I think this thread could plausibly go into Great Debates or the Pit, but let’s see if we can keep this more on the artistic/cultural side of the discussion.
I’m prompted by people who go on and on about things like
– How can the Star Trek universe explain the fact that there are so many unrelated individuals from different species who all look exactly the same (because they’re played by Jeffrey Combs or Mark Lenard)?
– How is it that the universal translator makes it appear that an alien’s mouth is moving in sync with the English words that we hear?
– How is it that Colonel Tigh can hear a song composed by Bob Dylan?
… and try to come up with wankeretic explanations.
It’s futile, folks. You’re missing the point! This is drama. Drama is not supposed to be a presentation in documentary form of a fictional universe. Not everything you see or hear is supposed to have happened “for real” in a place and time that doesn’t exist.
Drama must be looked at from the point of view of the real culture of the author and of the viewer. It’s not supposed to be a faithful retelling of things that never happened, but rather the telling of a story that has significance to us.
Fans generally fanwank for their own amusement (hence “wank”). It’s a mental game like a crossword or jumble, with the bonus that it involves them more in a particular subject that they enjoy.
Cliches aside, I’m pretty sure that most Star Trek fans 1) realize that the shows are about things that have never happened (the fact that they’re set in the distant future would be a big clue, wouldn’t it?) and 2) don’t think they would be improved by having people talk out of sync.
I don’t get the over obsession of fanwanks either. Be it the Harry Potter universe, StarWars, StarTrek, LordoftheRings, etc.
They seem to think anything in that universe has a factual answer to it and seem to forget it was created out of one persons imagination and that person probably didn’t think of every detail when they wrote it.
Is Dumbeldore gay? He’s a fictional character. It’s whatever that Rowling chick decides he is. There’s no debating it. There’s no facts to go over.
StarWars/StarTrek technical manuals? “Oh, so that’s what the blueprints of the Milennium Falcon look like and what it was built from.” Um, no it was built from a sketch by a model maker. Somebody else just made up this crap at a later time.
Why didn’t the eagles fly the ring to Mordor? Cause Tolkein didn’t think things through when he wrote it. Not the pseudo analytical answers everyone makes up.
I’m sorry…you appear to be suffering from the delusion that fans of science fiction or fantasy series and movies actually believe that the events of those movies happened or will happen or are happening somewhere in the universe. We don’t.
Extended universe type conceits are in fun. In. Fun. We think it’s fun to discuss these things as if they were real, and the implications thereof. I have no idea what business it is of yours if we do. Or why you would think we would care if you approved of it or not. Although I’m getting a very “HAHA look at the GEEKS!” vibe here…
Actually, the people who discuss how the Enterprise works or how Shadow technology works are extremely mild examples of fandom. Go dip into the alt.star-trek.creative.erotica archive sometime…
Because in any drama – not just science fiction – people expect it to come close to reality to show what’s going on. Exactly how close that is, and how much stylizing you can get away with, varies considerably from audience to audience and operson to person.
Make fun of obsessive concern for verisimilitude if you wish, but the flip side is that people make even more fun when the depiction strays too far from reality.
You can SAY that Natty Bumpo is a superb tactician and shot and indian fighter, but when James Fenimore Cooper depicts everyone acting unbelievably or stupidly you get wonderful pieces like “James Fenimore Cooper’s Literay Offenses” by Mark Twain:
Right. And one wonders why the same degree of fanwank is not applied to fiction ostensibly set in our “real world” (e.g. explaining away the protagonists always finding a legal parking spot; never hitting an innocent bystander; doing nothing but hanging out at the coffee shop yet living in a comfortable well-furnished studio in Manhattan).
Ocassionally, the writer simply forgot to plug a plot hole, or ran out of ideas as the deadline approached. As long as it doesn’t ruin the story, we should be able to handle it, and speculate on how WE would explain it or how WE would have done it. I sure know I like some of the explanations I come up with better than the so-called “canon”.
