What are your unpopular fantasy/sci-fi opinions?

Aeander

I'll start with mine. Dwarves and giants are lame. They're just reproportioned humans with anger issues, unless your setting actually bothers tweaking them in some meaningfully distinct way (like GW's stone dwarves - and even that could have used more substance and variety given how many types of minerals and gemstones could have been integrated into the designs).

Rungar

WHERE THE FUCK IS FLAT EARTH ONLINE!

Aeander

Rungar said:

WHERE THE FUCK IS FLAT EARTH ONLINE!

Some concepts are too unbelievable even for fantasy.

cameltosis

Good question!

I'll ignore the fact that simply having strong opinions about fantasy and sci-fi can make you unpopular......

1) Star Wars: Return of the Jedi is the best Star Wars film

I've always felt that Empire Strikes Back is overrated. Hoth is great, learning more about jedi training is cool and "No, I am your father" is a great twist. But, Return beats it hands down in my opinion! Visually more appealing, more variety, best light saber battle in the original series, story works well, final showdown between luke, vader and emporer is better than "i am your father".

2) No film or computer game has done "high fantasy" well

Nearly all films and games with a fantasy setting end up being human-orientated, usually set in worlds that are remarkably similar to medieval europe. Whilst I enjoy that setting and have had a lot of fun, it's not particularly high fantasy. Books seem to be able to deliver much higher fantasy and I enjoy it way more, I really love media that can stimulate my imagination.

Mendel

I dislike the fact that most fantasy games only present a single type of human.  There are many different cultures, and other than stereotypical facial and skin features, there's nothing.  There's more to us than appearance.

For SF games, there tends to be too much emphasis on odd-looking and/or cute aliens.  And they're everywhere.  How about a game featuring predominantly humans with minimal aliens?  Imagine a game in a Babylon Five type universe where there are limited alien species, not another Star Trek different-forehead-bumps alien.

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Quizzical

Rungar said:

WHERE THE FUCK IS FLAT EARTH ONLINE!

Nearly all MMORPGs use a map that is effectively flat.  The only exception that comes to mind is Uncharted Waters Online, and even there, the map is effectively a cylinder.

Mendel

blueturtle13 said:

That Star Wars is a terrible IP that does not do Sci-Fi or Fantasy well yet tries to combine the two. 

*ducks away from the mob's ire

A more accurate description is "Space Opera".  And it doesn't do that well, either.

Aeander

blueturtle13 said:

That Star Wars is a terrible IP that does not do Sci-Fi or Fantasy well yet tries to combine the two. 

*ducks away from the mob's ire

I mean, you're not wrong. Star Wars is the Sonic the Hedgehog of film franchises. There's a lot more bad than good within it at this point, it still has rabidly loyal fans long past the point where it stopped being relevant, and people are left to wonder whether it was ever that good to begin with.

Rungar

starwars has been ass since Return of the Jedi. Thats like 34 years or so of ass and still going. 

OldKingLog

blueturtle13 said:

That Star Wars is a terrible IP that does not do Sci-Fi or Fantasy well yet tries to combine the two. 

*ducks away from the mob's ire

Its a space-faring western that also tries to be a Yojimbo-esque samurai epic ... with daddy issues.

olepi

Aeander said:

blueturtle13 said:

That Star Wars is a terrible IP that does not do Sci-Fi or Fantasy well yet tries to combine the two. 

*ducks away from the mob's ire

I mean, you're not wrong. Star Wars is the Sonic the Hedgehog of film franchises. There's a lot more bad than good within it at this point, it still has rabidly loyal fans long past the point where it stopped being relevant, and people are left to wonder whether it was ever that good to begin with.

I remember when Star Wars first came out, and it was good. The first 3 movies are great, the others are a waste of time IMHO.

OldKingLog

My unpopular opinion. Almost all of the cyberpunk/near future sci fi genre pre 1990s should be discounted as they completely failed to imagine one simple but world changing invention ... the humble smart phone.

OldKingLog

Aeander said:

Rungar said:

WHERE THE FUCK IS FLAT EARTH ONLINE!

Some concepts are too unbelievable even for fantasy.

The ghost of Terry Pratchett would like a word with you.

Tuor7

Aeander said:
Some concepts are too unbelievable even for fantasy.

Middle-earth was flat, until God changed it.

Aeander

OldKingLog said:

Aeander said:

Rungar said:

WHERE THE FUCK IS FLAT EARTH ONLINE!

Some concepts are too unbelievable even for fantasy.

The ghost of Terry Pratchett would like a word with you.

The ghost of Terry Pratchett can give me all the words he likes. I reckon it would be a fun conversation.

Aeander

Torval said:

Dune:
Dune is mostly boring, preachy, and takes itself way too seriously. The seminal title could have been done in a third to half the word count and still been a decent story. It should have stopped there.

Star Wars:

blueturtle13 said:

That Star Wars is a terrible IP that does not do Sci-Fi or Fantasy well yet tries to combine the two. 

*ducks away from the mob's ire

Star Wars should have stopped at the first movie and wrapped it up then. It also takes itself way too seriously for what was basically a Buckaroo Bonzai with cutting edge special effects for the time period. The IP has had a perpetual identity crisis for the last 40 some odd years or so.

The best Star Wars entries, in my opinion, were Star Wars: A New Hope, Rogue One, and Mandalorian. The latter actually felt like what the series should have been all along. Rogue One was only disappointing because they killed off such cool characters in the larger context of their horribly drawn out saga.

Final Fantasy: 
Just get to the final fantasy for crying out loud. Talk about milking a brand.

Firefly:
Firefly deserved more time and had more stories to tell, but no way it should ever be resurrected or rebooted. The cast, crew, time, and context made it and any attempts at resurrecting it would be an abysmal failure and damage the IP.

