# Hard Science Fiction Film best and worst



## BAYLOR (Jan 9, 2017)

What do you think are the best and worst  in that category what makes them so?And what is your definition of a Hard science fiction film.  This can  also include television series made for tv movies as well.

Thoughts?


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## clovis-man (Jan 9, 2017)

*The Martian* comes to mind immediately. Then, notwithstanding the transcendental aspects, *2001, A Space Odyssey*. Submitted with caveats in that some of the science in *The Martian* delves into some "maybe this will work or maybe it won't" scenarios. And for 1968, *2001* followed the laws of physics pretty well. The zero-G toilet was funny, but essential.


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## BAYLOR (Jan 9, 2017)

*Interstellar *2014.     Excellent  stuff.


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## RX-79G (Jan 12, 2017)

_2001 _and _2010, _as well as _the Martian _and _Gravity_. And while certainly more speculative, _Strange Days, Blade Runner _and _Sunshine_ are very much centered on the science that moves the film, rather than just using future stuff as setting. I think "hard science" refers to a work where the technology and environment is very internally coherent and important for the story. I think _Ghost in the Shell_ also qualifies.

_Interstellar _has a lot of sciency discussion, but the science itself is so poor that it would not make my list. Basic spaceships traveling in and out of black hole horizons and solving a blight problem with an ark doesn't make any sense. It would probably make a good example of bad hard science in an otherwise good film, as opposed to a terrible film with good hard science. I'm not sure which definition of a _bad hard science film_ makes more sense, but most great sci fi films are not hard science at all, so I would think the second is more useful.

I can't think of a film centered on hard science that is bad - mostly because it probably didn't get made.


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## Dan Jones (Jan 12, 2017)

I've read the book and seen the film of _The Martian_, and think they're both fantastic. There's a lot of inexact, backyard engineering, but that's why it's so charming and believable. And besides, it's not really _about_ science at all. It's a paean to human tenacity, ingenuity, humour and altruism.

_Interstellar_ also is a film I love, though it's something of a flawed masterpiece. Again, it's not really about science at all; the black hole and time relativity handwavium stuff are just plot devices to enable the film to talk about what it really wants to: grief, human ambition (or lack of it: one could argue that's a similar sort of underlying theme to _The Martian_), and the unique dynamics of father-daughter relationships, which I didn't really appreciate until second viewing, whereupon I'd become a father for the second time, and the film made more sense.

I would never consider _Blade Runner_ as a hard science fiction film. In my eyes it's tech-noir. There's very little science to speak of (unless you count psychology, but if we're considering psychology then the list of hard science films becomes almost limitless...), and the set-up is almost pulpy.

As for bad ones, I always struggled with _The Andromeda Strain_. Maybe it's bad because, unlike the others mentioned, this time the theme really is the science, and the plot, characters, and arcs of development are sacrificed for a turgid two-hour exposition about what happens in the laboratory experiments they do on this germ. I'm sure others will find this fascinating, but I thought it pretty dull.

Thinking about it a bit more, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a film _about_ science. That would be a documentary. In any good film, the science is used to propel the characters and plot and arc, where the real meat is to be found.


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## RX-79G (Jan 12, 2017)

DG Jones said:


> I've read the book and seen the film of _The Martian_, and think they're both fantastic. There's a lot of inexact, backyard engineering, but that's why it's so charming and believable. And besides, it's not really _about_ science at all. It's a paean to human tenacity, ingenuity, humour and altruism.
> 
> _Interstellar_ also is a film I love, though it's something of a flawed masterpiece. Again, it's not really about science at all; the black hole and time relativity handwavium stuff are just plot devices to enable the film to talk about what it really wants to: grief, human ambition (or lack of it: one could argue that's a similar sort of underlying theme to _The Martian_), and the unique dynamics of father-daughter relationships, which I didn't really appreciate until second viewing, whereupon I'd become a father for the second time, and the film made more sense.
> 
> ...


If there can't be a fiction film about science, isn't that the same as saying that hard science fiction doesn't exist?


As for _Blade Runner_, do you recall the amount of discussion gene sequencing, the production of body parts, the design of intelligence, images of cells with serial numbers, etc? The film is rather intensely focused on the science underlying replicants, much more so than any film about mechanical AI has focused how they are built or programmed.


