YAHOO users are idiots

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by snoopy369
That's quite untrue. While there are certainly some novels that have significant elements of both, Dune coming to mind, there are definitely significant differences.

"Speculative Fiction" might be a better term, largely to describe my point. Most of what Science Fiction is about, is 'what if'. Even most of the hard SF is about what if - what if we could travel FTL, what if we could cure all diseases, what if aliens were real, etc.

Fantasy is not about 'What If', in the forward-looking sense, but rather about 'What could be', now, or in the past. SF (either term) explores primarily the why, and the how, while fantasy explores primarily the what, and the where. Truly great SF tends to cover both effectively (such as Dune); but it still covers primarily the 'why' more than anything else. Fantasy simply does not - few fantasy novels actually go into why magic works, and in general even when they do, it's not exactly a thorough investigation of why - it's more to set the novel(s) up and define something interesting. It's rare that the 'how' of magic is important to Fantasy; and it's even rarer that the 'why' is important. The only time the 'why' is important, is in legends/myths (and fantasy intending to be similar to these two); which are, after all, the first SF...

I read SF to expand my mind. I read Fantasy to relax it. Both are good, and necessary; but they definitely have two distinct purposes, and two distinct definitions.

This is all really pretty but it's also bull****. The strong "what if" focus of hardcore speculative fiction is not universal to science fiction except in the most general sense possible - e.g. the legions of military science fiction, which usually touches the question in the most superficial sense possible. (What if we had railguns - we could blow things up more awesomely.) For any definition you give me of SF and fantasy I will be able to find an overlap, and for any reasonable definition of science fiction (i.e. a definition that encompasses most of what most people call science fiction) Star Wars will fall squarely in that overlap.

[BlackCat]

No offense Ben, but

Why does Leia say, "if money is all you want, then money is what you will get?"

would be a typical message from a "beliver of the cause" to any mercenary.

How is this different then Luke who immediately boards a ship to go fight the death star? No hesitation whatsoever?

He's in love an do foolish things.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I'm telling you there is philosophy in Star Wars.

You can't write a story without it. There are some obvious statements, and what you consider a facade is a feature of Lucas and his bad dialogue.

I've listed the two major ones and their quotes. Perhaps to you they are a facade, but I have to ask you, do you believe that the way in which Han Solo sees the world is the same way in which Yoda sees the world? Do they have identical philosophies?

Why does Leia say, "if money is all you want, then money is what you will get?"

How is this different then Luke who immediately boards a ship to go fight the death star? No hesitation whatsoever?

Those are basic character tropes, not philosophical statements. If Star Wars went ahead and deconstructed those tropes and resolved them in its own, it would be making a philosophical statement. But it doesn't and it's not. Star Wars just transplants the basic, archetypal heroic story into a science fiction/science fantasy setting that is explicitly designed to invoke the Rule of Cool. That's why it's such a great story.

[One_more_turn]

Starwars is a nice fantasy in space setting, you can play it with D&D rules.

[Kuciwalker]

And anyone who says that Star Wars takes the basic structure of a Western and puts it in a science fiction setting is delusional. Star Wars's plot was written directly out of a textbook - Lucas designed Luke Skywalker right out of the book The Hero With A Thousand Faces, which describes the standard heroic cycle popularized by the Oddysey.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

the setting is in no way important to the story.

You're as bad as Ben! The Star Wars setting is critical to the story. It's the second half of why Star Wars is so popular - the setting is so fertile for other stories like it.

I am of course talking about the original 3 movies here, not the EU, which has certainly more SF in it than the original three. And you're right, in that people loved Star Wars because of the space setting - but it was not significant in the actual story. Star Wars was fantasy - exploring a cool setting, having an adventure, etc. - and did not go in depth into the how/why. In fact, you note that one of the big turn-offs in Star Wars Ep. 1 is when they do start to talk about the why (the force-particles) ... nope, not SF.

