*agrees, but can't smell the fish*

i'm watching fire fly
screw you, clown!

You're right, it's all crap.

Still, I hope to some day see a top notch movie version of Perdido Street Station.

"You are talking to serenity. and suren itty is very unhappy."

i almost picked up the book of that gaiman/dave bbc show?
neverwhere?
i got it from netflix

it was ok but not top notch winner.
is the book better?

book was entertaining as all hell.

battlestar galactica is amazing. inspiring. bemystuftifyinal.

it's good. real good.

and firefly and serentiy were amazing, too.

Is "Neverwhere" actually science fiction? I was under the impression that it was Gaiman's usual fantasy stuff.

And that's part of the problem: no offence to Gaiman, who's the nicest person I've ever met, but fantasy reigns supreme right now, and Star Wars pretty much ruined filmed science fiction.

There isn't anything good in science fiction film because fantasy-based stuff like Star Wars and The Matrix overturned the genre, and it's never recovered.

A movie like "Dark Star" could never get made today.

I'll have to check out that Battlestar Galactica--everyone seems to like it--but real science fiction is about ideas, not about space dogfights and jive-talking robots.

Battlestar Galactica is not about space dogfight or jive-talking robots.

It is about ideas inasmuch as any serious drama is about ideas; and it's the case that it also is concerned with abstractions and metaphor with regards to social structure and technology.

Far too often, science-fiction's grandiose pretension "to be about ideas" is facile and juvenile and about what you'd expect from, say, Objectivists.

The descent is fine British horror.

he's very generous, but i'd say he was science fiction in that he works from as hard a science as your average bear.

oh, sschmegegge, i can see your museability just for the name

ooh, ok, here's a scavenger hunt!
find a picture of me with neil the day after the second lollapalooza
i have a crazy scab sunburn on my nose

i look like death in both the fact i have on a long black nuit noir dress and otherwise

this may actually be impossible as you would most definitely have to combine the skills of very different people.

I have never watched stargate but i am too lazy to find the remote

and i like ben browder

Po' po' Kitty ain't got no space fighter or scary monster. Po' Po' Kitty.

Far too often, science-fiction's grandiose pretension "to be about ideas" is facile and juvenile and about what you'd expect from, say, Objectivists.

I'm no Objectivist; I'd just rather watch and read science fiction that's on the order of Silverberg's 1970s output than, say, "Event Horizon".

And I love "Star Wars", by the way.

i share the opinion of a man with a lovely bookstore in bloomington that he is good but, well, what is the word

too profilifc?

if you mean pohl, i rather liked his blue event horizon thing.

and i liked john varley
but i was barely in my double digits

hell, if it weren't for books i don't think i'd know boys got "hard"

thank you vc something or other (andrews?)

the first books, for both
books saved my brain
drugs saved my life

Are you talking about Silverberg, ethylene? Sure, he burned himself out, but his streak in the late 70s was amazing: Up the Line, Tower of Glass, Dying Inside, The Stochastic Man, and innumerable short stories. No wonder his eighties work is mostly set in one of Jack Vance's worlds.

isn't horror for the gay boys though, in a large part?
or boys who see women as "the enemy camp"?

i like thorns

I used to like Pohl, too (he's really, really funny), and "Titan" by John Varley was the source of my first spontaneous masturbation. There's zero-gravity sex in the first three pages. Hot.

Luke i am you KhanKirk
just watch gilmore girls

i think she's gonna drop the show to do a "NIck & Nora"

no, no, bad palladino!

and i am a original peter jackson fan, thank you
he's too damn skinny! don't get all weird and muscly or just get better clothes.

sorry, i am a girly girl
even though i kick ass but chew little bubblegum.

Yeah, Friday night used to be so cool for SF...does Fox even has a SF show these days? Fucking reality TV changed everything.

Has anyone mentioned that Battlestar Galactica is pretty good yet? 'cause it is.

interrobang and kmellis debated it for about two sentences, above, dano. I agree it's really, really -- unaccountably -- good, considering the source material, which was perfect 14-year-old space opera fare. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I would count films like Aliens, the Matrix, Terminator, and holy fuck, Blade Runner as excellent science fiction produced since Star Wars, so that argument isn't terribly cromulent. Good grief -- what else? Brazil. Mad Max. The Abyss. Twelve Monkeys. The Iron Giant. E.T. Gattaca. And as for SF on TV, we've had Farscape and Babylon 5, not counting all the Trek you could absorb in a lifetime.

