Tolkien, Serling, and their unlikely fans

Vanity | 11/16/02 | Zionist Conspirator

[GreenLanternCorps]

My experience has been that there are a lot of conservatives who are Science Fiction/Fantasy fans. So it is no wonder that Tolkien and LOTR have had so many threads on this forum. However as an SF fan, I have never counted The Twilight Zone as all that good. True Mr. Serling did write a show that was adventurous for it's time. But, The Twilight Zone, for my money, relied way to much on the twist ending. The episodes that just gave you a gripping SF story straight up we few and far between.

[FReepaholic]

>>...What was there about Tolkien and his decidedly pre-modern vision that appealed to those "ultimate modernists" of the Sixties? ...<<

Elves.

[L`enn]

My experiences with fandom of Tolkien in the 70's that it was drug based. As with the attraction of Disney's Fantasia (which some druggies showed as proof Walt Disney popped acid) , many druggies I knew rushed to the theatres in 1979 to see the animated Lord of the Rings and did a couple of hits before they went. I do not believe a lot of the interest of that time went as deep as to discover the true meanings of the works.

[Dark Seraph]

In terms of the "fantasy" genre, it's pretty safe to lump in the condemnation of the "fantasy genre" as "satanic" and "evil" with the same demonstrations of inherent stupidity people show when they blame guns for killing people or blaming video games for violent acts.

[jude24]

I think ZC is a messianic Jew, and Jews tend not to like to write the name of God out of respect. A lot of them will write His name G-d, carrying on the tradition of substituting the holy name YHWH with Adonai.

Don't assume ZC has ill intentions in writing Chr-st

[FReepaholic]

>>...I would say that Tolkien's appeal to the youth of the Sixties and early Seventies was rooted in the richness of his imaginary world and the support it lent to their escapist impulses. ...<<

Well said.

At that time we had the Vietnam war and riots and unrest at home. Adding to that the normal angst and turmoil of being a teenager, I found Middle Earth a most welcome escape.

[Mad Dawg]

I think possibly you misunderstand. It is a mark of some Jewish piety -- of respect! -- NOT to write the full word "God". (Obviously, I do not share this piety, but I respect it.)

This is based, as I believe, on the commandment not to take God's name in vain. Similar piety is evidenced by Jesus Himself when he uses "reverential periphrasis" to avoid saying the name of God. Even today people will speak of the "will of Heaven", when what they mean is the will of God.

The avoidance of spelling God or Christ completely is a sign of pious respect. Certainly it can be disagreed with, but to suggest that the person who does so is "ashamed" of God, as I believe another poster did, is to miss the point.

[No Truce With Kings]

Serling is a liberal in the traditional sense. Liberal in the sense of promoting equality and individual right. A conservative, traditionally, supported the state and the group over the rights of individuals. Like two vast armies of pikemen confronting each other on a flat field of battle the terms have rotated 180 degrees over the last 50 years. Today it is the conservatives who promote individual rights and equality before the law, and it is liberals who support the power of the state and groups over individual rights. If Serling were alive today he would be closer in spirit to Ben Stein than Garrison Keillor.

[eastforker]

My point being,you have to think it to write it,so if you think of the word Christ,but write it Chr-st,you have done nothing but label yourself as a hypocrit IMHO.

[HitmanLV]

I didn't know of Serlings politics until recently.

I am in a minority, though. I have consistently found Twilight Zone episodes to be astonishly bad. The series is hailed as one of the greatest of all time, but I think that 10% or so of the episodes are very good or better, and about 90% or so are mind-blowingly bad.

Rod is VERY heavy handed. His stories are simple and crude - very linear except for his 'twist ending,' which, once you see 2 or 3 Zone episodes, is pretty predictable.

Serling's dialogue is poor. People talk 'at' each other rather than with each other. Long monologues that are preachy and heavy handed. Most of his characters have the same 'voice,' that is, Rod's voice. He has no real range.

His stories are very simple. An old variety show called 'The New Show' (which I love, by the way) did a skit once, Twilight Zonettes. The premise was that since the typical "Zone" story could be told in under 30 seconds (which is true by the way), the producers would shoehorn 4 or 6 stories within a half hour - pretty funny cayse they acted them out and it was so damning!!! Zone stories are just too simple.

As it stands, the show stretched a 30 second idea into a half hour. You think that's bad, try seeing the hourlong "Twilight Zones." Now, THAT'S BAD STUFF!!!!

Zone is a shallow, lite fix. You watch an episode, and come away with a simple lesson - "Oh, she was really beautiful to us, but she was ugly to the people of her planet where everyone would be considered 'ugly' to us!" Thanks, Rod!!!! I'm a better person now for that thoughtful lesson!

Give me "Outer Limits" any day of the week - much more sophisticated and well made Science Fiction.

[Beth]

"Other obviously conservative sceince fiction writers over the years?"

It had been several years since I read them, but CS Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength came to my mind. Maybe other Freepers can say more, but I remember these three works as having insightful, moral lessons.

[LenS]

Sorry, but The Silmarillion's release had little to do with outside pressure. It was Tolkien himself that wanted to release it. LOTR's release was delayed in part by Tolkien's desire to release both books as one complete package. But since it was unfinished, he was unable to put together a deal at that time. He spent many years working on it, but he never did finish any one complete version of it (at least not since before The Hobbit). Part of the problem was that he was constantly revising his vision of Middle Earth. In the end, with his wife dead and his health fading, he advised his son on what would needed to be done to finish The Silmarillion if he was unable to finish it (and he was quite aware that he wouldn't). While many others wanted to him to publish, Tolkien was way ahead of them in that desire. But it was a tale that he worked on from his recovery after the Somme till his death.

[eastforker]

An hour and a half and over 30 post and you have not responded to any of them.Why do a vanity post,ask for FReepers opinions,then ignore what they have to say?Why even post at all?

[Interesting Times]

Other obviously conservative sceince fiction writers over the years?

The incomparable Jack Vance.

[Skooz]

I very much enjoyed your post. I completely agree. Little more to add except that I have read only the first of the trilogy, and will read the second before the movie is released. Looking forward to it.

[The Duke]

...and the beautiful girl undergoing plastic surgery so she could get a pig face like everybody else.

The story I remember most clearly was the one that depicted a group of men and women struggling to escape the planet in a space ship before the nuclear holocaust. It was only at the very end that we learned they were on some other planet - hoping to escape to Earth!!!!

And who can forget the other story in which an all-powerful alien comes to earth to present a book entitled "How Best to Serve Man", and only at the end, after a number of humans have climbed aboard his space craft to return home with him, do we learn that the book is a cook book!!!

And then of course the story of the librarian with the inch-thick glasses played by Burgess Meredith - who only wanted to be left alone to browse Free Republic....er...read his books. Then one day, thanks to some sort of nuclear war, he finds himself alone with his beloved books - however his glasses lay broken on the ground.

Twilight Zone was a classic indeed!

[MikalM]

The libertarian-minded Robert A. Heinlein ( Starship Troopers, the Moon is a Harsh Mistress),

Remember, Heinlein also penned Stranger in a Strange Land, which was a HUGE influence on the Hippie culture, especially in its endorsement of casual nudity and group sex. It's still a big seller among "polyamory" and alternative-lifestyle types...

[Senator Pardek]

LOL - a project I've been putting off for years is recording "The Twilight Zone" theme music using just multitracked guitars. I have the score, and it's doable.

I can do a pretty good solo rendition, but it needs the harmonies of the brass at the end to sound real.

[HairOfTheDog]

Ping!

And marking to read later...