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No Need For Trek Anymore
dcsmith writes "In an article at the LA Times, Orson Scott Card says 'So they've gone and killed Star Trek. And it's about time.' SciFi blasphemy? Not really. Card makes several good observations about the growth of SciFi over the past 30+ years. The article also comments on several other genre gems, including Joss Whedon's Firefly." From the article: "...the hungry fans called their friends and they watched it faithfully. They memorized the episodes. I swear I've heard of people who quit their jobs and moved just so they could live in a city that had Star Trek running every day."
If anyone knows the state of science fiction, its OSC. He's a genius. There is only so much that can be explored through the Star Trek constraints. Why give the chance to other (more cutting edge) sci-fi ideas that are currently out there.
-For immediate release-
"McNikerosoft is one cool cat" said everyone after his last post.
-30-
In summary, he states that Trek has always sucked, Roddenberry was a hack, and the Klingon language is stupid. I've got some tar over here, anyone else got some feathers?
:-/
Honestly, it's great that he doesn't like Star Trek. I'm happy for him. Really. But not everyone is looking to have their heads messed with when they watch Science Fiction. They don't necessary need to find the "deeper connection", "reveal the hidden truths", or "find another plain of existence". Sometimes people are happy addressing issues that are relevant today rather than issues from some dysotopian future. Star Trek did that. It used allegories (e.g. Klingons == Russians) and analogous situations (e.g. A Private Little War) to help put current issues into perspective. In addition, Roddenberry made Star Trek nothing more than a canvas for far more experienced writers to make their points.
In short, people loved Star Trek because it was both thought provoking and accessable to people who aren't interested in "hardcore sci-fi" visions of the future.
Side Note: Has anyone ever noticed that when Star Trek addresses a topic that some find to be a repulsive trait of hardcore Sci-Fi (e.g. telepaths), the blow is somehow softened to where the concept is easy to accept? Perhaps there's even more missing than Mr. Card realizes.
"I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration." -Orson Scott Card
Well, that explains everything.
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Star Trek gave many people a vision of a future much more peaceful and prosperous than the present day, and awakened who knows how many minds to the potential and wonder of the universe and science. I'm in the sciences today because of it.
The hope that tomorrow can be better than today is what keeps all people going. Star Trek really connected with people on a level I've rarely seen.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
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.
Fantasy, yes... science fiction, no.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Orson Scott Card is a gifted writer. Nobody denies this. Well, maybe a few.
But let's be serious here. As far as "Sci Fi" goes, he's off the deep end. He's the sci-fi world's equivalent of some british royalty gimboid sipping tea from a saucer with their little finger sticking out, mumbling on about how the "unwashed commoners" don't truly appreciate horse racing, or polo, and how ghastly sports like soccer are.
So he champions the hardcore sci-fi shows. That's fine. I've watched them. Some of them, I've actually enjoyed.
I doubt if Orson Scott Card has seriously watched a Trek series, ever.
I doubly doubt if he's paid attention to some of the absolutely amazing episodes Enterprise has had this year.
And I really don't understand why anyone gives a shit what this ivory-tower sci-fi snob has to say on the subject.
The problem though comes from a friend who doesn't have the money for cable or Satelite. Unless NBC starts carrying BattleStar Galactica, Enterprise is the ONLY current BROADCAST space-opera style sci-fi. When you consider that there will always be a younger generation of kids discovering science fiction for the first time, space opera still has a place. Maybe not Star Trek- which is particularily bad space opera- but space opera all the same.
With Firefly and Enterprise canceled- and fewer stations than ever before carrying the syndicated version of Stargate and Andromeda (the second of which I'm sure Mr. Card would say suffers from the Roddenberry curse) what can step up to take the hole?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
In the 1960's, Star Trek presented a vastly different culture than our own, with ideas that clashed with the popular world view, such as human equality and tolerance, fused with America's nascent desire to pioneer space.
Today, the civil rights movement has come and gone, there's equal rights and opportunity for almost everyone, and no one gives a crap about a mars base, much less colonizing space. The core themes of Star Trek have lost relevance with today's generation.
