Warfare has evolved quite a bit from the first time we looked at another group of people and decided to fight them. We’ve come a long way from charging headfirst into each other and hoping our weapons hit their intended targets. There may have been a time when just having superior battle tactics and higher numbers would have ensured victory, though now, a numerically inferior force could easily take on a much bigger one by just having a technological upper hand on the battlefield.

Nearly all of the biggest countries in the world are now working hard at gaining that upper hand, and some of the breakthroughs in military tech in recent times have started to resemble things straight out of science fiction. While we knew that these technologies would definitely be a regular part of warfare at some point in the future, we didn’t know that future would be here so soon.

10 EMP

The idea of a superpowered weapon that could theoretically release a burst of electromagnetic radiation (e.g. an electromagnetic pulse [EMP]) and incapacitate all electronics in a given area has existed in science fiction for a long time. Any army that has access to such a weapon would gain an automatic advantage in a battle, as even one working weapons system is better than thousands that are disabled.

Many countries have ongoing projects attempting to make such a thing, but it looks like the US Air Force already has it. Called the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project, or CHAMP, the weapon was able to successfully target and disable the electronics of seven separate buildings during a test in Utah.^[1] Thankfully, it’s able to pinpoint specific targets instead of just bombarding a whole area with the pulse, ensuring that civilians won’t be affected during a live operation.

9 Hypersonic Missiles

The speed of sound isn’t anywhere close to the speed of light, and saying that overtaking it is any sort of a breakthrough in 2019 would be dishonest. We have many things that can breach the sound barrier like it’s nothing, though most of it is military tech, like jets and missiles, and also super-expensive to build. It’s not the same for hypersonic speed, though, which is at least five times the speed of sound and much more difficult to achieve.

It’s one of those things we thought we’d see farther in the future, but that was until China put its hypersonic missiles to the test.^[2] Unfortunately for all of China’s potential enemies, the tests were successful. Developing hypersonic missiles has been a top priority for the United States for some time now, so it would be interesting to see what they come up with now that China has seemingly taken the lead in that arms race.

8 Micro-Drones

Thirty years ago, few would have imagined that we’d have unmanned flying objects capable of carrying out military operations from a safe distance. Drones (aka UAVs) have already transformed the way we conduct warfare as well as other parts of life, like news reporting and drunken bets at tech school parties.

Despite their utility in warfare, there are some things that UAVs still can’t easily do, like carrying out an operation undetected. For that, they’d have to be minimized to an almost undetectable scale, something science fiction authors have played around with quite a few times. It sounds overpowered and kind of scary, as tiny armed drones no one can see could wreak havoc in the wrong hands. It’s a relief, then, that they’re still quite a bit away in the distant future, right? Well, no.

In January 2017, the Pentagon announced that it had successfully tested a group of 103 micro-drones, each about 16 centimeters (6 in) in length.^[3] They’re largely autonomous in nature and are capable of things like collective decision-making, changing formations according to situation, and “healing” themselves. And no, that’s not all; they also have plans to some day be able to fit advanced and deadly technologies on their minuscule drones, including tiny nukes.

7 Weaponizing AI

Many scientific and military experts have grave, and justified, concerns about artificial intelligence being allowed into the realm of warfare. Even if a full-fledged killer robot uprising isn’t really that big of a concern at this point, it poses many other ethical questions we need to answer first. How do we make sure that autonomous, self-learning weapons know the difference between combatants and civilians, when even we mistake the two every now and then? More importantly, how do we hold a machine accountable for its actions? Going to jail isn’t really a deterrent for it.

Despite those concerns, artificial intelligence is already a part of warfare to a larger extent than those concerned about it would be comfortable with. Take Israel’s “Harop” loitering munition system, which is essentially a suicide drone that can self-destruct if it’s able to lock on to what it perceives as a target, like enemy combatants or antiaircraft missile systems.^[4] It has already been successfully used on the battlefield, and the scariest part is that it’s capable of deciding what to dive-bomb entirely on its own. Reportedly, Germany also has completely automated missile systems capable of shooting down enemy missiles without any human intervention.

There’s a silver lining, though; AI developers aren’t as easily available for hire as general weapons experts, and many in Silicon Valley have explicitly refused to work with the military to try to ensure that AI’s use in warfare remains limited.

6 Mind-Controlled Weapons

Imagine simply linking your brain to a weapon, vehicle, robot, or what have you and being able to pilot it with a deftness and fluidity you’d never attain with a joystick, to be the fighter jet or Pacific Rim-style giant death robot. If you think that it’s safe to say that it’ll be some time before we can actually do that, you’d be wrong; the tech already exists.

In one study, neuroscientists developed something known as the “brainet,” where two monkeys were taught how to control a digital limb with the help of just their thoughts. While it has noncombat applications, especially in aiding people with brain damage or disabilities in their day-to-day tasks, it could also be used for military purposes. The US Department of Defense already has ongoing programs looking into creating mind-controlled weapons, and we could see them put to use quite soon.^[5]

5 Exoskeleton Suit

Anyone who has played first-person shooters is probably familiar with the concept of an exoskeleton suit, an exterior suit of powered armor that provides enhanced protection and capabilities. The idea, in various forms, has been explored quite a bit in fiction as well; just look at Iron Man.

While something as high-tech and awesome as Tony Stark’s duds will take some time to develop, an exoskeleton suit already exists. In 2018, Russia tested its RATNIK-3 prototype. The tests were largely successful; the tester was able to carry heavy loads and shoot a machine gun one-handed. The suit is made with a titanium framework to increase the soldier’s strength and stamina.^[6]

It has a limitation, though: It doesn’t have much in the way of energy storage, so it can only work for a limited time. They’re working on fixing that, though. Either way, the RATNIK-3 sounds like a working exoskeleton suit to us.

4 Seeing Through Walls

Gone are the days of face-to-face battles on large fields. The wars of today are largely urban in nature, which is partly due to the combatants being non-state actors and guerilla fighters. That also makes it all the more difficult, as booby traps and ambushes in densely populated urban battlefields can bring the best armies to a halt (as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Many countries have been trying to perfect their own technologies for being able to scan an area before they move in, but that would require the ability to see through walls, and no one really has that. Or don’t they? Some recent breakthroughs have proven that not only is it closer than we thought, but the tech to see through walls already exists.

In 2015, a Czech radar manufacturer successfully built a device that can see what’s on the other side of the wall, as long as whoever is behind the wall is moving their limbs or breathing. If that’s not good enough, in 2018, a group of researchers from MIT developed an AI-type technology that can see anyone through walls with an accuracy of 83 percent, complete with a moving image of their stick-like form in real time.^[7]

In another breakthrough at the Technical University of Munich in 2017, researchers were able to do the same thing with Wi-Fi routers. We’re pretty sure we saw something like that in a movie once.

3 Seeking Bullets

You may not at all be surprised to hear that in a battle, enemy combatants, at least competent ones, are trained to make shooting them difficult. That’s exactly why a type of ammunition developed by DARPA, the research wing of the US Department of Defense, is so impressive and deadly. Known as EXACTO, it’s not just able to home in on a hard-to-hit, dug-in target; it also has the ability to change course midway depending on enemy movement and is accurate to a scary degree.^[8]

Not just that, they’re also actively trying to develop an auto-aiming rifle, which uses computation and advanced algorithms to only fire when the shot should hit, without the shooter having to rely on his judgement of wind conditions and visibility.

2 Freeze Ray

Unlike most other items on this list, which could aid good guys as well as rogue armies, the “freeze ray,” a weapon that can literally freeze someone in his tracks, has generally been portrayed in fiction as something villains use. Of course, we don’t really have anything that can do that from a distance and in a short burst of time, right? Well, a team from the University of Washington developed something along those lines in 2015.

It works by shooting a laser at a liquid and freezing it. We already had the tech to do this to solids in a vacuum, this was the first time it had been done to a liquid. Also, lasers generally heat objects up rather than cooling them down.

Future applications for technology of this sort extend far beyond freezing people in a battle, of course. The researchers think that it could theoretically be used to freeze and slow down the division process in living cells, possibly giving us a better understanding of the mechanisms behind aging and cancer.^[9]

1 Invisibility Cloak

The ability to become invisible whenever we want wouldn’t just be valuable for the military; a lot of us could make use of such an ability in many of our daily interactions. It has been imagined and discussed in science fiction since we started writing science fiction, and even in 2019, it still sounds like something from the future. Fortunately for military contractors as well as people who keep getting stuck in awkward conversations, invisibility cloaks are no longer the stuff of the distant future or science fiction. In fact, we’ve had at least one invisibility cloak since 2012.

A Canadian company called Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corporation has successfully built a material that can make you invisible. It’s also passive in nature, which means that it doesn’t reproduce your background on any kind of screen; it just “bends light around an object.”^[10] In other words, it’s an invisibility cloak exactly like you’d envision an invisibility cloak to be. The US military showed interest in purchasing it, because of course it did, and you might just see it deployed on a battlefield near you sooner than you’d have expected.

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, get in touch with him for writing gigs, or just say hello to him on Twitter.

Science fiction is usually defined as fiction that is set in the future, or which demonstrates major technological, or environmental change. It is often set in space, or on an alternative version of earth, and might take place in the near or distant future. This definition is necessarily unspecific, because, in fact, sci-fi can be set on Earth, on any other planet, or in the farthest reaches of space. It can be set in the past, present or future.

The sci-fi world created in the movie may be vastly different from our own, or almost exactly the same. It may feature aliens, or robots or cool gadgets. But, then again, maybe not. In fact, there are dozens of sub-genres within the sci-fi category of movies, and that is before you even begin to consider the sci-fi/fantasy hybrid movies. Back in 2007 we presented a broad-strokes list of Top 15 Science Fiction Movies. Here, in 2020, we have tried to define 10 broad categories of science fiction. Maybe your favorite sci-fi film will fit into one of them. And maybe not. Be sure to let us know.

10 Time Travel

Time travel movies have a whole set of their own sub-genres. You can have romantic time travel, (The Time Traveler’s Wife), funny(-ish) time travel, (Hot Tub Time Machine), nostalgic-teen-coming of age time travel, (Back to the Future), and “boy, I wish I was older/younger” movies, where a nondescript Chinese person with a mop/fortune cookie makes their wish come true by means never disclosed.

And, of course, there are the action time travel movies like Terminator, where the time travelers have mastered Traveling Through The Time Portal/Vortex/Gate, but have yet to get out of the kiddie class in How To Beat The Good Guy In A Car Chase.

