Todd Mason wrote:
> >>>Unfortunately, I think ALIEN fails both as drama (entirely
too
> many "Oh, it was just the cat" moments) and as sf (they are hauling ORE
from
> one star to another). By the time of the recent third sequel, the
pretense
> of sfnal "realism" was pretty much shot
Alien never was a drama (so I would expect it to fail there), it was
horror.
>>>"Drama" doesn't mean solely, say, soap opera or LONG DAY'S JOURNEY
INTO NIGHT, but any kind of acted literature, if you'll pardon the
expression--at least when I use it.
Sfnal realism in movies is an ideal seldomly achieved. Even many SF-books
have similar holes. Show me the realism in some of E.E. Doc Smiths books
and
I show you the realism in ore mining between stars (weeeell it's a
special
ore not found on most other planets because a black hole collided with
...).
>>>Even your offhand joking explanation could've been refined to explain
why the ALIEN folks were where they were. And I doubt you want to hold
out most of E E Smith's work as examples of sophisticated sf, as opposed
to an engineer's (sky)lark.
Now we've gone full circle, almost, as Prof. James was suggesting sf is
an approach rather than a setting...a position I partially agree with.
Westerns need not involve gunfights, btw, just in case anyone was
confused, anymore than sf requires telepathy or faster-than-light travel.
|