Is this the best science fiction show ever?

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[OscarCP]

This is Wavy’s fault ( #2013698 ), because he wrote elsewhere (and way off topic, I must add) that the best science fiction EVER is ‘The Expanse’, that one can watch right now in Amazon Prime.

I disagree, most bitterly: The best science fiction show, ever, was “Firefly”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)

And, although it is harder to classify as such, the best SF show that lasted longer than one season was, unquestionably, ‘Futurama’:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama

Feel free to dissent here.

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• This topic was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by OscarCP.

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Well, not having seen every SF series that’s ever gone on the air, I feel unqualified to state what may or may not be the best SF show ever.  🙂

However, what I can say confidently is that my personal all-time favorite SF series is the original “Star Trek.” Sure, the production values were hokey and the acting a bit lacking, but the show just soared (so to speak) on the story lines.

I can also tell you the worst SF series I’ve ever seen.

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Cybertooth: I feel somewhat disappointed with your choice of the original Star Trek. I would have thought that ST the Next Generation was much superior: among others, it had both Spock AND Data, Patrick Stewart’s Captain Piccard (who was, unquestionably, so much superior and more interesting than William Shatner’s C. Kirk), Commander Worf, Klingons, plus, as a bonus, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, the well-rounded Betazoid Counselor AND Lwaxana Troi (played by Roddeberry’s wife Majel) as her very interesting mother! The original ST just couldn’t compete. It didn’t had Scotty, but Levar Burton’s Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge was no slouch as Chief Engineer, even when he was blind and the dilithium crystals were always such a big problem for him.

But, good as that was, I still maintain that “Firefly” was the best.

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Cannot compare a sequel to the original.  If not for the original there would be nothing.  TNG had stiff actors, no story lines, no continuity and non canon.

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I think I watch a half an episode , but I guess I fell into the trap of the superlative myself with my ‘best’. Such that look good and prove aweful, such disappointment..

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I should have said my above reply was in response to Cybertooths worst :Another Life !

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After the Star Trek drought of the ’70s and most of the ’80s, I eagerly watched TNG when it came out, as well as Voyager and Deep Space 9. While TNG was a welcome return of the franchise, IMO the stories were of inconsistent quality, certainly less consistent from week to week than those of the original series. Some episodes I found rather sophomoric (sorry, couldn’t tell you any more what those episodes were, only my recollections from the time).

And in my view, the major characters didn’t mesh together as well as those of the original series. It was more of a hodgepodge of moderately interesting characters. By contrast, the interplay between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy was almost Freudian in nature, where McCoy represented the id (emotional), Spock the ego (rational), and Kirk the superego balancing  their respective considerations. To quote a certain Vulcan, I found that interplay “fascinating.”  🙂

Not that TNG was devoid of memorable moments. My favorite episode, because of its startling nature, was one where Beverly Crusher wandered about the Enterprise while chunks of the ship kept disappearing into nothingness.

Don’t get me wrong: I did enjoy watching TNG. But the original ST provided more consistent enjoyment/enlightenment for me. As a friend once put it, the stories were morality plays, which had us thinking afterward. Much (most?) of the time after the end of a TNG episode, that  was the end of my engagement with the story.

 

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Elly

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Yup, the original Star Trek for me. Unless you’re counting Red Dwarf  of course.

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Can’t say I have heard of that one, it on Netflix DVDS so maybe…

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Wavy: ‘Red Dwarf’ is known in the USA just to the “most seriously into British TV” audiences. I used to watch it, now and again, on my local PBS station, that also replayed, every year until some years ago, (when SyFy bought the rights, but never did anything besides sitting on them) the whole of what was kept by the thrifty people at the BBC (after wiping out several tapes to reuse them for something else) of the old ‘Doctor Who’ in a double header with RD.

RD was not too bad, but a step down from ‘Doctor Who’, in my opinion. I did not know it is now on Netflix. So you may watch it there and make up your own mind about it.

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Erm…it’s a sitcom. Plenty available on YouTube if you want a quick taster.

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[OscarCP]

Well, at least I can be very slightly happy that, so far, nobody has mentioned “Battlestar Galactica (reimagined)”. Because the less said about that one, the better. I actually liked the original Battlestar, the one created by a Mormon and with several hints (or so say those who have read it) to passages in the Book of Mormon. At least it was fun in a goofy sort of way, unpretentious, obviously low budget and using technology in their (presumably, with enough suspension of disbelief) super duper, tremendously advanced battle starships that was NOT mid-Twentieth Century, such as retro land-line chunky phones with rotary dials and wall clocks “to confuse the enemy” (and to save money on props?), according to the second version fans. The only consolation, in the middle of all the disappointments with the “reimagined” one, was President Roslin. But she was not enough. No, not even near enough.

But I can’t imagine people, as boldly as you please, declaring that anything is better than Firefly. Is it possible that there are no Browncoats here at all? Oh, the humanity! And what about Futurama, huh? How about it?

And I also liked “Supernova”, in BBC two; I saw a few episodes when I was staying in Newcastle for a while. Maybe I was the only one who enjoyed it? I really enjoyed the episode where they thought that they had seen God with one of their advanced telescopes (it was interference from a microwave  or something kike that) and wrote a paper about it, then all of them pressed on the “Return” key together to email it to  prestigious astronomical journal. I can really sympatize.

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• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by OscarCP.

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Mr. Austin

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I agree on Firefly!!! 🙂 Probably the saddest ever experience when that came to an end! 🙁

But I have to admit that I did binge watch the new “Battlestar Galactica” (2004), with Katee Sackhoff, Edward Jmaes Olmos, & Tricia Helfer, etc. Guilty pleasure! 🙂

 

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[OscarCP]

JohnW: I do appreciate you bravely coming out and expressing a wisely favorable opinion about the most magnificent  glory that was ‘Firefly’. Sadly to good for this world, shone so brightly but briefly in the clumsy hands of Fox producers. Much as befell Matt Groening’s amazing Futurama: more about the latter… later.

As to your guilty feelings about liking ‘Battleship Galactic (reimagined)’, I have this to say: don’t be too hard on yourself — nobody is perfect! And do not forget that the way to repentance is always mercifully open to the fallen sinner. Who can always atone by watching ‘Futurama’, thus enriching the mind and enlarging the soul (Stephen Hawking himself participated in a couple of episodes, his robotic computer-generated voice most in agreement with the élan of the show)  And to those unfortunate few who do not know already about ‘Futurama’, please have peek here, and weep:

https://slate.com/culture/2019/10/futurama-where-to-start-watching-nixon-head-episode.html

https://nerdist.com/article/the-11-best-futurama-episodes/

Presently available on DVD and, streaming, at Hulu, or so I’m told.

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• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by OscarCP.

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Mr. Austin

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JohnW wrote:

I agree on Firefly!!! 🙂 Probably the saddest ever experience when that came to an end! 🙁

I’ve got DVD’s of the complete series of Firefly and also Serenity.  I too was very disappointed that it was cancelled, I wanted to see more of what the girl played by Summer Glau could do with her powers.  They really could have gone places with this show!

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I vote for Black Mirror (not Netflix), Firefly, The 4400.

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Alex5723 wrote:

I vote for Black Mirror (not Netflix), Firefly, The 4400.

I thought I was going to like this one (on Netflix) but the first episode just turned me off, there is such a thing as a second chance however.

Let me throw in not a “best” but a “worth it” : Dark. Its a time travel mystery type that you need ( at least for me) a score card to keep track, there are a few sires that help keep the characters straight in your head. New season (3rd) being filmed so it passes the one season wonder test of Ascaris!

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I agree with @Alex5723 here – Black Mirror is the best and most interesting recently, although Red Dwarf and Futurama are funnier. I feel, that Black Mirror is not funny, but it is very “mindblowing” and original. Startrek was revolutionary, but its over the hill now.

Aaand STARGATE! SG1 and Atlantis. I didnt watch Horizon, cuase I grew up 🙂

PS – Futurama is funny for certain people, cause its mostly written by mathematicians and physicist (Groening and his coleagues).

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I like DS9 and have been quite interested in the new ST Discovery. Another favourite of mine is Farscape. Firefly is quite good – however it suffered from being cancelled too soon. I’ve just started watching Serenity – no plot spoilers please.

I like the fact that ST (pretty much all series) doesn’t take itself to seriously, with little asides taking the rise out of themselves. Tubes marked GNDN*, Jefferies Tubes after the set designer.

David Ogden Stiers (Charles Winchester MASH 4077), appearing as Timcin, with 4077 appearing in the display in front of him. And there’s Q’s comments in All good things – ‘seven years of La Forge’s techno bubble”! The list is endless.

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Defiance, now on Amazon, deserves mention here.

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wavy

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Defiance was another excellent one!

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[Vincenzo]

My favorite TNG episode was the one where a young Famke Janssen played an empathic metamorph who could seduce any man (“The Perfect Mate”).

https://www.google.com/search?q=tng+the+perfect+mate&client=firefox-b-1-d&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=G6ohmrce3hRSOM%253A%252Cju4RULvxME8VAM%252C%252Fm%252F09x4ky&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kRjIS7e7s0j7-8FZJrRwuEq8KilFQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjorI7kiprmAhW1PH0KHVcMDgwQ_B0wbnoECF4QAw#imgrc=G6ohmrce3hRSOM:

 

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by Vincenzo.

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Zeus36

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Yep, and how could you not love Minuet in 0101.

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TNG’s “The Inner Light” – hand’s down the all-time winner for me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)

 

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Charlie

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I was on night shift at that time so missed it, it does sound very good.

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“The City at the Edge of Forever”, based on a script draft of science fiction great Harlan Ellison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfhAV77u7YU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever

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Charlie

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The original Twilight Zone is certainly in the upper part of the list. It opened the door for the later series, and a lot of it holds up well even today.

I liked all of the Star Trek series and movies from the original series to the end of Voyager and Nemesis.  I never really got into Enterprise or any of the newer movies, though.

I never saw Firefly, having never heard of it until long after it was canceled, and given how everyone says it was such a disappointment that it ended too soon, I don’t plan on seeing it or its movie spinoff, Serenity.  I’ve really come to loathe getting started on a series, finding I really like it, only to find that it was canceled.  Netflix is littered with one-season works in progress that will never be finished, and now I tend to avoid starting any series that hasn’t already run to completion.  The one-season ones don’t stand a chance… when I see they’ve only got one season, I just pass right by.

 

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If The Twilight Zone counts as science fiction, then it zooms right to the top of my list of favorite SF series. Right up there along with it go The Outer Limits and my personal favorite among “creepy TV” series, the underrated and largely forgotten One Step Beyond.

Regarding single-season cancelled series, we were recently caught by this trap with the Canadian series Endgame. We greatly enjoyed it but were left dangling by the cliffhanger in what turned out to be the final episode, as the series got cancelled after the first season.

 

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Twilight Zone ranks high with me, I have the entire collection. My cousin was in one or two episodes, then she went over to Mr Ed series, go figure. At least her Alfred Hitchcock appearance was a closer match with SciFi. Star Trek original series was great too.

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[OscarCP]

OscarCP wrote:

This is Wavy’s fault ( #2013698 ), because he wrote elsewhere (and way off topic, I must add) that the best science fiction EVER is ‘The Expanse’, that one can watch right now in Amazon Prime.

I disagree, most bitterly: The best science fiction show, ever, was “Firefly”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)

And, although it is harder to classify as such, the best SF show that lasted longer than one season was, unquestionably, ‘Futurama’:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama

Feel free to dissent here.

• This topic was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by OscarCP.

Well I will say that is a very strong contender for #2, just a little weak in the S part of SF. I will say it has my favorite theme music.

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[Seattle27]

Doctor Who ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwHcV0-uzGc

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by Seattle27.

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In answer to various misguided comments and some spot on ones: Yes! Doctor Who! Particularly, in my preferences, the old episodes from the 60’s and 70’s (which I religiously followed in Australia’s ABC when TV in Oz was still in marvelous black and white), that then was a show with the low-budget look and feel of having been filmed in “someone’s backyard” as a fellow Who fan once put it (I’ve liked Eccleston’s Who the most, in the current decently funded series.) Not to say it is best than ‘Firefly’, I would put it not too far behind ‘Futurama’…

And in answer to Wavy’s contentious remark that “Well I will say that is a very strong contender for #2, just a little weak in the S part of SF. I will say it has my favorite theme music. ”

Well, sure, the music and particularly the song are great (both performed by the genius that is Joss Wheedon (Buffy, Dollhouse) in his own guitar). But “a little weak in the S part of SF”? Seriously? It is the only TV SF series ever, as far as I can remember, where the spacecraft don’t make loud rumbling engine noises as they race by in the vacuum of space (OK: this show and ST). And have another look at the series’ pilot episode, where they go and plunder a derelict spaceship. Tell me, if you dare, that that is not as realistic as it can be (OK: except the part where they have some kind of artificial gravity aboard their own, Firefly-class ship, but the use of “rubber science” has been acceptable since its very beginning in SF as a plot device — e.g. H.G. Wells’ cavorite.)

And, while ‘Firefly’ ended way to soon, the individual episodes are, each, among the best ever in their genre and the last one DOES NOT END IN A CLIFF-HANGER!.

And ‘Farscape’ is definitely well up there. The ‘Twilight Zone’ is, properly speaking, more in the dark-fantasy and horror side of the plain fiction spectrum.

I must also add that the very honorably third place in the “best SF shows ever” category unquestionably belongs to “Babylon V”.

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Kenneth Stephens

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I recently stumbled upon the website pluto.tv , which has a ‘Classic Doctor Who’ channel (370), which shows nothing but that 24/7. (It’s free, and there a few repetitive advertisements, but not tons of ads.) Apparently they have about 200 episodes. It seems to be mostly Tom Baker episodes, Pertwee next most often, along with a few of the 1st doctor, some Peter Davison, and a couple Colin Baker & Sylvester McCoy episodes.

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OscarCP

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Seattle27: Thanks for the tip about Pluto TV and classic Dr. Who. Looking into it I could not help being reminded of earlier-days Hulu,that was also for free and largely without ads, with a good collection of movies and shows available online. I wonder how extensive the movies’ collection is. But 200 shows of classical “Who” sounds like a promise of many good things.

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Seattle27

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And, lest we forget, a big shout out for the ‘Outer Limits’. With one of the best ever SF episodes shown on TV: ‘Inconstant Moon’, that was based on a short story of the same name by Larry Niven (in his “All the Myriad Ways” anthology).

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Charlie

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I did not remember that one Oscar so I wikipediaed, it sounds like a good one. Those solar flares have a lot of potential to do great damage, I read that one in the 1800s knocked out Telegraph lines. There is much speculation what a direct hit would mean. Looks like a fast track to the Second Stone Age, for the few who survive the famine and resulting conflicts. I don’t think the highrise would help, a farm at least a hundred miles from a city, maybe.

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It seems we’ve touched on most of the good ones and I liked most of them.  The early SF shows were really hokey compared to later shows, but the first show I really got into was Outer Limits in the late 50’s and 60’s.  After that the next show I really liked a lot was Star Trek TOS (the original series).

It’s a bit hard to pick one show as the “best ever”, but I’d have to say all of the Star Trek series.  Most were very well written (with exceptions of course) and entertaining.  I also must give an “honorable mention” to “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” which also ended too soon.  I’m a Terminator fan too.

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An honorable mention for the sadly truncated ‘Flashforward’. In my opinion its creators sin was to be burdened with too many plot twists: it would have been even better if they had stayed closer to the original story by Robert J. Sawyer.

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I put “Farscape” way up there on the list! Lots of favorites, though! 🙂

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OscarCP

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Also worth an honorable mention: “The Orville” – TV series (2017-2020)

“The Orville” is an American science fiction comedy-drama television series created by and starring Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5691552/

A comedy-drama send up of Star Trek. Good times!!! 🙂

Set 400 years in the future, the show follows the adventures of the Orville, a not-so-top-of-the-line exploratory ship in Earth’s interstellar Fleet. Facing cosmic challenges from without and within, this motley crew of space explorers will boldly go where no comedic drama has gone before.

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Firefly, hands down. May the boneheads who cancelled it broil in Date’s Level of Those Who Have Sinned Against Art.

 

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I love “The orville”!  

It makes me feel like the 30 years younger that I was when watching ST:TNG.

It recaptures my mood like ST:TNG did, but with much better graphics, CGI and 16:9.

One aspect is copied from Star Wars though: the “keep-your-hands-where-I-can-see-them” stance of Isaac is a straight copy of C3PO.

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And to include here some SF novels-almost-ready-for-their-TV-versions that I would like to watch on the small screen: Neil Stephenson’s ‘The Diamond Age’ and ‘Snow Crash’, as well as his recently published ‘Seveneves’, that is long enough to get the prequel, main show and sequel out of it. Many of Sawyer’s books. Several of Scalzi’s books, including the soon to be completed ‘Collapsing Empire’ trilogy, with the third book out next April. (And with certain words blipped out, as I would expect in this weirdly so-permissive-but-oh-so-straightlaced age we live in.)

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Æon Flux by a country mile.

cheers, Paul

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Mr. Austin

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Whats your opinion on the film version?

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Didn’t watch the film version. Part of the appeal was the manga style of cartoon.

cheers, Paul

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Paul_T: Oh, thank you so very much! That was the one I was trying to remember the name of and failed to do so! A splendid show, indeed!

But not better than No. 1: ‘Firefly’; No. 2: Futurama, or even No. 3: ‘Babylon 5’…

An outstandingly good candidate for No. 4, though!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86on_Flux

(The link looks funny (why?), but it is a good one — just hover the cursor on it and then you’ll see it in the clear. And, gentle reader, don’t you go and “look the other way” when you see the cry for help in the black bar on top of this — or any other — Wikipedia page these days.)

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wavy

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My vote goes to Babylon 5 from J. Michael Straczynski.

I has 110 episodes in 5 seasons.

(A quote:  If you go to Z’ha’dum, you will die.)

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No one is voting for Doctor Who ?

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Alex 5723: ‘Doctor Who’ would have been a good candidate for No. 3, after the absolutely indisputable leaders, ‘Firefly’ and ‘Futurama’, had it not been for the overly-long tenure of the appropriately named David Tennant as the 10th Doctor. I never much cared for his (and Moffat’s) take on ‘Who’, although most of the show’s fans were always salivating (so to speak) so rapturously about him and those way too many episodes where he appeared.

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Kenneth Stephens

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For me, the John Pertwee era was the best of Dr Who (viewing from behind the couch at times) 😮
‘lost in space’ could be last or could it? Where did Dr smith get all his stuff from..sneaky sabateur

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Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor) , Tom Baker (4th Doctor), Chris Eccleston (9th Doctor) and Matt Smith (11th Doctor) rank about equally as the best of all Doctors, for me. Pertwee, that as I remember it, played the suavest (least cranky/wacky) Doctor and the first one shown in color TV, was pretty good, too.

Now, when it comes to companions, the field is wide open for controversy.

My vote, in no particular order of precedence, goes to: Romana I, Tegan, Rose Tylor, Amy Pond and Riversong. And K9, of course.

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ah, for us that would be a wooden PYE color CRT TV with 6 channel buttons and 3 terrestrial TV channels..
this was one of the longest visuals I’d seen on the BBC, often thought the sound was broken

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[tonyl]

Her face is beginning to ache from holding that smile…

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by tonyl.

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[tonyl]

Hmm…tried to attach a picture to that but couldn’t get it to work. Try googling “Carole Hersee”.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by tonyl.

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Speaking of StarWars Disney plus now has The Mandalorian streaming. I think I will wait for one season to be complete and binge watch on my free trial.

BTW reading the Privacy statement I am surprised I will not have to submit a cheek swab and retinal scan..🤬

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About ‘The Mandalorian’: I have been reading some good things about it, but from doing that, have found no indication, so far, that there is anything really humorous in it. If there is, and plenty, I might wait to buy the DVDs, if Disney ever decides to start releasing them. Otherwise I have no interest in yet another dark, grubby and depressing story (with plenty of jumping around, shooting, blasting and gory killings) that is what, way too often, passes, these days, as profound and serious drama.

So, Wavy, please, let me know what you make of it, if you go ahead and start watching.

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Gonna be a month or so but Much of the social media reaction has been to the show's breakout character, a 50-year old "infant" of Yoda's species that The Mandalorian initially takes for a bounty but ends up becoming its de facto guardian in order to protect it after it has shown to have the powers of The Force. The character has been nicknamed "Baby Yoda",[11] a misnomer since Yoda himself died of old age in Return of the Jedi before the events of the series. The unexpected popularity of "Baby Yoda" led to an explosion of merchandise for the Christmas and holiday season, which quickly sold out.[75][76][77] from Wikipedia
😏

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OscarCP

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Question: Does anyone here know if there is some place on the Web where one can find either the script, or some decent animation based on the (script by Douglas Adams of one episode of Doctor Who to be called ‘Shada’ that, of course, never got to be aired, first, because of labor strikes and, afterwards, because of why not? There were in circulation, back in 2017, rumors that a new partially animated version (with the few “live” parts that got to be filmed with the actual actors and with parts that were pure animation filling in the gaps) was going to be released on DVD and one-time digital download.

There was also, many years ago, an animated version that was, I’m sorry to say, unwatchable, because it was on a BBC’s server that must have been actually a Commodore PC pressed into service for this purpose. Download rate was something like one bit per month, more or less — in a really good month, that is.

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Well, surprise, surprise. The video of “Shada” is available from Amazon Prime, for $ 2.99! I’ve bought and watched it and is, as expected, a combination of live action (the parts that were actually filmed) and as animation the ones that were in the script but never got to be actually shot. Both live action and animation blend very nicely, the voices of the animated parts are those of the actual actors, and the animation is OK, not terrific but serviceable. As it was always in Doctor Who in its “classic” epoch, so the style of the animation fits well with the very slow moving alien monsters, the basic pyrotechnic effects, the obvious fade outs when someone disappears into another dimension and the rest of it.

And the whole thing bears the unmistakable imprint of Douglas Adams’ deadpan wit throughout all 2 hours and twenty seven minutes of it.

 

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wavy wrote:

Whats your opinion on the film version?

i liked the film version and have it saved in my movie collection.

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‘Aeon Flux’, the movie, was panned by the critics, getting 9% out 100% from them in Tomatometer and a 39% “d***ing with faint praise” from the viewers, but I did not see it myself, so I don’t have a personal opinion.

The original animated  TV show was, from a graphical point of view, very nicely done; shown on MTV in the early through mid 90s, the series came as a shock to audiences that had never seen something quite like it on TV before. It was a trailblazer for adult-themed TV shows, such as those playing, years later, on the Cartoon Network progrm “Adult Swim”. How ‘Aeon Flux’ may impress someone watching the TV show these days is probably going to be probably rather different from what it was when first seen on MTV, as plenty of water has flowed under the bridge since those days.

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If you have Adult Swim it is worth checking out Rick and Morty. It reminds me of Quads in that it goes places most would consider too far.

cheers, Paul

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In reference to Paul_T  ( #2015046 ) who wrote “If you have Adult Swim it is worth checking out Rick and Morty. It reminds me of Quads in that it goes places most would consider too far.”

First things first: Thanks!

Now, three things I feel must write here:

(1) First of all: apologies all around for misplacing my entry on ‘Aeon Flux’ in the middle of an exchange on the ‘Mandalorian’. (Also, I’m not really sure that AF was science fiction, it could be equally well described as belonging to a genre all its own.)

(2) ‘Adult Swim’ is a jewel and a shining light of indie rebelliousness in a world swamped with pretentious, pompous and toxic arrant nonsense both on TV and pretty much everywhere that, these days, with the amazingly widespread use of cell phones, is used by probably most people, even in the poorest and, or most backward places, to get their news, catch a show, or to communicate among themselves.

(3) As per (2) above, ‘Adult Swim’ was the place where Matt Groening’s slyly subversive science fiction show ‘Futurama’ took refuge during its long exile and where it was replayed in its entirety, for years and years, after the Fox ‘suits’ cancelled it one star-crossed day that shall forever live in infamy, because they could, having failed to kill it less obviously already, poisoning its Nielsen ratings by scheduling it at the most unwatchable times, or right after some big championship game where the follow-up commentary was likely to run overtime. That worked a treat for them, so they did the same thing again when they decided to get rid of ‘Firefly’.

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OscarCP wrote:

About ‘The Mandalorian’

I am watching ‘The Mandalorian’ and think it is just OK, nothing special.

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OscarCP

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Ahh, Douglas Adams – therefore let’s not forget Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. First the brilliant radio show, the great TV series and the film, which was good. To those of us who listened to the radio series, the following attempts were a bit lacking. This was because of those who played the parts were indelibly marked on our memories (well it was for me!)

Peter Jones as the guide was just too good. Was it really 1978 it was broadcast? And 1981 the TV series? Wow!

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Kenneth Stephens

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For many years, I only knew of Adams’ ‘Hitchhiker’ books, which I read one after the other as they came out. They were very popular and I had a number of conversations about them with perfect strangers that had read them and now saw me reading one, or else were reading one themselves, while on a train, ferry, or in other situations that bring together people that do not know each other and have nothing much else to do but wait for long stretches of time.

The movie was something of a disappointment, but later on I concluded that this was inevitable, because much of the books’ charm is in the observations and comments of the author, rather than in the action. The dialog is also part of that charm, but the only part of it that can be readily put in a movie.

I haven’t seen the TV show, but I imagine that my comment on the movie applies also to it, for the same reason.

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The movie was so-so. The books were good, I still remember the game on my first computer, I think I still have the ‘Don’t Panic’ pin that came with it. I think I was only able to listen to one radio episode.
Thanks for all the fish! 🐟🐬

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OscarCP

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I just found out about the new “Next Generation” follow-on series that premiers next month in “CBS All Access”. Judging by the highly refined and therefore expensive looks of it, this show is being produced by CBS in the hope that it will become a “tent pole” show that might prop up the so far indifferent success of their several-years-old streaming service. To me, the main question, given that CBS offers only a one-week of free streaming for people to make up their minds about subscribing or not, is whether the show could be worth the around $120 a year subscribing to “All Access” at about $10 a month, primarily to follow the show for as long as it keeps going (I already subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime and get from these two as much or more of entertainment that I am able to consume). Something that, according to Patrick Stewart, is envisaged to be up to six seasons.

In this reboot, besides some new characters, Picard, Data, Riker, Deana Troy and Seven of Nine are coming back and are going to be played by the original actors, now considerably older. But aging is something both inevitable and, according to this stylish teaser, something that will be handled so is not a problem that will get in the way of enjoying the show:

https://www.cbs.com/shows/star-trek-picard/video/Fxa2ERi0Lo0gytFEWAzYTrbRndYqXrEj/star-trek-picard-nycc-trailer-cbs-all-access/

Waning: To watch the teaser one has to turn the add-blocker off for that page. However,  after I did that, no ads appeared. So it is possible that this is a site-wide policy of “All Access” that is not relevant to this teaser but the pop up comes up  anyway.

Some pre-review of the show, here:

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/10/star-trek-picard-trailer-1202179130/

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OscarCP wrote:

whether the show could be worth the around $120 a year subscribing to “All Access” at about $10 a month, primarily to follow the show for as long as it keeps going

Considering Star Trek: Discovery & Star Trek: Picard seem to be the only remotely interesting things offered I will not be jumping, HULU and Prime both offer more. I am getting tired of the junk on Netflix so I may have to make the decision to add one soon. Free trials would be good for a ‘network’ with only two shows.

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“War of the Worlds”  w/ Orson wells

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DriftyDonN: Welles “War of the Worlds” was a radio broadcast, not a TV show.

It is a tribute to Welles’ genius that he knew so spectacularly well how to push the buttons of such credulous folk as inhabited the great USA in the distant past of 1938. And it is a tribute to how much we have matured and improved ourselves since then that these days… Oh, scratch that!

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Kenneth Stephens, Mr. Austin, wavy

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Not precisely TV show, but once opened the debate and topic, I propose this two remarkable films as the best Science Fiction movies ever. Do you agree? Then enjoy ’em:

1.- Metropolis (Fritz Lang – 1927)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8huGJO7po_A

2.- Soylent Green (Richard Fleischer – 1973)

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3dq3ef

 

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I am of two minds about “Metropolis”. It is now a classic and, in many ways, it was a breakthrough, bringing science fiction from the swamp of pulp-fiction to the movies in a memorable way (cities with very high skyscrapers connected by sky-ways and so forth that became staples of the genre) and dealing with a philosophical serious issue: the ultimate consequences of entrenched social inequality (by the way, that was best done by H.G. Wells in his novel “The Time Machine”, but this thread is, by default, about movies and TV shows.) “Metropolis” (Fritz Lang’s, not the much more recent anime movie) was panned by the critics when it first came out, and I tend to agree with them, for having some twists and turns that are, quite frankly, rather silly. I subscribe to Netflix DVD’s service and asked for it and watched this movie again, recently. This did not resolve my doubts.

Although I have heard many times about “Soylent Green”, I have not had the opportunity to watch it.

So, to have a go at this myself:

How about “Moon”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twuScTcDP_Q

and “GATTACA”?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpzVFdDeWyo

 

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Wheel_D, Charlie

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I have to say that one of the movies that made a huge impact on me was the very first Star Trek Movie.  I was already hooked on Star Trek TOS, and the movie at that time was a real treat to watch for me.  I was awed by the 12 minute tour Admiral Kirk was given by Scotty in a shuttle craft of the entire newly “refitted” Enterprise NCC 1701.  The gantry, lights, welding sparks, workers doing somersaults, and the close up views the that enormous ship.  It was breathtaking in 1978!

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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I remember in particular the sequence when the Enterprise moves slowly along the huge alien spacecraft with its seemingly endless series of strange, mysterious and impressive sights. In fact, everything that was shown near, at the entrance and within this spacecraft was both remarkable and dramatically surprising. A real imaginative tour de force.

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not the best Sci-Fi but the movie worth a mention in these current times:
cocoon
I’m sure we’d all like to take a dip in that swimming pool now, if only eh..
If you haven’t seen it, watch it, was a very underated film directed by Ron Howard (Happy Days) from 1985.

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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Myst, wavy, Charlie, OscarCP

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Oh my yes!  Get rid of my aches and pains and have youthful energy again.  That was a very enjoyable movie indeed.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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As Cybertooth said:  “Regarding single-season cancelled series, we were recently caught by this trap with the Canadian series Endgame. We greatly enjoyed it but were left dangling by the cliffhanger in what turned out to be the final episode, as the series got cancelled after the first season.”

This has become more and more widespread, and it seems to always happen to the really good Science Fiction TV shows!  I’ve lost track of how many SF shows I’ve gotten interested in and liked very much only to have them cancelled.  I remember when a TV season was 20 to 26 episodes (or more for the older shows).  Nowadays you’re lucky to get 10!

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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wavy

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Charlie, This cancellation issue you discuss is, sadly, intrinsic to how the making of these shows is funded. Many Science Fiction shows, to be worth watching, have to rely on a good deal of expensive special effects.

Those making the decisions in Commercial TV judge the likely future profitability of keeping a show going for another season on the number of viewers that have been following it during the current one, as a large number is, naturally, a good basis for selling ads to paying businesses that may want to have them placed in that show.

Besides one-season shows, there are those, such as “Futurama”, that have a decrease of the number of viewers below what seems financially acceptable to the network deciders. If the show has been going already for several seasons and has acquired a solid core of devoted (and probably very vocal) viewers, but not one numerous enough to justify continuing the show, as in the case of “Futurama”, the way it is terminated could be more subtle: scheduling the show broadcast at a really bad time of day on a bad day of the week. For example just before a game of baseball or of some other sport that is likely to run overtime and cause the broadcast of the weekly episode to be cancelled:

https://www.wired.com/2013/04/futurama-cancelled-again/

On the other hand, subscription streaming sites such as Netflix have to recover the cost of making the shows from their paid subscribers’ money. That places a limit on what the executives responsible to make the decision to keep a show going are willing to accept to decide to renew it for another season.

In the case of cancellations in non-commercial TV, the reasons tend to be related to reshuffles of the executives running the show and, or to internal network politics.

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Charlie

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Netflix seems to cancel after 2 ‘seasons’. They want to see binge watchers complete a season to finance the next. For them the contracts they write give the producers much more $$ the longer the show continues, right up to the point of “well we can’t make $$ off of that!!”. Sad but true.
I was hoping that improved/cheaper CGI would change metrics. Does not seem to be there yet.

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Yeah, it’s always about money these days.  I remember when Star Trek TNG went for seven seasons and each season had 20 some episodes.  Same can be said for Star Trek Voyager, Stargate SG1, and Stargate Atlantis.  All these shows had high tech special effects and were aired in the 80’s and 90’s.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Charlie, “money” is pretty important for commercial TV and also streaming services such as Netflix. The profitability of a show to the broadcaster matters a good deal to the business that makes the shows possible, so making sure that really profitable shows are kept and those not profitable enough are not, is part of what I think of as doing “due diligence.”

But money sometimes is a mere excuse for someone higher ups disliking a show for their own reasons and sabotaging it, as was the  case with “Firefly.” While there was an arc or overall story spanning most episodes, although each could be watched enjoyably on their own, but with some confusion to reduce the pleasure, the invisible hand of someone whose name only recently has been revealed, shuffled the episodes like a pack of cards and had them shown in the resulting disorder. No wonder the ratings stayed low enough to justify cancellation.

But I am not here to bury Fox TV, but to praise (sort of) some new shows on TV and streaming:

(1) “Away”, on Netflix, is about the first imaginary crew to make the first imaginary journey to Mars.

It has some jaw-dropping special effects, with people moving in free fall, or zero g, for most of the episodes already shown. At least when it comes to the action in outer space. Otherwise, the show goes on and on about problems between the crew and the captain and between the captain and his family back on Earth.

Now I understand that, since a trip to Mars using, as in this show, a conventional rocket-ship to get there, is supposed to take months and months and, therefore, episodes and episodes to be told before the crew actually lands on our next biggish neighbor away from the Sun. And that filling those episodes with the crew’s technical work and the occasional emergency is going to get old pretty fast. But why should it be so much about interpersonal issues? I invariably find these in any show both boring and annoying, because they are invariable the result of fairly banal peeves.

The show is a recent one and there is some hope that, as it keeps going, it will find its legs one of these days. That couldn’t happen soon enough for me, but I am willing to wait, for now.

“Piccard” on Apple TV + : I have not seen it, so you tell me. It’s like a “postquel” to “Star Trek, The Next Generation”, with the same main actors now no better for wear after some thirty years since the very last episode. STTNG was my favorite “Star Trek” reimagining, and the main actors were all pretty good, so maybe they still are: you tell me.

As to books — and why not?, some books even get made into TV shows, movies and streaming video series, as the ones I am about to mention here have been.

I have been reading, after “His Dark Materials” the next, still unfinished trilogy with only two books out already: “The Book of Dust.” Phillip Pullman’s ongoing saga has a sprinkle of “quantum” dust (pun intended) and parallel universes, but it is mostly a fantasy story with some very light science fictional touches. And with an underlying, if lightly sprinkled throughout the first trilogy, allegory of Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” I mention all this here so, if you did not know about this work already (as I didn’t until PK and some others brought them to my attention during a discussion started by Charlie), all I can say is that you could do worse than to read one of these novels, preferably the first one: “The Golden Compass” (a.k.a “Northern Lights” in the  UK and in Oz.) Now I am going to state clearly and unambiguously here that, for something written in Oxford by an Oxford man, it is a lot more fun to read than another series of very popular (for reasons that escape me entirely) fantasy novels written by another Oxford man…  Now, come at me, all ye Ringers, if you dare. On the other hand, you have  had all your adored novels made into movies, Pullman’s only just the first one: “The Golden Compass,” that many who read the book first did not like. Having not read the book at the time, I liked it. So, there you have it.

Now, it’s your move.

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I know this is going to sound like a very simple answer but I always thought the sponsors whose commercials we’re forced to endure provided the money for a TV show.  Sponsors should make more money nowadays since most people now have and pay for cable. Then in addition that, they still make cable subscribers watch commercials! This is why I refuse to pay for cable.

I used to be able to stream video for awhile, but now everything is HD and I don’t have a high enough bandwidth to do HD without waiting every 7 seconds for buffering.  I am planning to get a fiber optic Internet & phone connection soon.

I saw “The Golden Compass” movie and liked it, and then read the books.  The books do take you into a much “darker” story toward the end.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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OscarCP

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Best Science Fiction Series:

1. Lost in Space
2. Space 1999
3. Twilight Zone
4. STTOS
5. STTNG

Best Science Fiction Movies:

1. Star Wars
2. The Martian
3. Gravity
4. 2001 A Space Odyssey
5. Logan’s Run

Best Science Fiction Movie Yet to be Made:

1. The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov

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OscarCP

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“Destination Moon.”

“Forbidden Planet.”

“The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

“The War of the Worlds.”

In my opinion,these movies, back in the 50’s, set the standard for science fiction worth watching, because they were about things strongly felt, feared or longed for by most people in our own planet. I can say that “Destination Moon”, which I saw when I was a little boy, got me, eventually, to NASA.

And lest we forget:

“The Planet of the Apes.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_(film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet

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Charlie, RamRod

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These are all good, “The day the Earth Stood Still” and the original “War of the Worlds” are two of my favorites.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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And now for my list of science fiction shows and movies I wished someone made (and made well) based on these books:

Edgar Poe: “The Narrative of Gordon Pym of Connecticut.”

H. P. Lovecraft: “In the Mountains of Madness.” (*)

Ray Bradbury’s “Martian Chronicles.” (**)

Arthur C Clarke: “Childhoods’ End.”

Isaac Asimov’s: “Foundation and Empire” (The two-part novel with the “Mule” in the second one.) (***)

The first four, in particular, are about the enigma of time and the vastness of space and who  or what may lurk out there and what their designs, beneficent or otherwise, for us might be; with the first two emphasizing the strange and incomprehensible grandeur and cosmic terror of a purely material and, towards us, utterly indifferent and pitiless universe.

(*) Guillermo del Toro has been making noises for several years now that he is going to make a movie out of this Lovecraft’s novel, one so terrifyingly subversive of our illusions of what the  material world around us is really like, that it seems made just for someone like him to take successfully to the big screen.

(**) Many years ago there was a TV show with episodes based on Bradbury’s book. Not a bad one, in my opinion.

(***) Asimov’s story is about a shift-changing genius of an imp whose ultimate goals are nothing like what his engaging persona makes them appear to be. And it carries also a not-so subtle warning of the dangers presented by crowd-pleasing politicians that cleverly disguise their despotic aspirations, waiting for the main chance to make their move — something of a “thing” with Asimov.

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Mr. Austin

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OscarCP wrote:

And now for my list of science fiction shows and movies I wished someone made (and made well) based on these books:

Arthur C Clarke: “Childhoods’ End.”

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4146128/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

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OscarCP, wavy

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I am not sure many will categorize this movie as SF, but I do and in my movie collection this movie is at the top with 10/10.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

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Alex, please add a description to your links.

cheers, Paul

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Alex, I haven’t seen or heard of this movie before, but the article in Wikipedia is interesting enough to see if I can see t, perhaps Netflix has it in its DVD collection, or it might be available for free from Amazon Prime:

“The Man from Earth is a 2007 American drama sicence fiction film written by Jerome Bixbi and directed by Richard Schenkman. It stars David Lee Smitth as John Oldman, the protagonist. The screenplay was conceived by Jerome Bixby in the early 1960s and completed on his deathbed in April 1998.

The screenplay mirrors similar concepts of longevity which Bixby had introduced in “Requiem for Methuselah”, a Star Trek episode he wrote which originally aired in 1969. The film gained recognition in part for being widely distributed through Internet peer-to-peer networks, which raised its profile. The film was later adapted by Schenkman into a stage play of the same name.”

The plot focuses on “John Oldman”, a departing university professor, who claims to be a “Cro-Magnon” (or “Magdalenian”, a caveman) who has secretly survived for more than 14,000 years. The entire film is set in and around Oldman’s house during his farewell party and is composed almost entirely of dialogue. The plot advances through intellectual arguments between Oldman and his fellow faculty members.“

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wavy

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Yes, I’ve checked and the DVD of “The Man From Earth” is available from Netflix, and I already have added it to my queue of the movie DVDs that I’ll be watching.

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The Quatermass Experiment from 1953 beats all the above.
It had me hiding behind the couch, even the theme music (Mars from Holst’s Planets Suite)
was frightening.

A1ex

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doriel

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Movie:  The Thing (1982)

TV series: Dr Who  (Pertwee, Baker era)

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OscarCP

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[NaNoNyMouse]

I know Douglas Adams has already been mentioned here, and I know it’s parody rather than straight sci-fi (although the same could be said about Futurama and Red Dwarf too), but I haven’t seen Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on any lists yet

The 1978 Radio Series, of course, not the TV version (so-so), the film (abominable), the game (a game), or the books (books). Our younger audience probably doesn’t even know what a radio series even IS. What, you just sit there and listen to it? No special effects or nuffink?

Yeah, it’s all a rather dated lifetime away now, but the radio series has some special memories for me personally. No special effects or nuffink, but it made you use your imagination…

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by NaNoNyMouse.

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access-mdb

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NaNoNyMouse: I’ve just looked around and found out that there is an “audible” version that, it says here, can be downloaded for free:

https://www.audible.com/ep/title/?asin=B002VA9SWS&source_code=GO1GBSH09091690EI&device=d&cvosrc=ppc.google.%2Bhitchhiker%27s%20%2Bguide&cvo_campaign=250471929&cvo_crid=259947793600&Matchtype=b&ds_rl=1262685&ds_rl=1263561&ds_rl=1260658&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIu6vvhofJ7AIVhI3ICh0RxAISEAAYASAAEgLldPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I had a cassette tape recording published by the BBC, years and years ago, that I used to listen to in my car. I still have that car, but not the cassette.

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NaNoNyMouse

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“The Thing” is another excellent example of “horror + science fiction.” Really, really scary, particularly because it takes place in an isolated base in Antarctica, from where no safe escape is possible. Same as in a spaceship in outer space, in the middle of nowhere, as in “Alien.”

The Baker years of “Dr. Who” are most memorable to me because:

(1) I watched some of the episodes in a black and white TV, before color TV came to Australia.

(2) The production values were really bad, with supposedly horrible monsters that looked like they were made of papier mache and moved really, really slowly their evil works to commit. Someone once told me that, in her opinion, the studio sets were somebody’s back yard.

(3) Tom Baker was really good in his own interpretation of a sort of mature but wacky Doctor.

(4) It had some really good looking companions (and some good-at-acting ones too).

(5) It had Daleks.

(6) It had K-9

 

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Matador

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Wasn’t Davros just great and not to mention Lynx (the spud-head villian)

Good memories.

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OscarCP

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? says:

loads of excellent sci-fi here, i also enjoyed Andromeda with Kevin Sorbo as Captain Dylan Hunt in reruns on Comet channel, and Alien with Sigourney Weaver and Veronica Cartwright (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The X-Fles.)

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OscarCP

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I liked the first Andromeda seasons.
But when the Avatar turned into a ninja………

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? says:

ah, Rommie she has a certain jenna se quoi, no?

 

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Charlie

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I liked her better before she was “upgraded.”

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OscarCP

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bit like windows then eh 🙂

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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OscarCP

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Yes!

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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? says:

well, yes and no. Rommie played by actress Lexa Doig (insert stock photo here) and her husband Michael Shanks (Stargate-SG1) met on set while filming “Star Crossed.”  She became with child at the start of season 5 and was written out for two-thirds of the season, hence her “upgrade.” nothing beats life imitating art.

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She also played the doctor on Stargate SG1.  I was glad to see her pretty face there too.  I didn’t know she was married to Micheal Shanks.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Now, my memory, who knows, might be slowing down, but it still retains the really important facts. And when it comes to who is the best ever looking actress in a TV series, I have absolutely no doubt that prize goes to: Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra, the high class courtesan in “Firefly.”

(I hope this picture comes out here looking right…)

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Mr. Austin

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Yes indeed Oscar, I agree.  She was also in Stargate SG1.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Charlie: SG1, yes, she was there too, thanks for reminding me.

Unfortunately for her, the only important role on TV she ever got beside the one in SG1, was in the high production values, one-season-and-then-gone remake of “V” that, just like the original “V”, although it might have looked much better, it was still a dog of a science fiction TV show. And her role was like a sort of nasty alien queen that looked human when she wished to, but was really a hideous reptile-like creature. To put Baccarin in such a role was a true sacrilege.

After that, as far as I know, her next important role was, a few years back, as the frazzled girlfriend of Deadpool in the movie of the same name (which I really liked, by the way). And she went and got killed, way too early, in Deadpool II (that I also really liked) …

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Charlie

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Was Alien, and its successors, a Science Fiction movie or a Horror movie set in space?

Was The Blob a Science Fiction movie or a Horror movie with the antagonist from off world?

What is Science Fiction?

Cheers!

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The Alien series was IMO 35% science fiction and 65% Horror.  The Blob was again IMO a 50’s teen drive-in movie. It had Steve McQueen in it though.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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RamRod

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RamRod: “Alien” and “Aliens” were horror science fiction movies set in space. Many science fiction movies and stories are also horror ones, because what happens in the darkness of outer space can be scary enough without even trying. This melding of genres goes back to well before the “Alien” publicity statement, in the late 70’s, that “In space, nobody can hear you scream.” And the idea of “horror science fiction” is still going on strong, as “Strange Things”, etc. show quite clearly.

Now, in my opinion, “The Blob” and others of similar artistic achievement, such as “The Invasion of the Killer Tomatoes”, belong among the most famous sort-of science fiction B-Movies ever, not so much among the best Science Fiction movies ever.

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RamRod

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Matador #2306209 : I forgot to mention in my comments on “The Thing” and on the “Doctor Who” of the Baker years that I was replying to one of yours where you mentioned those two examples of memorable science fiction TV shows and movies.

Sorry, Matador. And thanks.

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Matador

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And here is a big shout out for “Battlestar Galactica.”

To be clear, not the 2004 TV series, a “reimagined” version of the original 1978 one, but the original 1978 one, credited primarily to Glen A. Larson. Who was a Mormon, and so people have over the years commented on certain Mormon-themed elements of this TV series. No big deal, in my opinion. I had to have them pointed out to notice.

Which, unlike the 2004 follow-on, while it was also about a mass journey, or migration, or escape, to nowhere in particular and that also ended getting nowhere in particular, was in fact fun, in a goofy sort of way. Without the pretensions of high drama and minus the completely gratuitous soft p**n the follow-on was so generously sprinkled with. Not to mention all that retro, ca. 1960’s tech in the follow-on. The plot never made much sense, anyway, so why double down on its silliness?

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Charlie

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? says:

wait oscar before we go, you gotta check out Dust
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7sDT8jZ76VLV1u__krUutA

and thanks for yet another exciting topic!

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Thanks, anonymous: “Dust” looks very interesting: a streaming  channel with a collection of 10 – 15 minute short films on a variety of science fictional topics, some that look worthy of having a look at.

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OscarCP wrote:

And here is a big shout out for “Battlestar Galactica.”

Yes indeed. I was 29 going on 30 in 1978 and this show was one I really looked forward to watching.  The camaraderie of the Galactica crew, the neat voices of Cylon Centarians, and of course the beautiful women which included Jane Seymour and Anne Lockhart.  It was a very entertaining space show, and though they didn’t show them finally getting to Earth, the sequel show to it did.  I enjoyed the sequel too, but not as much as the original.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Now the melding of Science Fiction and Horror has been discussed here and brought to an, at least, amicable conclusion.

But the melding of Science Fiction and other artistic forms should also be given serious consideration. In particular the melding of Science Fiction and Grand Opera, especially when it is an alien work performed by actual aliens.

Such is the case of the very famous  “Klingon Opera”, sang here in Klingon in a justly renowned performance by Klingon artists of both Federation and Klingon Empire renown that now I am very happy and deeply honored to bring to you for your enjoyment, spiritual uplift and personal refinement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmQGO5U2n6s

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RamRod

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RamRod has listed the, as he sees it, best science fiction movies, and put “Gravity” there.

I agree that, in general, this is a pretty good science fiction movie. But when it comes to the understanding of gravity shown by those responsible for it … not so much.

You see, as it says in  my profile, I work (among other things) “on satellite orbits” or, more precisely, on the very accurate calculation of satellite orbits: to find, within less than a couple of inches, the true position of the satellite at any time. This is necessary, for example, when taking very precise measurements of the shape of the surface below with a radar or laser altimeter on a satellite, bouncing its radio or light beam off the surface and measuring the time it takes to come back. That, multiplied by the speed of light and divided by two gives the distance to the surface, but the distance from where? Here is where knowing the position of the satellite to better than the precision of the measurement comes in. And where I come in. The main force that shapes an orbit is gravity, so I have had to learn and get to understand reasonably well how gravity works.

So what is the problem I see with gravity in “Gravity”? In an interview with Phil Plait (I think it was) in “Bad Astronomy”, Neil deGrasse Tyson explained what he thought was wrong with “Gravity’s” gravity and so brought that to my attention.

You see, the most dramatic moment in the movie is when George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are hanging together, but only one can make the final jump back to the crippled space station and for that to be possible, the other must let go. And this other has to be the Clooney character. But, as presented in the movie, letting go also means falling down and down towards Earth, to burn down to a shiny cloud of very hot plasma when finally hitting the atmosphere.

So Clooney lets go, heroically, and starts to fall, very slowly at first. But with enough time before his fiery reentry to make a fine farewell speech.

Except that not only such a fall is not possible, but a thing much more interesting and dramatic as well should have happened, making the movie even more arresting — but with the theater’s personnel only allowing entrance to members of the public if they first agreed to being carded.

What should have happened is this: both Bullock and Clooney, before they separated were in exactly the same orbit around the Earth. When they did separate, Clooney got a little push and went into a slightly different orbit. But was still in orbit and not falling down to Earth. Also the effect of residual air around would have pushed him, ever so slightly, into a very slowly more and more different orbit. The difference would be that he would be sometimes a bit higher, sometimes a bit lower, sometimes a bit to the right, sometimes a bit to the left of Bullock, now safely inside, for the moment, of the space station after reaching it when Clooney let go of her. In other words: he would have been going in slowly changing circles around Bullock, never out of sight but also never out of radio contact. So, instead of just moving quickly away, as in the movie, soon to be so far as to loose radio contact and not be heard anymore by Bullock, he would have been always present to her and being heard by her: first his heroic words, then, increasingly, his heavy breathing, then his gasping, then his desperately gulping for air, then silence at last. But the corpse will still be in plain sight, going around and around in a sort of endless danse macabre around and in sight of Bullock.

Much more interesting than what happens in the movie, don’t you think?

 

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[AlexEiffel]

Movies : Solaris (1976) and Stalker (1979) from Tarkovski, those are on top for me.

