Sci-Fi Nomads

In this month’s episode we talk about Space Truckers. It’s a sci-fi about the last independent trucker in space resisting the power of the company that is trying to take over everything. In the end, he saves the world, but it’s pretty bad. This is one of the lowest rated science fiction movies, but at […]

In this week's episode we talk about Space Truckers. It's a sci-fi about the last independent trucker in space resisting the power of the company that is trying to take over everything. In the end, he saves the world, but it's pretty bad. This is one of the lowest rated science fiction movies, but at the same time, we liked it. Enjoy.

The theme music in this episode is URBAN JUNGLE 2061 by Eric Matyas www.soundimage.org

The Plot A crew is brought out of hyper-sleep early to investigate a distress call, one that results in the crew getting massacred and a new kind of alien, xenomorphs, to begin terrorizing the colonies and coveted by the Company for use as a bioweapon. The Franchise Movies (1-4) Alien (1979) xenomorph infests a cargo […]

The Plot
A crew is brought out of hyper-sleep early to investigate a distress call, one that results in the crew getting massacred and a new kind of alien, xenomorphs, to begin terrorizing the colonies and coveted by the Company for use as a bioweapon.

The Franchise

1. Movies (1-4)
   1. Alien (1979) xenomorph infests a cargo ship and kills everyone except Ripley.
   2. Aliens (1986) Ripley wakes up having been rescued, but finds out a colony has developed on the Alien planet, which she has to save. Intro of the Queen.
   3. Alien 3 (1992) Ripley crashes on a prison planet and tries to save the population, but finds out she has a queen embryo inside her.
   4. Alien Resurrection (1997) directed by Jeunet and written by Joss Whedon. Ripley is resurrected 200 years later but an error in the process leaves her part alien. The military hopes to weaponize aliens and it's up to her and a crew of smugglers to stop them.
2. Comics and graphic novels
3. Games

The Science

1. Space travel
   1. Cryo
   2. Tow vehicles with cargo
   3. Mining operations
2. Aliens
   1. Genetic adaption through endoparasitic breeding
   2. Egg-larva-adult/ queen-drone setup
   3. Uses host’s genes to strengthen own survivability
      1. human/alien
      2. cow/alien
3. Androids
   1. Ash betrays the crew by order of the Company.
   2. Bishop sacrifices himself for the crew
4. Computers (Mother)

The Production

1. Creature design and implementation
   1. H. R. Giger design aliens
   2. First alien had over 900 moving parts
   3. 6’10” actor Bolaji Badejo
   4. Used cow and sheep innards for eggs and facehugger
   5. Both the bloody chest burster scene in Alien and the knife scene in Aliens were done without the actor’s knowledge, making for more realistic reactions
   6. Ron Cobb designed Nostromo
   7. 6 people to puppet the alien, 14 for the queen

The Themes

1. Man vs self
2. Man vs other
3. Motherhood
4. Sexuality
   1. Phallic and vaginal imagery (HR Giger)
   2. Rape

The Good

1. Strong female role model of the millennium
2. Most realistic model on how we'll travel deep space.
3. Suspense, Lighting, Sound
4. The black guy isn't the first to die

The Bad

1. They did too many movies
2. Time line gets screwed up

The theme music in this episode is URBAN JUNGLE 2061 by Eric Matyas www.soundimage.org

We come back with a second episode this month to talk about the 1964 Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, a film rated as one of the 50 worst of all time. We also have our first feedback from Sylia. The theme music in this episode is URBAN JUNGLE 2061 by Eric Matyas www.soundimage.org

We come back with a second episode this month to talk about the 1964 Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, a film rated as one of the 50 worst of all time. We also have our first feedback from Sylia.

The theme music in this episode is URBAN JUNGLE 2061 by Eric Matyas www.soundimage.org

Blade Runner is a 1982 Ridley Scott film based on the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”. Kinda. Not really at all actually. There are bioengineered beings with short life spans and their nemesies the Blade Runners, who are government agents that “retire”/kill illegal these replicants. Beyond that there’s not […]

Blade Runner is a 1982 Ridley Scott film based on the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”. Kinda. Not really at all actually. There are bioengineered beings with short life spans and their nemesies the Blade Runners, who are government agents that “retire”/kill illegal these replicants. Beyond that there’s not much similarity. It won the prestigious Hugo award and is still considered a cornerstone in neo-noir film.

The Plot

By 2019, replicants are rebelling from their off world slave labor and banned on earth. Harrison Ford stars as Deckard, an agent brought back from retirement in to track down 4 Nexus-6 model replicants. Their life spans are only 4 years long, but these rogue replicants have returned to Earth to try to to extend their lifetimes via the inventor at Tyrell Corporation. Deckard goes to Tyrell and meets his “niece”, an experimental replicant with memories of Tyrell’s real niece implanted. This gives her a better ability to defeat the Empathy test, a test meant to measure emotional response. Love at first cyborg.

