There IS a difference but they are both(usually) basically fantasy while one is mainly set in the future/space.

I loved that one haha. OK, it was cheesy as hell (especially season 1) but soooo much fun to watch. They were always visiting a new country each week and portrayed foreign historical heritages with admiration. Some of the artifacts were of supernatural nature, but most of the time it was kept historical (for example, giving a rational explanation for ancient myths). Unless you count as supernatural how they always managed to find the exact little peeble with the clue in a field with thousand of stones. :D

Not really, one is something that could plausibly happen and the other isn't. Granted technological advances tend to change what is and isn't acceptable for sci-fi over time, but it's supposed to be rooted in things that could theoretically happen.

Virtually anything set in space is going to either be fantasy or sci-fi as we don't have the means to get into space on any sort of continual basis. Sure, we've got those tiny space stations, but it's not anywhere near common enough to be a regular story.

Whereas in fantasy, you can more or less do whatever you please, so long as you can convince the audience to come along for the ride.

That's a... wonky definition at best. I mean, there's a lot of sci-fi out there that isn't plausible at all. I mean, Transformers aren't exactly more plausible (or implausible) than Harry Potter, and yet the former is definately sci-fi and the latter is fantasy.

It's a fairly standard definition. Transformers is a fairly bad example as we've got robots now that can do back flips, sure cramming the kit into the shape of a car is implausible at the current time, but there's nothing in particular to say that it couldn't be done with sufficient technology. It wasn't really that long ago that sending people to the moon would have seemed just as implausible.

As far as Harry Potter goes, if you seriously think that's in the same ballpark of plausibility as the Transformers, then I'm not even sure why I'm responding. With improvements in materials sciences and energy storage, the Transformers definitely could be a thing. Whereas what goes on in Harry Potter is completely impossible.

I didn't mean them as example of just "robots" but rather "giant sentient alien robots that hide among humans by changing into cars". And Hary Potter is about wizards hiding among humans. I was just looking for a particularly ridiculous sci-fi franchise doing something similiar to a fantasy franchise.

There's plenty of sci-fi that's totally implausible. Hell, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a whole collection of sci-fi stories the central conceit of which was that they are tall tales told at a pub and even the narrator relating them often points out that they are most often utterly implausible, but it's still sci-fi. I think a much better definiton than one relying on plausibility is simply "technology = sci-fi, magic = fantasy".

Congratulations, you sir are part of the problem. If you take that definition, then both Star Trek and Star Wars are in the same genre, which is liable to get you tarred and feathered in some parts as the two are in very different genres.

Having to keep things to some sort of technological possibility makes for a very different story to tell as you can't just create your own physical law breaking idea to get yourself out of a jam. It's one thing to violate rules that we don't know about or are difficult to break versus quite a different thing to violate ones we know full well can't be broken.

EDIT: I'm not considering the movies here, obviously, some of them stray way too far in terms of things like time travel. Also, the warp drive, while impossible, really isn't something that should be factored in as it's mostly something that goes on off screen.

And yes, I realize that's kind of arbitrary, but anything on film is going to be adjusted to make for something that's watchable. Taking centuries between star system with a completely different cast each week is unlikely to be something that people will watch even if it is kind of magicy.

And Eureka even has a crossover with Warehouse 13.

Yes, yes, I always am.

Good grief, trying to have a conversation with you is always like trying to wash one's hands with coal.

Don't remind me! I write that not as if it were bad but more because it just dredges up memories of when shows on Syfy were actually worth the time spent watching them.

I liked Eureka a ton....like when they made a mini sun(iirc) and it almost destroyed the town. Good times.