[Slyscribe]

Science fiction movies, as opposed to novels, must explain their futuristic worlds ASAP. In this context, socialism is very efficient: It takes hardly any time to simply assume that all decisions, political and economic, are in the hands of a unified government.

[Cacique]

btt

[discostu]

Artists tend to be feeling oriented people, which makes them liberals.

[6ppc]

IMHO The biggest problem with science fiction movies is that producers and screen writers somehow believe they can do a better job than science fiction authors. I have noticed that many if not most science fiction movies are original screen plays written by clueless idiots. Good science fiction movies are few and far between.

[castlegreyskull]

I really don’t see how Waterwold and The Postman are liberal. /s/

[jetson]

Any film can be picked apert as liberal. There always has to be a villan and a good person. The only blatant liberal show I've seen is the Dr Who series that seem to slather all over the name of Obama. Typical for the Brits. A bunch of bone heads.

[stockpirate]

Even Star Trek is a left-wing show and movie.

[Names Ash Housewares]

I might not care much if sci fi films were actually sci fi.

Not a lot of thinking necessary these days.

Expensive pretty FX, battles and mindless action, unimaginative aliens, two dimensional characters, regurgitated stories from only even a decade or two ago, or hijackings of someone ele's creations and dumbing them down. And even some of that is ok if your engaged enough to think in a new way. Good sci fi does that. Political content is the least of sci fi's problems these days. A good film lately that cost only 5 million dollars was "Moon". Nothing ground breaking, but by today's standards, it was exceptional.

[onedoug]

"You're next!"

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"And yet the typical libertarian and typical sci-fi fan hail from the same demographic: educated white males. Many libertarians are engineers or in tech-related fields, so sci-fi is like catnip. But that means movie studios can take them for granted and needn’t cater to their views in making sci-fi flicks."

Sci-fi filmmakers seem to have the same relationship vis-a-vis their viewers as the Republican Party has to conservatives.

[x]

Science fiction movies, as opposed to novels, must explain their futuristic worlds ASAP. In this context, socialism is very efficient: It takes hardly any time to simply assume that all decisions, political and economic, are in the hands of a unified government.

I suppose so.

A lot of SF fans are libertarians and welcome the idea of a world without government.

But if you're going for that kind of frontier purity and solitude you probably don't have a McDonald's or a Walmart in every space station.

Space is a much sparser, emptier environment. It's where you go when you want to get away from everything earthbound: commercialism, overpopulation, and overdevelopment as well as from red-tape and bureaucracy.

So what begins as a world without government ends up as a militarized, regulated world where trade takes a back seat to provision by centralized command.

What the article says -- that if you like shoot 'em ups, you'll put up with an anti-government message -- applies with a vengeance: if you want the loneliness and cleanliness of space you put up with the high command keeping the rest of humanity at a distance.