Kon-Tiki is a 2012 historical drama film directed by Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg about the 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition. The film was mainly shot on the island of Malta. The role of Thor Heyerdahl is played by Pål Sverre Valheim Hagen. The film is an international co-production between Norway, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. It was the highest-grossing film of 2012 in Norway and the country’s most expensive production to date
While much of the story is historically accurate, screenwriter Petter Skavlan and director Joachim Rønning both felt the need to make the story more exciting for their two-hour feature film. The fictionalized elements have been criticized; as film critic Andrew Barker commented, “It’s frustratingly ironic that Kon-Tiki’s most outrageously fantastical sequences are completely verifiable, and its most predictable, workaday conflicts are completely made up.”
The film focuses on Heyerdahl’s theory that Polynesia was first populated with humans from Peru, but it ignores the Norwegian’s more ethnocentric speculations that the original Kon-Tiki voyage was undertaken by a race of tall white bearded people with red hair. Heyerdahl conjectured that Amerindian civilizations like the Aztecs and the Incas only arose with the help of advanced technical knowledge brought by early European voyagers, and that these white people were eventually driven out of Peru and fled westward on rafts.
The portrayal of the raft’s second-in-command, Herman Watzinger, proved controversial in Norway. Colleagues and relatives say Watzinger in the film is unlike the real-life Watzinger, physically or in his actions. Actor Baasmo Christiansen acknowledged the physical differences with a smile. “Watzinger was tall, dark, and Norwegian Youth Champion in the 100 meter. He was everything I’m not.” In the film, Watzinger disobeys Heyerdahl’s direct order and throws a harpoon at a whale shark under the boat, but it was actually Erik Hesselberg who harpooned the whale shark, with the crew cheering him on. The film’s Watzinger, worried about the hemp ropes’ ability to hold the balsa logs together for the entire voyage, tearfully begs Heyerdahl at sea to add steel cables Watzinger smuggled aboard but Heyerdahl’s book contains no such scene and Watzinger’s daughter has stated it never happened: “My father was a stout and confident man, and he never thought that way about the balsa logs and the ropes.” Thor Heyerdahl, Jr., who worked with Watzinger, concurred in the criticism of the film’s portrayal of Watzinger.
spacetime coordinates: 2012 southern Louisianabayou community called the “Bathtub” (a community cut off from the rest of the world by a levee)
Beasts of the Southern Wild is a 2012 American drama film co-written, co-scored and directed by Benh Zeitlin. It was adapted by Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar from Alibar’s one-act play Juicy and Delicious.
…Meanwhile, in the Arctic, the frozen Aurochs in an ice shelf start drifting into the ocean…
The fictional island of the film, “Isle de Charles Doucet” known to its residents as the Bathtub, was inspired by several isolated and independent fishing communities threatened by erosion, hurricanes and rising sea levels in Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish, most notably the rapidly eroding Isle de Jean Charles. It was filmed in Terrebonne Parish town Montegut.
Doomsday Book (Hangul: 인류멸망보고서; RR: Inryu myeongmang bogoseo; lit. “Report on the Destruction of Mankind”) is a 2012 South Korean science-fiction anthology film directed by Kim Jee-woon and Yim Pil-sung. It tells three unique stories of human self-destruction in the modern high-tech era, while displaying an alternative form of genuine humanity and compassion. A Brave New World is a political satire about a viral zombie outbreak; The Heavenly Creature philosophizes on whether a robot can achieve enlightenment; and in Happy Birthday a dysfunctional family bonds in the midst of an apocalypse.
Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child (aka Origin.Wars) is a 2016 australian science fiction film directed by Shane Abbess, Set in the future in a time of interplanetary colonization, an unlikely pair race against an impending global crisis and are confronted by the monsters that live inside us all.
Transcendent Man is a 2009 documentary film by American filmmaker Barry Ptolemy about inventor, futurist and author Ray Kurzweil and his predictions about the future of technology in his 2005 book, The Singularity is Near. In the film, Ptolemy follows Kurzweil around his world as he discusses his thoughts on the technological singularity, a proposed advancement that will occur sometime in the 21st century when progress in artificial intelligence, genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics will result in the creation of a human-machine civilization.
Ray Kurzweil, whose very name in a scrumptious irony, recapitulates the very finitude against which he is struggling so mightily (eine kurze Weile is German for “a little while”, “a brief period”)
Transcendence (2014)
Transcendence is a 2014 dystopian science fiction film directed by cinematographer Wally Pfister in his directorial debut, and written by Jack Paglen.
I, Robot (stylized as i,robot) is a 2004 American science fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman is from a screen story by Vintar, based on his original screenplay “Hardwired”, and suggested by Isaac Asimov‘s 1950 short-story collection of the same name. The film stars Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell, Chi McBride, and Alan Tudyk. In 2035, highly intelligent robots fill public service positions throughout the dystopian world, operating under three rules to keep humans safe. Detective Del Spooner (Smith) investigates the alleged suicide of U.S. Robotics founder Alfred Lanning (Cromwell) and believes that a human-like robot (Tudyk) murdered him.
Morgan is a 2016 British-American science fiction thriller film directed by Luke Scott in his directorial debut, and written by Seth Owen. Film scored by Max Richter.
Eva is a 2011 science fiction film directed by Kike Maíllo. It had its world premiere on 7 September 2011 at the 68th Venice International Film Festival, where it was screened out of competition. The film stars Daniel Brühl, Marta Etura, Lluís Homar and Alberto Ammann.
Eva was nominated in twelve categories at the 26th Goya Awards, scoring three wins—Best New Director, Best Supporting Actor and Best Special Effects. It earned nominations for Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Make Up and Hairstyles, Best Original Score, Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Production Supervision and Best Sound. The film was also nominated for sixteen Gaudí Awards, winning five.
The film combines computer generated imagery of robots and engineering devices and retro clothing and props like a Saab 900 car. (wiki)
Development of A.I. originally began with producer-director Stanley Kubrick, after he acquired the rights to Aldiss’ story in the early 1970s. Kubrick hired a series of writers until the mid-1990s, including Brian Aldiss, Bob Shaw, Ian Watson, and Sara Maitland. The film languished in protracted development for years, partly because Kubrick felt computer-generated imagery was not advanced enough to create the David character, whom he believed no child actor would convincingly portray. In 1995, Kubrick handed A.I. to Spielberg, but the film did not gain momentum until Kubrick’s death in 1999. Spielberg remained close to Watson’s film treatment for the screenplay.
Kubrick’s original concept art for A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001) via @TIFF_NET
spacetime coordinates: 2044, 20 after solar flares irradiate the Earth, killing over 99% of the world’s population. The survivors gather in a network of safe cities and build primitive humanoid robots, called Pilgrims, to help rebuild and operate in the harsh environment.