Not Wanted on this Trek
First and foremost, my dear wife is 'not' a so-called "Trekkie". If she were, I wouldn't be married to her. In fact, I'd never have dated her in the first place. I'm sorry if I offend any Trekkies out there, but I think that anybody who obsesses to the point of loss-of-touch-with-reality over any piece of fantasy fiction is a looney.
On the other hand, I do piss her off about Star Trek. That's mainly because she likes the series in all its incarnations from the clunky first series to the excruciatingly boring last series. I don't know why, but she does. And, it irritates the bejesus out of her when I point out the glaringly obvious logical flaws, appalling dialogue and hokey special effects. It irritates her because she likes the fantasy of it all. I don't like it because I don't like the fantasy of it all.
Likewise, she is enchanted over the Star Wars series, and I am not. Space vehicles that go "whoosh" in the vacuum of way out there, are space vehicles that are violating all sorts of scientific truths, so how can I get caught up in any of the other pseudo-science being presented to a slathering band of aficionado?
No, if any bit of writing has to do with the impossible, or highly inlikely, then at least such offerings as Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf satisfy my need to not take patent nonsense very seriously. Added to which, both the aforementioned do an admirable job of mocking the genre of crappy sci-fi.
I guess my real crankiness stems from the fact I don't deal well with fantasy. A vehicle has to either be plausible, or else it has to be utterly outrageous in its depiction of a world gone mad, much as was the case with the films of the Marx Brothers, and still is with The Simpsons. In those offerings, there is no attempt to offer plausibility, consequently they often succeeded or succeed in finding a greater truth. That's the mark of genuinely good writing, as opposed to genuinely piss-poor writing.
But, I must confess, that even when the writing is reputedly good, like the Harry Potter series, I still cannot muster much interest in something I see as essentially tales for kids that have been, for some inexplicable reason, embraced by entirely too many adults.
And, for another so-called 'good writing' series, I must offer my uncalled-for thoughts on this Lord of the Rings stuff. For a reason that escapes me -- as a long-time journalist, an English major, and former teacher of high-school English -- I cannot get involved. I can't bring myself to be enchanted because, quite frankly, I think that Tolkein's writing is execrable. It is stultifyingly boring, and any attempts I've made to read this stuff have seen me reach maybe page 27 before I come to the conclusion that life is short, and death is long, so I cannot waste time in this manner. I have also attempted to watch a couple of the films and have packed it in at the video equivalent of page 27.
For me the premise is utterly unappealing. Why do I care about a place that never did exist and never will exist? How can I get involved in something that is as unreal as Superman? Gnomes and fairies and trolls ceased to have much impact on my life after I was seven or eight. I misguidedly assumed the literary maturation process worked in much the same way for others. Obviously I was wrong.
This is not to say I dislike all fantasies. I loved Close Encounters of the Third Kind because it actually asked some serious questions of us as human beings; I was enchanted likewise by the effects and questions of 2001 A Space Odyssey, and finally the Alien series frightened the snot out of me, and also offered Sigourney Weaver in all her sweaty boobsiness.
Not such a bad thing, and that moves me into the realm of an infinitely more satisfying fantasizing, but that would be a whole other topic.
On the other hand, I do piss her off about Star Trek. That's mainly because she likes the series in all its incarnations from the clunky first series to the excruciatingly boring last series. I don't know why, but she does. And, it irritates the bejesus out of her when I point out the glaringly obvious logical flaws, appalling dialogue and hokey special effects. It irritates her because she likes the fantasy of it all. I don't like it because I don't like the fantasy of it all.
Likewise, she is enchanted over the Star Wars series, and I am not. Space vehicles that go "whoosh" in the vacuum of way out there, are space vehicles that are violating all sorts of scientific truths, so how can I get caught up in any of the other pseudo-science being presented to a slathering band of aficionado?
No, if any bit of writing has to do with the impossible, or highly inlikely, then at least such offerings as Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf satisfy my need to not take patent nonsense very seriously. Added to which, both the aforementioned do an admirable job of mocking the genre of crappy sci-fi.
I guess my real crankiness stems from the fact I don't deal well with fantasy. A vehicle has to either be plausible, or else it has to be utterly outrageous in its depiction of a world gone mad, much as was the case with the films of the Marx Brothers, and still is with The Simpsons. In those offerings, there is no attempt to offer plausibility, consequently they often succeeded or succeed in finding a greater truth. That's the mark of genuinely good writing, as opposed to genuinely piss-poor writing.
But, I must confess, that even when the writing is reputedly good, like the Harry Potter series, I still cannot muster much interest in something I see as essentially tales for kids that have been, for some inexplicable reason, embraced by entirely too many adults.
And, for another so-called 'good writing' series, I must offer my uncalled-for thoughts on this Lord of the Rings stuff. For a reason that escapes me -- as a long-time journalist, an English major, and former teacher of high-school English -- I cannot get involved. I can't bring myself to be enchanted because, quite frankly, I think that Tolkein's writing is execrable. It is stultifyingly boring, and any attempts I've made to read this stuff have seen me reach maybe page 27 before I come to the conclusion that life is short, and death is long, so I cannot waste time in this manner. I have also attempted to watch a couple of the films and have packed it in at the video equivalent of page 27.
For me the premise is utterly unappealing. Why do I care about a place that never did exist and never will exist? How can I get involved in something that is as unreal as Superman? Gnomes and fairies and trolls ceased to have much impact on my life after I was seven or eight. I misguidedly assumed the literary maturation process worked in much the same way for others. Obviously I was wrong.
This is not to say I dislike all fantasies. I loved Close Encounters of the Third Kind because it actually asked some serious questions of us as human beings; I was enchanted likewise by the effects and questions of 2001 A Space Odyssey, and finally the Alien series frightened the snot out of me, and also offered Sigourney Weaver in all her sweaty boobsiness.
Not such a bad thing, and that moves me into the realm of an infinitely more satisfying fantasizing, but that would be a whole other topic.
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