As much as fans of the genre enjoy tales of interstellar travel, artificial and extraterrestrial life forms, superpowers, and cautionary tales of the over-dependence on technology, there are bits and pieces of the sci-fi genre that have been overplayed and overused in the last few years. Granted, there are exceptions to the rules, especially if they turn the cliches around like they do with superpowers in Upgrade, but certain tropes have become tired and old-hat.
Evil robot uprisings, post-apocalyptic wastelands, and other such things are about a dime a dozen. While it's true some clichés might make for good movies, even Oscar-winning motion pictures, they simply become old news after a certain point.
Tight Jumpsuits
For some reason, a decision was made that the default attire for movies set in space, the future, or some other planet is formfitting jumpsuits. Granted, some settings make sense like the Nostromo or the average space station. But when superheroes start wearing tight leather gear to fight the bad guys, it gets a little ridiculous.
They might be practical and some scenarios, but it starts to become questionable when they start appearing in every single version of the future or space travel. Logically speaking, fashion designers would have evolved with the times too.
Humanoid Aliens
By their mere definition, aliens need to be something outside of the human understanding. Since they do not evolve from Earth, they shouldn't look like earthlings. Yet for some reason, modern aliens have started looking more and more like improved versions of humans with some slight physical variation.
The engineers in Ridley Scott's Prometheus are a great example. Since they're supposed to be some great cosmic race of beings, they shouldn't look just like bald pale humans. It's high time aliens went back to looking like aliens.
Zombies Created By Science
Zombies have come a long way since George Romero's day, but they seem to have forgotten just where their origins lie. Nowadays, it seems like the only way to get a zombie outbreak is by some sort of science experiment gone wrong or some form of horrific disease. There was a time when zombies meant reanimating the dead, not an after-effect of some nuclear holocaust.
It's been so long since audiences have seen a more traditional zombie. The genre needs to go back to the days of voodoo, ancient curses, and unethical experiments involving the forces of life and death. To put it bluntly, zombies haven't been true zombies since the premiere of The Walking Dead.
Unreasonable Artificial Intelligence
The use of artificial intelligence in sci-fi stories will never go out of style, partially because it is something that scientists in reality study and experiment with on a regular basis. However, it always seems when a robot gets too smart, too advanced, or too intuitive that its definition of better-than-humans is always cruel and unreasonable.
For some reason, robots tend to go the Ultron route when becoming more advanced than their human creators. If a robot was truly advanced, it would make sense that they would be more reasonable, empathetic, and understanding of the human condition. Granted that level of thinking would take quite a leap of faith to establish, but hyper-intelligent does not mean an absence of understanding.
Hyper Intelligent = Cold And Unfeeling
Jumping off the previous statement, it always seems that hyper-intelligent beings are always cold, all steer, and serious without any patients for lifeforms that dare to show their emotions. Intelligence does not mean an absence of emotion, yet it seems the sci-fi genre has made that the standard.
While characters like Star Trek's Vulcans might be popular, evolving away from emotions doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Just because a character or creature has intellect or comprehension beyond human understanding, it doesn't mean that they are without some form of comion, empathy, or other such feelings.
Hostile Creator/Creation Relations
Call it a precedent set by Mary Shelley or call it a cautionary tale, but it seems like any time life, artificial intelligence, or some combination of the two is created that the creator Hass to be punished in some form or fashion. On one hand, tampering with things like the forces of life and death is well-deserving, but it seems like it happens almost every time.
From Victor Frankenstein and his monster to Tony Stark and Ultron, any time something or someone is created in a lab, someone has to suffer for it. Sometimes it feels like the days of characters like Astro Boy and Vision are working their way out of the genre.
Unexplained Psychic Children
When it comes to sci-fi clichés, psychic children are one of the biggest and most overused. Although the genre has improved with its use in recent years, just look at Eleven in Stranger Things, the presence of a psychic child is one of the biggest plot devices seen in many speculative stories.
Stephen King, one of the greatest authors of the modern era, is exceptionally guilty of this. Whether it's something as simple as some form of precognition or an innate ability to control things with their mind, the abilities always seem to flourish with the younger generation.
It’s All A Simulation
This is science fiction's answer to the "it's all a dream" cliché, but it happens more often than Sam would think. Sure, it's a great trope if the creators want to play with the audience's perception, but viewers start to even wonder if any of the plot's events even matter when it starts getting overplayed.
It was remarkable and poignant when movies like Ready Player One tried to be original with it, simulations and simulated life has become too over-used.
It’s The Government’s Fault
To be fair, it is incredibly easy to blame the government for a litany of problems in various media. However, that doesn't mean it isn't overplayed at times. While totalitarian fascists and overzealous theocracies will always make ideal bad guys, it gets a little overplayed when the people in power are "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons."
Government experimentation, government weapons, government exploitation, and government initiatives have all been responsible for some form of sci-fi plot. While it does make for good storytelling if handled the correct way, sometimes it can be the easy way out.
Capitalism/Business Is The Real Villain
If a governing body or political figure is unavailable to be the plot's main villain, there's nothing wrong with relying on pure corporate greed. Corporations, businesses, and the plain old garden-variety ambitious capitalist have been the villains of sci-fi more times than many can count.
Greed is bad, everyone knows that and sci-fi doesn't need to get overly preachy with it. They might not all be Weyland-Yutani, but the idea of corporations and capitalism being the puppet-masters of the whole ordeal has become far too predictable these days. Like so many tropes in the sci-fi genre, creators don't have to rely on them just because they're low-hanging fruit.
