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Science Fiction
In all its Forms, whether in Novels, on Television, and/or in Movies!
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Science Fiction, including the Hugo Award Pictured below: Where to watch every 'Star Trek' movie and TV show, from 'The Original Series' to 'Strange New Worlds'
The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. 

The Hugo is widely considered the premier award in science fiction. 

The award is administered by the World Science Fiction Society. It is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories.

Hugos were first given in 1953, at the 11th World Science Fiction Convention, and have been awarded every year since 1955.

The awards were originally given in seven categories. These categories have changed over the years, and the award is currently conferred in seventeen categories of written and dramatic works.

The winners receive a trophy consisting of a stylized rocket ship on a base; the design of the trophy changes each year, though the rocket itself has been standardized since 1984.

The Hugo Awards are considered "the premier award in the science fiction genre", and winners are often noted on book covers.

The 2022 awards were presented at the 80th Worldcon, "Chicon 8", in Chicago on September 4, 2022. The 2023 awards will be presented at the 81st Worldcon, "Chengdu Worldcon", in Chengdu, China on August 19, 2023.

Click here for more about the Hugo Award.
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Science fiction (sometimes shortened to sci-fi) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as:
Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations.

Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers.

Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has become popular and influential over much of the world. It has been called the "literature of ideas", and often explores the potential consequences of scientific, social, and technological innovations.

Besides providing entertainment, it can also criticize present-day society and explore alternatives. It is also often said to inspire a "sense of wonder".

Definitions:
Main article: Definitions of science fiction

American science fiction author and editor Lester del Rey wrote, "Even the devoted aficionado or fan—has a hard time trying to explain what science fiction is," and the lack of a "full satisfactory definition" is because "there are no easily delineated limits to science fiction." 

According to Isaac Asimov, "Science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science and technology." 

Robert A. Heinlein wrote that "A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method."

Part of the reason that it is so difficult to pin down an agreed definition of science fiction is because there is a tendency among science fiction enthusiasts to act as their own arbiter in deciding what exactly constitutes science fiction. Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying "science fiction is what we point to when we say it." Ultimately, it may be more useful to talk around science fiction as the intersection of other, more concrete, genres and subgenres.

Alternative terms:
Further information: Skiffy

Forrest J Ackerman has been credited with first using the term "sci-fi" (analogous to the then-trendy "hi-fi") in about 1954; the first known use in print was a description of Donovan's Brain by movie critic Jesse Zunser in January 1954. 

As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech "B-movies," and with low-quality pulp science fiction. By the 1970s, critics within the field, such as Damon Knight and Terry Carr, were using "sci fi" to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction. 

Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers." Robert Heinlein found even "science fiction" insufficient for certain types of works in this genre, and suggested the term speculative fiction to be used instead for those that are more "serious" or "thoughtful."

History:
Main articles: 
​Some scholars assert that science fiction had its beginnings in ancient times, when the line between myth and fact was blurred. 

Written in the 2nd century CE by the satirist Lucian, A True Story contains many themes and tropes characteristic of modern science fiction, including travel to other worlds, extraterrestrial lifeforms, interplanetary warfare, and artificial life. Some consider it the first science-fiction novel. 

Some of the stories from The Arabian Nights, along with the 10th-century The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and Ibn al-Nafis's 13th-century Theologus Autodidactus, also contain elements of science fiction.

Written during the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, the following are regarded as some of the first true science-fantasy works:
Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Somnium the first science-fiction story; it depicts a journey to the Moon and how the Earth's motion is seen from there.

Following the 17th-century development of the novel as a literary form, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) and The Last Man (1826) helped define the form of the science-fiction novel. Brian Aldiss has argued that Frankenstein was the first work of science fiction. 

Edgar Allan Poe wrote several stories considered to be science fiction, including "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" (1835) which featured a trip to the Moon.

Jules Verne was noted for his attention to detail and scientific accuracy, especially in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870).

In 1887, the novel El anacronópete by Spanish author Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau introduced the first time machine. A rather unknown early French/Belgian science fiction writer was J.-H. Rosny aîné (1856–1940).

Many critics consider H. G. Wells one of science fiction's most important authors, or even "the Shakespeare of science fiction." His notable science-fiction works include: 
Well's science fiction imagined: 
In his non-fiction futurologist works Wells predicted the advent of: 
Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, published in 1912, was the first of his three-decade-long planetary romance series of Barsoom novels which were set on Mars and featured John Carter as the hero. 

In 1924 We one of the first dystopian novels, by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, was published. It describes a world of harmony and conformity within a united totalitarian state. It influenced the emergence of dystopia as a literary genre.

In 1926, Hugo Gernsback published the first American science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. In its first issue he wrote: "By 'scientifiction' I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story—a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision... Not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading—they are always instructive. They supply knowledge... in a very palatable form... New adventures pictured for us in the scientifiction of today are not at all impossible of realization tomorrow... Many great science stories destined to be of historical interest are still to be written... Posterity will point to them as having blazed a new trail, not only in literature and fiction, but progress as well."

In 1928, E. E. "Doc" Smith's first published work, The Skylark of Space, written in collaboration with Lee Hawkins Garby, appeared in Amazing Stories. It is often called the first great space opera. 

The same year, Philip Francis Nowlan's original Buck Rogers story, Armageddon 2419, also appeared in Amazing Stories. This was followed by a Buck Rogers comic strip, the first serious science-fiction comic.

In 1937, John W. Campbell became editor of Astounding Science Fiction, an event which is sometimes considered the beginning of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, which was characterized by stories celebrating scientific achievement and progress. 

In 1942, Isaac Asimov started his Foundation series, which chronicles the rise and fall of galactic empires and introduced psychohistory. The series was later awarded a one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series." The "Golden Age" is often said to have ended in 1946, but sometimes the late 1940s and the 1950s are included.

Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human (1953) explored possible future human evolution. 

In 1957, Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale by the Russian writer and paleontologist Ivan Yefremov presented a view of a future interstellar communist civilization and is considered one of the most important Soviet science fiction novels. 

In 1959, Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers marked a departure from his earlier juvenile stories and novels. It is one of the first and most influential examples of military science fiction, and introduced the concept of powered armor exoskeletons. 

The German space opera series Perry Rhodan, written by various authors, started in 1961 with an account of the first Moon landing and has since expanded in space to multiple universes, and in time by billions of years. It has become the most popular science fiction book series of all time.

In the 1960s and 1970s, New Wave science fiction was known for its embrace of a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, and a highbrow and self-consciously "literary" or "artistic" sensibility. 

In 1961, Solaris by Stanisław Lem was published in Poland. The novel dealt with the theme of human limitations as its characters attempted to study a seemingly intelligent ocean on a newly discovered planet.

1965's Dune by Frank Herbert featured a much more complex and detailed imagined future society than had previous science fiction.

In 1967 Anne McCaffrey began her Dragonriders of Pern science fantasy series. Two of the novellas included in the first novel, Dragonflight, made McCaffrey the first woman to win a Hugo or Nebula Award. 

In 1968, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, was published. It is the literary source of the Blade Runner movie franchise. 

1969's The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin was set on a planet in which the inhabitants have no fixed gender. It is one of the most influential examples of social science fiction, feminist science fiction, and anthropological science fiction.

In 1979, Science Fiction World began publication in the People's Republic of China. It dominates the Chinese science fiction magazine market, at one time claiming a circulation of 300,000 copies per issue and an estimated 3–5 readers per copy (giving it a total estimated readership of at least 1 million), making it the world's most popular science fiction periodical. 

In 1984, William Gibson's first novel, Neuromancer, helped popularize cyberpunk and the word "cyberspace," a term he originally coined in his 1982 short story Burning Chrome.

In 1986, Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold began her Vorkosigan Saga. 

1992's Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson predicted immense social upheaval due to the information revolution.

In 2007, Liu Cixin's novel, The Three-Body Problem, was published in China. It was translated into English by Ken Liu and published by Tor Books in 2014, and won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, making Liu the first Asian writer to win the award.

Emerging themes in late 20th and early 21st century science fiction include: 
Recent trends and subgenres include: 
Film:
Main articles: 
​The first, or at least one of the first, recorded science fiction film is 1902's A Trip to the Moon, directed by French filmmaker Georges Méliès. It was profoundly influential on later filmmakers, bringing a different kind of creativity and fantasy to the cinematic medium.

In addition, Méliès's innovative editing and special effects techniques were widely imitated and became important elements of the medium.

1927's Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang, is the first feature-length science fiction film. Though not well received in its time, it is now considered a great and influential film. 

In 1954, Godzilla, directed by Ishirō Honda, began the kaiju subgenre of science fiction film, which feature large creatures of any form, usually attacking a major city or engaging other monsters in battle.

1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the work of Arthur C. Clarke, rose above the mostly B-movie offerings up to that time both in scope and quality, and greatly influenced later science fiction films.

That same year, Planet of the Apes (the original), directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and based on the 1963 French novel La Planète des Singes by Pierre Boulle, was released to popular and critical acclaim, due in large part to its vivid depiction of a post-apocalyptic world in which intelligent apes dominate humans.

In 1977, George Lucas began the Star Wars film series with the film now identified as "Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope." The series, often called a space opera, went on to become a worldwide popular culture phenomenon, and the second-highest-grossing film series of all time.

Since the 1980s, science fiction films, along with fantasy, horror, and superhero films, have dominated Hollywood's big-budget productions. Science fiction films often "cross-over" with other genres, including: 
Television:
Main articles: 
​Science fiction and television have consistently been in a close relationship. Television or television-like technologies frequently appeared in science fiction long before television itself became widely available in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The first known science fiction television program was a thirty-five-minute adapted excerpt of the play RUR, written by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek, broadcast live from the BBC's Alexandra Palace studios on 11 February 1938. 

The first popular science fiction program on American television was the children's adventure serial Captain Video and His Video Rangers, which ran from June 1949 to April 1955.

The Twilight Zone (the original series), produced and narrated by Rod Serling, who also wrote or co-wrote most of the episodes, ran from 1959 to 1964. It featured fantasy, suspense, and horror as well as science fiction, with each episode being a complete story. Critics have ranked it as one of the best TV programs of any genre.

The animated series The Jetsons, while intended as comedy and only running for one season (1962–1963), predicted many inventions now in common use: 
In 1963, the time travel-themed Doctor Who premiered on BBC Television. The original series ran until 1989 and was revived in 2005. It has been extremely popular worldwide and has greatly influenced later TV science fiction. 

Other programs in the 1960s included: 
Star Trek (the original series), created by Gene Roddenberry, premiered in 1966 on NBC Television and ran for three seasons. It combined elements of space opera and Space Western. Only mildly successful at first, the series gained popularity through syndication and extraordinary fan interest.

It became a very popular and influential franchise with many films, television shows, novels, and other works and products. 

Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) led to six additional live action Star Trek shows:
The miniseries V premiered in 1983 on NBC. It depicted an attempted takeover of Earth by reptilian aliens. Red Dwarf, a comic science fiction series aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009. 

The X-Files, which featured UFOs and conspiracy theories, was created by Chris Carter and broadcast by Fox Broadcasting Company from 1993 to 2002, and again from 2016 to 2018. 

Stargate, a film about ancient astronauts and interstellar teleportation, was released in 1994. Stargate SG-1 premiered in 1997 and ran for 10 seasons (1997–2007).

Spin-off series included Stargate Infinity (2002–2003), Stargate Atlantis (2004–2009), and Stargate Universe (2009–2011). 

Other 1990s series included Quantum Leap (1989–1993) and Babylon 5 (1994–1999).
SyFy, launched in 1992 as The Sci-Fi Channel, specializes in science fiction, supernatural horror, and fantasy.

The space-Western series Firefly premiered in 2002 on Fox. It is set in the year 2517, after the arrival of humans in a new star system, and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a "Firefly-class" spaceship.

Orphan Black began its 5-season run in 2013, about a woman who assumes the identity of one of her several genetically identical human clones.

In late 2015 SyFy premiered The Expanse to great critical acclaim, an American TV series about Humanity's colonization of the Solar System. Its later seasons would then be aired through Amazon Prime Video.

Social influence:

Science fiction's rapid rise in popularity during the first half of the 20th century was closely tied to the popular respect paid to science at that time, as well as the rapid pace of technological innovation and new inventions. 

Science fiction has often predicted scientific and technological progress. Some works predict that new inventions and progress will tend to improve life and society, for instance the stories of Arthur C. Clarke and Star Trek. Others, such as H.G. Wells's The Time Machine and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, warn about possible negative consequences.

In 2001 the National Science Foundation conducted a survey on "Public Attitudes and Public Understanding: Science Fiction and Pseudoscience." It found that people who read or prefer science fiction may think about or relate to science differently than other people. They also tend to support the space program and the idea of contacting extraterrestrial civilizations. 

Carl Sagan wrote: "Many scientists deeply involved in the exploration of the solar system (myself among them) were first turned in that direction by science fiction."

Science fiction tries to blend fiction and reality seamlessly so that the viewer can be immersed in the imaginative world. This includes characters, settings, and tools and perhaps most critically, the scientific plausibility and accuracy of technology and technological concepts.

Sometimes, science fiction forecasts real life innovations and discoveries. In the 2020 series Away astronauts use a real-life Mars rover called InSight to listen intently for a landing on Mars. Two years later in 2022 scientists used InSight to listen for the landing of a real spacecraft. 

In the Jurassic Park franchise, dinosaurs are created from ancient DNA and 18 years later, real life scientists found dinosaur DNA in ancient fossils.

Brian Aldiss described science fiction as "cultural wallpaper." Evidence for this widespread influence can be found in trends for writers to employ science fiction as a tool for advocacy and generating cultural insights, as well as for educators when teaching across a range of academic disciplines not limited to the natural sciences. 

Scholar and science fiction critic George Edgar Slusser said that science fiction "is the one real international literary form we have today, and as such has branched out to visual media, interactive media and on to whatever new media the world will invent in the 21st century. Crossover issues between the sciences and the humanities are crucial for the century to come."

As protest literature:
Further information: Political ideas in science fiction and Social novel

​Science fiction has sometimes been used as a means of social protest. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is an important work of dystopian science fiction. It is often invoked in protests against governments and leaders who are seen as totalitarian. 

James Cameron's 2009 film Avatar was intended as a protest against imperialism, and specifically the European colonization of the Americas.

Robots, artificial humans, human clones, intelligent computers, and their possible conflicts with human society have all been major themes of science fiction since, at least, the publication of Shelly's Frankenstein. Some critics have seen this as reflecting authors’ concerns over the social alienation seen in modern society.

Feminist science fiction poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles, the role reproduction plays in defining gender, and the inequitable political or personal power of one gender over others.

Some works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.

Climate fiction, or "cli-fi," deals with issues concerning climate change and global warming. University courses on literature and environmental issues may include climate change fiction in their syllabi, and it is often discussed by other media outside of science fiction fandom.

Libertarian science fiction focuses on the politics and social order implied by right libertarian philosophies with an emphasis on individualism and private property, and in some cases anti-statism.

Science fiction comedy often satirizes and criticizes present-day society, and sometimes makes fun of the conventions and clichés of more serious science fiction.

The potential for Science Fiction as a genre is not just limited to being a literary sandbox for exploring otherworldly narratives but can act as a vehicle to analyze and recognize a society's past, present, and potential future social relationships with the Other. More specifically, Science Fiction offers a medium and representation of Alterity and differences in social identity.

​Sense of wonder:
Main article: Sense of wonder
Further information: Wonder (emotion)

Science fiction is often said to inspire a "sense of wonder." Science fiction editor and critic David Hartwell wrote: "Science fiction’s appeal lies in combination of the rational, the believable, with the miraculous. It is an appeal to the sense of wonder." 

Carl Sagan said: "One of the great benefits of science fiction is that it can convey bits and pieces, hints, and phrases, of knowledge unknown or inaccessible to the reader . . . works you ponder over as the water is running out of the bathtub or as you walk through the woods in an early winter snowfall."

In 1967, Isaac Asimov commented on the changes then occurring in the science fiction community: "And because today’s real life so resembles day-before-yesterday’s fantasy, the old-time fans are restless. Deep within, whether they admit it or not, is a feeling of disappointment and even outrage that the outer world has invaded their private domain. They feel the loss of a 'sense of wonder' because what was once truly confined to 'wonder' has now become prosaic and mundane."

Science fiction studies:
Main article: Science fiction studies

The study of science fiction, or science fiction studies, is the critical assessment, interpretation, and discussion of science fiction literature, film, TV shows, new media, fandom, and fan fiction. 

Science fiction scholars study science fiction to better understand it and its relationship to science, technology, politics, other genres, and culture-at-large. 

Science fiction studies began around the turn of the 20th century, but it was not until later that science fiction studies solidified as a discipline with the publication of:
The field has grown considerably since the 1970s with the establishment of more journals, organizations, and conferences, as well as science fiction degree-granting programs such as those offered by the University of Liverpool and the University of Kansas.

​Classification:
Further information: Hard science fiction and Soft science fiction

Science fiction has historically been split between hard science fiction and soft science fiction, with the division centering on the feasibility of the science central to the story. However, this distinction has come under increasing scrutiny in the 21st century.

Some authors, such as Tade Thompson and Jeff VanderMeer, have pointed out that stories that focus explicitly on physics, astronomy, mathematics, and engineering tend to be considered "hard" science fiction, while stories that focus on botany, mycology, zoology, and the social sciences tend to be categorized as "soft," regardless of the relative rigor of the science.

Max Gladstone defined "hard" science fiction as stories "where the math works," but pointed out that this ends up with stories that often seem "weirdly dated," as scientific paradigms shift over time. 

Michael Swanwick dismissed the traditional definition of "hard" SF altogether, instead saying that it was defined by characters striving to solve problems "in the right way–with determination, a touch of stoicism, and the consciousness that the universe is not on his or her side."

Ursula K. Le Guin also criticized the more traditional view on the difference between "hard" and "soft" SF: "The 'hard' science fiction writers dismiss everything except, well, physics, astronomy, and maybe chemistry. Biology, sociology, anthropology—that's not science to them, that's soft stuff. They're not that interested in what human beings do, really. But I am. I draw on the social sciences a great deal."

