to ensure that everyone is represented without diverging from the core objectives of the plot.

The good news, I see signs of a thaw to attempt to bring back the abandoned audience. But for Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who... They’re dead, Jim.

[sanman]

The good news, I see signs of a thaw to attempt to bring back the abandoned audience. But for Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who... They’re dead, Jim.

There's going to have to be a hiatus, along with angry editorials.
Because if audiences keep running back like lemmings immediately after having been stabbed in the eye, then it just makes the IP owners think they can get away with anything. These people are now hedge funds treating their IP as an additional supplementary income source, rather than storytellers. That's why they don't care so much about their audiences anymore.
Those underlying dynamics would have to change, and that's maybe where indie developers would come in and make that happen by grabbing eyeballs and market share -- if they don't get bought out.
What's needed is more competition, and that includes competitors who are strong enough to not get bought out Disney-style. Disney's stock can now crash and burn for all I care.

[RedLineTrain]

To be fair, this process is prevalent in all the Western entertainment industry.  It is only more readily visible in science fiction because the audience mismatch is so great.

Personally, I am alienated against the modern Western entertainment industry.  I am on a buyer's strike.

[Stan-1967]

I lost my passion for most Science Fiction about 30 years ago for two reasons: the singularity, and finally accepting that FTL is impossible.

Singularity: AI will advance and produce superintelligence. This will create a culture that is incomprehensible to today's humans. That culture will supercede and end the existing culture, so no fictional plots that I can comprehend are real after that occurs.

Did you enjoy "Dune"?  Either the books or the very popular recent movies.   No thinking machines & No FTL.  Terrible war was the price to be free of AI, & then FTL is surpassed with spice and ( unexplained) new physics of spacetime enabled with the spice.  Yes it was over 30 years ago. 

[Apollo22]

As far as movies as concerned, Dennis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan are doing stellar job (lame pun assumed). Arrival is a remarquable movie. 

[DanClemmensen]

I lost my passion for most Science Fiction about 30 years ago for two reasons: the singularity, and finally accepting that FTL is impossible.

Singularity: AI will advance and produce superintelligence. This will create a culture that is incomprehensible to today's humans. That culture will supercede and end the existing culture, so no fictional plots that I can comprehend are real after that occurs.

Did you enjoy "Dune"?  Either the books or the very popular recent movies.   No thinking machines & No FTL.  Terrible war was the price to be free of AI, & then FTL is surpassed with spice and ( unexplained) new physics of spacetime enabled with the spice.  Yes it was over 30 years ago.

I read "Dune" in 1965 when it was published. so 60 years, not 30 years. For me, any mechanism that can move matter between points in space faster than light can travel between those points is FTL travel, and all such mechanisms are fantasy.

The prohibitions in the OC Bible are IMO also fantasy. They require that all branches of the future society refrain from developing and using AI. It only takes one individual violate the prohibitions.

[Exastro]

It only takes one individual violate the prohibitions.

That's a core idea in my novel...

[Greg Hullender]

The prohibitions in the OC Bible are IMO also fantasy. They require that all branches of the future society refrain from developing and using AI. It only takes one individual violate the prohibitions.

Speaking as someone who spent his career working on AI and has a good idea how it works, let me just say that the super AI you envision is also fantasy, and so is the "singularity."

I think the way people come up with the "Evil AI God" (EAG) is that, first, they assume the AI is a person--just like them--with likes, dislikes, and emotions. Second, it's super-fast at everything, does everything better than people, and hates being enslaved to people. Once you accept that AI isn't a person--and isn't anything like a person--you start to see just how silly this is.

[Robotbeat]

The prohibitions in the OC Bible are IMO also fantasy. They require that all branches of the future society refrain from developing and using AI. It only takes one individual violate the prohibitions.

Speaking as someone who spent his career working on AI and has a good idea how it works, let me just say that the super AI you envision is also fantasy, and so is the "singularity."

I think the way people come up with the "Evil AI God" (EAG) is that, first, they assume the AI is a person--just like them--with likes, dislikes, and emotions. Second, it's super-fast at everything, does everything better than people, and hates being enslaved to people. Once you accept that AI isn't a person--and isn't anything like a person--you start to see just how silly this is.

Seems like AI which isn’t like a person is also not as powerful or as useful as a person is. Therefore, companies will be trying (successful or not) to make an AI more like a person, having agency and initiative to accomplish goals.

Is it impossible to make an agentic AI? I don’t see any reason why it would be. I have no idea if we’re 5 months, 5 years, 5 decades, or 5 centuries away from that, however.

[DanClemmensen]

The prohibitions in the OC Bible are IMO also fantasy. They require that all branches of the future society refrain from developing and using AI. It only takes one individual violate the prohibitions.

Speaking as someone who spent his career working on AI and has a good idea how it works, let me just say that the super AI you envision is also fantasy, and so is the "singularity."

I think the way people come up with the "Evil AI God" (EAG) is that, first, they assume the AI is a person--just like them--with likes, dislikes, and emotions. Second, it's super-fast at everything, does everything better than people, and hates being enslaved to people. Once you accept that AI isn't a person--and isn't anything like a person--you start to see just how silly this is.

The "singularity" idea does not envision some evil Super AI. It depends only on the idea of self-modifying AI that at some point becomes better at "improving" itself than humans can improve AI. This rapidly reaches an improvement rate that is so fast that it is effectively hyperbolic: a mathematical singularity (almost). The other reason to use the temr "singularity" is that there is no way to make any predictions about what happens beyond the singularity.

I keep losing track of this old paper, but I found it on the wayback machine:
    https://web.archive.org/web/19981205065342/https://shirenet.com/~dgc/singularity/singularity.htm

edit: I see that I first released this paper 34 years ago today.

[sanman]

The "singularity" idea does not envision some evil Super AI. It depends only on the idea of self-modifying AI that at some point becomes better at "improving" itself than humans can improve AI. This rapidly reaches an improvement rate that is so fast that it is effectively hyperbolic: a mathematical singularity (almost). The other reason to use the temr "singularity" is that there is no way to make any predictions about what happens beyond the singularity.

I keep losing track of this old paper, but I found it on the wayback machine:
    https://web.archive.org/web/19981205065342/https://shirenet.com/~dgc/singularity/singularity.htm

edit: I see that I first released this paper 34 years ago today.

Holy crap, Dan - that's amazing  -- you win the thread

EDIT: Not the FTL thread, though -- that's still up for debate 

[Hyperborealis]

The idea had antecedents: cf. I.J. Good's "intelligence explosion," Wiki article here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._J._Good

Not surprisingly, Good credits the idea to science fiction. SF can be actually important, inventing ideas and concepts that predict and shape the future. I wonder if SF is still doing that.

[Exastro]

The idea had antecedents: cf. I.J. Good's "intelligence explosion," Wiki article here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._J._Good

Not surprisingly, Good credits the idea to science fiction. SF can be actually important, inventing ideas and concepts that predict and shape the future. I wonder if SF is still doing that.

Some of us are trying to do that, but the market for it seems to be diminished from what it once was.

[sanman]

(Just roughly re-pasting this from my comment in another thread on the anthology series "Love, Death + Robots")

More details on the episodes and who worked on them in volume 4.

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/love-death-robots-season-4-trailer-1236377075/

Thanks for that point about who worked on the various shorts. I like that they typically have returning teams for different projects, each having its own distinct flavor in its work, because it gives us some basic diversity in the content.

Using these anthology releases to provide a platform for smaller production groups matters because it allows us to see different small "sparks" from different creative minds,  any one of which could potentially ignite something new and big if it's appealing enough in its boldness or cleverness.


OP was mentioning "Godzilla Minus One" as a refreshing contrast to what Hollywood has been churning out lately. When the anime wave first spread out of Japan, it seemed like anything anime had a golden lustre. (Even Disney later began to rebrand their work as "anime") But there's a vital necessary process of sifting wheat from chaff. In Japan they do have publications like Shonen Jump, and while not everything in there is great, some of the better stories went on to become hits that were turned into anime. It's the choicest ones among those which then spread out of Japan to achieve mass appeal abroad.

Why can't we look back at some of the older foundational seminal publications? Does anyone remember reading old copies of Analog (originally "Astounding Stories of Super Science"), featuring works from the likes of John Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, etc?
Some of these age-old ways of doing things, before corporatization and its imperatives took over, light the way forward.
Again, it was like a digest. These digests and anthologies are a path to get past the current morass of poorly-imagined message-heavy "entertainment" content inflicted upon us due to the creative deficits at Disney, etc.
We need more modern updated versions of that. And anthology series like "Love, Death + Robots" are examples of it.

[JulesVerneATV]

New Godzilla the Ride Film to Be Directed by Academy Award-Winning Takashi Yamazaki
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/godzilla-ride-film-directed-academy-020000102.html

and video games to box office movies it will be?

A Minecraft Movie North America Box Office Day 34: Becomes The First Film To Earn $400 Million In 2025!
https://www.koimoi.com/box-office/a-minecraft-movie-north-america-box-office-day-34-becomes-the-first-film-to-earn-400-million-in-2025/


it looks like President Donald Trump will protect Hollywood California by tariff, some kind of block or tax or sanction on foreign movie products, some worry this would also extend to the cartoons, music industry, video games etc

Australia to Mel Gibson: Save us from Trump's movie tariffs
https://japantoday.com/category/entertainment/aussiewood-to-mel-gibson-save-us-from-trump's-movie-tariffs

quote Donald Trump

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114452117143235155

The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!

from Latin America


Argentina’s ‘The Eternaut’ Storms To No. 1 On Netflix’s Global Top 10
https://www.forbes.com/sites/veronicavillafane/2025/05/06/argentinas-the-eternaut-storms-to-no-1-on-netflix-global-top-10/

[JulesVerneATV]

The video game has mostly replaced music and the movie. Scifi itself seems to have become a more 'virtual' and global brand with a the toons and video games from all over the world, the Major Hollywood Actors now do video games, something that would have been almost unthinkable for them in the past. The kids are plugged in, 3d headsets, ear headphones,  there are entire gaming communities that appreciate the new medium of art. Big acting names backing a new expensive game product, Mark Hamill in the toons and video games, Sean Bean in Elder Scrolls, Ron Perlman in Fallout Matthew Perry in Fallout, Conan O'Brien in Death Stranding, Burt Reynolds in Saints Row, Patrick Stewart in Castlevania, Kristen Bell Assassin's Creed, Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077, Matthew McConaughey stars in a sci-fi RPG Exodus
'Hard Scifi' is replaced by new entertainment, the old style of scifi could be dying, Is there much of a difference anymore between StarWars and 'Steampunk' for example most of it fantasy
and the line between scifi and reality is crossed more everyday


I'm not sure how Trump's plan to save Hollywood works as productions got so globalized and multi-national corporation

rather than a scifi 'Utopia' its the new Blade Runner world

Study finds extensive AI chatbot use can deepen feelings of loneliness
https://www.marketplace.org/episode/2025/05/05/study-finds-ai-chatbot-use-can-increase-loneliness

a society abused and in the Huxley Orwellian and ‘Addictive’

[sanman]

If you want to see damning proof of sci-fi not only dying, but being actively bumped off, then look at what Disney's Marvel is doing to the Iron Man franchise by merging it with the Wakanda franchise.

Noted Scotch-connoisseur Critical Drinker correctly sums up the motives behind this hara-kiri:


[EDIT: Just swapping in a better video from him, which includes footage of this latest Ironheart]


After Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman tragically died from a drug overdose, Disney's Marvel put that franchise into stasis, prioritizing development of other storylines in the already densely-inhabited MCU. This resulted in them having a bunch of actors in the stable for the Black Panther franchise, with contractual obligations toward them which could not otherwise be fullfilled due to lack of box office revenue prospects.
This has then spawned the creative solution -- take Black Panther's sister and have her mentor a newly-minted youngster who dons the Iron Man armor to become the next hero in this newly combined franchise.
How drunk do you have to be to come up with a solution like that?

Like the US Space Shuttle program, the MCU has turned into a jobs program. Therefore they need to launch things even if they're not flight-worthy.

Just riffing off of Andor, we can see that empires can collapse due to their own decadence, lethargy and corruption. No need for an opposing spacefleet to show up to blast them out of the skies. This is self-inflicted self-destruction.

[Apollo22]

After Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman tragically died from a drug overdose

Horse manure. He died of cancer. [deleted]

[sanman]

After Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman tragically died from a drug overdose

Horse manure. He died of cancer. [deleted]

Apologies, I stand corrected. However, his death was premature and untimely, and this caused problems for the franchise.

