Futuristic and Sci-Fi Movies

I find myself wondering whether there ought to be a dedicated subcategory specifically designed for cinematic works such as 1984 or 2001: A Space Odyssey, along with similar titles that have now aged into being part of our established past.

Larry Moore49 said:Should there be some sort of subcategory for films like 1984 or 2001: A Space Odyssey—stuff where the "future" they depict is actually long since passed?

That isn't relevant at all. The core theme of these films is the future, and "the future" is calculated from the moment they were created.

If we started putting them into separate categories based on when they were made, then every single film set in the future would eventually just be crushed by the passage of time. It’s nonsensical.

Ultimately, classification follows the subject matter—in this instance, something pertaining to the future. The fact that that specific era has already lapsed has absolutely nothing to do with the actual substance of the film.

Could someone please help me out and explain what genre "Fatherland" actually falls into? I'd love to get some clarity on that!

David Sanchez6 said:Can someone tell me what genre "Fatherland" actually falls into?

It's an alternate history.😁>

David Sanchez6 said:Can someone please explain what genre "Fatherland" actually falls into?

It belongs to those films dealing with the future of human society. It naturally blends that with themes of space and time travel. In essence, an alternate reality is just a form of traveling through time.

The film is a hybrid, much like most things are.

Richard Howard2 :
I am referring to those films that explore the future trajectory of our society, which naturally intertwine with themes of space and time travel. Essentially, an alternate reality serves as a fundamental form of time travel.

Oh, please, calling that time travel is quite a stretch...

David Sanchez6 said:Can someone please explain what genre "Fatherland" actually falls under?

Alternate history.

David Sanchez6 said:Can someone please help me out and explain what genre "Fatherland" actually falls into?

Fantasy?

Can someone help me out here? What genre does "Fatherland" actually fall into?

Sci-Fi—it fits right in under Dystopia.

Larry Moore49 said:As if time travel were even possible...

Time travel isn't actually traveling through years; it's nothing more than a transition between alternative versions of our history. It’s been proven.

Whether we are discussing someone moving from the future back to the present, or jumping from the present into the past—or vice versa—or simply dealing with an altered version of American history, it all boils down to a temporal shift.

In this instance, we aren't really following the protagonist's journey, but rather the perspective of the viewer itself... though the underlying motivation remains identical.

If we went by that logic, pretty much every single movie would end up being classified as Sci-Fi.

Richard Hernandez13 said:By that logic, every single movie would fall under the Sci-Fi umbrella.

That's actually one of those theories floating around... 😁

But no, let's be realistic—not every film deals with alternative realities or jumping through time. Take historical dramas or movies based on actual events; they simply reconstruct what happened without messing with the space-time continuum... 😉

"Fatherland" messes with it. "Time Machine" messes with it. And so on.

For any good Sci-Fi story, you really need that scientific plausibility regarding the current state of the world—but I just can't seem to find any of that in Fatherland, or maybe I'm just missing it. The whole premise is basically just a "what if" scenario where the German spring offensive against the USSR turned out completely differently.

The technology in the movie feels like it’s sitting right at that 1963 level, which is exactly when the story takes place.

From what I can gather, Fatherland, at its core, isn't actually any less believable than Shakespeare in Love (I mean, was there actually a character playing Gwyneth Paltrow? Did those events truly happen as shown? Or is that also just a giant "what if" setup?).

Hardly any Sci-Fi offers a complete scientific explanation. Consequently, I personally define Sci-Fi as anything occupying the spectrum between a minimal touch of scientific grounding and pure Fantasy, or vice versa.

Take > for example; it falls under Sci-Fi Fantasy because while it is entirely fabricated and utterly impossible, it still maintains certain scientific touchstones—things like hyperdrives, space vessels that might actually resemble real craft, galaxies, stars... in contrast, > does not qualify as Sci-Fi because it is pure Fantasy—it lacks even a single scientific reference.
If > were actually a tale about an alternative past during the early days of human history, I would classify it as Sci-Fi Fantasy, for instance.

