Sci-Fi Quote: Black Mirror is Today’s Twilight Zone

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The crew from Black Mirror’s USS Callister. (Netflix)

“In Serling’s day, the atom bomb, civil rights, McCarthyism, psychiatry and the space race were of primary concern. Today he’d be writing about terrorism, the economy, the media, privacy and our relationship with technology…That’s what we’re aiming for with Black Mirror: each episode has a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality. But they’re all about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes’ time if we’re clumsy.”

-Statement by Charlie Brooker, creator of the Black Mirror series, as quoted by Collider. Season 8 of the series will premiere on Netflix shortly. The series has been very timely as we deal with new technologies, social media, and now artificial intelligence. You might also recall two earlier episodes with the USS Callister, which was a clever and dark mimicking of Star Trek. Another good episode, called “Beyond the Sea,” also dealt with space travel. Hopefully, we will get a least one more space-related episode out of the new season.

The Original Star Wars Returns: Get Your Tickets

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If The Mandalorian and Grogu was not your favorite film this summer, you have plenty of time to prepare for the release of the original Star Wars film on its 50th anniversary. That’s right, it will be 50 years old next year.

The original Star Wars film was released on May 25, 1977. The re-release on IMAX will be available on February 19, 2027. You can sign up here to be notified when tickets become available in your area.

By original, I mean the version of the film before George Lucas started mucking it up with extra effects, such as the addition of a CGI Jabba the Hutt. You will be able to watch what everyone was watching in 1977.

And if that’s not enough, next year will also see the release of Star Wars: Starfighter with Ryan Gosling. It will premiere on 28 May, 2027, the same week as the original film in 1977. Starflighter was filmed for IMAX screens, so that will be an option as well.

Movie: South Korea’s Hope

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Forged Films.

If you are still hoping for one more summer movie about space aliens (it was released on September 9th even if it is officially fall now), South Korean filmmaker Na Hong-jin has another one to add to your list. The movie, Hope, is a thriller set in a small South Korean town on the border with North Korea. While the residents look north for a fearsome foe, little do they know the foe is from above. That’s right – extraterrestrials.

This preview indicates there will be plenty of action, though in the movie itself the aliens do not show themselves until late in the film. Hope may satisfy your need for alien battles after Disclosure Day portrayed the visitors as ICE captives and The Mandalorian and Grogu proved to be a kiddie film. How American films went from Alien terror to teddy bears this past summer is anyone’s guess.

The film reviews are mixed at best, but still somewhat encouraging.

A Deep Focus Review noted:

To work, Na’s film needed either more or less screen time for his aliens, and given their appearance, less would have been preferable. Still, action junkies and South Korean cinema fans will probably be able to look beyond the poor CGI better than I can, making it worth seeing, even admiring Hope, with caveats abounding.

The Roger Ebert site had this to say:

It’s bold, provocative, and assured filmmaking that oscillates between moments of breathtaking cinematic prowess and satirical characterizations, whose coy rendering turns a mirror toward those who unconsciously lap up hollow action heroes when the far more intriguing story exists in plain sight.

To finish up the summer stretch, you should see it for yourself and decide.

Sci-Fi Quote: You Must Have Been Living in a Hole in the Ground If You Missed Silo

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Apple TV.

“It’s not like they’re writing the show and then having to come up with, ‘Oh, how to end this?’…This is a 40 episode story. So the ending… is very satisfying because it’s the end of a novel.”

–Statement by actor Ashley Zukerman, who plays Daniel Keene in the Silo television series, regarding the fourth and final season of the series coming out on July 9, 2027. If you missed the series, particularly season three, it is a show you need to watch. We talk about living in lava tubes on the Moon or Mars, but this show is about living in an underground silo for generations here on Earth after some pretty horrible terra-forming above. You can catch it on Apple TV.

60 Years of Star Trek and Counting

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by Adam Evertsson from Pixabay.

This week we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Star Trek, a simple science fiction story from 1966 that was first broadcast in Canada and barely lasted for three seasons. But from that tepid beginning arose an idea that led to multiple spin-off television series, movies, books, and more.

And it has been a hopeful show that took the dark edge off of science fiction. As creator Gene Roddenberry said back in 1985:

I believe in humanity. We are an incredible species. We’re still just a child creature, we’re still being nasty to each other. And all children go through those phases. We’re growing up, we’re moving into adolescence now. When we grow up – man, we’re going to be something!

Today we still have plenty of people attacking Star Trek for being too liberal or “woke” as they say using the word of the week, but the show was always that way.

Discussing battles with TV executives about women on the USS Enterprise, Mr. Roddenberry noted:

I had insisted on half women on board [the Enterprise]. The network came to me and said, ‘You can’t have half women. Our people say it will make it look like a ship with all sorts of mad sexual things going on — half men and half women.’ So we argued about it like a poker game and they finally said, ‘Okay. We’ll settle for one-third women.’ I figured one-third women could take care of the males anyway.

Star Trek moved forward before the rest of the country, but it saw a future that was slowly realized over time. And even if it seems we are going backwards at times, he understood that as well when he said:

I have nothing but admiration for this silly race of ours. Even with the Hitlers in it and so on. Sometimes it goes into ugliness, but, in all though, it is a beauty. It’s like a rose, which also has thorns. We’re something.

So let’s not get too depressed just because we seem to have a Ferengi in the White House. Think long term like Mr. Roddenberry, and move past the thorns.