Getting the U.S./Yanks out of our sci-fi

[Blue Ghost]

I saw a trailer of somekind for the latest Halo thing (game? movie? I can't remember), and it occured to me just how much USA military there is in a lot of contemporary sci-fi.

"Battleship"-US BB against some alien.
"Aliens" North American English speaking "colonial marines" fighting big bad hordes of aliens.
"HALO"- need I say more?
Most of the sci-fi "war"/"action" games on the market nearly all have a US military component to them.

Granted, militaries have common threads in them, but not all sci-fi is military oriented, or it never used to be, but that seems to be the rage these days with a lot of contemporary sci-fi.

In my day stuff like "Logan's Run", "Planet of the Apes" or even children's offerings like "Ark II" or "Land of the Lost" had real science and adventure components to them, and not just shoot-the-bad-guys kind of thing going on.

Is it me, or does sci-fi need to be reinvented?

Thoughts?

 

[far-trader]

There's actually more going on in the Halo game series than most current franchises. While it's mostly a FPS (First Person Shooter) game it has a rich underlying universe and story. Largely in the game itself (the Campaign side mostly), but also through several novels, a few short movies and some other aspects.

And it's not really Yanks in space. The action (human side) centers around the UNSC - United Nations Space Command with several countries and cultures represented in the game. There are themes of research and exploration figuring prominently. Of course, for a console game, action is where it's at, and so you have the conflict with the aliens and the armed response, overlaid on the background of that.

Granted, like most such games, it seems to be devolving into more of a generic, unable to tell it from any other FPS, "kill your friends" playground for foul mouthed 12 year olds who's parents buy them the game because they whine... but then that makes me sound like a crotchty old... hang on a second... "YOU SPARTANS GET OFFA MY LAWN RIGHT NOW!"

Sorry, where was I?

 

[Dragoner]

My TU never really has been yanks in space and I esp know so in some of the comments on my ToE's and such, which are pulled from a non-US military source. Things I avoid as well: 1) "Age of Sail" and 2) calling armor "cavalry". I know I have been accused of being hyper defensive of Marc, but we are from the same background (he's two hours due west of me) and were probably watching the same cheesy sci-fi on the saturday afternoon creature feature on WGN, so it doesn't take too many words to describe his sci-fi universe to me.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

I agree that there has been a spate of shoot-'em-up/military sci fi of late, and less of the thoughtful kind. But a few years back, all the sci fi was introspective Philip K Dick stuff. So, I think it runs in cycles - partly depending on the world around at the time (and we Yanks have had this war thing going for a decade+ now, so there's a natural flow that way).

I think another factor related to your whole post is that an awful lot of sci fi is written by Yanks. Not necessarily a good reason for that, but I think it is probably true. More true, however, is that almost all of it that gets turned into something prominent (games/movies) gets done by American concerns (Hollywood) or East Asian concerns (who happen to still be enamored with Americana).

So, yeah, it's there to stay for a bit - unless, of course, you can write something to top it all? If so, I would LOVE to read it. Please, please, please. (Hehe, the one non-American I'm reading at the moment is writing about the Age of Sail (Horatio Hornblower), so you're out of luck there! )

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,

I think I understand what you are trying to get at, but for the most part, other than the fact that the Colonial Marines spoke English (since it was a US movie primarily made for the US market) they could have very easily been the “European Union in space”, “NATO in space” or the “UN in space” etc.

Looking at the listing on the Internet Movie Data Base the members of the Marine group included enough variety in names that many of them could have been from countries other than the US, as follows:

• Lt. Gorman
• Sgt. Apone
• Cpl. Dwayne Hicks
• Cpl. Ferro
• Cpl. Dietrich
• Pvt. Hudson
• Pvt. Vasquez
• Pvt. Drake
• Pvt. Frost
• Pvt. Spunkmeyer
• Pvt. Crowe
• Pvt. Wierzbowski

 

[aramis]

Hi,

I think I understand what you are trying to get at, but for the most part, other than the fact that the Colonial Marines spoke English (since it was a US movie primarily made for the US market) they could have very easily been the “European Union in space”, “NATO in space” or the “UN in space” etc.

