Orson Scott Card, award winning SF author, wrote an editorial about Trek for the LA times.
You can read it here.
Discuss...
Printable View
Orson Scott Card, award winning SF author, wrote an editorial about Trek for the LA times.
You can read it here.
Discuss...
I rather disagree with OSC on this one. Crappy Writing has been one of our worse plagues so far. That and the need to play it 'safe'among the community and at Paramount. this is why I like Starfleet Universe. Scenes are familiar, but things have taken so many twists and turns that you end up with something completely different and interesting.
while Continuity can be retained, even with all thats gone before, a Babylon 5ish spin on trek would be interesting. And I'm not talking wars (tho interesting), but actual character development other the pablum we got spooned up with Voyager
I find it amusing that someone as intelligent as OSC would write an opinion piece failing to mention several major points of what was within Star Trek. there was a lot of political and social commentary for the time it was on the air .
Times have changed, sci-fi has changed, the fan base has changed. Which OSC fails to mention.
As BouncyCaitian noted, poor writing and a failure of executives to brave the rapids destroyed the show.
OSC states:
Broad generalization as this is, I have a question: Is it because of Star Trek that people got their first introduction to Sci-fi and therefore started reading the genre? Or is it, as I think OSC implies, people already knew what quality sci-fi was and just didn't bother picking it up? I think this statement is a little confusing.Quote:
Here's what I think: Most people weren't reading all that brilliant science fiction. Most people weren't reading at all. So when they saw "Star Trek," primitive as it was, it was their first glimpse of science fiction. It was grade school for those who had let the whole science fiction revolution pass them by.
Yet he fails to mention Farscape, Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica? Buffy was amusing but it was based on a movie with Kristie Swanson, Luke Perry, and Paul Rubens. Firefly, for me, wasn't that interesting and did not make a lot of sense when I had someone try and explain it to me.Quote:
Through-line series like Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Alfred Gough's and Miles Millar's "Smallville" have raised our expectations of what episodic sci-fi and fantasy ought to be. Whedon's "Firefly" showed us that even 1930s sci-fi can be well acted and tell a compelling long-term story.
Maybe its me... but it seems that OSC is giving the television Sci-Fi genre and Trek fans in general the finger.
Just my thoughts.... MMV
Meh. I don't think I have ever read any one of his works.
So, an author who never much had 'need' for Trek, and was wrong about its popularity and staying for 35 years, now says that others don't have 'need' for Trek so he was right all along.
Feh.
Wow, that editorial is a bitter and blind lashing out at something he clearly harbors feelings of contempt towards. Kind of pathetic, really, coming from someone who I had previously considered to be a somewhat intelligent author.
I may be completely misreading the man's intent, but this has to be one of the most poorly thought-out and illogically constructed screeds I've ever had the misfortune of coming across.
Where Card completely lost me was in his "Let us now praise famous men" bit, venerating '60s stalwarts such as Harlan Ellison, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, et al. Yet the man fails to note that any number of these individuals contributed episodes to the goddam show. Harlan Ellison? "City on the Edge of Forever". Norman Spinrad? "The Doomsday Machine". Theodore Sturgeon? "Amok Time". Jerome Bixby? "Mirror, Mirror", "Dave of the Dove", "By Any Other Name", "Requiem for Methusalah"; the list goes on and on. And let's not forget the rather lengthy talk Mr. Asimov gave on Gene Roddenberry's Inside Star Trek album back in '76 - I don't think anyone would be able to say he gave the show anything less than a passing grade as far as a respect for the principles of science and good storytelling were concerned.
Using ad hominem attacks unrelated to the main point - "cheesy special effects"; what, like they weren't cutting edge for the time? Check out Lost in Space if you want cheesy. Give me a f*****g break - reduces the level of effectiveness even further. Whatever bug Card's got up his butt regarding Star Trek and its continued popularity is utterly beyond me; the essay indulged in such a plethora of unrelated, scurrilious attacks that the main point got completely lost in the shuffle. :rolleyes: I'd give him the same advice I give my students in English and Writer's Craft: Avoid using SOAP (Sarcasm, Over-exagguration, Ad hominem attacks, and Personal references) in your writing and you won't get dirty. This one gets a D-, Orson; best to do a rewrite and try using the basics of good essay construction next time.
What D.S. said. /nod
Speaking of "playing it safe," Just how long is OSC going to keep milking the success of "Ender's Game" into new books? What're we on now, the story of Ender's Brother's Best Friend's Former Roommate?
:p to that.
I found out what a boorish, opinionated loudmouth Card is a few months back. This diatribe surprises me not at all... :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Rayaru
Not a great editorial, mostly for reasons mentioned above. Many period writers worked on TOS. I do agree sci-fi was in its infancy at the time and Trek was the first real exposure for many people (it certainly was for me and others I know.) This show was a gateway into better sci-fi, once the taste was acquired.
