It sure looks like the likes of Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, and Mark Ruffalo won’t be making movies for Paramount in the foreseeable future.
I’m sure they will find new ways to try to reboot it, completely stripped of any social commentary or social thought experiments, devoid of all optimism and inspiration for what our species can become. Probably like, another retelling of a plucky crew getting into space battles with generic, non-stereotyped-but-kinda alien terrorists who don’t have relatable reasons for being bad guys.
It won’t have heady concepts and wild ideas about how civilizations can develop and what humans can become, but that’s okay because it will have a roguish captain who likes to break the rules and a strict, by-the-book 1st officer that he has sexual tension with.
I remember having multiple discussions with a guy I knew who was adamant about various works of fiction, including the original Star Trek TV series, and how, in his view, if they have any kind of subtext to them, that it was not intentional and it’s entirely in the eye of the beholder, meaning, that people just make it up as they go.
These included, but were not limited to: OG Star Trek, Dune (book), LoTR (books), and even the NARNIA series. I mean, Narnia. I think I first read them around the age of 10 or 11, and the Christian parallels practically hit you between the eyes it is so obvious. Even to a kid…I mean, I’m pretty sure Lewis has gone on record with the clear intent on proselytizing his faith via that series.
I wish I was joking, and this guy read most everything when it came to old sci-fi stuff. If that is his take on reading all those classic sci-fi stuff, I was just gobsmacked as to what he was getting out of it.
I have the feeling that there might be more people like him, but I just don’t get it. Even things like WWE have the basic outline of the hero’s journey to them, FFS.
All of those series you mentioned have easily found interviews with their creators where they specifically say what subtext they were intending when they made them. You can disagree with the subtext, but was intentionally put there. That’s some willful ignorance.
Yeah. I’m pretty sure I asked him about that supposed wager between Tolkien and Lewis and how they kind of goaded one another to write fiction containing new myths that had, at root, the “true myth”, in their view which was related to Christ, since they were both Christians.
I also asked him about original myths themselves - do they contain allegory, etc? I think he may have conceded that, but for some reason, seemed to want to have some kind of arbitrary delineation between ancient myths and virtually everything else.
I don’t pretend to understand. I was utterly baffled by it. I remember asking about The Matrix, too - was that just a lot of cool FX and well-choreographed fight scenes? The answer was something I don’t remember, but I know I was baffled by it…
He’s not wrong that the reader/viewer can take what they will from a work and translate it through their own lens… but come on, that is some neutron-star density if you can’t read the deliberate social commentary in Star Trek. Roddenberry himself has spoken about it.
It makes me pretty convinced that person, and those who share his views, are people who feel called-out or attacked on some level by whatever social issues are being highlighted, or feel insecure that they don’t “get it.”
There is a really wild segment of the human population who seem totally incapable of working out abstract ideas like ethics and values on their own and rely on systems like government or religion or unfortunately, content creators to guide them. This is a bigger problem than we realize and we take for granted that just because we all grew up watching the Ninja Turtles beat Shredder that we can all discern that “good is better than bad.” Not everyone gets that, and this is everyone’s problem.
Yeah, I know the guy could be an intentional contrarian just because he thought that was the way to show his intelligence. And I think he is on the spectrum. But I don’t think he was kidding or merely being contrarian about this. Probably why I talked about it to him so much. Sure, many things have multiple interpretations, and I often thought that some pretty basic English lit teachers thought there were “rules” to how to interpret literature and that there were “correct” answers to what something like Old Man and the Sea “means”. I can understand rejecting that.
But rejecting that even things as blatant as Narnia and Star Trek are not intentionally conveying a message? Mind-blowing. I don’t even understand why you’d be all that interested in fiction of any kind at that point.
And yeah, as you point out, this kind of obvious intelligence in one way, but a glaring of lack of intelligence in others is highly problematic in the moral sense.
I was going to suggest that he might be on the spectrum, as it’s pretty stereotyped that autistic spectrum disorder can make it hard for some people to pick up subtext, nuance, overtones and other forms of communication that aren’t direct. (I was diagnosed recently as an adult but I’ve never had problems dismantling all the layers of media or reading emotions so it’s probably a different part of the spectrum.)
But this is also exactly why so many people on the spectrum identify with science fiction and fantasy, because in many of these franchises the social narrative or analogy isn’t exactly subtle.
