Writer's Question-Lensman and Character Continuity
Professor
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When the rumors started about JMS doing a movie on something called
Lensmen, I ran out and bought the book series and read them back-to-
back. Now that I have a few months of the stories behind me, I am
attempting to understand how a writer would put such a vast story and
myriad of characters into a movie. One particular issue is that of
character development. Each Lensman Chronicle has unique characters
within it and each book is separated by at least on generation, often
times many more. If you were to write a movie script that ran the full
timeline of Lensman, how do you keep the audience interested in the
story if the characters keep changing? I was trying to find an film
example from memory, but could not. Star Wars, main characters
throughout, Matrix Trilogy, main characters throughout all three,
Alien(s), there is the Sigourney Weaver character in each of them.
Do American and Western European audiences need to have the same
characters repeat in each movie of a trilogy to enable the connection
with the character and to make it successful? Or has a writer never
tried to do it differently (that I know of) and thus we don?t know if
it will work or not? If the Lensman books can hold an audience with
different characters between chronicles, why can?t a movie, or is that
a false analogy?
David
Jon Schild
It isn't science fiction, but _How the west was won_ covers 3
generations. It did it quite successfully.
I don't think the Lensman series could be done in a single movie. One
movie per book would be difficult enough.
--
The problem is not that the world is full of fools, it's that lightning
isn't being distributed correctly.
-- Mark Twain
Charlie E.
wrote:
I think we might need to put this on hand moderation, as it will be
too easy to get into story ideas, although I am not sure on an
adaptation if it really would be a story idea, as such...
I suspect that Joe will 'compress' the story a bit, with the first two
novels covered very quickly, possibly just in the opening titles. That
lets him get to the meat of the matter - Galactic Patrol, Gray Lensmen
and Second Stage Lensmen, probably for the first two movies. Then, he
can take what's left, add that to Children for the final movie.
Now, Lensman isn't Lord of the Rings, where there are hordes of
maniacal fans that want every word and scene preserved. While Doc
Smith wrote a great story, it is very dated both sociologically and
tecnnologically. I would not be surprised if Joe modifies the story
considerably, maybe adding characters and deleting characters to make
a more modern story. I am really looking forward to what we will get.
Hopefully, he has time to take a look at it by now!
Charlie
Paul Hahn
> Each Lensman Chronicle has unique characters
> within it and each book is separated by at least on generation, often
> times many more. If you were to write a movie script that ran the full
> timeline of Lensman, how do you keep the audience interested in the
> story if the characters keep changing?
The basic core of the Lensmen story is the four-book sequence _Galactic
Patrol_, _Gray Lensman_, _Second Stage Lensmen_, and _Children of the
Lens_. Those all involve Kim Kinnison and Clarissa MacDougall, and so
that shouldn't really be a problem.
_Triplanetary_ was originally an unrelated story, retroactively roped
into the sequence, and _First Lensman_ was a prequel written to bridge
the gap between it and the above four. And _Masters of the Vortex_,
also sometimes marketed by publishers as part of the sequence, is
another unrelated story that just happens to take place in that
universe.
I agree with Jon that fitting even the basic four books into one movie
would be impossible. Four movies, one per book, would make much more
sense. Then if they were successful enough, one could look at the
additional material, as they're doing with _The Hobbit_ now.
--
--pH <many...@wustl.edu> http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
We need a voting system that avoids vote-splitting, reduces the
incentive to compromise, and encourages the growth of third parties!
See http://minguo.info/election_methods/condorcet/
Amy Guskin
<uggvc4hf8hdof3vp9...@4ax.com>):
Thanks, Charlie, I'll worry about this. But if all you're talking about is
stuff that is already in the books, there shouldn't be any problem.
>> I would not be surprised if Joe modifies the story
> considerably, maybe adding characters and deleting characters to make
> a more modern story. <<
This is where I'd like you all to be careful. Careful, as in not speculating
about what isn't there _at all_. Talk all you want about stuff that is
actually in the books, though.
Amy
--
"In my line of work you gotta keep repeating things over and over and over
again for the truth to sink in, to kinda catapult the propaganda." - George
W. Bush, May 24, 2005
Amy Guskin
<Pine.GSO.4.58.08...@eclipse.wustl.edu>):
> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008, Professor wrote:
>> Each Lensman Chronicle has unique characters
>> within it and each book is separated by at least on generation, often
>> times many more. If you were to write a movie script that ran the full
>> timeline of Lensman, how do you keep the audience interested in the
>> story if the characters keep changing?
>
> The basic core of the Lensmen story is the four-book sequence _Galactic
> Patrol_, _Gray Lensman_, _Second Stage Lensmen_, and _Children of the
> Lens_. Those all involve Kim Kinnison and Clarissa MacDougall, and so
> that shouldn't really be a problem.
>
> _Triplanetary_ was originally an unrelated story, retroactively roped
> into the sequence, and _First Lensman_ was a prequel written to bridge
> the gap between it and the above four. <<
So, it really does get better after "Triplanetary"? I've been trying to get
through that one, but it's just...horrible.
