The Top 10 Science Fiction Moments of 2012

Yesterday, I wrote about why we love end of year retrospective lists. Today, I want to give you my rundown of the 10 best science fiction moments of 2012. I'm not ranking 2012's best scifi movies or TV shows (io9 and Tor already did a good job of that). Rather, I am ranking moments from 2012 that were important to fans of science fiction.

10. The Walking Dead strikes back

Great writing, acting, social commentary, and special effects make Walking Dead one of the best shows on TV. But 2011's 2nd season wasn't that good. Fans were worried about season 3, especially after hearing that executive producer Frank Darabont left the show. Not only has season 3 been awesome so far, but it also has provided some of the most memorable moments of the entire show.   

9. IMAX endures

I'm a huge fan of the IMAX format (real IMAX, not the fake stuff) and find it much more engrossing than 3D.

This year was a big one for the format with several movies optimized for the giant screen (Skyfall, The Amazing Spider-Man, Titanic 3D, Raiders of the Lost Ark) and one partially filmed in native IMAX (The Dark Knight Rises).   

Next year promises more films optimized for IMAX (Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) and at least two partially filmed in the format (Star Trek Into Darkness and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire).

Seeing the Dark Knight Rises in the native IMAX format was an awesome experience. Source: DC Comics/Warner Brothers Pictures. 

8. Neil deGrasse Tyson is the ultimate fanboy

Neil deGrasse Tyson is about as geeky as you can get. As an astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in the American Museum of Natural History, Tyson is one of the nation's foremost authorities on space, an eloquent ambassador for science (watch "The Most Astounding Fact"), and a passionate advocate for NASA (see "We Stopped Dreaming").

He's also a major Trekkie. This past year, Tyson had two standout moments - proclaiming the U.S.S. Enterprise as the champion of the 2012 Comic-Con Starship Smackdown (see below) and dedicating an entire episode of his hit internet show to the science of Star Trek (in which he revealed that his sideburns are an homage to Star Trek).  

7. Dystopian novels are cool again

Dystopias are a staple of science fiction, though it's been awhile since a new dystopian story captured the public's attention. Thanks to critical acclaim, word of mouth, social commentary on our obsession with reality TV, and an excellent film adaptation, this was the year Hunger Games returned dystopias to the bestseller list. Hopefully, the success of Hunger Games will bring about a renewed interest in other dystopian classics. 

6. TNG gets a facelift

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, CBS launched a complete HD restoration of the show for blu-ray. This meant scanning the film negatives, repairing damaged film, updating special effects, remastering sound, and recording new interviews and behind the scenes specials. The first two seasons are out and the results are spectacular! The remastering has ensured that TNG will live on long into the 21st century.

5. Space jumping becomes a reality

Space Jumping from 2009's Star Trek

One of the coolest scenes from 2009's Star Trek became a reality on October 14th, 2012 when Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a capsule at the edge of space, broke the sound barrier, and safety returned to Earth. Science fiction to science fact in 3 years - that's pretty cool.

4. The cybernetic age begins

At the 2012 London Olympics, Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorius became the first double leg amputee to participate in the games (he had previously competed in the Paralympic games). His participation sparked a global debate on the role of biological augmentation in our society.

This year also marked the first case of a cybernetic hate crime when Steve Mann was physically assaulted in a French McDonalds for having a "digital eye glass". 

Both of these cases, along with the growing sophistication of robotic implants marked the beginning of the cybernetic age.

Photo by Erik van Leeuwen.

3. Avengers is actually a good movie

Marvel Studios' Avengers was a bold experiment. If you factor in the five separate films that were produced in parallel between 2008 - 2011 to setup the Avengers, this was one of the biggest and most expensive films in history.

I was afraid Avengers would be a flop. The first footage didn't look promising, Hulk never worked on the big screen, I didn't think Tony Stark/Iron Man/Robert Downey Jr. could play nice with the other heroes, and Loki didn't seem like a big enough villain for the movie. Why did I care? If Avengers failed, there was a good chance Marvel and other studios would become far more risk-averse in their productions of superhero films.

