Screenwriting : Some grounded and elevated thoughts :-D by John Richard Sullivan

Since I've joined the Writers Room here at Stage 32, I've noticed that a lot more producers are looking for "grounded sci-fi" and "elevated horror".  "Grounded" and "elevated" are qualifiers that have only started to creep into the entertainment industry in recent years, and I wonder if it's the genre equivalent of gentrification.  I understand that, in the case of sci-fi, "grounded" might mean cheaper to produce.  But it also feels like an attempt to make the genres more acceptable to critics and award-givers .  Also in the case of sci-fi, it feels like a touch of perhaps unconscious xenophobia and nationalism.  The characters in my sci-fi series, for example, are aliens, not Americans. Would that pass muster? 

It's a wall I'm bumping up against, and seems to be a trend.  It also reminds me of the situation in the 70s, where sci-fi was very much "grounded" (including some films I own), except it wasn't called that in those days (also the films were a lot weirder). One of the reasons why George Lucas had difficulty getting financing for a personal film of his he was shopping around at the time.

Also, given the exclusively for-profit nature of the artificial intelligence industry, don't genre stories based around AI now constitute product placement?  My latest series has a character that can be defined as artificial intelligence, although they aren't referred to as AI (and aren't humanoid in structure; being, instead, a floating neon tube).  I'm conflicted about it.  Same as not wanting to have a gun in any of my scripts, unless absolutely necessary to the scene.  As with sticking Burger King or Starbucks in the middle of a movie or TV show, I feel as if the production should get paid for including their product.