this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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It’s not so much a sci-fi film as a horror film in a sci-fi setting.
Is that like saying Star Trek is more of a Western show with a sci-fi setting?
I fucking hate this but it's true. God dammit.
...almost as if Science Fiction can just incorporate different genres, to become one hybrid genre.
Event Horizon is a horror film in a sci-fi setting. Alien is a sci-fi set in a horror situation.
What makes something a sci-fi film?
The science in the film is fiction. Like jump drives, FTL, or interstellar travel in general, laser zappers and swords, consciousness transfer, etc.
This really depends. Are we talking about “hard” science fiction (where the science is the main driver of the story, like much of Star Trek where attempts are made to explain the fictional science) or “soft” science fiction (like Dune, where the science is not really explained, more assumed, and serves as the background for the film)? I’d argue Alien falls into the former because the biology of the xenomorph is the major focus of the story.
I'm perhaps way off, but to me sci-fi is pretty much any narrative that mirrors our own world but with specific differences that have an effect on the story. Eg a story that's a regular setting but everyone has to pay for oxygen, or a story set in an alternate history where the British empire never faded. The differences are variables that can be used to view humanity from a different perspective.
To me Star Trek and Dune are essentially fantasy settings. Star Trek though obviously has sci-fi stories. Eg depicting a broadly post-racial society but using aliens as a tool to explore racism in our own culture.
"its not so much a square, as it is a square inside circle! Aha! points at head"
"I dont understand. Why is it not a square now, exactly? It still has 4 equa..."
"Because....circle...."
"Im not sure you have the firmest grasp on how shapes work."