Sunday, February 26, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Love & Romance, SF/F-Style
In celebration of the Valentine's Day holiday, let's look at some prominent Sci-fi and Fantasy romances:
» Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man)
In a universe where most superhero romances end up completely screwed up (i.e., Scott Summers), it's great to see a nice couple like this live a fairly normal and happy life.
» Han Solo and Leia Organa (Star Wars)
"Wonderful girl. Either I'm going to kill her, or I'm beginning to like her." Ah, the joys of love at first sight. Who would have thought a princess and a scoundrel could make it work so well?
» Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell (Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series)
The most horrifying things happen to this couple. They face death, pain, torture, betrayal, loss, and grief by the cartload. But their love keeps them alive and hopeful, and that hope radiates to those they lead as they fight the greatest evil their world has ever known.
» Clark Kent and Lois Lane (Superman)
Lois is as central to the Superman mythos as Clark himself is. You simply can't have one without the other, be it in print, television, or movie format.
» Jadzia Dax and Worf (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
While his dalliance with Deanna Troi near the end of TNG was interesting, Worf met his true match and soulmate in Jadzia. Even after her untimely (and useless) death, she still shaped Worf's life like nobody else could. This was the best of all the Trek romances.
» Bob and Helen Parr (Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl) (The Incredibles)
The family that fights crime together stays together. The "I'm not strong enough" sequence is one of my favorite movie scenes ever.
» Marcus Cole and Susan Ivanova (Babylon 5)
One of the greatest romances that never was. Marcus loved Ivanova from afar, adored her, saved himself for her, and ultimately died for her. Ivanova could never bring herself to see, accept, or return his love until it was too late. As tragic as anything from Shakespeare.
» Westley and Buttercup (The Princess Bride)
Proof positive that death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.
» Daniel Drieberg (Night Owl) and Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre) (Watchmen)
When the world is going to hell around you, sometimes all you can do is hold on to someone. And sometimes, that's enough.
» Simon Tam and Kaylee Frye (Firefly / Serenity)
Face it: if Simon—a certified geek whose family issues are, to say the least, problematic—can get the girl, then there's got to be hope for the rest of us.
» Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man)
In a universe where most superhero romances end up completely screwed up (i.e., Scott Summers), it's great to see a nice couple like this live a fairly normal and happy life.
» Han Solo and Leia Organa (Star Wars)
"Wonderful girl. Either I'm going to kill her, or I'm beginning to like her." Ah, the joys of love at first sight. Who would have thought a princess and a scoundrel could make it work so well?
» Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell (Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series)
The most horrifying things happen to this couple. They face death, pain, torture, betrayal, loss, and grief by the cartload. But their love keeps them alive and hopeful, and that hope radiates to those they lead as they fight the greatest evil their world has ever known.
» Clark Kent and Lois Lane (Superman)
Lois is as central to the Superman mythos as Clark himself is. You simply can't have one without the other, be it in print, television, or movie format.
» Jadzia Dax and Worf (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
While his dalliance with Deanna Troi near the end of TNG was interesting, Worf met his true match and soulmate in Jadzia. Even after her untimely (and useless) death, she still shaped Worf's life like nobody else could. This was the best of all the Trek romances.
» Bob and Helen Parr (Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl) (The Incredibles)
The family that fights crime together stays together. The "I'm not strong enough" sequence is one of my favorite movie scenes ever.
» Marcus Cole and Susan Ivanova (Babylon 5)
One of the greatest romances that never was. Marcus loved Ivanova from afar, adored her, saved himself for her, and ultimately died for her. Ivanova could never bring herself to see, accept, or return his love until it was too late. As tragic as anything from Shakespeare.
» Westley and Buttercup (The Princess Bride)
Proof positive that death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.
» Daniel Drieberg (Night Owl) and Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre) (Watchmen)
When the world is going to hell around you, sometimes all you can do is hold on to someone. And sometimes, that's enough.
» Simon Tam and Kaylee Frye (Firefly / Serenity)
Face it: if Simon—a certified geek whose family issues are, to say the least, problematic—can get the girl, then there's got to be hope for the rest of us.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Star Trek: Reloaded
The question of where Star Trek goes next is an interesting one. Here's my take:
Obviously, we can't start from where we left off. The Trek universe, at 'present', isn't very interesting.
Here's the current situation: the Dominion is defeated, the Borg Queen is dead, Cardassia has been emasculated, the Romulans are still rebuilding after the Shinzon debacle, the Federation is in a state of détente with the Klingons, the Maquis are gone, and the Ferengi are looking positively benign under the administration of Grand Nagus Rom.
