Warning: some parts of this article may cause inconvenience to sensitive Star Trek fans…
STAR TREK: Jack Vance’s view
QUESTION : When Roddenberry talks about Star Trek, he talks about using Science fiction as an allegory to talk about war and peace…
VANCE: Ah! This is just a lot of ten-dollar words, meaningless, just a lot of abstract vagueness. It’s a frothy kind of abstraction that has absolutely no meaning at all. It’s just talk. (1976 KPFK interview)
VANCE :Science fiction isn’t any more mainstream literature than jazz is classical music. These things are completely different genres, and the attempt to bridge between them is doomed to failure, is Bathos with a capital « B. » This occurs in these horrible « Star Trek » situations, where somebody decides that they are going to try to interpret science fiction to the masses. They use the themes of science fiction just as Gershwin used certain clichés of jazz to produce his « Rhapsody in Blue, » so do the producers of these television shows use some clichés of science fiction to try to make the idea penetrable to the mass audience. Of course they’re wildly successful. (1976 KPFK interview)
VANCE :Now I’ve often wondered if… I don’t know what his name is, but if he approached me and said, « Vance, come write some Star Trek things… »
INTERVIEWER: His name is Gene Roddenberry.
VANCE: I’ve often wondered what I would say, you know. I’d say, « Well, first of all, how much? » And then I’d say… Well, essentially I’m not going to do it. I could be tempted with more money than he’s got in his budge…, but essentially I’m just not at all interested. And he’s not interested in me as far as that goes. (1976 KPFK interview)
“I particularly don’t like these movies that call them-selves science fiction, with a Star Trek type of space-ship and everybody in uniform—essentially all they are navy ships, floating around in space, very boring and dull. When the time comes—if it ever does come—that we’re traveling in space, the experience will be so different from the everyday. We’ve had just a little taste of it; what’s going to happen eventually will obviously be much richer and more complex.” (1981 Charles Platt)
I got reviews- magnificent reviews- everywhere, and they all go into this aspect of my writing, that it is aimed at intelligent, cultured people, not just teenagers and people that sit with their nose pressed to the laugh track, and/or « Star Trek, » which is the same thing really. (1997 Sci-Fi Channel Interview)
« I don’t write for the common scoundrel.
-I am simply a writer
-I don’t really appreciate being labeled as a science fiction writer, because there’s a lot of stuff in science fiction that’s not worth anything. 95% of SF books are written for teenagers. It’s crude and badly done. I lump together movies like « Star Trek », « Godzilla » and « Jurassic Park ». If that’s science fiction, I’m out of there! » (French interview)
I just wrote what I felt like writing since they seemed to sell. I never made lots of money at it, but I sold enough. I never wrote for the public. Never. If I had, I would have been writing Star Treks. (2002 SF-weekly)
“All right, Vance, everybody thinks you’re a science fiction writer, you might as well accept it.” That’s probably the sensible thing to do. But the vanity is that I just don’t want to be in the same leaking rowboat as Star Trek. (Cosmopolis42- 2003)
Trying to understand Vance’s point of view on Star Trek, I referred to the book based on the scenario of the series, written by Gene Roddenbery (pocket book NY 1979): the preface, fictitiously signed by Admiral Kirk, explains to us with humour that in the future, men having become much more intelligent and more sociable, were forced, following numerous failures, to recruit for space exploration the least evolved humans with a more limited intellectual level (ours) to face the « dangers » of space.
It is clear: here, Roddenberry gives reason to Vance with this Star Trek crew composed of » quasi-cretins » of the 23rd century!
Jack Vance often had strong opinions about Science Fiction in general and even more so about TV and movies, he claimed loud and clear that he never read SF and did not go to see movies, even less TV series. However, to justify his unfavorable opinion of Star Trek he must have seen a few episodes, unless he was satisfied with critical comments from his friends, photos or other journalistic material.
In his youth he said that he read everything he could get his hands on, whether from his mother Edith’s extensive library or from other sources, but above all he read all the pulp magazines of the time (from about 1925 to 1935), which he was very fond of. One can think that these pulps (of average quality in general) contributed for their part to the development of his imagination. Now, these short stories that he devoured every week on his uncle’s ranch correspond, no more and no less, to the episodes of Star Trek (and others) that young people from the 1960s to the 1980s applauded, giving rise to numerous fan clubs whose eccentric behavior and visible disguises at SF conventions disconcerted Vance, he perhaps lacked indulgence or even understanding for a new and popular culture, he certainly thought -although he did not say so-: too much idealism and too many gadgets!
It is all the more astonishing that he had himself contributed as a scriptwriter to the TV series « Captain Video » (1950’s) whose level and realization were far below those of Star Trek (which one cannot reproach him for).
He still « confessed » to having gone to see Star Wars in 1977 despite his phobia of the public (he had been offered the ticket): he generally appreciated the film and even found it amusing, despite some reservations about the lightsaber combat scenes – « silly » according to him.
Vance remained true to himself: He stated many times that he did not write to please the public or for the « vulgar scoundrel » as he put it, but only for « intelligent » readers, he certainly thought that this was not compatible with the Star Trek phenomenon.
[…] ENGLISH VERSION […]