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Are Comics to Blame for Eroding Hollywood Sci-Fi Quality?

popularmechanics.com — There was a time when big-budget science fiction wasn ’t completely brainless. In fact, some of it was good, even brilliant, and a source of inspiration for generations of researchers. From 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Terminator, the promise (and the apocalyptic threat) of technology was sometimes presented with a surprising level of authority.

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  • Bukowsky, on 04/22/2008, -3/+17nah... I wouldn't say that Comics are to blame. Maybe the writers who have run out of ideas, and think to themselves, "Hey, let's write a script about the Incredible Hulk!"
    • mickstephenson, on 04/22/2008, -1/+6Or maybe the brainless fat cats with the money think comic books are low risk, and don't give sci fi scripts a chance.
    • Hangly, on 04/22/2008, -4/+1Lolcats the movie.







      Think about it. It would make 300 billion dollars.
      • Nevarius, on 04/22/2008, -2/+1perhaps...its in the same category as Pokemon.
    • brufleth, on 04/22/2008, -2/+6I don't get it. Is the assumption that comics have no deeper content? Sounds like someone needs to read some comics and STFU. Modern Sci-Fi is dumbed down because in depth looks at ourselves and our society (which is often the focus of science fiction) is considered either depressing or propaganda.

      People don't want thought provoking, they want validation.
      • MiddleOfNowhere, on 04/22/2008, -1/+6Agreed.
        There are great comics and great SF/Fantasy comics - the article mentions e.g. Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, Watchmen).
        The point is that most Science-Fiction movies aren't SF. They are fantasy - lots of visual whizbang, but little to think about. Predictable plots involving action, beautiful women and superheroes for people who want to escape their boring existence for two hours. This is not the fault of the comics, but of the bean-counters in Hollywood.
        • brufleth, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2Case in point is how they changed the end of I am Legend. Instead of making people think about who has become the monster of legend they just made it a simple sacrifice story.
          • MiddleOfNowhere, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2Exactly. I kept explaining to people how this completely ruined the book's message. No-one cares ...
            (I heard, though, that an alternative ending closer to the book exists.)
      • rblancarte, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1The bigger problem isn't "Comic-book" movies but really SF as a whole. And one of the biggest problems with it is that it has to be flow through at a movie pace. He picks on the comic movies, but they are just a subset of the problem. Spider Man and X-Men have both been around for almost 50 years. Yet they are trying to pack all of that development into a 2 hour movie? Not possible. Books are the same way. They are too long to plunge all of that into a 2 hour movie. His Dune reference at the start of the piece is a good point about it.
        Fact is that Sci-Fi (not just comics), visually translates to the movie screen, but as far as story - not so much.
        Comic-Movies are just the target of right now. You can look at just about any time period and they have their "copier movie" which is a single formula that is just copied from movie to movie. You go to the early 90s and you had the single guy action flick based on Die Hard. Back in the 50s and 60s they were war movies. 70s saw westerns. 80s for good or ill was the teen comedy.
        I agree with most here - blame it on the writers, not the content.
        • ZenMojo, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2Not true. Who really misses Tom Bombadil from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy? Who really thinks "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" was a superior work to Blade Runner? Adaptations are actually opportunities to make better movies, but producers are often completely stupid and full of ***** and can't leave the real work to the real talent, the directors and writers.
          Case in point, Marvel demanded a 15-minute cut taken from The Hulk. It may be a better movie, it may not. Only the DVD will prove the point.
    • Bodhinature, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4If anyone ever watches Doctor Who or Torchwood they'd know it's not the comics' fault. It's the fault of Hollywood. You could have a perfectly good comic adaptation if you got the right screenwriters. Anyone can see the marked difference between A New Hope and Phantom Menace. SW:ANH was written by Joseph Campbell (essentially) and SW:PM was written by George Lucas, who didn't have storyteller and scholar to consult with. Context is nothing. Story is everything.
