TOP TEN SCI FI MOVIES

With the new Star Wars film due out this month, I thought I'd share my top 10 movies Sci Fi styleeee.....

NUMBER 10

BACK TO THE FUTURE

No introduction or justification needed...It's Doc and Marty..





NUMBER 9

GATTACA

Which proved Sci Fi could not only pull off Film Noir, but also that Sci Fi does not need big special effects or any signs of rampant aliens or robots. This brooding and moody piece has everything and has a timeless edge to it although meant to be set in the near future...







NUMBER 8

INCEPTION

I know, I know, the spinning top n'all, but Nolan (compared to the rather limp Interstellar) did pull out the stops with this one, he didn't care if you the audience 'gets it' which is just how a high concept Sci Fi movie should be...





NUMBER 7

PLANET OF THE APES

No, not Marky Mark's version, this classic from the 60's with THAT scene 'aped' by so many to be an icon in itself. And who can forget the inter species love scene?




 NUMBER 6

THE MATRIX

OK, it all got a bit silly in the follow ups, but the original film was ground-breaking in that pre-millenium angst of computers taking over, and computers really opening up special effects in the movie game.




NUMBER 5 

ET

Come on, anyone who was alive when this film came out, look me in the eye and tell me that eye wasn't filling with tears when ET died?





NUMBER 4

SILENT RUNNINGS

If you really want to see what the future of space travel will be like, this film captures it, endless black space is essentially boring and plays tricks with your mind. Oh, and if something goes wrong, you're dead.






NUMBER 3

DARK STAR

Like Silent Runings, but slightly darker, the harsh realities of what humans face going into deep space....

NUMBER 2

STARSHIP TROOPERS

A vital lesson in Sci Fi, don't take your film too seriously !!














NUMBER ONE!!!!

THX 1138


Lucas's best film by far and his most bold, looking at this now in 2015, its all so chilling heading this way....Forget a Galaxy long ago, this shit is happening now....

Second Suicide

I recently downloaded Hugh Howey's Kindle Single, 'Second Suicide'.

Its a quick read and a very interesting one. told from an alien's point of view, it immediately got my interest. Not only for the voice of a sentient life form, but from one heading to Earth to destroy all humans.

They wish to destroy us not because we are in the way of a planned inter-galactic bypass, no, simply because we are here. The beings are much like us; they like sex, like to play games, are suspicious of poetry and are very war like.

In their huge battleships as they hurtle towards Earth, our 'anti-hero' is an intelligence officer who has studied us for some time, in preparation of our annihilation. The story takes place in the final few days before planet fall and the attack on Earth.

The conquering race have also the technology to revive themselves, downloading their consciousness onto servers which can be downloaded into bodies ( Rather like our old skin job friends from new Galactica.)

Howey, against the terrifying narrative of a race casually planning our genocide, looks at the woe of beings that are not only immortal, but seemingly invincible, that have lived for an eternity and conquered countless worlds.

I was slow to believe the hype around Howey, but then I saw his prose...Now I'm a believer.

New Promo Video For Dance with a Wasp

Enough already....

So 2015 gives us the new Terminator movie, new reality...I wont bother giving you the low down, other than to stay, Arnie is back...

Now any films with a future war between human and machines usually gets my vote, but let's be honest, the T series was no Star Wars operatic world with a myriad of characters to develop along with story lines.

Essentially T5 appears to be a re-make of T1 for the youtube generation, which in itself isn't a bad thing; but with so many cool sci fi books out there (cough) why are we re-hashing a concept that worked the first time, was pushing it by the second and became a shell of itself by the third.

I did have a faint glimmer of hope for T4, I was hoping for a Batman-esque re-boot and we all know how that worked out.....

THE WORLD OF DS SWIFT

Nothing captures more the mood and setting of my novels more than the short film below:

Words do not do it justice, except the words of Carl Sagan....Enjoy!!!!

Future of Androids

THE ADROIDS OF DS SWIFT NOVELS>


I deliberately wanted to create something beyond the concept of androids, giving them a new name, ADROIDS.

So what are they?

Human level intelligence, but machines.

Machines but the ability to reproduce sexually between themselves. They are born rather than made in factories, although these synthetics are farmed in my future vision.


3rd Generation AINO (A -ARTIFICIAL  I-INTELLIGENT N-NEUROMORPHIC O-  
                                   ORGANISM ) Commonly known as ADROIDS.

Brain:

An artificial Neural Network that integrates both inorganic and organic: nanodevices, synthetic neurones and organic brain tissue from mammals (pig’s). Neural computing lends to learning rather than programming. The only hard programming are basic human ones: Fear of falling, loud noises, layered with a need to socialise, but with the strongest ‘instinct’ - never to harm humans or allow them to be harmed.

It was the pioneering work of Professor Hurmola of the University of Turku (Finland) and MIT(USA) who developed the first complex artificial brain capable of a human level of intelligence. His work stemmed from ground breaking work on the Neuromatrix theory that his creations using both organic and artificial neurons fused to have a sense of ‘self’ and revolutionised computers that could think and have personalities comparable to humans. 

Body:
 
Smart Carbon skeleton that has the ability to grow and heal itself. 

Organic skin and flesh covering served by synthetic oxygen carrier and small set of organic internal organs and small heart in chest cavity to maintain the skin. Growth is controlled by artificial brain.

Electro active polymers mechanism’s act as muscles that grow to adult size with nanodevices, served by smart hydrogen cell that uses food and water to power itself.

Sexual organs and tongue and eyes are organic of pig cell origin, served by internal organic organs. Sperm that develops in testes of AINO is a nucleus of sex cells and self replicating nanodevices that fuse with AINO female gendered Egg and nanodevices that ‘build’ a new cybernetic organism.

Female AINO have artificial wombs and gestate embryo cybernetic organism to self sufficiency- 6 months.

Glucose powered fuel cells

Life expectancy:

Around 100 years. Limitless with organ transplants and fuel cell replacement.  

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So often in Sci Fi we have this divide between synthetics as either impossible to tell from ourselves or horrifyingly different.....

Or somewhere between the two, even when posed as humour (light relief characters)

My approach with the DS SWIFT novels was a synthetic that was human like, but one that was impossible to view as human. In this future, Adroids give a signature to humans that identifies them as non human. They are akin to how humans in the first world often see humans from remote societies in undeveloped regions of the world, human like, but not quite like them, something inferior or indeed superior (the noble savage) the same but very very different: