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Hey SavantB5 / MediaSavant!!!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>...and I've even enjoyed quite a few of the classics of the SF literature that were told from an entirely alien POV, perhaps w/o even a single human in the mix.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And I'll bet the "aliens" in every one of those stories acted in an essentially Human manner, from Human motivations like love, fear or greed, despite an overlay of "sense of wonder" SF strangeness. Just as Star Wars was about Humans, despite being set "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." (Which I'm pretty sure was part of the original ad campaign.)

Similarly, fairy tales set "once upon a time" may feature elves and giants, but no Humans (so-called) and still be essentially "Human" stories. Does anyone honestly believe that Watership Down is about rabbits, or (puke) Jonathan Livingstone Seagull was about a bird? Even the classic Bradbury story, "There Will Come Soft Rains", about an empty, automated house gradually falling apart, is a narrative of the cycle of life, even though not a single "living" being appears in the story.

All stories are about Humans because the only story-tellers and audiences we know of are Humans. We're all we've got, and we have only our own brains and perceptions to work from in creating fiction, and only our own knowledge and experience to use in identifying with characters. It is precisely when writers try to stray too far from this truth that their stories become unreadable (assuming they make it into print or onto the screen at all.)

That's why we saw so little of the Vorlons and the Shadows. If you keep them mostly out of sight, you can plauisbly make them really alien. But if you try to make them the focus of a story you have to make them too Human in order to do it, robbing them of the very mystery that makes them worth writing about in the first place.

Jeanne Cavelos comes close to doing this without quite falling over the edge in her B5 novels - in part because Kosh is expressly presented as a Vorlon more in touch with the younger races, but because of that, an exception. (Which is why we'll never see a novel or TV movie about the early struggles of the Vorlons and the Shadows.)

BTW, the problem with the phrase "the exception that proves the rule" is that it is an old one that uses a word in a sense that it no longer carries. On the face of it, the phrase makes no sense. Obviously an exception to a rule cannot "prove" it in the sense of "demonstrating that it is true."

But "prove" and "proof" have (or had) another meaning - "to test" (vestigially present in words like "fire-proof" - that is, something tested to make sure that it can withstand fire or resist burning.)

An exception tests the rule - that is, calls into question whether or not the rule is valid. The same usage is found in "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." Since pudding (unlike an equation) is not something typically "proven", this clearly means "the test of whether or not the pudding is good is in the eating". "Oven-proof" and "foolproof" are other examples of the same usage, though in my experience you can never test anything so thoroughly that a real fool can't find a way to screw it up anyway.
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Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division

joseph-demartino@att.net
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino:
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." (Which I'm pretty sure was part of the original ad campaign.)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am almost certain that it was during the summer ad compaign when it came out. I just don't remember it from the first trailer that I saw the winter before, when I was still wondering what this was and when it was likely to come out. Of course, we are talking about a one or two minute trailer that I saw once or twice 25 years ago. It could easily have just faded from my memory.
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino:
All stories are about Humans because the only story-tellers and audiences we know of are Humans.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I didn't thank that this was ever in question (please correct me if I am wrong, newscaper). I think the point under discussion was that if you hide the humanity of the piece under that kind of metaphor then you lose some percentage of the audiance. They are either incapable or unwilling to extend their insight / imagination / whatever to what the story is actually about and reject it totally, just from the unfamiliar trappings. The further from the surface that the humanity is hidden the more of them you lose and the bigger the hit the ratings take.

Or at least that is the proposed hypothesis.
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino:
though in my experience you can never test anything so thoroughly that a real fool can't find a way to screw it up anyway.
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<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I remember an old line from somewhere that said:
Make it foolproof and someone will make a better fool.
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Joe, Pillowrock,

"The exception that proves the rule" IS a really dumb sounding expression at first glance, once you think about it. And it is soften misused to cover holes in shoddy logic.

*I* take it as an appropriate usage when describing an example that superficially doesn't appear to support a hypothesis, but on closer inspection does in fact illuminate it, as sort of an alternate application.

I gave the Star Wars example because it lacked the three elements I'd mentioned as helping at-first-glance appeal for new scifi: in the absence of an existing strong franchise/brand and known stars, a simple, relevant (readily recognizable, what have you) concept that translates well to a TV Guide blurb or a 30sec ad spot is needed -- and its absence can hurt.

Star Wars was wildly successful for the long run because of its archetypal story & characters: good vs evil -- triumphing against overwhelming odds, coming of age, youth becomes a hero, even boy gets the girl. Of course this last one turned out to be some strange Freudian fraud <g>, but that's another story. These things gave the movie legs and great word of mouth from initial viewers, but the sheer WOW impact of those inital trailers overcame the lackings in three attributes I suggested. In the absence of great brand & stars you better have at least an instantly understandable concept that can help hook non-SF fanatics.

And in the absence of *that* you damned well better have something else -- in SW's case that jaw-dropping "Wow" factor.

Star Wars was probably helped by the fact that movie trailers can be a few minutes long, where as a TV spot rarely seems to exceed 30seconds.

Pillowrock, you are correct in what I was trying to get at <g>.

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newscaper,
from the SciFi Channel Farscape BB
 
Oops,

"These things gave the movie legs and great word of mouth from initial viewers, but the sheer WOW impact of those inital trailers overcame the lackings in three attributes I suggested."


Should read as
"These things gave the movie legs and great word of mouth from initial viewers, but the sheer WOW impact of those inital trailers overcame the lackings in three attributes I suggested WHEN IT CAME TO SNARING THOSE FIRST VIEWERS AND REACHING CRITICAL MASS.

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newscaper,
from the SciFi Channel Farscape BB
 
If you hit the little icon with the pencil on the top of your post you can edit a post.

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"I was free to wallow in my own crapulence." -Mr. Burns in "Who Shot Mr. Burns Part Two"
 
The thing about that Star Wars trailer back in late '76 or early '77 (in the context of the current discussion) was that there was no way of telling, just from that trailer, that Earth was not involved. Most of the characters that you saw (actual speaking roles) were completely human (for all outward appearances, anyway). There were clearly "big things" going on, and from the trailer they may very well have involved Earth. (I could be wrong, but I don't remember the "galaxy far, far away" bit being in the trailer. I was 15 at the time.)

As a side note: for all of the "Wow" factor that we remember, it is still watched and has remained a part of the common currency of pop culture dispite the fact that the effects look relatively pedestrian to young viewers today. The classic fable of a story line with the millenia old archtypes for characters hold up as being good. That's why I have said that we will know in 10 years whether Matrix was really a good movie, as opposed to just having really good f/x for its time.


As a second aside: I have never really believed in the concept of an exception proving a rule. But maybe that is just because I have take too many symbolic logic classes.
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[This message has been edited by PillowRock (edited February 18, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by PillowRock (edited February 18, 2002).]
 
If the Rangers Vs Evil can be made to represent the USA Vs Terrorists, would B5LR become relevant?

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Andrew Swallow
 

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