    • Asianwaste, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1I would say it has more to do with business getting in the way of art. A producer, studio exec, etc making requests/demands to adjust the content to appeal to a broader audience despite compromising original premise.
  • mattnyc99, on 04/22/2008, -1/+9"Maybe next year’s Star Trek reboot will make quantum physics look cool again. And if anyone can return some credibility to science-fiction movies, it’s James Cameron, whose long-gestating Avatar (about a human remote-operating a robot on a distant, alien planet) also shows up next year." AMEN!
    • Culyt, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2Thats a big maybe, theres a good chance the Star Trek reboot will completely kill the franchise and the James Cameron movie sucking.
      • lolinyerface, on 04/22/2008, -2/+1We'll go with a slim chance. But you can go with great chance if you've already resigned it to failure. Perk up littlein, its a brand new day!
    • ZenMojo, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1Star Trek's quantum physics was kind of a joke. None of it really made sense. Apparently Star Trek seems to have more appeal for Sociology folks than Engineers while Engineers seem to dig Lord of the Rings more than Star Trek. Which maybe explains the geek love of Star Wars, which blends the two into a tasteless bollus of easily digestible slop.
  • photohunter, on 04/22/2008, -1/+16There's one way to stop crappy movies based on other crappy movies: stop going to see them. Still, despite warnings from critics (and our own better instincts), enough people will be lined up outside all the turdfests this Summer that we can be assured next season will be no better.
    • fuzzynyanko, on 04/22/2008, -1/+7Unfortunately, critics are seen to be elitist and out of touch with the people, therefore tend to be ignored. Almost sounds like I'm talking about politics...
      • ZenMojo, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1It's because people saw one really bad movie that they liked and from then on decided that critics were arbiters of unfounded opinion. Personally, I love hotdogs and fountain coke, but I'm not going to lie and say that I wouldn't rather scarf down some Alamo Drafthouse burgers with a Corona.
    • X9001, on 04/22/2008, -3/+3Anyone else going to see Speed Racer?
      • carpespasm, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1***** no. Speed Racer was very innovative and different for it's time, but looking back on it now it's only cool for nostalgia and camp. Anyone else going to see The Banana Splits Movie?
  • swordedge, on 04/22/2008, -5/+12Hollywood never had any quality scifi. A couple of TV series are decent but they break too many laws of physics.
    • bosssmiley, on 04/22/2008, -1/+9Scifi is typified as the fiction of ideas that change the way you see the world (Brian Aldiss I think...). So proper scifi movies = 2001, Solaris and the like.
      Hollywood, as a rule, is scared of anything requiring sustained thought of its audience. Hence no new smart scifi.
    • staticneuron, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2They break laws of physics? No why would the ever do that in a science FICTION movie? Impossible, I say.
    • ZenMojo, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2You're that guy sitting in the back rolling his eyes when a car explodes from a sniper shot to the gas tank, aren't you? Just about every movie has bad physics, and even then just about every movie has bad psychology. I don't ACCEPT it, but I don't selectively nitpick just some areas. That's what separates great movies from good movies.
      Seriously, why did Rutger Hauer shove a nail in his hand to cure his arthritis? Where did he get that ***** dove from? What the ***** was Gaff's job, anyway!?
      See, I can nitpick a nearly flawless movie to death with bad psychology the same way we can make fun of the physics of a movie, but who really cares as long as it fits the story? It's more an issue of bad plots than bad physics.
  • angusm, on 04/22/2008, -2/+13Most Hollywood SF is [insert other genre] with laser pistols and spaceships. The assumption is that audiences won't understand any of the 'difficult' ideas behind worthwhile SF, but they will understand people in shiny silver suits blowing ***** up, so that's what we get: big budget action movies transposed to a space-opera future.

    Movies made from comic books are usually tedious, but it's wrong to blame them for the decline of screen science-fiction. The downhill slide began long before.
    • hollowex, on 04/22/2008, -2/+3*cough* Star Wars *cough*
    • ZenMojo, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2ALL Sci-Fi is [insert other genre] with laser pistols and spaceships. What are you talking about? The Thing is horror with a shapeshifting space alien; Blade Runner is a pulp detective story complete with urban decay, constant darkness, and rain-slicked streets...with robots and a laser pistol. The only raw sci-fi movie is the first half of 2001 and even that escalates into a thriller with a sociopathic robot.