Paul Hahn
>>> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:38:20 -0400, thus spake Paul Hahn (in article
><Pine.GSO.4.58.08...@eclipse.wustl.edu>):
>> Patrol_, _Gray Lensman_, _Second Stage Lensmen_, and _Children of the
>> Lens_. Those all involve Kim Kinnison and Clarissa MacDougall, and so
>> that shouldn't really be a problem.
>>
>> _Triplanetary_ was originally an unrelated story, retroactively roped
>> into the sequence, and _First Lensman_ was a prequel written to bridge
>> the gap between it and the above four. <<
>
> So, it really does get better after "Triplanetary"? I've been trying to get
> through that one, but it's just...horrible.
Uh, it depends on what's bothering you. If you can't get past the
purple prose and outdated sexual mores, progressive as they may have
been by the standards of 60-70 years ago, then probably no, it won't get
any better for you. For myself, I find the plotting and the concepts of
the later books (the original version of _Triplanetary_ was written
before any of the proper Lensmen stories) better, but for you the small
signal of that improvement may be lost in the noise of the other stuff.
Joseph DeMartino
> So, it really does get better after "Triplanetary"? I've been trying to get
> through that one, but it's just...horrible.
Yes, although "better" is a relative term. The archaic attitudes
remain, and "Doc" Smith is never going to win any awards for literary
style, but things definitely get better once Smith is telling the
actual story instead of trying to retcon a bunch of previously
unrelated stories into a continuity established for a later series of
novels.
"Lensmen" is Space Opera with a capital "S". It is gloriously over-
the-top, a twelve-year-old boy's version of the Sense of Wonder where
the guys are tough and fearless, the women are gorgeous and fearless,
space battles involve thousands of spaceships, and whole planets get
smashed up for fun! But there are also some really cool ideas buried
under all the crude packaging.
The existential battle between good and evil, a group of telepaths who
operate under very strict guidelines, genetic and other manipulation
of younger races, a breeding program aimed at a creating super beings
(stop me when this starts to sound familiar) are all here, along with
a federation of civilized worlds, a naval force that is both a
military power and an exploration corps, hell 3/4ths of the tropes of
post-war mainstream space SF are here, and nearly everybody who had a
hand in shaping SF on the big and small screen since the 60s has been
influenced by "Lensmen". It creaks and the seams show, and machinery
is a little rusty, but it still WORKS on its own level. It is a hell
of a yarn, both epic and hokey beyond belief, and all at the same
time. I have to admit that a certain amount of my fondness for the
thing is nostalgia (I actually *was* about 12 when I first read the
books), but part of it is just the sheer joy of the ride - a joy Smith
himself was clearly feeling.
As for the "continuity" problem - The Professor is off on a couple of
points. Apart from "Triplanetary" and "First Lensman" there are no
huge gaps between the books. "Galactic Patrol", "Grey Lensman" and
"Second Stage Lensmen" all take place in a fairly short time. In
fact, at least one of the books starts *immediately after* the
conclusion of the other. "Children of the Lens" takes place about 20
years after the events of "Second Stage Lensmen" (ring a bell? <g>)
but includes many of the main characters from the previous books.
One of the interesting things Smith did is *appear* to wrap up the
entire epic at the end of *several* of the books, so many of the
adventures play out as self-contained stories. It is only at the
beginning of the next chapter that we learn that what we thought was
the solution to a problem wasn't really what it seemed. There's no
reason the films couldn't follow the same pattern, much as the
original "Star Wars" did - ending the main story while leaving an
obvious opening for a sequel, but without any cliff-hangers.
The Lensmen books are really more of a pure series than the "Star
Wars" films, still less "The Lord of the Rings". (Which, like the
books, is really one long story broken up into parts for reasons of
marketing and physical necessity, rather than for story reasons.
That's why Peter Jackson's approach to the saga was the only one that
ever made any sense.) As a project, "Lensmen" is closer in spirit to
"Tarzan" or "Sherlock Holmes". The stories build upon one another,
and events in earlier books are referred to in later ones, but each is
presented and intended as a stand-alone adventure.
I would expect the first film to basically cover the events of
"Galactic Patrol", which introduces the main hero and heroine of the
piece, with some background from "First Lensman" (given the
relationship of Clarissa MacDougal to Virgil Sams) and maybe a touch
of "Triplanetary". The second would be "Grey Lensman", etc. And
there would be plenty of room for additional adventures with all or
parts of the cast in the years between "Second Stage" and "Children".
Back in high school my best friend and I wrote an outline for a
"Lensman" TV series. We envisioned doing "Galactic Patrol" as a TV
movie, then the four Kinnison books over five years, devoting about a
season and a quarter to the events of each novel (plus stand-alone
stories), ending each season with a cliff-hanger, than wrapping up
each book and starting on the next early in the following season.
