The tragedy of 9-11 left me, as I’m sure it did all of you, with an empty feeling inside me (as well as copious amounts of anger and grief). It was at this time that I turned to movies for inspiration and comfort, and of all them, those that I found myself most drawn to are the Star Wars and Star Trek series.

Unfortunately, Lucas has managed to destroy his franchise by injecting massive doses of stupidity into Episode One, so I could only look to the “classics”. Obi-Wan’s words while training Luke on the Falcon are particularly relevant: “I felt a great disturbance in the force…as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.” A New Hope gave us these kinds of brilliant moments, and Phantom Menace gave us fart jokes.

That left me with Star Trek. Yes, I am a star Trek fan. I own books, reference materials, models, and Columbia House videos. I do not attend conventions or dress up like my favorite characters, not that I haven’t wanted to. I grew up watching Kirk woo green women, Spock reshape the rules of logic, McCoy cure the incurable, and Scotty fix the unfixable. I lived every episode of The Next Generation for seven years, becoming completely absorbed in the characters and the universe Gene Roddenberry rebirthed. I have always felt that Star Trek represented the very best of humanity: our courage, determination, drive, compassion, and creativity. Given this, I was really looking forward to the premiere of “Enterprise” on the 26th. I wanted, no, needed, the stability of the positive future presented by Star Trek.

Instead I got an annoying cast directed into a story that did anything but reflect the best of humanity. Sure, they saved the Klingon’s life, but they did it by jumping through a series of character inconsistencies and plot holes. The captain (played by Scott Bakula, who I actually like) did not act like a captain. After the scene Captain Archer made in Starfleet medical he’d be luck to be in charge of a garbage scow. Just as the Vulcan oozed sex appeal (by dressing anything but Vulcan) she oozed emotions like distain and contempt, acting in ways Leonard Nimoy never did. And if Starfleet is going to send out their best and only long-range starship into uncharted territory, wouldn’t it make sense to have some ambassadors or diplomats or something along for the trip? Maybe a whole bunch of scientists, too, not only to study the space they were entering, but the performance of this experimental ship? The whole show felt as if it were a parody of Star Trek with parody characters, kind of like Frank Kowal’s Galaxy’s Edge series, only not as good and not as funny.

But I digress… My point in this column is not to suggest that “Broken Bow” stunk, but to mourn the passing of Sci-Fi as a viable entertainment medium. Lucas is trying his damnedest to kill Star Wars and now Berman is trying to kill Star Trek. Where are we to look for other Sci-Fi? Andromeda? Gimme a break. Earth: Final Conflict? A joke of a show and in its fifth and final season. X-Files? Over and done, and it crossed over into science fantasy quite often. Stargate: SG-1? I like the show, but once again it crosses over into the fantasy realm. FarScape? Now wouldn’t that be fitting… The last bastion of good Sci-Fi is an outgrowth of the Muppet Show.

There has always been, and will always be a need in the entertainment industry for the fantastic. Traditionally this niche is filled by either Science Fiction or Fantasy, and if you take a real close look you’ll notice that it’s rare for both to be popular at the same time. It’s as if there’s a pendulum somewhere swinging between Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and right now I think it’s swinging past the middle on it’s way to Fantasy. Look at the evidence. Matrix, X-Men, Phantom Menace, Sixth Sense, The Mummy, and The Blair Witch Project all have fantasy elements in them. You have to go all the way back to 1998 and Armageddon to find a big hit Sci-Fi movie. And what do we have on the horizon? American Astronaut, where a space trader is commissioned by an all male colony to get a girl in exchange for a boy he can trade to Venus. The first Harry Potter movie, where Harry learns how to use his newfound magical abilities. Fellowship of the Ring, where the good guys must destroy a dragon. Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, who saves the earth in his open air rocket. And then there will be a slew of comic book adaptations including, but not limited to, Spider-Man, Blade 2, Men in Black 2, Batman Beyond, and Batman Year One.

I’d say the future look decidedly less Sci-Fi. There will be another Star Trek Movie, of course, but the word on the street is Berman is doing his best to stonewall the efforts of the Next Generation cast to wrest control of the movie franchise from him. Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, in particular, want to save what’s left of Gene’s vision. And we can’t forget Star Wars: Send in the Clones. I mean, Attack of the Clones. Yeah. Star Wars has always been classified more a Space Opera rather then a true Sci-Fi concept, and now that JarJar (may he rot in CG hell) is involved I’m fine with keeping it that way. I like the fantasy genre just as much as Sci-Fi, and I hope there’s some really good sword and sorcery type movies made in the coming years. No doubt there will be some excellent science fiction produced as well, but I see a trend in the major movie houses that means we’re going to be force fed fantasy, and probably bad fantasy, till we puke it back out. This means we either start producing our own Sci-Fi, or we go out and buy ourselves some long robes, magic stones, and gnarled walking sticks.

For me I suppose that depends on which of my unfinished scripts I finish first.

Take care of you and yours, and if you happen to run across a terrorist, kill ‘um.