And it opens up so many questions - like, what DOES communicate social messages and life lessons? What kinds of media DO convey ideas about society? Only documentaries about politics? What about non-fiction movies? What about fiction stories and movies that aren’t sci-fi or fantasy? Does he even watch stories about human emotion or abstract works of fiction that are STRICTLY social commentary? I would immediately start asking him so many questions LOL.
Honestly though, I would take this. I would prefer someone who says openly that they’re disconnected from social narratives than the people who pretend that they understand ethics and values communicated to them, but are actually just horrible sociopaths trying to act human.
Yeah, I found it weird for sure and I did have so many questions. I don’t see him any more. I still think about it even now, even though these conversations were maybe 10 years ago, LOL.
I think part of it was his stubbornness to admit being even a little bit wrong in a prior statement?
I mean, as you point out, OG Star Trek is something that even as a relatively young and sheltered kid who didn’t see much TV, I’d watch them at relatives houses in syndication and even I could “get it”. It fairly smacks you over the head now that I’m an adult. How some of this got past the censors still looking for any kind of subversive content is beyond me. I’m assuming the network censors just saw aliens and checked out mentally, or maybe were the type that cannot really handle abstractions of any sort…
As to that last paragraph, absolutely right. It’s one thing if people struggle with social cues and so on and it’s quite another for people just faking human emotions in order to exploit others.
Narnia and Dune are so up-front about their messages that after a couple books it stops being subtext and just becomes text, so they’re technically correct there.
Well, Narnia hits one like a 2x4 square between the eyes. 🤣
I remember reading the first Dune book during the first invasion of Iraq and the parallels between the two were very interesting I have to say. Not sure how much the author meant, but it was sure weird…
I mean the Author meant nothing to parallel a war that happened 25 ish years after the book was released. Dune 1965 first Iraq war 1990.
Any similarities are all on you.
Ha, yeah, of course it was not about the particulars of the first Iraq war which happened decades after the book was written. I’m talking more about the struggle in a desert planet with a people that are being oppressed by colonizers while there is a struggle for a resource that the planet has a lock on that virtually everyone needs. Not to mention all the Islamic references and influences…I had not read the book before 1990 and had only seen Lynch’s Dune prior to that.
I’m sure they will find new ways to try to reboot it, completely stripped of any social commentary or social thought experiments, devoid of all optimism and inspiration for what our species can become. Probably like, another retelling of a plucky crew getting into space battles with generic, non-stereotyped-but-kinda alien terrorists who don’t have relatable reasons for being bad guys.
It won’t have heady concepts and wild ideas about how civilizations can develop and what humans can become, but that’s okay because it will have a roguish captain who likes to break the rules and a strict, by-the-book 1st officer that he has sexual tension with.
So it will be a cop show
Scientists predict that by the year 2120, the entire solar system will be nothing but cop shows.
😭
I remember having multiple discussions with a guy I knew who was adamant about various works of fiction, including the original Star Trek TV series, and how, in his view, if they have any kind of subtext to them, that it was not intentional and it’s entirely in the eye of the beholder, meaning, that people just make it up as they go.
These included, but were not limited to: OG Star Trek, Dune (book), LoTR (books), and even the NARNIA series. I mean, Narnia. I think I first read them around the age of 10 or 11, and the Christian parallels practically hit you between the eyes it is so obvious. Even to a kid…I mean, I’m pretty sure Lewis has gone on record with the clear intent on proselytizing his faith via that series.
I wish I was joking, and this guy read most everything when it came to old sci-fi stuff. If that is his take on reading all those classic sci-fi stuff, I was just gobsmacked as to what he was getting out of it.
I have the feeling that there might be more people like him, but I just don’t get it. Even things like WWE have the basic outline of the hero’s journey to them, FFS.
All of those series you mentioned have easily found interviews with their creators where they specifically say what subtext they were intending when they made them. You can disagree with the subtext, but was intentionally put there. That’s some willful ignorance.
Yeah. I’m pretty sure I asked him about that supposed wager between Tolkien and Lewis and how they kind of goaded one another to write fiction containing new myths that had, at root, the “true myth”, in their view which was related to Christ, since they were both Christians.
I also asked him about original myths themselves - do they contain allegory, etc? I think he may have conceded that, but for some reason, seemed to want to have some kind of arbitrary delineation between ancient myths and virtually everything else.
