I’ve always had a weakness for a certain breed of science fiction film—the kind whose screenplays seem to have bypassed any form of quality control. These movies make me question the directors’ judgment, the actors’ career choices, and, in moments of brutal self-awareness, my own life decisions. They exist in this weird space between laughably terrible and genuinely unwatchable. When you’re watching one, you can’t help but notice how a major plot point collapses if…
If I had a dollar for every time an artificial intelligence in a science fiction film was portrayed as either our divine savior or a sinister villain bent on wiping out humanity, I’d have enough cash to build my own futuristic utopia. And no, I don’t mean one…
I still remember the first time I watched my old VHS copy of The Terminator, picked up from a flea market and nearly falling apart when I bought it. There were moments when I could’ve sworn I was watching something digitally enhanced—like that opening scene where a woman…
Oh, interstellar travel—the journey beyond celestial bodies and the infinite sea of stars—an idea that’s had me hooked since childhood. Not for nothing did NASA’s first manned space program carry the name Mercury. Shot through the cosmos in sleek spacecraft, the Mercury astronauts did what the program’s name…
Let’s be frank for a moment, fellow sci-fi enthusiasts. Imagine an advanced alien race in sleek, cutting-edge vessels. They roam the cosmos, looking for new worlds to explore. Which do they choose? Earth, of course—a planet covered mostly by unsightly water (not pristine at all). They come here,…
Now, let us venture into the vast world explored by those sci-fi films and TV shows that dared to portray realistic space travel. I still remember sitting in my dad’s basement, watching 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time. My jaw dropped. This wasn’t just another movie—it…
The dystopian future is a trope I’ve seen too many times to count, but it’s one I keep coming back to. I picture it (and write about it) as a not-so-far-off reality that somehow sneaks its way into my idle thoughts. What does that future look like? Streets…
Take Ridley Scott’s vision of Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” or David Lynch’s take on Frank Herbert’s Dune, both of which stumbled with the futuristic ideas that should make us think about stars and atoms. Blade Runner and Dune didn’t just tank at the…
A certain kind of magic captivates my memory from the classic sci-fi films I came across as a young boy. The first glimpses I had at the worlds of intergalactic spaceships, aliens, and galaxies were mesmerizing and appeared entirely vivid as though they were all snippets from reality.…
In the past few years, big-budget science fiction has moved in the direction of visuals that are “breathtaking” and “cutting-edge” (read: CGI). The power of visual storytelling seems to have an iron grip on Hollywood these days; if the visuals can’t wow an audience, then presumably the audience…
