--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <noozguru@> wrote: > > > > I think it will be entertaining but we'll see how the arc > > goes over the episodes. It IS very funny to watch conspiracy > > allegations... from both the right and left. :-D > > Indeed. Clearly the political commentators are > off their nut and projecting their own biases > onto a mediocre generic plot. But what fascin- > ates me is the number of supposed film and TV > critics *who have no education* in SciFi history, > and *simply don't know* that it's a mediocre > generic plot. > > That's why I like older film critics who have > actually *seen* film made less than ten years > ago. They have some sense of what is a ripoff > and what is not. The young ones have no clue, > and so try to make everything about today, here > and now, with today's issues, as if everything > they're watching were new and unique.
Funny, every review and commentary that I've read makes a point of mentioning that the current series is a retread, and quite a few note that the basic plot has been around forever. But they all recognize, as apparently Barry does not, that such hoary plots are easily adapted to current circumstances; it doesn't take much to insert contemporary references and make them relevant to today's issues. (The more "mediocre" the plot, the more such engineered relevance is necessary for it to hold the viewer's interest.) > This particular plot goes back to the 1700s and > 1800s, not to mention the halcyon days of TV and > movie SciFi. Basic plots are endlessly recyclable, in fact, *because* they're so universal, even archetypal (or "generic," as Barry puts it), that they're highly adaptable; they can be made to fit any number of different situations simply by tweaking the details. Strange that Barry, as a writer, wouldn't be aware of this. (We see the same trend with classic plays--especially Shakespeare--and operas. New productions are often updated with modern dress and settings, which make it possible for audiences to better appreciate their timelessness.) I'd be curious to know, BTW, what Barry is referring to by "film made less than ten years ago." The original TV series is from 1983-85, 25 years ago. He can't be thinking of the film "V for Vendetta," can he? That has nothing to do with "V," and in any case it was made in 2006. Could it be his own knowledge of SF history that's a little spotty? The interesting thing about the 1980s TV series is that the original two-part miniseries was itself inspired by a 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis, "It Can't Happen Here," which was about a charismatic politician (modeled on Huey Long) who was elected president by promising to end the Depression and who subsequently assumed dictatorial powers (but ultimately came to grief). According to its creator, the original "V" was a "retelling" of the Nazis' rise to power. So even the first version took the old "generic" plot and adapted it as a modern cautionary tale, piggybacking on an earlier novel that had done the same thing with the same plot, but a different tale. <snip> > > Given that most Hollywood writers, due to concerns > > about free speech,are left leaning the series is > > written more that way: anti-fascism or anti- > > authoritarianism. But, you see, Bhairitu, that's what the right wing is claiming about Obama, that he's an authoritarian fascist in disguise. So that distinction just doesn't hold up. > If I were to play the "young, inexperienced critic" > and project things onto "V," I'd say that it's a > riff on *cults* and their dangers more than anything > else. The line that kept coming up in the first > episode was, "They are cultivating the most deadly > weapon possible: devotion." At least one commentator has reported that in the original script, the "most deadly weapon" was not "devotion" but "hope." At one point the production of the series was halted for "retooling," and there was speculation that this was for the purpose of moderating the Obama references. I've no idea whether either is true, but goodness knows there are so many blatant Obama references that changing "hope" to "devotion" wouldn't do much to moderate them. It would be as possible > to see "V" as a parable of the TM movement as any- > thing else. After all, it's a story about a group > that 1) pretends to be what it's not, 2) promises > an end to all of the problems facing humanity, 3) > seeks to instill fanatical devotion in the young > and naive, and 4) attempts to control its own PR > and demonizes (or actually seeks to harm) its > critics. > > Perhaps the TMers who are so quick to call it a > screed against healthcare and Democrats are merely > "sleeper agents" of this cult trying to obscure the > show's "real" target, the TMO. :-) Of course, the TMers in question are Raunchy and me. This entire rant of Barry's was obviously designed solely as an attempt to put us down. Goodness knows it makes absolutely zero sense on its own terms, but Barry never cares about whether he's making sense when he thinks he has a chance to slam his critics (whose posts he claims, hilariously, not to read). There can't be any question that the script has been written to suggest parallels to the Obama administration; there are too many very precise references for them to be coincidental. Whether this amounts to a right-wing "conspiracy," however, is another question entirely. Me, I haven't seen the show yet, but I'll make a wild guess that what the producers are aiming at is simply creating *controversy* for the sake of ratings, rather than propagandizing for the right wing specifically. There's plenty of opportunity in future episodes for the plot to shift in the other direction and leave the right-wingers gasping in outrage. (One can hope, at any rate.)