(Don't ask me where we thought we were going to get the money or the
studio deal or any of the rest of the wherewithal. <g>)
And we were agreed that on way in hell was it going *more* than five
years. We were going to tell the story and get out. <g> I probably
still have 20 or 30 pages of our "Galactic Patrol" script in a box
somewhere. (I should point out that this all happened in the mid-70s,
long before "B5" was even a gleam in JMS's eye, which I suppose only
proves that great minds do indeed think alike. <vbg> It certainly
helps explain why each of us reacted so strongly to "B5".)
Regards,
Joe
Wes Struebing
wrote:
>>> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:38:20 -0400, thus spake Paul Hahn (in article
><Pine.GSO.4.58.08...@eclipse.wustl.edu>):
>
>> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008, Professor wrote:
>>> Each Lensman Chronicle has unique characters
>>> within it and each book is separated by at least on generation, often
>>> times many more. If you were to write a movie script that ran the full
>>> timeline of Lensman, how do you keep the audience interested in the
>>> story if the characters keep changing?
>>
>> The basic core of the Lensmen story is the four-book sequence _Galactic
>> Patrol_, _Gray Lensman_, _Second Stage Lensmen_, and _Children of the
>> Lens_. Those all involve Kim Kinnison and Clarissa MacDougall, and so
>> that shouldn't really be a problem.
>>
>> _Triplanetary_ was originally an unrelated story, retroactively roped
>> into the sequence, and _First Lensman_ was a prequel written to bridge
>> the gap between it and the above four. <<
>
>So, it really does get better after "Triplanetary"? I've been trying to get
>through that one, but it's just...horrible.
>
You're obviously reading it too seriously.
Take it as pure dated space opera, and it's great stuff!
(but, in answer to your question, yes, it does.)
--
Wes Struebing
Jan. 20, 2009 - the end of an error
Brian Harvey
> But there are also some really cool ideas buried
>under all the crude packaging.
You know, the first time I saw Delenn talking with Kosh, I immediately
thought, "Oh, he's Mentor of Arisia!" And the relationship between the
Drakh and the Shadows also strongly reminded me of, umm, I no longer
remember the name of the second-in-command planet of bad guys in the
Lensman books. I've always felt certain that the Lensman books were
a (perhaps unconscious?) inspiration for B5. Mainly in respect of the way
human beings, although way behind in psychic evolution compared to the
/really/ powerful races, nevertheless turn out to be crucial to the
saving of the entire galaxy.
Joseph DeMartino
> I've always felt certain that the Lensman books were a (perhaps unconscious?) inspiration for B5. Mainly in respect of the way human beings, although way behind in psychic evolution compared to the /really/ powerful races, nevertheless turn out to be crucial to the saving of the entire galaxy. <
JMS has never made any secret of the fact that "Lensmen" was one of
the things that influenced "B5". He was trying to create an epic, and
he drew on other epics from ancient Babylon and Greece to Tolkein
through "Doc" Smith's ambitious space opera for elements that would
inform his creation. In some ways I think "B5" was JMS's attempt to
look at some of the Big Ideas that lay beneath the space opera surface
of "Lensmen" through the lens of a more sophisticated and adult SF
tradition.
I suspect the "Lensmen" that he and Ron Howard produce is going to
have a similar sensibility. You can't really *do* the Smith books
literally, unless you're going to do something campy like "Flash
Gordon" or the old "Batman" TV series. They're too hokey and old-
fashioned and the science is just laughable. But you can take the
basic *spirit* of the thing - the basic personalities of the lead
characters, the major elements of the plots - and give them a more
sophisticated presentation.
Regards,
Joe
Doug Freyburger
> Amy Guskin <aisl...@fjordstone.com> wrote:
>
> > So, it really does get better after "Triplanetary"? I've been trying to get
> > through that one, but it's just...horrible.
If I were to watch the Star Wars movies in the number order
rather than the release date order I might ask the same thing.
So yes, the series does get much better when it hits the core.
For Star Wars moves 1, 2 and 3 are set up for 4, 5 and 6.
Lots of folks feel that 4 or 5 or 6 are the best but most fans
I've encountered think that all of 4-6 are better than any of 1-3.
In the case of Lensmen Triplanetary is the worst of the
series including The Vortex Blaster and another side-show
novel I once encountered. First Lensman is better but still
set-up. Joseph is one of several posters who has pointed
out that Grey Lensmen, Second Stage Lensmen and
Children of the Lens are the core novels.
> "Lensmen" is Space Opera with a capital "S". It is gloriously over-
> the-top, a twelve-year-old boy's version of the Sense of Wonder where
> the guys are tough and fearless, the women are gorgeous and fearless,
> space battles involve thousands of spaceships, and whole planets get
> smashed up for fun! But there are also some really cool ideas buried
> under all the crude packaging.
Rather like Star Wars in that sense but there's enough cool
stuff under the cover that it hovers slightly closer to Star
Trek than Star Wars. I figure it's rather on the scale of
ST:DS9 with all its wars.
