Serenity

The movie Serenity gives us one interpretation of what the future of mankind could be. Human beings had to take to space in order to survive, similar to Stephen Hawking's predictions of the future. While travel to space has enabled humans to survive, it comes with all kinds of dangers and threats. If your car breaks down on the highway, you can call a tow truck and get a safe ride to wherever you need to go to fix your car. If you ship breaks down, you're suddenly prey to pirates and thieves. And if none of them come along, there's always the possibility that you could drift off into the void of space until you run out of oxygen or die of the extreme temperature.

Serenity and Firefly, the series the movie was based on, show space as being similar to the old wild west, when it was sparsely populated. It seems like the case often is that there is no law, and bandits and profiteers take advantage of the innocent, or there are officials who are supposed to serve the law but abuse their power to serve their own ends. Space is so huge and so dangerous that a very strong government is needed. But it has so much power that it becomes too controlling. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Will humanity's future really be like this? I hope not, if the amount of power the government in the movie has is considered necessary to keep order in outer space.