May 18, 2022
Mary Sue to the rescue
the adventures of the youngest and smartest person ever to graduate from Star Fleet Academy and ever get a commission. Usually characterized by unprecedented skill in everything from art to zoology, including karate and arm wrestling, this character can be found burrowing her way into the good graces of Kirk, Spock, or McCoy, if not all three at once. She saves the day by her wit and ability, and, if we are lucky, has the good grace to die at the end, being grieved by the entire ship.
The Mary Sue can be simply summed up as a character who is too good to be true, having acquired more skills and talents and positive personality traits than our most generous expectations suggest is realistically possible.
Put the Mary Sue shortcut down to the rush of wish fulfillment or to impatient writers who want to fast forward to the "interesting" scenes. Or who think they are giving the audience what it wants to see. You know, because practicing to get good at something is for chumps.
Meeting all these criteria, a recent Mary Sue par excellence is Rey in The Force Awakens.
Yoda himself can't keep Luke Skywalker from getting badly beaten by Darth Vader in the second movie. Forget about crossing swords with anybody in the first. But Rey is an expert the first time she touches a lightsaber. She's as good a pilot as Han Solo the first time she sits in the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon.
Now, Luke does have a Mary Sue moment at the end of A New Hope, when he pilots an X-wing starfighter to victory. No, logging a couple hundred hours in a Cessna 172 does not mean you can hop into an F-35 Lightning and out-fly the Top Guns who've been at it for years.
We give Luke a pass here thanks to the narrative trick of making the audience a participant in the trials, travails, and eventual triumphs of the protagonist. As the help wanted ads put it, having proved his mettle, we'll let the good guy skate by on "equivalent experience" in lieu of a resume.
The problem with Rey is that's she's perfect from the moment she appears on the screen. We never see her resume. We never see her burning the midnight oil. Making it all the more annoying, as I outlined in my review, is that it would not have been difficult to give her one.
The big irony of the Mary Sue and its Star Trek origins is that The Next Generation wrote one right into the cast. Pandering to the fan base, I suppose. But perhaps any trope worth being singled out and savagely critiqued is one that connects at a deep level with a significant portion of the audience.
In that light, it deserves a defense. And so now I rise not to bury Mary Sue but to praise her.
To be sure, I cannot bring myself to defend Wesley Crusher. He is exactly the kind of annoying Mary Sue that Paula Smith snarked about back in 1973. Any reasonable appeal to verisimilitude could not tolerate his presence on the bridge of the Enterprise.
But a Mary Sue story can be done right. Komichi Akebi in Akebi's Sailor Uniform is a more recent and perfectly adorable example. But Snow White with the Red Hair really sets the standard.
Based on the manga by Sorata Akizuki, the anime ran two cours (the manga is still being serialized). As befitting the title, the story takes place in a spick and span medieval Disneyland (the setting itself qualifies as a Mary Sue).
When we first meet her, Shirayuki (白雪), whose name translates as "Snow White," is a conscientious herbalist who owns a small pharmacy. That is, until the lecherous Prince Raj, entranced by her brilliant red hair, decides to make Shirayuki his mistress. And won't take no for an answer.
Figuring that caution is the better part of valor, Shirayuki's answer is to pack up and scamper across the border, where she promptly runs into Prince Zen of Clarines and his retainers. It's "like" at first sight.
No mooning around. No one gets serenaded beneath a window. Shirayuki and Zen are preternaturally practical and competent people. Shirayuki has principles and no hesitation in standing up for them. And one of those principles is to own only what she's earned.
Although ostensibly a "European" kingdom, Clarines appears to be run by a ranked bureaucracy of mandarins appointed through an imperial examination system. Determined to stay close to Zen but refusing any handouts, Shirayuki applies for a job as an assistant court herbalist. And passes the tests.
But, again, the backstory has established that she works hard and is good at it, and shows us (doesn't just tell us) that she is deserving of the position. Zen as well works for a living. Being a prince in Clarines comes with a portfolio. Besides going on inspection tours, he has to sit at a desk and push paper around.
These jobs not only make them more interesting but also generate compelling plot material.
(Seriously, what do Disney's Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty actually do? Well, Cinderella is good at housekeeping. What does Elsa do? Anna at least has the important job of keeping Elsa from going nuts and destroying the kingdom.)
There's no need to pretend Shirayuki and Zen aren't Mary Sues. They are too good to be true. Here we have a pair of protagonists who couldn't be any nicer without getting saccharin. Even Prince Raj can't resist becoming a better person when he's around them (a character arc that pays off well in the second cour).
Yet they both possess a depth of character that makes their stories compelling. Yes, nice people can be interesting and do interesting things. I would describe the resulting genre as a "cozy" romance, the equivalent of the "cozy" mystery.
Dispensed with are the angst, the sturm und drang, the love triangles, the miscommunication, all the melodramatic conventions of the genre. Another way of describing this romance sub-genre might be "You and me (and our friends) against the world."
In fact, the only real hint of romantic tension arises among their friends, principally Mitsuhide, Kiki, and Obi, who are Zen's retainers, though Zen assigns Obi to Shirayuki. Later in the series, Mitsuhide seems to have a thing for Kiki, and Obi definitely has unrequited affection for Shirayuki.
But being loyal to Zen and having earned his trust, Obi never does anything stupid or inappropriate. Aside from Mitsuhide getting goofy in one episode in which he goes looking for Shirayuki in the pharmacy and accidentally ingests an elixir, nobody embarrasses, betrays, or compromises anybody.
Even for the day or so that Mitsuhide is under the effect of the elixir, he acts like a stereotypical gallant knight and drives everybody batty. It's a clever way of stating what the show is not about.
In the second cour, more high adventure comes their way, what with pirates and outlaws and damsels in distress and long lost family members showing up in unexpected places. But Shirayuki keeps her head on her shoulders (literally and figuratively) and the relationship never falters. Neither does her career.
In the end, nobody rides off into the sunset. There are no impending nuptials. We don't need to be told that Shirayuki and Zen will live "happily ever after." They only need to live their lives as best they can. From what we have learned about them, that will suffice. Real life is tough enough already.
Labels: anime, anime reviews, crunchyroll, movie reviews, romance, star trek, star wars, streaming, thinking about writing
March 02, 2015
"Star Trek" on the lecture circuit
I'm old enough to have seen an original Star Trek episode (not a rerun!). It was during a sleep-over at a friend's house, way back in 1969.
The episode was "That Which Survives." It made quite an impression on my young mind, especially the way Losira (Lee Meriwether; Catwoman on Batman) escaped by shrinking herself into a horizontal line and vanishing into a dot. Televisions once did that when you turned them off.
The neatest, scariest, coolest thing ever.
I'd have to wait for the series to end up in syndication to see the rest. These were the wilderness years for the fans, before Star Trek became a phenomenon. Except for the short-lived animated series (1973), the first movie wouldn't come out until 1979. Next Generation debuted in 1987.
Until then, I made do with David Gerrold's I-was-there memoirs (The Trouble With Tribbles and The World of Star Trek) and all of the Star Trek novelizations by James Blish.
But there was an upside. As the fan base grew, the stars of the show began touring, and even made it to upstate New York. Thanks to my mom, I got to see Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner in person. Their presentations amusingly mirrored their characters and personalities.
Leonard Nimoy spoke at Union College, lecturing on the convergence of science and science fiction. The Space Shuttle Enterprise (so named because of Star Trek) had just completed its maiden test flights (click to enlarge). His was very much the demeanor of a visiting professor.
The same demeanor he'd adopt for the In Search of series. Notes Eric Raymond, "He made braininess sexy." Incidentally, Nimoy spoke in the same hall (the memorial chapel) where I attended a talk by Isaac Asimov.
Nimoy brought along a copy of "Amok Time" to watch after the lecture. A reel of 16mm film. That's how television series were syndicated back then. Commercial breaks were flagged by sixty seconds of plain black-on-white text that simply said, "Place commercials here."
