Sci-fi tropes that I love

[kiki_eng]

I tend to forget that I love sci-fi; it wasn't my childhood the way fantasy was and the roots are sort of less deep. I started getting into sci-fi in my early adulthood, which retrospectively feels like a good time for it, because of the exploratory nature of a lot of sci-fi.

The most recent sci-fi thing that I consumed was Star Wars Episode VII and my hands-down favourite thing about that film was BB-8. Yes, I know there are other cool things in that, but BB-8. BB-8! Brave toaster adorable loyal earnest robot having conversations with robots and people and being vulnerable and going questing and following directions. I love the beloved robot and BB-8 is now officially my favourite. Other examples of the trope would be Tony Stark's lab robots as sketched out by fandom, and John Crichton's 1812.

Farscape tends to be the series that I reference as my favourite, because they got so much right in it; it's so many of the things that I want science fiction to be. One of the things that it does, that is almost a nothing thing, but that I like, is with language: give me your alien swear words. I love alien swear words, partially because I can use them in RL without offending anyone, and the meta aspect of that with the show doing the same thing as I am amuses me a little bit, but it's also a tiny part of thinking about language and culture. A Clockwork Orange is really good for that. I'm interested in people exploring culture in science fiction and I like seeing that done through language.

I like myself a dystopia novel. I feel like that's my adolescence right there, but it's also important, I think. Dystopias are important for the ways that they allow us to examine aspects of our own culture. Welcome to Night Vale is fantastic for that and I love it to pieces for how it depicts terrible things in mundane, human, and absurdist ways. I find it incredibly comforting.

I also really like what TV Tropes refers to as the Patrick Stewart Speech for the same reason. I love that speech that embraces both the flaws and possibilities of humanity. I love how The Doctor is so in love with humans, like, he picked a species that wasn't that fantastic, objectively, and just fell in love with them. ...and I love John Crichton's place in Farscape and the episode Crackers Don't Matter where he is the least advanced species on board; I really like that reversal and how it flies in the face of our common conception of our own importance.

The X-Files was kinda good for that, too, like, humanity is facing this overwhelming force, and, within the circle of people in the know Fox Mulder is kind of the shining light. Fox Mulder. The X-Files also has the whole giant conspiracy thing that I am a fan of, like, yes, give me Area 51, give me people in aluminum foil hats with poor hygeine, I would like a traveling mobile home and a bad sweater vest. (I would also like this in conjunction with the Avro Arrow, but that is a side tangent.) That just makes me happy.* The lone gunmen made me happy. Give me your paranoia and possibly some early 90s hacker aesthetic and I am pleased as punch.

*I feel Men In Black was good for this.

Hackers. Hackers was great. Give me your bicycles and skateboards. (Dark Angel) Give me your ridiculous visualisations of computer systems. All of the visualisations of computer systems all of the time. Rogue Computers. (There's a MacGyver episode with that - the 90s were great, and you've got kind of, The Matrix as one of the ultimate evil computer things, spinning out nicely with the evil AI.) Give me your technology aesthetic - the 1980s era TARDIS and Nyssa, fantastic. Give me your painted dragon fruit. I feel like there is, in any respectable alien fruit arrangement, a painted dragon fruit. I want to see the painted dragon fruit still lifes. I want to see how it is all put together. I actually really liked the 2009 Syfy production, Alice for that reason, like, there are all these little tiny universes that we see - Hatter's trading house and the whole resistance in the library and there are all of these different things going on in that world; it's nice.

I like tropes in general, and I find episodic sci-fi can be really good for me for that, because there are trope plot lines or themes that they will tackle. So, like, there's SG-1 and SGA that'll do things and, like, Sliders was great, because every single episode was alternate universe, doppelgangers, and something else. The X-Files had some really slick trope episodes. Sanctuary had a lot of trope episodes, and also Nikola Tesla, Immortal Vampire, for which I may love it forever.

So, yeah, I like tropes in general and serial sci-fi tends to be really good for that. I also just like sci-fi in general; let's explore things and ask questions! It's nice.

(This entry was written for calvinahobbes' prompt for the Second-Half of January meme that I am doing.)

