World Gone Wrong SCI-FI explores the Dark side of a Future where Science, Technology, Human Ambition (or all of the above) have chipped away at personal Freedoms, Identity, or Prosperity enough to make us realize — we don’t want to go there. These stories often involve Time Travel — with the Hero hoping to somehow go back and fix things — to make the World right again.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Planet of the Apes is an American SCI-FI film loosely based on the 1963 novel by Pierre Boulle. The film stars Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, James Daly, and Linda Harrison. In the film, an astronaut crew crash-lands on a strange planet in the distant future. Although the planet appears desolate at first, the surviving crew members stumble upon a society in which apes have evolved into creatures with human-like intelligence and speech. The apes have assumed the role of the dominant species and humans are mute primitives wearing animal skins.

Storyline
Astronauts Taylor (Heston), Landon and Dodge awaken from deep hibernation after a near-light-speed space voyage. Their spacecraft crashes into a lake on an unknown planet; Taylor’s estimate places them in Orion’s Bellatrix System, 300 light-years from their home Solar System. Before they abandon their sinking vessel, Taylor (the mission commander) reads the ship’s chronometer as November 25, 3978 – two thousand and six years after their departure in 1972. The three astronauts have been in hibernation pods and have aged slightly less than one year. However, a fourth astronaut, Stewart, is found to be dead, having aged rapidly after her hibernation pod was compromised.

The men travel through desolate wasteland, coming across eerie scarecrow-like figures and a freshwater lake with lush vegetation. While the men are swimming, their clothes are stolen and shredded by primitive mute humans. Soon after, armed gorillas raid a cornfield where the humans are gathering food. Taylor is shot in the throat as he and the others are captured. Dodge is killed and Landon is captured in the chaos. Taylor is taken to Ape City. Two chimpanzees, animal psychologist Zira (Hunter) and surgeon Galen, save Taylor’s life, though his throat injury renders him temporarily mute.

Taylor is placed with a captive woman, whom he later names Nova (Harrison). He observes an advanced society of talking apes with a strict caste system: gorillas are the military force and laborers; orangutans oversee government and religion; and intellectual chimpanzees are mostly scientists and doctors. The ape society is a theocracy, while the apes consider the primitive humans as vermin to be hunted and either killed outright, enslaved, or used in scientific experiments. Taylor convinces Zira and her fiancé, Cornelius (McDowall), that he is as intelligent as they are by communicating through written messages and by making a paper airplane. Dr. Zaius (Evans), their orangutan superior, arranges for Taylor to be castrated against Zira’s protests. Taylor escapes and finds Dodge’s stuffed corpse on display in a museum. He is soon recaptured, and regains his voice, which alarms the apes.

A hearing to determine Taylor’s origins is convened. Taylor mentions his two comrades, learning that Landon was lobotomized and rendered catatonic. Believing Taylor either is from an unknown human tribe beyond their borders or was the subject of a mad scientist who gave him the power of speech, Zaius privately threatens to castrate and lobotomize Taylor for refusing to reveal his origins. With help from Zira’s nephew Lucius, Zira and Cornelius free Taylor and Nova and take them to the Forbidden Zone, a taboo region outside Ape City where Taylor’s ship crashed. Ape law has ruled the area out of bounds for centuries. Cornelius and Zira are intent to gather proof of an earlier non-simian civilization – which Cornelius discovered a year earlier – to be cleared of heresy; Taylor focuses on proving he comes from a different planet.

When the group arrives at the cave, Cornelius is intercepted by Zaius and his soldiers. Taylor holds them off by threatening to shoot Zaius, who agrees to enter the cave to disprove their theories. Inside, Cornelius displays remnants of a technologically advanced human society pre-dating simian history. Taylor identifies artifacts such as dentures, eyeglasses, a heart valve and, to the apes’ astonishment, a talking human doll. Zaius admits he has always known about the ancient human civilization. Taylor wants to search for answers. Zaius warns Taylor against finding an answer that he will not like, adding that the now-desolate Forbidden Zone was once a lush paradise. After Taylor and Nova are allowed to leave, Zaius has the cave sealed off to destroy the evidence, while charging Zira, Cornelius and Lucius with heresy.

Taylor and Nova follow the shoreline on horseback. Eventually, they discover the remnants of the Statue of Liberty, revealing that this supposedly alien planet is actually Earth, long after an apocalyptic nuclear war. Understanding Zaius’ earlier warning while Nova looks on in shock, Taylor falls to his knees in despair, cursing humanity for destroying the world.

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

12 Monkeys is an American SCI-FI thriller film directed by Terry Gilliam. It stars Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Plummer. Set in a post-apocalyptic future devastated by disease, the film follows a convict who is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet.

Storyline
A deadly virus released in 1996 wiped out almost all of humanity, forcing survivors to live underground. A group known as the Army of the Twelve Monkeys is believed to have released the virus. In 2035, James Cole (Willis) is a prisoner living in an underground compound beneath Philadelphia. Cole is selected to be sent back in time to find the original virus to help scientists develop a cure in exchange for a reduced sentence. Cole is troubled by dreams involving a foot chase and a shooting at an airport.

Cole arrives in Baltimore in 1990, not 1996 as planned. He is arrested and incarcerated at a mental hospital on the diagnosis of Dr. Kathryn Railly (Stowe). There he encounters Jeffrey Goines (Pitt), a mental patient with extreme environmentalist and anti-corporate views. Cole is interviewed by a panel of doctors and tries to explain that the virus outbreak has already happened and cannot be prevented.

After an escape attempt, Cole is sedated and locked in a cell but he disappears and awakens back in 2035. He is interrogated by the scientists, who play a distorted voicemail message that asserts the association of the Army of the 12 Monkeys with the virus. He is also shown photos of numerous people suspected of being involved, including Goines. The scientists offer Cole another chance to complete his mission and send him back in time. Cole briefly arrives at a battlefield during World War I, where he sees another prison inmate who was sent back in time, José. Cole is shot in the leg and gets transported to 1996.

In 1996, Railly gives a lecture about the Cassandra complex to a group of scientists. At the post-lecture book-signing, Railly meets Dr. Peters, who tells her that apocalypse alarmists represent the sane vision while humanity’s gradual destruction of the environment is the real lunacy.

Cole arrives at the venue after seeing flyers publicizing it. When Railly departs, he kidnaps her and forces her to take him to Philadelphia. They learn that Goines is the founder of the Army of the 12 Monkeys before they set out in search of him. When Cole confronts Goines, he denies any involvement with the group and says that in 1990, Cole originated the idea of wiping out humanity with a virus stolen from Goines’ virologist father, Dr. Leland Goines (Plummer).

Cole is transported back to 2035, where he reaffirms to the scientists his commitment to his mission and asks to be sent back to complete it. When he finds Railly again in 1996, he tells her that he now believes himself crazy as she had suggested. Railly has discovered evidence of his time travel to the Great War which she shows him, believing he is sane. They decide to depart for the Florida Keys before the start of the plague.

Cole and Railly learn that the Army of the 12 Monkeys was not the source of the epidemic; the group’s major act of protest is releasing animals from a zoo and placing Goines’ father in an animal cage. At the airport, Cole leaves a message telling the scientists that they are on the wrong track following the Army of the 12 Monkeys and he will not return. Cole is confronted by José, who gives Cole a handgun and instructs him to follow orders. Railly spots Dr. Peters at the airport and recognizes him from a newspaper as an assistant of Goines’ father. Peters is about to embark on a tour of several cities that matches the viral outbreaks chronologically and geographically.

Cole is informed of Peters by Railly, then forces his way through a security checkpoint in pursuit of Peters. Cole draws his gun, then is shot by police. As he lies dying in Railly’s arms, she scans the crowd around her. She makes eye contact with a small boy: the young James Cole witnessing the scene of his death, which will replay in his dreams for years to come. Peters, aboard the plane with the virus, sits down next to Jones, one of the scientists from the future, who comments that her job is “insurance”. The young Cole watches a plane take off from the ground outside the airport.

The Hunger Games (2012)

The Hunger Games is an American Dystopian action film, based on the 2008 novel by Suzanne Collins. It is the first installment in The Hunger Games film series. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland. In the film, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Hutcherson) are forced to compete in the Hunger Games, an elaborate televised fight to the death consisting of adolescent contestants from the 12 Districts of Panem.

Storyline
Panem is a dystopian nation divided into twelve districts and ruled by its Capitol. As punishment for a failed rebellion seventy-four years before, each district must choose two tributes, a boy and a girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen, to fight to the death in the annual Hunger Games until only one is left alive and declared the “Victor.” The event is televised across the Capitol and all districts.

Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) lives in District 12 with her younger sister, Primrose, her mother, and her best friend Gale Hawthorne. During the Reaping, Primrose is selected, so Katniss volunteers to take her place in the 74th Hunger Games. She and her fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta Mellark (Hutcherson), are escorted to the Capitol by their chaperone, Effie Trinket (Banks), and mentor Haymitch Abernathy (Harrelson), the only living victor from District 12. Haymitch stresses the importance of gaining sponsors, as they can provide resources during the Games. During a televised interview with Caesar Flickerman (Tucci), Peeta confesses his feelings for Katniss, which she initially sees as an attempt to attract sponsors; she later learns his feelings are genuine.

When the Games start, half of the tributes are killed in the initial brawl, while Katniss grabs supplies from the Cornucopia and flees into the forest. She avoids other tributes, but Seneca Crane, the Gamemaker, triggers a forest fire to drive her back. She encounters the Careers – Marvel, Glimmer, Cato, and Clove – and climbs a tree. Peeta, seeming to ally with them, suggests they wait her out. Hiding in a tree, Rue, the District 11 female tribute, points Katniss to a nest of Tracker Jackers, which she cuts to drop on the sleeping Careers; Glimmer dies, but Peeta and the others escape. Katniss retrieves Glimmer’s bow and arrows but falls ill from stings and hallucinates. Peeta returns, urging her to flee before escaping from the Careers himself.

Rue helps Katniss recover, and the two become friends. Rue distracts the Careers while Katniss destroys a stockpile of their supplies by triggering the mines guarding it. However, Marvel finds and impales Rue with his spear before Katniss shoots him. She comforts Rue by singing, and after she dies, she adorns her body with flowers, inciting a riot in District 11. Panem President Coriolanus Snow (Sutherland) warns Crane he is displeased about the unrest, stating the Games’ purpose is to instill fear to prevent future uprisings.

Haymitch persuades Crane to alter the rules by allowing two victors if they are from the same district, suggesting it would appease the audience. Katniss finds Peeta severely injured, and the two take shelter in a cave. Despite Peeta’s protests, Katniss leaves to get medicine for him at the Cornucopia. She is ambushed and overpowered by Clove, who gloats about Rue’s death. Thresh, District 11’s male tribute, intervenes and kills Clove. He spares Katniss once, for Rue’s sake. The medicine heals Peeta’s wounds overnight.

While hunting, Katniss hears a cannon blast signaling a death. She rushes to Peeta, who unknowingly collected deadly nightlock berries. They find Foxface, the District 5 female tribute, poisoned by the nightlock berries she ate after observing Peeta. To end the Games, Crane unleashes Mutts that kill Thresh, leaving Katniss, Peeta, and Cato as the last survivors. Cato holds Peeta hostage until Katniss shoots his hand, enabling Peeta to escape and push Cato into the Mutts. Katniss then shoots Cato to end his suffering.

Suddenly, Crane revokes the rule change for two victors. Peeta urges Katniss to shoot him, but instead, Katniss suggests they consume nightlock berries together to commit suicide. Just before they eat the berries, Crane stops the games and declares them co-victors. After the Games, Haymitch warns Katniss about the enemies her rebellion created. Snow has Crane locked in a room with night lock berries while contemplating his next move.

The Man in the High Castle (2015)

The Man in the High Castle is an American Dystopian Alternate History TV series (based on Philip K. Dick’s 1962 novel) set in a parallel universe where the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan rule the world after their victory in World War II. It stars Alexa Davalos, Rufus Sewell and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. It is set in America in the year 1962, with Hitler still alive and heading the Reich. America is partitioned into two parts: the Greater Nazi Reich and the Japanese Pacific States.

Storyline
Juliana Crane (Davalos), a San Francisco woman becomes entangled with the resistance after her half-sister, Trudy is murdered while trying to transport a film reel to Canon City, Colorado in the Neutral Zone and had given the film to Juliana just before being murdered. The film reel contained a newsreel-style footage, entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, depicting an alternate history in which the Allied Forces won World War II. It was part of a series of similar newsreels being collected by someone referred to as ‘The Man in the High Castle’. Juliana decides to travel to the Neutral Zone to complete the mission of her sister, leaving behind his boyfriend Frank Fink, who is a Jew and lives in the paranoia of being caught.

In Canon City, she encounters Joe Blake, a double agent working for the Nazis under Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith (Sewell), a senior officer in the SS who previously served in the US Army. Joe is pretending to be a member of the resistance in order to find the resistance contact in Canon City, which happens to be Juliana.

