I feel the same.Anyway, I'm not that worried about arguing it. I believe it is likely, you disagree. No biggie.
Provenance of Titles
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
- Start date
Ye, you must admit that there are a fews of these titles that are far from being cheesy. Like "The City On The Edge Of Forever." for example.
I never said that you did.
Flowery is not necessarily the same as "cheesy."
And, honestly, I find the more flowery titles easier to remember than something like, say, "Transgressions" or "Cathexis" or whatever.
FYI: My favorite 1960s sci-fi title is probably:
"If All Men were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?"
(From Theodore Sturgeon, author of "Amok Time" and "Shore Leave," among other things.)
For me, no one will ever surpass Cordwainer Smith.
"Golden the Ship Was -- Oh! Oh! Oh!"
"The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal"
"The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All"
"Himself in Anachron"
Another contender: "The Lemon-Green Spaghetti-Loud Dynamite-Dribble Day" by William Tenn.
Back to Star Trek: just to be a completist, no less than four TOS titles come from Shakespeare, five if you count the Animated Series: "Dagger of the Mind," "By Any Other Name," "All Our Yesterdays," "Conscience of the King," and "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth."
From Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear, respectively.
Back to Star Trek: just to be a completist, no less than four TOS titles come from Shakespeare, five if you count the Animated Series: "Dagger of the Mind," "By Any Other Name," "All Our Yesterdays," "Conscience of the King," and "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth."
From Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear, respectively.
Although as it happens Smith didn't choose his titles. His editor, Frederik Pohl, picked them, albeit by merely (``merely'') choosing a particularly good bit from the story Smith submitted.
If I had to pick just one good line from a Cordwainer Smith story, I don't think I could manage!
Agreed. I constantly have to remind myself which TOS episode was "The Changeling" and which one was "Metamorphosis," largely because the titles are rather vague.
They are two very different episodes, though. "Metamorphosis" is about Cochrane and "the Changeling" about V'ger's little brother.
But the point was not the that plots were too similar, just that the titles were too easily mixed up.
I confess I find "Return to Tomorrow" somewhat generic, and perhaps too easily confused with "Tomorrow is Yesterday," which is not to be confused with "All Our Yesterdays."
By contrast, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" or "Requiem for Methuselah" or "The Devil in the Dark" are very easy to place.
I have mixed feelings about "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" It's a great title, which fits the episode, but I find that people tend to mangle or misquote it. "Is There No Beauty in Truth?," "Is There No Truth in Beauty?", etc.
But the point was not the that plots were too similar, just that the titles were too easily mixed up.
I confess I find "Return to Tomorrow" somewhat generic, and perhaps too easily confused with "Tomorrow is Yesterday," which is not to be confused with "All Our Yesterdays."
By contrast, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" or "Requiem for Methuselah" or "The Devil in the Dark" are very easy to place.
I have mixed feelings about "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" It's a great title, which fits the episode, but I find that people tend to mangle or misquote it. "Is There No Beauty in Truth?," "Is There No Truth in Beauty?", etc.
There's also "This side of Paradise" and "The Paradise Syndrome", two different stories who's titles are so similar that you can easily mistake one for the other.
"It's Only a Paper Moon" might be a reference to the 1973 Ryan/Tatum O'Neal film Paper Moon; a story about a con man becoming a father figure to a hustling orphaned child. I suppose "It's Only a Magnetically-Constricted Force Field Moon" was too hard on the tongue.
Or maybe it's just the title of Sinatra's song, plus the fact that the holodeck is only a make believe and not real life.
I suspect that both the movie and the DS9 episode took their title from the vintage song, which dates back to 1933, long before either Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra recorded it.
So who was it that recorded it back then?
According to wiki, it originated in a now-forgotten Broadway show, but was recorded by various artists throughout the thirties and forties. Some guy named Paul Whiteman was the first to record it, and make it a hit, but it was later recorded by Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and others..
So, it's basically an old standard from the days of the Great Depression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Only_a_Paper_Moon
So, it's basically an old standard from the days of the Great Depression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_Only_a_Paper_Moon
Last edited:
However I think that in the episode, though the song is actually sang by Vic, it is meant to be a reference to Sinatra. I am not sure the writers were aware of the true story of the song.
Similar threads
