Sci-Fi // Current TV

Shatner Skips ‘Star Trek’ Gay Marriage

Pretty much everyone else in the cast will be there, but not Bill Shatner. erm wjatever.

dankitti
added this
3 years ago
|
1 comment

David Tennant dating on-screen daughter Georgia Moffett

TV's Doctor Who is dating Georgia Moffett, the actress who plays his daughter on... more

dankitti
added this
3 years ago
|
5 comments

Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job?

We all grew up with the Official Story. But what really happened?

dankitti
added this
3 years ago
|
0 comments

How To Speak Tamarian

From Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki. If anyone comes up to you and says something... more

dankitti
added this
3 years ago
|
0 comments

54 memorable sci-fi robots

Because geeks love Sci-Fi and Sci-Fi has a long history of loving robots.

smorrisey
added this
4 years ago
|
0 comments

Kanye's Hip-Hop Sci-Fi Space Odyssey

God i so wanted to go to this concert.
"There is a new yardstick for the size of the universe. It is approximately equal to the size of Kanye West’s ego.
That’s not necessarily bad. Hip-hop runs on self-glorification, the transformation of underdogs into self-invented legends. Sooner or later someone was bound to claim what Mr. West’s show did on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden: that he’s “the biggest star in the universe.” That was not only part of the script but also a crucial plot twist for Mr. West’s headlining set on his Glow in the Dark Tour, a quadruple bill with Rihanna, N.E.R.D. and Lupe Fiasco.
Mr. West’s set was the most daring arena spectacle hip-hop has yet produced, and in some ways the best, even as it jettisoned standard hip-hop expectations. The rhymes, the beats and the narcissism were there; the block-party spirit and sense of community were not. Until the encore Mr. West had no human company on the arena stage.
The spectacle is framed as a sci-fi space odyssey, with Mr. West as a lone explorer whose starship crashes on an unknown planet. He’s stranded in a landscape of colored lights, billowing smoke — probably enough dry ice to cool Death Valley — and gorgeous, panoramic video images of clouds, galaxies, fireworks and cosmic eruptions. He converses with his computerized ship, named Jane, and with shooting stars. He raps with barely a respite, and bounds around the stage: striding, hunching, pumping his fist, falling to his knees, grinding against the stage, flailing, shouting his rhymes. It is a show of stamina and lonely self-determination that takes on its own obsessive momentum, like a Samuel Beckett scene staged by Robert Wilson and George Lucas.

Mr. West’s songs — chronicles of his striving, success, fashion sense and media missteps — don’t have much to do with a planet devoid of paparazzi or designer labels. At Tuesday’s show, praying to get back home, he promised God that if he made it, he’d “stop spazzing out at awards shows.” But he wrenched the songs into the concept, turning “Gold Digger,” for instance, into a tryst with a hologram generated by his spaceship.

The music was rearranged (for a band sequestered in an orchestra pit) to sound less triumphal and more melancholy. Mr. West reaches pop audiences with pop hooks, but the concert often held them back, starting instead with drumbeats and reverberating minor chords before allowing sweetness in. The audience joined him every chance it got, and he did eventually get back home, to share an encore with Lupe Fiasco. But in Mr. West’s tour de force, it was lonely at the top. Cosmically lonely.

In the opening set the rapper Lupe Fiasco showed his own ambitions, verbal and musical. He rapped not only about stardom but also about skateboarding, child soldiers and a worldwide plague. And the music in his short set, using three backup singers, encompassed chattering electronic beats, smooth R&B and mournful rock. It was a good start for a concert that insisted hip-hop hasn’t run out of possibilities, even on this planet."

sweeeeeet. did anyone go?

God i so wanted to go to this concert. "There is a new yardstick for the size... more

vavavicky
added this
4 years ago
|
1 comment

"Fear The Forest" The Legend Lives... New Horror Movie!

RADIANT PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT Presents a MATTHEW BORA Film. OFFICIAL THEATRICAL... more

venaz
added this
4 years ago
|
1 comment

What are the chances of finding aliens?

A British scientist has produced a mathematical model which spells out the odds of... more

ChristopherCurtis
added this
4 years ago
|
3 comments

New Dune movie confirmed

Although there were doubts about whether Paramount would obtain the rights to Frank... more

jason_knight
added this
4 years ago
|
0 comments

May the force be with your photoshop

Check out this collection of Star Wars photoshopped tributes, it's amazing the... more

mattbrawn
added this
4 years ago
|
0 comments

Arthur C. Clarke And His Legacy In Sri Lanka

British visionary and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke died on March 19, 2008 at the age of 90. Clarke, who has lived in Sri Lanka since 1956, was buried in his adopted country on March 22. His request not to have any sort of state funeral from either of his island nations sounded just like the man I've come to know through anecdotes told by people around Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital city.

My Sri Lankan father used to go spear fishing with him, and almost anyone would tell you that he could often be found at Otter's Swimming Club, at least in his healthier days. On one trip to visit my Sri Lankan family, I made it my mission to get Sir Clarke's autograph for my author friend, Jeff Gelb. Luckily, my cousin happened to run into him, and was able to just ask him and get it for me, because although he was listed in the phone book, being from L.A., I was too keenly aware of violations of celebrity privacy to just call or drop by.

Following Sri Lankan tradition, his body was kept for viewing at his home in Colombo 7, (Sri Lanka's equivalent to '90210'). With elephant tusks creating an arch over his body, and white gloves on his folded hands, loved ones could look onto his peacefully resting face to say their final farewells. According to his close family friend, he wanted written on his tombstone the following: 'Here lies Arthur Clarke. He never grew up, but didn't stop growing'.

Though they observed his wishes and did not hold a state funeral, the government did ask for a minute of silence to be held throughout the island at the same time that their most famous expatriate was being buried. Police and security personnel led the way while a mix of politicians, ever-present saffron-robed Buddhist monks and a Catholic priest joined the procession of mourners as they walked to the cemetery and watched as the sci-fi guru's body was laid to rest.

Sri Lanka offered the backdrop for at least one of Sir Arthur C. Clarke's books: The Fountains of Paradise. "He always loved it here -- the warm climate and the friendly people," his younger brother, Fred Clarke, told AFP. "He said he had managed to escape 40 British winters and had no regrets."

On his 90th birthday in December, he expressed a wish for lasting peace in his adopted homeland, which has been torn by more than 35 years of fighting between government troops and Tamil separatists. Knowing that many of his ideas have become reality, I can only hope that this one will as well.

His foundation (www.clarkefoundation.org) plans to keep up his visionary work so that his legacy can continue to enrich the lives of those of us he's left behind.

Image courtesy of the Clarke Foundation.

Daily Mantra contributor Malayna Dawn splits her time between Los Angeles and Sri Lanka.British visionary and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke died on March 19, 2008... more