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## Phyrebrat (Jan 12, 2017)

I'm quite thinly-read when it comes to sci fi, although I do love it, and have read all of Arthur C Clarke's stuff. 

Along with *RX*, I'd say the first part of _Sunshine_, _2001_, and I'd suggest _Primer_ and _Upstream Colour_ might be worthy of the place in SF 'hard' category, but I'm not sure if they're sf enough.

pH


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## Dan Jones (Jan 12, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> If there can't be a fiction film about science, isn't that the same as saying that hard science fiction doesn't exist?



I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question.


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## RX-79G (Jan 12, 2017)

DG Jones said:


> I'm assuming that's a rhetorical question.


Nope. You suggested that a fiction film about hard science couldn't be fiction. But we have a literature sub genre called "hard science fiction", which is what the thread is about. So I'm asking what you meant by your post.


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## J Riff (Jan 12, 2017)

Martian, Gravity, Interstellar are all on the stinker list here. Arrival is on there too. But I'm a 'hard' SF fan. SF works well with either comedy or horror, but apparently not when written by or for movie types.


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## RX-79G (Jan 12, 2017)

J Riff said:


> Martian, Gravity, Interstellar are all on the stinker list here. Arrival is on there too. But I'm a 'hard' SF fan. SF works well with either comedy or horror, but apparently not when written by or for movie types.


"Stinker" as films, or as failed hard SF?


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## J Riff (Jan 12, 2017)

Crappy, almost-sf like most movies. Give 'em a few years and you have Plan Nine or Green Slime. or...
It's bad when supposed 'SF" becomes part of a dumbdown, but that's how Arrival felt, for ex. Really stupid.


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## RX-79G (Jan 13, 2017)

Of interest, Wikipedia has a hard SF page, and offered these film examples, some of which I would say are good hard SF.:

_2001: A Space Odyssey_ (1968)[19]
_Marooned_ (1969)
_The Andromeda Strain_ (1971)
_Silent Running_ (1972)[19]
_Solaris_ (1972)[19]
_Dark Star_ (1974)[19]
_Stalker_ (1979)
_Blade Runner_ (1982)[20]
_2010: The Year We Make Contact_ (1984) – sequel to _2001_
_Contact_ (1997)[19]
_Gattaca_ (1997)[19]
_Primer_ (2004)
_Sunshine_ (2007)[19]
_The Man from Earth_ (2007)
_Moon_ (2009)[19]
_Robot and Frank_ (2012)
_Gravity_ (2013)[19]
_Elysium_ (2013)
_Her_ (2013)
_Europa Report_ (2013)
_Ex Machina_ (2015)
_The Martian_ (2015)
_Passengers_ (2016)


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## BAYLOR (Jan 13, 2017)

*Ikarie XB* 1963


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## BAYLOR (Jan 13, 2017)

Does a film cease to be hard science fiction when it becomes dated and obsolete?


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## RX-79G (Jan 13, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> Does a film cease to be hard science fiction when it becomes obsolete?


Probably not, but what is "obsolete"? The science disproven, or just the date exceeded?


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## BAYLOR (Jan 13, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> Probably not, but what is "obsolete"? The science disproven, or just the date exceeded?



Both of those.


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## RX-79G (Jan 13, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> Both of those.


I would say largely "no", because the point of hard science fiction isn't just to construct a story around proven scientific concepts, but to speculate intensely about scientific-like concepts in an internally consistent manner. If some theory is disproved since, it makes for a good footnote, but it doesn't remove the type of reading pleasure the work was designed to and still does provide as hard SF to readers. (Or viewers, in this case.)


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## BAYLOR (Jan 13, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> I would say largely "no", because the point of hard science fiction isn't just to construct a story around proven scientific concepts, but to speculate intensely about scientific-like concepts in an internally consistent manner. If some theory is disproved since, it makes for a good footnote, but it doesn't remove the type of reading pleasure the work was designed to and still does provide as hard SF to readers. (Or viewers, in this case.)



Well said. 