Now it's just another whiz-bang space opera. Might as well be watching Lost in Space.
Comic Pull List.
Guess Iron Man is off my list now, Mr. Card. Didn't really like what you did to the origin anyhow.
Why people think the mere existance of Star Trek somehow stifles thier ability to put other SF out there is beyond me.
As far as going to the pot to many times, I think that was proven with the Enders Game books (re-telling an entire book from a diffent character's perspective? *), so I guess in a way he knows whereof he speaks...
* of course the Card fans out there will deny that being in any way derivitive or limiting or "more of the same" and crow about how "innovative" it was. Meh.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
From the article:
I don't want to admit it, but Card is right. Star Trek was wonderful in large part because it was the first of its kind on TV. Now SF is not a gamble TV and is all over the place. That's a good thing since we can now concentrate on good story, characters and so on.
This is perhaps a natural step in the development of a genre. Even Homer was great mostly because he was the first (have you every actually read the Illiad (even in translation?) It's not that good!)
I still have a warm place in my heart for Star Trek that will never go away, but it must seem mysterious to those young whippersnappers who have never lived in a universe without Star Trek.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
Screw the enraged Trekkies, he's knocked SciFi as a whole by listing such a crap set of unabashedly mainstream and modernly-popular authors - with the exception of Ellison - to represent 'Sci-Fi of the time' or whatever he calls it.
:-/
I was just re-reading his comments when I noticed these gems:
Charlie Kaufman created the two finest science fiction films of all time so far: "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
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.
Malkovich? Smallville? *These* are what he thinks are the paramount of Sci-Fi? This guy needs his head checked!
Whedon's "Firefly" showed us that even 1930s sci-fi can be well acted and tell a compelling long-term story.
Well, at least he got one right.
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Yes, Sci-Fi has grown up over the last 30 years. I love Firefly and Stargate. But that doesn't mean old ideas are inherently worse; the new Battlestar Galactica series is fantastic. The problem is that since Star Trek: The Next Generation made it OK for shows like Quantum Leap to take to the air, Star Trek itself has had closed-in ideas and stagnant leadership. Deep Space Nine was alright, Voyager was decent, but Enterprise just got worse as it went along. They didn't realize it until it was too late. Manny Coto might have done a lot for Star Trek. He may yet have the opportunity. What's needed is a new vision. When legends like J. Michael Straczynski are lining up to reboot Star Trek, something is up. Maybe something great. If only Paramount would shake off the stranglehold Rick Berman has on the franchise, they could really make progress.
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
It's puzzling, to me, that Card (a writer whom I respect greatly, BTW) spends his entire column arguing that the "Star Trek" series(es) should be cancelled because ST:TOS was a bad show.
Why should that even matter? ST:TNG was (by the third season, anyway) a far better series, and DS9 was better still, despite stealing ideas left and right from "Babylon 5". It's the last twenty years of Trek that's being cancelled, not the first three.
Postscript: Now we finally have first-rate science fiction film and television that are every bit as good as anything going on in print. If only....
In short, people loved Star Trek because it WAS both thought provoking and accessable to people who aren't interested in "hardcore sci-fi" visions of the future.
Emphasis on the WAS.
The problem here is too many people view Trek as one big, indivisible thing. It's not. You can't have a rational conversation about "Trek is Good" or "Trek is Bad". Some Trek was good. The current state of Trek is bad.
The worst thing that can happen to a piece of Sci Fi is for it to become commercially successful. The more commercially successful something is, the greater the temptation to extend the franchise just for the sake of profit. The more money a franchise is worth, the lower you can set your creative standards and still justify releasing a product.
Why do half of the Star Trek movies suck? Because PAramount wanted to make a Star Trek movie, regardless of whether the script was any good. Sometimes they got good scripts, sometimes they didn't. But the people who get to decide whether a Star Trek movie should get made don't make that decision on whether the script is going to produce a good movie. They make that decision based on whether money in will be greater than money out.
