Problem with modern sci-fi (FIREFLY involved) by reginaroadie

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Problem with modern sci-fi (FIREFLY involved)

POSTED BY: REGINAROADIE
UPDATED: Saturday, August 19, 2006 21:06
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VIEWED: 2872
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Friday, August 18, 2006 8:51 AM

This week, I was up in Unity with CP (one more week and then I'm done) and one night when I was in my motel room, I watched a rerun of a VOYAGER episode. And it made me think about STAR TREK and what's going on with the franchise and about sci-fi in general in tv and movies.

In the last few years, I've noticed that people are moving away from the traditional STAR WARS/TREK model and are more interested in the down and dirty kind of sci-fi. I'm talking about shows like BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. I like to think of FIREFLY as kind of a test run for "down and dirty" sci-fi with BATTLESTAR being the show to be able to get a big audience and be able to last more than half a season. And I know that both shows were created as kind of an antithesis of the "clean" sci-fi that TREK in particular had become. And of course, I'm all for it. I had recently gotten through the first season of the new BATTLESTAR and loved it immensely and can't wait for season 2 to finally get into my hands. And I like how in a genre that demands to be explored and expanded like sci-fi, that these folks are actually trying to expand the parameters. But they seem to be doing it while not only dancing on TREK's supposed grave, but pouring Romulan Ale on it and singing "The king is dead, long live the king."

I'm just wondering if TREK was all that bad to begin with.

Yeah, we might laugh at some aspects of the original series (that to me is part of it's charm), but everyone knows that without Kirk and Co., the last forty years of sci-fi tv wouldn't exist. And there's an innocence to TREK that is long gone in modern sci-fi. I kind of like the future that TREK proposed in that in a few hundred years, we havn't wiped ourselves out, but in fact have evolved into a peaceful society with no money, have interstellar travel and peace (for the most part) throughout the galaxy. But modern sci-fi seems to recoil at the notion of peace and insists on either post-apocalyptic scenarios (BATTLESTAR) or opressive regimes (FIREFLY). Now I understand that in a peaceful society, there'd be no conflict, thus no interesting storylines to sustain a series. But at the same time, by having everything all stern um drang, everything sucks, you kind of make your show a bit depressing. To BATTLESTAR and FIREFLY's credit, they do try to inject some moments of levity into their procceedings, but it's fleeting moments.

Let me put it to you this way. The worlds of GALACTICA and FIREFLY are nice places to visit. But I wouldn't want to live there like the worlds of TREK or FUTURAMA.

And I suppose TREK really isn't dead. J.J. Abrams is trying to revive the franchise and have a TREK movie out by 08, which would be four years since the last TREK series and six years since the last movie. But depending on whether or not it's either embraced or rejected, I can't help but think that if it were rejected that it would be a sign of a cultural ideology. That we're no longer a culture that can hope and dream of a better future, but one that fantasizes about their demise.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"There's only one "Return" ok, and it ain't "of the King", it's "of the Jedi."

"Maybe we should start calling your friend 'Padme' because he loves 'Mannequin Skywalker' so much, Right? (imitating robot) Danger...danger...my name is Anakin...my shitty acting is ruining saga."

Excerpt of internet teaser for CLERKS 2.

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Friday, August 18, 2006 9:55 AM

CALIFORNIAKAYLEE

I generally agree with you about the changes in our culture and how that's reflected in our sci-fi, but I'd definitely rather live in the Firefly 'Verse than the Trek universe. However, I'm actually posting to point out that there's a Star Trek MMOG in the works: http://www.startrek.perpetual.com/ I think the cleanness of Star Trek is actually going to be a hurdle in bringing it to a massively multiplayer online environment, but the game may do good things to revitalize the license.

~CK

You can't take the sky from me...

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Friday, August 18, 2006 10:05 AM

WTE

If it were all wonderful futures (or crappy futures, for that matter) sci-fi would get boring quickly. I like the variety.

HONKS

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Friday, August 18, 2006 10:34 AM

DINALT

No denying the legacy that Star Trek has left behind. Without the original Trek, I doubt if sci-fi would be as popular as it is today.

But that said, the kind of future that Trek portrays is a little one sided.
Although we never see it, I'd be willing to bet that not all citizens are happy with the Federation (little like the Alliance scenario in FF). Okay, there were the Marquis in Voyager, but from what I can remember they were fighting Cardassians as opposed to the Federation. (Sorry, I may be wrong on that score, lol. Never really got into Voyager).
I loved Trek, but the only thing I could never grasp was how the society could do without money. There must have been some kind of class system or bartering system in place, otherwise how would anyone obtain goods or property ?

