For example, when you rely too much on fantasy to
carry your story it becomes difficult to take the
science seriously, or to even see where science
can be said to be involved. Its tempering quality being weak or missing altogether.

Spanning the extraordinary distances in outer
space say, as Padmé did to get to Anakin in “ROS”
in any reasonable time to move the story along.
Doing it like they did is ridiculous. Coruscant to
Mustafar, a planet which is a satellite of a double
gas giant star system on the outer rim, used as a
Separatist stronghold in less than a days travel.
More like a couple of hours actually. Gee how long
does it take Anakin to wipe out the last of the
Separatists and leave the planet?

The average person probably can’t explain how a
Color TV set works or a computer but when they see
these things in operation it becomes easier to imagine how they might work. How do you relate this to traveling enormous distances that people have at least some idea what it’s like to travel great distances. You see TV pictures of the Saturn 5 that took man to the moon, an object that looks
far bigger than anything we can relate to in every day life here on the ground. Perhaps even getting a better size perspective by going to see the rocket that took man to that big shiny ball. It becomes far more understandable the effort it takes to get anywhere up there.

Then their’s the whole illogic of Padmé’s death. To leave Anakin conscious during his surgical procedures isn’t
medically & technologically stupid? Then what about reaching
across light years of distance to kill her? Then after his procedures to believing he was responsible for her death, how does a person continue living? That last one just seems like a common sense question. If he can reach across such
vast distances, realizing how much of a part the future Emperor was complicit in her death, after all, he didn’t have him anesthetized; I don’t see it, taking years for Anakin to be somewhere close to Sidious to do away with him, say strangling him in his sleep? Hey he talked to Padmé about killing him. I’d give it a month max. This is a classic example of world orientation according to morality. In this case a twisted one. Science Fiction is better utilized when it is closer to the real world. The real world is indifferent to our situation, morality and emotion don’t govern physics.

It’s really not that great of a stretch of the imagination to set the entire Star Wars story into a complete fantasy setting. Why bother with space ships and planets when what would be more conceivable is a medieval European setting. Just put this piece of the Star Wars story in Britain
and France and it becomes far more relatable to a
person that wouldn’t relate to the ideas supposedly attributed to the devices of Science Fiction.

My neighbor was ranting tonight on movies. He started on “Avatar” he couldn’t believe they spent 50mm dollars to make it. I almost didn’t have the heart to tell him he was off by a factor of 10. He quickly acknowledged that he meant 500 but I think he still had difficulty imagining that amount of money. He then proceeded to rant about “Sherlock
Homes” asking why he should be interested in a character from 50 years ago. I think he might have been talking about when he actually read the novel, since it’s more like 122 years since it was first published. I acknowledged his point, however poorly he made it. But you see the problem? He’s of the Football Corvette culture. Entertainment
for him is “Lonesome Dove,” “Melrose Place,” “The
Godfather,” a trip to the firing range.
Spending an afternoon at an auto club event or at
the races. It doesn’t make any sense to him to
spend 500 million dollars on a fantasy tale. Now
suppose I’m arguing that the story isn’t too far
fetched to such a person? Then try to explain the
reasoning behind the mixing of genres or if that’s
even true or not or whether it has any value to set a
distinction. That a story like that holds any
meaning? His indirect argument, give me relatable
entertainment becomes a stumbling block to the
successful effort of mixing genres. You have a better chance by sticking to a pure genre. Someone like him can handle the single concept. A fantasy that has a moral or a Science Fiction story that explores what’s probably possible.

Since the Magazine of Fantasy & Science-fiction has been in publication since 1948 I can imagine a complete collection would be the envy of many SF&F fans everywhere. I certainly would enjoy a chance to peruse such a collection. Owning such a collection would no doubt be expensive and at my age I certainly couldn’t read a fraction of what I haven’t read over the years. Besides, I’ve been far more interested in the more durable novels than the rag pulps. Still if you’ve read critiques by Blish, Knight, and Lem you have some tools to measure stories from any source and evaluate them on those terms that authors that have worked the field and have written diversely in upper and lower realms.

LeQuin is not as hard science as, say, Poul
anderson or one of his later off-spring, Gregory Benford but most of the 2nd wave of SF authors (the British new wavers, Roger Zelany, Harlan Ellison to name a few, were not as hard tech as Anderson, Dickson, Asimov, Clarke and the great Heinlein but they respected the genre and at least took care not to stamp on the legacy beginning to be left to them by their immediate predecessors.

Cameron, Lucas, Scott, the mature Spielberg, even Zack Snyder are auteurs I feel have a deep love for the genre of SF in all its permutations.

Hell, all I had, growing up, is George Pal and a few Britishers.

Enjoy this time.

On the other hand, to stir up the pot, many people consider Star Wars fantasy and not sci-fi due to the very “unscientificness” of what it portrayed in the films. Ships with no apparent supra-lightspeed capabilities traveling between star systems for example.

Vic

“Did you hear those words? FANTASY and SCIENCE FICTION – the same two words I’ve been saying apply to Avatar, only to catch much flack for even suggesting such “blaspheme.”

Dude let it go for the love of all that’s holy!!

Come to think of it, there was a bit of scientific rigor in that story; the ships were limited to light speed, as was (I believe) communication; no ansible in it, IIRC. The human colony was pretty much cut off and alone against the natives.

Of course this is Science fiction/ fantasy who said it wasn’t? Weird?

You might have brought up the question Kofi but I’ve been the one right there to say, this is how you tell!