The book was a novelization of the TV miniseries that predated it, so it's not that strange that it would read like a screenplay :)

Thing about it is, they're not getting burned. Maybe critically, sure, but people keep turning up to watch these remakes, and they keep buying BluRays and DVDs. Transformers is one of the biggest earning movie franchises of all time, Total Recall made its money back and some as did Battleship, Spiderman was a big…

This man is a wizard. He is casting a spell. This concerns me.

Maybe Firefly won't have such a big legacy because it only had 14 episodes. Meanwhile, 50 years on, Star Trek is still going strong. Even if it's not the same to you, it's a pretty weak argument that 79 episodes of TOS, four follow-up series and 12 movies makes an unpardonable cancellation. If Firefly had that I'm…

Maybe the man simply responded to the environment of being trapped in a noisy chamber by a quite obviously scientifically illiterate mad man, by adapting into something interesting enough that he would be let out.

Yeah, I guess you're right, I guess it is more about keeping this insular self-image. The whole issue is just such a big, bubbling stew of adolescence and gender norms and cultural expectations that it's hard to tell what anyone is doing or why. It's obvious that there are institutional and cultural trends that align…

Wasn't he... kind of good in that? Like the only one who was? Or something?

Completely agree that many, many nerdy guys (especially in IT) do use knowledge or understanding as a form of power display. But wouldn't they want women in fandom for that reason? If the point is to be as traditionally masculine as possible, getting the chance to lord your superior knowledge over women seems right up…

The big thing to remember about fandom is that it's not a zero-sum game. The fact that you have a hard time finding people to connect with does not mean that they were replaced with the more numerous, shallow versions, it just means... such people are rare. I think a lot of io9 readers can relate to that feeling.

A bit steep to require Star Wars levels of fame before something can have a popular influence. It's the most famous sci-fi franchise in the history of the genre, if not one of the most famous franchises in the world period, of course Twilight can't compare.

EmmRoss is probably thinking more along the lines of American Gods than Sandman

Unfortunately, 9 has caused an influx of girls who can't be bothered to think beyond "Ooooh David Tennant's so cute!" and actually analyze scifi/fantasy on a deeper level

Not really sure what you're getting at in the last paragraph there. Because something is wildly popular with no depth it can't be influential and important?

What I mind is the fact that the standard for the movie is/was so much higher than any of the other movies in the same franchise.

In my opinion, it was a mess. And many parts of it were nonsensical. Not like "I don't get it" nonsensical, more like "I don't get why the characters or Ridley Scott or Damon Lindelof would do it like that that" nonsensical.

So IQ tests don't test intelligence, they test memory, because memory is a part of everything we do?

Camping trip checklist:

Memory? Unless you mean in the sense of memorizing other IQ-tests, how would memory help you solve raven's progressive matrices?

I wish I could study for a living. It sounds pretty sweet

I've been thinking about the bag, because I really don't have a clue what a rabbit skin bag looks like or how I'd get one. But it's possible to just use any old bag and when someone asks say that it used to be this lovely rabbit skin bag but it seems to be something completely different every time you travel somewhere