6 Sci-Fi Movie Conventions (That Need to Die)
With the rebirth of the Star Trek franchise, sci-fi is a cash cow again. And while studios all over Hollywood are busy building model space ships and robots, we'd like them to pause for a moment and, you know, give the scripts a look.
After all, there's a few arbitrary sci-fi rules that seem to turn up in all of these movies and, quite frankly, it's time to move on.#6.
The Ship is an OSHA Nightmare
Two starships meet for battle and open fire. A photon plasma space torpedo slams into the hull. Inside, on the bridge, we watch as the whole room shakes, throwing the cast around like rag dolls. A second impact causes sparks to fly from the control panels, possibly even killing an extra.
The battered crew can only wonder why, on a ship that has technology in place to keep them from getting splattered against the rear wall when it jumps to light speed (or stops suddenly), every impact shakes their world like a kid rattling a Christmas present.
Why They Need To Stop:
We know why they do it. It's a way to add an element of danger for the main characters. That tends to get diluted if they're sitting comfortably on the bridge while the battle goes on in their view screen.
But no matter how far into the future you set your film, if the cable guy can keep our TV from exploding when lightning strikes the house, why does this futuristic spaceship have a panel blow every time anything remotely interesting happens on the ship?
And more to the point, why is the crew in an exposed spot at all? Sure, there are those ships (like most in Star Wars) that have windows, but, why do they need them? That's what view screens are for. Nobody is trying to navigate that bastard by squinting at the next planet through a dirty windshield. Look at the protruding command towers on the Star Wars Star Destroyers--at least once we see a fighter smash into their window, causing the whole damned ship to crash.
And if the bridge doesn't have windows (as it doesn't in Star Trek), then why in the hell does it need to be in some exposed spot where any random object can destroy it? Why not bury it in the middle of the ship, with layers of metal between the guys at the wheel and all of the exploding warp phaser missiles outside?
Don't tell us we're over-thinking this, damnit! That's what sci-fi is for, to make us feel smarter than people watching other movies.
#5.
The Futuristic Conversation Rule of Three
Two characters will be carrying on a normal conversation. One character will try to make a point by listing historical references. First, the character lists two references from the real world to set up a pattern, then tacks on a completely fictional reference that's either alien or hasn't happened yet. Like this exchange from The Wrath of Khan:
"You'll be remembered among the great scientists: Newton, Einstein, Sulak."
Sulak?
See, the first two establish the caliber of scientists we're talking about. Sure, you've never heard of the third one (Trekkies notwithstanding), but if he's on the same list as Newton and Einstein, he has to have cured cancer or something, right? It helps keep the story rooted in the real world as we know it.
"Let's play a game like Chess, or Monopoly, or Bleep Glorp. Or Jenga."
Why They Should Stop:
There's something corny about the way they always start the list off with something that happened close to the time when the show was made, rather than starting close to when the characters are supposed to live. It would be like starting off your genocidal references with the Jerusalem massacre of 1099 rather than the Holocaust.
Also, how often is it that you list more than one past reference in a single sentence? "This kid is great, he'll be the next Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James!"
We do have to give credit to Firefly, which largely avoided this. The series takes place in the wake of a massive (failed) war for independence, of which two main characters are veterans, so most historical references are from that war, with the exception being a (very) educated doctor referencing Ancient Egypt.
#4.
The All-in-One Instant Plot Fixing Tool
The heroes are running out of time and they must do something NOW in order to save the day. All of a sudden, a space version of a Swiss Army Knife appears (e.g. Tricorder, main deflector dish, R2D2) that happens to be able to do just what is needed to save the day... quite tidily, in fact.
Even if it can't do exactly what the heroes need, it can usually be easily modified to do that exact thing, even if the thing it needs to do is completely made up. A common variation on this is the sensor that senses everything and then senses the side effects of everything else, even things the designers didn't know existed.
The writers of Dr. Who flaunt this idea with the "sonic screwdriver," creating a running joke that it can do anything the plot needs it to do.
