is STAR TREK respected scifi???
- Thread starter RobertScorpio
- Start date
I actually prefer a nice cheeseburger and fries to a giant hunk of meat and a dry potatoe.
By whom? TV critics prefer junk like BSG and Firefly because they're trendy.
SF novelists and short story writers tend to dislike all TV and movies on the general principle that the pay checks are too much higher than their own.
SF fans tends to divide along two principles---their personal attitudes toward TV/movies and their attitudes toward scientific illiteracy. The ones that look down on TV/movies for whatever reason don't. The ones that look down on scientific illiteracy still tend to respect Trek more than all the others, though that may not be very much.
SF novelists and short story writers tend to dislike all TV and movies on the general principle that the pay checks are too much higher than their own.
SF fans tends to divide along two principles---their personal attitudes toward TV/movies and their attitudes toward scientific illiteracy. The ones that look down on TV/movies for whatever reason don't. The ones that look down on scientific illiteracy still tend to respect Trek more than all the others, though that may not be very much.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
"Literary sci-fi" is like French quisine...overpriced, overhyped, too-small portions cooked up by chefs and served up by waiters who looks down their noses at diners. :thumbsup:
And don't get me started about the Emmy people...Next Gen and DS9 BOTH got robbed repeatedly in the "Drama" catagory...I defy you to tell me that "Best of Both Worlds", "Homefront/Paradise Lost", "Preemptive Strike", "In the Pale Moonlight", "Nor the Battle to the Strong", et al aren't worthy DRAMAs in their own right!
I've had the same arguements many times with different tv shows and music and other such things. The thing with respect in entertainment is that most of the time things are only respected so long as it's extremely niche. Once the unwashed masses discover it, it's appaerently crap on a stick.
I tend to think quality runs the other way. You can fool the artsy bunch by making a show or a movie that nobody would watch volentarily, fill it up with strange symbolism that means very little but pretends to be great. I just don't think that makes art great. Art needs to be able to communicate to people. The true test is to make something that can still be enjoyed 50, 100, even 200 years later. Something enjoyed because it's entertaining, not in the "eat your brussel sprouts" sort of way.
http://www.paulgraham.com/copy.html
I tend to think quality runs the other way. You can fool the artsy bunch by making a show or a movie that nobody would watch volentarily, fill it up with strange symbolism that means very little but pretends to be great. I just don't think that makes art great. Art needs to be able to communicate to people. The true test is to make something that can still be enjoyed 50, 100, even 200 years later. Something enjoyed because it's entertaining, not in the "eat your brussel sprouts" sort of way.
http://www.paulgraham.com/copy.html
RobertScorpio
Pariah
Very good point. Many of our top scientists do seem to list TREK as their inspiration.
Trek's best contribution to science fiction is the 'futurist' angle it takes in regard to TECH. And for many who don't have the time, or drive, to read SCIFI, Trek has done well in that area.
Trek's best contribution to science fiction is the 'futurist' angle it takes in regard to TECH. And for many who don't have the time, or drive, to read SCIFI, Trek has done well in that area.
Man I hate those terms. When did scifi start becoming a derogatory term? For a grand chunk of my life I always thought and it was always used a simplified version of "Science Fiction"
And ah - if "science fiction" is so arch its first motive isn't to "just entertain" no one should be wasting their time with it.
I totally hate this snobbish attitude which regretfully GR stumbled across sometime in 70's and tried to remake Trek in its image...
As to ToS being "deep", there are at best a handful of episodes that are that... and then most of them are predicable and cliched at that. Any deep meanings you are finding there are likely more you own thoughts being mirrored back at you.
How about if there is simply a grander question being asked?
I keep seeing this being said, but even from "The Cage" its clear its about the people, the brooding Capitan and his choices and how they effect his crew. Damn they even had a female yoeman have a crush on him.
Any show that isn't about the people would (and should have) been cancelled as soon as possible...
This whole "Science fiction" purity nonsense is a waste of time.
Sharr
Horseshit.
"SF," "sci-fi" and "science fiction" all refer to the same thing. It is only a very narrow and anal minority arriving later in the game which insists that those terms distinguish between different things or different levels of quality. They may have a minor point when it comes to "skiffy" being inferior, trashy, science-fiction-flavored entertainment, but that is again a terminology adapted relatively recently.
Sharr and others have mangled what I said so badly that it would be too big a project to go back and try to straighten everything out. It's a classic unfair tactic in debate to exaggerate and over-simplify the other party's argument, and that's the case here. I don't understand the anger, either.
Of course characters are crucial. SF is about how advancements, discoveries, changes we can guess at in the future, etc., might affect the minds and souls of human beings.
Arch? Anyway... what? Because you say so? There's so much that just entertains, the culture's full of it-- but there should be something for the rest of us too.
I'm not a snob. People here who are getting their back up at what I'm saying must be remembering other bitter argumants they've had with other people, and assigning me to some "camp" to which I don't belong.
The idea of the thread may be unclear... I'm not sure if we're supposed to be talking about respect for ST from SF fans, or from the public in general. Those are two very different things.
Since when has "sci-fi" been a trivializing term for what someone here called "popcorn" science-fiction? It goes back to the 70s at least, maybe the 60s. You can obviously call anything anything, but it's useful to have a handy term like that, to distinguish one kind of story from another, and to make sure the concept survives, of science-fiction that shoots for something higher than space adventure. We may as well hang onto terms that have lasted for decades...
I was saying ST (season one, plus parts of other seasons and series) was solidly science-fiction, but it's not the hardest SF. ST wasn't above taking a scientific principle and altering it for drama, as with identical particles of matter and anti-matter meeting and annihilating the whole universe--- but it worked, and got our imaginations going, on a genuine scientific issue... and many of us probably looked into the subject later, as a result. Where else were they talking about matter anti-matter annihilation, silicon life, etc.? Bonanza? People born in later decades don't realize what a remarkable thing it was for ST to exist back then, at all.
