May I introduce....
Nov. 13th, 2007 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
likethebeerThe Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés!
http://www.cthreepo.com/cliche/
The page has a variety of subsets, and a ratings system, but I'm just showing the phrases that I found amusing.
Here are a few of my favorites:
* The Good Guys travel through time to stop a historical Bad Guy, usually Hitler.
* A high-tech amusement park goes lethally berserk.
* "Single female monster ISO single human male. Object: Mating."
* Alien races that find our women attractive, while we find theirs to be repulsive.
* Extra breasts on the alien women.
* The incredibly competent man-of-action with more skills/degrees than you can shake a blaster at.
* The incredibly competent woman-of-action with large breasts, no sexual inhibitions, and more skills/degrees than you can shake a blaster at.
* Futuristic societies where only the ultra-rich can afford quality health care, and everyone else is reduced to selling their bodily organs.
* An alien tongue is translated into perfect English, except for gratuitious use of alien units of time and distance.
* Disembodied live brains living in tanks.
* Sentient AIs that communicate with other sentient AIs via their voice synthesizer.
* Androids with intelligence equal to an IQ of around 1000 who can't seem to figure out human emotions, humor, or verbal contractions.
* Whiz kids.
* The former Great Man of Action who is now just a washed-up drunk. [Although really, that's a cliche in a lot of fiction.]
* Ths ship's computer is programmed to track the location of each and every person aboard, but is never programmed to report personnel in unauthorized areas, or those who suddenly disappear.
* A teenage genius discovers an entire new field of science, and builds practical devices that use it, in his bedroom.
* The greedy businessman refuses to recognize that his dangerous product/service will screw him over long before he can hope to make a profit.
* A technologically advanced race conquers a technologically inferior race, and puts them to work doing things that the conqueror's machines can do far more efficiently.
* The human abdomen is an ideal incubator for Alien Eggs/Spawn, and this has no apparent effect on the host until the Alien Spawn erupts from their stomach in a messy fashion.
* The death of the Bad Guy involves a long fall.
* At some point the protagonists must enter a hostile region called The Forbidden Zone.
* When an ordinary crewmember transforms into the Enlightened Being of Cosmic Power, he departs the scene instead of staying around to help out his still-human buddies.
* Super-intelligent computers get confused when the hero says to them "everything I say is a lie" or some other paradoxical statement.
* Computer terminals display the current operation (e.g., "UPLOADING VIRUS") in huge, flashing letters.
* After twenty years of crew members being tossed around like the balls in a bingo cage, the spacecraft still has no seatbelts.
* Computer security protocols are overridden merely by saying "override" to the computer. [That's a huge pet peeve of mda's.]
And many more that I don't have time to copy.
http://www.cthreepo.com/cliche/
The page has a variety of subsets, and a ratings system, but I'm just showing the phrases that I found amusing.
Here are a few of my favorites:
* The Good Guys travel through time to stop a historical Bad Guy, usually Hitler.
* A high-tech amusement park goes lethally berserk.
* "Single female monster ISO single human male. Object: Mating."
* Alien races that find our women attractive, while we find theirs to be repulsive.
* Extra breasts on the alien women.
* The incredibly competent man-of-action with more skills/degrees than you can shake a blaster at.
* The incredibly competent woman-of-action with large breasts, no sexual inhibitions, and more skills/degrees than you can shake a blaster at.
* Futuristic societies where only the ultra-rich can afford quality health care, and everyone else is reduced to selling their bodily organs.
* An alien tongue is translated into perfect English, except for gratuitious use of alien units of time and distance.
* Disembodied live brains living in tanks.
* Sentient AIs that communicate with other sentient AIs via their voice synthesizer.
* Androids with intelligence equal to an IQ of around 1000 who can't seem to figure out human emotions, humor, or verbal contractions.
* Whiz kids.
* The former Great Man of Action who is now just a washed-up drunk. [Although really, that's a cliche in a lot of fiction.]
* Ths ship's computer is programmed to track the location of each and every person aboard, but is never programmed to report personnel in unauthorized areas, or those who suddenly disappear.
* A teenage genius discovers an entire new field of science, and builds practical devices that use it, in his bedroom.
* The greedy businessman refuses to recognize that his dangerous product/service will screw him over long before he can hope to make a profit.
* A technologically advanced race conquers a technologically inferior race, and puts them to work doing things that the conqueror's machines can do far more efficiently.
* The human abdomen is an ideal incubator for Alien Eggs/Spawn, and this has no apparent effect on the host until the Alien Spawn erupts from their stomach in a messy fashion.
* The death of the Bad Guy involves a long fall.
* At some point the protagonists must enter a hostile region called The Forbidden Zone.
* When an ordinary crewmember transforms into the Enlightened Being of Cosmic Power, he departs the scene instead of staying around to help out his still-human buddies.
* Super-intelligent computers get confused when the hero says to them "everything I say is a lie" or some other paradoxical statement.
* Computer terminals display the current operation (e.g., "UPLOADING VIRUS") in huge, flashing letters.
* After twenty years of crew members being tossed around like the balls in a bingo cage, the spacecraft still has no seatbelts.
* Computer security protocols are overridden merely by saying "override" to the computer. [That's a huge pet peeve of mda's.]
And many more that I don't have time to copy.
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hah
Date: 2007-11-14 05:38 am (UTC)Re: hah
Date: 2007-11-14 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 05:56 am (UTC)Oh, and when a file is deleted, it immediately vanishes from the screen.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 02:20 pm (UTC)Oh, right: deleted files. I think "completely impossible computer tropes" could be its own category in sci-fi.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 07:56 am (UTC)Oh no!
Date: 2007-11-14 02:31 pm (UTC)Damn! I've got budgies (cats--but cats from the future!!).
Reading the list of sci-fi cliches, I was happy to see that there was some things that I wasn't doing; but I reluctantly saw that there were definitely some things I am doing. HOpefully they'll all come out in the wash.
I have to stop reading that turkey city page, or I'd be too afraid to carry on with my writing. ALthough I think I've gotten over the impulse to use "said" in a sentence. It's funny because some of the very things we're being told are now bad (using the same word twice in close proximity; overuse of "Show, don't tell") are all the result of our damned English teachers.
Re: Oh no!
Date: 2007-11-15 11:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 01:04 pm (UTC)You can hear things in space!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 07:12 pm (UTC)As for reversing the polarity: that's why I'm so terrified of putting my batteries in the wrong way. Just terrified.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-14 08:28 pm (UTC)That never goes out of style. ;)