I have a confession to make, something that’s been bothering me for years as both a fan of science fiction and as someone who teaches this subject to teenagers each and every day. Romance in science fiction movies? It’s like adding a kazoo solo to a symphony orchestra – it’s technically possible, but why would you want to?
This is something that I’ve been mulling around quite a bit since my students continue to ask me why so many science fiction movies seem to find it necessary to shoe horn in love stories — and I’m being honest here — I simply don’t have a good answer for them. These are kids who genuinely get fired up about dystopian societies and time travel paradoxes, but then will groan loudly when the inevitable romantic subplot comes along. Intelligent kids, indeed.
My association with this topic has gone on for a while now. As I recall, I was probably about fourteen and sat in a movie theatre watching *Attack of the Clones* with my dad — and I was totally immersed in this galactic conflict that was playing out on screen. The politics of the galaxy, the impending war, and the moral complexity of the Jedi’s role — I loved it all. However, then Anakin starts talking, and he delivers that infamous sand speech and I literally cringed so hard that I sunk down into my seat. My dad looked over at me and asked “what’s wrong?” but I was unable to articulate it at the time.
The entire romance felt like someone took a perfectly good space opera and thought it needed to be more like a CW teen drama. Here’s Anakin — supposed to be this conflicted character struggling with destiny and power — reduced to delivering pickup lines that would make a high schooler embarrassed. And Padmé — a former queen and senator — somehow finds him charming? The disconnect between those two scenes was so strong that it completely removed me from the story.
What frustrates me the most is that these romantic elements feel like they’re created by committee to meet demographic goals rather than to service the story. This is the same reason that I roll my eyes when my students complain that every young adult dystopian novel has a love triangle — apparently, we can’t trust audiences to care about the characters without romantic interests.
*Interstellar* is probably the example that frustrated me the most, however. For the first two acts, I was completely sold on this movie. The science in this movie was amazing, the emotional weight of Cooper leaving his daughter behind felt very real and devastating, and the whole time dilation concept kept me on the edge of my seat — I remember looking at my watch during the water planet scene because the tension was so unbearably bad.
But then – and I swear this is when I felt my heart drop — we get to that third act where love is the key to the other dimension. Brand’s speech about love being the only thing that exists across dimensions made me want to throw something at the screen. Not because I believe love isn’t powerful or meaningful — but because it felt like such a cop-out from the excellent, tough science fiction that the movie had been doing until that point.
I teach *1984* and *Fahrenheit 451* to my juniors, and they never complain that either of those novels need more romance. Instead, they’re too busy being disgusted by surveillance states and book burning. In both of those novels, the human connections are important, but they serve to illustrate the greater themes about society and freedom. They don’t take over the story.
*Passengers* may be the worst example I have ever seen in recent years. The premise for this movie was so exciting — what happens to human psychology during extended periods of time spent in space? What are the ethical considerations of bringing someone out of cryo sleep for your own company? These are huge, deep questions that could be explored in an entire movie.
Instead, we got essentially a romantic comedy played out on a spaceship, complete with all the terrible implications of Jim’s actions being completely ignored — because…love trumps all, right? The movie was so fixated on getting Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence to kiss that it gave up on the philosophical questions that were so fascinating in the first place.
One of the things that really irritates me about this trend — science fiction is inherently a humanistic genre. You don’t need to add romance to the mix to create a connection between the audience and the characters. Many of the most emotionally impactful science fictions I can think of have virtually no romance at all. *2001: A Space Odyssey*, *Arrival*, *Ex Machina* — these films trust that audiences will relate to characters that are contemplating their existence, attempting to communicate with others, and questioning what it means to be human.
When romance is done well in science fiction, it typically is because it is truly examining something about the science fiction genres’ themes, rather than just being thrown into the movie as a formulaic element. *Her* is probably the only example I can think of that is done extremely well. Theodore’s relationship with Samantha is not just a love story — it is an exploration of intimacy, consciousness, and connection in a world that is becoming increasingly digital. The science fiction elements of the movie and the romance are intertwined because they are both exploring similar questions.
In fact, my students absolutely love *Her* when I show it to them (after providing the necessary permission slips, of course). They don’t view it as a romance that happens to be set in the future — they see it as a story about technology and humanity that happens to utilize a romantic relationship to examine those themes. That’s a major distinction.
*Blade Runner 2049*, although it also contains romantic elements in K and Joi’s relationship, uses them to delve further into questions about artificial consciousness and what constitutes a real relationship. The romance serves the science fiction and doesn’t compete with it.
However, for every *Her* or *Blade Runner 2049*, we receive dozens of movies that contain romantic elements that feel like they were included solely because some studio executive determined that the movie needed to have “broad appeal.” This is the same line of thinking that leads to unnecessary action scenes in dramatics or comedic relief in horror movies — the assumption that audiences cannot handle science fiction that is committed to its science fiction.
I have had many discussions with fellow science fiction enthusiasts regarding this exact issue, and the frustration is palpable. We are not asking for emotionless robots in space. We want richly developed, fully realised human characters who are experiencing extraordinary circumstances. The difference is between developing a richly developed character that has romantic elements and having romantic elements that undermine the entirety of the story.
What I find the most disturbing is that this trend seems to indicate that audiences are incapable of understanding science fiction on its own merits. That is, we need the comforting familiarity of a love story to make the futuristic/foreign concepts acceptable. But my students constantly prove that wrong — they are perfectly capable of being emotionally invested in characters battling alien invasions or totalitarian regimes without requiring that those characters develop romantic feelings for each other.
Perhaps I am being too harsh. I know many people who truly enjoy the romantic subplots within their science fiction, and that is fine. People desire different things from their entertainment. But, I feel like we are losing access to a vast number of interesting stories because writers and filmmakers are compelled to include romantic elements that do not contribute to the overall narrative.
Science fiction at its finest provokes people to rethink themselves and the world they inhabit. Science fiction explores massive questions about technology, society, consciousness, and our place in the universe. When romance contributes to those questions, that’s wonderful. When it distracts from those questions or reduces complex characters to romantic tropes, it is harming the genre.
I simply wish to see more science fiction that trusts its audience to care about the characters and ideas without relying on the familiar romance formulas. Is that too much to ask?
Diane teaches English in Philadelphia and uses sci-fi to make teenagers care about literature. She writes about how the genre reflects real-world anxieties—from climate fears to social rebellion—with humor, warmth, and the occasional classroom story.