Sometimes, time-travel is just a convenient plot device to get the writers out of a sticky situation. Avengers Endgame, for example. Cinema goers sat through 21 non-time travel related movies, and then Thanos wiped out half the population of the universe. How do you get out of that one? Well, you could travel back in time, prevent Thanos from collecting some stones, then click your fingers and presto change-o! And if that doesn’t work, you could always call that gal with the laser eyes to thump him (why didn’t they call her earlier? Oh yeah, busy).

Like End Game, many movies quickly gloss over the actual mechanics of time travel. If we attach this MacGuffin to that Flux Capacitor and turn the dial all the way up to 11, that should do it.

The reason for this, of course, is that time travel is impossible. The math on that is also likely to be pretty complicated, and, let’s be honest, dull. The most ‘realistic’ time travel movie, though, is probably Primer, a low budget movie that refused to pander to the non-mathematical geniuses in the audience. It won a Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Festival, and is said to have gained a cult following. Among mathematicians. Enough said. Except that we shouldn’t forget that sometimes math is actually awesome! Proof: Top 10 Coolest Mathematics Results.

9 Steampunk

Steampunk manages to have the best of both worlds. It’s futuristic, but set in the past. So it has lots of crazy gadgets, and really big guns, all powered by steam, and a million shiny cogs. Usually set in the late Victorian era, these movies wear their science lightly, and are more interested in looking cool than being in any way realistic.

Take Wild West West, for instance. Starring Will Smith and Kevin Kline, the movie featured everything you would expect in a western, plus bicycle powered airplanes and giant mechanical spiders. Plus magnets. Lots of magnets. The movie wasn’t great, to be honest, and did win 5 Razzies, including Worst Picture and Worst Original Song, for Smith’s horrible rap-based theme tune.

A better steampunk movie was Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese, the charming story of an orphaned boy who tries to repair his father’s automaton. The film also featured a tribute to Georges Méliès, a pioneer in cinematography, and his 1902 fantasy movie A Trip to the Moon. Which is kinda nice.

If steampunk makes your cogs whir faster, The Mysterious Geographic Explorations Of Jasper Morello is a treat. It may be an animated movie, and a short one, but it has everything a steampunk fan could desire – moody lighting, great costumes, plenty of dirigibles, and fantastical steam-powered machinery. And while we’re on the subject of ancient technology and – well, weird stuff in general, take a look at Top 10 Facts About The Pyramids That Could Prove Advanced Ancient Technology.

8 Generation Ship

One of the lesser known sci-fi sub-genres, Generation Ship is an Interstellar Ark concept, where a large population from Earth journeys to Outer Space in order to find a new home. Although the original passengers will be long dead by the time they make it to their destination, they hope that their children’s children will be able to start over and ruin another planet.

One example of this genre is Pandorum, a 2009 Sci-Fi/Horror movie where 60,000 people flee the dying Earth to make the 123-year trip to a planet with a similar atmosphere. The passengers are supposed to be put into hyper-sleep, awaking every couple of years to take their turn crewing the ship.

But, of course, there are faulty computers, unstable nuclear reactors, space-induced insanity and some kind of monster hiding on the ship, which interrupts their sleep. You get the drift. The rest gets a little silly.

Passengers, starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence, had a similar initial premise, and a crazy android barman, played by Michael Sheen, who out-acts them both (not hard, we know). Passengers resists the horror tropes of Pandorum, and, while it does go a little nuts, it opts for a more optimistic resolution.

And what happens to Earth after it has been evacuated? They send a Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth class (or WALL-E) to clean up the mess. And that’s cute too. Now, can movie journey compete with real life, like these 8 Worst Journeys Ever Undertaken?

7 Alien Invasion

The Alien Invasion is a staple of Sci-Fi films, and there are hundreds to choose from. If you enjoy alien invaders coupled with ridiculously jingoistic over-acting you might go for Independence Day. Or if you want something a little more beautiful, you might choose Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim, where gigantic alien reptiles emerge from the sea to battle human-controlled robots. OK, it’s still a little bit silly and a little bit jingoistic, but it is much easier on the eyes.

Not all Alien Invasion movies are action-techno blockbusters, however. If you want an alien invasion movie that is a little more down to earth, you could go for Attack the Block. “What kind of alien would invade some shitty council estate in South London?” “One that’s looking for a fight.” Attack the Block didn’t spend much money on its special effects, but the script is out of this world.

Or, if you prefer the zany angle, you could try Mars Attacks A parody of 1950’s B-movies (it is a Tim Burton movie after all), Mars Attacks wins the award for Best Looking Evil Alien. It has an all-star cast, from Jack Nicholson as the self-serving president, Glen Close as the first lady and Pierce Brosnan as a particularly annoying Brit who ‘interprets’ for the Martians whilst sucking a briar pipe.

He thinks they come in peace. He’s wrong. “Nice Planet. We’ll Take It”. But let’s not be too bleak. After all, the real aliens are actually quite helpful, as evidenced in top 10 Signs That Aliens Could Be Contributing To Our World.

6 Colonization

Sometimes the aliens don’t just want to invade the planet, they want to live on it. That’s when you get Colonization movies. The 1950’s seemed to abound with movies of this sort. The 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers is probably the best-known example. Aliens replicate the bodies of humans, and take their place. But they are unable to simulate human emotions. And so they must be stopped. However, should we wish to colonize another planet, that is perfectly OK.

Christopher Nolan’s, 2014 movie, Interstellar sees mankind, having trashed the eco-system of their own planet, set out to steal someone else’s. When a convenient wormhole opens up, Matthew McConaughey dons a space helmet in search of a planet that will sustain life. No one thinks to wonder whether that planet is already sustaining lifeforms of its own, or how those lifeforms will feel about a mass invasion of creatures who will rape the land and destroy the planet. Presumably they are fine with it. Let’s hope so eh Elon? 10 Things We Know About Elon Musk’s Future Colony On Mars.

5 Human as Slaves

The future is a foreign land, and no one knows what happens there. While humans are the most advanced creature on Earth now, who knows what evolution has in store for us?

Which, of course, is the premise of Planet of the Apes. Charlton Heston plays an astronaut who crash lands on a ‘strange planet’, eerily similar to our own, where
the apes have evolved to be the top dog, as it were, and the humans are slaves/pets/curiosities. The film was a smash-hit, and spawned four sequels, a TV series, an animated series, a successful remake and an even more successful reboot of the entire Ape v Man genre in which the Ape was not only the top dog, but the hero.

While man may have been a slave in the Planet of the Apes, at least he wasn’t a battery. In The Matrix, the Wachowski’s ground-breaking movie in which ‘bullet-time’ became a thing, the function of mankind is even less attractive.

Unless your name is Neo you will be doomed to spend your life asleep in a slimy egg-shaped capsule. And if Neo comes along to rescue you, it gets a whole lot worse. Should’ve taken the blue pill. Just don’t take the black pill . . . 10 Ways The World Could End Today.

4 Utopia

Science fiction isn’t always about people in shiny uniforms and big guns, or devastated wastelands and starving people, created by man’ rampant over consumption. Usually it is, of course, but just occasionally, we have a different sort of future to look forward to. Take Avatar, for instance.

OK, humans have ruined their planet, but there is another one nearby, that is really really nice. It’s air is also poisonous to humans, which is a good thing for the inhabitants of Pandora. But, even if we can’t live there, there must be some way we can monetize it, surely?

The people of Pandora like to live in harmony with nature. They are a gentle race. They are bound to be easy marks. Using technology to create avatars, humans remotely control the avatars to scout the planet to find a rare mineral, with the entirely plausible name of unobtainium.

If you try and focus on the beautiful world of Pandora, you have found Utopia. It can’t last, of course, because people are going to come along any moment to try and muck it up. This, unfortunately, seems to be a recurring theme of Utopian movies.

Whenever there is a beautiful planet, where the sun shines, and nature flourishes, you can expect some jack-booted human to appear at any moment and begin trampling the flowers in order to find oil/treasure/minerals with silly names.

Thankfully, however, there is always one, and occasionally as many as six, people who understand the true riches the planet has to offer, and they are allowed to stay. If the idea of a utopian society warms your heart, prepare to be let down: 10 Failed Attempts To Create Utopian Cities.

3 Dystopia

If Utopia sounds a bit too saccharine for you, you could try dystopia instead. There are way more of those kinds of films. Shot either in a desert, or a deserted shopping mall, dystopian movies show us what the world will be like if we don’t mend our planet-destroying ways. The only problem is that the dystopian movies are way usually more exciting than the Utopian ones.

I mean, sure, Avatar has got flowers and trees and stuff, but Mad Max, for instance, has got armored vehicles. And, despite the apparent fuel shortage, you can drive at whatever speed you want, on the wrong side of the road, and no one will stop you.

In Avatar you have a bow and arrow. In Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, you can fix a flame thrower to the roof of your truck. And by the time you get to Mad Max: Fury Road, you can even have that flame thrower attached to the neck of your guitar.

So what if the shops are empty, the water is poisoned, and the only available food is Soylent Green? (What’s in that, again?) And really who cares if the end of the world is nigh? Flame throwers are cool. If you can’t get enough of the dystopian genre: 10 Sci-Fi Dystopias That Are Everyday Realities Today.

2 First Contact

First contact movies are not really about aliens. They are about people meeting aliens. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, for example, the aliens only appear in the final seconds of the movie. In Contact, Jodie Foster stars as a woman who, perhaps, has an alien encounter, though she might be making it all up.

Arrival, 2016’s blockbuster first contact movie, was also more about people than aliens. The film, which starred Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner (in a movie where he barely overacted at all), was about how we make contact with beings with whom we do not share a common language, or even the building blocks of language. The aliens themselves are a minor feature of the movie. What is more important is the cooperation of governments, or lack of it, and their willingness to try to understand those different from themselves.

Arrival was a commercial and critical success. It was widely considered to be the most intelligent film about aliens ever made, and certainly the best one where the heroes are a physicist and a linguist. There isn’t a single Evil Overlord or Intergalactic laser gun/sword in the entire film; weird. Even the Chinese are heroes! Though maybe that can be explained by Top 10 Things Hollywood Does To Kowtow To The Chinese.

1 Space opera

Nothing to do with singing, space operas are all about grandeur. And scale. Epic stories of adventure, melodrama and romance across the universe. Usually set in deep space or on distant and exotic planets, space operas almost always have good-looking good guys facing an Evil Overlord, who is usually dressed in black. Basically, we are talking Star Wars.

Space operas often come in several installments. Flash Gordon is an early example of the genre. The 1936 serial for the cinema, staring Buster Crabbe, came in 13 episodes, and saw Flash battle Emperor Ming the Merciless. The episodes ran in Saturday morning cinema for years and did marvels with cardboard sets and ropey special effects.