Comments

[glitteryv]

Aaaaah, I have SO MANY FEELINGS about BB-8 (so.many.feelings)!! I'd seen a lot of still pics and such, of course. It wasn't until I saw BB-8 on the screen, however, that I fell in love with BB's cuteness and behaviour. In some ways, I could almost see how aware BB-8 was about its cuteness factor (at one point early in the movie, I was almost sure that it purred to Rey when Rey was trying to send BB-8 away). #IvegotalotofStarWarsfeels

There's a lot of 90s sci-fi that I unintentionally skipped: Farscape, Sliders, SG-1, SGA, Sanctuary... I'm still not quite sure why I wasn't actively watching those since I do like my sci-fi shows.

The Matrix. Jeez, I have no idea of how many times I saw it at the movies (at one point, it was showing at the $1 theater near my parents. I think I went to see it every day after school. For, like, three weeks. /o\). What's more, I watched it quite recently (as in late last December) and was surprised to see how much of it held up nowadays. Another interesting thing is that it was one of those movies (alongside Fight Club, American Beauty, Office Space) that was all about the breakdown of office workers. Apparently, that was one of the biggest themes in 1999?

Oh, gods, Hackers. I've got so much love for that movie! The plot was ridic, the cast was pretty, and there's this queerness all throughout the movie that I ate up with the spoon (Kate dreaming of crossdressing!Dade, Razor and Burn's androgynous club kid style, Phreak's kitten t-shirts, etc). I also dug how outdated that movie was by the time it came out on the theaters.

Ahh, The X-Files! Talk about a phenomenon! I was really into the show and its conspiracies and Mulder's quest and Scully's competence for the first 5 seasons. Like, at one point, I didn't know anyone who wasn't watch it. I remember that I would purposely take a nap and set my alarm so that I'd watch it and then get ready to go clubbing (back when it aired on Fridays). LOL.

My then-gf and I would have potluck parties every Sunday by the time S4 was airing. #memories And then, the plot became both labyrinthine and frustrating for me to keep enjoying the show every Sunday. I honestly think that the show went on too long. These ambivalent feelings towards the show continue to this day. I'm not too excited about the 6-part mini-series that's going to be dropping soon. Though I'm curious to see present day!Mulder and Scully, I also think that the expectations people have for this revival are not going to be fulfilled. :|

Oh, and I've noticed that I'm way better with sci-fi as a visual medium than in book. (FTR, I didn't read any sci-fi until I was in my senior year in high school so I don't have the same type of attachment someone who read, say, Ursula K LeGuin as a kid would have). Movies and TV shows, though, I'm A-OK with. :)

Have you watched the sci-fi shows Killjoys or The Expanse? I've heard good things about both of them, but I've yet to check them out.

[kiki_eng]

I, too, have a lot of Star Wars feels. There are a lot of feels to be had, I think.

Farscape, Sliders, SG-1, SGA, Sanctuary. Yeah, Sliders and SG-1 were part of a phase of me watching a lot of television, and a lot of SFF adventure television. There was so much around, and I completely missed Farscape for whatever reason until later and, looking at those five they are all sort of lighter or at least lighter-seeming (Farscape's muppets will make you cry, probably) shows with teams to some extent, so it could easily be sub-genre preference in there for you?

Hackers is for me something that I watched pretty young so a lot of the gender/sexuality stuff you've written on I didn't notice, not really, but yeah, it's there and that's pretty cool. I think some of the aesthetic or feel of the film reminds me a bit of The Fifth Element, which kind of amusingly had, like, the opposite approach to time? Like, they had a fashion designer making futuristic clothing for them and he was just, like, going for it, and doing some really interesting things with gender also, but I think the kind of fearlessness both productions had to go for a specific look and to not take themselves too seriously links them. (...and their release dates are two years apart.) Hackers also reminds me of MCR's Killjoys a bit - rollerblades and fight the man and Mikey Way's hair.

It is cool that you had these social rituals around The X-Files. Both of those sound kind of great.

I saw the movie that came out a few years ago and it was... not what I had been expecting at all. It felt like an okay-ish episode crossed over with some domestic Scully/Mulder stuff and was nothing like the first movie, but, like, there was some really interesting relationship stuff in there and I'm afraid that they're going to phone in the plots and do weird shit with Fox and Dana's relationship coming up. I was sort of happy with where they left that, and, I am nervous. About things.

