Quote:
Originally Posted by FacebookVirus
A space opera gets its name from 'soap opera.' They are more sophisticated now than in earlier decades. They are separate - in principle at least - from hard science fiction.
The original Star Trek TV series is a simple example of a space opera.
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Western movies used to be referred to jokingly as "horse operas", and I thought that the term "space opera" just extended from that. Early space operas were more or less the same as Western movies, but situated in space rather than on the range. The plots were pretty much the same.
I wouldn't call the original Star Trek series a soap opera though. It may have been dramatic and theatrical in style (a lot of the actors back then came from the theatre), but each episode was usually based on some philosophical question, rather than being one of the old theatre stories dressed up in scifi guise.