Is Science Fiction dead? Never.
Watchmen, Star Trek, Knowing, Origins: Wolverine, list goes on and on for this year alone.

Just take it as it is. The Sci-fi is dead

If Sci-fi were dead, kids ten years from now would be going, "What the hell is sci-fi?"
I don't see that happening anytime soon, especially within the next decade.

Yep sci-fi isn't dead, Also new sifi things are being made and shown all the time, It just takes a little imagination.

true

I'm going to be blunt here, because I see some people are still convinced sci-fi is dead (whatever that's even supposed to mean). People were probably saying this same shit in 1979 when Alien came out.

"What ANOTHER monster-on-the-loose flick?! Sci-fi is DEAD!"

Hollywood isn't the only place to look for good stories. We have books, comics, indie flicks, video games, and about a million other sources of science fiction-y goodness.

And furthermore:

Repeat after me: The Matrix, Pitch Black, 28 Days Later, Children of Men, Sunshine, Cloverfield. All in the last ten years.

I know what you're thinking. "But that's only 6 movies!"

The 1980's had: Predator, Robocop, Terminator, E.T, Alien Nation, and Back to the Future.

Aliens? Sequel.

Star Wars 5-6? Sequels.

The Thing? Remake of an adaptation.

The Fly? Same as above.

"But if you would include those, the list would be way bigger!"

EXACTLY!

If you include ALL Sci-fi films of the last decade rather than just the ones not based on something else, the list would be gigantic. John Carter of Mars, a famous series of novels from fuckin-A 1912, was inspired by a novel with a simaler premise from 1905. There are LOADS of other examples.

The argument that Sci-Fi is somehow "dead" makes absolutly no sense. Does anyone here honestly think that AvP:R was relevant enough to sink an entire genre? Let alone a genre that's over a hundred years old and spans movies, books, etc.?

I know it was bad. I know it was really, really bad. But it was ONE movie.

It reminds me of people who say pro wrestling was better in the 90's. And the people older than them who say it was better in the 80's. And on and on and on. They have convinced themselves that whatever they were watching as kids is better than what's current BECAUSE IT'S WHAT THEY GREW UP WITH.

All of these people are oblivious to the fact that pro wrestling was, is, and will always be guys in ridiculous costumes pretending to beat the shit out of each other. It isn't better or worse; it's different.

Same deal with Sci-fi.

True that, DD.

Sorry about the confusion surrounding the name of the topic, it was intent on catching your attention and bringing you into the thread, it dosent necessarily mean anything. It was up to the posters to mold the thread.

I stand by my last post. Science fiction has lost its edge in eye of the general public. Its more about reception comparison in the last 40 years for me. Obviously science fiction isnt going to "die out". And itl keep throwing out great science fiction moderne greats like cloverfield, COM, and Sunshine. Its just not the orientation of the general public, it was 30 years ago.

The topics been good, been interesting to see what people think on this but to conclude, maybe an alien vs predator board wasent the best place to post this. I got a much more varied response on a movie EMPIRE forum. I guess coming on here and posting that is like telling the UK and USA McDonalds is closing lmfao. Thanks everyone for posting.

Dont forget, im one of you guys, Science fiction is my childhood :D

Also, DD..... you know i have nothing but respect for you mate,.... we go back along way...... but theres no need to be blunt atol... its like a baby throwing his rattle. This is after all a discussion board and everyones opinion should be respected. Your post just came accross like you were a little fed up the minority still arent seeing it your way thats all. When everyone sees eye to eye the topic dies. Expressing yourself in this way is very counter-productive.

Just had to tag you on that, you can expect more of these types of broad, ambiguous threads from me, but it prefer if people didnt stub the flame out.

Well, whenever an apotheosis (or a pretty high peak anyway) is reached, no matter what domain we're talking about, it has to go rolling back down just to go up again when a new low is reached. Which probably means that we'll have a burst of great movies in a decade or so, after which comes the painful downhill road that we are seemengly experiencing now.

"Its more about reception comparison in the last 40 years for me." are we talking about the public's reception or the box office reception? either way i think its still alittle steep to suggest that scifi isnt getting either. at least where i live sci-fi is well recieved and discussed. And really the big thing that brought science fiction to mainstream popularity was star wars.

plus you havnt really shown any proof to the claim. just would be good to understand what your evidence is for your viewpoint, would make a better discussion lol.

Im trying to still understand your argument because sci-fi is being well recieved critically, well recieved in the box office and in the public mindset.

also why isnt this a valid place to discuss this topic? most of us are film fans of every genre like people on EMPIRE's forums. its not like we're biased to science fiction because we really like one franchise lol...well then again...

When dealing with science fiction, box office results and general public opinion are the same thing. People often seem to forget that box office results is a form of accumulated success no matter how you look at it.

Obviously there are great movies that dont do well at the box office. No Country for old men comes to mind, One of the best movies ive ever seen, well deserved oscars and it just about held it on weight in terms of earnings.... not so good

There are also mediocre movies like titanic that scrape 2 billion dollars. (Makes me sad) Because every female on the globe forked out twice on a seat and a box of tissues

Science fiction movies on the other hand tend to be big budget movies that are well commercialized anyway, therefore they can be rated on box office success, thats exactly what ive been doing and is one of the main reasons ive come up with this topic. You can call it unfair, but these numbers have to be heard and respected. Why? Because ive said, im not talking about the quality of the movie... im talking about public perception on science fiction present vs past.