Ive been reading, watching  and enjoying science fiction for many years. I love the classics both books and films and the realties that they create and spin, it really doesn't matter to me how old nor does the genre . I like a good story that can take me to places that I've never been.


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## Coast (Jan 13, 2017)

Obviously the Moon Landings. Excellent acting by Armstrong, even if he fumbled his lines! 

I tend to think of it on a sliding scale, with some things being Hard*er* SF than others, rather than a defined 'window' of things that are 'Hard SF'.
Of course, it's completely subjective where you draw the line, and I think you see this even within single pieces of work. The Expanse is a recent example, of a story that has aspects that I'd call hard sf (mechanics of spaceflight, belter physiology) and aspects that I'd call softer (alien goop).


I've loved the first season of the Expanse, so I'd call it one of my favourites at the moment.


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## BAYLOR (Jan 13, 2017)

*Westworld*  both the 1973 film and The current TV show?


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## Coast (Jan 13, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> *Westworld* both the 1973 film and The current TV show?



I've seen Westworld 2016 described as Hard Scifi. It's definitely harder than the original film, which I'd say is definitely not hard scifi. But with the TV series, there's quite an emphasis on the programming and self awareness side of things.


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## Rodders (Jan 14, 2017)

2001 is definitely the "hard SF" movie that all others are compared against. 

I suppose Moon is Hard SF and pretty thought provoking. Her was pretty interesting and quite foreseeable given how attached we are to our modern technology.


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## Vince W (Jan 14, 2017)

Jurassic Park is a great action film, but fails on the science part. It came out while I was finishing my undergrad in Biochemistry and the explanation of filling in the gaps of the DNA just made me roll my eyes. Also the costs and the timetables involved in cloning all those animals was far too low.

This was the only film of the series that even took a passing glance at the science part of it. They just became dinoporn films after that. I won't even mention JW.


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## 2DaveWixon (Jan 14, 2017)

To my mind, the best "hard sf" film ever was *Gravity.
The Martian* comes in second.

All this discussion rather depends on one's definition of "hard sf," of course; and no film I've ever seen did more with orbital dynamics than *Gravity* -- nothing else has ever come close to showing the complications of just going around in circles....

All of the other films mentioned (some of which, I concede, I have not seen) do the literary thing: they tell a human story, with the science tossed in for background and color.


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## RX-79G (Jan 14, 2017)

2DaveWixon said:


> All of the other films mentioned (some of which, I concede, I have not seen) do the literary thing: they tell a human story, with the science tossed in for background and color.


You don't find Gravity to be a story about Bullock's character and an action/adventure/survival film?


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## 2DaveWixon (Jan 14, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> You don't find Gravity to be a story about Bullock's character and an action/adventure/survival film?


Oh, it's all of those. But those elements are controlled, dictated, by the science...that story would not exist without the science.


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## RX-79G (Jan 14, 2017)

2DaveWixon said:


> Oh, it's all of those. But those elements are controlled, dictated, by the science...that story would not exist without the science.


How would _Blade Runner_ exist without the science?


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## J Riff (Jan 14, 2017)

The recent crapola - Martian, Gravity, etc. are just-as-stupid, though some 'science' may be correct, or at least updated from the 50s.
Besides - 'science' as an excuse for a lousy movie... well nevermind. What these films are, is insulting to people in the real world who may have something to do with, oh I dunno, the space prog, or anything real... but no, It's a fantasy where the 'military' oversee some person-or-other who is in the fantasy role of save the world or blahblah... right back in the Fantasy genre, which is why SF was forced to exist in the 1st place!


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## Coast (Jan 15, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> How would _Blade Runner_ exist without the science?



I wouldn't call the science in Blade Runner 'hard'. You've got bioengineered people, implanted memories, faster than light travel - it's all very speculative. It's a realistic or (dare I say it...) gritty world, and I think that is why it gets classed as Hard SF a lot, rather than it's compliance to the laws of the universe as we know them. Although, the idea of catching them with Turing-style tests is certainly a 'hard' aspect.



J Riff said:


> The recent crapola - Martian, Gravity, etc. are just-as-stupid, though some 'science' may be correct, or at least updated from the 50s.



Any examples of the good stuff, J Riff?