The main characteristic of Space Opera seems to be Noble Quests against Evil Empires. They also feature stirring music, long speeches in which someone explains the plot, and grand, if futile, gestures. In other words, it is just the sort of thing that gets made into a parody movie. Like Space Balls.

Written and directed by Mel Brooks, who also played Yogurt, the pointy-eared alien guru, and Rick Moranis as Black Helmet, a short bobble-headed bad guy, the movie spoofed every space opera movie you ever saw. If you don’t really enjoy the sci-fi bits of a sci-fi movie, this film is for you. And may the Schwartz be with you. If you are interested in more lists about movie effects, check out Top 10 Amazing Movie Sound Effects Made With Animals.

About The Author: Ward Hazell is a freelance writer and travel writer, also currently studying for a PhD in English Literature.

Science fiction has the ability to transport us to entirely new worlds, to see the possibilities of the future. Writers and filmmakers often feature technology in a dystopic setting. From rogue machines to technological singularities, tech itself becomes the source of mankind’s downfall.

Major figures in the tech industry are even starting to fear their own creations. The likes of Elon Musk and Clive Sinclair worry about the rise of sentient machines. Max Tegmark has spoken about how AI could one day change the face of cyber warfare. And the late Stephen Hawking once fretted that tech would serve to manipulate political leaders and fool the financial markets.

This idea – that civilization is destroyed by the very thing that was designed to help it evolve – has fascinated movie-goers for decades. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at 10 behind-the-scenes facts about some of the most popular movies involving sci-fi dystopias.

Warning: this list contains major spoilers for many of the films discussed

Top 10 Behind The Scenes Tales About Kubrick Movies

10 Blade Runner’s Script was a Contentious Affair

Today, Blade Runner is considered a cinematic masterpiece. But in the run-up to the film’s release in 1982, others were not so sure. The script for the film was based on the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The author slammed the original draft of the screenplay, claiming it stripped his story of all meaning and subtlety. Dick’s opinion only changed after David W. Peoples, who had previously worked on Return of the Jedi, was brought in to rehash the script.

Meanwhile, Harrison Ford hated the idea that his character, Rick Deckard, was an unwitting replicant. Director Ridley Scott was insistent on the twist. But preview screenings of the film left the audience confused. Scott hastily tore out some of the more ambiguous scenes, including those that alluded to Deckard’s status as an android. For the theatrical release, Warner Bros instructed Harrison Ford to record voiceovers explaining what was happening during certain moments. It is said that Ford’s flat delivery was aimed at stopping the studio from using the material – something the star later denied.

Meanwhile, studio executives were on the verge of wrestling control of the project away from Scott. Blade Runner’s impressive visuals had caused the film to go over budget by millions of dollars, and the director’s fastidious nature meant he was running behind schedule. Work on the film’s ending was equally contentious, with disgruntled crew members working 36 hours to wrap things up.

Blade Runner concludes with replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) chasing Deckard across the rooftops of Los Angeles. Batty spares Deckard’s life and, in his dying moments, delivers the now-famous “Tears in Rain” speech. In the early hours of the morning, Hauer re-wrote this part of the script and pitched the scene to his boss. “It was one o’clock in the morning. I was gonna be fired at 3,” explained Ridley Scott. “And then somebody says Rutger wants you. I said, ‘Oh s**t!’” Scott marched to the actor’s trailer and listened to the revised speech. “He read it, and it was great… I said, ‘that’s what we’re gonna do.’”

9 The Terminator 2 Crew Redirected a River

At the time of its release in 1991, Terminator 2 (T2) was the most expensive film ever made, with an eye-watering budget of around $100 million. The James Cameron epic follows the journey of John Connor as he attempts to evade a T-1000 model robot that was sent back in time to assassinate him. A T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) saves the day, spiriting Connor away on a Harley-Davidson. As the two make their escape through a Los Angeles canal, the T-1000 pursues them in a tow-truck. This sequence was no easy undertaking.

Firstly, the studio had to ensure the canal was completely dry for the shoot. They achieved this feat by diverting a nearby river with sandbags. The crew then built a fake wall on the canal overpass. A truck was plowed into the wall, nose-diving into the canal below. The team then realized that the truck was too tall to drive under the canal bridges. So, using a little bit of creative thinking, they came up with a scene in which one of the bridges shears off the vehicle’s roof. Arnie’s 30-foot motorcycle jump was achieved by suspending the bike from two cranes, situated either side of the canal. The Harley-Davidson was then pulled off the overpass at 35 mph, with the suspension wires limiting the force of the impact. The stunt was performed 20 times before capturing the perfect shot.

It is little wonder that T2 used up so much of its budget on special effects. A detailed miniature of the entire city of Los Angeles was created to portray the city’s apocalyptic destruction – a scene that nuclear experts praised for its realism. The crew also resurrected an old steelworks factory, blew up an office complex with hundreds of gallons of gasoline, lit up a freeway with 10 miles of electrical cabling, and staged an explosive helicopter crash.

8 The Academy Accused Tron of ‘Cheating’

Tron pioneered the use of computer graphics in the movie industry, inspiring a generation of animators to pursue a career in film. But it was actually video games like Pong and Breakout that inspired Tron’s unique aesthetics. The special effects team captured this arcade vibe by making frame-by-frame edits of live-action sequences. The scenes were originally shot in black and white, with black and white sets and costumes. This allowed animators to add Tron’s distinctive neon colors during post-processing. These edits were then combined with a range of computer generated effects, all produced using the combined talent of some of America’s biggest FX companies. For example, Magi Synthavision created the lightcycles, tanks, and recognizers. Triple-I worked on the film’s baddie, the evil Master Control Program. And RA&A designed the landscapes for ENCOM’s digital mainframe.

This process was costly and time-consuming. According to the film’s storyboard artist, Bill Kroyer, Every CG object within a frame needed six numbers to describe its position in space. So for one hundred frames – amounting to just four seconds of footage – 600 numbers were needed to describe the object’s movement. With multiple objects, things became even more complicated. These datasets were then sent to the visual FX companies, which had to input the numbers manually into their computer systems. During the rendering phase, a single frame of footage could take as long as 10 minutes to make.

Given the film’s technical accomplishments, then, it may come as a surprise to learn that Tron did not receive an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. The film’s director, Steven Lisberger, explained why the Academy Awards snubbed the film: “We did all those effects in about seven months, which included inventing the techniques. The Academy thought we cheated by using computers.”

7 Videodrome Turned James Woods into a Couch

David Cronenberg is well known for his body horror. From turning Jeff Goldblum into a giant fly to making a film about paraphiliacs who get off on watching car crashes, he’s done it all. And yet, nothing quite beats Videodrome. Released in 1983, Videodrome follows the life of a TV executive called Max Renn (James Woods). To boost his ratings, Renn broadcasts a violent snuff show called Videodrome. He eventually discovers the show is being used to transmit a high-frequency signal that causes viewers to develop malignant brain tumors. An arms company, it turns out, is using Videodrome to kill people who enjoy watching content of a violent and sexual nature.

Renn’s exposure to the signal causes him to undergo bizarre changes, both physically and mentally. While watching TV on the couch, a giant slit appears in his abdomen. He then, for reasons unknown, reaches into the opening with a loaded gun. For the scene to work, Cronenberg sought the expertise of Rick Baker, the legendary effects artist who worked on An American Werewolf in London. Baker’s team ended up building James Woods into the couch itself, before gluing a prosthetic torso to his belly.

After spending several days in the form of a couch, Woods vowed never again to do a movie that involved having things stuck to his body. “He turns to [co-star] Debbie Harry and says, ‘When I first got on this picture, I was an actor. Now I feel like I’m just the bearer of the slit,’” Cronenberg recalls. “And she said, ‘Now you know what it feels like.’”

6 The 12 Monkeys Director Wasn’t Keen on Bruce Willis

In 1995, director Terry Gilliam began musing over his sixth film project, 12 Monkeys. The studio put forward a number of big name actors to star in the lead role, including Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage. Although the role was eventually handed to Bruce Willis, Gilliam had his reservations. It is said that Gilliam even gave the star a list of “Bruce Willis Clichés,” which he was supposed to avoid during shoots. “I explained to him my concerns about him as an actor. I hated that [pursed-lip expression] he does in his films when he gets a bit nervous. I thought, ‘God, that’s horrible’… Rectal. It’s like I’m looking at somebody’s asshole.”

Willis, who was filming the third installment of Die Hard at the time, would often struggle to shake his John McClane persona. In one scene, his character was supposed to fall to the ground after taking a blow to the head. Willis quarreled with the director, claiming the injury wouldn’t immobilize him. “‘You’re not John McClane, f**k off!’” Gilliam retorted. “He just went off and sulked by a tree and I just carried on shooting on without him and finally he came back.”

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5 District 9 was Partly Inspired by Zimbabwean Migration

While District 9 is heavily inspired by the South African apartheid, the film’s origins lie elsewhere. District 9 is set in the same world as Alive in Joburg – a short film produced by the South African director Neill Blomkamp. Similar to District 9, Alive in Joburg asks the question, “What would happen if aliens became stranded on Earth and our two species were forced to coexist with one another?” The short mockumentary shows a bunch of desperate extraterrestrials begging for shelter, water, and electricity on the streets of Johannesburg. Locals fear the aliens, accusing them of committing rape and murder. It turns out that many of these conversations were real.

“That’s actually where the idea came from,” explained Blomkamp. “There are aliens living in South Africa, I asked ‘What do you feel about Zimbabwean Africans living here?’ And those answers – they weren’t actors, those are real answers…” Blomkamp incorporated the responses into his short film, making it seem as though the interviewees were talking about space aliens.

South Africa is home to a large population of Zimbabweans. Most of the newcomers are economic migrants, who pay people smugglers to cross the Limpopo River into South Africa. Zimbabwe’s economy suffered terribly at the hands of its former president, the late Robert Mugabe. Spiraling levels of unemployment, inflation, and taxation has prompted a mass exodus from the beleaguered country.

District 9, following its release in 2009, got into hot water with another African nation. Nigerian officials attempted to ban the movie for depicting Nigerians engaging in weapon trafficking, cannibalism, and interspecies prostitution.

4 The Matrix: Reloaded Housed Low-Income Families

The Matrix Reloaded sees Neo (Keanu Reeves) return to the Matrix in pursuit of a program that helped to enslave humanity. A sentient race of machines created the program, known as the Architect, to make humans believe they were living out their lives normally. In reality, the entire population was trapped inside a simulation, while the machines used their bodies as a source of energy.

