The other day I Netflixed Wrath of Kahn because my roommate is a big Star Trek fan and I figured I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and check out some Billy Shatner and Leo Nimoy. This wasn't the first Star Trek movie I had seen. When I was 13 I had the impulse to see First Contact in theaters, despite the fact that I wasn't a big Sci-Fi fan. I enjoyed the next generation flick at the time and after seeing the old crew do their thing, I was again reminded that I actually like this sort of stuff.
Star Trek? NERD!
Yeah, that is what I thought of Star Trek growing up. I figured it was all these dorks watching humans and aliens run all over the Cosmos in unrealistically futuristic situations. I don't know what compelled me to see First Contact and despite being a big Star Wars fan, I really didn't get into Star Trek. Plus, the depth of the series, ie The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, all that jazz was really intimidating to get into, so I didn't. My family was also really into sports over things like Sci-Fi so I really wasn't in an environment that encouraged this kind of selection.
However, now that I am a few years older and can appreciate things for their inherent worth outside other people's influence, I have begun to change my perspective quite a bit. I suppose it doesn't help the nerd cause when they are stereotyped as guys that never get laid or see the light of day, but as I grew up I realized that I had some social skills as well as a sizable dorky appetite. In moving across the country, you really get the chance to see how other people see and do things and now I live with a guy that knows a lot about Star Treak (as well as being a decent socialite) so I figured, hey what the hell, I'll check it out.
Creativity at its Best
After watching a few movies now, I've come to realize the power that Sci-Fi has to offer. It may seem a little over the top but the bottom line is not how sophisticated the special effects can be or even how benign a writer can make a race of people. The best thing about science fiction is that it expands the realm of human experimentation.
Lets take a look at your average comedy or romance or even crime thriller. Are they all THAT different from each other? Ocean's 11, the Italian Job, Will and Grace, Dharma and Greg, Friends, Two and a Half Men, Seinfeld, Arrested Development, the list goes on. These are all great shows with great writers, but they only lasted 10 or so years (at most) and not every age group can enjoy them. I believe the issue associated with this is the limitation of human interaction. There are only so many things humans can do on this earth and only some of them can be articulated well on screen. Maybe you can change locations or set up a really unique backdrop, but in the end, continually reinventing yourself gets to be difficult. It seems like every year another series of action movies and romantic comedies comes out and they are rarely ever different than the dozens that came before it. Hell, most of the time we see sequels or remakes like Die Hard 4 or Night Rider.
What is amazing about Sci-Fi, however, is the realm of experimentation. Shows like Star Trek were brilliant and successful because in having a show take place in space and in the future, a writer has complete freedom. What do I mean by freedom? Lets say you wanted to experiment with culture clashes. If you take a look at our world, you could pick Western vs Eastern cultures, or may the Middle East vs the US, Gays vs Heterosexuals, Men vs Women etc.. These are fine examples but they also carry a lot of baggage with them, such as historical accuracy, public appeal, political implications, etc.. With so much red tape it becomes incredibly difficult to really utilize genuine creativity. Writers have to spend so much time adhering to established norms and criteria that breaking ground is almost impossible. However, Sci-Fi has the advantage of shedding contemporary standards and allowing a writer to have complete freedom. In Star Trek, the future is utilized because it allows a writer to experiment with human/social evolution and having the series occur in space allows for tampering with physics for greater creative control.
There was a great episode I caught the other day called Parallels. This is the one where Worf is traveling back from a competition and he manages to accidentally slip into this weird vortex of quantum realities. This is a tough complex to rationalize, but the point is that every instant, we as a collection of atoms make decisions. Look left, walk right, stand up, sit down, etc... In quantum theory, all of these choices occur in separate realities and each plays out. Worf manages to create an opening into this vortex and realities begin to merge.
Now I don't expect anyone to completely buy or even understand this premise, but the point is that a writer creates an environment that is outside our current understanding as a human race to develop a scenario, the Sarah Connor Scenario, ie You're all mistaken, I'm the one that gets it and you all need to understand. This is an incredibly difficult situation to grasp and it would be easy to understand how it could drive a person insane. However, the writers for Star Trek attempt to logically rationalize and experiment with this sort of information in attempt to sort through the chaos. How does a crazy person convince everyone that he/she isn't crazy, but that he/she is sane and everyone else insane? This is more or less the topic discussed and the writing is very beautiful in that sense. Maybe you agree with it, maybe you don't, but at the very least the audience gets the mental exercise.
