Star Trek was never known for consistency.
Posted on 01/11/2010 5:52:50 AM PST by Slyscribe
“Avatar” is wowing audiences with its groundbreaking 3-D technology (too bad the characters are one-dimensional). But in another way it’s ordinary: a science-fiction film that plays to leftist fantasies about capitalism and the military.
Yet many sci-fi fans are on the political right. So why are sci-fi films and TV shows typically liberal?
Hollywood films tend to be liberal, sure. But science fiction in particular lends itself to utopian visions that the world’s problems can be solved once and for all.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.investors.com ...
I got depressed while reading Starship Troopers. Mostly because it made me feel that I’d never done enough for my country. It also reminded me of a lot of many former Marines I knew when I was in law enforcement. They were all fans of the novel . . . so I couldn’t say if Heinlein had really captured the spirit of it had really influenced them. Of course most of the book I found to be fantastic. Especially Dubois’ explanation of the economics of market value and how it was all really personal value. I did, however, take issue with the notion that rights were granted to the individual by the state, even if there is no compulsion to take part in the state other than to obey the laws that protected the privileges and property of other individuals (as it was in the novel) this theory smacks to much of statism to me. At the time though I just chalked that notion up to Heinlein still transitioning out of his socialist stage and still did not fully appreciate that the state is not needed to compel the individual to the right course of action.
So, what was Heinlein thinking when he wrote Stranger in a Strange Land?
And to think Fox News Corp bankrolled Avatar. They just keep slaughtering the rest, i. e., NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and MSNBC.
exactly the opposite of what the hippies who took it as their mantra, thought it meant.
Heinlein was a conservative/libertarian....who despised what the hippies did with his book.
Good point!
I guess I should read it again. It’s been ages.
Thought of a “conservative” science fiction film: how ‘bout Robocop?
Problem is, if all the economic conditions you said were given as a starting point -- hi tech and NO scarcity -- then the "Star Trek Universe" SHOULD look a lot like Eric Frank Russel's _The Great Explosion_.
Which raises the problem: where are the "Jews in Space" in the Star Trek Universe? Or the Rastifarians, or the Neo-Puritans, or the neo-Jeffersonians, or the Neo-Nazis, or the (you name it, good or evil or bleh) for that matter?
Oops....
I'm currently re-watching B5; I'm early in season 2, so the Night Watch stuff will be coming right up, IIRC.
Nope. But “Diversity is strength” is a sort of Orwellian liberal mantra and those sort of things tend catch my attention, esp. when show up in my favorite show.
From what I remember of the overall meta-plot he didn't have a choice but to stress the diversity angle, given his circumstances. I'll be on the lookout for it as I watch the rest of the series.
Which brings up the question of why the Federation doesn't simply expand Star Fleet by a factor of 100 (or more). It's not like it would cost anything, after all. The next time the Borg show up, just throw 10,000 starships at each cube.
As Stalin said, quantity has a quality all its own.
Star Trek was never known for consistency.
The original book by David Brin was much better than the movie (which is the usual state of affairs when a science fiction novel is adapted to film).
I don't think it was even addressed; it was more along the lines of "this is the way it is, deal with it".
One thing that occurred to me when I watched it: I recall Costner's character swimming through a drowned metropolis (he can breath water...don't ask). It couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet underwater, since there was ambient light. That being the case, dry land couldn't have been too far away, since there aren't any metropolises higher than 12,000 feet; so why was it so hard to find?
Was that the second Pilot episode? heh
There aren't any Jews in the Star Trek universe. Organized religion has utterly disappeared.
This is one of the (many) reasons I prefer Babylon 5 to Star Trek. It has real humans in it.
I've heard a number of people repeatedly call Atlas Shrugged "science fiction." I have never understood how in the world that could be... The closest I could ever come would be a term that Harlan Ellison used to describe much of his own work, and that in his "Dangerous Visions" anthologies, "speculative fiction." While I like Ellison as an author, and I love him as an editor and commentator (his comments are often more entertaining than his stories), he used to be pretty hard core left, and I've disagreed with many things he's written. But some I think he's hit dead on.
Mark
Yup, it’s a still from “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, which actually aired as the third episode (even though it was filmed as the second pilot episode).
Yes it was.
The book was extremely conservative in tone, stressing personal responsibility, honor, and military discipline. At the time, Heinlein was either conservative or "small 'l' libertarian," and took a lot of crap for the book from much of the science fiction "world."
On the other hand, the movie had nearly nothing to do with the book, other than sharing the title and a few character names. Someone here on FR mentioned that the movie was based on the back cover of the Heinlein book :-). Even though it seemed to be a completely different story, it was a fun movie, mostly because of (IMHO) Dian Meyer.
Mark
“Trials and Tribble-ations”, one of the most entertaining DS9 episodes.
Lots of references to Old Earth literature, fine arts, pop culture etc. but ALMOST NO references to any community trying to live in any Old Earth way of life out in the galaxy somewhere. I can only remember one episode of ST:TNG which focused on some ersatz "Native American" culture that settled some planet and had to be re-located.
You're right -- not recognizably human. Not enough mischief!
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