science fiction

Chris Knight's avatar

The staff of Overthinking It has been celebrating an entire week devoted to the Back to the Future trilogy, of which among the highlights is this exhaustive look at the science and physics of how time travel works in the movie series. There’s stuff so dense in this article, that even I can barely comprehend it (then again, I’ve always sucked at more complex math… and there’s a ton of it in this essay).

That’s all well and good, fellas. And congrats on all the hard work you poured into this. But what I’d really like to know is: when can we expect to see Mr. Fusion on the store shelves? 🙂...

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Matt Smith, who at age 26 will be the youngest person ever to take on the role, will be the next actor to portray the Doctor on Doctor Who, the BBC announced today.

This will be the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor since the series began all the way back in November 1963. Smith will take over from David Tennant, who has been playing the Doctor since the finale of the revived series’s first season in 2005. Presumably the changeover will happen during the Christmas special a little less than a year from now.

In case you’re wondering how this happens, the Doctor is a Time Lord from Gallifrey and whenever his current body gets too old or injured (or there’s a contract dispute with the BBC) he has the ability to “regenerate”: giving him a new body and usually a slightly different personality. So it’s been ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

This past season of Doctor Who has seen some of the best storytelling in the entire forty-five year history of the franchise. More than six months later and I am still as much in awe at “Forest of the Dead” as I am enthralled about what it hinted about the Doctor’s future. And of course there was “The Stolen Earth”/”Journey’s End” two-parter that hailed the return of Davros: possibly the greatest villain in all of fiction.

So is it possible that the now-traditional Christmas special of Doctor Who could be just as up to par with what has already transpired in 2008? More to the point: could this year’s special “The Next Doctor” please be much better than the glorious mess that was last year’s “Voyage of the Damned”?!

In so many words: “Yes yes YES!!!”

“I’m the Doctor! Simply the Doctor! The one, the only, and the BEST!”

...
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Chris Knight's avatar

That’s certainly a different take on the saga. Yeah I remember the “Galaxy of Fear” books too but those were mostly done to cash in on the success of the Goosebumps series. To date there hasn’t been a serious attempt at the horror genre within the Star Wars mythology. Until next November when Deathtroopers comes out. Author Joe Schreiber announced it on his blog and describes it as “in the vein of The Shining and Alien, with a little dose of William Gibson mixed in”.

Sounds groovy. Can’t wait to read it 🙂...

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My good friend Bmovies was the first to pass along the sad word that Forrest J Ackerman, the self-styled renaissance man who was without a doubt the biggest enthusiast of science-fiction ever, who founded the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, the man who discovered Ray Bradbury and helped launched not only his but the successful careers of countless other writers and filmmakers, and also the man who created the word “sci-fi”, has died at the age of 92.

Ackerman was also an actor, and possessed what is widely considered to be the most legendary collection of science-fiction and horror memorabilia ever accumulated. At one time he even owned the cape that Bela Lugosi wore in the classic film Dracula. His “Ackermansion” was always open, and he reveled in sharing his passion with others… just as much as he enjoyed others sharing their passion with him.

And ...

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Ten years ago tonight, the Babylon Project came to a magnificent end as “Sleeping in Light”, the series finale of Babylon 5 – considered by many to be the greatest television show of the Nineties – was broadcast on TNT.

I have not written nearly enough about Babylon 5 on this blog. J. Michael Straczynski’s soaring, spanning epic about the Babylon 5 space station and the people within it, I can confidently attest, had the most profound impact on my personal philosophy of any work of televised fiction. From the first time I heard about it in an issue of Starlog in the summer of 1992, I knew this would be one to watch for. And it did not disappoint: the shot of the Vorlon fleet coming through the jumpgate in the pilot movie should have been fair warning to everyone that science-fiction television would never be the same....

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David Tennant, whose madcap mixture of deadly seriousness and clownish buffoonery endeared millions to his portrayal of the Doctor on Doctor Who, is leaving the show after three seasons, it’s being reported tonight.

Tennant will remain for four upcoming Doctor Who specials, including the now-traditional Christmas special, which were already scheduled in lieu of a regular season for the show in 2009 (in order to accommodate the sellout performances of Hamlet that Tennant has been enjoying on the London stage).

But after that, at the end of 2009, expect Tennant’s Tenth Doctor to regenerate and another actor – the eleventh since the show began in 1963 – to take over the role. It will also coincide with the beginning of Stephen Moffatt’s reign as showrunner.

As an aside, I’m starting to understand what it’s usually like for a Doctor Who fan to have the departure of a ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Through a series of events that I don’t care to discuss, it has come to my attention that this week has the dubious distinction of being the twenty-fifth anniversary of the release of Yor: The Hunter from the Future, claimed by many to be the most schizo and ridiculous movie ever made…

Release on August 19th, 1983 and starring Reb Brown as Yor (“My what?” is what everyone around him must ask when they hear his name), Yor: The Hunter from the Future is about a big(?) blond guy who runs around a seemingly prehistoric landscape, killing things (mostly dinosaurs). He hooks up with this chick named Kala and her “protector” Pag. Yor and Pag have to go rescue Kala from some blue-skinned cavemen. Then they wind up at a beach village that is blown up real good courtesy of a “damn talking box”. And then Yor and crew ...

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That’s what Ain’t It Cool News is reporting today. The guys at Latino Film Review seem to have gotten their hands on the proposal script, and it reads like a combo of the two miniseries (minus that “Starchild” crap, well let’s hope it’s not in it anyway).

Even if this specific project never gets made, I don’t care. I’m just glad to hear that there is some movement afoot to bring V back to the screen.

Hopefully as a re-imagined and updated story, but maintaining the same basic premise. With Kenneth Johnson given complete control over it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if NBC had let him run V the way he intended, it would have become something truly monumental. V, the original 1983 miniseries, is still considered one of the most memorable achievements of that decade’s television.

And there’s been no better ...

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