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.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

As if anyone cares what CNN says.

[tcrlaf]

Star Wars was designed to appeal to the widest audience possible (meaning stupid, and lowest common denominator), and was created/sold with merchandising in mind.

Star Trek was sold as a Space Serial.

[yarddog]

Science Fiction is nothing more or less than fairy tales with a technological foundation. Either can be great or awful.

[TalBlack]

I was a teen when it came out in ‘77. It was huge but sci fi as a genre turned me off way back in the book reading years.

[Tax-chick]

According to the interview I read, she said she worked on more than one, and, observing similar scenes, was told that audiences would accept a good scene more than once, especially if it had John Wayne in it.

[Tax-chick]

Young men who want to see a “hot” girl are the target audience, so blame them.

[Wonder Warthog]

"“Star Trek” did race, “Star Trek” did time travel, “Star Trek” implied kinky sex."

And Robert A. Heinlein did all of those long before (and better than) Roddenberry dreamed up "Star Trek". RAH was (and is) THE "Grand Master of Science Fiction". No author since has matched or bettered his originality.

[RedMDer]

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[BenLurkin]

If you ever find yourself in a fair fight — you haven’t planned properly.

[Tax-chick]

Huh. I was 11. We drove over an hour to the movies, from my grandparents’ farm in NE Missouri to Quincy, IL.

[Tax-chick]

It’s not hard to do something “better” than Gene Roddenberry. The “Star Trek” francise got much more interesting after he died. However, Heinlein did a lot his writing in the same general time period.

[Sherman Logan]

Watched The Big Sleep last night, and was quite surprised to see Leigh was one of the writers.

[discostu]

He was doing OK until he said The Matrix, one 3 “reality isn’t real” movies to come out in a 12 month period (and NOT the best), is one of the most original movies ever.

[verga]

Michael Hurst, “New Zealand’s most successful Shakespearean actor,” said of his co-star turn in “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” that the themes were no different from the themes of Shakespeare, because people are always the same, only settings (and quality of writing ;-) change.

I have seen several authors make the claim that the two best sources are The Bible, and Shakespeare. Both do so much to describe the human condition and motivation.

[real saxophonist]

This is Ewok:

My mom got him after my dad died, and I named him as a puppy, because that's what he looked like..

[Thorliveshere]

What’s wrong with ESB?

[Sherman Logan]

Bump.

Though he got a little too weird even for me in later years.

[CtBigPat]

Triumph the comic insult dog at the Star Wars premier - possibly the funniest 10 minutes on YouTube!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zWNJHS9PBE

[verga]

Burroughs Mars books for instance are just that, wild adventures in a more exotic setting.

You can find elements of the Carter books in the earth bound Tarzan books. and you can see many of the Pellucidor series in the Carter books.

[Future Snake Eater]

This hipster is making my head hurt. Not all sci-fi is “Star Wars.” You want thinking-man’s sci-fi? Go watch some pre-Abrams “Star Trek.” There’s a bunch more beyond that as well.

This is like complaining that “Applebee’s” killed fine-dining. No, it’s just an alternative. The deeper stuff is still there. It’s not and never was a one-or-the-other choice.