I Love Sci-Fi, But...

Okay I love science fiction of all kinds. Star Wars, Star Trek, Jurassic Park and Aliens are incredible stories and concepts and anytime some new piece of information comes out concerning Back to the Future or The Predator I am eating that stuff up. But over the countless years of reading and watching science fiction you tend to pick up on some tropes. Some of them add to the entertainment value for sure. But others just need to either become less common or disappear entirely. Here is a list of things I would like to see less or more of in sci-fi.

"Never tell me the odds": The famous funny line from the best Star Wars film, (come at me) Empire Strikes back comes in response to 3PO telling Han Solo the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 3720 to 1. We as an audience are expected to believe that 3Po, being a robot, can calculate those odds on the fly. But odds require data and variables so how does 3PO know those variables? It seems unlikely that these numbers he spouts out would be common statistics committed to the memory of a protocol droid. This is compounded further by the sheer volume of the Star Wars Galaxy. At 120,000 lightyears across your telling me that someone has categorically recorded every ship that has entered an asteroid field and whether they were or were not destroyed? Not to mention wouldn't every single asteroid field in the galaxy far, far away have different statistics as they all could not be the same. They would have varying sizes in asteroids and the distances between those asteroids could be vast like in our solar systems own asteroid field. To calculate the odds on the fly he would have to know all of this or it would just be a guess, which would make the information irrelevant.

To be fair Star Wars is not even the worst offender as Star Trek often pulls statistics for things out of thin air as both Spock and Data are prone to do. Now some of these are understandable, like later when C-3Po tries to tell the groups the odds they have against a Star Destroyer, those odds could conceivably be measured and working for the rebellion 3PO might have data to draw from to calculate it. But just adding statistics for the sake of increased tension or even for comedic effect just sits poorly with me these days and Sci-Fi should learn to use this trope a little more realistically. Case in point, the scene in question conveys the odds of navigating the field successfully through several other bits of dialogue. The only reason the information is given by 3PO is to have a funny line here and later in the film when he tries again. I could go all day about how both of these franchises abuse this trope, but I need to move on. In short, use this more realistically or less in general.

Skimpy outfits: I feel sort of bad picking on Star Wars so much but again remember that they are not the only ones. From Star Trek (every series) to Alien, almost all these franchises just reinforce the stereo type that nerds are there to see half naked women. It is unfortunate as Science Fiction is one of the best avenues for showing worlds where women rights are protected or commentating on how far we have left to go in our own society to protect the rights of every human being on the planet. But for every groundbreaking moment, Like Leah on Echo base giving orders to the troops and commanding the General of the Alliance forces, all she is remembered for is that outfit in Return of the Jedi. It is one of the many reasons that Empire is the superior film to Jedi in my opinion. All that strong female presence of Ripley and the good it represents is tainted for the same reasons.

Scale issues: Ever since the first Star Destroyer slowly floated menacingly across the screen there has been a trend of copying that first establishing shot with sweeping flybys of large imposing ships. Everyone remembers the incredibly funny parody of that shot in Spaceballs the movie when the ship comes on screen and lingers for what feels like an eternity. But what once was a joke has become almost the standard and secretly different sci-fi franchises have been competing for who has the biggest ships/ most exciting ships. Star Trek might be the most grievous offender as of late, making ships larger for no apparent reason even when it conflicts with canon. There is this great video on YouTube that shows how much empty space the Enterprise D would have with a crew of only a thousand and there is of course the famous example of how many decks does the Enterprise E have since the total number is different from film to film. What I want in sci-fi is fantasy in the context of believable science and realistic logistics and in that context bigger and more powerful is not always inherently better.

Conveniently placed bottomless pits: Why is this a thing? Luke falls down a pit. Vader throws Palpatine down a pit, and Riker kicks Reman down a bottomless pit that incidentally is on deck 29 of a ship that only had 24 decks two movies ago. I could go on, He-Man and Skeletor in the Masters of the Universe film and Flash Gordan in 1980. What's worse about a lot of these scenes is that often the person who falls somehow miraculously survives! How? if you fall a mile down a hole, even into water, you chances of surviving at terminal velocity are pretty low. Still Skeletor popping out at the end to proclaim he will be back is hilarious in context since a sequel was never made.

Where is the Mutiny and Surrender? Look Vader is an imposing and terrifying presence and his ability to dispatch waves of attackers is incredible to watch. But order 66 proves that he and the Emperor are not un-killable. Surrounded with highly trained special forces and incredibly high-tech weaponry it is not far-fetched that someone who agrees with their methodology but not their ruthlessness would get tired of people loyal to them getting chocked to death and at least try to do something about it. I mean Vader constantly killing commanders and disregarding the safety of whole ships full of men, sending them into asteroid fields and such, these men would likely rebel for personal safety not even for a difference in ideals.