The Original Series was a ground-breaking series that only happened because Roddenbery believed in it and made it happen. Next Generation only happened because Roddenbery believed in it and made it happen. Star Trek XXXVJWII, Voyager, and Enterprise was made because if Paramount didn't churn out new Trek they'd be wasting this huge, profitable sci fi franchise they'd built.
That can't go on forever though - eventually you produce so much crap just for the sake of making a buck that your franchise becomes worthless.
Unprofitable or New Sci Fi will only happen if it's good. Profitable Sci Fi will happen REGARDLESS of whether it's good.
If Star Trek hadn't been successful, it would have died after DS9 or earlier, and we'd all still think Trek is Good. But it didn't. But new trek being bad doesn't make old trek any less good.
paintball
That's the exact opposite of what the article was claiming. He says that Star Trek sucked from the beginning, but it was the only sci-fi most people knew for generations (because they didn't read). Now that decent sci-fi is starting to come into its own (ex: Firefly), Star Trek can actually die.
Exactly what I was thinking. "Being John Malkovich", that's great sci-fi??? Card should go back and hope he can write another good book like Enders Game. Most of the rest of his work has been very very non-memorable. I think he's shown he dosn't have any better of an idea what good sci-fi is than the Trek freaks.
As geeks, we LOVED Card because he wrote about Ender Wiggin; a very bright young boy who could not get along with his peers because of his intellectual capacity. C'mon, this is Slashdot. If you read Slashdot, and you've read Ender's Game, you identified with Ender to some extent.
We all like to believe that we are special. Geeks like to believe they are smarter than the average person. Is it so crazy to believe that maybe it wasn't Card's extraordinary writing and plot that made Ender's Game so popular -- perhaps it was because Ender's Game was the ultimate braniac dream? To be smart enough to save the world, and get the accolades that go along with it.
His blatant religious proselytizing in his other books, most notably the Alvin Maker series, choked me with its sickly-sweet taint. I enjoyed the series at first because it was well written and fun, but it soon turned into a carousel of reptition. Alvin did and said the same things over and over, Card using him as a hand-puppet to express his Love Thy Neighbor and Turn the Other Cheek platitudes until I was racing through to the end of the novel not out of enjoyment and eagerness to see what happened, but just to be able to put the book down and go wash the veneer of his homophobic Christianity from my hands.
Card is not a saint. He wrote something that we all very much wanted to read; that we were alienated from our peers as children for a reason. There's a destiny waiting for us so we can use these big brains. We were humiliated on the playgrounds in grade school, but we'll show them! Someday!
Card gave us this pipe dream. But it's time to let go of the security blanket, Linus. You're smart, but you don't need a writer to give you a raison d'etre in a science fiction fairy tale.
Okay I don't want to seem like a troll but the parent is right. Name a sci fi series that in the past 20 years has lasted more than two seasons on network (NETWORK) TV.
To further this point, think about the ones that have. I can name "quantum leap" as one of these series, but how sci-fi was it really? It had a sci fi premise, but the theme wasn't steeped very deep in sci-fi. It was a great show don't get me wrong, but in order to be successful with sci-fi and the american viewing public you have got to either mask it a bit, use an established name like star trek, or go onto the sci-fi channel.
Bab5 was an exception, and even then, in the height of its popularity, it wasn't pulling enough of a ratings share and the time slot moved a hell of a lot until TNT finally said enough, we'll air the last season and shut the networks up.
Sci-fi still is a big risk and it will be until general fan base for sci fi grows. It hasn't for years and won't for a long time.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I don't know that Heinlein and Asimov, not to mention LeGuin, Clarke, Moorcock and Silverberg, really need to be slagged as a "crap set" of authors. Seriously, if you are looking at the late 60's and early 70's, which is the time frame he was talking about, which authors would you consider to be "not crap"? Sure, he left out Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert and Fritz Leiber, and I'm not sure I would rank Niven or Aldiss equal to Asimov or Clarke or Heinlein, but honestly, who do you think should be on that list? I'm very interested.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
I've written that media SF has often been a good few decades behind written SF, especially movies. They quote Richard Morgan in the NYTimes article ("That's the past of science fiction you're talking about, . .
