my sci-fi pet peeves

[nokhor]

these are the things i keep encountering in sci-fi that are so cliched that they just aggravate me.

1. the fact that planets have uniform geography. there is usually a desert planet or a jungle planet or a jungle planet that covers the entire surface. why?: our planet isn't like that. we hardly spend any time on 75% of our own planetary surface. we only get on the water to get the resources we need, then we get back on our varied geography of our lands.

2. the peacuful civilization-when we finally reach them at the end of the movie or book, they are usually mystical, bald, brown skinned, glowing with some kind of light, and wearing white robes. they are basically super advanced ancient egyptians. why the white robes? no other colors or types of garments are allowed in the future? is this what we have to look forward too? and why are they usually bald? is the main drawback from having an advanced civilization is that everybody has to go through chemotherapy?

3. the fact that the human colony planets are politically unified. excuse me? when have people ever managed to live in one place and be all united? if there is an american colony on mars and a chinese colony on mars, those colonies would be affiliated with their home states, they wouldn't all of a sudden start singing kumbaya together. and if there eventually managed to be a super colony that entirely dominated a planet, it would eventually break off from the mother state. just human nature.

4. the bad aliens that try to eat us, hunt us, conquer us, usually have a predatory arsenal of horns, tough skin, fangs, poison, super speed, super stealth etc. and they almost always look reptilian, and they almost always have grayish or black skin that glistens. they never look like the bald white robe ancient egyptian looking aliens so if we ever meet any ancient egyptian looking aliens that try to eat, hunt or conquer us, we're screwed cause we wouldn't know how to cope with it. and why are the bad aliens always naked? c'mon man. they've discovered interstellar travel but they haven't discovered clothes? no wonder they're always pissed at us when they travel to our little backwater planet and discover that us humans are the master of this clothes technology of which they know nothing.

5. the robotic overmind that controls hundreds of different robots but can always be taken out by one well placed shot that stops all the robots in their tracks. way to go, robotic overmind, with the intelligence of 1000s of beings, it's nice to see that your underlings can't perform independently of you, and it's nice that you are always susceptible to our laser fire and that you do not have redundancy systems or better yet, that you haven't replicated yourself so that if a lucky human manages to take you down, there are not a dozen others like you to take control of your underlings. mighty nice of you to give us a sporting chance. we appreciate it.

[Fragony]

Best is when science fiction remains close to reality, I recently rewatched Alien and it's how humans behave, and what a commercial cargoship could look like. Science fiction isn't my genre mind you.

[drone]

Time travel. Worst plot device ever.

[Geoffrey S]

Hmm. Some very precise claims there, for a genre which all told isn't that large.

Sounds like you'd like the series Firefly - I know I loved it. The accompanying film (watch after the series) Serenity is quite decent too. Like a western in space.

Strangely enough I also really enjoyed Chronicles of Riddick. After getting over the shock that it's nothing like Pitch Black and has a thoroughly messy and cliched plot, I enjoyed the fantastic art design and some spectacular sequences.

[Kralizec]

Not really bothersome, but I think it's pretty silly that spaceships always face eachother with their top/bottom in the same direction.

And while this is usually labeled as artistic license, I think it would be refreshing to see a space opera where phasers/lasers/whatevers don't make sound in vacuum.

[ajaxfetish]

And while this is usually labeled as artistic license, I think it would be refreshing to see a space opera where phasers/lasers/whatevers don't make sound in vacuum.

I'll throw out another plug for Firefly. They do a really nice job of keeping all the sound either planetside or within the ship (where there's air to carry it). External shots in space are totally silent, no matter how much flashing and booming is going on.

Ajax

[InsaneApache]

Redshirts

[Spartan198]

3. the fact that the human colony planets are politically unified. excuse me? when have people ever managed to live in one place and be all united? if there is an american colony on mars and a chinese colony on mars, those colonies would be affiliated with their home states, they wouldn't all of a sudden start singing kumbaya together. and if there eventually managed to be a super colony that entirely dominated a planet, it would eventually break off from the mother state. just human nature.

I know,huh? Like suddenly interplanetary colonization just up and makes us a unified world nation? Give me a break.

[Ramses II CP]

Everything about Sci Fi movies and television shows bugs the **** out of me. There isn't the slightest semblance of reality or any reflection of what we currently know about physics. If I had to pick the five worst things:

1. Space. There's none of it! Ships are always conveniently within visible range of each other, or at the very worst within a few minutes travel time. Folks, it don't work like that. In Star Trek, for example, ships are constantly bumping into each other in deep space, where you'd be lucky to bump into more than a stray particle of hydrogen. It's crazy. Furthermore communication is always instantaneous, or at worst mere seconds delayed. Weapons cross vast distances instantly. Ships 'bank' when they turn, refuse to move in three dimensions (As already mentioned) and fight in closer proximity than even modern tanks, and... I should stop there. It only gets worse.

