Biggest Science Fiction Disappointments!

[Hueij]

Huejj,
At least people are not arguing about which is better ST or SW. Damn, I should'nt have said anything!

Hm... Now you mention it.

Nah...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Pax
That would explain why most of the disappointments are movies.
Books that have been converted to movies at that.

Movies and TV shows get more publicity, that's why. There are TONS of crappy sci-fi books, many more so than movies, simply because there are many more books that movies and tv series.

[GePap]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
Star Wars dominates in movies and on TV but not in books. Space opera is not really SF, and it's a very marginal part of SF. But people here have been talking about TV and cinema mostly, maybe because you are less disappointed when you read a book than when you watch movies?

Books are more personal, and you can easily stop reading a bad book, more esily than walking out of a bad movie. PLus there are just SO many book, and SO many stiles.

In terms of "disappointments" when it comes to books, The later of the Rama series were not that spectacular- thought still OK. I read authors, and most of the time, once I find one I like, they are pretty consistent- thought, for example, with Brin, his Earth did not hold my interest as much as his Uplift novels, and Sundiver, the first Uplift novel is not as good as the later ones.

I couldn't find the Russian adaptation of Solaris. The American one missed a lot of things (including the most important) but I still found it an interesting movie.

You couldn't? its out in DVD, at least in a North American version.

[Imran Siddiqui]

In terms of "disappointments" when it comes to books, The later of the Rama series were not that spectacular- thought still OK.

Yeah, but the genius of the first one makes up for it (to me at least ).

[DanS]

I think in both film and books, we need go no further than...

Battlefield Earth

[Dis]

Originally posted by Bkeela
Don't know if it's been mentioned, but Lucas's reworking of the original trilogy is my biggest sci-fi disappointment. I doubt if I'll get to experience the films I loved and grew up with again, unless they re-issue his films after his death.

are you suggesting we kill Lucas?

[Felch]

Hey man, I'll do it.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Dissident
are you suggesting we kill Lucas?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
The human body plan is the result of haphazard accretion of features over a billion of years. The chance that anything much like it has come up on any given other planet is miniscule, as should be clear to anyone with a basic understanding of evolutionary biology.

Everyone always forgets the other key component of evolution - natural selection. We're not "haphazard," as nothing about NS is haphazard or random. Mutations may be, but NS is not.

Odin's claim that there's "0%" chance of alien beings being humanoid is just him talking out of his rear end, as we have utterly no way of knowing that (he even contradicts himself in a later post by acknowledging that we have too small a sample size to make any judgements on the matter).

The fact is that we know only certain conditions are hospitable to life. Those conditions are going to narrow the potential paths of natural selection in an environment. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that, on other Earth-like worlds, creatures similar to the ones on this planet will arise, as they will be subjected to more or less the same selection pressures.

[Urban Ranger]

Another thing is there are only a few basic forms for body shapes. Humans belong to one that has left-right symmetry. Most critters on earth are of this group. Another group has radial symmetry. Sea stars, for example. The last group has no symmetry at all, e.g. amoeba.

These basic forms arose extremely early in earth's evolution history. Remember, most of the time evolution does not create new features, it just make new uses of existing ones.

[Case]

Poor finishes

The ending to Peter Hamilton's Nights Dawn trilogy totally sucked, and came close to ruining the entire trilogy. If doing so wouldn't ruin the trilogy for those who haven't read it, I could fill up a page by complaining how bad it was.

I found 'Blue Mars' to be a disapointing ending to Kim Stanley-Robinson's Mars trilogy. The political infighting among ecologically aware neo-socialists which dominated the book was rather dull.

On a similar topic, Neal Stephenson took his time in figuring out how to end books, with the result that the endings of 'Snowcrash' and 'Cryptonomican' make no sense (the Baroque Cycle has a brilliant ending though, so he's learnt from his mistakes).

Originally posted by shawnmmcc Jar-Jar was obnoxious at best, and managed to destroy every scene he was in. Didn't ANYBODY pre-screen the film who was over twelve?

Aparently Geoge Lucas claims to have realised how loathed Jar-Jar was when interviewers he spoke to after the film's release stuck the boot into the character during interviews with him. Methinks that there are too many yes men hanging around Skywalker Ranch.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Pax
I have to be honest. I've never really liked Star Wars or Star Trek movies/tv(few exceptions) that much. I only support it because of my love of sci-fi.
The attempt to combine kiddie concepts with what life might be like in the future or a galaxy far far away don't appeal to me.
It's also not accurate that the Commanding Officer of a starship would always be on the away teams. NO WAY.
Nor is it realistic that humans could be the peace seeking explorers of the federation.

I agree. Star Wars blew. I saw the first one at the theatre when I was 14 or 15 (ie prime age to become a lifelong fan) and I enjoyed it. But I also correctly ascertained the arc of the series. More muppets while the special effects would be less impressive. And of course the scripts and the acting would take their typical sequel plunge. I was so right. I saw the 2nd and 3rd movies recently for the first time (I borrowed a friends video collection) and they were frighteningly terrible. I can hardly believe that anyone watched them, but then I remember that for some bizarre reason Independence Day was a big hit.

Speaking of which, is there a single movie that Will Smith has starred in that didn't suck? Wild Wild West, Independence Day, Men in Black 1 & 2 all sucked IMO. I didn't bother seeing I-Robot, I can tell it sucked because it is a big budget film based on a script which has the same name as a famous story and it stars Will Smith. Did anyone see Ali? Was it any good?

[LDiCesare]

You couldn't? its out in DVD, at least in a North American version.

I didn't find it in stores or on amazon. Should have tried some video clubs. I'll be looking for it again.

[Hot Mustard]

Re: Poor finishes

Originally posted by Case
Methinks that there are too many yes men hanging around Skywalker Ranch.

That's assuming he even asks for opinions, which I don't think he does.

I try to accept these things (Star Wars et al) for what they offer without bemoaning their weaknesses.

It is kind of amusing how much people love to vent about their hated/fav/ruined/whatever fictional movies/tv/books. (I don't exclude myself.)

If we each spent as much time doing volunteer work, the world would be a little better, no? How much time a week or month do you communicate (on computer, water cooler chat, phone) about fictional stuff?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Movies and TV shows get more publicity, that's why. There are TONS of crappy sci-fi books, many more so than movies, simply because there are many more books that movies and tv series.

Of course, people don't spend billions of dollars writing a book (and nor do they get nearly the same amount of hype, as you suggest), so it can be a different kind of dissapointment.


A book that's no good - oh well.

A movie that's no good - what a disgrace.