Science Fiction Non-Fiction: SciFiNow's Aaron Asadi (Science Fiction)

"Strict and stagnant mythologies shouldn't be at the heart of an industry driven by imagination. We fans are passionate about our fictions with an almost religious zeal - we are guardians of ideas and their history. There is, though, a danger of protecting an idea too much. Without development, without occasionally allowing creators to change and adapt the characters and universes we have been so swept up with, the very things we seek to protect become lifeless, never really evolving or being given the chance to improve. As much as we, as a community, should show our concern about the handling of our heroes, we also have to be sure to encourage their creators to be creative. Sci-fi and fantasy without invention is a cold thing indeed; new ideas, not dogmatic adherence to lore, should be the oxygen to our icons."

 

-Editor Aaron Asadi, SciFiNow #41, p.1, editorial-

This editorial statement from SciFiNow is certainly a reasonable consideration for reflection and should be kept in the back of our minds when we get just a little too possessive of a thing.

I'm just as guilty of slipping from time to time.

This is why we should have embraced the changes of the Stargate franchise with its third, almost otherworldly iteration, Stargate Universe.







This is why Prometheus was much better than expectations would have suggested and why the world surrounding Alien was indeed evolving for Ridley Scott. Prometheus was a film entirely in the spirit of this mind set.

This is why Star Trek: Deep Space Nine broke with established formula and expectations and remains something of a bastard child within the franchise, albeit a handsome and bold and beloved one by many while still scorned and banished by others. I'm watching too much Game Of Thrones. Awesome!




The new Battlestar Galactica too was arguably a series based on the original ideas of Glen A. Larson that took such a philosophy to new boundaries.  The same can be said of handling one's own property like George Lucas' own Star Wars.  These are dynamic things and for creative people it makes sense.

I enjoyed Asadi's editorial and the spirit with which it was written.

I've posted some covers from SciFiNow which spotlight series that have defied conventions and generally surprised, captured a moment or became something much bigger. These are some I've enjoyed and will continue to enjoy.