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## RX-79G (Jan 15, 2017)

Coast said:


> I wouldn't call the science in Blade Runner 'hard'. You've got bioengineered people, implanted memories, faster than light travel - it's all very speculative.


I don't think you're the most universal definition of "hard sci fi". It usually includes very speculative technology or science.


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## 2DaveWixon (Jan 15, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> I don't think you're the most universal definition of "hard sci fi". It usually includes very speculative technology or science.


The tech in *Gravity* and *The Martian *was not at all speculative. That's why I think it's justified to call them both "hard sf" -- and more so than almost any other sf film I can think of...


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## RX-79G (Jan 15, 2017)

2DaveWixon said:


> The tech in *Gravity* and *The Martian *was not at all speculative. That's why I think it's justified to call them both "hard sf" -- and more so than almost any other sf film I can think of...


From wikipedia:
"*Hard science fiction* is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific accuracy, technical detail, or both."

Hard science fiction has always included distant future or unconventional extrapolation, like Alastair Reynolds books or _Dragon's Egg_.


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## BAYLOR (Jan 15, 2017)

What about a film Like *TXH 1138* ?


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## RX-79G (Jan 15, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> What about a film Like *TXH 1138* ?


It is a well realized dystopia, but there isn't a lot of technical detail offered. Though I'm sure the harshly artificial environment could be argued as a hard sci fi aesthetic. And aesthetic is very important when your exposition is limited by your medium.


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## Coast (Jan 15, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> From wikipedia:
> "*Hard science fiction* is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific accuracy, technical detail, or both."
> 
> Hard science fiction has always included distant future or unconventional extrapolation, like Alastair Reynolds books or _Dragon's Egg_.



Your statement is not backed up by your quoted definition. It doesn't say "emphasis on scientific accuracy, technical detail, or both - and includes some speculation."

Distant future or unconventional extrapolation = speculation. Those books, and movies like Blade Runner, use speculative aspects that move them down the sliding scale from "perfect" Hard SF, where the emphasis is "on scientific accuracy, technical detail, or both."

They are still considered to be Hard SF by general consensus, because they are on the Harder end of the spectrum compared to the bulk of SF.

Gravity etc, use less speculative aspects, so many people consider them Harder SF.

Whether someone's idea of Hard SF includes only the Hardest examples, or allows certain degrees of speculation, is entirely up to the individual. The walls around genres are not made of concrete.


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## RX-79G (Jan 15, 2017)

Coast said:


> Your statement is not backed up by your quoted definition. It doesn't say "emphasis on scientific accuracy, technical detail, or both - and includes some speculation."


It says "technical detail". You're reading it as if technical details must be scientifically accurate, but the sentence construction does not imply that. The definition also doesn't rule out anything about speculation.

Technical details about an entirely speculative science or technology meet that definition. But _Blade Runner_ isn't even doing that - it is just genetic engineering, stress analysis and some very vague talk about space travel. It actually presents less speculative science than _2001 _does with human hibernation and AI.



Since coming to this forum I have encountered some of the strangest genre definitions. "Speculative fiction" originally meant SF, fantasy and horror collectively,  and 'space opera' meant a kind of story and mood. Now space opera is being offered up as the sloppy opposite of hard science fiction (instead of using the term soft science fiction), and hard science fiction has been reduced in some people's minds to present day science only. Meanwhile other folks are claiming that _Gravity_, since it completely lacks any real speculative elements, doesn't qualify as science fiction at all, and is just present day adventure fiction.

Where are you guys getting these oddly exclusive definitions from? Are the offered definitions leading people to believe that they were intended to delineate a series of exclusive zones of SF? Are there scholarly articles on these genre divisions, or are you just making them up based on some impression you got at some time?


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## BAYLOR (Jan 15, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> It is a well realized dystopia, but there isn't a lot of technical detail offered. Though I'm sure the harshly artificial environment could be argued as a hard sci fi aesthetic. And aesthetic is very important when your exposition is limited by your medium.



Even by todays standards , it still seem to hold up pretty well.


