Science and magic... together?

True, yet out of the 100+ definitions you chose that one and stated it as fact, it's not fact, as the other 100+ definitions beg to differ.

 

In every "how to" book I have ever read the definition has been the same. In fact, every definition I have ever read anywhere on the matter has been the same, just worded differently.

I have a hard time believing writers would come up with a hundred definitions for something. Seeing as it is contradictory to the word definition, and since they make a career out of using words, I find it hard for them to disregard the definition of definition. Unless, you think there are also a hundred definitions for definition as well?

P.S. Seeing how I have never seen any other definition for science fiction, that would lead me to believe the other one hundred you are speaking of are opinions and not fact. So please, link these one hundred other definitions. I have no problem learning something new and admitting it. Once again, none of this has ever been my opinion; it is what I have learned. I have shown my proof. Can you show me yours?

 

Not really. At it's core books are categorized by the main theme: Star Wars - the force (main focus); Science Fantasy. Star Trek -- science and exploration; Science Fiction (now yes Barns and Nobles categorizes Star Wars as Science Fiction, but stores are like the weather man; 95% wrong most of the time).

Plus 100 different definitions is fictional in itself as it is a fact that if I pick up a How to Guide for Writing Science Fiction or Fantasy 95% of the definitions will be as stated above (what I and Jhunter have said). As I said the MANY out way the FEW and widely known is a fact because of this statistic in itself. I have bought tons of books and all as I said 95% of them use the same definition so your statistic of 100 definitions is incorrect. And as for:

"Science fiction is anything published as science fiction." Isaac Asimov. 1975

I have read many books and talked to a few published authors and not one as ever said anything close to this. In fact this quote above can be found on such sites as Yahoo Answer and Wiki which are not reliable sources and quoted by a few different people. Again the MANY outweigh the FEW.


You don't even need to be in the writing industry to know this. For example I asked my dad what he thought in this discussion:

Me: Hey Dad what is Star Trek?
Dad: Science Fiction
Me: What is Star Wars?
Dad: Science Fiction...wait, its focus is on the Force and Dark Side so Fantasy.

He loves both Star Trek and Star Wars and is a welder. I even asked my nephews who are both 12 and have only seen a couple Star trek movies and they said the same thing.

 

Also comparing a sub genre to the actual genre isn't exactly apples to apples. That is why it is a sub genre.

 

This is kind of the point I've been trying to make. If you ask a question as "vague" as "what's the difference between Fantasy and Science Fiction" you are going to get a few definitions.

This is true. I'm sure my opinion isn't the most popular one. I've admitted that. And I've said once or twice that I know we're basically arguing semantics here. And we (Jhunt and I) could've just ended it with saying "ok, more people consider Star Wars a fantasy than a fantasy with sci-fi elements". That's fine. But I have a problem with making statements like "this is fact here we're arguing and you are just flat out wrong". No... that's not true at all, what happened was someone decided to label something and more people went along with it without really putting much thought into it. That doesn't make something fact. The only "fact" about it is that is just what more people consider to be Science Fiction.

And again, talking about Attack of the Clones (I called it Clone Wars before but that's something different)... that movie isn't something astronomically different from the other 5 movies. Yet apparently the only difference between the movie being pure Fantasy and Sci-Fi/Fantasy is a slightly different plot. And it's not something astronomically different compared to the other movies. That's the problem I have with people sticking hard to labels like these. There tends to be some overlap and a lot of grey area where you get people that might call something one thing when it's really another. It's like having an argument with someone over what's Trance music and what's Techno. You get some forms that are obviously one or obviously the other, but then there are some forms that are a little harder to define.

 

It could be that if you ask a hundred different people you'd get a hundred different answers, but in basic terms, fantasy is fiction that depends on magical or supernatural elements not specifically meant to scare you-if it scares you, at least as its primary goal, it's horror. If the magical elements are replaced with imagined technologies, it's science fiction.
~~Philip Athans | The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction | Page 1

 

Ok... then technically using that definition alone, Star Wars has imagined technologies (space travel, AI, laser-guns, force fields and fighting robots) and that make's it part Sci-fi... but it also has magical elements so that also makes it Fantasy.

The disagreement becomes when you really start to break it down and talk about whether or not the plot is based in science and random stuff like that. And once we get into those points... my statement comes into play again.

 

I cant believe you think the people(s) that came up with the definition of science fiction are wrong.

Also, we were never talking about the prequel trilogy. I have said that multiple times. I even said multiple times now, that I have already said in one of my first posts that the prequel trilogy has science fiction elements. Nobody is arguing that at all. This has been a discussion on the original trilogy.

 

The "magical elements" are not being replaced by "imagined technologies."