The literature is filled with writing by Greg Benford, the 'how to empathize with ordinary deathless people' writer Greg Egan, Ken Macleod, Richard Morgan, Ian Banks, Cory Doctorow , or Charlie Stross. Movies haven't made it past the 70's (Bladerunner, the Matrix) other than perhaps 'Eternal Sunshine' (similar to a few 80's stories), and T.V. shows have only tentatively reached the 80's or early 90's (some Outer Limits and Twighlight Zone episodes). With Star Wars and Star Trek out of the way perhaps there'll be more room for the average media SF to catch up to at least the 80's.
"Today, the civil rights movement has come and gone, there's equal rights and opportunity for almost everyone, and no one gives a crap about a mars base, much less colonizing space. The core themes of Star Trek have lost relevance with today's generation."
Equal rights and opportunity for almost everyone? Really? You honestly believe that? I mean, that's not even entirely true for the U.S. anymore, much less the rest of the world.
No one gives a crap about a Mars base or colonizing space? Really? You honestly believe that? Maybe it's just politicspeak but Junior says he believes in it, and that's something. Then of course there are the Mars hotbutton folks that frequent this site. I doubt they're all nom de plumes for Junior.
The core themes of Star Trek (freedom, equality, exploration, hope, optimism about the future, exploring the human condition, etc.) are core themes for humanity, probably for as long as there will be humanity. That those things are not relevant (according to you) to "today's generation" says more about "today's generation" than it does about Star Trek. And in case you were wondering, what it says isn't good. That people like you and Card can't get past the styrofoam boulders and green alien chicks to see this indicates a lack of insight on your parts.
While I'm ranting, there was nothing soap (space) operaish about TOS. There was one multipart episode, and that done for budget constraint reasons. There were no ciffhangers, no see what happens next week, no dead people coming back from the dead a year later, no ongoing romances, so on and so forth.
That said, I don't understand how he left Battlestar Galactica off the list. I would love to know what he thinks of it, especially given the whole Mormon thing.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I think not -- at least as far as Trek shows. Not that there's anything wrong with secular humanism -- it's more or less my viewpoint -- but consider the Trek evidence (no, I don't know episode names or exact wording -- I'm not *that* much of a Trek fan):
1) The episode where Kirk meets an alien who was the god Apollo in Greek times -- Apollo wants people to worship him but Kirk says "Humanity doesn't need gods -- we find the one sufficient" -- implying that some sort of monotheism is still there in the Trek universe
2) The "20th century Roman Empire" episode the rebels fighting the empire are thought to be "sun worshippers" and the Enterprise crew is surprised to find how noble they are (pagans are evil, ya know) but then Uhurua figures out that they are "son worshippers" -- that is christians, and it all supposedly makes sense.
Well, having read TFA, I can say I have no interest in reading anything by Mr. Card, ever. It's rare that I see such pure arrogance. The last time I saw it was in my high school short story lit book, which talked about "mature readers" wanting deep, moving stories and only "immature readers" cared about actually enjoying the story.
Mr. Card, perhaps you were not aware that Trek, when it's good (meaning not when Berman is running things), offers some of the best and most insightful social commentary and discussion you'll see on film. There is a group where I live that gets together monthly at a Unitarian Church to watch an episode or two and then discuss the social, ethical, and moral implications thereof. It's been meeting for about 6 years, I think. Are there any groups that do that with Firefly? Or Smallville? I didn't think so.
Just because more people like Star Trek than like your books is no reason to declare them all immature grade schoolers. That's very grade school of you.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
Well, there are a lot of definitions of science fiction floating around. For some, all it takes is that humans descended from Earth live on a planet other than earth, even if all the technology that the characters posess is no better than what we had in the 18th century. For others, it has to involve scads and scads of technology that we don't have or can't exist, preferably with lots of robots and space travel.