The movies were, in general, decent; a few were really good. TNG had a couple of really good writers, but I agree that they were limited by both Roddenberry's rather self-important view of TNG, then by the B&B team. Good stories got through this. So did a lot of bad. I occasionally talk to Melinda Snodgrass at the local coffeeshop: there were a lot of limitations on what the writers could explore, under both R and B&B.
So I semi-agree with some of his points: Trek was the icebreaker for TV sci-fi to start getting aired, but there have been much better series -- particularly in the last 10 years or so. they all owe Trek for making it possible, IMO. But sooner or later, the children have to replace the parents, to badly paraphase the Cylons in the new Galactica.
It's obvious, however, that he has a particular bug up his ass about the franchise...I wonder if they turned down a few of his stories? I'll have to ask MS.
Card's a good author, but I generally read only the first books in his series; he can't finish a multi-part story well enough to justify the usually interesting first part. He's talented, but he's not Asimov, Bradbury, or Heinlein talented. So I'm not sure he's qualified to judge the works of others to the degree he does here.
OSC fails to give proper respect to the those that came before him and slaps the faces of everyone that will come after him.
Either A.) he has no concept that Science Fiction began with Jules Verne, or B.) has no understanding of how Sci-Fi and Hollywood evolved. I am willing to go with both.
Venom aside... OSC points out something that is a problem with media in general and that is over commercialism. Now don't get me wrong, a tv series doesn't survive unless the money is coming in, and thats a good thing. However miliking a series for all its worth is another.
Star Trek became a cash-cow for TPTB in Paramount and Rick Berman became the head Accountant. Money in, Paramount happy. Weeeeee!!! When you sacrifice quality for quantity you run into the problems that plagued Voyager and Enterprise.
Again OSC deludes his arguement with what apparently is his disgust with the series.
Meh. After this, I don't think I can be convinced to read any of his works.Quote:
Originally Posted by Balok
I for one never regarded Trek so much Trek, but more Utopia. However up to now there were episodes who were only remakes of others, imho, but in general the series are quite different ( not counting the very bad Xindi arc ).
And so far Trek was alwas able to entertain and make you think ( if you wanted to ), so I think everything is in order with Trek. If not then why are still so many fans around?
Personally, I think ther's no need for Orson Scott Card any more - no, I take that back. Ther never was a need for this pompous no-talent hack ever. I've tried reading his stuff, and it's unremittingly unreadable.
Amen Owen.
That seems reasonable. :rolleyes: I was never interested in his stuff more from the blurbs on the back. I wouldn't not read him because he "dissed my show."Quote:
Originally Posted by REG
templar, you can make a good case that "science-fiction" -- or at least fantastic fiction -- started with the Homeric epics. "Science" fiction has it's roots in the speculation of More and others...Utopia and the like.
I thinka major reason that Trek has proved to be so popular over the years is that it's a hopeful future. too much sci-fi these days is dystopian post-modern garbage that assumes man is a) too venal & greedy to settle his differences, b) too intolerant of one another to even try getting along, and c) too unworthy of existence.
This is why I like Star Trek, Traveller and other classic sci-fi style settings. They give hope that things will work out fo the better. Even GURPS Transhuman Space, which is Sci-fi and Cyberpunk whipped into a blender and given large doses of LSD is still hopeful.
Dystopianism and Post-Modern Sci-fi, while interesting, has gotten rather old hat at this point. Not to mention dull.
Enterprise 4th season was showing the crawl out of a rather rickety future into a much better one. will all the foibles along the way. I call that good sci-fi
I wouldn't condemn all dystopian sci-fi, since, at least some of it, seems to be intended rather as a warning than as an accusation.
I have an excellent example from one of the Arthur C. Clarke short stories I am currently reading. IIRC the story is called "Rescue Party" and tells the story of an alien federation rescue ship that arrives in our solar system to save as many humans as possible, only hours before the sun goes nova (the story is from the 1940s). The whole planet is deserted, however, and the aliens manage to escape just in time. Later, by following one unexplained clue, they find out what happened to mankind - they have left Earth in generation ships. The story ends shortly before the aliens make contact with the human fleet, going something like this:
... said:" Better be polite to them. After all we only outnumber them by 1,000,000 to 1." ... everybody laughs...
