Text 9191, 62 rader
Skriven 2006-10-11 12:34:38 av Methuselah Jones
Ärende: Re: *sigh*
==================
From: Methuselah Jones <methuselah@altgeek.org>

Carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of Wendy 
of NJ of rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated make plain:

> On 10 Oct 2006 12:47:09 -0700, "Soundy" <soundy106@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>As a big "classic Trek" fan, the really frustrating thing about the
>>whole "modern" Trek universe, for me, is to see the brief flashes of
>>brilliant storytelling, and realize just how good it COULD have been on
>>a more regular basis... like in "Darmok" (on Space right now).
> 
> I think Darmok was good more because of the acting than the inherent
> story in that particular case. I'm still pretty uncertain how a race
> could develop language like that - unless the babies are born with
> complete cultural/contextual knowledge... and how would they describe
> new situations?

The technical details of the episode don't really work, but they simply 
serve as a basis for telling a story, which is indeed a good one. I see 
the Darmok language more as a representation. In a movie or TV show, how 
do you represent a language where, you can know all the words, and still 
not understand the language? A language where even the most sophisticated 
translation technology fails? Once we get out among the stars, I believe 
we are going to find things far stranger than even the most far-out SF 
writer has ever speculated. I think the idea of a language like that 
postulated in "Darmok" is a fascinating idea, and I think they did a fair 
job of representing the idea.

The recent Trek vs. B5 discussion has had me thinking, and this looks 
like a good place to put down some of the thoughts.

Telling a story is kind of like conducting an experiment. In an 
experiment you have fixed factors and variable factors, and by working 
these against each other, you learn things. In a story, you have fixed 
factors and variable factors as well. You do a little initial exposition 
to establish the fixed factors, which serve as the backdrop, then go into 
the variable factors; working these against each other, you tell a story.

The debate about which universe is "bigger" or "better" is beside the 
point. There's nothing wrong with Trek's utopic universe, and nothing 
wrong with Roddenberry's having fabricated it in toto. It's a stage, a 
setting. Then you tell stories on that stage. The story is really what 
counts. 

Now, a person can have a dislike for the setting itself, and that's fine. 
I don't really care for William Gibson's dystopic settings, but he does 
tell a damn fine story.

It's often been commented here, that you could take the B5 stories and 
tell them in just about any setting, and they would still work. That's 
very true. It's true for any good story, and frankly, even in the 
Trekverse, there have been some damn fine stories.

-- 
Methuselah
"So long as they don't get violent, I want to let everyone say what they 
wish, for I myself have always said exactly what pleased me."
  -- Albert Einstein

--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
 * Origin: *READ ONLY* rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (3:640/1010)