How 'Star Wars' ruined sci-fi

CNN ^ | 5/2/2014 | CNN

[Dallas59]

Now that the cast of the seventh "Star Wars" movie has been announced, you can imagine the anticipation among the millions of fans of the film franchise. And why not? The six "Star Wars" films have been enormous successes: they have grossed over $2 billion domestically at the box office, spawned scores of books, comic books and merchandise (how many kids have their own light saber?) and made household names of characters like Darth Vader, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.

[The_Reader_David]

On the one hand, done right that would be a great film. On the other hand, Hollywood usually screws things up. On the gripping hand, both Niven and Pournelle are still around, maybe they could get a deal giving them fairly tight artistic control.

[Tax-chick]

I stated “uniquely authoritative” based on a Judeo-Christian perspective.

Some stories, like a flood, have a greater distribution. Others, such as the unique personalities of 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, are distinctive to the Bible.

[Sherman Logan]

Speaking of liberal heads exploding, have you read The Last Centurion?

A possibly even more explosive author, though not nearly as good a writer, is Tom Kratman.

[Bender2]

Re: How 'Star Wars' ruined sci-fi

Gadzooks! I hear you... dog--

You are preaching to... the choir!

And, you, null... must be psychic!!!

[kitchen]

Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek to the networks as a "Wagon Train" in space.

You're dating yourself. Not many people would remember Wagon Train as the long-running Ward Bond series.

[The Antiyuppie]

STILL WAITING for “The Stars My Destination”, the greatest science fiction film never made.

[Hootowl]

Wasn’t Ringworld made into a TV mini-series?

[null and void]

In life, as in comedy, timing is everything!

[mad_as_he$$]

Fire(d)fly is more space cowboys than Star Wars.

[stinkerpot65]

I love science fiction, but a good deal of it is about Marxism and atheism. A lot of the newer sci-fi is not, so the left is ticked.

On a related note, X-Men is specifically about homosexuality, and it is therefore no surprise the homosexual director is an accused pedophile.

[Jumper]

Also, How Rocky destroyed the action movies - Rocky Movies are famous for boxing beatings that no man, let alone 10-men could sustain and still survive. Routine fights with punches so hard that any one of which could have rendered a fighter incapable of continuing the fight, round after round, Movie after Movie.

[Ransomed]

A lot of the older sci-fi isn’t about Marxism either, unless to show how it doesn’t work. Atheism is a much more common subject, that’s true. There were exceptions, Gene Wolfe and RA Lafferty to name two older ones. And CS Lewis of course.

Freegards

[Rebelbase]

Spock’s ear-com is now Blue Tooth.

[SkyDancer]

And also Uhura’s .....

[sphinx]

I've not thought much about it, but a quick reaction is that science fiction had a golden age in the 50's and 60's as a generation awakened to space travel as a solid potentiality, as opposed to a fantasy. This imposed a discipline on writers, who needed to imagine a universe compatible with evolving science. And so we have the Heinlein-Azimov-Clarke trinity, with perhaps an honorable mention for Frank Herbert for drug induced creativity. But when all is said and done, the classic plots remain the same; the sci-fi writers simply transposed them to a new setting.

I grew up during that era and read my way through the big three, so I'm biased. But IMHO, most sci-fi since then is highly derivative, and probably that is to be expected. Space is big, so one can imagine very dramatic monsters and aliens, but that's trivial. Michael Crichton was probably the most creative sci-fi writer of the last generation, and that is because he was so careful to tie himself to extrapolations of cutting edge science. Who else out there is doing anything today that is really new?

In the same vein, J.R.R. Tolkein invented an addictive sword and sorcery world that lesser imitators have been ripping off ever since. One of the challenges for me when I first read Lord of the Rings was approaching it fresh, without the overburden of so much bad, derivative drek. I wonder if others have the same reaction to science fiction -- i.e., if you have read the big three, is anything else out there really new, apart from the special effects?

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

The original Star Wars movies were quite fascinating as movies but were pretty mundane SF - I lost interest when they started stretching the concept beyond its limitations to sell more movie tickets.

[SevenofNine]

I like Star wars movie Bender I consider them Sci fi fantasy

I think Big Bang theory cast would kick our butt if we say that in their company

Penny would agree with us

I love that show Big Bang theory

[Impy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz8wXCNyqbM

That could happen? ;)

[Impy]

The author wishes more intellectual movies were made instead of action movies.

That’s kind of a broad issue to blame on Star Wars. If not for Star Wars’ success there probably would have been a lot fewer Sci-fi movies made.

[minnesota_bound]

What Star Wars did was make space bigger....
http://static.rogerebert.com/redactor_assets/pictures/scanners/opening-shots-star-wars/sw5.jpg

http://www.nullstream.com/archives/star_destroyer.jpg