Lets face it, there are very few good books or movies within the Science Fiction genre. By this I mean works that promote science fiction as a meaningful genre. I am a fan of the science fiction genre, but not a big fan of the sci-fi genre. I'll grant that the first 2 Star Wars films (sci-fi) were interesting, but after that I give the movies an F for interest. Flat characters and CGI overload is typical of a sci-fi genre film.

Here is my own personal rating of Science Fiction movies / TV shows. I won't go into books in this post. I don't tend to finish a book if I don't like it, but unfortunately feel compelled to sit through a bad movie as if the 11.00 I spent on it is worth more than the same time I could be spending getting my teeth cleaned by an epileptic dentist. Actually, with a  $10 co-pay, I would be spending $1.00 less in that situation.

1. Terminator 4: FAIL. How Christian Bale got tricked into driving this train off a cliff I will never know. His acting is awful, the dialogue is even worse. This is a video game that you don't even get to play...and it's not even a good video game. FEAR would be much more fun that this snorefest. There is so much focus on CGI and so little on story that they could have cast Jane Fonda in the same role and pulled off the same quality of a movie. Actually, I might have been interested in seeing the bad guys win if Jane Fonda were in it. Given her track record, she probably would have too.

1.5 Terminator 1-3: Pass, but barely. The writing isn't great, and the acting is almost as bad as Star Wars, but the science behind the AI is solid and the action is interesting enough to sit through these flicks once. Given that today's scientists have rated AI genocide of the human race as one of the top 10 real threats to our species, it's interesting. In fact, my wife just brought me the latest Christian Science Monitor. On the cover is a picture of two women facing each other, with the title "Which is the Robot?"

2. Sunshine: FAIL. Perhaps one of the most beautiful science fiction movies ever made (aside from 2010), but the writers must have consulted a 3rd century scientist about how the sun works. It's a yellow dwarf, g-class main sequence star you nits. I learned this in the 6th grade, so why didn't you?. The behavior of the sun you base your movie on is not only impossible, it's laughable. Main sequence stars don't suddenly cool down without either first going Nova or Supernova. Either way, we're toast and there is no movie. Get a subscription to the History or Discovery channel and give me back my $4.00 (thank goodness I only rented this).

3. Armageddon: PASS, but barely. Great acting, and a good storyline. Too bad it is AGAIN a mis-application of scientific knowledge. You see, to a true Science Fiction fan, this "science" part seems to have some relevance. Anything other than that, and you've got Science Fantasy, or Sci-Fi as it is sometimes mispronounced. That's necessarily a bad thing, but just don't try and be Science Fiction.

4. 2001: A Space Oddysey: PASS. You would expect anything less from the inventor of the communications satellite? He got lucky and hooked up with a director and writers that understood what he was writing about.

5. 2010: The Year We Make Contact: PASS, but barely. The movie skipped a HUGE piece of the book, almost to the point of relegating the movie to a narrative of the book's least interesting parts.

6. Blade Runner: PASS. This movie has everything. Only problem I have with it is that they didn't get San Pedro (the refineries belching flames in the amazine openning scene) quit right. The opening scene should have had more drive-by shootings to be accurate representation of that area of L.A.

7. Equilibrium: PASS. This is more of a speculative future movie than Science Fiction, but it still has enough of the elements required to be considered science fiction. Christian Bale's performance is more convincing than in Terminator 4, but then again even regulars at a Dramamine party could acheive that.

8. Minority Report: PASS. This movie has everything. Except for Blade Runner, it is in my opinion the best science fiction movie ever made, despite having Tom Cruise in it.

9. Star Trek Movies: FAIL, except for the first movie, which I give a barely passing grade. People fall over themselves about how visionary Gene Roddenberry was with the concepts shown in his TV show and movies. Fact is, I just don't see it. Truthfully, Sunshine is a more convincing science fiction movie than any of the Star Treks, and I already gave that movie a resounding "FAIL". IMHO the genre would be better off without Star Trek, as it would be without Star Wars. I haven't decided if I should risk 2 hours and $11.00 on the latest movie yet.