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## BAYLOR (Jan 15, 2017)

Vince W said:


> Jurassic Park is a great action film, but fails on the science part. It came out while I was finishing my undergrad in Biochemistry and the explanation of filling in the gaps of the DNA just made me roll my eyes. Also the costs and the timetables involved in cloning all those animals was far too low.
> 
> This was the only film of the series that even took a passing glance at the science part of it. They just became dinoporn films after that. I won't even mention JW.



After millions of years of fossilization there would be no viable dino DNA clone or even extract.


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## RX-79G (Jan 15, 2017)

BAYLOR said:


> Even by todays standards , it still seem to hold up pretty well.


The best of the films from the release 1968 release of _2001 _until sometime in the late '80s have a look and feel that will continue to hold up well much longer than most of what followed.

Speaking of which, 1972's _Silent Running_ is a really nicely realized hard SF film that came many years before the big post SW surge. It fits the dystopian mode of its contemporaries, but has a technical quality that is much better - probably due to Douglas Trumball's direction. Trumball's _Brainstorm _would also make a good hard SF candidate. As would possibly _Starlost _- a TV show I've only read about.


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## BAYLOR (Jan 15, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> The best of the films from the release 1968 release of _2001 _until sometime in the late '80s have a look and feel that will continue to hold up well much longer than most of what followed.
> 
> Speaking of which, 1972's _Silent Running_ is a really nicely realized hard SF film that came many years before the big post SW surge. It fits the dystopian mode of its contemporaries, but has a technical quality that is much better - probably due to Douglas Trumball's direction. Trumball's _Brainstorm _would also make a good hard SF candidate.



Silent Running, Ive seen that many times ,  I thought the ecology story quite  interesting and timeless. The Robots Huey , Duey and Louie look a bit like some to concept for  Robot we have now . The spaceships with the eco domes still look impressive even today  Three  of the  ship models from that film showed  up in the original Battlestar Galactica. 

Brainstorm is very much an underrated film.


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## Coast (Jan 15, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> It says "technical detail". You're reading it as if technical details must be scientifically accurate, but the sentence construction does not imply that. The definition also doesn't rule out anything about speculation.
> 
> Technical details about an entirely speculative science or technology meet that definition. But _Blade Runner_ isn't even doing that - it is just genetic engineering, stress analysis and some very vague talk about space travel. It actually presents less speculative science than _2001 _does with human hibernation and AI.



Technical details indeed.

I truly didn't think it was contentious to suggest that Gravity is a 'Harder' SF movie than Blade Runner. I thought I was pointing out a very obvious statement of why another member would draw a line between Gravity / The Martian and movies like BR. I have NOT said that Blade Runner shouldn't be classed as Hard SF, simply that it's speculative aspects make it less 'hard' than Gravity, which has pretty much no speculation. Your first post in the thread suggested that you agreed:


RX-79G said:


> _2001 _and _2010, _as well as _the Martian _and _Gravity_. And while certainly more speculative, _Strange Days, Blade Runner_



As for genre boundaries, I still maintain that they are *subjective* to an extent. As such, they are constantly up for negotiation. That other people have differing opinions to you is a practical certainty. So I do find it somewhat disconcerting that anyone who doesn't share your opinion is misguided:


RX-79G said:


> I don't think you're the most universal definition of "hard sci fi".





RX-79G said:


> or are you just making them up based on some impression you got at some time?



I'm clearly one of the many that have a poor understanding of genre, so I'll bow out of this conversation.


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## RX-79G (Jan 15, 2017)

Coast said:


> I truly didn't think it was contentious to suggest that Gravity is a 'Harder' SF movie than Blade Runner.


Pardon me if I took this more literally than you intended:


Coast said:


> I wouldn't call the science in Blade Runner 'hard'.


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## J Riff (Jan 15, 2017)

It's a bad idea, 'hard SF' is, because movies like Sunshine get looked at as if they are serious SF, in some artificial category or other... when really they are just rubbish, or cowboy movies for today. Arrival I find actually insulting as such, along with lots other recent movies by mainstream people who decided to write some SF, and bent it out of shape to fit their story... then dumped in some Time Travel to make it make sense. Kind of thing. The minute it's a mainstream category - basically since Dune... it's just more claptrap for the masses. But I watch them all because TV is just unacceptable. )


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## WilliamDavey627 (Jan 29, 2017)

RX-79G said:


> Of interest, Wikipedia has a hard SF page, and offered these film examples, some of which I would say are good hard SF.:
> 
> _2001: A Space Odyssey_ (1968)[19]
> _Marooned_ (1969)
> ...


