Yeah I’m not sure science fiction is a genre… It’s certainly distinct, but it’s more of a setting. I think of it more as a period piece like I said before… At least that’s sci-fi is best. Sure there are plenty of movies that are about the sci-fi, about the spaceships and the laserguns etc. But stuff like Star Trek and Alien isn’t really about the science. Alien and The Thing are more similar than Alien and Star Trek, even though The Thing would be in another ‘genre’, since it’s not science fiction.

I just find it amazing that you can stretch your arguement to say that these two movies (one of which we pretty much know nothing about, not to mention never having seen a Wes Anderson movie…) are so much alike. There is a subtle thing called ‘tone’ which can make two movies about the same subject COMPLETELY different. To say that this seems like Little Miss Sunshine 2 is to say that Little Miss Sunshine seems like Easy Rider 2, Sideways 2, Planes Trains & Automobiles 2, Roadtrip 2, Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert 2, National Lampoons Vacation 2…and so on and so on. All VERY different movies that deal with the same general idea. A road trip.

Alien and Star Trek may both be science fiction but they are very different in every other aspect. Alien is more of a horror movie, and Star Trek is not. I can’t really pick a genre for the Trek movies that I have seen (the only Trek-iverse I have seen is TNG).

These are both road movies, but also focused on quirky character interaction etc. Definitely in the same ballpark as the aforementioned movies. You can’t deny that they seem more similar than Alien and Star Trek at least. I am not saying this is going to suck in any way though. I haven’t seen any of Wes Anderson’s movies, and like I said before I do think that Adrien Brody looks funny.

Like I said I am not very submersed in the road movie genre, but there had been plenty of critically acclaimed roman epics before Gladiator, but it was still the reason that all the following years had way more swords’n’sandals movies than before.

It’s an excellent movie as well. It transcends the genre. But it would be hard saying it set a benchmark in film in general, because that would make it seem like every movie could be compared to it, which isn’t the case. But all road movies can be compared to it I think, at least it’s the movie I usually hold them up against.

I guess that you could just call them genre movies like that. But I thought Sideways was awesome, and these movies just seem to be gunning for the same sort of quirky character piece, and it’s more about that than the actual road tripping aspect of it. Which I guess may not be anything new with these movies, but you can’t deny that Sideways set a benchmark, and I thought LMS was going for that same kind of feeling.