Films That Have Found Their Way into the Twilight Zone (21)
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Didn’t get your full The Twilight Zone fix from the New Year’s marathon? Here are films that draw their inspiration from episodes of the show, and try to recapture Rod Serling’s sense of the unknown. In addition to inspiring numerous TV episodes (including the original Star Trek pilot “The Cage,” which is based on the episode “People Are the Same Everywhere”), The Twilight Zone spawned its own anthological movie in 1983. But these movies were ...
Science Fiction’s Predictions for the Year 2009 [Triviagasm] (19)
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As we bid farewell to 2008, it’s time to find out what the new year will hold. Amazing technologies? Alien lifeforms? Giant monsters? We look at science fiction’s predictions for the year 2009. A Giant Monster Will Destroy New York (Cloverfield (2008)): On Saturday, May 23, a giant monster, probably of extraterrestrial origin, will tear through New York. It will also carry with it a set of killer parasites. At the time of the initial ...
A Computer Program That is Pure Evil (2)
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A group of scientists is building the world’s most evil computer program. This isn't a B-movie setup: A team at Rensselaer Institute’s AI & Reasoning Lab is bringing personified evil to virtual life in the hope that they'll unlock the secrets of human morality. The researchers have given their creation a face and a name, and quiz it daily, using its answers to further blacken its hideous character. Selmer Bringsjord, director of the AI lab ...
Science Fiction’s Badass Butlers and Vicious Valets (32)
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Even the most powerful superheroes and supervillains need some help sometimes. These butlers, chauffeurs, and valets may make the coffee and drive the cars, but they can also hold their own in a fight. Alfred Pennyworth (Batman): Alfred is more than Bruce Wayne’s butler; he is Wayne’s foster-father, confidant, and partner in crimefighting. Alfred has, in various times and continuities, been a substitute Batman, a member of the British Armed Forces, an MI6 agent, and ...
Tatsuyuki Tanaka’s Cyberpunk Fairytales [Concept Art] (10)
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Akira animator Tatsuyuki Tanaka illustrates darkly beautiful scenes of children occupying dingy, dystopic futures, filled with bodily transformations, man-machine interfaces, and cybernetic monsters. Check out our gallery below. Tanaka was one of the key animators on Akira and was responsible for, among other things, the animation of Testuo’s rapidly mutating arm. His still illustrations draw from similar imagery, telling stories of young people set in a crumbling future, and filled with grotesque experiments and bizarre ...
Best of io9’s Triviagasm: Most Popular Minutiae of the Year [Io9 2008 Year In Review] (3)
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All year, we’ve treated you to the trivia, tropes, and minutiae of science fiction with our factoid-packed Triviagasms. For the end of the year, we’ve collected the ten most popular Triviagasms of 2008. Who’s the Tallest Giant Monster? See how the Cloverfield monster stacks up against the likes of Godzilla, Gamera, and King Kong. Learn who is the tallest monster, and which human-made statue is larger than nearly all of them. Why You Can’t Travel ...
Living In Rewind Doesn't Erase These Characters' Problems (8)
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Humans are always trying to become younger, to reverse aging and return to childhood. Here are some characters who live backwards — and find life in rewind isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Benjamin Button (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” by F. Scott Fitzgerald): A backwards life is no fairytale for Benjamin Button, who is born into a septuagenarian body and works back from there. Early in life, his father is ashamed of ...
Fiber Optic Sculpture Transforms Field into a Luminous Alien Landscape [Sculpture] (1)
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To see yourself on an alien planet, you need go no farther than Cornwall, England. That’s where lighting designer Bruce Munro has placed his outdoor installation, “Field of Light.” Thousands of fiber optic cables topped with acrylic orbs illuminate the countryside, giving the impression that the field is populated with bioluminescent vegetation from another world. Munro’s inspiration for the light installation was a trip through the Australian red desert. The roadside campsites where he stayed ...
Costumed Crimefighters Who Share the Spirit’s Sense of Style [Triviagasm] (8)
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The Spirit may fight comic book crime, but he always preferred a fedora and suit to spandex. We look at the other heroes who’ve paired their masks with suits and hats instead of tights. Will Eisner wanted to distinguish the Spirit from costumed superheroes like Superman and Batman and bring comic books to a more adult audience. He put crimefighter Denny Colt in a simple suit, tie, and fedora, with the later addition of a ...