I was completely wrong. Avengers worked on all levels (well...nearly all, see the “Honest Trailer” below), was critically acclaimed, and made a ton of money. Not only has Marvel Studios announced 4 new movies which will lead to Avengers 2 in 2015, the studio is taking their "cinematic universe" into the very geeky galactic realm of Marvel Comics - a far more ambitious and bold move than Avengers Part 1. 

2. NASA does a lot of cool stuff

NASA did a lot to capture the public's attention this year.

First, the space agency sent its space shuttles into retirement with style by orchestrating flyovers above Washington, D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles.

Next, Harold White reiterated that the agency is looking into wrap drive technology for interstellar space travel at the 100 Year Starship Symposium, though the science remains purely speculative at this point.

Finally, NASA's most advanced Mars rover, the Curiosity, landed on August 6, 2012 at 1:32 a.m. EDT. The landing was the most complicated in NASA history and was ripped from the pages of science fiction, utilizing the largest and strongest supersonic parachute ever created and a combination of sky crane tethers and rockets to lower the rover to the surface. Curiosity has already made some interesting discoveries and is on its way to Gale Crater near the Martian equator to determine if the area had the right conditions to support life.

My favorite part of Curiosity? This photo below featuring NASA's "Mohawk Guy".

1. Star Wars is coming back

The best scifi moment of the year was also the biggest entertainment news of the year - Disney buys Lucasfilm and announces new Star Wars movies beginning with Star Wars Episode VII in 2015.

Yes, it's a little strange picking a corporate acquisition as my number one pick. But, Star Wars is the biggest science fiction franchise EVER, the original trilogy influenced generations of artists and scientists, and if you look at the subtext behind George Lucas' exit interviews, it seems like he's truly stepping away from creative control of the new movies suggesting that this upcoming trilogy might finally give us a fresh take on the universe.

That's my list for 2012. What do you think? What did I miss or get wrong?

2 Reasons Why We Love Top 10 Lists

Chances are you've come across a lot of 2012 "top 10" lists this past week. Some of my favorites include io9's best and worst scifi and fantasy movies of 2012, Tor's 10 essential genre films of 2012, and Popular Science's sloppiest sci-fi movie science violations of 2012.

Why are these types of articles so popular? Here are two explanations from cognitive psychology.

1. Top 10 lists make information easier to digest

A top 10 list lets the reader know what to expect and makes the article easier to understand. This is known in psychology as perceptual fluency, or how easy it is to understand information. 

A great example of perceptual fluency comes from Daniel Oppenheimer's 2005 experiment on the perception of papers with different levels of complexity. Participants in this study rated simpler writing (more perceptual fluency) as written by more intelligent writers.

Oppenheimer provides a great summary of his study here:

"It's important to point out that this research is not about problems with using long words but about using long words needlessly…Anything that makes a text hard to read and understand, such as unnecessarily long words or complicated fonts, will lower readers' evaluations of the text and its author..."

Top 10 lists don't guarantee simple writing, but they do provide a familiar way of organizing and communicating ideas that often results in easy to digest articles.

2. Top 10 lists are easier to remember.

Grouping information in a meaningful way is called chunking. For example, the numbers 1, 7, 7, and 6 can be chunked into 1776 (the year America declared independence from England). Chunked information is easier to remember (e.g. 1776 versus 1, 7, 7, 6). Top 10 lists often combine information into chunks around a subject like "best scifi movies" or "coolest time-travel episodes".

The number of items on top 10 lists also makes a difference. George A. Miller famously stated in a legendary 1956 article that the capacity of our working memory is the "magical number" 7, plus or minus two. In other words, we have the ability to hold and manipulate 5-9 chunks of information at a time. This places top 10 lists almost within the limits of our working memory.

While recent research has questioned whether 7 ± 2 is an accurate limit (some suggest the true "magical number" is 4 ± 2), new mathematical models from neuroscience help us understand why our working memory has any limits at all. With each additional chunk we try to remember, our neurons work exponential harder to hold on to each piece of information. Very quickly, we run into the biological limits of what our brains can handle.

Bottom line, a top 10 structure helps readers enjoy articles by simplifying messages and limiting them to just a few points. Writers have known about these cognitive guidelines for a long time. As Albert Camus said, "Those who write clearly have readers; those who write obscurely have commentators” (something I remind myself when my articles fail to receive comments).

Prometheus and the Fallacy of Origins (Film Review)

Note: This article contains minor spoilers for the film Prometheus.

I had very high expectations for Prometheus. Not only was this Ridley Scott's return to science fiction, a genre he fundamentally influenced through Alien and Blade Runner, but the film's viral marketing (see below) made me believe Prometheus was going to be more thought-provoking than the run of the mill scifi.

When the movie was released, I was extremely busy transitioning between jobs, so I uncharacteristically delayed seeing it. Later, after reading all of the mixed reviews, I put off Prometheus until I could Netflix it. I was already bummed that so many people hated the film and I didn't want to spend $15+ on a movie that was going to break my fanboy heart. 

I finally saw the movie on Blu-ray this past week. Visually, Prometheus was stunning. The special effects, cinematography, and sets all gave the film an expansive sense of scale that hasn’t been seen since 2009's Avatar. I LOVED Michael Fassbender's android, David. His acting was nuanced and Oscar-worthy (which of course will never happen). 

David the android, portrayed by Michael Fassbender, is the highlight of Prometheus. 

Unfortunately, there's not much else to like. The remaining characters were one dimensional (e.g. the corporate boss with a hidden agenda) or acted unrealistically (e.g. scientists doing very unscientific things). Marc Streitenfeld's score was dull, which is unfortunate since Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator had such iconic music. And then there's the plot…

Prometheus is about the quest to understand the origins of our species (like Star Trek: TNG's “The Chase”), at least the first half is. The second half closely mirrors Alien (strange goo + android under orders from an evil corporation = xenomorph on the loose). Both stories are drawn out from the iconic image of a “space jockey” in Alien.

The iconic "space jockey" from 1979's Alien was the inspiration for 2012's Prometheus. 

The film doesn't do either story justice. The pieces are all there, but they never come together. For example, there was an opportunity to link the extraterrestrial creation of humans with the human creation of artificial intelligence:       

Charlie Holloway: What we hoped to achieve was to meet our makers. To get answers. Why they even made us in the first place.
David: Why do you think your people made me?
Charlie Holloway: We made you because we could.
David: Can you imagine how disappointing it would be for you to hear the same thing from your creator?
Charlie Holloway: I guess it's good you can't be disappointed.

That thread is never fleshed out. Neither are the film's other big questions about science and faith. There are glimmers of bold and ambitious ideas, but they never crystalize.

When it comes to the action, Prometheus doesn't achieve the suspense of Alien or the excitement of Aliens. There wasn't anything fresh - the film is filled with predictable variations of moments every science fiction fan has seen before.

Clearly, I was disappointed. It was the same type of disappointment I felt while watching the last episode of LOST, Battlestar Galactica's The Plan, Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Wars: Episodes I-III, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, and bunch of other prequels/sequels that promised to deliver big explanations about already established mythologies. The issue isn’t getting answers, but the post-hoc nature of stories that provide new explanations long after the original source material was developed (e.g. using Prometheus to explain the backstory of Alien’s space jockey). You can almost always tell the difference between stories that have completely developed arcs (e.g. Battlestar Galactica) versus stories that backpedal explanations (e.g. Caprica) (notable exceptions include Godfather: Part II and X-Men: First Class).  