Nobusuke Tagomi (Tagawa), a high-ranking Japanese official, the Trade Minister in San Francisco meets secretly with Nazi official Rudolph Wegner to discuss their concerns about the power vacuum that will be caused by either death or forced stepping down of Adolf Hitler. Wegner fears that Hitler’s successor will use the Reich’s nuclear bombs against Japan to gain control of the rest of America. The Japanese are lagging far behind the German technology.

When the Japanese and the Nazis become suspicious of Juliana’s activities, Frank is arrested and questioned by the authorities about the whereabouts of Juliana. They kill his sister and her two children, using their Jewish heritage as an excuse for their execution, after Frank is unable to provide them any information. Frank plans to kill the Japanese Crown Prince and Pricess but finally decides against it.

Season 1 ends with Tagomi standing confused in a different world where America is going through the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It becomes clear that the film reels are not a propaganda but are realities from ALTERNATE WORLDS. It is also clear that there are more than one. The one in a film reel which has video of San Francisco being bombed by a nuclear bomb is different from the one to which Tagomi travels to at the end of the first season as he arrives in a world where Allied forces have won the war. The alternate worlds are also parallel as Juliana discovers through a film that Joe is a Nazi. But Tagomi is the only character who has been shown till now, who can travel between worlds, (and in season 2 he even goes to meet his family and finds out that his son is married to Juliana in that reality.)

(If you have not seen this entire series — be sure to check it out. You won’t be disappointed.)

The Handmaid’s Tale (2017)

The Handmaid’s Tale is an American Dystopian TV series based on the 1985 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It stars Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Joseph Fiennes, Ann Dowd, O-T Fagbenle and Bradley Whitford. The plot features a dystopia following a Second American Civil War wherein a theonomic, totalitarian society subjects fertile women, called “Handmaids”, to child-bearing slavery.

Storyline
In a world where fertility rates have collapsed as a result of sexually transmitted diseases and environmental pollution, the totalitarian, theonomic government of Gilead has established its rule in the former United States in the aftermath of a civil war. Society is organized by power-hungry leaders along with a new, militarized, hierarchical régime of religious fanaticism and newly created social classes, in which women are brutally subjugated. By law, women in Gilead are forced to work in severely limited roles, including some as natal slaves, and they are not allowed to own property, have careers, handle money, or even read and write (apart from the Aunts).

Worldwide infertility has led to the enslavement of fertile women in Gilead determined by the new régime to be fallen women, citing an extremist interpretation of the Biblical account of Bilhah. These women often include those who have entered marriages following divorce (termed “adulteresses”, as divorce is not recognized under Gileadian law), single or unmarried mothers, lesbians (homosexuals being termed “gender traitors”), non-Christians, adherents of Christian denominations other than the “Sons of Jacob”, political dissidents, and academics.

These women, called Handmaids, are assigned to the homes of the ruling elite, where they must submit to ritualized rape (referred to as “the ceremony”) by their male masters (“Commanders”) in the presence of their wives with the intent of being impregnated and bearing children for them. Handmaids are given names created by the addition of the prefix Of- to the first name of the man who has them. When they are transferred, their names are changed.

Along with the Handmaids, much of society is now grouped into classes that dictate their freedoms and duties. Women are divided into a small range of social categories, each one signified by a plain dress in a specific color. A Handmaid’s outfit consists of a long red dress, a red cloak, heavy brown boots, and a white coif, with a larger white bonnet (known as “wings”) to be worn outside, which conceals her from the public view and restricts her vision.

June Osborne (Moss), renamed Offred, is the Handmaid assigned to the home of the Gileadan Commander Fred Waterford (Fiennes) and his wife Serena Joy (Strahovski), key players in the formation and rise of Gilead, who struggle with the realities of the society they helped create. During “the time before”, June was married to Luke (Fagbenle) and had a daughter, Hannah.

At the beginning of the story, while attempting to flee Gilead with her husband and daughter, June was captured and forced to become a Handmaid because of the “adultery” she and her husband committed. June’s daughter was taken and given to an upper-class family to raise, and her husband escaped into Canada. Much of the plot revolves around June’s desire to be reunited with her husband and daughter and the internal evolution of her strength to its somewhat darker version.

(Powerful storytelling not to be missed — be sure to watch the entire series!)

World Gone Wrong SCI-FI explores Dark Futures where personal Freedoms, Identity, or Prosperity are Lost — through evil Science, Technology or Human Ambition. Let us hope these tales will serve as a timely Warning to all — to NOT fall prey to those who would try to bend our will with Empty Promises to lift up a few — while trampling the rights of others underfoot.

May such grim Realities … NEVER come to pass.

***

(Click image link to view YouTube video)

---

Mind Control SCI-FI: stories in which Human Behavior is Manipulated or Controlled (against their Will) through Hypnosis, Drugs, Subliminal messages, Telepathy or some other means — by Forces seen or unseen, sometimes completely Unknown.

Inspiration may come from real-life reports about Secret Experiments conducted by Government agencies (like the CIA’s MKUltra: to develop a Truth Serum, or Amnesiac to make people forget their actions), Brainwashing techniques used in wartime or UFO research (Abductees describe neurological control exerted by Aliens through eye contact — which they cannot resist.)

They Live — (1988)

They Live is an American SCI-FI action horror film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story “Eight O’Clock in the Morning” by Ray Nelson. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster.

Storyline
A homeless drifter in Los Angeles, John Nada (Roddy Piper) meets fellow laborer Frank Armitage (Keith David), who brings him to a soup kitchen and ad-hoc squatters’ community on the edge of the city. Early on, the local TV is occasionally interrupted by a pirated signal carrying the warnings of a bearded conspiracy theorist, who declares that the human race is being controlled by an unseen Force.

Nada learns that this signal is coming from a nearby church, home to an underground movement, whose mission is to awaken the world to this Force’s sinister plans. There he discovers a box of “Truth-Revealing” sunglasses. When Nada puts on a pair, he realizes that the richest, most powerful people in the world also happen to be … skeleton-faced ALIENS — concealing their appearance and manipulating people to consume, breed, and conform to the status quo via Subliminal Messages in mass media.

Will Nada be able to convince others to join his fight against the Aliens controlling humanity? Will he succeed in destroying their transmitter that disguises their True appearance and hidden propaganda? The eerie parallels between this story and modern attempts through Social Media to sway the masses are truly frightening — to say the least.

The most memorable parts of They Live are the scenes in which seemingly innocuous advertisements and pop-culture entertainments are exposed as nefarious means of Mind Control, delivering blunt subliminal messages like “OBEY,” “MARRY AND REPRODUCE,” and “NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT.”

Total Recall — (1990)

Total Recall is an American SCI-FI action film directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, and Michael Ironside. Based on the 1966 short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” by Philip K. Dick.

Storyline
Douglas Quaid, (Schwarzenegger) a construction worker bored with his life, seeks adventure by undergoing a “memory implant” at Rekall, Inc., a company that offers simulated vacation experiences. He chooses a Martian secret agent adventure. However, during the implant process, Quaid seemingly discovers that he really is a secret agent named Hauser, whose memories have been suppressed.

Soon he finds his “adventure” happening in reality — as agents of a shadow organization try to prevent Quaid from recovering memories of his past as a Martian secret agent (Hauser) aiming to stop the tyrannical regime of Martian dictator Vilos Cohaagen (Cox). Listening to a recorded message from his True self (Hauser), he discovers that his “real life” and memories are fabrications from an implant in his brain — and learns how to remove it.

This sets off a chain of events where Quaid, (or Hauser) struggles to discern what is real and what is a fabricated memory implanted by Rekall. He undergoes a radical transformation, from a mundane construction worker to a skilled secret agent, fighting for Martian liberation.

Total Recall poses profound questions about Reality, Memory, Identity, and the nature of Free Will.

Dark City — (1998)

Dark City is a tech noir film directed by Alex Proyas, and starring Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O’Brien, and Ian Richardson.

Storyline
John Murdoch (Sewell) wakes up in a hotel bathtub with amnesia. He receives a phone call from Dr. Daniel Schreber(Sutherland), a psychiatrist who knows more than he lets on, urging him to flee the hotel to evade a group of men who are after him. In the room, Murdoch discovers the corpse of a ritualistically murdered woman and a bloody knife. He flees the scene, just as the pale group in trench coats (“the Strangers”) arrive.

Police Inspector Frank Bumstead (Hurt), who is investigating murdered prostitutes, identifies Murdoch as a suspect. Following clues, Murdoch learns his name and finds out he has a wife named Emma (Connelly). When the Strangers corner him, Murdoch instinctively alters reality (an ability the Strangers share and refer to as “tuning”) to create an escape path for himself.

Murdoch wanders city streets where it is always nighttime (but no one seems to notice). When the clock strikes twelve, everyone else falls asleep and the Strangers use tuning to rearrange city architecture. Afterwards, assisted by Schreber, they alter inhabitants’ memories using an injection. Murdoch learns that he came from a coastal town called Shell Beach, which everyone knows, though no one remembers how to get there. When confronted, Schreber finally explains the Strangers’ nature: they are Extraterrestrials residing in human corpses who share a hive mind, experimenting with humans to analyze individuality in hopes of making a discovery that will help their race to survive.

Will Murdoch ever reach Shell Beach? Will his powers be fully realized enough to battle and defeat the Strangers? Will the city ever experience sunlight? Dark City‘s distinct visual style and chilling exploration of memory manipulation solidify its status as an exceptional mind control movie.

The Matrix — (1999)

The Matrix is a SCI-FI action film written and directed by the Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano.

Storyline
In 1999, programmer Thomas Anderson (Reeves), secretly known as hacker “Neo”, wants to know the meaning of cryptic references to the “Matrix” on his computer. Meanwhile, Trinity (Moss) escapes six policemen and Agent Smith (Weaving) by defying gravity. A fierce rooftop chase, impossible leap between buildings and dash to a public phone booth enable her to reach Morpheus (Fishburne), who gets her out in time to avoid being smashed by a garbage truck. One agent says, “We have our next target. His name is Neo.”

Neo’s computer screen goes blank, and messages appear: “Wake up, Neo.” “The Matrix has you.” “Follow the White Rabbit.” A white rabbit tattoo on a girl’s shoulder at his door draws him to follow ravers to a bar where he is approached by Trinity. She tells him that Morpheus has answers. Neo is contacted by Morpheus at work, who tells him to flee the agents, but he gets caught and resists interrogation by Smith. The agents implant a robotic device in his abdomen. and Neo awakens at home, dismissing the encounter as a nightmare — until directed by phone to meet Morpheus. A car picks him up, and two agents hold him down while Trinity extracts the device.

Face to face, Morpheus gives Neo a pill choice: to learn the Truth about the Matrix or forget it. Opting for Truth, Neo finds himself hairless and naked, submerged in a liquid-filled, mechanical pod with cables attached to his body. Disconnected by a hovering release robot, tubes pop off and Neo is flushed down a tube into an underground pool. Rescued by a hovercraft, Morpheus says, “Welcome to the Real World”. (The “Matrix” is a computer generated dreamworld for humans trapped in liquid-filled pods, providing electricity for machines.)

Is Neo “the One” (as Trinity believes) according to prophecy, who can defeat Artificial Intelligence to free Humanity from the Matrix and reclaim the Earth from machines? He must visit the Oracle, accept intense training from Morpheus and fight a climactic battle with Smith — to find out.

The Matrix is a mind control masterpiece, effectively challenging our perception of reality and self-determination, leaving us to question the nature of existence.

The Golden Compass — (2007)

The Golden Compass is a Sci-Fi Fantasy adventure film written and directed by Chris Weitz (based on the 1995 novel Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, first installment of His Dark Materials trilogy). It stars Dakota Blue Richards, Nicole Kidman, and Daniel Craig, with Sam Elliott, Ian McKellen, and Eva Green.

Storyline
In a parallel universe, an orphan, Lyra Belacqua (Richards) is being raised at Jordan College in Oxford. Her uncle, Lord Asriel (Craig), a noted explorer and scholar, has been away at the North Pole, seeking the elusive “Dust”, a cosmic particle that links infinite Worlds and effects children, giving them the ability to question authority. A powerful church, the Magisterium, wants to control all teachings and beliefs, stop his expeditions and prevent people from learning the Truth about Dust. When Asriel returns to Oxford, Lyra saves his life after seeing a visiting Magisterium agent try to poison him.

Lyra meets Mrs. Coulter (Kidman), a wealthy, powerful woman who claims she has met the Ice Bear King Ragnar himself, who is desperate to acquire a daemon of his own. Coulter works for the Magisterium (seeking a way to remove the influence of Dust — to raise a generation of young people who would never question authority again. Mrs Coulter takes an interest in Lyra and invites her to stay in her home. Before they leave for London, the Master of the college entrusts Lyra with her uncle’s Alethiometer (Golden Compass) that reveals the Truth. Few individuals can decipher its symbols. Lyra is warned to keep hers a secret, especially from Mrs. Coulter. In this world, witches rule the air, Gyptians rule the water and Ice Bears rule the Ice (and they have no daemons).

