What is the single best science fiction or fantasy franchise?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It's funny to think of Alan Moore of being an optimist wearing rose-colored glasses, but the pandemic 100% buried the plausibility of the ending of Watchmen.

I think it was a little bit too easy to pretend that microscopic little thingies potentially killing people don't really exist or something.
It is a bit harder to deny octopus raining down all the time. And wasn't there also something about inducing nightmares or something?

That said, there is still plenty of room to create conspiracy myths around it. Not sure they'd be close to the truth (or at least the popular ones would be).

I guess the big problem is that humans can adjust to "new normals". Okay, you have nightmare fish and sometimes they fall from the sky. "But do I really trust that the US government knows better than the Russian government how to deal with that problem?" "We could really use that oil to build better defenses against alien invaders... Maybe we should sacrifice Russia for the rest of humanity?" "Hey, would they even care about us if we created some nuclear fallout?"

 

[Autumnal]

And Mary Shelley was eighteen when she invented it. Mind-blowing.

And also she found the thought of another threesome with Byron too boring.

(27. Finally recognizing that a space opera that you enjoyed for a few years in your youth and still appreciate to this day is not only nothing more than more corporate IP that Disney is using to take over the world and everyone’s brains through a streaming service, but is also the breeding ground for a peculiar and nasty strain of nerd-rage with a side-dose of toxic masculinity that frightens the hell out of you- and trying to come to an understanding that Star Wars has always been primarily about and for young people, not you.

This is the heart of it. I have friends who were the same age for the prequels that I was for the originals, and we talk about what hooked us, it’s much the same mix of stuff. It is okay to outgrow being the target audience, and to move on to other things.

Also, the real right answer is Man From Atlantis. Or possibly Planet Of The Apes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And also she found the thought of another threesome with Byron too boring.

There's zero chance that Lord Byron wasn't incredibly selfish in bed.

 

[MGibster]

Though I will give him the opening 10 minutes of his remake of Dawn of the Dead. That is a fantastic cold open.

It really is a great opening. Snyder did in a few minutes what Fear the Walking Dead failed to do over the entire 1st season.