Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 8690192" data-attributes="member: 6799660">Factored maybe, but I'm not sure either original intent nor original definition really matter that much. Certainly not if we're trying to align our definitions or parameters to how the term is used now. I'm also not sure it was intended to mean trite or formulaic. I think that might be imputing our current framing of soap operas and the like on top of it, and I'm not even sure if that was the way people thought of them when the term was coined. I think melodramatic probably was a part of it, as that seems to be a common thread throughout all things with the opera moniker (including of course opera opera, which honestly I don't know how people would have seen it in the 30s and 40s). Could it been meant to convey trite and formulaic? Sure. It could also have simply meant epic and melodramatic. Or maybe even just a simple story surrounding universal themes (love, hate, heroes, villains, etc.). Here too, the later point doesn't necessarily proceed from the former. Whether the historical derivation of the term is important/relevant seems something we should be discussing. I don't think it is safe to assume it one way or the other.Regardless, between Space Opera as I think I've seen the term used back in the day, and how it is used now, I can kinda see a few common threads. The two I feel are likely near universal are:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Scope is definitely one. Firefly isn't a Space Opera while Serenity is because the former is about a small group trying to keep fuel in their tank and money in their pockets, whereas in the later they are trying to save worlds. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Science Fiction has to be ubiquitous -- it isn't just the Apollo astronauts who go into space, it is lots of people (maybe most people). Enough for it to be an assumed thing. The story can be about a bunch of people stuck on Arrakis, but the world has to have differing planets in which various people travel between (and do so in a way that effects the primary plot, making Blade Runner a non space opera story in a universe where one could exist).</li> </ul>One other thing I've noticed (and bear with me here, as I'm trying to explain a lack, and a lack of need) is thus: Space Opera tends to work as an entertaining story-- even if you ignore, remove, or never have in the first place -- any specific exploration of how the changes in society that the technology of the setting or being in the space setting would have on people or the human condition. If the story is just about the strapping space hero or space scoundrel with a heart of gold (or both) saving the space princess and battle the space warlord (or both), it still works. Obviously you can include one or both of those (see any episode of Star Trek where transporters or replicators altering daily life is explored, or B5 having a battleground between the forces of law and chaos, or whatnot), but you don't need them. Lots of other science fiction (Jurassic Park or Altered Carbon or the like) if you remove the implications of the science in the science fiction, and you don't really have much of a story. Obviously some other science fictions also have this trait (particularly if they are not-space-opera by means of not fitting another category, such as Firefly and scope), but it's something I notice about Space Opera. Probably because it is the gold standard for and only for western standard broadcast watching American tv viewers who came of age in the 90s, which is a sizable portion of the forum population, but not exhaustively so (and there are plenty of similar examples, up to and including those BBC space Operas). If you started in the 30s-50s, it probably was a novel. If you were into science fiction in the 60s, Star Trek changed the game as much as B5 did in the 90s (I say this as someone who became an adult in the 90s, with Star Trek as old hat and B5 as mind-blowing). It's downright hard to exaggerate how much Star Wars changed everything in the 70s. Probably plenty of things since then (maybe not even western live action shows or movies) with which I'm not even familiar, and also non-American examples. Babylon 5 was a game changer in quality. It's even iconic. I don't know, however, if it's definitive. I don't know what it brought to the genre that changed things in the way that, I don't know, Sherlock Holmes did for Mysteries, Roots did for dramatic miniseries, or Indiana Jones did for cliffhangers. It is simply a really good show in the genre (which is not a ding against it, that's more than I can say about half the dreck I fondly remember alongside it which, in all honesty, I can't actually defend as 'good'). .I think this is where I stand on Space Opera in general. It isn't any sci fi that doesn't fit another convention, but it is broad enough that most sci fi that gets made that doesn't have another genre probably fits.</blockquote>

Verification