Thursday, August 30, 2007

Moral Complexity in Sci-Fi

I just can't bother to comment on anything political...It's all so boring to me. But I do finally have something to say again =) It's always struck me that considering that science fiction is supposed to be morally complex and supposed to point us to our own humanity, it is often times terribly shallow. And no where does this show up more frequently than in the 'bad guys' in science fiction. Having a cardboard cutout baddie might be sufficient for a summer action flick. But when it comes to science fiction, it always struck me that the evil characters should really drive a lot of the moral issues. But this hasn't been the case, by and large. Instead, they are often times virtually just parodies. They are mostly corporate leaders of some massive conglomerate of the future, or alien invaders simply bent on taking over earth, or some other cheap and easy story.

But I've seen some changes recently. One of the first places I saw it was in Farscape. Scorpious was easily my favorite villian ever. He never did anything unless there were several reasons for it. His background story was compelling and his evilness came not from some desire to rule over the universe in some cliche manner but rather, to secure the saftey of his people. His evilness ultimately spawned from a misguided selfishness that allowed him to use anyone and everyone for his own means. For an alien, he was one of the most human bad guys to ever show up on the sci-fi channel.

Then came the remake of BSG. For whatever complaints there can be about this show, the Cylons are so well written that there are episodes in which they are my favorite characters. Especially in light of the season finale and the selection of who are apparently the remaining five, we've seen a "bad guy" that is equal with humanity in the ability to morally reason, to desire, and to act on those human impluses. And of course, there's Baltar who is consistently the best character anywhere on TV to watch. Many people hate him, but I believe that's as much a testament to the point I'm making as anything else. How many evil characters in science fiction have you really truly hated? Far too often, the evil characters in science fiction are just stock characters that are difficult to care about.

Heroes broke ground in this area as well. Fans across the globe fell in love with Sylar, many even rooting for him. His character is possibly the most compelling of the entire cast. I don't think I remember so many people rooting for the bad guy since the Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader finally taught his brat son a lesson. (I know, I just had to fit that shot at Luke in) Sylar's motivation is so dangerous becuase of his faith in what he is doing. Having been given a vision of his purpose in life, he is carrying it out with deadly efficiency. Remind you of anything we've heard about in our world lately?

And this brings me to the character who really got this ball rolling. And it's in about the last place I expected to find any sort of deep moral complexity. Sci-Fi's newest show "Flash Gordon" has managed to create a character who I have felt instantly drawn too. The movie version's Ming was a terrible (And somewhat racist) shallow image of a villan. He was about as serious an evil character as Christoper Walken is in "Balls of Fury." But the Ming in the new version is immediately an incredible character. We find out early on that Mongo was in terrible trouble, billions dying and chaos everywhere. Ming alone is able to bring order back. He single-handedly brings his people back from the brink. He is a hero to his people. However, survival in this world is a harsh affair and Ming will do whatever is necessary to ensure that the society he has helped save continues. This makes him tyrannical. His daughter says in the first episode, "Sometimes being a hero means being a tyrannt." It's an interesting moral statement.

The show has already given several chances for us to see this played out. For example, in one episode, a man is caught smuggling ice (An offense worthy of death in this world.) When Ming finds out that the man was doing so to save his daughter from a terrible fever, he promises the family that the girl will have all the water she needs and he makes sure she is saved. However, he still puts the father to death. When questioned by his daughter as to why he would be so inhuman, he argues that to allow this ice smuggling to unpunished would encourage others to do the same, threatening the balance of the society. "I have taken one life, and saved thousands. You would have me save one life to sacrifice thousands." We might or might not agree with his ultimate logic, but at least he's actually displaying some. The Ming of old would have simply killed the man for the fun of it.

Perhaps it's the morally complex time in which we live, perhaps it's just that sci-fi writers are really focusing on character development over silly plots, or perhaps it's something else altogether. For whatever the reason, I've seen a real maturation of the genre recently and I hope it continues on.

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