Looking at the listing on the Internet Movie Data Base the members of the Marine group included enough variety in names that many of them could have been from countries other than the US, as follows:

• Lt. Gorman
• Sgt. Apone
• Cpl. Dwayne Hicks
• Cpl. Ferro
• Cpl. Dietrich
• Pvt. Hudson
• Pvt. Vasquez
• Pvt. Drake
• Pvt. Frost
• Pvt. Spunkmeyer
• Pvt. Crowe
• Pvt. Wierzbowski

Except that they were USCM. Identified as United States Colonial Marines. And have US Flags on the shoulders.

Pretty typical US Army or USMC cross section, really.

 

[Sturn]

The market and creators of a large amount of these books and movies are the American public. So, no brainer that there is a bias in content towards the US military.

Is the upswing in military scifi due to the on-going wars in recent years? Back in the 80's/90's it was more Cold War then what we have now. It's not surprise the change is affecting our literature.

 

[Blue Ghost]

All of what everyone says is right on the money. Me, my family fought under Washington during the war of independence, and had been around years before that. I'm the first to not serve because of a couple of medical conditions. I say this because I'd like to show that I'm not an anti-US/US-military type at all, but I tend to acknowledge that the sci-fi flicks I grew up with weren't so military centric in theme and story as some seem to be today.

"War of the Worlds", the 1960's version that they used to show quite a bit, had the military involved as a protective entity, as is the case of a lot of classic sci-fi, but they weren't central as such to theme and story. It was more or less a case of call in the army because we don't know what else to throw at monster-X or invader-Y, and when that failed it was the heroic and dashing man with brains and brawn who saved the day

Okay, not always. I mean Gojira bit the farm with the oxygen destroyer created by a "mad scientist", and I think "The Thing" was burnt or something. And "The Blob" with Steve McQueen was done in with a cold snap George Pal's rendition of H.G. Wells' "Time Machine" saw our heroic George travel back to the future to save his Edweena from the Morlocks, but not before moving his time ship and snatching three books to take back to the future. He could have been a "Yank", but he was more or less a Brit.

I don't know. Just tossing out ideas here.

 

[sabredog]

Video games are not the entire be-all end-all of scifi, neither is film. The former relies on competition to drive the genre and the shooter tends to be the most reliable and desired type. And the US dominates the market.

The movies present vicarious excitement to an audience that tends towards being less tolerant of the deep science fiction stories that were more common in the 70's. So, with rare exceptions the movies that will make the most money (hence the studios will produce and people will see) are going to be big screen action shoot-em ups with lasers, guns blazin', and such. And since the median audience age for movies tends to be close to the same for the average video gamer it becomes obvious why the studios make the scifi movies they do. And since, again, the US dominates the market you get US in movies.

Finally, I agree with Sturn: the mood of the buying public swings to one type of film or game (and book if they still read) depending on all sorts of cultural shifts - conscious and unconscious. I grew up on Outer Limits and the Cold War scifi films of the 60's and 70's, then entered the USAF in the 80's. I was steeped in that culture and there was no end of military and invasions from somewhere type of books, films, games. It even influenced Traveller's development. That's the advantage of scifi, too: you can explore these sorts of things without worrying about offending the enemy, or anyone else.

Maybe since today everyone sees terrorists under their beds and behind every mailbox the shadowy enemy type of thing will start creeping into scifi more and more. Pod people again maybe, I dunno. In Traveller I suppose the zietgiest will manifest as the Zhodani Ine Givar teleporting around blowing things up while the Imperials start coming down on anyone who looks Zho. And eventually I suspect that the archetype will start showing up in the smarter science fiction films and games. Right now we just have to get the testosterone and zombies out of everyone's systems first.

 

[far-trader]

...zombies will never die.



Bad pun intended Though, even I'm starting to tire of the (mis-)treatment of the genre


...by the way Blue Ghost, I took the liberty of editing the title, I think I got the intent right, yes? Or should it be something else?

 

[Dragoner]

Still looks like it has an extra "of".

Give the timeline of the typical setting, it is something like 3600 years in the future, and while we are most likely remembered, our day is long gone.

 

[far-trader]

Still looks like it has an extra "of".

D'oh! I was sure I'd seen it and went to edit it and couldn't see it. Glasses? No, why would I need glasses...

...fixinged it.