10. Battlestar Galactica (Current, not past): PASS. It's a TV show, I know, but except for those movies I rated with PASS it is one of the most compelling science fiction shows ever produced. In my opinion, THIS is how you do science fiction on any size screen. Ships don't bank in space during battle, faster than light travel actually requires some serious navigational planning, and the acting is outstanding. Unfortunately, this show STILL represents sound in space (ships whizzing past or the dull thrum of Galactica's engines as heard from outside the ship), which is just not how it is I don't care what Galaxy you're in. Space is dead silent. If it wasn't, the roar of the continuous nuclear explosion we call the sun would be as deafening as it's light is bright even though it is 93 million miles away. So it falls down pretty bad on the believability scale with this in mind.

11. Contact: PASS. The science supports the type of travel being implemented, even if it is just theoretical and not within our grasp for the foreseeable future. But more importantly, it is VERY likely that first contact will be made through radio detection and not from UFO's taunting tired drivers on lonely desert highways.

11. The Matrix: PASS. Pretty much everything works in this movie as it should: good plot, great implementation, and adequate character development. The social science, and the hard science are all there, but the acting  of Kenau Reeves almost ruins the movie. I almost walked out on this one once Reeves appeared on the screen, but thought I should give the supporting actors a chance so I stayed another 20 minutes. I usually give a movie 22 minutes total to draw me in. This means that in the first 2 minutes I was ready to leave. Not a good thing for an avid Science Fiction fan to feel about your movie. It only tooke Reeves 2 minutes to destroy the movie. Like Jack Black, the guy just can't act. I see an actor reading lines, not a character coming to life.  Reeves was the wrong actor for this movie but the supporting cast saves Reeves from ruining the movie, though it took the remaining 20 minutes of my strict "bad acting" allowance to convince me to stay. Unfortunately, his acting gets worse with each sequel (I think he got lazy, which is not a good thing for an already bad actor to do), but the science and plots remain solid and compelling.

Attention Directors: If your movie contains any of the following then I will not be kind to you -
1. Aliens that speak English but have never visited Earth.
2. Aliens that want to sleep with starship captains.
3. So much CGI that the acting is a secondary consideration.
4. Characters that behave like super heros, or worse, California Governors.
5. Plots that involve predictable antagonists and rely on previously undisclosed technological miracles to suddenly fix everything in favor of the "good guys" at the end.
6. Plots that involve good guys and bad guys. It's been done. For inspiration on how to do something different, site down and read DUNE, Minority Report, or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner).
7. Bad science in a movie that is purporting to be science fiction (unfortuatnely even those with PASS have some elements listed here), and not science fantasy. Offending implementations include: 1) space ships that make sounds when they fly through space; 2)ships that come to a stop when their engines shut off; 3) scenes where a ship is "upside down" in space; 4) celestial objects behaving in a way that even a 6th grader knows is not right; 5) Future societies that really are no different than our own, despite amazing technological impacts to them such as cloning, cybernetic advancements, or genetic engineering. In other words, study social science the day before you decide to make the movie.
8. Anything with muppets in it instantly qualifies you for the Worst-Ever Award. I don't care how you do it, putting Muppets in a movie (Star Wars fans take notice) means I can take your movie about as seriously as "Pigs in Space".
9. Scenes where a person can jump through space into the airlock of another ship without exploding or flash freezing just by holding their breath. If you don't know why this would happen, then don't make the movie. You're not qualified, I don't care what film school you went to.
10.  End of the world plots that involve alien invasions. I hate these kinds of movies. They are boring. It's never been done right, even Indendence Day sucks eggs and I know some people that actually like that movie. I don't like such plots in a movie for the same reason I'm not a big fan of parallel universes in Science Fiction literature. Only the novle "Paratime" ever did this right. Even the great Robert Heinlen didn't pull it off in "The Number of the Beast". So quit making these kinds of films. In fact, I'm going to go on a rant here a bit longer. These kinds of films are like the embarrassing "Teacher saves the inner city school children from their own ignorance and violent desperate home lives" that have been floating around since "Stand and Deliver". That one movie, "Stand and Deliver" was made, it did it right, but now it's over. James Edward Olmos is even a BattleStar commander now. So move on. Don't recycle, it's not good for the earth.