2. Aliens are never alien. If the creator is extremely creative and on top of his game they'll have one feature not in common with humanity, like a slightly different visible spectrum for their clearly anthropomorphic eyes. Or maybe they're human in every characteristic except for some garish garnishes, like spikes and leathery skin. Aliens all get mad, sad, happy, fall in love (Usually with a hot human chick), and cry when something dies. Of all the species we've encountered on our own planet how many display obvious emotional signals we can read at an instant?

3. Human beings are always human. Is it actually conceivable that over the next few hundreds years we won't modify ourselves extensively? Even in the most extreme cases they give somebody an extra ability, like a visor for a blind guy, but despite it's obvious advantages no normal human being ever elects to have such a thing.

4. Consistency. Again, there's none of it! Sci Fi movies and especially television shows consistently violate their own foolishly established rules. Frequently they pose puzzles or problems that are supposed to be solveable given the data presented to the audience, and yet the end game inevitably throws those rules out the window and concocts something outrageous and silly, but splashy.

5. Time travel. Unless you play it for paradox jokes, there's no good way to handle time travel in a visual medium, and it should not be attempted.

Not making the list, but also annoying: Math, language, physics, recycling, size, and, frankly, just about everything else.

Sci Fi movies and television are, in truth, fantasy set in the future. As long as you accept that you can still have fun.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

The key thing I hate in Sci-Fi movies is the sheer luck of the main characters.

The main character when surrounded by villains always escapes somehow or discovers a flaw in the logic of the enemy in question. This just doesn't happen with minor character who always are destroyed on the spot. Any sensible villain, especially a recurring one, would be expected to learn from their mistakes, but they never do, leaving themselves vulnerable and making key mistakes in almost every episode.

I also, like Ramses II CP, really dislike the way humans seem to keep the same basic shape and form for years into the future. In all shows - even ones taking place in billions of years time, humanity is an exact clone of how it is now. You would expect us to have adapted to changes in our environment at least, but we simply haven't.

Considering how things have changed over even the past couple of million years, I'd probably even be tempted to say that in the future humans become extinct or devolve somehow allowing another creature to take the dominant position as the most intelligent organism. No sci-fi program seems to explore that possibility either (with the possible exception of Primeval). It's a pity really - I wouldn't mind seeing what the world would be like ruled/dominated by a highly evolved version of a creature already in existence today.

[Mikeus Caesar]

The only show that does have an excuse for not modifying humans (beyond the visor for the blind guy thing) is Star Trek. If you're a complete nerd () then you'll know that after the eugenics wars, humanity vowed never to mess with itself inthose sorts of ways again, genetically or mechanically.

[Marshal Murat]

I'd like to say that most sci-fi is fiction, so there's alot of deus ex machina in it, just like Stephen King or Clive Cussler. It's just that there's more possibilities with sci-fi than real life (bummer, I know).

The ships encountering other ships, unless your David Weber (excellent series), the cosmic void seems to be filled with thousands of ships full of pirates, smugglers, merchants, and renegades. All zooming about really fast, but all within sight.

The time travel paradox crazy stuff, no. It's bad when Verne does it, but he goes into the future. Now it's like taking tea.

"More 1960s dear?"
"No thanks, I'll just have some 1870s with this paradox. (chuckles)"

[Artorius Maximus]

My favourite Sci-Fi series is Star Trek. I don't watch it as much as I used to, but I like it, it's a classic. I don't really have any problems with Sci-Fi in general, but the campiness of some can be unintentionally funny.

[Lemur]

2. Aliens are never alien.

This bugs the living daylights out of me. Only one author ever really wrestled with this successfully, and that's Stanislaw Lem. Try reading Solaris or Fiasco for truly alien aliens.

[Ramses II CP]

Lem is gold (And funny! How many authors translated from Polish would retain their humor?) but I didn't think either movie version of Solaris captured the essential alien-ness of the planet from the book and mostly I was addressing movies and television. As far as Star Trek's eugenics wars (And the single origin explanation that crops up for aliens of similar appearance) they're bunk! The genie never goes back in the bottle, not even after he's raped the planet. We keep on proving this maxim day after day. If humanity as a group understood restraint we'd already be outward bound.

