[Speed Gibson,
Tuesday May 10, 2005 at 1:05am]
Elite Alert!
With Laura Ingraham briefly on the sidelines battling breat cancer, allow me to sound one of her "Elite Alert! Elite Alert! Warning! Warning!" alarms.
In Monday's Minneapolis Star Tribune, author Orson Scott Card berates Gene Roddenberry and the original Star Trek televsion series of the sixties.
He later lists a number of superior Sci-Fi talents, the ones we should have read rather than watch Shatner, Nimoy and the late DeForest Kelly go where no man has gone before. He seems convinced that the world would have been better off without the NCC-1701, that Roddenberry contributed nothing.
We all stand on the shoulders of those who went before us. The iPod didn't just happen. It was built on the technology developed at hundreds of companies. Star Trek made science-fiction legitimate for the first time in literary history.
Those familiar with the long story of how Roddenberry finally got Star Trek on the air know better. Star Trek lifted science fiction from the back row at Shinders to common conversation. Everyone knew who Mr. Spock was. Roddenberry understood what Card apparently does not, that even sci-fi stories have to be about people, not ray blasters.
I remember as a teenager of that day that I turned up my nose at the first season of Star Trek because I found the vast majority of sci-fi stories dull and poorly written. I finally happened to see my first Star Trek episode at the start of season two, and I was hooked. So was my father. It was must-see TV from then on.
Card imagines himself the gatekeeper of what's good and bad in sci-fi. I think we can decide that for ourselves. Gene Roddenberry will be remembered for many years to come. Ask about Orson Scott Card, and the response will be "who?"
In Monday's Minneapolis Star Tribune, author Orson Scott Card berates Gene Roddenberry and the original Star Trek televsion series of the sixties.
The original "Star Trek," created by Gene Roddenberry, was, with a few exceptions, bad in every way that a science-fiction television show could be bad.
He later lists a number of superior Sci-Fi talents, the ones we should have read rather than watch Shatner, Nimoy and the late DeForest Kelly go where no man has gone before. He seems convinced that the world would have been better off without the NCC-1701, that Roddenberry contributed nothing.
We all stand on the shoulders of those who went before us. The iPod didn't just happen. It was built on the technology developed at hundreds of companies. Star Trek made science-fiction legitimate for the first time in literary history.
Those familiar with the long story of how Roddenberry finally got Star Trek on the air know better. Star Trek lifted science fiction from the back row at Shinders to common conversation. Everyone knew who Mr. Spock was. Roddenberry understood what Card apparently does not, that even sci-fi stories have to be about people, not ray blasters.
I remember as a teenager of that day that I turned up my nose at the first season of Star Trek because I found the vast majority of sci-fi stories dull and poorly written. I finally happened to see my first Star Trek episode at the start of season two, and I was hooked. So was my father. It was must-see TV from then on.
Card imagines himself the gatekeeper of what's good and bad in sci-fi. I think we can decide that for ourselves. Gene Roddenberry will be remembered for many years to come. Ask about Orson Scott Card, and the response will be "who?"
As you may know, I have fisked Card's article. Thanks for notifying me of it, but I had already been mulling it over for a couple of days prior.
Word has it that upon reading my fisking, Card said, in a monotone voice, "This....unit....must..........die."
Then he collapsed and started babbling in Klingonie.