Rather…um…interesting article by Lewis Beale arguing that Star Wars “ruined” science fiction:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/02/opinion/beale-star-wars/index.html

As you can tell by this blog’s title, I do indeed accuse Mr. Beale of being a fuddy-duddy regarding this article.  And, unlike him, I was never a big Star Wars fan.

For those who haven’t read my blogs before, I was a very ripe 11 years old when the original Star Wars came out in 1977.  I distinctly recall the hysteria at the time and wound up seeing the film to a very packed house upon the very first week of its release.  The theater was filled with other boys roughly my age (it was an early showing) and they were whooping and hollering at every gee-whiz effect and clapping at every near escape…

…and when it was over, the whole experience left me cold.

So cold, in fact, that I didn’t bother seeing Empire Strikes Back when it came to theaters a couple of years later.  It wasn’t until the film aired on TV that I first saw it…and found it was about on par with the original, IMHO, that is to say: It left me cold.

Please don’t think me some kind of snob.

If you like Star Wars and its sequels, more power to you.  I love science ficiton (which should be obvious given my novels) and certainly loved, loved, loved it with a great fervor back in 1977.  Yet Star Wars didn’t connect with me.  I didn’t hate the film, but just didn’t like it all that much.  Different strokes, I suppose.

Fast forward to Mr. Beale’s article and…come on, Mr. Beale.  You seriously think there haven’t been attempts at more serious science fiction in cinema since Star Wars?  The advent of this film and series certainly has had an impact and, yes, I agree that there are many 1940’s-like cliffhanger serials on steroids released nowadays, but there are also plenty of more cerebral sci-fi works.

Most recently we had Interstellar (still in theaters!), but in recent times and on TV there have been works like Battlestar: Galactica and Lost, both series which ended on a whimper yet delivered some fascinating storylines in their prime.  You mention The Matrix but one can list many recent vintage films that weren’t just about action-action-action, movies like Donnie Darko (forget the “director’s cut”) up to last summer’s fabulous Edge of Tomorrow (a film even Tom Cruise haters will surely like).  Even the absolutely unnecessary (and, in my opinion, failed) Robocop remake eerily probed into the idea of how much humanity a person retains when most of his body is gone.

The point is that culture has a tendency to move along and release a broad range of works which you may like and which you may not.  I suspect there will always be the modern version of those old cliffhanger serials just as there will appear works that try to stretch the genre and offer food for thought.

Just because Star Wars was successful and led to many imitators doesn’t mean the genre is ruined.