A Dimension Not Only of Sight and Sound but of Mind

When he created the Twilight Zone, Rod Serling was motivated by the desire to tell more meaningful stories. In his writing career up to then, his work had been heavily censored.

Serling realized that by setting his stories in fantastical situations, in alternate or futuristic versions of Earth, that he could avoid the political and social repstrictions of the time and tell the meaningful stories he wanted to tell. Gene Roddenberry and the writers who worked with him had the same thought with the original Star Trek. Of course, before them were the science fiction authors who surely had similar insight.

The point is, Science Fiction is particularly well suited to telling stories with meaningful commentary on politics, philosophy and society in general. It can ponder questions that would be not only touchy in some cases, but let's face it, might hold far less interest for many people if they weren't wrapped in an entertaining story.


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a note on that last point - if you listen to my friends and I on the weekly Quackcast, you may have heard some passion from some or all of us about our dislike for anvilicious "teaching" in fiction. That could be a topic for another day, but for now I'll say that it is very possible to teach - and learn - things from fiction. I've learned a lot from it! It's all about HOW it's done.
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We've seen the idea of prejudice explored in sci fi in everything from Star Trek to South Park. Since they're very similar, I'm going to pluck three examples from my personal favorites.

In Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, Captain Kirk shows himself to have at least a momentary hatred for the Klingons. The Klingons need to join with the Federation because they're facing ruin and death.
"Let them die," says Kirk. This is noble, heroic, Kirk. It's just a momentary impulse to say that, maybe, but he's clashed with the Klingons for decades, and a crew of them also killed Kirk's son. It makes sense for even this evolved man in an evolved future to have a little hatred in his heart. Shatner was a bit uncomfortable with the line, but I'm glad it's there. It's not hit in a hard, overdone way, but throughout the story Kirk overcomes that hatred by the end and it's a beautiful thing.

I've never heard the two compared, but when I first saw First Contact, the second movie for the 'Next Generation' crew, I immediately saw that Captain Picard was going through the same thing. They are fighting the Borg, and Picard has a traumatic past with that species as well. He keeps it hidden well, being another evolved kind of fellow, but it comes out through the challenges of the battle that Picard is almost willing to sacrifice his entire crew and ship to fight them, even when a sort of "surrender" will kill the Borg anyway. The ultimate rational man, Picard has an irrational hatred of the Borg. Like Kirk, he of course sees the light and does the right thing in the end.

This element is a sub-sub-plot in both movies, but I think it's what makes them my favorite films for the Original and Next Gen crews.

The Mandalorian has a deep distrust of robots in the first season. It's not until the end of the season that we find out why - robots murdered his parents when he was a child. Through his association with a reprogrammed 'droid, the Mandalorian actually changes his view of robots and has a different mindset as of season two. Like the other two examples, it's fairly subtle, but it's there and it's very effective.


It's not corny, it's not politically incorrect, and it's true to the characters. Kudos to science fiction!


This got so long winded that I'm going to continue my discussion of other Sci Fi themes next time.

For now, take care!

-Banes