Clockwork Orange and 2001 from Kubrick.

The Thing (1982) from Carpenter.

Maybe Blade Runner and Back to the future + The fly and other Cronenberg work.

On the more popular side, Madmax (2015), terminator 1 and 2, the first Star Wars IV, Robocop, Ex Machina, The Matrix and Alien(s), although they are not on the same artistic level, I find.

There is a special place in my heart for Dune, even if has big flaws.

The not that good but still memorable Idiocracy too.

Shows : I enjoyed Babylon V as a teenager and young adult. Star-Trek to a certain extent although I never found it great. I enjoyed Battlestar Galactica a bit more, but still didn’t find it as good as the best series I watched. Never saw Firefly or Dr Who, I should.

I find there isn’t that many great sci-fi movies and series, unfortunately. I hope the new foundation show will be good.

And to answer Ramrod’s question, in my book, science-fiction should have a link to an apparently plausible universe, parallel or future, unlike fantasy which doesn’t have this requirement. The fact that it is not scientifically possible doesn’t bother me as long as it is not grossly obvious, but some purists might want this criteria met more strictly. I suppose the more of a scientist you are too, the more some problems are obvious and annoying to you. Themes of space, technology, alternate plausible realities are in. Elves are out because they don’t have a come from another planet explanation.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by AlexEiffel.

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Alex Eiffel, I agree with your choices of the first movies you mentioned as being among the great classics, not just of science fiction, but of the cinema, period. But I also think that “The Matrix” (the first movie in the series by the Wachowski sisters) is a great action movie full of interesting ideas. Or, to be more precise, it is the greatest and the best Cyberpunk science fiction movie ever made, in my opinion. Lilly Wachowski has said that it is also a transgender movie, but she got me there, because I can’t see how that might be. Too subtly laid down for me? Still, if she says it, who, with her sister, is both the movie’s creator and co-director, who am I to doubt her?

This is such a strange world; in fact, as J.B.S. Haldane once wrote of the universe: it is not just stranger than we imagine, but it is even stranger than we can imagine.

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AlexEiffel

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Now I want to bring to your attention the work of the most remarkable director Brad Bird, who has made both very good animation and action movies, namely:

The Iron Giant.

The Incredibles.

The Incredibles 2.

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol.

Tomorrowland.

The first three are all animation movies that I think that is fair to count as science fiction of the rather vague kind that is the most frequently encountered in movies. But they are all, in my view, true masterpieces, Brad Bird being one of the best creative movie makers around today.

The fourth is the live action movie where Tom Cruise hangs around the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubay. Where to ‘hangs around’ one mentally should add ‘for dear life at 2,722 feet, or 845 m above the ground.’

Roger Ebert had this review of the Iron Giant that strongly recommend people read:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-iron-giant-1999

Now about “Tomorrowland”:

While the first four movies listed at the beginning were very successful, or at least have got and kept a substantially dedicated following throughout the years, another, more recent one of Bird’s movies and probably his most ambitious one until now, has not fared very well: it was very expensive to make and ended up costing Disney that produced it more than $120,000,000. It was also roundly panned by several critics from top publications.

Quite frankly, I think that this is an excellent movie, truly worth watching. Also not all critics have deprecated it. According to Wikipedia:

“David Edelstein of New York magazine gave the film a positive review, stating that “Tomorrowland is the most enchanting reactionary cultural diatribe ever made. It’s so smart, so winsome, so utterly rejuvenating that you’ll have to wait until your eyes have dried and your buzz has worn off before you can begin to argue with it.”

Now “reactionary” is not my preferred adjective to use in front of any noun, but here has a rather positive meaning: it is a reaction against the dark side of advanced technology and its potential for making possible the establishment of some both stifling and permanent forms of autocracy and oligarchy.

But it is even more about seeing some astounding special effects to illustrate time-traveling from the humdrum present to an extraordinarily exciting and cheering vision of the future … much like the  “Tomorrowland” in Disney parks. That turns out to be also an elaborate commercial for a certain kind of optimistic and sunny expectation of where things are going, except that it is actually shown in the future and one has to time-travel there to go and see it. And it is a vision that turns out to have little to do with the actual future, as it will be seen later on. But that is not all: there is a lot more to this movie, including (but  not limited to) good dialog and some good acting. Roger Ebert, again, gave this movie what I think it is fair to describe as “an admiring mixed review”:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tomorrowland-2015

“The film is a personal work of art that seems born of stubborn passion. It’s definitely not an assembly-line product, despite the way that some sequences evoke (deliberately, would seem) actual assembly lines. If it’s a bit irritating or dull at times, it’s because it seems clear that Bird knows why he’s showing us these things, and what he hoped to achieve by visualizing them in this manner, but he and his co-writers (including co-scenarist Jeff Jensen) can’t find a graceful way to communicate it.”

“No matter. The “message” of “Metropolis”—a parable of labor and capital which concludes that society needs the heart to mediate between the head and the hands—was a mess, too.”

“But if you had to make a list of reasons why that film is still remembered, discussed, and raided for inspiration by films like Bird’s, “message” wouldn’t be on it. “Metropolis” is remembered because watching it is as close as many of us will get to being able to have another person’s dream.”

Hear, hear!

It is available for streaming from Amazon. I have not been able to find it in any place I am familiar with that sells movie DVDs.

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Alex5723 wrote:

I am not sure many will categorize this movie as SF, but I do and in my movie collection this movie is at the top with 10/10.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Thanks for bumping “The Man From Earth”.

I had heard of it, but never had the opportunity to watch it before.

Just added it to my Amazon Prime watchlist. It’s included now for free streaming! 🙂

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OscarCP

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One of the latest SF TV shows is “Emergence”.  I really liked it but again it was cancelled after only one “season” in 2019.  Go to Google or you preferred search engine and you’ll see it under “Emergence TV Show – ABC”.  They are still showing the trailer and there’s a lot of info. about it too.  It was another show that had good ratings, good story, but still got cancelled.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Anyone for Altered States ??

marked the film debut of William Hurt and Drew Barrymore

😵😇👿👪🙂

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_States

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OscarCP

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Here is a list of shows and movies some people here might like and, or like to give their opinions on them (*):

Movies:

Inception

Interstellar

Minority Report

Solaris  ( The 2002 Hollywood remake of the 1972 Tarkovsky’s classic based on the hallucinating novel by Stanislaw Lem (**))

The Shape of Water

TV Shows:

Twilight Zone

Outer Limits

The Man in the High Castle (from Amazon, streaming)

Mystery Science Theater 3000  (***)  (Both the 1990’s old TV show and the more recent Netflix pick up.)

Now, which are your own favorites still not discussed here?

(*) That I have put them in this list does not mean I like them, just that I believe they are both out there and are at least somewhat popular and worth discussing.

(**) Lem, a Polish science fiction writer, author of the most compelling stories about alien worlds with completely alien, creepy and coherently incomprehensible life forms that I have ever read. They are ideal for being made into high-end TV, streaming and big screen science fiction movies; it is a shame that only “Solaris” has been made into a movie, as far as I know.)

(***) Actually an ironic running commentary on bad movies, but taking place in a space station with robots, so…)

 

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I liked Interstellar and Minority report, but I would add them to the list of more popular movies with less artistic value.

I found Inception overrated. Sort of a fancy James Bond. Maybe because I read critics that shouted genius. I didn’t find it very deep or anything, although technically competent. I prefer the trick movie Memento from Nolan and found him less interesting after. I wasn’t crazy about Dunkirk too. I guess I am just not much of a fan of Nolan.

What about the serie The prisoner? Not sure, I watched a few episodes a long time ago.

Melancholia? Who is the crazy one? The one that can’t live a normal life pretending it is not absurd that is more adapted to the second part of the movie or the normal ones that can’t face absurdity later and kill themselves or go crazy? Interesting, Although I find Lars Von Trier movies often a bit artificial or too closely inspired from masters, I still enjoy them. My favorite is Dogville, that I find truly original, deep and believable even with its particular setting. Oh, I just realized I described Stalker. In Antichrist, you clearly see Stalker just with the grass scenes, too. Lars, you will still need to find your own way. Maybe Breaking the wave is original or I just didn’t see the inspiration?

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AlexEiffel: I agree with you, particularly on “Inception.” My objections amount to this:

(1) The movie maker took several years to make this movie and, in the interim, the computer imaging tricks kept getting better and better for making truly amazing special effects. So those special effects kept on getting piled up on this movie, until (in my opinion) it burst at the seams.

(2) The philosophical existential ambiguity question of whether this is reality and one just woke up from a dream, or is it the other way around? A dream within a dream? Was much better posed by Zhuang Zhou, or Zwangzi, in the Chinese Taoist classic book of the same name some 2500 years ago. From Wikipedia:

” The well-known image of Zhuangzi wondering if he was a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man is so striking that whole dramas have been written on its theme. In it Zhuangzi “[plays] with the theme of transformation”, illustrating that “the distinction between waking and dreaming is another false dichotomy. If [one] distinguishes them, how can [one] tell if [one] is now dreaming or awake?”  ”

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AlexEiffel

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Let me add one I am currently watching: Carnival Row.
It is an Amazon thing, included in Prime (free month sub!! ) Season 1 showing 2 shot and likely in post. Steampunk, winged fae that fly, some lessons on prejudice, winged fae that fly whilst ….

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OscarCP

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Thunderbirds – then we had Joe 90 were watched regularly as a kid, that I found (then) absolutely brilliant.
so did my parents, as it was the only times I was quiet lol

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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The new (Netflix) Russian series ‘To The Lake \ Epidemiya’ (done in 2019 before Covid-19) is quite good.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9151230/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

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On the subject of the philosophical problem of distinguishing dreams and reality raised by me and AlexEiffel when he commented on “Inception” that I had put in a list, the 2016 movie full of amazing CGI special effects (but also way too many for my taste) and I answered with my own comment, has reminded me of a great science fiction animated movie by the brilliant Satoshi Kon, too soon to die of pancreatic cancer (that seems to be around a lot these days.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paprika_(2006_film).

And also of the last lines of the play “La Vida Es Sueño” (Life Is a Dream) by Pedro Calderón de La Barca, a poet and playwriter of the so-called Golden Century of the Spanish arts, during the Renaissance;

“Que todo afán es pequeño” / Pues toda la vida es sueño/ Y los sueños sueños son.”

(That all ambitious effort is worth little / because all of life is a dream / and dreams are just dreams.)

Or these lines in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”:

“You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.“

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And now, one more Zhuangzi (the dreaming butterfly/man) inspired science fiction movie, here:

The Lathe of Heaven, a 1980 film produced by National Public Radio in the USA based on a book from Ursula K. Leguin. According to this very interesting Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven

” The title is taken from the writings of Chuang Tzu (Zhuang Zhou) — specifically a passage from Book XXIII, paragraph 7, quoted as an epigraph to Chapter 3 of the novel. ”

“To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven. ”

The movie (according to the corresponding Wikipedia article) had a fairly adventurous after life itself, and was finally recovered and remastered into DVD from a VCR tape found in someone’s house. Now it is available for streaming YouTube. Those who enjoy strange and philosophical science fiction will be well served by watching it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8VRbaVNvSA

 

One more thing about the surrealistic and philosophical animation science-fiction film “Paprika” mentioned in my previous comment. According to the Wikipedia article I gave a link to in that comment:

” Time magazine included it in its top 25 animated films of all time, while Time Out also included the film in its list of top 50 animated films of all time. Rotten Tomatoes included it in its list of fifty best animated films of all time. Newsweek Japan included Paprika in its list of the 100 best films of all time, while the American edition of Newsweek included it among its top twenty films of 2007. Metacritic has listed the film among the top 25 highest-rated science fiction films of all time, and the top 30 highest-rated animations of all time. ”

Not bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBrUhQ0_qYA

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“La Jetée” (meaning the jetty, or embarkation platform at the old Orli airport near Paris), is a short (28 minutes) avant garde science-fiction 1962 French film, directed by Chris Marker. Along with the expressionist silent-film era “Metropolis” (1927), directed by Fritz Lang, and already commented here #2188798 , it is considered to be one the most influential science fiction films ever made:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jetée

The story takes place in Paris after a nuclear war, where a group of scientists are trying to create a device to send people to the past and the future, hoping they might be able to bring back help for rebuilding their ruined world. They have trouble finding volunteers that do not go mad because of the shock of time travel on the nervous system. They find a man, a prisoner, that may foot the bill and send him to the past, years before the nuclear catastrophe, at a time when he was still a child and saw a disturbing thing at the airport he cannot remember what it was. His experience as time-traveller begins then and there, in the airport. The story is told mostly with a series of still shots.

The complete movie (voice over narration in French) is available on YouTube; even those not able to follow the voice over are likely to get get a memorable impression of why this film is considered such a science fiction landmark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU99W-ZrIHQ

This is a version with the vice over in Engish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeTdW6IrwIw

In 1995 a Hollywood movie called “Twelve Monkeys” with Bruce Willis in the role of the time-traveling prisoner, was based on “La Jetée” and was well-received by critics and public. Robert Ebert wrote a very positive review:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Monkeys

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Colony.  Genuinely interesting characters, and a plot you needed to pay attention to.  Often something would happen or be said, and its significance would not become apparent until several episodes later.  It is hard to do a completely fresh invasion story, but they came very close.  Of course it was cancelled just as the Big Reveal was coming about which of the aliens were the Good Guys, if either.

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It will be due to my age (I’m 64 now) but when I was a pre-teen the German TV had a show called ‘Raumschiff Orion’. All in Black and white because color TV wasn’t available by then. You can find it on Youtube but they had splendid ideas. Filming it was a lot more difficult in the early sixties but they impressed me everytime back then.

Later I was totally into the Starship Enterprise

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Anonymous, thanks for bringing this to my attention!

“Raumpatrouille Orion” (“Space Patrol Orion”) was a 1966 black and white TV show produced by ARD (a working group of public broadcasters of the Federal Republic of Germany) An exact contemporary of  the original series of Star Trek, it was made, it would seem, with substantially better funding and therefore less spartan ship interiors, the ship exterior resembling a big and sleek flying soccer and a crew with some futuristic beehive hairdos in evidence. And, in my opinion, some slight touches of  Fritz Lang’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” in some of the creepier sequences in some weird outer space installations. Also in this series, at least, in space everybody can hear you cry. Judging by how many “hits” one gets when googling it, this series has gained the status of  a”cult” TV show, somewhat like the “Dr Who” of the Baker years, with a faithful fans’ following over the decades.

The videos of some of the episodes, roughly one hour long each, are available in YouTube. They are, of course, in German without English dubbing or subtitles. Here is the first episode, so those who don’t know German can get a feeling for what this series was like and those who know German can enjoy it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftDXbIDfce8

Prost!

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“Raumpatrouille Orion” (Space Patrol Orion) is also available on Usenet.
Indexers https://nzbgeek.info/ and https://www.usenet-crawler.com/ have all 7 episodes.

https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/ssearch/sublanguageid-eng/idmovie-36151 provides English subtitles, that are well synchronised.

For background information about the series, see the quite thorough Wikipedia article (in English):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raumpatrouille_%E2%80%93_Die_phantastischen_Abenteuer_des_Raumschiffes_Orion

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Mixing movies & TV, a big boost for “Star Trek-TOS”. It was the first SF space-based serious video effort since the movie “Forbidden Planet”, and brought serious SF to popularity for both TV and movies. The third season was inferior to the first two, however, and showed the fact that NBC gave the series little support that year, having renewed it only after a massive fan protest.

As for Star Trek movies pre-J. J. Abrams, my favorite is one of the least mentioned- “Insurrection”. It breaks the mold of the “follow-the-herd of Starfleet” mode, to show members of the Establishment rebelling against their unjust policies, and highlights the plight of the small minorities, and points out the wide prevalence of greed as one of the primary motivators of human behavior. For the Abrams movies, however, although the third is similar to “Insurrection” in that it focuses more on character motivation than SF and CGI whiz-bang, it seems to me less interesting than his first two.

For original concepts in SF video productions, it’s hard to beat “The Matrix” and “Inception”.

“Dune”, of course, has two productions- the movie, and the 6-part TV series (far less known). The latter is much truer to Frank Herbert’s novel, but lacks the in-your-face punch of David Lynch’s typical approach that the movie has, making it my favorite of the two. It’s one of the dozen or so favorite movies I’ve watched a number of times.

A special mention to “Ender’s Game”. An avid SF reader in my youth and early middle age, I essentially gave it up in my mid-to-lat 30’s. I saw a strong recommendation for the book in a blog completely unrelated to SF, and decided to give it a read on one of my travels. It had quite an unexpected denouement, but also such brilliant introspection given to the characters, enough to make me read almost all of Orson Scott Card’s other books in the Ender series. The movie was relatively true to the book, but, again, the book goes so much deeper. I’d recommend you read the book before seeing the movie, but that’s not really imperative.

Just some personal musings. As to what’s the best- quien sabe?

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Babylon 5 was a very ambitious project constrained by a very low budget, but groundbreaking in many ways with it’s five year story arc outlined from the very beginning.  A favorite.

However, as a youth I enjoyed a series not yet mentioned, a British sci-fi TV series (also broadcast in the US and Canada) called UFO.  It was shown in 1970 with 26 episodes.  It’s setting was a more contemporary 1980 about a threatening and mysterious alien race infiltrating and exploiting Earth and it’s residents and the secret organization SHADO established to counter the threat.  It included a moon base, space interceptors packing a single large nuclear missile, SkyDiver – a submarine with detachable interceptor aircraft, and many other “futuristic” vehicles and props with special effects quite advanced for 1969 when it was filmed, which covered underwater, land, air, space and moon.

It did have some notable details that I was impressed with at the time such as no sound in space, unlike other shows with jet/rocket sounds of the spacecraft, etc.  The space scenes merely had subtle mood music that was not at all intrusive.

 

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I was and am a fan of Babylon V (now available for free if one subscribes through Amazon Prime.) I have the DVDs of all five seasons. It was my first purchase of all the DVDs of a TV show, back in the late 1990’s.

I think it was probably the most imaginative science-fiction TV series I’ve seen, except for the one-season and much lamented “Firefly” and for “Futurama”, also a casualty of an untimely termination.

In fact, Babylon V also run against network opposition and was nearly cancelled, then got a one-year reprieve to wrap things up. The uncertainty caused Claudia Christian, as Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova, to quit at the end of the fourth season and go to seek her fortune elsewhere (she didn’t really succeed at that and was also deeply resented by the rest of the cast, Straczynski in particular, for leaving.)

Straczynski tried to continue the project (and the jobs of some members of the cast) in the form of a series of TV movies, but only the first two were really much good, in my opinion. The whole thing continued in the usual form of graphic novels, some of which are considered to be “cannon” and some of which are not.

Not all were actors with acting experience. A remarkable case of one who was not, was Jerry Doyle, as Michael Garibaldi, who in real life was first a stock broker and then a libertarian talk-radio political commentator.

Two members of the regular cast died just a few years after the show ended: Biggs, as Dr. Franklin and Katsulas, as G’Kar.

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AlexEiffel

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Unfortunately, Babylon V is no longer available for free from Amazon: now it can be purchased for online streaming at the rate of one dollar per episode.

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Now I want to mention here some movies that belong to the more fanciful genre of “Steampunk” science fiction and one that appeals to my funny taste in weird movies that have a heart and a sense of humor:

There is a list of them here:

https://www.rebelsmarket.com/blog/posts/top-10-steampunk-movies-of-all-time-ranked-in-order

But I have my doubts about some of the entries in the article: for example “The Golden Compass”, to my mind, is fantasy with a sprinkle of “quantum” and “parallel universes.” And “Hugo” is no science fiction movie: just a sort of period one that distorts the facts about the life of the great pioneer of moving pictures, Georges Meliès, in what I consider to be an absolutely shameful way. Otherwise, it’s not too bad.

On the other hand , I believe that these totally qualify as science fiction, steampunk sub-genre:

Wild Wild West

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

 

“Wild Wild West” is a favorite of mine, by the way.

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“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” was one of the first SF movies to make a big impression on me as a youngster.  As long as we’re talking about Disney movies, I really liked the original “Absent Minded Professor” with Fred MacMurray mixing chemicals, and tweaking his calculations on the blackboard in his garage.

This movie was both funny and inspiring to me.  Once he invented and got the Flubber under his control, the sky was not the limit.  I very much enjoyed watching him “fly” his Model T around.  These movies appealed to my early interest in science.

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Another steampunk movie that I fully recommend seeing to those interested not just in steampunk but on good, wacky science fiction and alternative story:

“Avril et le Monde Truqué”, the English version called “April and the Extraordinary World”, is an animated French-Belgian-Canadian co-production, made in 2015.

The premise is that, if in France Napoleon III had died in an accident he himself brought about when trying to have scientists create an army of supermen to fight against the Prussians and have been succeeded by a pacifist son, so the Franco-Prussian War 0f 1870-71 never happened, but then, after a while, all prominent scientists were to start disappearing mysteriously, so the world wold never have been able to move from the age of steam, powered by coal and charcoal, to electricity and oil. And if the government then decided to jail all those remaining scientists that did not want to join secret projects to arm France with advanced super weapons in order to have a go at North America, as Europe had already run out of mineable coal (making the air hard to breath in) and had burned all its trees to use them as fuel, but there were still plenty of trees on the other side of the Atlantic, what then?

The answer is that what happens is even less likely than the premise, but brilliantly thought out and shown in a great animated movie that has won a raft of prizes in Europe and America.

The trailer of the English version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utn3AuutXVk

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Here, for your consideration, six box office blockbuster movies:

The Abyss

James Cameron  1989 movie that takes place on a submarine oil drilling installation where strange apparitions, a sunken soviet sub with live nukes on board, an unpleasant special ops. team and a catastrophic accident have everybody seriously spooked, including me, watching it.

Avatar

What can I say? A 2009 James Cameron movie.

Independence Day

A mixed of the sublime in special effects and, at times, story telling, with the really silly, particularly the ending, where dire planet-wide problems are resolved by hacking a super advanced alien computer with a completely unknown operating system system to plant a virus with a Mac ca. 1996. Best part, in my opinion: Will Smith kicking alien butt. Literally. Across the desert.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

A Steve Spielberg 1977 film:

Aliens are weird but not bad and like really short melodies.

ET  The Extra-Terrestrial.

Another Steve Spielberg film made in 1982. I haven’t seen it.

Pacific Rim

Guillermo del Toro 2013 monster movie with giant robots, or rather anime-like “mecha” with people inside that battle at sea giant trans-dimensional marine monsters that are trying to conquer, or maybe destroy everybody and everything on land. Because who knows what trans-dimensional marine monsters may really have in mind? If they have minds, that is.

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Mr. Austin, Charlie, wavy

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I interpreted “show” in the OP to mean television series, but if movies are included Avatar (3D) is certainly at or near the top.

Sadly, the sequels are all being postponed yet another year to Dec. 2022 for Avatar2, even though it’s production is 100% complete and ready to be released.  Avatar3 isn’t until Dec. 2024 even though it’s now 95% complete. The delay is due to COVID with the studios not wanting profits to be impacted by theater restrictions.  They are milking it for maximum $$.

If they were to release this year on schedule they’d have very little competition for the Academy Awards.  It’s a sparse year for movies.  That’s not where the money is though.

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OscarCP, Mr. Austin

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Avatar 2 and 3 are on top in my bucket list!

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Seriously? The best SF Series ever is Cleopatra 2525.

{runs from the lounge, giggling}

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looking at the wikipedia article there maybe something interesting there.

🍻

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Check out the “Cleopatra in Space” TV-show.

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“Cleopatra 2525” Gina Torres is one of the actresses: enough said, I need to see it.

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[Mr. Austin]

You’re all shameless time-wasters 😉 – and I’d never deign to be involved in such a frivolous discussion 😉

I’d vote for Babylon 5. This from a sci-fi fan from way back, who remembers the days when people actually read, and grew up amid printed books. I’ve signed copies of books from Robert Silverberg (To Open the Sky), Larry Niven (Integral Trees), and David Brin (The Postman). I’m geeky enough to have visited a WorldCon, which had around 7K fans in attendance, and maybe five of them were women. Also a Los Angeles convention at which J. Michael Straczynski spoke on a panel. Before Babylon 5 he was a story editor for the TV series, “Murder, She Wrote”.

During one of our private WorldCon parties I became impromptu director of a live internet video link with Santa Monica’s Internet Cafe, San Francisco’s Nikko hotel. Everclear with capiscum was served – among other libations. I began hollering over our din to our partiers for tattoos and body piercings from our audience.

Our two judges in Santa Monica would hold up placards with numerical scores ranging between 1 and 10. Both judges were women. The day after that party, one of them drove to the Bay area to visit me 😉

Once upon a time I’d met and worked a little with LeVar Barton on promotions of a concert event and he was a very nice man in person. About Babylon 5:  It had among the most fascinating and engaging character development and story lines I’ve ever seen in any sci-fi series. It also featured episodes with Walter Koenig as head of Babylon 5’s heinously subversive and chilling Psi Corps.

I’d a feminine friend who grew up with Babylon 5 actor Stephen Furst, and  he was kind enough to invite my friend’s husband and me its active set. We talked with him (in costume), Bill Mumy, and Mira Furlan. I was smitten and almost reserved with Furlan 😉

Human, who sports only naturally-occurring DNA ~ oneironaut ~ broadcaster

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Mr. Austin.

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AlexEiffel

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Hey! That’s creds bragging enough for the rest of the year!

And I am sick of envy, too. Babylon 5… Well, I wrote about it already, so no need to repeat myself. Too bad one cannot stream it for free from Amazon anymore. Or, that I know, without an ad every five minutes, or even that. But at least I have all five seasons’ DVDs.

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Farscape
Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars

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OscarCP

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Not sticking with best, instead doing really good that you folks  aren’t mentioning:

Comedy:

Robocop – This is a hilarious satire which couldn’t find an audience.

Braindead

Better off Ted

Middleman

dead like me

Anime

cowboy bebop

Ghost in a shell (whole series of series)

Full metal Alchemist

Noir

General SciFi

Orphan Black, at least the  first 3 seasons. Incredible. Might be best ever.

Travelers

Dark Angel

Life  on  Mars

 

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OscarCP

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sshank: Writing what follows based on my own recollections, I am of the impression that “Robocop”, the movie, did very well and was quite popular in its day. Moreover, going just by the box office performance, according to Wikipedia:

“RoboCop was released in American theaters on July 17, 1987. The film opened no. 1 at the US box office and grossed over $8 million in its opening weekend and another $6 million in its second weekend, again regaining the top spot at the box office. It topped rival films released at the same time, including “Full Metal Jacket” “Superman IV”. In total, it grossed $53.4 million during its North American run, making it the 16th most successful film that year. It also grossed an additional $24,036,000 from video rentals in the United States.”

I must confess that, while I am keen on the amazing work of the late Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Millennium Actress) and also of Katsushiro Otomo’s “Akira”, the movie, both in my own short list of science-fiction anime, that is about as far as my liking for science-fiction anime goes. On the other hand, when it comes to fantasy anime, I am in awe of the work that came out of Studio Ghibli and, more recently, started to come out of Studio Ponoc. Also of Makoto Shinkai’s “Children Who Chase Lost Voices.” But that is another story, for another place.

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“RoboCop was released in American theaters on July 17, 1987

The reason the tv show did nothing, was that it was a political and social satire that didn’t particularly appeal to some of the viewers expecting a violent action series. While those who would  appreciate it didn’t watch because they thought it was a violent action flick.

The TV show always showed at least once, the characters watching a tv advertisement which was just like our dumbest worst ads, but a little more so. Just enough beyond what we had then to make you wonder if they really were advertising that drug or was it part of the show. Also, thinking back to the clinton presidency, when they left an overcrowded health clinic, with dying people in the hallways unable to get treatment, the sign at the door said, “Hillary Clinton Health Clinic” if you were paying enough attention to catch it.

The Robocop in the tv show, never hurt humans. When fired upon by “bad guys”, he would shoot into a corner, which would ricochet to a chain holding an overhead light which would fall down knocking the gun from his hand. Then Robo would gently cuff him and take him in.

 

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OscarCP

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Thank you sshank for being the second person to mention “Dark Angel”, myself being the first in another thread.  This was IMO a great TV show set in the near future, and was based on the dangers of genetically engineering humans to be super soldiers.  I liked it so much that I bought the DVD’s for each of all two seasons.  Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly were the two main characters.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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charlie thanks for this one I think I missed the second season, probably a consequence of working a night shift 🙁

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[Vincenzo]

12 Monkeys the movie has been mentioned, but I didn’t see 12 Monkeys tv series.
I enjoyed it, even though I could never follow the overall plot.

Also Caprica was good.

And the Blade Runner sequel.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Vincenzo.

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Vincenzo wrote:

Also Caprica was good.

Yes but ended early IIRC.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Vincenzo: To understand “12 Monkeys” you could first have a look at “La Jetée” (here #2307018  ).

It is the original movie on which the one with Bruce Willis was based.

So, was “12 Monkeys” a ripoff of a famous movie? Yes Sir! Just as “The Magnificent Seven” was a ripoff of “The Seven Samurai” and the  first Star Wars  movie,”Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” was a ripoff of another Kurosawa movie: “The Hidden Fortress”:

https://film.avclub.com/an-influence-on-star-wars-the-hidden-fortress-is-kuros-1798179895

As I think it was Roger Ebert who once observed: “If you are going to ripoff from someone, you better ripoff from the best.”

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Joss Whedon “Dollhouse” was (no big surprise) a  2009 one season TV show that, as excerpted from its Wikipedia article:

” … revolves around a corporation running numerous underground establishments (known as “Dollhouses”) around the globe that program individuals referred to as Actives (or Dolls) with temporary personalities and skills. Wealthy clients hire Actives from Dollhouses at great expense for various purposes, including heists, sexual encounters, assassinations, expert counsel, and all manner of unique experiences.”

It was a combination of science fiction action thriller and horror story, much as its Whedon’s predecessors “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” were of fantasy, and “Firefly” was of science fiction, but without the light touches of comedy and snappy dialog those others were sprinkled with. The Dolls didn’t say that much. If one likes scary science fiction shows, this is one to see.

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[Geo]

Lets get in Mr. Peabody and Sherman’s way back machine from the “Rocky and Bullwinkle show,”  and return to the beginning of TV.   “Space Patrol”  1950.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Geo.

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RamRod, Mr. Austin, OscarCP

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I’d be a bit more modest and go back just to the time, 1979 – 81, of “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.”

Beep!, beep!

 

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Charlie, Mr. Austin

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[Alex5723]

Has anyone mentioned Westworld ?

ps. Second season of the The Mandalorian will air today.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Alex5723.

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RamRod, Mr. Austin

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Alex: Your two links are to IMDb Web pages; as it happens, that is not a very good place to find out about a streaming show. It takes a lot of digging around to find a very important and useful fact: where one can stream it from? In fact I had to spend close to half an hour to discover that Westworld is an HBO show and The Mandalorian is on Disney +, neither of which I subscribe to.

Wikipedia is a lot more informative and has articles on both shows, including such details as the prizes they have won. Showing that the Mandalorian, for example has been doing OK in this respect for cinematography and special effects.

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wavy, Alex5723

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OscarCP wrote:

Alex: Your two links are to IMDb Web pages; as it happens, that is not a very good place to find out about a streaming show. It takes a lot of digging around to find a very important and useful fact: where one can stream it from? In fact I had to spend close to half an hour to discover that Westworld is an HBO show and The Mandalorian is on Disney +, neither of which I subscribe to.

It was good of @Alex5723 to share shows he was interested in. It really isn’t essential to provides links to streaming options which any one Lounger may or may not be subscribed to. For one thing, many of us may not be in the same location you are…
😉

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Alex5723

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check out https://www.justwatch.com/

for where things are streaming.

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I don’t care about Wikipedia in regard to Movies, Tv..or prizes …
I care about viewers reviews on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes..

🙂

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One posts comments here to inform others. So please, try to give links to more informative sites that IMDb:  IMDb reviews are usually very short, some without explaining what the show is about but concentrating in some details of it without providing the necessary background to those not familiar with the show, and sometimes there are no reviews at all, because they are posted by subscribers on a voluntary basis. Issues such as the one I had mentioned, trying to figure out from where to stream those shows Alex listed in his comment, are important.

Rotten tomatoes usually has informed reviews, both from professional critics and from selected members of the audience, but it has become harder to access: now it requires turning off the adblocker before one can look at the reviews. This is an unfortunate and recent development.

As to Wikipedia: most recent movies and shows reviewed there are, at least initially, before getting edited, written by the makers of those shows or movies. So one always gets a summary of the plot enough to get an idea of what the work is about. I wouldn’t emphasize the reliability of the information any stronger than that… unless is about older acknowledged classics, more likely to have been edited by the usual Wiki process.

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Mr. Austin

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OscarCP wrote:

trying to figure out from where to stream those shows … are important.

It appears we don’t agree. Some old shows are not available by streaming.

It is not essential for something to be streamed for it to be someone’s opinion…

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Another informative source about TV shows, streaming shows and movies is Metacritic. I had not paid much attention to it until now.So I decided to have a closer look.

For example, here is its assessment of the “Mandalorian” and include, same as Rotten Tomatoes, a number of reviews from critics (76 in this example) of a number of well-known publications and of others less so:

https://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-mandalorian/season-2?ref=hp

But, unlike Rotten Tomatoes (RT), it does not carry advertisement, or forces people to watch them by making it turn off their adblockers; also it can be browsed with most browsers, unlike RT that recently has become one of those very picky sites that only allow the use of a selected few.

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Ghost in the Shell movies and TV series.

Ghost In The Shell S.A.C The Laughing Man 2003
Ghost In The Shell S.A.C Individual Eleven 2005
Ghost in the Shell 2.0 2008
Ghost in the Shell Arise Border 1 Ghost Pain 2013
Ghost In The Shell Arise Border 2 Ghost Whisper 2013
Ghost In The Shell Arise Border 3 Ghost Tears 2014
Ghost in the Shell Arise Border 4 Ghost Stands Alone 2014
Ghost in the Shell Arise Border 5 Pyrophoric Cult 2015
Ghost in the Shell The New Movie 2015
Ghost in the Shell 2017

Ghost In the Shell SAC_2045 2020 (tv)

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sshank, OscarCP

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OscarCP wrote:

I’d be a bit more modest and go back just to the time, 1979 – 81, of “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.”

Beep!, beep!

‘BeeGee BeeGee’ is more like it 😛
‘Beep Beep’ was roadrunner (cartoon)

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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Hey, Microfix, you are describing the cute little robot, same one I am referring to? You might well be quite right about that, but my memory of the sounds it made are as I wrote, except it was two longer tones, not the two brief “bips” of the road-runner. Well, what do you know? Memory: what a mystery! Still, I stand for my recommendation to those interested in checking out old shows to look into this particular one. This is a trailer of the series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAadQv-AL0Q

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OscarCP wrote:

Hey, Microfix, you are describing the cute little robot, same one I am referring to?

No, I’m describing ‘Twiki’ 🙂

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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[PKCano]

Historically and even gnow I’m a movies guy. Simple stories, well told. Get in. Do the story. Get out. Yes, I enjoy a good small-screen series but my tastes are like neckties – they suit me grandly or they don’t without much in between. The discussion here has sparked many fabulous memories of fabulous, feature-length sci-fi/sci-fantasy moofies. A partial memory dump:

Mr. Rice’s Secret

Death Becomes Her

District 9

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Tank Girl

Johnny Mnemonic

The Fifth Element

Soylent Green

Idiocracy

The Island of Dr. Moreau

Gandahar

I, Robot

And anything and everything the Wachowski sibs do, including Sense8 and Cloud Atlas. Yes, the Matrix series is also very good yet it also gets plenty of traction on its own.

Human, who sports only naturally-occurring DNA ~ oneironaut ~ broadcaster

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by PKCano.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Mr. Austin.

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OscarCP

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Michael Austin: There are a few entries in your list I have not come across or had a chance to see before, but those I recognize are also favorites of mine. For example “Cloud Atlas” and “The Fifth Element.” I strongly recommend those two to anyone who has not seen them.

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I am still hoping buckeroo bonzai come to netflix!! It is on my list!
Oh and the fifth element is one of my favorites. The floating noodle shop !!!

🍻

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I Robot was a movie I enjoyed a lot.  Will Smith was good and the new story was done well and kept the robotic laws of the original book by Isaac Asimov.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Mr. Austin

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I particularly enjoyed ‘Childhood’s End’ by  A.C. Clarke.  I read the book overnight – could not put it down.  At first I did not understand why Clarke chose such a shocking form for the alien overlords.   Later my mind clicked in to the significance of it.  Very disturbing!

 

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Not paranoid enough already? Then you need to watch “Cube”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2GHCMiiAJg

This is a science fiction&Horror Canadian movie. If, by the end, it still does not make sense to you, that is precisely the idea:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(film)

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Dr. No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
Thunderball (1965)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Never Say Never Again (1983)

And so much more.

Vale, Sean Connery

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54761824

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Mr. Austin

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See https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/00-heaven/

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OscarCP

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Now it is Halloween and I have the consequent urgent need to find some appropriately hair-rising sci-fi horror B movie to recommend here. So I remembered one called “Pitch Black” that came out in 2000. (Now available from Amazon Prime.)

“Pitch Black”, that I saw on TV, a long-ago dark and rainy night, alone, in a largely empty apartment building, was really …. scary (add mentally a Woody’s unsuitable expletive or two in front of “scary”, please.)

It cost a very frugal 25 millions, had a small principal cast. In the story, most of those in a passenger-carrying space ship, including a very dangerous criminal being transported under some serious restraints that break when the ship hits some space rocks and crashes on a deserted planet (‘deserted’, well…), most of them, die during this crash. So the criminal is now out and about on this planet, where some insanely nasty alien lifeforms come out of underground caves during the darkest part of long-lasting if rare triple-sun eclipses. One of which is now, as it happens, imminent, to kill and eat whatever happens to be edible around there. Shipwrecked people, for example. So the spaceship  crashes at the start of the movie, most of the crew and passengers on board die even before the main story begins and more keep dying through it, all the way to the end, so there are only a few actors in main roles to be paid decent wages.

Although several critics scoffed noisily at it, it has become a cult movie. So, there. People remember the movie and keep watching it, but who remembers those smirking critics, huh? And, over the years, there have been one or two follow-on movies, to prove the above statements are entirely true.

Here is a clip to get a taste of the movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luuYRrPaEpM

Here is more on this movie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_Black_(film)

One might try to make sense of “Pitch Black”, but making sense was never its real point. Its real point was to scare people ….less. Well, it did to me, back in 2000. Probably it still would.

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Mr. Austin

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Pitch Black is the first of Reddick series :

Pitch Black (2000)
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Riddick (2013)

I would add to the list the Resident Evil series :

Resident Evil (2002)
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

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Mr. Austin, OscarCP

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Pitch Black is/was/will be a very good movie.

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OscarCP

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[Alex5723]

Solaris (1972) Solyaris (original title)

* The remake with George Clooney from 2002 is bad.

There are also Solaris (1968) TV movie and a Japanese remake from 2007.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Alex5723.

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Solaris, the novel, that I read sometime back in the eighties, truly bowled me over, as did the Tarkovsky movie with the unforgettable scene of an intimate little party for two, with those floating candle sticks. I also saw the 2002 version with George Clooney in the leading role, directed by Steve Soderbergh and produced by James Cameron (of “Avatar” fame) and was well impressed. It seemed closer to the original novel. But Stanislaw Lem, the Polish author of the novel and one of the true geniuses of science fiction, did not like either movie because they were mostly about the relationship of the two main characters: that between the main protagonist and his wife and, later, between him and her ghostly simulacrum created by the incomprehensible living ocean of the planet Solaris that their space station was orbiting. While Lem’s book was mostly about the ocean and its disturbing effect on the members of the space station:

“…to my best knowledge, the book was not dedicated to erotic problems of people in outer space… As Solaris’ author I shall allow myself to repeat that I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images. This is why the book was entitled “Solaris” and not “Love in Outer Space”.
— Stanislaw Lem, The Solaris Station (December 8, 2002) ”

Roger Ebert liked both movies and gave the 2002 version three and a half stars out of four, meaning: a very good movie, just not quite a great one. He wrote:

“When I saw Tarkovsky’s original film, I felt absorbed in it, as if it were a sponge. It was slow, mysterious, confusing, and I have never forgotten it. Soderbergh’s version is more clean and spare, more easily readable, but it pays full attention to the ideas and doesn’t compromise. Tarkovsky was a genius, but one who demanded great patience from his audience as he ponderously marched toward his goals. The Soderbergh version is like the same story freed from the weight of Tarkovsky’s solemnity. And it evokes one of the rarest of movie emotions, ironic regret”

These excerpts are taken from:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(2002_film)

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When youse guys mention these screened entertainments I take your mention of them sincerely and use my own judgement for my own tastes. You’ve mentioned shows I haven’t heard about and I thank you! I very much dislike poorly-made screened entertainment of any sort, and until the last few years didn’t like most sci-fi or sci-fantasy series.

And, since we we’re willingly and gratefully meandering to and fro about ‘shows’ and ‘movies’ two other movies just came to mind:

I’d suggest the movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats, as a candidate in the sci-fantasy category. Not only did I find it to be a fabulously-entertaining, very funny and at turns cloak-and-dagger bit of film making with spectacular acting, but I know a fair bit about the real-life adventures which preceded its making. George Clooney’s portrayal of “sparkly eyes” for Ewan McGregor made me guffaw and still makes me smile. The characters in the movie are aggregations of several real-life people, a couple of whom I know.

For aficionados of things which also play as other-worldly, Russell Targ’s and Lance Mungia’s documentary, Third Eye Spies, plays well for someone who hasn’t heard much about the now-shuttered Stargate espionage projects. I know Russell well, and I’d gotten to know Lance. I’m acquainted with three or so people in that seemingly fictional documentary.

And another one you don’t often see on movie lists is the genre-transcendent Suspect Zero with Ben Kingsley, Aaron Eckhart, and Carrie-Ann Moss. Suspect Zero is a ‘Who-Done-It’ chiller about Ben Kingsley’s gifted but twisted character, being chased by Eckhart’s and Moss’s characters. And which lover of tough and tender femininity doesn’t love watching Carrie-Ann Moss (like in the Matrix series)? Russell was a technical advisor for Suspect Zero.

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“Men Who Stare At Goats”: More than in the science-fiction category, it belongs in the the “off-the-wall real-life stories that look and feel like off-the-wall science fiction” category.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats

“Just covering all the bases, because one never knows …”

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Mr. Austin

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[Alex5723]

2081 (2009)

After Vonnegut’s original story

“In 2081, American society is a dystopia, in which all individual inequality has been erased by the fictional 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution and the “unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General”, after that cabinet office was created to ensure a “golden age of equality” in the United States. Exceptionalness in the world is destroyed in the name of equality, achieved through the use of “handicaps”—physical devices used to nullify every inborn advantage any person might have over another: “The strong wear weights, the beautiful wear masks, and the intelligent wear earpieces that fire off loud noises to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains.”[1]”

Mad Max series :

Mad Max (1979)
The Road Warrior (1981)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Night Watch (2004) / Day Watch (2006)

Stalker (1979) (Tarkovsky. A Masterpiece)

“The film tells the story of an expedition led by a figure known as the “Stalker” (Alexander Kaidanovsky), who takes his two clients—a melancholic writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) seeking inspiration, and a professor (Nikolai Grinko) seeking scientific discovery—to a mysterious restricted site known simply as the “Zone”, where there supposedly exists a room which grants a person’s innermost desires.”

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Alex5723.

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Alex, Thanks for bringing people’s attentions to those great movies. (I have the DVDs of all the Mad Max movies.)

I am delighted to learn that one of the very addictive Kurt Vonnegut’s great stories has been made into a what, by the looks of it, is a very good movie. His novel “Slaughterhouse Five”, was made (in 1972) into another movie that was very well received and had an amazing sound track: renditions of some of J.S. Bach keyboard instrument works by none other than Glen Gould, as well as a the last movement of JSB’s Brandenburg concerto No. 4 at the height of its most dramatic part, the one about the firebombing of Dresden during WWII (a movement that if I had my way, would be played at my funeral, as to me at least, it sounds like the summation of someone’s life). But how about “The Sirens of Titan” (“Titan”, as in the biggest moon in the Solar System) and also “Cat’s Cradle” (the one with the science fiction-ish “ice 9” macguffin and also the preserver for eternity of the final act of cosmic defiance of the point-of-view protagonist: good and ambitious film makers, please, take a hint.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five_(film)

And so it goes.

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Alex5723

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I’d not heard about 2081 and now wanna look it up, thanks.

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OscarCP, I have ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ in my movie library (and all the others in my posts).
‘The Sirens of Titan’ and ‘Cat’s Cradle’ didn’t make it to the cinema. 🙁

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Mr. Austin

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Alex, you wrote:”‘The Sirens of Titan’ and ‘Cat’s Cradle’ didn’t make it to the cinema.” Too sadly true. Hence my call for “good and ambitious movie makers [to] take a hint” … because why not?

By the way: Kurt Vonnegut’s praises for Céline’s “Journey to the End of the Night” — about the attempt to escape by train from the advancing allied troops by a group of collaborationist members of  the Petain’s Vichy regime, still barely controlling the occupied part of France, towards the end of WWII — resulted in my reading this very dark and semi-autobiographic masterwork, for which I am forever thankful to KV: it reads almost like a dystopian science fiction story. (There is a movie either Brazilian, or with a Brazilian setting, by the same name, but it has nothing to do with the Céline novel, or with science fiction.)

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Alex5723

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I just found out, visiting Roger Ebert’s site, that Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Mother Night” was made into a movie in 1996. But it is not a science fiction story:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mother-night-1996

Ebert’s review is tentative, somewhat ambiguous… about a movie that is all about the ambiguities of human life presented at their most extreme in this movie, because they are so presented in the novel.

And so it goes.

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Alex5723

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Mother Night:  I remember seeing it and liking it. Yes, zero sci-fi content.

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OscarCP

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Why isnt enybody mentioning TENET? I was in cinema three times to see this movie (when the world was still normal, *SIGH*). Its awesome!

I love movies, where you have to watch multiple times to understand all of it. Like Cloud Atlas, The Illusionist, Detour (2016), …

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Doriel, TENET is still being shown on actual movie theaters, at least here, in the USA. As most of us are not going out to see movies because of COVID-19, this movie has not had any effect here on many of us, yet. If you have more information, having seen it already and being enthusiastic about it, maybe you could add a comment, perhaps with some links to trailers and, or informative clips and review articles on the Web?

I encourage to do that to anyone who brings our attention to some movie or show not mentioned here already. One can check if it has been mentioned or not by using the Ctrl+F or equivalent shortcut and entering in the search field some appropriate word(s).

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I would definatelly recommend TENET movie. Its true, that its only in theatres now. And in Europe theatres are closed in most of the countries, so.. Its maybe impossible to watch it right now, but it is definatelly worth waiting.
Its revolutionary for me as Matrix was, I was stunned by its music and story also. Simply love that movie already.
IMdB trailer HERE

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OscarCP

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Tenet is brilliant, really clever concept well executed.

cheers, Paul

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doriel

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Very disappointed with ‘Tenet’ movie. I was hoping for more from Christopher Nolan, something at the level of ‘Inception’, ‘The Dark Knight’…
The ‘Tenet’ movie is just boring…

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Alex5723 wrote:

Very disappointed with ‘Tenet’ movie. I was hoping for more from Christopher Nolan, something at the level of ‘Inception’, ‘The Dark Knight’…
The ‘Tenet’ movie is just boring…

I read the writer spent 10 years trying to get the script right, he should have spent 30 IMHO. A clever idea that never came together. Maybe getting people to spend money in theaters a few times to understand it was the idea. Even after understanding it as well as could be, I still am annoyed at watching it once.

🍻

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One word: “Contact”

Two more words: “Jody Foster”

Another two words: “Carl Sagan”

Well, if there is a science-fiction movie with 95 – 99% actual hard science and a tiny bit of stretching the known facts to just before where they snap, this movie is “Contact” (1997), based on Carl Sagan’s (an actual scientist) eponymous novel.

I am not going to describe it beyond saying that, if there is a technologically advanced enough alien civilization out there, somewhere in the Milky Way, that actually uses radio to communicate or try to communicate with other civilizations advanced enough to have a bunch of telescopes arranged in “Y” formation in the middle of the New Mexico semi-desert, near Socorro, population 8407 when they are all in town, then this is the story of Judy Foster finding out about them aliens by listening with her AirPods to what is coming through the telescopes and, eventually, having a huge machine built to alien specifications and using it to go visit the aliens, then coming back and nobody believes Jody, but …

Well, I better let the late Roger Ebert tell you all about it and why you really should watch this movie, if you have not already. Or watch it again, anyway, because it is that good (it can be streamed from Amazon, for a price). It has to be, for Ebert to give the highest of his accolades, pronouncing it “a great movie” and in the company of things like “The Seven Samurai” and “Citizen Kane” and giving it four stars out of four.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-contact-1997

One disappointing thing about this otherwise fantastically good movie, is that it is missing that thing at the end of the novel, about an encrypted message consisting of a sequence of numbers spread among the infinite digits of the number pi. Now pi is a fundamental constant that can be said, with a high degree of confidence, that it has been discovered, not invented, because it is a property of reality itself. So, how could that message be there? WHO put it there? Well … could it be G..?

 

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[Mr. Austin]

Yes, sir, Oscar! Contact is a fabulous flick in so many ways! The movie’s story and all its performances are exceptional 😉

At a Planetary Society meeting in a Los Angeles theater, conducting a live broadcast of a NASA mission (for Cassini–Huygens?) a friend and I watched as Sagan talked from the stage. He wistfully mentioned SETI, and how his team had found a 7-second, non-random signal they couldn’t find again. Long ago my work computers at our animation gallery gleefully crunched data units for SETI@Home.

Might you have heard about To the Stars Academy? I don’t follow their stuff but I do find it interesting, and a couple of years ago I got acquainted with co-founder Hal Puthoff through a mutual friend.

It was also in 2018 that I met Jacques Vallée, upon whose work the wonderful sci-fi movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is said to have been based. Vallée is one of the most intelligent, present-in-the-moment people I’ve ever talked with. I asked him what his research plans were for the next several years, and he said the study of extra-terrestrial metals and materials were at the top of his list.

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Mr. Austin.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Mr. Austin.

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OscarCP

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OscarCP wrote:

“The Man from Earth is a 2007 American drama sicence fiction film written by Jerome Bixbi and directed by Richard Schenkman

Nice one Oscar! I just watched on Prime last night! There is a sequel :The Man from Earth: Holocene
Doubt it will be as good as the original but worth a try!

