Friday, September 10, 2004
The Coolest Concepts in Sci-Fi Series have the Lamest Origins
I like to read how creative people got their ideas. I like to read how my favorite shows were made. If you are like me, you enjoy this kind of thing. If you are not, DON’T DO IT!
You will discover that those great ideas and concepts that you loved were created for some mundane reason. Even worse, that the author is a moron. Well, maybe not a moron, but he is not as great as you once thought he was.
Take the teletransporters from Stark Trek. The coolest things. They made the other sci-fi series of the time look pathetic. I thought that Roddenberry was a visionary. Later I learned that he thought of it because he was too cheap to make a shuttle ship. The teletransporters saved him money.
In Star Wars, I thought that the smear under the floating desert vehicle of Luke Skywalker was some kind of magnetic field. Kewl! Instead, it was vaseline trying to hide the wheels of the car. Lucas hated this trick and "fixed" it on this later editing of the movies. More on Lucas later.
You will discover that those great ideas and concepts that you loved were created for some mundane reason. Even worse, that the author is a moron. Well, maybe not a moron, but he is not as great as you once thought he was.
Take the teletransporters from Stark Trek. The coolest things. They made the other sci-fi series of the time look pathetic. I thought that Roddenberry was a visionary. Later I learned that he thought of it because he was too cheap to make a shuttle ship. The teletransporters saved him money.
In Star Wars, I thought that the smear under the floating desert vehicle of Luke Skywalker was some kind of magnetic field. Kewl! Instead, it was vaseline trying to hide the wheels of the car. Lucas hated this trick and "fixed" it on this later editing of the movies. More on Lucas later.