Which, of course, everybody started reading out loud in unison.
William Shatner appeared in a larger venue (the auditorium at Siena College, I believe). His performance was mostly a scripted one-man show. It featured soliloquies and spoken narratives with the general theme of space and astronomy in theater throughout the ages.
Both Shatner and Nimoy concluded with Q&A sessions. Off-script, Shatner transformed into a young Bob Hope, laid-back and relaxed, bantering with the audience members. Towards the end, he started pretend-pleading with anybody ducking out early to beat the traffic.
Nimoy, again, was cool, cerebral, and to-the-point. Suffering foolish questions gladly, but not without a touch of good-humored exasperation at the sillier inquiries. Yes, as he stated in his first autobiography, he wasn't Spock. But as he conceded in his second, he always will be.
This later joint appearance gives us Shatner and Nimoy together in their natural element. And although they played antagonists in a 1964 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., one can grasp glimmers of their future characters.
The episode was "That Which Survives." It made quite an impression on my young mind, especially the way Losira (Lee Meriwether; Catwoman on Batman) escaped by shrinking herself into a horizontal line and vanishing into a dot. Televisions once did that when you turned them off.
The neatest, scariest, coolest thing ever.
I'd have to wait for the series to end up in syndication to see the rest. These were the wilderness years for the fans, before Star Trek became a phenomenon. Except for the short-lived animated series (1973), the first movie wouldn't come out until 1979. Next Generation debuted in 1987.
Until then, I made do with David Gerrold's I-was-there memoirs (The Trouble With Tribbles and The World of Star Trek) and all of the Star Trek novelizations by James Blish.
But there was an upside. As the fan base grew, the stars of the show began touring, and even made it to upstate New York. Thanks to my mom, I got to see Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner in person. Their presentations amusingly mirrored their characters and personalities.
Leonard Nimoy spoke at Union College, lecturing on the convergence of science and science fiction. The Space Shuttle Enterprise (so named because of Star Trek) had just completed its maiden test flights (click to enlarge). His was very much the demeanor of a visiting professor.
 |
| The cast at the roll-out of the real Enterprise (Wikipedia Commons). |
The same demeanor he'd adopt for the In Search of series. Notes Eric Raymond, "He made braininess sexy." Incidentally, Nimoy spoke in the same hall (the memorial chapel) where I attended a talk by Isaac Asimov.
Nimoy brought along a copy of "Amok Time" to watch after the lecture. A reel of 16mm film. That's how television series were syndicated back then. Commercial breaks were flagged by sixty seconds of plain black-on-white text that simply said, "Place commercials here."
Which, of course, everybody started reading out loud in unison.
William Shatner appeared in a larger venue (the auditorium at Siena College, I believe). His performance was mostly a scripted one-man show. It featured soliloquies and spoken narratives with the general theme of space and astronomy in theater throughout the ages.
Both Shatner and Nimoy concluded with Q&A sessions. Off-script, Shatner transformed into a young Bob Hope, laid-back and relaxed, bantering with the audience members. Towards the end, he started pretend-pleading with anybody ducking out early to beat the traffic.
Nimoy, again, was cool, cerebral, and to-the-point. Suffering foolish questions gladly, but not without a touch of good-humored exasperation at the sillier inquiries. Yes, as he stated in his first autobiography, he wasn't Spock. But as he conceded in his second, he always will be.
This later joint appearance gives us Shatner and Nimoy together in their natural element. And although they played antagonists in a 1964 episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., one can grasp glimmers of their future characters.
Labels: autobiography, science, science fiction, star trek, television
November 10, 2014
The Men from Star Trek
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964–1968) holds up remarkably well half a century later (at least the first two seasons; the third reportedly sagged badly).
With Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo (created by Ian Fleming) and David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin (now Dr. "Ducky" Mallard on NCIS) in the leads, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was the forerunner of I Spy (1965–1968) and Mission Impossible (1966–1973).
Though while Mission Impossible presaged a future of high-tech gizmo thrillers, Solo and Kuryakin are the cool, suave, deadly (and deadly funny) analog operatives that live on in characters like John Reese and Sameen Shaw (Person of Interest).
It certainly didn't hurt that back in an era when there were only three networks, shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. could cast from the cream of the up-and-coming Hollywood crop.
For example, a 1964 episode called "The Project Strigas Affair." It guest stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, along with Werner Klemperer (basically inhabiting the Colonel Wilhelm Klink character he would start playing the next year on Hogan's Heroes).
This was two years before Star Trek.
Shatner is utterly charming as a scientist who quits the rat race to start a small business with his wife (exterminating rats). They're recruited by U.N.C.L.E. to run a sting on a corrupt diplomat (Klemperer). It's a very Mission Impossible type plot.
What makes it all the more amusing is that a fairly subdued Shatner ends up playing the straight man to everybody else, and does rather well at that. It's not fair to say, "Hey, the man can act!" because Shatner delivered some fine performances on Star Trek.
It'd be more accurate to observe that there was a time when Shatner wasn't Kirk! Instead, it's Nimoy who hams it up as his (actually Klemperer's) nemesis in the "Evil Spock" role (playing dumb until he gets his revenge in the end).
Frankly, it's easy to see a lot of Spock in Nimoy's "Paris" on Mission Impossible as well. But because Nimoy defined the character in more subtle terms (makeup and backstory aside), he can say "I am not Spock," while Shatner will always be Kirk at his most bombastic.
Here's a collection of clips from that episode:
With Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo (created by Ian Fleming) and David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin (now Dr. "Ducky" Mallard on NCIS) in the leads, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was the forerunner of I Spy (1965–1968) and Mission Impossible (1966–1973).
Though while Mission Impossible presaged a future of high-tech gizmo thrillers, Solo and Kuryakin are the cool, suave, deadly (and deadly funny) analog operatives that live on in characters like John Reese and Sameen Shaw (Person of Interest).
It certainly didn't hurt that back in an era when there were only three networks, shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. could cast from the cream of the up-and-coming Hollywood crop.
For example, a 1964 episode called "The Project Strigas Affair." It guest stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, along with Werner Klemperer (basically inhabiting the Colonel Wilhelm Klink character he would start playing the next year on Hogan's Heroes).
This was two years before Star Trek.
Shatner is utterly charming as a scientist who quits the rat race to start a small business with his wife (exterminating rats). They're recruited by U.N.C.L.E. to run a sting on a corrupt diplomat (Klemperer). It's a very Mission Impossible type plot.
What makes it all the more amusing is that a fairly subdued Shatner ends up playing the straight man to everybody else, and does rather well at that. It's not fair to say, "Hey, the man can act!" because Shatner delivered some fine performances on Star Trek.
It'd be more accurate to observe that there was a time when Shatner wasn't Kirk! Instead, it's Nimoy who hams it up as his (actually Klemperer's) nemesis in the "Evil Spock" role (playing dumb until he gets his revenge in the end).
Frankly, it's easy to see a lot of Spock in Nimoy's "Paris" on Mission Impossible as well. But because Nimoy defined the character in more subtle terms (makeup and backstory aside), he can say "I am not Spock," while Shatner will always be Kirk at his most bombastic.
Here's a collection of clips from that episode:
Labels: person of interest, star trek, television
May 31, 2010
A shuttle by any other name
The name of the space shuttle Atlantis has always irked me, as NASA could surely come up with a better name for a space vehicle than that of an imaginary underwater city. But now, at the end of its operational life, thanks to APOD and Wikipedia, I've discovered that the source of my irk is largely misplaced.
Of course, the antecedent is still there, but I suppose it's like being given the goofy name of a venerable ancestor instead of your parents making it up out of whole cloth (though Frank Zappa did come up with some doozies: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin).
The first operation shuttle was going to be called Constitution, but was ultimately named for another fictitious creation: Enterprise. It flew as a glider but never into space, so maybe it makes for an appropriate metaphor.
