One of the great things about the sci-fi genre is that you can kind of get away with a bit more when talking politics, making social references or dealing with very hot-button topics because it is sci-fi.
If a show is good, it helps people learn about themselves, in some way and in some function. Whatever the genre is, if it's executed well, audiences grow and learn from it, and that's where their passion and enthusiasm comes from.
One of the problems of this genre is that there are cliches everywhere, and you've got to be careful and watch out. Our rule with cliches is to either gently acknowledge them and make fun of them, or do something else. Milady is, in one sense, a villain because she does bad things.
Dickens is a much misunderstood and mis-approached writer, in that he tends to be read, particularly in the twentieth century, as a social commentator - like the great Victorians, a realist in his way. But he isn't at all like that. His genre is actually more like a fairy tale - weird transformations, long voyages from which people come back altered, parental mysteries, semi-magical twists.
There is only one genre in fiction, the genre is called book.
The thing I like about the sci-fi genre is that you get to examine universal themes and polarizing moral choices. The characters have a lot on their shoulders and are often trying to survive in some very difficult and hostile environments.
The safest genre is the horror film. But the most unsafe - the most dangerous - is comedy. Because even if your horror film isn't very good, you'll get a few screams and you're okay. With a comedy, if they don't laugh, you're dead.
Parodies are hard to do well, as is shown by the mediocrity of so many recent attempts. No matter how ripe a genre is for satirizing, unless you know how to do it, there are no guarantees.
I do think that once a horror genre is commonly parodied in other movies it sort kills that genre or that specific take on that genre. Once it sort of becomes a joke in and of itself, so you have to push and find something new.
But the action film genre is gonna have to come up with some new bad guys.
One of the reasons I write in different genres is that I get to have the feeling - even fleetingly - that I'm not just writing like Baggott again. I can escape myself.
Genre is a useful concept only when used not evaluatively but descriptively.
One of the wonderful things about making a film of any genre is that you have dialogue. You can take up a position. If you want to say something about your position, you can just say it. You don't have to spend massive amounts of screen time.
But my problem with fantasy, and horror, and related genres, is that sometimes the problems are illogical.
At some point, every science fiction and fantasy story must challenge the reader's experience and learning. That's much of the reason why the genre is so open to experimentation and innovation that other genres reject--strangeness is our bread and butter. Spread it thick or slice it thin, it's still our staff of life.
There's a level where the themes of a film are very relevant to me and also the idea of finding out how relevant one genre is to another. I think that westerns and samurai films and superhero films have a lot in common. It's just that the scale of the visuals in tentpole films can sometimes overwhelm the drama.
I think baseball - the baseball genre - is this mitt, to use a double pun there, to catch a whole bunch of themes.
My theory on genre is that while there are people out there who believe that genre tells people what to read, actually I believe that genre exists as a marketing tool to tell you what to avoid.
No, the horror genre is not my first love. I don't run to the theater to see horror films.
At the time, sword and sorcery stories were quite popular. There were female warriors waving swords around as well, but the genre is populated entirely with people who have absolutely no responsibility to anyone, so I knew my story would have to be completely different from any of these.
