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Old 09-05-2014, 11:41 AM   #8
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: [Space] and [UT] for New Space Opera

Quote:
Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Star Trek is, IMO, definitely old space opera.
I think that's too extreme a judgment.

Within the domain of film and television, if you want space opera, probably the classic example is Star Wars. Grand sweeping battles, planet-destroying weapons, heroes and villains and plots that turn on the struggle between them, everything focused on the grand plot. . . .

Star Trek is clearly not at that pole. A lot of its episodes stood on their own. The universe is not one with good versus evil or a single massive struggle. There were storylines that were social science fiction, or at least sf-as-social-allegory in the Soviet mode. There were pure character studies.

It seems to me that what you're trying to do is draw a sharp line, with hard sf on one side and space opera on the other, and with everything put in one category or the other. And since Star Trek clearly isn't hard sf (has any film or television series been hard sf?), it lands in space opera. But a system of categories under which Star Wars and Star Trek and Babylon 5 and Firefly and Guardians of the Galaxy are all in the same category isn't making fine enough distinctions to be much use.

Bill Stoddard
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