2428 – Ren And Stimpy Scotman in space (full episode 1991)

I just realized one of the most memorable TV experiences of my life might be completely unknown to those born after the 2000s. Ren and Stimpy cartoon show by Nickelodeon starting in 1991 introduced us to everything unconventional, off-putting, not to say gross and weird as fuck in the form of a cartoon by Canadian animator John Kricfalusi for Nickelodeon. It came via Spümcø (later Games Animation) initially and the series aired from August 11, 1991, to December 16, 1995, spanning a total of five seasons and 52 episodes that we awaited as eagerly as possible. It made a huge difference also for a new generation of animators in the former East. I am speaking here in the name of friend and animator extraordinaire Sergiu Negulici aka Reniform, whose nickname I might surmise also probably came from Ren Hoek. And trust me, you want to suck in all those episodes. There is always a strange very off kind of humor involved, even if they were hiding under the retro style of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s US animation hits (think Tom and Gerry, Looney Toones, Hannah Barbera).

For some Beavis & Butthead MTV show of ire, music video destruction peppered with dumb-ass jokes bromance was the top of the 1990s, for me, it was rather this odd couple of cat (Stimpy) and Ren (asthmatic and hysterical Chihuahua dog) getting in the most bizarre situations and ending up with the most bizarre and odd characters (shaved yak, talking horse, yodeling lederhosen yokels?!) that only appear part of a lost 1960s series, but are totally the invention of a contemporary mind. It also reminded me in a bizarre way of Twin Peaks back then, another unforgettable experience of those years, especially with all those logs (but no Log Lady) and lumberjacks. There was something Canadian about it in retrospect, but maybe that’s an artifact of knowing who were those crazy muthafucka animators.

Here is a sample episode with a Star Trekoid cast – more like a Golden SF age (think Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon) atmosphere where space cadets get lonely during space trips and start hallucinating and having (so terrestrial!) terrible bouts of cabin fever. But from there it all goes downhill – with special relaxation baths in gravity zero and mad mad mad foaming-at-the-mouth baiting and a History Eraser Button (maybe an embodiment of that era’s totalizing look of future without a past?!). What is even better, you can find more of Ren & Stimpy full episodes for free online. Whenever you have a difficult or a particularly bad day, I recommend just watching an episode!

2413 – Halo (TV Series 2022 -)

timespace coordinates: 26th-century war between the United Nations Space Command and the Covenant, a theocratic-military alliance of several alien races determined to eradicate humanity

Halo is an American military science fiction television series produced by Showtime in association with 343 Industries and Amblin Television for Paramount+. Based on the video game franchise of the same name,

Pablo Schreiber and Jen Taylor star as Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 and Cortana; the latter reprises her voice role from the video game series, Yerin Ha as Kwan Ha, an Insurrectionist teenager from the Outer Colony planet of Madrigal and daughter of Jin Ha and Natascha McElhone as Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, a scientist for the UNSC, the creator of the SPARTAN-II program.

The first season of Halo premiered on March 24, 2022, and ran until May 19. It was met with mostly positive reviews from critics, with praise given for its action scenes, cast, and visual effects but criticism for its derivative writing and alterations from the source material. A second season premiered on February 8, 2024, and ran for eight episodes until March 21. It was met with positive reviews from critics, who declared it to be an improvement over the previous season.(wiki)

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2405 – SOVIET SCIENCE FICTION 1956 – 1974: A BIBLIOGRAPHY by Darko Suvin (article 1976)

CHECK HERE

Darko Suvin needs no introduction probably. Altough SF authors and writers in general (no intention of dissing them as a group) tend to ignore the theory of SF studies, Darko Suvin, an ex-Yugoslav who emigrated in 1967 has been probably the single most important person responsible for getting Science Fiction recognized in Academia. After he started teaching at McGill University in Canada – others like Frederic Jameson also started taking a vivid theoretical interest in a previously disdained and minor literature (in Deleuze’s sense), so much so that the entire academic field of Utopia Studies and SF was more or less shaped by these two important Marxist critics and theoreticians. I appreciate Professor Darko Suvin’s position since he is straddling both Western and Eastern Marxist traditions in a way and also because Yugoslavia was such a special case being actually open to various directions of thought. In a sense this valuable bibliography of Soviet SF, of cosmicity starting with the post-Stalinist era and ending with the onset of the long decline and disenchantment of the 1970s and 1980s is a twilight full of starry sky and extra-planetary possibilities. Maybe even the possibility that the most precious things such as communism or socialism might be temporary, exceptional moments and that all that was more fragile than its capitalist opponents presupposed, a transient system that in our part of the world gave way to today’s “contemporary political subject is plunged into a miserable combination of neoliberalism, neo-imperialism, and neo-nationalism (not to say neofascism)” in the words of philosopher Max Penzin, and maybe “able to produce both a calming and an invigorating effect” like Evald Ilyenkov’s speculative cosmology. Some are probably not yet translated but I hope they will find a way to future readers.

There is a sense in which we are still catching up to the various deletions – schools of critical thinking and what used to be Eastern European Marxism (from the former East bloc, especially the particularly neglected array of SF authors from the former Soviet Union, that would help us explore other venues taken than the usual liberal Western canon (see the emergence of an alternative epistemology).

2401 – Spaceman (2024)

timespace coordinates: (retrofuturistic) early 1990s Czech Republic / commercial mission to investigate the Chopra cloud, a mysterious form of dust beyond Jupiter

Spaceman is a 2024 American science fiction drama film directed by Johan Renck and written by Colby Day. It is based on the 2017 novel Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař. Starring Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan, Kunal Nayyar, Isabella Rossellini, and Paul Dano, it follows an astronaut sent on a mission to the edge of the solar system who encounters a creature that helps him put his earthly problems back together. Film scored by Max Richter. (wiki)

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2388 – I.S.S. (2023)

I.S.S. is a 2023 American science fiction thriller film directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite and written by Nick Shafir. The film stars Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, John Gallagher Jr., Masha Mashkova, Costa Ronin, and Pilou Asbæk. (wiki)

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2348 – The Creator (2023)

timespace coordinates: 2070 New Asia (consisting of East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia), ground zero / Los Angeles,  space station USS NOMAD (North American Orbital Mobile Aerospace Defense)

The Creator is a 2023 American science fiction action film produced and directed by Gareth Edwards. The film stars John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson and Allison Janney.

Set in 2070, 15 years after a nuclear detonation in Los Angeles and a war against artificial intelligence, an ex-special forces agent is recruited to hunt down and kill the “Creator,” who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war. (wiki)

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2339 – Crater (2023)

timespace coordinates: 2257 Lunar Mining Colony

Crater is a 2023 American science fiction adventure film directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez. It stars Isaiah Russell-Bailey, Mckenna Grace, Billy Barratt, Orson Hong, Thomas Boyce, and Scott Mescudi. Crater was released on Disney+ on May 12, 2023 and received generally positive reviews from critics. (wiki)

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