Orson Scott Card on Trek & Rebuttal

[Raven Crowking]

Check this out: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-card3may03,0,6007802.story.

Then check this out: http://www.goldencitycomics.com/NewsInfo.html.

RC

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Orson Scott Card sure is superior, isn't he?

 

[Henry]

I'll say one thing: I wouldn't call Harlan Ellison a Star Trek writer. From two different accounts, he had to be locked in a room practically kicking and screaming to write the one script he wrote, and he ate a house plant as vengance. Plus, the script he got the Hugo for was not what was aired by a long shot, so, him, I wouldn't mention. D.C. however, is a good writer all by herself.

While I don't take Card's view, I do know that in the realm of Sci-Fi, Star Trek is one of the more straightforward views out there. But I'd say the newer series are more simplistic than the older ones - like people slamming Lord of the Rings, you don't get points for slamming an original, and what it promoted was nowhere to be seen in the public view at the time, and certainly not in Sci-Fi serials of the 1930's. :\

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Frankly, I think Orson's take is spot on, and the "rebuttal" misses the point of Orson's critique almost entirely. I think he read into the column much that wasn't even implied.

 

[trancejeremy]

Hrrrrmph. After Star Trek, William Shatner has gone on to have 2 hit TV shows (TJ Hooker and Boston Legal) and a hit record. How is that not charismatic?

He was in one of the all time classic episodes of the Twilight Zone (and another that was pretty good).

He was in the only movie (AFAIK) that was ever done in Esperanto

He's arguably the greatest actor of his generation. Of the century. Of all time!

(Well, not really. But he does have a certain appeal)

Anyway, I think Mr. Card has confused good science fiction with good television. I love Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, and Larry Niven, but I don't think any of their stuff would translate into TV very well. Heck, Larry Niven is mostly just an idea guy - most his stuff is not that well written and has unlikeable characters.

 

[Mark]

So Card is taking a few cliche shots at the dwindling old school science fiction television fans and aligning himself with the fans of the more popular television science fiction of the last ten years or so, while still calling down the blessings of the old guard science fiction writers and dropping as many names as possible along the way. How novel. Speaking of his next novel...

 

[James Heard]

In Card's defense he hasn't really wrote anything particularly novel or appealing since Ender's Game, so his own views of Trek's continuing success might stem from the vagueries of embellishing his own ego at the expense of diminishing the value of another competing product. And talk about a cast of unlikable characters, I wonder if Card has even read his own novels?

Personally I think that the perhaps overblown acting of TOS establishes the legitimacy of its appeal. A bunch of communist free-love explorers with the keys to a starship having tea with Orion slave girls and thumbing their noses at hairy klingon warriors would seem to be exactly as forward and cheesy as they're cast as. Card's problem seems to me to be that Trek's one dimensional characters are more lovable than his own.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Orson Scott Card sure is superior, isn't he?

Only in arrogance and ignorance it seems...

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

In Card's defense he hasn't really wrote anything particularly novel or appealing since Ender's Game...

That's not much of a defense!

 

[WayneLigon]

Wow. I've seen some real tripe in my time but that column just has to take the cake. I can't even think of all the ways that's wrong. I guess the time to kick the thing that probably brought more people to science fiction than anything before Star Wars is when it's down, but that's kinda harsh.