Tag Archives: science fiction movies
Judy, Judy, Judy!
I’ve been a fan of science fiction since the early 1960s. I was already an avid fan and ready audience for Lost in Space (1966–68; Judy was one of my earliest childhood crushes), It’s About Time (1966–67), and I was glued to the TV set enthralled when Kirk, Spock, and the rest, first boldly went in 1966.
By then I’d already consumed all I could of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, along with Verne, Wells, and Burroughs (I didn’t discover Tolkien or Howard until high school a few years later).
Movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), and Forbidden Planet (1956), all had me avid for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
It’s been a whole lot of years, and a whole lot of science fiction, is my point.
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22 Comments | tags: cyberpunk, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, Jules Verne, Lost in Space, Neal Stephenson, Robert E. Howard, science fiction, science fiction books, science fiction movies, science fiction TV, SF, SF Books, SF Movies, Snow Crash, William Gibson | posted in Books, Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday, TV
It’s been a long time since I’ve written a Sci-Fi Saturday post. (I didn’t post at all in 2017, so it’s been a long time since I’ve written a lot of things.) But last night I watched Mr. Nobody (2009), a slightly surreal science fiction film that I found hugely engaging and affecting, and it inspired me to write about it.
The truth is that Mr. Nobody isn’t actually surrealism — it does have a concrete narrative, but it’s a jumbled, imaginary, and fantastic one. That can sometimes be the case with really good science fiction. A common trick SF authors play is keeping you guessing until they reveal their mysteries.
Mr. Nobody isn’t particularly mysterious, but it does require that you pay close attention!
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2 Comments | tags: Amy Adams, Arrival (film), Denis Villeneuve, Jaco Van Dormael, Jered Leto, Many Worlds Interpretation, Mr. Nobody, Richard Kelly, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, science fiction, science fiction film, science fiction movies, Southland Tales, Story of Your Life, Ted Chiang | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday
So… I finally saw the most recent Star Wars movie the other night (it has already made its way to cable; meanwhile, I’m still waiting for Interstellar and Ex Machina to show up). Those who know my value system with regard to science fiction, with regard to movies, and especially with regard to science fiction movies, warned me I that I probably wouldn’t like it very much.
But I already knew that was likely just because of who directed it (same guy who nailed the Star Trek coffin shut), so I approached watching it with very low expectations and without any oxen to gore (since I was never really a fan and never really got into the characters or story).
And even so I still really disliked it. A whole bunch.
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8 Comments | tags: science fiction, science fiction movies, Star Wars, Star Wars VII | posted in Movies, Sci-Fi Saturday
It started out as conversation about how Edge of Tomorrow is the best big screen SF movie to come along in a good long while. That led to a ranking of recent SF movies with very high marks going to Elysium and Ender’s Game. It also touched on that Tom Cruise has made four — no, five! — SF films, at least two of which are very good.
Of course that led to talk of actors and how Jodie Foster and Matt Damon seem (unlike, for example, poor Sandra Bullock) to have excellent taste in what scripts they accept. If either of those two — let alone both — is in a movie, it’s probably pretty decent. Talk of actors in SF films naturally lead to Keanu Reeves whose ancestry and acting style make him such a perfect choice in certain roles.
And that lead to what a damn shame it is they tried to remake The Day the Earth Stood Still.
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8 Comments | tags: Edge of Tomorrow, Elysium (movie), Ender's Game, Forbidden Planet, Gone With the Wind, Hamlet, Jodie Foster, Johnny Mnemonic, Keanu Reeves, Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Olivier, Matt Damon, Philip K. Dick, remakes, Sandra Bullock, science fiction, science fiction movies, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Tom Cruise, William Gibson | posted in Movies
Today is a date most folks living in the USA write as 12-13-14, and for anyone who loves numbers a date like that demands a post of some sort. I’d planned to goof off today, maybe catch up on some movies, but there’s just no way I won’t post on a date with a sequence like that.
Of course, others write today’s date as 13-12-14, but they’re not from around here. And there’s just no helping those who insist on writing 2014. The real error is putting the year last — the sensible way is 14-12-13, which allows proper sorting of dates chronologically. We should all change to that immediately.
If it’s not obvious yet, today is just a meandering ramble.
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2 Comments | tags: Cirocco Jones, climate change, female characters, fitted sheets, folded sheets, girl power, global warming, grey skies, humor, John Varley, melting snow, Numberphile, Santa Claus, science fiction, science fiction movies, snow, Titan trilogy, USAnian, winter | posted in Sci-Fi Saturday
And then there was one.
Last time, I wrote that my definition of science fiction is fiction with science + imagination. And that the science is freely defined to include guesses and completely made up, if not downright illegitimate, physics. In fact, that’s the imagination part of the equation. The fiction part is also freely defined, but basic story telling rules should apply. The science part must also play by certain rules, even when it’s made-up science, even when it’s illegitimate
This article is about how I view the science and fiction in science fiction when it comes to playing by the rules. (Keep in mind that science fiction is art, and in art rules are made to be broken.)
Fantasy lovers take heart; in this case, my definition of science includes magic, the supernatural and the metaphysical. This uses the context of speculative fiction, which includes everything beyond current physics. The fiction canvas is framed by any physics, or metaphysics, the story requires. Warp drive is no more real science than vampires or Norse Gods; all of them are fiction.
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20 Comments | tags: Discworld, Fiction, sci fi, science fiction, science fiction books, science fiction movies, science fiction TV, SF, SF Books, SF Movies, storytelling, Terry Pratchett | posted in Books, Movies, TV
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