Right, intelligent aliens communicating, governing, trading, and fighting alongside humans in interstellar wars with faster-than-light travel, space lasers, artificial intelligence, autonomous robots, planet-destroying superweapons, cybernetics, cloning, advanced prosthetics, and energy weapons does not qualify as science fiction because it also has mysticism, prophecy, telekinesis, and sword fights…
Nah that’s not my point at all. I’m not saying all that space, alien and tech stuff doesn’t qualify as sci-fi because of the mysticism/prophecy/magic. My point is that you could probably tell Star Wars’ tale just as well without all those aspects in a traditional fantasy setting for example. Sci-fi, in my opinion, utilizes science or technology to start thought experiments and tell stories that wouldn’t be possible.
Take for example “Do Androids dream of electric sheep?” (the book Bladerunner is based on): The story tackles the ethical question at which point an artificial lifeform can be considered a person and should be treated as such. This is classic sci-fi: Take a fictional advanced technology and discuss the ethical or societal problems that may result from this technology.
This is something at least classic Star Trek does quite often while most of Star Wars’ technology could very well be replaced by fantasy elements without the underlying story being fundamentally different.
Right, intelligent aliens communicating, governing, trading, and fighting alongside humans in interstellar wars with faster-than-light travel, space lasers, artificial intelligence, autonomous robots, planet-destroying superweapons, cybernetics, cloning, advanced prosthetics, and energy weapons does not qualify as science fiction because it also has mysticism, prophecy, telekinesis, and sword fights…
Nah that’s not my point at all. I’m not saying all that space, alien and tech stuff doesn’t qualify as sci-fi because of the mysticism/prophecy/magic. My point is that you could probably tell Star Wars’ tale just as well without all those aspects in a traditional fantasy setting for example. Sci-fi, in my opinion, utilizes science or technology to start thought experiments and tell stories that wouldn’t be possible.
Take for example “Do Androids dream of electric sheep?” (the book Bladerunner is based on): The story tackles the ethical question at which point an artificial lifeform can be considered a person and should be treated as such. This is classic sci-fi: Take a fictional advanced technology and discuss the ethical or societal problems that may result from this technology.
This is something at least classic Star Trek does quite often while most of Star Wars’ technology could very well be replaced by fantasy elements without the underlying story being fundamentally different.