A number of programs attempt to stop Neo from reaching the Architect. An impressive chase sequence breaks out on a freeway, replete with slow motion gun fights, martial arts brawls, and vehicular destruction. Of course, this level of chaos couldn’t take place on an actual freeway, so the crew simply built one.

In Alameda, San Diego, the studio spent millions of dollars building a 1.5-mile stretch of road on an old navy runway. The project required 7,700 tons of concrete, 1,500 tons of steel, and 1,500 tons of lumber. Once filming was over, Warner Bros worked with the county to dismantle the sets. The salvaged materials were then used to make homes for low-income families in Mexico. For both sequels, 97 percent of the deconstructed sets were recycled, amounting to 11,000 tons of material.

3 A.I. Surpassed Jurassic Park’s Animatronics

A.I. Artificial Intelligence started out as a passion project for Stanley Kubrick. The acclaimed director started development of the film in the 1970s, collaborating with various writers to produce a script. But Kubrick soon realized that the technology needed to achieve his vision did not exist. With the release of Jurassic Park in 1993, Kubrick became convinced that Steven Spielberg should direct his movie. Following Stanley’s death in 1999, the Kubrick family persuaded Spielberg to take over.

A.I. shows humanity on the brink of war with its own robotic creations, or mechas. To design the mechas, Spielberg brought together a team of CGI and animatronics experts. With Stan Winston at the helm, who had previously worked on Jurassic Park and The Terminator, shooting was wrapped up in just 68 days. Some of the actors spent up to three hours in the makeup chair as artists transformed them into discarded mechas. In one scene, a group of damaged robots, played by amputees, are seen scouring a landfill in search of replacement parts. The film took advantage of Winston’s mistakes, using a mountain of failed props to populate the mecha graveyard.

One of the most sophisticated animatronics was a 3-foot-tall teddy bear. According to Winston, Teddy was even more sophisticated than the T-Rex and velociraptors in Jurassic Park. The model used during action shots housed a total of 50 servo motors – half of which were needed just to simulate the bear’s facial expressions. In a sense, the technicians became actors themselves, adjusting Teddy in real time to make sure his reactions and movements were believable.

One of the most difficult aspects of Teddy’s scenes was getting the lighting to look natural. VFX supervisor Scott Farrar explained the problem: “The giant ape in Mighty Joe Young (1998) only had an average of 700,000 hairs, and they were a foot long. This little pipsqueak teddy bear has a million and a half little hairs, and each of those has eight curve segments to it. That’s 12 million manipulations to worry about!”

2 Ridley was Booted from Blade Runner 2049’s Set

Ridley Scott did not direct the sequel to Blade Runner 2049. That was left to the Canadian film director Denis Villeneuve. As executive producer, Scott often made appearances on set, hovering over Villeneuve’s shoulder. The director eventually expressed his discomfort: “He came on set one day and, after a few minutes having him behind me, it was unbearable. I made a joke, I said to him, ‘Hey, Ridley, who’s your favorite director?’ He said, ‘Oh, I love Ingmar Bergman and Kubrick’… so I said, ‘How would you feel if you were on set directing, and you had Bergman just behind you.” While Kubrick took the comment in good spirits, he quickly got the message and left.

2049 was not the box office hit that many were expecting, falling far short of its $300 million production and marketing costs. Ridley Scott claims the movie flopped because it was “f**king way too long.” As for where the franchise goes next, Scott says he’s currently working on ideas for the next movie.

1 The Original Ending to Star Wars was Dark

In the Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) sees a vision of his own face underneath Darth Vader’s mask. Later, Vader gives Luke the iconic “I am your father” speech, before trying to turn him to the dark side. The Revenge of the Jedi leans heavily into the idea of Skywalker turning. He spends much of the film dressed in black slaying his enemies with a light saber. Many have theorized that Luke used the dark side to overpower Vader during their final confrontation. After he slices off Vader’s hand, Emperor Palpatine goads the young Jedi: “Your hate has made you powerful.”

The final episode, originally called Revenge of the Jedi, could have been much darker. One possible ending to the original trilogy would see Luke following in his father’s footsteps. George Lucas suggested to co-writer Lawrence Kasdan that Skywalker should turn after Vader reveals his face. From a transcript of the meeting: “Luke takes his mask off. The mask is the very last thing – and then Luke puts it on and says, ‘Now I am Vader.” Luke would then make it his mission to destroy the Rebel fleet. Kasdan reportedly loved this idea.

Mark Hamill is also on record saying he pushed Lucas to turn Skywalker into a villain. Harrison Ford wanted Han Solo to die fighting the Empire on Endor, caring little about what happened to his character. But Lucas decided against both ideas, believing the film needed to appeal to a younger audience.

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Mushrooms and fungi are very familiar to most of us, love them or hate them, they’re known to most for their culinary or medicinal uses, or perhaps as annoying mould or the yeast we use to bake. It’s a safe bet to assume that nearly anyone’s heard of them, seen them, used them, tasted them, however, these ones are vastly different, steering further into the realms of fantasy—horrifying, interesting, or just plain weird.

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10 Lobster Mushroom

Despite what its name would suggest, the lobster mushroom is actually not a mushroom, at least, not entirely one.

Hypomyces lactifluorum is actually a species of mould, a bright orange, parasitic fungus that spreads over its naturally white host and transforms its appearance into something which is a lot more vivid—like a lobster!

They prioritise Russula or Lactarius mushrooms and they’re, in fact, known to produce an allegedly extremely delicious combination! The name “lobster mushroom” certainly sounds appetising, though you’d be forgiven if you weren’t that enticed by the mould part, but generally speaking, a parasitically transformed orange mushroom which smells like shellfish, and in Lactarius’ case, transformed from a hot, peppery mushroom into something mild and delicious, is possibly one of the coolest things one could eat.

Some level of care is advised though; while mushrooms of the Russula or Lactarius genus are perfectly edible, it is technically possible for Hypomyces lactifluorum to target a poisonous mushroom, accidents like that are virtually unheard of but being careful is still important—never eat something you picked if it hasn’t been identified by a professional.

9 Giant Puffball

Readers from certain places of the world may be a little surprised to see the giant puffball mushroom on this list as, for how strange it actually is, it’s actually surprisingly common throughout mainland Europe, even rarely appearing in the UK!

Giant puffball mushrooms, like their name suggests, are quite massive, smooth, and a pure white in appearance, certainly befitting the title of a ‘puffball’.

These mushrooms may grow to be over a metre in diameter and may “explode” in order to spread their powdery spores contained inside.

Despite their strange description, they’re also edible and fairly popular to forage, also considered pretty safe, perhaps unsurprisingly, as not many other mushrooms could be confused with a large, white, spherical, vaguely alien-looking thing.

One thing to note though, if you suddenly have a craving for these otherworldly-seeming mushrooms, aside from taking our advice from the #10 entry, make sure the inside is a pure white, by the time it’s yellow or brown the spores have begun to ripen and the mushroom becomes inedible.

8 Mycena Chlorophos

Next on our list of fantasy mushrooms is something which is perhaps more conventional looking at first but extremely interesting and, actually, beautiful!

Mycena chlorophos is a mushroom which is naturally luminescent! This small mushroom grows in groups and it emits a clear green glow in the dark, making for a wonderful sight if you happen to spot one, which, sadly, isn’t all that likely.

As wonderful as this species is, they’re still fairly mysterious and unknown, in large part due to their limited range, being constrained to certain areas of mainly subtropical Asia, though also found in tiny portions of Brazil and Australia where it was likely transported and introduced artificially.

Due to how rare and unknown it is, its edibility is unknown, however, it’s best to not get your hopes up as the mushroom is said to smell of ammonia.

They’re typically found within woody debris, and while not glowing indefinitely, it displays its beauty for about 72 hours after developing, certainly a sight to see by all means!

7 Indigo Milk Cap

Lactarius indigo, also called the indigo milk cap, indigo lactarius, or the blue milk mushroom is a beautiful mushroom with a striking blue colour, its cap measuring up to 15 cm-s or roughly 6 inches wide, it’s frequently praised and treasured for its unique beauty and odd features, it’s sought out by edible mushroom enthusiasts as an enticing-looking oddity.

Its common name isn’t there just for show either, quite aptly, when you cut the flesh or damage the gills, this mushroom exudes a colourful, blue, milky, latex-like liquid, vastly different from the white ‘milk’ of its closest relatives.

The indigo milk cap is also mycorrhizal, just like chanterelle mushrooms, it grows close to trees and, in a mutually beneficial relationship, they exchange certain minerals and nutrients with each other!

The mushroom is also edible, though it’s generally best described as plain-tasting or even bitter, not extremely delicious or something to really seek out unless you really want to tell the story of eating a blue milky fungus.

6 Bearded Tooth Mushroom

Hericium erinaceus, also known as the lion’s mane mushroom or the bearded tooth mushroom is a medicinal and edible forest mushroom found in North America, Europe, and Asia with looks that could really rival the designs of many fictional plants!

They grow on trees and appear as large and incredibly cool looking lumps on them, appearing as a cascade of spines that are sometimes likened to icicles due to their long, sharp, downwards-growing shape and typically white colouration, though eventually yellow or brown with age. As its name would suggest, it could be described as looking like a beard or an animal’s mane!

Aside from being edible and described by some as a special treat, being widely consumed in China and Japan, it also has plenty of medicinal usages dating far back in history as a part of traditional Chinese medicine. Modern research has shown that it contains compounds that are effective against memory loss, anxiety, depression, dementia, neurological disorders, and even cancer!

If a beard- or mane-looking, large, spiny mushroom that grows on trees and is both flavourful and medicinal doesn’t sound like it’s from a fantasy story then I’m not sure what does.

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5 Shaggy Ink Cap

It’s certain that we’ve covered a lot of intriguing and strange mushrooms and fungi already but this one is quite special!

Coprinus comatus, or, by other names, the shaggy ink cap, shaggy mane, or the ‘lawyer’s wig’ mushroom, aside from having incredible names, is quite incredible by itself as well! It’s a reasonably common, small, egg-shaped mushroom which is naturally white and is frequently found in woods, meadows, fields, and even suddenly appearing in troops on people’s lawns!

These interesting and varied looking fungi, aside from having the habit of suddenly appearing in places and growing in troops, lines, or other various formations are also known for their colouration, starting off white, the gills deliquesce, meaning, they slowly decompose and liquidify into black ink, creating a beautiful gradient and slowly turning black, which also happens to be the colour of its spores.

It may be quite sudden to appear and it’s not the rarest mushroom out there but it’s certainly an incredibly interesting sight to see!

