Where is my live-action magical fantasy series?

[LazarX]

thejeff wrote:

How is it a false category, just because it's expanded beyond a use that was getting outdated even in the Golden Age of SF? Things change. Genres grow. Seriously if you're talking about Frankenstein and H.G. Wells, that was all before the term was even invented.

At least don't try to sweep it all into fantasy, when it wouldn't have fit into classic definitions of fantasy either.

It's modern expansion has come at the consequence of absorbing the elements of the fantasy trope. The "science" in most popular science fiction has adopted the conventions and properties of magic, without having the Clarke excuse to do so so. A frequent failing is that the authors who give their creations such properties don't take into account the broader implications of such.

It's hard to look at most of these modern expressions and delineate any real difference that separates science from fantasy save for the exterior trappings. It does go both ways to some extent, there are people on these boards who in looking at gaming worlds look at magic progression the same way we view technological advancement.

[JoelF847]

Back to the discussion of live action magical fantasy series, looks like Fox's Hieroglyph will fit that description, set in ancient Egypt (following Paizo's lead that Egyptian themed fantasy is hot right now.)

Previews look decent, I'm looking forward to seeing if it lives up to them.

[thejeff]

LazarX wrote:

thejeff wrote:

How is it a false category, just because it's expanded beyond a use that was getting outdated even in the Golden Age of SF? Things change. Genres grow. Seriously if you're talking about Frankenstein and H.G. Wells, that was all before the term was even invented.

At least don't try to sweep it all into fantasy, when it wouldn't have fit into classic definitions of fantasy either.

It's modern expansion has come at the consequence of absorbing the elements of the fantasy trope. The "science" in most popular science fiction has adopted the conventions and properties of magic, without having the Clarke excuse to do so so. A frequent failing is that the authors who give their creations such properties don't take into account the broader implications of such.

It's hard to look at most of these modern expressions and delineate any real difference that separates science from fantasy save for the exterior trappings. It does go both ways to some extent, there are people on these boards who in looking at gaming worlds look at magic progression the same way we view technological advancement.

I don't see a big change. There's always been overlap. How is H.G Wells handwaving time travel to make his social point any different than modern authors handwaving in transporters? Or the Doctor and his blue box, for that matter. Frankenstein draws as much from horror/magic/alchemy as from science. Sure the handwaving is "science", but the trappings are pure Gothic.

The "modern expansion" you speak of goes back to the start of the genres and past that even. Space Opera goes back to the '20s at least. There never was a pure popular science fiction. Individual examples, certainly, but never the field as a whole.

[Mike Franke]

For me what is "hard sci-fi" vs "soft si-fi" changes with how far into the future you go. The farther you go the more speculative it is going to have to be.

It is pretty easy to create something 50 or 100 years in the future and base it on today's science plus a little and make it "hard" sci-fi.

Star Trek is 300-400 years in the future. If tech keeps advancing at the rate it has for the last 100 years some of the future technology would seem pretty magical to us.

[Lincoln Hills]

Live-action fantasy series!? Heck, I'm still waiting for a Dungeons and Dragons cartoon that's written by somebody who's actually played Dungeons & Dragons!

[Sissyl]

We are at a level where we can make some educated guesses at what will and will not be possible in the future. Certain things would require energy on a completely ridiculous scale, and the like. Given three hundred years to play with, however, everything that doesn't fall afoul of the basic physical laws (or allows for exceptions to them) is pretty much fair game.

[Rynjin]

Educated guesses are all well and good, and 90% of the time hold true, but you never know. There's been times in the past where we discovered everything we knew about the universe was wrong, and there may well be again.

[Hitdice]

Well, not everything, just the stuff we couldn't figure out. :P

I think whether or not a book get invalidated by scientific advancement has more to do with how specifically the author describes the means by which the far-future-techno-magic functions rather than what crazy effect that far-future-techno-magic accomplishes. "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forester (Yes, that E.M.Forester, nuts to you Howard's End!) shouldn't be called hard science fiction, but there haven't been any innovations that invalidate what's described in it.

[Doodlebug Anklebiter]

My drunken anarcho-syndicalist hetero life partner bought the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon on some bootlegged Canadian dvds off ebay a long time back. He watched them all and said they sucked.

I recently watched both the D&D movies (well, I didn't finish either of them, actually) and the cartoon, and I kinda like the latter.

"Look out, Uni, bullywugs!"

Actually, you know, I think the kids in the cartoon play D&D better than my players.

[Lincoln Hills]

Mark Evanier (whom I hail for his long, funny work on Groo the Wanderer) didn't write a bad cartoon, mind you. It's just that... it never seemed to occur to anybody to know their source material beyond the level of casual cameos. (Although I'll concede that casual slaughter and looting corpses are not particularly easy to adapt to classic kids' cartoons, there is slightly more to D&D than that. Slightly.)

[Werthead]

There could be another one on its way: a LOCKE LAMORA TV show in the works.

This would be based on the GENTLEMAN BASTARD series of novels by Scott Lynch, which are very, very good. They're about a group of rogues and con-men (and women) operating on a world littered with the crystal ruins of a long-vanished alien species. Magic is extremely difficult to make work and there's a larger socio-political crisis unfolding in the background that will lead to civil war.

No word on network or timescale, but Ryan Condal (who recently adapted the weird west comic THE SIXTH GUN for NBC as a pilot, before they passed on it) is writing the script.