Any science fiction story must have some element of science, or make some meaningful use of the science/future setting in the plot/theme.

This definition, if you [mis]construe it to exclude Star Wars, excludes more than half of all stories most people designate as science fiction. Therefore, it is wrong. QED. You lose.

This is a clumsy definition, which I expanded a bit better in my more recent post - but I did not construe it around Star Wars; it's been, give or take, the same I've had for years, after having an in-depth discussion with several people more knowledgeable in this than I.

You still haven't addressed the fact that genres are not simple definitions. Genres are collections of works that share a large base of common tropes. Anything that uses enough of those tropes is part of the genre.

Genre purism is not only silly, it means you don't understand what you're purporting to analyze.

You could say that there are no genres at all, if you want ... I choose to define SF and fantasy separately. There will always be works that overlap to varying degrees (just like you have Fantasy/Mystery and Romance/SF ... etc.), but in general they are quite distinct.

[Kuciwalker]

This is a clumsy definition, which I expanded a bit better in my more recent post - but I did not construe it around Star Wars; it's been, give or take, the same I've had for years, after having an in-depth discussion with several people more knowledgeable in this than I.

You misunderstand the word construe.

[Kuciwalker]

You could say that there are no genres at all, if you want ... I choose to define SF and fantasy separately. There will always be works that overlap to varying degrees (just like you have Fantasy/Mystery and Romance/SF ... etc.), but in general they are quite distinct.

Sucks to be you, then, becuase "science fiction" and "fantasy" are words with established usage - and it's the usage I've provide. You don't get to say "well I want to be a purist and limit science fiction to this definition that's different from the one everyone else uses!"

[Ben Kenobi]

Those are basic character tropes, not philosophical statements.

What about dualism which is central to the story? Saying that good exists, and evil exists and they fight against each other is philosophy.

If Star Wars went ahead and deconstructed those tropes and resolved them in its own, it would be making a philosophical statement.

It doesn't have to explicitly state them in order to make a philosophical statement.

Even so when Vader says the force is stronger then the death star, that IS a philosophical statement.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Originally posted by snoopy369
That's quite untrue. While there are certainly some novels that have significant elements of both, Dune coming to mind, there are definitely significant differences.

"Speculative Fiction" might be a better term, largely to describe my point. Most of what Science Fiction is about, is 'what if'. Even most of the hard SF is about what if - what if we could travel FTL, what if we could cure all diseases, what if aliens were real, etc.

Fantasy is not about 'What If', in the forward-looking sense, but rather about 'What could be', now, or in the past. SF (either term) explores primarily the why, and the how, while fantasy explores primarily the what, and the where. Truly great SF tends to cover both effectively (such as Dune); but it still covers primarily the 'why' more than anything else. Fantasy simply does not - few fantasy novels actually go into why magic works, and in general even when they do, it's not exactly a thorough investigation of why - it's more to set the novel(s) up and define something interesting. It's rare that the 'how' of magic is important to Fantasy; and it's even rarer that the 'why' is important. The only time the 'why' is important, is in legends/myths (and fantasy intending to be similar to these two); which are, after all, the first SF...

I read SF to expand my mind. I read Fantasy to relax it. Both are good, and necessary; but they definitely have two distinct purposes, and two distinct definitions.

This is all really pretty but it's also bull****. The strong "what if" focus of hardcore speculative fiction is not universal to science fiction except in the most general sense possible - e.g. the legions of military science fiction, which usually touches the question in the most superficial sense possible. (What if we had railguns - we could blow things up more awesomely.) For any definition you give me of SF and fantasy I will be able to find an overlap, and for any reasonable definition of science fiction (i.e. a definition that encompasses most of what most people call science fiction) Star Wars will fall squarely in that overlap.