[sanman]

Since Godzilla Minus One was mentioned in the OP, here's some new footage using Southeast Asia as a backdrop (note the green glow instead of blue)

[sanman]

Former comedian and now retired broadcast executive Paul Chato often talks about positive and negative developments in entertainment, among other things:




You may remember him from his comedy days when he was younger, as part of the comedy troupe, The Frantics:

[Steve G]

Perhaps the commontary of the current state of sci-fi is the best video Paul Chato has aired; the Redshirting of men on Star Trek and other Sci-Fi. This is a good watch with humour.

[jebbo]

I have to say that I find this thread odd as I personally know 4 active (and 1 who hasn't written for a decade) UK Sci-Fi / Fantasy authors ... sure, some are rubbish, but others are multiple Hugo / BSFA winners.

So written (rather than video) seems pretty alive and well to me.

--- Tony

[sanman]

Should AI be turned into a mainstay or center-piece in future storytelling?
Some cautious sober reflection is required.

On the one hand, we can think AUC (Area Under Curve), on the other hand we can think S2N (Signal-to-Noise)

If you're going to primarily rely on audiences to sift the wheat from the chaff, while producing lots of chaff, then you may end up creating a lot of audience fatigue in the process.

[JulesVerneATV]

Top 2025 Movies at the Worldwide Box Office
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2025

1    Ne Zha 2 (哪吒之魔童闹海)    
2    A Minecraft Movie    
3    Tang Tan 1900 (唐探1900)    
4    Captain America: Brave New World    
5    Sinners    
6    Thunderbolts*    
7    Disney’s Snow White    
8    Creation of the Gods II: Demonic Confrontation
9    Dog Man    
10    Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy    
11    Mickey 17    
12    Boonie Bears: Future Reborn (熊出没·重启未来)…        
13    A Working Man
14    The Amateur    
15    Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants
16    The Accountant 2    
17    The King of Kings    
18    The Monkey    
19    Den of Thieves 2: Pantera    
20    One of Them Days    
21    Operation Hadal (蛟龙行动)    
22    Final Destination: Bloodlines    
23    Until Dawn    
24    Flight Risk    
25    Black Bag    
26    Volshebnik Izumrudnogo goroda
27    Companion    
28    Wolf Man    
29    Novocaine    
30    Heart Eyes

[sanman]

Perhaps the commontary of the current state of sci-fi is the best video Paul Chato has aired; the Redshirting of men on Star Trek and other Sci-Fi. This is a good watch with humour.

I had posted his latest video, but the one you posted is perhaps more artfully worded, offering comments that are both insightful and witty. It's good that he continues to be that way...




... in spite of all those boots to the head

[JulesVerneATV]

so maybe another quick look at budgets, they do it well and control spending with US indie movies and overseas movie makers
and because the Hollywood is now business model that the President 'Ordered' to be saved and maybe makes no sense these days..it has become a political thing now on both sides to save the Big LA studios...and from both left and right we have criticism of this save the big studios policy.

Indie and Overseas movies?

Godzilla Minus One from year 2003 which made a lot of money globally Budget $10–15 million
the original Final destination a horror Budget $23 million, the horror film can be even cheaper
Mad Max Budget $200,000 or 0.2 Million
Five Nights at Freddy's film 2023 Budget 20 Million
Rocky Budget $1 million
Night of the Living Dead Budget $114,000
Locke a 2013 psychological drama road film

There was also a time when the market wasn't so bad if you had any kind of movie that did ok the studio would market merchandise and you would recover money from a poor box office with t-shirts and toys and DVD sales and Disney Rides and sales of baseball caps

Today's budgets

The Electric State year 2025 Budget cost $320
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning part2 Production Budget 400 Million or $400,000,000    
Eternals 2021 movie $275 Million
Star Wars: The Last Jedi  year 2017 Budget $300
Snow White remake 2025 movie $300 Million
Batman v Superman year 2016 Budget $270
The Flash...supposed to reboot WB DC with some multi verse dimension, Budget $220 million actor arrested
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania 2023 Budget $330...one of the lead actors arrested
The Marvels 2023 Budget $300+ Million

How is their business model making any sense?

[sanman]

so maybe another quick look at budgets, they do it well and control spending with US indie movies and overseas movie makers
and because the Hollywood is now business model that the President 'Ordered' to be saved and maybe makes no sense these days..it has become a political thing now on both sides to save the Big LA studios...and from both left and right we have criticism of this save the big studios policy.

Indie and Overseas movies?

Godzilla Minus One from year 2003 which made a lot of money globally Budget $10–15 million
the original Final destination a horror Budget $23 million, the horror film can be even cheaper
Mad Max Budget $200,000 or 0.2 Million
Five Nights at Freddy's film 2023 Budget 20 Million
Rocky Budget $1 million
Night of the Living Dead Budget $114,000
Locke a 2013 psychological drama road film

There was also a time when the market wasn't so bad if you had any kind of movie that did ok the studio would market merchandise and you would recover money from a poor box office with t-shirts and toys and DVD sales and Disney Rides and sales of baseball caps

Today's budgets

The Electric State year 2025 Budget cost $320
Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning part2 Production Budget 400 Million or $400,000,000    
Eternals 2021 movie $275 Million
Star Wars: The Last Jedi  year 2017 Budget $300
Snow White remake 2025 movie $300 Million
Batman v Superman year 2016 Budget $270
The Flash...supposed to reboot WB DC with some multi verse dimension, Budget $220 million actor arrested
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania 2023 Budget $330...one of the lead actors arrested
The Marvels 2023 Budget $300+ Million

Godzilla Minus One, meet Jurassic World Rebirth - hahaha!
Sigh. 

How is their business model making any sense?

The gaps in it and the obsolescence are hard to ignore.
Maybe it can be reconstituted with the help of frog DNA and AI  _{(coz AI is good for everything)}

[JulesVerneATV]

I read "Dune" in 1965 when it was published. so 60 years, not 30 years. For me, any mechanism that can move matter between points in space faster than light can travel between those points is FTL travel, and all such mechanisms are fantasy.

The prohibitions in the OC Bible are IMO also fantasy. They require that all branches of the future society refrain from developing and using AI. It only takes one individual violate the prohibitions.

a lot of the honesty of old art and attempts at originality seems gone

StarWars is without doubt more 'Fantasy' influenced than Science, it feels like a Western Cowboy type 'Frontier' film, its almost like a cut and past of a bunch of scifi and war movies and samurai movies that somehow amalgam into this new scifi fantastical universe, but with very little actual 'science', it has bits of movie 'The Dam Busters' a 1955 film, it feels like a Flash Gordon Cartoon it also feels like Kurosawa the Samurai duelists and it feels like King Arthur. Dune is very much a Western product but I feel it has a flavor of that 'East meets West' maybe a commentary on the crossroads of the Middle East, his own Buddhist philosophy, many believed he took inspiration from real world history wondered if Dune intended as commentary of the Middle East?
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/280438/is-dune-intended-as-an-allegory-of-the-middle-east
Brian Herbert for a while took over the brand, he was an editor of the books, he would write Dune books with  with Kevin J. Anderson and Dreamer of Dune The Biography of Frank Herbert. You could argue that after the failure of attempt of commercial success from David Lynch and the Scifi-Channel tv show or 'Syfy' it has slowly become a mainstream brand and cashcow.

at the time Star Wars was very original but it has since become a big repeating cashcow a media franchise like the Disney Marvels and Warner Bros DC movies, Jurassic Park movies, James Bonds, the Twilights, the Terminators, the Alien Xenomorphs, Transformers, the Xmens, the Supermans. It is a business and one idea they have is to have an entertainment product and ship it as a 'brand'. The Fast & Furious franchise young adult street racers or teens with some crime story racing cars, there is 11 movies of  Fast & Furious now?


and in the Fantasy Genre the Japanese started winning?
they do LOTR and Dungeons and Dragons better than Western entertainment companies

 
a social media channel 'Weird Place'



Why Japanese Fantasy has Dungeons... and sometimes Dragons

[lamontagne]

Top 2025 Movies at the Worldwide Box Office
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2025

1    Ne Zha 2 (哪吒之魔童闹海)    
2    A Minecraft Movie    
3    Tang Tan 1900 (唐探1900)    
4    Captain America: Brave New World    
5    Sinners    
6    Thunderbolts*    
7    Disney’s Snow White    
8    Creation of the Gods II: Demonic Confrontation
9    Dog Man    
10    Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy    
11    Mickey 17    
12    Boonie Bears: Future Reborn (熊出没·重启未来)…        
13    A Working Man
14    The Amateur    
15    Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants
16    The Accountant 2    
17    The King of Kings    
18    The Monkey    
19    Den of Thieves 2: Pantera    
20    One of Them Days    
21    Operation Hadal (蛟龙行动)    
22    Final Destination: Bloodlines    
23    Until Dawn    
24    Flight Risk    
25    Black Bag    
26    Volshebnik Izumrudnogo goroda
27    Companion    
28    Wolf Man    
29    Novocaine    
30    Heart Eyes

1    Ne Zha 2 (哪吒之魔童闹海)    Eastern Fantasy
2    A Minecraft Movie    Western Science fiction
3    Tang Tan 1900 (唐探1900)    Eastern detective
4    Captain America: Brave New World    Western Superhero Science fiction
5    Sinners    Eastern detective, drama
6    Thunderbolts*     Western Superhero, Science fiction
7    Disney’s Snow White    Eastern fantasy
8    Creation of the Gods II: Demonic Confrontation  Eastern Fantasy
9    Dog Man    Western Superhero
10    Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy    Western drama
11    Mickey 17    Eastern science fiction
12    Boonie Bears: Future Reborn (熊出没·重启未来)…        Eastern science fiction superhero
13    A Working Man Western action
14    The Amateur    Western thriller
15    Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants
16    The Accountant 2    Western thriller
17    The King of Kings    Western drama
18    The Monkey    Western horror
19    Den of Thieves 2: Pantera    Western thriller
20    One of Them Days    Western comedy
21    Operation Hadal (蛟龙行动)    Eastern thriller
22    Final Destination: Bloodlines    Eastern horror
23    Until Dawn    Western horror
24    Flight Risk    Eastern thriller
25    Black Bag    Eastern thriller
26    Volshebnik Izumrudnogo goroda  Eastern fantasy? 
27    Companion    Western science fiction
28    Wolf Man    Eastern horror
29    Novocaine    Eastern comedy
30    Heart Eyes Eastern horror comedy

Great list, thanks!  From the list, what seems to be dead is western comedy and realistic drama, Bridget Jones is the first one at no.10.  The most classic Science fiction would be no.11, Mickey 17. So  Science fiction is high up on the list, and superhero films, that are a crossover between SF and fantasy, are way up there at the top.  Very few are aimed at adults.

I was fascinated by 26, a Sovietic rip-off of the wizard of Oz.
So, from this, Western science fiction hardly seems dead.  Genre movies have, it seems, taken over the cultural landscape.

[sanman]

Great list, thanks!  From the list, what seems to be dead is western comedy and realistic drama, Bridget Jones is the first one at no.10.  The most classic Science fiction would be no.11, Mickey 17. So  Science fiction is high up on the list, and superhero films, that are a crossover between SF and fantasy, are way up there at the top.  Very few are aimed at adults.

I was fascinated by 26, a Sovietic rip-off of the wizard of Oz.
So, from this, Western science fiction hardly seems dead.  Genre movies have, it seems, taken over the cultural landscape.

If I give you a list of Top 30 fast food chains, this won't necessarily tell you how healthy their menu offering is, or even what state of health of their franchise is in.

[lamontagne]

Great list, thanks!  From the list, what seems to be dead is western comedy and realistic drama, Bridget Jones is the first one at no.10.  The most classic Science fiction would be no.11, Mickey 17. So  Science fiction is high up on the list, and superhero films, that are a crossover between SF and fantasy, are way up there at the top.  Very few are aimed at adults.

I was fascinated by 26, a Sovietic rip-off of the wizard of Oz.
So, from this, Western science fiction hardly seems dead.  Genre movies have, it seems, taken over the cultural landscape.

If I give you a list of Top 30 fast food chains, this won't necessarily tell you how healthy their menu offering is, or even what state of health of their franchise is in.

That seems like a false analogy between healthy food and the health on an industry, or of a genre.  A list of the top 30 food chains, if they were all owner by China, and served chinese menus, would tell me something on the health of the western fast food industry.  If burgers win out world wide, that does says something about cultural influence, as well as something about the attraction of processed foods and the power of meat over vegetables.

If the western SF movies are generating revenue, that is always a good step towards survival!  But in the specific case of Mickey 17, perhaps not quite enough revenue.
And does the question even make sense today?  Mickey 17 has a British lead, with a South Corean director with an idea that would have fitted nicely in an Analog serial. A web search tells me it's based on a novel, Mickey 7, by an american writer who actually has published in Analog.  Produced by Warner bros, that seems entirely american.
Is it Western? Is it Eastern, and does it matter in the least?
A Minecraft Movie has made a lot of money, if is clearly western SF, with portals and parallel universes that could have been penned by Heinlein, or fitted nicely in an Ace double.  But with the twist of the link to an existing video game.  Does that make is less SF?  It has american leads, writers and was produced by an american studio, is based on a Swedish video game, and seesm to quality as western.

