Before Avatar, there was Star Wars. Before Star Wars, there was 2001: A Space Odyssey. Before 2001, there was Star Trek. Before Star Trek, there was The Outer Limits. Before The Outer Limits, there was The Twilight Zone, and before that, finally, there was the radio in your living room. You and your entire family…
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron Written by Alfonso Cuaron and Carlos Cuaron Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney PG-13, 90 minutes Darkness. The soundtrack builds into a deafening blare as the title card flashes. The sound becomes just about intolerable and then it suddenly stops, introducing us to an awe-inspiring shot of the Earth from space….
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan Written by M. Night Shyamalan and Gary Whitta Starring Jaden Smith, Will Smith, Sophie Okenodo, and Zoe Kravitz PG-13, 100 minutes The earlier work of M. Night Shyamalan had a profound effect on my movie-going tendencies. So much so that his recent cinematic contributions have been more disheartening to me…
Directed by J.J. Abrams Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Alice Eve, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwoosd, and Peter Weller PG-13, 132 minutes The Star Trek franchise has seen its ups and downs on a regular basis. A…
Gratuitous Space Battles is an indie game for the PC. It is exactly as the title describes it, gratuitous battles in space. You have access to a number of different races, each of which has their own ship classes, though most of these are pretty much the same. You choose what components you want to…
When director Alfonso Cuaron last presented his work to the world, the year was 2006 and the result was Children of Men. An unconventional post-apocalyptic tale where the human race is on its way out due to an epidemic of infertility, the movie was toasted with great reviews but underwhelmed at the box office. I…
Written and Directed by Neill Blomkamp Starring Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, Wagner Moura and William Fichtner R, 109 minutes Science fiction and social commentary go hand in hand in many cases. In fact, great science fiction has a way of using its fictional premise and diegetic elements to comment…
Directed by Sebastian Cordero Written by Philip Gelatt Starring Chrstian Camargo, Embeth Davidtz, Anamaria Marinca, Michael Nyyqvist, Daniel Wu, Karolina Wydra, Sharlto Copley, and Dan Fogler PG-13, 90 minutes The found footage genre isn’t on the firmest of foundations these days. After a major revival with the popularity of Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield, we’ve been…
Endless Space was released in mid 2o12. It is a turn based strategy game about space adventure and combat. It presents a kind of civilization aspect in that there are many different ways to win. Some of them are: expansion, diplomatic, supremacy, economic, and scientific. It is a very long game. With the standard game…
X-Wing. Tie Fighter. The Millennium freakin Falcon. The space ships in the Star Wars universe are some of the most memorable spacecraft in all of science fiction, often copied, but rarely surpassed. Every ship is a character in its own right, with a distinct look and personality that demands for it to be remembered. Here…
So we all know the problem with the science fiction of the 50s through about the 70s or so: overly optimistic. If we can make it to the moon then surely Mars isn’t that much farther, right? Jetpacks and hovercraft for everybody! Well, they may have gotten that stuff wrong but here’s some tech that…
“The Book,” an intriguing sci-fi written and directed by Richard Weiss, also known as Ø, leaves you to ponder questions afterward, if you choose. In a world 200 and 400 years in the future where humans face alien “replicants”- each alien the exact physical copy of one person in the world, the movie challenges assumptions…