However, > is exceptionally scientifically grounded. It begins from the premise that space and time momentarily shifted directions during a genuine historical event, and then builds its reality upon the subsequent chain of events. Alternative histories are certainly a matter of science (>). While that isn't explicitly the subject of the film, the plot relates deeply to factual data and maintains more ties to science than most films, let alone something like >...

Richard Howard2 :
Whether we're talking about someone traveling from the future to the present, the present to the past, or vice versa—or even dealing with an altered version of our history—it all boils down to a temporal shift.

How's about this: time travel movies are strictly those films that actually include—watch this one!—TIME TRAVEL in their plot. In "Fatherland," nobody actually travels through time, so by definition, it isn't a time travel movie.

It's not really about the protagonist traveling here; it's more about the audience experiencing the shift... but the underlying theme remains the same.

Since I can't recall how my presence as a *viewer sitting in front of a TV* contributed anything to the plot of "Fatherland," I think we can safely disregard this kind of "time travel."

Richard Hernandez13 said:For Sci-Fi, the core requirement is a scientific explanation for the current state of the world—something Fatherland completely lacks, or at least I can't find it. It just relies on the premise that the German spring offensive against the USSR had the opposite outcome.

The world depicted in the movie stays at the same technological level as 1963, which is when the story actually takes place.

Richard Howard2 said:Hardly any Sci-Fi offers a complete scientific explanation, so I personally assume that Sci-Fi covers anything spanning from a tiny sliver of scientific reference to pure maximum fantasy, or vice versa.

I agree with Richard Howard2. That’s precisely why I prefer the term "speculative fiction" over "Science Fiction." While it's easy to split books into Sci-Fi and Fantasy, where do things like "Fatherland," "Year of Riz and salt," or "The Man in the High Castle" fit? How much science is there versus how much fantasy? There are other examples too: Gene Wolfe's "Book of New Sun" takes place on Earth in the Land in the far future. But that future is so distant that the line between science and magic disappears, so you could view the events in that novel as heavy Fantasy or as Sci-Fi.

The fundamental premise of alternative history might be convincing if you grasp quantum physics (which, admittedly, I don't). But that isn't even the point. In my experience reading all the alternative history novels I've picked up (about seven or eight), authors almost never attempt to explain the mechanism that makes their alternate timeline possible. Sure, they might explain what historical phenomenon triggered the shift, but the existence of that phenomenon itself is never justified by quantum physics or anything else. The only exception I know of is Harry Turtledove's "The Guns of the South," where people from the 21st century travel back to 1864 to alter the course of the American Civil War.

It seems to me that the true goal of alternative history isn't to convince the reader that such a reality is possible, but rather to show them which direction humanity might have headed under different circumstances.

Well, that specific term... Scientific plausibility. It’s not necessarily saying that the state of the world depicted in some novel has to be justified by the scientific breakthroughs or theories we're familiar with today; rather, it should be explained through the lens of the scientific advancements that exist within the world of that specific book or film.

I’m not exactly looking for a book or a movie to act like some kind of technical manual that painstakingly explains every single scientific detail on screen. Honestly, just like with any other form of art—even within Sci-Fi—what I’m really hunting for is... well, emotion.

...
When it comes to the whole terminology side of things...
I think we have an issue here. Sci-Fi Fantasy I'm honestly wondering which category all those stories belong to—you know, the ones that depict a world where the fundamental rules or the state of reality clash so sharply with our own lived experience. To be perfectly honest, I don't see any reason why you couldn't just group all those novels and films we discussed into that specific category. Speculative Fiction It feels more like a euphemism you use when you're talking to girls—you know, just so you don't come across as too much of a total geek.