If anything, the "imagined technologies" are being replaced by "magical elements."

 

The focus in Star Wars is what they call: The Force and Dark Side (evil force); this themes is in all 6 movies. It is the primary focus and out ways the technology because the technology is not the focus as it was in Star Trek.

 

Of course not, if that were the case it would be 100% science fiction... but it has both magical elements AND imagined technologies so it's half and half (only according to that definition, I'm not necessarily saying that's reality).

You make it sound like there was a meeting and a vote was held and they made it official. No, what happened was when science fiction first started to become popular (whenever that was), they started grouping all of the movies that were similar and called them something so that they could talk about that group of movies with other people. But then different stuff comes out and the definition evolves and they might come out with a couple of sub-genres to further categorize these things. But it's all based on just a group of people that got together and made an unspoken agreement that these are the "properties" of a Fantasy or a Science Fiction movie/book.

This is a far cry from how biologist/scientists decided to officially define a classification for all living things where there are several hundred categories and subcategories all the way down to Genus and Species.

 

The FOCUS is on an element called The Force/Dark Side (premis found in all 6 movies). Just because it has technology doesn't make it Science Fiction:

What the Hell Is STAR WARS Anyway — Science Fiction or Fantasy?
Is Star Wars Fantasy or Science Fiction
Star Wars FAQ: Is Star Wars Sci-Fi or Fantasy?
Star Wars is not Science Fiction
Is Star Wars science fiction or fantasy?

 

The fact that you posted those links kind of furthers my point that there is some grey area and that people have talked about it.

At the very least you have to say that if it isn't Sci-fi at all (not even part Scifi), it's literally right on the border to the point where you could almost create a category that blends the two to put Star Wars and other movies like it in. I think it's really telling that A) literally the only thing separating sci-fi from fantasy in this case is whether the plot has to do with science and B) the same types of people are going to probably be seeing both types of movies.

Edit: Ok, read the links you posted. I've clicked on three of them and usually the focus of the article turns into "which is Star Wars MORE of: Fantasy or Sci-Fi". Which means they are conceding the fact that there are elements of sci-fi in the movie but claiming there's more Fantasy elements. Which is actually something I agree with.

 

All I am saying is; the people who came up with the definition (which is widely used for a reason) and the people who stand by the definition (publishers, agents and authors) know more about it than you do. So no offense, I will be sticking with their definition. Not yours. Also, my personal opinion agrees with the widely used definition.

 

Actually only one link talks about Star Wars as being Science Fantasy the rest say it is Fantasy at its core. The MANY outweigh the FEW.

 

Tomayto tomahto anyone...?
Well if anyone cares to know, here's what I've decided after reading all of these posts: I'm just going to write what I want to write and if I try to get it published, I'll let the editor decide whether it's science fiction or fantasy. lol
Thanks for all of the feedback and good debate, by the way!

 

Right on the border doesn't make it science fiction.

 

I am sorry, but I have noticed it multiple times now, is this supposed to be "The MANY outweigh the FEW?"

 

Haha, sorry for hijacking your thread.

 

No of course not. Just threw it in there again. A few articles do not out way the few.

EDIT

My reason for saying it was based on the number of articles and how many referred to it as Fantasy. Overal I believe it is Science Fantasy (as I said above).

Got to love typos! (way vs weigh)...and bad editing...my bad.

EDIT 2

Fixed them. Thanks for pointing it out Jhunter.

 

Hijacked? Bah. I'm just enjoying the ride.

 

You've shown me no proof, you didn't even reference your quote. What how to books? Reference those.

1. Jhunter, do you have any idea how many people argue about what defines S.F? Or what is S.F? There is a wide range of differing opinions, some similar, some broad I'll grant you that.

2. I don't understand the conclusion you came to at your second paragraph. I stated that S.F writers have varied ideas and definitions on what S.F is, how does that lead to a contradiction of "definition?" It doesn't. Please don't resort to straw-man arguements. Define, in a nutshell means to apply meaning, I'm simply stating alot of writers disagree with your definition, that doesn't contradict the word definition.

3. The idea that if I can't reference over a hundred definitions then my arguement is invalid is absurd, when you can't even prove that your definition is legitimate. But, as I'm a lovely person I will provide you some:

Tom Shippey. "Science fiction is hard to define because it is the literature of change and it changes while you are trying to define it."

Barry N. Malzberg. Science fiction is "that branch of fiction that deals with the possible effects of an altered technology or social system on mankind in an imagined future, an altered present, or an alternative past."

Jeff Prucher. 2006. Science fiction is "a genre (of literature, film, etc.) in which the setting differs from our own world (e.g. by the invention of new technology, through contact with aliens, by having a different history, etc.), and in which the difference is based on extrapolations made from one or more changes or suppositions; hence, such a genre in which the difference is explained (explicitly or implicitly) in scientific or rational, as opposed to supernatural, terms."

