The aesthetic is what defines the genre. There's tons of garbage technology in other sci-fi works that are beyond what's even speculative. Star wars is not the only art work that does this.
Midi chloreans (The technical/scientific explanation for the force) are way less speculative then alot of the sci fi that's out there.
midichloreans didn't exist in star wars cannon until 2007 in a 'making of' book - star wars was conceived without midichloreans and were retconned in later.
Lucas in 1981 said being a jedi was like doing yoga - anyone can do it, but only people who work at it get good. see the citation here:
The story of star wars is a fantasy story complete with magic. You can shift the entire thing to ancient china and adjust all the set pieces for the time and it would still work.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep started as speculative fiction and is still speculative fiction after its transition to the screen.
>Somewhere, someone is rolling their eyes because they are saying my entire argument for proving that Star Wars is science fiction is based on the fact that populism changed the definition of science fiction because of Star Wars. And to that eye-roller, I'd like to just say: That's exactly what I'm saying.
Ya, but he's wrong. It's like a library putting a fiction book in the non fiction, and because its popular, redefining non fiction because the fiction book is popular. He's got an opinion, and I disagree, and we're equally valid.
>Bro, I'm chinese. Ancient China is neither Fantasy or Sci-Fi. It's a whole different genre called Wuxia. Fantasy and wuxia are not compatible.
That's not an argument, that's a conclusion without any supporting arguments. Dismissed as nonsense as easily as posited without effort.
By your arguments if it got popular it would redefine wuxia and now wuxia would include it.
>That's not an argument, that's a conclusion without any supporting arguments. Dismissed as nonsense as easily as posited without effort.
This is HN not nature. It's not a scientific debtate, just a general conversation so the level of proof is not super high.
You just have to trust me that I'm born in China, and Fantasy is not Wuxia. Just like you would have to trust a black person when he says he's not white. Don't go calling a black person white and don't go around saying you can move fucking star wars into Ancient China to a Chinese person who knows the culture and the genre.
Actually don't listen to me. Go ahead and say whatever you want to people. When a black person tells you he's not white, demand a scientific inquiry to prove he's black.
Either way agree to disagree. I think star wars if sci-fi. You don't.
But I will say, if you ask most people, most people will say star wars is sci-fi. At least we can agree on that point.
I’m going to jump in here because I started this fight (tho i’d never heard the term wuxia before so maybe I’m unqualified) - but here we go - from the wikipedia definition of fantasy:
> Fantasy is distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the respective absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these genres overlap
So perhaps I was overly dismissive. Narratively, it seems to me that star wars shares more in common with fantasy stories than sci-fi (chosen one, magic, battle between good and evil, sword that is your birthright, etc), but the setting is a sci-fi one (interplanetary war, clones, androids, space fleets). As wikipedia say “these genres overlap”.
The aesthetic is what defines the genre. There's tons of garbage technology in other sci-fi works that are beyond what's even speculative. Star wars is not the only art work that does this.
Midi chloreans (The technical/scientific explanation for the force) are way less speculative then alot of the sci fi that's out there.