What happens when two Gen-X science-fiction lifers turn on the mic, set themselves loose, and argue about everything?
You get the 14th episode of SFFF.
Host Mookie Spitz welcomes longtime friend and fellow sci-fi heretic Lee Kantz for a sprawling, sharp-tongued, no-sacred-cows conversation that tears through Star Trek, Star Wars, Spielberg, Nolan, AI, wokeness, anti-wokeness, bad writing, great ideas, worse dialogue, and the slow death of subtlety in modern science fiction
A rant sampling:
- “Steven Spielberg has mastered the art of turning existential horror into a feel-good ending. He's the master spectacle merchant, but with a Hallmark greeting card soul."
- "Star Trek: The Next Generation was so stiff and super woke that it made me emotionally limp. Every time Riker launched into a monologue, I wanted to shout, ‘Shut the hell up!'"
- “Gene Roddenberry thought the future would be conflict-free, which is a great way to kill drama. Wasn't until Deep Space Nine fixed Star Trek by reintroducing misery.”
- “Christopher Nolan thinks explaining things louder makes them smarter. If someone in a Nolan movie reaches for a cup of coffee, Hans Zimmer detonates the orchestra.”
- “The Matrix worked because Neo didn’t know what the hell was going on—and neither did we. Then the sequels begged the question: 'Who gives a shit about Zion’s zoning committee?'"
- “Great ideas don’t excuse terrible writing. Looking at you, Philip K. Dick. And Arthur C. Clarke? He had a galaxy-sized brain and amazing imagination, yet his prose was the style of an instruction manual.”
- “Science fiction has always been political. Pretending otherwise just means you weren’t paying attention. We live in a science-fiction world now. Unfortunately, the writing is sloppy.”
If you want polite takes, this is not your show.
If you want two smart people arguing in good faith while lighting sacred genre icons on fire—welcome to the Factory. Warning: contains opinions, heresy, and the radical idea that storytelling still matters.
The Guest
Lee Kantz is Mookie Spitz's high school friend and fellow science fiction raving fan and critical maniac. Together they get to let loose their opinions, including Lee's love of all things Deep Space Nine, and Mookie's visceral hatred of string theory, world building for its own sake, and all the gratuitous pizza delivery in Stephenson's Snow Crash.
Want to be on the show? Have feedback? Send Mookie a text!
Support the show
