My class will be veering away from the apocalyptic landscape and into the realm of space with movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey. We will be exploring space opera, a field that brings to mind interstellar adventures, ray guns, alien creatures and space ships, lots and lots of spaceships.
When people do look up the term "space opera" and are not science fiction enthusiasts, the usual remarks are "Is it something Star Wars related?" or "I'm sorry, I don't speak Klingon."
"Space opera" was first developed by E.E. "Doc" Smith, one of the originators of the modern science fiction tale. The space opera continued to thrive through the "Golden Age of Science Fiction" that was featured from the 1930s to the early 1940s. The more sophisticated type of space opera emerged with Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Frank Herbert came along for the ride with Dune, a novel that although for the most part was set on the desert planet of Arrakis, it carried many space operatic traits such as battles and events taking place on a large scale. TV featured Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, George Lucas had Star Wars for the big
screen, and more media for space opera kept coming with shows like Babylon 5, and role playing games like Travler. The realm of video games is chock full of space opera, with Bioware's Mass Effect, Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft and Bungie's Halo as prime examples. They all feature characters or a group of characters who traverse a planet or a set of planets (or just across the void of space) while battling enemies in form of corrupt empires, parasitic life forms and other antagonistic elements.
Space opera is not deemed "space opera" for nothing because there is usually a large adventure involved with two or more forces clashing with one another. Classic space opera was usually pretty straightforward, taking place in the future with humanity colonizing other worlds outside their galaxy. There are ships that can go faster than the speed of light and alien races that almost always resemble humans and are usually at the same level in terms of technology and even language. The different planets of space opera resemble different countries, with different races resembling different
nationalities. Space opera is less about the future and more about the past and present, with intergalatic wars resembling the real worlds Earth has had during the past two centuries, especially World War II.
Here is a link that outlines the history of space opera, because space opera can only fit so much into one post. There are different genres of science fiction that are encompassed with space opera, such as military science fiction, planetary romance and even space westerns. The Internet is a big universe in itself and sometimes the best way to analyze information is to read through all of it. That in itself is a big adventure!
When people do look up the term "space opera" and are not science fiction enthusiasts, the usual remarks are "Is it something Star Wars related?" or "I'm sorry, I don't speak Klingon."
"Space opera" was first developed by E.E. "Doc" Smith, one of the originators of the modern science fiction tale. The space opera continued to thrive through the "Golden Age of Science Fiction" that was featured from the 1930s to the early 1940s. The more sophisticated type of space opera emerged with Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Frank Herbert came along for the ride with Dune, a novel that although for the most part was set on the desert planet of Arrakis, it carried many space operatic traits such as battles and events taking place on a large scale. TV featured Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, George Lucas had Star Wars for the big
screen, and more media for space opera kept coming with shows like Babylon 5, and role playing games like Travler. The realm of video games is chock full of space opera, with Bioware's Mass Effect, Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft and Bungie's Halo as prime examples. They all feature characters or a group of characters who traverse a planet or a set of planets (or just across the void of space) while battling enemies in form of corrupt empires, parasitic life forms and other antagonistic elements.Space opera is not deemed "space opera" for nothing because there is usually a large adventure involved with two or more forces clashing with one another. Classic space opera was usually pretty straightforward, taking place in the future with humanity colonizing other worlds outside their galaxy. There are ships that can go faster than the speed of light and alien races that almost always resemble humans and are usually at the same level in terms of technology and even language. The different planets of space opera resemble different countries, with different races resembling different
nationalities. Space opera is less about the future and more about the past and present, with intergalatic wars resembling the real worlds Earth has had during the past two centuries, especially World War II.Here is a link that outlines the history of space opera, because space opera can only fit so much into one post. There are different genres of science fiction that are encompassed with space opera, such as military science fiction, planetary romance and even space westerns. The Internet is a big universe in itself and sometimes the best way to analyze information is to read through all of it. That in itself is a big adventure!
- Kristopher
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