Now the real question is, which genre are we actually talking about? Fatherland, High Castle... I honestly feel like they just belong together. To me, it seems like we're really looking at... I've always had such a soft spot for the whole Fantasy genre, you know? There’s just something about those sweeping, magical worlds that pulls me in every single time, even if I sometimes feel like I spend a little too much time lost in them instead of being productive. I mean, I don't exactly have his specific definition memorized, though I'm assuming it doesn't just limit itself to things like orcs, goblins, dwarves, and those other kinds of creatures. To me, the subgenre would really be... I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of an alternative reality, that strange "what if" feeling that lingers in the back of your mind after you finish a great book or a gripping movie. There's just something so captivating about the idea that our entire world could have taken a different turn based on one tiny, seemingly insignificant moment in history. It makes you wonder about all those invisible threads that shape our lives. Whether it's through the lens of a classic sci-fi novel or a mind-bending film, exploring these parallel timelines feels like a way to process the chaos of our own existence, almost like we're trying to make sense of the sheer unpredictability of being alive.. 😕

It feels like we just don't have a perfectly fitting American term to describe the concept of Fantasy.
I realized I misspoke a few posts back when I called that whole thing "magical fantasy" or a "sword and sorcery film"—honestly, my bad! I should have been more precise, since those are really just specific subgenres rather than being the entire genre itself.

When discussing the theme of an alternative future—or what I prefer to call a temporal shift—in *Fatherland*, we are really only looking at 10% of the core motive. The remaining 90% actually falls under the category of speculating on the future of human society. I use the term "future" because the narrative deals with events following a specific historical turning point, regardless of whether that point happens to be the 1960s.

However, we are interested in that 10% because it remains somewhat ambiguous to me. To be clear, I agree there aren't direct touchpoints with the classic time travel trope, but I certainly wouldn't argue for creating an entirely new category just because of that. It should simply be treated as a subcategory. In this instance, the mere fact that the timeline has been altered is a sufficient explanation for calling it time travel. I will repeat myself: this isn't about time travel being a plot device used by characters within the story; rather, the entire plot itself is the result of a sort of temporal displacement. That is precisely what time travel is—the transition from one reality into another. This film depicts events within an alternative reality. In my view, it isn't necessary for the characters to be aware of this, nor does the plot need to explicitly address the concept.

Richard Hernandez13 said:I don't demand that a book or movie acts as a technical manual providing an exact scientific breakdown of everything on screen. Like any art form, including Sci-Fi, I am looking for... emotion.

We are in agreement there.

..Speculative fiction sounds more like a euphemism you use when talking to girls—just so you don't come across as a total geek.

Fair point. Though usually, I just walk up to those girls and go, "HAHAHA! I'm a huge nerd! Do you want to see my Pokemon card collection?!" And then they run away screaming. Sure, I end up alone, but at least I feel better afterward.

We don't really have an adequate American term for Fantasy.
A few posts back, I incorrectly referred to it as "magical fantasy" or a "sword and sorcery film"—since those are subgenres, not the genre itself.

The problem is that there isn't a perfect term for it in America either. And yeah, we're definitely talking about subgenres rather than the primary genre. From what I can see, one extreme of the spectrum is "hard" Sci-Fi with heavy scientific explanations, like the novels by Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, while the other extreme is Fantasy, which could range from Borges to J.R.R. Tolkien.

Richard Howard2 said:But we care about that 10% because it's actually unclear to us—I basically agree that there aren't many touchpoints with a classic time travel plot, but I certainly wouldn't create an entirely new category for it. It should just be a subcategory, because in this instance, the timeline itself has been altered—that is a sufficient explanation for it being a form of time travel.

"These two genres aren't essentially the same, but I wouldn't say they aren't the same; they are identical in some indefinable way that I cannot explain."

I'll say it again: it's not about time travel being a central plot point in the movie, but rather that the plot itself was derived through a sort of temporal journey.

"This is time travel even though there is no actual time travel, because they've achieved something that is both a time travel story and not a time travel story."

Time travel is actually exactly that—moving from one reality into another.

No, it isn't. Because if that were true, every single story would be considered time travel.

The plot of this movie unfolds within an alternate reality. In my view, it isn't strictly necessary for the characters to be aware of this fact, nor does the narrative need to explicitly address the concept.

Fine, you're certainly proficient at using Semantic Dodge, but it would be quite refreshing if you attempted to write something substantive instead of relying on them.

I think I’m going to be the deus ex machina here. You can’t force every single movie into one specific genre pigeonhole, and frankly, it usually DOESN'T MATTER. Anything that isn't a true story is just fiction—and what kind of fiction it becomes depends entirely on the director or whoever is calling the shots. There's nothing you can do about it 😛