Do we need more sci fi set in fun and optimistic futures?

[CmdrShepN7]

I love The Expanse and Babylon 5 but I imagine all the philosophical and political stuff in Babylon 5 would turn off a lot of mainstream TV viewers. The Expanse is gritty and serious all the time although I really love the action.

Why not have a future where people enjoy being in that future?

Can a sci fi series with space battles, lovable characters, and an epic story with a future you would want to live in that is well written be created?

I have known reality show viewers who have a hard time getting into fantasy. I imagine it is the same for sci fi. Is it because fantasy and sci fi have complicated worlds? Or is it because of the lack of romance and too much technobabble?

Do we need a sci fi series with more romance and a interesting setting that doesn't require the viewer to be to obsessive to understand everything?

Do we need something that is a mix of Guardians of the Galaxy, Mass Effect, and the Culture?

Do we need a fun space opera?

 

[-K2-]

We're all doomed...

Past that, assuming you mean in film, though I could do without another Spaceballs, Guardian's of the Galaxy is awesome (I still need to see the second one), Galaxy Quest was fairly good. Romance is fine, though often no matter the genre, ends up as the same story/different era. But, fun is good.

I think some/most films need a bit more balance/diversity, period. You can meet a threat to the universe with a little bit of humor and romance. People don't all become serious and focused to the extreme just because they're doomed. In fact, if that's all there is, tension, just lie down and let it happen.

Oh... and I howled when Matt Damon was blown up in The Martian. That movie had a LOT of balance.

K2

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

My favorite vision of a happy future (admittedly, in a novel, not TV series) is Norman Spinrad's Child of Fortune.

 

[logan_run]

No the world is so optimistic and fun we don't need a utopia science fiction adventure series when real life is already a utopia.
Note:I was hewing sarcasm.

 

[Les]

YES! I have always thought that if I were ever to write a future sci-fi story, the foundation of that story would be a happy future in which we've learned from our earlier Earthbound mistakes and forged a path that leads to a future that is peasant to live in. Add to this contact and peaceful relations with many species across an incredible and vast galaxy which is teeming with life. Sure, there'll always be the bad guys, and I'm sure there's plenty of them out there, but I prefer to think of us humans as one of the less than ideal examples of planetary stewards. I have grown tired of the usual dystopian ideas. I know that authors use current social thought in their story ideas, but I want to imagine a brighter future.

 

[Parson]

Interesting discussion. For myself, Yes, I love a story that is set in a more positive universe. For popularity, Yes, I think the more hopeful setting is one of the things that made the Original Star Trek so much more popular than any of the subsequent, but likely better written and plotted, series. To appeal to the often nihilistic professional reviewer looking for something new; No.

Somewhat related: Decades ago, I don't remember who the critic was, or what book s/he was reviewing but one statement remains with me. I remember it going something like this: "When you have a normal and popular ending the main character lives, when you have a pretentious literary novel the main character dies. This novel is pretentious."

 

[Rodders]

I’m a firm believer in a Shadow philosophy. We need conflict to learn and grow. There is no such thing as a future without agony. How else are we to learn?

 

[-K2-]

Like it or not, Garden of Edens and bright, shiny futures, don't offer a lot regarding some conflict, test, or whatever. That said, the Star Trek series is about as utopian as you can get. Usually, the little problems brought on by diverse cultures interacting.

I have three current ideas I've been jotting down notes on, where each era/culture is portrayed as peaceful and happy ideals. There is nothing urgent or life threatening and really nothing negative happening. In each case it's a single person who is dissatisfied with with the utopian ideal presented, or fears the loss of 'their' ideal as the world changes (in all cases for what we would consider for the better). In each scenario, it becomes quickly evident that they will be novelettes at best, short stories more likely. There just isn't enough meat to work with when everything is good. The longer they're drawn out, the crazier the protagonist seems.

K2

 

[Abernovo]

I'm a fan of Becky Chambers, and also of some of the Solarpunk/GreenSciFi that is being published. I've never read the books, but I've also been enjoying The Expanse TV series (the last season of which did remind me of Mass Effect).

None of those are without darkness. They are certainly not without conflict. And, the futures they depict are not Utopian, or even always fun and optimistic; there are some hard truths about inequality, and the fragility of life. But, the overall thread running through them is of positivity, with an optimism that people can change the future for the better, if they stand together, and do the right thing. I like the fact that James Holden in The Expanse is basically Gary Cooper or Randolph Scott.

 

[Elckerlyc]

Well, I don't know.
Utopian futures seem very unrealistic to me. And, in itself, boring. There needs to be some conflict, some kind of struggle, to make it interesting. Many novels basically challenges the idea of utopia, as there is almost always a downside. There's always a group who have to pay the price for bringing the utopia about.
Sure, you can write or film comedies or tell a romantic tale, but you don't need SF/F as setting for that. So why use that as background if it chases away the masses that are not into SF or Fantasy? Comedies are fine, but I prefer a good SF story or film to that (and, btw, not SF that turns into horror!).
The movie Passengers comes to mind. It is a romance, set in a SF world. But is also a grim world in which the protagonists awake from cryosleep 100 years before their spaceship reaches it's destination and have to live their lives in isolation. Though, admittedly, they were mightily lucky that they didn't hate each other!
As I said, I don't know. Is what OP wants either possible or interesting? I suspect not.

