Tag: desert
0595 – Paul (2011)
spacetime coordinates: 2010 American Southwest

Paul is a 2011 science-fiction road-comedy film directed by Greg Mottola and written by and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The film is about two science-fiction geeks who meet an extraterrestrial being, voiced by Seth Rogen, with a sarcastic manner and an appetite for cigarettes and alcohol. They help the alien escape the FBI agents pursuing him, so he is able to return to his home planet. The film contains numerous references to other science-fiction films, especially those of Steven Spielberg, as well as to general science-fiction fandom.
569 – The Terror (2018 TV series )
spacetime coordinates: 1845 – 1848 Victoria Strait – Beechey Island – King William Island in the Canadian Arctic.
The Terror is an American Adventure | Drama | History | Horror television series that premiered on AMC on March 25, 2018. The series is based on the 2007 best-selling novel of the same name by Dan Simmons.
The crews aboard the Royal Navy‘s polar explorer ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror venture into uncharted territory seeking the Northwest Passage. The ships are soon stuck, frozen and isolated, and those aboard must survive the harsh weather conditions and each other, while being stalked by an elusive menace.
0566 – Les aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)
spacetime coordinates: Paris, c. 1912

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (French: Les Aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec), released as Adèle: Rise of the Mummy in Malaysia and Singapore, is a 2010 French fantasy adventure feature film written and directed by Luc Besson.

It is loosely based on the comic book series The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec by Jacques Tardi and, as in the comic, follows the eponymous writer and a number of recurring side characters in a succession of far-fetched incidents in 1910s Paris and beyond, in this episode revolving around parapsychology and ultra-advanced Ancient Egyptian technology, which both pastiche and subvert adventure and speculative fiction of the period.

The film incorporates characters and events from several of the albums, in particular the first, “Adèle and the Beast”, first published in 1976, and the fourth, 1978’s “Mummies on Parade”.

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“In Cairo ten years ago, in the museum, I saw all the mummies, torn out of their tombs, stripped of their flowers and gods, and laid out in plain wood cases under glass with their blackened faces exposed; on the walls an American scientist had put his X-ray photos of their skeletons, and the urn containing the entrails of Queen Hapshetshut was split open and brightly illuminated.” Dangerous Emotions Alphonso Lingis
0564 – Maze Runner (film series)
Maze Runner is an American film series consisting of science-fiction dystopian action adventure films based on The Maze Runner novels by the American author James Dashner. Produced by Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and distributed by 20th Century Fox, the films star Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ki Hong Lee, Dexter Darden and Patricia Clarkson. Wes Ball directed all three films.
The Maze Runner (2014)

The story follows sixteen-year-old Thomas, portrayed by O’Brien, who awakens in a rusty elevator with no memory of who he is, only to learn he’s been delivered to the middle of an intricate maze, along with a large number of other boys, who have been trying to find their way out of the ever-changing labyrinth — all while establishing a functioning society in what they call the Glade.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790864/
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

The plot of The Scorch Trials takes place immediately after the previous installment, with Thomas (O’Brien) and his fellow Gladers, who have just escaped from the facilities of the powerful World Catastrophe Killzone Department (W.C.K.D.), which had imprisoned them. On the run in the desert and in ruined cities, they must escape WCKD soldiers and face the perils of the Scorch, a desolate landscape filled with dangerous obstacles.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4046784/
Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)

Young hero Thomas embarks on a mission to find a cure for a deadly disease known as “The Flare”.
551 – John Carter (2012)
spacetime coordinates: 1868 > 1881 Arizona Territory / dying planet of Barsoom – Red Martian city of Helium, predator Walking City of Zodanga
John Carter is a 2012 American science fiction action film directed by Andrew Stanton from a screenplay written by Stanton, Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon.
The film is largely based on A Princess of Mars (1917), the first in a series of 11 novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs to feature the interplanetary hero John Carter (and in later volumes the adventures of his children with Dejah Thoris). The story was originally serialized in six monthly installments (from February through to July 1912) in the pulp magazine The All-Story; those chapters, originally titled “Under the Moons of Mars,” were then collected in hardcover five years later from publisher A. C. McClurg.
John Carter stars Taylor Kitsch in the title role, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, and Willem Dafoe. The film chronicles the first interplanetary adventure of John Carter and his attempts to mediate civil unrest amongst the warring kingdoms of Barsoom.
Several developments on a theatrical film adaptation of the Barsoom series emerged throughout the 20th century from various major studios and producers, with the earliest attempt dating back to the 1930s. Most of these efforts, however, ultimately stalled in development hell. In the late-2000s, Walt Disney Pictures began a concerted effort to develop a film adaptation of Burroughs’ works, after a previously-abandoned venture by the studio in the 1980s. The project was driven by Stanton, who had pressed Disney to renew the screen rights from the Burroughs estate. Stanton became director in 2009; this was his live-action debut, as his previous directorial work for Disney included the Pixar animated films, Finding Nemo (2003) and WALL-E (2008).
Due to the film’s poor box office performance, Disney cancelled any plans for a sequel (titled John Carter: The Gods of Mars) and trilogy Stanton had planned.
Cancelled sequel
concept art imdb
549 – 12 Strong (2018)
spacetime coordinates: 2001 Afghanistan
12 Strong (also known as 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers) is a 2018 American war drama film directed by Nicolai Fuglsig and written by Ted Tally and Peter Craig. The film is based on Doug Stanton‘s non-fiction book Horse Soldiers, which tells the story of CIA paramilitary officers and U.S. Special Forces, in addition to USAF Combat Controllers, sent to Afghanistan (to fight alongside the Northern Alliance leader, Abdul Rashid Dostum) immediately after the September 11 attacks. The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Peña, Navid Negahban, Trevante Rhodes, Geoff Stults, Thad Luckinbill, William Fichtner, and Rob Riggle.