Tag Archives: science fiction
“Won’t You Help Me?” – Horror FlashFiction and a SciFi FlashEssay
“Won’t you help me?” The voice quavered. It was as desperate as the trembling hand that was raised, palm-up, towards Jacob. “Of course I will,” he said softly, reaching down. The fingertips of the woman suddenly snatched themselves out of … Continue reading
Leonard McCoy: The Mom Friend
Back in 2016, when I rewatched Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek: Into Darkness in anticipation for the Blu-Ray/DVD release of Star Trek: Beyond, I began noticing parallels between scenes in the first two Kelvin timeline films and Beyond. Parallels … Continue reading
Self-Worth in Star Trek: “Plato’s Stepchildren”
“Plato’s Stepchildren” is best known for two things. It is the episode with the famous, (almost) first interracial kiss on TV between Kirk and Uhura. It is also hella weird; Kirk slaps himself dramatically (as only Shatner can), spends some … Continue reading
A Close Read of Star Wars Rebels “Twin Suns” – Part 6 – Overtime: Sudden Death
All Close Read Entries Unmarked The Last Jedi Spoilers in this installment. No other portion of this episode has been broken down quite as much as the final lightsaber duel. A thousand think pieces and YouTube videos have been made … Continue reading
District 9: Family, Waiting
This was originally written for the online magazine Christ and Pop Culture. My second draft, and the one published by CAPC, was different enough that I now had two, stand-alone articles on District 9. You can read the CAPC article here. You’ll miss it without subtitles, … Continue reading
War for the Planet of the Apes Rewatch
Hot damn but what a film. It combines a western-style revenge tale with a POW-escape film, couched in the weight of a biblical epic, all wrapped up in the trappings of science fiction. It looks like Lord of the Rings and breathes … Continue reading
A Close Read of Star Wars Rebels: “Twin Suns” – Part 3 – Departure & Arrival
All Close Read Entries In between my final edits of Part 2 and the outlining of Part 3 here, Star Wars Rebels Season 3 came out on Blu-Ray, which meant we got “Twin Suns” commentary by Dave Filoni himself. In … Continue reading
A Close Read of Star Wars Rebels: “Twin Suns” – Part 1 – Cold Open
All Close Read Entries FOREWORD The best stories are the ones that encourage exploration. Exploration of stories takes many forms: fan art, fanfic, cosplay, discussions, celebrations, make-believe play, or ridiculously long essays. Sometimes the exploration is a conscious act, something … Continue reading
Good Science Fiction: An Examination Through the Lens of ODST
A rewrite of an old, old blog post of mine when I was but a wee blogger. To me, Halo 3: ODST doesn’t feel like Halo. Let me rephrase: the story of ODST doesn’t feel like Halo. The audio drama … Continue reading
War for the Planet of the Apes: Bleakness without Cynicism
The quiet moments in War for Planet of the Apes surprised me. Bleak stories like this movie can easily veer very sharply off into cynicism. Moments of joy or hope get cut horrifically short because it’s “realistic.” To quote a … Continue reading