Awesome Sci-fi

(PG-13: Language) Filmmakers Karl Poyzer and Joe Roberts follow up their hilarious sci-fi comedy short Floaters with a sequel about two oblivious pilots discussing their daring, but ill-conceived escape from a high-security space prison. Zach Braff and Joel Fry provide their voices this time.

To promote their electric G-Class Concept EQG, Mercedes-Benz enlisted director Nina Holmgren to create a lighthearted promotional film that imagines this futuristic vehicle from the perspective of a 1970s television viewer. The style of the cinematography, color grading, and voiceover work are spot-on.

Michigan artist Scott Nelles hand crafts all kinds of neat objects from cast metals. Among them is this awesome retro-futurist ray gun that looks straight out of Flash Gordon. The 15″ long space artifact is made from bronze and aluminum and features a working trigger. We also love his flying saucer and rocket coin bank.

Ready for a trip back to the 1980s? The guys at We Are the Mutants spotted this gem of a commercial that perfectly captures the sci-fi aesthetics of the era. This big budget ad spot that implies General Electric’s cassette tape players will free the oppressed was obviously influenced by Apple’s famous 1984 Super Bowl spot.

To celebrate the 35th anniversary of Back to the Future, Universal Pictures enlisted the help of eight talented artists and fans to create their own visualizations of the classic sci-fi comedy. We can’t decide which animation style we liked best, but the knit version of “Darth Vader” from the planet Vulcan was pretty great.

Decades after their time-traveling hijinx, Bill and Ted are back for another excellent adventure. Original stars Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter decide they’re heding to the future to visit their future selves and steal the Wyld Stallions song that will save the universe. Directed by Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest).

(PG-13: Gore/Language) Need advice on how to survive during a viral outbreak? Check out filmmakers Evan Gorski’s and Michael Dougherty’s clip “Everything I Need to Know to Survive COVID-19 I Learned by Watching Sci-fi and Horror Movies.” We’re still going with “Have a nice cold pint… and wait for all this to blow over.”

The 1980 remake of Flash Gordon is one of the campiest sci-fi movies of all time, but over the years, it’s become a cult classic. Now, the film is getting a re-release with a full UHD digital remaster, bringing out all of the colors and details in the costumes and scenery, and cranking up the audio on Queen’s original soundtrack. Drops 8.2020.

Nebula-75 brings back the style of classic puppet serials like Thunderbirds and Fireball XL-5. Working with a remote pre- and post- production crew, a team of three from Century 21 Films is shooting the series in their small London flat, since they were living together when the lockdown started. Catch Episode 2 here.

You might recognize Boone Langston from his time on LEGO Masters. He’s also a contributor to the Beyond the Brick team, and is here to show off some of the very cool retro sci-fi ray guns he’s made using LEGO. The background is a space-themed baseplate from Slab Dream Lab.

Steven Spielberg reboots his late-1980s anthology series with a new run on Apple TV+. Like the original, it will combine science fiction, horror, and fantasy, with a slightly lighter and more magical touch than Twilight Zone or Black Mirror. Premieres 3/6/2020 with an initial run of five episodes.

For their 2020 Super Bowl commercial, Walmart invited a variety of sci-fi characters to come pick up their online orders. We’ve got the extended version of the ad spot, which includes visits from Bill of Bill and Ted, Marvin the Martian, Groot, the aliens from Mars Attacks, Men in Black, Arrival, and Flash Gordon, among others.

“What is my purpose?” You open and close airlocks. In Mattias Plhelde’s goofy, low-fi video, a spaceship’s door control system starts to question its role in the universe as it observes the unusual and imprecise behaviors of the humans it serves.

(PG-13: Language) Hugh Laurie stars in this new sci-fi comedy from the creator of Veep. It follows the wacky misadventures of an interstellar cruise ship and its guests. It’s like The Orville meets The Love Boat, though Captain Stubing is totally over it. Coming to HBO January 2020.

Not the be confused with the James Cameron movie of the same name, Revolution Studio writer/director Timur Abdulov’s CGI short is packed with explosive action and effects as a group of creatures terrorizes Earth. But not to fear, it’s just a cleverly-disguised commercial for a contactless payment company.

The latest trailer for Obsidian’s sci-fi RPG The Outer Worlds is disguised as a recruitment video for the Halcyon Colony. Come live and work on Terra 2 – a “gently terraformed” world with minimal hiring standards, run by awful corporate overlords, and teeming with scum, villainy, and a variety of terrifying creatures.