Star Trek Lives Forever
In the wake of the cancellation of “Enterprise” and the decision of
Paramount to not have a new series for awhile, the noted SF author
Orson Scott Card weighs in on the issue, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-card3may03,0,6007802.story
. His basic conclusion is that TV Science fiction and its audience has
grown past Star Trek. He also categorizes what we do (costuming,
fan-fic, Klingon stuff, etc.) as “madness” He feels that shows like
“Buffy,” “Lost,” “Smallville”(?) and “Firefly” show what maturing SF
can be. Smallville? Geeze Scott, you had me going until that.
He also castigates Trek for retreading material, this from a man who
argueably had one good book and is riding it like a cash cow. That’s
probably a little unfair, but people who write book series should be a
tad diplomatic when criticizing serial TV.
Now I appreciate his point of view but I think he misses a quite
important point. Yes some good SF is “serious” literature. But frankly
even though it can rise to the level of Shakespeare and Hugo, SF is at
it’s core about something that is easy to lose as we try to be
“adults.” It’s about fun.
I can philosophize with the best of them, I can find philosophical
relations between Kafka and Kahless, but at the end of things, that’s
not the point. There is a good reason that some Klingon fans slip
easily between Klingon and Clown personae. It’s because we’re indulging
the inner goofball. I had a chat with a “serious” Science Fiction fan a
month ago and she confessed that Klingon Fandom confused her and her
friends. I remarked that then we had done our job. I am of course
prejudiced but I think we Klingons do it best, to dip into my
existential philosophical background, we are the Archons of the Absurd.
I will refrain from making fun of Feddies here, you can do it on your
own!
When Forrest J. Ackerman rode the train from Kansas City to New York to
wear his Space man costume at the first SF convention, he forever
cemented the real soul of fandom. This gawky teenager didn’t go there
because he was interested in dry philosophical musings, or scientific
possibilities, he was going to find the wonder. Whatever the wonderful
speculative fiction that SF does, that’s not the point. Uhura in ST3
said it best, “This isn’t reality, it’s fantasy!”
Admiral Qob zantai-Hurric
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