      The true blame for bad sci-fi and its decline is every year Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron didn't make movies with robots and/or aliens. And even then, sometimes it was still disappointing.
  • Icupnimpn2, on 04/22/2008, -2/+8I don't think superhero movies are taking the place of sci-fi movies. Rather, superhero movies are replacing the average summer action movie. Or possibly, the action/sci-fi movie. Face it, real sci-fi movies have been a dying breed for over a decade, long before the modern superhero movie glut began.
  • schizogony, on 04/22/2008, -2/+14Dune wasn't incomprehensible.
  • ladn3k, on 04/22/2008, -2/+5hulk is real.
  • murlox, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4Hollywood is running out of new & fresh ideas.
    • Hangly, on 04/22/2008, -2/+2They should make more films starring the Fresh Prince.
  • ZeroBananas, on 04/22/2008, -1/+13Hollywood producer: "Hmmm, should I milk an existing comic franchise or take a risk on something new?"
  • orenshk, on 04/22/2008, -2/+7This guys is an idiot that doesn't know what sci fi is. Dune was a dud because it tried to be true sci fi in the sense that it tried to pit relatable human beings into extraordinary events. That's very hard to do in a feature length film, but is the very core of science fiction writing, and I rarely see movies try to embody that idea. By the way I loved Dune.
    Maybe hollywood is to blame for eroding hollywood sci fi quality.
    • Hangly, on 04/22/2008, -2/+1Dune was awesome except for all the whispering.

      "The water of life! Tell me of your homeworld Usul. The second moon! The sleeper will awaken! I will kill you!" Etc, etc, ad nauseum.
  • ElWizardo, on 04/22/2008, -4/+7Hollywood has turned to comics because there are no good sci-fi writers out there. The classics were produced by men of genius, Asimov, Tolkien, Herbert, Clarke to name a few. These guys were steeped in histories and sciences and could create predictions and what-if scenarios that the average man could identify with. Comics are good in the fact that they think outside the box, but make it hard to bring to the big screen because the comic book stories are very complex and cover years. That is hard to tell in 2 hours.
    • Hangly, on 04/22/2008, -1/+3C'mon, Neal Stephenson?

      Tell me you wouldn't go see a Diamond Age movie ...if they got someone to rewrite the ending.
      • ApokalypseNow, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2I'd really like to see a Snow Crash flick myself - and if they were a little generous with Reason, I wouldn't complain.
      • robthom, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2I never could get into neal stephenson. His ideas seemed derivative and fanboyish of earlier "original" cyberpunk. He also seems like he's trying to hard to be cool and hip. Kind of the way I felt about the matrix. I wouldn't say that he was a bad writer, I've seen worse. He's just okay.
        • Hangly, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2To me he's the Tim Burton of sci-fi. Incredibly amazing and interesting worlds, weak plot, horrible endings.
    • Tribalvirtue, on 04/22/2008, -1/+0Robert J Sawyer, Charles Stross, David Brin... no new good SF, right?
      • nuvem, on 04/23/2008, -0/+2Not to mention Peter F Hamilton, who's latest Commonwealth Saga practically begs to be a movie
  • smotpoker, on 04/22/2008, -4/+20Man, ***** that. I say Hollywood is ruining comic books. Comics are GREAT scifi, just the comic-based movies are *****. Hollywood makes them ***** because they expect mostly kids will see them or parents will expect that and become outraged when they see them.

    If they kept the comic-based movies and characters true to their storylines and depth you guys would be begging for more comic-based movies
    • guany, on 04/22/2008, -3/+1I don't think he's saying the comic book movies aren't entertaining, he's saying they're not scientifically engaging.
      • brufleth, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1Which is retarded. Okay so Asimov was a scientist but many (perhaps even most) science fiction authors are not scientists and have very limited scientific backgrounds. That's often what helps make their stories so engaging. They aren't bounded by science. A perfect example is Kurt Vonnegut.
    • MadHarvey, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1There have been a few great comic book movies in the last several years. They aren't bad because they are not as thought provoking as blade runner--they weren't trying to be. The are trying to represent the source material, which several have succeeded in doing really well.
  • Aitese, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4I think the thing the article misses is the influence Science Fiction has on Science...it's not the one way street the author thinks it is. Jules Verne was pretty accurate about some things that where to come, but people forget that the scientists, researchers and explores that came after him where influenced in their work by his work.
    Being an 80’s baby, if I had the know-how and one day found myself in a lab with nothing to do, the first thing I would tackle is getting a hover-board made. Would anyone even think of trying a hover-board had they not seen Back To The Future?

    Scientists have the know-how, the technical knowledge…but seldom do they have imagination.