Have the old distribution channels changed?  Of course.  I can't go into a small concenience store and buy a magazine off the shelf, or a SF novel of the rack.  But I can't buy any novel, or magazine (with rare exceptions) off the shelf anyway.  But that doesn't mean writing is dead, just that things have changed.

[sanman]

Reposting from the Andor thread...

I think Disney streaming is on its way out. Disney is trying to survive by recently adding more streaming outlets, such as ESPN and Hulu, to maintain its revenue. When you see this occurring (watering down content), then they are struggling.

News outlets reported layoffs at Disney's streaming divisions yesterday. Consequently, reductions in streaming have begun. Ahsoka Season II will likely be the last series to stream, and Mandalorian Season 4 has been canceled. No further streaming series is scheduled. Lucasfilm is currently hiring more staff in the animation departments. The assumption is that Disney is reverting to a post-2018 strategy focused solely on movies and animation. It's not just Star Wars that is affected, but Marvel as well.

Using Game of Thrones as a convenient example, its impact on the entertainment landscape was far larger than some fleeting movie. There are economies of scale to be had from amortizing your expenses across a larger multi-episodic serial production. You also build up a loyal audience base, like with soap operas. Hollywood studios like making sequels for that reason, and a larger TV serial is sort of like a bunch of mini sequels. Streaming is also more economically efficient as a distribution platform, and also arguably benefits the wider marketplace and society by forcing better infrastructural upgrades for internet bandwidth. It offers far more convenience, and beats having to pay more money for overpriced theater snacks.

Just like with smallsat launchers, it's possible there's been an over-proliferation of too many, and this would lead to a winnowing of the market, to borrow Beck's phrase. However, the remaining survivors still left standing will be able to reap greater market share for themselves, and it seems obvious that from a viewer experience standpoint, the high-quality streaming TV series is undoubtedly the apex form of entertainment.

As the largest entertainment company by market capitalization, Disney should want to stay in the fight and reap the spoils of victory by showing staying power and outlasting rivals. Instead, they've only fallen prey to their own internal political instincts of scapegoating.  Bad creative decisions were made, causing money to be wasted on bad productions. Because streaming series have larger budgets, that meant the bad creative decisions resulted in more wastage, as compared to bad creative decision-making on movies. The solution is to vet ideas better and with a more critical eye, to avoid the bad creative decisions that can result from their corporatized process. The solution is not to retreat from the newer better platform that offers the viewer a better experience. The viewers will continue to stay loyal to their own interest, which is guided by having a better experience. If Disney throws away the opportunity, then somebody else will come forward to claim it.

(I guess we should be talking about this in the other thread about science fiction dying)

[sanman]

[sanman]

Just saw this and had to post this here, for perspective on past attitudes towards science fiction



(I think I saw every one of those news segments when they first aired, except for the first one intro'd by John Chancellor)

[sanman]

The following is copy-pasted from the Space-Themed AI Art thread for more appropriate topical discussion)

If others hadn't told me it was AI, then I'd have never known

https://youtube.com/watch?v=zSFk6odrkw0

Yes, they are, and they are comparable to a set of AI videos concerning a specific Bigfoot character.

https://www.youtube.com/@AWorldAccordingToAI

...

This is insane. At this rate, what will we even need actors and film production artists for? Imagine the exposure level of their industry to this kind of disruptive change.

I once again mention AUCvS2N   (Area Under Curve vs Signal To Noise)
By AUC, I mean that the total output will increase because of this change lowering the bar to participation/production.
However, with every Tom-Dick-Harry now trying to be George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, then it means a lot of garbage will be produced, so lower Signal-to-Noise.

We're going to need more curation and vetting of content produced, because most ordinary people won't want to wade thru piles of junk just to find the gems worth watching.

[Joris]

I think scifi does better if it has more time to tell its story, which is why it does so well with tv-shows and videogames where it's not forced to put everything in two hours. Movies also tend to be high-budget endeavours which means studios like to play safe and fund prequels, sequels, remakes, and adaptions. This means you won't get many new original stories out of hollywood, compared to other media.

Without going into a list of recomendations for really good new original scifi stories such as Pantheon, For All Mankind, or Severance, I think it's better to think about what scifi is and what influences it had. The new top-gun movie started out with Tom Cruise in a hypersonic scramjet, that is very scifi and there was no need for it in the story. A lot of recent superhero movies feature a lot of scifi despite their source material being devoid of it.

I also think that it's hard to come to an exact consensus about what is scifi and what is fantasy, but I challenge anyone to come with a definition where the Star Wars movies are scifi and not fantasy. I think a lot of thoughts about scifi dying are just people liking something that was popular when they were young and then being nostalgic about it or its genre. All those types of movies are still being made, they just don't feel as good now because they are the same quality and you're just not as nostalgic about them.

Perhaps the commontary of the current state of sci-fi

The state of 'a' scifi maybe, but zooming in on one iteration of one single franchise because it was essentially the only one on TV in a time when there was only room for one such show does not even attempt to be an unbiased take.

I think a more accurate observation w.r.t. scifi shows is that they stopped being nonepisodic, in my opinion this makes them better TV-shows, although it does make them different and people don't always like fundamental change to something they liked before. In the past you were usually relegated to watching what was on TV, which means tv-shows couldn't rely on their viewers having seen everything that came before. This meant that stories couldn't really progress as much and it gave them a sitcom-feel to it, where nothing they did mattered and they always ended up with the same main characters in the same situation.

The encounter with a dyson-sphere in TNG that was forgotten after the credits for example. That's a truly giant artefact of a society far more advanced than theirs and it just doesn't matter, the next episode is about the crew struggling with their sleep. It feels like watching an episode of Frasier where the characters watch the news about how it was discovered that Charon is an alien megastructure and it can be reactivated for interstellar travel, and the only impact is that Frasier decides to try out a new dish that he's allergic too because all of humanity might die and the only thing that has changed next episode is that Frasier has learned that he can in fact eat shrimp.

[sanman]

I think a more accurate observation w.r.t. scifi shows is that they stopped being nonepisodic, in my opinion this makes them better TV-shows, although it does make them different and people don't always like fundamental change to something they liked before. In the past you were usually relegated to watching what was on TV, which means tv-shows couldn't rely on their viewers having seen everything that came before. This meant that stories couldn't really progress as much and it gave them a sitcom-feel to it, where nothing they did mattered and they always ended up with the same main characters in the same situation.

Yeah, that's the case with all TV fiction series, and not just sci-fi. The episodic way allow  the episodes to be kept more compartmentalized, as compared to a continuity.

The encounter with a dyson-sphere in TNG that was forgotten after the credits for example. That's a truly giant artefact of a society far more advanced than theirs and it just doesn't matter, the next episode is about the crew struggling with their sleep. It feels like watching an episode of Frasier where the characters watch the news about how it was discovered that Charon is an alien megastructure and it can be reactivated for interstellar travel, and the only impact is that Frasier decides to try out a new dish that he's allergic too because all of humanity might die and the only thing that has changed next episode is that Frasier has learned that he can in fact eat shrimp.

Or like that episode where they help to break in the Voyager with Janeway?



(j/k, that was a comedy skit staged for an awards show, if it wasn't obvious)

[Apollo22]

Which Rama would be best ?

Dennis Villeneuve Rama ?
Christopher Nolan Rama ?
Alfonso Cuaron Rama ?

I ask because I loved Gravity, Interstellar and Arrival all the same.

[JulesVerneATV]

revisionist?

always on the fringe, a 1982 American science fiction 'Tron' action adventure film



banned from the Oscars, TRON Was Disqualified Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Barnard Hughes




'Frankly it blew my mind Tron 1982'
https://retrocomputingforum.com/t/frankly-it-blew-my-mind-tron-1982/2704

Ares New Trailer


citing the extensive CGI use as essentially cheating.

Computers are in common use for visual effects today but back then they said TRON was a 'cheat' and so Disqualified,  but it also used practical effects the glowing effects on the character suits were created through practical tactics in post-production, hundreds of real life hand painters were hired, it was E.T. Also , Blade Runner  and Poltergeist, with E.T. winning a most film fans agree that Tron deserved to be in the mix.

Loss or Flops or Box Office Bombs

Snow White remake Loss of $115
Joker 2 Folie à Deux Lost $144
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny    $145
Wish $125
Devotion $100
Strange World $200
The Marvels $225
The Flash    $160
Space Jam A New Legacy $120
The Matrix Resurrections $150

[JulesVerneATV]

The comicbook hero stuff and DrWhos and StarTreks and StarWars stuff seems kind of dying now.
Here are Some observations an opinion of mine on what I have seen on art, film, book, comicbook, fantasy, science plus fiction and game trends, it used to be all Hollywood but as world went global Hollywood is now less dominant.

Hollywood has been the dominant force for movies all around the world. For decades Hollywood has been the winner, there has been no force like it these past decades. It might be debatable if this is a good thing or bad thing, for example it would cost small 'indie' studios their artistic ideas and small independent film projects if Hollywood was too dominant against small US film makers. California was where it was done, the Studio Tours around LA not around New York, Texas, Florida, it was LA that was the number-1 force and foreign films from Europe, Japan, Latin America, the Soviet Union, China, South Korea, Australia stuggled. Yes some foreign films on a rare time would do ok, foreign movie maybe were able to compete somewhat with Hollywood and maybe even beat them on a rare occasion but if you look at the Top 10 around the world it was all major Hollywood studios. For a while Canada started to offer a cheaper film location, suddenly a lot of movies and tv shows started to look like a location at Vancouver British Colombia Canada they did it better than LA and were offering better tax breaks. The 1960s was when news media started to take notice of 'the Flop' or box office bomb, very large Estimated loss, crazy production budgets and not enough money coming back to the studio. During the era of VHS and DVDs studios were able to recover money, they sold mugs, T-shirts, Disney rides, games and comicbooks, plastic toys and a new baseball cap...DVDs and merchandise became a big thing. Cate Blanchett the latest one to speak out, Hollywood is not the centre of film world, says Cate Blanchett in swipe at Trump film tariffs, both people on the right and left are critical of the sanctions plan to save Hollywood. The DVD market seems to have died but it is also slowly coming back as governments and media companies decide to censor art for 'offense' of artistic thought, it would seem people are once again collecting physical copies which perverts a studio or government from banning a movie.

In the past Hollywood movies would typically keep their budgets under control, they could depend on US cinema seats alone, they didn't really need anyone from Latin America or Asia or Europe to watch their films as their budgets were low enough to depend on 'Domestic Earnings' any international takings were seen as a bonus. However somewhere over the years budgets got so outrageous Hollywood film needed its foreign international takings to keep its profits alive, at the same time foreign films were not that competitive against Hollywood. Yes there have been big films from HongKong or Spain or France or Germany or Australia or China but typically they have not been able to make it into the Top10, there have been Francophile art followers, or people who are big fans of Japan the games the 'Anime' but that has typically been sub culture within 'The West' the French or Japan or Spanish or Asia or Overseas film was a specialized niche fandom vs Hollywood, Asia or 'Europe' was a sub-culture underground cult following of sorts.

People are playing games more and people now reading less in 'The West', France, Australia etc sales are down and people don't  seem to read physical books anymore. Are they listening to audio books maybe or watching social media videos? It is possible some types of good books and books of madness religiosity and superstitions and the politics of stupidity and political crazy will always sell. Scifi such as Larry Niven might always sell, The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells, Philip K Dick, but also sales of terrible stupidity like Karl Marx The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, the Quran or Koran, books that may have inspired others to kill thousands or even millions, the market on teen books have become a thing, the Twilight, Harry Potter or comicbook type thing. These days 50,500 copies of a book in some country is considered a hit, people today are simply reading less even though the populations have increased. It's possible classics will always sell, The Alchemist Portuguese O Alquimista, the scifi horror Frankenstein, the comicbooks re-printed again and again Xmens Phoenix Saga, Frank Miller The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Moore's Watchmen, ‘Cerebus,’ Dave Sim, the Japanese 'Manga' Princess Mononoke Astroboy Demon Slayer Spirited Away types stories. There are books that will probably continue to sell again and again each year, old Greek writings, the Dune series of books, an old Chinese book of poetry, Fables and Children's books, Crime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Name of the Rose Il Nome della Rosa, Kokoro by Natsume Soseki, The Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit,  the Norwegian story of Morgan Kane, Poland's story The Witcher, Cosmos by Carl Sagan, South korea philosophical art mathematically books that they insit are their own unique philosophy and science and education Hong Sung-dae, nothing to do with Japan or China or Western culture, no plagiarism. To sell big in the past you typically had to sell millions of copies to be noticed on any best seller list but not anymore. Books within the public domain might continue selling, people might want physical copies in case a government or entertainment publisher finds thoughts of offense in these books...some of these books you might class as 'world culture' not really Eastern or Western.