 I called my dad who lives in Oklahoma, and explained to him that I would have called earlier except that having no kids I was able to sleep in until 11a.m. My dad has a great sense of humor. 

My wife and I are both 40 years old, and with no kids we are met with a variety of responses when people learn about our Double-Income No Kids status. We've lived in metros such as Los Angeles, but mostly in small towns such as San Luis Obispo or Visalia where we currently reside. The reaction is the same regardless of demographic: some feel sorry for us (which we find rather an odd reaction), some have actually asked us what's wrong (again, we don't quite understand that), and some (more than not) have said they love their kids, but wouldn't do it again. It's this 3rd response which always surprises us most. It's also the most common response, which is a bit disturbing.

Without exception we always find ourselves in the position of having to explain why we don't have kids, and most of the time it's nothing more than a passing subject in conversation with new friends who are simply getting to know me or my wife. At first there is a bit of surprise, some interest, and then it passes into the background. Often it becomes the subject of good-natured jokes and the banter is terrific among friends. But with family, this can actually get very uncomfortable, and in our late 20's even became an "off limits" topic during family gatherings because the women in our family (mothers in particular) decided there must be something wrong. Like peer pressure to conform, the family unit can be relentless in its demands, and resourceful in the variety of psychological tactics used to exert such pressure. Thankfully, at 40 years old, this has ceased to be a topic of interest within the family.

Our response, which has never changed, is one of open honesty. We just shrug our shoulders and explain that having kids has never been something we've felt compelled to do. It's just not something we have ever felt tied to any sort of feeling of fulfillment. If pressed further we repeat the answer. What more can we do? There really isn't any more to it than that. Some have finally realized that our world view and their world view are not the same and the things they require to be happy are not the same as ours. Hard to imagine I guess.

As is often the case with people who live outside the normative curve, I have no opinion about people who choose to have kids. If I were gay it might be the case that I wouldn't have an opinion about people that are straight. It's just not something that occurs to me to have an opinion about. However, I do have some strong feelings about the subject of having kids, and raising them, in general. And here they are:

1. Judging by the behavior of many parents, I don't believe their kids stand a chance.
2. Judging by the behavior of many kids, I don't think their parents stand a chance.
3. Most people shouldn't be allowed to have kids, and most kids deserve better than the parents they got.
4. Most kids want to please their parents and other adults. The rest are sociopaths that eventually go to work for the IRS.
5. In the age of the internet and cell phones, grounding a child for bad behavior is as useless as the UN imposing sanctions on a country for bad behavior.
6. Most kids think their parents are idiots whose opinions don't matter, but will pay close attention and take it to heart if their parents think the same of them.
7. Teaching a kid how to fight doesn't mean they will go out and pick fights, any more than sex education will promote promiscuity, or driver's education will cause car accidents.
8. There are bad kids. Kids that are just mean, nasty, cruel, and hateful by nature. If your kid is one of these, fix this situation soon or society will end up doing it for you. Consider the odds of ignoring the problem turning out well for everyone involved and act accordingly.
9 My wife is a fantastic gardener. In fact she is a genius in my opinion. In my many years of not raising kids I have come to believe that if parents tended their children like my wife tends her garden, society as a whole would be better for it. Sometimes you have to nip things in the bud, sometimes you have to give up and change your approach. But you must always commit to helping that garden grow. You must not get into gardening unless you can be sure it will be a labor of love, and you must not rely on someone else to do the hardest work for you.
10. Those who wish they never had kids probably have kids who wish they never had parents.

Happy Father's Day.

Just saw a TV ad for steak at WalMart. Really? Would YOU be the first in line for that?