What Sci-Fi clichés do you resent?

[chad hale]

I want to ask you about all of those dreaded Sci-Fi clichés, and which ones would you list among the worst?

• The Chosen one - I absolutely resent having a hero being central to the story because that individual is a veritable McGuffin or is prophesized to be The only one who can do "X".
• The Scardicat - drawing of a firearm or other gun like weapon is immediately followed by screams from females.
• The enlightened rebel - I have all the answers - but because my ideas aren't in all the established scientific paperwork I am totally ignored! Only my rogue ideas will result in victory!
• The ignorant expert - the foil of the enlightened rebel. The ex-spurt (a has been, + Drip under pressure) has memorized vast amounts of scientific work, but as the saying goes, "Those who can, do. those who can't, teach". I.e. said expert may know all the work done by other scientists, but has no experiments and discoveries of their own.
• Starfighter dogfights - cool, but in reality... turrets swivel, track, and fire pretty darn accurately these days, so the fighters in question either need to be as many light seconds away as possible or fast and evasive enough to evade the turret.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

The Chosen one

Hey now! That's in the plot of my story here in scifi writing!

 

[rootone]

The one where aliens are of bad intent and have to be destroyed before they rob all our teddy bears.

 

[Bystander]

McGuffin

'Nuff said.

 

[256bits]

Hey now! That's in the plot of my story here in scifi writing!

I thought quest was for spiritual enlightenment.

 

[ShayanJ]

The Chosen one - I absolutely resent having a hero being central to the story because that individual is a veritable McGuffin or is prophesized to be The only one who can do "X".

I always considered that to be an element of fantasy/fiction stories, not science-fiction stories. I think that's against some unwritten sci-fi rule and at least in the sci-fi stories that I've read, there was no chosen one! Some stories that are known to be sci-fi, are actually fantasy but people don't bother to make the distinction.

 

[GTOM]

Depends on how you use them.
I ll also portray a 'chosen one' scientist, he discovers alien technology.
I ll write a dogfight like thing, with a distance of 100.000 km light lag 2/3 sec with acceleration of 2g that means 5m from last detected position, with 10km/s overall delta-V a fighter can maintain 2g for a while (since they mostly drones, they don't neccesary care about bring them back)

What i dislike when all aliens are barely different from humans.

 

[Vanadium 50]

What i dislike when all aliens are barely different from humans.

I dislike the reverse, where aliens are all the same and only humans are diverse. I bet the Klingons have plumbers.

 

[gmax137]

What i dislike when all aliens are barely different from humans.

Me too. Worse, when it gets explained by "we are all descended from some previous empire/civilization" ... aaargh that might have been a cool idea the first time it was used but now... it's just a lazy explanation for lazy imagination. I'd rather read about some aliens that are truly alien - with different emotions, motivations, needs, etc.

 

[fresh_42]

I always disliked the way the language problem is resolved, if at all. I never understood why the entire universe speaks English.
Also the missions on planets are strange: You see / read a very small fraction of a whole planet and everyone pretends to meet the entire population and this small sample represents the rest of the planet. It's like someone meeting Bush people in Africa and judges based on this experience.

 

[GTOM]

I always disliked the way the language problem is resolved, if at all. I never understood why the entire universe speaks English.
Also the missions on planets are strange: You see / read a very small fraction of a whole planet and everyone pretends to meet the entire population and this small sample represents the rest of the planet. It's like someone meeting Bush people in Africa and judges based on this experience.

I also skip different languages issue (only humans at me). Or use translators, telepathy.

 

[Rubidium_71]

Saving the Earth.
It gets so old that after a while you find yourself hoping the Earth won't be saved. For as awful as Lexx got in it's final season, I'll give them this much - they depicted the Earth's destruction - it was crushed down to the size of a pea. After this occurred, no one even seemed to care. Earth was a "type 13" planet, this sort of thing happens all the time, no big deal.

 

[newjerseyrunner]

Hybrid aliens. I know too much about genetics for that to not irk me.

Also aliens who invade Earth for a specific resource that is on no way unique to our planet. Battle LA: the aliens came here to harvest water. Wait, what? Then why not harvest from the Keiper belt?

 

[OCR]

I always disliked the way...

That the special effects people insist on generating a huge "boooom" sound, when portraying an explosion in "outer space"...[COLOR=#black].[/COLOR]

I won't make a comment regarding the fact... that on the USS Enterprise, no bridge crew member ever wore a seat belt !?...[COLOR=#black].[/COLOR]

 

[fresh_42]

I won't make a comment regarding the fact... that on the USS Enterprise, no bridge crew member ever wore a seat belt !?...[COLOR=#black].[/COLOR]

Yes, but it changed with the follow-up model: (@ 4:50)

 

[Stephen Tashi]

"Industrial Science Fiction" in modern films is boring - vast cities, large spaceships, giant robots etc. (I include vast post apocalyptic ruins.) It involves a heavy use of computer graphics. Current graphics technology looks better than the era of stop-motion animation, but it still isn't convincing. (Maybe people who are computer game fanatics find the similarity of films to that kind of atmosphere entertaining).

On the other hand, industrial science fiction in written literature can be interesting because the scenery must be imagined - at least beyond the book cover art.

 

[john101]

I like it when I get to see unusual perspectives or views on familiar objects. It was refreshing for me to regularly see the enterprise in star trek enterprise series upside down or from otherwise strange angles in relation to other things unlike the usual one plane up down.

the whoosh when something flies by in space

 

[DrClaude]

Saving the Earth.

Which Douglas Adams got right

 

[OCR]

Yes, but it changed with the follow-up mode...

