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.

imdb  sequel

0590 – Galaxy Quest (1999)

Galaxy Quest is a 1999 American comic science fiction film directed by Dean Parisot and written by David Howard and Robert Gordon. A parody of science fiction films and series, particularly Star Trek and its fandom, the film stars Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, and Daryl Mitchell as the cast of a defunct cult television series called Galaxy Quest, in which the crew of a spaceship embarked on intergalactic adventures, who are suddenly visited by actual aliens who believe the series to be an accurate documentary, and become involved in a very real intergalactic conflict. Star Trek fans voted it the seventh best Star Trek film of all time in 2013.

Impact_and_legacy   //  sequel   //   imdb

532

329 – Contact (1997)

spacetime coordinates: 1990s New Mexico // Florida //  Puerto Rico // Washington, D.C. // Wisconsin // Hokkaido

Contact is a 1997 American science fiction drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis. It is a film adaptation of Carl Sagan‘s 1985 novel of the same name; Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film.

Jodie Foster portrays the film’s protagonist, Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds strong evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact.

imdb        wiki

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What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

As America has turned away from searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, China has built the world’s largest radio dish for precisely that purpose. (read more)

“No civilization should ever announce its presence to the cosmos. Any other civilization that learns of its existence will perceive it as a threat to expand—as all civilizations do, eliminating their competitors until they encounter one with superior technology and are themselves eliminated. This grim cosmic outlook is called “dark-forest theory,” because it conceives of every civilization in the universe as a hunter hiding in a moonless woodland, listening for the first rustlings of a rival.”

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“whence it appears that in the smallest particle of matter there is a world of creatures, living beings, animals, entelechies, souls. each portion of matter may be conceived as like a garden full of plants and a pond full of fishes. but each branch of every plant, each member of every animal, each drop of its liquid parts is also such garden or pond.”

(monadology, leibniz)

257 – Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (TV Series 2016– )

spacetime coordinates: 19th century – 1960s – 2016 Seattle, Washington // 1967 – 2017 Bergsberg, Montana.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a BBC America comic science fiction detective television series created and primarily written by Max Landis. The two seasons are inspired by the novel series of the same name by Douglas Adams. The series features an ensemble cast including Samuel Barnett as the “holistic detective” Dirk Gently and Elijah Wood as his reluctant sidekick Todd. Other main cast members include Hannah Marks as Todd’s sister Amanda, Jade Eshete as security officer Farah Black, Fiona Douriff as “holistic assassin” Bart, and Mpho Koaho as computer technician Ken.

Following the broadcast of the second season finale, BBC America announced the show’s cancellation. The decision to cancel the series sparked outrage among fans of the show, and a petition was started to renew the series. The petition has received over 100,000 signatures. (wiki)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4047038/

0230 – Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy

Shaun of the Dead 

is a 2004 British horror comedy film directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg and Nick Frost. Pegg plays Shaun, a man attempting to get some kind of focus in his life as he deals with his girlfriend, his mother and stepfather.  At the same time, he has to cope with an apocalyptic zombie uprising.

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The film is the first in Wright and Pegg’s Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy,

followed by 2007‘s Hot Fuzz and

Hot Fuzz is a 2007 buddy cop action comedy film directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg and Nick Frost. Pegg and Frost play police officers attempting to solve a series of mysterious deaths in Sandford, a village in the West Country.

Over a hundred action films were used as inspiration for developing the script. Filming took place over eleven weeks in early 2006, and featured an extensive cast along with various uncredited cameos. Visual effects were developed by ten artists to expand on or add explosions, gore, and gunfire scenes.

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2013‘s The World’s End.

The World’s End is a 2013 comic science fiction film directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan and Rosamund Pike. The film follows a group of friends who discover an alien invasion during an epic pub crawl in their home town.

Wright has described the film as “social science fiction” in the tradition of John Wyndham and Samuel Youd (John Christopher).

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