4 Black Brain Fungus

Exidia glandulosa comes in with perhaps the best common name on our list yet, the black brain fungus (also known as black witches’ butter fungus) certainly matches that description with an amazing black colouration in wet weather and greasy, butter-like looks, almost a tar-like appearance.

This fungus appears throughout Europe and North America throughout the winter and autumn and it’s often received divisively, having looks some may describe as beautiful and intriguing or others as downright gross, but in either case, it’s hard to deny how unique it truly is!

It’s frequently found on dead wood and fallen branches and it’s described as, expectedly, squishy or gelatinous in texture. Its edibility is sadly classified as dubious at best and even if it was safe to eat, it likely has no substantial nutritional value to speak of, so, as incredible as it looks, it’s probably best to just opt to go for real butter if you’re hungry.

3 The Devil’s Cigar

Chorioactis, known as the devil’s cigar or Texas star in the United States or kirinomitake in Japan, is a pretty and extremely rare genus of fungi which only contains one species; Chorioactis geaster, the literal, nearly aptly-shaped star of this part of the list!

This pretty and almost star- or flower-shaped mushroom is known for its looks and extremely strange distribution, sometimes cited as one of the rarest mushrooms in the world, it’s actually only found in a few Texas counties and a small number of locations in Japan, its placement almost seeming near random!

Rarity and appearances aren’t the only reason it’s on this list however, this mushroom, interestingly, looks like an American football or a cigar in the early stages of its life before it splits apart, releasing its uniquely massive, also cigar-shaped spores with an audible hiss and sprouting into an enticing flower-like fungus with three to six rays or ‘petals’.

2 Chicken of the Woods

Laetiporus sulphureus, the chicken of the woods, is a large, yellow- or orange-coloured edible polypore mushroom which grows on trees, and, just like the other things on this list, comes with some certainly interesting quirks aside from its unique appearance.

Most notably, the chicken of the woods.. tastes like chicken! Yes, really!

It’s quite common to proclaim that something tastes like chicken, often as a subject of a joke, however, in this case it’s really true! This mushroom is fairly high in protein and, as such, it’s a fairly popular vegetarian alternative to chicken!

Frequently consumed fried in breadcrumbs, it’s said to be best when it’s picked young and moist and keeps well frozen too.

A notable downside to this meat-free chicken, though, is that a small percentage of people experience nausea or side effects after eating it and it’s important to make sure that it hasn’t been imbued with potentially toxic substances from the tree it was growing on.

As long as those factors are considered though, this may just be an incredibly interesting and potentially incredibly tasty mushroom to look for!

1 Bleeding Tooth Fungus

We’ve arrived at the final fungus on our list and, fittingly so, it has the most unbelievable and incredible looks of any on this list, Hydnellum peckii or the bleeding tooth fungus, devil’s tooth, or even ‘strawberries and cream’, is another aptly described one.

The adult form is, admittedly, not that special, however, when the fungus is young it’s an entirely different story!

The off-white, almost beige or pink colouration is dotted with many, many ‘pores’ which oozes a striking, vivid, red or dark red liquid which is extremely reminiscent of blood.

This liquid, actually a type of sap, makes it look like the fungus is bleeding from multiple holes thanks to a red pigment found within the organism.

This fungus isn’t all scary though, a chemical found in it, thelephoric acid, is seeing experimentation as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease!

And, finally, if you were hoping to get a taste of this incredible species, while it’s not toxic, it is, however, said to be extremely bitter and thus sadly classified as inedible.

At the end of the day, it may not be tasty, but it would surely make an eye-catching cover for a fantasy novel!

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About The Author: Just a British person with an extreme interest for all things weird and intriguing!

One of the best things about science fiction is how broad a genre it is. Sci-fi movies can be about the exploration of space and distant planets, aliens and monsters, time travel, advanced technology, alternate dimensions, and many more imaginative things. If you’ve seen all of the classic and most popular sci-fi movies, but you’re still hungry for more, then this is the list for you.

Encompassing many of the sub-genres listed above, these hidden gems were all released within the ten-year span between 2011 and 2021. All of them score above 80% on Rotten Tomatoes but were box office bombs, indie films shown at festivals, or have been lost to the murky depths of streaming services. However, these 10 films all deserve wider recognition and are worth a few hours of your time.

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10 Prospect (2018)

Prospect is the low-budget feature-length debut of the writing and directing team of Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell. Developed from a short film of the same name, Prospect follows a father (Jay Duplass) and his teenage daughter (Sophia Thatcher) searching for gemstones on an alien moon and encountering other prospectors (one of which is played by Pedro Pascal). The moon is blanketed by a toxic forest (like Endor from Star Wars but deadly), and the gems look like they come from the mind of David Lynch.

The characters are attempting to make a living on the fringes of their known universe, and this informs the look of the film. A Variety reviewer explains that the visual style “is the antithesis to your typical interstellar blockbuster, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Passengers, where everything looks new and sleek, as if it were designed by the engineers at Apple.” It feels analog, rather than digital, with spaceships, spacesuits, and weapons looking cobbled together. Earl and Caldwell are now creating a sci-fi TV series for Amazon with the same handmade retro feel.^[1]

9 Attack the Block (2011)

Attack the Block was the writing and directorial debut of Joe Cornish, which stars John Boyega (before his role in Star Wars) and Jodie Whittaker (before her lead role in Doctor Who). The film is set on a council estate in South London and follows a teenage street gang as they defend themselves from an alien invasion. This setup means Attack the Block feels more original than a typical first contact with aliens story.

Den of Geek praises the great cast, the “interesting textual twist on the Amblin-style kids-team-up genre, and the smart use of class politics,” as well as “how authentically London it feels.” Despite being a box office flop, Attack the Block was well received by critics. Now, ten years after its initial release, a sequel has been announced, with both Cornish and Boyega returning. If this one passed you by in 2011, then now is the perfect time to catch up.^[2]

8 Midnight Special (2016)

Midnight Special is a blend between a chase flick and a smart sci-fi film. Directed by Jeff Nichols, the movie focuses on a father (Michael Shannon) on the run from a religious cult and the FBI with his son (Jaeden Martell), who possesses supernatural abilities. While that sounds like it might be in the style of a flashy X-Men movie, Nichols manages to create a pervasive feeling of gritty reality. The film is a breath of fresh air in an oversaturated genre, but despite offering an alternative to mainstream superhero movies, it flopped.

While the premise of Midnight Special sounds like a crowd-pleaser, the ending is divisive. It constantly builds momentum, eventually leading up to the final act reveal (which won’t be spoiled here). One reviewer explains that “after years of brain-numbing visual bombast from Hollywood, here is a sequence that restores your faith in the capacity of special effects to achieve real grace, strangeness, and beauty.” This reveal might not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s worth finding out whether it’s yours.^[3]

7 See You Yesterday (2019)

See You Yesterday is based on a short film of the same name and is the feature-length debut of writer and director Stefon Bristol. The film is about two teenage science prodigies, C.J. (Eden Duncan-Smith) and Sebastian (Danté Crichlow), who invent time travel and then must use it to try and save C.J.’s murdered brother. The rules of time travel essentially follow the logic set out in Back to the Future (1985), and the debt owed to the ’80s classic is even signaled by a cameo appearance from Michael J. Fox (in what was one of his last roles before he retired from acting).

Time travel stories often allow characters numerous do-overs, and See You Yesterday takes this idea and applies it as “a broad metaphor for the rigged systems of social injustice.” While there are moments where the film feels like an adventurous journey with a dash of comedy, there are also moments that are gut-wrenchingly harrowing. Bristol’s movie takes a familiar sci-fi concept but turns it into a hard-hitting story that is, in some ways, grounded in reality.^[4]

6 Coherence (2013)

Coherence is a hard film to summarize without spoilers, so let’s just say it’s about a dinner party where things get weird. Think of it as an episode of The Twilight Zone, which is centered on Schrodinger’s Cat-type science. Rather than talking about the plot, an explanation of how the film was made provides a better understanding of it.

The movie was shot in five days in director James Ward Byrkit’s living room without a crew or script. Byrkit explains that “I always get frustrated with movies and TV shows that feel so false because nobody’s talking in natural rhythms, that I wanted to see what would happen if we didn’t do that.” He created his own outline of the plot, but instead of a script, he provided the actors with a daily “page of notes for their individual character, whether it was a backstory or information about their motivations.” The result is an intriguing movie where the characters talk like real people and have genuine reactions to the twists in the story.^[5]

5 Colossal (2016)

Despite starring Anne Hathaway in the lead role, Colossal failed to create much buzz when it was released. This is unfortunate because it is a genre-defying movie with a lot to say. Hathaway plays Gloria, an unemployed writer struggling with alcoholism who returns to her hometown and reunites with her childhood friend, Oscar, played by Jason Sudeikis. The sci-fi element comes in when a kaiju attacks Seoul, and Gloria realizes that she is connected to it.

Director Nacho Vigalondo heavily borrows imagery from the Godzilla movies, so much so that Godzilla’s copyright owner, Toho, took Vigalondo to court for copyright infringement. The dispute was settled, though Colossal’s debt to Godzilla is still evident. Colossal is more than just a rip-off monster movie, though. Center stage is Gloria’s alcoholism and complex relationship with Oscar, providing the monster movie with a surprisingly mature and dark angle.^[6]

4 Oxygen (2021)

Alexandre Aja is known for directing gory horror films such as The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Piranha 3D (2010), but his latest film, Oxygen, stands apart from the pack. Not only is it Aja’s first French film in many years, but instead of featuring buckets of blood, the film offers taut sci-fi thrills.

The story begins with a woman (played by Mélanie Lauren) waking up in a cryogenic chamber and facing two critical problems: she has no memory of who she is or why she’s in the chamber, and she’s rapidly running out of oxygen. The film feels like it happens in real-time and takes place almost entirely in one location, which serves to draw the audience into the claustrophobic environment.

Despite being very different from his previous work, Aja masters the tension that is necessary to sustain this plot. The film rests almost entirely on Lauren, with other characters only present as disembodied voices (the most important of which is provided by Mathieu Amalric, who voices the AI monitor M.I.L.O.). Lauren’s gripping performance skillfully transitions between confusion, panic, and determination, which sustains the viewer’s attention. One reviewer states that “It will make you put your phone on the other side of the living room for a little while longer—or at least make you grateful you have a whole room to cross.”^[7]

3 Annihilation (2018)

Written and directed by Alex Garland (who is better known for his 2014 film Ex Machina), Annihilation is an adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel of the same name. The film follows Lena (Natalie Portman), a biologist and ex-soldier who joins a secretive expedition into an unknown area where the laws of nature are changing. Multiple teams have already ventured into this region, including Lena’s husband, but none have returned.

