It’s a slightly click-baity title, but as we’re still generating more content for our magazines, this one included, why not?
My Sci-fi unpopular opinion is that 2001: A Space Odyssey is nothing but pretentious, LSD fueled nonsense. I’ve tried watching it multiple times and each time I have absolutely no patience for the pointless little scenes which contain little to no depth or meaningful plot, all coalescing towards that 15 minute “journey” through space and series of hallucinations or whatever that are supposed to be deep, shake you to your foundations, and make you re-think the whole human condition.
But it doesn’t. Because it’s just pretentious, LSD fueled nonsense. Planet of the Apes was released in the same year and is, on every level, a better Sci-fi movie. It offers mystery, a consistent and engaging plot, relatable characters you actually care about, and asks a lot more questions about the world and our place in it.
A great many of the “old classics” really aren’t very good, IMO. Some of them are downright awful, in fact.
One that comes to mind that has garnered me many downvotes in the past is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which I disliked on pretty much every level. The characters were uninteresting, the worldbuilding was bad, the lunar culture made no sense and was an obvious “isn’t libertarianism awesome?” author insert, the Earthside baddies were cartoonishly stupid, the military conflict should have never worked out for the Lunarians, and Mycroft was a lazy deus ex machina.
How’s that for an unpopular opinion.
You’re probably right. I absolutely adored Heinlein, Stranger in A Strange Land and Moon is a Harsh Mistress were probably my favorite books EVER other then Foundation and Dune, but this was also 20 years ago when I was a teenager. I’m scared to read them again since I’m sure they haven’t aged well.
“The golden age of science fiction is twelve”, as they say.