duntemann.wbst@XEROX.ARPA (07/20/84)
There isn't a blamed thing in the Star Wars saga to remove it from our own (albeit remote) future save Lucas's idiotic "Long, long ago in a galaxy far away..." Nor is there any reason to put it anywhere but in our own remote future; why people insist on the fairy tale prelude escapes me. Consider The Stainless Steel Rat books, which take place in our universe umpty-ump thousand years from now, so that the word "earth" is a synonym for soil and not the name of any given planet. (Until DeGriz gets to ride a time machine back to Old Earth, or Dirt, or whatever the name of the place was...) There's no way to draw lines between science fiction and non-science fiction without valid arguments that the lines ought to be drawn elsewhere. The internal consistency argument is actually a means of drawing a line between good writing and bad writing; both SW and ST fail that test, but whereas I'd grade Star Wars at about 55%, Star Trek gets a zero for not even bothering to try. What I suspect is bothering people about Star Wars is the intention that it be nothing beyond an adventure story. Well, yeah, that bothers me too--BUT, considering that Star Trek is really nothing more than All My Children: 2300AD, I'd say Star Trek is not science fiction either, but (bad) soap opera with pointed ears. Damned little media work passes my own personal litmus test for science fiction, which involves a high level of internal consistency, "not offending the known", and working from a set of reasonable premises toward a reasonable theme. Neither "Cowboys on Mars" (Star Wars) nor "All My Children: 2300AD" passes the test. On the other hand, not many books pass it either. I think it's a thoroughly stupid thing to throw packets after, bottom line. Let's argue about something else. --Jeff Duntemann duntemann.wbst@xerox
mwm@ea.UUCP (08/06/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-22300:ea:11700021:000:461 ea!mwm Aug 5 18:46:00 1984 Star Wars NOT science fiction? Not good science fiction, yes, but it is most definitely science fiction. Check out "Space Opera", edited by Brian W. Aldiss. SW fits that mold nearly perfectly. It isn't very good space opera, but that's another tale. As for "a long time ago" being an argument for SW to not be science fiction, I'd like to know when science fiction was changed so that it had to happen in the future (or even had to happen to humans!). <mike