Reggie Bautista wrote:
SciFi.com and some other similar sites and mags, often refer to "genre" books, movies, and TV shows. By "genre," they usually mean, science fiction, science fantasy (or "space fantasy," like _Star Wars_ or the recent Joss Whedon show _Firefly_),
I disagree with classifying Firefly as space fantasy. (For the purposes of this post, and since they got rid of it after the first few episodes, I will ignore the part of the opening set-up monologue that suggested all the planets on the show were in the same solar system. ;-) )
The idea of a space Western has appeared in true science fiction before, particularly in Heinlein's TUNNEL IN THE SKY -- and for the same reason, in TUNNEL and Firefly. In both stories, travel to other planets, and dropping off colonists and a little bit of equipment to start off is relatively easy and cheap, but building an infrastructure on-planet is hard. So, the colonists choose to bring relatively low-tech and easily repaired solutions like covered wagons and guns, and they must do without higher technology until their colony is established enough to have something worth trading. Slowly, over a couple of centuries, the low-tech, wild west-like colonies can develop until the people are rich, and the colony is capable of making its own advanced technology, becoming more like the Core planets shown in the series. Why do all the clothes look like they came from the 19th century? Why did the clothes in "Blade Runner" look like 40s film noir? Style, an attempt at a unique look for the show. If you look closely, the culture in Firefly isn't a carbon copy of the US Wild West. For example, there must have been some sort of strong Chinese influence, as evidenced by all the slang words borrowed from the Chinese language (I'm guessing on the country of origin, BTW, but it does sound kinda Chinese.) Also, there were several impressively realistic spacesuit scenes during the too-brief course of the show -- no sound in vacuum but the characters' voices and breathing over the radio. Ships mostly moved in realistic ways. In general, the physics was surprisingly accurate. Anyway, who can resist a show that was co-produced by Ben Edlund, creator of The Tick? :-) ______________________________________________________________________ Steve Sloan ......... Huntsville, Alabama =========> [EMAIL PROTECTED] Brin-L list pages .............................. http://www.brin-l.org Chmeee's 3D Objects .................... http://www.sloan3d.com/chmeee 3D and Drawing Galleries .................. http://www.sloansteady.com Software ................ Science Fiction, Science, and Computer Links Science fiction scans ......................... http://www.sloan3d.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