20 Years later that comment didn't seem that funny anymore.
Clarke has a wonderful talent for slapping mankind in the face with his last sentences. :D
Postmodernism, in general is old hat. I can't stand people pissing about how bad modernity is; go back to, say 1705, and see how great things were. Modernism has its own problems, sure, but in general you're not dying of minor infections, starving to death, and even the poorest people in the modern world seem to have TVs, if not cable. :p Even the term 'postmodern' is bull$%^t; all of their arguments are couched in terms of modernity -- either pro or anti-tech, pro or anti-captial, pro or anti-government, pro or anti-blah blah blah... Postmodernity is pretty anti in character: capitalism sucks, government sucks (unless their running it,) colonization sucks, white males who are straight suck...Quote:
Originally Posted by BouncyCaitian
The dystopian sci-fi of the '80s was particularly anti-capitalism (everything is own and run by evil corporations! :rolleyes: ,) anti-technology (while there was plenty of cool tech, there was always some kind of Luddite sensibility to how it was employed,) and anti-people (as BC said, "pepul is too stoopid to work togeder." Okay...I paraphrase...) :D
Trek is generally modern in character, much like the speculative ficiton of the 19th Century: hopeful, a bit naive, utopian (and technology is often the key to that utopia.) Nothing wrong with that, but I like my unvierse a bit more muddy than that. One of the reasons I liked B5 -- the universe was more realistic, but the sensibility was hopeful and modern.
Meaning?Quote:
Originally Posted by templartiger
Cause as it stands it looks like you have issue with the above mentioned actors, which seems a tad subjective to me as a qualifier for wether the movie was quality or not, since everyone has different tastes. My parents hate Jack Nicolson and Michael J. Fox, can't stand them. Me I like them just fine.
Or if oyu are referrring to the movie coming first, yes it did and Joss wrote it. He made the series so he could undo the forced changes the studio made him do to make the movie "better" in their opinion.
If it is neither of these, then I am most curious as to what you meant.
As for the Buffy movie, I for one think the movie is just fine and when it came out there weren't a lot of mainstream genre spoofs, other than the really over the top ones along the lines of Hot Shots and the Naked Gun series of movies.
Sorry for the thread hi-jack, but that line just jumped out at me.
Back on topic, this editorial is an opinion that has some merrit. Star Trek was low brow sci-fi at the time, strong writers (Asimov, Heinlein and others) had already blazed the trails of sci-fi by the point Star Trek first aired.
The difference wasn't the audience it found then, it was the audience it found later in college dorms and parent's basements in reruns at all times of the clock.
In fact it is more a testament to the success of syndication than sci-fi, IMHO.
Even the term 'postmodern' is bull$%^t; all of their arguments are couched in terms of modernity
I'm not keen about Postmodernism, but your argument belies an underlying misunderstanding of what the term means. Modernism was a specific artistic movement, and while it co-opted the term "modern," it is not synonymous with the vocabulary word. In fact Modernism is now a hopelessly outdated concept, no longer modern at all. Postmodernism refers to the artistic movement which superceded Modernism, and any discussion of it outside that context is utterly meaningless.
Although I do not have issues with the acting, or the choice of the players, I have issues with the movie. I am not a fan of the movie nor the series and therefore have little knowledge in the background of the development of the series. I do realise that the series and movie did not take itself seriously, but unlike Hot Shots and Naked Gun series, BTVS did not go overboard with slapstick. What I have seen of it shows me that Joss Whedon was celbrating American Pop Culture. Just my opinion on BTVS.Quote:
Originally Posted by AslanC
See above.Quote:
Or if oyu are referrring to the movie coming first, yes it did and Joss wrote it. He made the series so he could undo the forced changes the studio made him do to make the movie "better" in their opinion.
What I mean is that OSC fails to make clear his arguements against Star Trek, the classic series, versus some of the current Sci-fi Programming. He fails to give credit where credit is due for the differences in the 60's and then contemporary tastes.Quote:
If it is neither of these, then I am most curious as to what you meant.
Understandable.Quote:
As for the Buffy movie, I for one think the movie is just fine and when it came out there weren't a lot of mainstream genre spoofs, other than the really over the top ones along the lines of Hot Shots and the Naked Gun series of movies.
Sorry for the thread hi-jack, but that line just jumped out at me.
And Jules Verne didn't?? What about H.G. Wells? What about Homer? OSC fails to mention these three so they had nothing to contribute to Sci-Fi? Either way you look at it OSC fails to mention these people which tells me he is making comparisons to writers of the 40's and 50's rather than to the whole genre itself.Quote:
Back on topic, this editorial is an opinion that has some merrit. Star Trek was low brow sci-fi at the time, strong writers (Asimov, Heinlein and others) had already blazed the trails of sci-fi by the point Star Trek first aired.
True.Quote:
The difference wasn't the audience it found then, it was the audience it found later in college dorms and parent's basements in reruns at all times of the clock.
In fact it is more a testament to the success of syndication than sci-fi, IMHO.
