“The issue on the table” whether or not Aliens is in fact just a sci-fi film or something much more than that. Whether that is in reference to its genre or its societal poignancy, anyone would prefer the side championing it’s more-than-sci-fi-ness, but I was shoved onto the nothing-more-than-sci-fi side of the debate. We actually compiled a lot of research of what makes a sci-fi a sci-fi and it’s more complex than I originally thought. One of the main things that I had forgotten about the Science Fiction genre is the way it differs from fantasy in that a Sci-fi is the fantastic, explained by the mundane. In essence where a horror film or a fantasy would simply “leave the supernatural intact”, a sci-fi film explains it and it, in effect, becomes no longer supernatural (read a super interesting article that I stole that quote from here: http://www.darkecho.com/darkecho/horroronline/scifi.html).

As a team we formulated an argument around the idea that if the aliens in Aliens are explained as a natural part of the landscape on FQ57568FI (whatever the name of the planet is), then the film is not really a sci-fi fantasy or a sci-fi horror film, it’s really just a sci-fi film. We also cottoned on to the idea that Sci-fi is inherently a bit of a mashup genre that consists of lots of other little elements that make up what a sci-fi is. It is inherently an action film or a horror film, it isn’t sci-fi cross action or horror, etc.

Whether or not I believe that Aliens is more than a sci-fi film for any number of reasons is irrelevant, we won! That’s all that matters.

It did make me think though that if Sci-Fi is just fantasy (or supernatural) explained, does that make Star Wars: A New Hope a space fantasy and The Phantom Menace a Sci-fi because midichlorians………….