Tag: Science Fiction

Looking at the Pieces that Make up CHAPPiE, a Review

Chappie Movie PosterThe difficulties that many audiences may have with Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie is quite simply that nobody knows what kind of story he’s intending to tell. Is it a story about a dysfunctional family coming together or is it a movie about a troubled world besieged by gangsters? The trailers suggest one idea but the movie reveals another. The mix of Robocop with Transcendence does not quite make for an understandable universe and to have the subplots running independently is most likely the issue here. Somehow, it all has to come together.

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Shout! Factory Brings Métal Hurlant Chronicles to New Masses!

As Métal Hurlant Chronicles moves from one tale to the next, viewers will find that the story is linked in subtle ways.

20287374Not many science fiction aficionados may have Métal Hurlant Chronicles when it broadcasted on SyFy last year and its broadcast even escaped me when I scanned for new programs to enjoy. When its competing against heavy hitters like Doctor Who, Star Trek and Stargate on broadcast television, interest is only as good as the continued support that the network is willing to give.

This Franco-Belgian television science fiction anthology series is based on the story that’s been published in the comics magazine Heavy Metal and it is thankfully getting the love it deserves from Shout! Factory. They will be releasing the complete series April 14, 2015.

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Trying to Understand the Theories Behind Interstellar, An Analysis and Movie Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

*Spoiler Alert*

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Interstellar is one of those almost perfect films if it were not for a few nagging logistical problems. When crops are failing and various other food sources have become scarce, the only real hope is for everyone to leave the planet and colonize a new world. The only problem is where? The space-faring technology is nowhere near advanced enough to transport an entire population en masse to a new location. Even even bigger problem is how long it will take for transplanted society to redevelop?

Astrophysics professor Brand (Michael Caine) has a few ideas, and when Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former NASA test pilot / engineer turned farmer, stumbles upon his secret installation, a grand plan is set in motion. He is to travel deep into space to validate the existence of some planets that a previous mission has discovered to see if they are habitable. Curiously, they float all too dangerously near a black hole.

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Exploring Tom Cruise’s Meaningless Life in Edge of Tomorrow, A Movie Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

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Maybe Tom Cruise can use Scientology to explain Edge of Tomorrow. It has the makings to have a deeper meaning but that’s an opportunity missed. This science fiction film uses a time loop formula in the style of Groundhog Day to tell a ‘save the Earth from an alien invasion’ scenario in the vein of Starship Troopers. In terms of how this religion can be read into this film, all anyone has to know is that from one life to another the immortal soul learns from its experiences from one life to better itself in the next. In this film’s case, Major William Cage (Cruise) gains the experience needed to deal with the marauding Mimics, a tentacled species intent on conquering Earth, every time he dies and is ‘reborn.’

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Norwescon 38 Dates and Guests Announced!

Norwescon38With Norwescon 37 only just a recent memory, it didn’t take long for the organizers to announce not only the dates to the upcoming Norwescon 38 but the guests as well. And for those of you who are big readers of high fantasy, you may jump for joy when you read further.

Norwescon 38 will take place next year on April 2nd to the 5th and it will still be held at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel near the Seattle Airport.

The theme for the convention will be Distant Horizons, Epic Adventures.

The guests of Honour will be:

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Impressions from the Guardians of the Galaxy Trailer

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Guardians of the Galaxy have been unleashed and while everyone on Earth who is not a comic book reader is asking, “who?” the film will no doubt answer that in no short order. Or should that be one long? With Rocket Raccoon presenting that one end of the spectrum and Groot, the tree-like humanoid (not an Ent), for the other, the focus will no doubt be with Peter Jason Quill (Chris Pratt), the Star Lord who is jonesing for trouble after attempting to steal an orb.

This full length trailer is setting up this movie to be a science fiction action adventure comedy. It will no doubt be a tale to show the origin of the group, but as the trailer ends, they have become a group already. Hints of each of them being rogue will set up some interesting dysfunctional family type moments, and that can be humourous to see.

But as for whether not that this type of story direction is going to be right, that will be up to audiences to decide when this movie releases August 1, 2014.