However, I think for a lot of science fiction writers and "high brow" literary types who get into science fiction, the boundaries of the genre are much softer. In this case, any literature which uses some piece of unusual or advanced technology as a plot element through which some human theme can be explored counts as science fiction. Apparently for Card, the technology itself doesn't even have to be given much stage time, if he considers Being John Malkovich (which I think is deep in a gray area) to be sci-fi.
Personally, I prefer this final definition. While I frequently enjoy "rocket" science fiction and used to watch TNG and DS9 almost religiously, I tend to think of the period when all sci-fi was oozing with gadgets to be pretty typical for any genre in its infancy/childhood. Sort of like in early animation where EVERYTHING was moving CONSTANTLY, even many inanimate objects.
If that's true, why is it that the Right is firmly in control of the United States, the only remaining Western superpower? I call Troll. (Or Flamebait, take your pick.)
Yeah, we can see how badly beaten the political Right is. Please, spare me.
Frankly you are right, some of the great "sci-fi" Card was talking about is fantasy, not sci-fi. More than Galactica, I'm surprised he didn't mention the change the studios/networks were willing to go to with Babylon 5 and it's 5 year story arc. Yes, the acting was cheesy, but the commitment to a long changing character cast and plot was a big leap for the networks vision of what a sci-fi show could be like.
People slag Star Trek for having every alien be humanoid, but that is deliberate. Roddenberry wanted people to see the humanity in every character.
Personally, I don't watch much Sci Fi because most of it shows a future which sucks. Star Trek shows a future that I want to believe in.
Maybe Card realizes that there is a class of literature that is involves fictional settings (As opposed to just fictional people and plots.), and it really doesn't matter if the made-up setting is 500 years in a future, in another dimension where magic works, or 100 years in the past where the Confederacy won the civil war.
People who think there's a real difference are just silly. You can like 'fictional setting that involves future technology' and not 'fictional setting that involves magic', just like you can like Hercules Poirot and not Sherlock Holmes, but genre-wise, they are the same.
The genre, whatever you call it, just changes the 'universally assumed setting' that all other fiction is set in (Our universe, past or present, perhaps with a fictional town or president or something, but 'our universe'.) and explore how that difference affects characters and events.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
He said "Lost" is the best Sci-Fi currently running??!!
... Good?
Are you Americans watching a different Lost than what we get out here? Because I've watched about 12 episodes of some drama/survivor series and *still* we don't know what killed the bloke in the first hour.
I'm trying to keep this post above the level of the average troll, but could someone *PLEASE* explain how Lost is a Sci-Fi, or
Oftentimes fans and critics read much into a piece of work that an author/artist never intended. Some of the artists hate this. Others love it. Which is right? Neither. It's subjetive.
Why are there so many schools of thought? Why so many methodologies? Because it is subjective.
I can talk about my work to another scientist from the other side of the world, from an entirely differnt culture. When I talk about an experiment I did that show phosphorylation on the 7th amino acid of a particular protien under certain conditions, he can study the phosphorylation using a different experimental method, and he will come to exactly the same conclusion. It's a fact.
Good vs Bad is subjective. Always. Doubt it? Give me an example of something that is universally 'good'. Universally 'bad'. In philosphy, there is the study of 'truth'. Not the study of 'good'. Why? Good is subjective. There is the hope that truth isn't ;)
What about experts in the same field?
You mean like professional critics who have had all that fancy lurnin like you?
Lets look at professional movie critics. I guess they all agree if a movie is good if it 'truly' is, right? Nope. How about theatre critics. All the learned critics in New York must all give similar reviews to new plays right? Nope. How about artwork in galleries? Nope.
Why? Because it is all subjective.
Why do folks watch Siskel and Ebert (Roper now) or read the reviews of any critics? Do the two critics always agree? Nope. People are familiar with them and their reviews. They know roughly how they judge movies, what they generally like and what they hate. From these reviews, they can evaluate if the movies are probably to their taste, even if they aren't to the critics.
What I am pushing towards is that artwork and its interpretation are not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of facts. Facts about the author and his culture. Facts about the viewer/reader and his culture.
