Prometheus trailer

Shellhead wrote: I watched The Thing last night. One of John Carpenter's finest movies. Anyway, you could say that it was a science-fiction movie, because there is most definitely an alien from another world. But really The Thing is a horror movie. It's scary and gross, and beyond the usual fear, there is a palpable sense of paranoia. Aside from the blood test, there is no science that is especially pertinent to the story.

The Thing may, in fact, be his finest movie ( dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2012/04/d...ut-of-bubblegum.html ) but this is a good example of why I think people are trying too hard to provide an elevated description of what science fiction is. The Thing is a story about interaction with an intelligent being that is essentially determined to eliminate other intelligent lifeforms on Earth. This is akin to any number of tales in classic media like Astounding Science Fiction or the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. All of those carry the mantle of "science fiction". Few would think to call them anything else. Looking at the Twilight Zone specifically, what would you call an episode like "Time Enough at Last", where Burgess Meredith survives a nuclear war in a bank vault and finally has time to do what he likes, which is read? Where's the "science" in that? But it's generally regarded as science fiction because it depicts the aftermath of a nuclear war. It's speculating about the future.

Back to The Thing: No science? Other than speculating about how a lifeform could survive frozen in the Antarctic ice for years and then emerge fully functional? Or how such lifeforms exist in packs if their function is to mimic and slay (but clearly not devour) other intelligent life? Or if this one was/is unique? If you want to use a very narrow definition of "science" then you're going to be subject to that kind of nitpicking, which tends to make superfluous the concept of "genre". We might as well just revert to calling everything "drama" or "comedy" (but then what about "dramedies"?) Considering that a large number of media classified as "science fiction" are, in fact, the more PC term among many producers "speculative fiction" (as again, the aforementioned Twilight Zone episode has no "science" to speak of), narrowing everything to what might appear in Scientific American with a script added is not the route that I would take when trying to label something that will never escape the classification of "popular entertainment" no matter how elevated you might choose to make it sound.

Let's look at another medium, just for giggles: Neuromancer, the groundbreaking work by William Gibson, is a science fiction story that involves a grim future, corporations controlling governments (too late...), cybernetics, the Internet, and artificial intelligence. It's also post-Cold War interaction, like "Time Enough at Last." It's a classic. It's on most lists of "Best 100 novels of the 20th century." It's science fiction. It meets the elevated definition that many of you are proclaiming.

Gibson currently speaks of it with contempt. He says it's an "adolescent's book" and has compared it to low-grade pulp Westerns(!) But it had science! It had forward thought! It wasn't just some adventure story with guns... except where it was.

I'm not disputing the argument that says Aliens is a relatively shallow film, story-wise, and that its upside is the intensity with which it is paced, rather than the thoughtfulness with which it's told. But I think trying to classify it and so many other things as "not science fiction", simply because they're not as intelligent as things like 2001 or Blade Runner, is a solution in search of a problem.

I know that as a kid I never even considered that Alien and The Thing were anything other then horror movies.

I'm not trying to find an elevated definition of science fiction. Aliens is a great film and I would rather watch that over 2001 any day. There is nothing wrong with a horror or action movie in space. It is not a bad thing. I love action movies, horror movies and science fiction films. My problem with the general definition of anything with aliens means sci fi is that it is too broad and ignores what the film in question is doing best.

This isn't just drama and comedy as you imply, it's horror, action, fantasy, sciecne fiction, super hero films and yes, drama and comedy too.

Is Alf sci fi now? What about HP Lovecraft and Hellboy (the elder gods are from space). When I gave you the example of what if When Harry Met Sally was set in space basically your answer becomes yes, it would then be a science fiction film. But I think that it's best to look at what the film accomplishes as it's primary goal and label it that way. Alien, as a film, is trying to scare you and since we don't have beings that leap out of our bellies on earth he created a setting where that kind of biological tension is possible. But space is not the point, aliens are not the point, the point is the horror just like in the second film the point is the action.

Ultimately it doesn't matter what any of this shit is called and I know that on more then one occasion I've decided that I hate labels as I perused a record store wondering what fucking section they've put Leo Kottke in. Just make it all alphabeltical. But this is what nerds do, they pigeon hole pigeon hole till we all fall down.

That's why I said Aliens does not have breadth. For me science fiction is a way of life. It must show how normal people live. The society, the culture, how they work, how they eat, etc.

Star Wars has always been a fantasy to me. Even when I am playing the games.