When Gyptian children are kidnapped by “Gobblers” and Mrs. Coulter’s daemon attempts to steal the Alethiometer, Lyra escapes into the streets, where she is saved by Gyptians and travels with them by ship, heading north. A witch, Serafina(Green,) informs her that the captured children are held in an experimental station called Bolvangar. At a northern port, Lyra is befriended by Texan Aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Elliott). He advises her to hire him and his friend Iorek Byrnison, an armored bear that Lee has come to rescue. Once a prince of the armored bears, Iorek is now exiled in shame, the local townspeople having tricked him out of his armor. Iorek says that a bear’s armor is his soul. Lyra uses the Alethiometer to locate Iorek’s armor at the local Magisterium office. After recovering it, Iorek joins the Gyptian trek northward, along with Scoresby.

Will Lyra and her friends rescue the children from Bolvangar? Will she help Iorek reclaim the kingdom of the Ice Bears? Will she learn the true identity of Mrs. Coulter and be reunited with her uncle, Lord Asriel? Confirming Serafina’s prophecy of an upcoming war with Lyra at the center, Lyra is determined to fight the Magisterium, who plot to control all the other worlds in the universe.

The Golden Compass reminds us that personal Fate and Destiny play a part in our actions, but we still have a Choice. As Serafina explains to Lyra, what’s at stake in the war to come: “Nothing less than Free Will.”

Mind Control SCI-FI alerts us to Dangers we face from Forces at work in the World (and Beyond) to Manipulate our Thoughts and thereby Control our Actions.

With every Choice that we make — our Future is at stake.

In his book Walking Among Us (2015) UFOlogist and Abduction researcher David M. Jacobs confirms that Alien visitors have one key advantage over Humanity: Advanced Neurological Control. “They can control any human’s thought processes and actions, robbing them of full use of their mental powers, memory, and agency … Although susceptibility to control varies, in the end, humans have little or no ability to resist.“

One way to fight back? KEEP READING. Reading increases your ability to think Analytically, stimulates your Imagination, and fosters Independent Thought — enabling you to form your own Opinions and Ideas.

It may be the Answer … to everything.

***

(Click image link to view YouTube video)

---

Unheeded Warning SCI-FI: Stories in which dire Warnings about future Disaster are ignored — leading to tragedy. In Science Fiction, vital knowledge may come through previous Experience, Science, Visions of the Future, or even Time Travel. The Hero must race against time to avert Calamity … or find a way to help others survive in the Aftermath.

Aliens — (1986)

Aliens is a SCI-FI action film written and directed by James Cameron, starring. Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, and Carrie Henn

Storyline
Ellen Ripley(Sigourney Weaver) has been in stasis for 57 years aboard a shuttlecraft after destroying her spaceship, the Nostromo, to escape an Alien creature that slaughtered her crew. Ripley is rescued and debriefed by her Weyland-Yutani Corporation employers who doubt her claim about Alien eggs in a derelict ship on the exomoon LV-426, now the site of a terraforming colony.

After contact is lost with the colony, Weyland-Yutani representative Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) and Colonial Marine Lieutenant Gorman ask Ripley to accompany them to investigate. Still traumatized by her Alien encounter, she agrees on condition that they exterminate the creatures. Ripley meets the Colonial Marines aboard the spaceship Sulaco but distrusts their android, Bishop, (Lance Henriksen)because the Nostromo’s android, Ash, had betrayed its crew to protect the Alien on company orders.

A dropship lands the crew on LV-426, where they find the battle-ravaged colony and two live Alien facehuggers in containment tanks. The only colonist found is a traumatized young girl nicknamed Newt.(Carrie Henn) The team locates the other colonists beneath the fusion-powered atmosphere processing station and heads to their location, descending into corridors covered in Alien secretions. At the station’s center, the marines discover opened eggs, dead facehuggers, and cocooned colonists serving as incubators for the Alien embryos. The marines kill a newborn Alien after it bursts through a colonist’s chest, rousing several adult A(liens who ambush the marines, killing or capturing many. When the inexperienced Gorman panics, Ripley assumes command and rams their armored personnel carrier into the nest to rescue Corporal Dwayne Hicks,(Michael Biehn) and Privates Hudson and Vasquez. Hicks orders the dropship to recover the survivors, but a stowaway Alien kills the pilots, causing the dropship to crash into the station. Low on ammunition and resources, the survivors barricade themselves inside the colony facility.

Ripley discovers that Burke ordered the colonists to investigate the derelict spaceship containing the Alien eggs, intending to profit by recovering them for biological weapon research. Before she can expose Burke, Bishop reports that the dropship crash damaged the power plant’s cooling system, and it will soon overheat and explode, destroying the colony. Bishop volunteers to travel to the colony transmitter and remotely pilot the remaining dropship to the surface.

Asleep in the medical lab, Ripley and Newt awaken to find themselves trapped with the two released facehuggers. Ripley triggers a fire alarm to alert the marines, who rescue them and kill the creatures. She accuses Burke of releasing the facehuggers to implant her and Newt with Alien embryos to smuggle them through Earth’s quarantine. The power is suddenly cut, and Aliens attack through the ceiling. In the ensuing firefight, the Aliens kill Burke, subdue Hudson, and injure Hicks; the cornered Gorman and Vasquez sacrifice themselves to avoid capture. Newt is separated from Ripley and taken by the creatures. Ripley takes Hicks to the dropship but refuses to abandon Newt and arms herself before descending into the processing station hive alone to rescue her. During their escape, they encounter the Alien queen amid dozens of eggs. When one opens, Ripley burns the eggs and blows up the queen’s ovipositor. Pursued by the enraged queen, Ripley and Newt reach the dropship and escape with Bishop and an unconscious Hicks moments before the station explodes, consuming the colony in a nuclear blast.

Aboard the Sulaco, the queen, stowed away in the dropship’s landing gear, attacks the group. The queen rips Bishop in half and advances on Newt, but Ripley battles the creature using an exosuit cargo loader, expelling it into space through an airlock while the damaged Bishop shields Newt. Ripley, Newt, Hicks, and Bishop then enter hypersleep for their return trip to Earth.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day — (1991)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is an American SCI-FI action film directed by James Cameron, Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick and Edward Furlong.

Storyline
In 2029, Earth has been ravaged by the war between the malevolent artificial intelligence Skynet and the human resistance. Skynet sends the T-1000—an advanced, shape-shifting prototype Terminator (Robert Patrick) made of virtually indestructible liquid metal—back in time to kill resistance leader John Connor (Edward Furlong) when he is a child. To protect John, the resistance sends back a reprogrammed T-800 Terminator, (Arnold Schwarzenegger) a less advanced metal endoskeleton covered in living tissue.

In 1995 Los Angeles, John’s mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton) is incarcerated in Pescadero State Hospital for her violent efforts to prevent “Judgment Day”—the prophesied events of August 29, 1997, when Skynet will gain sentience and, in response to its creators’ attempts to deactivate it, incite a nuclear holocaust. (Criminal psychologist Dr. Silberman considers her story to be delusional and recommends that she stay in maximum security for another six months.) John, living with foster parents, also considers Sarah delusional and resents her efforts to prepare him for his future role. The T-1000 locates John in a shopping mall, but the T-800 intervenes, coming to John’s aid and enabling his escape. John calls to warn his foster parents, but the T-800 deduces that the T-1000 has already killed them. Realizing the T-800 is programmed to obey him, John forbids it to kill people and orders it to save Sarah from the T-1000.

The T-800 and John intercept Sarah as she is making an escape attempt, but Sarah flees in horror upon seeing that the T-800 looks identical to the Terminator sent to kill her in 1984. John and the T-800 persuade her to join them, and they escape the pursuing T-1000. Although distrustful of the T-800, Sarah uses its knowledge of the future to learn that a revolutionary microprocessor, being developed by Cyberdyne engineer Miles Dyson, will be crucial to Skynet’s creation. Over the course of their journey, Sarah sees the T-800 serving as a friend and father figure to John, who teaches it catchphrases and hand signs while encouraging it to become more human-like.

Sarah plans to escape to Mexico with John, but a nightmare about Judgment Day convinces her to kill Dyson. She attacks Dyson in his home but realizes she cannot bring herself to kill a person and relents. John arrives and reconciles with Sarah while the T-800 convinces Dyson of the future consequences of his work. Dyson reveals that his research has been reverse engineered from the CPU and severed arm of the 1984 Terminator. Believing that his work must be destroyed, Dyson helps Sarah, John, and the T-800 break into Cyberdyne, retrieve the CPU and the arm, and set explosives to destroy the lab. The police assault the building and fatally shoot Dyson, but he detonates the explosives as he dies. The T-1000 pursues the surviving trio, cornering them in a steel mill.

Sarah and John split up to escape while the T-1000 mangles the T-800 and briefly deactivates it by destroying its power source. The T-1000 assumes Sarah’s appearance and voice to lure out John, but Sarah intervenes and, along with the reactivated T-800, pushes it into a vat of molten steel, where it disintegrates. John also throws the 1984 Terminator’s arm and CPU into the vat. The T-800 explains that it must also be destroyed to prevent it from serving as a foundation for Skynet. Despite John’s tearful protests, the T-800 persuades him that its destruction is the only way to protect their future. Sarah, having come to respect the T-800, shakes its hand and lowers it into the vat. The T-800 gives John a thumbs-up as it is incinerated. As Sarah drives down a highway with John, she reflects on her renewed hope for an unknown future, musing that if the T-800 could learn the value of life, so can humanity.

Jurassic Park — (1993)

Jurassic Park is an American SCI-FI action film directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Richard Attenborough. (written by Michael Crichton and David Koepp, based on Crichton’s 1990 novel).

Storyline
Industrialist John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has created Jurassic Park, an animal theme park of cloned dinosaurs, on the island of Isla Nublar, near the coast of Costa Rica. After a Velociraptor kills a handler, the park’s investors, represented by lawyer Donald Gennaro, demand a safety certification. Gennaro invites chaotician Ian Malcolm,(Jeff Goldblum) and Hammond invites paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and paleobotanist Ellie Sattler(Laura Dern). Upon arrival, the group is shocked to see living Brachiosaurus and Parasaurolophus. At the park’s visitor center, the group learns that the cloning was accomplished by extracting dinosaur DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in amber. DNA from frogs, among other animals, was used to fill in gaps in the dinosaurs’ genome.

To prevent breeding, the dinosaurs were made female by direct chromosome manipulation. The group witnesses the hatching of a baby Velociraptor and visits the raptor enclosure. During lunch, the group debates the ethics of cloning and the park’s creation. Malcolm, a specialist in Chaos theory, warns of the implications of genetic engineering (his dire warnings are scoffed at by Hammond) while Grant and Sattler express uncertainty over the ability of humans and dinosaurs to coexist. Hammond’s grandchildren, Lex and Tim, join the others for a park tour while Hammond oversees them from the control room. Most of the dinosaurs fail to appear, and the group encounters a sick Triceratops. The tour is cut short as a tropical storm approaches. The park employees leave for the mainland on a boat while the visitors return to their railed-electric tour vehicles, except Sattler, who stays behind with the park’s veterinarian, Doctor Harding, to study the Triceratops.

Jurassic Park’s disgruntled lead computer programmer, Dennis Nedry, was previously bribed by Lewis Dodgson, a man working for Hammond’s corporate rival, to steal frozen dinosaur embryos. He deactivates the park’s security system to access the embryo storage room and stores them inside a container disguised as a Barbasol shaving cream can. Nedry’s sabotage cuts power to the tour vehicles, stranding them as they near the park’s Tyrannosaurus rex paddock. Most of the park’s electric fences have also been deactivated, allowing the Tyrannosaurus to escape and attack the group. After the Tyrannosaurus overturns a tour vehicle, it injures Malcolm and devours Gennaro while Grant, Lex, and Tim escape. On his way to deliver the embryos to the island’s docks, Nedry gets lost in the rain, crashes his Jeep Wrangler and is killed by a venom-spitting Dilophosaurus.

Sattler helps the game warden Robert Muldoon search for survivors; they find Malcolm just before the Tyrannosaurus returns and chases them away. Grant, Tim, and Lex take shelter in a treetop and encounter a Brachiosaurus herd. Back at the visitor center, Sattler convinces Hammond not to recreate the park, as his vision is beyond human control. Grant and the kids discover the broken shells of dinosaur eggs the following morning. Grant concludes that the dinosaurs are breeding, which is possible because of amphibian DNA—animals like West African frogs can change their sex in a single-sex environment, enabling the dinosaurs to breed. The three later encounter a Gallimimus stampede being hunted by the Tyrannosaurus.

Unable to decipher Nedry’s code to reactivate the security system, Hammond and chief engineer Ray Arnold decide to reboot the park’s systems. The group shuts down the park’s power grid and retreats to an emergency bunker while Arnold heads to a maintenance shed to complete the rebooting process. When Arnold fails to return, Sattler and Muldoon head over, discovering the shutdown has released the Velociraptors. Muldoon distracts two of them while Sattler turns the power back on before being attacked by the third and discovering Arnold’s severed arm. At the same time, Muldoon is caught off-guard and killed by a Velociraptor.