Outside of storytelling, this type of fallacy (post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this, therefore because of this") has long plagued evolutionary theories. Stephen Jay Gould (one of my favorite science authors) describes in Bully for Brontosaurus how we use current behavior to make explanations for past evolution:

“We have no proof that the [giraffe’s] long neck evolved by natural selection for eating leaves at the tops of acacia trees. We only prefer this explanation because it matches current orthodoxy. Giraffes do munch the topmost leaves, and this habit obviously helps them to thrive, but who knows how or why their necks elongated? They may have lengthened for other reasons and then been fortuitously suited for acacia leaves.”

Like evolution, you can always make up explanations for source material but since the explanations must fit within the established rules of an existing story, writers are constricted and the results tend to suck (which is why I prefer reboots like 2005’s Batman Begins, 2009’s Star Trek, and 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes instead of prequels).   

The same issue comes up in my clinical work. People often ask, “what happened in my childhood that caused me to feel this way?”. We try to find explanations for our current struggles based upon our early experiences. Psychology is complex, therefore the cause of almost every problem is a combination of genetics (and epigenetics), environment, learning, and stressors. People have a hard time hearing that and prefer more mythical explanations rooted in the past.

Why is this the case? Old ideas about psychology continue to thrive in our culture. These theories claim by simply understanding early causes of problems you will change. Psychotherapy is not archeology - understanding the origin of one's struggles is always a beginning in therapy, never an end. Real, long-term behavior change is a process that requires sustained motivation in learning new ways of approaching your life. 

It seems like Paradise, Prometheus’s sequel, might delve deeper into exploring the origin of humans, primarily because it will depart from the shackles of the Alien mythology. I wish Ridley Scott made that film instead of falling into the trap of a prequel. While Prometheus is decent science fiction, it pales in comparison to the director’s prior work and doesn't measure up to the current standard-bearers (Children of Men, Moon, Inception, and Looper). 

Rating: 6.5/10.

Science Fiction and the Search for Gratitude on Thanksgiving

I only have one rule for this blog - reference one finding from psychology and one work of science fiction in every post. 

When I sat down to write a Thanksgiving article, it was easy to quote research on gratitude. Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky calls gratitude a "metastrategy for achieving happiness". Experimental research has revealed that participants who were asked to count their blessing once a week for ten weeks felt more optimistic, more satisfied with their lives, had better health, exercised more, and reported fewer headaches, acne, coughing, and nausea than control groups. Collectively, research indicates that gratitude helps you:

1. appreciate life's joys 
2. increase self-esteem 
3. cope under extreme stress 
4. nurture resilience in the face of loss and trauma 
5. foster altruism 
6. build social relationships 
7. undo negative emotions 
8. combat hedonic adaptation

It doesn't take much either - practicing gratitude just once a week leads to improved physical and mental health. You can write in a journal, share your thoughts with a loved one, write letters (even if they aren't sent), make gratitude calls, or a bunch of other things. Giving thanks is really, really, really good for you! 

So that's the psychology part of the post - easy as pie.

It was a lot harder to write about Thanksgiving in science fiction. I couldn't think of any science fiction story that directly relates to gratitude (Back to the Future was a contender), turkeys, Native Americans (I considered Chakotay episodes from Star Trek: Voyager), or pilgrims (Scott Pilgrim unfortunately doesn't count).  

A Google search for "science fiction Thanksgiving" led me to a fun scifi Thanksgiving grace by John Scalzi. Here's a sample: 

We also thank you for once again not allowing our technology to gain sentience, to launch our own missiles at us, to send a robot back in time to kill the mother of the human resistance, to enslave us all, and finally to use our bodies as batteries. That doesn't even make sense from an energy-management point of view, Lord, and you'd think the robots would know that. But in your wisdom, you haven't made it an issue yet, so thank you.

I loved the humor, but it didn’t help me crack this story. 

Then I thought about the Buzz Lightyear balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade…that did nothing but kill time.  

Buzz Lightyear in the 2010 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

I had the idea of writing about all the science fiction films I'm grateful for this year (Hunger Games, Avengers, Looper), but then I couldn't stop thinking about how disappointed I was with Prometheus. 

