Tim’s wife Pat rejoins us this week to talk about Geek morality. We look at popular geek culture and talk about the moral lessons we find there and how those moral lessons compare to those we find in other texts like – say – the bible! We explore the grey areas that can be found in many of our favorite genre fiction including Star Trek, Star Wars and Dr. Who. Then Pat asks us five questions!
There is a faithful Dune adaptation. The Sci-Fi channel did it back in 2000 as a mini-series called Frank Herbert’s Dune. It’s not bad.
They also combined Dune Messiah and Children of Dune into a single mini-series as well in 2003.
It was faithful, just not very…. good. I know, I know, that’s subjective. I just didn’t care for it, though I was much more source-accurate to the novels.
You talked about a good female led action film from Marvel, which could still happen. They are discussing it, but currently the Scarlett Johansson is pregnant. Also, when Sony had the rights to the marvel characters they almost made a black widow movie. Sadly, it was right around the time that a bunch of female led action movies were total flops, Aeon Flux being the worst, that caused them to rethink making such a ‘risky’choice.
It’s happening! We talk about it in next week’s episode, but Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers, #CarolCorps) is getting her own movie.
I guess I had heard that. As long as marvel keeps up their solid work then it should be good. Hard to top Winter Soldier though, which is the last marvel movie that I’ve seen.
I’m surprised you discussed the morality of Star Wars without mentioning the two most glaring moral failings of the supposed “good guys”: that R2D2 and C3PO, who are intelligent, emotionally complex beings, are slaves. They’re not just bought and sold by the protagonists, they get their minds wiped if their owners find it convenient.
And then there’s the fact that the clone soldiers are, at the start of their participation in combat, about 10 years old force grown to adult size. Child soldiers, in other words.
Both are treated as no big deal in the series. As much as I love Star Wars in many ways, on a moral level it’s probably worse than Grand Theft Auto. At least with GTA, most people notice that the protagonists are bad guys doing really bad things
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Threepio and Artoo are both service droids, and neither one has full sentience (something that was gifted to IG-88 and which he then gave to other droids in his army). While there are droid rights advocates in the galaxy, I don’t know that I consider either of these droids to be slaves. Threepio’s emotional complexity is found in most protocol droids, as they tend to get anxious and hovering if they don’t have enough to do. Artoo is an astromech droid, and while he may have personality, he certainly isn’t fully sentient.
I guess I would ask if you think owning pets is a moral failing, because they seem pretty similar to me. Pets have personality, some sentience, emotional complexity, et al — yet we don’t balk at owning, caring for, and/or selling them.
Clone soldiers are, of course, right out. But I didn’t think we needed to explain that the Empire does horrible immoral shit on the reg. *wink*
Good points all around! Thanks for giving me something to think about.