    I think too that now, due to the strides we’ve made in a relatively short time, everything seems plausible. So, not only does it take something spectacular to shock or impress the movie going public, but also in cases where the science is actually WAY off people don’t question it. Until I knew better I thought the theories posited in The Day After Tomorrow where sound!
  • shoguner, on 04/22/2008, -4/+6the Sci-Fi genre is dead , the Matrix is the last true Sci-Fi classic and it was released nearly a decade ago.
    ------the 80's
    terminator 1
    alien 2
    blade runner
    akira
    robocop
    the abyss
    ---the 90's
    terminator2
    alien3
    stargate
    ghost in the shell
    12 monkeys
    gattaca
    the fifth element
    starship troopers
    the matrix
    ------2000'
    ?
    ??
    ??
    ?
    i omitted most Sci-Fi sub-genres movies like fantasy-sci-fi , space operas and sci-fi-comedies , because i think the only interesting ones are the cyberpunk movies
    • Hangly, on 04/22/2008, -4/+1I really liked the Butterfly Effect...
    • HeatVision, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2"Primer" is great science fiction (2004).
    • aenima987, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4serenity?
      • funkytaco, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1Serenity 2, please. Please.....don't make me beg. Too much.

    • tHePeOPle, on 04/22/2008, -2/+2I'd like to recommend the recent film "Sunshine" to the list.
    • chocobomog, on 04/22/2008, -2/+4The big change is quality Sci-fi (and many genres in general) is now moving to TV. Lost, Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica are this decades big successes in the genre. Suddenly 2 hour films are not enough to tell a good complex story.
      • funkytaco, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1And too expensive. I believe Serenity worked because of how Joss Whedon had terraformed planets more "realistic" than say on Star Trek or Superman's home planet.
    • robthom, on 04/22/2008, -1/+3Every movie on your list either sucks or is way over-rated besides BR. The matrix is one of the most undeservedly praised turds that I can think of. Go ahead and digg me down now, but its true.
      • carpespasm, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1I agree that some of those movies are overrated, but I would include BR in the overrated list myself. I wasn't around when it first came out so I missed the change in the film industry it might have made, but on it's own it doesn't stand up to it's following. The Matrix may be similar, and I wish the sequels had gone a different direction (Especially 3) but that's just my opinion. No digg or bury on you.
  • jkmerr, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4Comic books have inspired some of the few very good, thoughtful movies in the past couple years (e.g. "V for Vendetta") as well as some of the big dumb movies. The thing that's causing big-budget sci-fi to be so stupid is the fact that Hollywood is mostly putting out mostly stupid movies in every big-budget genre, albiet with the occassional gem.
  • yeahthatsme, on 04/22/2008, -1/+6Blaming comic books for the fall-off in big-budget film quality is like blaming all the great original movies for the rash of sequels spewing out every day it seems like. Hollywood on the whole is going for the quick buck. For reference look at Jurassic park, Indiana Jones, Rambo, Rocky, and all of the Disney classics that have been whored out.
  • flipcritic, on 04/22/2008, -1/+3This article is retarded. Comic book movies have been around for decades. More of them are being available now because of the current technology's capability to create imagery that was near impossible to visualized before. And bad SF has always been around (remember those campy SF movies in the 50s and 60s?). The only reason with bad comic/SF movies now and today, is that those made back then had passion but lack of talent and resources, while today's versions have it the other way around.

    All of this talk that Hollywood is running out of ideas is quite flimsy really. The film's industry's evolution from the ambitious projects of singular men behind companies (e.g. Disney, Warner, MGM) to "corporations" (e.g. Paramount, Sony) focused on profit has been the main culprit of movie quality decline. The focus has shifted from legacy to the bottom line, and the dominant viewing audience today are teenage males.

    There are great movies coming out every year all the time, but they now mostly come out late in the year for the awards season. But comic book movies, like many films concentrating on entertainment, do not necessarily mean that they are low quality. Films that focus on entertainment will always have a place even for the most snobbish critic (even Manola Darghis loved SPIDER-MAN 2). It's the effort and commitment of the production companies to "get it right" that matters.
  • guany, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2I'm not too sure what the author's trying to say. A lot of the movies he listed from the "Golden Age" aren't scientifically feasible.
    For example, Star Trek II. I'm gonna guess a powered flight-capable exoskeleton a'la Iron Man will happen long before faster than light travel, which is really the crutch most space operas need to have actual conflicts in space.

