sigh.

my, how times have changed.

Well......at least that's what I've been told.

3 weeks after that crash. I've always felt connected.

Times have really changed.

Some things change but others stay the same.

65 years since the day the earth stood still.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still

I saw it as a kid in the theater...and remember they gave out cardboard robot masks as a promotion...wish the hell I would have saved it.
But the message was anti war and appealed to the intellectual solutions to our problems...something we could all use today.
Si Fi movies today all glorify war and conflict..and can't think of one that does not.

NT

That one didn't have war, and the conflict was very intelligent
and ultimately cosmic and spiritual.

Also, many of the Star Trek episodes dealt with intelligent
and important themes which did not involve war, and even
the ones that did involve military type combat were not just
about that.

But looking at it you can see the trend...Star Trek started as an exploration of the universe...but soon became war with the Klingons....and it became less of a voyage of discovery and more of a war ship.

When space exploration was the main interest.

were pro-war? Maybe you are confusing them with the X-Men & Terminator & Blade franchises?

But I only saw Avatar so I can't say for sure....but just look back in history to see the trend...What was Star Wars about?...Battlestar Galactica?...war on a Si Fi lever.
But even those with an anti war message have a lot of explosions and killing...it is like an addiction to violence and they think that all the watchers need that fix.

and offers commentary on the now and a potential future.

The 20th century U.S. was nothing but war after war after war and we continued that into the 21st. So much of the scifi of the mid-20th century was reflecting WWII and the atomic bomb. A kajillion B-movies came out in the 50s & 60s focusing on aftermath of the nuclear era on the animal kingdom.

I.e, your examples reflect the current environment and tend to take diverging paths to possible fictional "futures" (in the form of analogous beings called "humans" not from Earth).

I agree with the sentiment for an overuse of violence, but it seems Hollywood prefers to make scifi-themed movies into an "action" flick in order to gain coveted demographics. But then again, if you read scifi, alot of it is pretty violent itself - again reflecting the "now".

One scifi movie that I always liked was "Silent Running" which was an eco-themed film. And except for some parts, it did stray away from shoot-em-up style story-telling.

It's ironic that despite its popularity, a certain generation has denigrated shows like Star Trek (and most notably TNG) because of the focus on a "positive" but (to them) "sterile" future, without the "grit and grime" and other nonsense. But c'est la vie.

And another one was Robinson Caruso on Mars...and then Slaughterhouse Five which was just great...but then look who wrote it.
So they know how to tell stories without the constant reliance on violence...they just chose not to.

and Terminator is not really pro-war, except maybe the rage against the machines.

which makes it science fiction.

there really needs to be some aspect of technology in it for it to be science fiction. Androids, robots, space ships, time machines, laser pistols, teleportation devices, alien races, etc. A dystopian story is not science fiction unless it has a basis in technology or science, and I don't see that in V. In the virus, somewhat, but there is nothing particularly futuristic about that.

The Iron Giant, Star Trek 4, Star Man, or Back to the Future?

Of course, I think 3 of those 4 are mid 1980s rather than "today".

The other two I saw and liked.
And maybe I did paint with a broad brush somewhat,,,there are still good SI FI movies made but mostly by the independents...Major studio productions are all war and violence all the time.

you are in for a treat.

then again, the Iron Giant IS a "big gun, that walks".

The birth of the UFO phenomena at Roswell ..... None of the other stories carry the same weight ....

At least 65% of Americans think he will do better than Romeny at handling an invasion by space aliens.

Birth announcement accompanied the saucer report?

Cue: Lunatic Bagger Conspiracy number 157.