Re: Sci Fi?
January 13, 2006 · by The Urban Shockah · Permalink · comment on this post in the forum · Category: Original Version, the screenplay
A. Unless we were seriously going to explore the idea of "Prison Planet" as a metaphor, of course its going to be SF in some sense.
B. Genre isn't for marketers. Genre is legitimate framework or window through which to view a story. Every genre has its conventions, and you can play them straight or subvert them. I like subversion myself (or maybe I'm just saying subversion is easier, since playing it straight and doing it well seems much harder to me), but that's also why The Corrections came up so early in this discussion -- one way to avoid the "same ol' same ol" is to start mixing DNA and create mutants.
C. Yet: SF can mean Star Wars, Star Trek. It can mean Terminator or Alien(s). It can mean Primer or Solaris. It can also mean Videodrome, The Brood, or even Crash (1996). (It's both cool and kinda sad that those last three are by the same guy.) SF, to me, is about taking an idea or premise that simply doesn't exist at all in the real world and extrapolating something (usually a story) out of it.
D. Anyway, the point is, when you think "SF" you think of limited boundaries; when I think of "SF", I think of a lack of them. Therefore, SF, to me, really isn't a genre.
E. Five Days of Continuous Blogging -- I did it!