Wow, thanks for that. Most happen to my favourite movies


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## BigBadBob141 (Jun 20, 2017)

I enjoyed "Gravity" but correct me if I'm wrong, I could be misremembering this!
I think the writers made a massive blunder.
I think it's said in the film that the debris cloud which destroys the Shuttle & the ISS has also taken out all the worlds com. sats.
This is very silly as the ISS orbits at a height of 250 miles, while all geosync com sats are at 22000 miles.
This a bit like saying a car bomb going off in London injured people in New York.
I wish writers writing films involving science would be a lot more careful of their facts!


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## Dan Jones (Jun 20, 2017)

It's true, @BigBadBob141, I spotted the same error and it made me roll my eyes a bit, but it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the film at all. 

_Gravity_ isn't "about" the science any more than _The Martian_, or _Interstellar_ is. The science is just a handy toolkit from which the screenwriters and directors were able to build the real themes of the aforementioned films: human tenacity, ingenuity, altriuism, love.

To clarify, I work for the UK Space Agency on the technology team, so I like to think I know whereof I speak. From an engineering point of view, it's important to get these details right. As a writer, it's more important to get the _story_ right. If they'd got the sciencey bit right but made a complete hash of the plot, of Sandra Bullock's character, and of George Clooney's character, that would be the more egregious error in my eyes.

I'm not saying don't do your research, because a string of clunky errors looks amateurish and lazy, but in this instance I'm happy to let it slide, because the rogue satellite isn't really what the film is about.


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## psikeyhackr (Jun 20, 2017)

2DaveWixon said:


> To my mind, the best "hard sf" film ever was *Gravity.*



Gravity is not science fiction at all.  It was a disaster movie in space.  All of the technology actually existed at the time and no unknown or fantasy physics was involved in the story.

It is like saying a movie about an airliner crash was science fiction because it was hit by a meteor.

psik


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## J Riff (Jun 21, 2017)

There's a sequel -_ Gravol _- about illness caused by too many half-cooked SF movies. )


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## BAYLOR (Jun 25, 2017)

J Riff said:


> There's a sequel -_ Gravol _- about illness caused by too many half-cooked SF movies. )



Hm, It must have been one of those direct to video movies.


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## J Riff (Jun 26, 2017)

A bunch of recent SF is fantasy, to be fair. It ignores vast realms of this and that... such that the 50s flicks, and things like EC comics, are more believable.


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## Galactic Journey (Jul 3, 2017)

J Riff said:


> A bunch of recent SF is fantasy, to be fair. It ignores vast realms of this and that... such that the 50s flicks, and things like EC comics, are more believable.



Like Star Wars et.al.

2010 is a very hard film, perhaps the hardest.  

Wings of Honneamise (an animated film, 1987) is ridiculously hard... but is more alternate history than sf (i.e. it portrays a real-life rocket and its launch with great accuracy, but is that sf?)


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## BigBadBob141 (Jul 8, 2017)

It's important to have a good story & characters, of course it is!
But getting your facts totally screwed up is just plain stupid.
I've mentioned these before, there's an SF novel where the Moon is explored by helicopter.
And I came across a book on Amazon where aliens build an Orbital Elevator ie. a Beanstalk next to the city of Darwin.
For various reasons a Beanstalk can only be built on the Equator.


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## Al Jackson (Aug 4, 2018)

*Gravity *caught some flak for some of the physics. The returning debris cloud was probably the worse, phasing was way off. Other wise many things were extremely low probability events , like one in a hundred million. I think people missed one clever thing in the film, when in a vacuum the POV when someone was inside a suit was that sounds were heard only through the suit , a few shots , when outside a space vehicle were done in total silence (a la *2001*) , music is only a dramatic effect. Vehicle interiors were spot on.
When Wikipedia first listed *Gravity* it was an Alternate Universe story, (Wiki took that id down) ..that is dead on right. The shuttle in the movie does not and did not ever exist, the Hubble, ISS and Chinese Space Stations are all in the wrong orbits... that narrative is just not on our world line. This a fast crisp visual narrative story I like it a lot.


