"Do you think the upcoming Star Wars live-action series will be enough to save science fiction?"

Are you kidding? Star Wars is dead. 😉

"Is your average citizen too stupid to understand science fiction? "

My average citizen always was.

"Is science fiction on TV dying?"

Yes.3D and holywood stupidity brokez it

There has been a some scifi movies as of late to have come out recently. I thought they were going to start up Star Trek series again after the next Trek movie? I would agree with cultist, I will consider Star Wars dead and I will put the nail in myself next year when I buy my Blu-Ray box set of SW. Lucas could have really put his money to use and gave the fans what they wanted but he didn't and in a way helped kill it himself. I don't think SWTOR will resurrect excitement either because people I know that are in the beta are not giving me the 'OMG you have to play this game' feedback.

But yeah there isn't hardly any shows on TV that involve outer space at all. We have a ton of reality shows and music shows though 🙂 And they wonder why society is getting dumber... just read that The Fringe is moving to Friday night slot. That is usually not a good sign for a TV show. The latest Stargate show will not be renewed as well.

SWTOR hasn't even entered closed beta yet.

SWTOR has been in closed beta for a little while because I know 3 people that are in it. It's just BioWare hasn't ramped up closed beta testers and probably won't unless it is necessary. If they are on track for their Spring release then you would think open beta would start in Apr-May time frame.

I dont believe it is at all. In the last Decade we have had a lot of the best sci-fi released.

BSG, Firefly, and the rest. These are all relatively new when compared to say flash gordon or the original star trek.

Sci-Fi will never die, but it will always remain a niche market.

SciFi always had its ups and downs, and always will. As s20dan and farcodev point out, it is never really been mainstream, despite the occasional title grabbing the general public's attention. It may be less popular now, but it will return, and then slide again.

If someone makes something and can then afford to put stupid amounts of money into the advertising of it, it will be popular. The general public are easy to brainwash, if you advertise it enough people will want to see/play it.

By coincidence, or not, there's an article at the web magazine Salon entitled, "Is Science Fiction Dying" ( http://www.salon.com/books/fiction/inde ... ce_fiction). It's concerned more with science fiction in print than other media, but is nonetheless interesting. Included in the article is a link to an article under the headline of "Who Killed Science Fiction", that was published in 1960. As long as there's a future, I don't think we have to worry too much about the prospects of sci fi.

By the way, this is my first post at space sim central. Great site Darkone. Cheers to everyone.

Hehe, I guess that answers the question for the OP quite well.

And welcome to SSC, Navarth.

That's how fads work. The mainstream has a short attention span and the general interest will shift from one genre to another and back again. Or am I overlooking something?

I think that sci-fi will always have its fan-base, but for now, it seems as if the embers have grown a bit cold (to an extent in gaming as well, but certainly on TV).

Personally, I'm going back and watching Babylon 5. it was on TV when I was young, so I didn't really understand the storyline (I loved the cool ships and space battles though lol, and probably still will).