Where have all the geeks gone?

I watched I Am Legend this weekend. It was great, I loved it. It was a drama, when I was expecting a horror. Very fantastic movie.

I suggested my coworkers go and see it when they get a chance, and that got us talking about movies. One of them suggested that Transformers was the movie of the year. Seemed reasonable, but I said Pirates was in the running too, which they responded with 'meh'. 'Meh'?!? It's pirates! But alright, not everyone has the same tastes.

Then I mentioned the preview at the beginning of I Am Legend, the preview for the new Narnia movie. Oh it looked great! My coworker than said "I didn't see the first Narnia." I kinda blinked at him and asked if he read the book, he said "It was a book?" I kinda rubbed my temples, and said "You might like it. It's big, epic, awesome. The cinematics reminded me of the big battle scenes in Lord of the Rings." He said "I didn't watch that either." To which I responded "Wait, what? You didn't watch Lord of the Rings?!?" He kinda looked at me funny.

I shouted across the cubicle walls at the only other coworker that was in the office at the time "PLEASE tell me you have seen Lord of the Rings!!!" I got the response of "Uhm, I watched the movie once, I think..."

These people are programmers!!! Yet, they are not geeks. It is so strange. My Star Wars jokes fall flat on their ears also. The best I have gotten out of them is that most of them have seen Wrath of Khan (but they don't know it by name, I just say "That Sci-fi movie where they put the bug in the guy's ear" and they say "Oh yeah, I saw that once").

I think I might start performing experiments on them. Expose them to pieces of geek culture and see how the react to it. Will they embrace it? Will they reject it? Will they begin flinging their poo?