As serious literature:
Further information: Literature and Literary fiction

​Respected authors have written science fiction. Mary Shelley wrote a number of science fiction novels including Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), and is considered a major writer of the Romantic Age. 

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) is often listed as one of England's most important novels, both for its criticism of modern culture and its prediction of future trends including reproductive technology and social engineering. 

Kurt Vonnegut was a highly respected American author whose works contain science fiction premises or themes.

Other science fiction authors whose works are widely considered to be "serious" literature include: 
In his book "The Western Canon", literary critic Harold Bloom includes Brave New World, Solaris, Cat's Cradle (1963) by Vonnegut, and The Left Hand of Darkness as culturally and aesthetically significant works of western literature.

David Barnett has pointed out that there are books which use recognizable science fiction tropes, but whose authors and publishers do not market them as science fiction, including:
Doris Lessing, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, wrote a series of five SF novels, Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979–1983), which depict the efforts of more advanced species and civilizations to influence those less advanced, including humans on Earth.

In her much reprinted 1976 essay "Science Fiction and Mrs Brown," Ursula K. Le Guin was asked: "Can a science fiction writer write a novel?" She answered: "I believe that all novels ... deal with character, and that it is to express character–not to preach doctrines [or] sing songs... that the form of the novel, so clumsy, verbose, and undramatic, so rich, elastic, and alive, has been evolved. ... The great novelists have brought us to see whatever they wish us to see through some character. Otherwise, they would not be novelists, but poets, historians, or pamphleteers." 

Orson Scott Card, best known for his 1985 science fiction novel Ender's Game, has postulated that in science fiction the message and intellectual significance of the work are contained within the story itself and, therefore, does not need stylistic gimmicks or literary games.

Jonathan Lethem, in a 1998 essay in the Village Voice entitled "Close Encounters: The Squandered Promise of Science Fiction," suggested that the point in 1973 when Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow was nominated for the Nebula Award and was passed over in favor of Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, stands as "a hidden tombstone marking the death of the hope that SF was about to merge with the mainstream." 

In the same year science fiction author and physicist Gregory Benford wrote: "SF is perhaps the defining genre of the twentieth century, although its conquering armies are still camped outside the Rome of the literary citadels."

Community:

Authors:
See also: List of science fiction authors

Science fiction is being written, and has been written, by diverse authors from around the world.

According to 2013 statistics by the science fiction publisher Tor Books, men outnumber women by 78% to 22% among submissions to the publisher. 

A controversy about voting slates in the 2015 Hugo Awards highlighted tensions in the science fiction community between a trend of increasingly diverse works and authors being honored by awards, and reaction by groups of authors and fans who preferred what they considered more "traditional" science fiction.

Awards:
Main article: List of science fiction awards

Among the most respected and well-known awards for science fiction are:
There are other national awards, like:
Magazines may organize reader polls, notably the Locus Award.

Conventions:
Main article: Science fiction convention

​Conventions (in fandom, often shortened as "cons," such as "comic-con") are held in cities around the world, catering to a local, regional, national, or international membership.

General-interest conventions cover all aspects of science fiction, while others focus on a particular interest like media fandom, filking, etc. Most science fiction conventions are organized by volunteers in non-profit groups, though most media-oriented events are organized by commercial promoters.

Fandom and fanzines:
Main articles: Science fiction fandom and Science-fiction fanzine

Science fiction fandom emerged from the letters column in Amazing Stories magazine. Soon fans began writing letters to each other, and then grouping their comments together in informal publications that became known as fanzines. Once they were in regular contact, fans wanted to meet each other, and they organized local clubs. 

In the 1930s, the first science fiction conventions gathered fans from a wider area.

The earliest organized online fandom was the SF Lovers Community, originally a mailing list in the late 1970s with a text archive file that was updated regularly. 

In the 1980s, Usenet groups greatly expanded the circle of fans online.

In the 1990s, the development of the World-Wide Web exploded the community of online fandom by orders of magnitude, with thousands and then millions of websites devoted to science fiction and related genres for all media.

The first science fiction fanzine, The Comet, was published in 1930 by the Science Correspondence Club in Chicago, Illinois.

One of the best known fanzines today is Ansible, edited by David Langford, winner of numerous Hugo awards. Other notable fanzines to win one or more Hugo awards include File 770, Mimosa, and Plokta.

Artists working for fanzines have frequently risen to prominence in the field, including Brad W. Foster, Teddy Harvia, and Joe Mayhew: the Hugos include a category for Best Fan Artists.

Elements:

​Science fiction elements can include, among others:
International examples:
Subgenres:
For a topical guide, see Outline of science fiction.
Related genres
Main article: Speculative fiction
​See also:







The Twilight Zone (CBS: 1959-1964)
YouTube Video: The Twilight Zone: "Time Enough At Last" (featuring Burgess Meredith)
YouTube Video: Talky Tina -- Living Doll -- Two Minute Twilight Zone Project -- Season 5, Episode 6
​Pictured: Montage of clips from The Twilight Zone episodes.
The Twilight Zone is an American science-fiction, fantasy, psychological horror, supernatural anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964.

The series consists of unrelated dramas depicting characters dealing with paranormal, futuristic, Kafkaesque, or otherwise disturbing or unusual events; characters who find themselves dealing with these strange, sometimes inexplicable happenings are said to have crossed over into "The Twilight Zone". Each story typically features a moral and a surprise ending.

The series is notable for featuring both
Serling served as executive producer and head writer; he wrote or co-wrote 92 of the show's 156 episodes. He was also the show's host and narrator, delivering monologues at the beginning and end of each episode. Serling's opening and closing narrations usually summarize the episode's events encapsulating how and why the main character(s) had entered the Twilight Zone.

In 1997, the episodes "To Serve Man" and "It's a Good Life" were respectively ranked at 11 and 31 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time; Serling himself stated that his favorite episodes of the series were "The Invaders" and "Time Enough at Last". 

In 2002, The Twilight Zone was ranked No. 26 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.

In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked it as the third best-written TV series ever and TV Guide ranked it as the fifth greatest show of all time.








Quantum Leap (NBC: 1985-1993)
YouTube Video Quantum Leap - Original Show Intro | NBC Classics
Pictured: (L-R) Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell
Quantum Leap is an American science fiction television series that originally aired on NBC for five seasons, from March 1989 through May 1993. Created by Donald P. Bellisario, it starred Scott Bakula as Dr. Sam Beckett, a physicist who leaps through spacetime during an experiment in time travel, by temporarily taking the place of other people in order to correct historical mistakes. Dean Stockwell co-stars as Admiral Al Calavicci, Sam's womanizing, cigar-smoking companion and best friend, who appears to him as a hologram.

The series features a mix of humor, drama, romance, social commentary, and science fiction, and was named one of TV Guide's "Top Cult Shows Ever."
​
Premise:
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Quantum Leap follows the narrative of Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula), a brilliant scientist who has become stuck in the past as a result of a time travel experiment gone wrong, and his attempts to return to his present, the late 20th century, by altering events in the past for the better, with the aid of a hologram of his friend Admiral Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell), monitoring him from Sam's present.

In the series premiere, Sam has theorized the ability to travel in one's own lifetime and is the lead of the government-funded Project Quantum Leap, operating from a secret laboratory in New Mexico; Al oversees the project for the government. When Al learns that funding for the project is in danger of being pulled because no demonstrable results have come from the project, Sam takes it upon himself to step into the Quantum Leap Accelerator to prove the project works and is sent into the past.

When Sam gains consciousnesses, he finds himself suffering from partial amnesia, and more surprised to find that his appearance to others, including what he sees in the mirror, is not his own face. He finds that Al has come to his aid as a hologram that only Sam can see and hear, as it is tuned to his brainwaves.

Al, working with the Project's artificial intelligence Ziggy (voiced by Deborah Pratt), determines that Sam must alter an event in the current period he is in so as to re-engage the Quantum Leap process and return home.

Al helps Sam overcome some facets of his "Swiss-cheese memory" and provides information on history as it originally happened. He also updates Sam on future events and relates possible outcome probabilities using a handheld communication device in contact with Ziggy.

The device is often temperamental and must be struck a few times as it emits electronic beeping and whirring sounds before the information is revealed. With Al and Ziggy's help, Sam is able to successfully change history and then leaps out, only to find himself in the life of someone else in a different period of time.

Episodes in the series subsequently follow Sam's reaction to each leap (typically ending the cold open with him uttering "Oh, boy!" on discovering his situation), and then working with Al and Ziggy to figure out his new identity and whom he needs to help in order to "set right what once went wrong" and trigger the next leap.

An episode typically ends as a cliffhanger showing the first few moments of Sam's next leap (along with him again uttering "Oh, boy!" on discovering his situation), which is repeated in the following episode's cold open. Though initially Sam's leaping is believed by Al and the others on the Quantum Leap team to be random, the characters come to believe in later seasons that someone or something is controlling Sam's leaping, and this is a central focus of the show's finale episode, "Mirror Image".

When Sam leaps, his body is physically present in the past, although he appears to others as the person he leaped into. In one case, after leaping into a Vietnam veteran that has lost both legs, Sam is still able to walk normally but appears to others as if he is floating. Sam's body and mind may become jumbled with those he has leaped into.

In one situation, he leaps into a woman near the end of her pregnancy and feels her birth pains, while in another episode he leaps into the body of Lee Harvey Oswald and feels an intense pressure to assassinate John F. Kennedy, despite knowing that it is the wrong thing to do.

Similarly, the person that Sam has leaped into is brought into the future, where they appear as Sam to the others; they are normally kept in an isolated waiting room to prevent them from learning anything about the future, and they return to their own time when Sam leaps.

In most of Sam's leaps, the changes he makes are small on the grand scale, such as saving the life of a person who might otherwise have died, or helping making someone's life better. Selected episodes, however, demonstrate more dramatic effects of his time travels. In one episode, Sam's actions ultimately lead to Al's death prior to the Project, and Sam finds himself suddenly aided by a new hologram, "Edward St. John V" (played by Roddy McDowall), and must work to prevent Al's death.

In another episode, when again the Project's funding is threatened, Sam helps a young woman successfully pass the bar; this results in her becoming one of the members of Congress who oversee the Project and in the restoration of its funding.

In the episode involving Lee Harvey Oswald, while Sam and Al do not prevent the assassination of Kennedy, Sam's actions prevent Oswald from making a second shot that killed Jacqueline Kennedy in the original fictional history.

Because of the time travel aspect, many episodes allude to famous people or incidents indirectly, such as Sam suggesting to young Donald Trump that New York real estate will be valuable in the future, suggesting the lyrics of "Peggy Sue" to a teenage Buddy Holly, showing young Michael Jackson his signature moonwalk dance for the first time, giving Dr. Henry Heimlich the idea for his namesake maneuver by saving him from choking, and setting in place actions that lead to the discovery of the Watergate scandal.

Two notable episodes place Sam directly at the center of significant historical events, one being the leap into Oswald. In "Goodbye Norma Jean", Sam appears as Marilyn Monroe's bodyguard, who saves her life and convinces Marilyn to remain alive for her starring role in The Misfits.

Other episodes explore the past of the main characters, like Sam saving his brother from being killed in the Vietnam War, and saving Al's marriage to Beth.

In the final episode, "Mirror Image", Sam leaps through spacetime as himself (without replacing another person), arriving at the exact time of his birth, where he meets a mysterious barkeep (Bruce McGill, who also appeared in the first episode in a different role).

The barkeep is aware of Sam's situation and assures him that Sam himself controls the very nature and destinations of his leaps ("to make the world a better place"), and that Sam is always able to return home at any time he truly wants to. In the final episode's epilogue, Sam is shown to leap back to visit Al's wife Beth as himself again, assuring her that her husband (who was a prisoner of war at the time) will return home to her; this results in Al and Beth remaining happily married in the future, while Sam continues leaping, never returning home.

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Star Trek (NBC: 1966-1969)Pictured: The cast of Star Trek during the third season (1968–1969). From left to right: James Doohan, Walter Koenig, DeForest Kelley, Majel Barrett, William Shatner, Nichelle Nichols, Leonard Nimoy, and George Takei.
Star Trek is an American science-fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and its crew.

It later acquired the retronym of Star Trek: The Original Series (Star Trek: TOS or simply TOS) to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began.

The show is set in the Milky Way galaxy, roughly during the 2260s. The ship and crew are led by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), first officer and science officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and chief medical officer Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley). Shatner's voice-over introduction during each episode's opening credits stated the starship's purpose:

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

The series was produced from September 1966–December 1967 by Norway Productions and Desilu Productions, and by Paramount Television from January 1968–June 1969. Star Trek aired on NBC from September 8, 1966 to June 3, 1969 and was actually seen first on September 6, 1966 on Canada's CTV network.

Star Trek's Nielsen ratings while on NBC were low, and the network cancelled it after three seasons and 79 episodes.

Several years later, the series became a bona fide hit in broadcast syndication, remaining so throughout the 1970s, achieving cult classic status and a developing influence on popular culture. 

Star Trek eventually spawned a franchise, consisting of five additional television series, thirteen feature films, numerous books, games, toys, and is now widely considered one of the most popular and influential television series of all time.

The series contains significant elements of Space Western, as described by Gene Roddenberry and the general audience.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation (Syndicated: 1987-1994)
YouTube Video from Star Trek: the Next Generation -- "Your Move"
Pictured (L-R): LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, and Jonathan Frakes
Star Trek: The Next Generation (abbreviated as TNG and ST:TNG) is an American science fiction television series in the Star Trek franchise created by Gene Roddenberry that ran between 1987 and 1994. Roddenberry, Maurice Hurley, Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor served as executive producers at different times throughout its production.

The series involves a starship named Enterprise and is set in the nearby regions of the Milky Way galaxy, the Alpha Quadrant. The first episode takes place in the year 2364, 100 years after the start of the five-year mission described in the original series, which began in 2264. It features a new cast and a new starship Enterprise, the fifth to bear the name within the franchise's storyline.

An introductory statement, performed by Patrick Stewart and featured at the beginning of each episode's title sequence, stated the starship's purpose in language similar to the opening statement of the original series, but was updated to reflect an ongoing mission, and to be gender-neutral:

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."

TNG premiered the week of September 28, 1987, drawing 27 million viewers, with the two-hour pilot "Encounter at Farpoint". In total, 176 episodes were made, ending with the two-hour finale "All Good Things..." the week of May 23, 1994.

The series (1987–94) was broadcast in first-run syndication with dates and times varying among individual television stations. Three additional Star Trek spin-offs followed The Next Generation: 
The series formed the basis for the seventh through to the tenth of the Star Trek films, and is also the setting of numerous novels, comic books, and video games.

In its seventh season, Star Trek: The Next Generation became the first and only syndicated television series to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. The series received a number of accolades including 19 Emmy Awards, two Hugo Awards, five Saturn Awards, and a Peabody Award.

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​Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Syndicated 1993-1999)
YouTube Video from Star Trek Deep Space Nine: "Sacrifice of Angels"
Pictured (L-R): Michael Dorn, Terry Farrell, Colm Meaney, Alexander Siddig, Armin Shimerman, Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Nana Visitor, and Cirroc Lofton
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (sometimes abbreviated to DS9) is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe in the Milky Way galaxy, in the years 2369–2375.

In contrast to other Star Trek TV shows, it takes place on a space station instead of a starship, so as not to have two series with starships in the same time period. (The starship USS Defiant was introduced in season 3, but the station remained the show's primary setting.)

The show is noted for its well-developed characters, original and complex plots, and religious themes, and for starring the only black captain in any of the televised Star Trek incarnations. It often showcased darker themes; less physical exploration of space; and, in later seasons, an emphasis on many aspects of war.

DS9 premiered in 1993 and ran for seven seasons until 1999. Although rooted in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek universe, it was the first Trek spin-off created without Roddenberry's direct involvement, although he did give the concept his blessing shortly before his death in 1991.

The series was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller at the request of Brandon Tartikoff, and was produced by Paramount Television. As overall head of Star Trek production, Berman served as executive producer for the series's entire run. Piller initially served as second executive producer and showrunner, but left the series in 1995 to manage Star Trek Voyager.

Writer Ira Steven Behr was promoted by Berman to replace Piller as showrunner and held that role for the remainder of the series. In addition to Berman, Piller, and Behr, key writers included Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Ronald D. Moore, Peter Allan Fields, Bradley Thompson, David Weddle, Hans Beimler and René Echevarria.

DS9 began while Star Trek: The Next Generation was still on the air, and there were a few cameos featuring characters from either show (such as Picard's appearance in the DS9 pilot).

The station's first appearance in TNG was during the sixth-season episode "Birthright". In addition, two Next Generation characters, Miles O'Brien and (from season 4 onwards) Worf, became regular members of DS9. The station also appeared in the Star Trek: Voyager pilot episode, "Caretaker".

Premise:

DS9 centers on the formerly Cardassian space station Terok Nor. After the Bajorans have liberated themselves from the long and brutal Cardassian Occupation, the United Federation of Planets is invited by the Bajoran Provisional Government to administer joint control of the station, which initially orbits Bajor. The station is renamed Deep Space Nine, and a Starfleet crew is assigned to manage it.

Shortly after their arrival, the Starfleet crew discovers a stable wormhole in Bajoran space leading from the Alpha Quadrant to the Gamma Quadrant, and the station is moved to a strategic position near the wormhole's entrance to safeguard it from the Cardassians.

Deep Space Nine and Bajor quickly become a center for exploration, interstellar trade, political maneuvering, and open conflict. Threats come not only from Cardassians, Klingons and Romulans from the Alpha Quadrant, but from the Dominion, an alliance of alien species from the Gamma Quadrant that take up arms alongside the Cardassians against the Federation and its allies. Deep Space Nine becomes a key military base for the Federation in the Dominion War, and is assigned the starship USS Defiant to aid in its protection.

According to co-creator Berman, he and Piller considered setting the new series on a colony planet, but they felt a space station would appeal more to viewers, and would save the money required for a land-based show's on-location shooting. They did not want the show set aboard a starship because Star Trek: The Next Generation was still in production, and in Berman’s words, it "seemed ridiculous to have two shows—two casts of characters—that were off going where no man has gone before."