🍻

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OscarCP

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November the third, AD 2020: while we are all waiting for what we are all waiting for, here is all I am going to tell you:

Men in Black.

Now, please watch at this thing in my hand. It will be just a brief shiny light.

Thank you. We are done here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black_(film_series)

Disclaimer: I’ve only seen the first two of this series. If you have seen them already, please, feel free to inform me with your opinions on the other two as well.

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Mr. Austin

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MIB 4th episode is amazing, saw it recently. You dont even need to se the prequels. Its funny, its interesting and I had wonderful time watching that movie.

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Far from being even close to ‘the best’ but way before COVID-19.
Mimic movie series.

“In Manhattan, cockroaches are spreading the deadly “Strickler’s disease” that is claiming hundreds of the city’s children. Dr. Peter Mann, Deputy Director of the CDC, recruits entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler, who uses genetic engineering to create what she calls the Judas breed, a hybrid between a mantis and a termite that releases an enzyme which accelerates the roaches’ metabolism, thus causing them to starve to death faster than they can nourish themselves. The disease is successfully eradicated….”

Mimic (1997)
Mimic 2 (2001)
Mimic: Sentinel (2003)

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One of the best movies sci-fi/none sci-fi :
Donnie Darko

On October 2, 1988, in the small town of Middlesex, Virginia, troubled teenager Donald J. “Donnie” Darko, led by a mysterious voice, sleepwalks out of his home. Once outside, he meets a figure in a monstrous rabbit costume who introduces himself as Frank and tells Donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. Donnie wakes up the next morning on a local golf course and returns home to discover a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom. His older sister Elizabeth tells him the FAA investigators do not know its origin….

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working link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko

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OscarCP

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I tend to agree with Alex: From the plot summary in the Wikipedia article, this looks to me as a time-bending ghost story, not a science fiction one, as there is no “science” in it.

I have not seen this movie, but genre aside, it seems to have a really interesting idea behind, and I am sucker for time-bending ghost stories. So: thanks Alex and Wavy for bringing it to my attention.

On the topic of time-bending ghost stories: if you have HBO, have a look at “When Marnie was there”, the very last animation movie to come out of the illustrious Studio Ghibli before it finally closed up shop a couple of years ago. It is about two young women from different epochs that, somehow, meet, become friends, and where each is a ghost to the other.

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Alex5723

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[Alex5723]

OscarCP wrote:

this looks to me as a time-bending ghost story, not a science fiction one

Donnie Darko is cataloged as “science fiction psychological thriller ” in Wiki and IMDB…
and has no elements of a ghost story.

If you are looking for some witchcraft, ghosts, demons, unearthly creatures, time travel… look no further then the excellent ‘Lovecraft Country‘ series (on HBO).

Another very good sci-fi time travel series ‘The Umbrella Academy‘ (Netflix).

“The Umbrella Academy is set in a universe where 43 women around the world give birth simultaneously on October 1, 1989, despite none of them showing any sign of pregnancy until labor began. Seven of the children are adopted by eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves and turned into a superhero team that he calls “The Umbrella Academy.” Hargreeves gives the children numbers rather than names, but they eventually are named by their robot-mother, Grace, as Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Five, Ben, and Vanya.[2] While putting six of his children to work fighting crime, Reginald keeps Vanya apart from her siblings’ activities, as she supposedly demonstrates no powers of her own.”

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Alex5723.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Alex5723.

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The “ghost story with time bending” elements are, at the very least, present at the end of the movie, according to my one source of information already mentioned. Going by that single, but usually reliable source, and regardless of who is saying what elsewhere, I am pretty sure that a mysterious story with time bending without some rubber-science mechanism explicitly mentioned to explain it, is not science fiction, but fantasy.

I am expressing in this way my firm opinion that too many things are classified as science fiction that are most definitely not that. Stories so misclassified are not necessarily bad and some I know of by having read or watched them are quite good. “When Marney Was There” being one excellent example of this. Some stories are a mix of science fiction and fantasy. For example, some novels by the late Terry Pratchett could be an example of this, if one accepts that a flat. disk-shaped world where magic is a thing, suspended on the backs of elephants standing on the shell of a giant turtle that stands on the shell of another giant turtle so, recursively, it is giant turtles all the way down, is science fictional enough, it being scientific in a Middle Ages sort of of way.

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There is only one turtle, flying through space – as turtles do.

cheers, Paul

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OscarCP

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On the subject of “is this science fiction or is it fantasy?” you might want to have a look at this before going any further:

https://www.hbomax.com/series/urn:hbo:series:GXYUhuQ6aq6nCVgEAAAlR/?utm_id=sa%7c71700000066889514%7c58700005930499206%7cp54264334887&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6LDjkKOB7QIV58uGCh1rtwnjEAAYASAAEgLHb_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Some say it is science fiction, because of the “parallel universes” and some mention of fundamental particles unknown to science so far, constituting the so-called “Dust” and with a fundamental role in the workings of the Universe somehow or other explained by quantum mechanics. I, on the other hand, would argue that it is fantasy with a sprinkle of quantum physics dust. (Pun intended.)

Be as it may, Lyra Silvertongue, nee Bellacqua,  and friends are all in this show. And her cute demon Pantalaimon is in it, too.

But to see this, you need to be on HBO or BBC, depending on which side of the Pond you happen to be. If not, in the USA, you can take the “Free trial” of HBO and see what you see. In the UK you better pay the BBC tax.

The general commentary, so far, has been favorable. At least the consensus seems to be that is better than the movie.

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Alex5723

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Not a helpful link, unless you’re in US, sorry 😥

HBO Max is currently only supported in the U.S. and certain U.S. territories.

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Kirsty, As I have mentioned in my previous comment, it can be watched in HBO for those in the USA, in the BBC for those in the UK.

For further clarification, it’s co-produced by the BBC and HBO and distributed in the US by HBO. The link I have given is helpful to those in the USA. Those in the UK all they have to do is turn on the TV. As long as they are current with their BBC tax (a.k.a “TV license”), as I have also already mentioned. Moreover, it is also shown in Australia and in New Zealand, maybe in other countries as well.

One more thing: there is going to be one season for each book in the trilogy. The first season, along the lines of “The Golden Compass” started late last year and now the premiere of the second season, based on “The Subtle Knife”, is scheduled to start in the UK on November 8th and in the USA on November 16th. For all the details I am omitting, including a summary of the episodes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials_(TV_series)

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Kirsty

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Now I wonder just when season 2 will be on netflix or prime.

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OscarCP

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Wavy: “Now I wonder just when season 2 will be on netflix or prime”

Unlikely, as HBO co-owns this show with the BBC. The best thing to hope for is that they’ll eventually release the seasons in DVD so one can buy them. Alternatively, in the USA, one could subscribe to HBO.

For my part, I already subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime, and stream video rather sparingly, as I am not usually free to watch movies and shows more than three or four hours a day max, so adding HBO is not going to do that much for me. So I just hope they release this show as DVD.

The next season, sometime next year, is going to be the last one, following the other two along the lines of “The Amber Spyglass”, the last book in the trilogy.

By the way, Pullman has been writing another trilogy called “The Book of Dust” that is a sequel to this first one, with two books already out and one more (I understand) still to be written. The two books now on sale are “La Belle Sauvage” (*) and “The Secret Commonwealth.” Having read them, I recommend them to those who enjoyed reading the first trilogy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Dust

(*) Actually the first novel is a prequel to the first trilogy, with Lyra as a baby, while the second novel is a follow on to the first trilogy, with Lyra all grown-up and having demon issues. So “The Book of Dust”, at this point, is more of a sandwichlogy than a trilogy in the making.

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Season one is on Netflix dvd , which is where I saw it. So maybe ….

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News Flash: “His Dark Materials” season 1 is out on DVD as well as streaming from Amazon, for a price. Both options cost around US$10.

Season 2 starts this month but one has to subscribe to the HBO channel on Amazon Prime, and that costs US$14.99 a month for access to the HBO channel with all its content. I hope there will be a DVD coming out after the season is over.

One odd thing about this DVD is that there is no DVD region mentioned in the item’s description. Only that the format is NTSC, the USA TV format; also the product reviews are from people who bought the DVD in Canada or the USA.

So it looks like “region 1” is implicit in the preceding paragraph.

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Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985).

“The film centres on Sam Lowry, a low ranking bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil’s satire of bureaucratic, technocratic, terrorism, and an hyper-surveillance, state capitalist like totalitarian government is reminiscent of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four[11][12][13] and has been called Kafkaesque[14] and absurdist.[13]”

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Terry Gilliam is one of the most creative movie makers and all-around artists of our times: besides designing the wacky, surreal and very funny cartons in “Monty Python Flying Circus”, the famous British comedy show where he also acted in some of the sketches, or conducting to substantial acclaim operas such as “The Damnation of Faust” by Berlioz, he has made, among others, such movies as:

“Time Bandits” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen” that I recommend watching, as these are as great a pair of fantasy movies as one is likely to see.

“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus”, another great fantasy movie and the last one with the late Heath Ledger, who had a very important part, playing a manifestation of the Devil, and who died while the movie was still in production and had to be replaced with great difficulty. (Something, by the way, of a theme in Gilliam’s career: great difficulties, many frustrations, due to sheer bad luck — and to his predilection for attempting movies that are both technically difficult and very expensive to make.)

And the dark science fiction/psychological/political drama aptly described by Alex: “Brazil.”

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[Alex5723]

After 15 seasons, the longest running sci fi series in the US is coming to an end. Baby, it’s the final ride for saving people and hunting things.

Supernatural (on TVmaze)

“Supernatural is an American television series created by Eric Kripke. It was first broadcast on September 13, 2005, on The WB, and subsequently became part of successor The CW’s lineup. Starring Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester and Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester, the series follows the two brothers as they hunt demons, ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural beings..”

I have followed all 15 seasons. Will watch the last S15E20 tonight.
I was a great ride.
The series has much more the just hunting monsters and season 15 was extraordinary (don’t want to spoil the punch of the last episodes, and oh, there was an earth shattering blow).

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Alex5723.

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First of all, I have been trying to figure out which famous science fiction TV show might not have been mentioned, showcased and recommended here already, but could not think of any. So, instead, I decided to farm this out to Rolling Stone, where they reacted most enthusiastically to my request and came up with this article listing, with pictures and comments, the 50 best science fiction TV shows of all time:

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-lists/best-science-fiction-tv-shows-of-all-time-65434/the-100-2014-present-150368/

Now, to Alex’s positive comment on “Supernatural”:

Stories of the supernatural, mostly meaning things that go bump in the night, are really fantasy/horror: ghost or poltergeist stories, for example. But since you liked “Supernatural”, I wonder if you might have seen already “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (included in the Rolling Stones list, by the way.) Monsters galore there (the town is built on one of the gates of hell), so monsters and all manner of demons — vampires too, of course — infest the place whose citizens seem strangely unconcerned… Maybe that is because they are extra-laid-back Californians? It run for seven seasons between 1998 and 2005 and that was, I think, the right length for this show.

Now, some real-life spooky things I personally know about: Near Naples, in Italy, there is a lake called Lago d’Averno. I had read in Virgil’s “Aeneida” that the entrance to hell is around there, hence the name. So, one day when I was in the area, went to this lake and walked all the way around it, but found no such gate, not even a little puff of sulfur. Then I climbed a nearby hill in Cumae, that overlooks the Tyrrenian sea and used to have a small temple on top, some of the stones are still there, and then went down a bit to the cave where the Sybil used to prophesize the future. It was quite empty at the time.

But in Sunnydale, Buffy’s town, they had the real thing. There is another of those gates in Cleveland, according to Buffy’s mentor, Giles.

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Mr. Austin

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OscarCP wrote:

I wonder if you might have seen already “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

I have seem and have “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in my Tv series collection.

There are gates to other worlds, H***.. in “Supernatural”.

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OscarCP

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“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”? I thought its about the best sci-fi show ever, not soap opera 🙂

I apologize, that was just rude from me. Its your opinion and I must respect it.

And I have to admit, that I watched “Charmed”, but sipmly because I “was in love” with Holly Marie Combs, I watched that because of her.

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OscarCP

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A brief note on what is “science fiction”: it is speculative fiction that deals with the possibilities open by our present scientific understanding of the workings of the Universe (a.k.a. the “physical sciences”) and perhaps such extensions to it as the possibility of faster that light travel and time travel (the latter not impossible according to relativity theory, just requiring immense amounts of energy, but opened to question by quantum theory). And a literary form that also deals with the possible consequences of the use of technology based on our very understanding of physics.

So it is mostly a way to package serious philosophical concerns into page-turning novels and shorter stories. Except for a few books, such as  Olaf Stapledon’s  “Star Maker”, that is pure speculation as to how life and conscience has and still might evolve in the Cosmos over future aeons.

Anything else is something else. But, please, do not let this statement of mine make anyone here hesitate to post comments on what is now days broadly called “science fiction” when it comes to movies and TV shows. As far as I am concerned, nearly everything there is grist for this thread’s mill.

After all, how much is about the real old “Far West” in “Western” films? Mark Twain, in “Roughing It”, long ago made it clear that it was not all that was pictured to be. Still, I love to watch “Winchester 73.”

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OscarCP wrote:

So, instead, I decided to farm this out to Rolling Stone,

You got in touch with Rolling Stone? Your very self?

I’ve been looking over the list and I’m liking it. I don’t know many of the shows and will graze through it for some gnew ones, thanks 🙂

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OscarCP wrote:

“Time Bandits” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen” that I recommend watching, as these are as great a pair of fantasy movies as one is likely to see. “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus”,

I dug/dig all of those. I might include Gilliam’s Brazil because of its steam-punkish fantasy tech. Robert De Niro as an outlaw, “Robin Hood” plumber is one of my favorite sequences.

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Alex5723 wrote:

Far from being even close to ‘the best’ but way before COVID-19.
Mimic movie series.

“In Manhattan, cockroaches are spreading the deadly “Strickler’s disease” that is claiming hundreds of the city’s children. Dr. Peter Mann, Deputy Director of the CDC, recruits entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler, who uses genetic engineering to create what she calls the Judas breed, a hybrid between a mantis and a termite that releases an enzyme which accelerates the roaches’ metabolism, thus causing them to starve to death faster than they can nourish themselves. The disease is successfully eradicated….”

Mimic (1997)
Mimic 2 (2001)
Mimic: Sentinel (2003)

Good movies! Plus, I’ll watch anything with Mira Sorvino in it 😉

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you all so lame. Philbrook in “I led three lives”

be well, breathe and honor wabi sabi

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John Carter of Mars. By Edgar Rice Burroughs. And the Disney movie.

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OscarCP

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I read “John Carter” (and enjoyed it) as I read several others of ERB’s books (the Tarzan ones, the hollow Earth ones) as a teenager. I have not seen the movie. The movie did not get good reviews, whatever that means. The trailer looks quite impressive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-iW_LrpY6c

Looking around, I’ve found that the movie can be rented or bought in Amazon Prime and the DVD is available in Netflix.

The book was a life-long inspiration to Carl Sagan, having read it as a child, that motivated him as a grown up, even while recognizing that the novel was a fantasy, to push hard to NASA the idea of sending people to Mars, with significant, if less than complete success so far. The present attempts to find life there with dedicated robotic missions is one of the consequences of his efforts. His, by then, ex-wife Professor Lynn Margulis, a distinguished biologist whom I once met, worked with him in his late years and popularized the idea of exploring Mars, looking for life there.

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[RebusCom]

The John Carter movie was a very pleasant surprise.  Bad reviews were unwarranted. It was very well done and I highly recommend it.  It’s a mix of fantasy and science fiction, mostly the former, but the movie does not come across as a half-baked, low budget rip-off but has just as much story, cinematography and special effects as the Star Wars series.  Definitely worth your time and popcorn.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by RebusCom.

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OscarCP

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Another movie that like John Carter exceeds expectations, especially in light of the cheezy sounding title, is Cowboys and Aliens.  I think it’s in part due to the low expectations that it kind of blows you away.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86-MAuPR00M

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OscarCP

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Cowboys and Aliens is a great movie. Classic Cowboy look with aliens as the baddies, really good SFX and a cast that plays along nicely.

If you like that idea try Bone Tomahawk, modern setting, horror, but no cowboys.

cheers, Paul

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“Cowboys and Aliens” (which I still have to watch) seems to have suffered from the same negative reception due to the kind of prejudice against mixed genres than other work, notably what the TV show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” got early on, because of its mixture of fantasy, horror and comedy.

Looking it up on Wikipedia I have found the following excerpts of a positive and a less positive reviews:

“Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing that “as preposterous moneymakers go, it’s ambitious and well-made. The acting from the large cast is of a high standard, Craig and Ford were more or less born into their roles, and director Jon Favreau actually develops his characters and gives them things to do, instead of posing them in front of special effects.” He lamented that the film was not a pure Western, saying of the aliens, “[T]here is more genuine suspense when [Percy Dolarhyde] starts shooting up the town than when countless aliens appear”. Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir offered a mixed response, claiming the film to be well made and clever, and singling out Craig and Ford for their performances. O’Hehir was critical of the combination of western and science-fiction elements, calling it “a mediocre western clumsily welded to a mediocre alien shoot-’em-up”.”

On the other hand, another mix of Western and science fiction, “Firefly”, did extremely well in terms of public’s acceptance, but run afoul of those in charge of running the show at Fox TV who then, to be consistent, decided to cancel it after just one session.

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Yet another movie that received critical reviews but exceeded expectations and I very much enjoyed is Jupiter Rising.  It’s described as a Space Opera, another mix of fantasy and science fiction.  It’s from the writers and director of The Matrix trilogy. Special effects are first rate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4ZzMkDLjWI

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Alex5723

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Silent Running. Bruce Dern, 1972. Prophetic environmentalism?

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Mr. Austin, Charlie

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Yes, even in 1972 they knew that planet Earth was, or would be in big trouble in the future.  What I wonder is how animal life could still live on Earth without vegatation to create oxygen.  It was a good movie though even if it was a bit prophetic.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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“Silent Watching” came out some years after Kubrick’s “2001” and so it had scenes showing the Earth as it is actually seen from space, particularly the thin blue ring of the atmosphere all the way around the limb. For its time, it was also a very effective, which means scary and highly dramatic science fiction thriller. The story is that the effects of some world-wide catastrophe has killed all trees and many useful plants, except the few safely grown in an arboretums cum green houses in orbit around Saturn. At some point, the government in charge sends order to destroy them, and space forces are deployed as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running

As far as I remember it, this movie’s plot works well if one overlooks these two flaws:

(1) Why bother to put the arboretum-greenhouses in outer space when it could much more easily have been built and maintained on Earth? One reason could be that a nuclear war or asteroid impact catastrophe has created a “nuclear winter” scenario that will last a very long time. If so, this is not mentioned.

(2) Why bother to destroy it? After all, if government budgetary constraints were the reason, the cost of running the arboretum-greenhouses could be kept down to near nothing, as it becomes clear in the course of the movie that they can keep going without external assistance for very long times.

But if one overlooks the above two points, then this movie was interesting in an intense sort of way that held audiences in its grip long enough, first to keep them watching it through to the end and then to discuss it seriously afterwards. And, in this way, confirming it as the milestone in science fiction film history that it rightly is.

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Sorry, I just realized I wrote “Silent Watching” rather than the correct name of this movie. Maybe because that is what I was doing when I first saw it. For me it was definitely a “sounds off” kind of event.

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I can’t believe not one mention of “Max Headroom”. For my money the best SF show ever. It was followed closely by “The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.” a SF Western. Both are fantastic shows.

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Mr. Austin

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As a czech contributor to this forum, I have to bring one revolutionary piece of czech cinematography. From year 1955 with special visual effects. Maybe it was important for whole movie industry all over the world, I dont know. I do not remember many things from 1950s with “special visual effects”.

Journey to the Beginning of Time

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Thanks, Doriel. It looks like this is the complete movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF5QWSKbZ1o

Either this has been dubbed to American English in a very convincing way, or this is not the Czech movie of the same name. But the notes say it is …

And, concerning the question, in the movie’s voiceover, of whether birds are related to dinosaurs? Well, yes. More so, because they are now days considered to be dinosaurs, the last and probably the more numerous and varied of their kind, the result of a process of evolution started long before the asteroid impact:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dinosaurs-shrank-and-became-birds/

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Actually the link in my previous comment is not to the complete movie, because the video so linked lack the last twenty minutes. The complete movie is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eQehzEJyHg

By the way, when this movie was made, the idea of a primordial “Big Bang” as the beginning of time, the Universe and everything was not yet around. And it still is being argued, worked on, refined and modified, so we have not yet arrived to a definitive answer. Although the “Big Bang” in its present form is supposed to be essentially correct from a few instants after the beginning onwards.

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doriel

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The BBT has been around formally since 1931.

In 1931, Lemaître proposed in his “hypothèse de l’atome primitif” (hypothesis of the primeval atom) that the universe began with the “explosion” of the “primeval atom”

cheers, Paul

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[doriel]

Guys, if you are interested in universe, you MUST read this. Its not TV show, but its one of the best books I read and I also gave it to my friend on christmass. I love universe!

John D. Barrow: The book of universes

Book is divided into small chapters, which goes chronologically, how human kind evolved. it begins in ancient times, where people were looking at the sky and they thought it is all static..

And it goes on and on until these days. It is true that Georges Lemaitre came with this idea, but observations about expanding universe came much much later with great telescopes. Also revolutionary was research done by Wilson and Penzias with measusring radiation. They tought their measurments was mistake and they blame pigeons for ruining their work. But eventually they came to conclusion that it is corrrect and there is relic radiation. So they knew that Lemaitre could be correct.

Thanks @OscarCP
That link is the movie I was talking about 🙂

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by doriel. Reason: spelling errors
• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by doriel. Reason: oh grammar

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OscarCP

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OscarCP wrote:

because they are now days considered to be dinosaurs

They are considered to be birds. They probably evolved from small dinosaurs.

cheers, Paul

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Paul_T: “They are considered to be birds. They probably evolved from small dinosaurs.”

Some think that way, some think otherwise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_birds

” The present scientific consensus is that birds are a group of maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs originated during the Mesozoic Era. “

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[OscarCP]

shrdlu: ” I can’t believe not one mention of “Max Headroom” ”

It was included in the Rolling Stone’s “50 best science fiction TV shows of all time” I gave the URL link here #2313083

Are you referring to the British original or the American version? I am familiar, for having watched it, with the latter and also have the complete DVDs of the two seasons.

British:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom

American:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(TV_series)

It was a great show (although I have read comments asserting that the British original was better) and I do have all the DVDs. The main idea was that, back in the 80s (when the show was running), there was what is now known as an “Artificial Intelligence”, or AI,  with a witty and even sarcastic personality, helping out an investigative journalist by running loose inside a computer network and stealing secret information that was then used to disrupt the evil doings of a TV network that was constantly brainwashing the TV-addicted masses with its programming.

 

 

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by OscarCP.

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[Alex5723]

OscarCP wrote:

(although I have read comments asserting that the British original was better)

Every American remake of any none American movie/TV show is worse than the source. I recently watched both versions of ‘Utopia‘ (UK, US) and the UK version was much better. The same fate has ‘Black Mirror’ and many others.
On the other hand, a none American remake of an American movie/TV show can be better than the source. Example : The great US ‘Unforgiven‘ movie has an even greater Japanese 2013 version.
Other example UK ‘The Prisoner‘, Korean ‘Oldboy‘…US remakes were horrible.

ps. Out of the best 50 TV Shows I have seen 44.:-)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Alex5723.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Alex5723.

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OscarCP

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Alex: “On the other hand, a none American remake of an American movie/TV show can be better than the source. Example : The great US Unforgiven movie has an even greater Japanese 2013 version.”

Well, ripping off a great US Western movie by the Japanese to make a samurai movie is nothing more nor less than payback for the US ripping off “The Seven Samurai” to make “The Magnificent Seven”, a Western movie. (Which was not that bad, for an ‘merican Western movie, by the way.)

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In case someone has a chance to see it, I recommend the British Sky TV show “COBRA.” This acronym stands for “Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms Assembly”, or get together of ministers and other relevant persons in a designated briefing room, possibly in the Prime Minister’s nominal residence at 10 Downing St., something that happens several times in the course of this first season.

It is essentially a disaster science fiction story, but based on very real events that have happened, the last time in 1859,  and still possible in the future: a gigantic solar flare has been detected that is bound to reach Earth in a few days and its electromagnetic interaction with susceptible terrestrial infrastructure can be expected to cause very serious damage to the electric power grid, as well as to communication and navigation satellites, all this likely to be very disruptive of normal life. The science is unusually well-explained in the COBRA briefing scene of the first episode. For example, a spacecraft in a stable orbit at the so-called Earth’s L1 Lagrange point in space, so that, as seen from Earth, it is always placed between it and the Sun, has been designed to observe the Sun and its magnetic field fluctuations (NASA and ESA have deployed such spacecraft) and is going to send data revealing that the magnetic field of the incoming blast is opposite (South pointing) to the North direction of the Earth magnetic field, making the latter weaker and so allowing more of the blast to reach the Earth than otherwise.

This show is well acted and impressibly photographed. There are some remarkably convincing large-scale scenes of the crash of an airliner on a main highway, because of the sudden failure of the navigation satellites (e.g. those of GPS); of a field of refugee tents; of large scale riots, and of several other aspects of the serious likely consequences both humanitarian and political of the massive blackouts caused by the solar flare. And lots of “The East Wing”-like melodrama, very well done, in my opinion.

The first season, in the USA, can be streamed from TV stations affiliated with the Public Broadcasting System, previous payment to get the permit, or “Passport”, valid for seeing all PBS shows for one year.

A second season has been announced for next year.

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The Lobster (2015)

“David is escorted to a hotel after his wife has left him for another man. The hotel manager reveals that single people have 45 days to find a partner, or they will be transformed into an animal of their choice; the dog accompanying David is his brother. David chooses to become a lobster.”…

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The Lobster was so strange and surreal I sat through it just to see how it would end.

Human, who sports only naturally-occurring DNA ~ oneironaut ~ broadcaster

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Alex,

Well, “The Lobster”, that you seem to be recommending, according to some Rotten Tomatoes scribe is “an acquired taste.” OK, so here is my own favorite acquired taste:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Kingdom_of_the_Crystal_Skull

Yes, indeed. Although too often maligned by Indiana Jones fans, I must say it is one of my favorite Indiana Jones movies. So, there. Why you may ask. For a start, it has Cate Blanchett in the role of The Super-villainess Mastermind of Bad, which she does perfectly, as usual. Anything with Cate Blanchett has my immediate admiration. Particularly considering she is an Aussie who, after a bad start in life (she was born in Melbourne) did the right thing and became a proper Sydneysider by moving to Sydney and graduating, once there, from NIDA (the National Institute of Dramatic Art). And the rest is history. Say no more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cate_Blanchett

The plot is also satisfactorily full of surprises, of action, as well as of the violent disposal of several bad people that get in the way. One of the surprises include Indiana being blown away inside a fridge by a nuclear explosion. One does not see that every day.

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[doriel]

Better than us is very good too. Not the best SciFi ever, but really consider watching this. Robots amongst us and lot more 🙂

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8285216/

Netflix series, Ukranian creation.

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by doriel.

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[OscarCP]

Thanks, Doriel, One does not get often a chance of watching science fiction shows as this one, made outside the English-speaking countries of North America and the UK. This show is available to stream from Netflix, at least in the USA,where it can be seen dubbed in English.

I find it remarkable that the Ukrainians, with all the troubles they are having in their far eastern border region and the Crimea, can find the resources to make a science fiction show that, at least on the technical side and judging from that trailer you’ve given us a link to, looks quite well-made. But I imagine that, because of those troubles, good entertainment easily available to the wider public is also something of a necessity.

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[Alex5723]

I think ‘Better than us’ is a remake of British ‘ Humans‘ series which itself was a remake of Swedish ‘Real Humans‘.

“The series focuses on the social, cultural, and psychological impact of the invention of anthropomorphic robots called “synths”. It explores a number of science fiction themes, including artificial intelligence, consciousness, human-robot interaction, superintelligence, mind uploading[1] and the laws of robotics”

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Alex5723.

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doriel

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Oh, thanks. I did not know that, I just “discovered” that TV series recently. I didnt now it has roots in the past. Thanks for interesting fact.

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[PKCano]

I’m going with the ‘The Expanse’… big time.
Something realistic was badly needed for the genre.

10 out of 10 on the science,
10 out of 10 for the fiction.

As far as the science goes,
everything in The Expanse is doable or achievable over the next 50 to 100 years.
Interstellar flight is a fanciful dream, but totally unrealistic.
Unless you’re a Star Trek fan of course, they swallow just about anything.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by PKCano.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by apollo130470.

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I am also a fan of The Expanse. Real physics for the ships, those dopey Space Western dog fights from Star Wars, complete with sound effects just disappoint me.
I just finished watching the 4th season and was thinking the 5th was already out.
I have no problem with FTL in scifi, or with the Ring in the Expanse they would be examples of ‘unknown physics’ vs. the ‘known wrong physics’ of dog fights in space.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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One of the best sci-fi ‘The Thirteenth Floor (1999)’

“In 1999 Los Angeles, Hannon Fuller (Mueller-Stahl) owns a multibillion-dollar computer enterprise and is the inventor of a newly completed virtual reality (VR) simulation of 1937 Los Angeles, filled with simulated humans unaware they are computer programs. When Fuller is murdered just as he begins premature testing of the VR system, his friend and protégé, Douglas Hall (Bierko), who is also the heir to the company, becomes the primary suspect. The evidence against him is so strong that Hall begins to doubt his own innocence.”

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Alex quoted from the “Thirteen Floor” article: “… a newly completed virtual reality (VR) simulation of 1937 Los Angeles, filled with simulated humans unaware they are computer programs.”

The idea of a show or movie about people living in realistic simulations is not new (e.g. the 1998 movies “The Truman Show” and “Dark City”), but the idea that the whole Universe is a simulation run in an immense computer by some very advance being or beings and that we are also parts of it, as mere subroutines of the main cosmic program, is an idea that physicists with a liking for philosophical speculation have been putting forward for years now. The thing about this kind of speculation is that cannot be disproven by showing that contradicts some basic law of physics, but cannot be shown to be correct based on evidence, evidence that is impossible to obtain now and, perhaps, never to be obtained by any conceivable means:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

A somewhat related idea (the Universe inside a locket that is itself inside another Universe)  is suggested in the very last scene of “Men in Black II”

Then there is the hypothesis of the existence of the “Bolzmann Brains”, brain-like objects that appear out of nowhere, as quantum fluctuations, and might explain some peculiar issues in modern physics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

“When applied to more recent theories about the multiverse, Boltzmann brain arguments are part of the unsolved measure problem of cosmology. Boltzmann brains remain a thought experiment; physicists do not believe that humans are actually Boltzmann brains, but rather use the thought experiment as a tool for evaluating competing scientific theories.”

The idea of giant brains from outer space coming here to take over the world is the basis of the plot of an episode of “Futurama.”

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The sci-fi in Rick and Morty is my favourite. Infinite universes and portal guns are always entertaining, if you use them properly.

cheers, Paul

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[Alex5723]

OscarCP wrote:

but the idea that the whole Universe is a simulation run in an immense computer by some very advance being or beings and that we are also parts of it, as mere subroutines of the main cosmic program, is an idea that physicists with a liking for philosophical speculation have been putting forward for years now.

I believe in this VR theory. “some very advance being or beings” are the GOD/S we worship.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Alex5723.

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Alex: “I believe in this VR theory. “some very advance being or beings” are the GOD/S we worship.”

Well, not exactly. The “simulation theory” does not describe the entities running the simulated universe as any god or gods people actually worship, as described in their religious scriptures and later theological elaborations (e.g. in Thomas Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica” (*)). From our (simulated?) point of view, they might be god-like, but are none of the gods people believe in. Unless one starts one’s own religion claiming that they are; that would change things.

(*) Where it is written that God exists outside of time and of space, which, I must reluctantly admit, could be one point in favor of Alex, if Aquinas had meant our simulated time and space, which he did not.)

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And now some good streaming news for fans of “Dune” and “The Matrix” (at least if they have HBO):

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55180055

 

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Netflix has streamed starting Dec. 1 : Stargate SG-1 Seasons 1-10

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OscarCP

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Aaron Guzikowski and Ridley Scott “Raised by Wolves.” The complete 1st season already out in the USA on HBO and starting now in the UK on Sky TV. Renewed for a 2nd season.

Wikipedia:

“American science fiction drama television series created by Aaron Guzikowski that premiered on HBO Max on September 3, 2020. The first two episodes were directed by Ridley Scott, who also serves as an executive producer for the show. In September 2020, the series was renewed for a second season.”

“Ridley Scott produces this twist-laden sci-fi drama telling the story of two androids, Father (Abubakar Salim) and Mother (Amanda Collin), who are tasked in the 22nd Century with raising human children on the planet Kepler-22b after Earth has been ravaged by war. Tonight’s opener finds the androids having escaped the violent conflict between a religious order and atheist rebellion on Earth with human embryos to start a new civilisation. 12 years on and only one child has survived – or so they think.”

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRMVtm2voVA

1st Episode (Full) :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIAIiw8UAfA

(Also being shown in the UK on Sky Atlantic.)

These are tough times for making movies and TV/Streaming shows: Covid-19 causing delays and cancellations.
What is it like making them now?
What is it going to be likely once this pandemic has finally run its course?

As good science fiction shows are few and far between at the best of times, the loss of just one is going to be a truly unhappy outcome.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/road-to-recovery/2020/11/25/tv-production-covid-lessons/

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/film-sets-hollywood-pandemic-1234826994/

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Film: Outland. Sean Connery.

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Edge of Tomorrow (Live Die Repeat) – Tom Cruise & Emily Blunt

And how about ‘The Adjustment Burea’ with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.

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The movie, in contrast to a series.

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[Alex5723]

OscarCP wrote:

“Raised by Wolves.”

Saw that. Nothing special. Can be skipped. Won’t watch 2nd season.

The Adjustment Bureau is good.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Alex5723.

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Alex: “Nothing special” Well, it’s got some very good reviews, some less so. And it’s from Ridley Scott, so it is at least worth having a look to make up one’s mind.

From watching the first full episode posted in YouTube (the link to it is in my comment further up), I would say, judging from this sample, that it seems promising. Would I open an account with HBO Plus, agreeing to pay a monthly fee thereafter just to watch the complete show? Probably not. But if the first season shows up later on, same as HBO’s “His Dark Materials”, in PBS or some other place I have access to, or a DVD version of the first series is released, would I watch it this way? Probably yes, I would.

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After considering carefully what I could add here today that has not been discussed already,  instead decided to indulge myself and tell you about something I have been doing over the last three weeks: I have been watching, complete from beginning to end and for the eight time since its last episode ended in May 0f 2003, that immortal work of cinematic art, that amazing and unique combination of ensemble acting, serious drama, really scary horror, touching romance, tragic falling outs, wacky sitcom, risque “adult-themed” scenes, outright camp, New Agey conceits, pure straight magic, sketchy science fiction and more, much more — with one old fashioned musical movie-style episode thrown in with much singing and dancing and a plot that was also a crucial point in the overall arc of the story. And a (literally) hard-hitting feminist message. So what is this wonder of wonders?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer

Born of the creative mind of Joss Whedon, produced by the company founded and also funded by Dolly Parton “Sand Dollar Productions”, with a group of gifted young actors, here real talents met other real talents and together danced a graceful minuet.

In 2017, the cast got together to celebrate the 20th year from the beginning of the show in 1997. To give its fans a trip down memory lane and to those unfamiliar with this show a taste of what it was all about here is this video of that reunion of the whole cast and the series’ creator with much discussion of what the show meant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ1nDKsILsM

Having watch it once again, I can say that it doesn’t get old, except that the laptops that Willow uses to break online into every conceivable data base, the more secret and heavily defended the better, tend to look a bit chunkier every time I watch the series again.

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Cybertooth wrote:

the show just soared (so to speak) on the storylines.

Back in the day, reruns of the original Star Trek episodes were all-but-mandatory viewing for the first-class cadets (seniors) during my days at the USAF Academy.

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[OscarCP]

OscarCP wrote:

This is Wavy’s fault ( #2013698 ), because he wrote elsewhere (and way off topic, I must add) that the best science fiction EVER is ‘The Expanse’, that one can watch right now in Amazon Prime.

I disagree, most bitterly: The best science fiction show, ever, was “Firefly”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)

And, although it is harder to classify as such, the best SF show that lasted longer than one season was, unquestionably, ‘Futurama’:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama

Feel free to dissent here.

• This topic was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by OscarCP.

It’s really hard to choose a total favorite.  There have been so many.

However, there are a few that stand above the rest: Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Stargate SG-1.

All of these provide rich environments for many tales.

Star Trek is one we all know.  The three seasons of the original 1966-1969 series launched an enormous universe of very successful spin-off shows, several great theatrical movies, and the most recent reboot with Chris Pine and company, not to mention a couple hundred novels!  It’s become such a fixture in today’s society that much of the things brought to us by Gene Roddenberry have become cliches today, such as “Beam me up, Scotty,” “He’s dead, Jim” and the Vulcan “V” hand greeting.

Babylon 5 didn’t create much in the way of spin-off shows like the others (there were a few made-for-TV movies and one spin-off series, Crusade, that only went one season).  But B5 did create a wealthy environment of possibilities for future exploration, limited only by the short-sightedness of the studios.  Had it not been created as a five-season story arc to begin with, it would have probably been easier to sell the studios on expanding it.  There are talks of a new show in the B5 universe, but those rumors have been floating around for years.

Stargate: SG-1 generated two spin-off series — the excellent Stargate: Atlantis and the not-quite-so-great Stargate: Universe (and unfortunately a Saturday-morning animated show that was hardly worth mentioning.)  There were also two great direct-to-DVD movies that tied up some story lines that needed conclusions.  And of course, quite a few novels of its own.

I’ll also mention the reboot of Battlestar Galactica.  (The original Galactica one-season-wonder — two if you count Galactica 1980 — was good, but that implementation was a little cheesy.  Still, it set the stage for the awesome reboot.)  Had it not been brought to such a dramatic conclusion with the series finale, it might have gone on for a few more seasons.  They did do a couple of attempts at extending the Galactica universe, such as the Caprica series, and the direct-to-DVD movies “Blood and Chrome” and “The Plan,” all of which I enjoyed thoroughly. Unfortunately, Caprica only went a couple of seasons and was dropped.

You’ll note that I didn’t include Star Wars in my offerings.  Star Wars was not a TV series, therefore by definition is excluded from the list.  Had it been otherwise, it certainly would have made the cut!  So, those of you who are huge Star Wars fans, please put down your pitchforks! 🙂

//Steve//

Moderator Note: Edit to remove HTML. Please use the “Text” tab when you copy/paste.

 

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KB6OJS: It is OK to discuss science fiction movies here; quite a few of those already have been.

Also, as you probably know, in Star Trek Kirk never actually said “Beam me up Scotty.” But this being even now such a common place shows the deep cultural influence of the original Star Trek series, as it is a line the Kirk character might very well have said. Much like the lasting influence of Shakespeare’s work is implicit in the saying “To gild the lily”, meaning to do something unnecessary, that is a misquote of the line in “King John” of the same meaning: “To gild refined gold, or paint the lily”.

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KB6OJS

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OscarCP wrote:

A somewhat related idea (the Universe inside a locket that is itself inside another Universe)

See also, Whoville, in Horton Hears a Who, by Dr. Seuss.

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OscarCP

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Whoville is also in “The Grinch that Stole Christmas”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoville

In  the first”Men in Black” it was not a tiny city inside a clover flower or a snowflake, but either the whole Universe, or else just one galaxy, maybe the one we live in, contained in a locket, or a jewel that a god-like infant is seen playing with in the very last scene of the movie. Hard to forget that.

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Babylon 5 was one of the best-scripted Sci-fi shows ever. The diversity of the alien races had a rich history to go with it. The characters were original, diverse, strong, and compelling. The overall story arc encompassed several plot lines including stand-alone episodes that were outstanding on their own merits. The writer J. Michael Straczynski had envisioned the entire 5 seasons ahead of time so it had a coherent beginning, middle, and very satisfying ending. Truly a show that proved itself by running all 5 seasons without the threat of cancellation. An international cast provided excellent portrayals of the major characters. The Vorlon race, in particular, was an inspired concept. Those of you who may be too young to have seen it when it was originally broadcast should try to find it now. You won’t be disappointed.

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tarstarkas27: To me, Babylon 5 was and still remains, after all these years, one of the most original, imaginative and intelligently written science fiction shows ever made.

If you search the string “Babylon 5” here you’ll find that several people agree with your comments.

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I have enjoyed most of these programs, I am surprised that no one mentioned Gene Roddenberry’s “Earth Final Conflct”. It had refreshingly different alien technology and interesting aliens. (Alien technology in most shows is all the same “future Earth” technology, but not in this one.) I am glad that Andromeda was mentioned, and the original Battlestar Galactica. I would be sad if they were forgotten.

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I don’t think that one of the greatest of science fiction movies ever made has been mentioned here already, so this is my small weak, poor, undeserving, pathetic, grovelling at the feet of greatness attempt to correct this gravest of omissions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Quest

To those unfortunates that have not seen it yet: Watch the trailer and weep tears of regret for what you have been missing in your lives until right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzwJgFhMbL4

 

 

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Galaxy Quest was indeed a great movie, not only for the science-fiction part but for its lampooning the fans that sometimes go <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>way </span>over the top — but even so, look who saves the day!

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The newer version of Battle Star Galactica is my favorite.

– Jack

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The original Battlestar Galactica and Stargate SG-1 get my vote. Enough said.

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Life on Mars, the original BBC version, was different but excellent in my opinion. There was an American copy but it ended after one season with a much poorer ending. Definitely worth a watch!

 

Jim

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J-Mac: “Life on Mars” certainly has had a lot of international repercussion, judging by all the versions in different languages produced in various countries:

From Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_on_Mars_(British_TV_series)#cite_note-3

“An American adaptation of the series was produced by ABC and ran for one season from October 2008 to April 2009. A Spanish adaptation of the series was broadcast from April to June 2009. A Russian adaptation of the series entitled The Dark Side of the Moon was broadcast in November 2012. A Czech adaptation World under the Head was broadcast by Czech Television from January to March 2017. The South Korean adaptation began broadcasting in June 2018. In February 2019, the BBC announced the production of a Chinese version, to be set in the 1990s. A sequel to the series, Ashes to Ashes, whose title references another David Bowie song, aired on BBC One from February 2008 to May 2010.”

Now I have thought of mentioning here a science-fiction topic that not often, or perhaps ever before has been discussed in this thread:

Alternate story science fiction: what if the past were different in some critical aspect, perhaps in some alternate universe very much like ours, except for some crucial aspect, or in a timeline that diverged from ours by the work of some quantum magician, or a busybody time traveler?

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-continuing-popularity-of-alternate-history-tv-shows

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New season 5 of ‘The Expanse ‘ just aired on Amazon Prime.

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But not all at once after first couple one at a time like old fashioned TV

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“The Expanse”: Great special effects, high-values production better than in just about any show I’ve seen. Competent actors, intriguing twists and turns. Problem is, time and again, I cannot watch more than three or four episodes and then I just give up. Reason? Plenty of dark, violent drama, but no much of a sense of humor. If it were shorter, say feature movie length, I believe I might be a fan, but it just goes on and on like that, year in year out. Why does it matter? Well, because, as I see it, we live in a real world that has tragedy and nasty twists and turns and darkness in spades; particularly the darkness.

So just by living here I get to experience plenty enough of real darkness already. I’m good with that, don’t need any more. Really don’t. If I wanted darkness and tragedy, I much rather read Shakespeare, that has some pretty good speeches now and then that make it well worth the time one takes reading any of his plays, with even some amusing bits, sprinkled here and there. And even have a point or two to make and do it very nicely, I must say.

Sorry, that came out like a sermon. Don’t pay me any mind and enjoy the show.

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That was my complaint about the Battlestar Galactica remake.  For the most part it was a portrayal of the dregs of humanity consistently behaving in the most selfish and self destructive manner, often in stupid/senseless ways, combined with jarring cinematography.

The Expanse does have an abundance of greed, criminality and self-interest, but in a seemingly more realistic and elaborate science fiction wild west / frontier manner (where one would expect to find more social outcasts) and balanced with more realistic range of behaviors in the characters related to their backgrounds.  It’s more complex and nuanced with a lot more moving parts in the story to keep track of.

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“The Expanse” also has a pretty impressive actress with the kind of voice that, in real life, usually takes a lot of cigarettes, booze and interesting living to get it as nicely low and raspy as that. But even so… Quoting Roger Ebert on a movie he admired the looks of, but not the content: “spectacle without a point.” Maybe too harsh, in this case, but close enough for me.

I’ve been thinking more about it, because this is a show that deserves being thought about, even if it is to criticize it. And so I have thought that there is trivial tragedy and there is great tragedy. Trivial tragedy makes us emote for no great purpose; great tragedy inspires us to be better than we are, or even than we can be, but makes us feel that going for it still is worth a try. So I’ve thought of Sophocles’ “Antigone”, the young woman that stands up on principle against a king and faces a terrible death sentence that she cheats by killing herself first. In her defeat is her victory, because twenty five centuries after this work first was played to an audience of free citizens of Athens, it can still move and inspire us, and it well might still move and inspire others twenty five centuries hence.

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/o/the-oedipus-trilogy/play-summary/antigone

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doriel

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“The Expanse” also has a pretty impressive actress with the kind of voice that, in real life, usually takes a lot of cigarettes, booze and interesting living to get it as nicely low and raspy as that.

Thank you for that sentence, you wrote it very smoothly and very sensitively. I had really good and quite long laugh here, still smiling, thank you man 🙂 I will watch first episode, to see how things really are.

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Well try the old fashioned way, one episode at a time.

BTW I am looking for other good ones on Prime. Seems everytime I try one of the ones mentioned here that I have not watched Prime doesn’t have it or charges extra. Maybe time to explore Disney+ or Hulu or maybe even HBO.

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Here is another excellent example of classic of science-fiction movie-making with plenty of darkness and tragedy, but also some incidental humor to lighten the mood:

Mars Attacks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqtjHWlM4lQ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Attacks!

There is some music that truly feels like it could do me in too (and is not by Beethoven or Bach).

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Yes, Mars attacks is good and funny. If I was asked about Sci-Fi commedy I recommend this enormous gem of american commedy art. I really adore
Space Balls, my friends 🙂 its as old as I am 🙂

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There is something odd with the Wikipedia link: instead to the movie, it goes to an article of collector cards-themed on the movie. But right in the very first line of that “cards” page there is a link to the movie itself. The URL of both pages are identical. Now, this is exactly the sort of thing that could happen in the movie, so maybe …

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The link does not contain exclamation mark. If you add ! to address, it takes you to movie on wikipedia. I think the URL is created badly. (notice the explamation mark is not part of URL)

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I collected the Mars Attacks! cards as a kid. Looking them now, they were quite graphic

https://www.google.com/search?channel=cus2&sxsrf=ALeKk00ybsVflSlcowR3cjJWUfHMjreN3w:1608314345363&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=mars+attacks+trading+cards&client=firefox-b-1-d&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiq2vfpjdjtAhWLFTQIHd55DNAQjJkEegQIAhAB&biw=1280&bih=551

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A new Stephen King ‘The Stand ‘ horror sci-fi TV series on on CBS All Access.

The Stand is described as “King’s apocalyptic vision of a world decimated by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil. The fate of mankind rests on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail and a handful of survivors. Their worst nightmares are embodied by a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers.

‘The Stand’ has been previously made into a movie into 1994.

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OscarCP wrote:

KB6OJS: It is OK to discuss science fiction movies here; quite a few of those already have been.

Also, as you probably know, in Star Trek Kirk never actually said “Beam me up Scotty.” But this being even now such a common place shows the deep cultural influence of the original Star Trek series, as it is a line the Kirk character might very well have said. Much like the lasting influence of Shakespeare’s work is implicit in the saying “To gild the lily”, meaning to do something unnecessary, that is a misquote of the line in “King John” of the same meaning: “To gild refined gold, or paint the lily”.

I know Kirk never said that as a direct quote, but it has become a modern-day cliche.  That was my point, sorry I didn’t make that clear.  My bad. 😉

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Did anyone see the BBC show, “Voyage to the Planets” or something like that?  Maybe that was the sub-title, I don’t remember.  I have the DVDs here somewhere but can’t find them to be sure.  That was a great piece of work!  Science fiction — a fictional voyage around the solar system — combined with a lot of science fact, at least as much as we know so far, about the various planets in our little corner of the galaxy.  I get it out every once in a while just to watch and enjoy it.  The “Beeb” did a great job with that one.

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KB6OJS: “Did anyone see the BBC show, “Voyage to the Planets” or something like that?”

I have not seen it. Could that BBC show be one I just found out? If it was, then the full title is: “Space Odyssey – Voyage to the Planets”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Odyssey_(TV_series)

Excerpt:

” Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets (released as Voyage to the Planets and Beyond in the United States) is a 2004 British fictional documentary about a manned voyage through the solar system. Space Odyssey premiered in 2004 and was made by the BBC. It was written and directed by Joe Ahearne and produced by Christopher Riley, who was presented with the 2005 Sir Arthur Clarke Award for Best TV & Radio Presentation. ”

” ‘ The story is set at an unspecified time in the future, though in the accompanying book, the mission’s chief science officer recalls reading Arthur C. Clarke‘s 1982 novel, 2010, some 40 years earlier. “

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That is exactly the one, thanks!

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Here is a wacky British TV science-fiction show I wished I could see again, this time the whole two seasons:

“Supernova.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_(TV_series)

About a group of astronomers working in an observatory in the Australian outback. I saw part of the first season back in 2005, when I was, for several weeks, visiting at the University of Newcastle. Among its many remarkable non achievements, the astronomers headed by their rough and hard drinking female boss believed they had found God in their data. After much checking, rechecking and discussing, they all wrote a paper on their discovery and then submitted it on line to the most high impact Astronomy journal they could think of. They did so by all of them putting their thumbs on top of each other, on the “Return” key of the computer keyboard and then pressing down together. They smiled and laughed and celebrated. Then it turned out that their “God” signals had been coming off a faulty microwave, or something like that.

I know something about how that feels: I’ve been there, more or less, only on far less high-profile matters. Many of my colleagues have. That’s one reason I liked the show.

And, sadly, that was the last episode I got to see before the end of my visit.