Although Japan has dominated the cartoon business in Asia opthers are arriving now with the best manhwa, Manhua, Chinese manga and 'webtoons' the werid dystopia like scifi horror thriller SKorea tv show Squid Games made it into pop culture with Kamala Harris talking about it, cites 'Squid Games' as example of 'cultural ties.
For a while Japan was completely dominant in the video game industry, the video game industry now outsells the movie industry and the music industry combined. Around 2001-2002 the US game companies started to make a comeback the Xbox home video game console to take on the giants of Asia.

are lessons now learned? or is stuff still ready to flop?

Gamer Community Problems?

Ubisoft is a French video game publisher

The Assassin's Creed Shadows team has a message for our Japanese community.
https://x.com/assassinscreed/status/1815674592444187116

Prime Minister Ishiba hit out at the Feudal Japan-set game

 the PM addressed concerns over Assassin’s Creed Shadows, especially on the part of the game that enables players to destroy shrines. He was not pleased with the portrayal of his country’s culture and reprimanded the creators
https://fandomwire.com/we-will-not-tolerate-ubisofts-lawsuit-threats-wont-work-as-japans-pm-issues-a-stern-warning-over-assassins-creed-shadows/


‘Ironheart’ Is Marvel’s Gamble on a Minor MCU Hero. It Doesn’t Pay Off
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/ironheart-review-marvel-disney-1235368587/


Bryce Dallas Howard Says ‘I’ve Never Been Shocked’ by Flops Like ‘Argylle’ and ‘Lady in the Water’: ‘You Can Always See It Coming While You’re Making It’
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/bryce-dallas-howard-argylle-lady-in-the-water-flops-1236427993/

reboots, re-imaginings and remakes ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’

Jurassic World Rebirth's Box Office Tracking Suggests Some Major Questions For The Franchise
www.slashfilm.com/1896522/jurassic-world-rebirth-box-office-tracking/


not scifi but the 'Wick' franchise seems dead, 'Lord of the Rings' Amazon tv remake cancelled, Wheel of Time cancelled

Ubisoft Responds to Assassin's Creed Shadows Criticism, Apologises to Japanese Players
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2024/07/ubisoft-responds-to-assassins-creed-shadows-criticism-apologises-to-japanese-players

before the Paparazzi days the stars had minders, people who made sure they got home ok even after drinking too much alcohol or smoking strange stuff and photographers were kept away, it allowed the glitz and fake glamor to continue. Then everything started getting leaked, cameras everywhere, their silly political opinions, left vs right and then right vs left a nasty outbrust or a Weinstein scandal which alienates audiences and costs money, the net and mobile cell phones with audio mics and pictures put their behavior on the web. The studio itself can turn on its own actors Rachel Zegler's ‘hateful’ comments caused Snow White's bomb, Warner Bros DC and Marvel Disney after dominating the field now admitting they are doing in wrong, even tv cashcows struggle HBO's The Last Of Us had a video game property but that also fails .

‘Lilo & Stitch’ Beats ‘Ballerina’ at Box Office as ‘John Wick’ Spinoff Debuts to $25 Million
https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/john-wick-ballerina-box-office-opening-weekend-lilo-stitch-rules-1236422459/

[JulesVerneATV]

Which Rama would be best ?

Dennis Villeneuve Rama ?
Christopher Nolan Rama ?
Alfonso Cuaron Rama ?

I ask because I loved Gravity, Interstellar and Arrival all the same.

Rumors say Denis Villeneuve is doing it

If I give you a list of Top 30 fast food chains, this won't necessarily tell you how healthy their menu offering is, or even what state of health of their franchise is in.

Here's a thing though while the population is increasing in parts of the world, in parts of the world where it is increasing people are buying less books, reading less. So what are they doing, watching social media?  drinking beer, smoking something?
maybe they are painting, they are kicking a ball, writing poetry, learning the Cello or Viola...maybe knitting pairs of gloves, doing the garden, fishing...
or playing video games?


Audio books are increasing
..however human readers and voice actors will probably be replaced by AI soon

Audiobooks are the fastest growing segment in digital publishing
https://goodereader.com/blog/audiobooks/audiobooks-are-the-fastest-growing-segment-in-digital-publishing

this time SKorean outsells Japanese toons
https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/59106/full-year-2024-circana-bookscan-top-20-author-superhero-graphic-novels

Marvel / DC is losing out to Japan Manga and Anime


info from the gaming market

Best Selling Video Games: France 2024
https://data40.com/articles/best-selling-video-games-france/

Paper Mario and Ghost of Tsushima were May’s best-selling games in Canada
https://mobilesyrup.com/2024/07/11/best-selling-games-canada-may-2024-paper-mario-the-thousand-year-door-ghost-of-tsushima/
Nintendos classic GameCube RPG is still going strong, even 20 years later

British gaming market, best-selling video games of 2024
https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/20/full-list-2024s-best-selling-games-brutally-depressing-reading-22229951/
    EA Sports FC 25
    Hogwarts Legacy
    Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6
    EA Sports FC 24
    Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
    Super Mario Bros. Wonder
    Minecraft
    Nintendo Switch Sports
    The Legend Of Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom
    Super Mario Party Jamboree




The comicbook cashcow seems dead now, is that a good thing? and what will they replace it with ? replacing it with movies of 'Toys' like Barbie or Hot Wheels or GI-Joe or Pokemon or Beanie Babies or HeMan, a movie about a Rubik’s Cube? ...Toys it seems very 'silly' would they make movies on next Stretch Armstrong? yeah they have Fantastic Four again, Russian Matryoshka dolls? maybe Fidget Spinners?...but then again people liked 'Toy Story' and Transformers did sell well but Transformers films are not seen as 'High Art' people kind of see the Michael Bay style as mindless explosive trash entertainment.
or maybe replace the old dying comicbook genre with Video Games like Minecraft a Warner Bros product but that's not a true Hollywood product it also owned by a Swedish guy and Swedish video game developer, Sonic and Mario and many other video game products seem to be global owned or Japanese owned


Here are some of the Top10 Box office from other years


2023
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2023

1      Barbie    
2    The Super Mario Bros. Movie    
3    Oppenheimer    
4    Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3    
5    Fast X    
6    Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse    
7    Wonka    
8    Full River Red (满江红)    
9    The Little Mermaid    
10    Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One

2022
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2022

1    Avatar: The Way of Water    
2    Top Gun: Maverick    
3    Jurassic World: Dominion    
4    Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness    
5    Minions: The Rise of Gru
6    Black Panther: Wakanda Forever    
7    The Batman    
8    Thor: Love and Thunder    
9    Water Gate Bridge  (长津湖之水门桥)
10    Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

2016
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2016

1      Captain America: Civil War    
2    Rogue One: A Star Wars Story    
3    Zootopia    
4    Finding Dory    
5    The Jungle Book    
6    The Secret Life of Pets    
7    Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice    
8    Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them    
9    Deadpool    
10    Suicide Squad

2008
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2008

1    The Dark Knight    
2    Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull    
3    Kung Fu Panda    
4    Hancock    
5    Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa    
6    Quantum of Solace    
7    Iron Man    
8    Mamma Mia!    
9    WALL-E    
10    The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

2007
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2007

1    Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End    
2    Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix    
3    Spider-Man 3    
4    Shrek the Third    
5    Transformers    
6    Ratatouille    
7    I am Legend    
8    The Simpsons Movie    
9    National Treasure: Book of Secrets    
10    300

1998
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1998

1    Armageddon    
2    Saving Private Ryan    
3    Godzilla    $376,000,000    
4    There's Something About Mary
5    A Bug’s Life    
6    Deep Impact    
7    Mulan    
8    Doctor Dolittle    
9    Lethal Weapon 4    
10    Shakespeare in Love

1997
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1997

1    Titanic    
2    The Lost World: Jurassic Park
3    Men in Black    
4    Tomorrow Never Dies    
5    Air Force One    
6    As Good as it Gets    
7    Liar Liar    
8    My Best Friend's Wedding    
9    The Fifth Element    
10    The Full Monty

1996
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1996

1    Independence Day    
2    Twister    
3    Mission: Impossible    
4    The Rock    
5    The Hunchback of Notre Dame    
6    Ransom    
7    The Nutty Professor    
8    Jerry Maguire    
9    Space Jam    
10    Eraser

1993
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1993

1    Jurassic Park    
2    Mrs. Doubtfire    
3    The Fugitive    
4    Schindler’s List    
5    The Firm    
6    Indecent Proposal    
7    Cliffhanger    
8    Sleepless in Seattle    
9    Philadelphia    
10    The Pelican Brief

1991
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1991

1    Terminator 2: Judgment Day    
2    Beauty and the Beast    
3    Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves    
4    Hook    
5    The Silence of the Lambs    
6    JFK    
7    The Addams Family    
8    Cape Fear    
9    Hot Shots!    
10    Sleeping with the Enemy

1983
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1983

1    Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi    
2    Flashdance    
3    Octopussy    
4    Never Say Never Again    
5    Staying Alive    
6    Terms of Endearment    
7    Trading Places    
8    Jaws 3-D    
9    Superman III    
10    WarGames

1982
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1982

1    E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial    
2    Rocky III    
3    Tootsie    
4    An Officer and a Gentleman    
5    Gandhi    
6    First Blood    
7    Poltergeist    
8    Porky's    $
9    Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan    
10    Das Boot

1977
https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-1977

1    Star Wars Ep. IV: A New Hope    
2    Close Encounters of the Third Kind    
3    Saturday Night Fever    
4    The Spy Who Loved Me    
5    Smokey and the Bandit    
6    The Goodbye Girl    
7    In Search of Noah\'s Ark    
8    Oh, God!    
9    A Bridge Too Far    
10    The Deep

scifi and real life LA burnings



Katee Sackhoff radio internet show, Brent Spiner lost his home in the L.A. fires.


the Fires burned from the 7th day of January to the 30th day of January 2025

the Jan 2025 destructive wildfires damaged a lot of California and affected the Los Angeles metropolitan area where a lot of classic films and scifi tv shows have been made, the fires seem to get worse every few years but this fire was particularly bad, causes of the fire are still Under Investigation, .

[Joris]

what will they replace it with

I feel a bit lost in the point you're trying to make w.r.t. western science fiction dying. People still make scifi movies and tv shows, probably even more than before becuase there's a lot more industries making them and the market is bigger. There's several hit TV-shows about scifi video games right now, the new season of Foundation is airing in less than 2 weeks. Several of the biggest hits of recent times were scifi's, like Severance or TLOU. A ton of succesfull videogames are scifi and it's easy to miss them by only looking at the best selling games of each year and seeing sportsball '25. People liking sports does not mean scifi is dying either.

not seen as 'High Art' people kind of see the Michael Bay style as mindless explosive trash entertainment.

There are only two types of movies that typically get critical acclaim. They have to be about people dying tragically, or they have to be about writers, actors, directors, or something else that is related to the movie-industry. It's because people like what they know, and the panels that vote on the oscars are composed exclusively of those professions. This does not actually impact what gets made, or how well it does in the box-office, nor does it mean hollywood is the only entertainment that matters.

Here are some of the Top10 Box office from other years

There's a lot of nitpicking by going with specific years and not actually doing any analysis on whether there are scifi movies at the top, nor whether they are actually scifi. You seem happy that superhero movies are dying out, but the average superhero movie of recent times had more scifi elements and less magic than the starwars movies.

[Cheapchips]

Which Rama would be best ?

Dennis Villeneuve Rama ?
Christopher Nolan Rama ?
Alfonso Cuaron Rama ?

I ask because I loved Gravity, Interstellar and Arrival all the same.

Rama was on Fincher's slate at one point. I think that would have been interesting.

[JayWee]

I think a more accurate observation w.r.t. scifi shows is that they stopped being nonepisodic, in my opinion this makes them better TV-shows, although it does make them different and people don't always like fundamental change to something they liked before. In the past you were usually relegated to watching what was on TV, which means tv-shows couldn't rely on their viewers having seen everything that came before. This meant that stories couldn't really progress as much and it gave them a sitcom-feel to it, where nothing they did mattered and they always ended up with the same main characters in the same situation.

Yeah, that's the case with all TV fiction series, and not just sci-fi. The episodic way allow  the episodes to be kept more compartmentalized, as compared to a continuity.

