The films speak for themselves. Back to the Future. Aliens. The Terminator. Blade Runner. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Empire Strikes Back. Robocop. These movies have stood the test of time, but they were part of a greater world of 1980s science fiction cinema. 80s sci-fi weaved worlds of the future, dealt with the current nuclear conflict, accurately predicted technological trends, created incredible practical creatures while dabbling with new CGI, and perhaps most important, kept our spirit of inquiry going. Fans of ’80s sci-fi rejoice, as you can now help support and purchase the new almost 5-hour (!) documentary on ’80s sci-fi: In Search of Tomorrow: The Definitive 80s Sci-Fi Documentary.

New York Comic-Con wrapped up on October 7th and ended a crazy four days at the Javits Convention Center in NYC. My last press roundtable of that weekend was for the upcoming science fiction film Prospect, which stars Jay Duplass (Transparent), Pedro Pascal (Game Of Thrones), and Sophie Thatcher, who makes her feature-film debut here.

The film, which had its premiere in March at the SXSW Film Festival, was written and directed by Chris Caldwell and Zeek Earl, and is a feature-length version of their 2014 short. It will be released on November 2, 2018 in Regal theaters, which will be offering an exclusive art print by Christopher Shy, as well as an exclusive download of the film’s accompanying Playbill, Aurelac Prospecting: Guide To Getting Rich On The Green Moon, that delves into the film’s world-building.

The Robots Of Gotham
Hardcover | Kindle | Audiobook
By Todd McAulty
Publisher: John Joseph Adams | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Release date: June 19, 2018

The robopocalypse is coming in Todd McAulty‘s futuristic scifi tome, The Robots Of Gotham.

In his debut novel, McAulty takes us to the year 2083 where many parts of the world are now controlled by a fascist robot regime. After years of war, the United States is now divided, with many areas foreign-occupied, machine-controlled, and/or overrun by Venezuelan “peacekeeping” forces: There’s the Kingdom of Manhattan, a robot-controlled sovereignty; the Occupied States, an area of conflict controlled by the Machine Cabal; the United States Free Zone, which has an elected human President; and the Union of Post-American States, which has a human appointed leader.

COMET TV, the FREE scifi television network, and action network CHARGE! have given us a prize pack with themed items to give away to one lucky winner to coincide with their March 2018 programming, including the film Johnny Mnemonic and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Kickboxer films.

Alien: Covenant
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriter: John Logan and Dante Harper
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Carmen Ejogo, Demián Bichir
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Rated PG-13 | 122 Minutes
Release Date: May 19, 2017

The truth is that while I liked Alien: Covenant, I didn’t love it. What’s tragic, aside for the future the prequel sets humanity up for, is that all it would have taken to make the film phenomenal was some small tweaks and changes.

Alien: Covenant lacks the same emotional heights sci-fi fans associate with Ridley Scott’s film of 1979 or James Cameron’s 1986 sequel, though it’s not without merit. Chief among the complaints is that the new film seems to sit on the franchise’s laurels rather than push it forward in the way Casino Royale did for James Bond or Logan did for X-Men. It’s been 38 years since the original Alien thriller, but this movie lacks some of the lauded learnings and innovations of modern science fiction cinema.