Farah 🖖🏼🧶🏳️🌈Did they ever give Le Guin credit for that one episode of Strange New Worlds? #StarTrek
Darth Hideout 🏳️🌈I haven't seen it & didn't know, but it doesn't look like it:
@darth_hideout Thats such a tech bro behavior
What bugs me about long-running franchises like this:
By contrast, everything in the orbit of Tolkien that wasn't produced by JRRT himself is fan fiction. Fine, but quite distinct.
All the way back to "The Cage," there were dozens of ppl involved in #StarTrek from the outset, a number of whom are still around. But the only real continuity & what makes it Star Trek is corporate ownership of IP. In the end, it devolves into nothing at all but a corp product.
AlsoPaisleyCat 🇨🇦I have to take you on regarding Tolkien. He specifically said quite the opposite. You can have your view but the author himself has a very different one and went to the effort to publish it.
In the preface to one of the editions of the *Lord of the Rings*, one that I bought in the 1970s, there is a lengthy essay by Tolkien. This was an edition printed in Canada so I don’t necessarily expect that it was in the US ones as there were copyright issues with the US in that period.
In this essay, Tolkien as a Roman Catholic, goes on at length about the difference between God’s creation and his own ‘sub creation’ in world building a fictional history. He sets us a theological justification for the creation of fantasy literature for a Catholic Christian.
He goes on to say that the underlying history that he has created can be told differently from different perspectives and by different authors. And that it will be different than what he has written.
He says that the *Lord of the Rings* is just one literary version of the tale, based on a history written long after the fact by Merry and passed down in the Red Book. It is not necessarily accurate to the underlying fictional history.
More, Tolkien goes on to say that he hoped that other artists will interpret the underlying fictional history in visual arts, poetry and drama/theatre. He specifically said that their versions of the story would be different and could be understood as relying on different historical source documents than Merry’s book.
All to say, that Tolkien anticipated that works based on his fictional ‘sub creation’ would alter major facts and events and quite literally gave this his theological and philosophical support.
You can of course have your own view but it doesn’t reflect the express direction of the original creator that’s being maintained through his estate.
Mason Loring Bliss@AlsoPaisleyCat @darth_hideout @farah Do you still have that book? I'd love to read his essay.
I agree with @darth_hideout about subsequent treatments of Middle-earth being fanfic. I'm inclined to agree with his son Christopher's take on the Jackson movies, for instance. They're extractive.
Both Tolkien's works and Star Trek are flawed creations. I love both regardless.
I'm curious about the Le Guin reference. I haven't read enough of her work. What story of hers was used for what episode?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas
The episode, I believe, was "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach."
I keep thinking:
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
"Or the one."
@darth_hideout @AlsoPaisleyCat @farah Ah, yes, I remember that now. Le Guin was also pilfered for The Giver.
@mason @darth_hideout @AlsoPaisleyCat I thought that was Lois Lowry’s book. Actually I adore that whole giver quartet
@farah @darth_hideout @AlsoPaisleyCat Yeah, but The Giver also derives from Le Guin, I'm saying.
I didn't realize there were sequels to The Giver. I want to read them now. I was annoyed by the vagueness of The Giver's ending.
@farah @darth_hideout @AlsoPaisleyCat Oh, hm. Looks like the sequel doesn't follow the same character. Does the series return to him ever? If it doesn't I might hold off on getting them for now.