Big SF intellectual screwups

GePap · September 24, 2002, 17:50

There are many levels to Sciece fiction, from very deep, almost philosophical things, to extremely shallow progarms made for pure netertainment value. I am interested in the noble failures.

Many times, some Sci-Fi ook, or show, introduces an idea hat could be great, could bring up so many intersting intellectual ideas, or great story-lines, and instead the author or director wastes it, mangles it, and creates great crap out of it. Other times, Sci-Fi writers try to tackle complex ideas and end up making mockery, like a 3 year old trying to recreate the Mona Lisa with crayons on a napkin. So, what and which do you think have been the great wastes of the medium, where what could have been just never was?

Two simple examples: The notion of the Borg in Star Trek: great issues about the meaning of society and what ultimate values we should foster: become a simple, ant-hive enemy that the valiant individuals most fight, like in a million other stories.

The TV show Andromeda's handling of the philosophy of Frederich Nietzsche

DinoDoc · September 24, 2002, 17:56

Out of curiosity, what would you have done with the Borg that you think would have been better?

carnide_ · September 24, 2002, 18:34

Vintage SF books (and comics), describing the jungles of Venus.

St Leo · September 24, 2002, 18:42

Why didn't the Borg have an "I"? In distributed computing, the node does need a pointer for oneself.

loinburger · September 24, 2002, 21:25

Thing thing I never got about Starship Troopers (the movie, never read the book) was: why didn't the humans use tanks? I mean, the main grunt for the bugs was the kind with the scythe arms, so why not put the humans in a big metal pod so that the buggers couldn't get to them?

DinoDoc · September 24, 2002, 21:27

IIRC, they had advanced armor in the book.

Mr. President · September 24, 2002, 21:43

Have you read Hyperion by Dan Simmons? I think that universe had potential, but he made the book so obtuse.

Kepler · September 24, 2002, 21:43

I remember when Space: 1999 came out Isaac Asimov wrote a list of 100 technical mistakes. My favorite was that even though the explosion of a nuclear dump on the "dark side" of the moon wouldn't result in any thrust, even if it did this would push the moon into and not away from the Earth. ;-)

Changing the planet in 2001 from Saturn to Jupiter was fairly lame as well, though that was an intentional decision, not a screw-up.

Dis · September 24, 2002, 22:00

faster than light travel

Ramo · September 24, 2002, 22:24

Asimov's psychohistory. It's an amazing concept, but he didn't explore the implications of a historical system being predicable (it must have some sort of feedback mechanism, for instance).

Wraith · September 24, 2002, 22:50

--"why didn't the humans use tanks?"

The answer to this in the movie was because then you couldn't see all the pretty faces, and they obviously weren't hired to act...

I would recommend reading the book. It's much better.
In the book, they use powered armor. Big suits (described as making the wearer look like a hydrocephalic gorilla) of heavy armor and weapons. The main points in using them instead of tanks was mobility and ease-of-use (some training for C&C type systems, but most of it was wear-and-go). The fights against the bugs were very much different.

Wraith
You Can't Judge a Book by its Movie

BustaMike · September 25, 2002, 01:49

Quote:

I would recommend reading the book. It's much better.

BLASPHEMY!!!! Starship Troopers is one of the greatest movies ever! Period.

Anyone who doesn't see this simply didn't understand the movie. Of course it doesn't make sense. It's a satire. The reason the humans didn't use tanks... it wouldn't be funny.

Things that make this movie great -
Communism vs. Fascism theme
Awesome Commercials
Doogie Howser dressed as Hitler
"Mormon Extremist" settlement on Pi
The fact that it's the future and they're using machine guns and ground troops
A million other things I'm forgetting right now

Come on guys! I think you really missed the point.

Bosh · September 25, 2002, 01:59

Hmmmmm, let's see, pretty much anything Heilein ever said about sexual relationships.

Skanky Burns · September 25, 2002, 02:16

Quote:

It's a satire.

Hueij · September 25, 2002, 03:55

Quote:

Originally posted by carnide_
Vintage SF books (and comics), describing the jungles of Venus.

Beg pardon? Any story playing on Venus HAS to have jungles. And scantily clad (sp?) Princesses. And don't make me start on Mars...

God, I love Burroughs

Dis · September 25, 2002, 03:56

most SF wrongly assumes the universe actually exists

Sikander · September 25, 2002, 04:15

Quote:

Originally posted by Boshko
Hmmmmm, let's see, pretty much anything Heilein ever said about sexual relationships.

God, has anyone else read Farnham's Freehold? It's a look into a very sick man's mind.

redbaron · September 25, 2002, 04:16

Hueij,
Doesn't that cover flout the forum rules

And yes I agree with you about Burroughs.

The Mad Monk · September 25, 2002, 04:24

Armageddon had so many flaws the list would probably rival the movie's script. The second time I saw it, I was laughing my head off in my own, personal MST3K.

Hueij · September 25, 2002, 04:25

Quote:

Hueij,
Doesn't that cover flout the forum rules

Why? I see raunchier magazine covers in the supermarket every day. Not to mention all those "best looking women" threads that pop up here every now and then...

And of course Ming is a SciFi addict so he'll understand

Skanky Burns · September 25, 2002, 04:37

Quote:

Hueij,
Doesn't that cover flout the forum rules

Why? I see raunchier magazine covers in the supermarket every day. Not to mention all those "best looking women" threads that pop up here every now and then...

