tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4025264318423694875.post8362665782938886229..comments2024-02-05T10:41:31.777-05:00Comments on I Saw Lightning Fall: AssociationLoren Eatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12488412683340389286noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4025264318423694875.post-36457566975039581672009-12-10T11:01:29.732-05:002009-12-10T11:01:29.732-05:00Good point.
I may be (no, on this subject I *am*)...Good point.<br /><br />I may be (no, on this subject I *am*) a bit of an outlier, though, because I often liked stories that contained long philosophical digressions. I remember being blown away the first time I read <i>Starship Troopers</i>, not because I thought its action was great (it was, but there wasn't enough for my taste), but because it gave me the sort of broad, overreaching ethical pronouncements that I could argue against. Heinlein said stuff that was controversial, which was refreshing when most adventure writers seemed to only offer the same old truisms. <br /><br />My current preference is for art that doesn't back down from didacticism, but separates it from the author. Battlestar Galactica is a wonderful example. Who is more correct: the religiously orthodox cigar-smoking screwup Starbuck? The morally serious athiest Adamo? The former atheist, who comes to believe she is receiving messages from God through her cancer treatments? The self-interested Marxist revolutionary Zarek, who is willing to die for his beliefs but not to be forgotten? <br /><br />Each character--even the most hated or self-centered--gets his or her moment to put fort propositional pronouncements. The result is a film that can preach without being preachy. Whatever the political and religious views of the team (and at some points, the iconography may make them blatantly obvious), they don't allow the reader to be complacently happy with anyone's views. <br /><br />The film challenges your views, but it doesn't offer any clear and all-solving answer of its own. Even moral relativitism, the smug go-to of intellectual types answering hard questions, doesn't get off easy--in the desperate world of BSG, those who aren't willing to make hard decisions with moral conviction often end up in the worst place of anyone.Chestertonian Ramblerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01550643992523840950noreply@blogger.com