Sci-Fi bad plot devices

[Spokane Flyboy]

I'd point out a bad sci-fi plot device involving spaceships that look exactly like DC8s, but John Travolta may kidnap me and fly me off with his jet so Tom Cruise can stomp me into the ground like a couch cushion.

[torainfor]

Wull, that's probably because John Travolta can fly a DC8, but not a spaceship.

[von]

Dec 28, 2008 8:27:48 GMT -5 iconoclast said:

Three that get me into mode:

1) A utopia that is actually a dystopia - no kidding? (Brave New World, 1984, V for Vendetta, Matrix etc).

2) The superhero with all of those darn amazing superhero abilities.

3) The suave foreigner who just happens to be the villian - note all of those British accents in American movies...

Matrix I get, but 1984? I guess it has been a while since I read it and thought it pretty well started out as a Dystopia.

This post interested me as I just finished writing a book called 'Distopia'.

[waldenwriter]

Jul 23, 2009 19:30:20 GMT -5 von said:

Matrix I get, but 1984? I guess it has been a while since I read it and thought it pretty well started out as a Dystopia.

I haven't read 1984 myself, but I read a plot summary of it, and it does seem like one of those books that portray a supposedly perfect world that ends up being not what it seems.

Other books like that that I can think of are:

- The Giver by Lois Lowry
- The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
- The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

[metalikhan]

1984 still gives me the chills because it seemed so much more immediately plausible than, say, Brave New World; it was also possible to see some early aspects of it actually occuring in real life. It was only a perfect world from the standpoint of Big Brother -- love for anyone except Big Brother illegal, accusations of thoughtcrime and betrayals normal, destruction of spirituality/individuality/hope by torture common. History is manipulated so that the lie is the truth. Language is manipulated to control how the people think and communicate.

Scary! Brrrrr!

[Therin]

Ironic. I thought that Brave New World was more plausible. I mean, people are a lot less likely to revolt if they're perpetually happy than if they're perpetually sad.

Another possibly bad sci-fi stereotype is that humans are supposedly the most adaptable race in the universe. Just because we can go pretty much anywhere on our planet that we want doesn't mean anything. Without the technology to make our ultra-warm parkas, our heat-proof jackets, our waterproof canteens, and air-tight scuba tanks, we'd be kind of stuck. I'm sure aliens with more natural adaptability could make technology that lets them live in places we could never even go.

[metalikhan]

1984 shows how revolt is handled — it's a major part of the plot. When the MC tries to revolt by developing a love relationship, a rep of Big Brother entraps him and the woman, torturing them into betraying each other. The torture is particularly nasty in that it involves what each person most deeply hates/fears. Surveillance is nearly impossible to escape — it even invades the "privacy" of their squalid homes. The science fiction of the story is more in the order of social engineering humans as they exist now.

What made it particularly chilling for me was concurrent reading of Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng (autobiography of a woman imprisoned in the Chinese Cultural Revolution) and two books by Victor Suvarov (Inside the Aquarium and Spetznaz, autobiographies of a Russian defector). The rise of the Nazi party provides similarly troubling examples. Some of the parallels between the fiction and the non-fiction were impossible to ignore. Even more disturbing was how easily individuals and populations were manipulated into embracing the social values of the Party, of the New Order — of Big Brother. In the cases of Cheng and Suvarov, their autobiographies could never have happened without the sanctuary of free societies where they could escape.

The science fiction of Brave New World relies on the social engineering of genetically modified humans bred so they can never work, think, or rise above the limits of their breeding. They are perpetually happy because they are incapable of aspiring to anything higher or greater than their genetically programmed status. Their physical bodies reflect their breeding, the alphas and betas most like regular folks with each breeding level decreasing both mental ability as well as physical ability. Remember the stunted and severely limited deltas and epsilons?

Current genetic science is still at an infant stage compared to that in BNW. In parts of our world, some aspects of 1984 have already happened.


As for the adaptability, IMO people are less willing to adapt without the high-tech geegaws — this doesn't mean they can't. There are many places where people live without tech support helping them adapt to harsh environments.

[gravityfades]

I didn't see a forum for new members to say howdy, so consider this thread temporarily hijacked. *G* Howdy, and we now return you to the previous thread, already in progress...

[tris]

Welcome to our particular brand of insanity... and newbies can grab a cup of caf in the Bios, Blogs section of the forum. Mosey on over and get acquainted.

[waldenwriter]

Jul 29, 2009 9:37:34 GMT -5 Therin said:

Ironic. I thought that Brave New World was more plausible. I mean, people are a lot less likely to revolt if they're perpetually happy than if they're perpetually sad.

1984 was published in 1949, when the world was still picking up the pieces from World War II, so a government that controlled the whole world probably seemed more plausible then. One also has to consider the big threat the U.S.S.R. was considered back then, and how they were known for monitoring their people. That might've been an inspiration. Also, the People's Republic of China was declared in 1949, adding yet another powerful country to worry about.

It's funny though how 1984 has become part of our culture even if most of us have probably never read it. There's a whole reality TV series called Big Brother, and people reference "Big Brother" all the time.

Brave New World was published in 1932 and I think it seems more plausible perhaps because it focuses on a single part of the society - reproductive technology - rather than being more all-encompassing like 1984. Also, since reproductive technology is often in the news these days, the novel probably resonates with us more now.

I'm not sure if people would revolt so much if they were constantly happy than if they were constantly sad. The latter appears to be more of the Communist philosophy - where the dialectic demands that society be in constant flux and revolution, leaving people unsettled (and probably unhappy as a result). Then again, many futuristic movies where a utopia is present get their plot from one person seeing something isn't quite right and trying to change it, so your hypothesis holds. One example of this is the movie Gattaca, which, like Brave New World, is about reproductive technology (in the film's world, your DNA determines your fate, and families are encouraged to have genetically engineered babies rather than regular births, called "God births" or "faith births" in the film).

Jul 29, 2009 9:37:34 GMT -5 Therin said:

Another possibly bad sci-fi stereotype is that humans are supposedly the most adaptable race in the universe. Just because we can go pretty much anywhere on our planet that we want doesn't mean anything. Without the technology to make our ultra-warm parkas, our heat-proof jackets, our waterproof canteens, and air-tight scuba tanks, we'd be kind of stuck. I'm sure aliens with more natural adaptability could make technology that lets them live in places we could never even go.

I totally agree! In fact, that concept forms a large part of the world of my own sci-fi novels. In that world, the other eight planets (in this world, Pluto is still considered a planet), most of their moons, our own moon, and stars in many constellations and in other galaxies are inhabited by native peoples who have traits that enable them to live where they do. For instance, Mercury has "warm-siders," very tan people who live on the warm side of Mercury (which is closer to the sun and thus gets very hot), and "cold-siders," very pale people who live on the cold side of Mercury (which can get below -200°F).