Sci-Fi

Angry cyborgs bent on universal domination, the Daleks first appeared on the “Doctor Who” television series in 1963 and were quickly established as one of the Doctor’s deadliest enemies. For half a century, viewers have watched the Time Lord battle these evil beings whose singular goal is to “Exterminate! Exterminate!” Nobody should want to see the world through a Dalek’s point of view. According to the show’s lore, they have had every emotion removed except hate. But on Thursday the BBC  released Doctor Who: Eyestalk, a new app that lets you transform your iPhone, iPad, or iPod into a Dalek’s lens. ‘Doctor Who’ at 50: Meet the 11 faces of the Time Lord Eyestalk is basically a photo-filter app. You take a photo or video and then run it through one of seven filters that correspond to different Daleks that […]

Truth be told, Jim Sturgess is not a big sci-fi fan.  But the actor has now appeared in both “Cloud Atlas” and  “Upside Down,” which opens in theaters Friday. “Upside Down” stars Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst as star-crossed lovers in twin, inverted worlds governed by opposite gravity.  The worlds sometimes share the same frame. Reviews have been mixed, but the Los Angeles Times’ Gary Goldstein recommends that viewers not overthink it — just enjoy. That’s advice echoed by Sturgess, who told CBS New York earlier this month that he’s not a “huge” fan of science fiction but that “Upside Down” was, at heart, a fairy tale.  With fairy tales, he said, “there’s a certain amount of artistic license.” Adam, played by Sturgess, is a resident of “Down Below” and Eden (Dunst) lives “Up Top.”  The imagery is eye-popping.  “As they fight gravity, […]

“Ender’s Game” won’t hit theaters until Nov. 1, but Summit Entertainment has just released new imagery from the movie. On Wednesday, Summit sent out a new round of images:  A new still from the film features Asa Butterfield, who plays the film’s shy but brilliant hero Ender Wiggin, dressed in the gray uniform of the Battle School. He appears to be chatting cheerfully with his peers in the mess hall while a high-tech glowing scoreboard hovers over the scene. The company also sent the four army logos from the Battle School — Dragon, Salamander, Rat and Asp. (Click through the gallery to see those.) This is not the first still from “Ender’s Game” that Summit has released. An  image of Harrison Ford, who plays Col. Hyrum Graff , addressing Butterfield in a futuristic barracks has already been floating around the Internet. […]

Nicolaus Copernicus has received that highest of modern day honors, a Google Doodle, marking what would have been his 540th birthday. Copernicus doesn’t come up in day-to-day conversations, but perhaps he should: He is considered the founder of modern astronomy and single-handedly changed the way we think about our place in the universe by positing that the Earth revolved around the sun, and not the other way around. He remains a patron saint to those who like to question the rules. And, let’s face it: The plots of sci-fi movies and TV shows such as  ”Prometheus” and “Star Trek” are all the more fascinating because of our understanding of this great galaxy of ours — and the galaxies beyond. And we have Copernicus, among others, to thank for that. ‘DJesus Uncrossed’: Most controversial skit in ‘SNL’ history? Copernicus was born […]

Much in the same way its spiritual predecessor “The X-Files” paired the paranormal with the procedural, “Fringe” — the spectacular sci-fi series created by J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci that draws to a close Friday — imagined a world in which the fantastic lay just beyond the grasp of an unknowing populace. But of the many alien, unnatural threats that intrepid agents Mulder and Scully faced on Chris Carter’s landmark 1990s drama, “Fringe’s” time shifts and visits to parallel dimensions weren’t among them. Indeed, by the time its second season arrived, “Fringe” had established its own unique rhythms and preoccupations as its action centered around Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), an agent for the FBI’s Fringe Division, a covert operation set up to investigate extraordinary events, and her cohorts, the red licorice-munching, off-kilter scientist Walter Bishop (John Noble) and […]

Mad scientists and mechanical men, space cowboys and time travelers,  man-monsters and man-eating aliens — clearly this is our kind of crowd. We came up with a list (in no particular order) of 50 essential characters from the sci-fi small screen. Check them out in the gallery above, or better yet, head to the iTunes store and download our Hero Complex Magazine app, which features our Sci-Fi 50 as well as interviews with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“The Dark Knight Rises” and “Looper”), Jonathan Frakes (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”) and Benedict Cumberbatch (“Sherlock Holmes” and the upcoming “Star Trek” sequel), a story about Ridley Scott (“Alien,” “Prometheus”) and more. The magazine app also features extra behind-the-scenes photos, video and an interactive “Star Trek” quiz. The invasion from above began on June 27, 1949. On that evening, as America sat down to […]

When Fox screened a portion of its new epic sci-fi series “Terra Nova,” — on which Steven Spielberg is an executive producer — at Comic-Con International Saturday, one thing was very clear: people dig humans getting eaten by dinosaurs. In fact, the fans practically begged the producers to give them more in future episodes — that is, if the series, which premieres Sept. 26, makes it a full season. “Of course we like to kill people,” said executive producer Jose Molina, answering the plea. “Yeah, you’re going to see some pretty good dino-on-human action.” In the time-travel epic, humans in the 22nd century — specifically the Shannon family — go back millions of years to prehistoric Earth in an attempt to save the human race from extinction. There’s dense tropical forest, an enigmatic commander Taylor (Stephen Lang, who played a similarly […]