World-building is a tough thing to do, because you have to make it *seem* real, but it's impossible to capture all the complexities of the real world, because you have to tell the story first, not slow down and explain everything (well, good writers usually don't). That's not to give monocultural aliens a free pass...I think most writers could at least *try* a little harder to produce well-rounded species and characters without having to embody all the geographic and cultural complexities of our real world.
My personal way, if I were ever to write aliens (I'm working on that, actually) would be to try to write them as characters first, and have any philosophical representation come about by unconscious accident. However, that opens another can of worms...how do we make characters seem "not human" while giving them full personalities and facets?
As for the Zentradi, it seems that at one point, namely the tail end of SDFM, the writers were going for the idea that the humans and Zentradi may not be so different after all, in their desire towards war. However, other productions seem to throw the idea by the wayside, coming up with a more cynical interpretation of the Zentradi at times, or presenting both races as equally benign. It might have been more interesting if they kept that parallelism, though it would also cause some issues of its own with the series' themes.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-01-30 05:16 pm (UTC)World-building is a tough thing to do, because you have to make it *seem* real, but it's impossible to capture all the complexities of the real world, because you have to tell the story first, not slow down and explain everything (well, good writers usually don't). That's not to give monocultural aliens a free pass...I think most writers could at least *try* a little harder to produce well-rounded species and characters without having to embody all the geographic and cultural complexities of our real world.
My personal way, if I were ever to write aliens (I'm working on that, actually) would be to try to write them as characters first, and have any philosophical representation come about by unconscious accident. However, that opens another can of worms...how do we make characters seem "not human" while giving them full personalities and facets?
As for the Zentradi, it seems that at one point, namely the tail end of SDFM, the writers were going for the idea that the humans and Zentradi may not be so different after all, in their desire towards war. However, other productions seem to throw the idea by the wayside, coming up with a more cynical interpretation of the Zentradi at times, or presenting both races as equally benign. It might have been more interesting if they kept that parallelism, though it would also cause some issues of its own with the series' themes.