Linkage via kc_anathema

[kalquessa]

The Eight Most Common Sci-Fi Visions of the Future (And Why They'll Never Happen)

Just about as awesome as it sounds, and twice as hilarious:
When and if man ever breaches the womb of our solar system and is born in earnest as an interstellar being, only one thing will be certain: It will be exactly like sailing. That, or the old West. Ever since

Comments

[jd3000]

I love how in Independence Day Will Smith's character pointed out the logical flaw in the aliens' behavior right off. "I don't think they've come ninety million light-years to start a ruckus, get all rowdy." Yeah, sustaining a locust-like society over interstellar distances will work. I can believe in a peaceful race arriving here more than merciless ones, as the article posits. If not for our own socio-political-religious strife in the past we'd probably be further along than we are.

I'm sort of on the opposite side of the fence re: the ID4 aliens' armor chink. It seems really stupid but not all that obvious. The smartest people on Earth would probably never even attempt to assume that alien computer systems can so easily interface with ours, much less be susceptible to a dang virus. "Oh lord, the aliens have really lazy writers!" :-)

-JD

[shannonsequitur]

I'm surprised that they only list Futurama under #1, seeing as it includes pretty much all of those things in some way or another. Ah, the beauty of parody.

[kalquessa]

Ah, Futurama, we hardly knew thee. Such a great show. Pity the humor was so niche that it really didn't fly.

[ctrl_a]

Yeah, what is it with space westerns? I mean, I enjoyed more than one (Firefly, Cowboy Bebop), but I still think they're so weird. I wonder if it has anything to do with being from the west coast?

Like I've babbled about in the past, I think Dan Simmons, for all that he writes space opera, had a pretty convincing vision of the future in the Hyperion Cantos. Well, maybe not so much the AIs trying to take over the world, but at least he skips the robot part.

[feliciakw]

And where would you put Buck Rogers (the Gil Gerard version)?

Post-apocalyptic? Check.

Computers running the city? Check.

Nifty-neato gadgetry and squeaky-clean cities? Check. (The post-apocalyptic mutants are outside the city.)

Interstellar travel to other civilizations? Check.

Oooh, then there's Logan's Run, which I haven't seen in ages, but I've way outlived my lifespan in that particular 'verse.

Oh, so much sci-fi; so little time. (And yet some sci-fi scenarios can remedy that, too . . . )

[prester_scott]

I'll tell you where Equilibrium is: in the LAME-O category.

And deservedly so, because it was so implausible, and so transparently anti-Christian in general and anti-Catholic in particular, and so clearly just an excuse for Christian Bale to do "gun fu" and look like Neo.

[kalquessa]

I haven't seen it in a while, but I can't remember any anti-Christian dogma. Of course I could have just forgotten or missed it altogether.

And hey, implausible is par for the course when you're a genre nerd. Also, no excuse is needed for Christian Bale to perform gun-fu, as far as I am concerned. I am a hopeless sucker for both.

[dirigibletrance]

You know what? Equilibrium could have been about him using Gun-Kata to slaughter fields full of fluffy bunnies and kittens, and I wouldn't have cared. I'd still have watched it, riveted. That's how awesome Gun Kata is. It needs neither justification nor plausibility.