That is interesting with your visual sci-fi vs. written thing. I have encountered that once before and I was completely baffled by it, because it was like You like science fiction! ...but I can not talk to you about books? You do not care about books? ...but I could talk to you about other books? ...? It did not compute for me, like, at all, but I do feel like sci-fi has a lot of visual potential and there are things about that medium that are really interesting or are harder to convey in words. Like, I am not at all sure that BB-8 would be that charming in text. Also: Star Trek and Star Wars, despite all the tie-in novels and so on were first created as episodes and films, respectively, and those are a lot of people's sci-fi roots. IDK, man. I can speculate generally, but, what is it that print doesn't do for you personally that a screen does? (*is curious*)

I have not watched either of those shows. I have heard positive things about Killjoys, and it sounds like it is maybe a bit junky and fun, and have not heard about The Expanse at all. I watched The Middleman last year and some Jessica Jones and Projet M and Star Wars and that was it for me for any type of sci-fi last year, I think? It was not really a good year for consuming new media for me; I didn't do a lot of that. So, there are a lot of things that I am missing, and I need to finish Jessica Jones and watch Daredevil and Sense8 and do The Martian thing, probably.

Let me tell you about my weird relationship with sci-fi... /o\

[glitteryv]

I do like space shows (Firefly and the 2003 Battlestar Galactica reboot come to mind) so I think I'll add Farscape to my "will eventually watch list". Oh, I did check out SGA during a very brief foray I had in that fandom (there some really good crackfics that translated well for people like me who hadn't seen the show). Unfortch, I only lasted 15 minutes before turning of the pilot episode. #Ohwell

Huh, I had no idea that Hackers was released so closely to The Fifth Element. For some reason, it feels like those two movies premiered about 10 years apart from each other. I do agree that the overall Hackers 'verse could deffo fit in the Killjoys' 'verse.

In some ways, I think it was pretty inevitable not to be into The X-Files once it took off (I wanna say around S3?). I mean, the lure of it was so strong that even my mom (who doesn't like sci-fi) and a couple of my aunts (ditto) were totally into it. Sadly, the two movies have been, well, less than stellar. For one thing, I don't think either movie had enough plot to get the audience involved. In addition, the plots seemed to deconstruct a lot of the mythology that made the TV show so compelling to watch. It's a shame, really, because I feel that the movies could've given the original TV series much-needed momentum had people gotten Chris Carter aside and pointed out that he needed to make the movies less confusing.

I don't like to be negative--especially because, deep down, I do have a deep affection for the TV series as well as for Gillian Anderson (I'm kinda neither here nor there about David D. He brought out a lot of douchebrother-y in Californication and it left a bad taste in my mouth). So I'm going to be cautiously hopeful that it won't turn out to be a mess.

FTR, I've become less nostalgic about most media as I've grown older. I think that we tend to look at the past rather intensely while being unaware that we're also tapping into our emotional attachment to a particular media. Although I'm not going to say that all reboots/revivals have been bad, a lot of them have ended up being mediocre or disastrous.

I can speculate generally, but, what is it that print doesn't do for you personally that a screen does? (*is curious*)

OK, so I don't know why, but (aside from the usual fairy tale books), my parents were fine with me reading slightly darker stuff when I was a kid (I'm talking 9 - 10 years old). Lots of pulpy detective/noir novels (The Postman Rings Twice, a lot of Mickey Spillane, etc). Like, I have a vivid memory of my mom and I at a local pharmacy (she must have been picking up a prescription, I'm guessing) and me going to the book racks. My mom would let me buy a book every so often and I'd always end up picking up those titles. (When I asked my mom years later, she told me that the only other choices were romances and she thought that those books were too adult for me. IDEK).

By the time I was in my teens, I was reading a lot of splatter horror (Poppy Z. Brite, Clive Barker, etc) mixed in with classic lit (Emile Zola, the Brontes, Edith Wharton,etc). The only two sci-fi authors I ever read back then were Isaac Asimov and Phillip K. Dick.

So, as you can see, I had little to no foundation for sci-fi as a book genre (and kinda the same thing for fantasy). Movies and TV shows were easier to get into because, again, the visual aspect and that I can process the premise without getting pulled out because of a weird (to me) name or some tech that I can't visualize in my mind. It's messed up, but I tend to look at hard sci-fi with a skeptical eye since it's a tad incomprehensible to me.

Nowadays, I'm v., v. slowly dipping my toes into sci-fi books that ping me (I really liked The Martian as a novel vs. the movie version) though they are really far and few in between.

Sadly, The Middleman didn't work for me (I think partly because it'd been over-hyped), but I LOVED Jessica Jones. I've got Daredevil and Sense8 high up in my Netflix queue because I'm super curious about watching both of those shows.

