Has Hollywood 'discovered' O'Neill Habitats?

From: danj_caslaw [mailto:danj_caslaw@....uk]

> How could a movie/TV series make the best use of,
> and do justice to, an O'Neillian habitat setting?
> What would the movie/program makers need to do to
> portray space colony life as it would be?

The biggest problem as I see it is that O'Neill habitats are about
settling in a new frontier, and Hollywood has gotten far too PC to
present any positive image of frontier settlement. The settlement of
the New World can only be referenced in the context of the harm done to
indigenous people, and never in terms of the many extraordinary positive
things that came out of it.

Stop and think about it. When was the last time you saw a science
fiction movie or TV show which depicted the drama inherent in a small
group attempting to pioneer in space (or on Earth, for that matter)?
For the most part, modern cinematic science fiction only deals in areas
already settled and developed, and the drama comes from political
conflict (space wars).

"Seaquest" at the very start seemed to be placed in a setting where
pioneers were developing the ocean floor, but then very quickly steered
in a different direction. Instead we had a UN-type organization with
total authority over use of all the ocean's resources, and evil
capitalists were kept in check by this presumably-benign body.

"Earth II" by all rights should have been about a small group pioneering
on an undeveloped planetary frontier. But it very quickly came to be
about the diabolical conspiracy of the corporation that for some reason
wanted the human race to fail (and what would that do to quarterly
profits?).

There was an excellent pilot called "Plymouth" about pioneers on a moon
colony, but that never got picked up.

Regards,

Mike Combs