The Verge describes Annihilation as “a thoughtful, philosophical movie, more interested in the nature of humanity and the urges that drive us rather than in who lives or dies.” The film rewards careful attention, but it is more than just a philosophical exploration of its characters. Annihilation also provides thrilling scares, and the imaginative visuals become increasingly trippy. If you like a dash of horror in your sci-fi, then this one is for you.^[8]

2 The Endless (2017)

Much like Annihilation, the sci-fi horror film The Endless treads a path into the unknown. It follows two brothers who escaped from a cult as children, but when an old videotape surfaces, they decide to return to seek answers about the past. It stars Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who also directed, produced, and edited the film. Benson also served as writer, while Moorhead was the cinematographer. If all of those credits haven’t already made it obvious, this is a low-budget indie film.

Den of Geek declares that “The Endless is one of those festival movies that deserves to find a wider audience.” The fraternal relationship grounds the film and helps to anchor the viewer as things get increasingly weirder. The style of weirdness is akin to H. P. Lovecraft’s brand of horror, and there is even a nod to Lovecraft’s short story “The Colour Out of Space” (1927). The Endless is proof that an interesting concept can become a great movie without a big budget.^[9]

1 The Vast of Night (2019)

The top spot on this list is taken by The Vast of Night, another low-budget indie film, which pays homage to 1950s B-movies. Set in a small town in New Mexico, the film follows teenagers Everett (Jake Horowitz) and Fay (Sierra McCormick) in what feels like real-time. At their respective jobs as a radio DJ and switchboard operator, they realize that something strange is happening in their town, something potentially extra-terrestrial, and they team up to investigate it.

Director Andrew Patterson combines the retro feel of ’50s classics like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) with a whip-smart script and modern kinetic camerawork. The plot itself treads familiar ground for any sci-fi fan but how it unfolds is captivating. The amount of walk-and-talk dialogue sucks the viewer in and provides a feeling of being alongside the two leads. This is combined with impressive camerawork. The most stunning shot is a four-minute-long tracking shot that spans the entire town and feels uninterrupted (but is actually four shots stitched together). The Vast of Night feels like a love letter to classic sci-fi and is absolutely worth your time.^[10]

Musicals are the popular culture equivalent of vegemite or olives. You either love them with a passion or hate them with fervor. So, when you sit down to watch a movie or book a theatre performance, are you the person who loves it when people burst into song at the drop of a hat? Or are you the kind of person who grits their teeth in frustration?

Samuel Tailor Coleridge coined the term “suspension of disbelief” in 1817, using it to explain the theory that we are often willing to avoid critical thinking and logic for the purpose of entertainment. Nowhere has this been pushed to the limit more than in science fiction, and even more when a musical gets added to the mix. Below, we give ten science fiction and fantasy musicals that pushed the boundaries of possibility, for good or bad.

Related: 10 Surprising Musical Moments From Popular Shows

10 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out of Their Shells

The selling power of toys should never be underestimated. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles craze had reached a fever pitch. Based on a comic by creators Eastman and Laird, it was later turned into a cartoon, and with it came a tie-in toy line plus a glutton of merchandise. To promote it, anything was being considered, including a musical.

Most musical forays by the Turtles are fondly remembered. They had a number-one hit that tied into the release of their first movie, and their second outing even featured flavor-of-the-month Vanilla Ice. However, their musical stage show, the Coming Out of Their Shells tour, is often consigned to the dustbin of history.

The plot was as flimsy as they come. The Turtles head out on a musical tour, determined to meet their fans across the world. While performing on stage, the tour gets interrupted by their enemy Shredder and his accomplice Baxter Stockman. The Turtles must then form a plan to defeat their enemy.

Highlights are hard to find. “April’s Theme” is a sickly ballad by their reporter sidekick, while “Skipping Stones” is performed by Splinter, their talking rat mentor. Sponsored by Pizza Hut, it was placed on pay-per-view television and released on VHS.^[1]

9 Via Galactica

The ’70s were a pretty strange time for science fiction. The moon landings had just taken place, but the technology burst of later decades was yet to happen. This led people to some pretty wild theories about what the future would hold. For some, that involved ping pong balls, trampolines, aluminum foil, and ballads.

Via Galactica was by Christopher Gore and Judith Ross, with music by Galt Macdermot. Macdermot had enjoyed success with the musical Hair, which had produced three chart hits. Yet he was not the only heavyweight involved in Via Galactica. Hollywood legend Raul Julia was in the cast along with Fame actress Irene Cara. Yet not even they could not save the convoluted plot and unworkable set.

The concept was to create a futuristic musical about society’s outcasts living on an asteroid. After running for just seven nights, it was canceled due to its terrible plot. The scenery and actors would sink into the trampoline surface of the set during performances. At one point, radio mics intercepted emergency service bands and broadcast fire and police radio to the audience. Cara would get stuck in the rigging, and Raul Julia was once locked in a spaceship suspended above the audience.

However, the lack of thought was easy to see with the initial title. Originally, it was supposed to be named “Up” and was to be performed at the Uris Theatre. Once pointed out, the name was quickly changed.^[2]

8 Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark

Take one outstanding director who had masterminded the million-dollar adaption of Disney’s Lion King for the stage. Add to that pop music royalty in the form of rock band U2. Finish this off with the most iconic superhero of all time. How could it fail?

The concept of a Spiderman musical had been floated when the first Spiderman movie proved a roaring success. However, problems began to appear when the producer, Tony Adams, had a stroke and passed away. A global financial crisis followed, in which many investors left the project. As well as facing a huge budget deficit, the musical also had numerous technical difficulties.

One of these involved the lead actor web-swinging above the audience but becoming stuck. This meant a crew member had to poke him down with a stick while he hung above the front two rows like a piñata.

The sophisticated equipment used for web-swinging across the theatre not only cost a lot to make but tended to injure performers. Concussions, broken wrists, and toes were all reported.

Even the music was lackluster. Rumors were that U2 had been so unfamiliar with musicals that a CD containing the best bits of 60 years of Broadway compiled onto it was burned for them. Imagine B-Sides from a mash-up of U2’s Joshua Tree and the Les Miserables soundtrack, and you may have some idea of what was in store.^[3]

7 Carrie: The Musical

At its core, Carrie is a horror film that deals with a female coming of age and menstruation. How anyone thought these themes would transfer to a musical format are unknown. Based on the novel by Stephen King, it lasted a mere five performances and is widely regarded as one of the biggest failures in the history of musicals.

The book from which it came had a very successful cinematic adaptation. The screenwriter, Lawrence D. Cohen, and the composer, Michael Gore, decided to set about creating musical material. Gore had previous experience with the hit Fame, showing he should have known better.

Carrie debuted in the UK in 1988 and was besieged by technical problems from the onset. One actress quit on the first night after a close call when a stage piece almost decapitated her. The most famous scene in the book and the whole movie, in which Carrie gets covered in pig’s blood, kept shorting out the lead actress’s microphone.

When the show moved to the states, it was already dead in the water. The press was as cruel as Carrie’s tormentors in the actual story. Yet, oddly enough, in life mimicking art, despite loud boos from the audience, the show sold out every night. It was as if people enjoyed wallowing in the misery of a terrible production.^[4]

6 Moby Dick: A Whale of a Tale

Whale hunting and teenage girls as objects of sexual desire are concepts rightly consigned to the past. Imagine, then, a musical that combines both of these into one politically incorrect and uncomfortable stage play.

The musical was created by Robert Longden and Hereward Kaye. Originally, it was a silly, musical hall-style tale in which a girl’s school decided to put on a stage play of Moby Dick. Complete with a drag-wearing headmistress and laden with innuendo-based gags, it toured universities like an early version of Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

After a string of sold-out shows, it was decided that the show needed a larger audience. It took up residency at the Piccadilly Theatre in London’s West End but faced terrible reviews and, after four months, was canceled. Although it did transfer to the states, it was toned down, and many of its contentious topics were removed.^[5]

5 Repo! The Genetic Opera

For this musical, we take a break from the stage and head to the big screen. If this movie was simply Repo! It would have a pretty good premise. Set in 2056, organ failure is plaguing the planet. GeneCo is a mega-corporation that provides replacements on a payment plan. Repo men are then hired to hunt down anyone who misses a payment and take the organs back for the company. It all sounds great… until the part where you turn this dark, dystopian story into an opera. Then cast Paris Hilton in it.

The movie has its genesis in a 2002 musical by Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich. Smith had taken the inspiration from a friend’s bankruptcy, envisioning a future where body parts were viewed like property. It was a huge success, attracting gothic movie lovers in a similar vein to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This led to the creation of a ten-minute trailer used for pitching to movie studios.

Most of the movie’s promotion came not from Lionsgate, the film’s backers, but from the cast and writers, who did a road tour of the musical. It did little to buoy what was a plot that did not deliver and contained some pretty standard musical numbers. However, it gained Paris Hilton an award for the Worst Supporting Actress at the Golden Raspberry Awards, second only to her win for Worst Actress at the same event.^[6]

4 Raggedy Ann: The Musical Adventure

Before her first and last musical outing, Raggedy Ann had a decent career. A series of successful books by Johnny Gruelle led to a 1977 animated feature film featuring the character with her sidekick Raggedy Andy. However, for some unknown reason, it was decided that her musical outing would take a dark turn.

The story is about a dying child from a broken home. Her dolls come to life and take her on a mission to meet the Doll Doctor, who may have the ability to save her. While it does have a heartwarming ending where she reunites with her father, themes touch on everything from genocide to sex, none of which are suitable for children.

Only lasting three days, the musical fell off the radar after its cancellation. Bootleg recordings have kept the show alive, and attempts have even been made to revive it, with little success.^[7]

3 The Toxic Avenger

For anyone who knows the original Toxic Avenger movie and character, a musical makes a lot of sense. Created by cult movie studio Troma, the story tells the tale of a mild-mannered janitor who falls into a vat of toxic waste. He then becomes a crime fighter, overthrowing a corrupt mayor and ending up as the hero of the town. After starting as a flop, the movie developed a cult following with three sequels, videogames, and inexplicably, a children’s cartoon.

The tongue-in-cheek approach of the movie and character lends itself to a musical format, and as such, reviews were quite favorable, with a fair few awards given to it. Starting life at the New Brunswick Theatre in New Jersey, it then went on to tour the U.S. and perform in Australia, the UK, and several high-profile festivals across the world.^[8]

2 Starmites

Despite not being a huge commercial hit, Starmites has longevity most musicals would be envious of. Running for two months on Broadway, it now even has a version available for children to perform. Starting in 1980, it has returned sporadically on and off for numerous different performances.

