/lit/ - Literature

Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion
>"Movie SF is, by definition, dumbed down -- there have only been three or four SF movies in the history of film that aspire to the complexity of literary SF. But with books, readers have access to a full-range of sophistication and quality in their reading. If they read dumbed down SF or fantasy, it's their choice to dumb themselves down."

>Q: How do written science fiction and filmed science fiction differ?

>Without specifying which is which, I can say that one of these two things is written by tempered, well-educated adults and -- at its best -- is among the best-written and most provocative literature America produces; the other is usually "written and directed" by arrogant 26-year-olds who've read almost nothing in their short, video-sheltered lives, and who think they "know sci-fi" because they grew up watching Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars on video when they weren't reading comic books.

>One of these things requires the reader to enter into a collaborative state to ferret out important themes among the nuance, texture, science, and subtleties of its art; the other of these things has people screaming a lot and things and people blowing up. One of these things produces quality; the other of these things has become a giant crap-dispenser with children pulling the levers, the resulting merde-storm leavened only by the quality of modern digital special effects which are wasted on the pre-literate stories.