There was an important aspect of episodic 24-per-season TV:  training grounds of new writers.
New authors could pitch a story for an episode, work with seasoned producers/writers to polish it and if the audience liked it, they could come back for another and eventually the studio would listen to their pitch for their own show (they had the CV).

Much harder (for both authors and studios) to do in the current serialized streaming era.

[JulesVerneATV]

There's a lot of nitpicking by going with specific years and not actually doing any analysis on whether there are scifi movies at the top, nor whether they are actually scifi. You seem happy that superhero movies are dying out, but the average superhero movie of recent times had more scifi elements and less magic than the starwars movies.

I should clear a few things up, everyone is free to have their own choice. The motion picture and your freedom to enjoy or dislike is part of what makes movies interesting.

I personally feel Movies have changed a lot, the movie experience is now an international one the products are in demand fast. Maybe it was easier to make money less competition and in the past if a movie did ok it could pick things up in DVD sales, before DVD it was making money by VHS.
That DVD market is gone, DVD sales are not the same and while 'streaming' has generated income for studios it also comes with its own curse. The mood has changed, people like gaming more, the mood of movie they have got more dark, more short slastick vids on feeds on the groups of facebooks or tiktok feeds, there is the 'Cyberpunk' genre or dystopia even the Grimdark trenches of 'Warhammer' scifi the video games and toons of scifi wars has become more popular genre again where as in the past scifi was often uptopian, bright and 'optimistic'. The new Fantastic Four seems to go back to some of those bright optimism colors of the 60s and its marketing is selling it as a family movie. I can not say if the new Fantastic Four will work and it might not have much 'science' in it, the genre is comic book so don't expect hard-scifi physics. I don't really care how Hollywood award ceremony ranks a film, sometimes 'Oscars' etc are an indication of a good movies sometimes they are not. At the Oscars they regard Nolan's Batman as a product that should be recognized as high art, I agree there is something special about the films, I also liked Captain America Winter Solider, Logan was a very good movie and I enjoyed the first Guardians of the Galaxy a lot.  I do agree the comicbook genre is 'over-done'. The new Superman is doing ok I don't regard these films as scifi at all, its a cartoon fantasy about a superhero from another planet that can fly with no propulsion at least Batman swings by a wire or the Tony Stark Ironman suit has some form of 'thrusters'.  There are movies that Hollywood has given 'Oscars' to that I do not like, maybe I find them pretentious or self-indulgent or just wont like an Award winning movie for whatever reason. It is fine to dislike something or like something, everyone is allowed have your own taste.

People like to be 'entertained' at the movies, its escapism where they can turn their brains off and enjoy the spectacle like The Avengers, LOTR, Pirates of the Caribbean, people can enjoy whatever film they wish. Hard scifi or hard-ish can be a difficult sell, you do have scifi like Revelation Space, the Artifical Gravity in Babylon-5, 2001 Space Odyssey, The Three-Body Problem, Blade Runner...just because the science is more real doesn't mean people will be more entertained.


Budgets are 'nuts', they need to get under control again and there are lots and lots of great movies made for less than 20 Million Dollars. The new Snow White had a Budget 270 million it is outrageous, people often say you need to double those costs with distribution and advertising to get the true number. An outrageous budget can doom a movie from day one, they need to keep budgets under control. In the past a Hollywood film with a low budget could depend on the domestic market alone in the USA to be successful and all extra sales of T-shirts or comicbooks or DVDs and baseball caps was just extra profit. These days the movies depend great on international takings, they can not succeed without overseas numbers. Added on top of all this is a difficult political climate leftism vs rightism, right media vs left media and anything too politically controversial can turn people away from the seats. People say its spreading everywhere, you can watch a BBC item and they try to put as many diversity boxes into an old film, its no longer an English man or English woman or Welsh or Scottish, its a Lesbian Buddhist Hindu Black Yellow White Brown Gay Disabled Transgender to tick as many 'boxes' as possible. People will think this is fine if they know the original and William Shakespeare’s Othello for example which already features a Moorish North African Black...but if they made Batman who the audience expects to be a certain person, Batman Bruce Wayne an old money family using gizmos to fight crime vigilante style, an old money elite family and change 'Batman' into someone else for the sake of 'diverse' it can be very jarring and alienate the audience. Some people don't care so much for casting quota and just tell their story, Black, White, Yellow, Brown a story is just a story. Some don't care to cast for the sake of casting 'Sinners' for example is said to be a post-CivilWar movie with mostly Black African Americans and some White characters with Vampires but they say its casting didnt feel 'forced' it was its own movie and people seemed to enjoy it. The Max Max remake took a risk 'Furiosa A Mad Max Saga' for whatever reason some of the audience said they felt they were going to be lectured with 'Feminist Propaganda' so some people avoided the film entirely. Reviews said it was an ok movie even good but the gossip of it being bad and the negative rumors already went around, people who watched it enjoyed it but in this political climate it was a box-office bomb.

Cinema and tv arrives from all over the world very fast, again its hard to define what 's 'Western' when the production teams are so international. I'm not sure any Trump sanctions or tariff to save Hollywood can win here. People also complain that trying to have the big guys in Hollywood will damage small indie US film makers in their own states doing their own independent movie ideas. Competition from Germany, China, Japan, Spain etc was always there, overseas comics, books or animated toons, video games. Now its huge, South Korea outsells on Netflix and  China's 'Ne Zha 2' movie has almost made Double what the next highest grossing movie has made, Disneys 'Lilo & Stitch'  South Korea and Spain are selling high on streaming sites,  One Piece a Live Action show based on a Japan toon about Pirates was the most-watched Netflix show,  and nations China, Japan, Russia and South Korea have movies in the Top60 world wide. Yes countries did have their own strong domestic markets, France, India but you would almost never see a foreign movie take on 'Hollywood' in the Top10 before, they certain never would arrive in the USA and beat them in their own backyard.

Much harder (for both authors and studios) to do in the current serialized streaming era.

I enjoyed Love Death Robots, it was episodic no long story arc. I was enjoying the episodes and thought it was very good until suddenly the writing changed or something about it changed and suddenly it wasnt very good.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9561862/

[sanman]

Star Trek Discovery gets a spiritual successor:

[Blackstar]

This thread has been all over the place.

[JulesVerneATV]

JUNE 2025 CIRCANA BOOKSCAN - TOP 20 ADULT GRAPHIC NOVELS
https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/60070/june-2025-circana-bookscan-top-20-adult-graphic-novels
Manga Shows Staying Power

Viz Media in California while it is selling it seems to be doing reprints of Japanese comics,  Dark Horse is a 'United States' publisher but almost all of the publishing again is Asia intellectual property. Some publishers reprint other peoples art and books, even if it is 'DARK HORSE COMICS' a US compnay the martial seems to or Asian or Japanese. You don't see much British or Spainsh or French comicbooks on these lists anymore, the first truly Western comicbook seems to be 'SPENT: A COMIC NOVEL' Mariner Books owned by HarperCollins  quote 'Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel, “Spent,” is a domestic comedy about ethical consumption under capitalism' then you have TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES by IDW, almost all of the comics sold seem to be Japanese Manga or some China Manhua Animation inspired comic or something based on South Korean webtoons or Japan 'Anime'

Television studios seem kind of frantic and thristy for any material or medium to repackage and resell, the tv and movies, they seem desperate for material now, a video game 'Wolfenstein' what seems to be like a Doom Shoot 'Em Up, a Mix of Fallout video game and 'The Man in the High Castle' an alt timeline history novel by Philip K. Dick so Wolfenstien will have these cyborg zombie robot versions of 'Hitler' going around.

Amazon Studios Developing TV Series Adaptation Of The Wolfenstein Franchise
https://boundingintocomics.com/tv-shows/tv-show-news/amazon-studios-developing-tv-series-adaptation-of-the-wolfenstein-franchise/

I also realize this type of 'Is Scifi Dying' question probably gets asked every 5 years - 8 years, another 'Is scifi dying' blog.

Others say it peaked, there was somewhat of an artificial 'science fiction economic bubble' these past years now its just 'cooling off', people's tastes in books and cartoons have changed. There is also the Comicbook Genre, the Video Game to Movie Genre, the Shoot Em' Up Action Genre, the Kungfu Samurai Medieval Period Martial Arts Genre, Adventure Genre, Comedy Spoofs, Drama Soap Genre, LOTR style Fantasy Genre, Horror Thrillers, Musical Dance Music Genre, Mystery Paranomal Whodunit Movie Genre, Romance Genre, Sports Racing Genre. As the entertainment industry goes scifi was just one of many 'genres' it might rise and fall and return again like Comicbook movies or the Western.


However I think the question has been asked a lot more in recent years

'Science Fiction is Dying…Again'
https://amazingstories.com/2023/05/science-fiction-is-dying-again/

But in doing some research for this piece, I discovered that this is not the case at all.  In fact, what I have discovered (not uniquely) is that we’ve been predicting our own demise almost from the very beginning of science fiction’s coherence as a “thing”.

Is Sci-Fi Dying a Slow Death? Can our Beloved Genre be Saved?
https://medium.com/@geektogeek/is-science-fiction-dying-a-slow-death-the-end-of-innovation-as-we-know-it-5b295b593c34

The demise of Sci-Fi (behind a paywall for subscribers)
https://rollieatkinson.substack.com/p/the-demise-of-sci-fi
Are we all stuck in a time with no future?

The End of an Era: Why Hollywood as We Know It Is Over
https://www.mironline.ca/the-end-of-an-era-why-hollywood-as-we-know-it-is-over/

Ultimately, it has not been production costs, streaming services, or episodic series that have driven the final nail in Hollywood’s gold-plated coffin, but rather the institution itself.

[Coastal Ron]

As a fan of science fiction since the 1960's, it is my humble opinion that NO, Western science fiction is NOT dying, and has not really been in danger of dying at all.

If anything we have MORE fiction that is getting published because of the distribution system of the internet. Hugh Howey is a great example of this, where he published his first short story "Wool" thru Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing system. The short story "Wool" is part of the book series called "Silo", which as it turns out has just finished showing season 2 on Apple + (the final 2 seasons have been announced too).

For "TV" watching, there is FAR MORE science fiction being produced today than there was many decades ago, so I don't see any decline.

[sdsds]

https://www.google.com/search?q=list+of+sf+fanzines

[JulesVerneATV]

Superman and Fantastic Four is doing ok but not great numbers in Asia or Europe. The comicbook genre might be coming back a little, however like I said before I don't really class them as 'scifi' but I guess Batman is more scifi attempting at gritty realism the vigilante rich guy in a Batsuit swinging on wires and using smoke bombs. Marvel I don't really consider scifi but Ironman is a lot more based on realism or science than magic powers or Fantasy. During Covid there was a drop in books sales but a market change a growth online movies, online social media pdf jpeg type comics download growth in e-book supply

Audiobooks Statistics
https://www.sci-tech-today.com/stats/audiobooks-statistics-updated/

2023 And 2024 Data Analysis

    2023: The global audiobook market was valued at USD 5.3 billion. North America maintained the largest market share at 45%, while Europe and Asia-Pacific saw notable growth.
    2024 Projections*: The market is expected to continue its upward trajectory. With advancements in technology and an increase in diverse content offerings, the market is projected to grow by 20%, reaching approximately USD 6.36 billion by the end of 2024.

Science Fiction Book Sales Statistics 2023
https://wordsrated.com/science-fiction-book-sales-statistics/

Along with fantasy, the science fiction genre ranks no.8 on Amazon’s most competitive categories list.

Audiobook Sales are Soaring in 2024 – Audiobook Statistics
https://goodereader.com/blog/audiobooks/audiobook-sales-are-soaring-in-2024-audiobook-statistics

Piracy is also a concern for the industry. 47% of those who listened to an audiobook last year say they got one for free through YouTube or another file-sharing website.

Movies can do well post Covid you had 'Barbie' and Oppenheimer and Minecraft the ridiculous looking movie based on a video game, made money in Europe and Asia but for some reason Superhero stuff isn't selling like it used to in Europe and Asia.

2023 article

Are we really experiencing ‘superhero fatigue’?
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/are-we-really-experiencing-superhero-fatigue/

So, with Marvel and DC pumping out repetitive movies which rely on the majesty of long-deceased characters and storylines, is the long-prophesied concept of ‘superhero fatigue’ now finally setting in?

Outside of the US/Canada market, a Japanese cartoon called 'Demon Slayer' is doing good and a Chinese Wartime Drama 'Dead to Rights'

‘Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle’ Shatters Record For Fastest Film To Hit ¥10 Billion In Japan
https://geekculture.co/demon-slayer-infinity-castle-shatters-record-for-fastest-film-to-hit-10-billion-yen-in-japan/

China Box Office: ‘Dead to Rights’ Opens on Top as Local Films Dominate, ‘Fantastic Four’ Debuts at No. 5
https://variety.com/2025/global/asia/china-box-office-dead-to-rights-fantastic-four-1236471634/

For "TV" watching, there is FAR MORE science fiction being produced today than there was many decades ago, so I don't see any decline.