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I’d like to see ‘the matrix’ franchise of films made into a TV series
hang on, we’re actually living it, on our computers 🙂

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anonymous wrote:

hang on, we’re actually living it, on our computers

That makes me wonder if the Matrix could afford to let the current number of “energy producers” die off, or if they would even want to.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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anonymous wrote:

the matrix

You’ll get ‘The Matrix 4‘ next year

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Well, something to look forward to while waiting for Tom Cruise to come back, in the next “Mission Impossible” movie, and save the world. Again.

And according to the video in the IMDB Web page, Keanu Reeves has not aged a single day since the original “Matrix”, 21 years ago!

That is some serious science fiction!

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[AmbularD]

At least it was fun in a goofy sort of way, unpretentious, obviously low budget and using technology in their (presumably, with enough suspension of disbelief) super duper, tremendously advanced battle starships that was NOT mid-Twentieth Century, such as retro land-line chunky phones with rotary dials and wall clocks “to confuse the enemy” (and to save money on props?), according to the second version fans.

The retro tech wasn’t meant to confuse the Cylons.  It was meant to prevent them from propagating malware across networked systems, which was how they quickly disabled and destroyed every other battlestar except the Pegasus as well as a majority of the fleet’s cutting-edge Vipers.  Poor Adama was a bit of a Luddite, for sure, and the rest of the fleet shared your skepticism, but they found out the hard way that old reliable tech still has its uses, and occasionally it may even save you.

I’m very fond of Firefly, so at least we have that in common.  If I had to pick the best Sci-Fi series, though, I think I might have to agree with the Babylon 5 contingent, though ST:TNG and Stargate:SG1 are also strong contenders.

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by AmbularD.

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AmbularD: “I’m very fond of Firefly, so at least we have that in common.  If I had to pick the best Sci-Fi series, though, I think I might have to agree with the Babylon 5 contingent, though ST:TNG and Stargate:SG1 are also strong contenders.”

So do I with each one of those, as do more than who has commented one here. They were all landmarks among science fiction shows, and had some episodes that really made one think. Which is what the best science fiction, whether onscreen or on the pages of a book, is also for.

I would add to my own list of those shows I’ve had already commented on here one that I believe qualifies as science fiction, an animated one in a unique style both of story telling and drawing:”Samurai Jack”, created by the most talented Genndy Tartakovsky for Cartoon Network and Adult Swim and also the winner of many awards:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_Jack

A trailer, to give an idea of the style and action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvF2c5Xh_bghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvF2c5Xh_bg

 

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[OscarCP]

Here are two oldies that I liked watching when they first came out (the second one in particular) and would like to remind of them to those who have seen them and to make aware of them to those who have not:

(1) Armageddon (1998)

According to Wikipedia:

“The film follows a group of blue-collar deep-core drillers sent by NASA to stop a gigantic asteroid on a collision course with Earth.”

It starred Bruce Willis and an ensemble cast with, among others, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton and Owen Wilson.

(2) Space Cowboys

Wikipedia, again:

“Space Cowboys is a 2000 American adventure drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood. It stars Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donal Sutherland, and James Gardner as four older “ex-test pilots” who are sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite.”

The problem with that satellite, a Cold War relic, was that it was armed with several nuclear warheads independently targeted to US installations and cities and those of its allies. It was believed to have been inactivated, but it had come back to life suddenly, because it had been programmed to do that once its orbit had decayed due to air friction down to a certain lower height, from where it would start launching its nukes toward their designated targets. A team was quickly put together to go to the satellite and take control of it, consisting in part of veteran and now retired NASA space engineers that also had been, earlier on, test pilots, some of them familiar with some of the hardware, because they had designed it and later had been stolen from NASA by Soviet spies; the team included also some young astronauts.

Good luck watching, if you can find them on some streaming service or can get the DVDs. If you do, please let me know here where you found them.

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• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by OscarCP.

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doriel

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Thaks for reminding Space Cowboys. I like that movie – I think they were real man, honest and brave and that movie is little bit funny too, I understand that movie very positively.

Have you ever seen old czech sci-fi Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet?

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet (1978) – IMDb

Its a classical czech movie about american detective Nick Carter, worlds most famous detective, that comes to Prague to solve big mystery missing family member. It shows, that the villain is actually very sophisticated and the movie escalates then. I think you could actually like it, it has all modern movie has. But I dont know if its available with dubbing or subtitles. May be worth searching for.

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OscarCP

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and there should be something very close to Space Cowboys..
Ad Astra (2019) – “Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and his doomed expedition that now, 30 years later, threatens the universe.” – IMDb

There are also same actors 🙂

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Doriel,

When I first heard of it, all very good things, months ago I decided to watch “Ad Astra” (2019), with a cast that not only includes some of the principal actors of “Space Cowboys”, also has had some very good reviews. But then I forgot completely about it. So now that you have kindly reminded me of it, I found its streaming video in Amazon. Thanks!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Astra_(film)

Official Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6AaSMfXHbA&ab_channel=KinoCheckInternational

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Two oldie TV miniseries, horror with some science-fictional themes, that I remember watching with fascination were “The Tommyknockers” (1993) based on a Stephen King novel and “The Langoliers” (1995), based on a short novel, or novella, of his:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tommyknockers_(miniseries)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langoliers_(miniseries).

Both are available now on DVD.

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Alex5723

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[geekdom]

Kolchak: The Night Stalker
This was a brief, Grade B television series, but it’s droll. Kolchak, a newspaper reporter in a bad suit and worse hat, meets weird monsters.

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OscarCP

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geekdom: There were to series by the name of “Kolchak, The Night Stalker” and I don’t know if you may be referring to the first one made in the mid-70’s, that lasted just one season, but according to Wikipedia, “it rapidly achieved cult status and has remained very popular in syndication” and also had “tremendous influence” on the creators of the “X-files”; or to the second one in 2005, made to capitalize on the success of the “X-Files” and was canceled after a few episodes. I remember seeing what was probably the second series and being intrigued enough to watch it for as long as it lasted, that as I have already mentioned, was not a whole lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolchak:_The_Night_Stalker

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[geekdom]

1970’s Kolchak version; dry humor saves the day. Never saw any of the second series.

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I just checked and it looks like Netflix’s “3 Below” has not been mentioned here so far. It is the middle series of the (to my taste) terrific animation trilogy “Tales of Arcadia” created by Guillermo del Toro (of whom I am a big fan), that combines magic, slapstick comedy and science fiction, the later being particularly emphasized in this middle series. This series has only a light connection with the rest of the trilogy and can be watched by itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3Below%3A_Tales_of_Arcadia

This a trailer showing mostly the end part of the first episode :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4m2hFy3Ggg

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For any of you that have somehow managed to put off watching the Babylon 5 series, or wish to rewind a classic, see https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/best-scifi-hbo-max-babylon-5

 

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In case anyone is interested: Amazon Prime also has it available for streaming, but at $3 per episode or $30 per season, for a total of $150 for all five seasons. People that want to get some idea of what this show is like could buy one or two episodes (but better skip the Pilot, as some of the characters introduced there are replaced by others in the rest o the series) Some might calculate they are better off buying the whole series this way rather than subscribing to HBO, although I am not sure that it would be a such a good deal for most. (For my part I have the DVDs that I bought not long after the end of this show.) Those who subscribe to Amazon Prime can stream “The Expanse” at no extra charge.

In a way, I see these two shows as the metaphorical book-ends of the shelf of serious, high-production-values (for the time when they were made) science fiction shows of the last thirty years. (“The Next Generation” was earlier than that.) The reason I see Babylon 5 as particularly interesting is the dry humor in the middle of all the drama, how it balances its dark moments with lighter ones while keeping the story intriguing enough to make one want to keep watching to see what happens next.

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[Alex5723]

‘Back to the Future’ DeLorean turned 40 on Jan, 21 2021.
The car maybe back.

https://twitter.com/deloreanmotorco/status/1352233477907865600

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Alex5723.

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Charlie

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I just have watched a 2007 movie that Alex brought to my attention for the first time here #2306170 : “The Man from Earth”, with a script written by Jerome Bixby (that among many things wrote the script for the Star Trek episode “Requiem from Methuselah.” ) He did write the script over a lapse of almost forty years since he first thought of it and completed it in 1998, at age 75, already in his deathbed, dictating the last part to his son, who, in turn was a producer of the movie. I added a comment following  Alex’s, with excerpts from this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth

The movie is about a conversation during the farewell party for a man, who seems to be in his late thirties or early forties, that is leaving town after resigning a University position there for reasons he at first does not want to explain. The audience is a group of university colleagues and the young student of one of them. The man, who is the protagonist of the movie, tells them, reluctantly at first, that he has been around for 14,000 years. What follows this hard to believe revelation is a discussion that ranges widely over various scientific disciplines as well as religion and philosophy. It is, for this reason, a most unusual plot for a movie, but one that hangs together beautifully, is also well acted, and has left me with a deep impression.

For example, at some point there is a perhaps two-minute long exchange on the nature of time. It goes more or less like this: the alleged 14,000 year old man states, in reply to someone else’s comment on what time might mean to an immortal, that time is not real. Someone says that it exists, because it is measured with clocks. He counters that clocks are measured against other clocks and time is an abstract concept convenient to use for making sense of things, but not a part of reality. And this is not some clever evasive flourish, but a deep concept from relational quantum physics, something I would had never expected to find in a science fiction movie! And much of what is said in this movie, as far as I could follow it, is at this level, but always expressed in a simple, direct and unpretentious way.

This is a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mOIxyRTY5I

This movie is available, in the USA, from Netflix on DVD; it can be purchased from Amazon both on disk and for streaming.

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[Fred]

“Interstellar, 2014” may give a different view on the ‘near future’  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(film) 

 

* _ ... _ *

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Fred.
• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Fred.

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OscarCP, Charlie

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don’t forget the sequel Holocene.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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OscarCP, Fred

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It is available to watch for free (or rather at no extra cost) to those who subscribe to Amazon Prime, so I can watch it there. I’ve already put it in my “Watchlist.”

Reviews are mixed, as far as I have been able to check them. The negative comments mostly compare it to the original film. But it is hard for me to imagine that it could be as good or better than such an outstanding movie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Earth:_Holocene

” The marketing of the film was notable for leveraging a full spectrum of both conventional and “pirate” channels to maximize visibility and distribution. ” (*)

(*) The Pirate Bay. Also distributed via P2P to those who didn’t mind paying to see it, but with the promise of refunding the money to those who didn’t like it. I’ve read that is was also funded in part through donations. So not a big budget movie. But neither was the original, also an “indie” one.

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Thanks Fred for mentioning “Interstellar.” I watched it in a movie theater (remember those? Once upon a time, there were such places, where many people went to watch movies) and liked it very much, as a mix of hard science fiction and fantasy (the sequence inside the black hole they called Gargantua) and bought the DVD soon after it came out. I think I am going to watch it again one of these evenings.

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I always find it good to watch a good movie or even a favorite TV show episode more than once.  I nearly always see things I missed the first time watching it.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Interstellar has been running quite a bit on cable lately.  I like it, great cinematography and effects, a visual treat.

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OscarCP wrote:

The_Man_from_Earth:_Holocene

In my view ‘The Man From Earth’ is one of the best ever sci-fi movies. The sequel was horrible.

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Fred

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Well, you all make me curious, so will find these to watch and wonder away how earth will survive the presence of mankind. Ready to go into a new cycle of a million years; for the next species gifted with some brains.(?)..

* _ ... _ *

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Season 2 of “The Mandalorian” is already out and so are the DVDs of Season 1 and 2, that going by the comments of those who bought them in Amazon, it is likely to be a bootlegged product of indifferent quality at best, because Disney has not released them.

I do not subscribe to Disney+, so I have no way to watch in any other way than by buying those rather expensive and, it seems, poor quality DVDs.

So I would like to get some comments about this show by those who had actually seen enough of it to offer a opinion.

On the one hand, from rather short trailer I’ve seen, it looks like one of those “edgy” and “dark” science-fiction-short-of-interesting-ideas TV shows and movies that are fashionable these days and are generally described as “cool”. I don’t like them.

On the other hand, the director is the one that directed “Iron Man” 1 and 2, among my favorite sci-fi comedies, and one of the actors is none less than the legendary movies director Werner Herzog, with an uncommon number of classical masterpieces and great documentaries under the belt: “Fitzcarraldo,” “Aguirre the Wrath of God”, among others. I very much doubt that he would let himself act in a bad show. Moreover, it is supposed to be one of those crossover Science Fiction and Western shows, much as was “Firefly”, the spectacular early 2000’s show sabotaged and killed after the first season from within its own TV channel.

So I would like to hear more about this show, with a story that is supposed to take place in the “Star Wars universe”, to get some idea of whether I am missing something good by not being able to watch it, or I’m not.

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I guess Blair Witch spawned a bunch of tongue in cheek reality films. Werner Herzog was in one about Loch Ness with non-stop squabbling called Incident at Loch Ness.  They did a good job of making it very awful.

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In Search of Sasquatch, that was a kick ass In Search Of.. with Leonard Nimoy kicking out the jams.  Obviously star trek is the best scifi show /thread

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Coming to Netflix :

Shadow and Bone April 23

The Three-Body Problem

““War of the Worlds for the 21st century.” – Wall Street Journal

The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China’s most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin.

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.”

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Alex,

Well, this is interesting news. I have not heard of the “Shadow and Bone” and following books until recently; in “Goodreads” it has four of out to five stars and the comments are mixed, but even the worst I’ve read there is not so bad as to really mark this as a thing to avoid. So I’ll give it a try when it is released.

As to the “Three Bodies’ Problem”, I wonder what Netflix will make of that. While the ideas in it are interesting enough, I must say that I was discouraged for reading the whole first book (and, therefore, the other two) by all the purple prose that is so abundant as to be it unlikely the result of a bad translation. (A cousin of mine had exactly the same problem, arriving to the same conclusion independently, so I’m not the only one in the whole world that thinks so …)  Besides, the books have been translated by Ken Liu, who is a pretty good American science fiction writer of Chinese ancestry, so I expect it to be a good translation. I doubt that there will be much purple prose in a video-streamed show, so I’ll give it a try to this one, as well.

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Alex5723

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The Tomorrow War (July 2, 2021 Amazon Prime)

“The world is stunned when a group of time travelers arrive from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message: Thirty years in the future mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species. The only hope for survival is for soldiers and civilians from the present to be transported to the future and join the fight. Among those recruited is high school teacher and family man Dan Forester (Chris Pratt). Determined to save the world for his young daughter, Dan teams up with a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) and his estranged father (J.K. Simmons) in a desperate quest to rewrite the fate of the planet.”

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OscarCP

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Dr. Who kills every other sci fi TV series if only because it’s been on for what, a century?  Some incarnations are excellent, some drone on and on, but all of them are …. The Doctor. 🙂

I still love The Prisoner, all those numbers, Rover, This week’s Number 2, whoever those two guys on the whirlygig were, the Village, Super 7, and so on.

Maybe one or two loose ends were tied in its short run but that’s the point, The Prisoner’s a class in how to watch fantasy, just watch it, don’t analyze it.  Enjoy the show!

The first Battlestar Galactica was Bonanza in space. Taken as satire, it’s kinda OK; taken seriously, much ado about nothing, at least Bonanza had lots of nice horses.  Second one was really good, so many bizarre charcters.

Best Sci-Fi cartoon?  Courage the Cowardly Dog.  One of the best cartoons of any kind; R. Dillworth burned out making it. A subterranian population of sentient eggplant insurrectionists?  Wow!

“That’s my opinion if ya’ want it, Muriel!”

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Oh, Anonymous! “Courage” is one of my most beloved cartoons! Such an amazing surprise! To find another soul in this world that (1) knows what it is (or was), and (2) confesses to really like it!

In my opinion, though, it was not so much a science fiction show (except for some odd evil alien from outer space showing up now and then), but a fine, super creepy, horror show! It was supposed to be scary and creepy, so: horror.

To someone unfamiliar with this show and, therefore, unbiased because of his or her ignorance, I say:

You’ll be the judge, but do not watch this during meals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqEpxsqAB5o&ab_channel=CouragetheCowardlyDog

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Arthur C. Clarke, the late Grand Master of science-fiction, lived in Sri Lanka since when it was still known as Ceylon: by any other name, the tear-drop shaped large island that looks like a pendant hanging from the earlobe of India.

He wrote some of his most famous novels while there, including one with the name of the Hindu God Rama, the 394th avatar of Vishnu.

“Rama”, in Clarke’s novel “Rendezvous with Rama”, is a mysterious giant alien spacecraft so named by earthlings: a huge rotating, if deserted, cylindrical space habitat that wanders into the solar system from parts unknown, with centrifugal force for artificial gravity, a long and narrow sea in the middle, cities extending from its opposite shores and a long, shining tube as its sun, running along the cylinder’s axis.

But he never considered the ancient Buddhist kings and monks of that storied nation distant past to have contrived stargates, as some are seeing a clear indication that they did in an enigmatic carving that could be a code to open a stargate, or a plan to guide the construction of a new building. But who is to stoop to such a prosaic interpretation, when “stargate” is so much more exiting?

Several have commented here about both the “Stargate” TV series and spinoff movies, generally in complimentary terms. So I suspect they might like to hear about this one speculated about as possible, in Sri Lanka — and perhaps in other places on our own planet as well!

Now, about the carvings in question and whether they are, or not about a real stargate (or  whether this is just another fanciful historical-revisionist myth, like those of von Däniken):

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20210502-the-unsolved-mystery-of-sri-lankas-stargate?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld

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Resident Alien (TV 2021)

“Storyline

An alien, who has crashed landed on earth on a mission to destroy humanity, assumes the identity of Dr. Harry Vanderspeigel, so he can remain undetected by the residents of Patience, CO while he searches the snow-covered Colorado Mountains for pieces of his ship. He learns “to be human” by watching Law and Order and mimicking the late, great Jerry Orbach. One day the sheriff of Patience, Mike “Big Black” Thompson and his deputy, Liv Baker, show up at his isolated cabin. There has been a murder in town and they need a doctor. The murder victim is the town doctor. Soon, he finds himself as the new town doctor and in constant contact with the people of the town. Something, until now, he has vehemently avoided. Now, as he is spending more time with humans, he is learning more about them and what makes them human. Which gives him pause, but is still determined to complete his mission to destroy the people of earth. He also discovers there is one person in town who can see him in his true form; which, of course, is less than ideal.”

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OK, just saw Alex’s comment, looked at the IMDB page he’s put the URL link in his comment, saw Alan Tudyk is playing the title role (*), so it looked promising, found the 1st season in Amazon Prime, bought it. Now I suppose I’ll have to watch it. We’ll see what happens then.

(*) He is good at understated comedy and has been in many reasonably good movies over the years. More to the point, he played Wash in “Firefly.”

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Alex5723

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The series has been renewed for second season.

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OscarCP

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A small deviation, music for movies, some for Sci-Fi movies.

Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague

From wiki :

“Hans Florian Zimmer (German pronunciation: [ˈhans ˈfloːʁi̯aːn ˈtsɪmɐ] (About this soundlisten); born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and record producer. His works are notable for integrating electronic music sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements. Since the 1980s, Zimmer has composed music for over 150 films. His works include The Lion King (for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1995), Crimson Tide, Gladiator, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Blade Runner 2049. He has received four Grammy Awards, three Classical BRIT Awards, two Golden Globes, and an Academy Award. He was also named on the list of Top 100 Living Geniuses, published by The Daily Telegraph.[1]..”

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Music and also sound effects in movies (the latter known as “Foley”, in movie titles) are the result of the efforts of talented and even gifted artists, but their names are largely unknown to most of us, unlike those of the actors and directors. Same is true, to a large extent, I think, of dubbing and animated movies’ voice artists, except, in the case of voice artists, when they are also famous live action movie screen actors, but their voice work is also largely unknown to most. It seems that sound plays second fiddle to vision. (And that I just made a pun.)

This is a really good, fun article:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(filmmaking)

Some passing thoughts about this:

I guess he must be good.

Sci-Fi movie music tends to be spooky.

By any chance, is one OscarCP among the “Telegraph 100”?

About the “wiki” paragraph quoted by Alex: the ‘r’ in German is pronounced the same as in French. And vice versa.

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Alex5723

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OscarCP wrote:

By any chance, is one OscarCP among the “Telegraph 100”?

You can find if true, here

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OscarCP

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For shame, Alex! The Telegraph Webpage you gave the URL link is paywalled, their “Top 100 Living Geniuses” Webpage only has tha title and this message “Keep reading. Already a Subscriber?, log in.” and nothing else relevant in any way to a topic of burning interest to me (I was trying to look cool by seeming calm, casual, even nonchalant when I asked the question) — and you knew it!

As a fitting punishment, you get to watch this early Sci_Fi  Frankenstein video clip, in all of its 3 minutes, 20 seconds awful entirety!  Its Alive!

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Here is the awful Sci-Fi clip in question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qNeGSJaQ9Q

The edit window snapped shut while in was busy watching even more awful Frankenstein clips. But you get no reprieve even so!

The clip is from the famous 1931 movie, probably the best of the lot.

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The Tomorrow War

One of the best SciFi movies I’ve seen in a heck of along time. Extremely grateful to have been able to watch this one in my home but would have loved to have watched this movie in Dolby Surround. I could go into causality and parallel universe theory as to the end of this movie, but all most folk need to enjoy this movie is effects, story line and pure action packing which this movie more than delivers on. 5 stars from me and I bet from most who watch this one. Kudos, Amazon. Keep doing movies like this and I suppose I’ll have to watch them all. lol

🙂

[Moderator edit] merged with the the “best sci-fi” thread

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Thanks for letting others know about this movie. I will look it up, see how it can be watched.

It would also be nice to have more details on this work so others are able to comment with some idea of what this is all about, as there are usually Web sites, often including Wikipedia, where one can find clips, histories, details, reviews of science fiction shows and movies, etc., the links to many of which can be copied and pasted on a posted comment, letting others also learn more about that.

I would like to encourage anyone interested in Science Fiction movies and shows to contribute with information on the ones they like also to the existing thread in “Fun Stuff” dedicated to this topic, that for nearly two years has been quite active, but for some months now, less so. The start of this thread is here #2013820 and there are comments in it on a great number of science fiction works for the small and big screen, both classic and less known ones, made by a surprisingly large number of people, many of them remarkably knowledgeable about this topic.

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Just watch The Tomorrow War and will give it a 3/5.
It is ok not up with the best sci-fi movies..

IMDB 6.8/10 28K.
Rotten Tomatoes Critics 52%, Audience 81%.

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Well, “The Tomorrow War” certainly has some pretty sharply for and against reviews in “Rotten Tomatoes!”

For example:

” But if I had a time machine, I’d punt myself to the past just before The Tomorrow War went into production, and save everyone the trouble.” Barry Herz. Globe and Mail

” Despite its flaws, The Tomorrow War is a fantastic blockbuster, a definite must-see for the summer. I only wish I had gotten to see it on a much bigger screen.” Damon Fudge. New York Magazine/Vulture.

It is available for free to subscribers of Amazon Prime. I already picked it up and hope to watch it tonight.

Now, since we are in the subject of futuristic world wars, here are two Cold War-era movies that brought up in a science fiction story format some deeply concerning issues that are with us still today, both films involving Artificial Intelligences and what might happen if they went rogue. As well and once more, at a time when civilization could be dangerously close to annihilation, at least going by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock that is now set to 100 seconds to midnight:

https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/

In one of these two movies, that was actually a great one in my view, as well as that of those in numerous organizations in various countries that awarded it a long roster of prizes, a terrible planet-wide war is being fought in the future, with time travel back to the present (the early 1990’s present, when the movie was made.) This movie has been only mentioned here very much in passing, but certainly merits more consideration than that, and is one that also particularly deserves being seen again these days:

James Cameron’s “Terminator II, Judgment Day”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_2:_Judgment_Day

The other movie is about what happens when the control of the launch of ballistic missiles from the USA is entrusted to an AI with a mind of its own that is expected to do the split-seconds decision to recommend launching a counterattack as soon as it had confirmed and validated the fact that an incoming preemptive nuclear strike from the Soviet Union had really been detected by the NORAD Early Warning phased radars scanning the northern skies for indications of such an attack. This would have been mainly against government’s civilian and military installations, particularly those where the US ballistic missiles and bombers were kept, to preempt their use in a retaliatory counter-strike:

WarGames

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames

” WarGames is a 1983 American Cold War science fiction techno-thriller film[1] written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film, which stars Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, and Ally Sheedy, follows David Lightman (Broderick), a young hacker who unwittingly accesses a United States military supercomputer programmed to predict and execute nuclear war against the Soviet Union.“

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Alex5723

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WarGames was a good movie.

On the subject of AI going rogue a nice movie where is AI assistant, Jexi, takes over.

“Phil has a major dependency issue – he’s addicted to his phone. He has no friends, he has a job writing pop culture “Top 10” lists, and his love life is non-existent. But his Facebook status is about to change. When he is forced to upgrade his phone, the latest model comes with an unexpected feature…Jexi – an A.I. life coach, virtual assistant and cheerleader. With her help, Phil begins to get a real life. But as he becomes less dependent on his phone, Jexi’s artificial intelligence morphs into a tech nightmare determined to keep Phil all to herself, even if it means ruining his chances of finding success.

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OscarCP

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Some time ago the movie “Ad Astra” was commented here and, looking into it, I found it widely praised in reviews and with a high “Tomatometer” rating as well. So I got it to stream in Amazon Plus and, after some time had passed, watched it, finally, last night.

I must say that I found it very slow, very depressing and, at the same time, very careful in its remarkably realistic-looking special effects, depicting space flight and activities, both within and without spaceships. Except at the end, that from a physics, engineering, or even narrative point of view makes no sense at all: an astronaut flying around, in control of his trajectory, but without visible means of propulsion (without any explanation and apparently quite out of sync with the kind of technology shown throughout the movie), then moving in this inexplicable way from the orbit of a space station to that of his own vehicle, necessary for his return to Earth, placed in a different orbit, mind, and finding it more or less where he had left it, as it were a car in a parking lot. And, as he was rather low in fuel, waiting for the nuke he had left ticking away inside the space station to push him on his way with the whatever it was he expected it would push him with and, of course, to do so in the right direction.

The story itself can be summarized as follows: woe, woe, woe, wow, woe: the main character, portrayed by none other than Brad Pitt, has throughout an endless strike of relentlessly terrible bad luck, and all his would-be companions an even worse one, by contagion, perhaps, because they mostly die in some awful way or another, living him always alone and to manage all by himself “to complete (and survive) the mission”, same as in “The Martian”, but in much less interesting — and oh so very slow — ways.

On the bright side, people here have commented favorably about “Evangelion” and other famous science-fiction anime movies and shows from Japan. Now I am recommending some remarkably good anime movies from the illustrious “Studio Ghibli” in Tokyo, by the great Hoyao Miyasaki: “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” about an almost global environmental disaster and the people who recklessly pursue their own selfish interests at the expense of saving what is left of a healthy part of the world, and those who bravely oppose them; “Castle in the Sky”, a combination of fantasy and science fiction about fantastic flying machines and a ruined city suspended by a very advanced technology in the sky (named “Laputa” after  a similar floating place, inhabited by some peculiar scientists, in one of Jonathan Swift’s satirical stories in “Gulliver’s Travels”.) From a different movie maker, the late Satoshi Kon, there is the magnificently wild “Paprika”, that has been included in many lists of the “Best 100” and “Best 50 animated movies of all time”. And then there is, again by another master of animation, Katsuhiro Otomo’s “Akira.” One thing they all have in common: they are neither slow, nor depressing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausica%C3%A4_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paprika_(2006_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_(1988_film)

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Alex5723

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Seen it. Wasn’t impressed.

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Apple’s new ‘Foundation’ series will air on Sept. 24. Mark your calendars.

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Alex’s announcement reads: “Apple’s new ‘Foundation’ series will air on Sept. 24. Mark your calendars.”

So: Asimov’s “Foundation” trilogy, now a major streaming show? Next browser stop is Trantor? If Apple keeps adding science fiction shows that might be good to watch, I’ll be faced with the need to make a choice of whether to add or not a fourth streaming service to my current portfolio. And now it has also “Wolfwalkers”, the latest little masterwork out of the Irish “Carton Salon” studio, whose animated movies are based on Irish folklore tales and beliefs on which they build their very imaginative and beautifully drawn stories. There is no DVD or Blu Ray release date, so they might not be making it available this way any time soon.

Oh, well …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(TV_series)

Excerpts:

“In January 2021, [producer and writer David S. ] Goyer stated “…with Foundation we can tell the story, hopefully, over the course of eighty episodes; eighty hours, as opposed to trying to condense it all into two or three hours for a single film”. Goyer said that this format might not succeed, but if it did it would be very unique.”

……..

“Goyer also noted that telling a story that took place over 1,000 years was something a film could not accomplish and would have been a harder story to tell in that format.”

The filming crew and the actors have really moved around:

“On March 12, 2020, Apple suspended production of the show in Ireland due to COVID-19. On October 6, filming was resumed. On January 27, 2021, Goyer announced that after quarantining and receiving special waivers from the government of Malta, cast and crew members were allowed to start filming on the island. Goyer noted, filming was always planned to be conducted in Malta; however, due to new restrictions imposed in London, they moved significant portions of production to Malta. Filming in Malta concluded in February 2021. Filming in Tuineje, Fuerteventura [Canary Islands, in Spain] was already wrapped by March 2021. The production team worked in volcanic landscapes such as the Caldera de los Arrabales and Granja de Pozo Negro. The production team then moved to Tenerife, where filming resumed on March 22, 2021. Filming concluded in April 2021 after 19 months.“

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Alex5723

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Eighty episodes – a year and a half of weekly streaming (or 8 years of 10 episodes per year). Well, if I held for 8 years with ‘Game of Thrones’, 3 years with Westworld and many 3-5 years TV series, then Foundation will pass by quickly.

Y: The Last Man will air on Sept. 13.

“Set in a post-apocalyptic world where all beings on the planet with Y chromosome died, Y follows Yorick, the only surviving male human on the planet and his journey in search of answers. Based on the acclaimed comic series ” Y: The Last Man ”.”

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OscarCP

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It is not really clear to me how the series is going to be released. It seems to me from the way the production is described in Wikipedia, that they might even have everything “in the can” already; if so, a “unique format” indeed!

If that were so, one could watch the whole series at the rate of up to two episodes a day and go through it in less than a month and a half. If it turns out to be worth watching.

I am thinking of subscribing to their free trial, to be able to watch “Wolfwalkers”, the reboot of “Next Generation”, and see enough of this new one to know what to make of it.

I have this little ritual of watching the seven seasons of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” once every two years or so, which I do at the rate of two or three episodes a day (some 40 minutes each, without ads), so I am all done in some two months or even less. Now the same is possible for me to do, thanks to HBO+, in the case of “Babylon 5” and of Kyra Sedgwick’s “The Closer”, along with the still in progress “His Dark Materials.” And, of course, when I have any time to spare, also a repeat of at least some episodes of “Firefly” (a difficult choice, but the pilot one, “Jayne”, “War Stories” and the ones with Christina Hendricks as “Ginger”, a must), as well as those of “Elementary”, and of “Burn Notice”, at Amazon.

So my question to myself right now is whether I have to add yet another streaming service, Apple TV+, to be able to watch any of that, any time I want, for a long time to come.

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Naa just switch them out one then another . I dropped NetF disk to get HULU for the hand maids tale (6 ******)
Play their game as long as we can.🎭

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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OscarCP wrote:

It is not really clear to me how the series is going to be released. It seems to me from the way the production is described in Wikipedia, that they might even have everything “in the can” already; if so, a “unique format” indeed!

No. Apple isn’t Netflix and from past series Apple will stream one episode each time. I predict 1 per week, ~10 episodes per year.

Y: The Last Man has aired (3 episodes) on HULU.

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OscarCP

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Just watched ‘Clara’ (2018) about searching for Earth 2.0 / Extraterrestrial life.
Quite good.

“Clara is a 2018 Canadian-British science fiction film and the second feature film directed by Akash Sherman. The film stars husband and wife actors Patrick J. Adams and Troian Bellisario, playing astrophysicist Isaac and itinerant artist Clara, who become close while searching for signs of intelligent life in the universe. The film is grounded in recent technological and theoretical advances, and attracted the attention of astronomers. The film received divided or mixed reviews from critics, and out of a handful of nominations from various bodies, won an award from the Austin Film Festival….”

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The whole idea is very interesting, although I am a bit worried that the ending might be a bit too lachrymose for my liking. But the combination of a rogue-ish astronomer with personal issues and an itinerant, uneducated artist with a secret big problem and some not too rubbery science to boot, is irresistible to me, so I just bought it to stream from Amazon. I’ll be back to give my opinion after I have seen it.

The other thing, after reading the Wikipedia article, is what Issac, the personally troubled astronomer with unprofessional behavior issues is investigating, again according to the synopsis of the movie in this article:

“Isaac focuses on results from M dwarf stars, believing it to be a niche that no one else will bother with.”

Well, sorry, but no: if you use the “M dwarf” embedded link above to the Wikipedia article on the subject, you’ll find that an M dwarf is a red dwarf star which: may keep going for trillions of years, so hundreds of times longer than the Universe has been around, but still quite young in their own terms (“M” stands for “Main Sequence”, stars that can be observed by just looking up, or with telescopes, and are representative of the different stages of star evolution), that is a small, cool for a star (but hot enough to at least melt iron), but planets close enough to it could be livable, except for the terrific flares likely to sterilize them frequently, but you never know. And they are being researched quite intensely, looking: (a) for planets that (b) are close enough to have liquid water and with that some promise of life. New telescopes are on the way to analyzing their atmospheres for signs of gasses that are produced by living things, if these are anything like those we know about. So Izaak was not exactly working in an un-researched topic. Some good red-dwarf candidates are much written about in scientific publications and talked about at parties with enough astronomers present, I would imagine.

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OscarCP wrote:

“Isaac focuses on results from M dwarf stars, believing it to be a niche that no one else will bother with.”

Wrong synopsis. Isaac doesn’t focus on results from M dwarf stars.

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OscarCP

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Well, that’s better. Still I am going to watch it, as promised, and then shall return with my own considered opinion when I am done watching. From the sort of long trailer consisting of partial scenes I can hear while typing this, it seems that the dialog is quite good and Isaac sounds much like (if more articulate than) some self-important scientists I have known.

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New TV Series : Killers of the Cosmos

Discovery channel

https://www.space.com/killers-of-the-cosmos-tv-series

A new TV series starring Aiden Gillen (Game Of Thrones, The Wire) “Killers Of The Cosmos” is coming to the Science Channel and Discovery+ streaming service and will premiere Sept. 19 9pm ET/PT.

The series, which mixes science with film noir, sees Gillen playing a detective who has a new case to solve in each episode as Earth is under attack from above. Aided by a mysterious informant, the detective uses evidence to examine each disaster-in-the-making via a range of experts who have studied some of science’s most unbelievable wonders. ..

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wavy

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I see that a new TV show “La Brea” is due to start Sept. 28, 9/8c on NBC.  It’s listed under new SCI -FI shows in TV Guide and starts with a large sinkhole which if you fall in you get transported to a primeval world.  I think I’ll give it a try. Hopefully it will last more than six episodes.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11640018/

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Charlie, OscarCP

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This reminds me of a Futurama episode where they also traveled to the distant past after sinking in the LaBrea tar pits. I have it somewhere in the original DVD.

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It reminds me of “Saga of Pliocene Exile” by Julian May
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_Pliocene_Exile
Maybe they would be good for a movie!!

I now see there were sequel and prequel books.

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This rings a distant bell, faintly.

So I checked this out, and it seems that this tetralogy could be the other “His Dark Materials”, the one I might have heard about, but never read.

It does have mixed, but overall good reviews in “Goodreads”. Take this one for example:

” … I will happily admit the first say eight chapters are incredibly boring. Luckily each of the first eight chapters are say, 2 pages long each. One you have finished reading those, the plot is simply superb. It is by far one of the best books by Julian May. If you like Science Fiction, I suggest you read this. I will however not post spoilers. Read it! Aiken Drum rocks. ”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/715283.The_Saga_Of_Pliocene_Exile

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Oscar what is with all the redactions at that site?? Secret stuff?? 😮

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[OscarCP]

Not sure what you mean. I did not noticed any redactions at the site. But if it is about the just one ellipsis at the beginning of the quote, that is there because I saw it better (my quote, my call) to leave out the irrelevant personal handle of the commenter and post the part that, as I saw it, mattered. You can go and look there, as I gave the link, and see what is that I left out, so there is nothing secret about this. And when I leave something out from a quote, I always make that clear with the corresponding ellipsis sign, something that is good form, as well as good practice.

In case that you are referring to the ellipsis, this thread is about science fiction, not about me, by the way.

Added later:

I wish to also say here that, because this is a thread about science fiction, those who also want to write about me, really should add some science fiction information that has nothing to do with me, in the same comment.

So now I am adding this here:

The much awaited last episode of the three-part BBC/HBO adaptation of “His Dark Materials”: “The Amber Spyglass”, is still being worked on and not likely to be seen, the way things are going, until well into next year. It could come earlier and surprise me, but I am not holding my breath.

But, along with the first two sessions already released of this wonderful  series, now HBO is also streaming the great TV classic “Babylon 5”, complete and in HD, from the original video tapes, I believe. It looks gorgeous enough to me, anyway.

https://www.cinemablind.com/best-sci-fi-tv-shows-on-hbo-max-right-now/

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• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by OscarCP.

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this, these

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Wavy: That’s really weird: I don’t see those blacked out parts.

Not only that, but I don’t see anywhere the text in the screenshot you have attached. Nothing about a mad scientist in France, etc. The text in the screenshot seems to have something to do with the May books, but is not in that Website, that I can see. And I did go around looking at some of the links to people who were not necessarily commenting on this, but there was nothing like that there either.

It’s like you and I got connected to the same Web page, but in alternate universes. Tell me: who is the President of the USA?

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Tronald Rump 😝

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Star Wars: Visions (aired todays on Disney+).

Star Wars: Visions is a Japanese-American anime anthology series created for the American streaming service Disney+. Produced by Lucasfilm Animation, the series consists of nine short films produced by six Japanese animation studios, Kamikaze Douga, Twin Engine, Trigger, Kinema Citrus, Production I.G, and Science SARU, each telling their own original stories based on the Star Wars universe. The anthology was released on September 22, 2021…

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13622982/

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More on Star Wars: Visions and other Star Wars anime

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First 2 episodes of Foundation aired on Apple TV+.

https://tv.apple.com/us/show/foundation/umc.cmc.5983fipzqbicvrve6jdfep4x3

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804484/

Each season will have 10 episodes.

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It looks like a fairly expensive production. So it is going to be one episode every Friday until the end of the ten that comprise the first season.

Looking at the trailers in the Apple TV site, I get the suspicion that the series is not that close to the original Asimov’s creation.

As to how good it actually is likely to be, it is very early to say much about that.
But is not because no one is trying:

https://gizmodo.com/they-said-foundation-couldnt-be-filmed-and-it-still-ha-1847731204

(Did the Gizmodo critic got invited to watch the whole first season already? Is he a wizard that can see the future in his magic mirror? Some of the readers’ comments that follow the article are interesting.)

Excerpts:

First: Opening with reservations:

Allegro Ma Non Tropo:

“In 1966, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy was voted the best science fiction series of all time at the Hugo Awards. Other series have certainly surpassed it since then, although it’s still considered the work that codified the genre. Despite its fame, because the series is an epic on a galactic level told over the course of 500 years or so, with dozens of characters, conflicts, and stories, no one’s figured out how to bring Foundation into live-action. Apple TV+’s new Foundation series hasn’t figured it out either.”

“Foundation the TV series is not Foundation the book series. There are a few bones of the original story in there, sure, including the premise. Mathematician/psychologist Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) creates the field of psychohistory, in which the future can be pathetically predicted—not for individuals, but humanity in general—and has discovered the horrifying truth that the 12,000-year-old Galactic Empire is going to fall, beginning a new dark age that will last 30,000 years. It can’t be stopped, but it can be reduced to a mere millennium by creating a repository of human knowledge to become the foundation of a new civilization. It’s an astoundingly great premise that could never be served in a movie, and a TV adaptation was never going to be easy.”

….

Last: here comes the bare knuckle part:

Molto Agitato:

“It’s hard to care about a plan when nothing ever appears to be going according to it. The second and bigger problem is all the generic sci-fi action is directly counter to what made the Foundation series so beloved—a celebration of knowledge, history, science, and human connection, and the hope of a new galactic civilization rising from it all.”

“For people who know or are fans of Isaac Asimov and his work, I feel compelled to warn you that if you watch the show you will see a scene so enraging that you will tear your TV in two with your bare hands; then you’ll realize how utterly unnecessary the scene was, and tear it into four.”

“Goyer’s Foundation isn’t Asimov’s Foundation. It’s not an adaptation, and it’s so different that calling it “inspired by the works of Isaac Asimov” still feels like a stretch. Maybe it truly is impossible to bring this seminal work of science fiction into another medium, but other shows could still do a hell of a lot better job than this.“

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Alex5723

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I think the Gizmodo critic watched the trailers 🙂

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OscarCP

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The whole idea of psychohistory always seemed a bit of a stretch for me, of course I devoured the books as they came out. Perhaps the series will be good, maybe excellent. 🤞🏻
My one question will R. Daneel Olivaw be in it??

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Just watched the first episode and liked it.
It is not a transcript of the books but brings the essence , ideas..of Foundation.
Looking forward to the next 8 years of the series 🙂

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Watched the second episode, disappointed as it deviated completely from the main story.

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Wavy: “Psycohistory” is what, in movie jargon, is known as “the MacGuffin”: something not necessarily real (or, sometimes, not even important in itself) that is used to justify the whole plot. I believe it was either named that, or popularized by Hitchcock, and famously used by John Huston in his 30’s movie “The Maltese Falcon”,  with Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Co. Where the statuette known as “Maltese Falcon” disappears — and there rides a murder, or two, or three to be investigated by a low-rent sleuth with personal issues played by Bogie. Although “Psycohistory” is also rather interesting as an idea, in times when we await the coming of the all-knowing, all-seeing AI that shall rule us and it all, forever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

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New word old concept.
Are you calling R. Daneel Olivaw a MacGuffin?

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Wavy: Such questions! Not R. Daneel, who was a smart, brave, loyal and helpful soul, but his positronic brain might well have been.

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wavy wrote:

My one question will R. Daneel Olivaw be in it??

We don’t have R. Daneel Olivaw (yet?) but do one of his alter-egos, Demerzel.

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Alex, see imaginary radiant smiley here -> ,

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btw, Asimov’s daughter, Robyn Asimov, who hold the right to her father’s work, is actively involved in the series production.

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A reboot of Babylon 5 has been announced with JMS as the writer.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/babylon-5-reboot-the-cw-j-michael-straczynski-1235075236/

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Hah! Where is it said it will be shown in or streamed from?

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The CW and Warner TV were mentioned, but no timeframe.  I understand production has not yet begun though I’m sure JMS has more than a few notes on napkins.  Warner just greenlighted the project.

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I wonder if he’ll get started with a few veteran actors getting paid accordingly and several, unknown new young actors on minimum pay and living and even working in a rented warehouse, to get them into the proper spirit.

It would be also interesting to see what he may do with the decent CGI available these days.

The complete original series can be watched in HBO Max, for a proper warm up.

I wonder if the Minbari will still be sleeping in tilted beds that slant down towards the feet, the opposite of the more usual earthling practice, when using a tilted bed is preferable.

For a stroll down Memory Lane:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Babylon_5_characters

More on the possibly new show:

https://gizmodo.com/babylon-5-is-getting-rebooted-with-j-michael-straczyn-1847752907

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I am going to re-watch Crusade 1999 (which has been cut then canceled by TNT)

“Set right after the events of Babylon 5: A Call to Arms (1999), a team of soldiers and scientists led by Capt. Matthew Gideon have five years to find a cure for an alien plague decimating Earth.”

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There is a DVD, see  here:

https://www.amazon.com/Crusade-Complete-Gary-Cole/dp/B00061QJSK

There is even the original VHS tape on offer there (not cheap), if one prefers to get the most in authenticity. I already have the DVD, bought in the dawn of the DVD Age, one that now may be ending.

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OscarCP wrote:

There is a DVD, see  here:

I have the DVD version (in .mkv format) as there was never a Blu-ray.

Wonder what the quality will look like when upscaled to 4K on my OLED TV.

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Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams 2017.

Good.

“A sci-fi anthology series with stand-alone episodes based on the works of Philip K. Dick.”

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Old Polish movie “Sexmission” (hope my post wont get stopped by FW rules), got 7.7 point on IMDb.

Its about world without men, when two men kryogenically frozen wake up in the future, and they are the only men on whole planet. Interesting, funny, inspirational.

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doriel wrote:

Old Polish movie “Sexmission” Interesting, funny, inspirational

Agree.

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I have read about this movie recently. The premise is interesting, because it can be taken in quite different directions, all good to follow.

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In today’s edition of the “MIT Reader”:

The Truth, by Stanisław Lem

From the Polish Science Fiction Great, a short story published in 1964, and available in English for the first time, that tells the tale of a scientist in an insane asylum theorizing that the sun is alive:

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-truth-by-stanislaw-lem/

Lem’s work would make great movies and TV shows in the hands of the brightest, most imaginative script writers, show runners and producers. So far, several have been made and the two better known motion pictures, both based on the same novel: “Solaris “, have commented earlier in this thread:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_based_on_works_by_Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem

In a detached, impersonal style, the scientist confides to paper his own knowledge, or what he takes it to be his knowledge, of what led him and two colleges to a disastrous experiment that killed the other two, left him seriously burned and destroyed the laboratory where they did their research, as well as any evidence that could be used to back up his story of the events. His insistent attempts to tell his side of the story and, in particular, to explain the reason that led them to do the failed experiment, only gets him to be declared insane and put in an asylum, where he is apparently considered by the doctors there to have little chance of recovery.

Excerpt:

“If so—the most good-natured of skeptics will say—it will all turn out to be just . . . a rather original point of view. Your opinions can do nothing to change the existing world, now or in the future. The question of whether or not a star is a creature, whether or not it is “alive” is a matter of mutual agreement, of willingness to accept this term and nothing more. In short, you have told us a fairy tale . . .

No, I reply. You’re wrong. For you think the Earth is a crumb of life within an ocean of nothingness. You think man is solitary, and has the stars, the nebulae, the galaxies as adversaries, as enemies. You think the only knowledge that can be obtained is the kind he has possessed and will continue to possess—man, the only creator of Order, endlessly threatened by a deluge of infinity that radiates distant points of light. But that is not the case. The hierarchy of active endurance is omnipresent. Anyone who so wishes may call it life. On its peaks, at the heights of energy arousal, fiery organisms endure. Just before the limit, at the point of absolute zero, in the land of darkness and of the final, hardening breath, life appears once more, as a weak reflection of that one, as its pale, dying memory—that is us. So look, and learn humility as well as hope, because one day the Sun will become a nova, and will embrace us with the merciful arm of a conflagration, and thus, returning into the eternal whirligig of life, becoming particles of its greatness, we shall achieve more profound knowledge than may fall to the lot of the inhabitants of a glacial zone. You do not believe me. I knew it. Now I shall gather up these written pages in order to destroy them, but tomorrow or the day after, I shall sit down at the empty table again, and start to write the truth.“

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Error

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I have had this info filtered-out, so maybe it gets in like this: Olaf Stapeldon in the “Star Maker” had the same idea, some 30 years earlier. So great minds do think alike — sometimes. The actual stories built around the idea are quite different, besides one being in short-form while the other is a novel.

“The novel is one of the most highly acclaimed novels in science fiction” Wikipedia, on the “Star Maker.”

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The Resonator: Miskatonic U

Inspired my the works of H.P. Lovecraft and part of what Full Moon has dubbed its “Miskatonic U” series, the film is a follow up to Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986), and Lurking Fear (1994).

Set in the fictional college campus “Miskatonic University” in Arkham, Massachusetts where all sorts of fantastic and unworldly events have been known to unfold in Lovecraft lore, THE RESONATOR: MISKATONIC U follows six gifted students as they navigate life after one of them, Crawford Tillinghast, builds a machine known as the “Resonator”. The machine allows one to experience multiple dimensions while navigating the unsavory beasts that dwell within them. But things get complicated when Tillinghast realizes that the prototype of his creation has not only released murderous and deadly creatures into his world, but also has affected his own reality.

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Thank Alex.

Since I was little more than a boy and read the short story “The Color from Outer Space” by Lovecraft, followed by other ones and then by the novels “The Call of Cthulhu” and “In the Mountains of Madness”, I have been a fan (now have the complete collection of his works).

Some years ago I found in Amazon a DVD of an amateur movie in color made by fans, of “The Call of Cthulhu.” It was good enough to watch and even like, although the props were obviously not great. But it was also obviously a work of love.

Now here there are some Web sites and YouTube videos about a number of such movies made over the years, including a very successful one, acclaimed by both critics and the public at the Sundance Festival and at Rotten Tomatoes. I imagine there is something about it at IMDB as well:

Movies created by fans of Lovecraft and based on his stories:

A trailer of an acclained one, mentioned above, in the form of an old black-and-white silent movie (with background music):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHuY2wXTd0o

More Lovecraft amateur movies:
https://lovecraftzine.com/movies/watch-awesome-fan-created-lovecraftian-movies/

16 regular Lovecraft-based movies:
https://www.longlivethevoid.com/news/bestlovecraftem

About Lovecraftian “Cosmic Horror” and why it is hard to adapt it to a visual medium, same as the idea of “Existential Fear”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OTO7Rqln9Q

Another writer I have long admired and has also written stories of fantastic beings and things (“The Aleph”, “The Library of Babylon”, “The Garden of Dividing Paths”, “The Immortal”, “Tlön, Urbquart, Orbis Tertius”), Jorge Luis Borges, did not like Lovecraft, whom he described as the author of cheap pulp fiction, which is not altogether wrong as far as style goes, but in my opinion missed the point by a wide mark: Lovecraft used his, perhaps, somewhat limited abilities, to write about things truly terrifying that may lurk underneath our view of reality, like deep wounds hidden from sight until he pulled off the scabs that covered them.

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Alex5723

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I have also read in my time many of Lovecraft’s works.
The latest TV show based on Lovecraft’s work that I watch was ‘Lovecraft Country‘

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OscarCP

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Docu : Expedition: Back to the Future (on Discovery +)

Christopher Lloyd — who played mad genius Doc Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy — is on a mission to locate the DeLorean DMC-12 that was transformed into a time machine in the beloved 1985 sci-fi adventure film. In the Discovery+ four-part series Expedition: Back to the Future, Lloyd teams up with Expedition Unknown host Josh Gates to track down the other versions of the dimension-busting car that made some serious s— happen at the speed of 88 m.p.h., EW has learned.

