Just found one of the coolest links ever in relation to science fiction. One author put together a list of his Top Ten Sci-Fi cliches. Har! Read it here.
Some of my favorite ones were “Baddies who are evil just because” and “Female characters who exist just to get captured, scream, be oggled or be somebody’s love interest”. SO TRUE.
But I’m sure I’ve violated a few here and there. It happens. I have tried to take things that annoy me about the sci-fi genre or other stories and correct them in my narratives. Though the sci-fi cliches that annoy me the most are the following:
- Planets being treated like big cities. Its a damn PLANET. Treat it as such, please.
- Every individual from an alien race looking exactly the same. Don’t they have differnet ethnicities?
- The tenor of the dialogue in many space opera sci-fi is overly serious and declarative. Lighten up and smoke a bowl or something!
- Every alien always speaking English. And calling it English. Really??
- Aliens being used as side orders and not main characters in certain SF stories (Star Wars, I’m looking at YOU.)
Speaking of Star Wars, I’m sure many fellow geeks out there heard about George Lucas’s latest update on the Live Action series. Apparently there are 50 hours of scripts written, but Lucas hasn’t figured out a way to film them at ‘Star Wars movie quality’ but at a cheaper cost.
First off, forgive me if I have any faith in Lucas’s definition of quality beyond aesthetics. If Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5 and the latter Star Trek series like Voyager and Enterprise can film great TV effects on shoestring budgets, so can George. Not every episode has to have space battles on an epic scale or ten different planets with elaborate climates and landscapes. How about some actual storytelling?
But I’m at a point where I’m very disillusioned with the Star Wars franchise, so I’d actually prefer that this Live Action series stays shelved. End rant.
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