In short, there's nobody left to fight.
Oh sure, the Breen, the Naussicans, and the Tholians are still around. But it's hard to imagine a whole series based around any of these antagonists. They're too inhuman to make it interesting. There are still a few hostiles floating around in the Delta Quadrant—the Hirogen, Species 8472, and the like. It certainly wouldn't break my heart to see the Kazon get their butts whipped a few more times. But those foes are thousands of light-years away. And to be honest, they were of only limited interest in Voyager in the first place.
The Trek universe has become boring.
And to me, that is the real problem. The solution? As Derek suggested, let's go back to a time when things were really interesting. Conflict is at the heart of any good story. And there's plenty of that in the Trek universe of the 'past'.
The Next Generation/Deep Space 9 era is certainly a good candidate for a series setting. It would give potential viewers a sense of familiarity, and there are certainly enough interesting things going on then. We might see the Klingon civil war from one of the other ships in the Federation blockade. Perhaps there were some survivors of Wolf 359. Or maybe, just maybe, there were some interesting things going on back then that didn't involve the Enterprise or her crew in the least.
I've recently been reading some of the Star Trek: The Lost Era books. This would also be an interesting setting. George Takei is almost 80 now, so it may not be practical to show the Sulu-era adventures of the Excelsior. But there are almost unlimited possibilities for Enterprise-B and Enterprise-C. Let's see some action involving Captains Harriman and Garrett. The universe of the Trek Interregnum sounds like a pretty exciting place to me, filled with exploration and confrontation. Bring on the classic nemeses: the Romulans, the Cardassians, and yes, even the Klingons.
Now that we've established the when of the matter, let's talk about who.
The idea of seeing some junior officers, perhaps not even on the Federation flagship, holds some definite potential. Part of the legacy of Star Trek (and most sci-fi TV) is the 'Fairy-tale Syndrome'. Let me explain. Think of any fairy tale that comes to mind, even the animated ones. What do all the main characters have in common? They are all intimately connected with royalty. Cinderella finds her handsome prince. Aladdin finds his princess. Simba is denied his right as king of the pride. Anastasia finds out she's not just a peasant girl but the last surviving member of the Romanov family. And so on. The common folks are typically relegated to supporting roles, if they're seen at all.
So it is with Trek. Consider the Enterprise-D. Think of anyone who could be considered a 'main character', a recurring character whose actions have lasting effects on the ship and/or her crew. I come up with the following: Captain Picard, Riker, Data, Geordi, Dr. Crusher, Dr. Pulaski, Wesley, Troi, Worf, Yar, O' Brien, Barkley, Ro Laren, Guinan, and maybe Lwaxana Troi. Fifteen main characters in the series. The stated crew of the Enterprise is just over a thousand. 98% of the overall story involves less than 2% of the crew. And the majority of those people are command-level officers—the ship's royalty, if you will.
Are there any normal people in Starfleet? Of course there are. They're the ones wearing the red shirts. They're the ones who die in the first five minutes of the episode to show how serious the situation is. To wit, the away team beams down to a hostile alien planet: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, and Slobowski. Hmm, who do you think is not going to survive this mission?
Of course every ship has a captain and a command crew. But think about a modern aircraft carrier. The USS Ronald Reagan has a crew of about 6,000. How many of those folks interact with the captain on a daily basis? How many interact with anyone on the command staff? Probably very few. Maybe commanding officers are more accessible to their crews in the future, but I can still imagine a crewman going through an entire two-year stint in Starfleet and never once having dinner at the captain's table.
So let's see how the other half lives. And more importantly, let's focus on the characters themselves, rather than just their rank and/or position. Part of what I like about what I've read of Kurt Buseik's comics work is that he doesn't tell superhero stories. He tells stories about people who happen to be superheroes. To beat the same dead horse once again, the reason that Babylon 5 and Firefly were so good is because the stories were character-driven. So are the best trek episodes, like "City on the Edge of Forever", "The Inner Light", and "The Visitor".
I guess that's ultimately what it comes down to, for me: tell interesting stories involving characters I can care about, and I'll tune in every week.
Obviously, we can't start from where we left off. The Trek universe, at 'present', isn't very interesting.
Here's the current situation: the Dominion is defeated, the Borg Queen is dead, Cardassia has been emasculated, the Romulans are still rebuilding after the Shinzon debacle, the Federation is in a state of détente with the Klingons, the Maquis are gone, and the Ferengi are looking positively benign under the administration of Grand Nagus Rom.