I attended a lecture by Leonard Nimoy in the mid-70s (the dry spell before the first movie), and he was quite proud of the shuttle's designation. Deservedly so. Who could have imagined that three seasons of such campily earnest science fiction could have inspired so many (including me)?
Eight ships of the Continental and U.S. navies have shared the name. It currently belong to the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65).
And I have to admit that I entirely approve of naming the Apollo 10 Lunar Module Snoopy and the Command Module Charlie Brown.
The RV Atlantis was the first research vessel operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Several ships are named after it, as well as the space shuttle Atlantis.
Of course, the antecedent is still there, but I suppose it's like being given the goofy name of a venerable ancestor instead of your parents making it up out of whole cloth (though Frank Zappa did come up with some doozies: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin).
The first operation shuttle was going to be called Constitution, but was ultimately named for another fictitious creation: Enterprise. It flew as a glider but never into space, so maybe it makes for an appropriate metaphor.
I attended a lecture by Leonard Nimoy in the mid-70s (the dry spell before the first movie), and he was quite proud of the shuttle's designation. Deservedly so. Who could have imagined that three seasons of such campily earnest science fiction could have inspired so many (including me)?
Eight ships of the Continental and U.S. navies have shared the name. It currently belong to the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65).
And I have to admit that I entirely approve of naming the Apollo 10 Lunar Module Snoopy and the Command Module Charlie Brown.
Labels: annoying stuff, pop culture, science, space, star trek
December 29, 2009
Stupid on "Star Trek" stilts (3)
Star Trek (2009) works well despite its scientifically silly self because Abrams gets the human (and half-human) relationships right (in action flick terms). I just wish Abrams hadn't gotten Star Trek confused with Pirates of the Caribbean.
The most idiotic sequence in the movie has Spock throwing Kirk off the ship, the technical equivalent of making him walk the plank. Spock Senior doesn't need to instruct Kirk on how to relieve Spock Junior of command, because Spock Junior has just committed a court martial offense.
Even if the sailor is a worthless bum, no captain is not going to dump him in a lifeboat and wish him bon voyage. Forget about the value of human life, the military really does not like its officers wasting valuable military property. That's what the brig is for.
In the PBS documentary Carrier, a fighter pilot misjudges his fuel load, is forced to land at Balad Airbase, and blows a tire. In the Top Gun universe, they'd laugh about it over beers. In the real world, he's grounded and may be court-martialed for damaging Navy equipment.
Besides, the whole mutant polar bears and ice-covered planets thing is old. There's nothing here that wasn't done in The Empire Strikes Back and The Undiscovered Country.
A single line of dialogue earlier could have established that Scotty's outpost was due for a servicing mission--and now all the more so that Vulcan is toast--so Spock sends Kirk down with a shuttle and then takes off as soon as he's left, promising to come back and pick him up later.
The bonus here is that a series of totally unbelievable coincidences--Kirk just happening to run into Spock Senior and then just happening to run into Scotty--is avoided. And Spock Senior ends up with a shuttle.
Okay. I'm done. This horse is dead.
The most idiotic sequence in the movie has Spock throwing Kirk off the ship, the technical equivalent of making him walk the plank. Spock Senior doesn't need to instruct Kirk on how to relieve Spock Junior of command, because Spock Junior has just committed a court martial offense.
Even if the sailor is a worthless bum, no captain is not going to dump him in a lifeboat and wish him bon voyage. Forget about the value of human life, the military really does not like its officers wasting valuable military property. That's what the brig is for.
In the PBS documentary Carrier, a fighter pilot misjudges his fuel load, is forced to land at Balad Airbase, and blows a tire. In the Top Gun universe, they'd laugh about it over beers. In the real world, he's grounded and may be court-martialed for damaging Navy equipment.
Besides, the whole mutant polar bears and ice-covered planets thing is old. There's nothing here that wasn't done in The Empire Strikes Back and The Undiscovered Country.
A single line of dialogue earlier could have established that Scotty's outpost was due for a servicing mission--and now all the more so that Vulcan is toast--so Spock sends Kirk down with a shuttle and then takes off as soon as he's left, promising to come back and pick him up later.
The bonus here is that a series of totally unbelievable coincidences--Kirk just happening to run into Spock Senior and then just happening to run into Scotty--is avoided. And Spock Senior ends up with a shuttle.
Okay. I'm done. This horse is dead.
Related posts
Stupid on Star Trek stilts (1)
Stupid on Star Trek stilts (2)
The brave old world of Star Trek
Labels: annoying stuff, movies, science, star trek
December 21, 2009
Stupid on "Star Trek" stilts (2)
Bad science fiction isn't the fault of far-out science, which is why I can enjoy eye-rolling SF like The X-Files. I figure anything theorized in the past century is up for grabs. But when it comes to the basic laws of motion and thermodynamics, though strict compliance may be too much to ask for, the spirit of the law deserves at least a polite tip of the hat.
In too many cases, unfortunately, the hard-won gifts of the Enlightenment are taken for granted, and quite unnecessarily at that. I feel compelled to plead with Hollywood's right-brained creative genius to throw a little pocket change at a few left-brained Caltech grad students to bring their scripts into at least the same universe as the scientific method.
The most annoying scientific faux pas in space opera is treating orbiting spaceships like airplanes. Johannes Kepler figured out how planetary orbits worked four hundred years ago. Plenty of time to get up to speed on the subject.
The only space battle I've seen play out with any respect for orbital science occurs in anime series Infinite Ryvius. (Unfortunately, the series is also quite realistic about what would happen if a bunch of teenagers took over a starship--namely, you'd end up with Lord of the Flies in space, which I found too painful to keep watching.)
The most jarring scientific moment in Star Trek has Kirk and Sulu parachuting from orbit onto Nero's "drill platform." As Isaac Newton demonstrated back in 1728 with his cannonball analogy, an object in orbit is literally in free fall. You can't "fall" out of orbit without sharply decelerating, usually by a combination of thrusters and atmospheric drag.
What makes the scene so frustrating is that it could have easily been done right--or at least less wrong. Kirk and Sulu (and the other guy--was he wearing a red uniform?) would ride snowmobile-looking contraptions that combined a retro-rocket and heat shield. They'd arc out of orbit and intersect the platform on a near-horizontal vector.
The special effects would be just as cool, the science and technology would be in the realm of the possible, and you'd get a new action figure toy out of it to boot. Win-win-win!
One more minor note about that drill platform. It resembles a space elevator, which is theoretically possible. But the mother ship would have to be in geostationary orbit over the equator. Again, a minor tweak to the script would fix it.
In too many cases, unfortunately, the hard-won gifts of the Enlightenment are taken for granted, and quite unnecessarily at that. I feel compelled to plead with Hollywood's right-brained creative genius to throw a little pocket change at a few left-brained Caltech grad students to bring their scripts into at least the same universe as the scientific method.
The most annoying scientific faux pas in space opera is treating orbiting spaceships like airplanes. Johannes Kepler figured out how planetary orbits worked four hundred years ago. Plenty of time to get up to speed on the subject.
The only space battle I've seen play out with any respect for orbital science occurs in anime series Infinite Ryvius. (Unfortunately, the series is also quite realistic about what would happen if a bunch of teenagers took over a starship--namely, you'd end up with Lord of the Flies in space, which I found too painful to keep watching.)
The most jarring scientific moment in Star Trek has Kirk and Sulu parachuting from orbit onto Nero's "drill platform." As Isaac Newton demonstrated back in 1728 with his cannonball analogy, an object in orbit is literally in free fall. You can't "fall" out of orbit without sharply decelerating, usually by a combination of thrusters and atmospheric drag.
What makes the scene so frustrating is that it could have easily been done right--or at least less wrong. Kirk and Sulu (and the other guy--was he wearing a red uniform?) would ride snowmobile-looking contraptions that combined a retro-rocket and heat shield. They'd arc out of orbit and intersect the platform on a near-horizontal vector.
