movies, series

1667 – Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

timespace coordinates: 2286 > 1986 San Francisco

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a 1986 American science fiction film directed by Leonard Nimoy and based on the television series Star Trek. It is the fourth feature installment in the Star Trek film series, and is a sequel to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984); it completes the story arc begun in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and continued in The Search for Spock.

Intent on returning home to Earth to face trial for their actions in the previous film, the former crew of the USS Enterprise finds the planet in grave danger from an alien probe attempting to contact now-extinct humpback whales. The crew travel to Earth’s past to find whales who can answer the probe’s call. (wiki)

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games, Uncategorized

1644 – The Deadly Tower of Monsters (2016 Video game)

The Deadly Tower of Monsters is a science fiction top-down shooter video game developed by ACE Team (based in Santiago) and published by Atlus USA, which released for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4 on 19 January 2016. 

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The game’s framing device is that of an early 1970s B-movie The Deadly Tower of Monsters recently released on DVD, with the director’s commentary of its in-universe director Dan Smith serving as a combination of tutorial and meta-commentary on the game. The film itself is a space opera in which astronaut Dick Starspeed (played in-universe by actor Jonathan Digby) has been shot down on an alien planet full of innocent ape-creatures, ruled by a tyrannical emperor. (wiki)

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (MINIMUM): OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 / Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 4800+ / Memory: 2 GB RAM / Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS 1024MB or ATI Radeon HD 5750/6670 1024MB / DirectX: Version 9.0c / Storage: 4 GB available space

steam

series

1631 – Star Trek: Picard (TV Series 2020-)

timespace coordinates: year 2399. various locations

Star Trek: Picard is an American web television series featuring the character Jean-Luc Picard, created for CBS All Access by Akiva GoldsmanMichael ChabonKirsten Beyer, and Alex Kurtzman. It is the eighth series in the Star Trek franchise, and was launched in 2020 as part of Kurtzman’s expansion of the franchise. Picard begins 20 years after Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) and sees a retired Picard deeply affected by the death of Data in that film as well as the destruction of the planet Romulus in the film Star Trek (2009).

Patrick Stewart executive produces the series and stars as Picard, reprising his role from the series Star Trek: The Next Generation as well as other Star Trek media. Alison PillIsa BrionesEvan EvagoraMichelle HurdSantiago Cabrera, and Harry Treadaway also star. The series was designed to be slower and more character-focused than previous series in the franchise. (wiki)

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series, Uncategorized

1627 – The Mandalorian (TV Series 2019-)

The Mandalorian, also known as Star Wars: The Mandalorian, is an American space Western web television series created by Jon Favreau and released on Disney+. It is the first live-action series in the Star Wars franchise.

Set five years after the events of Return of the Jedi, it follows the title character, a Mandalorian bounty hunter named Din Djarin, and his exploits beyond the reaches of the New Republic. (wiki)

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Themes   /  Future   /  Tie-in media

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series, Uncategorized

1623 – Raised by Wolves (TV Series 2020-)

timespace coordinates: 22nd century. two androids — Father and Mother — are tasked with raising human children on Kepler-22b after the Earth was destroyed by a great war.

Raised_by_Wolves_TV_Series-773997417-largeRaised by Wolves is an American science fiction drama television series created by Aaron Guzikowski that premiered on HBO Max on September 3, 2020. The first two episodes were directed by Ridley Scott, who also serves as an executive producer for the show. In September 2020, the series was renewed for a second season. (wiki)

Scott responded to a question about the link between Alien and Raised By Wolves during a Reddit Ask Me Anything: “Interesting question but, no, the first Alien story feels like it may be some time before Raised By Wolves, in that the Nostromo was probably financed by an organized global economy. Wolves is about post-global war chaos.” (newsweek)

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books, movies, Uncategorized

1608 – District 9 (2009)

timespace coordinates: The film is partially presented in a found footage format by featuring fictional interviews, news footage, and video from surveillance cameras. The story, which explores themes of humanityxenophobia and social segregation, begins in an alternate 1982, when an alien spaceship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa. When a population of sick and malnourished insectoid aliens are discovered on the ship, the South African government confines them to an internment camp called District 9. Twenty years later, during the government’s relocation of the aliens to another camp, one of the confined aliens named Christopher Johnson, who is about to try to escape from Earth with his son and return home, crosses paths with a bureaucrat leading the relocation named Wikus van der Merwe. The title and premise of District 9 were inspired by events in Cape Town‘s District Six, during the apartheid era.

District 9_6District 9 is a 2009 science fiction action film directed by Neill Blomkamp in his feature film debut. It is a co-production of New Zealand, the United States and South Africa. The film stars Sharlto CopleyJason Cope, and David James, and was adapted from Blomkamp’s 2006 short film Alive in Joburg. (wiki)

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Alive in Joburg (2005)

timespace coordinates: In 1990, Johannesburg is home to a number of extraterrestrial refugees, whose large spaceships (estimated to be nearly one kilometre in length) can be seen hovering above the city. When the visitors first arrived, the human population was enamored with, among other aspects, the aliens’ advanced “bio-suits”, and welcomed them with open arms. However, the aliens later began moving into other areas of the city, committing crimes in order to survive and frequently clashing with police. Playing as a documentary, the film continues with interviews and footage taken from handheld cameras, which highlight the growing tension between Earth’s civilian population and the extraterrestrial visitors.

According to individuals “interviewed” in the film, the aliens were captive labour (slaves or indentured servants), forced to live in “conditions that were not good” and had escaped to Earth. Because the film takes place in 1990, while apartheid was still in effect in South Africa, the aliens were forced to live amongst the already-oppressed black population, causing conflict with them as well as the non-white and white populations.

All of the interview statements which do not explicitly mention extraterrestrials were taken from authentic interviews with many South Africans who had been asked their opinions of Zimbabwean refugees. (wiki)

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movies

1583 – Sputnik (2020)

spacetime coordinates: 1983 Soviet Union / Soviet Kazakhstan

MV5BOTI4ZmE4MDUtMTFjOS00NWNkLThkMzgtOTdmYzY4ODhmYTI0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE1MzI2NzIz._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,681,1000_AL_Sputnik (Russian: Спутник) is a 2020 Russian science-fiction thriller film directed by Egor Abramenko in his feature directorial debut. It stars Oksana Akinshina as a young doctor who is recruited by the military to assess a cosmonaut who survived a mysterious space accident and returned to Earth with a dangerous organism living inside him. Alongside Akinshina, the film’s cast includes Pyotr Fyodorov and Fyodor Bondarchuk. (wiki)

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‘Sputnik’ is a word associated with space exploration, as it was the name of the first artificial satellites put in orbit around the earth. It is also the Russian word for ‘companion’ or ‘fellow traveler’, alluding to the companion the commander brings along.

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