    Really, the guy just seems to be reminiscing on movies he probably grew up with, and how the newer movies can't compare. All scifi movies need us to take a pretty big leap of faith before we get to the interesting tidbits: "What if it were possible, how would people act?" From faster-than-light travel to meeting aliens (hostile or otherwise) to yes, even bizarre genetic mutations - they all seem implausible for us now, but we suspend our disbelief in order to see what it'd be like, and how people would act in those situations.
    Although I do agree, there's a certain insertion of irrelevant/unlikely subplots in a lot of these movies, most notably the romances that seem out of place, that weren't aritifically inserted in the older movies. But hey, the movie's gotta sell....
  • fuzzynyanko, on 04/22/2008, -4/+2Am I the only one who couldn't stand watching 2001?

    Believe it or not, I think comic books are excellent Sci-Fi, but they are using the Sci-Fi of the 70s. Most comic book movies nowadays uses characters that get their powers based on ideas made in the 20th Century.
    • Hangly, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2"Am I the only one who couldn't stand watching 2001"

      I'm thinking you must be.
  • mjklaser, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2Great movies come from imaginative and intellectual people - how many of those do you think are in Hollywood?
    • fuzzynyanko, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1Plenty, but a lot of their scripts get shredded and the ones deemed "safe" actually get made.
  • wakesabre, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4The Man From Earth. Watch it. Big budgets do not always lead to good films.
    • tHePeOPle, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Completely agree. This film was shot on a shoestring budget with b-list actors in one room of a small cabin. It was one of the best sci-fi films I've ever seen.
  • kneelB4zod, on 04/22/2008, -2/+1This title should be the other way round no?
  • flipcritic, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2I can understand where the writer is coming from with regards to film not being a haven for "smart science". The underlying problem is that film is a medium that is concerned more with emotion than for reason. It's more of a conduit for expression than of fact. Print is a medium perfectly suited more for reason than emotion.

    Two of the greatest SF films in my mind are 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Solyaris (1972 original). But both really weren't focusing on the science behind their stories. The first was really about man's place in the universe and an awesome (even frightening) vision of his next evolutionary step. The second asked if anyone can truly know anyone else, even those closest to us (see the movie and you'll understand). Both are classified as SF, but their subject matter is deeply philosophical, mostly about how we feel about human matters than about scientific feasibility.

    There are other great SF films that tout the science well, but film by its very nature will always hold them in the background, as the matters of the heart and soul tend to matter more in this medium of storytelling.
    • MiddleOfNowhere, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1"The underlying problem is that film is a medium that is concerned more with emotion than for reason."
      I know what you mean, but why can't we have both once in a while? Movies like Children of Men, Gattaca, Brainstorm, Blade Runner bring up interesting scientific questions (genetics, aging societies, robotics, uploading ...). They are "high-concept", but also emotionally involving.
  • frosted, on 04/22/2008, -3/+2Movies are an escape from reality. This idiot wants more reality in his escape, seems like he just doesn't get it.
  • vx69, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1All the best sci-fi is on TV
  • craighoxton, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Don't blame the Comics; blame the Game. By which I mean the film management system that green lights projects that they know will get butts on seats rather than "cerebral" sci-fi which may require the viewer in the theatre to actually think.

    But who needs that when you can have Jessica Alba pilot a starship in a bikini?
  • petesym, on 04/22/2008, -1/+0I am surprised that no one mentioned this yet, but all of the major comic book movies that have been made (x-men, DD, batman, FF and on..) are based on stories from the 60's all the way through the 80's and into the early 90's. These stories were almost all written during the true golden ages of mainstream comics. Only now that hollywood has made it almost financially pointless to be a good writer have all the original ideas dried up and now the old comic book stories are being strip-mined. Soon all the iconic characters will be used up like an old prostitute and their pimps, the hollywood studios, will turn their backs on them to make big budget movies of the go-bots and smurfs. Don't get me wrong, I really like some of these movies. I am excited for Iron Man, because I trust Jon Favreau. But every time the Rat (Ratner) gets a job I cringe after what he did to the X-men. And Singer, you've been warned.
    I can only hope for more indie comic-based movies the likes of V for vendetta and Sin City, and Hellboy.
    And besides, who gives a rat's ass what "genre" a movie is in as long as it's good! Give us characters and plot and intelligent story telling AND explosions in space. Is that so hard?
  • warrenterr, on 04/22/2008, -4/+1300 was good. Besides it's the stupid (lack of cinematic appreciation) people that keep watching stupid movies. Hollywood is only catering to their market.
  • darphdodo, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1Wow! I think that article missed the point by a mile and a half.

