Harlan Ellison would say Star Wars is "Sci-Fi", but not "Science Fiction". https://twitter.com/nberlat/status/1309147923964407808

I feel like "Science Fiction" and "Fantasy" are both tentpole terms, each comprising a suite of not only themes but aesthetics

The Star Wars films (excepting SOLO and ROGUE ONE) have almost no science fiction themes but lots of science fiction aesthetic https://twitter.com/scots_dragon/status/1309213539429646338

This is pertinent to me right now since I've been writing a lot about how J.K. Rowling is SCARED of science fiction themes in her fantasy; the idea of meaningfully transforming society or exploring the idea of what it means to be "alive", "dead", "woman", or "human" frightens her

Modern Fantasy usually avoids becoming sci-fi by having its fantastical elements tempered by rarity and accessibility; e.g., the existence of wizards in THE DRESDEN FILES doesn't matter because such things are niche and too divorced from normality to change things macroscopically

the POTTER books can't take this exit; wizardry is not merely an entire institutionalized world of the elite but it *explicitly undergirds all of human society*, including that of muggles

It requires the idiom of science fiction to explain how this changes things, yet absconds