Author Topic: Why was there a stigma against sci fi in the 2000s and early 2010s?  (Read 25685 times)

Offline Vahe231991

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Some of you guys really need to read a bit more history. The "stigma" against sci-fi didn't start in the 2000s. There was a stigma against it in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. If you read about the history of science fiction and culture, it was considered marginal, kids' literature for a very long time. Science fiction conventions, which for a long time were only about written sci-fi, were considered gatherings of nerds and outcasts.

Sci-fi only started to become more mainstream over a long period of time. Star Trek appealed to a wider audience in the 1970s, Star Wars an even wider audience in the 1970s and 1980s. But even in the 1980s and 1990s people talked about science fiction as if it was kids' stuff, not serious, not "art." Even when the biggest grossing movies were science fiction, they were often looked down upon by people in the literary establishment and the arts. You can go look at what movies won the Academy Award for Best Picture for the past 50 years and you'll see that often science fiction movies won technical awards, but didn't get the big awards.

The perceptions really only started to change by the 2000s or so.
If anyone has played Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun or puts the notion of a space war in the context of international law, they will see that a large orbital military command and control center like the GDI space station Philadelphia or a gigantic military galactic spaceship is a far-fetched space fantasy proposition beyond humanity's technological capabilities.

Offline Blackstar

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Some of you guys really need to read a bit more history. The "stigma" against sci-fi didn't start in the 2000s. There was a stigma against it in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. If you read about the history of science fiction and culture, it was considered marginal, kids' literature for a very long time. Science fiction conventions, which for a long time were only about written sci-fi, were considered gatherings of nerds and outcasts.

Sci-fi only started to become more mainstream over a long period of time. Star Trek appealed to a wider audience in the 1970s, Star Wars an even wider audience in the 1970s and 1980s. But even in the 1980s and 1990s people talked about science fiction as if it was kids' stuff, not serious, not "art." Even when the biggest grossing movies were science fiction, they were often looked down upon by people in the literary establishment and the arts. You can go look at what movies won the Academy Award for Best Picture for the past 50 years and you'll see that often science fiction movies won technical awards, but didn't get the big awards.

The perceptions really only started to change by the 2000s or so.
If anyone has played Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun or puts the notion of a space war in the context of international law, they will see that a large orbital military command and control center like the GDI space station Philadelphia or a gigantic military galactic spaceship is a far-fetched space fantasy proposition beyond humanity's technological capabilities.


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Offline nicp

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When I were a lad in the 1970s (UK) there was definite bias against SF by my English language/lit schoolteachers.
If it wasn’t Chaucer, Shakespeare or Conan Doyle it was rubbish.
Naturally, I knew they were full of sith.
I recall Asimov (I think) writing something like “writing science fiction is harder. You have to tell the story without having the strange and unusual ‘background’ overpowering what you are trying to convey.”
I paraphrased that badly.
Regarding the Star Wars franchise - and I will get flamed for this - the original Star Wars movies were in my view never science fiction. You have a dark lord, a princess, an evil emperor, a brave young ‘knight’ a wise ‘wizard’.
Set that lot in medieval England and replace the space battles with jousting. Not SF.
I liked episodes 4 and 5 though.
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Offline floss

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Sci fi and fantasy are all in the same place in the studio bosses mind it was the success of Buffy the vampire Hunter that killed everything else .
 No a  stigma at all the books were brilliant at the time .

Offline IanO

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Regarding the Star Wars franchise - and I will get flamed for this - the original Star Wars movies were in my view never science fiction. You have a dark lord, a princess, an evil emperor, a brave young ‘knight’ a wise ‘wizard’.
Set that lot in medieval England and replace the space battles with jousting. Not SF.
I liked episodes 4 and 5 though.
Not surprising, considering the plot and characters for "Star Wars" were ripped from a samurai movie, "The Hidden Fortress".  Then they threw in the climactic assault from "The Dam Busters" to wrap things up.
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Offline Thorny

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Sci fi and fantasy are all in the same place in the studio bosses mind it was the success of Buffy the vampire Hunter that killed everything else .
 No a  stigma at all the books were brilliant at the time .

The X-Files was a cult genre hit transitioning to mainstream popularity even before Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
« Last Edit: 08/18/2023 11:54 pm by Thorny »

Offline Vahe231991

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If anyone's watched the Digimon Frontier episode "The Man in the Moon is You", they'll notice that there is a fictional moon base on the Seraphimoon and that Takuya, Koji, Koichi, Tommy, J.P., and Zoe travel back to the Digital World in a spaceplane with seating for a pilot and about half a dozen passengers, and the spaceplane which is seen in that episode has a seating arrangement somewhat similar to that of SpaceShipOne, SpaceShipTwo, and SpaceShipThree. The fact that the Digimon Frontier episode "The Man in the Moon is You" aired in Japan a year before the first powered flight of SpaceShipOne shows that some people continued to be acquainted with fictional passenger spacecraft in the months leading up to the historic feats carried out by SpaceShipOne in 2003-2004, but that they found a lunar base to be still the stuff of science fiction.

Link:
« Last Edit: 08/19/2023 02:07 am by Vahe231991 »

Offline floss

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Yes but the studio bosses in Hollywood don't understand sci fi .

Offline sanman

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Stigma would be explained by audience fatigue with the genre. Early 2000s was when Lord of the Rings trilogy first came to theaters, and audiences enthusiastically embraced this fresh style of storytelling.

Offline Vahe231991

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As someone who watched the cartoon Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! in the first decade of this century as a kid, did you stigmatize movie and TV show makers for portraying gigantic manned spacefaring robots that you knew required astronomical sums of money to be built and used for interplanetary or interstellar space travel?

Offline Hog

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As someone who watched the cartoon Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! in the first decade of this century as a kid, did you stigmatize movie and TV show makers for portraying gigantic manned spacefaring robots that you knew required astronomical sums of money to be built and used for interplanetary or interstellar space travel?
You're getting your "ones and zeroes" all discombobulated, time for a reboot?
Paul

Offline AstroWolfie

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Along with that nerd/outcast stereotype, which seems to have changed with recent shows being mainstream, scifi/fantasy, but I'm looking at sci-fi rn, things may have seemed too complex. I just started the watching the MCU (specifically Guardians of the Galaxy) after being raised on Star Wars for a majority of my life, the MCU seemed so confusing and complex. Then I started watching it and was like, "its not so confusing after all!" Here's the thing:

People are intolerant to an extent. You just have to make that step, and you will get used to it.

So, right in the early 2000-2010s, a lot of sci-fi/fantasy movies/TV shows came out and people started to like them. you have to try.

ehh im tired.
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