Week 6:           Spice! Space Opera and Politics

 

We are going to spend a couple of weeks on this subject, firstly talking about space opera in terms of politics, and secondly looking at it’s implications through Star Trek.

Space Opera is massively popular in, cinematic and televisial forms, but has few literary links other than spin-off novels and comics. Fans of space opera are also extremely industrious; one result of this is the massive amount of information available on the internet. Critics often rubbish space opera as simplistic, crude, however in doing so, they overlook the effect these series have upon popular culture and thought.

 

The first week looks at the implications of this social phenomenon. Many series present very specific moral and social attitudes; are they right in doing so? Two writers demonstrate this clearly: the first being the overtly socialist world of the Iain M Bank’s Culture, in which people live in an apparently Utopic civilisation. The second is more specific, and comes from the Frank Herbert series Dune.

 

Main Texts:

Dune. (Royal Dinner Scene). You will be getting this as a handout, and it will be available on the website. DO NOT watch the film instead – this scene is not included, and Dune was also rightly slated as one of the worst films ever made. Miscreants in this respect will be forced to memorise all of Sting’s lines from the film –  beware!

 

The Culture Novels: Iain Banks,  (Orbit)

Consider Phlebas, 1987

The Player of Games 1988

Use Of Weapons

Excession

Look To Windward

A Few Brief Notes on the Culture.

 

Against A Dark Background. (Not a Culture Novel, but still investigates the political system.)

 

Secondary Texts:

Stargate SG-1

Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The Final Fantasy Games

V

Babylon 5

Farscape

Dr Who

Blake’s 7

 

Discussion Topics and Essay Questions

 

• What do you consider the key elements to a successful space opera?
• Are there places that space opera cannot “boldly go?”
• Iain Banks writes about a very specific society, yet many of his stories are set outside The Culture, or concern its dissidents. Is this necessary?

 

•  Are Bank’s endings “happy?” What about Gurgeh, Horza or Diziet Sma – are they sympathetic characters to the reader, but villains of the Culture itself?

 

• Look at the dinner scene from Dune. What is the focus and aim of this scene? Is a clear message given out? How does it contextualise the rest of the novel? 

 

• Discuss the role of socialism in Iain Banks’ Culture novels.

 

• Why was Dune so poorly adapted by David Lynch? Do you think that the new serialisation will meet with the same end?

 

• How does Herbert treat the individual in Dune?

 

• Why are space opera books so long?

 

Quotes:

 

(1)  Style and Mood staunchly traditional

(2)  Hitherto unknown places to explore

(3)  Continuity between Past and Future

(4)  Tremendous sphere of space/time

(5)  A pinch of reality inflated with melodrama

(6)  A seasoning of screwy ideas

(7)  Heady escapist stuff

(8)  Charging on with little regard for logic or literacy

(9)  Often throwing off great images, excitements, aspirations

(10) The Earth should be in peril

(11) There must be a quest

(12) There must be a man to match the mighty hour

(13) That man must confront aliens and exotic creatures

(14) Space must flow past the ports like wine from a pitcher

(15) Blood must run down the palace steps

(16) Ships must launch out into the louring dark

(17) There must be a woman fairer than the skies

(18) There must be a villain darker than a Black Hole

(19) All must come right in the end

(20) The future in space, seen mistily through the eyes of yesterday

 

Brian W. Aldiss, in his anthology "Space Opera" [Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1974]

Source: http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/thisthat.html#utopia