Il just take a few of the names that have been floating around this thread and to be relative to what ive already mentioned im not going to post any results on big franchise movies in the present section beasue these movies are feeding off of the predetermined success the movies from the past had to go out and achieve fairly or movie with Ticket selling names like will smith or keanu reaves. Like ive said, they disrupt the results because people will go see those actors regardless of the film. To also be fair to the present section i wont mention sequels like aliens which have the same effect as present franchise movies
5 vs 5 of the mentioned films,

Recent
----------
Sunshine Budget
$50,000,000
Earned
$30,000000 = -20,000,000
----------------------

28 Days later Budget
$8,000,000
Earned
$82,000,000 = + 76 000 000
---------------------

Death Race Budget
$50,000,000
Earned
$75,000,000 = + 25,000,000
-----------------------
Children of Men Budget
$76,000,000
Earned
%70,000,000 = - 6 million
-----------------------

Cloverfield Budget
$25,000,000
Earned -
$100,000,000 - + 75,000,000
---------------------

Recent 5 Overall = + $150,000,000

Past
------------------------
Alien Budget
$11,000,000
Earned
$185,000,000 = +174,000,000
-----------------------
Terminator Budget
$7,000,000
Earned
$78,000,000 = + 71,000,000
------------------------
Predator Budget
$18,000,000
Earned
$98,000,000 = + 70,000,000
----------------------
Robocop Budget
$10,000,000
Eraned
$60,000,000 + 50,000,000
---------------------
Since DD previously mentioned E.T and not me im going to cruel and use it here lol
E.T Budget
$10,000,000
Earned
$800,000,000 = + 790,000,000
-------------------------

Past 5 overall = just over 2.2 Billion

Bare in mind that inflation favors the recent movies to do better and they still get massacred even with that. Also bare in mind that Alien made more money than all 5 of the modern greats from tha last 10 years

----------
To conclude...... Im 100% Correct in my argument. Science fiction is 'dead' in the eyes of the vast general public and the people creating the later somewhat puny box office numbers are people like you and me. I do honestly believe box office results is a fair way to rate sci-fi movies , but even if you dont agree there all science fiction movie anyway so its still fair.

The Doctor
'Im trying to still understand your argument because sci-fi is being well recieved critically, WELL RECIEVED AT THE BOX OFFICE and in the public mindset. '

Ahhhhhh, NO it isnt!!!!!! You understand now kid?

however compare the box office of sci-fi from the seveties and sixties, your just comparing to the 80's really, bar alien. indeed the 80's were the most fertile time for sci-fi. your basically saying 'sci-fi isnt as good as it was in my day'. but this is to the change of culture in the western world. people are not seeing films like sunshine and children of men because they are science fiction but because they are overall too smart for their own good. plus the marketing for these films was terrible. the target audience for these films is quite small.

your list should include something like "the day after tomorrow" which grossed $542,771,772 - $125,000,000 = $417,771,772. also death race cant be included as its a remake of a pretty unsuccesful film. Two of the films in the present list were flops, hardly fair using them when your gonna use E.T which was only really successful because it was a kid's film. which opens up its target audience tenfold, i doubt kids flock to see sunshine.

so why cant we use WALL-E as a present example? oh thats right its already got the pixar name to it, sorta how E.T had spielberg's name behind it, which it did capitilise on.

take away E.T and your numbers are slightly smaller, also add something like TDAT and we even out a little. btw building on past success does not ever mean the film will be a success. I dont got, oh its iron man, i like iron man ill see that. i go wow that looks like a good film, i might see it. hell most people in my country dont know what iron man was before the movie. being a good film has more to do with it than a brand name. compare 'the dark knight' to 'batman and robin' same character to the public just one happened to be a much better film.

Predator really shouldnt be used either, the main money making prospect for that film was "it Ah-nold...fighting an alien!"if we cant count in will smith today we cant count predator. terminator however was before Arnold's mega mainstream days sorta how independace day would be to big willie.

what im getting at is your arguement is lynchpinned now on E.T. and hell if your gonna use E.T use star wars too which in my mind is what created the whole sci-fi craze of the 80's which all these films are a product of which technically is exploiting previous success.

ok so this is my arguement and that is that pre star wars sci-fi was nothing huge to the public, star wars hits and becomes the biggest sci-fi film probably of all time and we have a 13 year run of great sci-fi. even Alien was a by-product of star wars, along with films like Moonraker, the black hole and star trek the motion picture.

this "Star wars effect" changes things in cinema so greatly that it takes two decades to slow down.

so really if sci-fi is "dead" (which it isnt) then it died when the "star wars effect" died out in 1990. so topic changes to a direct comparison to the time frame that was the peak of sci-fi to today. for sci-fi to be dead it would need to be the worst decade in box office for science fiction which it isnt. without star wars sci-fi would never have achieved the cultural status it had in the 80's

sci-fi is just as well as it was before the star wars effect so how is it dead?