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I'm well aware of this question, but the discussion came up on chat and I was encouraged to ask the question on meta.

Twins is a 1988 comedy featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito as genetically engineered twins. The fact that they're genetically engineered is used to explain the differences between Arnold and Danny, but the movie would've probably worked as well, if they'd been regular brothers. So it has one small SF element, but nothing it couldn't do without.
We actually had a question about the movie that was migrated to the movies SE as being off topic.

Junior is from 1994 and stars the same actors, as scientists who have developed a fertility drug, which they decide to test on Arnold's character, who becomes pregnant. This is a comedy as well, but this time it focuses on Arnold being pregnant, which is arguably SF.

As one answer to the question I mentioned reads:

Let's ask a few of these questions and see how they go.

So, how did this go?

Below you'll find two answers, one for Twins, one for Junior, to vote on to show whether you agree or disagree.

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    Specific movies aren't on or off topic. It's the questions. If the question is one about any movie and is something where you would expect an excellent answer specifically from a scifi/fantasy expert (and it's not in the off topic list) then it belongs here.
    – Tony Meyer
    Commented Feb 6, 2014 at 4:59
  • Heads up: english.stackexchange.com/q/184357.
    – TRiG
    Commented Jul 10, 2014 at 20:25
  • @TRiG, I replied there.
    – SQB
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 6:22

4 Answers 4

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I think that, as a general rule of thumb, in order for a work to be scifi, and therefore on-topic, it should have Science fiction as a significant and integral part of the plot*. And I'll go further and say that not all fictional science is science fiction. For instance, CSI and similar crime shows are not science fiction, despite their use of technology that doesn't, and often can't, exist.

*With the possible exception of questions specifically about the scifi elements.

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    -1 because the question doesn't actually touch on 2 movies being discussed; and IMHO therefore simply becomes a duplicate of Gilles' answer here. I actually agree with the content, ironically. Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 20:16
  • This is a worrying answer from a mod :-/ Commented Feb 10, 2014 at 12:33
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Junior in on-topic, but only marginally so. The "man being pregnant" medical science/technology is SciFi, and it IS central to the plot.

I agree that Twins is offtopic since the SF element (genetically mixing sperm from 7 fathers) isn't integral to the plot at all.

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I say Twins is off topic for SF&F.

Vote up if you agree, vote down if you disagree.

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I say Junior is off topic for SF&F.

Vote up if you agree, vote down if you disagree.

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  • ...though slightly less so than Twins.
    – SQB
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 19:50

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