What is and isn't Space Opera?

[Yora]

I made a list a few days ago of works I am familiar with, and which ones of them create the space opera feel for me.

Totally Space Opera

• Babylon 5
• Dune
• Homeworld
• Mass Effect
• Star Trek (60s)
• Star Wars

Feels somewhat like Space Opera

• Cowboy Bebop
• Star Trek (80s and 90s)
• StarCraft
• The Fifth Element

Feels not like Space Opera

• Alien
• Dead Space
• Halo
• Riddick Series
• Stargate
• The Expanse

Stepping away from the general question of what space opera is, or might not be. What are the things you are hoping to see from a story when you hear it being called space opera?

Biggest thing for me are cool alien planets. The Moon or Mars won't do. They have to look cool on a wall with stuff going on. Desert planets at least have to be majestic desert planets. Places that are perhaps more out of fantasy than what you would expect from astronomy. And in 99% of cases, no character needs a space suit to walk around.

I also want to see at least half a dozen different aliens. It doesn't have to have them, but I will always be very much hoping for them. Even if they are effectively just different space nationalities much more than different species.

And to be blunt: Action.
Doesn't have to be a lot. Doesn't have to be huge. Doesn't have to be fancy. But I find it very important that the characters always have to be aware that someone might try to shoot at them in an unfamiliar or hostile place. It does need to have that sense of potential danger.

 

[payn]

I made a list a few days ago of works I am familiar with, and which ones of them create the space opera feel for me.

Totally Space Opera

• Babylon 5
• Dune
• Homeworld
• Mass Effect
• Star Trek (60s)
• Star Wars

Feels somewhat like Space Opera

• Cowboy Bebop
• Star Trek (80s and 90s)
• StarCraft
• The Fifth Element

Feels not like Space Opera

• Alien
• Dead Space
• Halo
• Riddick Series
• Stargate
• The Expanse

Stepping away from the general question of what space opera is, or might not be. What are the things you are hoping to see from a story when you hear it being called space opera?

Larger than life story. Characters that make a massive difference in the storyline. Very high stakes stories where life hangs in the balance. Only real requirement is that the setting has a space civilization. So, Apollo 13 and Gravity dont really count as they are more slice of life stories with dramatic themes. Flicks like Interstellar and Sunshine fit the bill because of the high stakes and load on the characters to deliver. The lines is measured in stakes and scope of the story being told and impact the characters have on it.

Which makes your lists interesting to me. Pitch Black was certainly not space opera, but the sequel was an attempt to space opera the series. The Expanse starts out a hard sci-fi political intrigue story, but expands massively. With the crew surviving improbably odds repeatedly and making massive changes to humanity, it pushes that series into space opera, IMO.

 

[Yora]

The Chronicles of Riddick (second movie) are certainly a lot more like space opera than the other two. But it still doesn't feel big to me. I just don't get a sense that there is any other civilization in this galaxy other than that one town that is being attacked, or any other faction than the townspeople and the invaders.

Having only see the Expanse TV show, the reason I don't feel the space opera mood with it is that it all feels too clean, too straightforward, and too controlled. A lot like Star Trek TNG. It's a great detective story with plenty of action moments, but it never hits the adventure button for me. In the first three seasons it's only a single system, and in season 4 it's basically a barren moon where you don't need a space suit.
But I am also not getting any of the the things I care about in the sense of space opera from Interstellar either. (Though I very much like both works as science-fiction.)

 

[Ryujin]

I think that despite being unrepentantly military SF, Gordon R Dickson's Childe Cycle novels (might be better known as the Dorsai novels) qualify as Space Opera. The main characters are movers and shakers. They set the universe in motion. They manipulate politics, people, genetics.... Not a lot of aliens in them, but humans are on the move to become the next iteration in the species. Humanity has split off into different factions, inhabiting different worlds, and specializing in something; psychology/parapsychology, military, religion, etc..

 

[payn]

The Chronicles of Riddick (second movie) are certainly a lot more like space opera than the other two. But it still doesn't feel big to me. I just don't get a sense that there is any other civilization in this galaxy other than that one town that is being attacked, or any other faction than the townspeople and the invaders.

Having only see the Expanse TV show, the reason I don't feel the space opera mood with it is that it all feels too clean, too straightforward, and too controlled. A lot like Star Trek TNG. It's a great detective story with plenty of action moments, but it never hits the adventure button for me. In the first three seasons it's only a single system, and in season 4 it's basically a barren moon where you don't need a space suit.
But I am also not getting any of the the things I care about in the sense of space opera from Interstellar either. (Though I very much like both works as science-fiction.)

Yeap, The Expanse takes a slow ride into space opera (and didnt get to finish the even bigger ending) sort of like Game of Thrones walks into high fantasy despite being very low key in that regard for much of the series.

 

[Yora]

That's actually a comparison I can support, but wouldn't have expected to ever make.

 

[Umbran]

I think it needs defending.

It doesn't.

I, for example, am fundamentally incapable of doing damage to literature. My words are a thin echo that will be lost to the ether by something like the end of the week, and literature will be remembered long after there's nobody on the planet wo knows I ever existed.

 

[Umbran]

Perhaps I should rephrase to say good writers don't start off with "I'm writing genre X".

Literature is under attack, but writers are fair game?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It doesn't.

I, for example, am fundamentally incapable of doing damage to literature. My words are a thin echo that will be lost to the ether by something like the end of the week, and literature will be remembered long after there's nobody on the planet wo knows I ever existed.

I would have thought it was very naive that someone could look at the effect of the internet on the current news agenda and think that individual voices don't add up.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The logic applied here is to let the genre be defined by someone who explicity can't see its appeal.

Historically, that's where the term came from.

If you don't like that, maybe it's time to coin a new term?