[Raz]

I didn't read replies but agree entirely except for the 1st one. *looks at the other planets in our solar system, they all look like they've got a pretty uniform surface to me - except for earth...*

[Motep]

Its a love hate realtionship.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Any sensible villain, especially a recurring one, would be expected to learn from their mistakes, but they never do, leaving themselves vulnerable and making key mistakes in almost every episode.

The List

[Motep]

The List

[Viking]

2. Aliens are never alien. If the creator is extremely creative and on top of his game they'll have one feature not in common with humanity, like a slightly different visible spectrum for their clearly anthropomorphic eyes. Or maybe they're human in every characteristic except for some garish garnishes, like spikes and leathery skin. Aliens all get mad, sad, happy, fall in love (Usually with a hot human chick), and cry when something dies. Of all the species we've encountered on our own planet how many display obvious emotional signals we can read at an instant?

Very true; I think about an alien specie bring able to see some of the IR spectrum because their star was much fainter (not sure how feasible this is ).
Typically space aliens also walks on two legs and carry two arms. Another thing; what about voices with such a low/high frequency that humans cannot hear it?

[Geoffrey S]

I'll throw out another plug for Firefly. They do a really nice job of keeping all the sound either planetside or within the ship (where there's air to carry it). External shots in space are totally silent, no matter how much flashing and booming is going on.

Ajax

Yeah. Shame they threw that out for the (otherwise spectacular) space battle at the conclusion of Serenity.

Regardless, must emphasize: anyone who enjoys sci-fi is doing themselves a disservice not to watch the series Firefly. Alongside Carnivalé it's easily my favourite modern series.

[woad&fangs]

It's been a while since I've read them, but I remember the Animorphs series doing a pretty decent job with keeping the aliens alien. At the very least the Taxons and Yeerks were very inhuman.

[Pannonian]

2001 - A Space Odyssey should be a pleasure for sci-fi fans. Silence? You've got it. Inertia and physics? You've got it. Alien aliens? You've got it. Other than the titular date, how much of it is out of date within today's knowledge?

[Lemur]

I don't see why we have to restrict ourselves to films and TV, especially when most of the best SF is in books. But I'll give you another show that plays with the net up: The re-invented Battlestar Galactica. Even though you do hear sounds in the shots, it's always muffled, as though the acoustic waves are being carried to you by the deck of a ship. Neat audio effect. Also, the fighter ships actually have jets on all three axes and behave as if they were weightless, as opposed to the WWII dog-fighting of Star Wars.

But let's face it, the best SF is in novels.

[KarlXII]

4. the bad aliens that try to eat us, hunt us, conquer us, usually have a predatory arsenal of horns, tough skin, fangs, poison, super speed, super stealth etc. and they almost always look reptilian, and they almost always have grayish or black skin that glistens. they never look like the bald white robe ancient egyptian looking aliens so if we ever meet any ancient egyptian looking aliens that try to eat, hunt or conquer us, we're screwed cause we wouldn't know how to cope with it. and why are the bad aliens always naked? c'mon man. they've discovered interstellar travel but they haven't discovered clothes? no wonder they're always pissed at us when they travel to our little backwater planet and discover that us humans are the master of this clothes technology of which they know nothing.

KHAN!!!

[Quirinus]

3. the fact that the human colony planets are politically unified. excuse me? when have people ever managed to live in one place and be all united? if there is an american colony on mars and a chinese colony on mars, those colonies would be affiliated with their home states, they wouldn't all of a sudden start singing kumbaya together. and if there eventually managed to be a super colony that entirely dominated a planet, it would eventually break off from the mother state. just human nature.

I dunno...... I find it plausible. Just as the advent of the telephone and wireless signal shrunk the world, something else might come along to shrink it further so that planetwide government is possible.

4. the bad aliens that try to eat us, hunt us, conquer us, usually have a predatory arsenal of horns, tough skin, fangs, poison, super speed, super stealth etc. and they almost always look reptilian, and they almost always have grayish or black skin that glistens. they never look like the bald white robe ancient egyptian looking aliens so if we ever meet any ancient egyptian looking aliens that try to eat, hunt or conquer us, we're screwed cause we wouldn't know how to cope with it. and why are the bad aliens always naked? c'mon man. they've discovered interstellar travel but they haven't discovered clothes? no wonder they're always pissed at us when they travel to our little backwater planet and discover that us humans are the master of this clothes technology of which they know nothing.

Agreed. Somehow, I think that if we encounter an alien race far more technologically advanced than us (i.e. having mastery of interstellar travel), they would be physically more vulnerable than we are.

