Re: Is Science Fiction Jewish? (Was Re: Women in Orthodoxy)

On Jan 7, 7:12 pm, "cindys" <cste...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Herman Rubin" <hru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

news:fluq7n$1re0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In article <478270e0$0$8890$4c368...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
cindys <cste...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Eliyahu" <lro...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:bb035779-cb7b-43a2-86db-1ee00c845c84@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jan 6, 5:50 pm, Susan S <otoeremovet...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In soc.culture.jewish.moderated I read this message from "cindys"
<cste...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

.......................

SF has always seemed to be a very Jewish genre. (My wife has been
urging me to submit my own SF novels for publication...) I was
absolutely delighted when I was able to find the full 5-season set of
Babylon-5 DVDs last year at a price I could afford. And while I
enjoyed some of the Stargate episodes, the military aspects of the
show are so divorced from reality that it exceeded this ex-soldier's
ability to suspend disbelief.
----------
That's why it's fantasy. Who honestly believes that English is the
official
language of the entire universe, but anywhere SG1 goes, by some bizarre
coincidence, everyone speaks English.

You misunderstand here. There are SF stories with different
languages, but even if everyone speaks Portuguese, the dialog
is usually given in English. When a novel is translated from
Russian, the conversations are also translated.

--------
We're talking about a television program here. It's not that deep. The SG-1
team speaks only English, except for the character of Daniel Jackson who
additionally speaks some ancient dialects. In various episodes, there have
been comments made by the characters themselves regarding the fact that the
aliens are speaking English. On the rare occasion where the aliens are being
portrayed as speaking some other language, the words are not translated to
English. Sometimes, where a dialect shares words in common with Latin or
ancient Egyptian, the character of Daniel Jackson is able to translate for
the benefit of the rest of the team, sometimes not.


In either case, it's still a plot device. When everyone speaks
English, it's done so that the story line can flow smoothly without
distraction. When someone speaks an unknown language, that's
generally a part of the plot as well. Realistically, the stories
would drag to a halt if everyone had to learn a language when they
meet new people.

Eliyahu
.

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