I've been catching up on some scifi series
Dark matter 2015
The expanse
Asimovs foundation
There are a few spoilers but they don't reveal much.
Some thoughts and bullet points
The negative: all three shows have shown the same disrespect to their fans and viewers. Some producer canceling them for no good reason and not providing fans with at least a longer finale that provides a conclusion. Frequently happens in scifi. All three are formulaic. After the success of game of thrones. Main characters are killed off with impunity. Their arc makes no sense, every few episodes they are different people. All have cliffhangers in every episode.
People liked the expanse. While I thought it's interesting it was too horrific, turned into a battle of various factions and unions in one season. Themes
Memory
Individuality vs hive mind
Terra and bio forming with horrible results
Colonizing
Exploitation of blue collars
War
Science fiction when done well explores current fears and extrapolated them into the future.
Out of all of them I liked Foundation the most although it veers from asimovs work significantly it does include the law of robotics, the fall of the Roman empire repeated into the far future.
Math used as predictive model for human behavior "psychohistory" which asimov should have called behavioral predictions had it been a major field in the 50s. Today we call it AI.
Asimovs writing was based on 1940s/50s fears and science. The world was recovering from a world War. Psychology was a big field. Replaced by neuroscience since then. Fears of authoritarian governments.
Basically scifi progressed in the 80s and 90s with benevolent aliens, peace in the universe and a hopeful future in startrek, iain banks, Alistair Reynolds.
The author of dark matter went public with his dissatisfaction about what was done with his creative work.
Why movie studios are giving us 50s mentality with a little contemporarization instead of telling more hopeful stories when we have progressed and moved on?
The only one we've seen is The Expanse and yeah, the ending was abrupt having been canceled. Haven't seen the other two, don't have Apple TV, might have to look for Dark Matter on Prime.
ReplyDeleteIt seems the 50s has been mythologized as being a golden age is the only thing I can figure. Those of us who grew up in the 50s, especially us women and people of color know different.
Codex
ReplyDeleteDid you like the expanse? Why why not?
I was disappointed that a species that can build anything that lasts 2 billion years would be so evil. Seen it, bought the tshirt;)
Look for foundation at library. Thought of you: "chroma" is a sand/glass pigment that moves when you look at it. Very neat idea. Art features throughout the series.
Codex @Ellen continued
ReplyDeleteAll three shows do diversity so well that it gets confusing. If there's a sudden action scene and a Japanese emperor planet and stealthy ninja guys, nonasian white and poc samurais and it turned into hang on who is fighting whom now? Which planet against what and whom?
Lots of powerful female roles. I liked Agdashloo (great actress) but someone like that would always have clever retorts and not swear like a truck driver all of a sudden just to play with the old boys.
I'm still wondering why the mentality and the fears of the 50s are so prevalent in all three especially geopolitical. ly
Damn typos that aren't mine.