The special effects would be just as cool, the science and technology would be in the realm of the possible, and you'd get a new action figure toy out of it to boot. Win-win-win!
One more minor note about that drill platform. It resembles a space elevator, which is theoretically possible. But the mother ship would have to be in geostationary orbit over the equator. Again, a minor tweak to the script would fix it.
Related posts
Stupid on Star Trek stilts (1)
Stupid on Star Trek" stilts (3)
The brave old world of Star Trek
Labels: annoying stuff, movies, science, science fiction, star trek
December 18, 2009
Stupid on "Star Trek" stilts (1)
The latest iteration of Star Trek isn't so much SF as DF: "dumb fun." Along with movies like Independence Day and Live Free or Die Hard, the science isn't merely fictionized, it's a magic wand. A prop to be chewed on. And yet done in a way that the rest of the rational mind goes along for the ride and enjoys itself.
I'm not talking about the MacGuffins. In Star Trek, the whole "red matter" silliness belongs alongside other impossibilities like warp drives and transporters, far enough removed from reality to not disturb the integrity of any actual science. The problem here isn't the physics, but the logical implications of the physics as stipulated.
As in Star Wars, if you make blowing up stars and planets that easy (lining up a contractor and the budget), the arms race implications become horrifying. And if a Death Star can pulverize an entire planet, then the Mini-Me version should be able to vaporize a continent or two, which would obviate the whole first act of The Empire Strikes Back.
Which brings us to the favorite kamikaze tactic in Star Trek: ramming the bad guys with a starship. Because starship engines run on antimatter, rupturing the magnetic containment vessels would trigger an explosion more powerful than a hydrogen bomb. This actually qualifies as valid science.
One reason I give the dumber-than-dirt Independence Day a big pass (besides Bill Pullman's rah-rah Americanized version of the St. Crispian speech) is that even if you've got yourself a super-armored spaceship the size of Rhode Island, setting off a thermonuclear device inside it will indeed turn it into so much Jiffy Pop.
At the end of Star Trek, Scotty dumps the engine cores, which go kaboom, and they ride the shock wave away from the black hole created by rupturing the containment vessel holding the "red matter." All fine and dandy, but why didn't it work for Spock or Kirk Senior? Their ships were smaller, but either should have blown Nero's to kingdom come.
This is one of those MacGuffins whose implications were never thought through from the start. Let's say that, at the end of the day, starships can only run on Chernobyl-grade power sources. A calculated risk taken by daredevil risk-takers. But in that case, you wouldn't populate the ship with families and the occasional pregnant woman.
In science fiction, the demands of objective science can take you only so far. Keeping a narrative's internally-created realities--however non-scientific--consistent with each other will create many more interesting story possibilities than if they are lazily glossed over.
I'm not talking about the MacGuffins. In Star Trek, the whole "red matter" silliness belongs alongside other impossibilities like warp drives and transporters, far enough removed from reality to not disturb the integrity of any actual science. The problem here isn't the physics, but the logical implications of the physics as stipulated.
As in Star Wars, if you make blowing up stars and planets that easy (lining up a contractor and the budget), the arms race implications become horrifying. And if a Death Star can pulverize an entire planet, then the Mini-Me version should be able to vaporize a continent or two, which would obviate the whole first act of The Empire Strikes Back.
Which brings us to the favorite kamikaze tactic in Star Trek: ramming the bad guys with a starship. Because starship engines run on antimatter, rupturing the magnetic containment vessels would trigger an explosion more powerful than a hydrogen bomb. This actually qualifies as valid science.
One reason I give the dumber-than-dirt Independence Day a big pass (besides Bill Pullman's rah-rah Americanized version of the St. Crispian speech) is that even if you've got yourself a super-armored spaceship the size of Rhode Island, setting off a thermonuclear device inside it will indeed turn it into so much Jiffy Pop.
At the end of Star Trek, Scotty dumps the engine cores, which go kaboom, and they ride the shock wave away from the black hole created by rupturing the containment vessel holding the "red matter." All fine and dandy, but why didn't it work for Spock or Kirk Senior? Their ships were smaller, but either should have blown Nero's to kingdom come.
This is one of those MacGuffins whose implications were never thought through from the start. Let's say that, at the end of the day, starships can only run on Chernobyl-grade power sources. A calculated risk taken by daredevil risk-takers. But in that case, you wouldn't populate the ship with families and the occasional pregnant woman.
In science fiction, the demands of objective science can take you only so far. Keeping a narrative's internally-created realities--however non-scientific--consistent with each other will create many more interesting story possibilities than if they are lazily glossed over.
Related posts
Stupid on Star Trek stilts (2)
Stupid on Star Trek" stilts (3)
The brave old world of Star Trek
Labels: annoying stuff, id4, movies, science, science fiction, star trek
December 14, 2009
Star Trek
J.J. Abrams's reboot of Star Trek (2009) is a non-stop pastiche of eye-rolling hand-waves, each one more unbelievable than the last. A compilation of cliffhangers straight out of B-movie serial land. A script that makes Star Wars looks Shakespearean by comparison.And yet the sum of the parts of this two-hour cinematic train wreck--the scattered pieces recycled from (exactly) thirty years of theatrical releases--is the most enjoyable Trek in two decades, worthy of being considered in the same canonical company as II, IV and VI.
Abrams's snappy pacing deserves a lot of credit, never dawdling long enough for the sheer absurdity of a scene to sink in. But the lion's share goes to the pitch-perfect casting and well-designed sets the actors appear at home in. Chris Pine as Kirk settles into that captain's chair like he owns it.
Zachary Quinto as young Spock achieves what Jim Parsons does as Sheldon on Big Bang Theory (albeit as a dramatic character), capturing the mien of a man who lives too much in his own head, but doesn't begrudge yielding the spotlight to a driven extrovert who lives too much outside his own head.
I wouldn't have expected the Spock/Uhura relationship to work, but it does. There's a lot of dramatic potential here if they don't mawkishly mess it up.
The other backstories ring true too. McCoy running away from a bad marriage (and implying that he comes from old money). Scotty as an eccentric scientist who's found a himself a great new toy. When Chekov jumps up and excitedly declares, "I can do this!" I bought the emotion completely.
Even the gimmick of Nimoy's cameo works, Nimoy having achieved the kind of on-screen gravitas usually reserved for bearded British actors. I hope they find an excuse to use him again.
Only one thing worries me. In the (hoped-for) sequels, Abrams must come up with stories that do not involve the end of life as we know it. I couldn't helping thinking of The Jerk, where the sniper keeps missing Steve Martin and hitting cans on the store shelves, and Martin yells, "He hates cans!"
Star Trek villains really hate solar systems. Destroying stars and sundry planetary objects in order to get even with somebody--it's time to retire this plot device permanently. Time travel too. We've been there and done that and done that enough times for several lifetimes already.
The real attraction of police procedurals like Bones (which is really Star Trek: Booth as Kirk, Brennan as Spock, Saroyan as McCoy) is watching a competent team working together to get something important done. Star Trek needs to get back to that: bigger team, smaller problems.
Related posts
Stupid on Star Trek stilts (1)
Stupid on Star Trek stilts (2)
Stupid on Star Trek" stilts (3)
The brave old world of Star Trek
Labels: bones, movie reviews, star trek
October 01, 2009
Lost and found in translation
My sister Kate has been watching Lois & Clark with the French subtitles turned on. In one scene, Lois is goading Clark to abandon a particular demand, stating that "it will never happen." With added emphasis she asks (hypothetically), "How long can you hold your breath?"
As Lois stomps off, Clark (aka Superman) mutters, "A very, very long time."
The subtitles simply render Lois's questions as "How long can you be patient?" which misses the play on words. Kate asks if there is a French colloquialism that means the same thing, or are translators doomed to miss some jokes when they move from one language to the next?
