I'm familiar with Bunuel and while I have never seen the film, I have read about it a bit. Is it widely taken as being considered scifi? I suppose my understanding is that it would be "classified" more as self-referential surrealism run riot.
Was Trek ever really intelligent sci-fi?
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
I'm familiar with Bunuel and while I have never seen the film, I have read about it a bit. Is it widely taken as being considered scifi? I suppose my understanding is that it would be "classified" more as self-referential surrealism run riot.
Which it mainly is. It's the occasional use of the supernatural and the Russian doll series of dreams that take place inside other people’s dreams that tempts some people to put it in the big tent of "speculative fiction," scifi/fantasy.
Not everyone would concur:
Matt Groening said:
... but certainly the sort of person I find challenging on an adult level would include it.
I can't say much for TOS as I've only seen a few episodes but having watched TNG and DS9 several times I can think of a few episodes worthy of intelligent sci-fi:
TNG: A Measure of a Man, Q Who, Who Watches the Watchers, Sins of the Father, Yesterday's Enterprise, Sarek, Family, Brothers, The Drumhead, Darmok, I Borg, The Inner Light, Chain of Command, Tapestry.
DS9: Emissary, Duet, In the Hands of the Prophets, Necessary Evil, The Wire, Improbable Cause, The Visitor, Rejoined, The Quickening, Broken Link, Children of Time, Far Beyond the Stars, In the Pale Moonlight, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.
Those were episodes that left a strong impression on me and they still do, I'm probably missing a few dozen others. Ultimately I think ST main strengths were its morality tales and characters with moral integrity- for the most part. In terms of psychoanalysis or character exploration, I think DS9 has an edge over TNG.
Was it all scientifically plausible? No, not by a long shot. But since fans are still talking about the Borg, the Founders and the Prophets then I guess these were races worthy of intelligent sci-fi.
Intelligent sci-fi seems to be anything that is thought-provoking and is so iconic that people still talk about many years later. Consider 2001, The Matrix, Solaris, Alien and other science fiction films that are still talked about today. All intelligent sci-fi IMO.
Lastly I think we fans are thinking too hard about Star Trek and we're nitpicking it down to its bare bones, and when you do that for a long time I think you lose sight of the magic of Star Trek. But if we didn't nitpick then these forums would be very empty...
TNG: A Measure of a Man, Q Who, Who Watches the Watchers, Sins of the Father, Yesterday's Enterprise, Sarek, Family, Brothers, The Drumhead, Darmok, I Borg, The Inner Light, Chain of Command, Tapestry.
DS9: Emissary, Duet, In the Hands of the Prophets, Necessary Evil, The Wire, Improbable Cause, The Visitor, Rejoined, The Quickening, Broken Link, Children of Time, Far Beyond the Stars, In the Pale Moonlight, Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.
Those were episodes that left a strong impression on me and they still do, I'm probably missing a few dozen others. Ultimately I think ST main strengths were its morality tales and characters with moral integrity- for the most part. In terms of psychoanalysis or character exploration, I think DS9 has an edge over TNG.
Was it all scientifically plausible? No, not by a long shot. But since fans are still talking about the Borg, the Founders and the Prophets then I guess these were races worthy of intelligent sci-fi.
Intelligent sci-fi seems to be anything that is thought-provoking and is so iconic that people still talk about many years later. Consider 2001, The Matrix, Solaris, Alien and other science fiction films that are still talked about today. All intelligent sci-fi IMO.
Lastly I think we fans are thinking too hard about Star Trek and we're nitpicking it down to its bare bones, and when you do that for a long time I think you lose sight of the magic of Star Trek. But if we didn't nitpick then these forums would be very empty...
This is something that we almost don't notice ourselves doing. We put a spin on it, like, "I still enjoy it, I'm just making a point about something, that's all." or whatever. But all of this bitching about it does deprive ourselves of the "magic," as you call it. Our ability to watch it and pretend that this adventure we're watching could really take place, somewhere ... somehow. And that was always the fun of it, when I was little. Damn ... you really bring up a good point with that. Yes, STAR TREK has its issues that can leap the unsuspecting right out of that world of makebelieve, like shitty acting, or piss poor effects, or a terrible script that even a fan would never write. But when I was little, I didn't care about that. STAR TREK was fun to watch and otherworldly. I was a fan, and not a critic ...
I couldn't disagree more. What was the message or statement? That Riker needed a history lesson to make up his mind whether to tell Captain Picard what really happened on the Pegasus (which ne never did because he was under Pressman's orders not to do so).
Some audiences like their finales to be straightforward and self-explanatory, others - like me - don't mind a finale which retains an obvious ambiguity and offers multiple interpretations (I'm talking PRISONER, not LOST!).
The intriguing thing about the series up to this day for me is that it remains inconclusive whether the Village is run by the "other side" (to extract information from Number Six), by his own people (to see if they can accept his resignation and how he would hold up under pressure) or some kind of twisted alien experiment (ballon-like "Rovers").
Bob
I appreciate what you're saying, Robert. I'm open-minded enough (I think, anyway!
) to realize that I'm judging the episode upon a single viewing. Maybe I will re-visit it one day, and see if I take away anything I might have missed the first time. After all, there was a time as a kid when I didn't like pizza, either! 
