h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And that is the plot of the planned Blake's 7 revival.

Marwood,

So you dealt with asocial assholes who happened to call themselves Trekkies(I doubt if I would use that word for them...).

Damn shame, but it I think the other arguments you used in previous posts hold more water. Being/having been a Trekkie, you must have read the books about the making of StarTrek etcetera. You therefore know that StarTrek was meant as 'WagonTrain to the stars', or 'Have Phaser, will travel...'

I think that one of the major targets for Gene R. was to get his messages across in the States. Because he couldn't do it in a 'normal' tv-series, he chose the SF-idiom to cover it all up a bit. This was the purpose of StarTrek, not making a brilliant SF-series ! As a result I agree with Xyroth : StarTrek is/was full of social commentary about the U.S.A. If you still watch StarTrek, you will see that they're still doing just that. It's just a different kind of commentary, the times they are a 'changing...and I'm not saying I always agree with the writers.

TM.

BTW : I think Avon was truly a great and in a lot of respects very amusing character. On the other hand : I am sorry if I offend anyone, but I thought Blake himself was an absolute idealistic dork ! I cannot believe for a moment that he would survive as long as he did in the series.

Jenna looked nice though

TM.

Yeah.. and I thought maybe they're just assholes. But ALL TWENTY of them? The only thing that connected them was that they are Trekkies. They were all different ages, occupations, backgrounds. That just made me completely disillusioned with Trekkie Fandom.. and combined with my growing disillusionment with Star Trek itself.. well.. you get the idea.

And Star Trek making social commentary.. well.. TOS and early TNG certainly did, granted. But I really think that post Season 3 of TNG the series really lost its way.

I mean.. there is a Voyager episode which appears (to me) to be an allegory for the Vietnam War. Chakotay is trapped on a planet and embroiled in the conflict between the peace loving primitive peoples who are being massacred by these big ugly - more advanced - race.

Voyager makes efforts to retrieve Voyager, contacting the government of the planet. It transpires - in a truly inspired twist - that it is the government of the ugly race they've contacted, not the peaceful one.

So as I say.. this struck me as being an allegory for the Vietnam War.. where these relatively simple peoples (Vietnamese) were being massacred by the big scary Americans. I thought it a bold and brave experiment in American Television.. especially considering how sensitive they are about losing that war.

But then they suddenly back down and reveal that the "Vietnamese" were the bad guys all the time and Chakotay had been sucked in by their propaganda machine. The "Americans" of course, being the good guys all along.

That really sickened me. And I said at much at the time when I reviewed the story for the fanzine.

For all its claims to be the Land of the Free, you can't do anything daring on US television. It's so commercial and sensationalist. The best thing to come out of the US in a long time is Fight Club - which nearly didn't get made. FOX paid for that movie practially with a gun to their head.

/Mike

Marwood wrote : "For all its claims to be the Land of the Free, you can't do anything daring on US television. It's so commercial and sensationalist."

Exactly ! That, in my opinion, is the biggest drawback of virtually all american tv-sf or movie-sf.

Look at Starship Troopers. That was a dutch producer who followed the book as closely as he could and then got burned down for displaying 'militaristic tendencies' !!! They have got to be kidding ! Ever read a Heinlein-book without 'militaristic tendencies' ?

TM.

P.S. Shazz, Kheldar, TM, etc. All Trekkies ! You should be at one of our BeerTreks...great fun and not just positive comments about StarTrek...

Starship Troopers got burnt mostly because of the idiot love story that turned out to be worse than anything Harlequin Romances could create; the Heinlein story was about personal responsibility for learning and growing, the ethics of standing up for one's beliefs and being counted when the time came....and being effective in the face of potentially-overwhelming fear.

The film version skirted around SOME of that...obviously they couldn't include much rational thought because that would a)alienate the audience; b)cut down on the amount of gratuitous violence and sex possible; c)wouldn't be nearly as much fun.....

Paul Verhoeven's sold out and I haven't trusted him to do anything sensible since Robocop.

To read my thoughts about Star Trek, there's another forum on this so I won't plug up this space with duplicated rantings...

Fruitbat

If this is going to start including lots of heinlein references, then he has done a lot of good stuff. Starship trooper and space cadet are about personal responsibility, beyond this horizon is about a sensible policy to genetic engineering & eugenics, and lots of his other stuff is equally well thought out. so is A E Van Vogt for that matter.

My posts are not meant to put any writer down(unless he or she is absolute crap).
Anyone who has seen my 'library' knows that I have a significant number of Heinlein-books, as well as Niven, Sturgeon, Orson Scott Card, Frits Leiber, Harlan Ellison, Harry Harrison, Asimov, Keith Laumer, John Brunner, Arthur C. Clarke, Eric Frank Russell, Ben Bova, Greg Bear, Daniel Keyes, Van Vogt, Philip K. Dick, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

So after about 30 years of reading it, I pride myself on an incomplete, but extensive knowledge of written SF. So I do know what Heinlein wrote and the style he used. Heinlein frequently incorporated love-stories in his books although he couldn't write them. Give me one example of a good love-scene in a Heinlein-book, and I mean a really good one(like Sturgeon could write, or Philip Farmer).

So...a producer can make a movie from one of his favourite books(as was the case with Paul Verhoeven and StarshipTroopers), but he will have to 'spice it up' somewhat. Not because he wants to, but because the moviecompany insists. What happens next ? He is blamed for producing an SF-movie that is less than perfect. So how come we don't attack the stupid movie-companies ? Why not have them give a free reign to the producer ?
BTW : Ever since Basic Instinct we know that P. Verhoeven can film erotic scenes(and you all probably haven't even seen Turks Fruit, as it was a Dutch movie-production). So if he fails in StarshipTroopers there must be something else going on...

Last but not least :

BladeRunner was a very good film, but not like the book. Dune was good but not even close to the book(just check what they had to leave out). And the list is endless.

So if we discuss StarTrek, which started out as a tv-series and not as a book, how come it is so surprising that it's not as good as 'Stranger in a strange land' or the Foundation-series ? In my opinion, books are almost always better than a movie.

TM.

I agree - all films, not only sci-fi but all films, that have been based on a book have had the book much better. The only exception I can think of is "2001: A Space Odyssey", where the book and film were developed together.

Take Asimov's "Bicentennial Man" as an example.

Well.. the novel of "Fight Club "is certainly better than the movie... although I'd say the movie of "A Clockwork Orange" is better than the book. Because whereas the book backs down last minute, the movie holds its ground and poses a more powerful point as a result.

I think that people think that the books are better than the movies in most cases because the books tickle the imaginationmore than the movies do. This is because the books has to describe the surroundings, the characters and what happens to a greater extent than the movies do. There is also the problem of most books being cut down to prevent the movie from dragging on for too long, therefor leaving out parts in the books that may seem "unimportant".

Also, we have the "Bond-syndrome" where the actor gets replaced innumerable times through the course of many films. We're currently using actor number five or six to portray Bond, so you can not universally relate any one actor as /the only/ Bond.

Also, if you read most books after you've seen the movie, you tend to have your fantasy hindered since you've already seen the scenes on the screen and therefor can not set your mind's eye free on imagining the scenarios.

That probably made no sense at all, but I think I know what I meant and for the time being, that's good enough for me.

I agree. SF without using your imagination is nothing but consumer-crap. I'd rather read the/a book. If you have read books like 'Dune' or 'The Mote in God's Eye' I can rest my case...

TM.