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## Al Jackson (Aug 4, 2018)

Did anyone mention* Destination Moon (1950)* ? Heinlein worked with director Irving Pichel to keep the whole story viable , fighting some studio interference  (no not George Pal).
*Conquest of Space (1955) * is an old ball, the technology and physics in the film is pretty well correct if awkwardly done. This is a slimed down version of *The Mars Project   *, really the von Braun rework of The Mars Project published as *The Exploration of Mars *(with co-author Willy Ley. The rejiggered von Braun concept went from 10 ships in the expedition down to 2 , the movie took it down to one.
The film plot is poor with the injection of a nut case religion theme … I don't know if that's due to Byron Haskin or George Pal. Haskin was a crack film director , made Pal's War of the Worlds in 1953 a gem of a movie, but that also had goofy theological themes running as sidebars , not something Wells had in the novel.


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## Vertigo (Aug 4, 2018)

BigBadBob141 said:


> It's important to have a good story & characters, of course it is!
> But getting your facts totally screwed up is just plain stupid.
> I've mentioned these before, there's an SF novel where the Moon is explored by helicopter.
> And I came across a book on Amazon where aliens build an Orbital Elevator ie. a Beanstalk next to the city of Darwin.
> For various reasons a Beanstalk can only be built on the Equator.


There was a relatively hard SF book I read recently (can't remember which one) in which they had a space elevator with the base somewhere in the Mediterranean that had my eyes rolling.

I've also had unresolved arguments with people about geosynchronous orbits being possible anywhere not just over the equator.


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## picklematrix (Aug 4, 2018)

Is Enemy Mine considered hard scifi? Havent seen it for many years, but i remember it being fairly logical. I need to see it again to see if it holds up.


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## dask (Aug 4, 2018)

*Planet Of The Apes*: the best. So far it has accurately predicted the country of the apes, and if mankind isn't careful the whole planet could be like us.


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## Al Jackson (Aug 4, 2018)

What's bad?  Certainly not Z SF films*. Queen of Outer Space, Plan 9 from Outer Space , or Fire Maidens from Outer Space* (maybe a 100 more) … the film makers neither knew nor cared what the factual universe is! Those films are the* UNWILLING SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF.  *
What about *Star Wars*? Star Wars is fancied up Flash Gordon. In fact Lucas wanted to make Flash Gordon and could not get the option. Lots of stuff borrowed from classic prose SF , Galactic Empire (Asimov) , domesticated SF milieu Luke Tatooine (as an example)….. there never seems to be an zero g and no appeal to 'field effect' physics is ever mentioned. Winged fighters soundfully wisking , in a vacuum,  about with no indication of attitude jets that I ever saw, other stuff, all lumped tougher under 'science fantasy' and a dose of *Willing Suspension of Disblief . * (Even downright ignorance of astronomical nomenclature which took a whole new movie to try to patch up!)


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## Al Jackson (Aug 4, 2018)

BigBadBob141 said:


> I enjoyed "Gravity" but correct me if I'm wrong, I could be misremembering this!
> I think the writers made a massive blunder.
> I think it's said in the film that the debris cloud which destroys the Shuttle & the ISS has also taken out all the worlds com. sats.
> This is very silly as the ISS orbits at a height of 250 miles, while all geosync com sats are at 22000 miles.
> ...



Gravity is odd in that it does zero g right smart well and 'not-sound in a vacuum '.  If that statement is true that is boo boo. I don't remember it. You know the film maker's technical advisor on the film, at JPL, suggested fixes for the screenplay that ran to 80 pages, but it would have busted the 90 min. run time frame. I am guessing that they did not run the final final script by their technical adviser.


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## Lumens (Aug 4, 2018)

The science and some of the events in Gravity was so appalling to me that I switched it off. Maybe I should watch it again, but switch off the nerd in me instead...


