Science fiction presents a vision of the future - it is, I think, an effective mirror for the collective thoughts and beliefs about what is to come. For much of the 20th century people were strongly optimistic about the future - postwar and into the tech boom in the 80s and 90s it seemed like everything was only going to get better.

Nowadays though... we don't have that optimism anymore. We have climate change rapidly escalating, corporation's sucking us dry, states doing fuck all about it. This is reflected in those grim police robots and dark themes, just as the shiny space ships and friendly aliens of the past reflected the optimism of the time.

N.b. I do agree with the other commenter who said audience expectations of "realism" play a role - but I also think audiences have a pretty warped idea of what is realistic.

[–] StellarExtract@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To my mind the old way is sometimes actually more "realistic". The future evolves in unpredictable ways. Look at all the past predictions of the future that just look like that same time period with bigger buildings and flying cars. Today's "hard" design approaches will likely evolve as poorly. Nothing is more futuristic to me than a design that is completely incomprehensible by current logic.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like a bit of both.

Why are the space ships aerodynamic?

Style, dork, you ever heard of it?

Why do they have weird exposed engine nacelles? Isn't that a structural weakness?

Because they love to explode.

Do your weird shit and then come up with a why.

[–] drlecompte@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah, not everything is super utilitarian. The other day we were in Antwerp's old harbor, which has these big open hangars. The roofs and pillars are pretty ornamental, and these are basically 19th century industrial buildings. Built today they would be all straight lines and flat panels.

I think it's cool if people imagine a future that's not just about technological progress but also culturally very different and even disturbing. I think Dune does a fairly good job at that.

[–] GreenMario@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So my headcanon for Star Trek TOS is that it's actually a stage play done by the arts department of Starfleet Academy. Pre-holodeck so probably done right after 1701-A retired. It's why Strange New World's/Kelvin/Enterprise looks more.advanced as they had to scrap some shit together to build sets and props. They probably did some artistic license as well, going for a retro-futuristic look. Not to mention the very over the top acting.

Now I know what you're gonna say. "What about Trials and Tribulations?" Well it's all a flashback scene anyways, Sisko is telling the whole story and the Temporal cops are imagining it based on the stage play they probably saw a holo recording of.

"What about TNG Relics?" Shut up lol

[–] rotopenguin@infosec.pub 2 points 1 year ago

The one part of the "SNW look" that I don't like is the need to show off enormous volumes of empty space. Some of the places such as Engineering are more like a gutted McMansion than "a working space that is conflicted between the need to efficiently pack in monstrous machinery, and provide access for the people that maintain it".

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Personally I think the modern stuff is way, way better.

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website 14 points 1 year ago

Sometimes I'm in the mood for one and sometimes the other. The Expanse comes to mind for a modern "hard" scifi that talks about the tech a lot.

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I love sci-fi designs so much more when whatever technology they have is completely illogical and looks like something completely fictional.

I don't want to see/read about futuristic vehicles that look like they took a modern vehicle and just gave it AI self-driving capabilities or planes that look like something you'd see made today.

[–] AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Case in point, the needler from Halo. The in universe lore is that they are basically magic crystals and even the covenant don't know how it works.

Hard sci-fi can be great, and Halo often goes a long way to explain things, but it knows when to just say "it's magic, fuck off"

[–] drlecompte@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

So, like bicycles? Afaik we don't exactly understand why they stay upright.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Virgin Arthur C. Clarke vs Chad Stanisław Lem

[–] WhyIDie@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

ITT: a textual analogy to the pic

[–] JakeShelton@startrek.website 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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[–] cultpony@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

Both have honestly existed for a long while. The term is hard SciFi and soft SciFi.

Hard SciFi is concerned with making sure that it's rules are self consistent and the ramifications are clear. Early examples include Perry Rhodan, which had schematics for technologies in the story on the silver books.

Soft SciFi however is not concerned with those issues, it wants to tell some specific story but if the FTL they used has consistent and realistic rules is not that important.