The question reminds me of a Star Trek TNG episode where the Enterprise encounters an alien race that speaks only in allegory. It's one of those clever but stupid ideas. All language is allegorical. Even mathematicians have to agree on what the symbols mean before they can communicate using them.
Every translation system--human or machine--depends on a corpus of translated material to work from. Granted, in a universe where a "universal translator" is plausible technology, I suppose it makes sense (though in that case, even Douglas Adams's "Babel Fish" would be more scientifically realistic).
In sociolinguistic terms, the episode does make a nice point. Consider the story of Amaterasu and Ame no Uzume. Back at the dawn of time, after the Storm God, Susano'o, went on a holy tear and trashed her temples and fields, the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, shut herself inside a cave, plunging the world into darkness.
When deployed metaphorically (such as in the anime Maison Ikkoku), "Ame no Uzume" describes a woman acting sensuously in order to lure somebody (usually a man) out of his metaphorical cave. If the name is meaningless outside Japan, once it's defined in context, it's perfectly understandable.
Human nature is universal enough that in most cases the substance of the metaphor or pun can be translated along with the text. Getting hung up on "close literalism" is the greater obstacle. In my own work, if a metaphor is unique but still understandable, I'll keep it, even if it requires a parenthetical.
Otherwise, my approach is, "How would I phrase this if I wrote it?" I don't mind imprecise translations if they preserve the intent of the writer and the meaning the reader takes away. Often I'll "translate" the image or sense in my mind rather than the words of the metaphor itself.
The translator faces the same literary challenge as the writer. Except that distributors have to expeditiously turn around products at the "good enough" level. Not many have the deep pockets to do what Miramax (thanks to John Lasseter) did with Princess Mononoke, and hire Neil Gaiman to rewrite the script.
Additionally with dubs and subtitles, there's the whole matter of space and time constraints. Sometimes anime DVDs do add liner notes to explain cultural contexts. I like adding footnotes to my translations. It's easy to do online, though I suppose could make genre fiction look too "scholarly" and the typesetting a pain.
Alethea and Athena Nibley (BYU grads) write a column for Manga Life (scroll down to "Words of Truth and Wisdom"), examining the nuts and bolts of translation. In this interview, for example, they 'fess up to confusing "Aegis" as a type of cruiser (specifically the weapon system) with the name of a cruiser.
Translators have to know what the author knows. Here is a sentence I translated from Yashakiden: "These Magnum revolvers had a double-action trigger pull of seven pounds, with four pounds in single action." The grammar is straightforward. The challenge was to phrase it the way a gun expert would in English.
I was vaguely aware of the term "trigger pull," but googled it to see how it was actually used in context. (Google and Google Books are the translator's best friend. I'll often translate a complex sentence, stare at it and wonder, Does anybody actually say that in English? and google it to see.)
So I sympathize with subtitle translator Natsuko Toda--often given only a week or two to crank out the raw copy--whose work on Lord of the Rings provoked storms of protest. She simply didn't have the time to familiarize herself with the source material enough to capture its subtleties to the satisfaction of the fans.
The other lesson here is to avoid translating stuff when the fans know the story better than you do even before seeing it.
As Lois stomps off, Clark (aka Superman) mutters, "A very, very long time."
The subtitles simply render Lois's questions as "How long can you be patient?" which misses the play on words. Kate asks if there is a French colloquialism that means the same thing, or are translators doomed to miss some jokes when they move from one language to the next?
The question reminds me of a Star Trek TNG episode where the Enterprise encounters an alien race that speaks only in allegory. It's one of those clever but stupid ideas. All language is allegorical. Even mathematicians have to agree on what the symbols mean before they can communicate using them.
Every translation system--human or machine--depends on a corpus of translated material to work from. Granted, in a universe where a "universal translator" is plausible technology, I suppose it makes sense (though in that case, even Douglas Adams's "Babel Fish" would be more scientifically realistic).
In sociolinguistic terms, the episode does make a nice point. Consider the story of Amaterasu and Ame no Uzume. Back at the dawn of time, after the Storm God, Susano'o, went on a holy tear and trashed her temples and fields, the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, shut herself inside a cave, plunging the world into darkness.
Uzume overturned a tub near the cave entrance and began a dance on it, tearing off her clothing in front of the other deities. They considered this so comical that they laughed heartily at the sight. Amaterasu heard them and peered out to see what all the fuss was about.
When deployed metaphorically (such as in the anime Maison Ikkoku), "Ame no Uzume" describes a woman acting sensuously in order to lure somebody (usually a man) out of his metaphorical cave. If the name is meaningless outside Japan, once it's defined in context, it's perfectly understandable.
Human nature is universal enough that in most cases the substance of the metaphor or pun can be translated along with the text. Getting hung up on "close literalism" is the greater obstacle. In my own work, if a metaphor is unique but still understandable, I'll keep it, even if it requires a parenthetical.
Otherwise, my approach is, "How would I phrase this if I wrote it?" I don't mind imprecise translations if they preserve the intent of the writer and the meaning the reader takes away. Often I'll "translate" the image or sense in my mind rather than the words of the metaphor itself.
The translator faces the same literary challenge as the writer. Except that distributors have to expeditiously turn around products at the "good enough" level. Not many have the deep pockets to do what Miramax (thanks to John Lasseter) did with Princess Mononoke, and hire Neil Gaiman to rewrite the script.
Additionally with dubs and subtitles, there's the whole matter of space and time constraints. Sometimes anime DVDs do add liner notes to explain cultural contexts. I like adding footnotes to my translations. It's easy to do online, though I suppose could make genre fiction look too "scholarly" and the typesetting a pain.
Alethea and Athena Nibley (BYU grads) write a column for Manga Life (scroll down to "Words of Truth and Wisdom"), examining the nuts and bolts of translation. In this interview, for example, they 'fess up to confusing "Aegis" as a type of cruiser (specifically the weapon system) with the name of a cruiser.
Translators have to know what the author knows. Here is a sentence I translated from Yashakiden: "These Magnum revolvers had a double-action trigger pull of seven pounds, with four pounds in single action." The grammar is straightforward. The challenge was to phrase it the way a gun expert would in English.
I was vaguely aware of the term "trigger pull," but googled it to see how it was actually used in context. (Google and Google Books are the translator's best friend. I'll often translate a complex sentence, stare at it and wonder, Does anybody actually say that in English? and google it to see.)
So I sympathize with subtitle translator Natsuko Toda--often given only a week or two to crank out the raw copy--whose work on Lord of the Rings provoked storms of protest. She simply didn't have the time to familiarize herself with the source material enough to capture its subtleties to the satisfaction of the fans.
The other lesson here is to avoid translating stuff when the fans know the story better than you do even before seeing it.
Labels: BYU, japanese, kate, language, movies, star trek, translations
August 18, 2009
Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato
Released in 1978 after being rushed through production in a mere six months, Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato followed on the heels of Space Battleship Yamato, which outperformed Star Wars at the box office. Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato doubled that.With its cute robots, planet-killing "Death Star" antagonist, and "Battle of Britain" fighter scenes, it's clearly derivative of Star Wars. The ship's bridge as the principal set, the protagonist's Kirkian disregard for military protocols, and his propensity—on a ship with hundreds of crew—to rush off to confront his enemies personally are clear nods to Star Trek.
The overdressed, operatically overacting evil aliens with blue or green skin as their only non-human characteristics come straight out of 1950's B-serials.
The crudely-drawn animation is reminiscent of 1960s Saturday morning Johnny Quest cartoons (60,000 cells in a 150 minute movie averages out to 6 fps). However, even given such rough material to work with, the direction by Toshio Masuda and Leiji Matsumoto borders on the brilliant at times, creating visual perspectives cinematically ahead of their time.
About a bajillion people get killed in Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato, just as they do in Star Wars. Though without any blood and guts, Masuda and Matsumoto somehow manage to make the experience a lot more harrowing than in Star Wars.