> The existential battle between good and evil,
Even Fascists and Democracies. It is early 20th century
stuff.
> a group of telepaths who
> operate under very strict guidelines, genetic and other manipulation
> of younger races, a breeding program aimed at a creating super beings
> (stop me when this starts to sound familiar)
Oh yeah, ST:DS9 all the way. Chuckle. Except unlike
ST:DS9 it's not the bad Dominion that does it but the
good Arisians. This in addition to the B5 similarity.
I find DS9 a lot closer to space opera and B5 a lot more
literature SF while Lensmen is all the way out to the
edge of space opera in a way that happens to include
the ideas.
> are all here, along with
> a federation of civilized worlds, a naval force that is both a
> military power and an exploration corps, hell 3/4ths of the tropes of
> post-war mainstream space SF are here, and nearly everybody who had a
> hand in shaping SF on the big and small screen since the 60s has been
> influenced by "Lensmen". It creaks and the seams show, and machinery
> is a little rusty, but it still WORKS on its own level. It is a hell
> of a yarn, both epic and hokey beyond belief, and all at the same
> time. I have to admit that a certain amount of my fondness for the
> thing is nostalgia (I actually *was* about 12 when I first read the
> books), but part of it is just the sheer joy of the ride - a joy Smith
> himself was clearly feeling.
Twelve. Yup, that's about right. I've recently reread a bunch of
John Carter of Mars and they are a lot more hokey today than
they were when I was 15. Funny how that worked out.
> One of the interesting things Smith did is *appear* to wrap up the
> entire epic at the end of *several* of the books, so many of the
> adventures play out as self-contained stories.
Triplanetary - The first interstellar incursion is handled. Like
the events of ST Enterprise Broken Bow.
First Lensmen - The first interstellar large scale invasion
is handled. Like the first Romulan war.
Gray Lensmen - Boskone and the Overloads are overthrown,
one level of Evil Galatic Overlords. Like the seasons of
Deep Space 9 that have Kardasian and Klingon wars.
Second Stage - The Eich and Ploor are overthrown, next
level of Evil Galatic Overlords. Like the seasons of Deep
Space 9 that have the Dominion war with lots of Romulan
appearance of joining the Dominion.
Children of the Lens - The Edorians are driven from the
Galaxy and the Arisians leave on their own. Very much
like Babylon 5 except there are clear cut good guys and
bad guys so it's more like the Star Wars Emperor going
down the chute.
And that still leaves the Fenachrone out there! Ooops,
wrong big series.
> It is only at the
> beginning of the next chapter that we learn that what we thought was
> the solution to a problem wasn't really what it seemed. There's no
> reason the films couldn't follow the same pattern, much as the
> original "Star Wars" did - ending the main story while leaving an
> obvious opening for a sequel, but without any cliff-hangers.
Cliff hangers are so standard these days. I love the way each
Lensmen novel wraps up without needing one. The movie
industry might even see this as a brilliant advance in stryline
progression.
> Back in high school my best friend and I wrote an outline for a
> "Lensman" TV series ...
I did that with Perry Rhodan. I haven't seen one of those
novels in decade. No where near as revolutionary for its
time as Lensmen.
It's easy to write a brief description of Babylon 5 that makes it
sould like space opera but it's not. Lensmen is so obviously
space opera.
Paul Hahn
> Joseph is one of several posters who has pointed
> out that Grey Lensmen, Second Stage Lensmen and
> Children of the Lens are the core novels.
Got something against "Galactic Patrol", Doug? You keep leaving it
out--it is, after all, the first book in the series, properly speaking.
Oh, and before John Kennedy has to, I'll do it: GrAy LensmAn.
Brian Harvey
>It's easy to write a brief description of Babylon 5 that makes it
>sould like space opera but it's not. Lensmen is so obviously
>space opera.
Okay, I'm not disagreeing, I'm just confused and seeking enlightenment.
Lensman is space opera and B5 isn't because...
(a) The Vorlons turn out not to be total good guys?
(b) Not all problems are totally resolved?
(c) Hyperspace sounds more scientific than FTL travel?
It's not
(d) Sheridan and Delenn sometimes fight;
(e) Sheridan is sometimes sneaky;
(f) there are interesting secondary characters
because those are true in the Lensman books, too.
(I'm not trying to demote B5 -- I'm maybe trying to promote Lensman.)
Joseph DeMartino
> Joseph DeMartino <jdema...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > a group of telepaths who
> > operate under very strict guidelines, genetic and other manipulation
> > of younger races, a breeding program aimed at a creating super beings
> > (stop me when this starts to sound familiar)
>
> Oh yeah, ST:DS9 all the way.
The funny thing is I had "B5" and the "Dune" series in mind when I
wrote that. Never followed "DS9" very much. But this only
underscores my point about how much space SF stuff "Doc" Smith mined
in creating his epic.
