(This thread focuses on the MCU, but the question applies to any other media that uses this concept.)
What's exactly the problem with fiction following the notion that mystical powers are just things we're currently unable to explain scientifically?
Ever since the first Thor movie I've seen people constantly complaining (on GAF and elsewhere) that this version of the Asgardians aren't properly "magical", but instead use an advanced form of technology. The MCU also leans more heavily on the fact that they're powerful aliens instead of "actual gods".
However, the idea that magic is just phenomena that we still can't explain is pretty ok to me, as is the idea that gods are just advanced alien beings. I mean, in real life there was a time when rain and lightning were considered magic thrown by people who lived in the sky. Granted, I always liked seeing scientists trying to figure magic out in stories, and mixing magic with technology is cool as hell to me since I grew up playing games like FFVI and VII.
It also sounds like the magic in the Doctor Strange movie may still operate under this. We just got news that they're filming at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (might not mean anything though). But there's this Feige quote from 2014 too:
So it's not even like there isn't "magic" per se in the MCU, it's just that the lines are blurred.
Other choice quotes:
Your ancestors called it magic and you call it science. Well, I come from a place where they're one and the same thing.
-Thor in Thor 1
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
-Arthur C. Clarke (Clarke's third law)
I was twelve [in 1940] when I read my first sf magazine it was called Stirring Science Stories and ran, I think, four issues .I came across the magazine quite by accident; I was actually looking for Popular Science. I was most amazed. Stories about science? At once I recognized the magic which I had found, in earlier times, in the Oz books this magic now coupled not with magic wands but with science In any case my view became magic equals science and science (of the future) equals magic.
-Philip K. Dick, Self Portrait (1968)
This is a page from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #7, which takes place in the main Marvel Universe from the comics:
What's exactly the problem with fiction following the notion that mystical powers are just things we're currently unable to explain scientifically?
Ever since the first Thor movie I've seen people constantly complaining (on GAF and elsewhere) that this version of the Asgardians aren't properly "magical", but instead use an advanced form of technology. The MCU also leans more heavily on the fact that they're powerful aliens instead of "actual gods".
However, the idea that magic is just phenomena that we still can't explain is pretty ok to me, as is the idea that gods are just advanced alien beings. I mean, in real life there was a time when rain and lightning were considered magic thrown by people who lived in the sky. Granted, I always liked seeing scientists trying to figure magic out in stories, and mixing magic with technology is cool as hell to me since I grew up playing games like FFVI and VII.
It also sounds like the magic in the Doctor Strange movie may still operate under this. We just got news that they're filming at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (might not mean anything though). But there's this Feige quote from 2014 too:
I sat down with Marvel honcho Kevin Feige at the junket for Captain America: The Winter Soldier and asked him how Marvel intended to move into the realms of magic and the unknown.
Are you watching the Cosmos series? Thats magic, [the quantum physics]. Its unbelievable. If somebody knew how to tap into that stuff, whats the difference between that and magic?
You dont get into it in Harry Potter, but if a scientist went to Hogwarts hed find out how some of that stuff is happening! Were not going to spend a lot of time on that, but there will be some of that. And particularly for a character like Strange, who goes from a man of science to a man of faith and who traverses both worlds. And sometimes there wont be an answer! Sometimes hell want an answer - How is this happening?! - and nothing.
Are you watching the Cosmos series? Thats magic, [the quantum physics]. Its unbelievable. If somebody knew how to tap into that stuff, whats the difference between that and magic?
You dont get into it in Harry Potter, but if a scientist went to Hogwarts hed find out how some of that stuff is happening! Were not going to spend a lot of time on that, but there will be some of that. And particularly for a character like Strange, who goes from a man of science to a man of faith and who traverses both worlds. And sometimes there wont be an answer! Sometimes hell want an answer - How is this happening?! - and nothing.
So it's not even like there isn't "magic" per se in the MCU, it's just that the lines are blurred.
Other choice quotes:
Your ancestors called it magic and you call it science. Well, I come from a place where they're one and the same thing.
-Thor in Thor 1
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
-Arthur C. Clarke (Clarke's third law)
I was twelve [in 1940] when I read my first sf magazine it was called Stirring Science Stories and ran, I think, four issues .I came across the magazine quite by accident; I was actually looking for Popular Science. I was most amazed. Stories about science? At once I recognized the magic which I had found, in earlier times, in the Oz books this magic now coupled not with magic wands but with science In any case my view became magic equals science and science (of the future) equals magic.
-Philip K. Dick, Self Portrait (1968)
This is a page from Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #7, which takes place in the main Marvel Universe from the comics:
