• Baphomet_The_Blasphemer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    George Lucas always said he hates it when people call Star Wars SciFi as he always considered it to be a space opera with very little Sci and heavy on the Fi.

    • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Likewise, doctor who is pure fantasy as well, and it grinds my gears when people call it sci-fi.

      The technology is “wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff”, and just pulled out of someone’s ass (sonic screwdriver, immortality chip, phone that works across time, etc etc) there’s nothing science about it at all.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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        1 year ago

        Right, and even when sci-fi hand hand waves its technology it’s about its impact on society.

        For example, Star Wars never directly addressed that droids are a slave race, in a society with apparently unlimited energy, and yet poverty is just absolutely everywhere.

        That is outright insane. Lucas never addressed it because the story is about good space wizard samurai fighting bad space wizard samurai, and even when he dips his toes into political allegory it’s a commentary on modern society and not “how would it be different?”

        I’d say Doctor Who occasionally verges into sci fi for this reason though. There are at least some episodes that go “how does life work when space whales?”