 

[Toby Frost]

It depends on how you define it. You can have quite a jolly adventure in a very dark setting. The orcs in The Lord of the Rings want to commit genocide and wreck the world, but the overall tone of the books is more gentle melancholy and high adventure rather than horror and despair (although it's there). Many war films from the 60s and 70s could be shown at tea-time.

It's also difficult to imagine a utopian future, especially one that everyone would like. George Orwell once wrote about how hard it was to imagine Heaven, and how boring authors always made perfect futures sound. Everyone would want to avoid Orwell's dystopia, but I wonder how many would want to live in his idea of an ideal world? Iain M Banks' Culture is often sited as a pretty idyllic sort of place, although the books are far from jolly and I suspect the culture citizens would be really tedious people.

That said, I could easily imagine a world better than our current one, which would be far from perfect but a significant improvement. A story in which such a world faced off against an external dictatorship, or had to deal with evil people trying to undermine it, could be very entertaining. I think you'd have to deal with the possibility that a lot of people would rather follow a "charismatic" leader into disaster than live a quiet, pleasant and ultimately much happier life. But that doesn't mean that there couldn't be a better society out there.

 

[-K2-]

Well, I just watched for the gazillionth time Forbidden Planet, and perhaps I was wrong regarding utopian/romantic visions of the future. Besides keeping its place as the BEST sci-fi movie EVER made, it's rather utopian to the extreme. Not only has man reached his greatest point of advancement, the adventure of so much more still remains. There is romance in it, and when we get to the crux of it, it is only a single man's inner self which is the conflict.

Considering that upon reflection, many stories/movies hit that same mark. In fact, perhaps most. Societies shown, even mankind's are as utopian as they can be, considering their natural growth. It takes battling the bad to rise above it.

So, perhaps what is at issue is that common theme we see played out. It's not some crushing entity or alien race which is the problem, yet the battle with our inner, lesser selves. That will never be out of fashion, as it's what causes us as a species to advance.

K2

p.s.: Just for the record, Forbidden Planet should NEVER be remade, in my opinion. Besides the fact that I still find the visuals stunning, I don't see how it could be improved upon.

 

[Vince W]

p.s.: Just for the record, Forbidden Planet should NEVER be remade, in my opinion. Besides the fact that I still find the visuals stunning, I don't see how it could be improved upon.

What? You don't think it could be improved with top notch CGI and the flavour of the minute actors with a hip and edgy script with characters that never stop to think of the consequences of their own actions while making baffling choices to a conclusion that is not possible and never intended? Madness!

 

[Vince W]

I am more than a little bored with the trend of teen-dystopian futures we see in science fiction at the moment. Bart Simpson said it best, "Depressing teens is like shooting fish in a barrel."

I would like to see a world that, while not perfect perhaps, has gone a long way to address the general disparity we see in wealth, social interactions, and general well-being. There can still be dark themes and dangerous things but the relentlessly bland, everyone is in hell and there's nothing we can do about it idea needs to stop.

 

[ctg]

There can still be dark themes and dangerous things but the relentlessly bland, everyone is in hell and there's nothing we can do about it idea needs to stop.

My trilogy comes out from a very dark place, and it reaches light at the end. If I continue it, I will divide it between zones. But it's like Rodders say, there is no future where everything is fine and happy. If you can create a place where everything is fine and use it as a way to show, how they can get out from the darkness and despair then in theory you're giving the readers/audience hope and good feelings.

 

[-K2-]

What? You don't think it could be improved with top notch CGI and the flavour of the minute actors with a hip and edgy script with characters that never stop to think of the consequences of their own actions while making baffling choices to a conclusion that is not possible and never intended?

No...

K2

 

[Steve Harrison]

I am more than a little bored with the trend of teen-dystopian futures we see in science fiction at the moment. Bart Simpson said it best, "Depressing teens is like shooting fish in a barrel."

I would like to see a world that, while not perfect perhaps, has gone a long way to address the general disparity we see in wealth, social interactions, and general well-being. There can still be dark themes and dangerous things but the relentlessly bland, everyone is in hell and there's nothing we can do about it idea needs to stop.

I had this discussion with my daughter a few years ago, when she bemoaned the lack of fun adventure stories with well-adjusted teen girl protagonists (who still had both parents) and no boy troubles. So I wrote a novel based on my childhood memories of the UFO craze and straight-forward, no-nonsense books similar to The Famous Five & Secret Seven. The Earth is the same, but the wider human-filled universe has solved all the petty issues (or ignored them).

 

[Karn's Return]

I have to state the opinion that not only do we need more fun and happy sci fi, but we definitely need more fun and happy fantasy as well, at least for film, perhaps along the line of Terry Pratchett.


We just need more fun, upbeat, and happiness in everything now in general, to be honest. I'm sick of seeing grimdark all over the place. And yes, I would consider ASoIaF to be grimdark.

 

[Vince W]

And yes, I would consider ASoIaF to be grimdark.

I don't see ASoIaF as grimdark at all. I consider it to be grimzzzz...

 

[AlexH]

I don't think there are that many series that require the viewer to be obsessive to understand them. I wouldn't understand anything, if that was the case.

There would still have to be conflict from the protagonist's point of view, but even a utopia would seem like a dystopia to someone. The Giver comes to mind.