Re: Let me tell you about my weird relationship with sci-fi... /o\

[kiki_eng]

The SGA pilot is really weird. They were doing this thing where they were hiding who their main characters were in it, kinda, and then in the next episode they dropped that style completely and used all the conventions of SG-1, basically. So, yeah, I would basically ignore that episode and skip to the next one and then I'm a bad person to talk to about things because I mostly didn't watch the episodes.

I did not have a problem with either of the X-Files movies, but I agree that they were giant episodes rather than films, really. ...and, IDK, I don't know that I'm really excited about the reboot, because I do kinda believe that they should have let things fall in line with the Season Finale and that nothing past their doomsday should exist. I'm not worried about Duchovny, really, like, I do not really care about him as a person but he is an actor and things should be okay?

What do you mean by aside from the usual fairy tale books?

I don't know that I ever really got into classic sci-fi, I mean, okay, yeah, dystopia novels, but other than that, like, Douglas Adams and lolsy space adventure is kinda my wheelhouse, and I don't really feel any obligation to read classic sci-fi. I mean I've read some things that have been really good, but I've also read Flatland and it's a mixed bag. It's always a mixed bag. *shrugs at you*

Thanks for answering my question about the book/screen sci-fi thing; that's really interesting to me.

I went into The Middleman after stumbling on a couple vids and was delighted at the twenty-something life problems and goofy sci-fi mix. No one hyped it for me, which probably helped, I think discovering something on your own is nearly always better - zero expectations.

Re: Let me tell you about my weird relationship with sci-fi... /o\

[glitteryv]

Huh, the SGA pilot snafu reminds me of the one for Buffy. It's not a terrible pilot, but I think they were trying to keep a little too close to the movie instead of going with a fresher vibe. Oh, and I remember that the same thing happened with the pilot for Xena. It's kind of a miracle that I got so much into the latter two. ;)

From what I remember, the first X-Files movie was the bridge between S5 (one of the most brilliant seasons for the series) and S6 (or, when everything started to get fractured and frustrating). So, in that regard, it was a disappointment for me (and, apparently, a lot of people). I did liked the soundtrack though. Meanwhile, I was really hyped for the 2nd movie because, well, X-Files and it also featured Callum Keith Rennie as half of a gay couple. It all sounded like it was going to be super good. Instead, it was a nonsensical mess.

Usual fairy tale books such as Alice in Wonderland, the short stories by Oscar Wilde, etc.

No one hyped it for me, which probably helped, I think discovering something on your own is nearly always better - zero expectations.

I hear ya. If I'm really interested in something, I will check out some trailers and then avoid all mentions of the media as best as I can. My hype backlash level is really sensitive. So, the more someone wants me to check something out, the stronger my aversion to that media/fandom/what-have-you becomes. I'm also weird in that I'll give a show exactly 3 episodes max in its first season for me to get hooked. If I remain uninterested after ep 3, I drop it without feeling any guilt. After all, I have a lot of available media to check out and I don't believe in having to force myself to watch something I don't enjoy.

Re: Let me tell you about my weird relationship with sci-fi... /o\

[kiki_eng]

Yeah, I think just the way the TV industry works can mean that the pilot is pretty different from the rest of the show a lot of the time.

I do not remember CKR in the films at all. Also: the soundtrack, fjdklsfj, like, am I misremembering that we had Mulder day-drinking to one is the loneliest number? I feel that is a solid choice, and, yeah, that was a good soundtrack. *nods at you*

I am so glad I asked you about fairy tale books. Those ones were not what I was thinking of, I was kinda thinking Anderson and Grimm.

If I remain uninterested after ep 3, I drop it without feeling any guilt. After all, I have a lot of available media to check out and I don't believe in having to force myself to watch something I don't enjoy.
Yeah, I don't really do the three episode thing. I will drop out at any point at all with zero guilt. IDK. It is interesting how people are wired differently and I wonder if we're going to get more complete-ists as online video archives become more and more what people are used to. Like, if you're watching Jessica Jones on netflix you're probably not gonna miss the third episode because you were busy at 8PM on Wednesday.

Re: Let me tell you about my weird relationship with sci-fi... /o\

[glitteryv]

It's pretty wild. I mean, each TV network chooses to film 20 pilot episodes per season and from there, something like 4 to 7 actually make it to a series.

