[X] My Assistant

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

That's a question posed by Kevin Drum on his blog at The Washington Monthly.

[dvandorn]

A few points:

1) You have to define what you mean by a "science fiction" movie. There have been any number of fantasies released in the past 5 years, many of them of the sf variety (but still solidly fantastical -- I include space opera, such as Star Wars, in this category). In terms of "true" science fiction, I think the last film made that qualifies for that title might be "Space Cowboys."

2) Of what is called by Hollywood "science fiction," more than 50% of the films in the last ten years have been based (loosely or otherwise) on works of Philip K. Dick. Now, Phil Dick was an extraordinary writer, I grant you -- but he did not write "hard" sf. He wrote sociological sf more than anything else, which merely uses scientific "gadgetry" to discuss, highlight and define elements of the human condition that are really independent of their technological trappings.

3) There has been quite a lot of "soft" sf in theaters and on TV in the past several years -- everything from the Sci-Fi Channel's big Speilberg project, "Taken," to Ashton Kutcher in "The Butterfly Effect," to an upcoming TV series based on Turtledove's Harry Dresden books (though they change Dresden's first name). There has even been some hard sf ("A.I.," "Mission to Mars," a few others), but I don't think the hard sf has been any smaller a percentage of sf/fantasy films than it ever was... there just hasn't been all that much hard sf, as a percentage of all sf/fantasy, at any time. It's not just today's films that suffers from this low percentage.

4) I think that, as with anything, the presence or absence of sf in the popular media is in the eye of the beholder. Heck, I find a lot of interesting science fiction in nearly every news broadcast I see these days...

-the other Doug