I said "seat belts"...[COLOR=#black].[/COLOR]

That's just an arm rest--roller coaster un-restraint... and a damn rinky-dink one, at that...[COLOR=#black].[/COLOR]

 

[OCR]

the whoosh when something flies by in space

...

 

[f95toli]

I won't make a comment regarding the fact... that on the USS Enterprise, no bridge crew member ever wore a seat belt !?...[COLOR=#black].[/COLOR]

To be fair, it wouldn't make much sense if the DID wear seat belts. Remember that the only reason they are not crushed when the ship accelerates is because of the ship's inertial dampener (one of the main technologies in ST lore). The dampeners should therefore under normal circumstances be able to compensate so that no seat belts are needed regardless of what happens (not that they are consistent about this, the ships always shakes when they are under attack)

 

[mpresic]

Oh No. It's heading for the city.

 

[rootone]

Humans are exceptional, no goddam lizards going to setup shop 'round here.

 

[DennisN]

A very subjective opinion from me :
I don't fancy SF movies where visual effects and overuse of technobabble overtakes (or compensates for the lack of) the "soul" of the movie, i.e. the story and the characters. That's why I like the original Star Wars trilogy and The Force Awakens (i.e. disregarding the prequels) more than Star Trek; in Star Wars I just sit back and enjoy the ride, and I don't care very much about what is plausible. I do like Star Trek too (I am a SF nerd), so the comparison with Star Trek is a bit unfair of me - there are other SF movies with far less "soul" in my opinion. And I definitely prefer Star Trek compared to the Star Wars prequels . A very subjective post, haha.

 

[Bystander]

no goddam lizards going to setup shop 'round here.

" Sir, is this going to be a stand up fight or just another bug hunt?"

 

[fresh_42]

All exoplanets have an average gravity close to 10. O.k. 200 would be too high, but values between 1 and 20 should be in a normal range for planets or moons with life on it.

 

[dkotschessaa]

Body doubles and mind control

I hate, hate, hate this plot device. It is so cheap, so overused, and so hard to watch your favorite character going around somehow acting like a jerk suddenly. The body double has the original tied up somewhere and is going around doing nefarious things. The other characters either "knew all along" and take out the double or you end up with the 'Which one is the real one?" scenario.

"If it's the real George, tell me something only he would know!"

"You have that tattoo of a wombat on your butt!"

[kills the fake George]

(This is assuming the body double didn't also take all the memories, in which case it's eve more drawn out.)

Of course if it is mind control then it's this one

"I know you're in there George. Fight it. This isn't the real you. YOU CAN FIGHT THIS. Remember that time on grandmas farm on Earth where we stole all the cookies and went outback and ate them and you threw up and then we looked up at the stars and wondered if we were alone in the universe? Well you're not alone George."

Cue dramatic music, then George snaps out of it and turns around and kills the mind-controller person.

GAHHH make it stop.

 

[nrqed]

Do people recall the "controversy" concerning the episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" of Deep Space Nine where they go back in time and some characters of DS9 relive part of the famous Tribble episode of the original series? We see some Klingons of the original series and someone (Geordi?) asks Worf how come they look so different from Worf. Worf says something to the effect that "We (Klingons) don't like to talk about it", if I recall correctly.

I always thought that this was a missed opportunity to correct a common sf cliché. I wish the exchange would have gone something like this:

Worf: "At that period, the Klingons of the southern continent were dominant and they were the only ones taking part in space missions"

Geordi: "From the southern continent? But they look so different from you!"

Worf: "The first time I met you, Geordi, I did not think you came from the same planet as Captain Picard or as Commander Ryker, you also look very different!"

Geordi: "Oh. I see your point."

 

[Janus]

Here's one that not just limited to SF.
The villain has our hero in a situation where he can quickly and readily kill him and is suddenly interrupted by some pressing matter that calls him away, But not without stopping to say " I guess this is you lucky day" or something similar. Never mind that he could have used the time to actually kill the hero.

Or how about the Monster that all through the movie has been dispatching people very quickly, but when the time comes for the hero to run up against it, the process slows way down, allowing him an opportunity of escape that was not available to anyone else.

Another thing that bugs me is when a movie is set some decades in the future, and the producers assume that future fashion will just be an extension of present day fashion. (Just once I'd like to see someone make a movie set 30 years from now where knee britches for men were all the rage.)

 

[Vanadium 50]

I dunno, I think that fashion is better than having everyone in silver or gold lamé jumpsuits.

 

[dkotschessaa]

silver or gold lamé jumpsuits.

lamé? With the accent on the e? Pronounced "lamay?" Is that like a jumpsuit manufacturer?

 

[rootone]

It's a type of fabric with glittery metal woven into it.
However 'lame' without the accent would be an equally good description.

 

[dkotschessaa]

It's a type of fabric with glittery metal woven into it.
However 'lame' without the accent would be an equally good description.

Wow, did i just reveal my ignorance! Sorry @Vanadium 50

See:https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/today-i-learned.783257/page-95#post-5644955

 

[rootone]

Another point about fashion:
Why do the chiefs of aggressive alien cultures always dress in Greco-Roman aristocracy style.
Why not Atilla the Hun style?

 

[Janus]

The predator/monster that keeps eating and eating and eating. You'd think that after munching on a certain number of extras it would get full and go and have a lay down. I only saw one SyFy channel movie that ever addressed this. The monster de jure in this case were saber toothed cats grown in a genetics lab. One of the characters gave the explanation that they suffered from a flaw that gave them the equivalent of bulimia; they would gorge themselves, then throw up their meal and then go on the hunt for more prey.