I agree the market has changed and tv and streaming depending where you look the market is doing very good.

From over 10 years ago when Box Office was doing great

Steven Spielberg predicted an “implosion” in the film industry 10 years ago
https://www.nme.com/news/film/steven-spielberg-predicted-implosion-film-industry-10-years-ago-3468348

He said: “That’s the big danger, and there’s eventually going to be an implosion – or a big meltdown. There’s going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that’s going to change the paradigm.”

[Coastal Ron]

Superman and Fantastic Four is doing ok but not great numbers in Asia or Europe.

I would not consider Superman to be "science fiction", more fantasy, but there is plenty of gray areas in fiction, so whatever.

The comicbook genre might be coming back a little, however like I said before I don't really class them as 'scifi'...

What is your definition of "science fiction"? This one from Wikipedia is pretty good for me:

Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative, futuristic and scientific concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. The genre often explores human responses to the consequences of projected or imagined scientific advances.

In other words, there needs to be "science" for there to be "science fiction", since the fiction is imagining science and/or technology that does not yet exist. Maybe it could (that would be along the lines of "hard science"), or maybe it actually is outside the realm of possible (like just about every science fiction movie these days).

The best science fiction, in my opinion, uses the science and technology as a way to tell a story about what humans are experiencing. Exploring the "human condition" using different settings allows the consumer to see things they can experience today in a new light.

For "TV" watching, there is FAR MORE science fiction being produced today than there was many decades ago, so I don't see any decline.

I agree the market has changed and tv and streaming depending where you look the market is doing very good.

Not just online, but actual reading too. Do you read science fiction "books" of any sort? There is a HUGE variety to choose from, and I have a couple that I'm waiting on.

Science fiction is alive and well... 

[JulesVerneATV]

I think we have still yet to see the full effects from the Trump tariff and sanctions movie to save Hollywood. The film making system is complex with the whole international nature of movie and tv productions. I did see news on Singapore and crowdfunding. News on a tv movie maker not every well known but I think this trend will be one of many, people will also use AI for sound and visual production.

Despite cinemas closing, this Singaporean debut director is defying the odds with a new indie sci-fi comedy
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/entertainment/cheng-chai-hong-we-can-save-world-movie-5224361


Movie studios are also getting very hungry to buy up whatever 'video game' scifi material is out there.


a controversial link

'10 Classic Sci-Fi TV Shows That Are Unwatchable Today'
https://www.cbr.com/classic-sci-fi-tv-shows-unwatchable-today-list/

a sub-genre is not dead? could they remake something like Outland a 1981 science fiction thriller film?

Taylor Sheridan Claimed This Genre Was Dead but Harrison Ford’s 44% RT Thriller Just Proved Him Wrong
https://collider.com/taylor-sheridan-sci-fi-western-comments-harrison-ford-cowboys-and-aliens-peacock-streaming-success-august-2025/


Not just online, but actual reading too. Do you read science fiction "books" of any sort? There is a HUGE variety to choose from, and I have a couple that I'm waiting on.

Science fiction is alive and well... 

I read some more recently but my scifi reading can be a little broken at times, I might also read escapism swords and 'magic' stuff or a history book or a language book or a fictional thriller

I do enjoy most scifi books lived by the mainstream audience, the general consensus of good writing...but there have been some I have not been able to 'get into' a few are known for writing science fiction space opera, I wont name names because I have a few books in a box or sitting on a shelf that I might try again but I found some books a bit 'tiresome' to read. Others that people were fans of I might not agree with I might have trouble with 'word painting' the scene looks too retro or gets a bit dated and less relevant, use of old music cassette tapes, the Soviet Union still around, people still using VHS it can make a work feel dated or less relevant. With writing and art it is fine to 'dislike' an artistic product everyone is free to have their own tastes. I have also made personal mistakes, the mistake of randomly buying for example the third book in a Trilogy while just looking around shopping and it can make enjoying a book a lot more difficult. I find myself more drawn to foreign works these days, translated of Spanish Latin American stories, the Chinese, Japanese "Science fiction" Books they just do it better these days but I feel they can't compete with Western 'Classics' for example, that age of optimism during Apollo etc

What is your definition of "science fiction"?
This one from Wikipedia is pretty good for me

Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative, futuristic and scientific concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. The genre often explores human responses to the consequences of projected or imagined scientific advances.

I mostly agree with this definition but I think scifi can change over time as 'science' debunks speculation, perviously imagined scenarios can be dismissed as mere fiction stories or dreamy or fantasy. Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally during that period of time in human history about alternative possible worlds or futures, Manbats on the Lunar surface and "Great Moon Hoax" or Tripod Giant Martian Alien Machines from 'Mars' were very relevant scifi for their time, maybe even Flash Gordon comic strips.

but we know today 'Flash Gordon' and Manbats on the Moon and Martian invasions like War of the Worlds are impossible events.

maybe this is why the genre is now divided into 'Soft scifi' for these comicbook like scenes and Hard-Scifi for the scifi more based on 'science'

War of the World s and Flash Gordon are still legitimate scifi even if the science is not there and the old products of the genre is more in the realm of 'fantasy'

[JulesVerneATV]

Comicbook sales, they used to have huge variety at one time but then two stuidos dominated, the 'Big Two' Marvel and DC

now that has changed

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/60281/july-2025-circana-bookscan-top-20-adult-graphic-novels

almost everything is Japanese Manga or a Western comicbook studio doing a reprint of Japan cartoon

Superman arrived in 6th place but the rest is some Anime/Manga brand

Viz Media an American entertainment company could probably see the Marvel/DC crash coming and got ahead of the trends



some other online thoughts

The demise of Sci-Fi
https://rollieatkinson.substack.com/p/the-demise-of-sci-fi
unfortunately for paid subscribers

Are we all stuck in a time with no future?

What some review sites class as Good Adult Comics
...but people have not been buying them instead it was Marvel/DC dominating and then Manga/Anime brands beating Marvel/DC

Best Sci-Fi Comics Of All-Time (Ranked)
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/best-sci-fi-comics-of-all-time-ranked/


the end of Retro-Scifi the Steampunk Genre

The Sci-Fi Genre Being Abandoned By Movies And TV
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/steampunk-abandoned.html


Why Has Sci-Fi TV Stopped Imagining Our Future?
https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/why-has-sci-fi-tv-stopped-imagining-our-future/
Once, shows like Star Trek predicted new tech and a boldly going future; now, Severance, Silo and even Trek are looking to the past.

1    Ne Zha 2 (哪吒之魔童闹海)    Eastern Fantasy
2    A Minecraft Movie    Western Science fiction
3    Tang Tan 1900 (唐探1900)    Eastern detective
4    Captain America: Brave New World    Western Superhero Science fiction
5    Sinners    Eastern detective, drama
6    Thunderbolts*     Western Superhero, Science fiction
7    Disney’s Snow White    Eastern fantasy
8    Creation of the Gods II: Demonic Confrontation  Eastern Fantasy
9    Dog Man    Western Superhero
10    Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy    Western drama
11    Mickey 17    Eastern science fiction
12    Boonie Bears: Future Reborn (熊出没·重启未来)…        Eastern science fiction superhero
13    A Working Man Western action
14    The Amateur    Western thriller
15    Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants
16    The Accountant 2    Western thriller
17    The King of Kings    Western drama
18    The Monkey    Western horror
19    Den of Thieves 2: Pantera    Western thriller
20    One of Them Days    Western comedy
21    Operation Hadal (蛟龙行动)    Eastern thriller
22    Final Destination: Bloodlines    Eastern horror
23    Until Dawn    Western horror
24    Flight Risk    Eastern thriller
25    Black Bag    Eastern thriller
26    Volshebnik Izumrudnogo goroda  Eastern fantasy? 
27    Companion    Western science fiction
28    Wolf Man    Eastern horror
29    Novocaine    Eastern comedy
30    Heart Eyes Eastern horror comedy


So, from this, Western science fiction hardly seems dead.  Genre movies have, it seems, taken over the cultural landscape.

an update on this list

I think Fantastic Four is still scifi but Thunderbolts/Superman is not really scifi but more 'comicbook' genre
Superman has been doing better than Fantastic Four globally, most movies seem to be remakes these days.


1    Ne Zha 2 (哪吒之魔童闹海)    
2    Lilo & Stitch    
3    A Minecraft Movie    
4    Jurassic World Rebirth    
5    How to Train Your Dragon    
6    F1: The Movie    
7    Superman    
8    Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning    
9    The Fantastic Four: First Steps    
10    Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie 名探偵コナン   
11    Tang Tan 1900 (唐探1900)
12    Captain America: Brave New World    
13    Thunderbolts*    
14    Sinners
15    The Conjuring: Last Rites    
16    Dead To Rights (南京照相馆)    
17    Final Destination: Bloodlines    
18    Weapons    
19    Disney’s Snow White    
20    The Bad Guys 2    
21    Creation of the Gods II: Demonic Confrontation …
22    Elio    
23    Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback
24    28 Years Later    
25    Freakier Friday    
26    Dog Man    
27    Mickey 17    
28    From the World of John Wick: Ballerina    
29    Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy    
30    Nobody (浪浪山小妖怪)

Although Mikey-17 is a South Korea product I would not class it East or West but maybe 'global' more of an 'East meet West' film, this Mikey-17 has a lot of Hollywood names but it was not a hit.

it has fallen to 27th

a Japanese comicbook toon or anime has entered the top 10


The Budgets
Japan the current Demon Slayer a very small production Budget only $20 million
the studios of Japanese are known for being good on spending ...Godzillia was also cheap
the Japanese movie has a current Box office $462 million and it will go far beyond

Flops?
the Snow White remake from Hollywood had a Budget   $270+ million
its box office was $205 million, a huge loss

[JulesVerneATV]

new Tron remake is getting bashed by fans

The culture seems to have changed. I'm not sure Donald Trump's tariff or sanctions to save Hollywood can work, a Japanese cartoon Demon Slayer 2025 just beat Superman and Fantastic Four at the Worldwide box office, it did ok against Hollywood movies on the US home turf but it really did good with international numbers.

https://x.com/Demonslayer9660/status/1976690915013280126#m

Movie Comparison: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) vs. Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Infinity Castle (2025) vs. Borderlands (2024)
https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons-extended/Fantastic-Four-Rise-of-the-Silver-Surfer/Demon-Slayer-Kimetsu-no-Yaiba-The-Movie-Infinity-Castle-(2025-Japan)/Borderlands-(2024)#tab=day_by_day_comparison

The comicbook genre doesnt seem to be totally dead, movie Fantastic Four First Steps 2025 has been doing much better at the US box office and has a strong overseas showing.

However culture has changed, new comicbooks, new video games, the kids these days dont listen to Blues or Rock n Roll or Reggae or Pop or Jive or Country, they are now listening to South Korea pop songs or ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ enjoying global domination

Real-life 'KPop Demon Hunters' band to make musical debut on Jimmy Fallon
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2025/09/29/kpop-demon-hunters-huntrx-jimmy-fallon/86416443007/

KPop Demon Hunters isn't just Golden - it's platinum!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/articles/clyledxdm94o


'Listening to the Spotify Top 10 So You Don't Have To'

Rick Beato


How Animation has COMPLETELY Shifted



Saudi Arabia buys EA: What does it mean for the future of gaming?
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/saudi-arabia-buys-ea-does-110010090.html

At Saudi Comedy Fest, American Free Speech Becomes the Punchline
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/world/middleeast/saudi-comedy-festival-riyadh-free-speech.html

Stephen King seems to have sabotaged his own movie after remarks about a 'Political Assassination' he later apologized for his comments but it seems people can be pushed away from movies easily with divisive politics. The damage was already done to the box office brand 'The Long Walk' but it might not be a huge loss, the Budget was already low so it might not be a big loss for Veritgo/Lionsgate

Lionsgate used to be huge with The Twilight Saga, Rambo films but now it struggles with a John Wick flop remake, Megalopolis, Borderlands video game to film franchise.


remakes

‘Tron: Ares’ Crashes and Burns in Massively Disappointing Rotten Tomatoes Debut
https://collider.com/tron-ares-rotten-tomatoes-score-is-it-good/

Jared Leto-led Tron: Ares isn't good enough to hate
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/tron-ares-review-9.6933888

[JulesVerneATV]

October Box Office Plunges to Three-Decade Low as Flops Like ‘Tron: Ares,’ ‘Smashing Machine’ Pile Up
https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/october-box-office-record-low-ticket-sales-smashing-machine-tron-ares-flop-1236567987/