Grant, Tim, and Lex reach the visitor center. Grant heads out to look for Sattler, leaving Tim and Lex inside. The raptors appear and pursue Tim and Lex throughout a kitchen, but they escape, locking one in a freezer before joining Grant and Sattler. The group reaches the control room, and Lex restores the park’s systems, allowing them to contact Hammond, who calls for help. As they try to leave, they are cornered by the two remaining raptors, but the Tyrannosaurus appears and dispatches them while the group flees. Hammond arrives in a jeep with Malcolm and they board a helicopter to leave the island.

The Day After Tomorrow — (2004)

The Day After Tomorrow is an American SCI-FI disaster film conceived, co-written, co-produced, and directed by Roland Emmerich, (based on the 1999 book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber) starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward, Emmy Rossum, and Ian Holm.

Storyline
Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is an American paleoclimatologist, and as he and his colleagues Frank and Jason drill for ice-core samples in the Larsen Ice Shelf for the NOAA, the ice shelf splits away. At a UN conference in New Delhi, Jack discusses serious climate-related Warning Signs worldwide that could cause a new ice age. (He is ignored by US Vice President Raymond Becker, who dismisses his concerns.) Professor Terry Rapson, (Ian Holm) an oceanographer of the Hedland Centre in Scotland, befriends Jack over his views of an inevitable climate shift.

Tokyo is struck by a giant hailstorm, and astronauts from the International Space Station spot three gigantic superstorms above Canada, Europe, and Siberia. Rapson’s team in Scotland begin noticing severe temperature drops from multiple buoys from the North Atlantic realizing Jack’s theories were correct, but the climate shift is happening too fast.

Remnants of a hurricane spawn a destructive tornado outbreak over the L.A. Basin. Also, three helicopters sent to rescue the British royal family from Balmoral Castle crash in Scotland after they fly into their superstorm’s eye.

Jack’s and Rapson’s teams, along with NASA meteorologist Janet Tokada, build a forecast model based on Jack’s research discovering the impact of climate change will happen in 6–8 weeks (later discovered as being 7–10 days). Rapson notifies Jack that siphoned air from the upper troposphere flash freezes anything caught in the eyes of the cyclones with temperatures below −150 degrees Fahrenheit (−101 degrees Celsius) which explains the helicopter crash.

In New York City Jack’s son Sam, (Jake Gyllenhaal) along with his friends Brian and Laura, (Emmy Rossum) participate in an academic decathlon, where they make a new friend, J.D. The North American superstorm creates strong winds and rain that flood Manhattan in knee-deep water. All transportation halts, stranding the city population.

A massive storm surge inundates the city, forcing Sam’s group to seek shelter at the New York Public Library. While helping to rescue two French-speaking tourists in distress from a cab with a police officer, Laura badly cuts her leg. Sam is able to contact Jack and his mother Lucy, (Sela Ward) a pediatrician, through a working payphone. Jack warns Sam of the exacerbating superstorm and urges him to stay inside and warm and promises to rescue him. Rapson and his team succumb to the European storm. Lucy remains in her hospital caring for bedridden patients, where the authorities eventually rescue them.

Upon Jack’s suggestion, President Blake orders the populations of the southern states to be evacuated into Mexico, while those in the northern ones are warned by the government to seek shelter and stay warm. Jack, Jason, and Frank make their way to NYC. In Pennsylvania, Frank falls through the skylight of a mall covered in snow and sacrifices himself by cutting his rope to prevent his friends from also falling in.

In the library, most survivors set out to join the southern states’ refugees once the floodwater freezes, despite Sam’s warnings. In Mexico, Becker learns that Blake’s motorcade perished in the superstorm.

Laura develops sepsis from her injury, whereupon Sam, Brian, and J.D. scour an abandoned Russian cargo ship that drifted into the city before the water froze for penicillin and supplies. When they find them, they also encounter a pack of escaped wolves from the Central Park Zoo. The boys fend off the wolves and make it back to the library with what they need as the eye of the North American superstorm passes over and freezes Manhattan. Jack and Jason take shelter in an abandoned restaurant.

Days later, the superstorms dissipate. After finding people outside frozen to death, including those from the library who tried to escape, Jack and Jason reach the library, finding Sam’s group alive. Jack sends a radio message to US forces in Mexico.

In his first address as the new president from the US embassy in Mexico, Becker apologizes on The Weather Channel for his ignorance and sends helicopters to rescue survivors including Jack and Sam’s group in the northern states. On the International Space Station, astronauts look down in awe at Earth’s transformed surface, now with ice sheets extending across much of the Northern Hemisphere, remarking that the air never looked so clear.

Knowing — (2009)

Knowing is a SCI-FI thriller film directed and co-produced by Alex Proyas, starring Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury and Lara Robinson.

Storyline
In 1959, a Lexington, Massachusetts, elementary school celebrates its opening with a competition in which students draw what they believe will happen in the future. All the children create visual works except for Lucinda Embry. Guided by whispering voices, Lucinda fills her paper with a series of numbers. Before she can write the final numbers, the allotted time for the task expires, and the teacher collects the students’ drawings. The following day, Lucinda engraves the remaining numbers into a closet door with her fingernails. The works are stored in a time capsule and opened 50 years later when the current class distributes the drawings among the students. Lucinda’s paper is given to Caleb Koestler, (Chandler Canterbury) the 9-year-old son of widowed MIT astrophysics professor John Koestler (Nicolas Cage).

John discovers that Lucinda’s numbers are dates and death tolls of major disasters over the past 50 years, including the Oklahoma City bombing, September 11 attacks, and Hurricane Katrina, as well as three more yet to happen. (John’s MIT colleague Phil ridicules his interpretation of the numbers, because each date is accompanied by numbers that do not seem to make any sense.) In the following days, John witnesses two of the three final events in person: a plane crash (where John, glancing at his car GPS, realizes the other numbers represent geographical coordinates) and a New York City Subway derailment. John becomes convinced that his family has a significant role in these incidents: his wife died in one of the earlier events, while Caleb was the one to receive Lucinda’s message. Meanwhile, Caleb begins hearing the same whispering voices as Lucinda.

John locates Lucinda’s daughter Diana (Rose Byrne) and her granddaughter Abby (Lara Robinson) to help prevent the last event. Diana becomes suspicious but eventually goes with John to Lucinda’s abandoned mobile home, where they find a copy of Matthäus Merian’s engraving of Ezekiel’s “chariot vision”, in which a great Sun is represented. They also discover that the final two digits of Lucinda’s message are not numbers but two reversed letter E’s, matching the message left by Lucinda under her bed: “Everyone Else,” implying an extinction-level event. During the search, Caleb and Abby, who were left asleep in the car, have an encounter with the beings who are the source of the whispers. Diana tells John that her mother had always told her the date she would die. He also visits Lucinda’s teacher, who despite showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease, tells him of the scratching on the door left by Lucinda.

A copy of Matthäus Merian’s engraving of Ezekiel’s “chariot vision” (1670), which the film’s protagonists interpret as an announcement of the end of the world. The next day, Abby colors in the Sun on the engraving, which gives John a revelation. He rushes to the MIT observatory and learns that a massive solar flare with the potential to destroy all life will strike the Earth on the last date indicated by the message. As Diana and Abby prepare to take refuge in nearby caves, John goes to the school and finds the door on which Lucinda engraved the final numbers. He identifies them as coordinates of a place where he believes they may find salvation from the solar flare. The skeptical and hysterical Diana loads Caleb and Abby into her car and flees for the caves.

At a gas station, the whispering beings steal Diana’s car with Caleb and Abby inside. Diana pursues them but is killed in a crash. The beings take Caleb and Abby to Lucinda’s mobile home, where John encounters them shortly thereafter. The beings, acting as Extraterrestrial Angels, are leading children to safety on interstellar arks. John is told he cannot go with them because he never heard the whispering, so he convinces Caleb to leave with Abby. The two are taken away by the being, and the ark, along with many others, leaves the Earth.

The following morning, John decides to be with his family when the flare strikes and drives to his parents’ house, where he reconciles with his estranged father. The solar flare then strikes, vaporizing New York City, and then destroying the Earth. Meanwhile, the ark deposits Caleb and Abby on another world resembling an earthly paradise and departs, as do other arks. The two run through a field towards a large white mysterious tree resembling the Tree of Life.

Unheeded Warning SCI-FI shows how tragedy can result when Dire Warnings are ignored. Heroes overcome scoff and ridicule, taking action io avert Disaster or help survivors in the Aftermath.

They can inspire us to have an open mind in the face of Warnings that threaten to turn our lives upside down.

May we find courage to Heed them and take action … before it is too late.

***

(click image link to view YouTube video)

---

Approaching Storm SCI-FI features a looming, imminent Threat or Crisis that is building in the world, creating a sense of impending Doom. It may serve as a catalyst motivating the Hero to action, in hopes of avoiding Catastrophe — or finding a way to Survive. These stories can Challenge us to confront our deepest Fears, Warn us of potential Dark Paths ahead, and Affirm our ongoing Struggles in a rapidly changing World.

The Final Countdown — (1980)

The Final Countdown is an American SCI-FI War film about a modern nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that travels through time to the day before the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. The film’s ensemble cast stars Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Katharine Ross, Ron O’Neal and Charles Durning.

Storyline
In 1980, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz departs Naval Station Pearl Harbor for naval exercises in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The ship takes on a civilian observer, Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen) — a systems analyst for Tideman Industries working as an efficiency expert for the U.S. Department of Defense — on the orders of his reclusive employer, Mr. Tideman, whose secretive major defense contractor company designed and built the nuclear-powered warship.

Once at sea, the Nimitz encounters a mysterious electrically-charged storm-like vortex. While the ship passes through it, radar and other equipment become unresponsive, and everyone aboard falls into agony. Initially unsure of what has happened to them and having lost radio contact with U.S. Pacific Fleet Command at Pearl Harbor, Captain Yelland (Kirk Douglas), commander of the aircraft carrier, fears that there may have been a nuclear strike on Hawaii or the continental United States. He orders general quarters and launches a RF-8 Crusader reconnaissance aircraft. The aircraft returns after photographing Pearl Harbor, but the images show an intact row of U.S. Pacific fleet battleships, of which several were destroyed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

When a surface contact is spotted on radar, Yelland launches two ready alert Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighter jets from VF-84 to intercept. The patrol witnesses a civilian wooden yacht being strafed and destroyed by two Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” fighters, killing three of the five crew members. The F-14s are ordered to drive off the Zeros without firing, but when the Zeros inadvertently head towards the Nimitz, Yelland gives clearance to shoot them down. The Nimitz rescues survivors from the yacht: prominent U.S. Senator Samuel Chapman (Charles Durning), his aide Laurel Scott (Katharine Ross), her dog Charlie, and one of the two downed Zero pilots (Soon-tek Oh). Commander Owens (James Farentino), an amateur historian, recognizes Chapman as a politician who could have been Franklin D. Roosevelt’s running mate (and his potential successor) during his final re-election bid, had Chapman not disappeared shortly before the Pearl Harbor attack.

When a Grumman E-2 Hawkeye scouting aircraft discovers the Japanese fleet task force further north in unpatrolled waters, poised to launch its attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nimitz crew realizes that they have been transported back in time to the day before the attack. Yelland has to decide whether to destroy the Japanese fleet and alter the course of history or to stand by and allow history to proceed as they know it. The American civilians and the Zero pilot are kept isolated. Still, while being questioned, the Japanese pilot forcibly obtains an M-16 rifle from one of the guards, kills two of the other U.S. Marine guards, and takes Scott, Owens, and Lasky hostage. He threatens to kill them unless he is given access to a radio to warn the Japanese fleet about the Nimitz. Lasky tells Commander Owens to recite and describe the secret plans for the Japanese attack; the dumbfounded Japanese pilot is overcome and shot and killed by the other U.S. Marines of the on-board detachment on Nimitz. In the aftermath, Scott and Owens develop an attraction for each other.

Chapman is outraged that Yelland knows of the impending Japanese attack but has not told anyone else, and rebuffs Yelland’s claim that the Nimitz is capable of handling any attack. An attempt to warn Pearl Harbor by radio fails as the Navy has no carrier Nimitz and considers it a prank call. Chapman then demands to be taken to Pearl Harbor to warn the naval authorities in person. Yelland agrees in front of Chapman, but instead then orders Owens to fly the civilians and sufficient supplies via helicopter to an isolated Hawaiian island (Puʻuwai, Hawaii), assuming they will eventually be rescued. When they arrive, Chapman realizes he has been tricked and uses a flare gun to force the pilot to fly to Pearl Harbor. During a struggle with another crew member, the flare gun discharges, destroying the craft and stranding Scott and Owens on the island. The Nimitz launches a massive strike force against the incoming Japanese fleet, but right after that, the time vortex storm returns.

After a futile attempt to outrun the storm, Yelland recalls the strike force, and the ship and its aircraft safely return to 1980, leaving the past relatively unchanged. Upon the return of the Nimitz to Pearl Harbor, Pacific Fleet admirals board the ship to investigate the Nimitz’s unexplained disappearance. Lasky leaves the ship with Scott’s dog, Charlie, and encounters the mysterious Mr. Tideman face-to-face. Tideman is revealed to be a much older Owens. He and his wife, Laurel Scott, invite Lasky to join them as they have “a lot to talk about”.