 

[PFVA63]

Except that they were USCM. Identified as United States Colonial Marines. And have US Flags on the shoulders.

Pretty typical US Army or USMC cross section, really.

Hi,

I guess I probably didn't make my point too well, but what I'm trying to say is that had they been "EU Colonial Marines' or "UN Colonial Marines" or "NATO Colonial Marines" I kind of doubt that much anything (other than maybe the language spoken or, as you note, their unit patches, etc) would have changed.

To me even the mix of names and ethnicities shown could have just as easily been a European or multi-national group as much as it could be an all US group.

I guess another way of looking at this would be to ask, had they been some other group (say EU Marines, or UN Marines, or some form of United Earth Marines) what would you think would have been different about them?

 

[Timerover51]

I see it as a simple matter of demographics. The US has a population of about 312 million. The UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand combined have a population of about 120 million. The US has the single largest market by far. Therefore, English-speaking games and films are going to be biased to the US.

 

[far-trader]

Yep, and not just the market, but to a large degree the creators too will be coming from the same background.

That said, the games often do come in other languages which can shift the feel of the game somewhat away from one of USA centric. Playing Halo en francais was... different. And one of the main bad guys was excellently voice cast, or the accent was well suited

 

[Blue Ghost]

Yeah, it truly is a matter of demographics as far as the US rift goes, but the military theme, to me at least, is something that could be relooked at.

Two of the great 1960's sci-fi flicks are "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "First Men in the Moon". I've gotten marginally inspired by those works for a submission.

 

[sabredog]

The STALKER series from Russia is a guilty addiction for me. Fallout might give it a run for the money in some ways, but STALKER is far and away the best, most realistic post-apocalyptic game around.

The atmosphere is so intense and creepy I get the jitters every time I play some levels no matter how often I've played. I have to keep my potato vodka close to toast one certain NPC, and it steadies my nerves for those bad missions.

 

[dean]

"Aliens" North American English speaking "colonial marines" fighting big bad hordes of aliens.
"HALO"- need I say more?
Most of the sci-fi "war"/"action" games on the market nearly all have a US military component to them.

They aren't marines. The main character has always been called "Master Chief" (although he's not appearing in this iteration. These are Naval Infantry, special forces, "SEALS" as it were. They call them "Spartans" in the game and fight under the auspices of the UNSC (United Nations Space Command).

It's a US made game by a US producer using a US studio primarily aimed at a US audience. Should they speak French?

"HALO" is an allusion to the original title wherein said UNSC forces came across a Ringworld around a sun that (obviously) had been built by an advanced alien race and they both tried to use the available tech to their advantage as well as deny it to the enemy aliens.

 

[Blue Ghost]

They aren't marines. The main character has always been called "Master Chief" (although he's not appearing in this iteration. These are Naval Infantry, special forces, "SEALS" as it were. They call them "Spartans" in the game and fight under the auspices of the UNSC (United Nations Space Command).

It's a US made game by a US producer using a US studio primarily aimed at a US audience. Should they speak French?

"HALO" is an allusion to the original title wherein said UNSC forces came across a Ringworld around a sun that (obviously) had been built by an advanced alien race and they both tried to use the available tech to their advantage as well as deny it to the enemy aliens.

My bad. I didn't mean to say that they were all marines.

Speak French? No. Swahili? Maybe. Seriously, I remember a few years prior to Halo's release we were discussing Dyson Spheres and rings on this very BBS, and on another BBS I was cranking out classic Trek fiction where the crew represented various nationalities and ethnicities a-la Trek. It's easy to cross circuit and pull ideas from one genre to another, but I think back then we weren't talking on this BBS in terms of military themed campaigns and adventures, so much as discussing various settings and iterations of Traveller's settings.

Military themes are cool. I mean, who doesn't like a big gun fight at some point. But sci-fi is more than just troops and ray guns, right?

 

[PFVA63]

Yeah, it truly is a matter of demographics as far as the US rift goes, but the military theme, to me at least, is something that could be relooked at.

Two of the great 1960's sci-fi flicks are "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "First Men in the Moon". I've gotten marginally inspired by those works for a submission.

Hi,

Maybe that might be more the issue here; trying to move away from military themed stuff (regardless of nationality) and focusing more on exploration and/or other type science fiction themes.