Star trek
I got out to see Star Trek last night, and though I enjoyed the movie, I was a little let down. As movies go, it was a good movie. The characters were well developed, there was emotional depth, and the action was paced to keep attention while not overloading or degrading into gore. The new actors were able to recreate the mannerisms and personalities of the original crew to a degree that exceeded my expectations. my problem is, it wasn't Star Trek.
To understand this objection, you need to understand the difference between Science Fiction and Scifi. Most people don't know there is a difference, but anyone who has studied the genre's has learned to make the distinction. Scifi places people in a world with an almost magical level of science and technology that can be weilded to solve a problem in a pinch. It's a form of fantasy which replaces swords with lasers, armor with forcefields, and dragons with starships or mecha. Science fiction, however, is much, much more. Instead of placing people in the future, as scifi does, science fiction presents people of the future, the people who have evolved with the growth of science and understanding. Just as futuristic visions of technology begins by looking at what we have today and making a leap to predict what may happen, science fiction takes a hard look at developing social themes, and makes a similar predictive leap to predict how society with evolve. Utopian science fiction presents a world where crisis from technology, exploration, and even discovering new races have been met with, resolved through developing greater understanding of the complexities of life. Dystopian science fiction presents worlds where current troubling social trends are allowed to continue unchallenged, creating nightmare scenarios, and survival has come though adaptation to the dysfunctional environment, often through dysfunctional adaptation. It's this inclusion of humanity and human development which separates the genres, making science fiction a deep form or literary philisophy, and scifi fun.
All of the past Star Trek movies held true to science fiction, even the popular ones. In Star Trek II, the wrath of Kahn, the main character was the pinnacle product of a eugenics progeam who engaged in a complex, cat and mouse chess game against the greatest starship crew of the time. this battle would have ended in a stalemate and mutual distruction had it not been for an act of noble self-sacrifice and love. Star Trek IV, the journey home challenge our modern view of being the sole intelligence on the planet. Star Trek VI examined not only peace, but the lengths and reasons people will go through to perpetuate war. Star Trek VIII challenged its crew to look past wrath, selfish desire, and self doubt to preserve what it meant to be human.
So what's the big deal?
It all has to do with the the current trend to dumb down society. Thinking is a skill, and like every skill, it needs to be developed and practiced. Fun films are fun, but we also need to keep providing the complex queries, the hard choices, and the deep philosophies so we can encourage people to develop and practice skills in deeper thought and understanding, and that was what Star Trek traditionally provided. Its ok to have our technological fairy tales, but we need the deeper science fiction to balance them, and we should not be sacrificing tradional cultural sources of such philisophy to provide the fairy tales.
To understand this objection, you need to understand the difference between Science Fiction and Scifi. Most people don't know there is a difference, but anyone who has studied the genre's has learned to make the distinction. Scifi places people in a world with an almost magical level of science and technology that can be weilded to solve a problem in a pinch. It's a form of fantasy which replaces swords with lasers, armor with forcefields, and dragons with starships or mecha. Science fiction, however, is much, much more. Instead of placing people in the future, as scifi does, science fiction presents people of the future, the people who have evolved with the growth of science and understanding. Just as futuristic visions of technology begins by looking at what we have today and making a leap to predict what may happen, science fiction takes a hard look at developing social themes, and makes a similar predictive leap to predict how society with evolve. Utopian science fiction presents a world where crisis from technology, exploration, and even discovering new races have been met with, resolved through developing greater understanding of the complexities of life. Dystopian science fiction presents worlds where current troubling social trends are allowed to continue unchallenged, creating nightmare scenarios, and survival has come though adaptation to the dysfunctional environment, often through dysfunctional adaptation. It's this inclusion of humanity and human development which separates the genres, making science fiction a deep form or literary philisophy, and scifi fun.
All of the past Star Trek movies held true to science fiction, even the popular ones. In Star Trek II, the wrath of Kahn, the main character was the pinnacle product of a eugenics progeam who engaged in a complex, cat and mouse chess game against the greatest starship crew of the time. this battle would have ended in a stalemate and mutual distruction had it not been for an act of noble self-sacrifice and love. Star Trek IV, the journey home challenge our modern view of being the sole intelligence on the planet. Star Trek VI examined not only peace, but the lengths and reasons people will go through to perpetuate war. Star Trek VIII challenged its crew to look past wrath, selfish desire, and self doubt to preserve what it meant to be human.
So what's the big deal?
It all has to do with the the current trend to dumb down society. Thinking is a skill, and like every skill, it needs to be developed and practiced. Fun films are fun, but we also need to keep providing the complex queries, the hard choices, and the deep philosophies so we can encourage people to develop and practice skills in deeper thought and understanding, and that was what Star Trek traditionally provided. Its ok to have our technological fairy tales, but we need the deeper science fiction to balance them, and we should not be sacrificing tradional cultural sources of such philisophy to provide the fairy tales.