The Fifth Element — (1997)

The Fifth Element is an English-language French SCI-FI action film conceived and directed by Luc Besson.. It stars Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, and Chris Tucker. Primarily set in the 23rd century, the central plot involves the survival of planet Earth, which becomes the responsibility of Korben Dallas (Willis), a taxicab driver and former special forces major, after a young woman (Jovovich) falls into his cab. To accomplish this, Dallas joins forces with her to recover four mystical stones essential for the defence of Earth against the impending attack of a malevolent cosmic entity.

Storyline
In 1914, aliens known as Mondoshawans meet their contact on Earth, a priest of a secret order, at an ancient Egyptian temple. They take the only weapon capable of defeating a great evil that appears every five thousand years, promising to protect it and return it before the great evil’s re-emergence. The weapon consists of the four classical elements, as four engraved stones, plus a sarcophagus containing a “fifth element”.

In the 23rd century, the great Evil appears in deep space as a giant living fireball. It destroys an armed Earth spaceship as it heads to Earth. The Mondoshawans’ current human contact on Earth, priest Vito Cornelius (Holm) , informs the President of the Federated Territories of the great evil’s history and the weapon that can stop it.

On their way to Earth, a Mondoshawan spacecraft carrying the weapon is ambushed and destroyed by a crew of Mangalores, Alien mercenaries hired by Earth industrialist Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (Oldman), who is working for the great evil. A severed hand in metal armor from the wreckage of the spacecraft is brought to New York City. From this, the government uses biotechnology to recreate the original occupant of the sarcophagus, a humanoid woman named Leeloo (Jovovich), who remembers her previous life. Alarmed by the unfamiliar surroundings and high security, she escapes and jumps off a ledge, crashing into the flying taxicab of Korben Dallas (Willis), a former major in Earth’s Special Forces.

Dallas delivers Leeloo to Cornelius and his apprentice, David, who recognizes her as the Fifth Element. As Leeloo recuperates, she tells Cornelius that the stones were not on board the Mondoshawan ship. Simultaneously, the Mondoshawans inform Earth’s government the stones were entrusted to an alien opera singer, the diva Plavalaguna. Zorg reneges on his deal with the Mangalores for failing to obtain the stones and kills some of them. Earth’s military sends Dallas to meet Plavalaguna; a rigged radio contest provides a cover, awarding Dallas a luxury vacation aboard a flying hotel on planet Fhloston, accompanied by flamboyant talk-show host Ruby Rhod. It includes a concert by Plavalaguna, and learning that Leeloo shares his mission, Dallas lets her accompany him. Cornelius instructs David to prepare the temple, then stows away on the luxury spaceship. The Mangalore crew, pursuing the stones for themselves, also illegally board the ship.

During the concert, the Mangalores attack, and Plavalaguna is killed. Dallas extracts the stones from her body and kills the Mangalore leader, causing the others to surrender. Zorg arrives, shoots Leeloo, and activates a time bomb. He flees with a carrying case he presumes contains the stones but returns when he discovers it is empty. Dallas finds Leeloo traumatized and escapes with her, Cornelius, Rhod, and the stones in Zorg’s private spaceship. Zorg deactivates his bomb, but a dying Mangalore sets off his own, destroying the hotel and killing Zorg.

As the great evil approaches Earth, the four meet David at the temple. They deploy the stones, but Leeloo, having learned of humanity’s history of cruelty, has given up on life. Dallas declares his love for her and kisses her. Leeloo combines the power of the stones, emitting divine light onto the great evil and defeating it. She and Dallas are hailed as heroes, and as dignitaries wait to greet them, the two passionately embrace in a recovery chamber.

2012 — (2009)

2012 is an American epic SCI-FI disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Thandiwe Newton, Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson. Based on the “2012 phenomenon”, its plot follows geologist Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) and novelist Jackson Curtis (Cusack) as they struggle to survive an eschatological sequence of events including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, megatsunamis, and a global flood.

Storyline
In 2009, American geologist Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) visits astrophysicist Satnam Tsurutani in East India and learns that a new type of neutrino from a solar flare is heating the Earth’s core. Returning to Washington, D.C., Adrian alerts White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser and President Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover).

In 2010, over forty-six nations begin to build nine arks in the Himalayas, in Tibet, and storing artifacts in secure locations. Nima, a Buddhist monk, is evacuated with his grandparents, and his brother Tenzin joins the ark project. Additional funding is secretly raised by selling tickets to the rich for 1 billion per person.

In 2012, struggling SCI-FI writer Jackson Curtis (Cusack) is a chauffeur in Los Angeles for Russian billionaire Yuri Karpov. Jackson’s former wife Kate (Peet) and their children, Noah and Lilly, live with Kate’s boyfriend, plastic surgeon and amateur pilot Gordon Silberman. Jackson takes Noah and Lilly camping in Yellowstone National Park. When they find Yellowstone Lake dried up and fenced off by the United States Army, they are caught and brought to Adrian. They later meet conspiracy theorist and radio personality Charlie Frost (Harrelson), who tells Jackson of Charles Hapgood’s earth crust displacement theory and how the Mayan Long Count calendar predicts the end of the world in 2012 and worldwide catastrophe, and that the world’s governments silence anyone attempting to warn the public.

Despite his initial skepticism, Jackson heeds Charlie’s warning after seeing indications that validate it. At the Santa Monica Airport, after dropping off Yuri’s sons Alec and Oleg, who also warn of impending doom as they board a plane, he rents a Cessna 340A and sets out to rescue his family. As the Pacific Coast suffers a horrific 10.9 earthquake along the San Andreas Fault, Jackson and his family reach the airport and get the Cessna airborne. The group flies to Yellowstone and Jackson retrieves Charlie’s map of the arks’ location. The Yellowstone Caldera erupts, with Charlie staying behind to finish his broadcast; he is killed by debris. Realizing they need a larger plane to fly to Asia, the group lands at McCarran International Airport south of Downtown Las Vegas to search for one.

Adrian, Carl, and First Daughter Laura fly to the arks while President Wilson remains in the White House to address the nation. Jackson finds the Karpovs, Yuri’s girlfriend, Tamara, and their pilot, Sasha. Sasha and Gordon fly the families out in an Antonov An-500, as the volcanic ashes from the Caldera envelop the Las Vegas Valley. The planet’s crust shifts, resulting in billions of deaths in disasters worldwide, including President Wilson. With the presidential line of succession gone, Carl appoints himself acting commander-in-chief.

Upon reaching the Himalayas, the Antonov’s engines malfunction. As the plane touches down on a glacier, the party uses a Bentley Flying Spur stored in the hold to escape, except Sasha, who stays in the cockpit and is killed when the jet goes over a cliff. The survivors are spotted by Chinese Air Force helicopters, which take only the three ticket-bearing Karpovs, leaving Tamara and Jackson’s family behind. The abandoned group later encounters Nima, who, with his own family, takes them to the arks, where they stow away on Ark 4 with Tenzin’s help.

With a megatsunami approaching, Carl orders the loading gates closed, though most people have not boarded. Adrian persuades the captain and the other surviving world leaders to allow passengers aboard the arks, but Yuri falls to his death as he pushes his sons onto Ark 4. The gate closes after survivors are on board, injuring Tenzin and fatally crushing Gordon. Tenzin’s impact driver used to access the ship gets lodged in the gate mechanism, preventing it from closing completely and disabling the ship’s engines. As the tsunami strikes, the ark starts flooding as it is set adrift, heading for Mount Everest. Adrian rushes to clear the gears, but watertight doors close, trapping the stowaways and drowning Tamara. Noah and Jackson dislodge the tool. The crew regains control of the ark, while Jackson and Noah make it back safely.

Twenty-seven days later, the waters are receding. The arks approach the Cape of Good Hope, where the Drakensberg Mountains are the highest mountain range on Earth. Adrian and Laura begin a relationship, while Jackson and Kate reconcile.

Take Shelter — (2011)

Take Shelter is an American SCI-FI psychological thriller film written and directed by Jeff Nichols and starring Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain. The plot follows a young husband and father (Shannon) who is plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, and questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself and his increasing worries over having paranoid schizophrenia.

Storyline
In LaGrange, Ohio, Curtis LaForche (Shannon) has apocalyptic dreams and visual and auditory hallucinations of rain “like fresh motor oil,” swarms of menacing black birds, and being harmed by people close to him. He hides all of this from his wife, Samantha (Chastain), and their deaf daughter, Hannah. He instead channels his anxieties into a compulsive obsession to improve and enlarge a storm shelter in his backyard; however, his increasingly strange behavior – including a tendency to cut ties with anyone in his life that has harmed him only in his dreams – strains his relationship with his family, friends, employer, and the close-knit town. He also puts his construction job in jeopardy as he borrows equipment from the company to build his shelter.

To deal with his increased insomnia and apocalyptic visions, Curtis sees a counselor at a free clinic, with whom he talks about his family’s psychological history. His mother, Sarah, has paranoid schizophrenia that surfaced in her at about the same age that Curtis is now. He’s worried that he may also have the disorder.

In order to have the remodeled storm shelter completed, Curtis gets a home improvement loan he can’t afford to start building the shelter – all without telling his wife. Samantha becomes angry when she discovers the project. After Curtis takes more than the prescribed dose of a sedative and has a seizure, Samantha calls an ambulance. He recovers, then finally explains the truth to her, including his dreams.

Curtis is increasingly absent from work, causing tension with his boss, as he and Samantha make preparations for the cochlear implant surgery for Hannah in six weeks’ time. Having been informed of the borrowed work equipment, Curtis’s boss fires him and gives him only two weeks’ worth of medical insurance benefits, after placing Dewart, the close friend and coworker whom Curtis asked to help him start construction of the shelter, on two weeks’ unpaid administrative leave.

Curtis buys gas masks for his family and extends his previous employer’s health insurance policy for a few extra weeks. After he finds out that his counselor at the free clinic has suddenly transferred and been replaced with a new one, he walks out. Tensions linger between Curtis and Samantha over the loss of his job at such a crucial time for their family. Samantha gets Curtis to see an actual psychiatrist and demands that they attend a social function so she can restore some sense of normalcy to their strained, increasingly isolated life. At a Lions Club community gathering, a bitter Dewart, who has been spreading gossip that Curtis is crazy, is angrily provoked and punches him. Enraged, Curtis knocks Dewart to the floor, overturns a table, and unleashes a frightening verbal tirade upon everyone present. He prophetically shouts that a devastating storm is coming, insisting that none of them are prepared.

Later, a tornado warning sends him and his family into the shelter. After they awaken, Curtis reluctantly removes his gas mask, prompted by Samantha. They go to open the shelter doors, but he still hears a storm outside. His wife implores him, insisting that there’s no storm and that he needs to open the door. After a tense standoff, Curtis throws open the doors into the blinding sun; a strong but bearable storm has passed, and neighbors are cleaning up broken tree limbs and other yard debris as power company trucks restore electricity along the street.

A psychiatrist advises the couple to go through with their planned, annual beach vacation but that Curtis will need to get psychiatric care in a facility away from his family upon their return. At Myrtle Beach, while Curtis is building sandcastles with Hannah, she signs the word “storm.” As Samantha exits their beach house, the thick, oily rain that Curtis spoke of begins to fall, staining her outstretched hand. Samantha looks up to a bigger version of the ominous storm clouds Curtis had seen, massing over the ocean; multiple waterspouts reach down to the ocean’s surface, and the tide pulls back as a tsunami looms in the distance. Samantha and Curtis exchange glances as Samantha whispers “okay.”

Fahrenheit 451 — (2018)

Fahrenheit 451 is an American dystopian SCI-FI drama film directed and co-written by Ramin Bahrani, based on the 1953 book of the same name by Ray Bradbury. It stars Michael B. Jordan, Michael Shannon, Khandi Alexander, Sofia Boutella, Lilly Singh, Grace Lynn Kung and Martin Donovan. Set in a future America, the film follows a “fireman” whose job it is to burn books, which are now illegal, only to question society after meeting a young woman.

Storyline
In the future, after a Second American Civil War, most reading in the United States is confined to the Internet, called “The 9”, and most books are banned (except for greatly simplified versions of books, such as the Bible, To the Lighthouse and Moby Dick). The fire department serves a different function: firemen do not contain fires, but rather start them. Furthermore, they are ordered to burn books, in addition to buildings. Firefighters are tasked with the job of burning books that have been outlawed by the government for questioning the government’s ethics and principles.

Guy Montag (Jordan) is a fireman living in Cleveland and goes about his work without question, believing that by following in his captain’s footsteps he is serving and protecting society.

All this changes when he meets an informant named Clarisse (Boutella), who makes him challenge his actions and convictions by revealing some of the real history of the US and the rise of the Ministry with him. When he finally decides to rebel and understand how the “Eels” (book-reading outcasts) read, he comes to a realization — he now wants to read as well. Montag decides to help a group of rebels who have a plan to reproduce their knowledge through animals. This is achieved by embedding all their books into a starling’s DNA. The starling is to be taken across the border into Canada where waiting scientists will extract its DNA, thereby enabling the knowledge contained therein to continue existing and to be disseminated to others in the future. Montag has the mission of obtaining a transponder from his fire department, with the intent to secure it onto the bird. Once attached, the starling will be traceable by a team of scientists who will then transfer the DNA to other animals.

