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Netflix’s ‘Altered Carbon’ trailer shows a vast cyberpunk world
We've been looking forward to Netflix's take on Blade Runner for a while now. Altered Carbon, based on the novel of the same name, even made an appearance at CES this year. Now there's a brand-new trailer to get us all excited for the upcoming sci-fi series, full of body horror, murder and (apparently) some funny moments.
Apple orders sci-fi drama from 'Hunger Games' director
Apple is pulling out all the stops when it comes to landing original shows. Deadline has learned that the tech firm has ordered an "epic, world-building" sci-fi drama series that would not only be written by Steven Knight, the creator of British crime drama Peaky Blinders, but would be directed by The Hunger Games' Francis Lawrence. It's not known who would star or even how long the initial run would be (it'll "likely" consist of eight episodes), but it would come from the same scripted series unit that gave Apple the Octavia Spencer thriller Are You Sleeping?
'Black Mirror' season four is here to ruin your holiday spirit
At some point during Christmas and New Year, the days just sort of blend together. Sat silently in your parents' living room, you're already bored of your gifts, permanently spaced from 'round-the-clock imbibing, and you can't possibly eat any more cheese. But snap out of it, because it's finally time to sink your teeth into season four of Black Mirror. All six episodes of everyone's favorite dystopian reality check are available to binge on Netflix right this second -- and let's be honest, you are going to binge it, because spoilers will be lighting up the group chat by dinner time. To celebrate the new series (and the end of 2017), Netflix has also released a lovely New Year's message. Not the trailer you may've already seen teasing the latest episodes, but a mosaic of footage taken from previous seasons and the real world, which suggests the line between show and the other side of the glass is growing ever thinner.
'Blade Runner 2049' VFX reel shows CG tricks behind bleak landscapes
There's no question that Blade Runner 2049 revolves around computer-generated effects, whether it's the retro-futuristic technology or its holographic AI personas. However, the CG is more pervasive than you might think. Rodeo FX has released a visual effects reel for Denis Villeneuve's bleak sci-fi movie, and it's evident that even the seemingly mundane shots were draped in digital artwork. Caution: there are mild spoilers ahead.
'Black Mirror' season four hits Netflix on December 29th
After months of hype, Netflix has finally set a release date for the fourth season of Black Mirror. A trailer for Charlie Brooker's technology-gone-wrong anthology has revealed that the six new episodes will premiere on December 29th. You already have an inkling of what to expect through previous trailers: "Arkangel" (directed by Jodie Foster) shows the perils of overprotective parenting, "Crocodile" explores recovering memories from a car crash and "USS Callister" reflects a Star Trek gone horribly wrong. Other episodes include "Hang the DJ" (about a system that finds love matches), "Black Museum" (a museum of terrifying tech) and "Metalhead" (a terrifying robotic hound, from the sounds of it).
Recommended Reading: The 'Blade Runner' effect on electronic music
Do Androids Dream Of Electronic Beats? Al Horner, FACT After months of teases, trailers and short films, Blade Runner 2049 is now in theaters. FACT takes a look at the original film's impact on music, including comments from electronic music legend Gary Numan on how he was influenced. There's also a 12-minute documentary to accompany the written portion, and it's well worth your time.
Explore Philip K. Dick's crazy futures in 'Electric Dreams' trailer
Amazon is no stranger to sci-fi author Philip K. Dick's somewhat skewed vision of the future, having found success with The Man in the High Castle and its alternative history timeline. The company teased its new anthology series based on the author's work, Electric Dreams, this past August, but now fans are getting a much more in-depth trailer at New York Comic Con. It's full of weird and wonderful visions of our future, all based on Dick's writings. The team also screened a short clip from The Man in the High Castle's third season.
