The Problems With Sci-fi

In reference to ongoing discussions with some of you about the difficulties of writing sci-fi, here's an excerpt from Today's Salon Article Called "Why America is Flunking Science."

• Let's take these two halves of Crichton in sequence, as both embody important lessons about science in our culture. First, science in the entertainment media. Crichton had little patience for scientists' complaints about ridiculous sci-fi plots and wild scientist stereotyping. In a 1999 lecture before the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he countered such gripes with his own perspective on why scientists will probably never be very happy with the products of Hollywood. As Crichton advised, there are at least four important rules of movies that just don't mesh with the real process of research: "(i) Movie characters must be compelled to act. (ii) Movies need villains. (iii) Movie searches are dull. (iv) Movies must move." Crichton argued that real science, with its long, drawn-out intellectual processes and frequent dead ends, simply can't be reconciled with such exigencies. "The problems lie with the limitations of film as a visual storytelling medium," he concluded. "You aren't going to beat it."
• Crichton's words are worth heeding. People who care about science and want it to come off better in the mass media can't ignore his four rules of movie storytelling. They can't ask for entertainment products in which the characters do actual research (or at least not much of it). They can't ask for entertainment products that will be boring — a contradiction in terms. Rather, the goal must be to work toward finding ways of conveying information about science through film and other entertainment media without rendering them dull or unpalatable to audiences.