Biggest Science Fiction Disappointments!

[GePap]

Why would the chance of aliens being humanoid be 0?

It seems to me a rather useful body type for a species that does not specialize in any particularly. There is no greater reason for aliens being humanoid than there is for them NOT being humanoid.

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by reds4ever
That no ones done a 'Foundation' TV mini series

Let's do it ourselves. Let's write the screenplay like it should be written and make absurd amounts of money from this.

[Tuberski]

I must not be a big enough geek.

I've never read a Phillip K. Dick story, hate Asimov, and have no idea what FireFly is.

ACK!

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Tuberski
I must not be a big enough geek.

I've never read a Phillip K. Dick story, hate Asimov, and have no idea what FireFly is.

ACK!

I can heartily recommend P. Dick. After reading many of his stories you're left thinking, "Hey! X, Y and Z ripped off his ideas!" He was truly way ahead of his time.

[St Leo]

We have a useful body plan for climbing trees. It's similar to the body types of sloths, squirrels, and koala bears. We are no longer arboreal.

Eh.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Richelieu
Let's do it ourselves. Let's write the screenplay like it should be written and make absurd amounts of money from this.

Let's get raped by greedy corporate copyright lawyers.

[Sava]

a certain SCIFI movie with Barry Pepper and John Travolta

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by GePap
Why would the chance of aliens being humanoid be 0?

It seems to me a rather useful body type for a species that does not specialize in any particularly. There is no greater reason for aliens being humanoid than there is for them NOT being humanoid.

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.

[BeBMan]

But humanoid aliens are better when it comes to hitting them

[GePap]

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.

You could say the same about every single from, except maybe single cell organisms. So its as likely to look like a man as an ant, or a tube worm, or a fish. but then, of course, the issue is what form is needed for Sentient tool making forms. That limits the possibilities.

[Patroklos]

I agree with GePap, considering that this body form is the only one out of all the organisms on earth to yeild our type of intelligence, and that most of the species in the top of the intelligence tree share the same basic shape, it might be that this particular form is the most suited for it.

[Mr. Harley]

Leverage points and some muscle equivelant to move them, i.e. fingers. Something to grip with, i.e. an opposable thumb - in combination it's a hand, which is why tentacles are less likely. The need to keep these appendages available to handle tools. Upright posture or more than four limbs with the front two permanently upright. It's hard for a six-limed animal to suddenly evolve the first two limbs upright, it's much easier for a four limbed creature to rotate upright and inherit back problems in later life.

Population able to reach a critical level for a techical civilization. Probably not an obligate predator of larger herbivores. Not an efficient, obligate herbivore. Multiple food sources make it more likely to reward mental activity and foraging, rather than just more effiicient digestion of a single food source.

Of course SF writers have created all kinds of aliens in the past. The majority though are at least going to share many of those traits, so will no be utterly weird in appearance, i.e. they will have frames of reference for us. "Look, that's their manipulating appendage. There's the visual appartus." Movies are limited by that funny thing called budgets, though modern CGI increased the available choices.

[Sandman]

I thought I, Robot was fairly good. True, Will Smith was in slouchy cop autopilot, and the robots as enemies were of the 'too fast to shoot' and 'too numerous to fight' variety. But the plot was fairly complex, and there some pretty good scenes in it. Plus it reintroduced the rather dormant sci-fi notion of humanoid robots being as ubquitous as automobiles (and the interesting sociological consequences of this).

[GePap]

I mentioned Lem because he was one of the few writers to address the issues of the great difficulty of communication between species.

That to me is a much bigger problem than humanoid aliens, the notion every species can understand each other, or that they have similar motivations, or at least motivations they can each understand.

That and interspecies mating-that is a great sin of easy sci fi!

[Dr Strangelove]

Yes, the Sci-Fi channel has been pretty much a disappointment. They seem to be shooting for making friday the only day worth watching, then blowing off the rest of the week. It may just be me, but I feel that's a somewhat bizarre marketing strategy.

Not completing Crusade has been a disappointment. Als o the fact that they promised to do some more Bab 5 movies or mini-series then didn't follow through has been disappointing.

The fact that there haven't been reruns of Bab 5 for several years is disappointing. I bought the DVD Bab 5 movie collection. Now I want more.

Spike TV Channel ran a series of DS9 reruns earlier this year, but inexplicably didn't show them in sequence, then cancelled after 4 weeks.

I'd like to see someone attempt to make a movie of part or all of The Foundation series. I'd also like to see someone try to make movie's of some other of Asimov's robot novels. Which novels featured L. Steel Danilaw, the covert robot cop? They'd make a good series of movies. I could envision a "Blade Runner" like atmosphere.