As you may know, the main DeLorean rests at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, but as it turns out, the franchise used six other versions. So the duo head out on a quest for the perfect DeLorean time machine, which will be given to Lloyd’s partner in time-hopping adventure, Michael J. Fox , to sell at auction to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eJXnl01RnE

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OscarCP

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Regarding Michael J. Fox : A new movie :

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie on Apple TV+

“Follows the life of beloved actor and advocate Michael J. Fox, exploring his personal and professional triumphs and travails, and what happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wndFCALdxdY

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On this new movie, and on still having a future:

According to the Discovery+ article, Michael Fox is “interacted with” in the movie, along with “others that participated” in the making of the “Back to the Future” trilogy.
I thought Fox had Parkinson’s bad and had become progressively disabled, so he stopped acting in around 2000. Fortunately, he is one of those lucky ones who respond well to treatment, so such is not the case and, although he exhibits some of the symptoms, this has not prevented him from re-starting and continuing his successful acting career:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/parkinsons-disease/

“Parkinson’s disease does not directly cause people to die, but the condition can place great strain on the body, and can make some people more vulnerable to serious and life-threatening infections. But with advances in treatment, most people with Parkinson’s disease now have a normal or near-normal life expectancy.”

And from the web site of the foundation he started:

https://www.michaeljfox.org/michaels-story

Excerpt:

“Though he would not share the news with the public for another seven years, Fox was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s disease in 1991 at 29. Upon disclosing his condition in 1998, he committed himself to the campaign for increased Parkinson’s research. Fox announced his retirement from “Spin City” in January 2000, effective upon the completion of his fourth season and 100th episode. Expressing pride in the show, its talented cast, writers and creative team, he explained that new priorities made this the right time to step away from the demands of a weekly series. Later that year he launched The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which the New York Times has called “the most credible voice on Parkinson’s research in the world.” Today the world’s largest non-profit funder of Parkinson’s drug development, the Foundation has galvanized the search for a cure for Parkinson’s disease (PD). Fox is widely admired for his tireless work as a patient advocate.”

Way to, go Michael! Even if you no longer glide on a flying skateboard.

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Charlie, Alex5723

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MJ Fox bringing back memories, he was with a band I saw a while ago (40+ years) at the Fore ‘n Aft in White Plains NY. Nice little place, the oldest rock club at its time IIRC.

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Dune part 1 is out in the US.

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Streaming on HBO Max.

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Invasion 3 first episodes aired on Apple TV+

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OscarCP

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The Matrix Resurrections – Official Trailer 1

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The Matrix resurrection:

From the YT notes, it is made by at least one of the Wachowski sisters, the ones responsible for the previous “Matrix” movies.

Furthermore:

“From visionary filmmaker Lana Wachowski comes “The Matrix Resurrections,” the long-awaited fourth film in the groundbreaking franchise that redefined a genre. The new film reunites original stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss in the iconic roles they made famous, Neo and Trinity. The film also stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (the “Aquaman” franchise) Jessica Henwick (TV’s “Iron Fist,” “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens”), Jonathan Groff (“Hamilton,” TV’s “Mindhunter”), Neil Patrick Harris (“Gone Girl”), Priyanka Chopra Jonas (TV’s “Quantico,”), Christina Ricci (TV’s “Escaping the Madhouse: The Nellie Bly Story,” “The Lizzie Borden Chronicles”), Telma Hopkins (TV’s “Dead to Me,”), Eréndira Ibarra (series “Sense8,” “Ingobernable”), Toby Onwumere (TV’s “Empire”), Max Riemelt (series “Sense8”), Brian J. Smith (series “Sense8,” “Treadstone”), and Jada Pinkett Smith (“Angel Has Fallen,” TV’s “Gotham”).”

Most of these people listed above are totally unknown to me, although the movies and TV series are not quite so: most are known, some are not. Among the latter, I wonder what “The Lizzie Borden Chronicles” might be like …

As one person who commented on this on YT (and got 43,000 likes) wrote:
“Everything that has a beginning has and end… And a sequel“

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Alex5723

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Remake of Cowboy Bebop.

The original anime series from 1998 was astounding.

Now comes a re-make with first trailer. To be aired on November 19 on Netflix (I don’t have much hope of the series being any good).

ps. There is a new horrible re-make of ‘4400‘ on The CW.

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Alex, you might be right there. “Cowboy Bebop” was a great success in its day, but that time was years ago. I don’t know that, even if its quality is maintained, it would still get a large enough audience for Netflix to keep it going beyond one season.

Animation has long been a big interest of mine, since I was a child, in fact. To me it is akin to good magic that people can actually do such things as draw pictures that move and are great to look at and, sometimes, also tell great stories worth remembering. Anime is a form of animation peculiar to Japan. My own taste in anime runs towards the sort of things produced by Studio Ghibli and its promising successor, Studio Ponoc, plus a few independent animators, such as the late Satoshi Kon (mentioned already in this thread), because they have made some true works of art. To each his own.

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Alex5723

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The Wheel of Time tv series Amazon Prime November 19.

…At the dawn of time a deity known as the Creator forged the universe and the Wheel of Time, which spins the Pattern of the Ages using the lives of men and women as its threads. The Wheel has seven spokes, each representing an age, and it is rotated by the One Power, which flows from the True Source. The One Power is divided into male and female halves, saidin and saidar, which work in opposition and in unison to drive the Wheel. Humans who can use its power are known as channelers; the principal organization of such channelers in the books is called the Aes Sedai or ‘Servants of All’ in the Old Tongue….

Trailer

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“The Wheel of Time” is the longest written fantasy story I never heard of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time

It probably rivals the Mahabharata, or at least the Ramayana, in length, at 14 novels. Also in the diversity and the number of characters whose stories and interactions it narrates:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata

I wonder how this could possibly be reduced to some seven seasons of maybe 10 or 20 episodes each??

We’ll just have to wait to see the first several episodes to get some idea of the overall plan its creators intend to follow. Assuming it lasts more than one session, pilot and all.

Highly intriguing.

 

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The Book of Boba Fett

The spin-off of “The Mandalorian” December 29, 2021 on Disney+

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13668894/

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OscarCP

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Well, one more reason to try Disney + for free … (Can one do that?)

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OscarCP wrote:

Well, one more reason to try Disney + for free … (Can one do that?)

How To Sign Up For The Disney+ Free Trial

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🙁

Editor’s Note: Disney has suspended the Disney+ free trial, after running one from November 2019 to June 2020 in the US. It hasn’t said whether it’ll resume it again in the future, but you can take it for a spin for a month for only $7 — no strings attached. It’s a no-brainer if you ask us.

Oh well but there are bundles with Hulu that might be worth searching for IIRC.

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Alex5723

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..Verizon customers with Get More Unlimited and Play More Unlimited plans are also eligible for their Disney Bundle, which offers not only a free Disney Plus subscription for as long as you have your Verizon plan, but also free Hulu and ESPN+ subscriptions too..

New Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers can receive a free six-month subscription to Disney Plus. Current Amazon Music Unlimited Subscribers are also eligible for a free three-month subscription to Disney Plus…

Xbox Game Pass users with new or existing “Ultimate” tier subscriptions are eligible to claim a 30-day free trial offer with Disney Plus..

https://stylecaster.com/disney-plus-free-trial/

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Unfortunately Verizon Unlimited, as far as Verizon is concerned, is very limited to “smart devices” and is available only to those who start “a new line”, that is to say those who are fresh out to the Sinai Desert, where they have been lost and roaming for the last 40 years and, having finally reached the Promised Online Land, are now opening their very first new or additional Verizon account:

https://www.verizon.com/support/verizon-plan-unlimited-faqs/

The alternative for those of us who do not live up to Verizon’s high expectations is to subscribe to Disney + and in my own case, having subscribed already to three streaming services (Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO +), without enough time to watch more than a few streaming shows a week, I think I have already maxed out on subscriptions to streaming services. Oh well … sigh.

So let me, instead, remind you, along with all of the Universe sentient beings that follow so attentively everything I post on “AskWoody”, and for your own further education and illumination, pathetic Earthlings, of one work of art that, as it happens also reveals in a rather subtle way the true nature of life, the universe and everything:

The marvelous movie “Flash Gordon”, directed by the great producer of blockbuster action movies, mostly toga and sandal ones, Dino de Laurentiis, in 1980 (and a sequel to the admirable serial of the same name of the 1950’s, that was one of my childhood of religious Summer afternoons’ Sunday matinees-attending one of every year’s long-awaited delight, along with my birthday, the last day at school, Christmas and Epiphany (these last two for additional  presents):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Gordon_(film)

Official trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6uOHnxf85g

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s article dedicated to this monumental creation:

” Roger Ebert also praised Flash Gordon, stating “Flash Gordon is played for laughs, and wisely so…This is space opera, a genre invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Hugo Gernsback and other men of unlimited imagination harnessed to definitely limited skills. It’s fun to see it done with energy and love and without the pseudo-meaningful apparatus of the Force and Trekkie Power… Is it fun? Yeah, sort of, it is.” ”

A lesson for this age obsessed with dramatic kick-in-sensitive parts gritty movies that allow no place for humor, even while they are as trivial as old shoes. Ebert again:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/flash-gordon-1980

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Alex5723

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Arcane : League of Legends. First 3 episodes aired on Netflix.

“The delicate balance between the rich city of Piltover and the seedy underbelly of Zaun. Tensions between these city-states boil over with the creation of hextech a way for any person to control magical energy in Piltover, and in Zaun, a new drug called shimmer transforms humans into monsters. The rivalry between the cities splits families and friends as Arcane brings life to the relationships that shape some of League of Legends’ famous champions including Vi, Jinx, Caitlyn, Jayce and Viktor.”

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11126994/

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OscarCP

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Arcane season 2 scheduled for November 2024

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I watched the first episode. The animation is extremely good, the world building very detailed and the 3-D rendering and physics-compliant motion software used, absolutely top notch. The looks of each outdoors scene is just plain gorgeous. The characters are well thought out and look, move and react pretty much like real people.

I was going to come and tell Alex that this is a science fiction, not a fantasy thread, but I can’t tell him that now, because this is a sort of hybrid, with a steampunk look and also one that, all in all (having seen only the first episode, as already noted), seems pretty flawless to me.

Although I would really like this to be in the “Good animated movies and shows for ages 10 to 110.” Assuming that the rest of it lives up to the promise of its first episode.
I’ll watch the other two episodes of this first triad and then see what to do about that.

The story, at least so far: a city where the rich and powerful live and is also a mecca for scientists and engineers, so its wealth and prosperity is based on their contributions and the industries they generate (sort of like San Francisco?). This beautiful-looking city has a miserable suburb across a river that is the haunt of the dispossessed, the criminal element whose presence is used as an excuse for the heavy-handed actions of a repressive police willing to kill those they are after, and the usual Court of Miracles where anything can be bought or sold, etc. (Like San Francisco?)

In this kind of place, up to this point, three teenagers from the bad side of town, with a younger boy (I think it’s a boy) coming along to learn by practicing, enter the rich city via some underground passages (the sewers?) to steal something there. Of course, things go seriously wrong.

This is a panoramic of the rich city (dark underbelly not included) shown from rooftop level:

And this is another view, with that steampunk look:

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Alex5723

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Having seen the whole of the first “batch”, or first three episodes of the show, I must re-state the great accomplishment, from a technical point of view and of its pacing and imaginative world-building, that this series represents, with the promise of very realistically-looking animated shows, while (I hope) those more like hand-painted ones, or created using stop-motion animation, such as the much loved movies of Ghibli, Ponoc, Pixar, Saloon Cartoon, Aardman and Laika, the more recent ones made with some computer-aided rendering that does not destroy but only contributes to the traditional look of those shows.

Next two “batches” (seasons of three episodes each) are released this Saturday, November 13. I believe that will be the end of this series.

That said, I have a problem with what I have already seen of this show, mostly in the last episode of this first “batch”: What, to me, is an excessive use of violence, more than what is needed to move the plot forward or make it gain in meaning. This is done in a way that is, at the same time, very realistic, disturbingly so, in fact, and unrealistic, because after being pummeled and hurt in ways that would send the toughest person to the hospital, and even to the hospital’s morgue, as portraid in an excruciatingly realistic and detailed way, the so grievously battered only have (with one exception) a few scrapes and bruises to show for it and, maybe, a little pain that soon goes away. To make up for that, there are also some gruesomely murdered walk-in characters, with great splashes of bright red arterial blood all over the place. Watching this made me feel like a sadistic voyeur.

Most of what has made me uneasy about this show happens in a long scene with a big all-out fight towards the end of the third and final episode of this “batch”, between two groups of people: “our guys” vs. “the bad guys.”

And I must make this clear: necessary violence in a movie or show does not bother me: I am a card-carrying fan of Quentin Tarantino’s work. I have been since the now long-ago evening when I watched my first QT movie at a local theater: “Pulp Fiction.”

Well, there are going to be two more batches to watch, for a total of six episodes, starting this weekend; then we’ll see what we’ll see. Literally.

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Alex5723

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I didn’t find the fights too disturbing.
Being animated movie doesn’t mean its intended for kids.
The Certification is for ages over 12-16 (depending on country).

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Alex, my comment was not about the target audience, or what ages it has been certified for — the certifiers have done a bad job in this case, but that is neither here nor there — my comment was about the unnecessary, sadistic and (given the high quality of animation) very realistically shown violence. It might not disturb you, but it is a bad way to continue what seemed to be a promising new show and, unfortunately, also a sign of the times we live in, one that I do not have to approve of, so I don’t.

As I have explained already, violence of the most unpleasant kind in a movie or show does not bother me when it is necessary to the story, which in this case is not.

I think that Quentin Tarantino’s live-action films, with real actors, such as “Inglorious Basterds”, “Pulp Fiction”, ” Django Unleashed”, “Kill Bill” I and II (*), these two played somewhat for laughs, with a realistic massacre, invalid’s sex abuse, katana sword head-chopping, live-burial, eye-gouging and then stomping on, etc. are all great movies. But this show, if one counts the third episode, is no so great.

(*) And, by the way, it looks like there is going to be a “Kill Bill” III, that, if memory serves, is going to be his No. 11 and, if so, one more than the 10 he had sworn would be the total number of his movies. That was supposed to be “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”, about the events leading to the Mason-Tate massacre and the massacre itself. I hope this is true: can’t wait to watch it.

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Movie : I’m Your Man (Ich bin dein Mensch).

Intriguing nicely done movie.

“Alma (Maren Eggert) is a scientist coerced into participating in an extraordinary study in order to obtain research funds for her work. For three weeks, she must live with a humanoid robot tailored to her character and needs, whose artificial intelligence is designed to be the perfect life partner for her. Enter Tom (Dan Stevens), a machine in human form created solely to make her happy. A playfully romantic tale, I’M YOUR MAN questions what love and longing really mean in the modern age.”

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OscarCP

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OscarCP wrote:

my comment was about the unnecessary, sadistic and (given the high quality of animation) very realistically shown violence.

You must remember that this is a prequal to the game made by the game creators.
The game is violent so is the series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcane_(TV_series)

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Alex, can we keep games and games spin offs out of this thread, please? It is meant for science fiction shows and movies, specifically. Unlike science fiction deserving the name of such, which is at its best a literature of ideas in the form of novels and short stories, as well as movies and shows of that quality (not the only ones, some of the others are well-worth watching as nice escapist entertainment), many games are meant to appeal to the least common denominator of humanity, not to people of good taste that are also inclined to think for themselves.

And I am inclined to think for myself and this spinoff, so far, is not to my taste, so I have said and shall continue to say for as long as it takes. As to the six more episodes in two “batches” of three episodes each that I still have not seen, I shall comment on these, from the point of view of my good taste and blah, blah blah that is the only relevant POV I have, after they are released in Netflix next week.

Anybody else is entitled to their opinions, of course. Which I am not obliged to share.

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Alex5723

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Well, as promised, I looked at the rest of the episodes of “Arcane” in Netflix, available since last Saturday, and my opinion of this show, since I commented here ( #2400344 ) and in the entry right after that on the first three episodes previously released, has changed, but not by much:

This is a beautifully animated series of episodes that tells a story full of sound and fury signifying who knows what, but if I were to guess, I would say: nothing much.

The bright note in all this is how well this show proves that, with the right combination of advanced imaging software and good artistic imagination, greatly realistic and beautiful looking animated movies can be made these days.

But, in the end, what really counts with any show, movie, or novel, is the story and the characters. With good ones, the result can be great. Without them, even with the best software and the most vivid and creative pictorial imagination, the result is bound to be, well … nothing to write home about.

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Alex5723

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Blade Runner: Black Lotus (TV Series) Hulu.

Animated series that takes place 17 years before ‘Blade Runner 2049

https://www.thetvdb.com/series/blade-runner-black-lotus

Los Angeles 2032. A young woman wakes up with no memories, and possessing deadly skills. The only clues to her mystery are a locked data device and a tattoo of a black lotus. Putting together the pieces, she must hunt down the people responsible for her brutal and bloody past to find the truth of her lost identity.

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The Book of Boba Fett special episode (S00E01) “Under the Helmet: The Legacy of Boba Fett” aired on Disney+

https://thetvdb.com/series/the-book-of-boba-fett/episodes/8835251

“A special celebrating the origins and legacy of Star Wars’ legendary bounty hunter, Boba Fett.”

https://thetvdb.com/series/the-book-of-boba-fett

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Boba Fett is supposed to have been in all the three original Star Wars movies, isn’t he? And I don’t remember him at all. Maybe he was not that memorable? Or something is wrong with me? Or both? Anyway, it is in Disney+, so it’s dubious I’ll ever know the answer to this quandary.

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OscarCP wrote:

Anyway, it is in Disney+, so it’s dubious I’ll ever know the answer to this quandary.

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/one-month-of-disney-for-1-99-this-weekend-only/ 🙂

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boba_Fett

…During the development of The Empire Strikes Back, Fett was originally conceived as a member of a group of white-armored Imperial “supercommandos” before the idea was scrapped in favor of a solitary bounty hunter. This concept later evolved into the Mandalorians, a cultural group with strong warrior traditions, who sport armor and helmets similar to Fett’s…

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Star Trek: Discovery season 4 to air on Netflix today only for US and Canada.
International rights belong to Paramount.

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Sorry. The series left Netflix.
Aired on Amazon and CBS All Access (Paramount)

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OscarCP

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Start Trek: Discoverer Seasons 1, 3 and 4 are available in Amazon Prime, with Season 2 not available. Season 1 and Season 3 have to be bought first, and Season 4 is available for free for subscribers of Amazon Prime. So now I, proud subscriber of Prime, can watch Season 4 by itself for free, pay $27.99 $24.99 to watch Seasons 1 and 3, respectively, and still not get to watch Season 2 …

But Season 4 has only 3 1/2 stars out of 5 with 68 reviews. So: huh!

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I have Prime and it tells me Discovery season 4 is available on Paramount+ only with a paid monthly subscription to Paramount+.  That’s what I’ve read online too is that in the US the only official source is Paramount+.

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Anonymous, you are right! I checked at Amazon not two hours ago, then I wrote what I found there in my previous comment: Seasons 1 and 3 were shown with a price attached, Season 4 was not — so I assumed it was free to watch for Prime subscribers, but just now, after logging in, I clicked on “Watch Now”, and once in Season’s 4 page, I saw that it says there one has to pay $9.99 to watch, if one has a free trial subscription to the Paramount+ channel in Amazon, where one is subscribed indirectly to Paramount+ .

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OscarCP wrote:

and still not get to watch Season 2 …

Watch season 2 on Netflix

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OscarCP

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Airing tomorrow :

Cowboy Bebop (2021) on Netflix

The Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime

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Bad review on Cowboy BeBop.

NETFLIX’S COWBOY BEBOP IS A CAUTIONARY TALE ABOUT ADAPTING ANIMEEven with stars like John Cho at its disposal, what’s the point of adapting a series as fresh and exciting as Cowboy Bebop into another Netflix content dump?

..many have been understandably suspicious of the new live-action remake of Cowboy Bebop, streaming Friday on Netflix. And unfortunately — to cut to the chase — the series does little to dispel that skepticism…

..Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop, from showrunner André Nemec (Life on Mars), is a dud, simply put, that falls on its face less..

..Incompetent image composition, choppy editing, and wholesale mimickry of the anime that doesn’t grasp onto whatever made Cowboy Bebop special in the first place results in not just a subpar adaptation, but also validation for the most insufferable Internet trolls who can now brag, “Told you so.” (A depressing end-result for all of us.)..

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About the “Wheel of Time”:

This new series that, yes!, I can watch for free at Amazon Prime, is actually fantasy, not science-fiction: it has magic, witchcraft, dragons …

Looks like it has been made with good production values (the walls do not shake when someone closes a door hard), using some fairly rugged landscape as backdrop. It also looks like is has been made in the UK, so that outdoors scene could have been filmed by the second unit of this production somewhere in the wilds of Scotland or the outer islands up there.

Because of this and other possibly interesting shows coming up with magic, witchcraft, dragons … , and those particularly enticing attributes listed in the picture below, maybe Alex could consider starting an “Aren’t these the best fantasy shows and movies ever?” thread, or something like that. And keep this thread for science fiction only?

I would recommend starting the new thread with a comment about “His Dark Materials”, a three-Seasons show based on the three Pullman’s books: two already down and one more to come. (At HBO+). Then I could write comments on movies and shows such as “The Dark Chrystal”, “The Time Bandits”,  “The Thief of Baghdad”, “The Princess Bride”, “The Dark Chrystal: Age of Resistance”, “The Labyrinth” (featuring the much commented David Bowie’s “bulge”), and more, much more. But not about “Game of Thrones.” Never about “Game of Thrones.” No way.

Just a thought.

Now about those very interesting attributes of this series:

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Alex5723

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And before I forget: the “Harry Potter” movies and “Buffy.”

Now two critical reviews and what the hard-core fans of the Wheel of Time books and of that other thing have to say:

https://gizmodo.com/the-wheel-of-time-tv-series-is-better-worse-and-diffe-1848063392

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/581658/game-of-thrones-season-1-negative-review

 

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Alex5723

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Harry Potter celebrated 20th anniversary this week.

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The link to “Harry Potter is 20” does not work.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2021/11/17/harry-potter-20-reunion-jk-rowling/

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OscarCP wrote:

Now about those very interesting attributes of this series:

You will NEVER see such attributes in anything Apple TV+ 🙂

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OscarCP

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“Wheel of Time”: I have watch the first episode in Amazon (free!, free!, free!) and this is what I can say about the experience: Meh.

I’m not sure what is the problem exactly. It’s like the show lacks some vitamin.

Does this first episode have all those interesting attributes?

Well, yes, except for the smoking, so far. But really:

There is alcohol drinking, at a pub.

If there is a pub scene, and there is, what else can one expect will happen there?

There are sex scenes, if one is really desperate to see any.

There is nudity, broadly speaking: same comment as for the sex scenes.

There is violence when a mob of monsters crashes a street party and attack the people there. Scary-looking men in monster suits, indeed, but perhaps too many monsters for the action to be compelling?

And it was often hard for me to understand what the actors were saying, because they would start a sentence loud and clear, but half way through it they switched to a stage whisper. And they were not really good at doing that.

What this show has going for it, is that it is for free with my Amazon Prime  subscription.
So I’ll watch a few more episodes, to see if it gets better.
The idea it is trying to bring to life has potential. If the show itself has that, we’ll have to wait and see.

And this show is definitely fantasy.

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Alex5723

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OscarCP wrote:

And it was often hard for me to understand what the actors were saying, because they would start a sentence loud and clear, but half way through it they switched to a stage whisper. And they were not really good at doing that.

You may blame Amazon streaming quality, Internet connection quality, device sound system quality… I have no sound problems.
This is not an Oscar nomination show but I find it ok+ and will continue to watch.

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Alex5723 wrote:

results in not just a subpar adaptation, but also validation for the most insufferable Internet trolls who can now brag, “Told you so.”

After watching first episode I must agree with the bad review.
I will try watching another 1-2 episodes before final decision.

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Alex: “You may blame Amazon streaming quality, Internet connection quality, device sound system quality… I have no sound problems”

This is the only show or video of any kind I have ever had “sound problems” with.

Fortunately, actors became intelligible again once they stopped doing that stage-whispering thing they are not good at, in episodes two and three, currently also in Amazon. The remaining episodes, four and five, will come out once a week from now on.

And since I am here: I have watched now all three available episodes, that are close to one hour-long each. Almost one hour, so far, of relentless grief and angst and violence and some “Boo! Surprise, surprise!” horror not balanced by even a hint of actual humor (not counting the few attempts at gallows humor resulting in the rueful semi-smiles of other characters), or at least leavened by a few slice-of-life passages about the ordinary things of everyday life that can (and should) intrude in the most epic of sagas (not counting chopping wood or drinking beer). And then there are those occasionally ponderous and, or pretentiously-worded speeches signifying whatever (“but they are sooo deep, man!”). Such as “You do not listen to the wind, the wind listens to you.”

So as far as content goes, this show (so far) has nothing, then, besides what might thrill those of a morbid disposition. For my part, I am starting to find it boring. I am going to watch episodes four and five as they come out over the next two weeks, with some lingering hopes this show might improve and become more interesting. If it does not, then, as far as I am concerned, it shall be curtains for it.

A shame, really, because pictorially, the show has the finest camera work and most polished looks Amazon money can buy. The titles’ artwork is outstanding, the actors are OK (specially now that they have become intelligible). Just not enough to make up for the deficiencies of action and story.

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And the only place where there was some jollity and fun was a pub that got magically demolished during a fight of monsters vs. villagers. And then there was no more pub. The town people were left publess, so they would learn their lesson: no fun or jollity in this show!

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wavy

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But you know what?

Netflix’s “Cowboy BeBop” is not half bad.

And, allegedly, it is science fiction!!!

Allegedly.

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Alex5723

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The remaining five episodes of Season 1 of “The Wheel of Time” are scheduled for successive Fridays at 0:00 hours GMT – or Thursdays at Midnight — starting this week.

And whatever one makes of “Time” in “Wheel of Time”, the time when an episode first becomes available where one lives is what this comment is all about.

If you do not know the time difference between were you live and London look here:

https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

and subtract your current time (in your watch, computer, or cellphone) from that in London, right after you look at the London time. Take notice of the hours in the result only — and that is the time difference.

The time in London is the same as GMT when the UK is in its annual Standard Time period, mostly in winter, and is an hour later than GMT in summer (Daylight Saving Time). But the additional one hour difference only happens if the time where you live and London’s don’t change together from Standard to Daylight Saving. And if this happens, you’ll figure it out easily. In any case no hour changes will take place during the remaining episodes of this season of the Wheel of Time.

If you watch from a place east of London, it is a negative time difference, so you subtract it from Friday 0:0 horas London time. That gives you the hour and the day is Thursday. To the West it is positive, so you add it to 0:00 London time to get the hour where you live, and for you that day is Friday. And the hour is the same as the time shift.

But, since this is available from a regular streaming service (Amazon Prime), you can watch the episode any time after that.

For me the time difference is 5 hours and I live west of London so the time when each of the remaining five show episodes will be released is every Thursday at 7 PM.

All that is left for me to say is that I hope the show will improve.

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Alex5723

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OscarCP wrote:

Cowboy BeBop

I deleted Cowboy BeBop in disgust after watching 3 episodes. Horrible, just horrible.
I seems to me like Netflix tried to mock / create a farce of Cowboy BeBop original / Movie and failed at that too.

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OscarCP

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I must agree: On further watching and among other unwelcomed things about this show that cropped up, I found to be annoying, rather than funny, those endless arguments among characters that kept on complaining and blaming each other about personal issues when something was, on very short notice, about to explode, crash or in some other deadly way cease to exist as intended (probably these moments were put in the show to provide extra humor, but the result was not very funny, in my opinion).

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Alex5723

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First 2 episodes of Hawkeye has been aired on Disney+.

Haven’t watched yet so don’t know how close the series is to the Avengers saga.

“Former Avenger Clint Barton aka Hawkeye has a seemingly simple mission in post-blip New York City: get back to his family for Christmas. But when a threat from his past shows up, Hawkeye reluctantly teams up with Kate Bishop, a 22-year-old skilled archer and his biggest fan, to unravel a criminal conspiracy.”

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Avengers are superheroes, so how is “Hawkeye” a science fiction miniseries?
This one, going by the trailers, is just about superheroes.

Iron Man movies were superhero-science fiction movies of the humor ha, ha variety:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ugaeA-nMTc

 

Same as Pixar’s “The Incredibles” 1 and 2, where the heroes are Supers, but the villain is “scientifc” (and Brad Bird does Edna Mode). So:

No. 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElwbOY5MNeM

No. 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5qOzqD9Rms

And more of Violet Parr (my favorite Incredible):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUidBLeAJ40

And how many super+scifi movies or shows have had Sarah Vowell doing the voice of a character, in this case Violet Parr? Eh? How many?

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Alex5723

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I categorize Avengers ‘Superheroes’ as Sci-Fi (space travel, time travel, aliens…).

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Alex: “I categorize Avengers ‘Superheroes’ as Sci-Fi (space travel, time travel, aliens…).”

Indeed, after all, Iron Man is an Avenger’s Founding Member, but is any of that in Hawkeye? It looks to me like it is just a superheroe-detective story.

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I have watched one more episode of “The Wheel of Time”, the fourth of the first season quite recently premiered at Amazon.

This episode started promising, because a new character giving signs of having an actual personality made its appearance at the beginning and looked as if he could become an interestingly conflicted villain, like Lord Viren in Netflix’s “The Dragon Prince.”

But, alas! It was not to be! A group of über witches, much given to ponderous semi-New Agesy statements, that were camping somewhere on the way of the small eastward-traveling party (that has been more or less following one of the über witches after leaving the unlucky town with the demolished pub, in Episode 1) then united their magic powers to take care of this promising character and that hope vanished soon enough.
Once more, there was a fight with few on one side, mainly those über witches, and with an enormous army, this time of people, not monsters, attacking them head on. And as the über witches kept killing the leading ones, more and more kept coming at them in human waves, who knows from where.
So this show appears to be turning into something like a mass shoot-em game — with many, many, many spear-carrying extras ready to feign dropping dead right away — than into something I might care enough to stick with for much longer.

There are still four more episodes left in this Season, each coming out every Thursday at 7 PM, where I live.

And still no signs of science fiction.

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I promised, earlier in this thread, that before coming to a definite conclusion about how good this show was, having already watched the first three episodes, was going to watch also the fourth and fifth of the Wheel of Time in Amazon Prime, when they came out. Well, now both are out and I have indeed watched them.

So here are my conclusions:

(1) This show is pure spectacle, lavishly filmed and complemented with high-end CGI, the best Amazon can buy.

(2) This show is unremitting, tiring sturm und drang with touches of Grand Guignol disgusting grotesquerie, utterly lacking in humor, characters that are ciphers, a plot that is not only predictable if one has ever watched a show about a magical quest or read one in a book, but has no heart nor, as far as I can tell, really a point to make on anything that matters in life.

(3) I am done watching it.

(4) I recommend to those who would like to watch a decent fantasy show with live actors, the BBC One & HBO series (on HBO + here in the USA) “His Dark Materials”, based on Phillip Pullman’s book trilogy of the same title. That is a tale of magic and adventure that has everything “The Wheel of Time” lacks and is worth spending time watching. The three books the show is based on are no waste of time, either. Each season covers the stories in one of the books; the first two seasons are already out and available for streaming, while the third, delayed because of the pandemic, will be released sometime in the coming year.

And with a plot device of parallel worlds, this show has certain science fiction overtones. So it is not entirely out of place mentioning it in this science fiction thread …

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Here is a list of 50 of some of the best Science Fiction movies of the last 100 years, although mostly from the USA, with one German, two Japanese anime … and I think that’s it for non-American titles:

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/best-sci-fi-movies/

Missing is the French 1962 film “La Jettée” (*) that was reimagined as “Twelve Monkeys” in the USA, as are missing “Enemy Mine”, “Total Recall”, “Contact”, “The 5th Element”, and “Solaris” (Tarkovsky’s 1972) to mention just seven. But there are still enough listed here for a nostalgic trip down memory lane, at least for those of us fortunate enough to have seen some of them when they were shown in movie theaters no long after being premiered — and also to be an inspiration to get the DVDs and, for those movies that can be streamed from somewhere, to actually do so and enjoy a memorable experience.

With two exceptions, in my opinion:

“Arrival” (Denis Villeneuve) : A too easy and quick solution to an immensely complex problem  the first time it is ever encountered.
“Inception” (Cristopher Nolan) : Too many special effects. It took several years to make and, as time went by and more and more spectacular special effects became possible by successive advances in CGI software, Nolan just kept piling them on, because.

(*) Here is the complete movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU99W-ZrIHQ

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I have seen all 50 movies on the list.:-)

“Solaris” (Tarkovsky’s 1972) is at 25.

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The Expanse Season 6 Episode 1 aired on Amazon TV.

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wavy

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Maybe time to dump Hulu and go back to Prime or Disney+ 😊

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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“Akira” is in Hulu, as are “Shrek” and “Shrek 2” and even Isao Hatanaka’s anime “The Grave of the Fireflies” (this last one I recommend, if you really want to end up crying like a baby and hitting the bourbon straight from the bottle in really long pulls).

Full disclosure: I do not work for Hulu, own shares in Hulu, have a touchy girlfriend that does any of that, or I am in any form involved with Hulu, of which I am not even a subscriber. So there!

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Oh, and before I forget: Netflix has cancelled the live-action version of “Cowboy Bebop”, because nobody liked it:

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/why-netflix-cowboy-bebop-was-canceled/

(Watch the dog “bloopers” video in there.)

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Alex5723

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Netflix seems to put out a lot of stuff that looks appealing but is really sub sub par. Sad I would rather a couple of good flicks rather that a cartload of junk. But they have their own way of making the bottom line.

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Netflix has a couple of good movies that won Oscars (no me) such as “The Irishman” (Mafia), “Roma” (name of a person, not the Eternal City — about the big massacre of students during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City); and a couple of others.  Not very cheerful subjects.

That is for streaming. Netflix has a big collection of movies on DVD, with a separate subscription.

I mostly stream cartoons from Netflix. In fact, as you might be aware by now, I have a thread on cartoons here in AskWoody where I recommend many shows and movies on, and some even produced by Netflix. Amazon has more good movies for streaming, I think, and so does HBO + . These are the three streaming services I subscribe to.

And, since this thread is about science fiction, Amazon has for streaming the terrific movie “Tomorrowland” imagined and directed by no other than Brad Bird. It got good critical reviews, but was a very expensive box office flop. Which is a reminder that we live in a world populated largely by grown ups walking on two legs, but really, when nobody is looking, lowering themselves so they can touch the ground with their knuckles, their favorite walking posture. Just saying.

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Much science fiction has been written and made into TV shows and movies, and much of that is now available for streaming; such has been the case since as long ago as the late 19th century (e.g. H.G. Wells’ “The War of the World” and “First Men on the Moon.”)

The story of this way of thinking, since ancient times to our day, is recounted in this very interesting article published by the MIT in its online Newsletter “The MIT Press Reader” that also has an audio stream to listen, if one prefers this, to what is in the text, narrated by a lady with a nice voice and clear elocution:

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/history-speculation-about-aliens/

Modern science fiction that is, because the idea of other worlds in the Universe inhabited by intelligent beings is much, much older. The earliest such ideas that one can be sure about come from ancient Greece, where the philosophers of several schools of thinking, over several generations, speculated on the nature of things, the universe, life and everything, and some came up with ideas surprisingly close to what is known today: That the Earth was more or less shaped like a sphere, that it was suspended in space with nothing to support it there; that it turned on an axis so the Sun, Moon, etc. did not went around it, so Earth could not be considered to be at the center of the Universe; that matter was made of atoms; that Nature worked the same way on Earth as it did in other worlds out there, so life, even intelligent life was possible on them too; that stars were incredibly far away, the sun was a great distance away; that the Moon shined because it reflected the Sun’s, not by its own light, etc.

The article concludes with a realistic conclusion:

“Today we know that Mars is cold and dry and that if there are real Martians, they’re probably microbes, buried below the surface. But Mars has been extremely fertile as a garden for our own evolving theories, fears, and longings about extraterrestrials. We don’t know yet whether the sky is full of “still other worlds with other breeds of men,” as Lucretius poetically put it. Yet there remains one stubborn and absorbing fact: on the very next planet, life is not out of the question — even if that life winds up being us.” (If we ever get to colonize Mars.)

One problem with all of the ancient thinking mentioned further up, was that the philosophers that speculated about those things lacked any data other than naked eye observations to produce as supporting evidence for their ideas. It was not until fairly recent times that telescopes and other instruments increasingly more powerful were invented and started to be developed and gradually become good enough to provide the necessary evidence to change the old ideas: Earth at the center of the Universe, no other inhabited worlds can exist, let alone with intelligent life in them, etc. that are also original from ancient Greece. These views, towards the end of the Roman Empire were enforced as Christianity took hold and became the official religion of the Empire, and persisted in its dominance primarily through the influence of the Catholic Church and other Christian persuasions after the fall of Rome in the late 4th century. Then, for well over one thousand years, no further important progress in Astronomy and in the scientific understanding of the physical world was made or was even possible to make. Much of the ancient knowledge, now considered as heretical, was lost through the deliberate destruction of the writings expounding them, with one very big (and lucky) exception:

The Roman philosopher and poet Lucretius, in the last century Before Christ (or Before the Common Age, as it is often referred to these days), a man familiar with the now lost works of Democritus, of his disciple Epicurus and himself a disciple, in turn, of Epicurus, wrote a very long poem explaining their ideas plus some of his own, where the infinity of the Universe, of the number of potentially inhabited worlds in it, of the Earth not being at the center of everything, of everything being made of immensely tiny indivisible particles, or atoms, etc. are present. This work was suppressed for religious reasons but not destroyed, so it was found again, published and widely circulated in the 15th century, starting a revolution in thinking that, eventually, led to the present understanding of what is both here and out there.

These days, and very recently indeed, new planetary systems have been discovered, and a total of well over one thousand planets found in them, mostly by indirect means, but with enough evidence of their existence to be considered real. It is also seriously speculated that probably there are many billions of them in the whole Universe. Some have been observed directly and evidence that some of these have atmospheres with gases favorable to life or likely to be produced by living beings, has been found doing the spectral analyses of the light of their stars shining trough. There is also now days a respectable scientific discipline known as Exobiology, where physics, chemistry and biology are used as the foundations on which to speculate about: (1) which ones of the newly discovered planets might be amenable to life, and (2) what kind of life might that be. This discipline is now several decades old and it is flourishing, as I have first hand evidence, because it is a field of research being seriously supported by NASA.

But, at the same time, the evidence about life in our close vicinity obtained directly with space probes, in this solar system where we live, has been a big disappointment for those who were hoping life, perhaps intelligent life, would be found in other planets, Mars and Venus in particular. These two in particular, because were the ones where most hopes of finding advanced forms of life were centered, but now they are known to be  inhospitable to even the hardier forms of microbial life on Earth we have knowledge of and, in fact, are pretty deadly to all those species, animal, vegetable, etc. we know anything about, including our own.

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For the first time ever, a game, Hades, won the Hugo award for best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements .

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OscarCP

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? says:

was transported to the 24th century last night while watching The Nth Degree from season 4 episode 19 of (Star Trek: The Next Generation) on H&I network. appearing on the bridge view screen was the resplendent Argus Array “deep-space telescope and radio antenna.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nth_Degree_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)

what an incredible Christmas present to have the James Webb Space Telescope going up to take it’s place among man’s worthy endeavors. perhaps Webb’s sucess will lead the way to future development of an Argus Array…

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One can also watch the whole Next Generation, the original Star Trek series and the two or three others that came after the Next Generation in Netflix.

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OscarCP wrote:

Oh, and before I forget: Netflix has cancelled the live-action version of “Cowboy Bebop”, because nobody liked it:

Petition : Save the live action cowboy bebop

For those people who want a second (or more) of the live action cowboy bebop. It wasn’t a direct copy of the anime but the world they put together was amazing and deserve a second season…

More Than 50,000 Fans Petition For Live-Action ‘Cowboy Bebop’ Season 2

Netflix’s recent cancellation of the live-action Cowboy Bebop has left many fans disappointed, and now more than 50,000 of them have signed a petition to bring the show back for a second season.

“It wasn’t a direct copy of the anime but the world they put together was amazing and deserve a second season,” reads the description of the petition over on change.org which has now amassed almost 53,000 signatures as of writing. ..

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What were they thinking ?

Really bad.

The Matrix Resurrections

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

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Cowboy Bebop: Well, nobody wanted it in enough numbers to add up to the numbers of eyeballs Netflix needs to keep a show like this going.

As to fans’ petitions: I have seen this happen again and again, and has never been enough to change the execs at the TV channel or, in this case, the makers of original streaming content at Netflix.

And I am not talking just about this kind of show, but about things of a truly stratospheric level of quality, such as “Firefly” and “Futurama.” Both cancelled by Fox TV, incidentally.

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New sci-fi / political satire : Don’t Look Up (Netflix)

Two astronomers go on a media tour to warn humankind of a planet-killing comet hurtling toward Earth. The response from a distracted world: Meh.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/

Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), an astronomy grad student, and her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) make an astounding discovery of a comet orbiting within the solar system. The problem – it’s on a direct collision course with Earth. The other problem? No one really seems to care. Turns out warning mankind about a planet-killer the size of Mount Everest is an inconvenient fact to navigate. With the help of Dr. Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), Kate and Randall embark on a media tour that takes them from the office of an indifferent President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her sycophantic son and Chief of Staff, Jason (Jonah Hill), to the airwaves of The Daily Rip, an upbeat morning show hosted by Brie (Cate Blanchett) and Jack (Tyler Perry). With only six months until the comet makes impact, managing the 24-hour news cycle and gaining the attention of the social media obsessed public before it’s too late proves shockingly comical – what will it take to get the world to just look up?

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“Deep Impact II”, this time for laughs? In any case, if Cate Blanchett is in it, it has to be good! Or at least OK. “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Chrystal Skull” is watchable because she is in it. And Meryl Streep is also in this one, but maybe only with a brief appearance?

Any word on it being streamed, from where, or else released on DVD?

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OscarCP wrote:

Any word on it being streamed, from where, or else released on DVD?

It is streaming on Netflix.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence.. are in too.

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Well, an interestingly controversial movie, with some critics panning it but others finding it just great:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don’t_Look_Up_(2021_film)

” Don’t Look Up began a limited theatrical release on December 10, 2021, prior to streaming on Netflix on December 24, 2021. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the cast but found McKay’s approach to the subject heavy handed. Despite the reviews, it was named one of the top ten films of 2021 by the National Board of Review and American Film Institute, and received four nominations at the 79th Golden Globe Awards, including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy, and six at the 27th Critics’ Choice Awards, including Best Picture. “

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Alex5723

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The Book of Boba Fett episode 1 aired on Disney+

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Sci-fi tv series coming in 2022

Peacemaker HBO Max

Andor Disney+

The Three-Body Problem Netflix

Ms. Marvel Disney+
<a

href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar:_The_Last_Airbender_(upcoming_TV_series)”>Avatar: The Last Airbender Netflix

Moon Knight Disney+

Halo Paramount+

She-Hulk Disney+

The Last of Us HBO

Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+

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OscarCP

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Moonfall

“In Moonfall, a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it. With mere weeks before impact and the world on the brink of annihilation, NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler is convinced she has the key to saving us all – but only one astronaut from her past, Brian Harper and a conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman believe her. These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find out that our Moon is not what we think it is.”

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So the science will be solid then – not!

cheers, Paul

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Added here nearly two months later:

I have been surprised to read a review in the last of this year’s February issues of the by now venerable British science magazine “New Scientist” (now a “Nature” publication), in the “Culture” sub-section dedicated now and then to Science Fiction books and movies, an article in praise of the already maligned enough here “Moonfall.” According to the article, this movie is a meant-for-fun-only farcical comedy with some great action scenes and correspondingly good photography.

So, there you have it.

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Alex5723 wrote:

Sci-fi tv series coming in 2022

There is also a new TV show called “Naomi” that’s on The CW on Tuesday at 9:00 pm Eastern US time.  I’ve been watching it and so far it’s not too bad.  It is more comic than Sci-fi however.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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“The Moon isn’t what we think it is”

Well, obviously, it must be something else for it to drop off its orbit in our lifetimes. Because as far as we think we know how it is, it’s pretty much set to stay up there for a very, very long time to come — but not for ever. Just five billions year more, give o take. By then, the Sun, having burned all its nuclear fuel, hydrogen into helium ash, it will have began already, through a rather complex process, to expand and cool, but be still hot enough to turn Mercury and Venus into ashes when it engulfs them. A long time after that, it shall cool enough to contract into a shiny white dwarf star about the size of Earth today, and will stay like that, getting always cooler and fainter until it turns into a black dwarf, and then stays like that some trillions of years more. Beyond that, who cares?

If while still expanding its hot surface reaches Earth, and it might, long before that happens: (a) Its heat will have caused the terrestrial atmosphere to boil away and the oceans too, so Earth will be just a big hot rock with no life on it. Then (b) the expanding Sun outermost atmosphere will start to cause the Moon to slow down in its orbit, because of atmospheric drag, and to gradually spiral down towards Earth. Once it gets close enough, at a distance known as the Roche limit, (c) the tidal forces of the Earth’s gravitational field will break up the Moon into bits and pieces, creating rings of debris around the Earth that would then look much like Saturn in this respect. But not for long, because (d) all planetary rings are unstable, so the bits and pieces forming the ones of far future Earth may eventually crash on Earth.

But if the Sun (e) expands beyond Earth, then both Moon and Earth will become cinders and so, again, who cares. The end.

https://www.space.com/3373-earth-moon-destined-disintegrate.html

https://www.universetoday.com/12648/will-earth-survive-when-the-sun-becomes-a-red-giant/

Neal Stephenson has a novel called “Seveneves” that begins with the Moon blowing up, nobody knows why. From that point on, though, it is strictly science fiction with quite a bit of actual science in it. It is also a very long but also a very good read. But that is OK, because, from start to finish, the story if several thousand years long. Although told in two parts, each taking place over decades, with a gap of several millennia in between.

For more information, here is MS-Retired Bill’s opinion of it:

https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Seveneves

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Oscar – this thread has reached over 500 posts, and has become rather slow to load.

Please could you, as you did with “. . . . . .greatest performances of classical music?”, close the thread, and start Part II.

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The splitting was done by the site admins, not Oscar.

It only takes a couple of seconds to load on my machine. Maybe it’s time to clean out your temporary files?

cheers, Paul

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Scotch John: I think loading speed, now days, depends mostly on the browser one uses and how it is setup. Maybe also on the type and age of the computer. In my Mac, for example, with Waterfox it takes a while, with Chrome it is much faster, as noted by Alex. In my Mac: 5 seconds to load either with Chrome or Vivaldi. I think one could live with that.

Splitting the thread is less than a great solution, assuming there is a problem with it that cannot be fixed some other way. Case in point: Part I of the “classic” thread quickly disappeared from view once new comments stopped being added to it.  There are ways to find it: For example, if someone looks in the accessible part of my account by clicking on my icon in any of my comments, and then clicking there on the icon that looks like a blue folder to see a list of links to all the threads I have started, the link to Part I will be not far from the top, as I do not start new threads that often, that get added to the list of links from the top, the same as are new comments to a thread. And Part I is also marked in yellow, as Susan “pinned” it, sort of. But most people, I suspect, won’t bother to do this to find Part I, or even know this can be done, let alone how to do it, so some music lovers will never get to see Part I.  And I am not really enthusiastic about that happening to this one too.

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My temporary files are set to clear every time that I close Firefox.  Temp directories in User directories and Windows are cleared regularly.

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Running Chrome. It takes 2 seconds to reach the end-latest replay.

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OscarCP

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May have something to do with the javascripts that want to run

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Do these scripts that, as wavy has pointed out, “want to run”, are doing so because of something in this thread, or is it just “because”?

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And if you do not mind too much, could we go back to the Moon – Earth crash/Moon blowing up question?  #2411209

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“The Moon isn’t what we think it is”

I recon the moon is being controlled by a high race / our universe is a virtual world controlled by it creators.

I just finished watching S.Korean / Netflix tv show ‘The Silent Sea’

“Set in the dystopian near future, when the planet suffers from a lack of water and food caused by desertification. Han Yun-Jae (Gong Yoo) is a soldier for the space agency. He is selected for a team, including Song Ji-An (Bae Doo-Na), to travel to the moon. Their mission is to retrieve a mysterious sample from an abandoned research station.”

In this tv show The Moon isn’t what we think it is.

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OscarCP

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I started this thread just over two years ago, on the topic of good science fiction shows, eventually expanded to include also movies, but considering these days low-rate of release of new ones, particularly good ones, and that so many old ones have been discussed already (although new comments on these are of course quite welcome), perhaps some people might be also interested, now and then, in commenting on, as well as in finding out more about, the at present very active and often high-quality literary side of this genre, available both in print and online. So, perhaps, a second expansion of this thread”s topic could be a good and timely idea. Just a thought.

So, as a test, this comment is about a book on a topic related to that of the Netflix Korean show mentioned by Alex in his previous comment in this thread, about environmental devastation by an extreme drought that is more or less permanent.

The novel is Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The Water Knife”, about a dystopian future, about an enforcer of the system of water rights imposed by a ruling oligarchy in the US Southwest (that today includes the states of Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico and parts of California, Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas). His job is to find places where people are not adhering to the water restrictions in place and then go there, with heavily armed support if necessary, to take care of permanently cutting off the water supply to the offending place, even if this is a whole city:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Knife

Becigalupi, in spite of his all-Italian name, is an American science fiction writer. He has won some of the highest science-fiction awards and received numerous accolades for this work. He specializes in dystopian-world stories:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Bacigalupi

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OscarCP wrote:

So, perhaps, a second expansion of this thread”s topic could be a good and timely idea. Just a thought.

This is a good though.
Me, I don’t find the time for reading, offline 🙂
There is too much online reading.

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New from DC on HBO Max: Peacemaker

“Set in Peace, AL, Peace Maker, or better known as PeaceMaker, has one goal in mind – to make peace. However, he soon discovers peace isn’t so easy to make alone. He forms a rag-tag gang with fellow peace enthusiasts Piece Major and Peas Sprayer. As a group, Peace, Piece, and Peas make peace piece-by-piece.”

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Very bad.

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So you’ve seen it and your critique is “very bad”? Or is your pun “very bad”?

cheers, Paul

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OscarCP

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I have managed to watch 1st episode and half of the 2nd which left bad taste.
It is nothing like The Suicide Squad…

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After watching the trailer, I am of the impression that, besides seeming to be, story-wise, largely on the “first-person shooter” bang! crash! side of things, this show is not a science fiction one either, so it couldn’t be one of  “the best science fiction shows ever.” I mean, like “Firefly”, or “Babylon 5”, or “Aeon Flux”, or “Futurama”? Really?

