"The Force" never sat well with me. It was the one weird supernatural thing in the Star Wars universe that pushed the whole franchise into "magic" territory.
The less Force, the better in my opinion. Save super-powers for comic-book movies.
The less Force, the better in my opinion. Save super-powers for comic-book movies.
In the recent Disney movies (Andor being the exception) it’s like they gave everyone the force, everyone is a super hero, it’s bombastic and annoying.
Let me run around with a rock and a stick for the first hour. Then give me a sword that looks cheap but I will cherish it. Then take it away. Let me earn it when I am awesome in the end.
To many games treat you like a toddler that wants shiny things. Yeah I want shiny things, but I want them when I deserved them. Similarily, yeah, I want powerful heros, but they have to earn it as well.
Sure, you'll be a badass at the end, but you're going to earn it. :)
If your standard for what science fiction is us The Expanse then almost all of what's considered science fiction is fantasy.
Star Wars doesn't even claim to attempt this. It is a world of entirely made up rules and places for the sake of the story. There is nothing wrong with that. But it completely misses this key feature of sci fi.
There isn't a very clear delineation between the two genres. Star Trek also crosses this line into pure fantasy pretty consistently (an anomaly that compells everybody to sing and eventually produces a Klingon boy band performance? Or one that gives everybody amnesia and turns them into actors in Shakespeare drama - costumes and all?).
I'm not saying the distinction doesn't exist - The Hobbit isn't SF and Ringworld isn't high fantasy, but I am saying that between the extremes, it's mostly just vibes. There is no objective reason not to consider Star Wars science fiction, some people just find the space wizards too silly (while having a bookshelf full of "The author's barely disguised fetish or hyperfixation but In Spaaaaace.")