    I would say the quality of Hollywood movies (sci-fi) has more to do with people at the helm (film execs, producers, and directors) than the source material, like comic books. I think most movies coming out of Hollywood (not just the sci-fi ones) suck because the people in charge are not interested in exploring ideas or producing a "quality" film, they are interested in what will get them the most cash for the least risk which means formulaic movies and scripts.

    All the other stuff about the lack of interest in science in the movie going audience, or comics not tackling the lofty potential of science is fodder for other articles but not the root cause for crappy sci-fi movies.




  • mkriss5681, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2There have been a few really outstanding Sci-Fi movies/tv-shows made. Children of Men and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind have ranked in my top 10 Sci-Fi movies of all time. Not to mention Sci-Fi television is the best it's ever been. I'll argue that Lost, Jericho, Firefly, and Battlestar Galatica (reimaged) are better than than any show that came out in the from the 90 and before.
  • WikiEasy, on 04/22/2008, -1/+2It's what happens when you try to pander to the lowest common denominator.

    How about making a film for the true fans, without compromising and dumbing things down so 7-year-olds can understand them?
    • MiddleOfNowhere, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1For the true fans of the genre? I'm in. You call the other eight guys!
      /kidding. It would be wonderful, but I don't see this happening. Matrix was probably the closest thing to a Cyberpunk movie (nice little subgenre, btw), and how they slaughtered that franchise with the other two *cough* films once they had the attention of the mainstream audience ...
      Intelligent SF would appeal to maybe 5% of moviegoers. Not enough money; end of story.
  • Culyt, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1I think SCI-FI is generally only watched by geeks which are unfortunately a small percentage of the population, so they don't get many sales, it also needs more special effects than other movies. They probably get more longterm sales with DVDs and such and if its a decent scifi movie it will likely get a cult following.

    The other problem is that technology is moving way to fast to predict, think of how extreemly dated all those 1980+ scifis are now. No one predicted the internet.

    Quite a lot of 'scifi' is really more fantasy with a scifi theme, they use magic to do what they want and most of the explantations are more metaphysics than physics.

    Think of Battlestar Galactica and the amount of scientific coverage it has, instead they are favoring the who Cylon god/gods thing and drama stuff. Granted there is some stuff like when the cylons talk about getting uploaded to servers, there was some brief talk about a firewall, they mentioned nukes a while back and such but its heavily glossed over. They don't give much details, I don't even know the basic layout of the ship since they only show, the bridge, viperbay, random corridors, random living rooms, colonial 1 and such. How the hell do they get from one level to the other, stairs? ladders? elevators? its never come up. How do the jump drives actually work. Who fixes them when they brake down? What do they look like inside the ship. I'm sure there is some technical manuals berried around the place that have layouts and such but its not a feature of the show.
  • benoitcsirois, on 04/22/2008, -1/+3I wouldn't call these films based on comics heroes "sci-fi" films... they're simply entertaining fictions.
  • mentalfoto, on 04/22/2008, -5/+0The writer lost me when he equated a good science fiction movie like "2001" with "The Terminator". Friggin' time traveling robots that hunt Sarah Connor = HAL? Pu-lease!

    Even a great movie like "2001" seems less plausible now that we aren't so collectively paranoid about computers or believe the marketing that computers might be infallible. Can you imagine anyone thinking a computer like HAL could be remotely "foolproof and incapable of error" in the real year 2001? But then were would the plot go if Dave and Frank went "Oh wait HAL, we ran the code and there was an error in you fault prediction database. FTFY." Even by the real year 2001 we knew enough to know many aspects of "2001" had become quaint, if not downright anachronistic.

    I'm amused and entertained equally by say "Spiderman" as well as the geeks who patiently have figured out the total volume of Peter Parker's body and point out how many blocks he can web-sling with his organic web-shooters before his total body volume is exhausted, which was less that I would have guessed. But I'm glad I didn't sit around doing the math.

