Reasons for Hollywood to Make More Space Operas
Submitted by lukeprog on Sat, 09/04/2004 - 08:53
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- Hollywood, you should make more space operas. Here's why:
- It's a terribly untapped subgenre.
- There are no mysterious, unpredictable, unexplored, exciting territories left on Earth.
- Plenty of opportunity to use all those special effects you love.
- The financial success of all the Star Wars films.
- The grandest of tales can be told on the epic stage of infinite space.
- There are hundreds of fantastic space opera novels sitting around for you to adapt, so you don't have to worry about coming up with something original (though, I'd love the chance if you'll give it to me).
- Space is naturally gorgeous.
- Of all the films ever made, a suffocating 99.99999% of them are set on boring ol' Earth.
- When set on other planets or in space, you can make up your own rules.
Anyone agree?
Re.1 Of all the sub-genres of science fiction, space opera is probably the *most* adapted to film - well, after the giant monster. Perhaps you don't fully appreciate how many sub-genres of sf there are. You have inspired me to create two lists of sf sub-genres, one for movies, one for literature, with examples.
Re.9 You can't blatantly make up your own *scientific* rules, not if you want to be doing sf rather than fantasy.
Mmmmm, perhaps I'm thinking of something more narrow as a definition of 'space opera.'
Here are the only semi-significant space opera films I can think of:
Star Wars films
2001: A Space Odyssey
Star Trek movies
Starship Troopers
Dune
Titan A.E.
The Black Hole
Some films are combination of sci-fi and fantasy. Also, you can pull 'Star Trek'-type things and make up semi-plausible shit like wormholes allowing trans-galaxial travel in seconds and black holes freezing time on the event horizon or whatever. And, you can always make some technology to do whatever you want.
About 'space opera': it is, of course, pretty much a catch-all term for any sf that takes place off Earth; it contains many sf sub-genres within it. The titles you have listed (with the arguable exception of 2001) are all legitimate space opera, but each contains several other sf themes and so could also be slotted into various other sub-genres.
I take your point about the 'science' and 'technology' in sf. The writers of the Star Trek universe have been particularly clever and prolific at inventing future science and technology. Still, my point is that the scientific basics are to be respected if the term 'science fiction' is to be deserved. Hard sf, as it is called, respects the basics, while sf gets softer the less they are respected, and rapidly merges into 'science fantasy' and then sheer fantasy.