There are actually a few mutinies in Star Trek that showcase this concept more believably. But I am still baffled that both franchises very rarely depict a strategic surrender. It is one of my favorite inclusions in Star Trek six because Kirk said himself in Star Trek two that Klingons don't take prisoners, but he still surrenders because first, he was proven wrong in Star Trek three and because his strategic surrender saved thousands of lives not to mention his crew and the peace talks with the two parties. Some may counter argue that most of these "evil" organizations would not except a surrender, but throughout human history most battles have not been fought to the last man. Indeed, to fight in such is hardly a victory as it enormously draining on resources and manpower and bad for the moral of your own troops. It is not just Star Trek and Star Wars, but they have some of the more egregious examples of the "Never Give Up Never Surrender" mantra of Galaxy Quest.

More Practical Effect: I want to close by saying that watching the behind the scenes to the Mandalorian has been quite extraordinary. The adaptive stage and lighting with projected backgrounds built with video game developer tools is so much more exciting to me than all the green screen that is incredibly common these days. Also, the new stunt robots Disney has been working on for high flying stunts is interesting and I am glad to see a return to a more film it rather than build it in post approach. One of the reasons that the prequel trilogy in Star Wars feels so sterile compared to the original and even later films comes down to the differences in practical effects vs digital. Going back to Star Trek, most of the films used studio models all the way through the franchise to film the ship scenes and it just gives them an added level of believability over an all-digital model. The combination of digital and practical effects is also one of the things that makes Jurassic Park such a memorable film.

Going back and watching the Alien films and Predator films I do not think changing those shots with the aliens would be better with a digital character than with an actor on set breathing life into them. Practical effects also bring out the best creativity in directors because they have to think their way around problems and come up with solutions that enhance the film does not detract from it. For example, during the filming of Aliens, James Cameron has six Alien costumes to work with meaning while there are 100's of Alien's in the film story wise, he could never show more than six in any given shot. But with incredible camera work he was able to turn this "disadvantage" into a strength and the film is better for it with tight angles and some truly frightening visuals. When it is feasible, I think practical effects always improve the quality of a film. Very few people will complain about practical effects in a film, but they will absolutely complain if the digital effects are bad. Actors will always give a better performance with practical effects over digital and I think that these new forms of practical effects offer a lot of promising potential for future science fiction projects.

More New Concepts: There are now nine Star Wars films and countless series. The same goes for Star Trek and even Alien's, while not having any TV productions has several films. You can have too much of a good thing to the point where it is so saturated that you cannot really enjoy it anymore. I know that new does not sell these days. We always say we want something new but when something new comes along none of us go see it. This one falls on the fans more than anyone else, but we can still tell new stories in familiar settings if we want to.

I heard a fan theory the other day that the film Outland starring Sean Connery and Alien were in the same universe. The video presented a strong case for the two worlds being one and the same and I loved the idea that the world of Alien had more stories to tell than just ones with Alien's in it. Star Wars is dabbling in this a little with the Mandalorian and Star Trek with Lower Decks, but I think we could get more original mileage out of our Sci-fi favorites by mixing a few more genres into the mix. Here are a few examples of what I would like to see.

A Star Trek show centered around life on a Klingon or Romulan ship. Pick a time period, like the dominion war and look at it from a different perspective if you will. Deep Space Nine got a lot of flak when it first aired but in retrospect it turned into one of Star Trek's most enduring series but ditching a lot of "Star Fleet" aesthetics and focusing a lot on the interaction between Cardassians and Bajorans. A show centered on two crews, Romulan and Klingon, forced to work together during the war could be interesting. Watching their different ideals come in conflict but give them the same goal to accomplish and back drop the whole thing with the threat of war and you have got the recipe for some cool drama.

A Star Wars first contact story. The galaxy is a big place and with the growing needs for resources during a galactic was it would be interesting to see a political struggle between the representatives of the rebellion and the empire to convince a new system or world, unaware of the scope of the conflict, to join on cause or the other. This could give us valuable information on how the Empire operates politically and could include espionage elements as both parties try to gather intelligence on each other for use in the negotiations. Something that has less lightsabers and blasters but builds the world's lore in a fascinating and new way painted by the looming conflict this world will likely be drawn into by their decision.

Film Noir Alien film just sounds awesome to say doesn't it. A grizzles former detective turned private investigator on a colony or space station is called in by the authorities to investigate the mysterious disappearances of several persons only to find that corrupt leaders or an organization is trying to breed Alien's for military research. Some of the victims missing can be traced back to this organization but some of them cannot. Is there more corruption to be found? Or has one of these things gotten loose and is collecting people for its own Queen? The film could climax with a conflict not just between the investigator and the Aliens, but the two Alien hives could even come in conflict with each other. The film could be a slow burn and I would love to see something like this filmed in black and white using the aesthetic from the first and second Alien films of that sort of 70's-80's style future technology.

That's just a few quick examples from some of my favorite franchises but there are lots more original ideas that deserve a shot and we as fans should support them if they come along. Thanks for reading this article and have a great day!