AHC/WI: Sci-fi shifts in the 90s towards parallel worlds from outer space

[alter]

The 1990s have seen various successful sci-fi films and shows which explored the concept of visiting alternate worlds instead of alien planets.

Examples include the 1992 film Doorways, which was technically the pilot of a series that never came to be, and the 1995-2000 series Sliders which explored a group of people visiting random parallel worlds.

By 2000, the concept largely petered out, and remained the domain of filler episodes in primarily space-related sci-fi shows, for example Stargate.


But what if, the focus of science fiction somehow shifted towards exploring alternate universes from fictional alien planets? How do you think this could have come into being, and how would it have affected popular culture?

 

[Magical123]

The 1990s have seen various successful sci-fi films and shows which explored the concept of visiting alternate worlds instead of alien planets.

Examples include the 1992 film Doorways, which was technically the pilot of a series that never came to be, and the 1995-2000 series Sliders which explored a group of people visiting random parallel worlds.

By 2000, the concept largely petered out, and remained the domain of filler episodes in primarily space-related sci-fi shows, for example Stargate.


But what if, the focus of science fiction somehow shifted towards exploring alternate universes from fictional alien planets? How do you think this could have come into being, and how would it have affected popular culture?

Aliens and starships I think will always be a more enduring and popular sci fi staple than parallel universes.

Parallel worlds and universes when handled badly can appear cartoonish and silly and when handled well often require a lot of intellectual machinery to process and grasp effectively.

 

[alter]

But weren't alien planets also handled cartoonishly if we follow this line of thought? Various Stargate and Star Trek episodes featured alien planets which were inhabited by humans or a very humanoid species with a civilization resembling a theme park version of a time and place on OTL Earth.

For example many Stargate episodes featured a single-village-on-a-planet alien world, one inspired by Medieval Mongolia, an another after Ancient Greece etc. When technologically more advanced civilizations were encountered, they were inevitably a theme park version of Nazi Germany or an Eastern European country during the Cold War, unless they were very much ahead of Earth in technology, where there was at least some creativity.