Yes, yes it is a matter of opinion. It is not fact. Just because an artist intended to express something, that doesn't mean he work was successful in expressing that intent to the audience. Even an audience of experts. Perhaps he expressed something entirely different to them than what he intended.
We can establish that there are certain facts about an author and his intent
No you can't. First of all that would require you have to direct information direct from the artist about that piece of work. Some artists don't like to express their intent. They prefer that you infer what you like. Some are just recluses and don't like talking to others about their work. Some die before anyone can ask them about some piece.
Even if an artist does tell you what he intended, how do you know he is telling the truth? What if he was intending something else subconsciously? Once again, you have no real FACTS.
I also say we can establish certain facts about person making the critique's ability to understand a given piece of art and his cultures ability to understand it.
That's a loaded piece of crap. You are making HUGE assumptions if you think you know my or any other critics background, training, or baggage. There is an entire industry in trying to figure out what the general public, as consumers/critics will like. The professionals fail at it regularly. Often quite horribly. You don't know all the FACTS about any audience.
If we take these four facts and judge someone's interpretation against them, we can make a value judgment about that piece of art within my context and within the artists context.
How pompous can you get? You are making a subjective value judgment about how well someone else has made
The main point of his entire rant seemed to be that episodic programming with larger character development arcs provides more compelling fiction than programs that start and end at the same place. When Xander is scared for his life and reaches for Willow's hand, it's a lot more compelling if they've gotten near to a relationship, he burned her badly by going with someone else, then they spent the last 3 episodes working their way to the point where they are speaking again. When Bones takes a jab at Spock, it's meaningless because their relationship never changes.
Being John Malkovich was a popular, excellent movie, and while I'd put it more in the category of fantasy than Sci Fi, if you read Card's books the distinction is academic. Plus the characters to go through an immense arc throughout the film, falling in love, falling out of love, changing... evolving as characters in exactly the way that Homer Simpson doesn't. Again, the focus, as in all good Sci Fi, is on the character evolutions.
Smallville isn't the best series ever by a long shot. But like Buffy it is a popular show that opened people's eyes to what can happen when characters evolve across episodes.
Trek did and does follow an antiquated model, and he's right in thinking that it would only continue to do so. Probably the best bit of Trek, the last few seasons of DS9, took place when Paramount's main people were focused on Voyager and allowed a smaller group of people to create a broader story focused more on large story arcs and developments. The best season of Enterprise has been this last one, when multi episode story arcs were plentiful.
Orson's books reflect this thinking, of course. His most popular work, the Ender's series, follows one character along his evolution from a weak abused nobody kid to a reclusive man hiding from unwanted fame from his past, to an old man accepting of his place in the world. And the latest Ender's book takes place in the same time frame as the original, exploring another character who isn't the hero, but who evolves from a lone troubled genius striking out at anyone or anything that might subjugate him, to being a mature, willing second, giving himself over to a man he believes deserves it.
Oddly enough, I've always felt Asimov was at his best in short stories, but even then his characters were undergoing tremendous evolution within the span of several pages.
The ______ Agenda
I read the first interview and it seemed like OSC was being completely reasonable and the journalist was unable to divorce her issues from the interview. The second article bored me half way through, but he didn't say anything too outrageous. The guy thinks that homosexuality is not natural. Many people disagree with him. He is just saying people should have compassion for homosexual people and forgive them because that is what Jesus would do. Starting from what he believes, and what he claims to have experienced in his life that seems pretty reasonable. I don't agree with his views, but it is a little harsh to say he is "a dispicable human". Those articles did not "turn off on that guy" or cause me to "stop purchasing his books". I liked to read through his reasoning (well until I got bored in the second article) even if it is a little out there.
How exactly did you write a post on ongoing plotlines in a TV series, and fail to mention Babylon 5 ? Especially given the SciFi context ! B5 unquestionably led the way with the concept of one gigantic story arc, to the point where its creator was repeatedly told that it just wouldn't work.
--LordPixie