I think the concept of enforced Utopia was explored well in 'God, Emperor of Dune', and how humanity exploded outwards when the cultural figurehead was destroyed.

I think Sci-Fi will reflect the times we live in, albeit in a future setting. And with what's happening globally at the moment, I'm guessing that's why sci-fi's getting darker.

But even Trek had its darker moments in TNG and DS9 - Cardassians and Picard being tortured, and Cardassians again on DS9, at least being guilty of warcrimes.

But I think SF in films has always been relatively dark - not a new innovation by any means. Think Silent Running, Logans Run, Alien, Terminator, Event Horizon, The Thing (remake).
The list goes on, but with the exception of the Star Wars franchise, I can't really think of any optimistic SF films. There have been a few comedies of course, but I can't think of any Utopian films - and those that are, like 'Logans Run' or 'Equilibrium' are flawed societys.

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Friday, August 18, 2006 10:48 AM

EMBERS

I don't think Trek was bad at all...Roddenberry had a very optimistic utopian vision of the future and it led him to make an incredibly wonderful show with some great episodes which were full of metaphor about mankind trying to make the world better....

there were later shows which got too much into the CGI and slick dehumanizing aspects of sci-fi and a lot of people found that boring
(although I also loved Babylon5 and Farscape which were obviously full of rich characters)

Joss (and others) have gotten a little cynical about the Government (or Federations) ability to 'fix' the world and bring about peace and prosperity...
and I found that Joss' rougher more 'home made' world to be easier for me to identify with....
I think that the poor will always be with us,
and that there will always be those living 'off the land' far from the sterile gleaming futuristic cities....

and so many aliens running around does get a little silly after a while.

I think that Battlestar Galactica has done a great job, although it centers too much on the military for my taste; I can't help but love 'Firefly' with people who are living more on the edge....

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Friday, August 18, 2006 11:06 AM

USBROWNCOAT

Regin, Not really sure I get your point. That the folks at BSG are dancing on the grave of Trek a diffidently don't agree with. As, with every other genre of television shows, times change. Peoples tastes change. As a society we are so used to sex, violence, and drama. That it's was just a mater of time before it would show up in comedies, SCI-Fi, news, and reality TV.

And last I time I checked Kirk and Co. were always in conflict with someone. I remember many photon torpedoes being lobbed around, shields being depleted, and people vanishing under the power of a phaser(sure sometimes they were set to stun). And they fought everyone in the neighborhood.

So, I think I am trying to say that trek was not as utopian as some like to remember.

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Friday, August 18, 2006 11:54 AM

CYBERSNARK

Quote:
Originally posted by Dinalt:
Although we never see it, I'd be willing to bet that not all citizens are happy with the Federation (little like the Alliance scenario in FF). Okay, there were the Marquis in Voyager, but from what I can remember they were fighting Cardassians as opposed to the Federation. (Sorry, I may be wrong on that score, lol. Never really got into Voyager).

Actually, the Maquis were pretty p*ssed off at everybody.

See, originally the Federation colonized right up to the Cardassian border. Then the Cardassians invaded a bunch of worlds, saying that they'd always owned them, they just hadn't done anything with them. The colonists expected the Federation to defend them, but instead the UFP hung them out to dry, declaring the area a "demilitarized zone" (effectively a Neutral Zone, but one where civillian ships were still able to travel). The Maquis formed to stand up for their own rights after the Great and Benevolent Federation left them to the Cardassians' tender mercies. The Maquis were bolstered by Bajoran renegades, many of whom weren't willing (or able --you spend your whole life fighting, the thought of peace can be pretty daunting) to set down their weapons after the Cardassians pulled out of Bajor. There were more than a few Bajorans advocating genocide against the Cardies. . .

Then the Dominion came, allied itself with Cardassia, and legions of Jem'Hadar swept through the DMZ, killing all in their path. There were few survivors. The Bajoran government extended pardons to all Bajorans involved (no Bajoran laws were broken, after all), and at least one Bajoran ex-Maquis ended up in the Bajoran Militia (Ro Laren --formerly a Starfleet Lieutenant from the Enterprise). We learn from Voyager that the Federation is not so forgiving --Janeway had to pull strings to buy pardons for Chakotay's crew when they got back to Earth.