Despite all the back-to-the-future echoes in the plot—fans of the original Star Trek series will recognize how the Yamato is turned into a big antimatter weapon, the "grand theft starship" business from Star Trek III (1984), and destroying a Death Star by flying inside it from Return of the Jedi (1983)—the Yamato itself is all Japanese and all Leiji Matsumoto.
Anachronistic space opera is Matsumoto's unique oeuvre, including pirate galleons in space (Captain Harlock), WWII battleships in space (Space Battleship Yamato), and steam engines in space (Galaxy Express 999). That last one is his most inspired and most inspiring. The 1979 film version is a remarkably exploration of moral philosophy through science fiction.
To be sure, despite its financial success, die-hard fans did not react well to practically the entire crew getting killed and the ship itself being destroyed. The events of Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato have since been relegated to an "alternate timeline," and the series—both television and theatrical releases—was resurrected anew.
However, I believe that Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato is actually the most true to its namesake and to the enormous weight of history that the story of the Yamato carries with her. Yamato is the ancient name of Japan, and the original battleship Yamato carried the Emperor's Imperial Seal prominently displayed on its bow.
Commissioned a week after Pearl Harbor, the Yamato and her sister ship Musashi were the biggest battleships ever built, and their eighteen-inch main guns the largest ever mounted on a ship. The Yamato's first deployment was as Admiral Yamamoto's flagship during the Battle of Midway, though it never directly engaged U.S. forces.
But as Eliot wrote, "In my beginning is my end." The Battle of Midway made the battleship an anachronism. The Yamato was too valuable a symbol to risk as a "tin can" destroyer and was too fuel-hungry to use in middling support tasks. Aside from occasional run-ins with U.S. submarines, the Yamato saw minimal combat duty until October 1944.
The Battle of Leyte Gulf ended its career. In one of the most remarkable naval engagements in history, the tiny "Taffy 3" escort group fought an entire task force led by the Yamato to a draw. The mighty Yamato proved no match for the puny but radar-directed five-inch guns of the U.S. destroyers and the antiquated Wildcat and Avenger fighters from the escort carriers.
The Yamato spent most of its last year docked at its home base in Kure on the Inland Sea. Finally, in the name of blustering patriotism and "morale," it was sent on a suicide mission—with only enough fuel for a one-way trip—to engage the U.S. Navy off the shores of Okinawa.
The Yamato was attacked by carrier-based torpedo and dive bombers as soon as it emerged into the East China Sea. It was sunk two hours later. Only a handful of sailors escaped when its ammunition magazines exploded. The ship sank with 2,498 hands on board, the largest loss of life attributed to a single ship in peacetime or war (the Titanic lost 1,517).
Otoko-tachi no Yamato ("Our Yamato") is the latest attempt (2005) to document the life and death of the Yamato with a gory, melodramatic, Ridley Scott-style Hollywood approach. Except that lots of stuff spectacularly blowing up can't mask the criminally stupid waste of men and material that marked the Yamato's final voyage.
At least the Light Brigade featured in Tennyson's famous poem overran the Russian positions they were aiming at, but were forced to retreat when the less suicidal Heavy Brigade didn't advance down the "Valley of Death" after them. Pickett's Charge briefly breached the Union line on Cemetery Ridge before being pushed back with crippling losses.
All the Yamato managed to do was temporarily distract U.S. fighters from their more important job of shooting down kamikaze. The Yamato got nowhere near Okinawa. It didn't accomplish a single military objective. Twenty-five hundred men died for absolutely nothing.
At its heart, I can't help but read the Space Battleship Yamato series as an attempt to vest meaning in that meaningless loss.
In nods to The Philadelphia Experiment and Raise the Titanic! a starship is constructed inside the wreck of the Yamato, and then raised from the bottom of the ocean to battle aliens out to destroy the Earth. Spinoffs also have the ship being purposely sunk to prevent top-secret technology from falling into enemy hands, which is then salvaged by later generations.
Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato then becomes a restaging of the battleship's final, tragic mission (April 6-7, 1945). With the captain dead at the helm and the first mate alone alive at the wheel, the ultimate sacrifice made this time around is truly noble. The Yamato dies for something, saving the Earth from destruction and saving the lives of billions.
Even so, the historical perspective makes it all the more painful to watch. The most appropriate treatment of the Yamato story is perhaps the "Crossing the River of Time" episode of Kamichu! (DVD 3 episode 9). Kamichu! is about a junior high school student living in a fishing village near Kure, who wakes up one morning to discover she's turned into a minor Shinto deity.
In "Crossing the River of Time," Yurie escorts the "soul" of the Yamato (Shinto theology stipulates that all things—animate and inanimate—have unique souls or gods) back to her home base in Kure. It is a moving story that recognizes the bravery of the men who served on the Yamato, and the magnitude of their loss, without rationalizing or wallowing in it.
Labels: anime reviews, history, japan, matsumoto, shinto, star trek, star wars, ww2
August 13, 2009
One handwave to rule them all
A funny Onion parody of the inherent pitfalls with "hard" science fiction. And why science fiction plot devices too difficult to explain for real either shouldn't be used in the first place, or should be written in a manner that can be handled with an accessible metaphor.A reading of Gabriel Fournier's The Eclipse Of Infinity reveals that the new science-fiction novel makes more than 80 separate references to "quantum flux," a vaguely defined force the author uses to advance the plot, resolve conflict as needed, and account for dozens of glaring inconsistencies.
One thing that Numbers does nicely is come up with metaphors to explain complex scientific concepts. However, this isn't easy to do "naturally" either, and the didactic interruptions to the narrative--and the clumsy excuses used to insert them--get annoying after a while.
Just as the writer of a whodunit has to be as smart as the villain, the writer of hard science fiction has to actually understand the science--and be able to write a good story besides. Which is probably why I find that I admire hard science fiction more than I actually enjoy it.
Television shows like The Mentalist--where the lead character relies on misdirection and psychological slight of hand--are a welcome relief to the increasingly phony science in CSI-type shows, where DNA tests can be run over a commercial break and a chip of paint can identify any car.
I'm also getting tired of 128-bit encryption that can be cracked in a matter of minutes, TCP/IP connections that can be traced in a matter of minutes (always to a concrete location). Though when the demands of plot randomly kick in, either of those two suddenly becomes absolutely impossible.
All fiction needs handwaves. But there are limits. Patrick Jane (The Mentalist) would trick the mark into giving him the password. Now that's plausible. Bones does a good job of putting the "hard" and "squishy" sciences in conflict with each other (and a good job not taking itself seriously).
The brilliant anime series Noein tackles the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics with a depth of insight that I haven't seen elsewhere. The problem is, it tries so hard to be "hard" science fiction that whole paragraphs of dialogue often degrade into meaningless technobabble.
A Star Trek: TNG episode covered the same subject matter and did a better job keeping-it-simple (but not stupid). Noein has ten times the dramatic depth, though. With a few more metaphors and judicious handwaves, and less technobabble and a bit of editing, it'd be a masterpiece.
But speaking of quantum mechanics:
I don't trust quantum mechanics. I took my car to a quantum mechanic and asked him to fix the speedometer. Now I have no idea where my car is.
Labels: criticism, literature, star trek, television
November 19, 2006
"Star Trek" in the dock
My sister Kate argues, contra my previous missive, that in Star Trek, "the science-fiction simply exists so that a story may be told in that setting" and that the draw of the series is its presentation of "old, old stories with classic structures (problem, climax, resolution) being translated into SF (or quasi sci-fi) terms," rather than any attempt to accurately forecast the future, or create a cohesive alternate universe over the entire arc of the series.
I don't disagree, especially these days where every television series has a showrunner as a producer, with episode structure starting with the old-fashioned cliffhanger serial drama at one extreme (Prison Break, 24), and never abandoning the progressive story arc at the other. I like the cohesiveness that a story arc lends to a season, but prefer its more subtle implementations. I simply can't watch cliffhanger serials anymore except on DVD.
