• BluesF@feddit.uk
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    "The shuttle prop is too expensive, let's use some camera trick to move people from the ship to the planet set." improve-society

    "THE TECH MAGIC IS THE ULTIMATE WEAPON AND SHOULD DECIDE EVERY BATTLE BY TRANSPORTING PEOPLE/WARP CORES INTO SPACE" very-intelligent

  • StellarExtract@lemm.ee
    ·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • keepcarrot [she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Aw, I like playing designer, except with no actual constraints if I think something looks cool.

  • Facky [he/him,comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I like old Sci-fi concepts better than modern ones anyway. I would write a retro sci-fi story but I'm shit at writing.