I feel like it was probably the fans that pushed the designs in the more realistic direction. You’ve got hyper-vigilant fans looking over every fucking frame in a show/movie, taking measurements, making calculations, writing to the network/studio, asking obscure questions at conventions, and not to mention many may be somewhat well-educated, it’s just gradually pushed modern designs in that direction. When I see all the little details in a show like The Expanse, it feels real and I appreciate the attention to detail.
When something seemingly awkward happens on-screen, like a spaceship doesn’t stop on a time, or their boots are magnetic because antigravity isn’t a thing, or whatever, and then you have to think about it for a moment, like, “Oh, that’s because of XYZ, now that makes sense!” I like those little moments.
I like sci-fi (and write it a bit) and nowadays authors are too concerned with avoiding criticism from audience and sounding realistic.
If there is a definitive genre for provoking thought and testing the limits of imagination it is sci-fi.
Who cares if something is not realistic and sounds completely impossible? I like the classical “there was once the certainty that it was impossible to reach the moon”. It was never about being a problem but a challenge and we solved it.
The concept of the space elevator was developed by a physicist inspired by something in a sci-fi novel.
What tends to be overlooked as well is that sci-fi vies to warn about possible consequences of ill considered decisions and technological developments which are usually the first to be coveted by whoever enjoys the work.
Sci-fi should never feel the need to apologize.
There was a tv “documentary” about sci fi sciencd in real life which I really enjoyed at times.
I don’t know how much is real but it was really neat: https://imdb.com/title/tt1358355/
I love sci-fi designs so much more when whatever technology they have is completely illogical and looks like something completely fictional.
I don’t want to see/read about futuristic vehicles that look like they took a modern vehicle and just gave it AI self-driving capabilities or planes that look like something you’d see made today.
Case in point, the needler from Halo. The in universe lore is that they are basically magic crystals and even the covenant don’t know how it works.
Hard sci-fi can be great, and Halo often goes a long way to explain things, but it knows when to just say “it’s magic, fuck off”
So, like bicycles? Afaik we don’t exactly understand why they stay upright.
Science fiction presents a vision of the future - it is, I think, an effective mirror for the collective thoughts and beliefs about what is to come. For much of the 20th century people were strongly optimistic about the future - postwar and into the tech boom in the 80s and 90s it seemed like everything was only going to get better.
Nowadays though… we don’t have that optimism anymore. We have climate change rapidly escalating, corporation’s sucking us dry, states doing fuck all about it. This is reflected in those grim police robots and dark themes, just as the shiny space ships and friendly aliens of the past reflected the optimism of the time.
N.b. I do agree with the other commenter who said audience expectations of “realism” play a role - but I also think audiences have a pretty warped idea of what is realistic.
So my headcanon for Star Trek TOS is that it’s actually a stage play done by the arts department of Starfleet Academy. Pre-holodeck so probably done right after 1701-A retired. It’s why Strange New World’s/Kelvin/Enterprise looks more.advanced as they had to scrap some shit together to build sets and props. They probably did some artistic license as well, going for a retro-futuristic look. Not to mention the very over the top acting.
Now I know what you’re gonna say. “What about Trials and Tribulations?” Well it’s all a flashback scene anyways, Sisko is telling the whole story and the Temporal cops are imagining it based on the stage play they probably saw a holo recording of.
“What about TNG Relics?” Shut up lol
Simple answer: Q did a shenanigans. Or maybe Space Red Foreman’s time-cannon rewrote canon?
The one part of the “SNW look” that I don’t like is the need to show off enormous volumes of empty space. Some of the places such as Engineering are more like a gutted McMansion than “a working space that is conflicted between the need to efficiently pack in monstrous machinery, and provide access for the people that maintain it”.
To my mind the old way is sometimes actually more “realistic”. The future evolves in unpredictable ways. Look at all the past predictions of the future that just look like that same time period with bigger buildings and flying cars. Today’s “hard” design approaches will likely evolve as poorly. Nothing is more futuristic to me than a design that is completely incomprehensible by current logic.
I like a bit of both.
Why are the space ships aerodynamic?
Style, dork, you ever heard of it?
Why do they have weird exposed engine nacelles? Isn’t that a structural weakness?
Because they love to explode.
Do your weird shit and then come up with a why.
Yeah, not everything is super utilitarian. The other day we were in Antwerp’s old harbor, which has these big open hangars. The roofs and pillars are pretty ornamental, and these are basically 19th century industrial buildings. Built today they would be all straight lines and flat panels.
I think it’s cool if people imagine a future that’s not just about technological progress but also culturally very different and even disturbing. I think Dune does a fairly good job at that.
Personally I think the modern stuff is way, way better.
Sometimes I’m in the mood for one and sometimes the other. The Expanse comes to mind for a modern “hard” scifi that talks about the tech a lot.
One of the best details in the first episode is that a protagonist’s phone is cracked to hell. Magical future tech, transparent screen, lightfield camera, voice AI that works… and he still dropped the damn thing and can’t afford to replace it.
Me too, to me The Expanse is peak sci-fi in large part due to how realistic it is.
I can go with either extreme or anything in the middle, depending on what fits the story, tone and aesthetic.
At the same time, either one can look stupid when there’s no thought put into it. We don’t necessarily need to know how any futuristic stuff works, but it helps if the people designing it have some vague idea of why things are there and what they are supposed to do. It doesn’t have to be realistic, but it can help it stay internally consistent. And it helps avoid the pitfalls of lazy or obviously impractical designs that can plague sci-fi. It can be very distracting when the set is a bunch of random plastic tubes, half the contents of a Spencer’s Gifts, and recycled props that have been bouncing around for decades despite having no apparent function.
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Virgin: Well the old design didn’t make sense, so this new design has updated looks for the exhaust, tubes, and all monitors are replaced with…
Chad: Its a show not a documentary, I don’t care how the wires are routed.
The MST3K mantra.
As long as it’s entertaining, I don’t care. Because the reason why I watch Sci fi is for entertainment. If i wanted realism I’ll watch a documentary.
Does this make me a Chad?
You could excuse bad acting with that same logic.
It’s done all the time. How many senseless action movies with wooden actors have made a kabillion dollars at the box office? Lots of them!
I find it interesting that some “realistic” sci-fi is basically just limited thinking constrained by the technical limitations of the present.
‘You wouldn’t have a building like that because you’d need supporting pillars for a roof that size’ - c.14 Sci-fi critic
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Both have honestly existed for a long while. The term is hard SciFi and soft SciFi.
Hard SciFi is concerned with making sure that it’s rules are self consistent and the ramifications are clear. Early examples include Perry Rhodan, which had schematics for technologies in the story on the silver books.
Soft SciFi however is not concerned with those issues, it wants to tell some specific story but if the FTL they used has consistent and realistic rules is not that important.
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Virgin Arthur C. Clarke vs Chad Stanisław Lem
