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Hollywood doesn’t make a lot of “hard” sci-fi movies these days. Sure, they make a lot of superhero movies, which are a type of sci-fi movie, and a lot of general sci-fi movies too but not too many “hard” ones. To me, I consider a “hard” sci-fi movie to be set in a believable time period, to be focused on realism, to not be afraid of including issues that challenge the viewer and to not cater to the lowest common denominator.

Movies like Aliens, The Matrix, Moon and Children of Men (to name a few) are “hard” sci-fi movies. Popular sci-fi movies that are what I consider “lite” are films like the recent Star Trek franchise, Guardians of the Galaxy and most recent Terminator movie. Not that these flicks are bad but they’re lite when it comes to the science fiction and don’t require much thought.

And it’s exactly “lite” sci-fi that’s taken over the cineplexes of late. In 2013 there were 10+ movies that I’d consider sci-fi “lite” from Pacific Rim to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Out of those I’d only consider three of them to be “hard;” Oblivion, Gravity and Riddick. And ’12 was even worse with just Dredd and Prometheus being “hard” sci-fi movies.

But it does seem like if ’12 was an okay year for “hard” sci-fi and ’13 was a good one then ’14 was a year that was showing definite signs of improvement with four “hard” sci-fi films that were released, three of which are some of my favorite flicks of the last few years.

Out in February was the RoboCop remake which was a movie that shouldn’t have worked but totally did. First it was a remake of a beloved and critically acclaimed movie that many sci-fi geeks, myself included, love. Second the movie was supposed to premiere the summer of ’13 then was pushed back to February, which the rule is this is NEVER a good sign of the quality of a movie.

Except RoboCop 2014 is the exception that proves the rule.

The 2014 RoboCop is an updated retelling of the original 1987 RoboCop. But where as the original was about out of control corporations, which seemed crazy in ’87 but is a reality today, and the idea of technology outpacing mankind the ’14 RoboCop is different in many respects. That movie changes things around a bit and instead of the character of Murphy/RoboCop turning from machine to man it has him turning from man to machine.

RoboCop 2014 also examines the concept of living in a culture where we’re starting to place more and more of our security in the hands of drones. And that while now those drones might be controlled by people, it isn’t too much of a leap in logic to assume that those same drones might one day control themselves and have the authority to kill on command.

Then in June came Edge of Tomorrow, a film that had a terrible name but an amazing film none-the-less. I’ve written extensively about Edge of Tomorrow before so I won’t go into much detail on that movie here other than to reiterate that it’s wonderful!

In July came Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, another movie that shouldn’t have worked but turned out to be one of the best of the year. If the previous Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) had to overcome a lot of hurdles, namely that it was competing against a beloved movie franchise that hadn’t had an interesting movie in more than 40 years, then Dawn had it’s own issues to overcome. Namely that both the writers and director who ushered Rise to the theaters and made it a smashing success had left/been fired from the sequel which like with the release date of RoboCop being changed is never a good sign.

Like with RoboCop and Edge of Tomorrow, Dawn deals with a lot of heady subjects. Here, it’s a decade after a virus has wiped out most of mankind and the smart apes of Rise have settled in the forests around San Francisco forming their own community. But when what’s left of mankind meets the apes when trying to restore power to their city via a hydroelectric dam things can go one of two ways.

First, mankind and the apes can come to an understanding and help one and other into an uncertain future. Or man and apekind’s baser instincts can come into play that has each species convinced of the ill intentions of the other leading to outright hostilities and war.

Dawn is an interesting examination of what happens when tiny events go one way or another and end up shaping history.

And this fall Interstellar launched. While I can’t personally attest to the quality of this film, because (cough) I’ve yet to see it, friends who’s opinions I trust said that it was a good movie if it gets a little lost in the end.

Four quality “hard” sci-fi films in one year is pretty good considering we can go years and years between any sci-fi movies, let alone “hard” ones.

My favorite book: Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years

I think that the generation I grew up in has an odd relationship with the band The Beatles. We were born at a time when John, Paul, George and Ringo were all still with us but had long since stopped making new music together. And while there was no new Beatles music their tunes were starting to appear in different places like the theme song to The Wonder Years and on Nike TV commercials. And in 1995 there was a resurgence of the band when The Beatles Anthology TV documentary/CD set that kind’a sort’a featured new Beatles tunes along with unreleased demos and sessions was released.

I thought I had a pretty good handle on what it was that made up The Beatles. That was until I read the book Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years.

This nearly 1,000 page history of The Beatles follows the band from John, George, Paul and Ringo’s grandparents to the lads growing up in Liverpool and forming different bands and writing songs of their own. This first book of a series only covers the band to the point where they’re about to become the biggest group in the world in 1962.

My favorite trip down memory lane: Cycle of the Werewolf

For whatever reason I like to keep track of pop-culture anniversaries. Be it that the TV series Robotech first debuted 30 years ago this year or that actor X is Y years old today. And one thing that I did throughout 2014 was to combine my love of anniversaries along with my love of author Stephen King and artist Bernie Wrightson by reading one chapter of their book Cycle of the Werewolf each month that chapter takes place on.

Each chapter covers the day of the full Moon each month in the town Tarker’s Mills, Maine as a werewolf stalks the dark and terrorizes its citizens.

(Cycle of the Werewolf is currently out of print but used copies can be easily found.)

My favorite collected comic: Akira

While I’m a huge fan of the Akira (1988) movie, I hate to say it but until 2014 I’d never actually read all of the comics the movie was based on. Sure, I’ve read some of them but I’ve never read the whole Akira story. That was until this summer. I’m not sure what made me do it but I finally decided to buy all six volumes of the collected series and read the whole Akira story that’s literally thousands of pages long.

I’d take a few weeks to read each volume, reading each night before bed and forcing myself to stop after reading 30 pages or so. And since the story of Akira is so good and flows so well it was very difficult to stop. Since Akira is so long elements that might play out in a frame or two of an ordinary comic instead play out over dozens of pages in Akira. And instead of coming off slow or boring it totally works.

After months of nightly reading I finally finished the Akira manga last fall and I can say that the comic story is so much better than the movie, and the movie is amazing to begin with.

My favorite classic TV series: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

It’s been probably a decade since I first watched the mini-series Tinker Tailor Solider Spy (1979) on DVD. And after having recently read the book and watched the 2011 film version of the story for the many-ith time I decided to work through the seven episode mini-series again to see if it’s held up over the last few years. And I can say yes, the 1979 Alec Guinness version of Tinker Tailor is still as brilliant as ever. And actually the story with British spies trying to uncover a Soviet mole in their midst plays out a bit better and makes more sense in the TV version since the seven hour series is able to devote more time to the story than the two hour movie.

I’d highly recommend to anyone to checkout Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that’s still available on DVD, even if it’s odd to see Obi-Wan Kenobi smoking cigarettes in a damp, depressive London.