Star Wars has been described as "science-fantasy" for decades. I wasn't aware that there was any controversy on this point. At least the author of the article admitted to the fact that it is blatant click-bait.
That said, some Star Wars novels could easily fit into the traditional science fiction framework. That's one of the things I love most about the franchise: It accommodates all genres!
I think the difference is that in sci fi stories they always have a scientific explanation for things. Star Trek is a good example of this. Tricorders, shields, phasers, warp drive, impulse drive, and replicators all have in-universe scientific explanations. They might be made up, but there is no element of magic in any of it.
Star Wars, on the other hand, doesn't really get into those things. Yes, there are technical manuals, but we don't see engineers on the Death Star reversing polarity. And nobody liked it when they tried to have midichlorians be a scientific explanation for The Force.
So I would agree with Mr. Hodgman that Star Wars is, in fact, a fantasy. It's a space fantasy, but it definitely lacks the "science" part of "science fiction."
I have very little to add to the overall discussion regarding SW being fantasy. But I think its important that you bring up the Tricorder as to me that one piece of Treknology DEFINES Trek as a scifi film/tv series and I want to add my completely unsolicited take on it.
Of all the popular science fiction franchises out there you often see the usual components; space ships, FTL travel, sophisticated weaponry of some kind. And usually these elements all get lots of screen time and attention. They have special names, special abilities, rules and constraints. Time is taken to explain these to you either through dialogue or on screen examples. They get nice big close ups either of the prop itself or of the actor using it.
And its true that most scifi I’ve seen has featured some form of handheld sensor data acquisition and display device, but never is it a main stage prop. Its usually just a repainted PDA or UMPC, or failing that just a box with some lights and a screen that some extra waves over something in the background. I can’t think of any show or movie that gives the lowly scanning device as much love as Star Trek. Right from 1969 its been an integral part of Star Trek storytelling. Sure usually just as plot conveyance, but still. It has a name, it has abilities that are reasonably explained. Its a device which has a singular purpose of using technology to demystify the unseen world around us.
I think the Tricorder tells you everything you need to know about the difference between Wars and Trek. Im a bit obsessed with them, tbh.
You're absolutely right about that. The tricorder is hugely important to Trek, and I think there's another reason that makes it the most "sciencey" of sci fi: When someone on Trek sees a weird thing, what's the first thing they do? Scan it with their tricorder. Why? Because they're scientists first, and scientists know not to trust human senses.
in sci fi stories they always have a scientific explanation for things
I think there are two issues with this: it’s not a requirement that sci-fi explain things; and it’s not clear what would qualify an explanation as “scientific”.
I would say, rather, that the implicit set of laws governing a sci-fi world are a superset of those currently understood to govern ours, while in a fantasy world the governing laws contradict those governing ours.
I would say, rather, that the implicit set of laws governing a sci-fi world are a superset of those currently understood to govern ours, while in a fantasy world the governing laws contradict those governing ours.
I like this a lot. It covers really old sci fi like Mary Shelley or Jules Verne, and reinforces the idea that fantasy stories (good ones, anyway) need to also have laws.
Yes, I agree with this. I've thought about this before, and Star Wars doesn't really qualify as "Science Fiction", because we never learn about the science of anything. It's just there - part of the scenery. That's the fantasy aspect; we're not thinking about realism or how things work, we are just fantasizing about a cool futuristic space setting with space magic and swords with blades made of light.
I thought this was already well established? Star Wars has the aesthetic trappings of sci-fi (spaceships, lasers, aliens, robots, etc), but the stories themselves are all fantasy. Other than some stuff in The Clone Wars series, the movies themselves don’t really ponder the same things that sci-fi movies would ponder, they’re more about classical good vs evil stories, fantastical magic powers, and the hero’s journey.
Look man, I don’t like Star Wars as much as the next guy, but Sci-Fi and Fantasy overlap heavily, just because the science bits in Star Wars are overwhelmed by the fantasy bits doesn’t mean it needs a new category.
My guy, we have a differentiation for hard and soft sci-fi. And sci-fantasy has been a genre for as long as I’ve been paying attention. I think Hemi summed it up perfectly.
I love Katamari. It’s vibrant, it’s weird and once you start rolling you get into the zone and time flies. I’m still playing the Katamari games regularly.
We Love Katamari is probably the best in the series IMO. Beautiful Katamari was later released for the 360, but felt much shorter and really didn’t add much. A lot of the content in that one was locked behind DLC, too.
Beautiful Katamari was the first time I recall seeing controversy about on-disc DLC. You had to buy a few stages, including the one they advertised the most that went from like 1cm to rolling up the sun iirc, and all the purchase did was toggle a key that allowed you to play the levels which were already in your CD. It’s normal now, but at the time I remember people hating it.
For what it’s worth I liked We Love Katamari (and the original, which I only played once the re-release came out) much more than Beautiful Katamari! They tried to mix it up in Beautiful Katamari where you not only needed to roll a sufficiently large Katamari, but also it needed to be made of specific categories of items, and while this is fun for a few levels it ends up being boring when they do it for almost the whole game.
E tam. Ja go szanuję za dwie rzeczy. Kiedyś zareklamował Signal i wiele osób zaczęło korzystać z tego komunikatora. Później kupił Twittera i swoimi decyzjami sprawił, ze wiele osób przestało korzystać z tej platformy i przerzuciło się na szmer, mastodon itd.
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