Posts Tagged ‘Science Fiction’
Mordin Solus: The very model of a scientist Salarian.
Note: this review contains spoilers. Proceed at your own risk. It also assumes you’re familiar with the Mass Effect universe.
Shortly after defeating rogue spectre Saren, his Reaper master Sovereign, and their Geth army, our hero, Commander Shepard, is killed in an attack by the mysterious Collectors. This being science fiction, even death won’t keep Shepard down, and she (or he) is brought back by the pseudo-terrorist human-first group Cerberus (whom you might remember from Mass Effect, where they were involved in all manner of disreputable business). With her old crew having moved on and with a brand-new Normandy, Shepard must now gather a new team (but with a couple of familiar faces) to join her on a suicide mission through the uncharted Omega 4 relay to stop the Collectors and their masters — the Reapers. [...]
Tags: 2000s, BioWare, Casey Hudson, Drew Karpyshyn, Mac Walters, RPG, Science Fiction
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My mother always talked to me a lot about the sky. She liked to watch the clouds in the day, and the stars at night. Especially the stars. We would play a game sometimes, a game called “What’s beyond the sky?” We would imagine darkness, or a blinding light, or something else that we didn’t know how to name.
John (Eric Close) shows that magic is all about misdirection. Misdirection and telekinesis.
In 1947, a military balloon, part of the top secret “Project Mogul”, crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. Out of this single incident grew an entire mythos of alien crash landings and abductions. And it’s around this incident that writer Leslie Bohem builds his generation spanning alien contact saga, Taken. [...]
Tags: 2000s, Alf Humphreys, Aliens, Catherine Dent, Dakota Fanning, Eric Close, Joel Gretsch, Leslie Bohem, Michael Moriarty, Roswell, Science Fiction, Steve Burton, Steven Spielberg, Tina Holmes, Tope Hooper
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John Oldman (David Lee Smith) ponders.
What if a man from the Upper Paleolithic survived until the present day?
What would he be like? Mortality is one of the defining characteristics of humanity; what would a man be like who will not die? A man who is fourteen thousand years old: he’s not only seen friends and lovers, wives and children come and go, he remembers the end of the last glacial period. He has, literally, forgotten more than any of us will ever know.
Jerome Bixby (1923–1998) was a science fiction writer, most famous for a handful of classic Trek episodes, including “Mirror, Mirror” which introduced the mirror universe, and for co-writing the story for Fantastic Voyage (1966). He began his last work, a screenplay called The Man from Earth, in the 1960s and finished it on his deathbed. Forty years is a long time to spend on a script, but it pays off in one of the most intelligent science fiction films I’ve seen. [...]
Tags: 2000s, Alexis Thorpe, Annika Peterson, David Lee Smith, Ellen Crawford, Jerome Bixby, John Billingsley, Neil Grieve, Richard Riehle, Richard Schenkman, Science Fiction, Tony Todd, William Katt
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Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) admires a visual effect.
One year after the mission in Stargate (1994), the Abydos stargate is believed destroyed and the Earth stargate is inactive. However, when a group of aliens, lead by a man with glowing eyes, appear from the Earth stargate, Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) is called back from retirement. He leads a team to Abydos, where he finds Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) alive and well, and with a new theory — the stargate can go to other places than just Abydos. In fact, says Jackson, there’s a network of stargates all over the galaxy. Just like in the feature, the only other scientist present, Captain Doctor Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping), initially scoffs at Jackson’s theory, but he’s of course soon proved right, Abydos is attacked, and the stargate program is reactivated. SG-1 (Jack, Daniel, Samantha) heads to Chulak to rescue Daniel’s wife, Sha’re (Vaitiare Bandera), and Skaara (Alexis Cruz, the only actor reprising his role from the feature) and meet up with the “First Prime of Apophis”, Teal’c (Christopher Judge). [...]
Tags: 1990s, Alexis Cruz, Amanda Tapping, Brad Wright, Children of the Gods, Christopher Judge, Jonathan Glassner, Mario Azzopardi, Michael Shanks, Mili Avital, Richard Dean Anderson, Science Fiction, SG-1, Stargate, Vaitiare Bandera
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Colonel Jack (Kurt Russell) and Action Jackson (James Spader) take in the atmosphere.
OK. Let’s get the opening confessions out of the way: I’m a Stargate SG-1 fan, and the last time I saw the feature was more than ten years ago, long before the series premièred. So, I won’t pretend I don’t see the series as the “real” version of the mythos, but I’ve tried to keep an open mind. [...]
Tags: 1990s, Action, Alexis Cruz, Brad Wright, Dean Devlin, Erick Avari, James Spader, Jaye Davidson, Kurt Russell, Michael Shanks, Mili Avital, Richard Dean Anderson, Roland Emmerich, Science Fiction, Stargate
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Silhouette celebrates Japan's surrender the old fashioned way.
Zack Snyder’s feature film debut, Dawn of the Dead (2004), had a kinetic, visually exciting opening sequence, but the rest of the film was fairly pointless. His second film, 300, was all flash and no substance, and, frankly, I found it a bit boring. And now, he’s tasked with bringing the Tristram Shandy of comic books, Alan Moore’s Watchmen (1986-7), to the silver screen. So, a comic book by a wizard, adapted by Solid Snake, and directed by a man who made his name with a zombie film remake. If that isn’t the definition of the post-modern condition, I don’t know what is; the creators are mash-up of pop-culture mythology. [...]
Tags: 2000s, Action, Alan Moore, Alex Tse, Comic Book, Dave Gibbons, David Hayter, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Super Hero, Watchmen, Zack Snyder
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(Roger Vadim, 1968).
Jane Fonda sleeps her way across an alien planet looking for Duran Duran and falls in with some loopy revolutionaries. The visuals are over-the-top, the effects are cheesy, Fonda is sexy, and the writing is naïve in that endearing 60s-science-fiction way. A fun way to spend 90 minutes.
Tags: 1960s, Comedy, Jane Fonda, Roger Vadim, Science Fiction
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