While its predecessors tended to restore the status quo ante at the end of each episode, allowing out-of-order viewing, DS9 contains story arcs that span episodes and seasons. One installment often builds upon earlier ones, with several cliffhanger endings.

Michael Piller considered this one of the series's best qualities, allowing repercussions of past episodes to influence future events and forcing characters to "learn that actions have consequences". This trend was especially noticeable toward the series's finale, by which time the show was intentionally scripted as a serial.

Unlike Star Trek: The Next Generation, interpersonal conflicts were prominently featured in DS9. This was at the suggestion of Star Trek: The Next Generation's writers, many of whom also wrote for DS9, who felt that Roddenberry's prohibition of conflicts within the crew restricted their ability to write compelling dramatic stories. In Piller's words, "People who come from different places—honorable, noble people—will naturally have conflicts".

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​Star Trek: Voyager (UPN/Syndicated 1995-2001)
YouTube Video from Star Trek Voyager "End Game"
Pictured: (L-R): Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Garrett Wang, Kate Mulgrew, Jennifer Lien, Robert Duncan McNeill, Tim Russ, Robert Picardo, and Roxann Dawson
Star Trek: Voyager is an American science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe.

The series takes place during the years 2371 to 2378. It follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant (on the far side of the Milky Way galaxy, 70,000 light-years from Earth) while searching for a renegade Maquis ship. Voyager has to make the estimated 75-year journey home.

The series was created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor, and is the fifth incarnation of Star Trek, which began with the 1960s series Star Trek: The Original Series that was created by Gene Roddenberry. 

Voyager was produced for seven seasons, from 1995 to 2001, and is the first and only Star Trek TV series with a female captain, Kathryn Janeway (played by Kate Mulgrew), as the lead character. Berman served as head executive producer in charge of the overall production for the series during its entire run. He was assisted by a second in command executive producer who generally functioned as the day-to-day showrunner. 

Four were used throughout the series' run:
  1. Michael Piller (EP/showrunner – first and second season),
  2. Jeri Taylor (EP – first through fourth seasons, showrunner – third and fourth seasons),
  3. Brannon Braga (EP/showrunner – fifth and sixth seasons),
  4. and Kenneth Biller (EP/showrunner – seventh season).

Star Trek: Voyager aired on UPN and was the network's second-longest running series. The series consists of 172 episodes 45 minutes in length; however on its first run the pilot was a single, 1½-hour show that was later split in two for syndication; There are a number of other feature length paired episodes that reduce the number of separate showings, such as on a streaming service. Some examples of feature length Voyager movies are Dark Frontier (109/110), Flesh and Blood (155/156), and Endgame (171/172).

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Star Trek: Enterprise (UPN: 2001-2005)
YouTube Video from Star Trek: Enterprise -- The Complete First Season
Pictured (L-R): John Billingsley, Linda Park, Scott Bakula, Connor Trinneer, Dominic Keating, Jolene Blalock, and Anthony Montgomery
Star Trek: Enterprise (titled simply Enterprise until the third episode of season three) is an American science fiction television series created by Rick Berman and Brannon Braga as a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series. It originally aired from September 26, 2001 to May 13, 2005 on UPN, spanning 98 episodes across four seasons.

Set in the 22nd century 100 years before the USS Enterprise's five-year mission, the series follows the adventures of the crew of the first Warp 5 capable Starfleet starship, Enterprise (registration NX-01), as they explore the galaxy. An ongoing storyline, referred to as the Temporal Cold War, continued through the third season, in which forces from the future attempted to manipulate events in the present. In the third season, an escalation of this campaign introduced the Xindi and dealt with the repercussions of their attack on Earth.

After being asked to produce a fifth Star Trek series by UPN, Braga and Berman sought to create a more basic and relatable series set after the events of the film Star Trek: First Contact.

The episodes concentrated on a core trio of characters: Captain Jonathan Archer (played by Scott Bakula), Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III (played Connor Trinneer) and Sub-commander T'Pol (played by Jolene Blalock).

It was filmed on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles, California, on the same stages that had housed the Star Trek series and films since the abandoned Star Trek: Phase II in the late 1970s.

In addition to dropping the Star Trek prefix, Enterprise used the pop-influenced song "Where My Heart Will Take Me" (performed by Russell Watson) as its theme. Enterprise has elements of a straightforward prequel to the original Star Trek series, but it also had elements of a sequel to it. At the start of the second season, Braga said that the "Temporal Cold War" storyline would continue to be included if viewers were still interested, but later described it as "strangulating".

Series Overview:

Star Trek: Enterprise follows the adventures of the crew of the starship Enterprise, designation NX-01. They are the first deep space explorers in Starfleet, using the first Warp 5 equipped vessel. At the start of the series, it is revealed that the Vulcans have withheld advanced technology from humanity since their first contact, concerned that humans were not ready for it. This has delayed human space exploration and caused resentment in Captain Jonathan Archer, whose father developed the Warp 5 engine but did not live to see it used.

Enterprise was intentionally equipped with less advanced versions of technologies seen in previous series. For example, it has no tractor beam, uses missiles instead of photon torpedoes, and has only limited means of synthesizing foods and other consumable items. Communications Officer Linguist Hoshi Sato's expertise in linguistics helps compensate for the lack of advanced universal translators.

The series also showed the crew making first contacts with a number of races previously seen in the franchise. Notably, the Klingons who appear in the pilot, "Broken Bow" have the ridged makeup seen in the movie franchise and from Star Trek: The Next Generation onwards, rather than the smooth-headed versions seen in Star Trek: The Original Series. 

This particular change was attributed by Berman and Braga to advancements in makeup. They felt that contradictions in the continuity such as the Klingon ridges were unavoidable, as well as those involving technology. (Advances in the real world now made mobile telephones smaller than the communicators seen in The Original Series, and even desktop computers and monitors were more compact than those seen in Voyager.)

The series's first season emphasized a core trio of characters: Jonathan Archer, T'Pol, and Charles "Trip" Tucker III. Other main characters had primary roles in particular episodes, such as "Dear Doctor" and "Fight or Flight".

​The second season saw deepening relationships between characters—for example, the friendship between Tucker and Reed, seen in episodes such as "Two Days and Two Nights"; and the relationship between Tucker and T'Pol, which begins contentiously but leads to romance in later seasons.

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Westworld (HBO: 2016-Present) (HBO Website)
YouTube Video: Trailer for Westworld HBO
Pictured below: New to Westworld? Here Are 6 Reasons to Start
Westworld is an American science fiction western television series created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Produced by HBO, it is based on the 1973 film of the same name (written and directed by Michael Crichton) and to a lesser extent its 1976 sequel, Futureworld.

The story takes place in Westworld, a fictional, technologically advanced Wild-West-themed amusement park populated by android "hosts". The park caters to high-paying guests who may indulge their wildest fantasies within the park without fear of retaliation from the hosts, who are prevented by their programming from harming humans.

Nolan and Joy serve as executive producers, along with J. J. Abrams, Jerry Weintraub,
and Bryan Burk. The first season premiered on October 2, 2016, and concluded on December 4, 2016; it comprised ten episodes.

In November 2016, HBO renewed the series for a ten-episode second season, which premiered on April 22, 2018. The series' debut on HBO garnered the network's highest viewership ratings for a premiere since the first episode of True Detective in 2014.

Moreover, Westworld ranks as the most-watched first season of any HBO original series. On May 1, 2018, the series was renewed for a third season.

The series has received largely positive reviews from critics, with particular praise having been given for its visuals, story, and performances.

Premise:

In an unknown future, Westworld, one of six theme parks owned and operated by Delos Inc., allows guests to experience the American Old West in an environment populated by "hosts", androids programmed to fulfill the guest's every desire.

The hosts follow a predefined set of intertwining narratives but have the ability to deviate from these narratives based on interactions they have with guests.

The hosts repeat their narrative anew each day—having had their memories of the previous day erased—until they are repurposed or stowed away for use in other narratives. For guest safety, hosts are unable to harm any lifeform; this allows guests nearly unlimited freedom to engage without retribution in any activity they choose with the hosts, including sex and simulated murder. Staff situated in vast underground facilities oversee the park, develop new narratives, and perform repairs on hosts as necessary.

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​War of the Worlds LIVE 1938 Radio DramaPictured below: ​Listen to the 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast!
"The War of the Worlds" was a Halloween episode of the radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air directed and narrated by Orson Welles
​ as an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It was performed and broadcast live at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938 over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network.

​The episode is famous for inciting a panic by convincing some members of the listening audience that a Martian invasion was taking place.

The episode begins with an introductory monologue based closely on the opening of the original novel, after which the program takes on the format of an evening of typical radio programming being periodically interrupted by news bulletins.

The first few bulletins interrupt a program of live music and are relatively calm reports of unusual explosions on Mars followed by a seemingly unrelated report of an unknown object falling on a farm in Grover's Mill, New Jersey.

The crisis escalates dramatically when a correspondent reporting live from Grover's Mill describes creatures emerging from what is evidently an alien spacecraft. When local officials approach the aliens waving a flag of truce, the "monsters" respond by incinerating them and others nearby with a heat ray which the on-scene reporter describes in a panic until the audio feed abruptly goes dead. This is followed by a rapid series of news updates detailing the beginning of a devastating alien invasion and the military's futile efforts to stop it.

The first portion of the episode climaxes with another live report from the rooftop of a Manhattan radio station. The correspondent describes crowds fleeing clouds of poison smoke released by giant Martian "war machines" and "dropping like flies" as the gas approaches his location. Eventually he coughs and falls silent, and a lone ham radio operator asks, "Is there anyone on the air? Isn't there... anyone?" with no response. The program takes its first break thirty minutes after Welles's introduction.

The second portion of the show shifts to a conventional radio drama format that follows a survivor (played by Welles) dealing with the aftermath of the invasion and the ongoing Martian occupation of Earth. The final segment lasts for about sixteen minutes, and like the original novel, concludes with the revelation that the Martians have been defeated by microbes rather than by humans.

The broadcast ends with a brief "out of character" announcement by Welles in which he compares the show to "dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying 'boo!'"

Welles's "War of the Worlds" broadcast has become famous for convincing some of its listeners that a Martian invasion was actually taking place due to the "breaking news" style of storytelling employed in the first half of the show. The illusion of realism was supported by the Mercury Theatre on the Air's lack of commercial interruptions, which meant that the first break in the drama came after all of the alarming "news" reports had taken place.

Popular legend holds that some of the radio audience may have been listening to The Chase and Sanborn Hour with Edgar Bergen and tuned in to "The War of the Worlds" during a musical interlude, thereby missing the clear introduction indicating that the show was a work of science fiction. Contemporary research suggests that this happened only in rare instances.

In the days after the adaptation, widespread outrage was expressed in the media. The program's news-bulletin format was described as deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the broadcasters and calls for regulation by the FCC.

Welles apologized at a hastily-called news conference the next morning, and no punitive action was taken. The broadcast and subsequent publicity brought the 23-year-old Welles to the attention of the general public and gave him the reputation of an innovative storyteller and "trickster".

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The Novel "War of the Worlds" by author H.G. WellsPictured below: War of the Worlds aliens: The Martians in HG Wells’ book are VERY different – Here’s how
​The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialised in 1897 by Pearson's Magazine in the UK and by Cosmopolitan magazine in the US.

The novel's first appearance in hardcover was in 1898 from publisher William Heinemann of London. Written between 1895 and 1897, it is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between mankind and an extra-terrestrial race. 

The novel is the first-person narrative of both an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and of his younger brother in London as southern England is invaded by Martians. The novel is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon.

The book's plot was similar to numerous works of invasion literature which were published around the same period, and has been variously interpreted as a commentary on the theory of evolution, British colonialism, and Victorian-era fears, superstitions and prejudices.

Wells later noted that an inspiration for the plot was the catastrophic effect of European colonisation on the Aboriginal Tasmanians; some historians have argued that Wells wrote the book in part to encourage his readership to question the morality of imperialism. 

At the time of the book's publication, it was classified as a scientific romance, like Wells's earlier novel The Time Machine.

The War of the Worlds has been both popular (having never been out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films, radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a number of television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors.

It was memorably dramatized in a 1938 radio programme directed by and starring Orson Welles that allegedly caused public panic among listeners who did not know the book's events were fictional. (see topic preceding this one.)
​
The novel has even influenced the work of scientists, notably Robert H. Goddard, who, inspired by the book, helped develop both the liquid-fuelled rocket and multistage rocket, which resulted in the Apollo 11 Moon landing 71 years later.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about "War of the Worlds": ___________________________________________________________________________

By Author H. G. Wells

​Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography and autobiography. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and has been called the "father of science fiction."

In addition to his fame as a writer, he was prominent in his lifetime as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale.

A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and biological engineering before these subjects were common in the genre. 

Brian Aldiss referred to Wells as the "Shakespeare of science fiction", while Charles Fort called him a "wild talent".

Wells rendered his works convincing by instilling commonplace detail alongside a single extraordinary assumption per work – dubbed "Wells's law" – leading Joseph Conrad to hail him in 1898 with "O Realist of the Fantastic!". 

His most notable science fiction works include: 
Novels of social realism such as Kipps (1905) and The History of Mr Polly (1910), which describe lower-middle-class English life, led to the suggestion that he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens, but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English society as a whole. Wells was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.

Wells's earliest specialised training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a Darwinian context. He was also an outspoken socialist from a young age, often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathizing with pacifist views. 

In his later years, he wrote less fiction and more works expounding his political and social views, sometimes giving his profession as that of journalist. Wells was a diabetic and co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association (known today as Diabetes UK) in 1934.

Click here for more about H.G. Wells.







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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "20.000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954)
Pictured below: Movie Poster
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1954 American Technicolor adventure film, as well as the first science fiction film shot in CinemaScope. The film was personally produced by Walt Disney through Walt Disney Productions, directed by Richard Fleischer, and stars Kirk Douglas, James Mason, Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre. 
 
It was also the first feature-length Disney film to be distributed by Buena Vista Distribution. The film is adapted from Jules Verne's 19th-century novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It is considered an early precursor of the steampunk genre.

The film was a critical and commercial success, being especially remembered for the fight with a giant squid, and Mason's definitive performance as the charismatic anti-hero Captain Nemo. It won two Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Special Effects.

Click here for more about the movie "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"







​
Back to the Future Movie Franchise
YouTube Video ​Back To The Future [1985] - The DeLorean
​Pictured: Back to the Future Movie Franchise Logo
The Back to the Future franchise is an American science fiction–comedy film series written and directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Bob Gale and Neil Canton for Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, and distributed by Universal Pictures.

The franchise follows the adventures of a high school student, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), and an eccentric scientist, Dr. Emmett L. Brown (Christopher Lloyd), as they use a DeLorean time machine to time travel to different periods in the history of Hill Valley, California.
The first film was the highest-grossing film of 1985 and became an international phenomenon, leading to the second and third films, which were back-to-back film productions, released in 1989 and 1990, respectively. 

Though the sequels did not perform quite as well at the box office as the first film, the trilogy remains immensely popular after 30 years and has yielded such spin-offs as an animated television series and a motion-simulation ride at the Universal Studios Theme Parks in Universal City, California  and Osaka, Japan, as well as a Microsoft Windows, Macintosh, iPad, PS3, and Wii video game.

The film's visual effects were done by Industrial Light and Magic. The trilogy was nominated for five Academy Awards all together, winning one (Best Sound Editing).

The Franchise grossed $ 957.6 Million in Box Office Receipts.

Below is a synopsis of each movie: you can also click on any blue hyperlinked title for more about each movie:

Back to the Future (1985)

Seventeen-year-old Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time from 1985 to 1955 in a time machine built from a DeLorean by eccentric scientist Emmett "Doc" Brown, when Marty is attacked by Libyans from whom Doc stole the plutonium that gives the flux capacitor the 1.21 gigawatts it needs to time-travel.

Soon after his arrival in 1955, Marty's mother Lorraine falls in love with him, rather than with his father George McFly, threatening to cause a paradox that would result in Marty's nonexistence. Without plutonium to power the time machine, Marty must find the 1955 Doc Brown to help him reunite his parents and return to 1985.

The efforts of Biff Tannen, George's bully and supervisor, further complicate Marty's situation until Marty successfully causes his parents to fall in love and simultaneously convinces George to finally stand up to Biff.

Returning to the future via a lightning strike that powers the machine, Marty discovers a vastly improved situation for the McFly family, as a much more confident George has become an accomplished science-fiction novelist, and an apparently-softened Biff is now an auto detailer, rather than George's supervisor.

Despite 1955 Doc's insistence on not knowing details of the future, a note Marty leaves in his pocket saves him from being killed by the terrorists. But in the film's final moments, Doc Brown appears in a modified version of the DeLorean and tells Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer Parker that they must travel to the future to fix a problem caused by Marty and Jennifer's kids.

Box Office Receipts: $381.1 million
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Back to the Future Part II (1989)

The series continues as Doc Brown travels with Marty and Jennifer to the year 2015 where he has discovered Marty's family is in ruins.

Shortly after correcting the situation, Marty buys a sports almanac containing the outcomes of 50 years (1950–2000) worth of sporting events to make easy money. However, Doc talks him out of it and throws the almanac in the trash, where the 2015 Biff Tannen finds it.

A sleeping Jennifer has been taken by police to her future home, needing Marty and Doc to retrieve her before returning to 1985. While Marty and Doc are at the 2015 McFly home, 2015 Biff steals the DeLorean time machine and gives the book to his 1955 self just before he goes to the dance at the end of the first movie.

When Doc and Marty return to 1985, they find that Biff has used the sports almanac's knowledge for financial gain, which allows him to turn Courthouse Square into a 27-story casino, take over Hill Valley, get away with the murder of Marty's father, and later marry Marty's mother.

Marty learns that Biff was given the book by 2015 Biff on November 12, 1955, so he and Doc go back to that date in order to steal the almanac from Biff before he can use it to destroy their lives. They accomplish this in a complex fashion, often crossing their own past-selves' paths.

When the duo are about to travel back to 1985, a lightning bolt strikes the DeLorean and activates the time circuits, sending Doc back to 1885 and leaving Marty stranded once again in 1955.

