IMO the genre (for want of a better word) of SCI FI - has lost the magic it used to have. I don't quite know why. Perhaps we've worn out ideas ---- like - the first timeshift (timetravel) movies were pretty good - but, really, what can you actually do with stories in a timeshift movie?
once you've seen one - you know the concept - so, the concept, which was the sell point at first - is known - the rest that follow - whilst the novelty is there of the concept -- it's ok - but, once the novelty wears off - then, you are down to just the stories inside of it - basically - which is pretty limited -
so, you either send some hero back to do something to change history, or you send some villain back to buy cheap shares or similar - and, then fast forward a long way and they are fabulously rich and want to control the world - by being some sort of evil president or owning some control freak company.
As well as that a lot of SCI FI concepts are losing or lost the FI out of the recipe - because what used to be FI - is now reality - or is looking like becoming reality
so, watching Jodie Foster learning alienspeak may well still have some sort of FI about it at present - when you send old George out into space in Gravity --- well - it's not really much to do with FI these days
Art often and usually leads science - but, really - for SCI FI stuff ------ well, for humans - it's a bit of where to from here - because we probably won't be humans* for much longer - and, if you lose the humanness in the story - well, there's not really a story of interest
*becoming more cyborg every day and by the way we're exploring - when we get to be able to capture and transfer something like consciousness and memory etc. - we'll probably move away from a biologically based embodiment