The Franchise

Blade Runner 2049 is set to come out in later in 2017 and, somehow, Harrison Ford will be in the movie reprising his role as Rick Deckard.
Novel based on script
Comic book

The Science

1. Bioengineering
2. Cyborg rights

The Spirit Animals

Anyone else notice how every replicant had an animal associated with them? Roy / doves… Pris / racoons… Rachael / Owls… Leon / turtles… Zhora / snakes… Deckard / unicorns… We recognize those critters as nonhuman, and guilt by association, the replicants.

The Production

Lots of product placement - Cuisinart, Coca Cola, Koss, Panam, etc
Use of darkness with lights to give a space feel to the dystopian future, neo noir
Lead actor was meant to be Dustin Hoffman but Harrison Ford was just coming off Indiana Jones and came highly recommended when Hoffman fell through.
Roy Batty was made for actor Rutger Hauer, which Philip K Dick praised.
There are seven official versions of this movie

The Good

Philip K Dick’s blessing
Imagery and character development

The Bad

Almost universally panned by critics at the time… Flop at the box office, too. It took ten years for this movie to pick up steam and start to become a cult classic

Oh, those computers were bad. The photo scanner hooked up to the 6inch color tv? Saying ENHANCE, ENHANCE, ENHANCE… and somehow the image quality of a crap photo could see a freckle on a butt cheek a quarter mile away. And changed perspective, like 3-D magic!

Blade Runner Umbrella

The theme music in this episode is URBAN JUNGLE 2061 by Eric Matyas www.soundimage.org

THE PLOT(S) Terminator (1984) Once Skynet, the US missile defense system, becomes self aware, it takes over all computers, and launches the nukes, killing most of the world’s population. A Terminator (Series 800, Mark 101) was sent back in time to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, the future mother of John Connor, the leading resistance […]

THE PLOT(S)

Terminator (1984) Once Skynet, the US missile defense system, becomes self aware, it takes over all computers, and launches the nukes, killing most of the world's population. A Terminator (Series 800, Mark 101) was sent back in time to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, the future mother of John Connor, the leading resistance fighter.

In Terminator 2 Judgement Day (1991) - Failing to kill the mother, Skynet tries again and sends back a T-1000 (liquid metal) Terminator to kill John Connor in 1995. Best villain ever. Future John Connor sends back a reprogrammed T-800 to protect his younger self.

In Rise of the Machines (2003), the T-850 returns (yay Arnold), programmed to protect John and follows Kate’s (future wife of John) orders. We are introduced to the first female terminator, a TX. Nukes are fired and we leave John answering emergency radio transmissions.

Good ending? NOT YET. Next is Christian Bale’s terrible epic, Terminator Salvation (2009). This focuses on the aftermath of the Judgement Day. This movie is very forgettable.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! Terminator Genisys (2015) is a movie that focuses on Sarah Connor, in 1984, who’s been raised by a reprogrammed T-800 (ARNOLD) since she was 9. They to travel to the future (they made a time machine?!) to stop Skynet from happening. Travel to 2017, a year before Judgement Day. Explosions occur, upgrades are handed out, sacrifices are made.

THE FRANCHISE

Movies (1-5)

Tv series - The Sarah Connor Chronicles
In 2008-2009, we follow the adventures of John coming of age in a time when he’s being chased by Terminators, dating girls, and dealing with his fate of being a human resistance fighter. It was cancelled about its second season, and we didn’t even make it that far.

Comics and graphic novels
Games (DOS, Atari, Arcade, NES, Genesis, SNES, Gameboy, PS2/3, Xbox, etc)

THE SCIENCE

1. AI - The singularity.
   1. Instant or gradual?
   2. Is AI destined to turn on us?
2. The apocalypse
   1. Fusion bombs - EMPs
   2. Power grid would be destroyed - no power, no machines
   3. Heat would make it difficult to have Skynet in a sufficiently hardened location.
   4. Explained in Rise of the Machines where Skynet is the internet
3. Time travel
   1. Quantum field generator.
   2. Able to travel back and forward.
   3. Time paradoxes and timelines

THE PRODUCTION

Inspired by a fevered nightmare of metal torso crawling towards Cameron
OJ Simpson was passed up, “Such a nice guy couldn’t play a ruthless killer”
Animatronics - T-800 model from first movie, made from steel and required 4 people to puppet

Inspired partially by Twilight Zone and Outer Limits
Christian Bale was a major contributor to the writing of Salvation and focused on character development versus special effects.
Cameron’s vision was entirely on special effects and visual directing making his movies very artistically well done.

THE GOOD

The one liners (“Come with me,” “I’ll be back”, “Hasta la vista, Baby”)
Crawling torso scene, fight with T-1000 (basically the first two movies)

THE BAD

John Connor portrayal in movies and series
3 latter movies and tv series later seasons

The theme music in this episode is URBAN JUNGLE 2061 by Eric Matyas www.soundimage.org