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TO BOLDLY BLOW: Writing in the L.A. Times, science fiction writer Orson Scott Card says "it's about time" that the Star Trek franchise went into eclipse, with the imminent finale of Enterprise, the fifth and apparently last iteration of the TV space opera that began with Bill Shatner's Captain Kirk snogging green chicks in front of cardboard sets almost 40 years ago.

"The original Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry, was, with a few exceptions, bad in every way that a science fiction television show could be bad," Card wrote. "As science fiction, the series was trapped in the 1930s — a throwback to spaceship adventure stories with little regard for science or deeper ideas. It was sci-fi as seen by Hollywood: all spectacle, no substance."

As Card sees it, Trek was big with people who didn't know anything about sci-fi, giving them their fix of ray guns and weird aliens while the literature was evolving rapidly under the pens of writers like Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, Ursula LeGuin, Brian Aldiss and Arthur C. Clarke, among others. While later Trek spinoffs "were much better performed ... the content continued to be stuck in Roddenberry's rut."

It took the better part of four decades, according to Card, but the fans finally caught up with the genre, and really innovative sci-fi and fantasy-themed shows — like Buffy, Smallville, Lost and Firefly, along with movies like Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind — made the shortcomings of Trek finally, painfully obvious.

It's an intriguing theory, but it ignores something important: people like space operas, as much as geeks like hot chicks in tight uniforms battling aliens. Neither of these facts, especially the geeks, will go away, even if a sci-fi writer wins a Nobel Prize and the genre finally loses its lingering image as revenge fantasies for ectomorphs with poor hygiene.

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Good thing you told us.

None of us has seen this article yet . . .


 

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Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :
 
Is that sarcasm? Is that meant to inform me that unbeknownst to myself, the cheap tabloid that is the Ottawa Metro is widely read by all on Hatrack?

Gee, I feel stupid.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Nope. But the article you referenced has spawned at least two (and I think it might be three) other threads.

Just sayin'.

[ May 06, 2005, 07:34 PM: Message edited by: rivka ]
 

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Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :
 
Um... sure, but that wasn't the point of the thread. The point of the thread was the comment in the Metro, and how I found it funny. Also, that anyone in Canada besides me and my mom actually have heard about OSC. That was all.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Threads have to have a point now?

Darn!
 

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Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :
 
"Stop the presses!"

"Dammit, Edwards! What's the matter with you? We have to get these papers out so people can learn the results of the British elections!"

"Forget the British elections! I've got a real scoop! Check out this headline: Orson Scott Card Thinks Star Trek Wasn't That Great."

"Good . . . Lord! Now that is news! Stop the presses!"
 

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Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
 

quote:

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Also, that anyone in Canada besides me and my mom actually have heard about OSC.

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And, you know, other Canadian Hatrackers.




 

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Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
 
Awwww...

*hugs all around*
 

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Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
 
I'm Canadian and I love his books but that article is kinda insulting. counting myself I know plenty of people of watch ST and know alot about science, there're in engineering I believe and I'm in Comp Sci.
 

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Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :
 
Stephen Hawking is (was?) a fan, I believe.

In any case, I disagree both with the Metro columnist and OSC, but both are highly amusing, albeit in very different ways (and I'm not sure OSC was trying to be amusing.)
 

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