Why They Should Stop:
Whether it's epic poetry or sci-fi, the whole fun of a dramatic adventure is watching how the characters use their courage, wits and creativity to get out of these jams. That all gets farted out the window when you realize that the little droid they've had with them the whole time has the magical power to make any machine in the galaxy do exactly what they wanted.
It also creates logical holes all over the place. For instance, once you've shown a character using his phaser to tunnel through a mountain, you immediately think back to every time a character has ever been trapped in a room, and wonder why he didn't do the same. And why would even the most secure doors in the Star Wars universe have locks that can be "picked" by random repair droids?
It's the kind of lazy "get out of plot trouble free" card that we wouldn't tolerate for a second in a story set in the here and now (MagGuyver explained how he hotwired a car with bubble gum, damnit!).
As for the sonic screwdriver on Dr. Who, in the original run on BBC, the producers forced the writers to break the sonic screwdriver to make the show more interesting. The writers had become so accustomed to using it as a crutch that they only agreed to do so because they thought they were going to be able to write another one back in (by the way, it wasn't until the new relaunch of the series that it was actually used to drive screws).
For a corollary to this, also see the "Tim Taylor" rule: if a part of the ship isn't getting the job done, just divert more power to it! More electricity makes every device work better than it was designed to! Just try it with your TV! Of course, if it doesn't work, you could always just reverse the polarity.
Re: #1: Every-damn-body misses the point with the Starship Troopers movie. It's a satire: Verhoeven WANTED to portray the Terran Federation as morons with no clue how to run a war, and succeeded.
ReplyBut ground forces (not just infantry) will always be necessary any time you want to hold a territory for later use rather than nuking it into oblivion.
Re: #6, the response I always give for the bridge having windows instead of viewscreens is, what happens when the viewscreens and/or the sensors feeding them are knocked out by battle damage? Answer: you're blind. Whereas if the crew wears pressure suits and seatbelts on the bridge, they can still see somewhat even if the viewports are blown out. And given that pretty much any sci-fi battle not written by David Weber takes place at no more than tens of kilometers' range, visual navigation isn't THAT much of a stretch.
ReplyAs for the Executor crashing after the A-Wing hit the bridge, the novelization notes that the Executor had been maneuvering at full speed through the battle, and barring this fact they could have reestablished control from Engineering. Given that the Empire was, not unreasonably, more concerned with mutiny than with the very-large-number-to-one chance that you would be pointed at something big enough to worry about when the bridge was destroyed, turning Engineering into the bridge wasn't meant to be easy.
While we're at it, I can think of at least one sci-fi faction that doesn't follow the windows rule: the Covenant from Halo. The bridge of a Covie warship is at the ship's core.
in "The War Games", the 2nd doctor DID use the screwdriver to drive screws.
ReplyI'm sure similar comments have already been made but it's the 2D space thing that bothers me most, for the simple fact that the only way to get into space from Earth is to go "up" through the atmosphere. We already had aircraft which move in three dimensions before space sci-fi really took off (pardon the pun). Hot air balloons existed back in Jules Verne's day. Hell, even a kite moves in three dimensions and those have been around since roughly forever. It's like every space sci-fi writer in history was unaware of the existence of aircraft, so they fell back on the ship/ocean analogy. But lots of spacey stuff shows craft launching from or landing on planets, which suggests that these vehicles are in fact able to move in three dimensions... BUT ONLY WITHIN A PLANET'S ATMOS-----*brainsplode*
ReplyDon't you think that space faring civilisations, would have societies that had evolved to become more uniform. I doubt a planet that was still arguing over religious doctrine could develop FTL travel. Even the federation has its uniform doctrines of rationalism and the prime directive etc. Besides this, in Star Trek for example, there were alot of episodes that focused on the divides existing in alien cultures.
ReplyI always pretend that the opposing sides do have better weapons systems, but even losing the battle would be better than using the weapons. Something that could detonate a million stars at once maybe.
