Last week's column about how Hollywood doesn't really try to get the future right prompted the following question in e-mail:

Okay, so none of the science fictional worlds we see in movies are likely to come to pass. Would you still like to live in some of them anyway? I wouldn't mind having my own land speeder, like they do in Star Wars.

Well, truth to tell, I'd like a land speeder too; who wouldn't? But I'm not entirely sure I would necessarily want to live in the Star Wars universe. Sure, the gadgets are cool, but the sociopolitical situation is a little dicey, you know? The Rebellion isn't out there just for the fun of it. Indeed, in a great many science fiction films and franchises we oooh and aaah over are places that are nice to visit, but not necessarily great places to live. To make this point, let me lay out the pros and cons of living in four science fiction film universes.

Star Wars
Pros: Droids to cater to your every whim; your own speeder bike and/or landspeeder, fulfilling your need for a flying car; if you learn how to manipulate The Force you'll never have to leave the couch to get a beer ever again; dude, your very own light saber.

Cons: You're living in a despotic totalitarian empire; there's a civil war going on and even if you're not actively involved there's still a chance your planet will get blown up by the Death Star, just for kicks; the parts of the galaxy not run by the Empire are run by slug-like crime bosses; possibly of being choked from a long distance by a tall masked creep in fetish gear.

Overall grade for livability: C-. Too much despotism and larynx crushing.


Star Trek
Pros: The United Federation of Planets is by all indications a functioning representative democracy; everyone is happy and provided a minimum (but nice) standard of living; sexy green-skinned aliens unaccountably attracted to you; Vulcans are plentiful and will be your wingman and do your mathematics homework with only an occasional raised eyebrow for an objection.

Cons: Every few years the Earth is threatened by aliens who want to find their creators or talk to humpback whales or drop a black hole into the San Francisco bay, and that gets tiresome after a while; The Federation is actually kind of boring (unless you live on its frontier, in which case it is all too exciting); wearing a red shirt increases your chances of death or injury far more than is naturally statistically explainable.

Overall grade: B -. Think of the Federation as the gated community of the future, and think of what the need for a gated community implies.

The Matrix
Pros: If you're in the Matrix, technically speaking you don't have to do anything, you just lie there and let the machines do everything for you; if you're outside the Matrix you can learn kung fu in fifteen seconds; if you're outside the Matrix and then go into it, you can pretty much kill anyone you want without feeling guilty about it, which is perfect if you're antisocial and/or psychotic and/or just having a really bad day; really husky raves down there in Zion.

Cons: Agents will kill you; in the real world you wear rags and eat goop and will likely eventually be skewered to death by a flying squid machine; the fate of your entire world depends on the dumber half of "Bill & Ted"; the fact that your life was in fact a machine-generated illusion means that all those years of P.E. class really were a complete waste of time.

Overall grade: D. Inside the Matrix, you're a slave, outside the Matrix, you dress like a homeless person.

Serenity
Pros: Everyone speaks in really clever dialogue, so you'll never have a boring conversation; combination American/Chinese hegemony means finally you'll pick up that second language; you can enjoy garb like chaps and leather dusters without people thinking you've got some sort of weird kink going on; lots of smuggling, which is the closest thing the future has to being a pirate, yarrr.

Cons: Central government is a thinly-veiled despotic bureaucracy with delusions of social engineering, perfectly happy to kill people it finds annoying (including you); when you least expect it, you are likely to be killed and eaten by berzerker zombies from space; after a while you'll realize all that clever conversation just makes you want to strangle someone; the nagging feeling that your universe isn't as popular as you think it should be.

Overall grade: C. Really only suitable for a select few.

So for the moment I think I'll just keep living in this world. Sure, that means no light sabers or Vulcan wingmen or learning Kung Fu in fifteen seconds. But it also means no crushed windpipes, despotic emperors or computer overlords using me as a flashlight. It's a fair trade.