Obviously people know that Star Trek isn’t a documentary. But it’s not unreasonable to ask for some internal consistency. In the end, what we really want is to be entertained by a good story. If a machine part is unable to do something at one point in the film and then later on is suddenly able to do it with no explanation, that’s bad storytelling. “But it’s fiction!!” Well okay, what if at the end, Captain Kirk defeats the aliens by zapping them with electricity from his fingers. We never had any inclination that he had magic zapping powers, but it’s fiction so who cares, right?
These questions are not those related to internal consistency and plot failures. They are different issues, like those of acting (such as multiple roles) or of complete imagination and surrender to the fictional (Bob Dylan doesn’t have to be explained; it’s not necessarily literally true that they’re listening to a song composed by a real 21st century composer; besides which, all the music is composed by actual 21st century composers).
I don’t think I’ll go down this road in this thread. If you haven’t been watching the series, feel free to PM me and I’ll update you.
I’m sorry, acsenray, but your point is completely opaque to me, unless it’s a “get a real life, geeks!” commentary. What do you expect from us (the fanboys/girls) here?
To spend their time and energy really understanding a quality drama like Galactica and stop wasting precious effort on this stupid stuff. Treat it like real literature and discuss it like adults instead going on and on about how someone dropped a Dylan CD in a black hole or something.
So, rather than my assumption that you were telling us not to take our sci-fi so seriously, you were actually telling us to stop playing with that kiddy stuff and watch and discuss a “real” drama?
I’m trying to figure out how to denote my visceral reaction to that attitude in Cafe Society-acceptable terms…
And, incidentally, I’ve personally never had any real desire to watch the new Galactica. I don’t like relentlessly dark dramas. From what I’ve seen, I actually prefer the old 1970s Galactica to the new one. It was cheesy, but at least it was fun.
Yes, I’m saying it should be taken as seriously as any other dramatic work. Do you try to fanwank the mention of clocks in Julius Caesar or just note that it’s anachronistic and move on to the substance of the work?
What gets me is that the copies of Cooper I’ve seen all have a notation that the language, spelling, and punctuation have been modernized, but the books are STILL as bad as Twain said. Twain was a generation younger than Cooper and nobody has needed to fix his books to make them an easier read for modern readers. Did the Brontës or Jane Austen or Dickens get such repairs?
Note: I’m not talking about any sort of abridged and simplified Klassics for Kids. They were plain, ol’ books.
I’m just not wrapping my brain around your objection. I don’t seek out internet groups to discuss Julius Caesar. I seek out internet groups to discuss Star Trek and Star Wars, etc. The only place I ever actually discussed Julius Caesar was in high school and college. I did seek out discussion of the MST3K episode with Hamlet. Does that count?
Well, no. It’s stated clearly and repeatedly throughout “The Lord of the Rings” that the task was given to Frodo and that if he fails, no one can succeed. And it was given to him before the Council of Elrond, and even before Bilbo’s big bash, by divine providence. Trying to rationalize it is fun for people who enjoy analyzing the book and Tolkien’s other writings, but it basically boils down to Frodo had to do it because the powers that be (Eru, God) said he did. Those who reject providence and try to impose their own wills (Sauron, Saruman, Denethor, Boromir) tend to come to bad ends. That may not sit well with some freethinking readers, but it is a central philosophy of the book, not a plot hole. One might as well ask why Eru permitted Sauron to exist in the first place.
That said, although it’s not clear in the films, the Eagles are not a bunch of big birds trained to come on command. They are proud, intelligent, powerful beings. If one of them were willing to take the One Ring, it might not be a good to give it to him. They also don’t just bail out any man, wizard, or hobbit who doesn’t want to do his duty. They intervene when people have done their utmost and have no other way out, which is consistent with the way Tolkien balances individual responsibility and grace throughout the book.
None of this takes much analysis or imagination to see, in my opinion. It just requires a straightforward reading of the book on its own terms.