Ultimately, I was inspired by this clip from last week’s Saturday Night Live:

SNL reminded me that Thanksgiving isn't just about gratitude and food, it's also about being stuck at home with your family. Then I knew immediately what episode to write about - Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Family".

The episode takes place right after the U.S.S. Enterprise stops a Borg invasion. The crew is stuck in Earth orbit while the ship is being repaired. Captain Picard decides to visit his estranged brother, Worf gets an unexpected (and unwanted) visit from his adopted parents, and Wesley watches a message his deceased father made for him shortly before he died.

Everything about Thanksgiving is captured here. The dread of being stuck in uncomfortable situations (Worf: "I am not looking forward to this…I wish they would come so it would begin and end sooner."), realizing that you have changed while your home has not (Picard: "Everything is exactly as I remember it. The house, hills, every tree, every bush seems untouched by the passage of time."), and reminders of those who are no longer with you (Dr. Crusher: "Jack recorded a holographic message for Wesley just after he was born. It was a gift for him when he grew up. Jack was going to make many more of them - he never had the chance."). 

The episode isn't just about the mess of families (though there is plenty of that), it's about the dialectics of them. Dialectical thinking refers to understanding ideas through relationships (e.g. we know light because of dark, up because of down). It’s about searching for what is being left out and honoring the wisdom in two opposing perspectives. So often strong feelings associated with the holidays get us stuck on one side of a dialectic ("it's going to be awkward, boring, and sad"). Yes, being with your family is awkward and it's also comforting. You might be bored as well as excited about your family's holiday traditions. Reflecting on relatives you have lost is sad while it also reminds you of the joy they brought to your life.

Ultimately, the characters in this episode are able to experience gratitude once they embrace their family's dialectics. For Picard, it's a matter of understanding the disagreement and similarity between him and his brother (see the clip below). Worf must integrate the distance and closeness he feels for his parents. Wesley balances the sadness and admiration he has for his father. 

You can probably find similar dialectics in your own family (I feel a lot like Worf this time of year). Embracing the mess of our families, both the good and bad, will not only help us enjoy our Thanksgiving, but it will also increase the chance of experiencing gratitude for the time we have with our loved ones today.

Star Wars Episode VII, Star Trek into Darkness, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, and the Adaptability of Fans

There have been some major surprise announcements in the world of science fiction these past few weeks regarding the future of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica. Together, these stories highlight the adaptability of all fans. 

The granddaddy of them all was the October 30th revelation that Disney purchased Lucasfilm and was already developing Star Wars Episode VII for a 2015 release (watch George Lucas explain why he sold Lucasfilm in the video below). No one saw this coming. In the 70s and 80s, George Lucas teased fans with the idea of a 12 part Star Wars movie series – one prequel trilogy and two sequel trilogies. However, for the past 15 years Lucas has maintained that the prequel trilogy completed the story he envisioned and there will be no more Star Wars films. With and without the prospect of new films, the Star Wars fan community has thrived. Just look at the number of fan films and gatherings that have occurred in the last decade.    

Similarly, Trekkies have flourished in the face of a declining franchise. In 2005, after years of disappointing television ratings for Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Nemesis’s dismal box office performance, production on new Star Trek was suspended (the first time in 18 years). While fans were disappointed, many continued to flock to conventions and websites were full of activity. Now, with Star Trek into Darkness (a sequel to J.J. Abrams’s highly successful 2009 rebooted film) on the horizon, Trekkies are devouring any information they can get from the notoriously secretive director (e.g. scrutinizing a three-frame clip of the movie shown on Conan, see below). When it was announced last week that a 9 minute preview of the new movie will be shown before The Hobbit IMAX 3D, presale tickets for Hobbit skyrocketed (this was the only reason I purchased my tickets). Regardless of the franchise’s strength, Trekkies are an intensely active community.