> Cliff hangers are so standard these days. I love the way each
> Lensmen novel wraps up without needing one. The movie
> industry might even see this as a brilliant advance in stryline
> progression.
Cliff-hangers are standard for TV shows, but not nearly so common in
movies. *Sequel-hooks*, plot elements or codas that leave the door
open to future adventures, they're as common as fleas on a dog, but
actual cliff-hangers are pretty rare in feature films. (For one
thing, who wants to wait three years before you get to the next
chapter.) Vader at the end of "Star Wars" (yeah, the original, and
don't give me that "A New Hope" crap <g>) is a sequel hook. So is the
phony can of shaving cream with the frozen dinosaur embryos in
"Jurassic Park". Han in the block of carbonite is a cliff-hanger.
> > Back in high school my best friend and I wrote an outline for a
> > "Lensman" TV series ...
>
> I did that with Perry Rhodan. I haven't seen one of those
> novels in decade. No where near as revolutionary for its
> time as Lensmen.
Oh, lord. I remember those, too. I probably had the first 20 or so.
Totally unreadable last time I flipped one open. I think I gave them
all to some very young SF fan. I can still read the "Lensmen" books
(when I'm in the right frame of mind), as well as Burroughs early
Tarzan novels and John Carter books, but poor old Perry hasn't worn
nearly as well. <g>
Regards,
Joe
Doug Freyburger
> Doug Freyburger <dfrey...@yahoo.com> writes:
Thanks to Paul Hahn for the corrections. What I have against
Galatic Patrol is my own writing sloppiness.
Star Wars is space opera because if you cut the battle scenes
what's left? Star Trek is maybe space opera because if you
cut the battles there's still a lot left. Babylon 5 is not space
opera because if you drop the battle scenes the fans will notice
but will it really hurt the story line all that much?
If Babylon 5 were morphed so the Shadow War was a Cold
War, how much would the story change? In Babylon 5 the
people of Earth were kept in the dark about the war so they
didn't know.
In those terms what happens to the Lensmen story if it gets
turned into a cold war? The story has most of its features
vanish. Lensmen was written with the idea of war based in the
world wars. Fleets, battles, governments taking over territory,
governments using commandos but calling them pirates. How
it could be changed to have fewer battles I don't know and
would not speculate on this group as that crosses the line to
story ideas.
Boskone, the Eich, the Ploor weren't sideline wars to keep
the main battle lines away from the center. They weren't
Viet Nam and Afghanistan.
Given how much Hollywood likes explosions, the Lensmen
story line of destroying the Ploor by smashing a world into
their homeworld is something that will be liked. Given how
clueless Hollywood is to slipping meaning into a story in
the style of Star Trek morality plays mixed with phaser
fire, the stories of duty and courage and love and good
flowing from the top and expecting the best from the
leaders and having aliens without two arms and two legs
being heros and so on can all fit into the movies in between
the fleet battles. Compared to B 5 where the fleet battles
were slipped into the series in between the plot elements.
Joseph DeMartino
> Okay, I'm not disagreeing, I'm just confused and seeking enlightenment.
> Lensman is space opera and B5 isn't because...
It is a little hard to spell out. When it comes to Space Opera I'm
like that Supreme Court Justice with porn. I know it when I see it.
(Or read it. <g>)
A useful analogy is Horse Opera. Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers were
Horse Operas. They had simple stories, stereotypical characters who
were barely sketched in and basically repeated the same story week
after week. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "The Wild Bunch"
and "The Unforgiven" *aren't* Horse Operas. All Horse Operas are
Westerns, not all Westerns are Horse Operas.
"Lost in Space"? Space Opera. STAR TREK? SF.
Regards,
Joe
Amy Guskin
<Pine.GSO.4.58.08...@eclipse.wustl.edu>):
> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008, Doug Freyburger wrote:
>> Joseph is one of several posters who has pointed
>> out that Grey Lensmen, Second Stage Lensmen and
>> Children of the Lens are the core novels.
>
> Got something against "Galactic Patrol", Doug? You keep leaving it
> out--it is, after all, the first book in the series, properly speaking.
>
> Oh, and before John Kennedy has to, I'll do it: GrAy LensmAn. <<
Yes. You go, dude.
I'm starting to take bad reactions to nitpicking (which I get, some places --
not here) as a metaphor for the bigger picture. People don't want to know
the right way to do/express something. They'd rather do it wrong rather than
be corrected, because to correct someone makes you an elitist. And as we
keep hearing, people don't like elitists. People want to keep their spelling
'folksy' rather than correct.
Or am I reading too much into this?
I'm just so tired of people being willing to accept bad spelling/mediocrity.
Shouldn't we _want_ to be the best and the brightest we can be? And
therefore, shouldn't we want the people leading us to be the best and the
brightest?
Amy (dispirited by the political season)
Carl
"Amy Guskin" <ais...@fjordstone.com> wrote in message
news:0001HW.C4F71A43...@news.verizon.net...