I did stick with the strong arc of the third season of Enterprise, simply because I consider it by far the best of the Star Trek family. But it would have been interesting if Star Trek could have returned to the standalone format of the original, telling stories that "just happen to use the same setting and the same characters as that episode you saw last week," and again making it a showcase for freelance SF&F talent.
But my essential argument still stands: the episodicity of Star Trek notwithstanding, it was unnecessarily crippled by the lack of a tenable backstory, let alone marginally good science. Not just the standout stories that Kate cites, but the oeuvre in totality would have been greatly improved by greater attention to both human and technical realities. The backstory need never have been mentioned. But it must be there.
A good example of this came in the third season of Enterprise, when the starship is badly damaged in its battles with the Xindi. Watching these episodes I said to myself, "Aha! This is how Voyager should have begun!" Not just because when things get wrecked by powerful forces, they really get wrecked, and are hard to recover from. But because the people get wrecked too.
Drama is about human train wrecks, but on Voyager, a few episodes after supposedly going through a similarly cataclysmic confrontation, it's like somebody's rich uncle showed up with a platoon of lawyers, handed out wads of cash, hauled the vehicles off to the body shop, and made the accident "go away." Presto chango. The next day you'd hardly known it happened. A good day's work for the insurance company, but bad day for storytelling.
Another issue, addressed too late in the TNG series to any good, was the sheer irrationality of Riker serving forever as Picard's second. Finally an episode was constructed to give Riker a few skeletons in the closet that Starfleet might want to keep buried. But if only, I could not help but wistfully imagine, somebody had bothered to think the matter through earlier. Like in the first season.
But that was obviously too big of a snake to let loose in Roddenberry's floating utopia. Add Stewart's performance in First Contact, and you realize how much was lost. Lost in giving Stewart better material to work with, lost in the dramatic possibilities it would have created, lost in creating a character who had a bit of the Ahab in him. The original series worked--when it did--because Kirk and Spock and Bones were too idiosyncratic to fit in the utopian box in the first place.
Worse, the cast of TNG suffered from playing it straight. And, as my brother Joe points out, suffered from trying to make everybody so obsessively likable. (How I wish Deep Space Nine had been about Odo, Quark, Garak and Gul Dukat, back before the insufferably prim Federation took over. Such wonderfully flawed yet understandable and even lovable--but not necessarily likable--characters.)
To be honest, the original series was so bad it was good. And after ironing out the human wrinkles with a vengeance, TNG episodes did often work for the reasons Kate describes: as one-off dramatic productions. But other than alienating the affections of the fan base, it's hard to see how replacing both the characters and the actors (other than Brent Spiner's Data and perhaps Stewart), or everything else down to the setting and costumes would have significantly affected the quality of those individual episodes.
But can you imagine House without Hugh Laurie? No, you can't. It's the excruciating humanness of his character, and how those around him react to him in turn, that anchors the series. We buy into the human equation. Not the medical technobabble (though we trust that it's accurate).
It should be pointed out, as does Kelley Ross in the aforementioned article, that Firefly has its own problems with hard science. (The very similar Cowboy Bebop comes up with a much better reason why the Earth is uninhabitable.) But it's the moments that make you say, "Yes, this is how people really would behave," even when confronted with bug-eyed monsters, that ring true in the most fantastic of contexts.
So it's not the future that becomes any more plausible, but the people inhabiting it. The X-Files is utterly implausible scientifically and politically, but it is successfully consistent in the application and execution of its own axioms. It follows its own rules, and that foundation (being by definition static) provides the constant against which the human variables can be accurately judged both according to the standards of an individual episode, and over the long arc of the series.
According to this criteria, the Star Trek universe has to be static, because it essentially turned into a traveling theatrical troupe. The whole fashioned by the sum of its parts always had to exist outside the individual performances on any one stage in any one town. Because, ironically, a big reason for Star Trek's longevity was that it could always pack up and move on. Until it simply ran out of gas.
I don't disagree, especially these days where every television series has a showrunner as a producer, with episode structure starting with the old-fashioned cliffhanger serial drama at one extreme (Prison Break, 24), and never abandoning the progressive story arc at the other. I like the cohesiveness that a story arc lends to a season, but prefer its more subtle implementations. I simply can't watch cliffhanger serials anymore except on DVD.
I did stick with the strong arc of the third season of Enterprise, simply because I consider it by far the best of the Star Trek family. But it would have been interesting if Star Trek could have returned to the standalone format of the original, telling stories that "just happen to use the same setting and the same characters as that episode you saw last week," and again making it a showcase for freelance SF&F talent.
But my essential argument still stands: the episodicity of Star Trek notwithstanding, it was unnecessarily crippled by the lack of a tenable backstory, let alone marginally good science. Not just the standout stories that Kate cites, but the oeuvre in totality would have been greatly improved by greater attention to both human and technical realities. The backstory need never have been mentioned. But it must be there.
A good example of this came in the third season of Enterprise, when the starship is badly damaged in its battles with the Xindi. Watching these episodes I said to myself, "Aha! This is how Voyager should have begun!" Not just because when things get wrecked by powerful forces, they really get wrecked, and are hard to recover from. But because the people get wrecked too.
Drama is about human train wrecks, but on Voyager, a few episodes after supposedly going through a similarly cataclysmic confrontation, it's like somebody's rich uncle showed up with a platoon of lawyers, handed out wads of cash, hauled the vehicles off to the body shop, and made the accident "go away." Presto chango. The next day you'd hardly known it happened. A good day's work for the insurance company, but bad day for storytelling.
Another issue, addressed too late in the TNG series to any good, was the sheer irrationality of Riker serving forever as Picard's second. Finally an episode was constructed to give Riker a few skeletons in the closet that Starfleet might want to keep buried. But if only, I could not help but wistfully imagine, somebody had bothered to think the matter through earlier. Like in the first season.
But that was obviously too big of a snake to let loose in Roddenberry's floating utopia. Add Stewart's performance in First Contact, and you realize how much was lost. Lost in giving Stewart better material to work with, lost in the dramatic possibilities it would have created, lost in creating a character who had a bit of the Ahab in him. The original series worked--when it did--because Kirk and Spock and Bones were too idiosyncratic to fit in the utopian box in the first place.
Worse, the cast of TNG suffered from playing it straight. And, as my brother Joe points out, suffered from trying to make everybody so obsessively likable. (How I wish Deep Space Nine had been about Odo, Quark, Garak and Gul Dukat, back before the insufferably prim Federation took over. Such wonderfully flawed yet understandable and even lovable--but not necessarily likable--characters.)
To be honest, the original series was so bad it was good. And after ironing out the human wrinkles with a vengeance, TNG episodes did often work for the reasons Kate describes: as one-off dramatic productions. But other than alienating the affections of the fan base, it's hard to see how replacing both the characters and the actors (other than Brent Spiner's Data and perhaps Stewart), or everything else down to the setting and costumes would have significantly affected the quality of those individual episodes.
But can you imagine House without Hugh Laurie? No, you can't. It's the excruciating humanness of his character, and how those around him react to him in turn, that anchors the series. We buy into the human equation. Not the medical technobabble (though we trust that it's accurate).
It should be pointed out, as does Kelley Ross in the aforementioned article, that Firefly has its own problems with hard science. (The very similar Cowboy Bebop comes up with a much better reason why the Earth is uninhabitable.) But it's the moments that make you say, "Yes, this is how people really would behave," even when confronted with bug-eyed monsters, that ring true in the most fantastic of contexts.
So it's not the future that becomes any more plausible, but the people inhabiting it. The X-Files is utterly implausible scientifically and politically, but it is successfully consistent in the application and execution of its own axioms. It follows its own rules, and that foundation (being by definition static) provides the constant against which the human variables can be accurately judged both according to the standards of an individual episode, and over the long arc of the series.
