The Darkness

I want to talk a little about the darkness today. And no, I don't mean these guys:
Although, they do rock it pretty hard!

I want to talk a little bit about a trend in science fiction that is bothering me. That trend is the darkening of all things that should be fun.

For all of the love given to The Dark Knight, it just wasn't for me. I enjoyed the movie for the technical aspects, the writing, and even most of the writing. But boy was it depressing. It may have been a more accurate portrayal of what the Joker would be like if he was real, but the movie made me sad. It was way too dark for me.

And now this: "All DC characters will now be going the dark and brooding direction, thanks to the success of The Dark Knight." So, now any DC movies will be dark and depressing. No fun Green Lantern ala Iron Man. No Aquaman ala Entourage. Nothing I will really want to see. I have made my opinion clear that I prefer Marvel to DC, and if this keeps up and/or transfers to the comics, that will never change my opinion.

This trend is everywhere though. Let's look at one of my favorite series: Star Trek. Here is The Next Generation, 20 years ago:

Now, here is the most recent series, Enterprise: Even ignoring the dramatic shift in quality, there was a much bigger difference in the lightheartedness and fun of the show. At least DS9 had a good reason for being dark. This seems to have happened time and time again with sci-fi though. Battlestar Galactica, while a very high quality show, is also very dark and depressing. I would rather watch a Stargate any day!

I know these dark takes have been around for a while, but they seem to be permeating the mainstream more and more these days. I do enjoy a good tale about a dystopian future, but watching a weekly television series about one isn't as fun as most of the other sci-fi out there. I do think that there is a place for these dark tales, but if they continue to invade my favorite genres, I will likely begin to ignore them. Bring back the fun in sci-fi!

Honestly, who wants to see a dark and depressing version of Superman?