I was a hardcore CKR fan back in my due south days. As a result, I watched A LOT of movies (he's one of those actors who has appeared in many, many projects). So, when I learned that he was in the second movie, I felt like it'd be an answered prayer. LOL! Ah, yes, one is the loneliest number!

Oh, I'm sure I read Hans CA and Grimm as well. Some fairy tales are universal, you know? ;)

Well, I only do the 3-ep thing if I'm on the fence about a TV show. Maybe something's working for me (cast or plot) while, at the same time, something else is irritating the heck out of me (ditto).

It's so fascinating how media consumption has changed in the last 15 years! Hell, part of the reason why I became such a fan of Buffy and Xena was because I had to tape the episodes on VHS since they wouldn't be rerun until the end of summer. I liked DVDs for the commentaries, but I've gotten into digital and streaming without it bothering me.

The only 2 problems I can think of are: 1. Sometimes there are things that you want to watch on Netflix or in digital format and they're not available anywhere and 2.There's such a thing as too many choices.

Re: Let me tell you about my weird relationship with sci-fi... /o\

[kiki_eng]

Some fairy tales are universal, you know? ;)
Eh, I dunno, and maybe especially with Hans and the Grimms, like, I feel like there's this modern tendency to filter death and dismemberment, etc. out of children's literature.

[calvinahobbes]

I chinhanded so hard through this whole thing, omg!

I think BB-8 is super cute but it is definitely not my favorite thing about TFA, but I like your point about language. That is really my favorite aspect of both BB and R2, and I'm so amused you mention the tiny bots in Farscape, because they really are great.

Farscape is a thing I continue to struggle with and I am still (forever) stuck in season 2. But I also really enjoy the culture thing when it is actually alien, like in Farscape, which is something SG-1 was maybe not so interested in doing, and where the fic was much better at it.

Alice sounds intriguing; it is one of those things I never got around to seeing.

[kiki_eng]

Yay! :)

What is your favourite thing about TFA?

Farscape is a series that I love to pieces but haven't finished, because I am bad at finishing media and also because I ran out of the source after the second season and there was a big break before I watched the third season's premiere and I got shaken out of the emotional arc, so, I feel like I need to re-watch the first two seasons to get back there, which is fine, they're good, but means that Farscape is now a project in my head and *hands*.

Alice is kind of super-weird, which is sort of appropriate for Alice, I feel. Part of what makes it awesome is that they transform basically everything and things are so far from being what they are in the Disney adaptation, but the core of the story is the same; it's a woman going on an adventure through a looking glass, and things are very confusing to her - not in an obnoxious way, but she's in this whole new world and there are a lot of stressors. There's also a romance plot, which I have feelings about, but, yeah, there are some really interesting design things and side characters. The Royal Family in this is kind of amazing. I think the whole thing is around three hours long or something? (There were two episodes.) I really enjoyed it because Alice in Wonderland is one of my things that I like to see versions of and there was a lot of depth to this particular imagining.

[calvinahobbes]

My favorite thing is uninventively Rey. Just everything about Rey. That she is self-sufficient, that she is force sensitive, that she can fly all the things, that she is happy and enthusiastic, that she doesn't want to hold hands, that she worships the rebellion, that she has such an ability to connect with the people she meets. Just. Rey!

I feel better knowing you haven't finished Farscape either :) Silly but true.

Alice sounds so manageable! I really should put it on my list.

[kiki_eng]

Rey is a pretty cool thing. Tiny me would have loved her so much, and as it is I still kinda want to dress up as her.

(I am so baffled by your use of the word "uninventively", like, I do not see how this factors in. I do not think there are points for originality, or, like, that that matters; the heart wants what it wants.)

Yeah, Alice is short and kinda light and fluffy.

[akamine_chan]

Scifi has been the genre of my heart since I was seven years old. Books, television, movies, though tv the least, because I have a weird relationship with television. Though I stopped reading professionally published scifi in the 90's because there was a serious downturn in quality right about then.

I have pretty high technical standards (ie if the science is too handwavy, I NOPE out of the show/book/movie) but sometimes it's SO ridiculous that it works for me. There's no rhyme or reason to it.

But I've always been drawn to interesting characters and interesting worlds; that's always what draws me back in.

[kiki_eng]

:) What happened when you were seven?

[akamine_chan]

Star Wars came out. :)

[kiki_eng]

Hee. I was guessing that, but I thought I would check. :)