According to this criteria, the Star Trek universe has to be static, because it essentially turned into a traveling theatrical troupe. The whole fashioned by the sum of its parts always had to exist outside the individual performances on any one stage in any one town. Because, ironically, a big reason for Star Trek's longevity was that it could always pack up and move on. Until it simply ran out of gas.
Labels: criticism, kate, science fiction, star trek, television reviews
November 11, 2006
The brave old world of "Star Trek"
In preface these remarks, I note that I still hold in my mind the thrill I got from watching a handful of the original broadcasts of Star Trek as a young child (yes, I'm that old). When I was in high school (this was during the long, dry years between the original series and TNG), my mom graciously took me to see Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner when they were on college speaking tours. My interest in the franchise started to wane in the latter seasons of Deep Space Nine, dried up completely during Voyager (except for a smattering of Seven of Nine episodes), but was resurrected for the brief run of Enterprise.
Nevertheless, I have come to be most interested in the Star Trek phenomenon as an example of artistic failure: it is more compelling because of what it does consistently wrong than for its brilliant successes. Science, to start with. Star Trek isn't so much science fiction as space opera. There's nothing wrong with that, but what makes opera opera is that it's operatic. This was certainly true of the first series.
But by the time The Next Generation rolled around, they'd convinced themselves that they were doing Madame Butterfly when what they were really doing every week was a high school drama club production of The Mikado. Playing farce with a straight face can prove awfully painful entertainment at times (for everybody but the parents, who don't want to hear your critiques of their kids).
But even with space opera, it helps to keep science on your side. The need to play fast and loose with scientific facts is understood--the speed of light and all--but you can't go messing with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Star Trek was first sold as "Wagon Train to the stars," and horses have to eat sometime. The original series respected this fact with their incessant quest for dilithium crystals. And though what was actually done with the energy catalyzed by these crystals remains unclear--what the warp engines actually warp--it did establish that Captain Kirk was not piloting a perpetual motion machine.
By The Next Generation, though, the futures market for dilithium has bottomed out. Now there's so much dilithium about that you get crystals with your Cracker Jack. Which is sad, because scarcity is a main ingredient in drama. How interesting would The Road Warrior be with a fully functioning gas station every ten or twenty miles or so across the Australian Outback? But it gets worse. In the future, it seems, everybody's got everything they want. Clearly established in one painfully Marxist episode was the fact that there isn't a market, period. In money or ideas (except politically correct ones) or the future.
It enough to set both Newton and Adam Smith to spinning in their graves. But it gets worse. In "The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek: Militarism, Collectivism, & Atheism," Kelley Ross argues that
The credit for the above link is courtesy of Ed Morrissey, who adds:
Joss Whedon's brilliantly conceived and executed Firefly, in contrast, "doesn't try for the slightest bit of Utopianism. It does not assume that a single galactic government would be best, as it does not assume that present religion and capitalist economics are undesirable." And contra Star Wars as well, observes Ross, the Alliance of Firefly and Serenity is not so much evil as "something perhaps too big for its own good, or the good of its citizens . . . . This in itself is all a rebuke to the statist complacency of Star Trek."
Political philosophy aside, utopianism, like bad science, makes for bad fiction, which is why the Star Trek arc, up to Deep Space Nine, increasingly flirted with annihilation as a dramatic engine, as the only option left to a utopia is its collapse. The last series, Enterprise, which I consider the overall best of them all, neatly sidestepped the problem (though couldn't avoid its own apocalyptic plots) by creating a Star Trek universe just prior to the utopian rot setting in for good. Illustrating this reformed attitude well was the episode in which T'Pol's ancestor visits 1950s Middle America and actually has some nice things to say about the good old days.
That pretty much encapsulates the fundamental problem with Star Trek: its reliably retroactive nostalgia. Whenever they time travel back to the good old days (i.e., the bad old now), the good old days end up looking much better--despite their protestations (and they do protest too much), or at least more interesting, than the brave new world of the future.
Nevertheless, I have come to be most interested in the Star Trek phenomenon as an example of artistic failure: it is more compelling because of what it does consistently wrong than for its brilliant successes. Science, to start with. Star Trek isn't so much science fiction as space opera. There's nothing wrong with that, but what makes opera opera is that it's operatic. This was certainly true of the first series.
But by the time The Next Generation rolled around, they'd convinced themselves that they were doing Madame Butterfly when what they were really doing every week was a high school drama club production of The Mikado. Playing farce with a straight face can prove awfully painful entertainment at times (for everybody but the parents, who don't want to hear your critiques of their kids).
But even with space opera, it helps to keep science on your side. The need to play fast and loose with scientific facts is understood--the speed of light and all--but you can't go messing with the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Star Trek was first sold as "Wagon Train to the stars," and horses have to eat sometime. The original series respected this fact with their incessant quest for dilithium crystals. And though what was actually done with the energy catalyzed by these crystals remains unclear--what the warp engines actually warp--it did establish that Captain Kirk was not piloting a perpetual motion machine.
By The Next Generation, though, the futures market for dilithium has bottomed out. Now there's so much dilithium about that you get crystals with your Cracker Jack. Which is sad, because scarcity is a main ingredient in drama. How interesting would The Road Warrior be with a fully functioning gas station every ten or twenty miles or so across the Australian Outback? But it gets worse. In the future, it seems, everybody's got everything they want. Clearly established in one painfully Marxist episode was the fact that there isn't a market, period. In money or ideas (except politically correct ones) or the future.
It enough to set both Newton and Adam Smith to spinning in their graves. But it gets worse. In "The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek: Militarism, Collectivism, & Atheism," Kelley Ross argues that
Star Trek has a Utopia to picture, or at least a world free of many of the ills perceived in the present, but it doesn't have to deal with anything so inconvenient as the experience of history. Star Trek is free to disparage business and profit without the need to explain what would replace them. Star Trek is free to disparage religious belief and ignore traditional religions without the need to address the existential mysteries and tragedies of real life in ways that have actually meant something to the vast majority of human beings. And it is particularly interesting that Star Trek is free to do all this with the convenience of assimilating everything to the forms of military life, where collective purpose and authority are taken for granted.
The credit for the above link is courtesy of Ed Morrissey, who adds:
Politically and economically, [Star Trek] operates outside of the realm of science fiction and into fantasy. Nothing in its universe explains how human society manages to build the massive ships that comprise Star Fleet, nor the brilliant technology that enables them. Who builds these things--and how and why? It's all well and good to say that money no longer exists, but people have to be compensated in some manner--otherwise, the Star Trek society is based on benevolent slavery.
Joss Whedon's brilliantly conceived and executed Firefly, in contrast, "doesn't try for the slightest bit of Utopianism. It does not assume that a single galactic government would be best, as it does not assume that present religion and capitalist economics are undesirable." And contra Star Wars as well, observes Ross, the Alliance of Firefly and Serenity is not so much evil as "something perhaps too big for its own good, or the good of its citizens . . . . This in itself is all a rebuke to the statist complacency of Star Trek."
Political philosophy aside, utopianism, like bad science, makes for bad fiction, which is why the Star Trek arc, up to Deep Space Nine, increasingly flirted with annihilation as a dramatic engine, as the only option left to a utopia is its collapse. The last series, Enterprise, which I consider the overall best of them all, neatly sidestepped the problem (though couldn't avoid its own apocalyptic plots) by creating a Star Trek universe just prior to the utopian rot setting in for good. Illustrating this reformed attitude well was the episode in which T'Pol's ancestor visits 1950s Middle America and actually has some nice things to say about the good old days.
That pretty much encapsulates the fundamental problem with Star Trek: its reliably retroactive nostalgia. Whenever they time travel back to the good old days (i.e., the bad old now), the good old days end up looking much better--despite their protestations (and they do protest too much), or at least more interesting, than the brave new world of the future.
Labels: criticism, science fiction, star trek, television reviews