ReplyIn THHGTTG, (the books) the Silastic Armorfiends of Srtiterax designed a computer to make the ultimate weapon, which would simultaneously connect the core of every star with the core of every other star in the universe, thus destroying everything. The Armorfiends wanted to use it to blow up an enemy ammunition dump. The computer refused of the grounds that no possible consequence of not using the weapon could be worse that the consequences of using the weapon.
The Armorfiends disagreed and smashed the computer.
The end result was that Cricket was developed on Earth.
After WWII, there was a serious discussion in America as to whether or not we even needed most of our military, The air force could deliver all the nukes we wanted and WWIII was going to be a nuclear war. The problem is that sometimes the objective isn't to just kill everybody, and as long as that's the case we're going to need infantry.
ReplyAliens handled it pretty perfectly, lost contact with a colony, sent in the marines, marines realized all the colonists were dead and planned to take off and nuke the colony. Of course the problem with aliens is that there is no way in hell they wouldn't have left people on the ship.
Star Wars on the other hand... The lasers seem worse than conventional weapons, the walkers make absolutely no goddam sense in any remotely plausible way, there's absolutely no infantry air support, in fact there's seemingly no coordination between ground forces and the the fleets, no grenade, rocket launcher, or machine gun equivalents ever shown to be used to any effect, and the storm troopers are all wearing bulky uniforms that make them stand out and apparently offer no value as armor.
I heard they're making an Honor Harrington movie, if they stay true to the books that should go pretty well.
Mass Effect 2 lampshaded #3 - on Ilium, when talking to the security officer about Samara. She scornfully sarcastically asks if the humans would accept a justicar killing one of their own, when "you people can't even figure out your own religions!" I rather appreciated that line.
ReplyI think you mean 'lambasted'.
No, I meant lampshaded. Look it up on TVTropes (can't link directly in comments). It means trying to sidestep a plothole or some other unrealism by calling direct attention to it. As if to say "There, we mentioned it. Happy now?"
I know the second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) used his sonic screwdriver on a screw during his final story "The Wargames" when he was being interrogated and had to show how it worked.
ReplyThe reason Verhoeven had infantry in his version of Starship Troopers, other than mimicking the WWII "Why We Fight" movies, was because the State was built around military service and sacrificial brutality. The point wasn't too just win a war, but to win it the "right" way. It's a brutalizing experience by design, a kind of imposed social Darwinism.
ReplyAs a Whovian, I have to point out that the 3rd Doctor (I think) used the Screwdriver to screw screws.
ReplyHere are your options...these kinds of tropes and conventions, their realistic and unentertaining total opposites, or crazy s**t that is too bizarre to enjoy and makes zero sense.
ReplyThat's it, pick one. Mindblowing is impossible, especially in these times. There are groups that have made transistors the size of single atoms now. Barring quantum computers, that's it. That's as small as small gets. Computers after that will get fractionally more powerful and smaller at best, and only for a while. Moore's law can suck my dick, after that point.
At such a stage of development, what's left? A handful of barely plausible technologies that already stretch even a basic modern concept of reality. Face it...sci-fi is dead because we're better than it already. The ONLY thing we're missing is interstellar ships. That's it.
You appear to have overlooked aliens. We're missing those too (unless you are privy to Top Secret information to the contrary).
Really? How could you forget about broadsides?? It's probably one of the biggest sci-fi tropes out there. Nothing breaks the suspension of disbelief like watching two kilometre long warships line up about 100 feet away from each other and start broadsiding like it's 1766. I mean, most sci-fi authors must be aware we (as in, like, TODAY) can easily hit things from millions of kilometres away right (e.g. Deep Impact)?
ReplyAlso, none of these giant warships seem to have lasers or wave motion guns or whatever on the UNDERside. Given that most of these giant ships never land and are usually constructed in space, wouldn't it make sense to have at least defensive weapons on every surface?