Box Office Receipts: $332 Million
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Back to the Future Part III (1990)
After finding out that Doc Brown is trapped in 1885, Marty sets out to find the 1955 Doc to help him fix the DeLorean (which has been waiting for him in a mineshaft for 70 years) and restore it to working order.

Learning that Doc gets shot in 1885 by Biff's great-grandfather, Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, Marty travels back in time to save Doc (who has become a blacksmith) and bring him back to the future.

Arriving in the middle of a melee between the United States Cavalry and American Indians, an Indian arrow pierces a hole in the DeLorean's fuel line, emptying the gas tank and rendering the engine useless.

Doc falls in love with schoolteacher Clara Clayton, and considers staying in the past. Marty must convince Doc to come back with him and find a way to get back to his time before it's too late.

After several dramatic action scenes involving using a speeding locomotive to push the DeLorean to 88 miles per hour (142 km/h), Marty returns to 1985 without Doc Brown, who stayed behind with Clara in 1885. When the DeLorean appears in 1985 on the same train track as planned, a modern train destroys the DeLorean, with Marty jumping out just in time.

Marty reveals to Jennifer the time travel adventure and they visit the scene of the wreckage of the DeLorean. He worries that Doc has been lost in the past forever, when suddenly Doc Brown appears in a new time machine, modeled after a locomotive.

He introduces Jennifer and Marty to Clara (to whom he is now married) and his two sons, Jules and Verne.

When Marty asks if Doc and his family are going to the future, Doc replies that he has "already been there". Doc's last words of wisdom is that nobody knows their future, so they "must make it a good one". The locomotive flies across the sky and disappears, ending the trilogy.

Box Office Receipts: $244.5 Million








​Star Wars Franchise
YouTube Video: Top 10 Star Wars Moments by WatchMojo
Pictured: Star Wars Franchise Logo
Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise, centered on a film series created by George Lucas. It depicts the adventures of various characters "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away".

The franchise began in 1977 with the release of the film Star Wars (subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981), by 20th Century Fox, which became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. It was followed by the similarly successful sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); these three films constitute the original Star Wars trilogy.

​A prequel trilogy was later released between 1999 and 2005, which received a more mixed reaction from critics and fans in comparison to the original trilogy. A more-recent sequel trilogy began with the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). All seven films were nominated for or won Academy Awards, and were commercial successes, with a combined box office revenue of $6.46 billion, making Star Wars the fourth highest-grossing film series.

The series has spawned an extensive media franchise—the Star Wars expanded universe—including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books, resulting in significant development of the series's fictional universe. 

Star Wars also holds a Guinness World Records title for the "Most successful film merchandising franchise." In 2012, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $30.7 billion, including box-office receipts as well as profits from their video games and DVD sales.

In 2012, The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.06 billion and announced a new Star Wars trilogy, which began with the release of The Force Awakens in 2015.

20th Century Fox retains the physical distribution rights to the first two Star Wars trilogies, owning permanent rights for the original 1977 film and holding the rights to Episodes I–III, V and VI until May 2020. 

Walt Disney Studios owns digital distribution rights to all the Star Wars films, excluding A New Hope.

Total Box Office for the Seven Star War Movies released to-date (through 2015): $6.480 Billion!

For amplification of each Star Wars Movie released to-date, click on the following links:





Star Wars (Episode IV – A New Hope) (1977)
YouTube Video of Star Wars (1977) Original Trailer
​Star Wars, later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, is a 1977 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas.

The first installment in the original Star Wars trilogy, it stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, and Alec Guinness. David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker and Peter Mayhew co-star in supporting roles.

The plot focuses on the Rebel Alliance, led by Princess Leia (Fisher), and its attempt to destroy the Galactic Empire's space station, the Death Star. This conflict disrupts the isolated life of farmhand Luke Skywalker (Hamill) who inadvertently acquires a pair of droids that possess stolen architectural plans for the Death Star. When the Empire begins a destructive search for the missing droids, Skywalker accompanies Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Guinness) on a mission to return the plans to the Rebel Alliance and rescue Leia from her imprisonment by the Empire.

Star Wars was released theatrically in the United States on May 25, 1977. It earned $461 million in the U.S. and $314 million overseas, totaling $775 million. It surpassed Jaws (1975) to become the highest-grossing film of all time, until the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). When adjusted for inflation, Star Wars is the second-highest-grossing film in North America, and the third-highest-grossing film in the world.

The film received ten Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture), winning seven. It was selected to become part of the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in its first year of opening as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"; at the time, it was the newest film to be selected, and it was the only film from the 1970s to be chosen.

The film's soundtrack was added to the U.S. National Recording Registry 15 years later.

Today, it is often regarded as one of the best films of all time, as well as one of the most important films in the history of motion pictures. It also launched an industry of media tie-in products, including TV series spinoffs, novels, comic books, and video games, as well as various other merchandise, such as toys, games, clothing, and other paraphernalia.

The film's massive success led to the production of two sequels: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), both of which became critically and commercially successful.

Since 1977, Star Wars was subsequently reissued multiple times at Lucas' behest, incorporating many changes including modified computer-generated effects, altered dialogue, re-edited shots, remixed soundtracks, and added scenes. A prequel trilogy was later released between 1999 and 2005, followed by a sequel trilogy which began in 2015.

Plot:

​The galaxy is in the midst of a civil war. Spies for the Rebel Alliance have stolen plans to the Galactic Empire's Death Star, a heavily armed space station capable of destroying planets.

Rebel leader Princess Leia has the plans, but her ship is captured by Imperial forces under the command of the evil Sith lord Darth Vader. Before she is captured, Leia hides the plans in the memory of an astromech droid, R2-D2, along with a holographic recording.

The droid flees to the surface of the desert planet Tatooine with C-3PO, a protocol droid.
The droids are captured by Jawa traders, who sell them to moisture farmers Owen and Beru Lars and their nephew, Luke Skywalker.

While cleaning R2-D2, Luke accidentally triggers part of Leia's message, in which she requests help from Obi-Wan Kenobi. The next morning, Luke finds R2-D2 searching for Obi-Wan, and meets Ben Kenobi, an old hermit who lives in the hills and reveals himself to be Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan tells Luke of his days as a Jedi Knight, former Galactic Republic peacekeepers with supernatural powers derived from an energy called The Force, who were all but wiped out by the Empire.

Contrary to his uncle's statements, Luke learns that his father, Anakin, fought alongside Obi-Wan as a Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan tells Luke that Vader was his former pupil who turned to the dark side of the Force and killed Anakin. Obi-Wan presents Luke his father's weapon - a lightsaber.

Obi-Wan views Leia's complete message, in which she begs him to take the Death Star plans to her home planet of Alderaan and give them to her father for analysis. Obi-Wan invites Luke to accompany him to Alderaan and learn the ways of the Force. Luke declines, but changes his mind after discovering that Imperial stormtroopers searching for C-3PO and R2-D2 have destroyed his home and killed his aunt and uncle. Obi-Wan and Luke hire smuggler Han Solo and his Wookiee first mate Chewbacca to transport them to Alderaan on Han's ship, the Millennium Falcon.

Upon the Falcon's arrival at the location of Alderaan, the group discover that the planet has been destroyed by order of the Death Star's commanding officer, Grand Moff Tarkin, as a show of power. The Falcon is captured by the Death Star's tractor beam and brought into its hangar bay.

While Obi-Wan goes to disable the tractor beam, Luke discovers that Leia is imprisoned aboard, and with the help of Han and Chewbacca, rescues her. After several escapes, the group makes its way back to the Falcon. Obi-Wan disables the tractor beam, and on the way back to the Falcon, he engages in a lightsaber duel with Vader. Once he is sure the others can escape, Obi-Wan allows himself to be killed. The Falcon escapes the Death Star, unknowingly carrying a tracking beacon, which the Empire follows to the Rebels' hidden base on Yavin IV.

The Rebels analyze the Death Star's plans and identify a vulnerable exhaust port that connects to the station's main reactor. Luke joins the Rebel assault squadron, while Han collects his payment for the transport and intends to leave, despite Luke's request that he stay and help. In the ensuing battle, the Rebels suffer heavy losses after several unsuccessful attack runs, leaving Luke as one of the few surviving pilots.

Vader leads a squad of TIE fighters and prepares to attack Luke's X-wing fighter, but Han returns and fires on the Imperials, sending Vader spiraling away. Helped by guidance from Obi-Wan's spirit, Luke uses the Force and successfully destroys the Death Star seconds before it can fire on the Rebel base. Leia awards Luke and Han with medals for their heroism.

Cast:

  • Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker: a young man raised by his aunt and uncle on Tatooine, who dreams of something more than his current life and learns the way of a Jedi.
  • Harrison Ford as Han Solo: a cynical smuggler hired by Obi-Wan and Luke to take them to Alderaan in his ship, the Millennium Falcon, co-piloted with Chewbacca.
  • Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia: a member of the Imperial Senate and leader of the Rebel Alliance.
  • Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin: Governor of the Imperial Outland Regions and commander of the Death Star.
  • Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi: an aging Jedi Master who fought during the Clone Wars, survivor of the Great Jedi Purge, and who introduces Luke to the Force.
  • Anthony Daniels as C-3PO: a protocol droid who speaks over six million languages.
  • Kenny Baker as R2-D2: an astromech droid who is carrying the Death Star plans and a secret message for Obi-Wan from Princess Leia.
  • Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca: a 200-year-old Wookiee, Han Solo's sidekick, and first mate of the Millennium Falcon.
  • David Prowse as Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones): A Sith lord, second in command of the Galactic Empire, who hopes to destroy the Rebel Alliance.

Total Box Office: $775.4 million
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Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
YouTube Video of Trailer for Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Pictured: Theatrical Movie Poster (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
​The Empire Strikes Back (also known as Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back or Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back) is a 1980 American epic space opera film directed by Irvin Kershner. 

Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan wrote the screenplay, with George Lucas writing the film's story and serving as executive producer.

The second installment in the original Star Wars trilogy, it was produced by Gary Kurtz for Lucasfilm Ltd. 

The movie stars: 
The film is set three years after Star Wars. The Galactic Empire, under the leadership of the villainous Darth Vader and the Emperor, is in pursuit of Luke Skywalker and the rest of the Rebel Alliance.

While Vader chases a small band of Luke's friends--Han Solo, Princess Leia Organa, and others—across the galaxy, Luke studies the Force under Jedi Master Yoda. When Vader captures Luke's friends, Luke must decide whether to complete his training and become a full Jedi Knight or to confront Vader and save them.

​Following a difficult production, The Empire Strikes Back was released on May 21, 1980. It received mixed reviews from critics initially but has since grown in esteem, becoming the most critically acclaimed chapter in the Star Wars saga; it is now widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. 

The film ranks #3 on Empire's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. It became the highest-grossing film of 1980 and, to date, has earned more than $538 million worldwide from its original run and several re-releases. When adjusted for inflation, it is the second-highest-grossing sequel of all time and the 13th-highest-grossing film in North America. The film was followed by a sequel, titled Return of the Jedi, which was released in 1983.

In 2010, the film was selected for preservation in the United States' National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant."

Plot:

Three years after the destruction of the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance has been driven from their former base on Yavin IV by the Galactic Empire. The Rebels, led by Princess Leia, set up their new base on the ice planet Hoth.

The Imperial fleet, led by Darth Vader, continues to hunt for the Rebels’ new base by dispatching probe droids across the galaxy.

While investigating a potential meteor strike, Luke Skywalker is captured by a wampa. He manages to escape from its cave with his lightsaber, but soon succumbs to the brutally cold temperatures.

The ghost of his late mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, instructs him to go to the Dagobah system to train under Jedi Master Yoda. He is found by Han Solo, who uses the warmth of his dead tauntaun to keep Luke warm while he sets up a shelter. Han and Luke make it through the night and are rescued by Zev Senesca.

On patrol, Han and Chewbacca discover the meteor Luke had planned to investigate is actually a probe droid, which alerts the Empire to the Rebels’ location.

The Empire launches a large-scale attack, using AT-AT Walkers to capture the base. Han and Leia escape on the Millennium Falcon with C-3PO and Chewbacca, but their hyperdrive malfunctions. They hide in an asteroid field, where Han and Leia grow closer.

Vader summons bounty hunters, including the notorious Boba Fett, to assist in finding the Falcon. Luke, meanwhile, escapes with R2-D2 in his X-wing fighter and crash-lands on the swamp planet Dagobah. He meets a diminutive creature who is revealed to be Yoda; after conferring with Obi-Wan's spirit, Yoda reluctantly accepts Luke as his pupil.
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After evading the Empire, Han sets a course for Cloud City, a floating colony in the skies of the planet Bespin. Cloud City is run by Han's old friend, Lando Calrissian. Unknowingly, the Millennium Falcon has been tracked by Boba Fett; shortly after they arrive, Lando leads the group into a trap and they are handed over to Darth Vader.

Vader plans to use the group as bait to lure out Luke, intending to capture him alive and take him to the Emperor. During his training on Dagobah, Luke sees a premonition of Han and Leia in pain and, against Yoda's wishes, leaves to save them.

Vader goes back on his agreement with Lando and takes Leia and Chewbacca into custody. He intends to hold Luke in suspended animation and, as a test, freezes Han alive in a block of carbonite. Vader hands the frozen Han over to Fett, who intends to leave for Tatooine to deliver Han to Jabba the Hutt and claim the bounty on Solo's head.

Lando, who was forced into cooperating with the Empire, initiates an escape and frees Leia and the others. They try to save Han but are unable to stop Fett. They then flee Cloud City in the Falcon.

Luke arrives at Cloud City and falls into Vader's trap. The two engage in a lightsaber duel that leads them over the city's central air shaft where, as his mentors warned, Luke proves to be no match for Vader who severs Luke's right hand, causing him to lose his weapon. After Luke refuses to join Vader against the Emperor, Vader reveals that he is Luke's father.

Horrified, Luke falls through the air shaft. He is ejected beneath the floating city and makes a desperate telepathic plea to Leia, who senses it and persuades Lando to return for him in the Falcon. R2-D2 repairs the Falcon's hyperdrive, allowing them to escape the Empire.

Later, aboard a Rebel medical frigate, Luke's amputated hand is replaced with a robotic prosthetic. Lando and Chewbacca set off for Tatooine in the Falcon in order to save Han. As the Falcon departs, Luke, Leia, R2-D2, and C-3PO look on and await word from Lando.

Cast:
  • Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, a Jedi in training who is strong with the Force.
  • Harrison Ford as Han Solo, a smuggler and captain of the Millennium Falcon.
  • Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia Organa, a leader of the Rebel Alliance.
  • Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, Administrator of Cloud City and an old friend of Han Solo.
  • Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Luke's humanoid protocol droid.
  • David Prowse as Darth Vader, a Sith Lord and Luke's father. James Earl Jones returns as the voice of Vader (initially uncredited, but credit given in the Special Edition.)
  • Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca, a Wookiee and loyal friend to Han Solo.
  • Kenny Baker as R2-D2, Luke's blue-and-white astromech droid
  • Frank Oz performing Yoda, a self-exiled Jedi Master who lives on the planet Dagobah. 

Box Office: 538.4 million
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​Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983)
YouTube Video: Movie Trailer for Return of the Jedi
Pictured: Theatrical Movie Poster (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Return of the Jedi (also known as Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi) is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand.

The screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas was from a story by Lucas, who was also the executive producer.

It was the third film released in the Star Wars saga and the first film to use THX technology.

The film is set one year after The Empire Strikes Back and was produced by Howard Kazanjian for Lucasfilm Ltd.

The film stars include:
The Galactic Empire, under the direction of the ruthless Emperor, is constructing a second Death Star in order to crush the Rebel Alliance once and for all. Since the Emperor plans to personally oversee the final stages of its construction, the Rebel Fleet launches a full-scale attack on the Death Star in order to prevent its completion and kill the Emperor, effectively bringing an end to the Empire's hold over the galaxy.

Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker, a Jedi apprentice, struggles to bring Darth Vader, whom he finds out is actually his father Anakin Skywalker and a fallen Jedi, back from the Dark Side of the Force.

The production team relied on Lucas' storyboards during pre-production. While writing the shooting script, Lucas, Kasdan, Marquand, and producer Howard Kazanjian spent two weeks in conference discussing ideas to construct it.

Kazanjian's schedule pushed shooting to begin a few weeks early to allow Industrial Light & Magic more time to work on the film's effects in post-production.

Filming took place in England, California, and Arizona from January to May 1982. Strict secrecy surrounded the production and the film used the working title Blue Harvest to prevent price gouging.

The film was released in theaters on May 25, 1983, six years to the day after the release of the first film, receiving mostly positive reviews. The film grossed between $475 million and $572 million worldwide.

Several home video and theatrical releases and revisions to the film followed over the next 20 years. Star Wars continued with Episode I: The Phantom Menace as part of the film series' prequel trilogy. A sequel, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was released on December 18, 2015 as part of the new sequel trilogy.

Plot:

Luke Skywalker initiates a plan to rescue Han Solo from the crime lord Jabba the Hutt with the help of Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2.

Leia infiltrates Jabba's palace on Tatooine, disguised as a bounty hunter with Chewbacca as her prisoner. Lando is already there, disguised as a guard. Leia releases Han from the carbonite, but she is captured and enslaved.

Luke arrives soon afterward but, after a tense standoff with Jabba and a battle with his rancor, is captured. Jabba sentences him, Han and Chewbacca to death, planning to feed them to the Sarlacc, a pit monster. They are taken to the Great Pit of Carkoon, the Sarlacc's nesting ground.

Luke, with R2-D2's help, frees himself and battles Jabba's guards. During the chaos, Boba Fett attempts to attack Luke, but Han, temporarily blinded from the carbonite, inadvertently knocks him into the Sarlacc pit.

Meanwhile, Leia strangles Jabba to death, and Luke destroys Jabba's sail barge as the group escapes. While the others rendezvous with the Rebel Alliance, Luke returns to Dagobah, where he finds that Yoda is on his deathbed. Before he dies, Yoda confirms that Darth Vader, once known as Anakin Skywalker, is Luke's father, and that "there is another".

The ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi confirms that this "other" is Luke's twin sister: Leia. Obi-Wan tells Luke that he must fight Vader again to defeat the Empire. Obi-Wan also warns Luke to keep his emotions in check, as his anger could lead him to the Dark Side.
​
The Rebels learn that the Empire has been constructing a second Death Star under the direct supervision of the Emperor himself. As the station is protected by an energy shield, Han leads a strike team to destroy the shield generator on the forest moon of Endor; doing so would allow a squadron of starfighters to destroy the Death Star.

The strike team, accompanied by Luke and Leia, travels to Endor in a stolen Imperial shuttle. On Endor, Luke and his companions encounter a tribe of Ewoks and, after an initial conflict, gain their trust. Later, Luke tells Leia that she is his sister, Vader is their father, and he must go and confront him. Luke surrenders to Imperial troops and is taken to Vader. Luke tries to convince Vader to turn from the dark side of the Force, but fails.

Vader takes Luke to the new Death Star to meet the Emperor, who is intent on turning him to the dark side. The Emperor reveals that the Death Star is fully operational and the Rebel fleet will fall into a trap. On Endor, Han's strike team is captured by Imperial forces, but a surprise counterattack by the Ewoks allows the Rebels to battle the Imperials.

Meanwhile, Lando, piloting the Millennium Falcon, leads the Rebel fleet to the Death Star, only to find that the station's shield is still active and the Imperial fleet is waiting for them. The Emperor tempts Luke to give in to his anger and join him. Luke engages Vader in a lightsaber duel. Vader senses that Luke has a sister and suggests turning her to the dark side. Enraged, Luke overpowers Vader and severs his father's prosthetic right hand.

Upon seeing the remnants of Vader's prosthetic, he sees a parallel between himself and Vader, and fears he will become like Vader. The Emperor tells Luke to kill Vader and take his place, but Luke refuses, declaring himself a Jedi as his father had been. On Endor, the strike team defeats the Imperial forces and destroys the shield generator, allowing the Rebel fleet to launch their assault on the Death Star.

Simultaneously, the Emperor tortures Luke with Force lightning. Unwilling to let his son die, Vader throws the Emperor down the Death Star reactor shaft, killing him, but is mortally wounded in the process. He asks Luke to remove his mask, and after a brief talk, he dies peacefully.

As the battle between the Imperial and Alliance fleets continues, Lando leads a group of Rebel ships into the Death Star's core and destroys the main reactor. As Luke escapes on a shuttle with his father's body, the Falcon flies out of the Death Star as the station explodes.

On Endor, Leia reveals to Han that Luke is her brother, and they kiss. Luke returns to Endor and cremates his father's body on a funeral pyre. As the Rebels celebrate their victory over the Empire, Luke smiles as he sees the ghosts of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and the redeemed Anakin watching over them.

Cast:
​
  • Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, one of the last living Jedi and a skilled X-wing fighter pilot
  • Harrison Ford as Han Solo, a rogue smuggler and Luke and Leia's friend and Leia's love interest
  • Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia Organa, the former princess of the destroyed planet Alderaan, Luke's twin sister, and Han's love interest
  • Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, the former Baron Administrator of Cloud City and one of Han's companions
  • Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Luke's humanoid protocol droid
  • Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca, a loyal Wookiee and Han's longtime companion
  • Sebastian Shaw as Anakin Skywalker, Luke and Leia's father; he was partly replaced by Hayden Christensen in the 2004 and 2011 Special Editions.
  • Ian McDiarmid as the Emperor, the scarred and deformed founding supreme ruler of the Galactic Empire and Vader's Sith master
  • Frank Oz as Yoda, Luke's self-exiled Jedi master living on Dagobah
  • David Prowse as Darth Vader, a powerful Sith lord and the second in command of the Galactic Empire. James Earl Jones provides the voice of Darth Vader.
  • Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi, Luke's deceased Jedi master

Box Office: $572.6 million
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​Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
YouTube Video from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - Trailer
Pictured: Theatrical Movie Poster for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is a 1999 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas, produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by 20th Century Fox.

It is the first installment in the Star Wars prequel trilogy and stars:
The film is set thirty-two years before the original film, and follows Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi as they protect Queen Amidala, in hopes of securing a peaceful end to a large-scale interplanetary trade dispute. Joined by Anakin Skywalker—a young slave with unusually strong natural powers of the Force—they simultaneously contend with the mysterious return of the Sith.

Lucas began production of this film after he determined that film special effects had advanced to the level he wanted for the fourth film in the saga.

Filming started on June 26, 1997, at locations including Leavesden Film Studios and the Tunisian desert. Its visual effects included extensive use of computer-generated imagery (CGI); many of its characters and settings were completely computerized. The film was Lucas's first directorial effort after a 22-year hiatus following Star Wars in 1977.

The Phantom Menace was released to theaters on May 19, 1999, sixteen years after the premiere of the previous Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi. The film's premiere was extensively covered by media and was greatly anticipated because of the large cultural following the Star Wars saga had cultivated.

Despite mixed reviews from critics, who tended to praise the visuals, action sequences, John Williams' musical score and the performances of Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Pernilla August, Ray Park and Ian McDiarmid, but criticize the writing, characterization and the majority of the acting (particularly from Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd), it grossed more than $924.3 million worldwide during its initial theatrical run, making it the second-highest-grossing film worldwide at the time, behind Titanic.

It became the highest-grossing film of 1999, the highest-grossing Star Wars film (until the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015), and is currently the seventeenth-highest-grossing film in North America unadjusted for inflation.

A 3D reissue, which has earned an additional $102.7 million at the box office and brought the film's overall worldwide takings to over $1 billion, was released in February 2012. The film was followed by two sequels, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones in 2002 and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith in 2005.

Plot:

Supreme Chancellor Valorum, leader of the Galactic Republic, dispatches Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, to negotiate with the Trade Federation leadership to end a blockade of battleships around the planet Naboo. 

Darth Sidious, a Sith Lord and the Trade Federation's secret adviser, orders Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray to kill the Jedi and invade Naboo with an army of battle droids. The Jedi escape and flee to Naboo, where Qui-Gon saves a Gungan outcast, Jar Jar Binks, from being killed during the invasion.

Indebted to the Jedi, Jar Jar leads them to an underwater Gungan city. The Jedi unsuccessfully try to persuade the Gungan leader, Boss Nass, into helping the people of Naboo, though they are able to obtain transportation to Theed, the capital city on the surface. They rescue Queen Amidala, the ruler of the Naboo people, and escape the planet on her royal starship, which is damaged as they pass the Federation blockade.

Amidala's ship is unable to sustain its hyperdrive and lands for repairs on the desert planet Tatooine. Qui-Gon, Jar Jar, astromech droid R2-D2, and Amidala (in disguise as Padmé, her handmaiden) visit the settlement of Mos Espa to buy new parts at a junk shop.

They meet the shop's owner Watto and his nine-year-old slave, Anakin Skywalker, who is a gifted pilot and engineer and has created a protocol droid called C-3PO. Qui-Gon senses a strong presence of the Force within Anakin and is convinced that he is the "chosen one" of Jedi prophecy who will bring balance to the Force.

Qui-Gon wagers Anakin's freedom with Watto in a Podrace, which Anakin wins. Anakin joins the group to be trained as a Jedi, leaving his mother, Shmi, behind. En route to their starship, Qui-Gon briefly duels with Darth Maul, Darth Sidious's apprentice, who was sent to capture Amidala.

The Jedi escort Amidala to the Republic capital planet, Coruscant, so she can plead her people's case to Chancellor Valorum and the Galactic Senate. Qui-Gon asks the Jedi Council for permission to train Anakin as a Jedi, but the Council, concerned that Anakin is vulnerable to the dark side, refuse.

Undaunted, Qui-Gon vows to train Anakin anyway. Meanwhile, Naboo's Senator Palpatine persuades Amidala to make a vote of no confidence in Valorum to elect a more capable chancellor to resolve the crisis on Naboo. Though she pushes for the vote, Amidala grows frustrated with the corruption in the Senate and decides to return to Naboo with the Jedi.

On Naboo, Padmé reveals herself to the Gungans as Queen Amidala and persuades them into an alliance against the Trade Federation. Jar Jar leads his people in a battle against the droid army while Padmé leads the hunt for Gunray in Theed.

In a starship hangar, Anakin enters a vacant starfighter and inadvertently triggers its autopilot, joining the battle against the Federation droid control ship in space. Anakin ventures into the ship and destroys it from within, deactivating the droid army.

Meanwhile, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan battle Darth Maul, who mortally wounds Qui-Gon before being bisected by Obi-Wan. As he dies, Qui-Gon asks Obi-Wan to train Anakin.

Subsequently, Palpatine is elected as the new Supreme Chancellor and Gunray is arrested. The Jedi Council promotes Obi-Wan to the rank of Jedi Knight and reluctantly accepts Anakin as Obi-Wan's apprentice. At a festive ceremony, Padmé presents a gift of appreciation and friendship to the Gungans.

Cast:
​
  • Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn, a Jedi Master and mentor to Obi-Wan. When he discovers Anakin he insists that the boy be trained as a Jedi despite the Jedi Council's protests. Lucas originally wanted to cast an American actor in the role, but cast Irishman Neeson because he considered that Neeson had great skills and presence. Lucas said Neeson was a "master actor, who the other actors will look up to, who has got the qualities of strength that the character demands".
  • Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon's young Jedi apprentice. He holds Qui-Gon in high regard but questions his motives at times.
  • Natalie Portman as Queen Padmé Amidala: Amidala, the 14-year-old Queen of Naboo, hopes to protect her planet from a blockade by the Trade Federation.
  • Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker, a 9-year-old slave boy and a skilled pilot who dreams of becoming a Jedi.
  • Ian McDiarmid as Senator Palpatine / Darth Sidious, a Senator of Naboo who is eventually elected Chancellor of the Republic. 
  • Pernilla August as Shmi Skywalker, Anakin's mother who is concerned for her son's future and allows him leave with the Jedi.
  • Frank Oz voices Yoda, the centuries-old leader of the Jedi Council who is apprehensive about allowing Anakin to be trained.
  • Oliver Ford Davies as Sio Bibble, the governor of Naboo.
  • Hugh Quarshie as Captain Panaka, Queen Amidala's chief of security at Theed Palace.
  • Ahmed Best as Jar Jar Binks​, a clumsy Gungan exiled from his home and taken in by Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.
  • Anthony Daniels voices C-3PO, a protocol droid built by Anakin. He lacks a metal covering in this film; R2-D2 refers to it as being "naked". 
  • Kenny Baker as R2-D2, an astromech droid that saves Queen Amidala's ship when other droids fail. 
  • Terence Stamp as Supreme Chancellor Valorum, the current Chancellor who commissions Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to negotiate with the Trade Federation Viceroy. 
  • Samuel L. Jackson appears as Mace Windu, a high-ranking member of the Jedi Council who also opposes the training of Anakin. 
  • Ray Park portrays Darth Maul, a Zabrak warrior and Darth Sidious' Sith apprentice who uses a double-bladed lightsaber, while Peter Serafinowicz provides Maul's voice. 
  • Keira Knightley plays Sabé, one of Queen Amidala's handmaidens who serves as her decoy throughout the majority of the film. 
  • Silas Carson portrays Nute Gunray, the Viceroy of the Trade Federation who leads Naboo's invasion and tries to force Queen Amidala to sign a treaty to legitimize the occupation.

Box Office Receipts: $1.027 billion
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Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)
YouTube Video: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones - Trailer
Pictured: Theatrical release poster by Drew Struzan (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones is a 2002 American epic space opera film directed by George Lucas and written by Lucas and Jonathan Hales. It is the second installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and stars
The film is set ten years after the events in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. The galaxy is on the brink of civil war. Led by a former Jedi named Count Dooku, thousands of planetary systems threaten to secede from the Galactic Republic. After Senator Padmé Amidala evades assassination, Jedi apprentice Anakin Skywalker becomes her protector, while his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi investigates the attempt on Padmé's life. Soon Anakin, Padmé, and Obi-Wan witness the onset of a new threat to the galaxy, the Clone Wars.

Development of Attack of the Clones began in March 2000, after the release of The Phantom Menace. By June 2000, Lucas and Hales completed a draft of the script and principal photography took place from June to September 2000. The film crew primarily shot at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, Australia, with additional footage filmed in Tunisia, Spain and Italy. It was one of the first motion pictures shot completely on a high definition digital 24-frame system.

The film premiered on May 16, 2002. Critics praised the visual effects, costume design, musical score, and Ewan McGregor’s performance as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Despite this, critics lambasted the romance of Anakin and Padmé, the dialogue, most of the acting, and the film's long runtime.

Nevertheless, the film was a financial success; however, it also became the first Star Wars film to be out-grossed in its year of release, placing only third domestically and fourth internationally.

The film came out on DVD and VHS on November 12, 2002 and was later released on Blu-ray on September 16, 2011. Following Attack of the Clones, the third and final film of the prequel trilogy, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, premiered in 2005.

Plot:

Ten years after the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo, the Galactic Republic is threatened by a Separatist movement organized by former Jedi Master Count Dooku. Senator Padmé Amidala comes to Coruscant to vote on a motion to create an army to assist the Jedi against this threat. Narrowly avoiding an assassination attempt upon arrival, she is placed under the protection of Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker.

The two Jedi thwart a second attempt on her life and subdue the assassin, Zam Wesell, a shape-shifter who is soon killed by her bounty hunter client before she can reveal his identity. The Jedi Council assigns Obi-Wan to identify and capture the bounty hunter, while Anakin is assigned to escort Padmé back to Naboo, where the two fall in love.

Obi-Wan's investigation leads him to the remote ocean planet Kamino, where he discovers an army of clones is being produced for the Republic, with bounty hunter Jango Fett serving as their genetic template. Obi-Wan deduces Jango to be the bounty hunter he is seeking, and follows him and his clone son, Boba, to the desert planet Geonosis via a homing beacon placed on their ship, the Slave I.

Meanwhile, Anakin becomes troubled by premonitions of his mother, Shmi, in pain, and travels to Tatooine with Padmé to save her. They meet Owen Lars, Anakin's stepbrother and the son of Shmi's new husband, Cliegg Lars. Cliegg tells Anakin that Shmi was abducted by Tusken Raiders weeks earlier and is likely dead.

Determined to find her, Anakin ventures out and, finding the Tusken campsite, locates Shmi, dying from torture at the hands of the Tuskens. She dies in Anakin's arms. Anakin, enraged, massacres the Tuskens and returns to the Lars homestead with Shmi's body. After revealing his deed to Padmé, Anakin says that he wants to prevent death.

On Geonosis, Obi-Wan discovers a Separatist gathering led by Count Dooku, who Obi-Wan learns had authorized Padmé's assassination and is developing a battle droid army with Trade Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray. Obi-Wan transmits his findings to Anakin to relay to the Jedi Council, but is captured mid-transmission.

​With knowledge of the droid army, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is voted emergency powers to send the clones into battle. Anakin and Padmé journey to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan, but are also captured.

The three are sentenced to death, but are eventually saved by a battalion of Jedi and clone troopers led by Mace Windu and Yoda; Jango Fett is killed by Mace during the rescue. As the clone and droid armies battle, Obi-Wan and Anakin intercept Dooku, and the three engage in a lightsaber battle. Dooku overpowers Obi-Wan and Anakin, but then Yoda arrives and engages the Count in a duel.

Finding he is unable to defeat Yoda, Dooku flees. Arriving at Coruscant, he delivers blueprints for a superweapon, the Death Star, to his Sith master, Darth Sidious, who confirms that everything is going as planned. As the Jedi gravely acknowledge the beginning of the Clone Wars, Anakin is fitted with a robotic arm and secretly marries Padmé on Naboo, with C-3PO and R2-D2 as their witnesses.

Cast:
  • Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi: A Jedi Master and mentor of Anakin Skywalker.
  • Natalie Portman as Padmé Amidala: The former Queen of Naboo, who has recently been elected the planet's senator.
  • Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker: Obi-Wan's Padawan apprentice, who has grown into a powerful but arrogant Jedi.
  • Ian McDiarmid as Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious: A former senator of Naboo and secretly a Sith Lord who has recently been elected Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic.
  • Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu: A Jedi Master sitting on the Jedi Council who warily watches the Galactic Senate's politics.
  • Christopher Lee as Count Dooku / Darth Tyranus: A former Jedi Master who now leads a Separatist movement and is Darth Sidious' new Sith apprentice.
  • Anthony Daniels as C-3PO: A protocol droid built by Anakin for his mother.
  • Kenny Baker as R2-D2: An astromech droid often seen on missions with Anakin and Obi-Wan.
  • Frank Oz voices Yoda: The centuries-old Jedi Grand Master of an unknown species who, in addition to sitting on the Jedi Council, is the instructor for young Jedi.

Box Office: $649.4 million
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Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)
YouTube Video: Trailer for Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith
Pictured: The poster art copyright is believed to belong to the distributor of the film, 20th Century Fox, the publisher of the film or the graphic artist.
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith is a 2005 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the third and final installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy and stars: 
The film begins three years after the onset of the Clone Wars. The Jedi Knights are spread across the galaxy, leading a massive war against the Separatists. The Jedi Council dispatches Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi to eliminate the notorious General Grievous, leader of the Separatist Army.

Meanwhile, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker grows close to Palpatine, the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic and, unknown to the public, a Sith Lord. Their deepening friendship threatens the Jedi Order, the Republic, and Anakin himself.

Lucas began writing the script before production of Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones ended. Production of Revenge of the Sith started in September 2003, filming in Australia with additional locations in Thailand, Switzerland, China, Italy and the United Kingdom. 

Revenge of the Sith premiered on May 15, 2005 at the Cannes Film Festival, then released worldwide on May 19, 2005. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, especially in contrast to the less positive reviews of the previous two prequels, receiving praise for its story line, action scenes, John Williams' musical score, the visual effects, and the performances of Ewan McGregor, Ian McDiarmid, Frank Oz, Jimmy Smits, and Samuel L. Jackson.

It is the last film in the Star Wars franchise to be distributed by 20th Century Fox before the acquisition of Lucasfilm by The Walt Disney Company in 2012.
Revenge of the Sith broke several box office records during its opening week and went on to earn over $848 million worldwide, making it, at the time, the third-highest-grossing film in the Star Wars franchise, unadjusted for inflation. It was the highest-grossing film of 2005 in the U.S. and the second-highest-grossing film of 2005 behind Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. 