    And sure it's aggravating that none of the movies that went to Mars in the last decade could do so without killing most of the astronauts that took the sci-fi trip there, though at least "Red Planet" had Carrie Ann Moss looking hot AND trying to save the day in a plausible way. Pity though that while Val Kilmer's character made it off alive, his movie career seems like it got marooned on Mars.

    Sci-fi and comic books are basically cousins - really comic books sparked the imagination and provided a gateway for the harder literary stuff as we all grew up in the 20th century. The appeal of comic book movies is that most of the public including our current Fearless Leader are C- science students at best, so Hollywood can afford to gloss over the brainy stuff. Hey, look at how many so called geeks were over the moon with "The Matrix" when every plot point was actually a hole big enough for Cap'n Kirk to stroll the Enterprise through sideways.

    Movies and science mix like oil and water. The best we can hope for is that the salad isn't too wilted or contaminated with salmonella, though Salmonella would probably test-market as a great name for a female sci-fi comic book movie The writer lost me when he equated a good science fiction movie like "2001" with "The Terminator". Friggin' time traveling robots that hunt Sarah Connor = HAL? Pu-lease!

    Even a great movie like "2001" seems less plausible now that we aren't so collectively paranoid about computers or believe the marketing that computers might be infallible. Can you imagine anyone thinking a computer like HAL could be remotely "foolproof and incapable of error" in the real year 2001? But then were would the plot go if Dave and Frank went "Oh wait HAL, we ran the code and there was an error in you fault prediction database. FTFY."

    I'm amused and entertained equally by say "Spiderman" as well as the geeks who patiently have figured out the total volume of Peter Parker's body and point out how many blocks he can web-sling with his organic web-shooters before his total body volume is exhausted, which was less that I would have guessed. But I'm glad I didn't sit around doing the math.

    And sure it's aggravating that none of the movies that went to Mars in the last decade could do so without killing most of the astronauts that took the sci-fi trip there, though at least "Red Planet" had Carrie Ann Moss looking hot and trying to save the day in a plausible way. Pity though that while Val Kilmer's character made it off alive, his movie career seems like it got marooned on Mars.

    Sci-fi and comic books are basically cousins - really comic books sparked the imagination and provided a gateway for the harder literary stuff as we all grew up in the 20th century. The appeal of comic book movies is that most of the public including our current Fearless Leader are C- science students at best, so Hollywood can afford to gloss over the brainy stuff. Hey, look at how many so called geeks were over the moon with "The Matrix" when every plot point was actually a hole big enough for Cap'n Kirk to stroll the Enterprise through sideways.

    Movies and science mix like oil and water. The best we can hope for is that the salad isn't too wilted or contaminated with salmonella, though Salmonella would probably test-market as a great name for a sci-fi comic book movie femme fatale... Thigh high leather boots, big gazongas, wicked ray gun, played by Angelina Jolie lasciviously announcing to the heroes "I'm Salmonella, Queen of Venus" is going to do better box office than say "PRIMER".

    It can only be attributable to human nature.
  • KineticShampoo, on 04/22/2008, -4/+3Excuse me, but 2001: A Space Odyssey sucked *****. No plot, nothing exciting, sloooooow people moving in space. Lame.
  • MiddleOfNowhere, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1Great Science-Fiction (whether in book, comic, video or another format) makes you think.
    The last thing Hollywood wants is your little head thinking too much in front of that big screen. You are supposed to eat popcorn and have a good time.
    Often enough, I have dragged people into what I thought were interesting Science-Fiction movies. Usually, the results were depressing. Someone who doesn't know the genre and just wants "a good time" will leave a dystopic, complex SF movie disappointed and confused. And this only seems to get worse.
    It's the permanent dumbing-down of the world around us, not the comics that are to blame.
  • Cebo, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1Yes, someone finally wrote about this topic. There are way too many comic book adaptations, and for the most part they suck big, just like comic books they're based on.
    Oh, don't forget also Steven Spielberg is making a sci-fi movie based on Kip Thorne work.
    • ZenMojo, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1He wrote on the topic, but that doesn't make him any less of an ignorant douche.
      Star Trek II was a sequel to a movie based on a television series from the ***** sixties, The Thing was a remake of a horror movie from the '50's. And he ignores that there were simply MORE movies released this year, not just more bad movies. And why did he arbitrarily pick 1982 out of the last 25 years of film making? Why not 1987, exactly 20 years earlier? Innerspace, Leonard Part 6, Masters of the Universe, Robocop, Spaceballs, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Thank you, Popular Mechanics, now SHUT THE ***** UP and get in your hole.
      • Cebo, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1This angstboy to the rescue routine is not helping you make your point. It just makes it a bigger fail.
  • Volath, on 04/22/2008, -0/+0I'd say video games could be PARTLY to blame. I can't even count how many decent scifi games have come out in the last few years.
  • t4m5t3r, on 04/22/2008, -1/+0well their making people more and MORE stupid, so obviously movies and music will follow suite, thats why its all *****, the unfortunate fact is that the clever people, or even people cabable of having an independant thought are VERY RARE,