>... And therefore, shouldn't we want the people leading us to be the best
>and the
> brightest?
>
The best and brightest are too smart to want to be in politics these days.
Carl
John W. Kennedy
> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008, Doug Freyburger wrote:
> > Joseph is one of several posters who has pointed
> > out that Grey Lensmen, Second Stage Lensmen and
> > Children of the Lens are the core novels.
>
> Got something against "Galactic Patrol", Doug? You keep leaving it
> out--it is, after all, the first book in the series, properly speaking.
>
> Oh, and before John Kennedy has to, I'll do it: GrAy LensmAn.
I knew Gharlane of Eddore. Gharlane of Eddore was a friend of mine.
And I, sir, am no Gharlane of Eddore.
--
John W. Kennedy
In Bucks County, PA, this weekend? Come see the Village Renaissance
Faire, at the Middletown Grange in Wrightstown.
http://www.villagefaire.org
John W. Kennedy
> I'm just so tired of people being willing to accept bad spelling/mediocrity.
> Shouldn't we _want_ to be the best and the brightest we can be? And
> therefore, shouldn't we want the people leading us to be the best and the
> brightest?
Y'mean them thair aigheads who want to waste gummint money on junk
like planetariums?
--
John W. Kennedy
Doug Freyburger
> Doug Freyburger wrote:
>
> > Joseph is one of several posters who has pointed
> > out that Grey Lensmen, Second Stage Lensmen and
> > Children of the Lens are the core novels.
>
> Got something against "Galactic Patrol", Doug? You keep leaving it
> out--it is, after all, the first book in the series, properly speaking.
Pondering this after the fact I start to wonder if Galactic
Patrol, Gray Lensman and Second Stage Lensmen
could be viewed as the core novels. Children of the
Lens is Lensmen:TNG - Great stuff for a follow on movie
or series in the franchise. This thing about relative value
within the series can be viewed so many ways when
thinking of it in terms of a movie franchise with spin off
TV series and so on. I tend to see Triplanetary as a
prequel made-for-TV-movie in the style of "In the
Beginning". I want the toy version of "Maulers Afloat"
complete with a working battery powered penlight laser ...
Giovanni Wassen
> When the rumors started about JMS doing a movie on something called
> Lensmen, I ran out and bought the book series and read them back-to-
> back.
Lucky you, I can't find the books here. Will have to look out for some
second hand copies.
--
Gio, reading Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton atm
http://blog.watkijkikoptv.info
http://myanimelist.net/profile/extatix
Charlie E.
Hi Doug,
Well, the big reason Lensmen is space opera, and not B5, is because
Lensmen INVENTED space opera. It is big, Big BIG in scope, has only
secondary character development, and the good guys are good, and the
bad guys are BAD!
Joe had 60 years of improvement in the art of SF writing on Doc Smith
to work with, to make real characters, real good and bad guys (Is
Bester a good guy, or a bad guy!) but in reality, B5 IS Space Opera
in all its glory. Just done right...
Charlie
James A. Robbins
> spelling/mediocrity.
> Shouldn't we _want_ to be the best and the brightest we can be? And
> therefore, shouldn't we want the people leading us to be the best and the
> brightest?
<see sig>
--
James A. Robbins
Bad Spelling
makes me [sic].
Professor
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Reaching for the Oxford English Dictionary, here is the "official"
definition of a Space Opera and it etymology.
space opera n. [after SOAP OPERA n.] orig. U.S. a science fiction
story or drama set in space; space fiction esp. of an unsophisticated
or clichéd type.
1941 ?B. TUCKER? in Le Zombie Jan. 9 In these hectic days of phrase-
coining, we offer one. Westerns are called ?horse operas?, the morning
housewife tear-jerkers are called ?soap operas?. For the hacky,
grinding, stinking, outworn space-ship yarn, or world-saving for that
matter, we offer ?*space opera?. 1949 Sat. Rev. Lit. (U.S.) 24 Dec.
7/3 No less than eight of this year's crop of science-fiction novels
are what is known in the trade as ?space operas?books built round the
theme of interplanetary travel. 1960 K. AMIS New Maps of Hell ii. 44
In space-opera, Mars takes the place of Arizona with a few physical
alterations, the hero totes a blaster instead of a six-gun. 2007
Independent (Nexis) 27 Oct. 48 The..laser-targeted space opera packs
more drive and charm than its CGI-stunted prequels.
David
Amy Guskin
<gau0s0$7v9$1...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>):
:-)
Amy
Bruce Probst
> > Oh, and before John Kennedy has to, I'll do it: GrAy LensmAn. <<
>
> I'm just so tired of people being willing to accept bad spelling/mediocrity.
I'm all for that, but in the interests of the advancement of
nitpicking, spelling the name of the book "Grey Lensmen" is only an
error in the sense that it gets the name of the book wrong. As the
OED will tell you in great detail, "Grey" is a perfectly valid
alternate spelling of "gray" in English and has been for at least the
last 500 years.
