I was confused by the mashed potatoes.

were what Dreyfus used to model El Capitan

Neither one has ever been my cup of tea.

And I was all about the space stuff at the time, huge Star Wars fan (like every kid of that era).

Then again, I knew that was all fantasy, and I've known that the whole 'aliens visiting earth during our era of civilization' thing was extremely improbable since I was about that age, so even sitting in the theater as a child, I remember being like 'yeah, right'.

I've also never seen E.T.

A lot of movies are unjustly called science fiction. Star Wars is a fantasy, Dune is a political drama, Firefly is a western; they're all called science fiction because they're set in space or the far future. Last night I watched Project Hail Mary; this is much more a science fiction movie because there's some actual science involved.

It too is a fantasy.

Not much, but some, but now that I think about it I can't come up with examples. So I apologize, and I will go away now.

I beg forgiveness for my abject stupidity.

I had no intent to insult you and if you take it to be so I offer a sincere apology.

On the other hand, this exchange raises a point, which is that "science" fiction can and often does present a false impression of science, and to extent people embrace that impression it can have some unfortunate consequences.

Science is under attack in this country and the consequences may be irretreivable. As a scientist living in a world where respect for the institution of the scientific practice is declining, I feel that perhaps it is wise to distinguish what it is and is not.

It is not what is portrayed in most movies of this type.

Again I apologize if I have offended you. It was not my intent.

Most of the stuff that people call science fiction is pure fantasy, especially anything that has people living on other planets or traveling to other stars.

For a lot of reasons one can say with great confidence that faster than light travel and time travel (two sides of the same coin) are not possible in this universe. A universe where these were possible wouldn't look like the one we live in and would certainly be inhospitable to life as we know it.

Closer to earth, the big elephant in the room is that manned space travel is extremely expensive, dangerous, and largely pointless. Keeping humans alive and healthy in space becomes increasingly difficult with distance. More to the point, anything people can do in space robots can do better. The intangibles -- pride, politics, adventure, whatever -- don't outweigh that. It's likely that humans will send a few more people to the moon and that will be that. If we are lucky no one will die. I don't think there will be any human mars colonies, asteroid miners, manned expeditions to Jupiter, etc. in our future.

A lot of dystopian science fiction hits too close to home. I think I'm done with stories set in post-apocalyptic worlds that feature fascist governments tracking our lives in such detail that they can predict our behavior. I think I'm done with stories about civilizations destroyed by nuclear or biological warfare. I think I'm done with stories about the total collapse of earth's natural environment.

I'd like to see more science fiction that maps out possible paths to a brighter future. If we abandon hope we are doomed. Stories where space aliens save us from ourselves don't count.

We loved it! It was pure nostalgia of course. Our 23-year-old daughter is a sound engineer in NYC and went to see it when I told her about it. She was not nearly so impressed but did agree that it was "interesting from a historical perspective". lol

friends of like mind... We all enjoyed it tremendously including cut scenes such as:

throwing the bushes and garbage in the kitchen window...very important in showcasing
Richard's level of obsession...should never have been cut!