: Re: How much can I talk about other people's works? Let's say I'm writing a novel set in the future, clearly on Earth, with all the history that has happened through today. Obviously in the real

@Heady158

Vote Up Vote Down

I'll ditto jwpat7 on the legal details, but I'd add, Why do you want to do this?

As jwpat7 says in his last paragraph, it seems unlikely that people 500 years from now will model their starships after 21st century fiction. I'm hard pressed to think of a case where a 21st century designer of airplanes looked for descriptions of flying machines in 15th century literature and tried to model them. If you think about it, it would likely be very difficult if you wanted to. Airplanes look the way they do mostly because this design is functional. Trying to make a working airplane that looks like Greek drawing of Icarus would be very difficult and impractical. I rather suspect that, if and when humanity does build starships, however their drives work, etc, will lead to them looking very different from anything on Star Trek or Star Wars, because of course the people who made those programs have absolutely no idea how a real star drive might work and what it might look like.

From a literary point of view, if you're doing this just as a way to avoid having to make up your own descriptions, (a) that's just lazy, and (b) it does nothing for readers who haven't seen the movie you reference and remember these details. You can't assume that every reader will have seen your favorite movies, or will remember which space ship was the Star Destroyer and which was the Night Fury or whatever.

If you're doing this because you love those movies and want to pay them homage, I'd say you're better off to create your own universe and your own characters rather than try to piggyback on someone else's. It's one thing to subtly steal ideas, it's quite another to be blatant about it.

I think a little homage in a fiction story is cool. Like, I saw an sf movie once where at the beginning we see the starship go by and the name painted on the side is "LEINSTER" -- the name of a well-known sf writer. I thought that was cute and clever. But that was it: they didn't dwell on it, they didn't even mention it further. They just tossed it in. Because if you dwell on it, it just makes it look like you're trying to bask in someone else's glory.

All that said, of course I know nothing of your story beyond what you say in your question. Maybe you have a good reason for it and it works in your story.

(0)

Login to post a comment!