They introduced scientific ideas and used them as the core of the story. You can hold it against them that there were inaccuracies, but they were still calling upon the intelligent viewer to think about these kinds of concepts, and they didn't have to do this. A "space adventure" wouldn't have bothered.
As for Trek year one not being intelligent... if it isn't, what the hell is? How do I even begin to respond to something like that? Just a guess, but perhaps some judge SF TV by the amount of accurate techspeak, or the absolute accuracy of the science, when that's not what I mean by 'intelligent'. They throw a lot of good science content in, but what matters is that they use the SF concepts to pose questions about how we think and feel and experience the unknown, new technology, or anything that's unlike us... it was a fully adult program, in year one. I just saw Devil In the Dark again, and was struck more than ever before by what a perfect piece it is, about open-mindedness and empathy, for someone as different from us as anything can be, and stepping outside pre-conceptions... and it all grew out of the silicon life idea. Perfect SF, except for the cutesy final scene, but you can't have eveything.... Not maudlin, not sappy sentiment... they handled it carefully and well.
A space adventure would have expected us to get off on gunplay, the miners' deaths, and the "horror" of the crreature and its appearance. They were subversive and turned all this on its head.
Of course characters are crucial. SF is about how advancements, discoveries, changes we can guess at in the future, etc., might affect the minds and souls of human beings.
Arch? Anyway... what? Because you say so? There's so much that just entertains, the culture's full of it-- but there should be something for the rest of us too.
I'm not a snob. People here who are getting their back up at what I'm saying must be remembering other bitter argumants they've had with other people, and assigning me to some "camp" to which I don't belong.
The idea of the thread may be unclear... I'm not sure if we're supposed to be talking about respect for ST from SF fans, or from the public in general. Those are two very different things.
Since when has "sci-fi" been a trivializing term for what someone here called "popcorn" science-fiction? It goes back to the 70s at least, maybe the 60s. You can obviously call anything anything, but it's useful to have a handy term like that, to distinguish one kind of story from another, and to make sure the concept survives, of science-fiction that shoots for something higher than space adventure. We may as well hang onto terms that have lasted for decades...
I was saying ST (season one, plus parts of other seasons and series) was solidly science-fiction, but it's not the hardest SF. ST wasn't above taking a scientific principle and altering it for drama, as with identical particles of matter and anti-matter meeting and annihilating the whole universe--- but it worked, and got our imaginations going, on a genuine scientific issue... and many of us probably looked into the subject later, as a result. Where else were they talking about matter anti-matter annihilation, silicon life, etc.? Bonanza? People born in later decades don't realize what a remarkable thing it was for ST to exist back then, at all.
They introduced scientific ideas and used them as the core of the story. You can hold it against them that there were inaccuracies, but they were still calling upon the intelligent viewer to think about these kinds of concepts, and they didn't have to do this. A "space adventure" wouldn't have bothered.
As for Trek year one not being intelligent... if it isn't, what the hell is? How do I even begin to respond to something like that? Just a guess, but perhaps some judge SF TV by the amount of accurate techspeak, or the absolute accuracy of the science, when that's not what I mean by 'intelligent'. They throw a lot of good science content in, but what matters is that they use the SF concepts to pose questions about how we think and feel and experience the unknown, new technology, or anything that's unlike us... it was a fully adult program, in year one. I just saw Devil In the Dark again, and was struck more than ever before by what a perfect piece it is, about open-mindedness and empathy, for someone as different from us as anything can be, and stepping outside pre-conceptions... and it all grew out of the silicon life idea. Perfect SF, except for the cutesy final scene, but you can't have eveything.... Not maudlin, not sappy sentiment... they handled it carefully and well.
A space adventure would have expected us to get off on gunplay, the miners' deaths, and the "horror" of the crreature and its appearance. They were subversive and turned all this on its head.
As odd as this may seem, I agree.
Naturally, with the caveat about what 'entertain' means. I can be pretty entertained by intelligent, esoteric stuff if I find it interesting.
Even Plato is entertaining; you know.But that's the only thing I seek in fiction I read, entertainment. Whatever kind it may be.
Probably since the time Harlan Ellison said it sounded like crickets copulating.
Yes I think Star Trek is highly respected, therefore, derided. What other old TV show has a forum like this?
Overall, Trek is respected scifi. Some noted scifi writers disagree, but a lot of that could be envy, professional run-ins with Roddenbury, etc.
Now - the quality of the Trek literature tends to be rather tepid. I blame this on the restrictions placed on the published novels, something that occured back in the early to mid 1990s. I don't think we have ever seen a novel matching the quality of, say John M. Ford's 'Final Reflection' since then.
Now - the quality of the Trek literature tends to be rather tepid. I blame this on the restrictions placed on the published novels, something that occured back in the early to mid 1990s. I don't think we have ever seen a novel matching the quality of, say John M. Ford's 'Final Reflection' since then.
Well I read Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend" the other week my curiousity peaked by the movie. I found it to be an excellent sci-fi novel.
BUT - is it inferior and not hard sci-fi in some peoples books? After all there is little scientific credibility to the stuff about vampires in there.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
I have read I AM LEGEND and I saw the movie. I have always thought the book was over rated, and I thought the movie was just okay. Some so called scifi classics are over rated, this was one of them..IMO
Alot of my friends are this way, also. I personally don't care what they think of Star Trek, I enjoy it and will continue to do so until they day I get married and my wife tells me not to watch it anymore. Until then, it's Trek for life for me baby
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