I read the book Starship Troopers, the infantry actually have suits like the Spartan's armor in Halo(actually what the Spartan armor is based on) that launch nuclear bombs and such, they scrapped it for the movie
Replyit's possible they're bringing the armour in for the remake. they tried for the 3rd one. it wasn't great..
Stargate avoided the "single culture" trope often. There are many cases of planets, usually equal or close to Earths current level of technology, that had multiple cultures which usually served as plot points as well. It seemed that a singular culture was only found on very primitive or very advanced planets. In some cases the majority of the planet was decimated while the few remaining were in a safe haven of sorts. Of course unlike Star Trek, who had a space ship and could go anywhere on a planet, Stargate was restricted by where the gate was at. So while there might be other cultures on the planet they are only able to meet those within a reasonable range of the Stargate.
ReplyIt didn't hurt that most of the worlds were already inhabited by humans.
You must have watched a different Stargate series? Most of the worlds they visited had a single, medieval Europe style, village where everyone spoke English.
And yes, in many cases it could be, that it was simply the nearest village to the gate. But just as often did the storyline suggest that it was the only inhabited spot on the planet...
Geek article, while the logic is correct it misses one point. all those scfi movies and tv shows are made for fun, not accuracy. so they dont need to die, since their raison d'etre is fully accomplished
ReplyNah. The 1-planet/1-culture/1-climate convention truly needs to die, along with the 2D space ocean, & raison d'être needs a circumflex.
1.) Infantry will always. Always. ALWAYS be useful. They're just about the only way to win a battle without maimburnkilling everything to dust, let alone leaving civillians alive. Plus, armed rebels 'n such can easily obliterate tanks with a little intelligence, but have a much tougher time against infantry.
Reply Hide All See All 3 Replies#4. Modern multitools are indespensible do to their versatility. Some entrenching shovels have upwards of 20 functions. I like to think that futuretech will have one-upped us in that field by the time we can cross galaxies
I agree with you about the importance of infantry thing, but in the Starship Troopers example, come on. The WWII USAF (part of army at the time, though) could take out those bug swarms.
@naive You're forgetting the fact that the bugs lived underground.
^Yeah, but they weren't afraid to use nukes and ground-penetrating munitions are a reality today.
I agree with this all, but the sonic screwdriver is a bit of a dodgy example, it doen't work on wood, or any alien equivilent, or a 'deadlock seal' which half of the alien compounds have anyway.
ReplyDead lock seals are specifically made against Doctor Who. The Daleks put them on the market to finance their conquests.
A deadlock is simply two things that won't happen until the other does.
E.G: The Chicken will not appear until the Egg does. The Egg will not appear until the Chicken does.
There is no way to alter this. Neither will happen. Ever.
*Fahrenheit 451
ReplyThese are a lot of really good points. I agree with the logic all of them supply, however I disagree with the criticism that sci-fi movies shouldn't be modeled after historical events. Good classic science fiction literature was created and utilized largely as satire and social critique. Many of the great sci-fi and fantasy writers modeled their stories after real wars and real events (Fahrenheit 51, Brave New World, The Martian Chronicles, I Robot, etc.) and the stories were almost always thinly veiled allegories for these events. This is what attracted me to science fiction in the first place, because it has the unique ability to change the context of current social issues and apply a futuristic spin on it to make a point about humanity as a whole, discrimination, specific forms of government and political trends. I'm sure you are already aware of this, as you are clearly a sci-fi fan.. But I ask, without this mimicking quality and basis in our known reality (with the exception of inaccuracies in the obedience of laws of astrophysics and futuristic warfare) would science fiction lose its heart and what has always made it a lovable genre in the first place? I know there are uber sci-fi fans that love to read instruction manual-like explanations for futuristic weaponry and travel but I prefer the humanitarian science fiction (Star Trek is a wonderful example). It gives science fiction not only an entertainment value, but a larger purpose within society.
ReplyThat's an awesome point. I really don't like military science fiction to start, but SSG and Battlestar are exceptions. The latter is particularly dark, but it didn't lose that connection with humanity.