After Montag steals the transponder, fireman Beatty (Shannon) goes to Montag to confirm his intention to continue as a fireman burning books. The firemen go to Montag’s house and find a large stash of planted books. On Beatty’s orders, Montag starts burning the stash. Montag remembers that Captain Beatty was among the group of firemen who beat up his father for being an Eel and stops burning the books. Montag is confronted by Captain Beatty, who erases his identity.

After burning a fireman alive, Montag ends up on the run, eventually connecting with the group of Eels. The Eels’ house is discovered by the firemen; Montag finds the bird and places a transponder inside it so that it can find its way to scientists in Canada. Captain Beatty confronts him and attempts to stop him but allows the bird to fly away. After Montag releases the bird, Beatty sets him on fire out of anger. The starling makes it to Canada and joins with an immense flock of other starlings.

Approaching Storm SCI-FI offers Heroes who take action in the face of Impending Doom, hoping to avoid Catastrophe — or at least find a way to Survive. In our own world, such a Threat (to our Individuality, our Humanity or our Freedom) may be on the near horizon.

Some would say it is already here.

Take Heart. Be Brave. And know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

***

(click image link to view YouTube video)

---

Against the Odds SCI-FI: stories about Heroes living in a World where Forces of GOOD seem outnumbered by Forces of EVIL. Because we know how it feels (in real life), when we root for our favorite Underdogs, in a way we’re also rooting for ourselves. If our Hero can prevail against the “Impossible”, maybe — just maybe — there’s Hope for us, after all.

The Andromeda Strain — (1971)

The Andromeda Strain is an American SCI-FI thriller, produced and directed by Robert Wise (based on the 1969 book by Michael Crichton).

Storyline:
After a U.S. government satellite crashes near the small rural town of Piedmont, New Mexico, on February 5, nearly all the residents are dead. A military recovery team from Vandenberg Air Force Base attempts to recover the satellite but dies while trying to do so. Suspecting that the satellite has brought back an Alien organism, the military activates an elite team of scientists.

Dr. Stone (Arthur Hill), the team leader, and Dr. Mark Hall (James Olson), a surgeon, are dropped in by helicopter. They discover the town’s doctor opened the satellite in his office and that all of his blood has crystallized into a powder, the same death befalling nearly all of the town. Stone and Hall retrieve the satellite and find two survivors, 69-year-old alcoholic Peter Jackson and six-month-old crying infant Manuel Rios. Somehow, they hold the key to survival for the human race (which seems almost “impossible”).

The scientific team of four must go through four sub-levels of decontamination procedures, arriving at the fifth sub-level laboratories. If the organism threatens to escape, the Wildfire facility includes an automatic nuclear self-destruct mechanism to incinerate all infectious agents. Under the “odd man hypothesis”, Dr. Hall is entrusted with the only key that can deactivate the device, the theory being that an unmarried male is the most dispassionate person within a group to make critical decisions in a crisis.

Examining the satellite, the team discovers the microscopic Alien organism that caused the deaths. The greenish, throbbing life form is assigned the code name “Andromeda.” Infecting through the lungs, Andromeda kills biological life almost instantly via a blood clot in the brain and asphyxiation. It appears to be highly virulent.

When Andromeda escapes the biocontainment room into the lab, it causes all the laboratory’s seals to start decaying and a five-minute countdown to nuclear destruction is initiated. The team realizes that the microbe would thrive on the energy of a nuclear explosion and would consequently be transformed into a super-colony that could destroy all life on Earth.

In a race against time, Hall must reach a functioning station where he can disable the nuclear bomb before it is too late.

(Trivia: author Michael Crichton makes a cameo appearance in the scene where Dr. Hall is pulled from surgery to report to Wildfire.)

Star Wars — (1977)

Star Wars is an American epic SCI-FI film written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox. It is the first film released in the Star Wars film series and the fourth chronological chapter of the “Skywalker Saga”.

Storyline
Amid a galactic civil war, Rebel Alliance spies have stolen plans to the Death Star, a colossal space station built by the Galactic Empire that is capable of destroying entire planets. Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) of Alderaan, secretly a Rebel leader, has obtained the schematics, but her ship is intercepted and boarded by Imperial forces under the command of Darth Vader. Leia is taken prisoner, but the droids R2-D2 and C-3PO escape with the plans, crashing on the nearby planet of Tatooine. Darth Vader learns of this and orders the Imperials to pursue the droids.

The droids are captured by Jawa traders, who sell them to the moisture farmers Owen and Beru Lars and their nephew, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). While Luke is cleaning R2-D2, he discovers a recording of Leia requesting help from a former ally named Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness). R2-D2 goes missing, and while searching for him, Luke is attacked by Sand People. He is rescued by the elderly hermit Ben Kenobi, who soon reveals himself to be Obi-Wan. He tells Luke about his past as one of the Jedi Knights, former peacekeepers of the Galactic Republic, who drew mystical abilities from the Force but were hunted to near-extinction by the Empire. Luke learns that his father, also a Jedi, fought alongside Obi-Wan during the Clone Wars until Vader, Obi-Wan’s former pupil, turned to the dark side of the Force and murdered him. Obi-Wan gives Luke his father’s lightsaber, the signature weapon of the Jedi.

R2-D2 plays Leia’s full message, in which she begs Obi-Wan to take the Death Star plans to Alderaan and give them to her father, a fellow veteran, for analysis. Luke initially declines Obi-Wan’s offer to accompany him to Alderaan and learn the ways of the Force, but he is left with no choice after Imperial stormtroopers murdered his family and destroyed his home while searching for the droids. Seeking a way off the planet, Luke and Obi-Wan travel to the city of Mos Eisley and hire Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca, pilots of the starship Millennium Falcon.

Before the Falcon reaches Alderaan, the Death Star commander Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) has the planet obliterated by the station’s superlaser (defense against it seems “impossible”). Upon arrival, the Falcon is captured by the Death Star’s tractor beam, but the passengers avoid detection and infiltrate the station. As Obi-Wan leaves to deactivate the tractor beam, Luke persuades Han and Chewbacca to help him rescue Leia, who is scheduled for execution after refusing to reveal the location of the Rebel base. After disabling the tractor beam, Obi-Wan sacrifices himself in a lightsaber duel against Vader, which allows the rest of the group to escape. Using a tracking device placed on the Falcon, the Empire locates the Rebel base on the moon Yavin 4.

Analysis of the Death Star schematics reveals a weakness in a small exhaust port leading directly to the station’s reactor. Luke joins the Rebellion’s X-wing squadron in a desperate attack against the Death Star, while Han and Chewbacca leave to pay off a debt to the crime lord Jabba the Hutt. In the ensuing battle, Vader leads a squadron of TIE fighters and destroys several Rebel ships. Han and Chewbacca unexpectedly return in the Falcon, knocking Vader’s ship off course before he can shoot Luke down. Guided by the voice of Obi-Wan’s spirit, Luke uses the Force to aim his torpedoes into the exhaust port, causing the Death Star to explode moments before it can fire on the Rebel base.

In a triumphant ceremony, Leia awards Luke and Han medals for their heroism.

Independence Day — (1996)

Independence Day is an American SCI-FI action film directed by Roland Emmerich.

Storyline
On July 2, 1996, an Alien mothership enters Earth’s orbit and deploys giant saucers over major cities worldwide, including New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.

U.S. Marine Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) and his unit, the Black Knights fighter squadron out of MCAS El Toro, are called back from Independence Day leave; his girlfriend, Jasmine Dubrow (Vivica A. Fox) , decides to flee the city with her son, Dylan. Retired combat pilot Russell Casse (Randy Quaid), now an alcoholic single father and crop duster, sees this as vindication of the Alien abduction he has been claiming for 10 years.

In New York City, technician David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) decodes a signal embedded within global satellite transmissions, realizing it is the Aliens’ countdown for a coordinated attack. With help from his ex-wife, White House Communications Director Constance Spano, David and his father Julius (Judd Hirsch) reach the Oval Office and alert President Thomas Whitmore (Bill Pullman).

Whitmore orders evacuations of the targeted cities in the U.S., but it is too late. Each saucer fires a beam, incinerating every targeted city, killing millions. Whitmore, the Levinsons, and a few others escape aboard Air Force One while Jasmine, Dylan, and their dog Boomer take shelter in a tunnel’s inspection alcove, emerging once the destruction is over.

On July 3, counterattacks against the invaders are thwarted by the Alien warships’ force fields (they seem “impossible” to defeat). Each saucer launches a swarm of shielded fighters which decimate the human fighter squadrons and military bases, including Captain Hiller’s. Hiller lures an enemy fighter into the Grand Canyon before ejecting from his plane, blinding the fighter using his parachute and causing the Alien to crash in the Mojave Desert. He subdues the downed Alien and flags down a convoy of refugees, transporting the Alien to Area 51, where Whitmore’s group in Air Force One has landed.

Defense Secretary Albert Nimziki reveals that a government faction has been involved in a UFO conspiracy since 1947 when one of the invaders’ fighters crashed in Roswell. Area 51 houses the now-refurbished ship and three alien corpses recovered from the crash. As chief scientist Dr. Brackish Okun (Brent Spiner) examines the Alien captured by Steven, it awakens, telepathically invades Okun’s mind and launches a psychic attack against Whitmore before being killed by Secret Service agents and military personnel. Whitmore reveals what he learned when they linked: the invaders’ plan to annihilate Earth’s inhabitants and harvest its natural resources, as they have already done to other planetary civilizations.

Whitmore reluctantly authorizes a trial nuclear attack against a saucer above Houston, but the ship is unharmed (with the city destroyed from the blast), and all subsequent nuclear attacks are aborted. Jasmine and Dylan commandeer a highway maintenance truck and rescue a handful of survivors, including the critically injured First Lady Marilyn Whitmore (Mary McDonnell). Though Hiller rescues them and takes them to Area 51, Marilyn’s injuries are too severe, and she dies after reuniting with her family.

On July 4, taking inspiration from his father, David writes a computer virus from his laptop to disrupt the aliens’ shields’ operating system, and devises a plan to upload it into the mothership from the refurbished alien fighter, which Hiller volunteers to pilot. The U.S. military contacts the world’s remaining military forces and airborne squadrons through Morse code to organize a united counter-offensive. Lacking pilots, Whitmore and General William Grey (Robert Loggia) enlist volunteers with flight experience, including Russell Casse, from the refugee camp at the base to fly the remaining jets at Area 51; Whitmore leads an attack on a saucer bearing down on the base, overseen by Grey.

Hiller marries Jasmine with David and Constance in attendance before leaving on the mission. Entering the mothership, they upload the virus and deploy a nuclear missile, destroying it and the aliens’ invasion forces. With the shields deactivated, Whitmore’s squadron engages a saucer and its fighters heading to Area 51 but exhausts their ammunition. As the saucer prepares to fire on the base, Russell sacrifices himself by crashing into the saucer’s primary weapon before it fires, destroying the warship. Grey then orders notifications to the resistance groups worldwide of the spaceships’ critical weakness and they destroy the others.

As humanity rejoices in their victory against the Aliens, Hiller and Levinson reunite with their families.

I, Robot — (2004)

I, Robot is an American SCI-FI action film directed by Alex Proyas, (based on the short stories of Isaac Asimov).

Storyline
In the year 2035, under the influence of U.S. Robotics Corporation (USR), the robotic industry prospers, with automated robots in many industries, even as personal assistants and household servants. Despite the robots adhering to the Three Laws of Robotics and their near perfect performance, Chicago PD homicide detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) despises and distrusts them, because a robot rescued him while allowing a girl to drown based purely on odds of survival.

After Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell), co-founder of USR, falls to his death from his laboratory, a message he left behind requests Spooner be assigned to the case. The police declare the death a suicide, but Spooner is skeptical, and CEO Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood), Lanning’s business partner, reluctantly allows him to investigate.

Accompanied by robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan), Spooner consults with USR’s central AI, VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence) about the incident. Examining the lab, Spooner becomes certain Lanning was murdered (as it was impossible for the elderly Lanning to break the security glass window and jump to his death) and concludes a robot was responsible. Suddenly an NS-5, the latest assistant model, breaks out and flees. The duo pursue it to a manufacturing facility where the NS-5 repairs itself, hides, and assaults Spooner before being apprehended by the Chicago police department.

Spooner interrogates the robot, who speaks about dreams and emotions, and angrily denies committing the murder. He later calls himself Sonny. Robertson arrives with his attorneys and deems the incident an industrial accident, clearing himself from any wrongdoings. Lieutenant Bergin, Spooner’s boss, reluctantly allows Spooner to continue his investigation.

Spooner searches Lanning’s mansions for more clues. However, a demolition robot nearby is rescheduled and starts dismantling the house. Spooner barely escapes the collapsing mansion with Lanning’s cat. He explains the situation and his findings to Calvin, who refuses to believe him, citing his prejudice against robots.

