Fantasy Vs Science Fiction: What's The Difference?

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Fantasy Vs Science Fiction: What's The Difference?
December 4, 2010
Andrew Robinson
The Gleaner


This past week, a conversation with a cohort of mine developed into a heated debate about the differences between the genres of fantasy and science fiction. This individual - who I'll call Karl to protect his identity - issued a blanket statement that he hated fantasy films. At the same time, he shared that he liked science fiction.

The conversation began as I tried to talk about the latest Harry Potter film. Karl said, with a very determined tone, that he found all of those "kinds of films" demonic, and didn't like any of them. I asked exactly what turned him off from the series, and he quickly replied with facial expressions that can only be described as disgust, saying only that he didn't like any of those "magical" movies.

He went on to claim that fantasy films just don't do it for him. I immediately asked his opinion on science fiction, as a genre, and he responded with a calm, "It's okay." At this point I was ready to explode.

In fantasy films (Harry Potter, The Never Ending Story, The Chronicles of Narnia), you see things that are created for your imagination to feed on. It presents a whole new world to you, as if it were reality. Science-fiction films (Star Wars, Blade Runner, Moon) take that very same idea and attempt to explain it by basing it on some primitive scientific theory that we currently have no proof or application for.

For the sake of this article, I'll use Harry Potter as the typical fantasy/magical film and Star Wars as the typical science-fiction movie. In Star Wars, everything you see is predicated on the notion that there is intelligent life out there in space and we will eventually have technology that will allow us to travel through space at the speed of light. Our world will just become grander than it already is.

In Harry Potter, we're just told that magic exists, and that it's been hidden from us the entire time. So we traverse the world of wizards - just like any normal human society - and see all the classes and different ideologies involved in it. So what is the difference?

Obviously, the only thing is the fact that one requires the tiniest hint at something quantitative, while the other requires nothing but raw imagination. What angers me more is that when you look at the narrative structure of these movies, you will see that they are the very same movie. The Harry Potter instalments are at their core action/adventure films, and so is Star Wars. Harry Potter has teenagers running around with wands and spells, while Star Wars has people with blasters and light sabres.

If you actually focus on the story arcs of Harry Potter and Star Wars, you'll notice a lot of comparisons as well. In Harry Potter, you have a youngster whose lineage is hidden from him until finally he comes of age and the news is literally dropped in his lap via mail and a half giant - Hagrid - who informs him.

In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker is also living with another family which refuses to tell him that his father was a powerful Jedi Knight. Eventually, he's informed of his inherited powers and taught the ways of the Jedi by his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

In both films, their mentors are murdered by the dark force and they must continue their quest to conquer it. In Star Wars, it's the Empire and Darth Vader; in Harry Potter, it's the Death Eaters and Lord Voldermort.

There's even a strong parallel between the Empire in Star Wars and Death Eaters in Harry Potter to the Nazis from WWII. In the latest Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1, we see Dolores Umbridge and all of the Ministry doing their best to hunt out the Half-Bloods (otherwise called Mudbloods) from the wizarding world just as Hitler did in all of Europe in the early '40s.

In Star Wars, we have the Empire, which is being run by the Emperor, who wants to rule the entire galaxy with the dark side of the force. It's totalitarianism all over again (back to WWII, please).

So if you switch wands with glowing swords and add some British accents, you've basically got yourself the exact, same movie. So I come back to the question: what's the difference? Why do you 'hate' one entire genre but decide to allow yourself to enjoy another? Why would you allow one simple detail to overshadow the entire thematic and narrative-based brilliance that is the Harry Potter franchise?

Or am I just missing something?