And of course Ming is a SciFi addict so he'll understand

Besides, no nipple is showing.

Ari Rahikkala · September 25, 2002, 05:49

Biggest SF intellectual screwup ever? Scientology.

Ethelred · September 25, 2002, 06:34

Quote:

Originally posted by BustaMike

Come on guys! I think you really missed the point.

I got the point. The director wanted to wreck a good story so he could turn it into a poor satire. The odd thing is how many critics didn't notice that it was satire. Or that it was badly done satire.

Try listening to the director's comments. He thinks he was making an anti-US movie. I am pretty sure the screenwriter didn't write it as a satire based on his comments but he didn't seem to want to say that explicitly. I do think screenwriter didn't agree with Heinlein's ideas on only letting veterans vote. I think that what led to the Nazi stuff.

Its funny how the director seemed to think the bugs were the good guys even though their concept of diplomacy was to blast millions of innocents with a big rock instead of attacking the illegal settlement.

Besides all the fans of the books wanted to see real Mobile Infantry and not those pathetic light infantry fighters that were stuck out there without so much as a grenade launcher.

I wanna know how a species with no technology managed to get a rock to travel at greater than the speed of light.

JohnT · September 25, 2002, 06:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Mr. President
Have you read Hyperion by Dan Simmons? I think that universe had potential, but he made the book so obtuse.

What??? That was a wonderful book - well thought out and well-written. What was it about the Hyperion Universe that you found obtuse?

Btw, did you read the second book, Fall of Hyperion?.

Anyway, believe it or not, I was going to respond to this thread using an example from the Hyperion books (though my reply isn't a scientific inaccuracy, but a plot hole big enough to drive a truck through.)

Spoiler Box!!!

Spoiler:

In Hyperion, the resurrected Father Paul Dure has two cruciforms - one his, the other belonging to Father Lenar Hoyt. During the events in Fall of Hyperion, the Shrike removes Dure's cruciform, leaving only Lenar Hoyt's attached to his body... "The Shrike had granted me death without killing me."

But...

In Endymion, Lenar Hoyt is Pope to a re-vitalized Catholic Church, one that controls the Human (non-Ouster) universe with an iron grip. Hoyt dies and Father Dure is resurrected, killed immediately, and then Hoyt is resurrected.

There is no explanation as to how Dure's cruciform magically reappeared on his body, especially since the Shrike dumped it in outer space during FoH.

JohnT · September 25, 2002, 06:57

Quote:

Originally posted by BustaMike

BLASPHEMY!!!! Starship Troopers is one of the greatest movies ever! Period.

Anyone who doesn't see this simply didn't understand the movie. Of course it doesn't make sense. It's a satire. The reason the humans didn't use tanks... it wouldn't be funny.

Things that make this movie great -
Communism vs. Fascism theme
Awesome Commercials
Doogie Howser dressed as Hitler
"Mormon Extremist" settlement on Pi
The fact that it's the future and they're using machine guns and ground troops
A million other things I'm forgetting right now

Come on guys! I think you really missed the point.

You also forgot:

T&A

My wife loves this movie. When we saw it in the theater she was almost crying in happiness - "This is the most violent movie ever made!!!!"

Yeah, she grooves on the rough stuff.

CyberGnu · September 25, 2002, 07:04

BustaMike, did you know that all the 'commercials' are actually Nazi war propaganda, with the word 'russian' replaced with 'bug'?

That said, horrible horrible movie.

Wraith · September 25, 2002, 08:26

--"Anyone who doesn't see this simply didn't understand the movie."

Ethelred has it covered. I understand he was trying to make a satire, but he was so bad at it. It didn't help that he ruined a perfectly good book to make his little crudfest. The general lack of acting (the eyebrow thing the one girl did doesn't count) certainly didn't help either.

Best part of the movie was when the huge carrier ships were all stacked up over the planet, and my cousin leaned over to me to say "that thing's about too big by half" right before it got blown in two.

Other than that, the movie stunk, both by satire standards and by general action/sci-fi standards.

Wraith
If space is warped, time is all that's weft

CyberGnu · September 25, 2002, 08:49

Did you also experience actual physical pain in the end sequence when the little gestapo dude touched the captive alien and exclaimed 'he is afraid of us'?

I think Heinleins body was rotating so fast he actually created a vortex outside the island of Catalina.

Lefty Scaevola · September 25, 2002, 10:36

Quote:

Originally posted by loinburger
Thing thing I never got about Starship Troopers (the movie, never read the book) was: why didn't the humans use tanks?

In the book, each trooper was a one man tank.

Ming · September 25, 2002, 11:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Skanky Burns

Quote:

Hueij,
Doesn't that cover flout the forum rules

Why? I see raunchier magazine covers in the supermarket every day. Not to mention all those "best looking women" threads that pop up here every now and then...

And of course Ming is a SciFi addict so he'll understand

Besides, no nipple is showing.

Technically, it is against forums rules. MarkG revised the policy to say that you can't have bare breasts covered by hands... But this picture is soooooooo boarderline and since it is artwork and not a photo... what the heck.

*plus, I am a SF addict, and actually own a copy of that book*

As far as Starship Troopers goes... good book... terrible adaptation... but funny to watch since it was so bad.

And the shower scene made up for a lot of bad acting, bad script, and cheap special effects