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Alex5723

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You are right.

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I do not know if this is going to work or not, but I’m game enough to give it a try:

CALLING TO ALL NERDS AT HEART (like me)!!!

Note: Some time ago I proposed including commentary on interesting science fiction books in this thread, because by now new movies and shows good enough to deserve commenting here are still being produced, but are also increasingly few and far between. Nobody seemed to mind the idea, so this is why I am writing this now:

I am going to tell you about about a favorite novel of mine. A science fiction novel. Not a “SiFi” novel, no: a HARD Science Fiction novel. How hard? Diamond hard.

Why is it a good novel for nerds like me? Because it has orbital mechanics, biology, genetic engineering, hard physics, as well as methods seriously studied by space agencies for life support in habitats in space. The risks of meteors, space junk, the splendid idea of asteroid mining written about by someone who asked about it to people who are designing the equipment and arranging the financing and generally planning how to go find a nice asteroid some years from now, mine it and do something interesting with the mined stuff, preferably money as well, if possible. The environmental hazards the characters of this novel are subject to include, but are not limited to, just “solar flares”, but also coronal mass ejections!

It all begins with the mysterious breaking up of the Moon (the reason, not important, yes, it happened, now deal with it, sort of thing).

Ah, in what follows in the story, there is political intrigue, also people desperately working to make sure a number of others than themselves can survive indefinitely in space habitats and, finally, an enormous loss of life: billions dying some two years after the Moon broke up, more or less at once when the trillions of chunks the Moon breaks up into — and keeps on breaking up into more and more boulders of all sizes — start to come down on them and will keep coming down for the next “five or ten thousand years”, what is known as the “Hard Rain”; while many of the survivors in space are also dying one here, two there, and so on and so on and so on. That is the First Part of the novel.

For most of the Second Part, the people of this residual humanity just keep dying for all the reasons people can and will die in space, particularly when they are on their own, with no Houston to back them up, no cargo space ships to bring supplies and ferry them down back to Earth and all its resources if necessary; so they will die, often before their time, no matter how advanced their level of technology and no matter how competent they might be and how proficient and, yes, unflappably courageous they and their leaders. This does not mean that all that there is, is death and more death: a lot of interesting things happen, the characters have true amazing adventures. Then for many of them: Splat!

At the end of the Second Part, some years later, there are only 8 people still alive and in OK condition, of the original over 1800 that started living in a very modified International Space Station (ISS), that, for example, previously had an smallish metallic asteroid attached to its forward end, to keep most of the moon rocks hurtling by out of the way, and a flotilla of small pressurized space habitacles floating about it, that as far as anyone knew was all that was left of mankind. Now the last eight survivors have reached a place at the bottom of a huge crack on an iron-nickel asteroid where they are protected by the bulk of the asteroid itself from both rocky bolids and hard cosmic radiation. Meanwhile the Earth continues to be pummeled by the endless barrage of huge bolids, all fragments of what used to be the Moon, hurtling through space.

As to being very competent, the main characters in this novel are all like that, sort of Robert Heinleins’ “very proficient persons”, but with more interesting personalities. Or with personalities at all, period. The ethnic composition is American (from all the Americas), European, Asian. This means there are many Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Brazilians, etc.

And the novel is 867 pages long. One does not just “read” it: no, one ATTACKS IT in the same way as mountain climbers assault K2: it might sound dramatic (and it is) but even so it is done bit by bit and taking it easy in between bits. The rewards, certainly when surmounting this novel (I am told the same happens when surmounting K2) can be huge.

The main characters and also the “spear-bearers” (extras) of the play, so to speak, just keep dying, as already noted, and in the end of Part Two (there are three parts) only eight people, all women remain alive. They all have been famous, distinguished or notorious characters in the novel, both in space and also on Earth before the Hard Rain, and seven of them are young enough to be fertile, the eight one is already past menopause.

The eight have an overly long discussion on what they are going to do about the future, with the seven fertile maybe making babies by parthenogenesis, given the zero number of males available. There is a super-knowledgeable and skillful genetic engineer among them with the advanced set of gadgets necessary for the purpose and she promises to manipulate the genes in their ova, her own included, to make babies anyway they like as long as the desired traits are utilitarian in nature. Those characteristics will then be passed to their descendants through the generations. In other words: she is proposing to start seven new races.  But still there is not unanimous agreement on where to go from there — and unanimity is a must. The overlong discussion is cut short by one of them that gets up and walks out of the pressurized remains of the ISS where the meeting is taking place, in a space suit and, once in the vacuum outside, she plants a bomb in a porthole of the room where the discussion is taking place. The bomb has a a clearly visible readout that tells that (initially) there are 10 minutes left and then counts down from there. That speeds up procedures.The women chose various things, like strength, cunning, etc. They also reach an agreement as to how to proceed in the future and then signal this to her through the porthole, and she removes the bomb and goes for a walk. After several minutes, still carrying the blinking bomb in one hand, a friend of her, one of the seven, asks her over her suit radio what is her vote and her wish for her children. She tells her “Yes”, meaning “I agree with your decision”, making that unanimous at last, and adds that she is going to breed a race of heroes. Then she tosses the bomb “up”, that in almost zero gravity moves away very quickly and then explodes silently and harmlessly at some distance, in the vacuum of space.

All of this sets up part three, that happens 5000 years later, when the Hard Rain has finally ended, the Earth has began to be terraformed and made habitable by humans, now in the billions and living in a huge ring of habitats circling the Earth at the equator, in geosynchronous orbit at some 40,000 km above the Earth surface.There are new main and secondary characters that are 250-generations removed descendants of the seven women  they call “Eves”and belonging to the races these seven women started. Eventually they come across some others of origins quite unrelated, but where these come from I leave you to find out, if you dare tackle this novel.

The name of this novel? “Seveneves” — the name reads the same from left to right and from right to left. The author? Neal Stephenson. Who is he? He is one of the most interesting science fiction writers of the last thirty or so years. At least interesting to someone like me.

Such an author of such a book is bound to be controversial with readers, because they are not all nerds like me. For example, here is some quite perceptive, some amusing, and some plain dumb commentary, as usual in open discussion fora:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22816087-seveneves

And other books I might tell you about some other time? Maybe “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu; “Flashforward” by Robert J. Sawyer  ; “The Immortal” by Jorge Luis Borges; “Lock In” by John Scalzi.

 

 

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A movie of Seveneves is in the making.

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OscarCP

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To make a movie out of this novel a few things have to be changed:

(1) If trying to follow the novel more or less faithfully, then only about 1% of the novel will be be made into the whole of the movie, so the result is a tolerable 2.5 hours long instead of 250. I think that won’t work very well.

(2) If the story in the movie is an adaptation that fits in 2 hours, let’s say, then the result can only very vaguely resemble the novel. So it won’t be “Seveneves”, it will be “Seveneves inspired — roughly speaking, sort of.”

(3) I wonder why Neal Stephenson cut a deal for a movie, given he is a very tech savvy person, has written non-fiction books about the Internet, the Web. One of his novels, The “Cryptonomicon” is a WWII story about the goings on at Bletchley Park, Alan Turing, encryption, the Enigma machines, etc.  So why hasn’t he got Netflix, for example, to make it into a streaming show in six seasons of 10 episodes each, or something like that? That would still need some adaptation with considerably shrinking, because every transfer of a story from written to filmed form does need adapting, but it will be largely recognizable to us who read the book and then we won’t gripe too much about how it is not the same.

Well, I guess we’ll never know why this deal and not another. The same as, in the book, humans never got to figure out why it was that the Moon blew apart in the first place. There were several theories, but in the end, it did not matter, and they had more pressing things to worry about and knowing why was not a practical necessity. They figured out pretty much everything that would happen afterwards and that was enough (*).

(*) This is what many, myself included, do when having to deal with something that involves using quantum mechanics, that some very smart people think might be beyond human understanding the reason why it is like that, and all we really can know about it is that it works: so the way to deal with it to do something useful is just to get the relevant equations, take then as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, interpret them in purely practical terms as they apply to what one is trying to do, memorize them until they feel like they are engraved on one’s heart, then go on from there.

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Alex5723

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I don’t think this will be different than Apple’s Foundation, although Apple’s is a tv series to span ~8 seasons. 🙁

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I thought “Seveneves” was going to be made into a movie, not a streaming show as “Foundation” is, for example. The “Foundation” story is also quite long, so it makes sense to format it as a streaming show with the storytelling divided into several seasons of X episodes 40 or 90-minutes long each. But going with the IMDB description, I don’t see this being the case with “Seveneves.”

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Alex5723

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“The past, like the future, is indefinite, and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities”  (*)

“The Door Into Summer” by Robert A. Heinlein (and one of my best loved of his novels) has been made into a movie by the Japanese director Takahiro Miki (with English subtitles).

It can be streamed in Netflix. This is the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5Fhl6VKjH4&ab_channel=PanapMedia

Today’s New York Times review of this movie:

“Sci-fi can be pretty grim these days: Writing this column often means going down dark paths littered with extinction events, pandemics, technology running amok, and what happens when the sun threatens to destroy humanity. So it’s a relief when levity comes knocking, especially if an adorable cat is involved.

The feline’s name is Pete and he is an essential component of Takahiro Miki’s faithful adaptation of a Robert Heinlein novel of the same name from 1956. This Japanese movie, which is streaming on Netflix, actually has two key characters named Pete: the cat and an android, PETE-13, who looks after the robotics whiz Soichiro (Kento Yamazaki, of the sci-fi Netflix series “Alice in Borderland”) when he wakes up in 2025 after spending 30 years in cryosleep. Soichiro endeavors to figure out what happened to the people he knew during the intervening decades — the ones he loved and the ones who betrayed him.

All that, and there is time travel, too.

Admittedly, the film takes its sweet time to set the plot in motion in the early scenes, which take place in 1995 — there is a thin line between a gentle pace and a slow one. But it all pays off once the passive Soichiro begins taking a more active part in his own destiny.

Miki has a light touch when it comes to what is, essentially, a decades-jumping romance, and the artfully disheveled Yamazaki makes for an appealing lead well worth rooting for.”

(*) From “The Grand Design”, by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow.  Quoted at the very start of the movie.

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Alex5723

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I will wait on the English dubbing 🙁

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I hate foreign dubbed movies. I use subtitles.

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Robert A. Heinlein’s short “All You Zombies” turned into a movie “Predestination”

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OscarCP

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I don’t remember “All You Zombies”, but remember reading another very complicated time-travel novella by Heinlein called “By His Bootstraps” that was originally published in 1941 in “Astounding.” (*)

(I read it many years later, OK?):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_His_Bootstraps

Excerpt:

“Floyd C. Gale of Galaxy Science Fiction said of “By His Bootstraps”, “In 18 years I haven’t seen its equal” as a temporal-paradox story. Philosopher David Lewis considered “By His Bootstraps” and “‘—All You Zombies—'” to be examples of “perfectly consistent” time travel stories. Stating that it and other Heinlein time-travel stories “force the reader into contemplations of the nature of causality and the arrow of time”, Carl Sagan listed “By His Bootstraps” as an example of how science fiction “can convey bits and pieces, hints and phrases, of knowledge unknown or inaccessible to the reader”.”

Point of interest: How Heinlein, Issac Asimov and L Sprague deCamp were together in WWII:

https://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/career-advice/military-transition/famous-veteran-robert-a-heinlein.html

Excerpt:

” When World War II broke out, Heinlein attempted to reenlist with the Navy but was denied. In order to support the war effort, he began working as a civilian engineer at the Naval Air Experiment Center in Philadelphia. He was able to secure work for fellow writers Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp. All three worked on ship and aircraft repairs while discussing their ideas about the future.”

(*) “Astounding” was founded 91 years ago and continues to be published under the name of “Analog”, making it the science fiction magazine longest in continuous publication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_Science_Fiction_and_Fact

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Alex5723

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https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Robert-A.-Heinlein-All-You-Zombies.pdf

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OscarCP

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Alex5723 wrote:

I hate foreign dubbed movies. I use subtitles.

Hard for some, but yes the dubbing can be annoying but having to listen to a language one does not understand is too.

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I grew up at the time when all movies in another language were subtitled, so I am still OK with that. I like to watch movies, now and then, with the complete original soundtrack playing, so I listen them in the original language, with subtitles, same as Alex. I imagine that the problem some people have with subtitles is that they are not used to them.

More on the science fiction side of things, the “universal translator” has long been a plot device to solve the problem of how people from different solar systems could understand each other, that sort of thing. A famous one being the “babel fish” from Douglas Adam’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, a little fish that one put in one’s ear and then would hear people whose language one did not know as if they would be speaking in one’s own language. Thirty years ago automatic translation in any form, let alone in real time, was though to be impossible, at least for many decades into the future. So I have been surprised, again and again, on how fast this has progressed towards becoming reality: “Google Translate” does a job very quickly with text, and voice is a biometric whose  recognition is needed to allow someone to get into some secure places or use certain devices by issuing verbal commands to them:

https://voicetechpodcast.com/articles/development/how-secure-is-voice-recognition-technology/

Now, when these two things finally come together, the Universal Translator won’t be science fiction anymore (at least for interlocutors from the same planet). So the future has been happening much quicker than expected. Of course so have the possibilities of concealed surveillance and spying, even if one is speaking in Pig Latin.

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OscarCP wrote:

Universal Translator

Universal Translator is here since a couple of years

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/technology/personaltech/google-apple-translate-language.html

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Text translation and voice to machine translation of set commands, yes. Fluent translation of fast-spoken speech in real time? Not so much.

(And that blue link with a legend in Chinese does not work, or else is blocked by some security software in my computer.)

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A gem of sci-fi. Polish ‘Pilot Pirx’s Inquest‘ movie based on Stanislaw Lem’s “The Inquest” short story.

“The movie is about “finite nonlinears,” robots that closely resemble human beings but are even more perfect than humans. They are intended to eventually replace human beings in space flights. Somewhat apprehensive about their usefulness, the United Nations sets up a space flight to determine their reactions to the human beings who also make up the crew. Pirx is selected as a commander of the flight, although the identity of the robots is not revealed to him…”

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OscarCP

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It is available for streaming in Amazon Prime (for $5.99).

according to Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquest_of_Pilot_Pirx

“Inquest of Pilot Pirx was awarded the “Golden Asteroid” Big Prize at the International Cinema Festival at Trieste 1979”

“Tales of Pirx the Pilot” is a collection of amusing satirical stories by the wonderful Stanislaw Lem that I remember with pleasure. I do wonder where my copy might be, after all these years …

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OscarCP wrote:

I do wonder where my copy might be, after all these years …

https://booksvooks.com/tales-of-pirx-the-pilot-pdf-stanisa-aw-lem.html

https://silo.pub/stanislaw-lem-tales-of-pirx-the-pilot-o-4755776.html

https://archive.org/details/moretalesofpirxp00lems

https://twitter.com/i/events/1419050717529010176

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OscarCP

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It is more than “The Tales of Pirx the Pilot”: the booksvooks Website has ALL the Lem’s novels I remember reading, except for “Solaris”!!!

What a gem for Science Fiction fans! Thanks, Alex!

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Was just now browsing some folders which i haven’t browse for years and fount a copy of Daniel Keyes’s 1966 book ‘Flowers For Algernon’ based on his short story from 1959.

“FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

By

Daniel Keyes

BANTAM BOOKS
NEW YORK _ TORONTO _ LONDON _ SYDNEY _ AUCKLAND

This edition contains the complete text
of the original hardcover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. j

PRINTING HISTORY

Harcourt edition published March 1966

Bantam edition / October 1967

Bantam Pathfinder edition / October 1972

Bantam edition / July 1975 ”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon#:~:text=Flowers%20for%20Algernon%20is%20the,Best%20Short%20Story%20in%201960.

The story/book has been made into many TV/Movies versions.

https://www.imdb.com/find?q=Flowers%20For%20Algernon

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OscarCP

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I read the short story. It is one of the most famous and celebrated short stories in the whole of science fiction history. Maybe because it is such an irresistible tear-jerker (a harmless, vanilla expression I hope does not get this comment shipped to “Moderation” the moment I hit “Submit”).

Still now the saddest of well-known stories ever in science fiction, I suspect.

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Maybe this also deserves watching:

Big Bug (Netflix) :

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220127-10-films-to-watch-this-february

Excerpt:

“Amélie was one of the most internationally successful French films ever made, but that didn’t help its director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, get his new film off the ground. “I have been toting this script around in France for four years,” said Jeunet on his website, “and it has been rejected by all (as were Delicatessen and Amélie in their time)… because, obviously, a French comedy with robots doesn’t fit in a nice, tidy box.” Luckily for us, Netflix stepped in.

Jeunet’s first film in almost a decade, BigBug is an offbeat science-fiction satire set in the year 2045, when artificially-intelligent androids revolt against the human race, and four servant robots lock their owners in their suburban home. “The fact that BigBug will not be released in theatres is not a problem,” promised Jeunet, “because… it is particularly suitable for small screens and TV.”“

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Alex5723

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Releases February 11, 2022

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2519057177?playlistId=tt11541872

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OscarCP

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Not Netflix maybe netflix DVD??

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Yes Netflix. It’s a Netflix movie. Netflix streams its movies. Will be in the future a DVD release? Probably not, as far as I know a Netflix movie is supposed to remain available for streaming for as  long as there is a Netflix. But one can rip the video to a DVD, if one trusts not to be spotted by Netflix, somehow, and get kicked out, maybe also with a very quick visit from a Process Server about it.

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wavy wrote:

Not Netflix maybe netflix DVD??

https://www.netflix.com/il-en/title/81158472

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wavy

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And now, for something both unexpected and truly wonderful:

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-60159798

Teenagers making science fiction films in Nigeria. They started using their smart phones as cameras, then with help from big-name movie makers and actors that got interested in what they were doing, got better equipment to work with. The result is impressive.

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Alex5723

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“Flowers for Algernon”, already brought to our attention by Alex, came out in the mid Fifties, and a few years later so did another major Science Fiction work that has several parallels with the former, including the fact that was the only novel written by its author, Walter M. Miller: “A Canticle for Leibowitz.” It is also very sad, in an even larger sense than “Algernon”, because it is not about the raise and fall of one person’s intellect, but about the rise to great heights from a Dark Age, and the subsequent fall back into it of a whole civilization.

It begins in the long aftermath of nearly total annihilation, decades after a nuclear war, that has brought about a surge of barbaric destruction of knowledge, the “Simplification”, where scientists and engineers are persecuted and even killed, being held responsible for the catastrophe, and science books and technical and scientific data repositories and laboratories are destroyed systematically, bringing on a new Dark Age.

The story starts with Edward Leibowitz, a Jewish electronics engineer bent on regaining the lost knowledge by, in the first place, gathering all surviving recorded (printed, on disks, magnetic tape, etc.) and published works of science. Now, where to keep that safe? Leibowitz asks the Catholic Church, that has survived the catastrophe, for permission to start a religious order, with its first abbey in the southwestern USA, charged with the recovery and preservation of scientific knowledge, in the hope that some day, in a more favorable intellectual climate, this might make possible the start of a new Renaissance. He is granted permission and, although he is Jewish, is named Abbot of the new abbey and head of the new Albertian Order that will be initially housed there.

Leibowitz is killed on his way back from a visit to the Pope and, a long time later, is elevated to sainthood.

The story then covers a period of several centuries during which the monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz patiently collect works of so far lost knowledge and in doing so, build the foundations of a new technological and science-based civilization.

Much as Charlie is made to become more intelligent by the experimental treatment he is given in “Flowers or Algernon”, in “A Canticle for Leibowitz”, gradually the Dark Age becomes less and less dark and, eventually there is again science and learning flourishing and enriching with its discoveries, given practical application, the lives of billions. The drive to explore new lands makes Humanity to reach beyond Earth, with colonies settled in other worlds of the Solar System. Much as Charlie’s intellect increases until it reaches its highest point of depth and power.

Then a Cold War starts between two superpowers. Nuclear weapons are developed. After years of diplomatic and military feinting and dodging, nuclear war again begins and the civilization crumbles. This is the final parallel with “Algernon”, where Charlie’s recently gained mental brilliance proves temporary and his wits begin inexorably to be lost.

The poisonous radioactive fallout kills most living creatures on land and in the sea.
Only some species survive: fish, for example, that are capable to live at great depths, in particular a shark that, as noted in the last paragraph of the novel, went “very hungry that season”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz

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The first trailers for ‘Halo’ tv series. Out on March 24 on Paramount+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ2v5eMlcrY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROhH8yBVrns

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It looks impressive in the trailer. One always should wait to see the actual show to make up one’s mind. I have been fooled in the past by the trailer of a movie or a show that, when watched, turned out to be disappointing, because the story was weak, the acting not too good, etc. It deserves having a look at the first episode, where the show makers put their best foot forward and, if that one is OK, then it deserves to have a look at the second, then maybe the third.

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Sometimes Science Fiction literature is the Fiction of actual Scientists: astronomer Carl Sagan’s “Contact” being a very good example. But not the only one.

Fred Hoyle was one of the luminaries of astrophysics of last century, who used nuclear physics theory to explain where all the elements heavier than helium: oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, gold, etc. came from. The answer he gave, still one of the pillars of cosmology: they formed inside those big nuclear reactors known as stars, and from there got released to the Universe at large, in the clouds of dust created by the explosive supernova end of many stars. This is often summed up with the phrase: “We are made of stardust”, or “We are stardust.”

He was also something of a contrarian that held up firm in his dismissal of the theory of the “Big Bang” as the origin of our expanding Universe, a theory that he nicknamed that way as a joke, except that the joke lasted more than the joker intended and even than the joker himself.

Hoyle was also associated with Chandra Wickramasinghe, another British physicist that was a holder, as well, of less than widely scientifically accepted views, such as the theory of panspermia. This is one explanation for the origin of life on Earth: it came from some other place in the Universe, maybe in the form of microbes that were happily minding their own business inside a rock, somewhere else, when a meteor striking nearby launched the rock into space and from there all the way to Earth, with some microbes somehow surviving, coming out from their rock, or what remained of it, and starting to populate Earth, the result of all this being their evolution into, eventually, Alex and I.

It might sound farfetched, and seems impossible to prove or disprove (a bad thing in science), but it does not violate physics or, perhaps, biology; it has its supporters even now: if memory serves, Neil deGrasse Tyson among others. According to, I believe, some current favorable views, life might be quite common in the Universe, because, once it started somewhere, it might have propagated through panspermia to other worlds and from those to even more worlds, in a chain reaction that would, eventually, end with all worlds capable of sustaining some form of life being inhabited by living creatures.

From Wikipedia:

“The first known mention of the term [panspermia] was in the writings of the fifth-century BC Greek philosopher Anaxagoras. Panspermia began to assume a more scientific form through the proposals of Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1834), Hermann E. Richter (1865), William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1871), Hermann von Helmholtz (1879) and finally reaching the level of a detailed scientific hypothesis through the efforts of the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius.
Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) and Chandra Wickramasinghe (born 1939) were influential proponents of panspermia.”

All those mentioned in that excerpt were famous scientists that made great contributions to the physical sciences.

The main point of this comment is that Hoyle wrote several very readable science fiction novels with reasonably firm scientific foundations, one of which we read to each other, a chapter at a time, in Australia, an enthusiastic girlfriend of mine and I, when not mutually entertaining ourselves otherwise: “The Black Cloud”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud

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“Raised by Wolves”, produced by none other than Ridley Scott, starts its second season!

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/raised-by-wolves-season-2-creator-and-cast-interviews/

I wrote about it, after watching its first season, that I sort of liked it. Now it’s back in HBOmax, and this is what at this commentator’s site on streaming shows they have to say:

https://decider.com/2022/02/03/raised-by-wolves-season-2-hbo-max-review-stream-it-or-skip-it/ i

“Our Take: With its thematic and professional connections to Ridley Scott, Raised By Wolves has become another worthy entry in the legacy of the director’s work in Alien and Prometheus, films that probed the mortal consequences of extra-planetary colonization even as they housed the spark of human existence in new forms. Androids are a part of life in the 22nd-century universe of Wolves, but they aren’t created equal. And they’re the subject of ridicule and classism, even as an android in necromancer form is the most terrifying and formidable weapon anyone can imagine. (Whenever [“Mother”] Lamia’s abilities in that department manifest, Wolves becomes one of the most deliciously gory shows on record.) As its human factions battle over their technocratic and deistic belief systems, the androids of Raised by Wolves seem to be undergoing a spiritual transformation of their own, and that interplay between intelligent design, human folly, and religious fervor is at the heart of nearly every scene on a show that’s unwavering in its intellectual hunger.

Wolves is also commendable for being impenetrable. In a media age where exposition and other limiting narrative factors are bound to the bottom line and penetration of The Discourse, Raised by Wolves is having its own conversation altogether, a self-contained world that just keeps building more crazy things into its narrative and having the gall and courage to pay them off.“

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Obi-Wan Kenobi series on May 25, Disney+

The story begins 10 years after the dramatic events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, in which Obi-Wan Kenobi faced his greatest defeat — the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, who turned to the dark side and became the evil Sith Lord, Darth Vader…

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Tomorrow on Apple TV : Severance series.

“Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.”

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Sapphire & Steel tv series (1979–1982) 6 seasons (on Amazon TV)

“A special force of interdimensional operatives protect the universe from evil forces trying to gain a foothold by disrupting the timeline. The strange energy beings are assigned to cases, when and where needed, and materialise on Earth as humans, each with specialist abilities to ascertain and then solve the problems. The mysteries encountered by Sapphire, Steel and their colleagues include people trapped in photographs, ghosts lost in time, and an retro dinner party.”

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078682/

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Missed that one entirely, maybe only released in GB. Has David McCallum of the Man from UNCLE. I see that is available free on something called YUBI.

mmm those were the days: when one could conceive of a Russian and an American working together for Good!

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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wavy: If you happened, by any chance, to live in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, it is available on Amazon Prime, here, in TLOTF&THOTB.

Or if you are an unfortunate who, although living here, is deprived of an Amazon Prime subscription (as it happens) then you can purchase the whole series on DVD, also from Amazon (not) prime:

https://www.amazon.com/Sapphire-Steel-Complete-David-McCallum/dp/B00061QJIA

Full disclosure: I do not work for Amazon, own shares on Amazon, or even like Mr. Jeffrey Preston Bezos that much.

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Now let’s say a word, or two, or three about an Aussie actress who’s one of the brightest stars of the silver screen and the theatrical stage of our day:

Cate Blanchet, who among her many different movies has had, to her credit, memorable performances in at least two interesting science fiction movies:

Years ago, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Chrystal Scull”, and now the recently released for streaming by Netflix: “Don’t Look Up.”

First time I came across Cate Blanchett was when I watched her in “Kingdom of the Chrystal Scull”, a very unappreciated Indiana Jones’ movie, where she simply stole the show.
My admiration went up and up when I found out she was an Aussie (making her mark in a country never ready to recognize the extraordinary, always happier with the mid-rangers) and had studied at NIDA (Oz’s National Institute for the Dramatic Arts), of fond memories from my student days at the University of New South Wales, that initially provided an odd little cottage on campus to house the budding institution (near some huge fig trees populated by some remarkably large flying-fox fruit bats), the same drama school that now stands proud in a very large building opposite the University main entrance and across one of the broadest of Sydney’s transit arteries, Anzac Parade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cate_Blanchett

Excerpts:

“Catherine Elise Blanchett AC (/ˈblæntʃət/; born 14 May 1969) is an Australian actor and producer. Regarded as one of the best actresses of her generation, she is known for her versatile work across independent films, blockbusters, and the stage. Blanchett is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. ”

…..

“The Australian government awarded Blanchett the Centenary Medal in 2001, and she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2017. In 2012, she was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. In 2015, she was honored by the Museum of Modern Art and received the British Film Institute Fellowship. In December 2021, it was announced that she would receive the honorary César from the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma for her “absolutely remarkable career and personality.” Blanchett has received honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from the University of New South Wales, University of Sydney and Macquarie University. Time magazine named her one of its 100 most influential people in the world in 2007. In 2018, she was ranked among the world’s highest-paid actresses.”

And, of course, that is not the end of it:

She is going to receive at Lincoln Center the Chaplin Award:

https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-arts-and-entertainment-cate-blanchett-5634fd5f1cfddec38bd1e3c2f3abd7b4

Excerpt:

“NEW YORK (AP) — Lincoln Center will honor Cate Blanchett with its 47th Chaplin Award at the arts organization’s annual fundraising gala. Film at Lincoln Center announced the award for Blanchett on Friday. It will be presented to her on April 25 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.“

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The Man Who Fell to Earth

tv series (on Showtime), April 24, 2022.

“Based on the Walter Tevis novel of the same name and the iconic film that starred David Bowie, THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH will follow a new alien character (Ejiofor) who arrives on Earth at a turning point in human evolution and must confront his own past to determine our future.”

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Coming soon:

Six new science fiction movies and shows, including Avatar 2:

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi388547353?ref_=vp_rv_ap_0

And this is on the theme of multiple universes and the big trouble a woman that can exist in all of them has as a result:

“Everything Everywhere All at Once”

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1086898969/?ref_=tt_vi_i_1

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” “Everything Everywhere All At Once” will open the SXSW [South by Southwest] Film Festival on March 11, 2022, before its proper theatrical release on March 25. While COVID-19 still leaves things somewhat uncertain in terms of who actually feels comfortable leaving their homes to go to the movies, the current plan is for “Everything Everywhere All At Once” to release in theaters. If you want to watch the film from the comfort of your own couch a few months later, it will likely be streaming on Showtime. “Variety” reported that A24 and Showtime inked a multi-year deal in 2019 that covered theatrical releases through November 1, 2022. “

Read More:

https://www.slashfilm.com/710785/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-release-date-cast-and-more/

So, starting on November 2 of this year …

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Apple TV+ secures series adaptation of 1927 film ‘Metropolis’

I expect huge disappointment.

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Alex: “I expect huge disappointment.”

Well, yes, if you are having no “appointments” at all about this movie.

For my part, I expect something better, plot-wise, than was the original “Metropolis “, by horror-master Fritz Lang (of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary” and “Nosferatu” fame, the one subtly scary — a sort of anti-“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” — the other scary enough to get under the bed and curl up there sucking one’s thumb). This one was, yes, an epoch-making film as far as visuals go, as those tower-buildings linked by street-bridges got forever a grip on human imagination. That is why all the illustrations on science fiction pulp magazines covers showing urban landscapes in the background of scenes supposedly from the future, were thereafter patterned on those dreamy early-20th century pictures.

But Lang’s “Metropolis” had a surprisingly silly, annoyingly predictable and boring plot, with a ham-fisted sort of socialist message that only served to confuse people more than they were already about what socialism was supposed to be like. H.G. Well, decades earlier, if memory serves, (and true Brit that he was) made a much better satirical “prediction” (in “The Time Machine”) of what a severely unmovable class system was going to turn into, in the (distant) future, where the ones at the top were always enjoying the view of the workers always toiling below, mostly in unpleasant, unhealthy, dangerous jobs, and being rewarded for their pains with barely subsistence-level wages and with swift and ferocious repression if they got any ideas.

Plus robots that, one day, decide to kill all humans, or something like that (It’s been a while, and for a reason.).

So, as it says in the article linked by Alex, the film was “panned” by critics in a major way when it came out.

And so I expect it won’t be too hard to produce a new “Metropolis” live-action movie (there is an anime already by the same name) with a better plot and special effects. The former, because that should be very easy, the latter, because now we have CGI.

So my expectations, while quite modest right now, do not put this attempt at making “Metropolis Redux”  right away in my “never watch this one” list. Yet.

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Occupert/Occupied Norwegian tv series (3 seasons 2015 – 2020).

“In the near future, Norway is occupied by Russia on behalf of the European Union, due to the fact that the newly elected environmental friendly Norwegian government has stopped the all important oil- and gas-production in the North Sea”

The EU sent the Russians to do their dirty work.

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OscarCP

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Alex: Great discovery! Yes! That is what I call Science Fiction!

Do they get to Norway by land with the help of the Fins and the Swedes? If so, even better Fiction!

I wonder what the Norwegians are making now of this interesting and very imaginative series of theirs.

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Star Trek: Picard season 2 on Amazon

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After Yang on Amazon

“When his young daughter’s beloved companion – an android named Yang – malfunctions, Jake searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife (Jodie Turner-Smith) and daughter across a distance he didn’t know was there”

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In the beginning …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn-Wg1NU32I

It is an indisputable classic that, depending on how one looks at it, was just a very silly proto-science fiction movie, circa early 1950s, or a deep and heart-felt reflection on one of the issues that have shaped our age and are still, unfortunately, with us. The fact is that this movie is distributed as part of Janus Films, the film restoration and distribution arm of the Criterion Collection, that is something of a seal of approval of movies that are milestones of the cinematographic art.

And it appearing in one of the leading roles, as a professor of archeology, is no other than the great Takashi Shimura, one of the few, select actors that also appeared in unforgettable main roles in several of such truly great movies as Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Ikiru, Throne of Blood, and The Seven Samurai.

No, the Cretaceous did not ended two million years ago, it ended 66 million years ago, the Jurassic, one hundred and forty five million years ago. And oxygen cannot be chemically disassembled at the atomic level into “a fluid.” But this is not really that important here. And while the effect of underwater nuclear tests is not quite as explained, that is not the issue here either.

This black and white (subtitled) Japanese film is the original one — not its chopped up and heavily edited version dubbed into English that was distributed here — the one that started a franchise of light and slightly entertaining B movies that keeps resurfacing, along with its indestructible main protagonist, recently inspiring Guillermo del Toro, master of the horror genre with fantastic and terrifying monsters, to attempt a “Pacific Rim” and this one’s franchise crossover movie. That I would like to see.

So sit back and enjoy the show: laugh, crack wise, or jeer as much as you like (I did). And end the viewing not quite sure of what to make of it.

Just like Roger Ebert wasn’t, really:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/godzilla-2004

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I think that I haven’t missed any Godzilla (Gojira) movie since I was a kid.

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OscarCP

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Oh boy! New ‘Alien’ Movie in the Works. Ridley Scott, who directed the very first ‘Alien’ movie in 1979, will produce.

our screams in space will be heard if Fede Álvarez has anything to say about it.

The filmmaker behind Don’t Breathe and 2013’s remake of Evil Dead has been tapped to write and direct an original stand-alone Alien feature for 20th Century Studios.

Ridley Scott, who directed the original sci-fi horror movie released in 1979 and returned for two 21st century installments, will produce via his Scott Free banner. The project is intended to be made for Hulu as part of 20th Century’s ambitions to make more than 10 movies a year for the Disney-operated streaming service…

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OscarCP

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The “Alien” franchise went gradually downhill into “so what’s new?” territory after the first two installments. “Prometheus”, the last one that Riddley Scott made and the first one without Sigourney Weaver, was no great improvement, except the novelty value of being in 3-D.

We’ll see if it can be revived and raised to its early glory days’ standard. Still without SW.

And Disney has swallowed up Hulu and now has at least two streaming outfits (and the revenue streams thereof)? The streaming world never ceases to amaze me.

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As books are now considered fair game for commentary here, along with movies and shows, I wish to put a word for a favorite of mine: the four books of the “Mortal Engines” quartet by the British children and young-adult books writer, Philip Reeve:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_Engines

As explained in this Wikipedia article, a movie has been made based on the first book, of the  series. It was released in November of 2018, and it was widely criticized on the same grounds as the movie “The Golden Compass” based on the first of the three  “His Dark Materials” books by Pullman, for lack of fidelity to, and also leaving out the light-handed but pointed social criticism and satire content of, the novels:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/12/mortal-engines-what-philip-reeves-predator-cities-tell-us-about-our-world

This set of four consecutive novels I am recommending here is a long steam-punk science fiction story, and a highly imaginative literary work, written between 2001 and 2006, taking place in the aftermath of a terrible war, the “60-Minute War” that has devastated the world. To survive, some engineers design and build in London a giant mechanism to allow the city to move on enormous tracks and roam the country looking for fuel and for whatever else is needed at the time. It does this by attacking smaller towns and villages to “consume” them. Soon the idea is adopted world-wide, and there are several great cities, heavily armed, roaming the land and eventually getting into conflict among themselves, fighting for unchallenged access to fuel and materials from the towns in the large, disputed regions they are then free to despoil.

This, in general outline, is the background and motivator of the story centered on two young people that escape London and then try to survive and help those who want to end this strange and insane war of moving cities.

There is a sub-genre of science fiction with moving cities fighting each other that I have realized is there after reading a few short stories with this idea in them, but they are later than 2006, so I think they have been inspired by the work of Philip Reeve.

I think that this work is comparable in imagination and quality of writing to Phillip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy (already considered, months ago, in this thread, as has been the movie and the more recent TV series based on it) and its still incomplete successor trilogy “The Book of Dust”,  both also considered as YA  books. But then again, the Alice books of Charles Dodgson, alias Lewis Carroll, are usually classified as “children’s books”. Which they are, but really are not just that.

The end of the story in the fourth and last of the Quartet books is a meditation on love and death, with a highly poetical description of the slow decay and return to nature of the dead bodies of two heroic lovers, taken by a robot to a secluded spot where it sits by to keep a vigil over them. It stops its own mental activity, keeping only a limited awareness of its surroundings. Several centuries, or perhaps thousands of years pass. One day, sensing the presence of humans nearby, it wakes itself up and sees two children looking at it. Nothing remains of the lovers, but a big tree has grown in the spot where the girl’s body used to lie.

The two children greet it, seeing it is awake, and take it to their village, where there are indications of very advanced technology, including antigravity devices. The people ask it questions and are incredulous when it mentions the moving cities, that by then are considered no more than ancient fantastic stories with no basis in reality. And one of the questions they ask is: “What do you do?” And it answers: “I remember”, and they ask what it remembers and it starts to tell them the story in the Quartet from the beginning.

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The Adam Project (Netflix)

“After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self on a mission to save the future.”

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OscarCP

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I have the impression that, recently, Netflix has been adding quite a few new science fiction shows to its streaming service.

On another news:

Kazuo Ishiguro, the Japanese-born British novelist (and Nobelist) has written another science-fiction novel (the first was “Never let me go”). It is called “Klara and the Sun”, about a solar-powered embodied and seemingly self-aware AI that is intended to be a companion, or “Artificial Friend” of, in this case, a teenager in poor health. The AI tells the story as it learns to understand people and to be (or act?) more like a human.
Now the book is out in paperback (that I prefer to hard-cover, as I do a lot of my reading in bed in a laid-back posture, because I am not in the Army, or something, and can’t read books on a screen, because it tires my eyes even when I dim it.)

And I just bought the book.
It was published this year and it is already a best-seller, it seems.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/25/klara-and-the-sun-by-kazuo-ishiguro-review-what-it-is-to-be-human

Excerpts:

” The Nobel laureate examines loneliness, sacrifice and the meaning of love in a novel narrated by a machine with feelings

Klara and the Sun asks readers to love a robot and, the funny thing is, we do. This is a novel not just about a machine but narrated by a machine, though the word is not used about her until late in the book when it is wielded by a stranger as an insult. People distrust and then start to like her: “Are you alright, Klara?” Apart from the occasional lapse into bullying or indifference, humans are solicitous of Klara’s feelings – if that is what they are. Klara is built to observe and understand humans, and these actions are so close to empathy they may amount to the same thing. “I believe I have many feelings,” she says. “The more I observe the more feelings become available to me.”

Klara is an AF, or artificial friend, who is bought as a companion for 14-year-old Josie, a girl suffering from a mysterious, perhaps terminal illness. Klara is loyal and tactful, she is able to absorb difficulty and return care. Her role, as she describes it, is to prevent loneliness and to serve. ”
…

” There is something so steady and beautiful about the way Klara is always approaching connection, like a Zeno’s arrow of the heart. People will absolutely love this book, in part because it enacts the way we learn how to love. Klara and the Sun is wise like a child who decides, just for a little while, to love their doll. “What can children know about genuine love?” Klara asks. The answer, of course, is everything. ”

 

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Alex5723

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RebusCom wrote:

A reboot of Babylon 5 has been announced with JMS as the writer.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/babylon-5-reboot-the-cw-j-michael-straczynski-1235075236/

I had missed this bit of news: The Babylon 5 reboot is very much alive but delayed a year. See https://www.patreon.com/posts/62084557

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RebusCom: Thanks for the reminder.

Quoting from the “Variety” article:

“Sheridan was played by Bruce Boxleiter in the original series, with the ensemble cast also including Claudia Christian, Jerry Doyle, Mira Furlan, and Richard Briggs. At this time, none of the original series stars are attached to the project.”

When it comes to the Babylon 5 actors, time has not stood still since the show ended in 1998.
For example:

Andreas Kasulas, that played G’kar died in 2006, of lung cancer at age 59, and Richard Biggs, that played Dr. Stephen Franklin, died in 2004, at age 44, of a torn aorta.
Mira Furlan, who played Delenn and became Sheridan’s companion, then third wife, a fierce fighter and the formidable defender of his work and good character from malicious commentators and rumor-mongers maligning his memory after he literally departed this world in the episode “Sleeping in Light”, died in 2021 (that is last year, as I write this) at age 65.
Jerry Doyle, that played Michel Garibaldi, died in 2016, at age 60.
Peter Jurasik, that played Londo Mollari, the Centauri Republic Ambassador, is now 71.
As is Bruce Boxleiter, that played Babylon 5’s Commander John Sheridan.
Claudia Christian, that played Commander Susan Ivanova, is now 56.

The good news is that Michael Straczynski will be in charge, again, of this second-life of that great show.

So no question this “reboot” is going to be more like a new start with a Babylon 5 theme and in a different timeline or in a parallel universe where Sheridan has not retired and Babylon 5 has not been shut down and then demolished, but the story, it seems, starts anew. I look forward to it, with some reservations, because this sort of thing often does not last more than the one season. We’ll see.

On the bright side, this will be available for free from the CW, the “for free, with no login”  and, it seems, no ads, streaming network created jointly by CBS and the Warner Brothers in 2006.

All these years and I’ve never heard of this anomaly!

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You left out Michael O’Hare as Commander (later Ambassador) Jeffrey Sinclair, The first commander of Babylon 5, later appointed Earth’s ambassador to Minbar.  Died September 2012 age 60.

Jerry Doyle as Michael Garibaldi Babylon 5s Chief of Security for seasons 1-4; leads the covert intelligence arm of the Interstellar Alliance in season 5. Died July 2016 age 60.

Stephen Furst as Vir Cotto, diplomatic aide to Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari. Died June 2017 age 63.

Jeff Conaway as Zack Allen, a sergeant in the Babylon 5 security force, replaces Garibaldi as Chief of Security by season 5.  Died May 2011 age 60.

Tim Choate as Zathras, an alien of unknown origins that is central to the disappearance of Babylon 4. Died September 2004 age 49 (motorcycle accident).

Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as William Edgars, a business leader based on the Mars colony. Died May 2014 age 95.

Very few of the series lead actors are still alive and they are quite old now.  With JMS as the writer I have high hopes it will be an engaging show but even he says it will be very different in terms of both storyline and casting.

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Thanks again, RebusCom: you have found most of the rest of those that had significant roles.

Continuing this enjoyable journey down Memory Lane, I should add to the above:

Walter Koening, with a long and distinguished career, that includes playing Chekov in the original Star Trek, and that in Babylon 5 played the unforgettable, ruthless Psi Corps superior officer Alfred Bester, he is now 85.

Andrea Thompson, that played Talia Winters, the helpful and then not so helpful Psi Corps telepath; she is still around at 62.

Patricia Tallman, that played the rebellious telepath Lyta Alexander, is now 64.

Bill Mummy, that played Lennier, the Nimbari Assistant of Ambassador Delenn, is now 68.

Last but not least: Stephen Furst, that played the young Centaurian Vir Cotto, Mollari’s somewhat bumbling assistant. He is now 63.

Remarkable, and so sad, how several of these actors have died at a relatively early age, it seems from unrelated causes.

The Curse of Babylon 5? Not likely, but …

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As I mentioned, Stephen Furst died in 2017 at the age of 63.

Hard to believe Bill Mumy is 68.  He’s had such a baby face.

Tracy Scoggins who played Captain Elizabeth Lochley is still around and also 68.

Jason Carter who played the colorful Marcus Cole is still around at 61.

Claudia Christian as Lt. Commander (later promoted to Commander) Susan Ivanova is still here at a relatively youthful 56.

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thank godess I was not an actor on Babylon 5, they all seem to die young.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Something has gone wrong, RebusCom’s latest entry, according to the “New Posts: Last day” list, is nowhere to be found.

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Got stuck in a spam filter.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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OscarCP

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FTFY.
They were out of sequence b/c a post was deleted and the nesting (following Replies) were not properly sequenced afterward.

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OscarCP

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To wavy at #2431283 : “Thank godess I was not an actor on Babylon 5, they all seem to die young.” (My emphasis. Do I correctly assume, wavy, that you are not some kind of Wicca adept?)

I must point out that playing back much of the now available recorded content from several years ago and older is like invoking the electronic ghosts of dead actors, musicians and other artists appearing in those recordings.

Although, yes, the case of Babylon 5 in this respect is, quite unfortunately, a remarkably bad one. That’s why I have mentioned “the Babylon 5 Curse” in my first comment on this show being probably back in a re-imagined form and only with its original creator still on board.

To be streamed in the CW channel, therefore for free and free of advertising. And, one hopes, free of ghosts.

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The first trailer for Obi-Wan Kenobi is out.

TV Series out on May 25, 2022.

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I got the book mentioned previously here 2430802  and I’ve read it.

“Klara and the Sun”, the latest novel and second science-fiction one  by Katsuo Ishiguro, is about devotion, friendship, love, death and the things that make us human, told by a solar-powered android with great capacity for learning to understand human motivations.

Because exposure to the sunlight makes her stronger, Klara, the android, thinks of the Sun as a living, thinking divine source of both nourishment, health and of all that is good.

I just been through this novel and I am delighted and moved by what I have found in its pages.
The style is easy to read and almost like hearing something being told to one by a friend in a some times relaxed, some times intense conversation, of course with moments more dramatic and poignant than others, but still in a friend’s voice.

The science fiction is in the android’s inner life, as the story is told from her point of view. She has been made with the purpose of being an “Artificial Fried” (AF) to some young person in need of company, and she is bought to be the companion of a teenaged girl in poor health.
The reason she is not well is that she has been “lifted”, her intelligence enhanced by a process that obviously presents serious risks, having been the cause of her sister’s death.

This is also the cause for a sharper class division between those who have been “lifted” and those who have not; in a society where many have no longer the jobs they used to do and maybe liked doing, after being replaced by AIs cheaper and less difficult to manage as employees. There are resentments that lead to many adopting unrealistic and intolerant attitudes, for example against androids that “take our jobs and now also our seats at the theater”, in an episode where Klara and her friend go to see a play and are treated aggressively by a woman at the entrance to the theater.

Klara observes, learns, and is always trying to be as helpful to this girl and her family as she can manage.

One can see this story as one of a coming of age of Klara’s girl, but also of Klara the android.

There are some not very well explained events that add, nevertheless, to the dream-like quality of the story. I find the end both poignant and rather baffling.
In it Klara, no longer needed, is discarded after her girl got better, grew up and left home to attend university. And as her own end approaches, she tells someone who visits her that she is busy putting her memories in order in her own mind, memories that are, in fact, the story told in the book.

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WCHS

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@OscarCP
I checked out Klara and the Sun out from my local library after having learned about it from you. I was drawn to it almost immediately and couldn’t read it all at once, but I kept carving out time to figure out the schema. There was a lot to process and I still think about the story and its import. A really significant novel, I think. Thanks for bringing it up!

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WCHS: I am happy to know that I ‘ve helped you find a good book to read.

Another of Ishiguro’s novels that also has a science-fiction theme, but I have not read yet, is his 2005 one “Never Let me Go.”

This sums up the plot in general terms, as far as I know it:

In a world where medical advances have made it possible for most people to live, on average, more than one hundred years, this story is that of three friends that are brought up together in special boarding school and, once they leave the school and become older teenagers, find out that they have been genetically engineered (as many others had been; they are all actually clones), so once they reach adulthood, they would serve as organ donors, when need arises, with their organs extracted to be transplanted to those in need of having their own damaged organs replaced. They have been genetically engineered and bred for this purpose, because their human organs are rejection-proof. These are removed now and then and, depending on which organs, the procedure is not necessarily fatal; but after several are performed the donors that have lived that long finally become very sick and die. The main characters also discover that some things they were told that gave them hope of being spared from forced donations were not quite true. They cannot escape their fates:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(novel)

This summary sounds pretty depressing, but Ishiguro is such a fine writer, with such a profound and compassionate understanding of life, that I would like to read this and find out for myself what it is like before coming to a more definite conclusion.

This novel has been made into a British movie of the same name, premiered in 2o10, that was praised by critics and won several prizes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(2010_film)

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Today Halo streaming on Paramount+

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The second season of “Raised by Wolves” is now playing in HBO Max and it has pretty outstanding favorable ratings in “Rotten Tomatoes”, both from critics and audience.

“Wolves” fans at their fan Websites are ecstatic.

Which is rather mystifying to me, because I think the first two episodes I’ve just watched are not as interesting as those of the first season. The acting is sort of OK — sort of — the dialog is not great, more like added on to give the actors something to say. There is a lot of weird stuff going on, as one would expect to happen in anything Ridley Scott gets his mitts on, and I am all for it, but the overall effect I got was of a succession of rather disjointed and fast, often violent series of events at times hard to put together and make sense of. And at other times some slow, predictable and disposable scenes, but they were there and not going to vanish, so one just had to live though them.

In the first season there was this air of mystery, menace and the expectation of amazingly scary things that were going to happen at any time to the two androids, Father and Mother (*) and the litter of children they brought with them to a distant planet to keep them away from the wars over religion that were devastating good all Earth. The planet being weird and scary in numerous ways, adding to this, the arrival, one really bad day, of a bunch of armed religious zealots from one of the two sides on the wars back home. And throughout there were some philosophical questions raised, substantial enough to merit thinking about.

Now, not so much, I feel. But it’s just the first two episodes, maybe things will get more involving later on for me.

So my advice is this: have a look, you might like it well enough. A lot of people do. If not, no harm’s done, right?

Here is something that can give you some idea of what this show is like:

Season 1 trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRMVtm2voVA

Season 2 trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D2nZz541Do

 

Good and rather fun to watch and listen illustrated commentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_auMVXbxcbw

(*) Ridley Scott androids: they always bleed some white gooey liquid.

