Science Fiction

Not sure how unpopular this is, but I think Interstellar was fantastic and loved everything including the climax (which everyone seems to hate).

Shared universes between franchises are a bad idea. I don't mean commercially. They're a great idea if you want to make a billion dollars. But they're bad for storytelling.

Reason 1 is that the story being told is always in service to some other story. By which I mean, the writer has to make decisions that aren't about making this story the best it can be, but about making it make sense in context with everything that's come before it. For example, Batman can't just be a story about a smart, athletic vigilante in a costume. He has to be the smartest, most athletic human being who has ever lived, because he has to compete with, and remain relevant amongst, actual superheroes and supervillains.

Reason 2 is that it undermines the impact of each story because, again, the stories have to be considered within a massive context. In Watchmen, we can imagine the awe and horror people felt about Dr. Manhattan because, like in our world, nothing like him had ever existed. If you put him in the same universe as Superman, he's just another superhero.

Obviously I'm talking about large comic-book style shared universes with multiple authors and largely independent stories. I have nothing against franchises that use other works to expand on previously introduced concepts and do it in a coherent way.

My unpopular opinion is that Mass Effect 1 is the best game in the series. 2 was a giant side mission, and 3 was great but, the ending (which isn't as bad to me as it was to others). I keep going back to the first one (24th playthrough now) because it's more of an RPG than a shooter and had the best story of the 3.

I'm a great admirer of Isaac Asimov, but Foundation - the book - hasn't aged well at all.

My SciFi unpopular opinion is that is that any book by H. G. Wells is mind numbingly boring.

Unpopular opinion: I really liked Star Trek Discovery Klingons...

I liked Terra Nova and wish it didnt get cancelled after one season even though it wasn't a great show. I loved the premise of humans going back in time when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

This should make some people mad... I thought The Dispossessed was an awful book. The characters were flat and the way Le Guin explored the themes had all the nuance and subtlety of a Garfield comic. It's the only book of hers that I've read, put me off exploring the rest of her work.

Teleporters kill you and clone you. The person walking out of the teleporter may look like you and have your memories, but you are dead and that is a clone.

The process is likely incredibly painful, but because the memories of the clone are copied from just before the process started no one actually knows.

Enter my hot take: I dont really like the golden age of science fiction books. They are boring to read and the concepts are clunkily applied. Personally I think this is because while the authors might have been very creative, Ive since seen and read the same concepts and ideas in books and movies much better written, with a better ending and more mature thoughts on it. Those movies and books obviously stand on the shoulders of the golden age of science fiction. But that fact doesnt make me like those books more.

Starship Troopers is a good movie. The book is legendary, and after having consumed both pieces of media, I can safely assert that both were far-forward thinking for their time, both in terms of the tropes they helped enshrine into SF (dropship landings on planets, orbital bombardment, using exosuits to combat or enhance gravity, and so many more), but also in the realm of political commentary. The movie alone, to say nothing of the book, is a masterfully crafted parody of a fascist earth. The subtle inferrences into the unneccessary costs of a war that only serves to keep taxpayer costs down being carried out believably by a cartoonishly militaristic world government definitely gave me pause when I reflected on the histories of modern democracies.

The newest Robocop movie was actually REALLY good,

as probably the best prediction of how we will start with autonomous robots in the battlefield being sidekicks to a prime human operator,

and that there will be a public push back about them being deployed in a police manner, but a political push to deploy them in a civilian theatre.

And when the majority of someone's body is replaced by artificial limbs/organs/etc. At what point are they still human.

Star Wars isn't Sci-Fi, it's a space fairy tale.

My unpopular sci-fi opinion is that Discovery is an amazing adaptation of the Star Trek universe into the gritty, modern sci-fi paradigm.

I love it and I love that it is in the Star Trek franchise.

For perspective, my favorite Trek series is TNG.

I really cannot understand why everyone gets so excited by Rogue One. It’s a story that there was absolutely no need to tell, and I felt it only cheapens the stakes of both itself and A New Hope. Besides, the plot is barely coherent at times, with characters who are worked up into huge deals being left behind without any meaningful affect on the story. I liked the Vader scene, I’ll give it that.

For me, 2001 was a great little mini episode about an awesome killer AI, surrounded by weird imagery about monkeys and fetuses.

But my unpopular science fiction opinion? Fantastic Four (the one with Ioan Gruffadd) was a good movie.

ST:TNG specific: Data is not sentient, there is no ghost in the machine. His code is just very good at mimicry. he doesn't understand what he is saying any more than ChatGPT does. He is just predicting the appropriate course of action to do next.

• The Last Jedi is the best Disney Star Wars movie, bar none.
• Rogue One is overrated.
• Andor is not overrated, but it also cannot be the blueprint for all or even most Star Wars going forward.

I didn't love The Martian. It wasn't a bad book, but I got bored in places. I was more engaged by Project Hail Mary (which is probably another unpopular opinion).

EDIT: Guess I should mention I'm referring to the books. Never saw The Martian movie.

I like the Total Recall remake with Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, and Colin Farrell more than the original with Arnold. The original is overhyped gibberish, in my opinion.

Also, perhaps a premature unpopular opinion: If - IF - it continues to present the same level of quality for the length of its run, Silo will be better than The Expanse.

The vast majority of Star Wars, new canon and legends, is poorly written trash, but the cringe ass campiness is what makes it a star war.

Rey isn't the problem, revisionist history is.