While the name Final Fantasy is deeply ironic at this point, the brand persists because there is something foundational and endearing about it (something I rarely appreciate because the risks most FF games take DON'T resonate with me).

One can say much about its inconsistent quality, and I have, but it's just one of those titles like Fire Emblem, Tales, Dragon Quest, Persona/SMT, and Pokemon that have proven to be cornerstones of the JRPG genre. And I'd argue that some of those (cough Pokemon cough) are much less ambitious.

cameltosis

Whilst I can certainly appreciate a lot of the criticism for Star Wars, I hope everyone here is judging them through the lens of "kids films", given that they were written specifically for children. That is why the stories told are so basic and simple, they are made for 10 year olds to enjoy.

If you start judging a book, film or game in one genre by the criteria of another genre, then it all falls apart! Its like saying "love actually" is a terrible film because it's missing a car chase with terrorists, or thinking "Tangled" is an awful film because it lacks a sex scene.

Rungar

cameltosis said:

Whilst I can certainly appreciate a lot of the criticism for Star Wars, I hope everyone here is judging them through the lens of "kids films", given that they were written specifically for children. That is why the stories told are so basic and simple, they are made for 10 year olds to enjoy.

If you start judging a book, film or game in one genre by the criteria of another genre, then it all falls apart! Its like saying "love actually" is a terrible film because it's missing a car chase with terrorists, or thinking "Tangled" is an awful film because it lacks a sex scene.

remember that starwars movie where they couldnt catch up to the other ship...yea...

WhiteLantern

McKiernan is superior to Tolkien.
Voyager is actually pretty good Star Trek fare.
Every Star Wars book written between (chronologically) Truce at Bakura and The New Rebellion is superior to all of the live action stuff except The Mandalorian.

Aeander

It's not about how many pages a book is, but rather how well paced it is.

A Song of Ice and Fire books are long because Georgie boy is obsessed with mundanity and detail. The first third of every book in the series is pure torture as a result.

The Stormlight Archive novels may be around 1,000 pages long, but they are nigh perfectly paced, and are thus entertaining and fast reads. The material is there because there is just that much story to tell, not because Brandon Sanderson wants to go into detail on every feast and fuck his characters experience.

Aeander

Arterius said:

Here we go I love Brandon Sanderson. My favorite author but I think he is overrated. His books are good, great even, but I don't think his books are the second coming and some would have you believe. In fact I think that he writes so much and so fast that some books, though good, are lacking like they didn't get the time they deserved to cook.

The only series he really gives time to work on is Stormlight where he usually gives himself a year or more to write them, most books he gives six months, and it shows. 

My only complaint regarding Brandon Sanderson is that he wastes time on lots of Young Adult novels. Whether they are good by the standards of YA trash is not something I would know, but that time would be better utilized on his excellent fantasy works. Not that I can fault him for that, because it's the YA stuff that serves as the real money-spinner.

Quizzical

Torval said:

Final Fantasy: 
Just get to the final fantasy for crying out loud. Talk about milking a brand.

Final Fantasy was supposed to be the last game that Square would ever make.  Their previous games had flopped, so they were going out of business, and the name was chosen because it was a fantasy game would be their company's final game before shutting down.  They really didn't expect that there would be a Final Fantasy 2, nor for that matter, any other new games made by Square.

Then it was a hit, and they didn't go out of business.  What were they supposed to do?  Discard the IP that had saved them from bankruptcy?  Of course not!  Sequels, sequels, and more sequels.

Sovrath

I like the new Star Wars films (with criticisms of course)

Don't like any of the Gothic games

Castle design in Fantasy games don't take into account fantasy warfare or monsters.

I am enjoying the Wheel of Time Amazon series though I have strong criticisms about some of their decisions. Same with the Witcher on Netflix.

Don't really like Babylon 5 or Deep Space 9. I can watch them but would never do so on my own.

Most tabletop role playing games that I have tried are too wrapped up in minutiae and get very boring because of it.

Aeander

Sovrath said:

I like the new Star Wars films (with criticisms of course)

Don't like any of the Gothic games

Castle design in Fantasy games don't take into account fantasy warfare or monsters.

I am enjoying the Wheel of Time Amazon series though I have strong criticisms about some of their decisions. Same with the Witcher on Netflix.

Don't really like Babylon 5 or Deep Space 9. I can watch them but would never do so on my own.

Most tabletop role playing games that I have tried are too wrapped up in minutiae and get very boring because of it.

Is the Wheel of Time/Witcher opinion unpopular? Both franchises are getting good ratings and are generally well received.

Wheel of Time oozes respect for its novels. The people on board clearly care, and clearly want to make a good series. If you want to see a bad adaptation, look at the Shanaynay Chronicles.

Sovrath

Aeander said:

Sovrath said:

I like the new Star Wars films (with criticisms of course)

Don't like any of the Gothic games

Castle design in Fantasy games don't take into account fantasy warfare or monsters.

I am enjoying the Wheel of Time Amazon series though I have strong criticisms about some of their decisions. Same with the Witcher on Netflix.

Don't really like Babylon 5 or Deep Space 9. I can watch them but would never do so on my own.

Most tabletop role playing games that I have tried are too wrapped up in minutiae and get very boring because of it.

Is the Wheel of Time/Witcher opinion unpopular? Both franchises are getting good ratings and are generally well received.

Wheel of Time oozes respect for its novels. The people on board clearly care, and clearly want to make a good series. If you want to see a bad adaptation, look at the Shanaynay Chronicles.

Nah, for book purists they are not "good." Additionally, there are a few videos out there that downright roast Wheel of Time. Not all of their criticisms are off but at some point you just have to make a decision that you are watch something based on the books and leave it at that.

Yeah, I've started the Shanarra Chronicles but it's difficult to finish.