Why wasn't sci fi taken seriously in the 2000s?

[AstroV69]

I remember back in 2015 there was a comment on a video for a Johnny Cash song that stated “Looks like a game ----- play” after a E3 2015 trailer that revealed Mass Effect Andromeda used a Johnny Cash song.

I didn’t know if they were referring to the original trilogy or Andromeda.

Andromeda did turn out to be more cringy though. The Andromeda characters felt more like college students than hardened soldiers, mercenaries, and intellectual scientists of the original trilogy.

This looks like a generic game with a Marvel style story created by college aged people who are enthusiastic about social issues.

While on the other hand this looks like a gritty space war military drama.

I’ll admit when I first saw ME1 it looked a bit too cartoony for my tastes but I’d never say anything like that.

Then one day I got tired of CoD and picked up a cheap copy of ME1 from a local GameStop after a friend begged me to play it.

Since then narrative based games have my preference. ME OT, To The Moon, Valiant Hearts, etc.

I ain’t going back to CoD ever again.

I don’t know why I had that prejudice against sci fi in the first place.

Perhaps American society before the 2010s conditioned people to conform.

Society definitely seems more open to geek culture nowadays.

I hope that ignoramus is enjoying Baldur's Gate 3 and/or Starfield right now.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Vanamonde

[SunlitZelkova]

As a kid, I remember STEM not being a thing pushed in schools until about 2013-2014.

So I’d assume we didn’t recognize the value of engineers and scientists until around that time. The 2000s thus remained similar to the past century, where things like athletic ability and “mainstream” education for business et al was exalted instead.

The quality and high popularity of MCU movies may have had a big role in normalizing geeky stuff. It showed Hollywood that successive sci-fi movies could make money and gain a big following. Thus we got more sci-fi movies, and now kids and teens are all about that sciencey stuff.

Spoiler

Or maybe the CIA instituted a campaign in the media to cultivate young engineers to develop technology for competition with other states. /s

 

[DDE]

I remember a similar conversation on this forum a few years (?) ago. I think you're missing a few extra steps, and Mass Effect (*sighs wistfully*) jumped onto an already accelerating bandwagon.

On 9/7/2023 at 4:18 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

The quality and high popularity of MCU movies may have had a big role in normalizing geeky stuff. It showed Hollywood that successive sci-fi movies could make money and gain a big following. Thus we got more sci-fi movies, and now kids and teens are all about that sciencey stuff.

I heavily disagree. I think it's a product of two processes: (1) the "maturation" of serialized TV sci-fi with stuff like Battlestar Galactica, (2) the mainstreaming and, at times, stand-up guyization of nerd culture with shows like the Big Bang Theory.

Spoiler

Illustration of convergence of the above-mentioned trends:

The trend had reached a crescendo with big-budget items like Interstellar and The Martian, the latter being a very, very unconventional story for Hollywood - no antagonist, not even a comically evil general looking to kill Matt Damon for fraternizing with the Martians.

And I really, really don't know what's going to happen now, with Hollywood and the para-Hollywoods of streaming services and AAA gaming in a creative crisis and suffocating on their own excessive production costs, and with a decidedly interesting surrounding socio-economic context.

I really don't think the Generation Z (Remember that term? The pun is fully intended) of media is going to just be a mere continuation.

[kerbiloid]

I guess, a permanent, personal, reality-augmented, AI-generated, oneiroid syndrom will soon perfectly possess a human's subjective reality.

No need in sci-fi, when you are living in a fantasy.

The Matrix was a naive story for kids.

[Nuke]

you can always make more money in the younger demographics, so all the shows/movies/games target those demographics at the expense of the aging fanbase. so when your starship bridge starts looking like a frat house, the shows become very unwatchable. especially when you got older and younger characters acting like they are in their mid '20s or whatever the target demographic is. good shows have an assortment of characters who are not only different ages but also act their age. modern entertaiment has not only targeted the younger demographic but they have also declared war on people older than 35 it seems. 

especially with games there is incentive to only gain young players, as the pricing models and marketing practices have been slowly becoming more a lot more casino-like, in frog-in-a-pot fashion. younger players are preferred because they have no recollection of a previous golden age in gaming where games were fun, of high quality, and affordable. 

