After finishing up my review of Galaxy\u2019s Edge \u2013 Galactic Outlaws, it occurred to me that there was more to say about the category of Space Opera.\u00a0 Some might say that I was a little unfair to social justice fiction fans.\u00a0 After all there must be a significant audience of fans with blue hair and cats who really enjoy girl power super heroes and their adventures in space.\u00a0 So, to say that these are automatically bad just because I heartily dislike them might seem arbitrary and unfair.\u00a0 It might seem that way but it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 And that\u2019s because I am the final arbiter of good and bad in science fiction.\u00a0 I earned this coveted status by living long enough to see everything in the world.\u00a0 So, once again, all Star Wars movies after Return of the Jedi (and even some parts of them before that point) are irredeemably bad and should be cast into the outer darkness where there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth.\u00a0 And that lines us up for me to proclaim what does make a good space opera.\u00a0 What follows is:<\/p>\n
\u201cphotog\u2019s RULE FOR WHAT MAKES GOOD SPACE OPERA\u201d (patent pending).<\/p>\n
It needs to appeal to the sense of wonder of the twelve-year-old boy in you.\u00a0 Now mind you, it doesn\u2019t have to only do that.\u00a0 It can also be a brilliant philosophical treatise on the dualistic nature of the universe or a psychological study of the impact of technology on the human race, or even a deathless love story written across the stars of the galaxy.\u00a0 But if it fails to inspire the twelve-year-old boy in you it\u2019s not space opera.\u00a0 It may be science fiction or anything else but it isn\u2019t space opera.\u00a0 And this isn\u2019t even an exclusive precinct of science fiction.\u00a0 Any adventure story has to satisfy that same basic requirement.\u00a0 Take the literature of the late nineteenth century or early twentieth century.\u00a0 A quintessential example that comes to mind is Treasure Island.\u00a0 Here is a story that was tailor made for the sense of wonder of a twelve-year-old boy.\u00a0 It has all the earmarks of the tale of wonder.\u00a0 The boy who loses his father, the quest for riches, exotic locales, colorful and dangerous opponents, the revelation of secret knowledge, the coming of age experience of the world and the people in it.\u00a0 An adventure story is a story for a boy that kindles his interest in the world around him.\u00a0 It leads him to think there is more to life than school and chores.\u00a0 It inspires him to strike out on his own and find his place in the world.<\/p>\n
Now I can just hear the modern women and girly men screeching, \u201cGirls want adventure too!\u201d\u00a0 To which I reply \u201cStop screeching, you\u2019re hurting my ears.\u201d\u00a0 But also, I would say that what girls want is neither here nor there.\u00a0 Boys need the adventure story because it fits their brains.\u00a0 Girls have been told that they want adventure stories so they want them in order not to get left out in the modern #metoo world that they live in.\u00a0 And in fact, I don\u2019t really care if there are adventure stories for girls.\u00a0 More power to them, I guess.\u00a0 What I do mind is that for the sake of inclusiveness they are ruining all the adventure stories that are coming out of Hollywood.\u00a0 And that is why I look for good old (and new) space opera and other adventure stories for my grandsons (and for me).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After finishing up my review of Galaxy\u2019s Edge \u2013 Galactic Outlaws, it occurred to me that there was more to say about the category of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,237,4,242,243,244],"tags":[981,334,980,626,875],"class_list":["post-2658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","category-sff-movie-reviews","category-sff-tv-reviews","tag-photogs-rule-for-what-makes-good-space-opera","tag-robert-louis-stevenson","tag-space-opera","tag-star-wars","tag-treasure-island"],"yoast_head":"\n