The wonders of Science Fiction - and Battlestar Galactica
Monday, 22. May 2006, 13:28:56
I'm not your typical sci-fi fan. I don't get all excited at the mention of technical jargon. Talk about wormholes, ion cannons, fusion reactors, hyper space and drives is interesting for a while - and then it dries up. Some shows seem to think that the way to create an authentic setting is to cram it full of all sorts of meaningless drivel that hardly amounts to actual words. Star Trek is a perfect example. Star Trek is boring, but became popular because it came onto the entertainment scene at a time when the universe was THE topic of the day, what with the space race, moon landings etc. It was in a real sense breaking new ground, but did in no way come near the potential of the genre. Basically, Star Trek is a show about technology, the brainchild of a person living in the shadow of the bomb, and an ever escalating technological race. The world was not about people, so Star Trek is not about people. It is a show where one-dimensional archetypes, cardboard models, are used as means to showcase technological vision.
Franchises like Star Wars have gone down a similar route, what with the creator losing his original inspiration and letting a once great concept collapse into another effects galore bore.
So what's really the point of science fiction? Is it to create an exciting universe where a more advanced version of the human race stumbles across an alien race and then battles it out? Well, yes, it could be. But that only works - it ONLY works - if the focus is on the humans and not the technology that empowers them. The technology should shed new light on humanity, not the other way around.
For a long time I held up Babylon 5 as the holy grail in sci fi shows. A lot of people dislike it, but upon further investigation, it turns out that these people have watched one or two episodes and decided that it wasn't their cup of tea. However, the creators of Babylon 5 carry a much grander vision - it's a show that does not cater to the goldfish minds of the MTV generation. It is still the only show that I know of that - before filming started - had a story arc spanning five - FIVE - seasons planned out. The perspectives, the revelations, the sense of awe you experience when you get information in season 4 that completely alters your understanding of something that happened in season 1, is pretty grand. Babylon 5 works because it's about people. The characters actually CHANGE, they go through personal traumas, they are nuanced and you constantly experience new facets of their being. Compared with the universe where the order of the day is something like this:
"Alien lifeform ahead, what is it Data?"
"I-do-not-know!"
Aaah, it's entered the ship, and taken over the captain! The captain who is always perfect now talks funny and is really keen on pressing the button next to the energy core which says "do not push". Says No 1: "Crew, we must get the alien out of the captain! He doesn't want to drink tea with me anymore" Cue search for alien antidote, free captain Picard, end episode and reset universe.
Thrilling, isn't it?
But the world moves on and while Babylon 5 is still an all-time favourite of mine, I have now started watching a show that carries amazing potential - Battlestar Galactica (BG). Again, here's a show that is about people, who just happen to be in space (and who are about to be eliminated as a species). There's hardly any technical jargon, and there seems to be great potential for fleshing out the characters. I won't go into too much detail, but suffice to say that BG does all the right things - it uses Sci-Fi as a means to ask questions about the human race and the direction we're headed in. That is ultimately the purpose of sci-fi, to use a setting that is alien to drive home the great problems and grand beauty, the very paradox of humanity, with even greater force.
And when that part of the package is taken care of, it hardly hurts that it looks absolutely stunning. The space scenes in this show are probably the best I've ever seen. It uses a documentery style filming of snap zooms and handheld camera moves that puts you right into the fray. It looks beautiful.
I pray to whatever gods that be that this is not yet another show that will be milked to complete starvation just because it happens to be popular. I hope the vision is as grand as in Babylon 5 with stories being planned years in advance, not around a table with script writers with writing blocks who look dumbfounded at one another asking "what should the next episode be about?". Otherwise this gem will end up as the rest of the drivel produced by an ever more depraved, uncreative and ignorant entertainment industry.
Franchises like Star Wars have gone down a similar route, what with the creator losing his original inspiration and letting a once great concept collapse into another effects galore bore.
So what's really the point of science fiction? Is it to create an exciting universe where a more advanced version of the human race stumbles across an alien race and then battles it out? Well, yes, it could be. But that only works - it ONLY works - if the focus is on the humans and not the technology that empowers them. The technology should shed new light on humanity, not the other way around.
For a long time I held up Babylon 5 as the holy grail in sci fi shows. A lot of people dislike it, but upon further investigation, it turns out that these people have watched one or two episodes and decided that it wasn't their cup of tea. However, the creators of Babylon 5 carry a much grander vision - it's a show that does not cater to the goldfish minds of the MTV generation. It is still the only show that I know of that - before filming started - had a story arc spanning five - FIVE - seasons planned out. The perspectives, the revelations, the sense of awe you experience when you get information in season 4 that completely alters your understanding of something that happened in season 1, is pretty grand. Babylon 5 works because it's about people. The characters actually CHANGE, they go through personal traumas, they are nuanced and you constantly experience new facets of their being. Compared with the universe where the order of the day is something like this:
"Alien lifeform ahead, what is it Data?"
"I-do-not-know!"
Aaah, it's entered the ship, and taken over the captain! The captain who is always perfect now talks funny and is really keen on pressing the button next to the energy core which says "do not push". Says No 1: "Crew, we must get the alien out of the captain! He doesn't want to drink tea with me anymore" Cue search for alien antidote, free captain Picard, end episode and reset universe.
Thrilling, isn't it?
But the world moves on and while Babylon 5 is still an all-time favourite of mine, I have now started watching a show that carries amazing potential - Battlestar Galactica (BG). Again, here's a show that is about people, who just happen to be in space (and who are about to be eliminated as a species). There's hardly any technical jargon, and there seems to be great potential for fleshing out the characters. I won't go into too much detail, but suffice to say that BG does all the right things - it uses Sci-Fi as a means to ask questions about the human race and the direction we're headed in. That is ultimately the purpose of sci-fi, to use a setting that is alien to drive home the great problems and grand beauty, the very paradox of humanity, with even greater force.
And when that part of the package is taken care of, it hardly hurts that it looks absolutely stunning. The space scenes in this show are probably the best I've ever seen. It uses a documentery style filming of snap zooms and handheld camera moves that puts you right into the fray. It looks beautiful.
I pray to whatever gods that be that this is not yet another show that will be milked to complete starvation just because it happens to be popular. I hope the vision is as grand as in Babylon 5 with stories being planned years in advance, not around a table with script writers with writing blocks who look dumbfounded at one another asking "what should the next episode be about?". Otherwise this gem will end up as the rest of the drivel produced by an ever more depraved, uncreative and ignorant entertainment industry.
(11%)
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