Sci-Fi Stories: Grogu Goes Down, Spielberg’s Summer of Nonfiction Science Fiction, and Star City Shines

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.

Here are a few sci-fi stories of interest.

—Forbes: “‘Mandalorian And Grogu’ Tumbles Out Of Top 5 After 61% Drop At Box Office“

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” is struggling at the box office, dropping 61% in its third weekend and falling out of the domestic top five. The Jon Favreau-directed film had a soft opening, earning $98 million over Memorial Day, less than 2018’s Solo, and suffered a 69% second-weekend drop. Now projected for $9.5 million, its domestic total nears $155.3 million against a $165 million production budget. It faces stiff competition from new releases like “Scary Movie” and “Masters of the Universe.” Furthermore, low-budget indie hits like A24’s “Backrooms” and Focus Features’ “Obsession” are outperforming it, alongside a strong $22.1 million debut from YouTube’s “The Amazing Digital Circus.”

—Associated Press: “Steven Spielberg on His Faith in Alien Life, the Future of the Movies and the Power of Empathy“

“It’s my first film that will be considered science fiction that I do not consider to be science fiction,” Spielberg said in a recent interview. “It’s much more reflective of the world as it is evolving and discoveries that are being made as we speak.” Spielberg, at 79, is trying to revive and reconsider the alien wonder that’s long lingered in his mind, from “E.T.” to “War of the Worlds.” “Disclosure Day,” Spielberg’s first summer movie in a decade, is already being hailed as one of his best in years. But this time, Spielberg is testing whether he can conjure some of his trademark movie magic less with imagination than with conviction.

—Variety: “Apple TV’s ‘For All Mankind’ Spinoff ‘Star City’ Is a Flawless Alt-History Thriller: TV Review“

While the talk of space, science and ships orbits surround the narrative, “Star City” is riveting because of its characters. For fear of sabotage, death or something even worse, no one in Star City can reveal who they truly are. Instead, the audience is offered glimmers of the truth here and there, which act as puzzle pieces throughout the eight-episode first season. (Critics received five for review.) Cloaked in a gloomy gray tone coloring for a prison-like setting, “Star City” creators unveil not simply a stifling world, but one on the verge of consuming itself and its genius with tyranny and ghastly rigidity.

TV/Podcast: Neil deGrasse Tyson on Real Time with Bill Maher

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Simon Six

The most recent episode of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher including an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was chatting up his new book Take Me To Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter.

Bill Maher has invited Dr. Tyson multiple times to his program, and it is always a fun show.

The interview covered a variety of topics, but one interesting discussion (following a discussion about anal probes) revolved around how Hollywood almost always portrays aliens as humanoid versus something completely different, such as the rock-like alien in the book and movie Project Hail Mary.

Dr. Tyson noted that most life on earth does not look human, even though all the life on our planet has DNA in common. For example, we share about 20 percent of our genes with a banana. Hence, there is every reason to believe that aliens from distant civilizations will look as different from us as humans are from a banana. It is certainly a different way to look at the galaxy (and the missed opportunities on Star Trek). Here is a clip with him expanding on this argument.

Check out the podcast if you want an entertaining diversion for a few minutes.

Note: If you are interested in the book itself as part of your summer reading, here is the jacket summary:

Take Me to Your Leader is the culmination of a lifetime of fascination, speculation, and the amassing of scientific data about the possibility of Aliens visiting Earth. Drawing on a wealth of depictions from history, literature, pop culture, and film, Tyson applies the universal laws of physics to make the case for what Aliens might look like, act like, how they might travel through the universe to reach us, and what they might think of us upon arrival. Should such an event occur, Tyson further offers useful etiquette tips for your first close encounter.

If you’ve ever wondered why there are so many UFO sightings, or whether Aliens might already be among us, Tyson offers an informed perspective that is both factual and fun. Take Me to Your Leader is a tantalizing exploration of what would be the most mind-blowing experience of your life—the book for anyone who has ever wondered: Are we alone?

Sci-Fi Stories: A New Murderbot Book Arrives, Captive’s War Planned for Prime, and Somewhere Our There Coming to Netflix

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Tor Books

Here are a few sci-fi stories of interest.

