When I first decided to do a post on my favorite places in the Multiverse, I started listing movies and book series — and almost immediately ran out of paper. I realized that I couldn’t really list individual threads; there is too much. So let me sum up — with a more general list:
Space
Star Trek. Star Wars. Babylon 5. Farscape. Firefly. Honor Harrington. The Heinleinverse. And a whole lot more. Space is a really big place, and science fiction is a huge genre. So if space travel is possible or the action happens on another planet, then it goes in this category. Amazing how much stuff that ties up, ain’t it?
School
Ferris Buehler. Ridgemont High. Pacific Tech. Van Wilder. The School of Rock. The Deltas. The Pitt. Heck, Sky High works, as does Hogwart’s (though to me they fit better in other categories).
ToonSpace
Warner Brothers. Tex Avery. Fleisher. Disney. You know, the classics. Pixar and Dreamworks have brought this corner of the Multiverse into 3D, which has been a very good thing; but 3D or 2D, I love animation!
ParodyVille
Mel Brooks and the Abrhams/Zucker/Zucker movies are the cornerstone of this category, but there are others out there, like Flesh Gordon or Last Action Hero. Heck, I could argue that with Enchanted, Disney made a parody of all their other movies — from a certain point of view.
SuperSecret
UNIT. Torchwood. The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Omega Sector. Mutant X. The Vatican Organization. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The Holy Order. A large number of agencies with no name at all. Not to mention TimeLords, Guardians of Time, and Time Guardians (yes, I’ve heard of both), and the “invisible societies:” Elves in California, Diagon Alley in the middle of London, and the World Below in New York all wind up here. So do the countless individuals who for one reason or another (some of them most interesting) are staying “off the grid.”
FantasyForest
Middle-earth. Florin and Gilder. Gwynedd. Valdemar. Narnia. The worlds where dragons fly, warriors quest and magic-workers enchant. This is one of my favorite places in the Multiverse.
HeroSpace
Superman. Spiderman. Batman. Condorman. The Greatest American Hero. The Avengers, the X-Men, and the Justice League. “Longjohns at six o’clock.” There are a lot of costumed do-gooders out there, and all of them are fun to watch. (Especially if they’re particularly good at it yet!)
Alternative History
What if this had never happened? What if this had happened like that? What if a piece of now got transported back to then? What if everybody used magic? “He’s historical — let’s grab him!” Playing with history has always been a rich vein for fiction. The Terminator is all about playing with history, as is the wonderful Grantville/1632 book series. It’s fun to play “What if!”
RubberMonsterLand
Since this is my list, I get to include one of my favorite places to waste my time. Godzilla is responsible for some of my favorite family memories, silly as that sounds. King Kong, Godzilla, Gamera, Gorgo, and all their friends and opponents are a great source of good, clean, wholesome destruction (Tokyo has a wonderful [and well-rehearsed] evacuation system) and lovely, wonderful carnage.
Um . . . Gee . . . Ooh . . . Ahh . . .
It seems my Top 10 list only has 9 entries on it! And I can’t decide on a final category. What do you think? Should it be “Awesome Tech?” “Fun with Mythology?” “Secret Missions?” “Fantastic Futures?” How about “Happy Endings as only celluloid can deliver,” or “MusicalLand?” (Or does the first include the second?) What have I forgotten? Please weigh in in the Comments section below!