The Star Wars saga continued with the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first installment of the sequel trilogy, in 2015.

Plot:

During a space battle over the planet Coruscant, Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker lead a mission to rescue the kidnapped Supreme Chancellor Palpatine from Separatist commander General Grievous.

After infiltrating Grievous's flagship, the Jedi battle the Sith Lord Count Dooku. Anakin subdues Dooku and, on Palpatine's urging, kills him. Grievous flees the battle-torn cruiser, which the Jedi crash-land on Coruscant. There, Anakin reunites with his wife, Padmé Amidala, who reveals she is pregnant. While initially excited, Anakin begins to have prophetic visions of Padmé dying in childbirth, and his worry steadily grows.

Palpatine appoints Anakin to the Jedi Council as his representative, but the Council refuses to grant Anakin the rank of Jedi Master and orders him to spy on Palpatine, which diminishes Anakin's faith in the Jedi.

Palpatine tantalizes Anakin with secret knowledge of the dark side of the Force, including the power to save his loved ones from dying. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan is dispatched to the planet Utapau to deal with General Grievous, and Yoda is dispatched to Kashyyyk to defend the planet from invasion.

Tempting Anakin, Palpatine eventually reveals that he is the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, saying that only he has the knowledge to save Padmé from dying. Anakin reports Palpatine's treachery to Mace Windu, who confronts and subdues the Sith Lord. Fearing that he will lose Padmé, Anakin intervenes on Palpatine's behalf, allowing Palpatine to kill Windu. Anakin pledges himself to Palpatine, who dubs him Darth Vader.
​
Palpatine issues an order for the clone troopers to kill their Jedi commanders and dispatches Vader and a legion of clones to kill everyone in the Jedi Temple. Vader massacres the remaining Separatist leaders hiding on the volcanic planet Mustafar, while Palpatine addresses the Senate, transforming the Republic into the Galactic Empire and declaring himself Emperor. Having survived the attack, Obi-Wan and Yoda return to Coruscant and uncover Anakin's treachery.
​
Unable to convince Padmé about Anakin's turn to the dark side, Obi-Wan stows aboard her ship. Padmé travels to Mustafar and implores Vader to leave the dark side. Vader refuses, and when he witnesses Obi-Wan, he chokes Padmé into unconsciousness. Obi-Wan duels and defeats Vader, leaving him for dead on the bank of a lava flow. On Coruscant, Yoda fights Palpatine; their duel reaches a stalemate and Yoda flees. Palpatine, sensing that his apprentice is in danger, travels to Mustafar.

On the asteroid Polis Massa, Obi-Wan regroups with Yoda and Padmé gives birth to twins, Luke and Leia, as she dies. A funeral is held for Padmé on Naboo. On Mustafar, Palpatine finds Vader badly burnt but alive.

After returning to Coruscant, he rebuilds Vader's mutilated body and outfits him in a black armored suit. Palpatine tells Vader that he killed Padmé in his anger. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan and Yoda decide to hide the twins from the Sith, as they were the only hope to the galaxy for freedom. Yoda exiles himself to the planet Dagobah, while Vader and the Emperor oversee the construction of a massive space station, the Death Star.

Bail Organa adopts Leia as his own daughter and takes her to Alderaan, while Obi-Wan delivers Luke to his step-family Owen and Beru Lars on Tatooine, where Obi-Wan intends to watch over Luke until the time is right to challenge the Empire.

Cast:
  • Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi: a Jedi Master and general for the Galactic Republic.
  • Natalie Portman as Padmé Amidala: a senator of Naboo who is secretly Anakin's wife.
  • Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader: a recently promoted Jedi Knight and hero of the Clone Wars who turns to the dark side of the Force.
  • Ian McDiarmid as Palpatine/Darth Sidious: the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic who is secretly a Sith lord.
  • Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu: a senior member of the Jedi Council.
  • Christopher Lee as Count Dooku / Darth Tyranus: Darth Sidious' Sith apprentice, who was selected by his master to lead the Separatists.
  • Anthony Daniels as C-3PO: Padmé's personal protocol droid, created by Anakin.
  • Kenny Baker as R2-D2: Anakin's astromech droid.
  • Frank Oz voices Yoda: the leader of the Jedi Council.

​Jimmy Smits, Peter Mayhew, Oliver Ford Davies, Ahmed Best and Silas Carson reprise their roles as Senator Bail Organa, Chewbacca, Sio Bibble, Jar Jar Binks, Nute Gunray and Ki-Adi-Mundi, respectively from the previous films. 

Box Office: $848.8 million
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Pictured: Theatrical Movie Poster courtesy of Wikipedia)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (also known as Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens) is a 2015 American space opera epic film directed, co-produced and co-written by J. J. Abrams, and marks a break in creative control from the original series.

The seventh installment of the Star Wars film series, it stars: 
Produced by Lucasfilm Ltd. and Abrams' production company Bad Robot Productions and distributed worldwide by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, The Force Awakens is set 30 years after Return of the Jedi; it follows Rey, Finn, and Poe Dameron's search for Luke Skywalker and their fight alongside the Resistance, led by veterans of the Rebel Alliance, against Kylo Ren and the First Order, a successor group to the Galactic Empire.

The Force Awakens is the first film in the Star Wars sequel trilogy announced after Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm in October 2012. It was produced by Abrams, his longtime collaborator Bryan Burk, and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.

Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan, co-writer of the original trilogy films The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), rewrote an initial script by Michael Arndt. John Williams, composer for the previous six films, returned to compose its score. 

Star Wars creator George Lucas served as creative consultant during the film's early production. Filming began in April 2014 in Abu Dhabi and Iceland, with principal photography also taking place in Ireland and Pinewood Studios in England, and concluded in November 2014.

It is the first live-action film in the franchise since Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, released ten years before in 2005.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was widely anticipated, with Disney backing the film with extensive marketing campaigns. It premiered in Los Angeles on December 14, 2015, four days before its wide release in North America and the rest of the world.

The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, with its ensemble cast and action sequences being particular areas of praise, although some criticized it as being derivative. The film broke various box office records and became the highest-grossing installment in the franchise, the highest-grossing film in North America unadjusted for inflation and the third highest-grossing film of all time, with a worldwide gross of over $2 billion. 

It received five Academy Award nominations and four British Academy Film Award nominations, where it won Best Special Visual Effects. Two sequels, Episode VIII and Episode IX, are scheduled for 2017 and 2019 respectively.

Plot:

Approximately 30 years after the destruction of the second Death Star, the last remaining Jedi, Luke Skywalker, has disappeared. The First Order has risen from the fallen Galactic Empire and seeks to eliminate the New Republic. The Resistance, backed by the Republic and led by Luke's twin sister, General Leia Organa, opposes them while searching for Luke to enlist his aid.
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Resistance pilot Poe Dameron meets village elder Lor San Tekka on the planet Jakku to obtain a map to Luke's location. Stormtroopers commanded by Kylo Ren destroy the village and capture Poe, while Ren kills Tekka. Poe's droid, BB-8 escapes with the map, and encounters a scavenger named Rey near a junkyard settlement.

Ren tortures Poe using the Force, and learns of BB-8. Stormtrooper FN-2187, unable to bring himself to kill for the First Order, frees Poe, and they escape in a stolen TIE fighter; Poe dubs FN-2187 "Finn". They crash on Jakku, and Finn survives, but is unable to determine if Poe did as well. He encounters Rey and BB-8, but the First Order tracks them and launches an airstrike. Finn, Rey, and BB-8 flee the planet in the Millennium Falcon, which they steal from a junkyard.

After breaking down, the Falcon is caught in a tractor beam and captured by a larger ship piloted by Han Solo and Chewbacca, looking to reclaim their former vessel. Two rival gangs, seeking to settle debts with Han, board and attack, but Han and his allies flee in the Falcon.
The gangs inform the First Order of the events. At the First Order's Starkiller Base – a planet converted into a superweapon that harnesses energy from stars – Supreme Leader Snoke orders General Hux to use the weapon for the first time. Snoke questions Ren's ability to deal with emotions relating to his father, Han Solo; Ren says Solo means nothing to him.

The Falcon crew views BB-8's map and determines it is incomplete. Han explains that Luke attempted to rebuild the Jedi Order, but exiled himself when an apprentice turned to the dark side and slaughtered the rising Order. The crew travels to the planet Takodana and meets with cantina owner Maz Kanata, who offers assistance in getting BB-8 to the Resistance. Rey is drawn to a vault on the lower level and finds the lightsaber that once belonged to Luke and his father, Anakin Skywalker. She experiences disturbing visions and flees into the woods. Maz gives Finn the lightsaber for safekeeping.

Starkiller Base fires and destroys the Republic capital and a portion of its fleet. The First Order attacks Takodana in search of BB-8. Han, Chewbacca, and Finn are saved by Resistance X-wing fighters led by Poe, who survived the earlier crash. Leia arrives at Takodana with C-3PO and reunites with Han and Chewbacca.

Meanwhile, Ren captures Rey and takes her to Starkiller Base. However, when he interrogates her about the map, she is able to resist his mind-reading attempts. Discovering she can use the Force, she escapes using a Jedi mind trick on a nearby guard.

At the Resistance base on D'Qar, BB-8 finds R2-D2, who has been inactive since Luke's disappearance. As Starkiller Base prepares to fire on D'Qar, the Resistance devises a plan to destroy the superweapon by attacking a critical facility.

Leia urges Han to return their son alive. Using the Falcon, Han, Chewbacca, and Finn infiltrate the facility, find Rey, and plant explosives. Han confronts Ren, calling him by his birth name, Ben, and implores him to abandon the dark side. Ren refuses and kills his father, enraging Chewbacca, who fires and hits Ren. He sets off the explosives, allowing the Resistance to attack and destroy Starkiller Base.

The injured Ren pursues Finn and Rey to the surface. A lightsaber battle between Ren and Finn ensues, leaving Finn badly wounded. Rey takes the lightsaber and uses the Force to defeat Ren, before they are separated by a fissure as the planet begins to disintegrate and implode.

Snoke orders Hux to evacuate and bring Ren to him. Rey and Chewbacca escape with Finn in the Falcon. On D'Qar, the Resistance celebrates while Leia, Chewbacca, and Rey mourn Han's death. R2-D2 awakens and reveals the rest of the map, which Rey follows to the aquatic planet Ahch-To. She finds Luke and presents him with the lightsaber.

Cast:


Box Office: $2.068 billion







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Star Trek: Movie Franchise
YouTube Video: Top 10 Star Trek Movies by WatchMojo
Pictured: The Best Star Trek Movies
The Star Trek film series is the cinematic branch of the Star Trek media franchise, which began in 1966 as a weekly television series on NBC, running for three seasons until it was canceled in 1969 because of poor ratings. Reruns of the series proved to be wildly successful in syndication during the 1970s, which persuaded the series' then-owner, Paramount Pictures, to expand the franchise.

Paramount originally began work on a Star Trek feature film in 1975 after lobbying by the creator of the franchise, Gene Roddenberry. The studio scrapped the project two years later in favor of creating a television series, Star Trek: Phase II, with the original cast.

However, following the huge success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977, Paramount changed its mind again, halting production on the television series and adapting its pilot episode into a Star Trek feature film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Five more Star Trek feature films featuring the entire original cast followed.

The cast of the 1987–1994 Star Trek spin-off series Star Trek: The Next Generation starred in an additional four films.

After a ​6-year hiatus following the release of Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), a new film was released on May 16, 2009, simply titled Star Trek, serving as a reboot to the franchise with a new cast portraying younger versions of the original series' characters.

A sequel to Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness, was released in theaters on May 16, 2013. A second sequel, Star Trek Beyond, was released on July 22, 2016, on the franchise's 50th anniversary.

The Star Trek films have received 15 Academy Award nominations. Star Trek (2009) won
for Best Makeup in 2010, and four of the previous films were nominated mainly in the areas of makeup, music, set design and sound design.

The early Star Trek films, the first to tenth film, were originally released on VHS; competitive pricing of The Wrath of Khan's videocassette helped bolster the adoption of VHS players in households. Later films were also released on LaserDisc as well. For those films that did not receive an initial DVD release, Paramount released simple one-disc versions with no special features.

Later, the first ten films were released in two-disc collector's versions, with The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan branded as "director's cuts", followed by later box set releases. All of the films are now available on Blu-ray, digital download, streaming media and video on demand.

Total Box Office Receipts for All Movies of the Star Trek Franchise: $2.3 billion

The Individual Movies of the Star Trek Franchise follow below in the order of release date.
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Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
YouTube Video of the movie trailer for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"
Pictured (L-R): Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, and James Doohan
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise and based on the television series of the same name created by Gene Roddenberry, who also served as its producer. It is the first installment in the Star Trek film series, and stars the cast of the original television series.

The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud known as V'Ger approaches Earth, destroying everything in its path. Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) resumes command of his previous starship, the recently refitted USS Enterprise, to lead it on a mission to save the planet and determine V'Ger's origins.

In 1978, Paramount assembled the largest press conference held at the studio since the 1950s, to announce that two-time Academy Award–winning director Robert Wise would direct a $15 million budget film adaptation of the original television series. With the cancellation of Phase II, writers rushed to adapt its planned pilot episode, "In Thy Image", into a film script.

Released in North America on December 7, 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom faulted the film for its lack of action scenes and over-reliance on special effects. Its final production cost ballooned to approximately $46 million, and earned $139 million at the worldwide box office, falling short of studio expectations, but enough for Paramount to propose a cheaper costing sequel. Roddenberry was forced out of creative control for production of the film's 1982 sequel, 

Plot:

In 2273, a Starfleet monitoring station, Epsilon Nine, detects an alien force, hidden in a massive cloud of energy, moving through space towards Earth. The cloud destroys three of the Klingon Empire's new K't'inga-class warships and the monitoring station en route.

On Earth, the starship Enterprise is undergoing a major refit; her former commanding officer, James T. Kirk, has been promoted to Admiral and works in San Francisco as Chief of Starfleet Operations.

Starfleet dispatches Enterprise to investigate the cloud entity as the ship is the only one in intercept range, requiring her new systems to be tested in transit.

Kirk takes command of the ship citing his experience, angering Captain Willard Decker, who had been overseeing the refit as its new commanding officer. Testing of Enterprise's new systems goes poorly; two officers, including the science officer, are killed by a malfunctioning transporter, and improperly calibrated engines almost destroy the ship. Kirk's unfamiliarity with the new systems of the Enterprise increases the tension between him and first officer Decker.

Commander Spock arrives as a replacement science officer, explaining that while on his home world undergoing a ritual to purge all emotion, he felt a consciousness that he believes emanates from the cloud.

Enterprise intercepts the energy cloud and is attacked by an alien vessel within. A probe appears on the bridge, attacks Spock and abducts the navigator, Ilia. She is replaced by a robotic replica, another probe sent by "V'Ger" to study the crew.

Decker is distraught over the loss of Ilia, with whom he had a romantic history. He becomes troubled as he attempts to extract information from the doppelgänger, which has Ilia's memories and feelings buried within. Spock takes a spacewalk to the alien vessel's interior and attempts a telepathic mind meld with it. In doing so, he learns that the vessel is V'Ger itself, a living machine.

At the center of the massive ship, V'Ger is revealed to be Voyager 6, a 20th-century Earth space probe believed lost. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted its programming as instructions to learn all that can be learned, and return that information to its creator.

The machines upgraded the probe to fulfill its mission, and on its journey the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved consciousness. Spock realizes that V'Ger lacks the ability to give itself a focus other than its original mission; having learned what it could on its journey home, it finds its existence empty and without purpose.

Before transmitting all its information, V'Ger insists that the Creator come in person to finish the sequence. Realizing that the machine wants to merge with its creator, Decker offers himself to V'Ger; he merges with the Ilia probe and V'Ger, creating a new form of life that disappears into another dimension. With Earth saved, Kirk directs Enterprise out to space for future missions.

Box Office Receipts: $139 Million.

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​Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for Star Trek II: "The Wrath of Khan"
Pictured (L-R): Paul Winfield, DeForest Kelley, Kirstie Alley, Walter Koenig, and William Shatner
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Nicholas Meyer and based on the television series of the same name created by Gene Roddenberrry.

This is the second film in the Star Trek film series and is a stand-alone sequel to Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). The plot features Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise facing off against the genetically engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán), a character who first appeared in the 1967 Star Trek episode "Space Seed".

When Khan escapes from a 15-year exile to exact revenge on Kirk, the crew of the Enterprise must stop him from acquiring a powerful terraforming device named Genesis.

The film is the beginning of a story arc that continues with the 1984 film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and concludes with the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
After the lackluster critical and commercial response to the first film, series creator Gene Roddenberry was forced out of the sequel's production.

Executive producer Harve Bennett wrote the film's original outline, which Jack B. Sowards developed into a full script. Director Nicholas Meyer completed its final script in 12 days, without accepting a writing credit. Meyer's approach evoked the swashbuckling atmosphere of the original series, and this theme was reinforced by James Horner's musical score.

Nimoy had not intended to have a role in the sequel, but was enticed back on the promise that his character would be given a dramatic death scene. Negative test audience reaction to Spock's death led to significant revisions of the ending over Meyer's objections. The production team used various cost-cutting techniques to keep within budget, including utilizing miniature models from past projects and reusing sets, effects footage, and costumes from the first film.

Among the film's technical achievements is being the first feature film to contain a sequence created entirely with computer-generated graphics.

The Wrath of Khan was released in North America on June 4, 1982 by Paramount Pictures. It was a box office success, earning $97 million worldwide and setting a world record for its first-day box office gross. Critical reaction to the film was positive; reviewers highlighted Khan's character, the film's pacing, and the character interactions as strong elements. Negative reactions, however, focused on weak special effects and some of the acting. The Wrath of Khan is considered by some to be the best film in the Star Trek series, and is often credited with renewing substantial interest in the franchise.

Plot:
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In the year 2285, Admiral James T. Kirk oversees a simulator session of Captain Spock's trainees. In the simulation, Lieutenant Saavik commands the starship USS Enterprise on a rescue mission to save the crew of the damaged ship Kobayashi Maru.