5. the robotic overmind that controls hundreds of different robots but can always be taken out by one well placed shot that stops all the robots in their tracks. way to go, robotic overmind, with the intelligence of 1000s of beings, it's nice to see that your underlings can't perform independently of you, and it's nice that you are always susceptible to our laser fire and that you do not have redundancy systems or better yet, that you haven't replicated yourself so that if a lucky human manages to take you down, there are not a dozen others like you to take control of your underlings. mighty nice of you to give us a sporting chance. we appreciate it.

QFT. This ties in with how the heroes always win against indomitable odds, just when they are on the verge of defeat. I understand that there is a need for a climax or whatever, but it's offputting.

Yeah. Shame they threw that out for the (otherwise spectacular) space battle at the conclusion of Serenity.

Which is, I think, telling. How thrilling would that scene be if it had been completely silent? What about that space battle at the beginning of Revenge of the Sith, or Vader's menacing fleet in The Empire Strikes Back?


Though I have to say, Firefly was smashing. Probably my favourite television series ever. Other than the lively and consistent character interactions, Whedon actually constructed a very plausible glimpse at how interplanetary society would be like. I especially like how the culture and language is a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Chinese, and reflect how popular language changes with time. Phrases like 'shiny' or 'gorram' don't feel gratituous, but feel entirely appropriate and natural. My only pet peeve was the Chinese phrases. Being Chinese myself, I wince every time the crew utter some Chinese expletive. The bonus features tell me that there's a human, Chinese translator working on the phrases, but they sound as if they were lifted off Babel Fish.

[OverKnight]

We have to keep in mind that at least for movies and TVs some of the cliches and limitations listed above are for budgetary or dramatic reasons.

Remember Vorlons in B5? Every once in a while, they were beings of light very different from humanoids, but usually it was a guy waddling around in a large trash bin. Why? Budget. Completely alien aliens are expensive.

Also having aliens speak a completely different language would clog up the flow of dialogue. Shows have to balance authenticity with entertainment. Some do a better job than others, however.

Now, I'm not excusing lazy writing, but some cliches and cheats, such as spaceships running into each other in the vastness of space, are needed to effectively tell a story. Such sins can be forgiven if they forward the plot, but not so if they outweigh it.

Just my two cents.

[Tachikaze]

I didn't see where anyone who posted here complimented nokhor's original post. I though it was clever and funny, especially when he brought back the bald aliens in white garb from #2 back in #4.

One thing I will disagree with in a couple of the posts. I think it's plausible that humans won't go through any more natural evolution. Since humans can pretty much reproduce at their whim, regardless of how suited they are for survival, there is no mechanism for natural selection, one of the theories for how evolution operates. In fact, if some kind of intergenerational spontaneous evolution may be suppressed by humans restricting people with mutations from having children.

[doc_bean]

But let's face it, the best SF is in novels.

MTE I usually don't bother with SF on tv or in movies. The genre works so much better in book form, and I don't think the pet peeves apply as much to them (except the first, that just happens way too much ...)

[nokhor]

[QUOTE=Quirinus]I dunno...... I find it plausible. Just as the advent of the telephone and wireless signal shrunk the world, something else might come along to shrink it further so that planetwide government is possible.

nokhor rant number two:

well bless your heart Quirinus for your idealism. you must live in a nice neighborhood. i on the other hand live in a neighborhood where come summertime, politicians come a knocking on my door and start leaving their flyers on my door or in my mailbox; begging me to sign their petition to get on the ballot for the neighborhood board or alderman or whatever the piss we have over here. and if i happen to get caught outside my house then they have to shake my hand, even though they shook my hand last tuesday, and the friday before that and how they want to know of the pressing concerns in my neighborhood. when i tell them that i don't have any pressing concerns about the neighborhood then they are shocked and hurt and i have to recant and say that i do have one concern, and that is the nagging politicians who keep ringing my doorbell and shaking my hand and leaving their flyers. they are enviromentally conscious and to prove that they are enviromentally conscious, they kill 10,000 trees to print out flyers about their environmental consciousness to clog up my mailbox and slip under my front door. these are the people who hold a candlelight vigil to drum up support for a feasability study to hold a candlight vigil on whether to fix that crack on the sidewalk on sherman avenue. the only one of those politicians i would ever support would be one who promised to ban annoying politicians from ringing doorbells and leaving flyers in our neighborhood. i would even go so far as to actually go door to door in my neighborhood leaving pamphlets in people's mailboxes extolling that platform. so in conclusion, i say to you Quirinus, if i can't even get along with my annoying neighborhood politicians, i have very little hope of an entire planet getting along.