The story is about comic book-loving Eleanor, a shy teenager who often drifts into a fantasy world where she is the hero. It is one of these dreams in which the musical takes place, as the Starmites, Guardians of Inner Space, become involved in a battle with the Shak Graa. While it never set the world on fire, it is a good example of how to do a sci-fi musical without taking it so far it becomes laughable.^[9]

1 Evil Dead: The Musical

Everything is getting a musical as audiences clamor to find someplace to spend their dollars after venturing back into society. While many of them are lacking in quality, this one is actually good. Based on the cult Evil Dead movie series, the story follows a group of teenagers who unleash the undead and demonic entities while holidaying in the woods.

Part of its success is that, like Toxic Avenger, it carries the dry humor of its movie counterpart. It has one-liners, and the musical numbers written for the production are both great tunes and funny. It has now been performed over three hundred times around the world, though be warned if you go to see it that the audience does get covered in gore and guts, albeit fake.^[10]

Awhile ago, we told you about 10 Devastating Nuclear Events and Accidents. Included was the story of Stanislav Petrov, the man who single-handedly saved humanity from nuclear annihilation on September 26, 1983. In a very short time frame, the fate of the world was saved by Petrov’s quick thinking. History is littered with these singular world-changing events.

American history is no different, and there are many incidents that could have drastically changed, or even destroyed, America. Altered versions of these “What If” events are a popular genre of science fiction called “alternate history.” To help visualize their Alt-Histories, authors often supply maps of the ALT-USA… and that’s precisely what we’re going to take a look at today. Warning, though: Below Be Spoilers.

10. The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle is a TV show based on Philip K. Dick’s novel of the same name. In this universe, history diverged from our own when Franklin D. Roosevelt was assassinated by Giuseppe Zangarast in 1933. This was based a real event, but in our history Zangarast missed FDR and killed Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak instead. In Dick’s history Roosevelt was killed, and without him America struggled under the Great Depression and became extremely isolationist. This allowed the Axis powers of World War II (Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan) to become victorious in Europe and in the Pacific.

By 1945, the Axis powers have invaded North America from both the Pacific and the Atlantic. A Nazi atomic bomb in Washington DC forces America’s surrender, and the occupation creates the division of the United States between Germany and Japan; much like how, during our timeline, Germany was divided into the East and West. The events in The Man in the High Castle TV show take place in the 1960s, and maps show that Germany and Japan had split America between them with a small neutral zone separating the two.

9. Revolution

Revolution was an American post-apocalyptic NBC TV show that takes place in 2027. In this universe, a mysterious 2012 event called “The Blackout” caused all electricity to permanently cease to function. The show, produced by JJ Abrams, followed the survivors as they deal with the consequences of a world without electrical power.

After the Blackout, America descends into chaos and fragments as technology reverts back to pre-electricity, steam-powered tech. Most of the action in the TV show takes place in the Monroe Republic, which is made up of Northeast America. The character Monroe was able to seize power after setting up a tyrannical military dictatorship that takes away the guns of its people. The West Coast is dominated by the California Commonwealth, and Texas exists as a separate republic… which is pretty much par for the course. The Southwest is abandoned to the desert, and a reemergence of a nomadic lifestyle takes over in the Midwest Plains Nation.   

8. Southern Victory

Celebrated science fiction author Harry Turtledove created an alternate universe called Southern Victory. In 1997 he released the first of 11 alternate history books, How Few Remain. In this universe, history diverges during the American Civil War (which you probably guessed based on the title) on September 10, 1862. In real life on this day, a Confederate messenger lost Top Secret Order 191, which outlined the South’s invasion. With these secret plans, the North was able to check the invasion and slog on to eventual victory. In Turtledove’s universe the secret plans weren’t lost. This allows the South to successfully launch a surprise invasion and defeat the Union Army of the Potomac, and eventually the South captures Philadelphia. Capturing such a large city enables the United Kingdom and France to ally with the Confederate States of America, forcing an end to the war with the South declaring independence from the United States on November 4, 1862.

On the map you can see how America wasn’t able to afford buying Alaska from Russia, and the Second Mexican Empire (which at the time was still ruled by the Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian I) crumbles into poverty. In our universe, Maximilian ruled Mexico until he was killed in 1867. In Turtledove’s history the bankrupt Mexico allows the South to purchase the northwestern regions of Sonora and Chihuahua, giving them access to the Pacific. The series continues with North and South being mortal enemies who ally with other world powers to fight each other over the next hundred years.  

7. Jericho

In the CBS TV show Jericho, a shadow government plans a coup via a nuclear attack on 23 major cities in America, using small bombs smuggled to their targets in cargo vans. After the bombs detonate, civilization breaks down and the American government is destroyed. The first season of the show dealt with a small town as it tried to keep its citizens alive during the aftermath of the nuclear attack.

The show pulled in low numbers and was canceled after one season. Jericho’s fans revolted and launched an online campaign for CBS to do a second season, sending nuts to CBS (it actually makes sense in the context of the show, if you haven’t seen it). Eventually, over 20 tons were mailed to the network. This online outcry was an “unprecedented display of passion in support of a prime-time television series.” CBS caved and made a second season, where it was revealed that civilization had returned but the coup planners had only succeeded in seizing Western America, while Texas became independent (that seems to be a theme in these kinds of alternate histories) and the Eastern USA stopped enough nuclear bombs that some form of federal government survived the WMD attack.

Even with the successful nuts viral campaign, CBS still canceled the show after the second season. However, the universe lived on in comics, which revealed that the East and West USA fragmented into smaller nations while some parts of America were occupied by UN forces.

6. The Handmaid’s Tale

Celebrated author Margaret Atwood first published her book The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985. A 1990 film adaptation of the same name was released, and in 2017 Hulu adapted it into a critically acclaimed series. In Atwood’s America, a polluted country is wracked by falling fertility rates, which cause huge civil unrest. A staged attack wipes out the President and most of the federal government. In the chaos, a Christian Fundamentalist movement calling itself the “Sons of Jacob” seize control. Some surviving elements of the government flee to the West, where America still exists, while east of the Rockies is ruled by a new government called “Gilead.”

The new Christian theocracy decrees Baptists are heretics and brutally suppresses its followers, causing much of the American South to be in continuous revolt. Gilead is able to keep the remnants of America and the world at bay by threatening to use nukes that are seized after coup’s success. A number of areas are radioactive, implying that there was nuclear sabotage or that Gilead demonstrated its nuclear might. Condemned criminals and opponents of the new regime (which are often one and the same) are sent to these areas as “clean up” teams, but due to their high mortality these men and women really face a death sentence.

5. Dies the Fire

Stephen Michael Stirling’s Emberverse series spans 14 novels, with the first book Dies the Fire being released in 2008. More installments are expected as the series chugs right along.

In the Emberverse universe a mysterious event called “The Change” alters the laws of physics, throwing the world into chaos. After the Change, modern technology stops functioning, throwing the world back into the Iron Age, with people arming themselves with swords and bow and arrows. Large population areas collapse when food runs out, and from the ashes of urban centers emerge large cannibal groups that create “Death Zones.” From more rural areas, city-states emerge. This is the universe that Dies the Fire sees for post-apocalyptic America.

4. A Canticle for Leibowitz

Walter M. Miller, Jr. first published A Canticle for Leibowitz in 1959. The award-winning book is considered a classic and has never been out of print. It’s a post-apocalyptic story that takes place 600 years after a horrible nuclear war, which sparked a movement to destroy all knowledge called the “Simplification.” During this movement, all books are destroyed except for some hidden away in a Catholic monastery, the Abbey of Saint Leibowitz, in the deserts of the American Southwest.

After all knowledge is wiped out during the Simplification, America reverts to tribal, feudal societies. Sometime in the 600 years after WWIII, the Catholic Church relocates from Rome, Italy, to New Rome, somewhere in the former United States. Surrounding New Rome are a number of Catholic papal states. Also emerging from the fragments of Western civilization are the Empires of Texarkana, Laredo, Denver. Back at the Abbey of Saint Leibowitz, the monastery keeps its vast collection of pre-war books and knowledge alive by painstakingly copying them by hand. From these books, civilization is reborn.  

3. The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins released the first book of her Hunger Games trilogy in 2008, and the novels were adapted into the blockbuster series starring Jennifer Lawrence as the story’s heroine, Katniss Everdeen. Over their cumulative worldwide releases, the four movies pulled in almost $3 billion dollars. So… we’re guessing you’ve probably seen at least one of them.

The Hunger Games takes place sometime in the future after a great war. Rising sea levels have swallowed up vast parts of North America, leaving a new nation called Panem to rise. This dystopian nation is divided into 12 districts that each specialize in specific goods or services.

A lot of the story takes place in District 12 (D12), which is thought to be in the coal-rich Appalachian region. D11 grows grain, and D10 raises livestock. Both are very large, given their tasks of feeding an entire nation. Close by is D9, which processes the food. D8 produces and treats textiles, while D7 specializes in forestry. D6 specializes in research and development, while D5 does genetic research. D4 is on or near the ocean, while D3 works with Information Technology and D2 specializes in weaponry and training peacekeepers. D1 produces luxury goods for the Capitol District and has a diamond mine – possibly the now-commercially closed Kelsey Lake Diamond Mine. The secret, rebellious District 13 is hidden away in bunkers thought to be in the Northeastern part of America.

2. Crimson Skies

Jordan Weisman and Dave McCoy created the Crimson Skies universe first for a board game released in 1998, and then a video game franchise produced by Microsoft Game Studios beginning in 2000.

History diverges from our universe when, in the 1930s, a series of deadly diseases devastate America and the country becomes increasingly isolationist to the point where the federal government devolves all power to the states, leading to the Balkanization of the United States into a series of small regional-states. With no federal government to pull the nation together interstate highways decay while at the same time aviation technology takes off. With a focus on air travel, roads and trains are abandoned in favor of the skies. With so many city-states there are many grievances, which quickly turn into open war. From the chaos of near constant warfare, large groups of air pirates raid commerce and other settlements.

1. The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead has been airing on AMC since October 31, 2010, and is based on a comic book series of the same name created by Robert Kirkman. Even with declining ratings over the last couple seasons, the show was renewed for a ninth season and Forbes’ Paul Tassi has talked about how the series should catch up to the comic books by season 9 or 10. After that, Kirkman hopes the show will diverge from its source material (which it has already started to do, given a few major cast and character shakeups).