In short, there's nobody left to fight.
Oh sure, the Breen, the Naussicans, and the Tholians are still around. But it's hard to imagine a whole series based around any of these antagonists. They're too inhuman to make it interesting. There are still a few hostiles floating around in the Delta Quadrant—the Hirogen, Species 8472, and the like. It certainly wouldn't break my heart to see the Kazon get their butts whipped a few more times. But those foes are thousands of light-years away. And to be honest, they were of only limited interest in Voyager in the first place.
The Trek universe has become boring.
And to me, that is the real problem. The solution? As Derek suggested, let's go back to a time when things were really interesting. Conflict is at the heart of any good story. And there's plenty of that in the Trek universe of the 'past'.
The Next Generation/Deep Space 9 era is certainly a good candidate for a series setting. It would give potential viewers a sense of familiarity, and there are certainly enough interesting things going on then. We might see the Klingon civil war from one of the other ships in the Federation blockade. Perhaps there were some survivors of Wolf 359. Or maybe, just maybe, there were some interesting things going on back then that didn't involve the Enterprise or her crew in the least.
I've recently been reading some of the Star Trek: The Lost Era books. This would also be an interesting setting. George Takei is almost 80 now, so it may not be practical to show the Sulu-era adventures of the Excelsior. But there are almost unlimited possibilities for Enterprise-B and Enterprise-C. Let's see some action involving Captains Harriman and Garrett. The universe of the Trek Interregnum sounds like a pretty exciting place to me, filled with exploration and confrontation. Bring on the classic nemeses: the Romulans, the Cardassians, and yes, even the Klingons.
Now that we've established the when of the matter, let's talk about who.
The idea of seeing some junior officers, perhaps not even on the Federation flagship, holds some definite potential. Part of the legacy of Star Trek (and most sci-fi TV) is the 'Fairy-tale Syndrome'. Let me explain. Think of any fairy tale that comes to mind, even the animated ones. What do all the main characters have in common? They are all intimately connected with royalty. Cinderella finds her handsome prince. Aladdin finds his princess. Simba is denied his right as king of the pride. Anastasia finds out she's not just a peasant girl but the last surviving member of the Romanov family. And so on. The common folks are typically relegated to supporting roles, if they're seen at all.
So it is with Trek. Consider the Enterprise-D. Think of anyone who could be considered a 'main character', a recurring character whose actions have lasting effects on the ship and/or her crew. I come up with the following: Captain Picard, Riker, Data, Geordi, Dr. Crusher, Dr. Pulaski, Wesley, Troi, Worf, Yar, O' Brien, Barkley, Ro Laren, Guinan, and maybe Lwaxana Troi. Fifteen main characters in the series. The stated crew of the Enterprise is just over a thousand. 98% of the overall story involves less than 2% of the crew. And the majority of those people are command-level officers—the ship's royalty, if you will.
Are there any normal people in Starfleet? Of course there are. They're the ones wearing the red shirts. They're the ones who die in the first five minutes of the episode to show how serious the situation is. To wit, the away team beams down to a hostile alien planet: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, and Slobowski. Hmm, who do you think is not going to survive this mission?
Of course every ship has a captain and a command crew. But think about a modern aircraft carrier. The USS Ronald Reagan has a crew of about 6,000. How many of those folks interact with the captain on a daily basis? How many interact with anyone on the command staff? Probably very few. Maybe commanding officers are more accessible to their crews in the future, but I can still imagine a crewman going through an entire two-year stint in Starfleet and never once having dinner at the captain's table.
So let's see how the other half lives. And more importantly, let's focus on the characters themselves, rather than just their rank and/or position. Part of what I like about what I've read of Kurt Buseik's comics work is that he doesn't tell superhero stories. He tells stories about people who happen to be superheroes. To beat the same dead horse once again, the reason that Babylon 5 and Firefly were so good is because the stories were character-driven. So are the best trek episodes, like "City on the Edge of Forever", "The Inner Light", and "The Visitor".
I guess that's ultimately what it comes down to, for me: tell interesting stories involving characters I can care about, and I'll tune in every week.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Star Trek Next
Just about everyone I know believes Star Trek: Enterprise was the weakest of the Trek television shows. I don't know that I could conclusively argue one way or another, but Voyager strikes me as the weakest of the two. Both series had excellent episodes, but neither can compare with The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine (my clear favorite). Regardless of which incarnation was worse than the other, one thing is clear to this Trek fan: the franchise took a serious dive after DS9. And so I pose to my AoD colleagues and readers, if we have any, the task of reinvigorating the Star Trek franchise via a new television series. I don't know about anyone else, but I really miss good Star Trek. My idea follows.
