Why I Sci-Fi!

With the new Star Wars movie lingering just around the edge of next month, my anticipation is seriously building. As someone who lived through the release of the "new" Star Wars movies (Episodes 1, 2, and 3), I have many concerns. The most recent Star Wars flicks were the things of legends... bad, horrible, extremely disappointing legends. Jar-Jar Binks. Enough said. While I have high hopes for Star Wars: The Force Awakens , I have some serious concerns, too. Here are a few! There are few characters that I hate more than Jar-Jar. ( Image Source ) 1: Please-- no ridiculous, comic-relief only aliens. No Jar-Jar repeats. If your character is only there to get a laugh, the character is not a well-developed character. Weave the comedy into what you have-- don't jab in a character whose sole purpose is to make people laugh. Generally, it doesn't make people laugh. Intelligent and witty humor is what makes the difference between an entertaining movie and a g...

Children's movies are some of the most under-appreciated genres in film. There are some amazing This is Wall-E, looking especially  adorable. ( Image Source )  movies out there that were made for children, and adults can absolutely appreciate them, too. One of my favorites is Wall-E, a Pixar film from 2008. Wall-E has some of my favorite themes and ideas from science fiction. It's set in a future where humanity is forced to live aboard giant cruise-ship like space crafts because they have left Earth wasted and in ruins. Wall-E-- a tiny trash compactor robot-- is still on Earth trying to clean up all of the trash left behind when humans abandoned Earth. When Wall-E finds a sapling, another robot shows up to collect the very valuable baby tree-- and it's robot love-at-first sight! The two robots, and the human captain of one of the ships, work together to help the Earth that they left in ruins years before. This is the captain. He seems bad at first, but he is one of the ...

Planets move in and out of view in the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" opening credits. Image Source "Space: the final frontier." My door isn't shut all of the way, and I sneak to the door frame. The coast is as clear as the voice summoning me from the TV. With a fuzzy stuffed-animal gripped tightly in hand, I continue. "These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations..." Tip-toeing to the bend in the hallway, I peer around the corner. My parents are both on the couch, the TV glowing from in front of them.  If I stand, I can see the whole screen. "To boldly go where no one has gone before." As the ship soars into view among sparkling stars and gleaming planets, my heart races. The title flashes onto the screen: Star Trek: The Next Generation.  It's  world of space travel and adventure. I long to live in the world in this show-- ea...

It seems like everyone nowadays has a "fandom" that they follow. People are crazy about Dr. Who or the Hunger Games or Steven Universe. If I had to pick my first and most favorite "fandom," it would have to be Star Trek. For those unfamiliar with the series, Star Trek is a popular U.S. television series set in the future. It’s one of the longest running and most successful television franchises-- and for good reason. Below is a list of 5 ideas that Star Trek made clear for a younger me. This is Nichelle Nichols as communications officer Uhura in the original series. She kicked some serious butt. Image Source 1: Women can be leaders, too. Much of the science fiction I read as a young girl was still lacking female characters. Male ship captains, male scientists, male leaders, etc. Star Trek was different. Women were powerful doctors, empathic counselors, effective communication officers, mechanical geniuses, ruthless and self-sacrificing captains. A girl’...

Could a robot help you out at the doctor's office? en.wikipedia.org I'm a huge fan of Robots. As you could probably see from my post about Baymax, I'm all about bringing robots into my life. But there are mixed feelings (see what I did there?!) about how robots interact with humans. Many people find the idea of robots having emotions to be ridiculous-- either because they don't think it's possible or because the idea that humans can create something with feelings is a little scary. Something that scientists do  think is a good idea, however, is programming robots to be more emotionally aware when they interact with humans. Craig Smith, a professor of psychology and human behavior at Vanderbilt University, has a specific goal for the robots that he works with: "We don't want to give a robot emotions; we just want them to be sensitive to our  emotions" (Johnson).  He and his colleague Nilanjan Sarkar are working to make robots more adaptive to ...

Baymax is Hiro's best friend! Image Source Big Hero 6-- now an Academy Award Winning film-- was one of my favorite movies of 2014. It’s positive messages and super cute characters made for a really good pick-me-up movie (...if you can get through some of the sad bits in the first half of the film). What absolutely makes the movie is the protagonist's robotic friend Baymax. This is definitely a feel-good movie that leaves you wanting your own personal robot sidekick. Baymax is a medical assistance robot who looks like a giant fluffy cloud. He’s inflatable, gives great hugs, and is generally awesome in a million ways. What’s really cool about Baymax, though, is that he was based off of a real robotic arm being developed by a Carnegie Mellon robotics team lead by robotics expert Christ Atkeson. This team is working on inflatable robots with a flexible inner skeleton. These robots will be perfect for the medical world-- their softness will reduce the risk of accidentally in...

Guys. Guys, it's here.   It's the teaser-trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens! I've been a die-hard Star Wars fan since I saw the original trilogy as a kid. My parent's we big fans when it originally came out, and so it just seemed obvious to take us to see them all in theaters when they were rereleased in the 90s. While the "new" Star Wars prequel movies were, in my opinion, disasters, I have high hopes for this new movie through Disney. Here's why: Look what Disney's done with its recent Marvel movies! They're great!  The actors from the original trilogy are back-- including Han Solo. Han Solo is definitely on my top 10 favorite sci-fi characters of all time list (...that sounds like a great idea for another blog post!). No Jar-Jar. At least... I'm assuming there will not a be another Jar Jar. That was awful. Andy Serkis is in it! If you don't know about Andy, he's the guy who plays Gollum in the Lord of the Rings ...

This is Ray Bradbury-- he's my favorite science fiction author. Image Source Hello, and welcome to Why I Sci-Fi! Science Fiction has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. The Oxford dictionary defines sci-fi as "fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets."  Call me a nerd, a geek-- whatever you want to call me-- it won't stop a love this strong! When I read a book, it's usually science fiction. When I watch tv, play a video game, write creatively... you got it-- sci-fi! My love for this genre comes from a love of speculation. What will the future of humanity be like? How will we solve, or complicate, the problems of our current world? When do I get to visit Mars? Science and research can only tell us so much in regard to the answers to these questions-- sometimes we have to look to our imaginations to c...