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## Al Jackson (Aug 4, 2018)

BigBadBob141 said:


> It's important to have a good story & characters, of course it is!
> But getting your facts totally screwed up is just plain stupid.
> I've mentioned these before, there's an SF novel where the Moon is explored by helicopter.
> And I came across a book on Amazon where aliens build an Orbital Elevator ie. a Beanstalk next to the city of Darwin.
> For various reasons a Beanstalk can only be built on the Equator.




You know the  beginning of *HARD* Science Fiction was in 1938 when John W Campbell took over Astounding. Campbell had a BS in physics and had been writing SF for several years. Now he always demanded a good story but he also wanted  viability, so that was part of the reason Heinlein and Asimov sold early to him. (Mind you Campbell didn't want it so HARD that it sounded like fictionalized Popular Mechanics.) Another thing that came out of Campbell was SF what had verisimilitude , SF that felt lived-in. Conforming to the known physical universe made this harder to write but more entertaining.


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## Vince W (Aug 5, 2018)

picklematrix said:


> Is Enemy Mine considered hard scifi? Havent seen it for many years, but i remember it being fairly logical. I need to see it again to see if it holds up.


*Enemy Mine *is a favourite of mine, but I wouldn't consider it hard sci-fi by any means.


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## clovis-man (Aug 5, 2018)

RX-79G said:


> Of interest, Wikipedia has a hard SF page, and offered these film examples, some of which I would say are good hard SF.:
> 
> _Dark Star_ (1974)[19]



Really? One of my favorite films of all time. The scene with the beach ball alien is priceless. But Hard SF???Aluminum and nylon lawn furniture as part of the crews quarters? Well, at least it would be light.


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## picklematrix (Aug 5, 2018)

Vince W said:


> *Enemy Mine *is a favourite of mine, but I wouldn't consider it hard sci-fi by any means.


I need to rewatch, i remember it being a really great story, thoughI cant even remember if it included FTL spaceflight.


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## Al Jackson (Aug 5, 2018)

Being the 50th anniversary year of *2001* I wrote an essay about the film, can read it here:

2001 at 50

There are some nit pickers who have found some very minor flaws in the film but 98 % of that movie is a 'hard SF ' masterpiece. (Note one can have Hard SF with a great story , you just stick to the facts of the universe and good principles of engineering physics.)  The only really speculate piece of 'technology' is the Star Gate and that had been used in science fiction  prose long before. (Heinlein has such like in Star Man Jones 1953.) Now days there is even a physics back ground for Star Gates , traversable Wormholes, which were used the movie *Interstellar.*
There are details in 2001 that just boggle. Any one ever think "when Bowman goes to retrieve Poole why didn't HAL take control of his POD?"  I did not know this , someone pointed out that in that sequence where Dave is flying the POD there is an insert of a display where is says Com Lnk HAL N/A. Dave has turned off HAL's access to the POD's control, gad! , only Kubrick would have thought to put that there!


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## BigBadBob141 (Aug 7, 2018)

I think "Dark Star" is excellent, hard or not!!!


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## Rodders (Aug 7, 2018)

2001 is one of those movies that I really want to see at the cinema, but never seem to get around to it. Next time it's at the Prince Charles theatre, I will go.


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## Al Jackson (Aug 8, 2018)

BAYLOR said:


> Does a film cease to be hard science fiction when it becomes dated and obsolete?



The physics in *2001 : A Space Odyssey* (even including the Star Gate) is as valid today as it was in 1968. The engineering physics on display sure could still be made.
2001 is not the only film or TV to do it but picking a date , not far enough in the future, it can bring up this problem. My take is that when 2001 came and went the movie 2001 passed into an alternate universe. One could make the case that all fiction is in an alternate universe and I would buy that.
Next year 2019 will go by and *Blade Runner* (1982) will pass into an alternate universe.(The setting there was November of 2019.)
Here is a question why does Hollywood put dates on future fiction SF movies? A long long long time ago prose SF writers did one of two things , they placed a space opera , like* Star Trek,* 200 to 300 years on the future to give a margin, or they gave no date at all. This was not done all the time but one could sure discern that SF writers were sensitive to having our world line pass by their story's date. *Star Wars* did a number on this by using time and space as a hedge, essentially putting the setting in an alternate universe.


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