Science Fiction

• Desert Road is a compelling thriller that transitions from mundane to mystical threats on a deserted California highway.
• Star Kristine Froseth shines as she embodies a strong and sympathetic heroine in a twisty, genre-hopping story.
• The film is a focused and effective 90-minute genre flick with clever storytelling and suspense, despite some narrative shortcuts.

Desert Road takes its title from its single, solitary setting: a stretch of dusty highway running through the middle of nowhere California. There are a couple of points of interest — a small gas station that's almost certainly the last pit stop for a hundred miles and a fenced-off factory where laborers toil away deep inside making god knows what — but otherwise it's nothing but barren landscapes on either side of the road, with sand dunes stretching as far as the eye can see. For most people, it's just the empty void you drive through to get from one place to another.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has shared hopes to have a "tiny gravity vector" on Starship when it makes its way to Mars in the future.

Though similar to Constellation in principle, leaning heavily on the concept of the observer effect and covering the possibility of a multiverse reality, the series will still be different. Dark Matter promises to appeal more to action fans, as the main character will have to fight the villain, even if that villain is just another version of himself.

Constellation, on the other hand, will continue to explore each mystery of alternate universes through the prism of the main character's psychology, leaning more toward the thriller.

Either way, both shows are worth checking out if you are a fan of all things sci-fi. Constellation airs new episodes every Wednesday on Apple TV Plus. Dark Matter will premiere just a few months later, on May 8, 2024.

Arcadian, director Benjamin Brewer, along with writer Mike Nilon, ambitiously attempts to navigate the tumultuous waters of a post-apocalyptic narrative

The executive producer offered some details on how the second season had to be rewritten based on feedback from Paramount+:

“We wrote nine episodes at one point and the network was like, ‘No, we don’t really understand this, it’s a bit too sci-fi, it’s a bit too in-Star Trek.’”

Matalas shared some details about that first version of the season and described why Paramount+ asked for a change:

“There were Romulans—there was a whole thing. The idea was that Guinan’s bar was presented as a normal bar in Los Angeles, but if you knew the right thing to do, you could go into the back through the telephone phone booth and that was Rick’s Café and it was a stopping point for all these different species that were actually there on Earth with a ‘Do not interfere’ thing happening. So you had a lot more Star Trek happening in the backdrop of it. Ultimately, the powers that be at that time were like, ‘This is too much.’ But there were some really good ideas there that were pretty cool.”

While this sort of Men in Black idea of undercover aliens in contemporary Los Angeles would have upended some of the lore of Star Trek when it comes to first contact, it does sound like an intriguing idea that might have been more successful with fans than the final version of season 2. Of course, season 3 of Picard was full of connections to Trek lore, and it survived studio scrutiny. It’s likely the nostalgia factor and buzz expected with the return of the TNG cast mitigated any concerns.

Our writer argues that, despite its flaws, Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune: Part 2 hit at just the right time... and is illustrative of a bigger problem in Hollywood.

Scientists have speculated about how Archimedes’ death ray purportedly harnessed sunlight to burn ships. Now, a teen may have evidence the device was plausible.

If you missed out on space camp, it's time to see if you qualify for the real thing.

Viewing the genre as a means to spread modern knowledge, Chinese novelists have been writing science-fiction stories since at least 1902.

It's storytime! Shingai Njeri Kagunda's Let the Star Explode from Lightspeed Magazine right here on io9.

So what did you think of Dune 2? Honest answers only.

#scifi

An astronomy lesson on binary stars could begin with a series of complex diagrams and data or with a clip from the movie Star Wars where Luke Skywalker looks up at the sky of his home planet, Tatooine, and sees two suns shining. Which will more easily awaken the interest of a sleepy high school class?

Science fiction has always captured our attention, and as many scientists claim, it has often been a source of inspiration for their scientific careers. For this reason, it is sometimes used to communicate science to the public, even conveying complex content. While this can be an effective method, it is necessary to understand how actual science is represented by science fiction.

But the new report suggests that the public’s belief that the government is hiding what it knows will probably continue.

The article is insufferable, but you will find things to argue about and in the end, isn't that what really matters?

• Star Wars Book Nook?
• Cyberpunk desk lamp?
• Industrial Sci-Fi "High-Voltage" Light Switch?

The possibilities are endless - discuss!

Disney’s latest animated series, Iwájú, is one writer-director’s love letter to his home country.

I made George Takei laugh - I win the Internet today

#scifi

The franchise is now a trilogy.

It has to do with Star Trek, and researchers have no idea why

In Screen Gab No. 121, we ready ourselves for 'Dune: Part Two,' check in with Lauren Patten about 'Death and Other Details,' and offer viewing recs for your weekend.

Newly relaunched Anchor Bay Entertainment has purchased 'Daddy,' a dystopian sci-fi film.

A Back to the Future crew member opens up about how a tweak he recommended made the film's ending work. "It's really interesting doing storyboards," he explained. "You’re working on one page at a time, one scene at a time. And so, you have a chance to think about, ‘What’s it gonna look like? How are they going to do the action? How are you going to portray it in your storyboards?’"

For example, the screenplay originally called for the 1955 version of Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) to angrily tear up Marty's note warning him about the future and throw the scraps into the ashtray of his car. "I'm thinking, ‘This is going to telegraph everybody about that surprise ending," Probert said, referring to Doc's survival.

Johan Renck's Sci-Fi Netflix flick starring Adam Sandler landed on the streaming service today, but the reviews are not encouraging.

Spaceman has landed itself a rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 63 critics reviews, with people describing it as "under-baked", "all mood and no action" in a way that's "not even meme-ably bad".

There are still positive takes out there, including in our own review, which calls the film a "tender portrait of loneliness".

Dune 2 Predictions Thread - GO:

1. Whole theater will scream when somebody says 'the spice must flow.'
2. Everybody will side-eye the guy with the sandworm popcorn bucket
3. Movie will start with digiridoo music like the first one

#scifi

Even better than the first film, the stakes are exponentially higher, the power struggles even more mythic, the on-screen world-building richer and more exotically filigreed, and the visuals even more dazzling. I didn’t think this was possible.