When the Enterprise enters the Klingon Neutral Zone to reach the ship it is attacked by Klingon cruisers and critically damaged. The simulation is a no-win scenario designed to test the character of Starfleet officers. Later, Dr. McCoy joins Kirk on his birthday; seeing Kirk in low spirits, the doctor advises Kirk to get a new command and not grow old behind a desk.

Meanwhile, the USS Reliant is on a mission to search for a lifeless planet for testing of the Genesis Device, a technology designed to reorganize matter to create habitable worlds for colonization. Reliant officers Commander Pavel Chekov and Captain Clark Terrell beam down to the surface of a possible candidate planet, which they believe to be Ceti Alpha VI; once there, they are captured by genetically engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh. 15 years prior (see "Space Seed"), the Enterprise discovered Khan's ship adrift in space; Kirk exiled Khan and his fellow supermen to Ceti Alpha V after they attempted to take over the Enterprise. After they were marooned, Ceti Alpha VI exploded, shifting the orbit of Ceti Alpha V and destroying its ecosystem.

Khan blames Kirk for the death of his wife and plans revenge. He implants Chekov and Terrell with indigenous creatures that enter the ears of their victims and render them susceptible to mind control, and uses the officers to capture the Reliant. Learning of Genesis, Khan attacks space station Regula I where the device is being developed by Kirk's former lover, Dr. Carol Marcus, and their son, David.

The Enterprise embarks on a three-week training voyage. Kirk assumes command after the ship receives a distress call from Regula I. En route, the Enterprise is ambushed and crippled by the Reliant, leading to the deaths and injuries of many trainees.

Khan hails the Enterprise and offers to spare Kirk's crew if they relinquish all material related to Genesis. Kirk stalls for time and uses the Reliant's prefix code to remotely lower its shields, allowing the Enterprise to counter-attack.

Khan is forced to retreat and effect repairs, while the Enterprise limps to Regula I. Kirk, McCoy, and Saavik beam to the station and find Terrell and Chekov alive, along with slaughtered members of Marcus's team.

They soon find Carol and David hiding deep inside the planetoid of Regula. Khan, having used Terrell and Chekov as spies, orders them to kill Kirk; Terrell resists the eel's influence and kills himself while Chekov collapses as the eel leaves his body.

Khan then transports Genesis aboard the Reliant. Though Khan believes his foe stranded on Regula I, Kirk and Spock use a coded message to arrange a rendezvous. Kirk directs the Enterprise into the nearby Mutara Nebula; static discharges inside the nebula render shields useless and compromise targeting systems, making the Enterprise and the Reliant evenly matched. Spock notes however that Khan's tactics are two-dimensional, indicating inexperience in space combat, which Kirk then exploits to critically disable the Reliant.

​Mortally wounded, Khan activates Genesis, which will reorganize all matter in the nebula, including the Enterprise. Though Kirk's crew detects the activation of Genesis and attempts to move out of range, they will not be able to escape the nebula in time due to the ship's damaged warp drive. Spock goes to the engine room to restore the warp drive. When McCoy tries to prevent Spock's entry, as exposure to the high levels of radiation would be fatal, Spock incapacitates the doctor with a Vulcan nerve pinch and performs a mind meld, telling him to "remember".

Spock successfully restores power to the warp drive and the Enterprise escapes the explosion, though at the cost of Spock's life. The explosion of Genesis causes the gas in the nebula to reform into a new planet, capable of sustaining life.

After being alerted by McCoy, Kirk arrives in the engine room and discovers Spock dying of radiation poisoning. The two share a meaningful exchange in which Spock urges Kirk not to grieve, as his decision to sacrifice his own life to save those of the ship's crew is a logical one, before succumbing to his injuries.

​A space burial is held in the Enterprise's torpedo room and Spock's coffin is shot into orbit around the new planet. The crew leaves to pick up the Reliant's marooned crew from Ceti Alpha V. Spock's coffin, having soft-landed, rests on the Genesis planet's surface.

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​Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock"
Pictured (L-R): DeForest Kelley, Walter Koenig, William Shatner, James Doohan and George Takei
​Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a 1984 American science fiction film directed by Leonard Nimoy and based on the television series of the same name created by Gene Roddenberry. It is the third film in the Star Trek film series, and is the second part of a three-film story arc that begins with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and concludes with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).

After the death of Spock (Nimoy), the crew of the USS Enterprise returns to Earth. When James T. Kirk (William Shatner) learns that Spock's spirit, or katra, is held in the mind of Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Kirk and company steal the Enterprise to return Spock's body to his home planet. The crew must also contend with hostile Klingons led by Kruge (Christopher Lloyd) who are bent on stealing the secrets of a powerful terraforming device.

Paramount Pictures commissioned the film after the positive critical and commercial reaction to The Wrath of Khan. Nimoy directed the film, becoming the first Star Trek cast member to do so. Producer Harve Bennett wrote the script starting from the end and working back, and intended the destruction of the Enterprise to be a shocking development. Bennett and Nimoy collaborated with effects house Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to develop storyboards and new ship designs; ILM also handled the film's many special effects sequences. Aside from a single day of location shooting, all of the film's scenes were shot on Paramount and ILM soundstages. Composer James Horner returned to expand his themes from the previous film.

The Search for Spock opened on June 1, 1984. In its first week of release, the film grossed over $16 million from almost 2,000 theaters across North America. It went on to gross $76 million at the domestic box office, with a total of $87 million worldwide.

Critical reaction to The Search for Spock was positive, but notably less so than the previous film. Reviewers generally praised the cast and characters, while criticism tended to focus on the plot; the special effects were conflictingly received. Roger Ebert called the film a compromise between the tones of the first and second Star Trek films. 

The Search for Spock has since been released on multiple home video formats, including VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray high definition discs. Nimoy went on to direct The Search for Spock's sequel, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Box Office Receipts: $87 Million.

Plot:

​​The Federation Starship Enterprise returns to Earth following a battle with the superhuman Khan Noonien Singh, who tried to destroy the Enterprise by detonating an experimental terraforming device known as Genesis. The casualties of the fight include Admiral James T. Kirk's Vulcan friend, Spock, whose casket was launched into space and eventually landed on the planet created by the Genesis Device.

On arriving at Earth Spacedock, Doctor Leonard McCoy begins to act strangely and is detained. Commander-Starfleet, Admiral Morrow visits the Enterprise and informs the crew the ship is to be decommissioned; the crew is ordered not to speak about Genesis due to political fallout over the device.

David Marcus (Merritt Butrick)—Kirk's son, a key scientist in Genesis's development—and Lieutenant Saavik (Robin Curtis) are investigating the Genesis planet on board the science vessel Grissom. Discovering an unexpected life form on the surface, Marcus and Saavik transport to the planet.

They find that the Genesis Device has resurrected Spock in the form of a child, although his mind is not present. Marcus admits that he used unstable "protomatter" in the development of the Genesis Device, causing Spock to age rapidly and meaning the planet will be destroyed within hours. Meanwhile, Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), the commander of a Klingon vessel, intercepts information about Genesis. Believing the device to be potentially useful as a weapon, he takes his cloaked ship to the Genesis planet, destroys the Grissom, and searches the planet for the survivors.

Spock's father, Sarek (Mark Lenard), confronts Kirk about his son's death. The pair learn that before he died, Spock transferred his katra, or living spirit, to McCoy. Spock's katra and body are needed to lay him to rest on his homeworld, Vulcan, and without help, McCoy will die from carrying the katra. Disobeying orders, Kirk and his officers spring McCoy from detention, disable the USS Excelsior, and steal the Enterprise from Spacedock to return to the Genesis planet to retrieve Spock's body.

On Genesis, the Klingons capture Marcus, Saavik and Spock and before Kruge can interrogate them their ship signals that the Enterprise has arrived and Kruge immediately beams back to the Bird of Prey.

In orbit, the undermanned Enterprise is attacked and disabled by Kruge. In the standoff that follows, Kruge orders that one of the hostages on the surface be executed. Marcus is killed defending Saavik and Spock. Kirk and company feign surrender and activate the Enterprise's self-destruct sequence, killing the Klingon boarding party while the Enterprise crew transports to the planet's surface.

Promising the secret of Genesis, Kirk lures Kruge to the planet and has him beam his crew to the Klingon vessel. As the Genesis planet disintegrates, Kirk and Kruge engage in a fistfight; Kirk emerges victorious after kicking Kruge off a cliff into a lava flow. Kirk and his officers take control of the Klingon ship and head to Vulcan.

There, Spock's katra is reunited with his body in a dangerous procedure called fal-tor-pan. The ceremony is successful and Spock is resurrected, alive and well, though his memories are fragmented. At Kirk's prompting, Spock remembers he called Kirk "Jim" and recognizes the crew.

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Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
YouTube Video of the Trailer for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
​Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a 1986 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the fourth feature film based on Star Trek, and is a sequel to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984). It completes the story arc begun in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and continued in The Search for Spock.

Intent on returning home to Earth to face trial for their actions in the previous film, the former crew of the USS Enterprise finds the planet in grave danger from an alien probe attempting to contact now-extinct humpback whales. The crew travel to Earth's past to find whales who can answer the probe's call.

After directing The Search for Spock, cast member Leonard Nimoy was asked to direct the next feature, and given greater freedom regarding the film's content. Nimoy and producer Harve Bennett conceived a story with an environmental message and no clear-cut villain.

Dissatisfied with the first screenplay produced by Steve Meerson and Peter Krikes, Paramount hired The Wrath of Khan writer and director Nicholas Meyer. Meyer and Bennett divided the story between them and wrote different parts of the script, requiring approval from Nimoy, lead actor William Shatner, and Paramount. Principal photography commenced on February 24, 1986.

Unlike previous Star Trek films, The Voyage Home was shot extensively on location; many real settings and buildings were used as stand-ins for scenes set around and in the city of San Francisco. Special effects firm Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) assisted in post-production and the film's special effects. Few of the humpback whales in the film were real: ILM devised full-size animatronics and small motorized models to stand in for the real creatures.

The Voyage Home was released on November 26, 1986 in North America, and became the top-grossing film at the weekend box office. The film's humor and unconventional story were well received by critics, fans of the series and the general audience. It was financially successful, earning $133 million worldwide. The film earned several awards and four Academy Award nominations for its cinematography and audio.

The movie was dedicated to the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger, which broke up 73 seconds after takeoff on the morning of January 28, 1986. Principal photography for The Voyage Home began four weeks after Challenger and its crew were lost.

Plot:
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In 2286, an enormous cylindrical probe moves through space, sending out an indecipherable signal and disabling the power of ships it passes. As it takes up orbit around Earth, its signal disables the global power grid and generates planetary storms, creating catastrophic, sun-blocking cloud cover. Starfleet Command sends out a planetary distress call and warns starships not to approach Earth.

On the planet Vulcan, the former officers of the USS Enterprise are living in exile (after the events of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock). Accompanied by the Vulcan Spock, still recovering from his resurrection, the crew — except for Saavik, who remains on Vulcan — take their captured Klingon Bird of Prey vessel (renamed the Bounty, after the Royal Navy ship) and return to Earth to face trial for their actions.

Hearing Starfleet's warning, Spock determines that the probe's signal matches the song of extinct humpback whales, and that the object will continue to wreak havoc until its call is answered. The crew uses their ship to travel back in time via a slingshot maneuver around the Sun, planning to return with a whale to answer the alien signal.

Arriving in 1986, the crew finds their ship's power drained. Hiding their ship in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park using its cloaking device, the crew split up to accomplish several tasks: Admiral James T. Kirk and Spock attempt to locate humpback whales, while Montgomery Scott, Leonard McCoy, and Hikaru Sulu construct a tank to hold the whales they need for a return to the 23rd century. 

Uhura and Pavel Chekov are tasked to find a nuclear reactor, whose energy leakage will enable their ship's power to be restored.

Kirk and Spock discover a pair of whales in the care of Dr. Gillian Taylor at a Sausalito aquarium, and learn they will soon be released into the wild. Kirk tells her of his mission and asks for the tracking frequency for the whales, but she refuses to cooperate.

Meanwhile, Scott, McCoy, and Sulu trade the formula of transparent aluminum for the materials needed for the whale tank. Uhura and Chekov locate a nuclear powered ship, the aircraft carrier Enterprise. They collect the power they need, but are discovered on board.

Uhura is beamed back but Chekov is captured and severely injured in an escape attempt.
Taylor learns the whales have been released early, and goes to Kirk for assistance. Taylor, Kirk, and McCoy rescue Chekov and return to the now recharged Bird of Prey.

After transporting the whales aboard the ship, the crew returns with Taylor to their own time. On approaching Earth, the ship loses power and comes down in San Francisco Bay. Once released, the whales respond to the probe's signal, causing the object to reverse its effects on Earth and return to the depths of space.

All charges against the Enterprise crew are dropped, save one for insubordination: for disobeying a superior officer, Kirk is demoted from Admiral back to the rank of Captain where he is returned to command of a starship. The crew departs on their ship, the newly christened USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A), and leaves on a new mission.

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Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a 1989 American science fiction film directed by William Shatner and based on the television series of the same name created by Gene Roddenberry. It is the fifth installment in the Star Trek film series. Taking place shortly after the events of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), its plot follows the crew of the USS Enterprise-A as they confront a renegade Vulcan, Sybok, who is searching for God at the center of the galaxy.

The film was directed by cast member William Shatner, following two films being directed by his co-star Leonard Nimoy. Shatner also developed the initial storyline, in which Sybok searches for God, but instead finds an alien being. Series creator Gene Roddenberry disliked the original script, while Nimoy and DeForest Kelley objected to the premise that their characters, Spock and Leonard McCoy, would betray Shatner's James T. Kirk.

The script went through multiple revisions to please the cast and Paramount Pictures, including cuts in the effects-laden climax of the film. Despite a writers'-guild strike cutting into the film's pre-production, Paramount commenced filming in October 1988.

Many Star Trek veterans assisted in the film's production; art director Nilo Rodis developed the designs for many of the film's locales, shots, and characters, while Herman Zimmerman served as its production designer. Production problems plagued the film on set and during location shooting in Yosemite National Park and the Mojave Desert.

As effects house Industrial Light & Magic's best crews were busy and would be too expensive, the production used Bran Ferren's company for the film's effects, which had to be revised several times in order to lower production costs. The film's ending was reworked because of poor test-audience reaction, and the failure of planned special effects. Jerry Goldsmith, composer for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, returned to score The Final Frontier.

The Final Frontier was released in North America on June 9, 1989, by Paramount Pictures. It had the highest opening gross of any Star Trek film in at that point and was number one in its first week at the box office, but its grosses quickly dropped in subsequent weeks. The film received generally mixed to poor reviews by critics on release, and according to its producer, "nearly killed the franchise". The next entry in the series, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), received a more positive reception.

Plot:

The crew of the newly commissioned USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) are enjoying shore leave after the starship's shakedown cruise goes poorly. At Yosemite National Park James T. Kirk, recently demoted back to Captain after the events of the previous two films, is camping with Spock and Dr. Leonard McCoy. Their leave is interrupted when the Enterprise is ordered by Starfleet Command to rescue human, Klingon, and Romulan hostages on the planet Nimbus III. Learning of the Enterprise's mission, the Klingon Captain Klaa decides to pursue Kirk for personal glory.

On Nimbus III, the Enterprise crew discovers that renegade Vulcan Sybok, Spock's half-brother, is behind the hostage crisis. Sybok reveals the hostage situation was a ruse to lure a starship to Nimbus III. Sybok wants to use a ship to reach the mythical planet Sha Ka Ree, the place where creation began; the planet lies behind a seemingly impenetrable barrier near the center of the galaxy.

Sybok uses his unique ability to reveal and heal the innermost pain of a person through the mind meld to subvert the wills of the hostages and crew members. Only Spock and Kirk prove resistant to Sybok; Spock is unmoved by the experience and Kirk refuses the Vulcan's offer, telling him that his pain is what makes him human. Sybok reluctantly declares a truce with Kirk, realizing he needs his leadership experience to navigate the Enterprise to Sha Ka Ree.

The Enterprise successfully breaches the barrier, pursued by Klaa's vessel, and discovers a lone blue planet. Sybok, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy journey to the surface, where Sybok calls out to his perceived vision of God. An entity appears, and when told of how Sybok breached the barrier, demands that the starship be brought closer to the planet. When a skeptical Kirk inquires, "What does God need with a starship?", the entity attacks him in retribution. The others doubt a god who would inflict harm on people for pleasure.

Realizing his foolishness, Sybok sacrifices himself in an effort to combat the creature and allow the others to escape. Intent on stopping the being, Kirk orders the Enterprise to fire a photon torpedo at their location, to little effect. Spock and McCoy are beamed back to the ship, but Klaa's vessel attacks the Enterprise before Kirk can be transported aboard.

The vengeful entity reappears and tries to kill Kirk when Klaa's vessel destroys it in a hail of fire. Kirk is beamed aboard the Klingon ship, where Spock and the Klingon General Korrd force Klaa to stand down. The Enterprise and Klingon crews celebrate a new détente, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy resume their vacation at Yosemite.

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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
YouTube Video of the Trailer for the Movie "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country"
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is a 1991 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the sixth feature film based on Star Trek, and a sequel to the 1966–1969 Star Trek television series.

Taking place after the events of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, it is the last film featuring the entire cast of the original series. After the destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis leads the Klingon Empire to pursue peace with their long-time adversary the Federation, the crew of the USS Enterprise must race against unseen conspirators with a militaristic agenda.

The sixth film in the series was initially planned as a prequel to the original series, with younger actors portraying the crew of the Enterprise while attending Starfleet Academy, but the idea was discarded because of negative reaction from the original cast and the fans.

Faced with producing a new film in time for Star Trek's 25th anniversary, Nicholas Meyer, the director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Denny Martin Flinn wrote a script based on a suggestion from Leonard Nimoy about what would happen if "the Wall came down in space", touching on the contemporary events of the Cold War.

Principal photography took place between April and September 1991. The production budget was smaller than anticipated because of the critical and commercial disappointment of The Final Frontier. Because of a lack of sound stage space on the Paramount lot, many scenes were filmed around Hollywood. Meyer and cinematographer Hiro Narita aimed for a darker and more dramatic mood, subtly altering sets originally used for the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Producer Steven-Charles Jaffe led a second unit that filmed on an Alaskan glacier that stood in for a Klingon gulag. Cliff Eidelman produced the film's score, which is intentionally darker than previous Star Trek offerings.