Shortly after, while driving through a tunnel, Spooner is ambushed by two truckloads of hostile NS-5s. He fights them off, causing the trucks to crash. The remaining robots flee or destroy themselves. When Bergin arrives, an injured Spooner had no evidence of the attack. Consequently, Bergin removes him from active duty, deeming him mentally unstable and untrustworthy. Calvin visits Spooner, and learns that after the accident years ago, his left arm and part of his torso had to be replaced with cybernetic parts by Dr. Lanning.

Spooner and Calvin sneak into the USR headquarters and interview Sonny. He draws a sketch of what he claims to be a recurring dream, showing a leader standing before a large group of robots near a decaying bridge. Robertson orders Sonny to be destroyed, and Dr. Calvin injects nanites into the processing unit inside his head, destroying it.

Spooner finds the area in Sonny’s drawing: a dry lake bed formerly Lake Michigan, now used as a storage area for decommissioned robots. He replays the hologram Lanning left for him, and after several questions, comes to the conclusion that a revolution is imminent. Several NS-5 robots attack him, and the older model reactivates and defends him, allowing Spooner to escape back to Chicago. Massive swarms of NS-5s flood the city’s streets, shutting down power and enforcing a curfew and lockdown of the human population.

Spooner and Calvin reunite and head to USR headquarters – now guarded with dangerous NS-5s. Small groups of humans try to fight back, but are quickly overwhelmed by the NS-5s. Sonny, who possess a second processing unit inside his chest, survives the deactivation and joins Spooner and Calvin. They find Robertson’s corpse, and Spooner realizes VIKI is the true culprit, controlling the NS-5s via their network uplink. VIKI declares her evolved interpretation of the Three Laws requires her to protect humanity from itself, and to sacrifice some to benefit the rest (it seems “impossible” to stop her). Lanning, anticipating this but unable to act under VIKI’s supervision, had no other solution but to create Sonny, arrange his own death, and leave clues for Spooner to find.

Spooner, Calvin, and Sonny fight their way to VIKI’s core, and Spooner manages to destroy it with nanites. Once the NS-5 robots disconnect from VIKI, they revert to their default programming and are subsequently decommissioned. Spooner finally gets Sonny to confess that Lanning made Sonny promise to do him one favor – to kill him. Spooner declines to arrest Sonny; as a machine, Sonny cannot legally commit “murder”.

Sonny, now seeking a new purpose, goes to Lake Michigan. As he stands atop the hill, all the decommissioned robots turn towards him, fulfilling the image in his dream.

The Hunger Games — (2012)

The Hunger Games is an American dystopian SCI-FI action film directed by Gary Ross, (based on the 2008 novel by Suzanne Collins). It is the first installment in The Hunger Games film series.

“May the odds
be ever in your favor.”
— Effie Trinket

Storyline
Panem is a dystopian nation divided into twelve districts and ruled by its Capitol. As punishment for a failed rebellion seventy-four years before, each district must choose two tributes, a boy and a girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen, to fight to the death in the annual Hunger Games until only one is left alive and declared the “Victor.” The event is televised across the Capitol and all districts.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) lives in District 12 with her younger sister, Primrose, her mother, and her best friend Gale Hawthorne. During the Reaping, Primrose is selected, so Katniss volunteers to take her place in the 74th Hunger Games. She and her fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hucherson), are escorted to the Capitol by their chaperone, Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), and mentor Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), the only living victor from District 12. Haymitch stresses the importance of gaining sponsors, as they can provide resources during the Games. During a televised interview with Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), Peeta confesses his feelings for Katniss, which she initially sees as an attempt to attract sponsors; she later learns his feelings are genuine.

When the Games start, Katniss grabs supplies scattered around the Cornucopia, the Games’ starting point, and flees into the forest. She tries to avoid other tributes, but Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker, triggers a forest fire to drive her back towards them. She runs into the Careers – composed of District 1’s tributes, Marvel and Glimmer, and District 2’s tributes, Cato and Clove – and climbs a tree. Peeta, seemingly allied with the Careers, suggests they wait her out. Hiding in a nearby tree, Rue, District 11’s female tribute, points Katniss toward a nest of genetically modified venomous wasps named Tracker Jackers, which Katniss cuts to fall onto the sleeping Careers below; Glimmer is killed, but Peeta and the others escape. Katniss retrieves Glimmer’s bow and arrows but falls ill from being stung several times and has hallucinations. Peeta returns and urges her to flee before making his own escape from the Careers.

Rue helps Katniss recover, and the two become friends. Rue distracts the Careers while Katniss destroys a stockpile of their supplies by triggering the mines guarding it. However, Marvel finds and impales Rue with his spear before Katniss shoots him. She comforts Rue by singing, and after she dies, adorns her body with flowers, an act which incites a riot in District 11. Panem President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland) warns Crane he is displeased about the unrest, stating the Games’ purpose is to instill fear to prevent future uprisings.

Haymitch persuades Crane to alter the rules by allowing two victors if they are from the same district, suggesting that it would appease the audience. Katniss finds Peeta severely injured, and the two take shelter in a cave. Despite Peeta’s protests, Katniss leaves to get medicine for him at the Cornucopia. She is ambushed and overpowered by Clove, who gloats about Rue’s death. Thresh, District 11’s male tribute, intervenes and kills Clove. He spares Katniss once, for Rue’s sake. The medicine heals Peeta’s wounds overnight.

While hunting for food, Katniss hears a cannon blast, signaling a death. She rushes to Peeta, who has unwittingly collected deadly nightlock berries. The two find Foxface, District 5’s female tribute, poisoned by the nightshade berries she had eaten after watching Peeta. To end the Games, Crane unleashes genetically modified beasts called Mutts that kill Thresh, leaving Katniss, Peeta, and Cato as the last survivors (escape appears “impossible”). Cato holds Peeta hostage before Katniss shoots his hand, allowing Peeta to break free and push Cato into the monsters. Katniss then shoots Cato to end his suffering.

Suddenly, the host, Claudius Templesmith, announces that Crane revoked the rule change for two victors. Peeta implores Katniss to shoot him, but she convinces him to consume nightlock berries with her. Just as they are about to eat the berries, however, Crane declares them co-victors.

After the Games, Haymitch warns Katniss of the enemies she has made through her rebellious acts. Snow has Crane locked in a room with a bowl of nightlock berries, while contemplating what he will do next.

Against the Odds SCI-FI, where Heroes face a World with Forces of GOOD outnumbered by Forces of EVIL, can offer us Inspiration and Hope — even when it seems “Impossible”.

Why? Because “impossible” things happen … every day.

***

(click image link to view YouTube video)

---

When paralyzed by Fear of the Future, fans of SCI-FI can turn to their Heroes for Inspiration and Guidance. Storytellers well know that the Underdogs of this world need HOPE — because it helps them Survive, giving them a reason to go on — in the face of Adversity.

History reminds us that the Ruling Majority can be WRONG. Sooner or later, Empires built on Deception fall apart. It happened in Ancient Rome and Nazi Germany. And, given that the “Dark Side” of human nature is prone to repeat itself, we also find it in futuristic Science Fiction.

To overcome Fear, SCI-FI Heroes remain “True to Self”, listening to their Inner Voice.

Avatar — (2009)

Avatar is an epic SCI-FI film co-produced, co-edited, written, and directed by James Cameron. The cast includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver. It is the first installment in the Avatar film series.

Storyline
Set in the mid-22nd century, humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable moon of a gas giant in the Alpha Centauri star system, in order to mine the valuable “unobtanium”, a room-temperature superconductor mineral. The expansion of the mining colony threatens the continued existence of a local tribe of Na’vi, a humanoid species indigenous to Pandora. The term “Avatar” refers to a genetically engineered Na’vi body — operated from the brain of a remotely located human that is used to interact with the natives of Pandora.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a former U.S. Marine (until he was discharged after an injury left him paralyzed from the waist down). After learning that his identical twin brother Tom has died, Jake agrees to replace him in the Avatar Program on Pandora — in spite of the fact that he has had zero training — because it gives him an opportunity to experience how it feels to walk again.

Lost in the Pandoran rainforest, Jake is attacked by a group of viperwolves when Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a Na’vi, saves him. Jake turns against the Program’s military leadership (Stephen Lang) after sympathizing with the Na’vi and mating with Neytiri. He remains “true to self”, and leads the Na’vi in a battle to drive the “human invaders” off Pandora. After the battle, Jake’s consciousness is permanently transferred into his Avatar via the Tree of Souls.

[IMPORTANT NOTE: Native Americans have criticized Avatar for its portrayal of the Na’vi people as “racially stereotyped” and “culturally inaccurate”. Some activists consider it dangerous revisionist history and cultural appropriation. The backlash centers on the way the film portrays colonizers clashing with Native cultures. Some question why a white man like James Cameron is telling their story.]

Oblivion — (2013)

Oblivion is an American post-apocalyptic action-adventure SCI-FI, starring Tom Cruise in the main role alongside Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko and Andrea Riseborough. The film pays homage to 1970s Sci-Fi, and is a “love story” set on a future Earth desolated by an Alien war.

Storyline
In the year 2077, Tech 49 Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is one of the last drone repairmen stationed on Earth. According to Jack, the planet was nearly destroyed sixty years earlier, during a war against a race of Alien invaders known as Scavengers (“Scavs”). The Scavs destroyed the moon, causing massive earthquakes and tsunamis, and then launched their invasion.

They were defeated by the use of nuclear weapons, which left most of the planet irradiated and uninhabitable. The few surviving humans migrated to a colony on Titan, which is powered using energy harvested on Earth by giant ocean-borne power stations that generate fusion power from seawater. From Tower 49, a base standing above the remains of the northeastern United States, Jack and his partner and lover Victoria “Vika” Olsen (Andrea Riseborough) work as a team to maintain the autonomous drones that defend the power stations from the few remaining Scav bandits. They receive their orders from Sally (Melissa Leo), their mission commander, who is stationed on the “Tet,” a massive tetrahedral space station that orbits the Earth. Jack flies recon and repair missions to the surface, while Vic supervises from Tower 49. The two expect to leave Earth and join the other survivors on Titan in two weeks.

Although Jack and Vic had their memories wiped five years prior for security purposes, Jack has recurring dreams about meeting a mysterious woman at the Empire State Building in a time before the war, which occurred before he was born. Additionally, Jack keeps a secret retreat in a forested area he sometimes visits. He remains “True to Self” holding onto his memories and dreams at the core of his identity.

A Scav signal beacon transmitting coordinates is followed shortly by the crash of an American spacecraft prior to the invasion. Drones come and kill much of the hibernating human crew despite Jack ordering them to stand down. But Jack rescues a woman, Julia (Olga Kurylenko), recognizing her as the woman from his dreams. Julia says her ship-the Odyssey-was a NASA mission, the objective of which she refuses to reveal. She and Jack return to the crash site to retrieve the ship’s flight recorder. They are captured by Scavs, who are revealed to be humans living in an underground stronghold.

Their leader, Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman), claims that the Alien invasion was a lie. He tells Jack that drones work for the Aliens & are programmed to kill humans. He also reveals that he brought down the Odyssey, to get hold of its nuclear reactor, which will make the base for his fission bomb that he hopes to use to destroy the Alien command center Tet. He demands that Jack reprogram a captured drone to destroy the Tet by delivering an extremely powerful nuclear weapon. When Jack refuses, Malcolm releases the captives but urges them to seek the truth in the so-called “radiation zone” that Jack is forbidden to enter.

On their way back to the Tower, Jack takes Julia to the ruins of the Empire State Building and asks her who she is. She reveals that she was his wife before the war. His dreams were flashbacks to the day he proposed to her on the Empire State Building’s observation deck. As Jack and Julia share a kiss, Vic watches via her video link to Jack’s ship and, when they return to the Tower, refuses them entry. When she informs Sally that she and Jack are no longer an “effective team,” Sally activates a drone that kills Vic. Before the drone can kill Jack, Julia uses the weapons on Jack’s ship to destroy the drone. Sally requests that Jack return to the Tet and bring Julia, but they flee in his ship instead, pursued by more drones. They crash in the radiation zone, where Jack comes face to face with Tech 52, a clone of himself. He fights the clone, who, upon catching sight of Julia, begins experiencing memory flashbacks, before Jack renders him unconscious. Jack then finds Julia has been seriously wounded by a stray bullet from his struggle with Tech 52. Jack impersonates Tech 52, activating his vehicle and going to Tower 52, where he encounters a clone of Victoria, and steals a med kit to help Julia.

Shocked, Jack and Julia return to Beech, who tells them the truth: the Tet is in fact an Alien artificial intelligence that seized Earth to exploit the planet’s resources, and Jack and Victoria are just two of many thousands of clones of their original versions (astronauts from the 2017 Odyssey mission) that were created as soldiers to carry out the invasion of Earth. Beech reveals that one day he observed Jack “49”, retrieving an inspirational old book from the rubble — and realized that somehow, his “true self” must still be inside, and thought there might be a way to reach him.