And B5 is certainly Space Opera. Very well-done SO, to be sure; it's
only a problem if you think SO is a bad thing. Generally the factors
that make SO what it is are: set in space (easy); be big in scope
(many worlds, many alien races, etc., all in some form of grand
conflict); generally, broad characterisations (it's B5's regards for
the subtleties that make it GOOD SO); and not so much science (science
is decidedly not one of B5's strengths).
Almost all TV SF shows set in space since original Star Trek (and
largely because of ST) has been SO. It's what the public (not just
the fans) have become familiar with. And like anything else you can
do it well or you can do it badly.
JMS has proven his ability to write good SO, which makes him a good
choice for "Lensmen" IMO.
Bruce
Melbourne, Australia
jms...@aol.com
> [ The following text is in the "windows-1252" character set. ]
> [ Your display is set for the "ISO-8859-1" character set. ]
> [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
>
> Lensmen, I ran out and bought the book series and read them back-to-
> attempting to understand how a writer would put such a vast story and
> myriad of characters into a movie. One particular issue is that of
> within it and each book is separated by at least on generation, often
> times many more. If you were to write a movie script that ran the full
> timeline of Lensman, how do you keep the audience interested in the
> example from memory, but could not. Star Wars, main characters
> throughout, Matrix Trilogy, main characters throughout all three,
> Alien(s), there is the Sigourney Weaver character in each of them.
>
> Do American and Western European audiences need to have the same
> characters repeat in each movie of a trilogy to enable the connection
> with the character and to make it successful? Or has a writer never
> tried to do it differently (that I know of) and thus we don?t know if
> it will work or not? If the Lensman books can hold an audience with
> different characters between chronicles, why can?t a movie, or is that
> a false analogy?
> David
In brief, and withoiut getting into details that are still in the
process of being worked out, I've chosen to focus on the story of
Kimball Kinnison, using his story as the fulcrum by which I can get
into the whole history of the Lens and outward from there.
jms
Amy Guskin
<41779397-0b91-4c24...@b2g2000prf.googlegroups.com>):
> On Sep 18, 10:34 am, Amy Guskin <aisl...@fjordstone.com> wrote:
>
>>> Oh, and before John Kennedy has to, I'll do it: GrAy LensmAn. <<
>>
>> I'm just so tired of people being willing to accept bad
>> spelling/mediocrity.
>
> I'm all for that, but in the interests of the advancement of
> nitpicking, spelling the name of the book "Grey Lensmen" is only an
> error in the sense that it gets the name of the book wrong. As the
> OED will tell you in great detail, "Grey" is a perfectly valid
> alternate spelling of "gray" in English and has been for at least the
> last 500 years. <<
Oh, I have no problem with "grey" for "gray" -- I tend to use the "e" version
myself. I was just making a sweeping comment.
Amy
Bill
> I'm starting to take bad reactions to nitpicking (which I get, some places --
> not here) as a metaphor for the bigger picture. �People don't want to know
> the right way to do/express something. �They'd rather do it wrong rather than
> be corrected, because to correct someone makes you an elitist. �And as we
> keep hearing, people don't like elitists. �People want to keep their spelling
> 'folksy' rather than correct.
>
> Or am I reading too much into this?
>
> I'm just so tired of people being willing to accept bad spelling/mediocrity. �
> Shouldn't we _want_ to be the best and the brightest we can be? �And
> therefore, shouldn't we want the people leading us to be the best and the
> brightest?
>
It's not you, Amy. I was literally sent home early from work because I
corrected a production worker who was about to damage one of the
machines I work on. I have also been repeatedly reprimanded for
correcting other production workers on how they feed the machines.
Unfortunately, mediocrity has become accepted and excellence has
somehow become unacceptable. All I can do is repeat from a plaque that
my grandfather used to have over his bench: Illegitimi non carborundum
(Don't let the bastards grind you down).
Bill
Christophe Bachmann
> I'm just so tired of people being willing to accept bad spelling/mediocrity.
> Shouldn't we _want_ to be the best and the brightest we can be? And
> therefore, shouldn't we want the people leading us to be the best and the
> brightest?
>
> Amy (dispirited by the political season)
I don't know about general mediocrity, but the spelling problem has
quite a few explanations, English is quite a difficult language to spell
correctly for various reasons :
- what IS the correct English spelling ?
- the complete irregularity of spelling
- the pronunciation drift
etc...
Not having a central prescriptive linguistic authority has, inevitably,
led to drifts in spelling, and more so in pronunciation across the
(ex-) British dominion, and thus there are quite a few "legal" spellings.
Thus when one corrects "mistakes", (color or colour) one tends to show
the superiority of one's dialect over the others and they resent it.
And thus even when one corrects obvious and unacceptable mistakes, some
people, who quite naturally dislike being wrong, reuse the same argument
they read being legitimately used to justify variant spellings.
