Rykion
Explorer
Joshua Dyal said:
The age of the movie serials was full of Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers style kids movies. Some adults liked them and still do, but the target audience was children/teenagers. Sci-fi movies became a little more adult in the late 50's to early 60's, but movie sci-fi still maintained an adolescent focus. Sci-fi monster movies with bad acting and low budget effects were the main stay. They were mostly teenage scary date movies, basically the slasher flicks of their day. Look at the over the top movie posters and talk to someone who was around then, and you will find that to be the perception of sci-fi. There were some very good movies made, but they were the exception. On TV, sci-fi, along with magic/fantasy, was often used as a comedy element on a normal show with gags about alien invasions and crazy robots. The early shows like Tom Corbett and Space Patrol were clearly kids shows. Lost in Space kind of brought the whole family in, but it was definitely not mature material. The perception wasn't just American either, Doctor Who was considered a kids show its entire run. It was shows like Star Trek, and others, that bridged the gap between kids shows and shows meant for an older audience. Star Trek still had a large dose of the kids stuff, but still had a more mature angle than most TV sci-fi at the time.
On the literary side, the changes came earlier. As Henry mentioned Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and others were changing the perception of their readers, but that still took time to filter to the mainstream.
