Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 September 10

= September 10 =

Name of film: monologue about male rape
Hello. I'm trying to recall the name of a film that I saw a scene from years ago in a film class. The scene involves three men in a locker room/shower/bath house and one of the men admits that he raped another boy in high school in a locker room. One of the men doesn't really react, but the third man seems pretty disturbed by the story. The guy tells the story in I believe one shot and the monologue is quite long. I also believe the actor was someone famous...it's an American film, 1995-2005. Thanks. 74.69.117.101 (talk) 01:36, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you thinking of "Your Friends and Neighbors"? I never saw the movie, but see the fifth paragraph down at .Phoenixia1177 (talk) 07:00, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes! This is it. Thank you : ) 74.69.117.101 (talk) 07:34, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Sci-fi genre ?
I like science fiction, but only a specific type. I'll call it "hard sci-fi", by which I mean devoid of human drama. So many "sci-fi" stories just seem to use the sci-fi elements as a backdrop to play out some human drama, like a married couple bickering, someone trying desperately to escape their past, etc. A prime example is the Under the Dome series now on TV. So, is "hard sci-fi" a good term for what I want, where people just scientifically examine the alien artifact, etc., without all that other crap thrown in ? And are there some good movies or TV shows like that (old ones are fine)? StuRat (talk) 08:47, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Coincidentally that is also what everyone else calls it, and we have an article, hard science fiction. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:25, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict)Hard science fiction would seem to be what you are talking about. Here's the IMDB page for it . Here's some links to hard scifi works that may be of interest to you:, , , and .Phoenixia1177 (talk) 09:28, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Hard science fiction is more than what you just described – it's very important that everything in hard SF is plausible. There's very little deus ex machina in hard SF, and what technology we do see is not beyond the realms of possibility. Star Wars' hyperdrive systems, for example, wouldn't fit into a hard SF universe (even if a theoretical argument could be made for their plausibility, they are still a bit far-fetched and fantastical). It seems that a good example of a show that you'd enjoy is simply Star Trek – they do plenty of examining of alien artifacts and that sort of thing, but it's most certainly not hard SF. —  Richard  BB  09:29, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, I did like Star Trek when they were doing hard sci-fi, like say trying to figure out how to destroy the doomsday machine. I was less of a fan when it was about Kirk unzipping his boots for some green woman, or trying to teach us a moral lesson with half-white/half-black people. StuRat (talk) 10:04, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * While I agree with you, it's still not hard SF. Star Trek tries to make itself look a bit more "sciencey" by throwing around words like "tachyon" and "intrinsic field" and things like that. In actuality there's not a great deal of scientific validity for their technology and plots. —  Richard   BB  10:14, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * If you want TV, Stargate SG-1 is a bit harder than Trek, though still not too hard. Like Trek, there's a lot of variability from episode to episode. TV and movies generally can't be too hard or else very few people would watch them. Staecker (talk) 13:44, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Interpersonal conflict is the essence of drama."Since a plot is the dramatization of goal-directed action, it has to be based on conflict; it may be one character’s inner conflict or a conflict of goals and values between two or more characters. Since goals are not achieved automatically, the dramatization of a purposeful pursuit has to include obstacles; it has to involve a clash, a struggle—an action struggle, but not a purely physical one. Since art is a concretization of values, there are not many errors as bad esthetically—or as dull—as fist fights, chases, escapes and other forms of physical action, divorced from any psychological conflict or intellectual value-meaning. Physical action, as such, is not a plot nor a substitute for a plot—as many bad writers attempt to make it, particularly in today’s television dramas. -Rand, Romantic Manifesto" If you just want speculative science, there are very good shows like Alien Planet, but even that resorts to anthropomorphization of the exploratory robots. μηδείς (talk) 21:36, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Hard science fiction emphasizes the technical accuracy or plausibility of its science, but does not necessarily avoid human drama. You probably have a better shot of relatively unemotional writing with hard science fiction, but emotion is not by any means considered a disqualifying element.
 * The original Star Trek was based on the science fiction of the 1950s and 1960s, when hard science fiction was predominant, so many Star Trek episodes are good examples of hard science fiction, although others have a more fantastic element. You might like some of the better-regarded science fiction movies from this period, such as Forbidden Planet.  If you're interested in reading, you might like the writings of some of the prominent hard science fiction writers, such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein.  John M Baker (talk) 21:41, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Primer is a film that springs immediately to mind when reading this discussion. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 21:52, 10 September 2013 (UTC)