Christopher Evans. 1988. "Perhaps the crispest definition is that science fiction is a literature of 'what if?' What if we could travel in time? What if we were living on other planets? What if we made contact with alien races? And so on. The starting point is that the writer supposes things are different from how we know them to be."

Kim Stanley Robinson. 1987. Sf is "an historical literature ... In every sf narrative, there is an explicit or implicit fictional history that connects the period depicted to our present moment, or to some moment in our past."

Darko Suvin. 1979. "SF is distinguished by the narrative dominance or hegemony of a fictional "novum" (novelty, innovation) validated by cognitive logic."

Robert Scholes. 1975. Fabulation is "fiction that offers us a world clearly and radically discontinuous from the one we know, yet returns to confront that known world in some cognitive way."

Norman Spinrad. 1975. "Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology

Darko Suvin. 1972. Science fiction is "a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment."

Rod Serling. 1962. "Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible."

Kingsley Amis. 1960. "Science fiction is that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesized on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin

Theodore Sturgeon. 1952. "A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem, and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content."

John W. Campbell. 1947. "To be science fiction, not fantasy, an honest effort at prophetic extrapolation from the known must be made."

Brian W. Aldiss

Science fiction is the search for definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science), and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mould.

-- Trillion Year Spree: the History of Science Fiction (London, 1986)


Benjamin Appel

Science fiction reflects scientific thought; a fiction of things-to-come based on things-on-hand.

-- The Fantastic Mirror-SF Across The Ages (Panthenon 1969)

science fiction  noun a form of fiction that draws imaginatively on scientific knowledge and speculation in its plot, setting, theme, etc.
Origin: 1925–30

 

I never once said if you couldn't find them you were wrong. All I said (if you read it again) is that I have no problem with learning something new and admitting it. That is why I asked for the links.

And all of your examples prove my point. They are the same thing when you boil them down. It is, like I already said, just worded differently. All of those "definitions" are based off the one I already posted. They just have flowery words to say it is about science. In none of those examples does it say "space ships and robots are what make science fiction."

The point of my second paragraph is this:

"def·i·ni·tion
   [def-uh-nish-uhn] Show IPA
noun
1. the act of defining or making definite, distinct, or clear.
2.the formal statement of the meaning or significance of a word, phrase, idiom, etc., as found in dictionaries. An online dictionary resource, such as Dictionary.com, can give users direct, immediate access to the definitions of a term, allowing them to compare definitions from various dictionaries and stay up to date with an ever-expanding vocabulary.
3. the condition of being definite, distinct, or clearly outlined.
4. Optics. sharpness of the image formed by an optical system.
5. Radio and Television. the accuracy of sound or picture reproduction."

 

In order to give references you must KNOW that your references actually can help your argument!

This has no weight as this is the thoughts of this one person. Who else has said this?

Again his definition doesn't mention magic or super natural abilities. In fact this definition is more for Star trek then Star Wars (the force).

Again this is Star Trek written all over it. Seeing as how he says it is not supernatural (The Force); which Star Wars main focus is about the Force and Dark Side. In fact "The Force" can't be rationally or scientifically explained and never was in Star Wars.

This could define Star Trek ALL over. However, not Star Wars.

This is far from Star Wars and The Force as you can get. In fact I would say it best describes Star Trek.

Okay, explain "The Force" in a logical way?

This is quite simply put that more people believe in a Star Trek future then a Star Wars future.

Star Trek not Star Wars (the Force anyone?).

So far this could fit both Star Trek and Star Wars, but it is still only one out of the many quotes you posted.

The first part of this quote is Star Wars and the second would be Star Trek.

Star Trek not defining Star Wars; not even on the surface.

You see the BOLD words?

So what do we know about the Force?

Star Trek!

So where can I learn to use the force?

The Force is not scientific!

 

"If you boil them down" Really? You're joking right?

"Seeing how I have never seen any other definition for science fiction, that would lead me to believe the other one hundred you are speaking of are opinions and not fact. So please, link these one hundred other definitions." I love how you throw the word fact around, especially about S.F. Defining S.F is like finding the difference between Religion and cults, they're not factual.

Perhaps you should read my response again, I already defined "define" and if that was the point to your second paragraph you seriously have alot to learn about creating clear and direct arguements.

Also, I'm not a fan of Star Wars, but they do make an honest effort of extrapolation from the known take midichlorians for instance, they're an extrapolation of Mitochondria. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Midi-chlorian
http://www.sagajournal.com/smidichlorians.html
http://www.chefelf.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8962