I think this might be a good year for science fiction.

Coming out this year, and already mentioned in my preview of 2013, are three special-looking science fiction movies.

One is Elysium, the follow-up from the director of District 9. It looks really interesting. The trailer came out last week:

It looks like another entertaining mix of contemporary politics, thoughtful action and wicked cool videogame weapons. With its references to "the rest of us" living in poverty while an elite live in disease-free paradise, this is science fiction for the one percenters. If District 9 was about apartheid, Elysium appears to be about economic equality.

Science fiction has always provided a safe space to tackle difficult and often sensitive ideas. Look at Planet of the Apes tackling civil rights, or the original Star Trek TV series tackling virtually every hot political topic of the 1960s. Is it any coincidence that it was Star Trek that featured the first interracial kiss on US television?

Science fiction is the place where we can tackle big contemporary ideas without the blowback of setting them in the real world. James Cameron can make a movie about indigenous rights and environmentalism in Avatar, Paul Verhoeven can talk about the slippery nature of identity in Robocop and Total Recall, and Charlie Kaufman can talk about the transitory nature of love in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - all under the guise of sci-fi. It wraps potentially dull and worthy topics in shiny, fun wrappers.

As an aside, I think Jurassic Park is about the dangers of excessive showmanship, rather than the dangers of scientific progress. But, that's a blog for another day.

The other two sci-fi movies I am looking forward to this year are Guillermo del Toro's monster movie Pacific Rim and Alfonso Cuaron's space drama Gravity.

It seems that hard sci-fi movies are like buses - you wait years for one and then three turn up at once.

Though, to be fair, in recent years there has been a pleasing resurgence in hard sci-fi. Prometheus aside, I have recently enjoyed the likes of Source Code, Moon, Looper, John Carter and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. All those films took science fiction in interesting directions, all were deadly serious about their subject matter and all told great stories. Moon was particularly impressive.

Time will tell if 2013 turns out to be a banner year for proper science fiction, but right now, it looks promising.

In the meantime, what's your favourite sci-fi of all time? I would have to say Blade Runner or Starship Troopers.

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