 * As mentioned above, if you don't mind reading then there are many books which fit this description. I do a lot of Sci-fi and Fantasy reading, and many of the SF books I read tend to be from the 50's (I actively seek out books from those genres between the timeframes of 1950-2000 usually, but the 50's SF books always seem to find me... ;)) and one thing I've noticed about 50's SF writing is it is quite like what you describe. Not to say all books from then are completely devoid of human drama, it's just that it is a lot easier to find examples where the focus is more on the "scenery" so to speak, or the "objects". I guess that's probably because back then space was pretty much completely a realm of fantasy to most people; and, upon reading an SF book, a reader would probably be a lot more interested at a starship crew flying around the galaxy and visiting alien worlds rather than the bickering that could go on between the crewmembers of said starship. -- .Yellow1996. (ЬMИED¡) 03:02, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * If we're going for books, then Larry Niven's "Known Space" series is full of interesting technology consequences. Even where there is human drama, this is generally a direct consequence of some future technology (controlled breeding, a light burning out on an automatic medication dispenser, longevity treatments, interaction with a world where an intelligent creature has evolved into every ecological niche). MChesterMC (talk) 08:58, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so far. I really do prefer TV shows or movies though, as reading too much causes me to have eye strain. I read one book, I forget the name but think it was by Clarke, where a huge alien space station, in the form of a cylinder with a smudge on it, entered our solar system, and was explored by astronauts, who found it had interesting 3-legged creatures aboard. As the alien space station approached our Sun, it "came to life". This is the type of thing I'm looking for. Was this book ever made into a TV show or movie ? Any others like it ? StuRat (talk) 13:00, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * That would be Rendezvous with Rama and its sequels. See that article's 'Adaptations' section (short answer - no). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 13:33, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's it. Now this brings up the Q of why such books don't make it to the TV or big screen.  Is hard science really unpopular with those audiences, or does it somehow not translate well into that form ? StuRat (talk) 13:43, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Money. Hard Sci-fi could potentially cost in the hundreds of millions due to potential special effects costs, and these are financial risks studios are unlikely ever to take up.  Human drama is the driver of most film and TV (and books for that matter), and the size of the audience who would prefer pure science is (relatively) small, not large enough to cover costs.  This is why the History Channel shows Pawn Stars and alien investigations, TLC (the former Learning Channel) shows coupon clipping and little people, and Discovery has shows about mermaids.  Because books are far cheaper to produce, that's where your likely to find the type you are looking for, I'm afriad. Mingmingla (talk) 15:59, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * In that case, perhaps CGI has the potential to bring the price down to where the niche audience would still be sufficient to make it profitable. After all, there are plenty of other TV shows and movies which only appeal to niche audiences. StuRat (talk) 07:37, 12 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Greg Egan is known for writing hard sci-fi (some say "ultra hard") and for having minimal human drama, or drama in general. Sometimes this makes for rather dry reading, but he has a knack for conceiving fascinating super-far-future and/or very alien civilizations. I just finished Incandescence (that page has minor spoilers, but not too bad) and quite liked it, even though I didn't fully grasp the "hard" concepts being explored. Somewhere I read it's like a class on orbital mechanics taught in an alien language. The alien civilization is interesting by itself (and has a kind of built-in "minimal drama" thing), as is the galaxy-spanning super-far-future civilization that works despite having no faster-than-light technology. Pfly (talk) 20:31, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Speaking of "ultra hard" by Egan, Orthogonal (novel) is basically a dissertation on how relativity and quantum mechanics would behave in a finite toroidal universe with a Riemannian metric, complete with charts and diagrams on every other page, and how it would eventually bring about the doom of any large body in space. You get gently introduced to the concepts by reading as the alien scientists in the book rush through the discoveries themselves. K ati e R  (talk) 12:08, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh my, I just started reading The Clockwork Rocket, which is the first of the Orthogonal books? I picked it up without knowing anything about it except that it seemed among the higher recommended Egan books. I only just began, and it's rather weird from the start. Now having read this brief description I'm both excited and a little scared. :-) Pfly (talk) 08:47, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
 * That's the first one - there are only two for now, and he's working on a third. It's a fun read - you don't need to get all the math to understand things. He does a surprisingly good job of explaining the way the physics works down to a general layman level, but you can tell how much work he has put into it and that all the math will work out if you actually put your time into it. K ati e R  (talk) 19:38, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Oop, I just realized you'd prefer movies or TV over books. Hard sci-fi doesn't usually get made into movies or shows, at least without massively watering down the "hard" parts and adding "human drama". The best example of a hard sci-fi movie that comes to mind is 2001: A Space Odyssey (the only "human drama" I can think of involves HAL the computer), but I assume everyone has seen this movie already. I recently watched it again, having only seen it many years ago as a young teen. It stands the test of time very well. Pfly (talk) 20:39, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Final comment (I keep thinking about this!). It's been a long time since I read it, but I greatly enjoyed Robert L. Forward's book Dragon's Egg. I've heard it is a bit of a classic among hard sci-fi fans. Our page says it is "regarded as a landmark in hard science fiction". I've read a lot of sci-fi since I read Dragon's Egg, but Incandescence was the first book I've found that approaches the "hard" appeal of Dragon's Egg. Pfly (talk) 20:58, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The movies Silent Running, Soylent Green, Planet of the Apes, Logan's Run, and Westworld are all rather hard sci-fi. μηδείς (talk) 17:32, 14 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Planet of the Apes hardly seems to qualify. It starts with a rather absurd premise, that humans somehow devolved while apes and other primates evolved.  Did they ever explain why this happened ?  I could see if humans were completely removed that some other primate might rise to take our place, but probably only one, and again, only if there was an empty niche left by the removal of all humans (almost all humans dying wouldn't do it, as the human population would rebound in thousands of years, whereas evolution of other primates to take the place of humans would take millions of years).  But, absurd premise aside, the rest of the movie is all about emotions, not about solving technical problems.  "You damn, dirty ape !" hardly sounds like a logical argument, now does it ? StuRat (talk) 02:31, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It requires no divine intervention and has no "it was all a dream" or "wishing makes it so" nonsense that you find with Q in STNG or many other scifi series. The evolution of the apes is supposedly explained scientifically in a later sequel.  I won't argue it's plausible as stated, but the pretense of a scientific, rather than a psychological cause is given.


 * If you want the best ever definition of hard scifi read the Battlestar Galactica series Bible, especially its opening mission statement. Impressive. μηδείς (talk) 01:28, 17 September 2013 (UTC)