I don’t pretend to understand. I was utterly baffled by it. I remember asking about The Matrix, too - was that just a lot of cool FX and well-choreographed fight scenes? The answer was something I don’t remember, but I know I was baffled by it…
He’s not wrong that the reader/viewer can take what they will from a work and translate it through their own lens… but come on, that is some neutron-star density if you can’t read the deliberate social commentary in Star Trek. Roddenberry himself has spoken about it.
It makes me pretty convinced that person, and those who share his views, are people who feel called-out or attacked on some level by whatever social issues are being highlighted, or feel insecure that they don’t “get it.”
There is a really wild segment of the human population who seem totally incapable of working out abstract ideas like ethics and values on their own and rely on systems like government or religion or unfortunately, content creators to guide them. This is a bigger problem than we realize and we take for granted that just because we all grew up watching the Ninja Turtles beat Shredder that we can all discern that “good is better than bad.” Not everyone gets that, and this is everyone’s problem.
Yeah, I know the guy could be an intentional contrarian just because he thought that was the way to show his intelligence. And I think he is on the spectrum. But I don’t think he was kidding or merely being contrarian about this. Probably why I talked about it to him so much. Sure, many things have multiple interpretations, and I often thought that some pretty basic English lit teachers thought there were “rules” to how to interpret literature and that there were “correct” answers to what something like Old Man and the Sea “means”. I can understand rejecting that.
But rejecting that even things as blatant as Narnia and Star Trek are not intentionally conveying a message? Mind-blowing. I don’t even understand why you’d be all that interested in fiction of any kind at that point.
And yeah, as you point out, this kind of obvious intelligence in one way, but a glaring of lack of intelligence in others is highly problematic in the moral sense.
I was going to suggest that he might be on the spectrum, as it’s pretty stereotyped that autistic spectrum disorder can make it hard for some people to pick up subtext, nuance, overtones and other forms of communication that aren’t direct. (I was diagnosed recently as an adult but I’ve never had problems dismantling all the layers of media or reading emotions so it’s probably a different part of the spectrum.)
But this is also exactly why so many people on the spectrum identify with science fiction and fantasy, because in many of these franchises the social narrative or analogy isn’t exactly subtle.
And it opens up so many questions - like, what DOES communicate social messages and life lessons? What kinds of media DO convey ideas about society? Only documentaries about politics? What about non-fiction movies? What about fiction stories and movies that aren’t sci-fi or fantasy? Does he even watch stories about human emotion or abstract works of fiction that are STRICTLY social commentary? I would immediately start asking him so many questions LOL.
Honestly though, I would take this. I would prefer someone who says openly that they’re disconnected from social narratives than the people who pretend that they understand ethics and values communicated to them, but are actually just horrible sociopaths trying to act human.
Yeah, I found it weird for sure and I did have so many questions. I don’t see him any more. I still think about it even now, even though these conversations were maybe 10 years ago, LOL.
I think part of it was his stubbornness to admit being even a little bit wrong in a prior statement?
I mean, as you point out, OG Star Trek is something that even as a relatively young and sheltered kid who didn’t see much TV, I’d watch them at relatives houses in syndication and even I could “get it”. It fairly smacks you over the head now that I’m an adult. How some of this got past the censors still looking for any kind of subversive content is beyond me. I’m assuming the network censors just saw aliens and checked out mentally, or maybe were the type that cannot really handle abstractions of any sort…
As to that last paragraph, absolutely right. It’s one thing if people struggle with social cues and so on and it’s quite another for people just faking human emotions in order to exploit others.
Narnia and Dune are so up-front about their messages that after a couple books it stops being subtext and just becomes text, so they’re technically correct there.
Well, Narnia hits one like a 2x4 square between the eyes. 🤣
I remember reading the first Dune book during the first invasion of Iraq and the parallels between the two were very interesting I have to say. Not sure how much the author meant, but it was sure weird…
I mean the Author meant nothing to parallel a war that happened 25 ish years after the book was released. Dune 1965 first Iraq war 1990. Any similarities are all on you.
Ha, yeah, of course it was not about the particulars of the first Iraq war which happened decades after the book was written. I’m talking more about the struggle in a desert planet with a people that are being oppressed by colonizers while there is a struggle for a resource that the planet has a lock on that virtually everyone needs. Not to mention all the Islamic references and influences…I had not read the book before 1990 and had only seen Lynch’s Dune prior to that.