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OscarCP wrote:

The second season of “Raised by Wolves”

has already ended (8 episodes).
Second season was OK.

PS. Halo was disappointing for me. Nothing like the originals.

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Alex: “Second season was OK.”

I agree: OK, if not as good as the first one that, in my opinion, was great.

Perhaps because all the impediments to its making raised by the pandemic limited what could be done. But some silly sequences are remarkable for being there at all.

For example: one main character taking a good many seconds to jump to shore from a sinking vehicle over a stretch of very acid sea water that quickly eats up anything organic or metallic in contact with it, by pulling himself in using a sort of flaming safety line anchored at the other end to a seashore boulder, without falling at the same time into this dangerous water because of gravity, which still seems to be present, as he lands hard on the stony shore.

Even so, in my opinion, this second season is not bad, just not very good.

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OscarCP wrote:

Alex: “Second season was OK.”

I agree: OK, if not as good as the first one that, in my opinion, was great.

Perhaps because all the impediments to its making raised by the pandemic limited what could be done. But some silly sequences are remarkable for being there at all.

For example: one main character taking a good many seconds to jump to shore from a sinking vehicle over a stretch of very acid sea water that quickly eats up anything organic or metallic in contact with it, by pulling himself in using a sort of flaming safety line anchored at the other end to a seashore boulder, without falling at the same time into this dangerous water because of gravity, which still seems to be present, as he lands hard on the stony shore.

Even so, in my opinion, this second season is not bad, just not very good.

That sounds like one of those Galaxy Quest predicaments.

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Like Galaxy Quest? No! Never! That one was meant to be funny and it was really funny!
This show was supposed to be seriously dramatic and unusually imaginative, and for a while, in Season 1, it was. Now, I’m not so sure it still is.

It has great special effects, but why that matters when it is weak in substance?

But I have six episodes left to watch. So, maybe, who knows? One still can hope …

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That’s my point. What Galaxy Quest was satirizing and mocking was the intentionally serious but absurd predicaments common in many sci fi shows.  What you described sounds like one of them.

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By the way, recent postings, including these last ones on “Raised by Wolves” are all, somehow, being tacked on unintentionally before considerably older comments on “Babylon V.” I hope there is an easy way to get future ones to appear past those, so the last one posted that is not a reply to another is the last one in this tread as well.

This is really weird, even for a thread about the weird.

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OK, PK has fixed that. Back to normal … as normal as it gets in this thread, anyway.

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It looks like “Raised by Wolves” is getting better, after looking at episodes 3 and 4. Another four more to go (as with other shows, this is a pandemic-shortened season, compared to the previous one, in this case to the first one.)

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Tonight I have finished watching Season 2 of “Raised by Wolves” and this is what I think of it, now that I have seen all 8 episodes:

There is a lot of intriguing weirdness, because it has to have it, this being a Ridley Scott movie. But for all that, I found it hard to get involved with both characters an story: this show needs to take more vitamins.  In other words, it is good, but I did not fall in love with it.

The actors are OK. The one I found really interesting is that of Marcus (played by Travis Fimmel, who does an excellent job). He is something of a con-man and self-styled prophet of a group of members of an ancient religion that was popular in the Western part of the Roman Empire, Mithraism, that adored the Sun as their god and competed for public appeal with Christianity.

Yes, that’s weird in a future when people can already travel to the stars, so it’s normal for this series. The lead characters, Mother and Father, are two androids whose main task is to take care of children that came with adults to colonize Kepler 22B, a world in the distant planetary system of star Kepler 2 in the constellation of Cygnus, the Swan. These people were escaping from a war that was devastating Earth. The two androids Mother and Father’s characters are OK, but somewhat robotic, so the way they talk and behave are rather stilted, inevitably limiting their appeal. Kepler 22B is not a very nice place, although the air is breathable and there is drinkable water, edible flora and fauna, so people can live there. If just, as it is infested with some nasty creatures plus has an ocean of very acid water.

The story does not end with the last episode, so the show needs at least a 3rd Season, and we’ll have to wait and see if HBO renews it. The special effects, as I have already noted in a previous comment, are top notch, really impressive.

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Feel free to arrange these in order according to taste:

Fringe

The Expanse

Star Trek – The Next Generation

Dark Matter

Star Trek – Deep Space Nine

12 Monkeys

Babylon 5

Doctor Who

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Babylon 5               (HBO +)

Star Trek TNG      (Netflix)

Dr. Who                 (HBO +)

12 Monkeys          (Unknown if there is an online source —  DVD still available to buy.)

Star Trek Deep Space Nine   (Netflix)

The Expanse        (Amazon Prime)

The others I don’t know, having not seen them (“Fringe”, “Dark Matter”) so I am not including them in my list.

Or, in the case of “12 Monkeys”, I think it is an OK movie, but not as good as the 1962 in Black and White original French one of which it is a remake: “La Jetée.”

In general, I am not keen on remakings (a.k.a. “reimaginings”) of great movies. Case in point, the 1960 US remaking of  “The Seven Samurai” as “The Magnificent Seven” (that was remade again in 2016, with the the same title as the 1960 one), or the 2003 one of “The Italian Job.”

On the other hand, the making of more than one movie based on the same book (e.g., the making of a new Pinocchio movie based on the 1883 Collodi’s children’s novel, though there is one already by Walt Disney) is fair game, in my opinion.

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It surprises me that you haven’t watched Fringe Oscar.  I think you would really like it.  I liked it so much I bought the complete set of all five seasons.  Good story and great actors.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Undone tv series (animated)

Second season to premiere on April 29, 2022

“Undone explores “the elastic nature of reality through its central character, Alma. After getting into a nearly fatal car accident, Alma discovers she has a new relationship with time and uses this ability to find out the truth about her father’s death.”

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8101850/

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OscarCP

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According to this Wikipedia entry, the first season of “Undone”, available on Amazon Prime, was very well-received, scoring very high in Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undone_(TV_series)

I’ll give it a go, sometime.

 

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I just watched the first three episodes of “Undone” and I can’t keep watching. Once more, a show with very good animation, as far as the quality and imaginative nature of the images on the screen go. But the story!

It is about some very boring people, living some very boring lives, having their petty disagreements that, for them, are the biggest deals of their boring existences. That’s a theme throughout those three episodes. So I was really bored by the end of No. 1.

But in the second episode, things got weird. That looked encouraging: the characters might be best lost than found, but I saw promise in this weirdness.

By the third episode, however, it became clear to me that the weirdness is based on New Age BS served with a side of portentous pseudo-philosophical presumptuousness. And that is where the show lost me; where I, my interest in the show. A real waste of some very good animators’ talents. In my opinion.

I hope others like it and enjoy themselves watching it. There are not those many things to feel good about these days, so more power to them.

Lots of the sort of people that criticize shows for Rotten Tomatoes liked this show. So give it a try. But don’t say I did not warn you.

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OscarCP wrote:

Lots of the sort of people that criticize shows for Rotten Tomatoes liked this show

The show got 8.2 on IMDB with many reviewers giving 10.

I have watched it yet.

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A minor correction to something I wrote and Alex has quoted: “Lots of the sort of people that criticize shows for Rotten Tomatoes liked this show”

Critics’ commentary (other than from RT users) are not written for RT, they are collected by RT, because it is what is known as an online aggregator of movie and TV show reviews from actual professional movie and show critics. It provides links to their reviews published in various newspapers, magazines and online, and rates them as favorable or unfavorable to the show or movie in question and scores the percentage of good ones. If below 50%, it declares the movie or show as “Rotten, with a smashed rotten green tomato. If more than 50%, with a nice “Fresh” tomato. And includes the same symbols next to the  reviews, to indicate whether they are favorable or not. The name of “Rotten Tomatoes” refers back to the days when stage performances the audience disapproved of were rewarded with fruit (among other things) being thrown at the actors, musicians or singers, in particular overripe tomatoes. (Or I think it was “back in the days” …)

And here, rated from worst to best, 150 science-fiction movies, according to their rankings in RT:

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-sci-fi-movies-of-all-time/

I say that, because I can’t see how the one listed as No 150, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” can be considered one of the best 150 science fiction movies ever made. Even the note attached to it by RT damns it with faint praise, as it should. Douglas Adams would not be amused by this movie base on one of his most celebrated creations.

On the other hand, “2001, A Space Odyssey” might or might not be, as No. 1 in the list, the best ever movie in this genre, but is indeed way up there.

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From H.P. Lovecraft’s classical science-fiction horror story “The Color Out of Space” — the first of Lovecraft’s novels and short stories I read as a boy, and became hopelessly addicted to his work, for life:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colour_Out_of_Space

This movie has been made, with, appropriately, Nicolas Cage in the leading role:

https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/color-out-of-space

With very good reviews:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Out_of_Space_(film)

“On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Color Out of Space holds an approval rating of 86% based on 210 reviews, and an average rating of 6.80/10. The site’s critics consensus reads: “A welcome return for director Richard Stanley, Color Out of Space mixes tart B-movie pulp with visually alluring Lovecraftian horror and a dash of gonzo Nicolas Cage.” On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews.” “

According to the “JustWatch” site linked above, with the teaser, the movie can be streamed from:

“Color Out of Space” streaming on Shudder, Shudder Amazon Channel, DIRECTV, Spectrum On Demand, AMC Plus, AMC+ Roku Premium Channel. It is also possible to buy “Color Out of Space” on Apple iTunes, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Redbox, AMC on Demand as download or rent it on Apple iTunes, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Redbox, AMC on Demand online.”

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Good news everyone! A twenty-episode all-new season of Futurama is on its way:

‘Futurama’ Revival Ordered at Hulu With Multiple Original Cast Members Returning

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/futurama-revival-hulu-1235176203/

Excerpt:

“The revival hails from David X. Cohen and Matt Groening. Cohen developed the original series with Groening, the series creator.”

One of the all-time greatest, funniest, brainiest science-fiction TV shows is coming back!!!

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The Time Traveler’s Wife (tv series) on HBO May 15, 2022. TV adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s novel ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife.’.

The 2009 movie was good.

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Night Sky tv series. Amazon May 20, 2022

“Spanning space and time, Night Sky follows Irene and Franklin York, a couple who, years ago, discovered a chamber buried in their backyard which inexplicably leads to a strange, deserted planet. They’ve carefully guarded their secret ever since, but when an enigmatic young man enters their lives, the Yorks’ quiet existence is quickly upended…and the mystifying chamber they thought they knew so well turns out to be much more than they could ever have imagined.”

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Tonight, out of curiosity, I started watching the first episode of Season 2 of “Undone” in Amazon Prime. This is an animation science-fiction show that I had watched the first three episodes of Season 1 a month or so ago and did not like, in fact I found it boring. So I gave up on it. I commented on this show’s Season 1, mentioning how boring it was, here:  #2438088 .

Somehow, something has changed since then, because the first episode of the second season turned out to have better dialog and the characters having graduated from being boring to being somewhat interesting. Same thing about their family problems, the two sisters solving them by uncovering their mother’s personal secrets being the main reason that drives the action now.

And yes, there is still the New Agesy BS, but in the overall context of the show is not that big a let down as when the show was also boring.

I have not watched the first season beyond the point where I gave up watching it, but bypassing the rest of that season is not a problem, because everything is explained, in one way or another, in the course of the first episode of the new season.

An unexpected and unusual thing is the long passages spoken entirely in Spanish (the mother and her family being from Mexico) without either English dubbing (e.g., for viewers here, in he USA) or even subtitles coming on automatically. One has to set up the English subtitles in the “Episodes” preliminary screen using the options next to the title of the episode, IF one knows that it will be necessary before starting to watch the episode. Not a problem for me, as Spanish is a language I am fluent in, but I am not sure how the mainly monolingual audience here might react to this. Probably they’ll stop watching, which would make this peculiarity a kind of built-in form of auto-sabotage put in the show by its creators.

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I finished watching “Undone” and my opinion of it now stands at: “OK.”

As I have mentioned, there is a pretty long part of the third episode that happens, supposedly, in Mexico and where the dialog is entirely in Spanish, but without subtitles.

In following episodes there are passages where the conversation is in Spanish as well, but they are quite short and with subtitles. So it would seem that something went wrong with the subtitling of the third episode, at least when I watched it.

And, by the way, “Undone” is not a science fiction show, but definitely a fantasy one. There is time travel of sorts that the main characters can do because they have a special “gift” or “power” to rejig timelines and “undo” bad things so they never happened in the modified timelines. They also use this special gift to discover family secrets they need to know first to understand what changes need making. So all this is made possible by this magical power that members of the family the show is about happen to have. And with considerable help by a Mexican lady who is a “curandera” (healer, wise woman), also described several times as “a shaman.”

One peculiar technical thing about the show: it looks like animation, but the characters are not animated pictures, as in regular cartoons, but live action pictures of actual actors with a few black lines superimposed on their bodies and faces and outlining their images, to make these look, somehow, as if they were drawings.

They were filmed in a stage clad in black material, so only the actors, illuminated in an appropriate way, appeared in the picture with no other objects visible. Then the actors’ images were cut off and the backgrounds shown in the picture added around them, frame by frame, with an old special effects technique known as rotoscope, no doubt using special modern software and computers. (But without entirely replacing the actor’s images with tracings of them, as in standard rotoscope.)

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/rotoscoping-animation.html

It was difficult acting and tricky filming, and the pandemic complicated things, so there was a small maximum number of actors that could be on that black stage at the same time.

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Love, Death & Robots season 3 on Netflix

“Plot: Terror, imagination and beauty combine to tell startling short stories of fantasy, horror and science-fiction with trademark wit and visual invention.”

I loved the first 2 seasons.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Paramount Plus May 5.

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The only problem here is that Paramount+ is yet another subscription channel and, for me anyway, it has little to offer compared to our Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions. When we started Amazon Prime a while back it was because we shop there so often. Since then Prime Video has expanded its catalog.

We watched the first series of Picard and really enjoyed it, but now we’d have to pay to watch more ….

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Anonymous: My feelings exactly. I started with Netflix several years ago and still I am with it. Then I added Amazon Prime, being a “Prime” buyer of stuff from Amazon already. Later I decided to add HBO Max, because it has all of the Ghibli movies and all the Harry Potter movies (that I think are possibly the best of the fun-to-watch fantasy movies ever made) and some of my favorite shows, such as “Babylon 5”, etc. Now, just to be able to watch “Wolfwalkers”, the latest, gorgeously animated movie of the Cartoon Saloon studio in Ireland, based on old Irish legends same as the rest of their movies, I had to subscribe to yet another streamer: Apple +.

Truth to be told, while, in the aggregate, the contents of those channels is quite good and with many movies and shows to my liking, often I do not have plenty of time to watch them.

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First episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds tv series aired on Paramount+.

“Follow Christopher Pike, Spock and Number One in the decade before Capt. Kirk boarded the Enterprise as they explore new worlds around the galaxy.”

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Great disappointment watching first episode.
Nothing like the original Star Trek.

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Charlie

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That’s not surprising, they can’t seem to make them like the old original Star Trek, which is very hard to match.  The Enterprise was essentially the same ship, but in this new series it looked more modern than it did when Kirk was captain.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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I watched yesterday “The Color Out of Space”, a  2019 horror movie based on H.P. Lovecraft short story of the same name.

I already commented on this movie here: #2439693  citing the great reviews it has received that made it look as a really good thing to watch. So I a was prepared to treat myself to a really horrifying  100 minutes when I started streaming the movie from Amazon Prime.

Alas! it was not to be much of a treat at all.  Maybe it’s just me, but I strongly suspect it was the movie: a short story some 1200 words long stretched into a one hour and three quarters thing that not even the progressively crazed performance of a Nicolas Cage, who is probably the best actor ever at embodying both crazy and progressively-loosing-their-mind characters, could make the film creepy enough for me, and I was somewhat bored towards the end, wondering how much was left before the closing titles.

Maybe someone like Guillermo del Toro might have come up with something scary, in a satisfactorily unearthly way, enough to make justice to the story this movie is based on. But this was not one of his movies (“Who is Afraid of the Dark”, “Pan’s Labyrinth”) and I was neither shaken nor stirred by it. This was more like “Boo! Now you are supposed to be scared!” And I just wasn’t. Well, maybe just a bit, occasionally, but not anywhere like enough.

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Oops! Lovecraft’s short story is some 12,000 words long! (I missed a zero), or 23 pages in the hard-cover, 1101 pages book with the complete collection of its stories: “The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft” published by Chartwell Books.

Also a problem with this movie is that it tries to shock the viewer mostly by means of brief glimpses of disgusting rather than  scary things. Disgusting has its place in horror movies, but it is a lower-grade way of shocking than actual horror, which is mostly about terrifying things unseen or seen but inexplicable. As is the metaphysical, existential horror in all of H.P. Lovecraft stories.

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” –H.P. Lovecraft.

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Just came across new to me Ann Leckie’s Ancillary trilogy books :
Ancillary Justice (2013)
Ancillary Sword (2014)
Ancillary Mercy (2015).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancillary_Justice

Ancillary Justice is a space opera set thousands of years in the future, where the principal power in human space is the expansionist Radch empire. The empire uses space ships controlled by AIs, who control human bodies (“ancillaries”) to use as soldiers. The Radchaai do not distinguish people by gender, which Leckie conveys by using female personal pronouns for everybody, and by having the Radchaai main character guess incorrectly when she has to use languages with gender-specific pronouns.

The narrative begins twenty years after the disappearance of a Radch starship, the Justice of Toren, when the sole surviving ancillary (and a fragment of the Justice of Toren’s consciousness), Breq, encounters an officer, Seivarden, who had been a lieutenant on the Justice of Toren 1,000 years earlier. The two are on an ice planet, and Seivarden is in precarious condition…

https://www.scribd.com/search?query=Ann%20Leckie

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Alex: “Ancillary Justice” is one of the apparently important science fiction series of novels I have never heard of. Or at least it seems to be so, judging by the plot summary in that Wikipedia article and the impressive list of awards it has received. I’ll try to remember to buy the first book, to get an impression of what the writing is like and then decide whether to go on and read the other two books.

Another series of linked novels that, in my opinion, is worth reading, is John Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War” (so named after the title of the first one), consisting of six books:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man%27s_War

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Just finished watching ‘Station Eleven‘ tv series (HBO).
Recommended.

“A post apocalyptic saga spanning multiple timelines, telling the stories of survivors of a devastating flu as they attempt to rebuild and reimagine the world anew while holding on to the best of what’s been lost.”

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Watching now Korean original tv series SF8. It is sort of Korean ‘Black Mirror’ without the British humor 🙂

“SF8 revolves around people who dream of a perfect society. It tackles the themes of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, robots, games, fantasy, horror, superpowers and disasters.”

“8 film directors participated in “SF8,” with each person directing a 1 episode TV special. The genre of the specials deals with science fiction, including AI, AR (augmented reality), VR, and robot games.”

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Please, read this now, carefully, before forming an opinion.

Now I am going to give vent to my general opinion of what is going on with science fiction movies and videos in these distressing times we have the fate to exist in.

OK, here it is: As the great science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon (“Fish” to friends), once wrote: “ninety percent of anything is crud.” In the case of what I am discussing here, it is my opinion that his dictum was too conservatively optimistic.

Your thoughts on this opinion on mine on certain kind of current science fiction movies and shows, should you care to express them here, are welcome.

In recent years Science Fiction has become a trendier thing in movies and shows, both in TV and online. But in my opinion, quantity has too often not equaled quality: plot, dialog, acting, subject matter, a sense of humor, or its sneaky relative, irony, are today notably hardly there enough, if at all. What is there is an insistence on gore, personal problems of self-destructive people, post-apocalyptic stories that have plenty of the former, plus a lot of dirt and smoke — from big fires, big smog and big explosions, of the latter of which there is more than plenty.

As well as things called “science fiction” that really belong in the fantasy genre, with a few honorable exceptions that straddle both genres, such as Philip Pullman’s series of novels “His Dark Materials” and its continuation, named after its first novel: “The Book of Dust.” “His Dark Materials” now made into an excellent British TV series (streaming in HBO Max) still awaiting the covid-delayed release of its third and final season. But the valid excuse for Pullman’s work to be counted as science fiction, in this case, is it’s underlying philosophical idea that consciousness might be a property, to a varying degree, of all things material in the Universe — in Pullman’s novels this being explained by the existence of a sort of yet unknown field whose boson particles constitute the “Dust” that is the “macguffin” of his remarkable series of stories. But to me, this is an exception to a more general trend.

In particular, I find a great difference between the high quality of the novels, novellas and short fiction published in leading magazines such as “Asimov Science Fiction” and “Analog”, as well as the reviews in the British “Locus”, available online, and what is much too often shown on TV and, or streaming.

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OscarCP wrote:

In particular, I find a great difference between the high quality of the novels, novellas and short fiction published in leading magazines such as “Asimov Science Fiction” and “Analog”, as well as the reviews in the British “Locus”, available online, and what is much too often shown on TV and, or streaming.

I agree. You can’t bring books to the screen, faithfully.

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OscarCP

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That notion has been proven many times by mediocre adaptations of books. Or, they simply leave too much out so that the movie or TV result is hollow, not fleshed out. Another attempt at Dune is ongoing. Saw the first part. It’s OK, but doesn’t really press my buttons.

There is, of course, a multi-season production in the works for the Foundation trilogy (and maybe beyond?). The original story is great, spanning a long time and great distances. The main shortcoming to me was Asimov’s quality of writing; it just wasn’t that good, As the years went by he definitely improved, so a lot of his later stories are actually pretty well-written. Not trying to upset any Asimov fans here, just sayin’ he was a bit amateurish in his early writing. The producers of the upcoming Foundation series have the opportunity to write good narrative, good dialog, and develop the underlying themes in a coherent manner.

If they can reach somewhere near the quality of, say, the first couple of seasons of The Expanse or Game of Thrones (groan) then we could be in for a real treat!

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OscarCP

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Anonymous: “The main shortcoming to me was Asimov’s quality of writing; it just wasn’t that good”

That is something many of us can agree on: Roger Ebert, when commenting on a movie based on Burroughs “Mars” series, called him and, for some reason I forgot, also Asimov: “Men of boundless imagination and somewhat limited writing talents.”

In the last analysis, what counts, particularly as we are concerned here with actual science fiction, in Asimov’s case is that “boundless imagination”, as always ultimately does in any form of really creative work.

I now have a subscription to Apple TV+, so l can have a look and find out if the new “Foundation” series is something really worth watching. I hope it is. When I read the novels, I was very impressed by the character of “The Mule”, so I hope that the creators of this series have in this role someone who does a good job of portraying him.

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anonymous wrote:

The producers of the upcoming Foundation series have the opportunity to write good narrative, good dialog, and develop the underlying themes in a coherent manner.

The production of Foundation (season 1, Sept. 21 – Nov. 21 on Apple TV+) failed miserably and has (almost) nothing to do with the books.

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Since Géorgès Melie’s 1902 movie  “Le Voyage dans la Lune”, through GATTACA, “La Jetee”, “Forbidden Planet,  “2001 a Space Odyssey”, the first “Star Wars”, “Alien”, “Contact”, “Blade Runner”, to the horror thriller “Moon” and on to “Interstellar” (all of them already discussed in this thread) to mention just a few high points, there have been many excellent science fiction movies, some with entirely original stories, others based on well-known novels and short stories. And also some great and famous science fiction TV shows with completely original stories, such as  “Doctor Who”,”Star Trek”, “Star Trek, the Next Generation”. “Futurama”, “Babylon 5”, “Serenity” and more, now most of these also available for streaming. Or, even if I do not like it, as I have already explained earlier in this thread, Amazon’s “The Expanse.” But generally speaking, today’s content in visual media is often something of a letdown. There are still some movies and shows I, at least, consider worth watching, but most of what is out there seems to fulfill and even exceed Sturgeon’s dictum.

But why?

Maybe one reason is that too many science fiction, or rather “sci fy”, shows are being released by TV channels and streaming powerhouses such as Netflix, Amazon, etc. with less thought given to quality and more to quantity. Perhaps another reason is that those scripting the original stories and those adapting them from well-known novels are not that much “into” science fiction, do not know much about it, but push on all the same, to fulfill the wishes of those who pay them to do it, with the observed disappointing results.

It is not as if science fiction of the traditional written kind is dying: there are, virtually all the time, new and excellent authors coming up in the pages of the leading magazines of the genre, with many of the consecrated ones actively at work and, even in these covid-haunted days, many of the traditional annual and biannual “somewherecon” gatherings going on round the planet, from Alaska to Hunan — culminating in the annual “Worldcon” — often with the usual fancy-costumed attendees, talks on hot science-fiction topics and, now and then, even famous “honored guests” listed as going to be there.

I do not expect movie or TV show adaptations of books or magazines’ novels and short stories to be faithful in every detail to the original one as printed with ink on paper that I did read some time in my life, because the two media are different and require a somewhat different treatment of the same basic story.

But, come on! When transcribing written material to the screen, be it the big or the small one, at least keep the same basic story and its high points there, easily recognizable and in the right order. Or is that too much to ask? Well, too often the answer is “yes”, now days.

But one should not lose hope. Now and then something truly remarkably good does come along. Just not nearly as often, it seems, as it did in the not too distant past.

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Alex5723

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The Time Traveler’s Wife first episode aired on HBO.

The Time Traveler’s Wife movie (2009)

“When Henry DeTamble meets Clare Abshire in a Chicago library they both understand that he is a time traveler, but she knows much more about him as he has not yet been to the times and places where they have already met. He falls in love with her, as she has already with him, but his continuing unavoidable absences while time traveling – and then returning with increasing knowledge of their future – makes things ever more difficult for Clare”

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There has been a mixed critical response, not necessarily the show’s fault:

https://www.cinemablend.com/television/the-time-travelers-wife-reviews-are-in-and-critics-agree-the-hbo-series-has-a-big-problem

Excerpt:

“The novel The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger swept readers away in 2003, and inspired the well-received 2009 feature adaptation starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. Steven Moffat, the famed showrunner behind Doctor Who and Sherlock, has now adapted the best-selling story as a series for HBO, which premieres Sunday, May 15. Critics had the opportunity to screen the six-episode series, and there was an aspect to the plot that they really couldn’t look past in what could be one of the most awkward releases of any TV show debuting in 2022.”

The problem? The time-traveler, when coming back, is naked (clothes apparently don’t time-travel well) and some kids saw him like that.
Oh Dear! When I was a child, I occasionally and accidentally saw one or the other of my parents and sometimes other relatives naked when just going in or coming out of the shower, and I did not feel particularly shocked, but rather intrigued. But critics, these days, are a breed of amazingly sensitive people, aren’t they?

As to the story: the title sounded vaguely familiar, so I checked and there has been, indeed, first a novel and then a movie by that title, the latter, same as this new HBO, being based on the former.

Now here is another critic that, refreshingly, sounds more concerned with the show than with her feelings:

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/14/1098860295/the-time-travelers-wife-review-hbo-tv-show

One serious point against this new show worth keeping in mind, in my view: Steven Moffat is named as its creator. The same as many others who faithfully followed those other shows, I never liked what he did with “Doctor Who” first and then with “Sherlock”, which in the first case was to take charge of a hugely successful and beloved TV classic, and reduce it to a more pedestrian one and, in the case of “Sherlock”, ultimately going off the creative rails to turn it into a dismal failure by the end of Season four.

So: this is looking like a “maybe” show for now: We’ll see.

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Alex5723

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The problem? The time-traveler, when coming back, is naked (clothes apparently don’t time-travel well) and some kids saw him like that.
Oh Dear!

That’s the perverse American culture for you.  No limits on blood, gore and violence, but catch a glimpse of ‘God’s image’ and “that’s obscene!” What’s right is wrong and what’s wrong is right.

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OscarCP wrote:

The problem? The time-traveler, when coming back, is naked (clothes apparently don’t time-travel well) and some kids saw him like that.

This is NOT a for kids tv series.

Haven’t watched yet. I liked to movie.

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I must clarify that the kid (just one, actually), according to the first critic’s article, was in the show, not watching the show.

“The issue that many critics can’t seem to look beyond revolves around Henry’s tendency to pop into Clare’s life as a naked adult man when Clare is still a child. The reviews call this aspect of the show everything from creepy to straight-up grooming, and all seem to agree that it’s really not okay as a plot device, especially one that repeats itself.”

So: Oh, Dear! I guess this is something one really needs to see for oneself. Just don’t invite your mom to a watching party, is all.

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“The issue that many critics can’t seem to look beyond revolves around Henry’s tendency to pop into Clare’s life as a naked adult man when Clare is still a child. The reviews call this aspect of the show everything from creepy to straight-up grooming, and all seem to agree that it’s really not okay as a plot device, especially one that repeats itself.”

Which again is likely a reflection of the perverse and unhealthy attitude in American culture that nudity = sex.  It does not.

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I do agree with RebusCom. Otherwise nudists would be chased down by infuriated mobs of those who resent their own imagined possibility that others may be having a good time. It hasn’t happened, so far, that I know …

I had some friends, when living in Germany, that invited me to go swimming in a lake nearby. They turned out to be part-time nudists and took off their clothes once we were there and so did I, out of politeness. It was a group of men and women of various ages; some of the women were not bad looking. Sex, interestingly enough, was the last thing in my mind while sunning or swimming with them.

I wonder how the first critic whose comment I linked here previously, on “The Time-Traveler’s Wife”, would have survived such a shocking experience, given her sensitive nature.

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RebusCom wrote:

“The issue that many critics can’t seem to look beyond revolves around Henry’s tendency to pop into Clare’s life as a naked adult man when Clare is still a child.

No. Clare as a child never sees Henry naked.

First episode is so bad I couldn’t finish watching to the end.
I give it 2.5/10.

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OscarCP

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Ales: “No. Clare as a child never sees Henry naked.”

Hmm … either Alex is wrong, because he has only seen the first episode, while the Henry showing up naked stuff may not happen until later in the season, or some sensitive people that are into professionally criticizing streaming shows have very dirty minds. (Who would have thought?)

My problem with current science fiction movies and shows is that I haven’t come across any of either, in recent days, that I am prepared to recommend. I have been reading some good science fiction, and commented occasionally on that, but nothing recommendable made for the large or the small screens (those made for the large one, these days, mostly on DVDs and, same as those for the small, on my Macs’ 15″ screen, or when in the mood, on the larger external ViewSonic 27″).

In lieu of new shows, there are older ones, along with movies of years past, that may be still around in Netflix (as you know, nothing in Netflix is forever, to the not infrequent disgust of subscribers when a favorite show or movie is removed because the contract with the copyright owner has expired and has not been renewed).

You might try your luck with one of those listed here; some of these I’ve seen and can recommend:

https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/netflix/best-sci-fi-movies-on-netflix-streaming/

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Alex5723

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OscarCP wrote:

In particular, I find a great difference between the high quality of the novels, novellas and short fiction published in leading magazines such as “Asimov Science Fiction” and “Analog”, as well as the reviews in the British “Locus”, available online, and what is much too often shown on TV and, or streaming.

I just renewed Analog and it is up to over $40 per year and only 6 issues. 😬

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Wavy: “I just renewed Analog and it is up to over $40 per year and only 6 issues.”

Aren’t those two-month issues supposed to include nearly as much material as used to be published in two separate monthly issues?

Anyhow: right now, because of oil shortages and price speculation, that much money buys some ten gallons of regular gasoline in these US of A. If one can afford it, then renewing the subscription to “Analog” might let one go in a more interesting and mind-expanding year-long journey than a with car on that much gasoline in couple of weeks, or whatever else it might be on a hybrid.

Then again, it might not, but I think it’s a good US$40 bet that it will.

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A brief update on the Babylon 5 reboot.  It’s been pushed out to the Fall of ’23, but is still a go.

https://deadline.com/2022/05/babylon-5-reboot-status-alive-the-cw-1235027808/

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Believe it or not, John Sheridan has its own (and pretty long) Wikipedia entry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sheridan_(Babylon_5)

I mean, I am real, so where is mine?

Now, while with J. Michael Straczynski piloting this show’s second life is something of a reassurance, doing that when all the memorable characters of the original show are gone for ever or are now in retirement, it’s going to be not just a hard thing to do, but more like magic.

Because where else than in Babylon 5 would we get a G’Kar reading Yeats to his assistant Na ‘Toth?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrrwOvvTlt0

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of “Spiritus Mundi”
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indigent desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

G’Kar readingn to Na’Toth in “Revelations” the first stanza with the last two lines from the second.
The poem is “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats.

Mark my words: this is not going to be an easy act to follow. So we’ll just have to wait and see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2UQ2l9NPIg

The whole original show is available for streaming in HBOmax.

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RebusCom

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The Umbrella Academy is back with season 3 on June 22 on Netflix.

Avatar: The Way of Water to screen on Dec. 16.

Love, Death & Robots season
3 aired on Netflix.

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wavy

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OscarCP wrote:

right now, because of oil shortages and price speculation, that much money buys some ten gallons of regular gasoline in these US of A.

More like 8 or less. But point taken. But my car gets me to the grocer and I can’t digest cellulose.

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Wavy: “But my car gets me to the grocer and I can’t digest cellulose. ”

Some thoughts seem in order:

One does not eat books, one reads them.

I am not too sure how many new ideas one gets from going to the grocer’s, but definitely gets some reading books.

If one needs 8 0r 10 gallons of gas to go to the grocer, there is something wrong with the car. Or with one’s domicile address.

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wavy wrote:

Aren’t those two-month issues supposed to include nearly as much material as used to be published in two separate monthly issues?

Kinda like the new mega rolls of tp have 4 times the tp.
But seriously , maybe maybe not. I will take a look at my stacks of Analog and Asimov’s and see if upper echelons are thicker than earlier editions.

Oh and I am ~1500-2000 feet away from my most used grocer. A car is definitely needed, I made it up the hill I live on after my car refused to ascend after a snow storm, with 6 bags of groceries. I would be hard pressed to do that these days.

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Please stay on topic “best science fiction shows.”
This topic is not about the price of oil and tp, or whether one can eat books.

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satrow, Susan Bradley

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Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045 animation series (seasons 1, 2, 3) on Netflix.

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OscarCP

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Obi-Wan Kenobi (2 episodes) aired on Disney+

“10 years after the end of the Clone Wars Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi watches over young Luke Skywalker and evades the Empire’s elite Jedi hunters during his exile on the desert planet Tatooine.”

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OscarCP

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Westworld 4th season June 22 on HBO

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Last night I saw the first three episodes of “Foundation”, a new Apple TV+ show I was intending to watch for a while.

I found the first and quite long episode — the pilot of the show — interesting and involving, even while noticing a number of big departures from Asimov’s famous and, for some, revered trilogy (or heptalogy, depending on what one counts as part of it).

But finding the following two episodes also interesting and involving? Not so much.

This show has quite outstanding special effects, in fact it has already received prizes, or been nominated for prizes, in the “Special Effects” categories. Not in “acting”, although the actors performances are, if not memorable, at least OK, except for the notable dual performance, as Seldon and “Brother Dusk”, of the talented Jared Francis Harris (“The Expanse”, among other science-fiction shows). Nor in writing, directing, etc.

That might tell you something about this show.

It starts, as do the stories in Asimov’s first book, if somewhat compressed and modified, with mathematical genius Hari Seldon already in his final struggle to persuade the Galactic Empire authorities that the whole thing was doomed to fail in a few more centuries and a dark age to begin then and last for 30,000 years, but it could be shortened to 1,000 or less applying at appropriate times his recipes based on the science he had invented: psycohistory (although this Empire had been around for some 12,000, with the current dynasty running things not too badly for some 1,000 already, so he is asked why are things going to start coming apart now?)

The result? He and a couple of his scientific collaborators are shipped off to a precarious exile in the really unpromising world of Terminus (that means “end of the line” in Latin —  and why it has to be always Latin?). Terminus is many tens of light years away, at the outer edge of the galaxy, and takes a long time to get there. Which both complicates and makes things confusing. As one of the followers of Seldon gets sent away on an escape pod at mid-trip and … the second episode begins decades later and the following one hundreds of years later, and no mention of the pod-escapee, that had been one of the main characters throughout episode 1. Is that so the Second Foundation secretly set up, or to be set up, “at the opposite of the Galaxy from Terminus”, can get started?

And, from Episode 2 on, the story now with no Seldon around anymore (in this show, he is killed during the trip to exile, in the book, he died in Terminus of old age) could have continued closer to the original story. Which it does, sort of. But it develops completely new secondary story lines and generally it’s filling every episode with lots of material not in the original novels, probably to make this Season last all of its scheduled ten, close to one hour episodes.

I do not pretend that the original story be followed very closely, as the media are different and what works in one does not necessarily work in the other. But there are examples of good TV and streaming shows that follow closely enough the original novel for the plot to be recognizable in spite of all the changes. The still unfinished “His Dark Materials” (the third and last series debut expected this November), a BBC One – HBO production, is a good example.

That is not quite the case here, judging by the first three episodes. Although Seldon’s Vault is already in Terminus before the exiles’ arrival, that will open so he’ll appear inside at crucial times in history as a hologram, to tell people what, according to psycohistory, is going to happen and what to do about it so the dark ages get shorter, a number of important elements, such as who are the main characters in the show, are quite different.

Now, if we were to forget all about the Asimov’s stories and look at this show with “new eyes, unknowing and naïve, as a child’s” maybe we would find that this show is a good one? Maybe, but I wouldn’t be too sure about that.

Still there are six episodes left for me to see of Season 1 and find out what the creators do with Asimov’s story in them.

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I may be watching next season (or even more) out of curiosity.
As one who read the books I am disappointed with Apple’s transformation of the books to tv series.

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I can get onboard with Firefly, but Twilight Zone and Stranger Things are both excellent. Plus, a little research into Twilight Zone demonstrates that many of the guests went on to be super stars like Robert Redford, Robert Duval, William Schattner, Burt Reynolds, Inger Stevens, Julie Newmar, Charles Bronson….

 

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OscarCP

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Something I did not know when I wrote my previous and long comment on the Apple TV+ streaming show “Foundation”, based on the novels by Isaac Asimov, the first one called also “Foundation” published in 1951 as a compilation of short stories written as early as 1942, so some 80 years ago, the latest book, “Foundation’s Edge” published in the late 80’s:

The plan at Apple TV is to produce 80 one-hour episodes, or 80 hours of film altogether. So, if they continue at the rate of ten per year (as in this first season) then they’ll have this running for eight years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_(TV_series)

So this year’s offering is not just the start of a retelling of possibly Asimov’s most famous work: it is the beginning of another Star Trek saga, Apple’s answer to “The Expanse” — your example here: “…”  The novels in the original “Foundation” are not really very long. That is why all the additional elements have been packed into the episodes I have been watching: the show is being made ready for its long-haul deployment. These first season episodes form the pylons of a very long bridge of narrative that will be supported by them on the land side. Or the booster stage of a very long range rocket, probably bound with its small payload of essential narrative for some place far beyond the Moon. And the tale based on the first novel might not be entirely exhausted in these first ten episodes, according to the summary plots in Wikipedia (in article above). So the beginning of next season could still be based on the end of the first of the three original books.

Now, just like “The Expanse” and other popular science-fiction shows these days, it is long on drama and action and spectacle, and has about zero humoristic content. I can take a long dramatic series with now-and-then, well-timed flashes of humor (as opposed to sarcasm), but not one with zero content of it. (As contrary examples and among my all-time favorites: “Firefly”, “Buffy”, “Star Trek” anyone?) So I’ll finish watching this season, add another comment about it, then stop.

As I have mentioned already, from the point of view of spectacle, this for-streaming retelling of “Foundation” is, well, spectacular.

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First 3 episodes of ‘The Boys‘ season 3 aired on Amazon Prime.

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Well, just finished watching the 10th and last episode of Season 1 of Apple TV+ streaming show “Foundation”, loosely based on Isaac Asimov’s first book by that name of the initial, classic trilogy, originally published more than sixty years ago.

As I promised to write in my previous, and second comment on this show, this is what I now conclude from the overall experience:

This show gets more interesting in the last four episodes, while at the same time departing from the novel to the point that has with it little more than a distant resemblance, if that much. But it leaves things at a point where it looks like the next Season still could be loosely based on Book 2. So the wild car, the unpredictable mutant, the outlier — and, therefore, the great disruptor of Seldon’s psychohistory-based plan calculated to cut down the coming dark ages following the fall of the Galactic Empire, from 30,000 to 1,000 years — in other words: the Mule, might still make some kind of appearance. Or might not? I would give it 55 to 45 odds that he will.

My comment about the impressive quality of the spectacle being the main motivation to keep watching this show still holds. But I must revise my opinion on the acting that, as the plot develops, actually improves. Perhaps because the actors are given progressively better reasons to act. The dialog is also not too bad, in fact is often rather elegant, if also often annoyingly on the portentous side.

I wonder, though, why is it that always when someone finally stops close to wherever in the Galaxy has been traveling to, it has to be somewhere in space that’s full of drifting rocks.

Am I going to watch next season? I’ll give this 45 to 55 odds that I might.

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Now to something else.
While zapping thru some tv channels I caught the last ~20min of a time travel gem, ‘About Time‘.

“Upon turning the age of 21, Tim learns that the men of his family have a special gift: the ability to travel in time, subject to one constraint: they can only travel to places and times where they have been before. After his father discourages Tim from using his gift to acquire money or fame, he decides that he will use it to improve his love life.”

Although I have already watched the movie a couple of times in the past I stayed to watch to the end.
It is a light romantic drama..worth watching (in my opinion).

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Apple TV+ series, now of season 3 “For All Mankind“.

“The depiction of an ‘alternate history’ of the global space race after the USSR succeeds in achieving the first manned Moon landing.”

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OscarCP

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Season 1 of #ForAllMankind is available free on
@appletvplus for a limited time

https://twitter.com/forallmankind_/status/1535434184914636800

The Apple TV app is available on a variety of platforms including iPhone, iPad, Mac, Amazon Fire Stick, Roku, smart TVs, PlayStation, Xbox, and more.

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I still have to watch it, plan to. A show for our times? Could be, we’ll see.

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Why post a twit feed??

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Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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wavy wrote:

Why post a twit feed??

Because that is the source of the news.

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blaccch

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OK: No Tweets allowed here:

https://www.vulture.com/article/for-all-mankind-season-3-review.html

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/for_all_mankind/s03

Summing up: people that wrote, commented, etc. up in Web sites like these two on this alternative history/national wish-fulfillment series now in its 3rd season say they liked it a lot, that it’s a masterpiece amongst a cloud of mediocre shows darkening the screens of TVs and streaming PCs, and so on and so forth.

But I read that “interpersonal problems from previous seasons are still as raw as ever, yay!”, or words to this effect, and flinch.

Because I really don’t care about the interpersonal problems of pictures on a screen unless they are interesting-looking to watch (the ladies in particular) and give voice to the lines of a good script. With jokes. I demand some good jokes now and then. No jokes? Forget it. Life can be boring and depressing enough as it is, to go looking for more of it as “entertainment.”

So to me this show, which I’ll test-watch some episodes one of these nights, is right now a “maybe.”

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A many-worlds (*) movie with all things happening practically in all places at the same time, and so most properly called:

“Everything Everywhere All At Once”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxN1T1uxQ2g

Or maybe a bit too many things for bit too long?
As someone put it in Rotten Tomatoes (a plebeian non-critic) “twenty minutes too long”

But very interesting all the same, if also very confusing to anyone more or less normal, and even to OscarCP.
With plenty of: martial arts set pieces, drama, horror, family issues, with a very hard to ignore Asian American slant.

A movie made by two brothers that call themselves “Daniels”, I am pretty sure after the “Wachowskis” sisters of “The Matrix” fame. They obviously tend towards that, although, if this movie is a fair example, they still have some way to go.

Interview where the remarkable lead actress Michelle Yeoh spills the beans:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYw6i6MjZuA

And this one smilingly gets to the truly serious heart of the matter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3trFt71LXGE

Now in theaters and streaming, in the USA, for about US $10 -15 from Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Google Play, and Vudu.

(*) After Hugh Everett’s theory, that is one answer to the uncertainties of quantum mechanics

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The Umbrella Academy season 3 aired on Netflix.

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OscarCP

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This Umbrella is OK when it rains world-threatening … threats, or not even good for that, because of too many holes in the cloth and several warped ribs, depending whom you ask. For example look here, if you will:

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_umbrella_academy/s01

But is it about superheroes? Hmm … Superpowers are definitely magical (or super-natural?) and not science-fictional … Except for Superman (born from an alien race of very strong people) and non-supers with sci-fi-ish physical super-ish augmentations, such as Iron Man, or Batman (super-equipment). Or those gigantic mechas in Guillermo del Toro’s  “Pacific Rim.”

Or maybe it’s one of those crossover shows (and written stories) that are a bit of both?

I am not sure if I am going to watch it, so some more informative details from someone who has watched its first two seasons and is still watching this — or has decided to quit, would be helpful.

 

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The Umbrella Academy is comedy-drama (or maybe drama-comedy) about a group of young adults who are each imbued with a different power. As teenagers they were a famous crime fighting force. But something went wrong; the team broke up. There mentor, and his motive for bringing them together, is somewhat mysterious.

We enjoy watching it because it often doesn’t follow the usual TV show tropes (well, some of them). We see each character developed along the way, with an impending crisis looming in the near future. This, of course, is the usual plot device to build tension. A lot of what happens is funny, some of which may well be described as dark comedy.

It’s entertaining, diverting fare and worth a look. Check out Season 1and see if interests you.

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WSstarvinmarvin wrote:

As teenagers they were a famous crime fighting force.

They can time travel back and forth and saved the world twice.

All were born at the same time all over the world and their mothers haven’t been pregnant at the beginning of giving birth day.

I like the show and follow since season 1.

* I watch all Elliot Page (Ellen Page) movies since 2005 ‘Hard Candy’.

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Westworld season 4 episode 1 aired on HBO.

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OscarCP

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Sometimes science fiction ideas have actually come true.

Take, for example, two remarkably cases I had some passing knowledge of and just came to me into focus when reading an article published in the latest issue of “Analog.” The author is one Edward M. Wysocki Jr, who has been writing on the inspirational effects of science fiction on scientific and technological advances through the years.

In this recent article, he brings up these two cases:

Cleve Catmill, in early 1944, wrote a novelette called “Deadline”, describing a fission atomic bomb that was accepted and published by John W. Campbell, the Head Editor of “Astounding” (later called “Analog Science Fiction and Fact” and still coming out, bimensually now, after a combined total of close to 90 years of continuous publication.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Campbell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_Science_Fiction_and_Fact

Later, also in “Astounding”, Campbell published another story, written by radio engineer George O. Smith, describing a form of *radar*, something until recently a seriously classified topic, with its classification, a month or so earlier, having been, providentially, relaxed somewhat and just enough so Campbell could publish the story without too much fuss.

In the first case there was considerable fuss, but Campbell was able to provide abundant proof to convince the government investigators that the ideas in the “Deadline” story of how and why an atom-bomb using enough of fissionable Uranium 235 (more than a certain “critical mass”) to start an explosive fission chain reaction, something that would release a vast destructive power, could actually be built and work (something, if not entirely correctly described in the story, still close enough to the real thing), were already widely available to the public, in scientific journals, and even in stories and science articles he had been publishing for several years already without any problems in “Astounding”, and these ideas, therefore, were also known to scientists working for the enemy at the time (as it was really happening in Germany), with WW II going strong and still more than a whole year before it finally ended with the surrender, first of Italy, then of Germany and, finally, of Japan.

So: science fiction sometimes does turn into science fact …

And sometimes science fiction reflects earlier science fiction in that it might well be one day, as far as we know, because we don’t know yet, by far, enough, also science fact:

https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/multiverse/umc.cmc.wia9dij75m6txjwagaj3kwvb

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A bit off-topic but Tom Clancy supposedly had a similar “interaction” with the feds (not necessarily the FBI) after his first novel came out.  He had open-source references for everything at issue, so he went on to write a number of additional novels before he passed away in 2013.  I’ve been told that at least some of those open-source references were papers that originated from rather obscure Russian naval colleges. We do the same thing with the Naval War College and similar schools for the other services.

Or course, the trick is knowing which of all those think pieces to roll into one’s novels.  Tom Clancy was incredibly adept at picking the right ones.

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Actually, commenting on important science fiction literature has been going on here for some time, without being really off topic, as it is integral to having a perspective on what science fiction can be at its best, as well as for comparing and grading the shows and movies of this genre.

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On the other hand, in contrast with what I wrote above, here: #2458019 , there are important, epoch-making things even, the very best science fiction authors missed entirely, or almost entirely, at the time when they wrote their major works, until they had their noses pressed squashed against these, for example:

Digital computers in many houses, businesses, devices, gadgets.

The Internet.

The Web.

Augmented reality.

Neural networks and their many applications where a good pattern-recognition capability is necessary.

Navigation satellites.

Climate change.

Mars and Venus being desolate and uninhabitable for humans, at least in a more or less normal, terrestrial way.

The Big Bang and the Big Bang’s primordial cosmic microwave background radiation.

Gravity waves and gravity-wave interferometric detectors.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, that states that in any mathematical system that includes arithmetic there are always undecidable propositions, propositions that cannot be proved to be true or false, so they could only be used as new postulates (e.g. that two parallel lines never meet), but doing so creates new undecidable propositions. So any such system is always incomplete as far as having all of its assertions/theorems proved to be correct. The consequences of this are simply tremendous and have deeply influenced the foundations of disciplines heavy in mathematics, particularly computer science, through Alan Turing’s work on computation, computers and computability:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275464864_Godel%27s_Theorem_and_the_Possibility_of_Thinking_Machines

Excerpt:

“In an episode of the television series Star Trek [The Next Generation] an ambitious star fleet researcher wants to requisition the android Mr. Data as an experimental subject. Data objected to this on the basis that one highly probable result of the experiments would be the cessation of his existence.

The researcher claimed that Data was only a machine, hence star fleet property, and had no say in the matter. A military court was convened. Data was defended by Jean Luc Picard, captain of the starship Enterprise on which Data served as science officer.

Picard’s defense was that although it was not clear that Data was a self-conscious entity, it would set a dangerous precedent with regard to the rights of future self-aware constructs to declare that he was property.(*)

The existence of self-aware robots, androids, and computers is a cliché in science fiction. In science fiction the author is free of the need to provide detail as to how such devices might actually come about, and can avoid the metaphysical question of their possibility.”

(*) Picard won the case and Data stayed on for the rest of the series and several spinoff movies.

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Oscar I will not give refs but I a pretty sure all those bases were well covered.

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wavy: “Oscar I will not give refs but I a pretty sure all those bases were well covered.”

Those bases were well covered, yes, but after the event, when those things became known as real or really possible thanks to the published and even the every-day visible result of the work of scientists and engineers. They were not anticipated earlier than that even by the science fiction luminaries of the day, that is something science fiction is supposed to do and, of its several purposes, is the one most often present in the public’s mind.