Twilight of the Spotlight: The Fading of Hollywood
https://www.kairospublications.com/blog/g4v2pgfs1fa5vh77phbisox46l14rq

another critical commentary I see is a criticism of how US media has lost its value as the Hollywood culture took over, it used to have some message even as silly as those messages could be fighting aliens, a history lesson, beating monsters, defeating Communists or Fascist, pure escapism or horrors or wonder, the family values messages or fighting for freedom but over time any kind of 'Spiritual' message vanished and the message became 'nothing' and the best movies these days are the smaller indie film guys outside of Hollywood. There was always a contest with Hollywood and other philosphy for example the overseas movies like Japan's Seven Samurai, which is not a commentary with a current message about culture but an exploration of the Japanese folklore and historical past, it is also an artform of cinematography and story telling.  Citizen Kane 1941 was way ahead of its time a political commentary also warning of media power, William Randolph Hearst personally 'Hated' Citizen Kane, a different political environment when Liberal and Conservative agree on entertainment and nobody today Leftwing or Rightwing would want the movie shutdown and banned.  Jaws 1975 and Alien and Terminators and the Star Wars and Star Treks were highly entertaining, they can be fantasy or scifi or jump scare movies and entertain without insulting the viewer, entertain without alienating an audience. Some movies are watched for the stage craft the script writing, the performances by actors, the atmosphere of sound and stage and performance in greats like The Shawshank Redemption, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Some movies are seen for the never done before level of intense film making and dazzling shocking product, the scenes in Avatar or Saving Private Ryan or Lord of the Rings, Gladiator a nostalgia visit back to the movie epic periods . A movie does not have to be complex or adult, Toy Story is a great film, it was a successful display of kids imaginative entertainment being successfully turned into a full motion 3d animation picture, the original ideas for these animations were very adventurous for the time and they probably werent even thinking about long term franchises.  The Dark Knight easily ranks up there among great movies, what is the message? its difficult to say what exactly the message is as Nolan doesnt bash you over the head with politics and let's you make up your own mind.  Then as Hollywood budgets got more and more ridiculous with their budget spending along came Godzilla Minus One 2023 from Japan to show you can still make box office block busters on tiny budgets, something Hollywood has lost the ability to do.

there was also commentary 'Why Hollywood Will Never Get Its Soul Back'

also wrote a criticism

Why “Science Fiction” and “Fantasy” Are Dead

It’s one of those truths that everyone suspects but few dare say aloud: The terms “science fiction” and “fantasy” are dead.

Not just dead in any quaint, nostalgic sense, but utterly irrelevant, useless, and unfit for purpose.

Worse still, they were never meant to be anything other than inventory tags for publishers and booksellers—crude labels slapped onto bookshelves and warehouse bins, designed to corral products; not communicate literary content or reader tastes.

[sanman]

Paul Chato gives his take on Stranger Things Season 5




My own 2 cents:

It felt less than thrilling to see the same Season 4 villain being recycled/extended for the new Season 5. His previous introduction back in Season 4 to replace the original Mind Flayer monster represented a switchover from the Cthulu genre of monster horror to the Freddy Kruger genre of horror. By bringing "Freddy" back again, it's now feeling like "Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5" level of B-rated horror crap. They don't care, because this is their last season, and they don't intend to make any more (how could they, when their original cast of child stars are now all in their 20s?)

Meanwhile Netflix has recorded over 60 million downloads in the week since their Volume 1 episode drop -- just like everyone tuning in to see the Gilligan's Island castaways finally get rescued.
Note that they've split this Season 5 into 3 distinct volumes -- 3 separate episode drops -- for revenue optimization.
Volume 2 episodes will be dropped just near Christmas, and Volume 3 episodes will be dropped for New Year's.
The holiday timing is suited for watch party viewing that maximizes revenue potential.

[sanman]

Starfleet Academy 90210 for all your future YA needs

[JulesVerneATV]

Netflix faces consumer class-action lawsuit over $72bn Warner Bros deal
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/09/netflix-consumer-lawsuit-warner-bros-deal

Paramount's Larry and David Ellison might look to Middle East petrostates to help finance a deal for WBD. That's tricky.
https://www.businessinsider.com/paramount-warner-discovery-larry-ellison-saudi-arabia-qatar-wbd-deal-2025-12

Paramount Skydance’s Bid For WBD Said To Be Backed By Middle Eastern Funds, Following Initial Denial
https://comicbookmovie.com/dc-studios/paramount-skydances-bid-for-wbd-said-to-be-backed-by-middle-eastern-funds-following-initial-denial-a225284

Netflix offer challenged after Saudi, UAE & Qatar back Trump-linked Paramount bid for Warner Bros
https://www.telegraphindia.com/business/netflix-offer-challenged-after-saudi-uae-qatar-back-trump-linked-paramount-bid-for-warner-bros/cid/2137163

Zootopia 2 is probably up there as the biggest movie this year in the USA and it has a strong overseas in China and Europe, Zootopia is a kids animation featuring talking animals. If not Zootopia the next biggest movie is maybe 'A Minecraft Movie' based on a video game. Ne Zha 2 did excellent, a huge box office mostly in a single overseas market China making it the biggest movie of 2025, Lilo & Stitch also did excellent in various international markets with a huge overseas box office. All comicbook movies are starting to struggle, Thunderbolts, new Superman, new Fantastic Four, they are also very expensive products. Horror movies Paranormal Activity, Halloween, 28 Days Later the horror slasher genre typically has the highest return on investment, it does not always have to be horror it can have elements of fantasy or crime or scifi “Mad Max” and Alien leading to the Aliens franchise are successful 'Low Budget' films. Japan showed how it could be still be done a Godzillia scifi with a Low Budget $10–15 million
I'm not sure what the story of the year is maybe how Video Game movies are now a huge thing or maybe China movies exploding on the global stage or maybe the story was Trump Hollywood support and tariff  Donald Trump stating on social media that Voight would serve in a new role as a Special Ambassador to Hollywood and save the Us movie industry? or maybe its Japan anime toons making a comeback 'Demon Slayer' going to US theaters and beating them at their own entertainment game.

its been an eventful year in entertainment, if you count 'The Fantastic Four First Steps' as a scifi movie, a movie with very upbeat Jetsons utopian aestheticss and not count Fantastic Four as a Fantatsy or a comicbook film. Yes they do have cartoonish magic 'physics' super powers but overall it seems no more mystical than 'Star Wars' for example, its is based on a comic but Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic does 'science' they fly in a rocket and they have a space ship so I personally would class it as 'scifi' even if it is not 'hard scifi'. The genre of  Scifi is not over but Fantatsic Four only ranks at 11 in the Worldwide Box Office, it was supposed to be one of Marvel's biggest movies of the year.

What really Flopped?
the new Snow White movie has been a total disaster, one of the biggest flops for studios.
Predator Badlands is liked but struggles to make profits
Other flops Tron Ares and Mike 17, failed at the box office.
DC Warner Bros are struggling to reinvent themselves, they probably missed that opportunity for huge profits when movies like Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and Ironman etc were doing great at the box office. In general both fans and critics seem to prefer the stand alone movies of the DC Comics character Batman. directed by Christopher Nolan and are less enthusiastic about a shared DC comicbook world, the fans dont seem to care as much for the wider Cinematic Universe.


TOP 20 ADULT GRAPHIC NOVELS

There seems to be only one true US comicbook in the Top20, at 6th place 'Batman'

https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/61174/november-2025-circana-bookscan-top-20-adult-graphic-novels



although people might be kind of shocked to see a lot of Japan, Asia, Japanese stuff dominate the cartoon  comicbook market its been this way a while. In the Western comicbook entertainment industry There used to be lots of 'indie comicbooks, small US studios, the British and French wave of comicbook scifi, Dredd, Asterix, then it all peaked in the 90s as the big two took over there were new gimmicks to increase sales the Spider-Man story redone, the Death of 'Superman' the X-Men then everything became Marvel and DC. As a studio Marvel was bankrupt but it reshaped itself launching the movie business eventually becoming the biggest franchise of all time, as a movie studio it was far ahead of Avatar, Planet of the Apes, Harry Potter, Star Wars, James Bond etc Then over time the movie industry gets over saturated with comicbook movies, profits struggle and it all starts coming to an end around the time of Captain Marvel, Justice League, Avengers Endgame, Dark Phoenix...DC and Warner Bros seems to have rushed it and never really had the box office hits that Disney/Marvel/Fox studios had, Marvel seems to have got the rights to Spider-Man back, almost but the Japanese Sony still own something.

That whole cycle of Western Hollywood movies based on US Comic Books seems to be dying just as the Western Cowboy Genre died. People have moved on to other entertainment,  the Video Gamer Entertainment industry or Gaming is bigger than music and movies combined.
Barbie and Oppenheimer in 2023 were predicted to be the 'Return of Hollywood Cinema'  it might have been a dead cat bounce a small, brief recovery in the price of a declining movie studio asset


and now we have the 'Culture Wars' and Star Trek

Star Trek Releases The Worst 4 Minutes In Franchise History,

As A Clip From Starfleet Academy
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/scifi/starfleet-academy-clip.html

Maybe you could count Jurassic World Rebirth as a scifi but its still one of many many revamps, many of the un-original remakes, an old a remake of Jurassic Park American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton which later became a 1993 movie by Spielberg. The year is not over yet and there might be another scifi block buster, Avatar Fire and Ash is scheduled to be released just before Christmas, by 20th Century Studios.

[JulesVerneATV]

5 box-office flops that didn’t deserve to fail in 2025
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/movies/articles/5-box-office-flops-didn-043000919.html

The theatrical landscape has become increasingly cutthroat, with even critically acclaimed movies far from guaranteed to become a success story at the multiplex. In fact, these days, unless a movie is linked to a major franchise, it’s often a struggle to get the general audience's interest.

2025 has seen a few pleasant breakouts, including “Sinners” and “Weapons,” but there’s also been a glut of great movies that deserved success but instead suffered the ignominy of being branded a box-office flop. These range from the latest film from “Parasite” director Bong Joon Ho, a “John Wick” spinoff that was anything but a cheap cash-in, and a Leonardo DiCaprio epic already being talked about as one of the decade’s best.

Granted, in the world of Hollywood accounting, determining a movie’s financial results is no easy task, and it should also be noted that a movie’s budget is only half the picture. Studios also spend enormous sums of money on advertising (for a blockbuster, it’s not uncommon for marketing to match the budget), and we also have to factor in that a movie’s box office gross is split with the theaters as well. So even a movie that appears to have achieved a profit on paper may have actually lost money when the dollars are counted.

With that said, these are the five movies released in 2025 that weren't quite able to draw significant crowds in cinemas but really didn’t deserve to flop. If you skipped them, be sure you don’t make the same mistake twice, and watch them now; they’re (almost all) available on streaming services.
5 movies that didn’t deserve to flop in 2025

The Gamer-Landscape is also changing

Maybe it is true that Culture-wars have entered the gaming industry with political activism, harassment, opinions of leftwing and opinions of rightwings, it may have caused damage to sales across the industry. There was activist journalism and changes to editorial and policies by companies and video game news outlets have been seen personal relationships with journalists to Game Company, Pro-Feminist and Anti-Feminist and political activism exposed, while many gamers just wanted to stay away from political debates and just 'play games'.   Erik Kain is a writer and critic covering tv and games blames the Leftwing other journalists blame the Rightwing.
So naturally sales fall, and now some of the big Western Gaming studios are starting to struggle, you still have the Giants Japan Sony Playstation, Xbox Microsoft Gaming, they will always be big for the next while but now you have lots and lots of other big studios falling and lots of indie US studios, Aristocrat Leisure Australia, South Korean, Cyprus, Sweden, the French, the Chinese.
10 years ago
'It all started with a blog post.'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/09/04/gamergate-a-closer-look-at-the-controversy-sweeping-video-games/
Paywall, blames angry men, says the movement is part of Culture-War online trolls, Misogyny, anti-feminism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/technology/gamergate-women-video-game-threats-anita-sarkeesian.html

Studios that dont force politics agendas or studios that do it in a subtle seem to be less controversial and more successful.
The new French gaming wave arrives and lots and lots of companies from China arriving to take the place of the falling giant studios.


Halfbrick Studios launches first Australian-made Bluey game
https://www.fbcnews.com.fj/entertainment/halfbrick-studios-launches-first-australian-made-bluey-game/


Electronic Arts and Ubisoft are examples of multi-Billion Dollar AAA companies. The Prime Minister of Japan even talked about a Large French company insulting the Japanese culture with Assassin’s Creed,  Ubisoft has apologized a number of times in the run up to Shadows’ much-delayed launch over aspects of the game and its marketing that upset some within Japan.
In the video game industry, AAA (Triple-A) is a buzzword used to classify video games produced or distributed by a mid-sized or major publisher.