[SunlitZelkova]

15 hours ago, DDE said:

I remember a similar conversation on this forum a few years (?) ago. I think you're missing a few extra steps, and Mass Effect (*sighs wistfully*) jumped onto an already accelerating bandwagon.

I heavily disagree. I think it's a product of two processes: (1) the "maturation" of serialized TV sci-fi with stuff like Battlestar Galactica, (2) the mainstreaming and, at times, stand-up guyization of nerd culture with shows like the Big Bang Theory.

  Reveal hidden contents

Illustration of convergence of the above-mentioned trends:

The trend had reached a crescendo with big-budget items like Interstellar and The Martian, the latter being a very, very unconventional story for Hollywood - no antagonist, not even a comically evil general looking to kill Matt Damon for fraternizing with the Martians.

And I really, really don't know what's going to happen now, with Hollywood and the para-Hollywoods of streaming services and AAA gaming in a creative crisis and suffocating on their own excessive production costs, and with a decidedly interesting surrounding socio-economic context.

I really don't think the Generation Z (Remember that term? The pun is fully intended) of media is going to just be a mere continuation.

Disagree on how it effected kids or the reason we've seen so much scifi in Hollywood?

If the former, I would disagree, at least for my peer generation (born 2000-2002) as none of the people I know really knew about those shows at the time they became interested in science. Not to say that the MCU was the key reason most of my friends have gotten engineering degrees either, but I did notice a strong push on STEM themes around 2013-2014 in the stuff I watched, both on TV and in the theater (and in school curriculum).

If the latter, don't disagree, but at the same time I can't say I find your point plausible, just because I don't know how much the TV industry and movie industry affect each other.

9 hours ago, Nuke said:

especially with games there is incentive to only gain young players, as the pricing models and marketing practices have been slowly becoming more a lot more casino-like, in frog-in-a-pot fashion. younger players are preferred because they have no recollection of a previous golden age in gaming where games were fun, of high quality, and affordable.

In their defence though, video games are kind of for kids. Are more "mature" titles really that "kiddy-ized"?

Loot boxes are just evil though. They've been banned in some European countries due to basically being gambling.

[Nuke]

6 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

In their defence though, video games are kind of for kids. Are more "mature" titles really that "kiddy-ized"?

Loot boxes are just evil though. They've been banned in some European countries due to basically being gambling.

idk about that. many games have an m rating and are meant for young adults. i play mechwarrior online quite a bit and that community is like 90% aging battletech grognards.

its not just loot boxes. the pricing models are attrocious. makes me long for the days of flat priced games. buy once and done, and get the expansion if it was good. now you buy bits and pieces of games, endless waves of mediocre dlc and exclusive features if you bought it from a particular game store. 

[magnemoe]

On 9/13/2023 at 2:00 AM, Nuke said:

idk about that. many games have an m rating and are meant for young adults. i play mechwarrior online quite a bit and that community is like 90% aging battletech grognards.

its not just loot boxes. the pricing models are attrocious. makes me long for the days of flat priced games. buy once and done, and get the expansion if it was good. now you buy bits and pieces of games, endless waves of mediocre dlc and exclusive features if you bought it from a particular game store. 

This trend in gaming is pretty old but has become much worse. I say media tend to follow trends if you have something with great success. You had all the MMO wow clones after WOW took off. 
The idea of getting constant money after the game was sold is very tempting for publishers, even more so than chasing trends. 
So we end up with 100  mediocre battle royal games with microtransactions. 
But we also get plenty of good games. 

 

[Nuke]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

This trend in gaming is pretty old but has become much worse. I say media tend to follow trends if you have something with great success. You had all the MMO wow clones after WOW took off. 
The idea of getting constant money after the game was sold is very tempting for publishers, even more so than chasing trends. 
So we end up with 100  mediocre battle royal games with microtransactions. 
But we also get plenty of good games. 

 

good games do exist in the indie sector. developers who still see game dev as an art form rather than a cash cow. 

Edited September 14, 2023 by Nuke

[Viking23]

Perhaps the effects in the films were not of very good quality.