Where are the decent scifi series?

[Cymric]

@KennyR:

You may wish to ponder the meaning of the  following story and understand why there is no longer any decent SF to be found :-).

[Cymric]

cecilia wrote:
it's one of the reasons why Public Tv, indie movies, and other art driven groups exist. people have been trying to figure out how to get interesting projects done, because the juggernaut that is hollywood doesn't care.

and there's no point in "blaming" the public. people don't actually want to see garbage. it's more about lazyness. the conglomerates make it easy to digest the cr.ap. go to theater, pay money, see film.

if you want quality or different stuff, you have to go looking for it.

I'm not sure I agree with this all the way. I think it is the other way around. My girlfriend and I had a little discussion about theater admission fares after seeing the visually spectacular but storywise extremely weak Van Helsing. She remarked people want to be entertained after a stressful day---and entertainment rules out engaging your brain in difficult stories and Deep Thought About Life's Truths. I think she has a point. Hollywood cares a lot about this and knows the difference like no other. (They make billions of dollars out of it, don't they?)

It's not Hollywood that's the problem, it's the people. They are lazy and uncaring, and if what they as a whole want what a genuine artist can only consider to be crap, then so be it: crap is what they'll get. Think the romantic love novellas you buy at the supermarket checkout versus soul-wrenching poetry. Think the umpteenth FPS versus textual adventures, the latter perhaps in a multi-user setting. Humans are dumb animals with rather basic needs and desires, and there's no changing that (for now).

I agree with you that if you want quality, you need to go out and look for it. But the few times I did that my stomach did somersaults at the complete nonsense I was presented. Think Kubrick movies, or from that famous Japanese director whose name slipped my mind (Koba-something?). Each time I've come to the conclusion they make crap (and bad crap at that) just like everybody else. Only now it's 'artistic' crap, and different crap yardsticks are invoked to disguise the fact that the Masters may have gotten it dead wrong.

So when I was willing to engage higher brain functions, I found the intellectual challenge to be sorely lacking. It has strengthened my opinion that my girlfriend was right. For now there seems to be a nomansland between Hollywood crap and artistic 'quality' people find hard to explore.

[Cymric]

First the author tries to convince us that Homer's entire saga was written to illustrate the follies of war. Perhaps. I would rather say that it was written to illustrate the irrationality of man and utter humanity of the Greek gods: they started the war because of a petty argument over beauty. If you end the story where the original Iliad ends, she might have had a point. If you include Troy's capture, it highlights man's shrewdness. If you then tell what happened to Agamemnon (who was murdered by his wife on suspicion of adultery with a captive war slave) you can think that it is a great tragedy to die like that. If you include Ulysses' epic story, it becomes a tribute to steadfastness and an unyielding resolve never to give up despite very grim odds.

Then she complains that the movie does not convey the same meaning as the story would in ancient times---unfortunately, that is inevitable. Times have changed. We simply do not believe in the Greek gods any longer, for example. We do not know how it felt to have a historical enemy as the Trojans (and later on, the Persians). We are no longer a society in which war plays an important part. In addition, the argument falls flat on its face when she tries to involve The Passion of the Christ: that story would have conveyed a completely different meaning in the first century, namely of freedom from Roman oppression for the Jewish people. So why should the Iliad be rendered true? (She also has some really weird ideas about the Iliad and Odyssee forming the cornerstone of Greek identity, thus Greek democracy, and thus our modern society. I think she is overestimating their influence considerably.)

And then the most perverse, most revolting argument in the entire essay is unleashed: since Troy was the product of Hollywood, its original meaning was perverted as per usual. Thus a golden opportunity to start a national debate on the 'follies of war' was missed, and thus to learn from historical mistakes, and thus to critically evaluate the Bush administration's handling of the entire post-9/11 situation. This includes the Iraq invasion. In fact, this argument was the sole reason she wrote the essay. Would she have included The Passion's original meaning to this debate, I wonder. Yes, you definitely need to be a 'Jungian psychotherapist' in order to come up with such a chain of cause and effect. You really don't need to ride on the crest of a Hollywood movie wave to start national debates.

I am a little curious why you pointed us to that article, though. Everyone knows that movies (especially Hollywood ones) very rarely follow the book or historical facts to the letter. So...?

[Cymric]

cecilia wrote:
THAT IS the reason I posted this link.

You could have a point---but since Hollywood doesn't advertise that its movies are accurate retellings, it is a weak one. Instead, movies are 'based on actual events'. Or 'the story comes to life on a screen near you'. There are a few more. You have to admit that the marketeer who thought those up was a genius at his profession.

If you want accuracy, you should seek out a different form of movie: a documentary :-). (And sometimes not even that, but the cold, hard facts written down in the scientific literature.)