I'd definitely consider Military SF to be a nearly distinct genre, and certainly one that in some ways shares a lot with fantasy, more so than regular SF. However, it still generally takes a lot of the 'how' (more so than the why), and often deals with very complex sociological issues (such as John Ringo's main series, or David Weber's, or John Scalzi). You badly misjudge Military SF if you don't understand that.

I agree there is overlap - there is lots of genre overlap. I don't have a problem with it. Indeed, fantasy and SF overlap more than Mystery and SF does; but that's largely because they're the only two genres not set in the real world. It's easy to say "ha, this is f/sf" or "ha, this is not f/sf" because they're not in the real world; it is harder to differentiate, simply because that's so easy to say. Sure, you could have strict rules, "If it is in the real world, and someone dies, it's a mystery/thriller; if it is in the real world, and someone has sex, it's a romance; if it's not in the real world, it's f/sf" ... except those overlap most of the time anyway. (Romance/Fantasy, for example ... god there's a billion of those nowadays, probably more than the F/SF overlap. Are you going to say they aren't distinct genres either??)

[Kuciwalker]

I am of course talking about the original 3 movies here, not the EU, which has certainly more SF in it than the original three. And you're right, in that people loved Star Wars because of the space setting - but it was not significant in the actual story.

The setting is almost never significant in the actual story, after a sufficient amount of abstraction, because stories are just a limited set of interactions between humans. "Alice fell in love with Bob, Bob killed Charlie" etc. But all of the details more specific than that in Star Wars are totally dependent on the setting.

(And I'm not talking about the EU either.)

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

You could say that there are no genres at all, if you want ... I choose to define SF and fantasy separately. There will always be works that overlap to varying degrees (just like you have Fantasy/Mystery and Romance/SF ... etc.), but in general they are quite distinct.

Sucks to be you, then, becuase "science fiction" and "fantasy" are words with established usage - and it's the usage I've provide. You don't get to say "well I want to be a purist and limit science fiction to this definition that's different from the one everyone else uses!"

Nice BAM, but that's flat out wrong. I'd suggest that, rather, you simply misunderstand the definition, and its usage by people who matter (ie, SF writers and readers) ... I don't care in the least what non-SF folk consider SF, excepting bookstore merchandising teams...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
What about dualism which is central to the story? Saying that good exists, and evil exists and they fight against each other is philosophy.

...

.....

.......

No, it's really not. It's the stock heroic plot. I mean, the Empire barely does anything evil except some standard kicking the dog moments (blowing up a planet, being mean to Lando, etc.) used to establish that yes, the Empire is the villain.

It doesn't have to explicitly state them in order to make a philosophical statement.

Even so when Vader says the force is stronger then the death star, that IS a philosophical statement.

No, it's an establishing character moment, punctuated by the force choke to establish the Darth Vader is a) a baddie, b) a badass, and c) someone you really don't **** with.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

I am of course talking about the original 3 movies here, not the EU, which has certainly more SF in it than the original three. And you're right, in that people loved Star Wars because of the space setting - but it was not significant in the actual story.

The setting is almost never significant in the actual story, after a sufficient amount of abstraction, because stories are just a limited set of interactions between humans. "Alice fell in love with Bob, Bob killed Charlie" etc. But all of the details more specific than that in Star Wars are totally dependent on the setting.

(And I'm not talking about the EU either.)

That's not true, at all. The setting should be relevant to the story, in most good stories. Gone With The Wind certainly could have been told in WWI, or WWII, or whatnot, but the setting in the South in the Civil War was quite fundamental to the characters and their actions, reasons for what they did, and the story as a whole. This is not true in SW (as you note above, SW's story is simply the archetypical hero's epic journey).

[Imran Siddiqui]

The idea that "Star Wars" isn't sci-fi is, as I've said over and over, utter crap. Yes, the space setting is essential to the Plot.

I mean Hell, take 2001. Change HAL into a strong wizard who has been put under a spell by humans, but isn't working exactly right according to the spell. OMG!!1! It's fantasy!!