The evolution of video-game cyberpunk: 'Ruiner' and 'Tacoma'
What does it even mean, cyberpunk?" It's a strange question coming from Magdalena Tomkowicz, the narrative designer of Ruiner, a top-down action game that takes place in an anime-inspired cyberpunk world. It just landed on Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this week from Polish studio Reikon Games, but fans of gritty sci-fi shooters have been looking forward to this one for months. The thing is, Tomkowicz and Creative Director Benedykt Szneider never intended to create a cyberpunk game. They're simply products of the 1980s, pulling inspiration from their favorite childhood stories -- Alien, Die Hard, Ghost in the Shell -- to create something of their own. Tomkowicz is also a former journalist who covered emerging technology and consumer trends, and her professional curiosity informed Ruiner's aesthetic far more than any desire to re-create the world of, say, Blade Runner. Besides, the traditional Blade Runner version of cyberpunk -- dense, dark city streets coated in smog and grime, eerily illuminated by walls of neon -- is out of touch with today's reality, according to Szneider and Tomkowicz. This aesthetic made sense in the '80s, but sci-fi is all about extrapolating from current technological and social trends, not clinging to 35-year-old ideas about the future. Blade Runner completely missed the advent of cellphones, after all. "It's like it's actually a retro-futuristic genre and something that is locked in its bubble," Tomkowicz says.
Sci-fi author and tech advocate Jerry Pournelle dies
The science fiction and technology worlds are poorer off this weekend, as author Jerry Pournelle has died at 84 after a sudden illness. He was best-known for collaborating with Larry Niven on classic novels like The Mote in God's Eye, but he's equally known as a strong advocate for technology and spaceflight. Significantly, he's widely credited as the first major author to write a published novel entirely on a computer. He bought an extremely expensive ($12,000 in 1977 dollars) machine anticipating that it would let him edit and correct mistakes far more quickly than with a typewriter. While it's virtually a given that authors will write with computers these days, Pournelle spurred many of his peers to buy PCs and ultimately usher in an era of digital writing.
‘Stranger Things’ is already headed for a third season
Netflix is releasing the second season of Stranger Things on October 27th, but the show is already set to come back for a third season. In an interview with Vulture, Matt and Ross Duffer, the creators of Stranger Things confirm that a third season is in the works and that the whole series will likely end with the fourth season. "We're thinking it will be a four-season thing and then out," said Ross.
'Marjorie Prime' imagines a world where AI keeps us from grieving
Despite humanity's astounding technological advances, the one thing that we've never been able to invent our way out of is our own mortality. But what if you never actually had to lose the ones you love? That's the premise of upcoming sci-fi flick Marjorie Prime, where advances in AI make the human grieving process a thing of the past. Struggling to come to terms with the death of her husband, the movie's main character, Marjorie, uses a computer program to immortalize him as a piece of AI.
'Westworld' season 2 trailer reveals a park gone horribly wrong
Westworld won't return to TV until 2018, but we're getting a peek at what that return will entail... and things have clearly gone downhill. A new trailer for the second season reveals that the robots are rebelling against the humans who've treated them so harshly (really, the core of the movie that inspired the show), and there are plenty of casualties among the guests and Delos employees. Dolores, William and other bots are clearly relishing the opportunity to get back at their tormentors. While it's going to be a frustratingly long wait for the rest of season two, HBO is at least giving us something to look forward to.
Latest 'Star Trek: Discovery' trailer shows more of the crew
No, CBS' much-delayed Star Trek: Discovery still isn't out yet, but you're at least getting a better look at how the streaming-focused series will play out. The broadcaster has released a hefty second trailer for the show that gives a better look at the USS Discovery's crew and the Klingons. It revolves around first officer Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green, above), and for good reason -- a San Diego Comic Con panel revealed that she's Spock's adoptive sister. She's clearly struggling with the contrast between Vulcan logic and the chaos she sees throughout the galaxy.
