Do Kids Today take Science Fiction for Granted?

Tyler Foster at BoxOffice.com recently posted an article Science Fiction for Kids, musing about the mediocre response to most science fiction adventures, particularly the ones aimed at younger audiences. Foster ponders the history of several recent kid oriented science fiction, and their success or failure along with the recent release of a tepid Planet 51.

That got me thinking. The WALL-Es are few and far between, but it's not that there isn't an interest in science fiction among kids, is it? Maybe it's just taken for granted in the younger generation today. When I was a kid, we'd already walked on the moon, but the space shuttle hadn't yet launched. Technology has changed a lot, but not everyone in my generation has adopted high tech in their daily life. Kids today practically use computers before they can walk.

The mystique is lost when it's a matter of course that technology changes drastically in just a few years. Compact Discs have only been commercially available since the early 80s, yet today I can fit thousands of songs on a Micro SD memory card shorter than a dime and thinner than a credit card. My MP3 player is smaller in dimensions than said credit card, and less than 6 ounces, and I can fit multiple movies on it. That was nearly unimaginable to anyone who wasn't a sci fi geek last millenium.

So perhaps the youngsters of today are just too familiar with changes in technology, and changes in general to be easily entertained by science fiction? That might even explain the draw to the Twilight Saga, as the supernatural still has the draw of the unknown.

What do you think?