The Man Who Ruined Science Fiction (part 4)

Roger Elwood’s reach far exceeded his grasp.  His lofty ambitions outraced his modest talent.

He betrayed his craft, his calling, his faith, indeed himself by not striving to expand and broaden his skills and talents, feeling more comfortable with what felt reassuringly familiar to him.

His entire career reflects a certain naivete that I mentioned before.  I can’t vouch for the authenticity of the story about him becoming disillusioned with professional wrestling, but it sure sounds in character when compared to the rest of his career.

I once stood in his shoes.

As I posted elsewhere, if today I received the first script I ever sold to Filmation Studios as a writing sample, I would not hire myself.

In 1978 I, too, harbored lofty ambitions but a woeful lack of skill.

I learned better.

Thanks to patient mentors (and impatient producers), I learned to improve my craft.  I can point to specific milestones in my career when I realized I’d taken a major step forward in my writing ability.

Am I where I want to be?

No, not yet, of course not.

And I never will.

Where I want to be is one step ahead of where I am right now.

And when I get there, one step ahead of that.

Poor Roger Elwood seems frozen at his high school graduation level.

He never really challenged himself in a way that expanded his abilities.

He never really gave himself the freedom to follow ideas to their logical conclusions instead of the preordained endings he preferred.

He wreaked an enormous amount of havoc in the field of science fiction between 1972 and 1978, havoc that took the better part of a decade to course correct for.

But I would never say he did it maliciously or intentionally.

Clearly, he wanted so much, but he never appeared willing to do the necessary growth to achieve it.

Thank God AI came along after he died.

© Buzz Dixon