A more subtle topic in this episode is the love affair between Worf and Deanna. Much like a black person involved with a white one, this cross species interaction is controversial but highlights a topic that has been toiled over for centuries. In the series, Worf has no interest in Deanna, but as a catalyst to the situation, one of the realities he stumbles upon is one where he and Deanna are married. What a novel concept? Just cut out the middle step. Assume that you are already together, what then? If this story were constructed in contemporary society, it would impossible to make this leap, but with Sci-Fi it is possible. At this point Worf interacts with a Deanna that is in love with him and despite his lack of interest, he has to appreciate the situation.
To really thicken the plot (beyond this episode) after he is transported back to his original reality, he has the knowledge of his previous experience (the one where Deanna loves him) and he now sees Deanna in a new light. He has to live with the knowledge that in another world, he and she are married and this may or may not compel him to establish that reality in his existing one. This sort of social interplay would be impossible, or at least extremely difficult to articulate, in main stream literature and that is why Sci-Fi is so ingenious.
Mental Exercise
The best thing about Sci-Fi is the mental exercise. "Lets say that....". Most people would say, "that would never happen" and be done thinking but the mental exercise is amazing. Lets say everyone spoke the same language or lets say our government concurred the world or lets say we could colonize mars, what then? Sci-Fi allows us to set up the conditions and allow our minds to fill in the details. "I dunno, what do you think?". Use logic, use reason, use whatever you want. What would happen if this or that happened? Can you imagine a world different than our own? What would survive a thousand years of social evolution? What would humans cherish? What would we be indifferent towards? It doesn't matter what the answer is, just that there is an answer, some sort of logical conclusion established from data and assumptions that are accepted by the pertinent parties.
However, a term like mental exercise excites few, mainly the nerds, and that is why Sci-Fi appeals to us. Most people are not interested in expanding their mental understanding. A lot of people are content with their surroundings and the idea of thinking outside the box is more than they can handle. What's important is that exercising your mind is how you develop your intelligence. People aren't born smart, they need to develop their brain just like you would your legs or your arms. You need to experiment with problems in order to solve future ones. Why do you think video games spawn smart kids? It has little or nothing to do with hand eye coordination but rather critical thinking and logic. Approach a situation, attempt to over come it. Oh wait, you died? Oh well, try again and again and again until you get it right. Thinking critically is the constant and when you find yourself in a real world situation maybe you way your options carefully, maybe you don't. Maybe you use judgement, maybe you use impulse.
In any event, I think Sci-Fi offers the experimental freedom that political science, psychology, and sociology cannot. Even the most basic of sciences, such as chemistry, biology and physics, have their limitations that can be overcome with Sci-Fi. When analyzing humans, it gets difficult to experiment because the time line is too long and people matter too much. We cannot develop a race of people to play with but we can create a theoretical situation and if it makes logical sense, perhaps we can learn from it. As it stands now, people are against abortion, cloning, gay marriage, etc... because of accepted human behavior. This limits what we can and will be in the future and Sci-Fi has the ability to develop scenarios that play with those social assumptions. It then becomes a matter of what is believable or rationale rather than what is right or wrong. There is a reason why logic is all over the place in Sci-Fi, it is the only thing that can transcend our contemporary ideology. If everything I say is true (or accepted by the audience) than a conclusion that I arrive at logically, must be correct.
Closing Thoughts
Anyway, I suppose the point of all of this is not that Sci-Fi is cool, but that it is intelligent. Perhaps people think that intelligent people like Sci-Fi, but the "why" isn't sufficiently discussed. Why would someone smart like Sci-Fi? It isn't because nerds like aliens and outer space but because it gives them mental freedom. They are not bound by laws, norms and trends. They can manifest whatever reality they want in their head and best case scenario offer a comparison to contemporary society with some mental experimentation. It is a visual articulation of thinking "outside the box". I love it.
just my thoughts
match unleaded
0 comments:
Post a Comment