The problem with Trek is that the narrative camera was biased. We only ever saw stories told from the perspective of Starfleet crews. There's plenty of darkness, conflict, and dystopia within Star Trek, we're just not allowed to see it (on TV, the novels can take it and run with it).

Talking about the Trek verse based on the shows is like talking about American culture based only on CSI, NYPD Blue, Cops, The Inside, and The Shield. Not everyone wears a uniform.

(All that talk about the Federation being communist? No. Starfleet is communist. And that's just because Starfleet is a military organization --everyone's needs are provided for as part of the crew.)

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Friday, August 18, 2006 8:25 PM

RCAT

Almost all sci-fi is a direct reflection on the contemporary society/culture. This isn't necessarily a direct socio-political comentary of the times but elements of the book/movie/show can't help but put a face to current views. The original Star Trek stories tell a lot about the U.S.'s views on communism and domestic social changes of the time(some of the themes were considered pretty radical at the time: first tv inter-racial kiss, for example). In the 80's the U.S. was prosperring, feeling pretty good about its social progressiveness and only really concerned w/ those abroad who weren't as "enlightened"; Star Trek TNG reflected this view. When our BDS came out folks were a bit dissolusioned w/ the government (most still are) and worried about the power held by big corporations; the little guy never seemed to get a break (sound like Firefly?).

Sci-fi will always change and evolve w/ the times. In twenty-five years (hopefully after a BDM sequel, a new Firefly mini-series, 4 to 10 new seasons of the BDS, another movie, and a spin-off series that's pretty good but not as good as the original), I'm sure people will look back and say "wow, that was good stuff but people sure had a bleak view of things back then".

"People don't like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don't run, don't walk. We're in their homes and in their heads and we haven't the right. We're meddlesome."
-River Tam-

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Friday, August 18, 2006 9:25 PM

KAYNA

I love my captain

Blinks and stands in awe of the great discussion going on here.

Would love to add something but should really go to bed as brain isn't functioning properly anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Op: You're fighting a war you've already lost.
Mal: Yeah, well I'm known for that.

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Friday, August 18, 2006 9:46 PM

STAKETHELURK

I have to admit that the optimistic vision of Star Trek always rang very false to me and I’m not sorry to see it drop away. Which is not to say that optimism is bad, but that the Star Trek vision of the future seemed so completely impossible that it strained my suspension of disbelief far more then the treknobabble. I really don’t see it as much of an inspiring example because it is so artificial and implausible--it is the future as it can’t happen, rather than as it might or could happen, at least in my view.

I also dislike what I see as its effects on the characters--the only people who are allowed to be something close to human are the aliens, while the humans are always too perfect, too two-dimensional, too unrealistic. If that’s what it takes to become “better,” then no thank you!

Perhaps it’s for those reasons that I really enjoyed Deep Space Nine, which explored the dark side of the Federation and gave even its human characters shades of gray. I would much rather see the Star Trek universe continue in that direction, crafting more plausible characters and a more believable future universe. If I’m going to suspend my disbelief about warp drive, transporters, and forehead-wrinkle aliens, I want to at least have some real people in a real society to ground me.

Quote:
Originally posted by USBrowncoat:
And last I time I checked Kirk and Co. were always in conflict with someone. I remember many photon torpedoes being lobbed around, shields being depleted, and people vanishing under the power of a phaser(sure sometimes they were set to stun). And they fought everyone in the neighborhood.

So, I think I am trying to say that trek was not as utopian as some like to remember.

Although Kirk and crew were always in conflict with someone, that someone was almost always an outsider. In utopian fiction, the only way to produce real conflict is to either send your utopians exploring beyond the borders of their perfect society or to have them combat some threat to that perfect society. Trek in general tended to favor the first approach, always boldly going and resolving conflicts beyond the boundaries of their Federation or enmeshing themselves in external disputes (even when internal disagreements develop, these are always in response to some external impulse).

Quote:
Originally posted by Reginaroadie:
But modern sci-fi seems to recoil at the notion of peace and insists on either post-apocalyptic scenarios (BATTLESTAR) or opressive regimes (FIREFLY).

Oh, and finally, while BSG is definitely post-apocalyptic, I disagree that the Firefly universe has a totalitarian government. The Alliance is not the Empire. They’re not evil incarnate, they’re just a government: an institution with high ideals that it sometimes upholds staffed by generally well-meaning people who sometimes make horrible decisions. The Alliance is no dictatorship--they’re run by a Parliament (and both the BDM and the Brief History in the Visual Companion suggest that those behind the Reavers and the experiments on River are a secret faction of “key” members within the Parliament).