In this alternate reality, America has been overrun by a zombie virus that reanimates the dead. The story starts off with the main character, Rick Grimes, waking up from a coma to find the world overtaken by the undead. He and a group of survivors first go to Atlanta, and then after meeting another group head to the nation’s capital, Washington DC – which is the general area around which the show now takes place. The main locations are the Alexandria Safe-Zone south of the capital, the Hilltop colony north of DC, and in the urban core of the city, Ezekiel’s Kingdom. They fight against Negan and the Saviors, who are based east of Washington DC at The Sanctuary. Everything outside of these areas is more or less abandoned, given over to the hordes of the walking dead.

Oh, so that’s where they got the title.

Jon Lucas covers WW1 live, 100 years ago. You can follow the action on Twitter, Tumblr or Instagram

Posthumous monolith of science fiction Philip K. Dick said that he wrote in that genre because there was “more latitude for the expression of truer ideas.” The focus on exploring ideas that serves as much of the appeal of science fiction means that, often, writers can get themselves into trouble. They can litter their stories with all sorts of logical lapses by focusing more on a metaphor than logical consistency, either in terms of the characters or the aspects of the technology.

Not that this is unique to science fiction at all, but when a storyteller is making up whole new technologies and worlds, there’s a lot more latitude to screw up in ways more literary fiction doesn’t usually have to worry about. Furthermore, none of these plot holes are in anyway ruinous for their stories. It’s just, well… it’s sometimes surprising what writers can get away with while the audience is distracted by the lasers and other wonders of the future.    

As always, be ready for spoilers!

10. Avatar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDh1knYpnmc

Avatar isn’t just the most successful science fiction story but the highest grossing film of all-time (worldwide–The Force Awakens bumped it from the top spot domestically), to the surprise of many. In 2009 it was as much the novelty of the gorgeously rendered environments as the story that drove it to gross $2.7 billion. The story, about how disabled soldier Jake Sully’s consciousness is connected to a bioengineered alien body to serve as ambassador for humanity to the Na’vi on Planet Pandora, seemed practically like an afterthought. Nowhere is this more obvious that in writer-director James Cameron’s blatantly slipshod plotting.

During the end of the second act of the movie, the Earth military destroys the main Na’vi habitat, the Home Tree. Pilot Trudy, played by Michelle Rodriguez, decides she doesn’t want to take part. So in dereliction of duty she conspicuously flies away from the bombing. And yet, she not only isn’t promptly arrested for disobeying a direct order in an environment where bombing a native population is the order of the day, but she’s able help Jake Sully and company escape from the brig with relatively little trouble. Seems as though few characters would be in a worse position to launch a rescue than conspicuous insubordinates.      

Right now there’s a lot of uncertainty how interested audiences will be in Cameron’s upcoming sequels to his megahit. Hopefully, he’s had enough time to remove holes like these from his follow up scripts.

9. Blade Runner 2049

Although it failed at the box office during its 2017 theatrical run, the fact it was the 17th bestselling title on home video in 2018 indicated Blade Runner 2049 is gradually developing its own following. Serving as one of the most belated sequels in film history, it both attempted to have firm, direct connections to the 1982 original and go its own way. These dueling interests unsurprisingly got in each other’s way a bit.

The biggest hole in the plot concerns the villainous business mogul, Wallace, and his relationship with the bioengineered clones called Replicants. In 2049, it’s explicitly stated that they’ve been designed to all be infertile as well as being outlawed in the wake of a devastating terrorist attack that destroyed all digitally stored records around the world. Wallace is of the belief that bringing back replicants is the future of humanity’s spread through the stars, and to that end is both engineering some of his own and on the hunt for a replicant that supposedly reproduced in defiance of her genetic programming.

But as DenofGeek.com pointed out, Wallace himself says the inability of replicants to reproduce was one of the things that allowed people to reassure themselves that replicants were subhuman. He also explicitly says that humanity “lost its taste for slavery.” So if he holds those beliefs in his head, keeping replicants with the ability to reproduce around, as well as the humans that bred with them–and their offspring–is the exact opposite of what he would want: destroying anything that could point to the existence of a fertile replicant if he hopes to sell people on accepting replicant slaves again. It’s the sort of inconsistency that’s particularly frustrating in a movie starring an ostensibly grounded villain.  

8. Star Trek (2009)

JJ Abrams’s reboot of the Star Trek films was a smash hit, although the series it launched seems to have stalled in 2016. Shamelessly emotional nearly to the point of being operatic, it was kinetic and action-packed enough that audiences didn’t have time to question the mechanics of the plot. However, the villain Nero’s story made so little sense that it required more effort not to think about it in the theater seats.

The primary setting for the movie is during the time when James T. Kirk ascends to be captain of the starship Enterprise. In the future, it turns out that the planet Romulus is going to be destroyed by a supernova. Also in the future Spock, another crew member of the Enterprise and essentially Kirk’s right-hand man, tries to stop the supernova and fails. A Romulan from that same future named Nero acquires both a ship and time-traveling ability and goes back in time to get revenge. This includes destroying Vulcan (Spock’s home planet) and Earth.

What never, ever, for any reason gets addressed in this plot is why Nero doesn’t use the fact he traveled back in time to save Romulus himself if that’s his motivation. With time travel technology he could make numerous attempts to save his planet and offset Spock’s eventual failure. But no, vengeance for something which hasn’t happened and which is no doubt on some level preventable is only viewed as a reason for him to be a one dimensional villain–which unfortunately, at the end of the day, he is. This goes to show that time travel should be avoided unless absolutely necessary if a movie’s story is going to hold up to repeat viewings.

7. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

If you’ve been on YouTube for the past year, you probably had some video recommended to you insisting the storytelling of this hit didn’t match real world logic very well. There were even seemingly erroneous reports that Russian troll farms were used to spread negative sentiments about it online. Whatever your feelings about that, there’s a particular point that many have used as the centerpiece of their arguments. For the dedicated nitpicker, there’s very little arguing with it.

At the end of the second act, our heroes are escaping their main vessel, unaware that the villains in pursuit of them have their escape shuttles dead in their sights instead of being distracted by the decoy vessel. Admiral Holdo, in a suicidal last ditch effort, turns the decoy vessel around and sets the ship to travel at hyperdrive (previous movies in the Star Wars series had portrayed how carefully ships would pre-program a route to avoid colliding with all sorts of space hazards) and rammed the villains’ flagship with devastating results.

This begs a pretty obvious question: Why in eight Star Wars films was Holdo the first person to do this? If it allows such an outsized ship to take out its pursuer, why haven’t pilots in suicidal straits rammed the ships of the heros and villains time and again? We’ve been shown numerous pilots willing to give up their lives for the cause (the movie begins with a scene featuring a pilot doing just that). It seems as though screenwriter Rian Johnson thought he’d found a hole in the canon that he could cleverly exploit, but what many will do is insist he found a weakness in the design of the intellectual property that he should never have called attention to.

6. Star Wars: A New Hope/Return of the Jedi

Before a tag team of Steven Spielberg and James Cameron one-upped this film time and again, this 1977 smash hit was the most successful in world history. It made plot mechanics such as the mystical Force and the twist that its villain Darth Vader is the father of protagonist Luke Skywalker into household reference points.

In Star Wars: A New Hope, Darth Vader takes Princess Leia captive and interrogates her at length over the hiding place of the main rebel stronghold. Later, long after Leia and Luke have learned that they’re siblings, Darth Vader uses the force to learn that his son Luke has a sister so that he can antagonize Luke by threatening to capture and convert her. Which opens up a gigantic inconsistency for the first film regarding why Vader wasn’t able to use the Force to discover Leia was his daughter; or, if he was too concerned about the rebel base to care about that, why he didn’t use the Force to learn where the base was. By Return of the Jedi Luke is quite attuned to the Force but Leia has no such stated defenses in the first film. The only explanation for this is depressingly simple: The Force was largely an afterthought for George Lucas while writing the film, and he had no consistency in what it could do while concocting it by the seat of his pants.

We’re not going to get on any high horse about what people devote YouTube channels to. But anyone who acts as if plot/logic lapses in Disney’s new Star Wars films are some kind of ruinous new occurrence is in for a nasty shock: Plot holes have been prominent features of the series from its conception.  

5. The Thing

A critical punching bag and box office bomb when it was initially released, this adaptation of John W. Campbell’s 1938 Who Goes There? is now one of the most beloved horror-science fiction works in cinema history. Its story of a team of American Antarctic researchers stuck in Outpost #31, who have to deal with an organism that can infect and turn any member of the team into a deadly monster, is as scary now as it was unpleasant at the time of its release. It’s helped immeasurably by how tightly and believably constructed it is for a movie about dealing with an alien, except for one big cheat.

The problem with this otherwise tight as a drum story is the need to have a device of some kind that can handily convince the survey team that they’ve conclusively beaten the the alien. So, Carpenter wrote that the Antarctic team has flamethrowers. As critic Scott Ashlin asked, why would a research team have flamethrowers? If there’s some piece of equipment that needs to be thawed in the extreme cold, setting it on fire is about the worst approach, and the fires a flamethrower shoots are much too difficult to control in a survival situation. Fortunately, the scene where the flamethrowers are introduced is so harrowing that the audience probably won’t be stopping to ask many questions.    

4. Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Avatar showed that James Cameron was able to hit pay dirt despite his films having plot holes, but back in 1984 he practically required it of his work with his groundbreaking variation on the trendy slasher film model. A film wherein an artificial intelligence network sends an android assassin back in time to prevent the existence of a resistance leader while another soldier from the future tries to stop him? That’s such a complicated setup that it all but demands paradoxes and inconsistencies to be woven into the fabric of the film, but this has a pretty clear hole in the basic setup.

In the first film, the reason the T-800, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, has organic skin on him is basic: the time machine doesn’t send inorganic, robotic matter through without a layer of organic material to effectively trick the machine. But in the 1991 sequel, the artificial intelligence network sends through a “liquid metal” robot called T-1000, which is stronger than the T-800 unit and has the ability to shapeshift. So how can this robot have the vitally important organic layer if it’s entirely liquid metal? It’s a good thing no one actually mentions that rule in the second film, or audiences probably would have been asking that from the premiere on.

3. “Time Enough at Last”

Stepping away from movies for a moment, let’s talk about one of the most influential pieces of science fiction ever created: The Twilight Zone. In particular, one of the two most famous and beloved episodes of the original run, tied only with To Serve Man with it’s “It’s a cookbook!” reveal. This 1959 episode follows compulsive reader Henry Bemis (Burgess Meredith) through his frustrating life, through the destruction of his known world and the rest of humanity, to the potential sanctum of a library, and then through a hydrogen bomb, and into the private hell of his glasses shattering just as he’s collected all the books he wants with all the time in the world to read them.