Well I’ll go ahead and throw my opinion here first, “hard” science fiction means “serious” science fiction, “soft” means fantasy wizards and orcs with technology instead of spells.
Now that I’ve said that, let’s Wikipedia the hell out of this
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both.12 The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.’s Islands of Space in Astounding Science Fiction.345 The complementary term soft science fiction (formed by analogy to “hard science fiction”6) first appeared in the late 1970s. The term is formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the “hard” (natural) and “soft” (social) sciences. Neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy—instead they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful.
Which means I was wrong and all of the “technical details and scientific accuracy” explanations above are correct.
—PolarisDiB
District 9, which is also very funny.
Ghost In The Shell
Jesse M
Interesting topic! I always thought of the “hardness” continuum as being like this: the more emphasis a science fiction story places in the integrity of its science, the “harder” it is. So I’d say:
Primer – 9
Contact – 9
Alien – 8
Blade Runner – 7
Terminator – 6
Star Trek – 5
The Matrix – 4
The Fifth Element – 3
The Fountain – 2
Stalker – 1
And “Never Let Me Go” is an especially interesting case, because the science is unquestionably possible, but the film doesn’t really emphasize it much — it creates a plausible science-fiction scenario, but then doesn’t really harp on the science, preferring instead of dive into the emotional and sentimental ramifications.