That is why I wrote “until they had their noses pressed squashed against these”  (for example, the internet =>cyber punk and not the other way around.)

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I finally got time to watch “The Door into Summer”, a 2021 movie based on Robert A. Heinlein’s 1957 novel of the same title:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Door_into_Summer

This novel has long been my favorite among the more playful novels written by Heinlein, one where he used to great effect time travel as a plot device, as epitomized by his brilliant time-travel masterpiece “By His Own Bootstraps.”

In “Summer” there is “cold sleep”, a science-fictional form of suspended animation making possible to “travel”, by sleeping the years away, up to three decades into de future and without aging at all, as well as a device available in that future that makes it possible to time travel back the same number of decades to the past, both of which used in sequence create a temporal loop with interesting consequences, that is the big science-fiction idea underpinning the story.

And, then again, there is Pete the Cat (because in any proper Heinlein story, there has to be a cat.)

My surprise watching this movie, on which I have already commented in this thread here: #2420041   , when I learned about its availability for streaming in Netflix, but months before watching it tonight, was because I had forgotten that this is a Japanese movie, but this surprise was both brief and soon pleasantly followed by the realization that the story in the movie, in all that matters, follows closely enough the novel and it does this well.

It is a movie I have enjoyed watching and recommend watching it: those who do, probably will conclude that doing so was not a waste of their time.

Trailer:

As it happens, the trailers I’ve found available online are not subtitled in English, a language everyone in AskWoody obviously understands. But those who understand Japanese, or are curious enough, might be interested in the one without subtitles available here:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13757540/

And this is a positive review of the movie I generally agree with:

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/the-door-into-summer-time-travel-adventure-combining-romance-humour-085113445.html

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Watched “The Door into Summer” last month and enjoyed the movie.

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About a science-fiction work by noted author Kim Stanley Robinson called “The Ministry for the Future” :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future  (*)

The central idea is that following a huge heat-wave in India that killed twenty million people, the nations of the world were forced to confront the ugly fact that their efforts to mitigate global warming were far inadequate and much more needed to be done and soon. So to come out with a plan to avoid further catastrophes and to make sure its implementation was seriously monitored and enforced, it was agreed and so ordered: to create a new United Nations organization, based as others in Switzerland (Zurich, in this case) to be known as “The Ministry for the Future”, so most people would get the idea just from the name. Funded by several several billions of dollars, or euros, per year.

That much money was not enough to implement changes, but was meant study and to sort out ideas of possible solutions, providing the funding for experiments and other ways to test these ideas, and helping to keep the national governments with the nose to the grindstone, as much and as often as necessary.

This is a work of many parts. But, primarily, it is a work of ideas in the form of a hard science-fiction novel, and a pretty good one, in my opinion. Robinson has clearly a very comprehensive understanding of the climate issues, after working for years with various prominent organizations concerned with them, and with how to bring needed changes to prevent their worst effects — all this in parallel with his better known writer’s work. So he presents this in a clear, crisp and, to those interested in the topic (as YT is), also full of information and ideas.

As a novel it is also a very good one, quite a thriller at times, taking place mainly during the next decade from now, that is to say during the 2030’s. His descriptions of goings on in the mountains of Switzerland shows once more his familiarity with these and other high ranges as a result of his mountaineering experience.

(*) Fukuyama’s criticism is plain wrong. As, in my opinion, most of his ideas over the years have been.

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San Diego Comic-Con 2022: Everything Announced

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Thanks Alex, that’s a very good contribution, providing that link to this year’s “ComicCon” announced shows.

Personally, I look forward to a new series of “King of the Hill” and a reminder of why propane is the solution to everything. And to finally watching the fourth season of “The Dragon Prince”, both of which are animation shows, not live action, and also not science fiction. As to science-fiction, I don’t see anything there that I would call “science fiction”, that is as much about ideas to make one think, than about boom!, bang-bang!, crash!, augg! Except, maybe, for the coming third season of “Picard.”

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On one show I would like to see the reboot, from those in the “ComeCon” roster of coming shows, this article makes for informative and entertaining reading, particularly for those who never had the opportunity to see it for themselves, back in the day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_the_Hill

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I am waiting for :
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Sept. 2, 2022)
Game of Thrones’ House of the Dragon (Aug 21, 2022)
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (March 3, 2023)
Masters of the Universe: Revolution
Guardians Vol.3
Severance season 2..

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I am waiting for :
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Sept. 2, 2022)
Game of Thrones’ House of the Dragon (Aug 21, 2022)
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (March 3, 2023)
Masters of the Universe: Revolution
Guardians Vol.3
Severance season 2..
Black Mirror
Avatar: The Way of Water (Dec. 16 2022)
The Witcher: Blood Origin
The Three-Body Problem
Andor (Mar. 23 2023)..

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For shows like several of those mentioned by Alex and many others, we really need a thread dedicated to Fantasy, something that has been on my mind for quite sometime. If someone wishes to volunteer to start a Fantasy thread, then I’ll do what I can to help out with that.

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OscarCP wrote:

we really need a thread dedicated to Fantasy

I don’t distinguish fantasy from sci-fi. There are elements of fantasy in sci-fi and vice versa.

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Believe it or not, science-fiction and fantasy  are very different genres that are mislabeled often, particularly fantasy as science fiction, by people who probably get their understanding of things by scrolling on their cellphones.

A work of science fiction, if it is any good, is grounded mostly (with “rubber-science” exceptions such as faster than light travel in space opera) on reality as understood in present-day science; in fantasy, on the other hand, everything is possible that the author says it is.

There are good authors that write works belonging to more than one genre: Kristine Kathryn Rush, for example, is also known as a good mystery writer. And there are good movie makers that have made works of different genres, for example Guillermo del Toro, in horror, science fiction and fantasy.

Even so, there is no mixing the two genres in a sort of mystery stew, because it makes good sense for them to be kept apart. By and large, this separation has been kept throughout most of  the history of science fiction and fantasy in their publication, as well as in this long thread, and they should continue to be kept apart. This one is a thread about  science fiction shows and movies, and great science fiction shows and movies at that. Not fantasy, great or otherwise.

Of late there have been also some comments on great science fiction literature, by which most great science fiction movies and shows are directly or indirectly inspired. Except for some occasional humorous deviation of no consequence, let’s keep this thread this way, please. Because it matters: “GATTACA” and “Game of Thrones”, for example, while both are worthy of consideration, have nothing enough in common that justifies having both in this thread.

Now one thing Alex has mentioned and got my attention is the forthcoming, next year, on Netflix, of a miniseries based on the science fiction novel “The Third Body Problem”, which I have read and did not really like, but that has, nevertheless, one interesting as well as important idea, so the Netflix miniseries announced recently might be also interesting to watch. Or so I hope (and it might even have a “Game of Thrones” vibe, as it is being put together by two veterans of that popular fantasy series, although I have no idea of how that works):

https://ew.com/tv/the-three-body-problem-pushes-same-buttons-as-game-of-thrones/

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OscarCP wrote:

on reality as understood in present-day science; in fantasy, on the other hand, everything is possible that the author says it is.

So, Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, George Orwell, H. G. Wells.. and many others wrote fantasy books. None has been based on reality as understood in (their) present-day science.

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You left out the part of that paragraph you quoted where I wrote that science fiction works are grounded mostly (except for “rubber science” such as faster  than light travel) on science. I could have added time travel and Huxley’s artificial wombs as further examples, but saw no need to make a longer list.

Scriptures such as the Bible, the Bahgavad Gita, the Buddhist Three Baskets and the Koran, for example, or Plato’s Timaeus, are not based on modern science, so should they also be included in this thread? I very much doubt it. Please Alex, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but if you want to comment on fantasy, the recognized genre, not your own definition, please start a thread on that topic. You probably know more than enough about this topic and I’m sure it will have plenty of people commenting on it because, as I have mentioned two previous comments above this one, I think it is probably a very good idea to have one thread dedicated to this important genre. And with this being said, I’m done here.

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Good explanation here:

The difference between science fiction and fantasy

https://thescifi.net/blogs/news/differences-between-science-fiction-and-fantasy

“the main difference between science fiction and fantasy is that science fiction has its basis in science and consists of possibilities whereas Fantasy has no basis of reality and is made up of impossibilities.”

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So:

If it is about speculative ideas of what the future might bring based on what is known in science now and also on what is not known in it, so these ideas are possible answers to the question: what if more than it is known to be possible might be actually possible, but natural, not supernatural? Then that is science fiction.

If it is mostly about the supernatural: wizards, witches, elves, trolls, unicorns, enchanted swords, superheroes (other than those like Iron Man, who is just a guy wearing a powerful mechanical flying suit), ghosts, dragons and magic, it is fantasy.

So fantasy is about stories that assume magical and supernatural things exist, but that do not include concrete and real religious beliefs, other than attributing those to some of the characters, as many people have such beliefs and these are important for understanding them

While science fiction is about the material universe, from photons and electrons to stars and galaxies, space and time — things still incompletely understood and so open to scientific and philosophical speculation.

Finally, there are some very good works (this tread is about “very good works”) that seem to straddle both genres, such as “His Dark Materials”, but that lean strongly towards the supernatural (e.g. with witches, familiars (a.k.a. daemons) and angels), I would classify those as “fantasy”, to keep it simple.

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But since “Its Dark Materials”, the HBO streaming show, is one I follow (after reading first Pullman’s books), I would like to comment on it in a Fantasy thread, if such thread existed.

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OscarCP wrote:

Finally, there are some very good works (this tread is about “very good works”) that seem to straddle both genres

Yes, and some science fiction writers can straddle both genres. I am a big fan of Robert A. Heinlein, who was an aeronautical engineer and naval officer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein

He was adept at creating hard science fiction with a speculative edge. I read many of his works while growing up, beginning with all of his juvenile series in my school library. Then on to his future history stories and others.

But my point is with this one novel of his in particular that stands out as being total fantasy (science fantasy?), and that is Glory Road. Nominated for the Hugo Award in 1964. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_Road

 

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I can also think of several famous stories based on the use of “Unobtenium”, for example the  satirical science fiction classic “The First Men in the Moon”, by Herbert George Wells, where an impossible antigravity substance, “cavorite”, named after Doctor  Cavor it’s inventor, who then used it to build parts of an spacecraft in order to take himself and the point-of-view character, together, to the Moon. Where they discovered it to be inhabited by a race of insectlike bipeds ruled by “The Great Lunar”, an alien distinguished by having an enormous cranium housing an equally enormous brain. And who despises the human race as one of inferior and savage beings the Lunar astronomers have been observing through their telescopes. (I read it when I was maybe ten or eleven years old, so I might be less than 100% accurate in this outline; probably more like 70%)

The novel is no longer under copyright and can be read here for free:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_First_Men_in_the_Moon

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OscarCP wrote:

I can also think of several famous stories based on the use of “Unobtenium”, for example the satirical science fiction classic “The First Men in the Moon”, by Herbert George Wells, where an impossible antigravity substance, “cavorite”

Yet, still “possibilities”, rather than “impossibilities”.

For instance, if UFO/UAP/UAV’s actually exist, their flight characteristics and propulsion mechanisms would require that they are using some sort of “Unobtainium”.

https://www.uaptheory.com/

“Example: At one point during the 2004 “Tic Tac” incident, the UAP moved (on the radar) from 80,000 ft to various altitudes from 28,000 ft to 50 ft above sea level in 0.78 seconds. A motion in that time frame along, say, 60,000 ft distance yields accelerations above 12,000 g-forces and speeds above 100,000 mph if we assume half the distance was used to accelerate and the other half to decelerate.

“Our Hypothesis: As derived above, UAPs create distortions in spacetime to create geodesics along which they move free of accelerations.”

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OscarCP

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JohnW has quoted: “As derived above, UAPs create distortions in spacetime to create geodesics along which they move free of accelerations.”

And, I should add, those space-time distortions would be so severe as to, at the very least, seriously mess up the readings at the three gravitational-wave detecting observatories now in operation: two in the USA and one in Italy. But so far none of the people working on gravitational wave detection there, or other scientists using their data, have reported such problems.

Or have the problems occurred and the reports been suppressed, because those observatories and “gravitational-wave scientists” are actually being controlled by UFO aliens, eh?

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OscarCP wrote:

science fiction classic “The First Men in the Moon”, by Herbert George Wells

Thanks for the tip!

I found the  Kindle version (.mobi) at Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg books are always free!

The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells

https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1013

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OscarCP wrote:

Or have the problems occurred and the reports been suppressed, because those observatories and “gravitational-wave scientists” are actually being controlled by UFO aliens, eh?

Do you know something I don’t??? 🙂

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JohnW wrote:

I found the Kindle version (.mobi) at Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg books are always free! The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1013

An update: Project Gutenberg also has most of the H. G. Wells and Jules Verne classics available in Kindle format.

As well as over a dozen Philip K. Dick short stories!

Good stuff!

Disclaimer: the Project Gutenberg e-books are legal in the US as public domain works, since the copyrights were never renewed in the US. Other regions may want to check on the legality of use in their countries before downloading or sharing the content.

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“Logans’ Run” is a famous, Academy and Saturn awards winner (in spite of mostly negative critics’ reviews) 1976 movie based on a late 1960’s science-fiction novel of the same title by author George Clayton Johnson.

It resembles in some ways “Blade Runner”, only those marked for elimination are not illegal androids but, in a world lacking the resources to support a large population, people older than 30. Logan, the main character, is one of the government assassins that seek out those who have “run” to escape their fate after turning 30, and becomes himself one of them to go undercover and find out who is helping people escape.

It can be streamed from HBOmax.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film)

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OscarCP wrote:

“Logans’ Run” is a famous, Academy and Saturn awards winner (in spite of mostly negative critics’ reviews) 1976 movie based on a late 1960’s science-fiction novel of the same title by author George Clayton Johnson.

That’s a good classic!

I watched that as a first run in a local theater back in the day. And coincidentally, just added it to my HBOmax streaming queue last week!

I plan to watch it all in one sitting very soon, but I did preview just the first few minutes. It seems very well preserved streaming in HD wide screen digital format. Much better than the standard definition cable TV versions that I have watched over the years!

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OscarCP wrote:

in a world lacking the resources to support a large population, people older than 30.

On the same note : In Time

“Welcome to a world where time has become the ultimate currency. You stop aging at 25, but there’s a catch: you’re genetically-engineered to live only one more year, unless you can buy your way out of it. The rich “earn” decades at a time (remaining at age 25), becoming essentially immortal, while the rest beg, borrow or steal enough hours to make it through the day. When a man from the wrong side of the tracks is falsely accused of murder, he is forced to go on the run with a beautiful hostage. Living minute to minute, the duo’s love becomes a powerful tool in their war against the system.”

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

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Of course we have all hear this quote;
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
😮

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wavy wrote:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

-Arthur C. Clarke

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yup

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Hard science-fiction stories based on the assumption of a sufficiently advanced technology that can be explained in terms of either present or possible future science (something that cannot be confirmed or denied, because it is in a gray area, beyond current understanding, for example the nature and even existence of dark matter and dark energy) is one thing.
Stories where things depend on the existence of wizards, witches, magic spells, trolls, elves, assorted superstitious beliefs, ghosts, or revenants, is quite another.

Then there are so-called “rubber-science” stories, for example those that assume that faster-than-light travel is somehow both theoretically possible as well as practical (*) in order to explain galaxy-spanning empires and, or Planet Federation stories; these stories generally belong to the popular sub-genre known as “Space Opera.”

So one can read more than actually intended in that brief statement by Clarke.

(*) Meaning based on ideas that we do not know if they violate natural laws, or on those at present consensually accepted as correct — the Alcubierre drive, transversable wormholes — that require impractically large amounts of energy to function, at the same level of those produced in star supernova explosions, for example.

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Finally, there are the “gimmicky” science-fiction stories (as far as I know, that name is one I just made up) where, for example in the case of H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine”, this machine is just a gimmick to get to the actually important and savagely satirical part of the story and, with it, to its main point:

That in  a rigidly structured society (not entirely unlike the one Wells lived in) — one where there is a privileged ruling class and an under-privileged working class whose individuals are bound from birth to grow up to serve the others — if things go on for long enough, humans might evolve into two separate species: the ruling class humans into something like the Earth’s surface-living, pleasant, cossetted and comfortable as well as pretty, but helpless Eloi, served by those of the other species, the underground-living, ugly and nasty Morlocks, who take good care of them for the same reason cattle farmers rise and take good care of their animals, keeping them in good shape, but only for as long as necessary, as these are destined from birth to be slaughtered and eaten. In this case, by the farmers themselves.

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On a more necrological note:

Today I was watching once more, after many years, an episode of “Babylon 5”, as I plan to watch the whole series again, now available in HBOmax.

And seeing those actors, knowing that some had died since that series ended, a series that even after all these years still impresses me as being head and shoulders above so many science-fiction shows that came afterwards, I decided to search the Web to find more information on who are those actors no longer around.

The result is a long list, including some of the writers, producers, etc., but overwhelmingly actors, many who have died in their 50s and early 60s, including several of those in the lead roles.

So if you are feeling a bit morbid and, or wish to spend a quiet, silent moment paying homage to many of those who once brought to life such a brilliant show, then read on:

Babylon 5 Actors/Actresses/Personnel Who Have Died:

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls023048945/

Tempus fugit, memento mori: Time flies, remember death.

And the dead. As long as someone remembers them and what they did, be it for years or for centuries afterwards, they are not totally erased from this world, nor their achievements totally forgotten.

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Its the Babylon Curse! I will in a morbid mood look at that link. I imagine some from FireFly have died as well. Maybe in CGI they will live again and if they could resurrect the pilot please.

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Speaking of Babylon 5, a very recent article about the reboot scheduled for 2023:

https://www.thewrap.com/babylon-5-reboot-original-creator-the-cw/

Quoting: “In a from-the-ground-up reboot of the original series, John Sheridan, an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war. His arrival triggers a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined, as an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilization a million years ahead of us, putting Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew in the line of fire as the last, best hope for the survival of the human race.”

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Three remarks, one grim, one explanatory, the third hopeful:

Of the 8 lead actors of the original show, all posing in character in the photo at the beginning of the “The Wrap” article linked above by RebusCom, at least five are now dead.

One reason for the reboot to be “from the beginning”, so this is more of a rewind than a restart, is that the story cannot be continued from some time after the end of the previous show, because there the Babylon 5 station had been closed down and then destroyed, as the deserted station was considered to be a space navigation hazard.

The creator of the original Babyloon 5, Straczynski, together with the Wachowski sisters of “The Matrix” fame, have recently produced a Netflix two-seasons plus a two-part finale series called “Sense8”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense8

It sounds like worth having a look, if nothing else because of who are its three creators. Has anyone here watched it?

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Has anyone here watched it?

It’s on my list but have been somewhat hesitant because it was like Babylon 5 intended as a five year story arc but in this case got the plug pulled unexpectedly after the season 2 cliffhanger, despite critical acclaim.  Netflix was convinced to at least do a final episode to resolve the cliffhanger and end the series but it’s truncated nevertheless.

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OscarCP wrote:

Sense8

Not so recent but I had no idea that he had anything to do with it.
And how could this not have already been mentioned as one of the greats??

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wavy asked about Sense8: “And how could this [show] not have already been mentioned as one of the greats?? ”

I watched the first episode last weekend and I did not find it that great. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who came to this conclusion, and that’s why?

I saw some good acting and also some good production values (the walls did not shake when someone closed a door hard), but the characters were not as in Babylon 5 (or in The Matrix): interesting and, or intriguing enough to awake my curiosity and get my attention pretty much right away.

Those in Sense8? Just ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances (in a situation with a strong smell of magic). I see ordinary people every day (sans magic): some are fine, some are not, but I wouldn’t go crazy about knowing a lot more about each of them to the point of following a show about their lives episode after episode, even if I’ve already paid the cost of admission (Netflix monthly fees).

Also I find actors pretending explicitly to have sex and going on and on and on and on and on and on at it frankly annoying. Especially if not expecting to get some of the real kind myself.

So that’s my two cents about this show and why it died after just two of the originally planed five seasons. Likely this was not a case of premature death under suspicious circumstances, as were those of “Firefly”, or the original “Futurama.”

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OscarCP wrote:

Today I was watching once more, after many years, an episode of “Babylon 5”, as I plan to watch the whole series again, now available in HBOmax.

Just added it to my queue! 🙂

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OscarCP wrote:

these stories generally belong to the popular sub-genre known as “Space Opera.”

Like Star Wars??

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wavy: Yes, “Star Wars” is a good example of Space Opera.

Meaning a science-fiction novel, movie or TV series where there is some kind of Galactic Empire or United Worlds Federation made possible by faster-than-light travel or some other imaginary forms of transportation by means currently unknown to science, populated by humans and aliens. Probably with also the kind of plot where beautiful and brave young lady, maybe a princess, is in serious trouble and a daring and dashing hero shows up and decides to help her and then both together save the Universe from something totally awful and the story ends with them deeply in love with each other and all the baddies dead or getting some dreadful punishment. Unless it quite doesn’t, because there may be a sequel. That sort of thing.

It never gets old.

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A good sci-fi tv series not mentioned here was “Eureka” (2006-2012)

https://thetvdb.com/series/eureka

“The sleepy Pacific Northwest town of Eureka is hiding a mysterious secret. The government has been relocating the world’s geniuses and their families to this rustic town for years where innovation and chaos have lived hand in hand. U.S. Marshal Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) stumbles upon this odd town after wrecking his car and becoming stranded there. When the denizens of the town unleash an unknown scientific creation, Carter jumps in to try to restore order and consequently learns of one of the country’s best kept secrets.”

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I thought it had been mentioned already, but I just did a search and: no, it hadn’t.

It is a rather famous one, so I’m glad it has been mentioned now.

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wavy wrote:

Probably with also the kind of plot where beautiful and brave young lady, maybe a princess, is in serious trouble and a daring and dashing hero shows up and decides to help her and then both together save the Universe from something totally awful and the story ends with them deeply in love with each other and all the baddies dead or getting some dreadful punishment.

That could also describe a “Space Western”, e.g. “Firefly”. 🙂

I really liked the Space Operas: Battlestar Galactica, and the Expanse.

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JohnW: “Firefly” is a Space Opera of the “Space Western” variety. Or the other way around.
And I wrote the definition you have quoted in answer to wavy, not the other way around.

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Furthermore, “Firefly” has no Princess in it, unless one counts “The Ambassador” as sort of high-nobility. Ginger wouldn’t do at all. Zoe would be impressive enough with or without a title. As to Kaylee and River … The nice and the crazy? … no way!

And rumor has it that the big “F” is back! …
As a series of novels:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/8/16991536/firefly-serenity-books-joss-whedon

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43699949-generations

 

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Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra, the high class courtesan could easily be the princess.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Charlie: “Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra, the high class courtesan could easily be the princess.”

I know she could pass for one. She was “The Ambassador” for the “Serenity” crew, because she was so classy (and breathtakingly beautiful) that having her around helped them get paying customers for their own interplanetary transportation business.

I suspect, as her backstory was never clear about this, that she might have been born and bred upper-crust, somewhere, besides being “Academy”, but not as a Princess (if nothing else, because there was no monarchy in the “Firefly” universe).

Besides, no one had to come to help her with her troubles. She was pretty good at taking care of herself.  Remember when she and Ginger met for a last time, with seriously-bad-girl Ginger trapped inside a huge garbage can? Or in “Serenity”, the movie, when she actually asked for help, Malcom came, but she solved the problem herself with some explosive incense sticks?

So not a typical “Space Opera” fair lady at all. And “Firefly” was not a typical Space Opera either.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

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OscarCP wrote:

And I wrote the definition you have quoted in answer to wavy, not the other way around.

You will need to thank (or blame) this forum software for inserting an incorrect quote attribution. That quote was taken directly from the *context of your post, not wavy’s. I didn’t see that until after you had pointed it out.

*highlight desired text in original post, then click on quote link…

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JohnW: “You will need to thank (or blame) this forum software for inserting an incorrect quote attribution.”

That is the reason I do not use this site software for quoting. What I do, instead, takes a minuscule amount of extra wok, no more, and never fails (unless I screw up, and that’s on  me). Plenty of examples in my comments in this thread alone, including this latest one.

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The Lazarus Project

“When George wakes up one day and finds himself reliving a day from months ago, he thinks he’s lost his mind. All of his recent milestones have been undone, including his success at work and his marriage to the love of his life. Worst of all, he seems to be the only one who has noticed what’s happened. That is, until he meets Archie, who recruits George for the Lazarus Project – a secret organisation that has harnessed the ability to turn back time every time the world is at threat of extinction. Like George, those who work at Lazarus are the few people on earth with the ability to remember the events that are undone when time goes back.”

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More Babylon 5 news:

On Twitter, Straczynski informed his followers that not only has the project already wrapped, with a firm 2023 release date, but that “all of the main B5 cast members still around participated.” There aren’t many left. Claudia Christian was mentioned.

“it’s the closest thing to the original B5 in tone of anything we’ve done since. As if no time has passed at all. 100% crescent fresh”

https://www.themarysue.com/a-secret-babylon-5-project-has-already-been-completed-according-to-j-michael-straczynski/

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Intriguing. And Claudia Christian is in it? Well, that is a change for the better, whatever the show is like.

She and others left Babylon 5 at the end of Season 4, to work in other shows; she one in England, I think, because it looked at the time that Babylon 5 was going to have a premature death, given the shaky financial situation the studio producing the show was in, among other reasons. And the rest of the cast and Straczynsky himself took her going away badly. In the last episode of season 4 her name wasn’t even spoken in the running commentary and dialog between Straczynsky and one of the actors, that in the DVDs one can choose to listen in voiceover while the episodes are being played. Season 5 was, in fact, cancelled by the producers. But then some angels showed up in the form of TNT execs that picked up the 5th Season so, in the end, this last season happened and, just as Straczynsky had planned all along, the show became a complete story told in five seasons. Christian was replaced with Tracy Scoggins, whose new character then replaced Sheridan as commander of Babylon 5, when he left to take up the position of President of a new interplanetary alliance.

Here there is more about Babylon5 whys and wherefores that most sane people would like to know:

https://screenrant.com/babylon-5-dark-secrets-trivia-facts/

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I just thought I’d mention that I liked the movie “2001 a Space Odyssey” mainly because of its superb special effects and very accurate and inspiring space details.  As far as the story line was concerned I thought it was sadly lacking, especially in the first Ape-man part.

Well, I just finished reading the novel by Arthur C. Clark (finally after the book sat around for many years).  Wow, what a tremendous difference!  The book is great with more story and many of the details in it that were left out of the movie.  I know that the book always contains more than the movie but this book was only around 220 pages long.

As long as so many remakes are being made now, I would really like to see them do one on this based more on the book.  That is if the movie 2010 didn’t mess things up too much.  What do you think?

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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Charlie wrote:

Well, I just finished reading the novel by Arthur C. Clark (finally after the book sat around for many years). Wow, what a tremendous difference! The book is great with more story and many of the details in it that were left out of the movie.

I read the book in the 60’s in junior high school. Discussed it with my English teacher before seeing the movie in the theater. A total classic!!! 🙂

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Stanley Kubrick, the great director, was a genius who made this movie, so original and so unforgettable: a landmark in science fiction cinematography.

Or in cinematography, period.

If I remember correctly, he made it working with Clark in a collaborative effort, and Clark wrote the book afterwards, as a novelization of the movie and also to make clear some things many people (me included) did not understand. So the movie came first and the novel followed, not the other way around. That said, I remembered it as a good book in its own right.

One thing I didn’t liked that much about the movie was the choice of Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zaratustra” (“Thus Spoke Zarathustra”) to emphasize certain dramatic passages. Probably because I’ve never liked Nietzsche that much: “He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Even if not demonstrably wrong (or right), this can be soo depressing, if taken seriously.

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Charlie

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Docu : Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (Amazon Prime)

“The film tells the story of Kurt Vonnegut’s life and work. At the same time, it explores the process of making this film, which started 40 years earlier”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut:_Unstuck_in_Time

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To many of us, Kurt Vonnegut was one of our bright guiding lights during the decades from the post war onwards. Beginning in the late Seventies, when I discovered his work, I read everything by him that was published, and went to some big bookstore looking for it, or ordered it at a small local one, when a new novel came out or I discovered the title of an older one I had not read. His novels never disappointed and always helped me understand important things about the world where I lived. And, all these years later, they still do.

He wrote some science-fiction novels, with aliens in them from the planet Tralfamadore, that circles a distant star in anther galaxy that is a neighbor of our on.

And, of course “The Sirens of Titan.” The novel is a very fine one, but was initially panned by the critics, although eventually that changed and, regardless, it went to win the Hugo, the highest award given on the base of attendants’ votes at the large annual World Science Fiction Convention, or WorldCon, awarded to the “finest fantasy or science-fiction novel of the year.”

So henceforth he would declare, half (?) kidding, in his typical dead-pan manner, in some of his following books, that usually did deal with his personal points of view as did with their particular stories, that he, Kurt Vonnegut, had written the best science fiction novel ever: “The Sirens of Titan.” He was a Mid-Westerner from Indiana, but self-effacing and contemporizing he was not.

When he died, in 2007, some of the best of my world left with him. But the objective world continued spinning on its axis, day following night following day, the seasons of the year and other things, even mountains and seas, kept changing with the passing of time, some people came in and some went out of my life and, in the end, some also out of theirs.

And so it goes.

 

Where to watch the trailer and the full movie:

https://www.vonnegutmovie.com/

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With the sale of CW there’s concern that the Babylon 5 reboot will get cut in the next couple of weeks, even though it’s pretty much already in the can. JMS is asking fans to express their support ASAP.

This sounds like a reboot of the tenuous nature of the original B5.
https://www.tor.com/2022/09/19/j-michael-straczynski-babylon-5-fan-campaign/

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RebusCom: “This sounds like a reboot of the tenuous nature of the original B5.”

It’s got to be like that, after all this series premiered in the very last years of the Nineties, close to a quarter century ago. And not only that, but too many of the main and middle-range characters have left our Valley of Tears in this interim. They still have Claudia Christian (Ivanova) and  Peter Jurasik (Londo Mollari) and I think that is probably about it. And they are a bit different looking now than they were then.

The CW being sold is a concern because of the Babylon 5’s reboot, indeed, but also at so many other levels!

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Star Wars: Andor first 3 episodes aired on Disney+

https://thetvdb.com/series/andor

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Kamisama no pazuru (2008) – God’s Puzzle.
(I never miss Takashi Miike movies).

Students invents an infinity-shaped particle accelerator named Mugen and try to create a universe of their own.

The movie was released just before the sensational headlines about the Large Hadron Collider

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OscarCP

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TV series : The Lazarus Project 2022 on Sky Max.

“When George wakes up one day and finds himself reliving a day from months ago, he thinks he’s lost his mind. All of his recent milestones have been undone, including his success at work and his marriage to the love of his life. Worst of all, he seems to be the only one who has noticed what’s happened. That is, until he meets Archie, who recruits George for the Lazarus Project – a secret organisation that has harnessed the ability to turn back time every time the world is at threat of extinction. Like George, those who work at Lazarus are the few people on earth with the ability to remember the events that are undone when time goes back.”

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Science (fiction) : A Trip to Infinity on Netflix

“Does infinity exist? Can we experience the Infinite? In an animated film (created by artists from 10 countries) the world’s most cutting-edge scientists and mathematicians go in search of the infinite and its mind-bending implications for the universe. Eminent mathematicians, particle physicists and cosmologists dive into infinity and its mind-bending implications for the universe.”

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Trip to Infinity’ on Netflix, a Mind-Boggling Documentary About Everything We Don’t Know About Everything

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#BackToTheFuture #michaeljfox #christopherlloyd
Forever Doc & Marty NYC ComicCon.

https://twitter.com/Elena09766/status/1579100736063172608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1579100736063172608%7Ctwgr%5Eb9d9f4072d75ed43c222dcb0045905149160d75c%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tmz.com%2F2022%2F10%2F09%2Fmichael-j-fox-reunites-back-to-the-future-christopher-lloyd-comic-con%2F

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Star Wars Tales of the Jedi (Disney+ Animation)

“A 6 episode event featuring parables around Jedi from the prequel era. Journey into the lives of two distinctly different Jedi – Ahsoka Tano and Count Dooku. Each will be put to the test as they make choice that will define their destinies.”

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Human (Short 2017)

“The official multi award winning sci-fi independent short film ‘Human’. Directed by multi award winning film maker Patrick Ryder, Human tells the story of Anna, a woman lost and alone who stumbles upon what appears to be an abandoned warehouse, but what she discovers inside will change her life forever with the discovery of Allium the robot ‘Played by Alex Phillips and voiced by Mitch Rouse’. An intelligent machine capable of learning and possibly even feeling. The pair spark up an unlikely friendship and when Anna learns of ‘Mari’ ‘Nadia Lamin’ a woman who may hold the key to all the secrets, Anna knows what she must do.”

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The Peripherals tv series on Amazon Prime.

https://www.amazon.com/What-About-Bob/dp/B0B8TGMJQB/ref=sr_1_1/?crid=245XIY8I8G2I&keywords=the+peripherals&s=instant-video&sprefix=the+peripherals%2Cinstant-video%2C351&sr=1-1

“Set in the future when technology has subtly altered society, a woman discovers a secret connection to an alternate reality as well as a dark future of her own.’

https://www.amazon.com/Peripheral-William-Gibson-ebook/dp/B00INIXKV2?ref=abptr_pts_pv_tp_hqp_0908

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The Babylon 5 reboot is still in limbo.  No decision yet from the new executives as to whether or not they will pull the plug as they did with other planned CW projects following the buyout.

https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/babylon-5-reboot-could-still-happen-the-cw

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His Dark Materials season 3 first 2 episodes aired on HBO.

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Doom Patrol season 4 first 2 episodes aired on HBO.

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The Expanse: One Ship (Amazon video)

“An anthology of short webisodes of The Expanse, all relating to the Doctrine of One Ship – that there is only one ship, and it has countless parts as a single body has countless cells.”

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wavy

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Prime however does not seem to know about it.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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wavy wrote:

Prime however does not seem to know about it.

I noticed that too, but also see a notice that the webisodes it consists of were released concurrently to the first five episodes of season 6 of The Expanse, and are available in the X-Ray bonus content section on Prime Video.

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wavy, Alex5723

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 2 first 2 episodes aired on Disney+

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Apple TV ‘Foundation’ season 2 trailer.

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First episode of ‘The Last of Us‘ aired on HBO.

“Based on the 2013 video game developed by Naughty Dog, the series follows Joel (Pedro Pascal), a smuggler tasked with escorting the teenage Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across a post-apocalyptic United States.”

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3581920/

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The Mandalorian season 3, Disney+, March 1.

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Tv series Three-Body (“The Three-Body Problem”) is airing now

“Adapted from the novel “The Three-Body Problem” (三体) by Liu Ci Xin (刘慈欣).
A nanomaterials expert sees a mysterious countdown superimposed in his field of vision and finds himself under military investigation. To unravel the mystery, he enters the VR game “Three-Body” developed by a secret organization ETO and discovers the truth behind the deaths of dozens of scientists and a tragedy from the days of the Cultural Revolution.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel)

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* The Chinese beat Netflix in adapting ‘The Three-Body Problem’ books in a TV series (30 episodes).

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Paramount Plus 2/16 – Star Trek: Picard Season 3

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Remastered Babylon 5 is Coming to The Roku Channel & Tubi After Leaving HBO Max (though no date has been announced yet)

https://cordcuttersnews.com/remastered-babylon-5-is-coming-to-the-roku-channel-tubi-after-leaving-hbo-max/

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Alex5723

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Carnival Row season 2 episodes 1-2 aired on Amazon Prime

Star Trek: Picard season 3 episode 1 aired on Amazon Prime

Hello Tomorrow! on Apple tv+

“In a retro-futuristic world, charismatic salesman Jack Billings leads a team of fellow sales associates determined to revitalize their customers’ lives by hawking timeshares on the moon.”

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Extrapolations. Apple TV+ March 17.

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2420491545/?playlistId=tt13821126

“Unanticipated stories of how the upcoming changes to our planet will affect love, faith, work and family on a personal and human scale.”

* Speaking about Apple and climate changes :

“The National Legal and Policy Center is using its power as an Apple shareholder to propose removing Al Gore and CEO Tim Cook from the board of directors during the March 10 shareholder meeting…

“Al Gore was never qualified to serve on Apple’s board in the first place, so for him to last for over 20 years is absurd,” NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project Director Paul Chesser told Fox Business. “The only credentials he had, or has ever had, that meet any of Apple’s questionable criteria was that he’s been a Chicken Little for global warming. That term was so discredited that it’s now called ‘climate change.’ And so many of his other prophecies of doom have been proven untrue that he should be considered a false prophet.”..

https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/02/24/nlpc-seeks-to-kick-tim-cook-al-gore-from-apple-board-of-directors

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The Mandalorian season 3 episode 1 aired on Disney+

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Of course, you are welcome. (I just canceled Hulu/Disney) 🙄

Maybe next year

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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A preview of the upcoming Dune, Part II.  Looks to be epic.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/04/dune-part-two-exclusive-first-look

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Alex5723

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First teaser trailer for Peacock’s Twisted Metal series to air on July, 27.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYb_HFHJJHs

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RebusCom wrote:

A preview of the upcoming Dune, Part II.  Looks to be epic.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/04/dune-part-two-exclusive-first-look

First trailer of Dune, Part II

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RebusCom

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JMS has announced the soon to be released Babylon 5 animated movie.  He wrote the story, it’s been completed, and now just awaits release by Warner. Warner will be releasing the details (cast, title, when, where, how, etc.) sometime next week.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/3/23708919/babylon-5-secret-project-jms-straczynski

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More details released regarding the new B5 animated movie set to be released this summer, titled, “The Road Home”, with the logline stating, “Travel across the galaxy with John Sheridan as he unexpectedly finds himself transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home. Along the way he reunites with some familiar faces, while discovering cosmic new revelations about the history, purpose, and meaning of the Universe.”

Returning Babylon 5 castmembers include Bruce Boxleitner as John Sheridan, Claudia Christian as Susan Ivanova, Peter Jurasik as Londo Mollari, Bill Mumy as Lennier, Tracy Scoggins as Elizabeth Lochley and Patricia Tallman as Lyta Alexander.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/babylon-5-the-road-home-voice-cast-unveiled-1235483312/

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Alex5723

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Foundation season 2 on Apple TV July 14 2023

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First 2 episodes of Silo (wool) aired on Apple TV.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14688458/

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Apple TV+ post-apocalyptic ‘Silo’ becomes the number one streaming show/movie

Last week, we saw the Apple TV+ adaptation of the popular Silo book series land as the second-most-watched streaming show/movie on Reelgood’s chart. A week later and Silo has become the most popular streaming show/movie with Apple’s Ted Lasso close behind…

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Japanese Anime tv series ‘STAR WARS: VISIONS‘ season 2 aired on Disney+

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Watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1 for free (on YouTube)

Second season to air on Thursday, June 15 (Paramount+)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Charlie

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Black Mirror season 6 June 16 Netflix

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First 5 minutes of MCU’s ‘Secret Invasion’ (Disney + June 21)

https://www.theinvasionhasbegun.com/ password : RSD3PX5N7S

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 episode 1 aired on Paramount+.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_Human_(TV_series)

Thirteen episodes and very timely.

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Alex5723

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Very good series

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Season 6 of Black Mirror aired to day on Netflix

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Good news)

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Movie trailer has been released for the new animated Babylon 5 movie, “The Road Home”.

https://nerd-tropolis.com/babylon-5-the-road-home-trailer/

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Alex5723

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Babylon 5 – The Road Home on blu-ray.

“Travel across the galaxy with John Sheridan as he unexpectedly finds himself transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home. Along the way he reunites with some familiar faces, while discovering cosmic new revelations about the history, purpose, and meaning of the Universe.”

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Marvel faces backlash over AI-generated opening credits

Social media users condemned use of AI -generated opening credits for Secret Invasion premiering this week on Disney+

Marvel’s Secret Invasion, a new television series which launched on Disney+ this week, has received backlash online after it was revealed that its opening credits were generated by artificial intelligence..

The revelation has caused a stir on social media, as it’s presumed that the use of AI on the opening credits precluded work for graphic designers and animators. “I’m devastated, I believe AI to be unethical, dangerous and designed solely to eliminate artists careers,” tweeted Jeff Simpson, who worked with the visual development team on Secret Invasion. “Spent almost half a year working on this show and had a fantastic experience working with the most amazing people I ever met …”
.
‘Those who hate AI are insecure’: inside Hollywood’s battle over artificial intelligence

In another tweet, Jon Lam, a storyboard artist, called the decision “salt in the wounds of all Artists and Writers in the WGA strike”…

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Futurama is back with season 11 on July 24 on Disney+

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Foundation season 2 episode 1 aired on Apple tv+

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Thank you for the heads-up.

This is one thing I detest about most about streaming services:  they don’t go out of the way to let you when a series that’s in your favorites (whatever the specific service calls it) has a new season.  With seasons seldom longer than 10 weeks (10 episodes), it’s all too easy to forget about it.  When a “season” ends, it’s hard to find out whether there will be a next season.

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MHCLV941 wrote:

This is one thing I detest about most about streaming services:  they don’t go out of the way to let you when a series that’s in your favorites (whatever the specific service calls it) has a new season.

I keep a list of TV/Movies I am interest in.

My Current list :

TV :

Special Ops: Lioness (Paramount, 23/07/2023)
Twisted Metal (Peacock 27/07/2023)
Ahsoka (Disney 12/08/2023)
Invasion (ATV 23/08/2023)
The Morning Show (ATV 13/09/2023)
The Continental (Peacock 09/2023)
Echo (Dismey 11/2023)
True Detective (MAX)
The Penguin (MAX 2023)
Gen V (Amazon 2023)
Agatha: Coven of Chaos (Disney 2023)
Dune: The Sisterhood (HBO 2023)
Fallout (Amazon 2023)
Secret Invasion (Disney 2023)
Loki (Disney 2023)
The Three-Body Problem (tv Netflix 01/2024)
Andor season 2 (8/2024)

Movies:

Bird Box Barcelona (NF 14/07/2023)
The Flash (16/06/2023)
Past Lives (23/06/2023)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (12/07/2023)
Heart of Stone (NF 11/08/2023)
The Creator (28/09/2023)
Kraven the Hunter (06/10/2023)
Dune: Part Two (3/11/2023)
The Marvels (10/11/2023)
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (17/11/2023)
Rebel Moon (NF 22/12/2023)
Skeleton Crew (2023)
BRZRKR (NF 2023)
The Old Guard 2 (NF 2023)
Deadpool 3 (Disney 03/05/2024)
Thunderbolts (26/07/2024)
Fantastic Four (08/11/2024)
Avengers: Secret Wars (01/05/2026)

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Movie The Creator Sept. 29.

“Amidst a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, Joshua (Washington), a hardened ex-special forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife (Chan), is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war… and mankind itself. Joshua and his team of elite operatives journey across enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory… only to discover the world-ending weapon he’s been instructed to destroy is an AI in the form of a young child.”

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Movie The Creator on Amazon Prime Video.

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Alex5723 wrote:

Futurama is back with season 11 on July 24 on Disney+

Reminder : Futurama aired today .
Already downloadable on Torrent sites.

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Ahsoka episodes 1 and 2 premiere at 6 p.m. PT / 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday, August 22 on Disney+

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I just started The Peripheral and now because of the strike the once renewed show is unrenewed. 😢

The best SCI FI I have watched in a looong time. Maybe once the strike is settled it can be rerenewed.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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The Peripheral was very good.

Just intend to re-watch ‘The Lost Room’ 2006. One of the best ever sci-fi series.

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First trailer for Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire (Netflix Dec. 22)

1 user thanked author for this post.

wavy

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The new season of Doctor Who with Three Specials air Nov. 25 on Disney+

..Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction television series (60 years) in the world. The very first episode “An Unearthly Child” aired back in 1963..

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Scavengers Reign (tv series, animation, MAX)

“..the remaining crew of a damaged interstellar freighter ship find themselves stranded on a beautiful, yet unforgiving alien planet where they must survive long enough to escape or be rescued. As the survivors struggle to locate their downed ship and missing crewmates, their new home reveals a hostile world allowed to thrive without human interference.”

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Class of ’09 (FX tv series)

Class of ’09

Class of ’09 is a suspense thriller following a class of FBI agents set in a near future where the U.S. criminal justice system has been transformed by artificial intelligence. The group of FBI agents who graduated from Quantico in 2009 are reunited following the death of a mutual friend. Spanning three decades and told across three interweaving timelines, the series examines the nature of justice, humanity and the choices we make that ultimately define our lives and our legacy.”

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Halo series season 2 air on Paramount+

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Chinese ‘Three Body’ tv series air on Prime Video, Peacock, Rakuten Viki

* Netflix’s ‘3 Body Problem’ will air on March 21.

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Star Wars ‘The Bad Batch’ season 3 airs on Disney.

Tomorrow ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ will air on Netflix.

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William Gibson’s Neuromancer is coming to Apple TV

The long-awaited sci-fi epic Neuromancer, based on the award-winning novel by William Gibson, is coming to Apple TV Plus as a 10-episode miniseries.

Famous for its influence on sci-fi culture and for coining the phrase “cyberspace”, Gibson’s iconic novel is a huge IP for Apple to take on. Inspiring everything from The Matrix films to the popular videogame Cyberpunk 2077, you can even draw a through-line from its depiction of head-mounted computer equipment to Apple’s own Vision Pro headset…

While there is no confirmed cast at the time of writing, the show will be created by Graham Roland (“Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” “Dark Winds”) and JD Dillard (“Devotion,” “The Outsider,” “Sleight”)…

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Star Trek Discovery is back with season 5

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Fallout (Amazon TV) will air on April 10 @ 6 p.m. PT.

“In a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation, citizens must live in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation, mutants and bandits.”

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Neil deGrasse Tyson’s best sci-fi movies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAKXQKMTAU0

The Matrix (1999): “You gotta love The Matrix and how deeply thought through those plot lines are.” One plot point he does quibble with: The humans are used by the machines as a source of power, but the humans still need to be fed in order to be kept alive. Tyson mused that the machines could actually derive sufficient energy from what the humans were being fed with, cutting out the middleman entirely.

The Martian (2015): Tyson describes this one, starring Matt Damon as an astronaut who gets stranded on Mars, as “the most scientifically accurate movie I’ve ever witnessed.”

The Blob (1958): Reaching deep into the past for this one, Tyson gives this old-school creature feature high marks because of the way it imagines aliens looking amoeba-like — totally different, in other words, from almost every other movie in which you see an alien depicted as something like a little green man.

Contact (1997): This one gets Tyson’s stamp of approval for its creative look at how humanity might respond to making contact with aliens.

Interstellar (2014): Tyson has made no secret that he’s basically a Christopher Nolan fanboy. This one is many people’s favorite movie from the director (I’m one of the weirdos who loves Tenet the most, but that’s neither here nor there). Interstellar — in which a team of NASA scientists, engineers, and pilots traverses the universe to find a new home for humanity — earns a spot on Tyson’s list for having “the most authentic physics” compared to any other movie ever made.

Gravity (2013): I remember seeing this next one, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, on a giant theatre screen, and I agree with Tyson 100%. Gravity is a breathtaking “spectacle,” no doubt about it. Furthermore, while it does get some of the science wrong, Tyson concedes that it gets plenty right. Among the incorrect parts: Remember the end, when Bullock’s character is holding on to a tether and trying to reach Clooney? Because space is a vacuum, all she needed to do was gently tug on the tether, and Clooney would have started floating towards her and been saved.

Back to the Future (1985): Gee, I wonder why this all-time classic starring Michael J. Fox is on this list of the best sci-fi movies? Obviously, in Tyson’s words, it’s the best time-travel movie ever made, hands down.

Deep Impact (1998): “They got their physics right,” Tyson says about this next film, in which humans prepare for the impact of a comet that’s found to be on a collision course with Earth.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951): “No, there’s no weird aliens,” Tyson points out here. No violence, no blood. “It’s just a suspenseful drama of how we might react, learning that aliens have come to visit.” Watch it, he urges, for how much thought and care was put into the film and the story.

The Quiet Earth (1985): Another sci-fi deep cut, as it were, this one is simply a “well-made sci-fi drama,” and it tells a post-apocalyptic story in which a scientist wakes up to find himself literally all alone in the world.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): Last but not least, we come to director Stanley Kubrick’s classic that’s adapted from a story by Arthur C. Clarke. Tyson puts this one all the way at the very top of his list of the best sci-fi movies. “Yes, it gets weird,” he acknowledges. “What matters is how much influence this film had on everything.”

https://bgr.com/entertainment/a-neil-degrasse-tyson-approved-list-of-the-best-sci-fi-movies/

1 user thanked author for this post.

Charlie

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I agree with Neil, all of these were great movies with great special effects for their time.  I do have to say however that after reading the book, the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey left out too much of the part in space and spent way too much time with the man-apes.  Just my opinion, the book had so much more real story.  Guess they couldn’t fit it all into a movie.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

1 user thanked author for this post.

Alex5723

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The Boys season 4 air on Prime Video

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New Francis Ford Coppola’s MEGALOPOLIS Trailer contains at the beginning fake bad reviews of some of his movies, written by AI.

The trailer has been since removed by Liongate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKP6y7FNOTw&t=28s

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/lionsgate-pulls-francis-ford-coppola-s-megalopolis-trailer-featuring-fake-quotes-from-film-critics-we-screwed-up/ar-AA1pgcDj

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deleted.

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Gundam Requiem for Vengeance (Kidô senshi Gandamu: Fukushû no Requiem) TV Series

“In the year 0079, the Principality of Zeon rebels against the Earth Federation, sparking a war. After 11 months, the Federation seizes a Zeon base in Eastern Europe as a mixed battalion moves to reclaim it.”

https://www.netflix.com/il-en/title/81276500

https://gundam.fandom.com/wiki/One_Year_War

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Both Expanse and Firefly are excellent Sy-Fy series.

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WSjam52503 wrote:

Both Expanse and Firefly are excellent Sy-Fy series.

Yes, they are.
I would add Final Fantasy, Ghost in the Shell series..

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A hidden science fiction gem from 1962 : La Jetée

“The 1995 science fiction film 12 Monkeys was inspired by and borrows several concepts directly from La Jetée, as does the 2015 TV series of the same name…(as does the 2024 docu 2073)

..A man is a prisoner in the aftermath of World War III in post-apocalyptic Paris, where survivors live underground in the Palais de Chaillot galleries. Scientists research time travel, hoping to send test subjects to different time periods “to call past and future to the rescue of the present…”

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