The year is 1969, and to me and many others, the ”proverbial good sci-fi movie” came to life in the form of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In fact to me, this is THE best movie ever made.

Since then we have had Star Wars, Close Encounters, Blade Runner, ET, the Alien series including Prometheus and numerous others good and bad

I watched Alien on TV the other night and even though it was spawned in 1979, it still stands up quite well but it got me wondering. Unless I have missed something, we really haven’t had a breakthrough in the formula for sci-fi movies for a long, long time. Over the last decade or so they have either been as said, formulaic (battle the aliens a la “Independence Day”, extensions on the “franchise” (those god-awful Star Wars prequels), comedies (Men in Black) or in my mind, horrible interpretations of books (I Robot, I am Legend) or comic characters – oh and of course Star Trek. That last one was terrible.

There has been no attempt to try something new.

So who will be the next serious writer brave enough to break new ground, find a director and producer to come on board and a studio to take on the project?

Will it be another Kubrick or Spielberg? Will an existing “name” come forward or will someone new and fresh burst on the scene?

Postscript: Following my piece last week about waterproofing mobile phones, I have since come across www.indepthcases.com.au