The State of Sci-Fi / Action Films

All blockbuster films that've come out this decade happen to be retreads. Spider Man, Batman, The Incredible Hulk, yadda-yadda-yadda. At least Indiana Jones and Star Wars weren't spin-offs from a past era. There's creative people out there, so I'm becoming anxious for the next generation of super heros to be born.

I know I’m putting the cart before the horse on this (especially since the movie hasn’t officially come out yet), but it will be interesting to see if this becomes one of the Millennials’ touchstone action/SciFi flicks. That it’s directed by Gen X’er Abrams (born 1966) merely helps it fit the pattern. How many of us Gen X’ers were huge fans of Indiana Jones, E.T., Jaws and so on from the 1970s and ’80s canon of the 1946-born Steven Spielberg, himself the prototypical Boomer? I was a huge Star Wars guy, which was the product of another Baby Boomer, 1944-born (yes, that year counts) George Lucas (never mind that he killed the franchise starting in 1999 with its awful prequels, or that for the last 15 years has resembled — to quote a friend — a big, stoned Ewok).