Remember the The Next Generation episode, Lower Decks? Rather than follow the regular crew, the episode focused on the lives of four junior officers. This has to be one of my favorite Star Trek episodes of all time. There was something refreshing about a new perspective of a familiar landscape. Were someone to hand the future of the franchise over to me, I'd put together an entire series based on this concept. Each episode would follow the lives of four or five Next Generation era crew members as they go about their duties, get taken to task by superior officers, deal with various ship crises, and so forth. At first glance, I know this doesn't sound very exciting. Wait, there's more! I'd have the writers begin the creative process by outlining a traditional "shuttle craft in trouble," "confrontation with the Romulans," "rescue the doomed colony" storyline. From there, the writers would write the main plot, focusing on the junior officers, so that the viewers see the events unfold from a non-traditional perspective. One of the junior officers would be in Engineering, for example. We'd see the Chief Engineer, but always in the background. Viewers would hear the Chief Engineer talking with the Bridge about the impending core breach, but the action would center on our junior officer. In essence, I'd take traditional Trek and invert the filming process. To date, every series foregrounds the command staff and backgrounds everyone else. I'd foreground junior officers and background the command staff.
Taking this non-traditional approach to Trek does few things. First, it forces writers out of their comfort zone. Most fans complain that the Trek franchise has grown a bit stale--this breathes a bit of fresh air into the process. It also requires a new look at the production process. Can you imagine the challenge of shooting a scene that focuses one of the main characters so that the viewers can also see the Captain (who we never see behind the scenes or in a non-command capacity), communicating with threatening aliens? Second, a series written from this perspective would be affordable. With the focus on secondary characters (relatively unknown actors, perhaps?), we'd see far less of the action directly. We'd see some of it, of course, but far less. A more affordable program could be marketed to a non-major network (hello, SciFi!). As UPN recently merged with WB, I doubt the Star Trek franchise would find a home there. Viacom/Paramount/CBS/Whoever (major reorganizing has gone on within Viacom/Paramount/CBS recently--I'm not sure who retains the rights to ST) could go back to the syndication model, which seemed to work for TNG and DS9.
So, there's my idea. It's not so much a radical revisioning of the ST franchise, but a reconceptualization or refocusing.
Remember the The Next Generation episode, Lower Decks? Rather than follow the regular crew, the episode focused on the lives of four junior officers. This has to be one of my favorite Star Trek episodes of all time. There was something refreshing about a new perspective of a familiar landscape. Were someone to hand the future of the franchise over to me, I'd put together an entire series based on this concept. Each episode would follow the lives of four or five Next Generation era crew members as they go about their duties, get taken to task by superior officers, deal with various ship crises, and so forth. At first glance, I know this doesn't sound very exciting. Wait, there's more! I'd have the writers begin the creative process by outlining a traditional "shuttle craft in trouble," "confrontation with the Romulans," "rescue the doomed colony" storyline. From there, the writers would write the main plot, focusing on the junior officers, so that the viewers see the events unfold from a non-traditional perspective. One of the junior officers would be in Engineering, for example. We'd see the Chief Engineer, but always in the background. Viewers would hear the Chief Engineer talking with the Bridge about the impending core breach, but the action would center on our junior officer. In essence, I'd take traditional Trek and invert the filming process. To date, every series foregrounds the command staff and backgrounds everyone else. I'd foreground junior officers and background the command staff.
Taking this non-traditional approach to Trek does few things. First, it forces writers out of their comfort zone. Most fans complain that the Trek franchise has grown a bit stale--this breathes a bit of fresh air into the process. It also requires a new look at the production process. Can you imagine the challenge of shooting a scene that focuses one of the main characters so that the viewers can also see the Captain (who we never see behind the scenes or in a non-command capacity), communicating with threatening aliens? Second, a series written from this perspective would be affordable. With the focus on secondary characters (relatively unknown actors, perhaps?), we'd see far less of the action directly. We'd see some of it, of course, but far less. A more affordable program could be marketed to a non-major network (hello, SciFi!). As UPN recently merged with WB, I doubt the Star Trek franchise would find a home there. Viacom/Paramount/CBS/Whoever (major reorganizing has gone on within Viacom/Paramount/CBS recently--I'm not sure who retains the rights to ST) could go back to the syndication model, which seemed to work for TNG and DS9.
So, there's my idea. It's not so much a radical revisioning of the ST franchise, but a reconceptualization or refocusing.
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