Androids On Ladders

Science fiction TV and movies need to stop using prophetic plot devices. Lately prophecy and destiny seem to infuse sci-fi. You can trace it back at least to Star Wars, where it worked OK. Luke Skywalker's rise to challenge the Dark Side was "foretold," but it had the Force as a context.

But with something like The Matrix, it would've been enough for Neo to be a hero -- did he have to be "the One," the hero prophesied about by the ancients, too? Smallville, an otherwise good show about Superman as a teen, got so bogged down in Clark's search for ancient clues pointing him toward his destiny that it became unwatchable. Ditto Battlestar Galactica, where by the end it seemed even the characters' lunch menus were foretold in scripture.

The conventional wisdom, I think, is that if an android climbs a ladder, you've got an android on a ladder. But if you mystically foretell of an android one day being on a ladder, when he climbs one, you have a movie.

Only you don't. You still just have an android on a ladder. But an android with no motivation or responsibility, who's only there because he's "supposed" to be there, because this is the path the universe has laid out for him. And the idea that something is exciting or important solely because it happens the way it is "supposed to happen" is a storytelling crutch that needs to die a painful death.

Judging by the trailer the new Transformers movie looks like it's going down the prophecy road haaardcore, coopting Smallville's mystical symbols almost verbatim.

Which made me really glad that Star Trek avoids the destiny angle entirely, even though, as a prequel, it's particularly primed for it. It could oh-so-easily have had a character from the future sneak into the past to leave a trail of clues leading Kirk to the captain's chair. But Star Trek didn't need the crutch. When Kirk finally sits in the chair it's because he's earned it, because he's the best for the job, not because the universe was angling to get him there. He got himself there; and he did it in three years!

You could argue, I guess, that with Star Trek the audience is doing the foretelling. Because true, there's 40 years of pop-culture weight on Kirk's shoulders when he sits down. And the glamor shots of the Enterprise don't make us tingle because they look good, but because that's the Enterprise, baby!

But that isn't acknowledged in the story, and these things have to be judged on story. A story about an alien from Krypton becoming Earth's protector doesn't need to be buttressed by prophecy to be thrilling. A space opera about humans versus machines is exciting enough without any part of their adventure being "foretold."

I hate destiny. Destiny is lazy storytelling. Especially when there are so many good stories to be told about androids climbing ladders.