Yeah, this essentially comes down to the "hardness scale" of science fiction writing. If you're making a big budget film then it's all for mass consumption, and

Yeah, this essentially comes down to the "hardness scale" of science fiction writing. If you're making a big budget film then it's all for mass consumption, and realistic extrapolation only really makes the cut if the novelty or plausibility of it impresses the audience. Special effects and space battles are a better bet most of the time. As you've said, exceptions exist, but they're even less present in the film market for obvious reasons. I'd actually say there's no dearth of good hard written scifi, though. Charles Stross (sometimes seen around here and on Reddit) has introduced a bunch of incredible new things in "Accelerando" that appear obvious in retrospect, things in Hannu Rajaniemi's "The Quantum Thief" like the privacy settings on Mars were insightful as hell. Just about everything written by Greg Egan is grounded in some jaw-dropping speculative physics or steeped in new thought on the philosophical or social ramifications of foreseeable technologies.