That’s one of the things I appreciate most about the ‘verse, the fact that the “Alliance is no evil empire,” that the ‘bad guys’ are morally gray and often have the best intentions. Just because the government does some ugly things doesn’t instantly imply that it’s a police state (not condoning said ugly things, just saying democracies can commit crimes and cover-ups, too).

I also don’t think modern sci-fi necessarily “recoils” at the notion of peace, but rather recognizes the complexity of the issue. If Joss had written “Firefly” according to the traditional sci-fi script, he would have set it during the Unification War. Instead, he set it after the war. What we’re looking at is peace--we’re just looking at it from the perspectives of the losers, which is rare in traditional sci-fi (since the good guys are usually the ‘winners’ in any conflict). “Firefly” is about the aftermath, is about the conflict that “peace” brings to a society, especially since you can’t rely on the (comparatively) simple solution of war--the Alliance is not going to be overthrown, or driven back, or beaten. Instead, Mal’s struggle is to survive the peace, to come to terms with it--and that’s also the struggle of the Alliance, which is overstretched and harboring dark secrets. Peace is messy. Both the losers and the winners have problems to confront, problems that can’t simply be blown away. So, I don’t think “Firefly” in particular is avoiding peace--rather, it is engaging “peace” instead of simply taking as a given that “peace” means everything is okay. That’s the level of complexity that I’ve come to expect from Joss and that I hope future science fiction series will also deliver.

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Saturday, August 19, 2006 8:25 PM

KRAD

A minor point: for all the great press it's gotten, more people actually watched Firefly than watch Battlestar Galactica. The difference is that a) Firefly was on a network and b) was far more expensive to produce, so its standards for success on a network were considerably higher than BSG's are on a third-tier cable channel.

For that matter, for all the press BSG gets, it's getting the exact same ratings numbers as the two Stargate shows, including Atlantis, which has been on just as long and gets a fraction of the publicity. And Stargate is a much more traditional SF franchise.

Keith R.A. DeCandido
keith@decandido.net
www.DeCandido.net
kradical.livejournal.com

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Saturday, August 19, 2006 9:06 PM

STAKETHELURK

Quote:
Originally posted by KRAD:
A minor point: for all the great press it's gotten, more people actually watched Firefly than watch Battlestar Galactica.
…
For that matter, for all the press BSG gets, it's getting the exact same ratings numbers as the two Stargate shows, including Atlantis, which has been on just as long and gets a fraction of the publicity. And Stargate is a much more traditional SF franchise.

Interesting and important point, Krad. I think that says a lot about how the press helps shape our popular culture. I’ve never seen an episode of “The Sopranos” or “Deadwood,” but I’ve heard so much about them that they’ve seeped into my own pop culture awareness. Their word-of-mouth and their cultural influence far exceeds their actual audience base because they’re receiving such fanfare and applause. I don’t necessarily begrudge them that, especially if they’re quality shows, but they aren’t receiving attention just because they’re good (assuming they are good--again, haven’t watched them). There are many other fine programs (“Veronica Mars” springs to mind) that really don’t receive this level of attention and don’t become powerful forces in the greater pop culture (despite often having larger audiences as network shows).

I think BSG is an interesting example though, especially as you pair it with Stargate: Atlantis. I’ve only gotten into Battlestar on DVD (due to the widely-favorable word-of-mouth) and I haven’t seen much of Atlantis, so it’s a bit more difficult for me to compare the two. As you say, both shows are on more or less the same economic footing, bringing in the same amount of viewers. But BSG’s massive coverage in the press gives it a tremendous cultural leverage that Atlantis lacks. Battlestar’s getting this attention, of course, by being much less traditional—it offers something new while Atlantis offers something more standard; both appeal the same number of people, but BSG gets the coverage. Makes sense, since “new” is, well, “news.”

And that attention gives BSG cultural weight much greater than its level of success and viewership would normally allow. I think, or at least I hope, that this influence will produce a shift in the way sci-fi in general is done; a broadening of scope and possibilities. I don’t want a bunch of Battlestar clones (unless one of them’s called “Battleclone Galacticopy”

), but I would like sci-fi producers to recognize why BSG is getting this level of coverage and use that understanding when crafting their own original ideas. This doesn’t necessarily mean scrapping traditional sci-fi, but updating it and it expanding it with the complexities people have come to expect in modern television.

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