And then there is the language living and evolving beneath our eyes. Is
the replacement of GHT by TE (for instance nite, rite) a mistake or a
legitimate variant spelling ?
Add to that the fact that English is full of loanwords who kept both
their spelling and their pronunciation and thus the average writer must
memorise the spelling of each word without help of phonetics which makes
English rather more error prone than other languages who are more
homogeneous.
And add to that the fact that pronunciation has drifted further and that
someone who spells phonetically a word as he hears it can spell complete
gibberish to someone not speaking the word the same way which makes
errors more conspicuous.
And last but not least, English has a lot of short words who are quasi
homophones, but have very different meanings or grammatical functions
and do not help people to write correctly (the 's or the dichotomy
of/have)...
That does not excuse anything but it goes far to explaining that some
people can be completely discouraged and write phonetically without
regard for grammar and etymology, and not try to wage the losing battle
against good spelling.
--
Greetings, Salutations,
Guiraud Belissen, Château du Ciel, Drachenwald,
Chris CII, Rennes, France
Jere Lull
> In brief, and withoiut getting into details that are still in the
> process of being worked out, I've chosen to focus on the story of
> Kimball Kinnison, using his story as the fulcrum by which I can get
> into the whole history of the Lens and outward from there.
Been years since I read the Lensman and I *only* see your posts with
the filters I've set here, so I doubt I'll hear any response, but I
believe you got the fulcrum exactly right.
PLEASE post what you can on the project as you can, as that sounds more
significant to me than "Changeling", as much as I've been anticipating
enjoying the results of that project.
IMO, the Skylark and Lensman series redefined SF fundamentally. I don't
believe B5 could have existed without their influence.
For those who don't know those series, read anything you can find
penned by E.E. "Doc" Smith.
"Galaxy Primes", late in his life, is the only book I will no longer
lend out, as NONE of the half-dozen copies I've lent out over the years
was returned. "Mind-blowing" hardly begins to describe it.
--
Jere Lull
Xan-à-Deux -- Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/
Jan
jms...@aol.com says...
>
>
>In brief, and withoiut getting into details that are still in the
>process of being worked out, I've chosen to focus on the story of
>Kimball Kinnison, using his story as the fulcrum by which I can get
>into the whole history of the Lens and outward from there.
>
>jms
>
This is good news for me. I'd tried before to start reading from the first book
but never got very far. Now I've started reading "Galactic Patrol" and it's
much more to my taste.
Jan
--
I try never to get involved in my own life. Too much trouble.
Kathryn Huxtable
> On Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:43:45 +0000 (UTC), b...@cs.berkeley.edu (Brian
> Harvey) wrote:
> Well, the big reason Lensmen is space opera, and not B5, is because
> Lensmen INVENTED space opera. It is big, Big BIG in scope, has only
> secondary character development, and the good guys are good, and the
> bad guys are BAD!
Actually, I'd say that Edmond Hamilton invented space opera and "Doc"
Smith refined it. But he refined it in the Skylark series, which to
some degree I like better than Lensman.
-K, who admits that if she tried to read "Doc" Smith's stuff for the
first time now instead of as an impressionable teen she'd never like
it. Instead I own a Gregg Press copy of "The Skylark of Space" and
all the lensman books.
Kathryn Huxtable
I cannot read my old Perry Rhodan's anymore and I had the first 150 or
so. Again, things we read as teens (or pre-teens) don't always hold up
well.
I sold them to a collector. Every now and then I get a yen to read
them again and I just lie down until it goes away. It helps to
remember some of the stupider or more fascist parts.
-K
B.H. Ackler
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated was written:
>On Sep 16, 5:11 am, Professor <David.Butler.N...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> When the rumors started about JMS doing a movie on something called
>> Lensmen, I ran out and bought the book series and read them back-to-
>> back. Now that I have a few months of the stories behind me, I am
>> attempting to understand how a writer would put such a vast story and
>> myriad of characters into a movie. One particular issue is that of
>> character development. Each Lensman Chronicle has unique characters
>> within it and each book is separated by at least on generation, often
>> times many more. If you were to write a movie script that ran the full
>> timeline of Lensman, how do you keep the audience interested in the
>> story if the characters keep changing?
{snip for brevity}
>> David
>
>In brief, and withoiut getting into details that are still in the
>process of being worked out, I've chosen to focus on the story of
>Kimball Kinnison, using his story as the fulcrum by which I can get
>into the whole history of the Lens and outward from there.
>
>jms
Al thought the scope of the entire Lensmen Series is
multi-generational and multi-galactic in scope, it really is about a
small group of beings/people/lensmen, and the proverbial "cast of
thousands"........ making the focus of the story really very narrow
within an immense field.
Back in 2001, when JMS mentioned the TWCBN scripts and said in reply
to James Bell that he couldn't tell us. The Lensmen Series popped up
here as a possibility.........reread the series again shortly after
that and figured JMS would have a field day.......... seems we were
right.........seven years later.....
Bryan H. Ackler
Portland, Oregon