Currently, we have the superior new Doctor Who, which is back to "just watch" territory. The Eccleston season was top-notch and produced one of the best Who stories ever, "Dalek", and it doesn't look as though quality is going to slack off with the new season.

interrobang and kmellis debated it for about two sentences, above, dano

Just for the record, we didn't really debate about it; I've never seen it.

Though I've heard so many good things about it that I'm going to check it out.

I'm one of those guys that doesn't have a television and can't stop telling everyone that he doesn't have a television, and also doesn't call it "TV" because diminutives are for friends, and television is not your friend.

*presents creditials*

I'm a complete and utter whore for good soft and hard written SciFi. I have a full height bookcase stuffed complete full of non-junk SciFi paperbacks and hardcovers, from Asimov to Herbert and Sturgeon, Brunner, Pohl, LeGuin, May, and much more.

The new Battlestar Galactica is absofuckinglutely amazing. There are grand ideas in it - but they're aren't absolutely new ideas.

The overarching theme - like a lot of good Sci Fi - is "What does it mean to be Human?" which they adeptly explore in a variety of ways, with subplots and sideplots and tangents all mirroring, reflecting and counterpointing the main theme. It's good. Damn good. Stunningly and startlingly complex for series SciFi.

To be honest, I too misjudged it at first. "Oh, fuck. Just what we need to throw TV SciFi back 30 more years. Robot dogs, space discos and shitty spaceship battles with bad acting."

I didn't even really get into it until halfway through season two. Soonish there should be more DVDs, and I'll get those and spend some time watching the whole story from the beginning again.

It's almost too complex to jump in mid-season. So, I'll wait until I get caught up.

The SciFi channel also has been producing a lot of new and random SciFi and horror stuff. They just did Ursula K. LeGuin's EarthSea - which I've neither read, nor seen, so I can't vouch for.

But Ursula K. LeGuin, man! As a whole miniseries of it's own! Christ, imagine that 10, 20 years ago!

Farscape is often often quite good, otherwise if just bad space opera. But better than the most middling to mediocre Star Trek by far.

Surprisingly Stargate has been good quite often. It's been bad quite often, too. But could easily trade blows with ST: Voyager or ST: Deep Space Nine.

Firefly was good, clean cowboy guns&fun, with plenty of braintwisters. Quite entertaining, but not painful.

Err, *presents credentials*

I hate this laptop keyboard. It's like typing on some kid's dumb toy. :\

interrobang and kmellis debated it for about two sentences, above, dano.

Gimme a little credit, stilicho, it was a joke thirdsies kinda thing.

That bitch Roe has always inspired me.

I've never been a "sci fi" fan, but then I grew up in the Star Wars era.

Gattaca was a brilliant flick, though.

Everything loquacious said about Battlestar and more. I'm anxiously awaiting next season on Netflix. I left off with the Captain Adama cliffhanger so for the love of all that's holy Don't Spoil It For Me!

loquacious nails it in a lot of ways. I might have said all that myself if I weren't so lazy and clinically brain dead. my fingers just kind of log in and type on their own. what on earth am I even typing now? i have no idea! you see! that's how brain dead i am! only fingers can say "what am I typing now? I have no idea!" like that!

oh, and ethylene made me lose my shit. in a funny way.

I don't care what you people say, I _love_ Stargate Atlantis. I mean hell, it is entertaining and fun.

Octogonal paper? Blow me.

all i hear are good things about stargate and battlestar redux but i never catch them or have the time to get into it.
i only have room i make for a small handful if current shows. i knew crazy babylon five people but i never had the time. i did catch some very cool episodes with some profs and BG parties and i think the arc of that two (three?) yearsof the original endpoint, it got really epic.

i like that show that ran for one season with Peter Horton, Lori Petty and few other people peopl know from other thing, where he's the cop back from hell. i liked it.
i could probably thing of tons more like the Phoenix or Manimal or that show with the guy made of energy or the greatest american hero.
Max Headroom anybody?

i think sci fi use to be more about society and societal issues and theory, like anthrosociopsychtheology and i love Ursula.
but disliked the version one of Lathe of Heaven. (i understand budgetary restriction)
i liked the redone Dune but i like Dune a la lynch and the scienkeiwicz comic version. (haven't seen the last one)
But it was a reflection of the 50's to 70's when people were sorting these issues for themsevles and i'm cutting myself off now before i how explain gibson is from 84.

i have too much to say about too many separate topics in this thread but i saw Gattacca at exactly the perfect mood moment for me and i was really proud of myself for knowing what it would be about the title (and the accidental screen saver i found composed of DNA sequences at the time)

*reverts to silon mode and pretends she's a car*

i am permenantly stamped with the imprint of star trek and space 1999 because of my childhood