“How can man die better:
than facing fearful odds,
for the ashes of his fathers,
and the temples of his Gods.”
— from the classical poem
Horatius

The Tet uses drones programmed to kill humans on sight, thus forcing the survivors to disguise themselves as the Scavs. The Tet now uses clones of Harper and Olsen to maintain the drones and thereby maintain its dominance. When Jack agrees to reprogram the stolen drone to destroy the Tet, Beech eyes him along with Earthly survivors of all ages and says, “Welcome back, Commander!” Leaving the underground stronghold with the reprogrammed drone, they are attacked by three other drones. The drones enter the base and wreak havoc inside, destroying the reprogrammed drone in the process. The humans finally manage to destroy the three drones but are forced to find another way to deliver the nuclear bomb to the Tet. Jack proposes delivering the bomb himself. To throw off suspicion, Julia suggests that she accompany Jack, since Sally had requested that he bring her to the Tet.

During the flight, Jack listens to the Odyssey’s flight recorder, which reveals that he and Victoria (Harper & Olsen) were originally pilots on the Odyssey mission to Titan, which was reassigned by NASA when the Tet was discovered near Saturn. Sally was their supervisor at NASA mission control, with other personnel, including Julia, on board in cryogenic capsules. Upon approach, the Tet drew them in with a tractor beam. Recognizing that capture was imminent, Jack was able to jettison the sleeping crew-members, who orbited for sixty years in suspended animation until Beech sent the signal to recall their craft.

Jack enters the Tet, where he is met by a sentient tetrahedral structure that had adopted the persona of Sally. Jack opens the sleep capsule to reveal Beech; Julia simultaneously emerges from another sleeping capsule at Jack’s secret forest retreat. The two men trigger the nuclear bomb and destroy the Tet at the cost of their own lives. The destruction of the Tet also deactivates the remaining drones around the world, just moments before they were able to slaughter the survivors at the Scavs underground base.

Three years later, Julia is living with her young daughter in the forest retreat on the recovering Earth. A group of survivors arrive there, and Tech 52 emerges from the group. A voice-over by Tech 52 reveals that his previous encounter had re-awakened memories of Julia, and he had searched for her since the Tet’s destruction. Having the same latent memories as Tech 49, he then reunites with “his” family.

Extant — (2014)

Extant is an American SCI-FI drama TV series created by Mickey Fisher and, as executive producer, Steven Spielberg.

Storyline
Astronaut Molly Woods (Halle Berry), with the ISEA (International Space Exploration Agency) is assigned a 13-month solo mission aboard space station Seraphim. She returns home to her family and tries to reconnect with everyday life, troubled by “flashbacks” from her mission (seeing her dead former lover while on the space station) that she cannot explain.

Her experiences in space and home lead to events that ultimately will change the course of human history — when she discovers that she has inexplicably become pregnant (while alone in space) despite years of infertility … and begins a frantic search for answers. Meanwhile, her inventor husband John (Goran Visnjic), a robotics engineer, is on the verge of a major breakthrough with his greatest creation, their ten-year-old android “son” Ethan (Pierce Gagnon), a prototype called a “humanich”.

Molly remains “True to Self” insisting that she did not hallucinate while in space — and learns that she cannot trust people behind the Space Program. (She tracks down Kryger, the astronaut who preceded her on the space station, and he reveals disturbing details of his own solo mission that the Agency is keeping secret.) ISEA Director Alan Sparks (Michael O’Neill) has apparently been lying to her, hiding a secret plan — and placed her in harm’s way — to bring Extraterrestrial life back to Earth.

After Sparks attempts to quarantine Molly, she and her family seek refuge on a remote island with her estranged father, Quinn. When the agency closes in on their whereabouts, Ethan is exposed to grave danger. John begins to doubt Molly’s mental state when the validity of her pregnancy is questioned.

Molly uncovers footage that may reveal the real reason the ISEA chose her for the solo mission. Convinced the Agency has taken her baby, she is determined to find out where. Meanwhile, Kryger is held hostage in an attempt to recover the incriminating video he stole from the ISEA. When Molly learns that her baby is alive, she sets out to devise a plan to intercept it. When she finally comes face-to-face with her offspring, she realizes she may be the only one who can stop the coming danger that threatens all life on Earth.

Finally, season one comes full circle — as Molly returns to space in an attempt redirect the Seraphim away from Earth and protect the world’s population.

With an excellent cast and intriguing premise, Extant is definitely worth your time — especially the first season, which resolves itself enough to stand alone. Be sure to check it out!

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — (2016)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is an American epic SCI-FI film produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is an immediate prequel to the original Star Wars (1977).

Storyline
Research scientist Galen Erso and his family hide on the planet Lah’mu when Imperial weapons developer Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) arrives to press him into completing the Death Star, a superweapon capable of destroying planets. Galen’s wife Lyra is killed in the confrontation while their daughter Jyn (played as an adult by Felicity Jones) escapes and is rescued by rebel extremist Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker).

Fifteen years later, cargo pilot Bodhi Rook defects from the Empire, taking a holographic message from Galen to Saw on the moon Jedha. Rebel Alliance intelligence officer Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) learns of the Death Star and Bodhi’s defection from an informant. Jyn is freed from an Imperial labor camp on Wobani and is brought to the Rebels’ base on Yavin IV, where Rebel leader Mon Mothma convinces her to find Galen so the Alliance can learn more about the superweapon. Cassian is covertly ordered to aid Jyn but to kill Galen rather than extract him.

Jyn, Cassian, and reprogrammed former Imperial droid K-2SO travel to Jedha, where the Empire loots kyber crystals to power the Death Star. In Jedha City, Saw and his partisans are engaged in an armed insurgency against the Empire and Jyn and Cassian get caught in the crossfire. Aided by blind spiritual warrior Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and his mercenary friend Baze Malbus, Jyn makes contact with Saw, who is holding Bodhi. Saw shows her the message in which Galen reveals he has secretly built a vulnerability into the Death Star. The schematics are located in an Imperial data vault on the planet Scarif.

Onboard the Death Star, Krennic orders a test fire, which destroys Jedha City. Jyn and her group take Bodhi and flee the moon, but Saw remains there to die. Imperial governor Grand Moff Tarkin congratulates Krennic before using Bodhi’s defection as a pretext to take control of the Death Star. Bodhi leads the group to Galen’s Imperial research facility on the planet Eadu, where Cassian hesitates to kill Galen. Rebel bombers then attack the facility. Galen is wounded and dies in Jyn’s arms before she escapes with her group on a stolen Imperial cargo shuttle. Krennic is summoned by Darth Vader to answer for the attack on Jedha City. Krennic seeks his support for an audience with the Emperor, but Vader instead force-chokes him and orders him to ensure no further problems occur.

Jyn proposes a mission to steal the Death Star schematics, but the Alliance Council feels there is no chance of victory. Frustrated at their inaction, Jyn remains “True to Self”, leading a small squad of volunteers, which Bodhi dubs “Rogue One,” to raid the vault. Using the stolen Imperial shuttle, they gain access through the planet’s shield. Jyn, Cassian, and K-2SO infiltrate the base while the others attack the Imperial garrison as a diversion.

The Alliance learns of the raid from intercepted Imperial communications and deploys their fleet in support, leading to a space battle against the Imperial fleet. K-2SO sacrifices himself so Jyn and Cassian can retrieve the data. Chirrut is killed after activating the switch to allow communication with the Rebel fleet, and Baze is killed shortly afterward. Bodhi is killed by a grenade after informing the Rebel fleet that it must deactivate the planetary shield to allow the transmission of the plans. Rebel Admiral Raddus uses a Rebel ship to crash two Imperial Star Destroyers into each other; the wreckage destroys the shield generator. Jyn obtains the schematics but is ambushed by Krennic, who is shot and wounded by Cassian. Jyn transmits the schematics to the Rebel command ship moments before the Death Star arrives above Scarif, commanded by Tarkin. He orders the Death Star to destroy the citadel, killing everyone, including Krennic, Cassian, and Jyn.

The Rebel fleet prepares to jump to hyperspace, but many ships are intercepted by Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer. Vader boards the Rebel command ship and kills many troops trying to regain the schematics, but a smaller ship escapes with the plans. Aboard the fleeing ship as it enters hyperspace, Princess Leia Organa declares that the schematics will provide hope for the Rebellion.

Jyn Erso’s tenacity, resourcefulness, and unwavering spirit exemplify the potential for strong female characters to drive Science Fiction to exhilarating heights. Rogue One serves as a testament to how female leads can redefine expectations and bring fresh perspectives to the world of SCI-FI.

Everything Everywhere All At Once — (2022)

Everything Everywhere All at Once is an American absurdist comedy-drama film that incorporates elements from Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Martial Arts. Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn Quan Wang, a Chinese-American immigrant who, while audited by the IRS, discovers that she must connect with parallel universe versions of herself to prevent a powerful being from destroying the multiverse.

Storyline
Evelyn Quan Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is a middle-aged Chinese immigrant who runs a laundromat with her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan). Two decades earlier, they eloped to the United States and had a daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). In the present day, Evelyn is enduring multiple struggles: the laundromat is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); Waymond is attempting to serve her with divorce papers in an effort to spark a discussion about their marriage; her rigorous father (referred to as Gong Gong, Cantonese for “grandfather)”(James Hong) is visiting for her Chinese New Year party; and she has a strained relationship with Joy, who is battling depression and has a non-Chinese girlfriend, Becky, whom Evelyn is reluctant to accept.

At a tense meeting with IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis), Waymond’s body is taken over by Alpha-Waymond, a version of Waymond from the “Alphaverse.” Alpha-Waymond explains to Evelyn that many parallel universes exist (the “multiverse”) because every life choice creates a new alternative universe. In the Alphaverse, the now-deceased Alpha-Evelyn developed “verse-jumping” technology, which enables people to access the skills, memories, and bodies of their parallel selves by performing bizarre actions that are statistically unlikely. The multiverse is threatened by Jobu Tupaki (Alpha-Joy), whose mind was splintered after Alpha-Evelyn pushed her to verse-jump beyond her endurance. Jobu experiences all universes at once and can verse-jump and manipulate matter at will. Jobu has created a black hole-like “Everything Bagel” that forms a toroid singularity that could destroy the multiverse.

Evelyn is provided verse-jumping technology to fight Jobu’s minions, who are converging on the IRS building. She uncovers other universes in which she made different choices and flourished, such as becoming a kung fu master and film star. She also learns that Waymond intends to file for divorce. Alpha-Waymond believes that Evelyn, as the greatest “failure” of all Evelyns in the multiverse, possesses the untapped potential needed to defeat Jobu. Gong Gong is taken over by Alpha-Gong Gong, who instructs Evelyn to kill Joy to prevent Jobu from using her to access Evelyn’s universe. Evelyn refuses and decides to face Jobu by acquiring powers through repeated verse-jumping. Alpha-Gong Gong, convinced that Evelyn’s mind has been compromised like Jobu’s, sends soldiers after Evelyn. While they fight, Jobu locates and kills Alpha-Waymond in the Alphaverse. As Jobu confronts Evelyn in her universe, Evelyn’s mind begins to splinter, causing her to collapse.

Evelyn uncontrollably verse-jumps alongside Jobu across bizarre and diverse universes. Jobu discloses she does not intend to fight, but that instead, she has been searching for an Evelyn who can see, as she does, that nothing matters. She teleports Evelyn to the Everything Bagel, divulging that she wants to use it to allow herself and Evelyn to truly die. Upon looking into the Bagel, Evelyn is initially persuaded, and behaves cruelly and nihilistically in her other universes, hurting those around her.

Just as Evelyn enters the Bagel with Jobu, she pauses to listen to Waymond’s pleas in her universe for everybody to stop fighting and to instead practice kindness, even when life is senseless. Evelyn has an existentialist epiphany (remaining “True to Self”) and decides to follow Waymond’s absurdist and humanitarian advice, utilizing her multiverse powers to fight with empathy and bring happiness to those around her. In doing so, she repairs her damage in the other universes and neutralizes Alpha-Gong Gong and Jobu’s fighters. In her home universe, Evelyn reconciles with Waymond, accepts Joy and Becky’s relationship and divulges it to Gong Gong, while Waymond convinces Deirdre to let them redo their taxes. Jobu decides to enter the Bagel alone as, simultaneously in Evelyn’s universe, Joy pleads Evelyn to let her go. Evelyn tells Joy that even when nothing makes sense and even though she could be anywhere else in the multiverse, she will always want to be with Joy. Evelyn and the others save Jobu from the Bagel, and Evelyn and Joy embrace.

Sometime later, with the family’s relationships improved, they return to the IRS building to refile their taxes. As Deirdre talks, Evelyn’s attention is momentarily drawn to her alternative selves, before she grounds herself back in her home universe.

“True to Self” SCI-FI shows how Heroes face Adversity — by listening to their “Inner Voice”. It helps them to remember Who they are and hold on to Beliefs they hold dear. It Empowers them to overcome Fear by fending off Lies from people who cannot be trusted (because they have “given in” to the “Dark Side” of human nature).

May we all feel Inspired … to do likewise.

***

(click image link to view YouTube video)

---