While I love sci-fi featuring white male protagonists, the positive is it is the most far reaching stretch of the human imagination; the negative is I am sad it focused on space exploration and failed to incorporate the most recent futurist ideas like transhumanist consciousnesses, world libertarianism, and AI hive minds. We need more sci-fi featuring the kinds of things we can get done in the next 30 years.
>While I love sci-fi featuring white male protagonists<p>It's interesting that Star Trek was actually quite progressive:<p>>Beyond Star Trek's fictional innovations, its contributions to TV history included a multicultural and multiracial cast. While more common in subsequent years, in the 1960s it was controversial to feature an Enterprise crew that included a Japanese helmsman, a Russian navigator, a black female communications officer, and a Vulcan-Terran first officer.<p>You would expect a little bit more now. The latest Star Trek film is basically about two white dudes battling two other white dudes plus "hey let's find an excuse to get this blonde chick in her underwear."
I recently went to see that new JJ Abrams monstrosity which apparently has something to do with Star Trek. Other than the reuse of the characters it really didn't have anything really to do with Star Trek whatsoever. It was simply a "catch the terrorist, we're so awesome", cheap, special effect heavy, action flick. What a disappointment.<p>It's the same dissapoitment I had after I saw Prometheus: <a href="http://www.lukeschreur.com/posts/prometheus" rel="nofollow">http://www.lukeschreur.com/posts/prometheus</a>
Read books. There is plenty of sci-fi that deals with exploring the intersection of computers and consciousness. Authors like Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross, and Vernor Vinge are well known in this area.<p>A great novel that came out recently about transhumanism is Nexus: transhumanism: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0857662937/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0857662937&linkCode=as2&tag=mobalean-20" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0857662937/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...</a>
Interesting science fiction will not be available at the cinema in the forseeable future. The reason is that it doesn't pay at the box office. If you wonder why so few big action movies have an engaging sci-fi script, then the answer is: Because studios can get away with having bad scripts.<p>For more on the topic, I recommend:
<a href="http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-star-trek-into-darkness" rel="nofollow">http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-star-trek-into-dar...</a>
Star Trek is about nastalgia not about innovation. We don't need any more inspiration we need people rolling up their sleeves and actually doing something. Anything.