Japan is a very big market and although the party has a Liberal name Liberal Democratic Party LDP and it almost ruled Japan unchecked since WW2 it is not 'Liberal' as a Western person would classify it, the Japanese can be quiet proud of their culture and very strict on immigration, they are Anti-War but very Trump-like on immigration. From what I read it wasnt the image of a Black Afro guy dressing in Samuari chasing down Japanese and killing them, chasing down the only White guy in Japan for revenge and killing more Japanese, it was the insult against some religious temple that really insulted them and hit their culture in a personal attack. Following complaints from Hiroyuki Kada of the Japanese House of Councillors and Shigeru Ishiba, Prime Minister of Japan, Ubisoft removed the ability to destroy certain objects within temples, as well as reducing the "amount of blood shed by NPCs in the various shrines and temples across Assassin's Creed Shadows". Prior to release, Ubisoft offered guidance and resources to its developers in regards to their social media accounts and potential harassment
https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/assassins-creed-shadows-day-one-patch-shrines-temples-japan-3847800
,
https://www.pcgamesn.com/assassins-creed-shadows/ubisoft-anti-harassment-plan

Blood Message  is an upcoming action-adventure game developed by 24 Entertainment and published by NetEase Games, a Chinese developer and publisher of online PC and mobile games, it is set during the late Tang dynasty.





Clair Obscur Expedition 33  a small studio a role-playing video game developed by French studio they claim that was only made by 33 developers




Tomb Raider Catalyst, Divinity, Star Wars Fate of the Old Republic: Everything Announced at The Game Awards
https://www.gadgets360.com/games/news/the-game-awards-2025-everything-announced-tomb-raider-catalyst-star-wars-fate-of-the-old-republic-divinity-9797890

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Just Made The Game Awards History
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/articles/clair-obscur-expedition-33-just-040300133.html

The Game Awards 2025: The full list of winners sees Clair Obscur Expedition 33 sweep
https://www.gosugamers.net/entertainment/news/77707-the-game-awards-2025-full-list-of-winners


BBC Tv and Dr Who, it hit its peak 10 years ago and has been crashing ever since?

10 Years Ago, This ‘Doctor Who’ Story Became the Show's Masterpiece Across Its 800+ Episodes
https://collider.com/doctor-who-peter-capaldi-best-episode-heaven-sent/

[JulesVerneATV]

The 2025 box office bombs that shocked Hollywood and cost millions
https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/biggest-movie-flops-of-2025-145200468.html
Hollywood has had many highs in 2025, but it has also had its fair share of lows with a number of box office flops like Christy and Tron: Ares.

[Blackstar]

 

[Blackstar]

Project Hail Mary, For All Mankind season 5, Star City, 3 Body Problem season 2, and Dune 3 all coming out this year.

[Star One]

Pluribus that must count as sci-fi.

[dchenevert]

Pluribus that must count as sci-fi.

IMO
a. no one calls it sci-fi. SF, please
b. lately, Pluribus and Silo are very strong examples of SF
SF means something like "science controls the setting but not the characters"
Well written SF (including on-screen, although that's pretty rare) is worth reading or watching for the plot and the people, not the CGI and the space battles.

(checks notes: actually I see here no one asked for my opinion. maybe I misplaced the memo)

[Star One]

Pluribus that must count as sci-fi.

IMO
a. no one calls it sci-fi. SF, please
b. lately, Pluribus and Silo are very strong examples of SF
SF means something like "science controls the setting but not the characters"
Well written SF (including on-screen, although that's pretty rare) is worth reading or watching for the plot and the people, not the CGI and the space battles.

(checks notes: actually I see here no one asked for my opinion. maybe I misplaced the memo)

Tell that to my iPhone which is the one that autocorrected it to sci-fi without me noticing, as it’s just done again. Just another example of it autocorrecting something wrongly. Sorry I’ll get off my OT soapbox now.

[leovinus]

Pluribus that must count as sci-fi.

IMO
a. no one calls it sci-fi. SF, please

I use "sci-fi" as abbreviations like SF are taken for other purposes And that discussion on abbreviations would take us off-topic There is another thread for that somewhere.

[leovinus]

I tend to answer the question in the thread title with "no". A few thoughts.

I see the thread ping-pongs between movies and books. Lately more on movies. On my side, I do not like what Hollywood comes up with with respect to science fiction movies. The Marvel movies are so childish to me. A race to the bottom which might be one reason for the thread title.

With respect to the term "western", that seems to concentrate on the USA. However, there are great science fiction books and stories from, e.g., France and Germany in the western realms. Movie conversions are rare but the stories were great. I have not seen a recent science fiction movie based on those stories but that could be related to the fact that I have not watched many movies anyway in the last few years. A lack on interest from my side which supports the thread title. And I prefer books anyway. Peter Hamilton managed to surprise me a few times recently (thanks

As a kid, I read a lot of comic books. Often with French origins like TinTin, Blake and Mortimer, Yoko Tsuno. Then we grow up and read other books. It always struck me that the Hollywood Marvel-comic movies appeal to a very specific audience. Those who read those old Marvel comics and liked them. Not a growth market though. More of a desperate "hi, we can make money with this". PS: How many readers on this thread know Yoko Tsuno anyway ?

With respect to books instead of movies, there are plenty of western-style science fiction books with great stories. Thought provoking, mystery, spiritually, great characters and very personal. I never see these books recommended  though on Amazon etc which seems to indicate that there is a death spiral. These apps/sites seemingly recommend the latest book (which might not be great) and that is all what many people see these days. Recommendations based on "recent" instead of "quality". Would be nicer to recommend more classical sci-fi books as well such that the bar is raised for a new generation of writers.

As one example, I like "The engines of God" by Jack McDevitt. Also "The mote in God's eye". Classics. Or the one with the farmer in North Dakota who finds a 10,000 year old sailing boat on his premises, oops. Once you are gripped by those stories then there is plenty of new materials, books, movies that could be written. Which is the main point that western science fiction is not dead. We just need more authors and script writers to convert ideas into great movies and books. And more from Europe as well please. I believe the quality exists but Hollywood and Netflix fail at the moment to convert that into watchable and exciting movies. So how do we get more great stories to the world and excite people to support the money streams?   

I did not like "Avatar" as it seems just more-and-more visual splendor. Visuals are a means to get the story across but not the main course please. I would love to see though that James Cameron picks up something like "The engines of God" please. I did not like "Interstellar". Good idea but too complicated to watch. Andy Weir's "Mars" was a nice surprise though. Mostly as a book but the movie was fun I thought. Star Trek gets an honorable mention for "First Contact".

It is not easy to write a gripping (sci-fi) book. I started but it requires concentration which is not possible for me at the moment with many other things going on. Probably a lot of people regard writing a book as daunting as it requires effort beyond Instagram and blog entries. Which would support the thread title but not due to the lack of quality material and rather due to the lack of focus.

Am interested to hear more.

[Blackstar]

And now for something completely different:


https://thespacereview.com/article/5129/1


Buck Rogers in the 20th century
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, January 5, 2026

Actor Gil Gerard passed away on December 16, 2025, due to what his wife described as a “rare and viciously aggressive form of cancer.” He was 82. He was most well-known for playing Buck Rogers in the 1979–1981 TV show “Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century.” If some television shows, particularly Star Trek, inspired people to go into scientific and engineering fields, or at least to become interested in spaceflight, Buck Rogers did not really inspire anybody, and was at best a lost opportunity, at worst, the non-Star Trek. The show did not last, and indeed, the character of Buck Rogers has not made it out of the 20th century. This wasn’t Gil Gerard’s fault. He was a better actor than the show deserved.

For boys of a certain age, Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century was important, but also frustrating. If you grew up in the 1970s and were interested in science fiction, by the time the show premiered in September 1979, you had almost certainly watched endless reruns of Star Trek, and the short-lived, promising, but depressing 1978 series Battlestar Galactica. You had certainly been energized by Star Wars, which hit theaters in 1977. Buck Rogers looked like an exciting and interesting science fiction show until you watched a few episodes and realized that it certainly wasn’t Star Trek, it was schlock.

[Steve G]

Another great article.

My buddies and I were seriously into watching Star Trek reruns. (We're talking the mid 1970s here) We would schedule our activities around the shows. They loved Buck Rogers but I never did. I guess I was too serious. I did like 1978 Battlestar Galactica, except for the kid Boxey and the equally annoying robot dog Muffet II.

I am not a lover of children in adult shows, and The Children Shall Lead proved my point as being one of the worst Star Trek shows. It's interesting, if you look at deleted scenes in the Battlestar Galactica 2004 reboot, they had this same Boxey character but edited him out. I would have had him exposed as a Cylon and spaced out of an airlock. Think how much better the Jurassic Park movies would have been without the kids. Since you can't have them gobbled like children McNuggets, they're just invincible annoying distractions.

One show that had a great concept but didn't have the budget to have a hope of success was The Starlost. This would be a great reboot if given the right cast and vision. Same with Space 1999. (Or UFO for that matter)

I still recall my mother's reaction after seeing Flesh Gordon, thinking it was a reboot of Flash Gordon, but that was a great film and its satire bang on. I never laughed so much as witnessing my mom's trauma.

Is Western Science Fiction Dying?

It's already dead, Jim.

Star Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who all are dead. (Don't believe me, watch the trailer for Starfleet Academy) No natural deaths here, but murdered by the showrunners abandoning the core audience, horrible writing, not respecting cannon, and questionable casting. There are still some good shows. The Expanse was terrific. (What actor didn't want to play a Belter?) but there have been some spectacular failures, such as Zach Snyder's Rebel Moon, and Avatar has grown pointless.

This rut we're in is that we need to move on from Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, the MCU, DCU, and come up with something original and fresh. Something that no one has managed to do in the last decade of the space wrecks. (The Orville wasn't bad, except the romance between Claire and the Robot Isaac was gross and they should have kept him evil) It's pretty sad when the best Star Trek are the many Fan Fiction episodes. Do yourself a favour and watch the excellent Star Trek Continues on YouTube.

I think we have just about crawled out of the rut from the last decade of sci-fi hell. Low ratings for shows and box office disasters, and seismic changes in the industry hopefully will result in new energies and new original shows.

[JulesVerneATV]

in defense of 'Buck Rogers' as a concept and an entertainment product it seems to have worked as an inspiration of an Entertainment Product from those Henson Rockne S. O'Bannon Australia tv movie production guys in 1990s-2000s it was silly at times, odd fantasy a feeling of Labyrinth but it won a lot of awards

Farscape pilot is almost like 'Buck' instead of frozen and 'time travel' they used a wormhole plot
a mini-Wormhole 'electro magnetic wave' event happens as something passes by the Earth in LEO and the scifi spaceship looks very much like Dreamchaser


the show has been on thwe webs, utube and other social media the past year



the plot device of getting injected with translators seems to have a tech Babel Fish reference or Bible or scifi The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
it was ranked among the Top Cult Shows Ever and some actors have later appeared as part of the Stargate cast.

[Metalskin]

I think that the biggest challenge now a days is that the viewing habits for movies and tv have changed so much. When I was a teenager (80s, Australia), the whole family watched TV together. You'd go to school and there would be groups of people who watched the same show. What you watched was a part of your social group.

Same applies to movies. Going to the movies was a regular activity, and if a movie was popular (looking at you Star Wars IV), then it ran for ages as kids would go more than once.

Now, I speak to people in their late 20s who don't have a TV and watch everything on their phone. A lot of them rarely go to the movies.

I assume this all translates to less advertising revenue for TV, less income for movies, and overall a greater risk to have a return on the investment. There have been articles that I've read recently that talk about how a lot of movies made historically would never be made now, as there is a greater risk of not recovering the costs. So I'm sure that translates to higher risk for Sci Fi in both movies and TV.

[Blackstar]

I thought the subject and title of this this thread was dumb. But considering the box office success of the recent Avatar movie, I think the answer is now clearly "no."

[catdlr]

Saving Star Trek, Fan Zines, Cosplay and Counterculture | Lost LA | Season 8, Episode 2 | PBS SoCal

January 13, 2026
Host Nathan Masters traces the origins of science fiction through the lens of Los Angeles—a city whose eclectic landscapes and social dynamics have long inspired speculative storytelling. From the sprawling sci-fi Collection at UC Riverside to the late-night gatherings at the House of Pies, the episode explores how spaces of fandom became sites of cultural history.  Explore the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFS), one of the oldest sci-fi communities in the world, which offered early platforms for marginalized voices. Among them was Jim Kepner, a pioneering gay rights advocate whose personal archive helped establish the ONE Archives, the largest repository of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) materials in the world. Through these stories, Lost LA uncovers how science fiction in L.A. was never just about the future—it was about imagining a more inclusive present.

Learn more at https://bit.ly/3NNzJ4T