—Winter is Coming: “Book review: Platform Decay is Exactly What We Wanted from Martha Wells’s Murderbot Next“

Platform Decay is the eighth book in Martha Wells’s Murderbot Diaries series, and it gives fans exactly what they love while taking the story in some new directions. If you’ve been following Murderbot since the first book All Systems Red you’ll find plenty to enjoy here...The book picks up after System Collapse (2023). Murderbot gets asked to help with what should be a simple rescue mission. Dr. Ayda Mensah, the person who freed Murderbot and is basically its closest friend, needs help getting some family members off a dangerous space station.

—Polygon: “The Expanse Creators Admit Their New Sci-fi Series will be ‘So Freaking Hard to Adapt’ for TV“

When Syfy began adapting Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck’s space-opera novels The Expanse for television, the authors (who write together under the name James S.A. Corey) were closely involved in the process. Over six seasons and a shift to Prime Video, Franck and Abraham served as screenwriters, producers, media ambassadors, and even walk-on actors. Abraham and Franck are set to have an even bigger role in the developing adaptation of their current book series, The Captive’s War. In 2024, they formed a production company, Expanding Universe, to produce the show, and they already have a development deal with Amazon. But the duo tells Polygon that knowing they’re writing for the screen as well as the page this time around didn’t change their plotting or process at all — which is going to cause a lot of problems in adapting the series for TV.

—Screenrant: “Shawn Levy Confirms New Arrival-Like Netflix Sci-Fi Movie“

Shawn Levy and Netflix unite for an original sci-fi epic.The project, titled Somewhere Out There, is reportedly an “emotional sci-fi” story that is similar to Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, which stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. It also apparently resembles Levy and Netflix’s The Adam Project, featuring Mark Ruffalo, Ryan Reynolds, Jennifer Garner, and Zoe Saldaña. The plot follows a widowed father who, while struggling with the loss of his wife, sends a message into outer space. To his surprise, he receives a mysterious response from something or someone. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix has acquired the script for Somewhere Out There, a science fiction film written by Max Taxe, and Levy has signed on to direct the project. The Deadpool & Wolverine director will also serve as a producer for the project through his 21 Laps banner with Dan Levine.

Television: Star City

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Apple TV

We are only one month away from the premiere of Apple TV’s Star City.

Premiering on May 29th, the series is a spin-off from For All Mankind, which is an alternative history showing the race to the Moon and then Mars among the Americans, Soviet, and North Koreans. Star City will focus on the Soviet program, just as For All Mankind focused primarily on the American program.

Apple TV describes the new series in this way:

A bold new chapter inspired by the critically acclaimed space-race drama, “For All Mankind,” “Star City” is a propulsive paranoid thriller that takes us back to the key moment in the alt-history retelling of the space race — when the Soviet Union became the first nation to put a man on the moon. But this time, we explore the story from behind the Iron Curtain, showing the lives of the cosmonauts, the engineers and the intelligence officers embedded among them in the Soviet space program, and the risks they all took to propel humankind forward.

While For All Mankind was mostly a bombastic show with plenty of American daredevil fun, the Star City promises to be a much darker view of another space program that we only saw in quick glimpses during the first series. Keeping the show interesting and not too bleak may be a challenge.

Will we ever see another spin-off covering the North Korean version of the space race? It is doubtful, yet it would be both fascinating and bleak as well.

I imagine Star City can be a stand-alone series for those who missed For All Mankind, but I think half the fun in watching the new series will be watching where the two stories interweave and discovering what was really happening on the Soviet side.

If history has multiple perspectives, even alternative history, then I look forward to understanding more of the story through more voices.

Credit: Apple TV

Sci-Fi Quote: To Titan and Beyond

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Apple TV

“I think the promise of the show was always that we were going to go beyond just the moon and Mars. I think that’s kind of what I think Titan represents. It’s one of those steps we’ve been looking to make from the very beginning. I will say you’ll see more of it. I don’t want to get into details of what exactly is going to happen, but yes, Titan is very much a plan for this season in particular. So anyone who’s been following so far will see the next steps in the next few episodes.“

-Statement by For All Mankind’s executive producer Ben Nedivi in an interview with ScreenRant regarding the latest season of the television series. The alternative history series started the fifth season with a growing Happy Valley Martian colony. The new space race is aiming for Saturn’s moon. Whether this is the last stop before the series ends with season six is anybody’s guess.