Let me suggest this: Is the story telling style implemented by the original Star Trek series is no longer needed? Yes. An episode by episode series with little to no continuity does not suit what has become a form of drama. Sci-fi has evolved into Sci-fi Drama.
OSC fails to brings those arguements to light and therefore creates an opinion peace that should be entitled "I hate Star Trek." He does a good job bringing his prejudice against the series by attempting to argue that much better science fiction was available. He is comparing apples to oranges.
The apples of today, mass media conglomerates, to oranges of television still in its infancy.
Funny that just about every discipline of the humanities is still using it...there's plenty of meaning outside of the artistic for a lot of academics. As for a misunderstanding on my part, didn't seem to be any when they awarded my doctoral recently. But that and $3 might get you a cup of coffee.Quote:
Originally Posted by Owen E Oulton
I agree...and I think I mentioned that earlier.Quote:
Originally Posted by AslanC
Man, I'm snippy tonight...sorry, guys.
I'm only reading his Ultimate Iron Man out of a sense of being a completist collector.
Ugh, No Class.
And my local newspaper just reprinted this tripe
A friend of mine, who doesn't like Star Trek and knows I do (and likes to tease me about it) already linked me to that article. I'd never heard about this author BTW (but anyway I'm not an expert when it comes to modern science fiction writers.
I'd be the first to admit that Trek has its flaws. However, here, the main arguments from this guy are :
- TOS sucked because its FX are cheesy
- Trek fans are geeks who like to dress like the characters
- Better Sci-Fi series have been done since.
And these arguments are hammered and hammered again. Well, that's great. Such reasoning is only slightly better constructed than "I don't like the main actor" or "Star Wars is better anyway".
And I've never watched Smallville and only a handful episodes of Buffy, but from what friends who watched both series and Trek said, the fact that they're better than ST is not quite evident. For one thing anyway, comparing Trek to Buffy seems to me like comparing apples and oranges, as someone said above.
To wrap up, this is so an ill-constructed piece of... whatever, that I even wondered whether this was not a belated April's Fools or a parody of an anti-Trek rant. :cool:
Well, it is... :D [ducking and weaving!] :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by C5
;)
Good look trying to evade my photon torpedoes, lightsaber-boy! :mad: ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by black campbellq
Make that TWO photon torpedoes... :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Ergi
A response to OSC on Tech Central Station (and excelent libertarian commentary site.)
One of the bits in it that I liked was similar to something I've said: geeks come in every shape and size -- some are fascinated by what blower they can stick in their car's engine or what muffle sounds better, some paint their favorite football team's name on their flabby pasty-white chest and jump around drunk, some memorize every stat on baseball possible...and some what way too much sci-fi.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/051305G.html
Now this is an article that does justice. Not that drivel Card managed to articulate.
Although a good writer (Ender's Game was brilliant), OSC was always biased against Star Trek even when its writing was at the top of its game. Card's bashed Star Trek in print more than once over the course his career and Star Trek's existence.
Card always bashed Star Trek for "bad writing." While that may be his stated reason, I don't believe it was his real reason for disliking it. I think Card's distaste for Star Trek was political and social. Card's a conservative Mormon while Gene Roddenberry (and Star Trek) espoused liberal Humanist views.
So, of course Card's going to have a negative opinion of Trek. But, I don't think he was ever objective in that opinion.
So, your argument is that Card has a negative opinion because he's Mormon and conservative? You're painting a very broad stroke with that brush, there, Ezri.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ezri's Toy
My church is the group that stayed in Illinois when Brigham Young took his supporters and left for Utah. Many classify us an "offshoot" of the Mormons (although, in truth, we consider the Mormons to be an offshoot of our church, as we believed we stayed closer to our founder's ideals). At any rate, we share a number of core beliefs (not bigamy, and not the Pearl of Great Price, which we believe to be a simple translation of an ancient text by Joseph Smith, Jr., and not a religious document). My family and I are of strong faith, and you would probably consider us "conservatives" (I think we're closer to McCain than Gingrich). Would you paint me with the same brush?
I spent about 5 years living only three hours away from Salt Lake City, right in the heart of "Mormon country." Many of my Mormon friends were Star Trek fans, during the Star Trek I-II timeframe. Although I can't claim any knowledge of their current political leanings, they were from families of strong faith. Do you paint them the same way?
Star Trek's fans are not only libertarian humanists. There are a few of us to the right of Ted Kennedy, and a few more still who actually go to church occasionally.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, ST, but I think Ezri's Toy was more illustrating the contrast of beliefs between Card and Roddenberry and how it might have led to a wedge between creative visions rather than attempting to paint all conservatives and/or Mormons in a bad light.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sea Tyger