Which is a real shame. It's more poignant the way Ellison wrote it, and fits better with the tone of the story. I remember being about 8 years old and thinking, "This doesn't make sense...why wasn't Kirk the one trying to save her?"
^ I disagree, the thankfully rewritten script was superior.
In the filmed and aired version, Kirk made a personally incredibly difficult decision for the benefit of Humanity, not had it made for him by Spock.
You dismiss the intelligent episodes of Star Trek because they don't have silly monsters running around in caves and then you criticize the intelligence of Star Trek by claiming that it only has episodes with silly monsters running around in caves. I think I see the problem here.
No.
BTW, you guys are up at io9 - the site's not really good for much, but this is a bit of a giggle:
http://io9.com/was-star-trek-ever-really-intelligent-grown-up-science-1563605154
They seem to have stuck to just quoting smart posts, which is nice.
^ Reactions:
1.
io9 makes "articles" out of just trawling bulletin boards and piecing together more-or-less random quotes from threads? WTF?
2. And they failed to quote me? WTFingF?! That's it! That site now has less credibility than a half-eaten Double-Down left on a coffee table in a nutritionists' clinic!
3. It is kind of funny that like, all of the initial comments are about Led Zeppelin, though...
4. Awww:
io9, I'm sorry, baby. I can't stay mad at you...
5. And from the io9 comments we have a link to this video, which I had forgotten about and which I totally should have posted in this thread because it opens with an excellent explanation of what Star Trek did right.
1.
io9 makes "articles" out of just trawling bulletin boards and piecing together more-or-less random quotes from threads? WTF?2. And they failed to quote me? WTFingF?! That's it! That site now has less credibility than a half-eaten Double-Down left on a coffee table in a nutritionists' clinic!
3. It is kind of funny that like, all of the initial comments are about Led Zeppelin, though...
4. Awww:
Ladybug2 said:
io9, I'm sorry, baby. I can't stay mad at you...
5. And from the io9 comments we have a link to this video, which I had forgotten about and which I totally should have posted in this thread because it opens with an excellent explanation of what Star Trek did right.
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Star Trek always had the potential to do intelligently-written SF stories, though I don't think it ever quite met that potential. Now in the last few decades it's drifted so far away from that potential, it could be tough trying to steer it back
Here's Harlan Ellison withDeforest Kelly, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan giving, IMO, some honest criticisms of Trek. Whether or not he had a bone to pick with Roddenberry, I still think he made some good points. (Some interesting sutff about TMP, too.)
EDIT: The next part has more to do with criticisms of TOS.
Here's Harlan Ellison withDeforest Kelly, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan giving, IMO, some honest criticisms of Trek. Whether or not he had a bone to pick with Roddenberry, I still think he made some good points. (Some interesting sutff about TMP, too.)
EDIT: The next part has more to do with criticisms of TOS.
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^ I disagree, the thankfully rewritten script was superior.
In the filmed and aired version, Kirk made a personally incredibly difficult decision for the benefit of Humanity, not had it made for him by Spock.
Yes, exactly. Ellison's version is less interesting because Kirk and Spock both act in accordance with what they wanted to do anyway -- Kirk tries to save Edith, Spock acts to preserve the timeline. It's linear and predictable. The Fontana/Roddenberry version is much stronger because both characters have to do something against their preference, to make the harder choice -- Kirk has to choose not to save Edith, and Spock has to live with letting Kirk bear the guilt and pain of that choice. That makes it more emotionally complex and more poignant.
Not to mention that Kirk isn't just saving the timeline -- he's saving McCoy from making a terrible mistake, even if he earns McCoy's resentment by doing so. And that adds yet another layer of emotional complexity and pain that just isn't there if Spock stops Kirk from saving Edith.
Also, there's tension that's built from the moment Spock sees Kirk save Edith from falling down the stairs is. We see Kirk's human instinct is to automatically jump in and save her from peril. The question we ask from that moment on is, "Uh-oh, will he really be able to let her die?" That's the setup, and the payoff is Kirk actually following through with it.
I've never read the Ellison version, but I thought the aired version was structured pretty well.
I've never read the Ellison version, but I thought the aired version was structured pretty well.
What seems to have frustrated Ellison about Trek is that he wanted more complexity from the characters, who were too consistently heroic for his tastes. No easy answer to that; I think launching a series in today's market one would be wise to take Ellison's view on board (as it were), whereas back in the Sixties is maybe a different matter.
But Kirk's choice in the final episode is more complex, because he's acting against his desires. In Ellison's version, he just follows his desire, which is a simple and uncomplicated character arc. Characters who resist their own impulses, who choose to take the harder path, are more complex and interesting than characters who just act on their urges.
I don't know, BigJake ... I like the idea of having heroes who act heroically. I mean it's called STAR TREK, not NASA, and even NASA has such tight control over their image. I'm certain there's a market for the seedy underbelly of wrongdoings going on unaware to us all at the agency, but I don't need to see that, personally. For instance, APOLLO 13 does show three astronauts in crisis sort of fighting, a little bit, because of the tremendous stress they're under, but they never act as anything else but honourable gentlemen. Whether that's how they were (or are), what difference does it make? The entertainment factor isn't dependent on them being such flawed characters, or anything else. It's still an engaging feature. I'm convinced STAR TREK can bring that sense to itself, as well, when it returns to television.
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