Fans of the acclaimed Battlestar Galactica franchise also have reason to celebrate - after years in limbo, the 2nd prequel to Battlestar Galactica, Blood and Chrome, suddenly premiered on November 9th (see the trailer below). Many fans worried they would never see the webseries after the universally panned spinoff movie, The Plan, and the cancellation of Caprica (Battlestar's first prequel series). Like Star Wars and Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica fans have remained active on and offline despite uncertainty in their franchise.

Just what is happening? How are science fiction fans able to accept the "end" of their beloved franchises and why do they later embrace their return?

The answer starts with a core psychological process – sensory adaptation. This is the process by which we adjust to our environments. Our nervous system is wired to lookout for changes around us (e.g. a new noise outside the window). New information is literally exciting for our neurons. But once changes remain constant (e.g. the noise does not go away), our senses get used to the stimuli and neurons stop firing. Adaptation also occurs with emotions. With time, we get used to our feelings and habituate back to how we feel most of the time (our baseline). Given enough time, the excitement of being on vacation wears off, the sadness of moving from a warm to cold climate fades away, and your new smartphone fails to bring you joy. Not only does adaptation shape the way we see the world, it might be the reason we evolved the way we did. 

Adaptation has also influenced the psychology of happiness (positive psychology). Researchers have discovered that life circumstances (i.e. the things that happen to you) have little influence on our overall happiness. Why? Because we get used to the circumstances we find ourselves in. How we respond to circumstances is far more important than what happens to us (for a great overview of this, check out Sonja Lyubomirsky’s The How of Happiness). While changes in our circumstances do impact our short-term happiness, over the long-term we adjust and return to a stable level of happiness. This is called the hedonic treadmill. Think of your happiness like a thermostat – while the temperature (your feelings) might fluctuate here and there, overall it tends to stay around 70 degrees (your average level of happiness). Everyone's average is different, and we can change our behavior to live in the upper range of our average, but we will always bounce back to our baseline. Some people won't bounce back and develop depression, anxiety, or other emotional problems, but I'll save that story for another day. 

My favorite example of hedonic adaptation comes from the classic 1978 study on lottery winners and paralyzed individuals. You would expect that lottery winners would be much happier after winning up to $1,000,000. You might also predict declines in happiness for recently paralyzed individuals. In this study, while there was an initial bump in happiness for lottery winners and a decline in the paralyzed groups, overall in the long-term everyone returned to how they felt before winning the lottery or becoming paralyzed. Like a thermostat, these participants bounced back to how they felt prior to their life-changing circumstances. 

Adaptation also helps us understand the relationship between income and happiness. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Chick-Sent-Me-Hi) described in If We Are So Rich, Why Aren’t We Happy that after overcoming poverty, increased income only minimally affects our happiness. Once you can comfortably pay your bills, being able to purchase more stuff doesn't make you feel that much better (it does result in better healthcare, education, and opportunities to spend time with friends and family though). Our cultural belief that the road to happiness is financial wealth, combined with the empirical finding that we are very bad at predicting how we will feel in the future, results in many Americans pursuing a goal they have no chance attaining (just like the protagonist in 1999's Fight Club, see below). 

This line of research has major implications for fans. We were sad when the original Star Wars trilogy ended and Star Trek The Original Series was canceled, but we bounced back (hedonic treadmill). When both franchises returned, we celebrated (our nervous system is wired to see change) and we eventually got used to Jar Jar Binks and Wesley Crusher. Fans will accept Disney control of Star Wars, much as they came to terms with J. J. Abrams’s lens flares. Battlestar Galactica’s Blood and Chrome may not be perfect, but we will get used to it’s video game like effects because we love the universe so much. Even with “dead” franchises (e.g. Firefly, Harry Potter), fans find a way to stay engaged.

We see the same type of adaptation outside science fiction with sports fans following their teams despite their performance and political zealots supporting their candidates despite success or failure at the polls. The decline of a franchise might prevent a new generation from becoming fans (which is why Lucas decided to bring back Star Wars via Disney and J. J. Abrams rebooted Star Trek), but it doesn’t prevent current fans from continuing to find a way to enjoy the characters and stories they love so much.