    stupid people are easier to control (guess what country im thinking of?) and since this "stupidity" will eventualy be the "norm" everything else gets stupider with it, eg, movies, games, ect, ect
  • Spartandog, on 04/22/2008, -0/+0Comic book movies are being made because they sell tickets, and that's what matters most for the business of movie making. Remember, it's an industry that must make a return. Great science fiction novels, if adapted, would end up being the smaller, independent films which are plot driven and intellectually challenging - the kind of stories that are hard to greenlight. Look at what happened to "I Robot." It was turned into an action thriller rather than an ethical drama. A comic book version.
    We could blame comics, but that's just a cheap argument. Blame the blockbuster mentality of Hollywood, where trends and opening weekends sway the decisions. One "Spiderman" movie does well, and everyone wants to make the next superhero blockbuster.
  • Nevarius, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1Simple case of path of least resistance. Take something that has a following, add shiny objects, profit.
  • RANDOM667, on 04/22/2008, -1/+0The Sci-fi Channel should be blamed for getting rid of SG1 and keeping "professional" Wrestling!
    • solid12345, on 04/22/2008, -0/+2That damn pro wrestling gets in the way of Sci-Fi airing such classics as Frankenfish!
    • willfe, on 04/23/2008, -0/+2Ugh. No, they should be *thanked* for finally retiring that poor beast. They should have done it a few years earlier than they did. Got pretty bad towards the end.
      • RANDOM667, on 04/23/2008, -0/+1True, but the "wrasslin" still needs to go!
  • Uberhoax, on 04/22/2008, -1/+0BLAME UWE BOLL
  • spongya77, on 04/22/2008, -1/+0I don't think comics are to blame. It's simple risk-aversion strategy from the part of the studios. It's a great investment to make a movie. It's risky to make one that's "hard-core" SF (or any other genre), as they are usually viewed as made for "selected audience", assuming that apart from a few geeks no one will see it. Therefore do the same crap as we did before, with shinier special effects -that will surely bring the masses in.
    So they forfeit the quality for an easy-to-digest, for-the-masses movie. Regardless of the possibility that the masses would actually like the movie or not. It requires someone really adamant to fight for a good movie. LOTR is a prime example; studios would not have risked it without Jackson's bulldog fight for it. Or Star Wars, for that matter.
    This is true for computer games, TV shows, everything, by the way. (And this might be a good reason why even the "entertainment industry" would benefit from some state-sponsorship, so that the business part would sometimes give way to the artistic -or entertainment- part.)
  • RationalXubrnce, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1 It's not comic books fault that Hollywood refuses to make movies out of the true classics of Sci Fi. Think we'll see a Ringworld movie or The Mote in God's Eye anytime soon? Of course we won't. This is an issue of lame movie executives more than anything else.
  • darkever, on 04/22/2008, -0/+1Buried for being inaccurate.
  • Stagbeetole, on 04/22/2008, -1/+0COMIC BOOKS ARE NOT SCI-FI. Comic books are modern myths celebrating human form and behavior. thats all. Any investment of science into the comic book plot can be chalked up as an aspect of human nature, even if its distorted, whether it be an optimistic viewpoint or dismal viewpoint. And lets be honest, only a HANDFUL of great science fiction movies have come out of Hollywood. Its usually by some chance of fate that we get a sci fi movie worth a ***** out of the industry.
  • chronichyjinx, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1More like "Hollywood is to Blame for Eroding Comics Sci-Fi Quality!"
  • rblancarte, on 04/22/2008, -2/+1This article blames crap for being crap, and not writers for churning out crap.
    • ZenMojo, on 04/22/2008, -1/+1Writers don't control the money, they only write what people let them write.
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