Xprize enlists sci-fi authors and filmmakers to map our future
Science fiction has been instrumental in creating the future from the very beginning. Real-life manipulator hands, originally created for the nuclear industry, were named after Robert Heinlein's short story, "Waldo." It makes a lot of sense, then, that when the Xprize program partnered with All Nippon Airlines (ANA) to "imagine a bold vision of the future," it would look to celebrated science fiction novelists, writers, filmmakers, producers and screenwriters. The collaboration has produced the Science Fiction Council, a group comprised of high-octane sci-fi storytellers from nine countries, including luminaries like Margaret Atwood, Cory Doctorow, Andy Weir, Charles Stross, Ernest Cline and Nancy Kress.
'Star Wars: Episode IX' ends the trilogy on May 24th, 2019
Modern Star Wars movies have had a bad habit of slipping into December, but that isn't stopping Disney and Lucasfilm from wanting the space epic to become a summer blockbuster once again. The two have announced that Star Wars: Episode IX will debut on May 24th, 2019 -- just three and a half years after The Force Awakens first hit theaters. You might not want to base your schedule around that date knowing the history of previous delays, but it might come as a relief if you're tired of freezing in lineups for midnight showings.
'Trinity' will be the first interactive VR sci-fi TV show
Virtual reality production studio UNLTD today revealed that it's working on the world's first interactive sci-fi TV show. Speaking at SXSW, the company announced the premise for Trinity- a show set in a future where humanity has long become extinct. With only a few surviving androids left on Earth, the story follows the robotic resistance as they take a stand against the all-powerful singularity threatening to destroy them. After speaking about the challenges of filming in VR, producer John Hamilton promises that Trinity will be an experience which allows 'viewers to move around an episode in a way that hasn't been seen before'. The live-action series will be split into five fifteen minute episodes and is to be released on all available virtual reality platforms.
'Terminator' reboot will have James Cameron's oversight
The last few stabs at The Terminator movies haven't gone so well, to put it mildly -- you're more likely to have enjoyed the video game tie-ins. And that may well be due to the absence of James Cameron, who sold his rights back in 1984 and hasn't touched the save-the-future series since Terminator 2 in 1991. However, it might be close to getting the better treatment it deserves. Deadline sources hear that Cameron is in talks with Deadpool director Tim Miller to create a Terminator reboot. While it's not certain which path the movie will take (is it from scratch, a T2 follow-up, or something else?), it'd be promising to have the series' originator involved.
Watch Hulu's first trailer for its take on 'The Handmaid's Tale'
Ever since Hulu announced that it was adapting The Handmaid's Tale, it's been hard not to wonder: would it adequately capture the bleakness of Margaret Atwood's dystopian classic, or do justice to the movie? You now have an inkling of how well it'll work. Hulu has posted its first trailer for its Handmaid's Tale series, and... it's definitely not the feel-good hit of the year. The teaser shows Offred (Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss) grappling with the end of the United States and the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a harsh theocracy where women lose their rights and "handmaids" like Offred only serve as childbearers.
'Blade Runner' fan project recreates a whole set in VR
If you're a movie buff, you've probably wished that you could walk into a scene and explore it on your own terms. Well, so did software engineer Quentin Lengele -- and he's close to making his dream a reality. He recently released footage of Blade Runner 9732, a years-long project that sets out to recreate Blade Runner protagonist Rick Deckard's apartment in virtual reality using the Unity engine. The effort models just about everything in obsessive (and to-scale) detail, right down to stray magazines and a view of the dystopic Los Angeles outside. And to no one's surprise, it captures the movie's all-important film noir lighting and sound environment.
'Mr. Robot' creator turns sci-fi legend 'Metropolis' into a series
Sam Esmail is apparently taking a very unusual strategy for his next big project beyond Mr. Robot: he's tackling one of the earliest sci-fi epics. Hollywood Reporter sources say that Esmail is creating a miniseries based around Metropolis, Fritz Lang's classic 1927 film about a dystopic society. The show is still very early (Esmail may need to finish Mr. Robot before devoting his full attention), but partner Universal Cable Productions is apparently willing to give it a budget fitting Metropolis' pioneering visuals. Reportedly, the company would be willing to spend a whopping $10 million per episode, and is willing to shop it around to numerous providers, including streaming services.