The film was released in North America on December 6, 1991. The Undiscovered Country garnered positive reviews, with publications praising the lighthearted acting and facetious references. The film performed strongly at the box office. It posted the largest opening weekend gross of the series before going on to earn $96,888,996 worldwide.

The film earned two Academy Award nominations, for Best Makeup and Best Sound Effects, and is the only Star Trek movie to win the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. A special collectors' edition DVD version of the film was released in 2004, to which Meyer had made minor alterations. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry died shortly before the movie's premiere, just days after viewing the film. The film marked the final appearance together of the original series' cast.

Plot:

As a Klingon moon, Praxis, explodes without warning, the starship USS Excelsior, commanded by Captain Hikaru Sulu, is struck by the shock wave and its crew discovers that much of the moon has been obliterated. The loss of their key energy production facility and the destruction of the Klingon homeworld's ozone layer throws the Klingon Empire into turmoil. No longer able to maintain a hostile footing, the Klingons sue for peace with their longstanding enemy, the United Federation of Planets.

Accepting the proposal before the Klingons revert to a more belligerent approach, Starfleet sends the USS Enterprise-A to meet with the Klingon Chancellor, Gorkon, and escort him to negotiations on Earth. Enterprise's captain, James T. Kirk, whose son David was murdered by Klingons years earlier, opposes the negotiations and resents his assignment.

After a rendezvous between Enterprise and Gorkon's battlecruiser they continue towards Earth, with the crews sharing a tense meal aboard Enterprise. Later that night, Enterprise appears to fire on the Klingon ship with a pair of photon torpedoes, disabling the artificial gravity aboard the Klingon vessel. During the confusion, two figures wearing Starfleet suits and gravity boots beam aboard the Klingon ship and grievously wound Gorkon before beaming away.

Kirk surrenders to avoid a fight, and beams aboard the Klingon ship with Doctor Leonard McCoy to attempt to save Gorkon's life. The chancellor dies, and Gorkon's chief of staff, General Chang, puts Kirk and McCoy on trial for his assassination. The pair are found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on the frozen asteroid Rura Penthe.

Gorkon's daughter, Azetbur, becomes the new chancellor, and continues diplomatic negotiations; for reasons of security, the conference is relocated and the new location is kept secret. While several senior Starfleet officers want to rescue Kirk and McCoy, the Federation president refuses to risk full-scale war. Azetbur likewise refuses to invade Federation space, stating that only Kirk and McCoy will pay for her father's death.

Kirk and McCoy arrive at the Rura Penthe mines and are befriended by a shapeshifter named Martia, who offers them an escape route; in reality, it is a ruse to make their arranged deaths appear accidental. Once her betrayal is revealed, Martia transforms into Kirk's double and fights him, but she is killed by the prison guards to silence any witnesses.

Just before the prison warden reveals who set them up, Kirk and McCoy are beamed aboard Enterprise by Captain Spock, who had assumed command and undertaken an investigation in Kirk's absence. Determining that Enterprise did not fire the torpedoes but that the assassins are still aboard, the crew begins looking for them. The two assassins are found dead, but Kirk and Spock trick their accomplice into believing they are still alive.

When the culprit arrives in Sickbay to finish off the assassins, Kirk and Spock discover that the killer is Spock's protégé, Valeris. To discover the identity of the conspirators, Spock initiates a forced mind-meld, and learns that a group of Federation, Klingon, and Romulan officers plotted to sabotage the peace talks, fearing the changes their success might bring the titular "undiscovered country", and Chang is one of the conspirators.

The torpedoes that struck Gorkon's cruiser came from a prototype Bird of Prey that can fire while cloaked, and hovered just below Enterprise at the time of the assassination.

The crew contacts Sulu, who informs them the conference is being held at Camp Khitomer. Both ships head for the talks as fast as they can. As Enterprise nears the planet, Chang's cloaked Bird of Prey moves to intercept. With Enterprise unable to track his ship's position, Chang inflicts severe damage on Enterprise and then Excelsior. At the suggestion of Uhura, the Enterprise's communication officer, Spock and McCoy modify a photon torpedo to home in on the exhaust emissions of Chang's vessel, using equipment originally intended to study gaseous anomalies.

The torpedo impact reveals Chang's location, and Enterprise and Excelsior destroy the Bird of Prey with a volley of torpedoes. Crew from both ships beam to the conference and halt an attempt on the Federation president's life. Kirk pleads for those present to continue the peace process. Having saved the peace talks, Enterprise is ordered back to Earth by Starfleet Command to be decommissioned, but the crew decide to take their time on the return voyage. As Enterprise cruises towards a nearby star, Kirk proclaims that though this mission is the final cruise of Enterprise under his command, others will continue their voyages.

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Star Trek Generations (1994)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Star Trek Generations"
Star Trek Generations is a 1994 American science fiction film directed by David Carson and based on the franchise of the same name created by Gene Roddenberry. It is the seventh film in the Star Trek film series, as well as the first to star the cast of the series Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the film, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise-D teams up with his predecessor, Captain James T. Kirk, to stop a villain from destroying a planet.

Parts of the film were shot at the Valley of Fire State Park near Overton, Nevada, Paramount Studios, and Lone Pine, California. While the film received mixed reviews from critics, it performed well at the box office.

Plot:
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In the year 2293, retired Captain James T. Kirk, Montgomery Scott, and Pavel Chekov attend the maiden voyage of the Federation starship USS Enterprise-B, under the command of the unseasoned Capt. John Harriman. During the voyage, Enterprise is pressed into a rescue mission to save two El-Aurian ships from a strange energy ribbon. Enterprise is able to save some of the refugees before their ships are destroyed, but the starship becomes trapped in the ribbon. Kirk goes to deflector control to alter the deflector dish, allowing Enterprise to escape, but the trailing end of the ribbon rakes across Enterprise's hull, exposing the section Kirk is in to space; he is presumed dead.

In 2371, the crew of the USS Enterprise-D celebrate the promotion of Worf to Lieutenant Commander. Captain Jean-Luc Picard receives a message that his brother and nephew were killed in a fire, meaning the storied Picard family line will end with him. Enterprise receives a distress call from an observatory in orbit of the star Amargosa, where they rescue the El-Aurian Dr. Tolian Soran.

The android Data and engineer Geordi La Forge discover a compound called trilithium in a hidden room of the observatory. Soran appears, knocks La Forge unconscious, and launches a trilithium solar probe at Amargosa. The probe causes the star to implode, sending a shock wave toward the observatory. Soran and La Forge are transported away by a Klingon Bird of Prey belonging to the treacherous Duras sisters, who had stolen the trilithium for Soran in exchange for the designs for a trilithium weapon. Data is rescued just before the station is destroyed by the shock wave.

Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), Enterprise's bartender, tells Captain Jean-Luc Picard more about Soran; they were among the El-Aurians rescued by the Enterprise-B in 2293. Guinan explains that Soran is obsessed with reentering the "Nexus", an extra-dimensional realm where time has no meaning and anyone can experience whatever they desire.

Picard and Data determine that Soran, unable to fly a ship into the ribbon due to the uncertainty that the ship will survive long enough to ensure his success, is instead altering the path of the ribbon by destroying stars, and that he will attempt to re-enter the Nexus on Veridian III by destroying its sun—and, by extension, a heavily populated planet in the system.

Upon entering the Veridian system, Enterprise makes contact with the Duras Bird of Prey. Picard offers himself to the sisters in exchange for La Forge, but insists that he be transported to Soran's location first. La Forge is returned to Enterprise, but he inadvertently reveals Enterprise's shield frequency, allowing the Duras sisters to inflict crippling damage on Enterprise. Enterprise destroys the Bird of Prey, but has sustained irreversible damage to its warp core.

Commander William Riker orders an evacuation to the forward saucer section of the ship which separates from the star drive. The shock wave from the star drive's destruction sends the saucer crashing to the surface of Veridian III.

Picard fails to talk Soran out of his plan and is too late to stop him from launching his missile. The collapse of the Veridian star alters the course of the Nexus ribbon as predicted, and it sweeps Picard and Soran away while the shock wave from the star obliterates everything in the system.

In the Nexus, Picard finds himself surrounded by the family he never had, including a wife and children, but realizes it is an illusion. He is confronted by an "echo" of Guinan. After being told that he may leave whenever he chooses and go wherever and whenever he wishes, Guinan sends him to meet Kirk, also safe in the Nexus.

Though Kirk is at first reluctant to leave, Picard convinces Kirk to return to Picard's present and stop Soran by assuring him that it will fulfill his desire to make a difference.

​Leaving the Nexus, the two arrive on Veridian III minutes before Soran launches the missile. Kirk distracts Soran long enough for Picard to lock the missile in place, causing it to explode on the launchpad and kill Soran. Kirk is fatally injured by a fall during the encounter; as he dies, Picard assures him that he made a difference. Picard buries Kirk before a shuttle arrives to transport him to the wreckage of the Enterprise saucer. Three Federation starships enter orbit to retrieve Enterprise's survivors.

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Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for Star Trek VIII: First Contact ​
Star Trek: First Contact is a 1996 American science fiction film directed by Jonathan Frakes in his directorial debut, and based on the franchise of the same name created by Gene Roddenberry. It is the eighth film in the Star Trek film series, as well as the second to star the cast of the series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

In the film, the crew of USS Enterprise-E travel back in time to the mid 21st-century in order to stop the cybernetic Borg from conquering Earth by changing the past.

After the release of the seventh film, Star Trek Generations (1994), Paramount Pictures tasked writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore with developing the next film in the series. Braga and Moore wanted to feature the Borg in the plot, while producer Rick Berman wanted a story involving time travel.

The writers combined the two ideas; they initially set the film during the European Renaissance, but changed the time period that the Borg corrupted to the mid-21st century, after fearing the Renaissance idea would be "too kitsch". After two better-known directors turned down the job, cast member Jonathan Frakes was chosen to direct to make sure the task fell to someone who understood Star Trek. The film's script required the creation of new starship designs, including a new USS Enterprise.

Production designer Herman Zimmerman and illustrator John Eaves collaborated to make a sleeker ship than its predecessor. Principal photography began with weeks of location shooting in Arizona and California, before production moved to new sets for the ship-based scenes.

The Borg were redesigned to appear as though they were converted into machine beings from the inside-out; the new makeup sessions took four times as long as their appearances on the television series. Effects company Industrial Light & Magic rushed to complete the film's special effects in less than five months. Traditional optical effects techniques were supplemented with computer-generated imagery. Jerry Goldsmith and his son Joel Goldsmith collaborated to produce the film's score.

First Contact was the highest-grossing film on its opening weekend, making $92 million in the United States and Canada with an additional $54 million in other territories, combining a worldwide total of $146 million. Critical reception was mostly positive; critics including Roger Ebert considered it to be one of the best Star Trek films.

The Borg and the special effects were lauded, while characterization was less evenly received. Scholarly analysis of the film has focused on Captain Jean-Luc Picard's parallels to Herman Melville's Ahab and the nature of the Borg. First Contact was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Makeup and won three Saturn Awards.

Plot:
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​In a nightmare, Captain Jean-Luc Picard relives his assimilation six years earlier by the cybernetic Borg. When he wakes, Starfleet informs him of a new Borg attack against the Federation; but as he is believed to be a liability, the USS Enterprise-E is ordered to patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone.

Intercepting the overwhelmed fleet's audio communications, Picard disobeys orders and heads the Enterprise for Earth, where a single, damaged Borg cube is destroying opposing Starfleet vessels. The Enterprise arrives in time to save the crew of the USS Defiant, commanded by Worf.

Picard takes command of the fleet and, after hearing Borg communications in his mind, orders it to concentrate its firepower on a seemingly non-vital section of the Borg ship. The cube is destroyed, but manages to launch a smaller sphere ship towards the planet before disintegrating.

The Borg sphere generates a temporal vortex, and enters it, and suddenly the Earth is populated entirely by Borg. Picard realizes that the Borg have used time travel to change history, and orders the Enterprise to follow the sphere. The Enterprise arrives in the past on April 4, 2063, a time when the Earth is recovering from World War III—and the day before Zefram Cochrane's historic warp flight and humanity's first encounter with alien life.

The Borg sphere fires on the planet; the Enterprise destroys the sphere. Realizing that the Borg were trying to prevent first contact, Picard sends an away team to look for survivors at the missile complex in Montana where Cochrane is building his ship, the Phoenix. Cochrane's assistant, Lily Sloane, opens fire on them but then is overcome with radiation poisoning and taken to the Enterprise by Dr. Crusher.

After hearing Borg voices in his head, Picard rushes back to the Enterprise with Data, leaving Commander William Riker and Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge on Earth to make sure the Phoenix's flight proceeds as planned. They see Cochrane as a legendary hero, but the real man is reluctant to assume his historical role.

When Picard returns to the Enterprise, he discovers that survivors from the Borg sphere have invaded it and are beginning to assimilate its crew. Clearly they will also assimilate the ship and use it to attack and conquer Earth. Picard and a team attempt to reach engineering to disable the Borg with corrosive coolant used in the warp core.

The assault fails and Data is captured; he meets the queen of the Borg Collective, who attempts to turn him to her side. A frightened Sloane seizes the captain, but he gains her trust and they escape the Borg-infested area of the ship by using the holodeck to create a weapon.

Picard, Worf, and the ship's navigator, Lieutenant Hawk, stop the Borg from using the deflector dish to call reinforcements, but Hawk is assimilated. As the Borg continue to assimilate, Worf suggests destroying the ship, but Picard angrily calls him a coward and vows to continue the fight.

Sloane confronts the captain and, reminding him of Moby-Dick's Captain Ahab, makes him realize his own irrational behavior. Picard activates the ship's self-destruct mechanism, orders the crew to abandon ship, and then apologizes to Worf. While the crew heads to escape pods, Picard remains aboard to rescue Data.

As Cochrane, Riker, and La Forge prepare to activate the warp drive on the Phoenix, Picard confronts the Borg Queen and discovers she has grafted human skin onto Data, giving him an array of new sensations. She has presented this modification as a gift to the android, hoping to obtain his encryption codes to the Enterprise computer.

Although Picard offers himself in Data's place, the android refuses to leave. He deactivates the self-destruct sequence and fires torpedoes at the Phoenix, but they miss and the Queen realizes Data has betrayed her. Data ruptures a coolant tank, and the corrosive substance fatally dissolves the Borg Queen's biological components.

Cochrane completes his warp flight in the Phoenix, and that night, April 5, the crew watches as Vulcans, attracted by the warp flight, land and greet him. Having repaired history, the Enterprise crew returns to the 24th century.

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​Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Star Trek: Insurrection"
Star Trek: Insurrection is a 1998 American science fiction film directed by Jonathan Frakes and based on the franchise of the same name created by Gene Roddenberry. It is the ninth film in the Star Trek film series, as well as the third to star the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, with F. Murray Abraham, Donna Murphy and Anthony Zerbe appearing in main roles.

In the film, the crew of the USS Enterprise-E rebels against Starfleet, after they discover a conspiracy with a species known as the Son'a to steal the peaceful Ba'ku's planet for its rejuvenating properties.

Paramount Pictures sought a change in pace after the previous film in the series, Star Trek: First Contact (1996). Michael Piller was asked to write its script, which was created from story ideas by Piller and executive producer Rick Berman.

The story's first drafts featured the Romulans, and the Son'a and Ba'ku were introduced in its third draft. After Ira Steven Behr reviewed the script, Piller revised it and added a subplot involving a romantic interest for Jean-Luc Picard. The film's ending was further revised after test screenings.

The special effects depicting outer space were completely computer generated, a first for a Star Trek film. The Ba'ku village was fully built on location at Lake Sherwood, California, but suffered weather damage. Sets from the television series Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were reused and redressed. Michael Westmore created the make-up for the new alien races, and Robert Blackman revised the Starfleet dress uniform designs. Sanja Milkovic Hayes created costumes for the Ba'ku from cellulose fibers, which were baked and glued together. Jerry Goldsmith produced the film's score; his fourth for the franchise.

Insurrection was the highest-grossing film on its opening weekend, making $70.1 million in the United States and Canada and an additional $42.4 million in other territories, for a theatrical run of about $112.5 million worldwide.

Critical responses to the film were mixed; the performance of Patrick Stewart and the directing of Jonathan Frakes were praised, while other critics compared it to an extended episode of the television series. Insurrection was nominated for both a Saturn Award and a Hugo Award, but the only award it received was a Youth in Film Award for Michael Welch.

Plot:
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Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) is temporarily transferred to an undercover mission observing the peaceful Ba'ku people. While on their planet, he malfunctions and reveals the presence of the joint Federation–Son'a task force observing the Ba'ku. Admiral Matthew Dougherty (Anthony Zerbe) contacts the USS Enterprise-E to obtain Data's schematics but adamantly states the presence of the Enterprise is not needed.

Captain Picard decides to ignore these orders and takes the Enterprise to capture Data. After stopping Data, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) becomes suspicious of Dougherty's insistence that the Enterprise is no longer needed. His crew investigates the cause of Data's malfunction.

They discover that the Ba'ku have advanced technology, but have rejected its use to live simpler lives. Due to unique radiation or "metaphasic particles" emanating from their planet's rings, they are effectively immortal. Dougherty's allies, the Son'a, are a decrepit race who use medical techniques to prevent death; their excessive use of cosmetic surgery gives them a mummified appearance.

The Enterprise crew also begin to experience the rejuvenation effects of the planet: Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) finds his eyes have regenerated and he no longer requires ocular implants; Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) rekindle their long-abandoned relationship; and Picard develops a romantic relationship with the Ba'ku woman Anij (Donna Murphy).

Data and Picard discover a submerged and cloaked Federation ship containing a gigantic holodeck set up to recreate the Ba'ku village. Data's malfunction stems from a Son'a attack, received when he discovered the vessel. Picard confronts Dougherty and learns that top Federation officers and the Son'a secretly planned to deceptively move the Ba'ku to the ship and forcibly relocate them to another planet, allowing the Son'a to collect the rejuvenating radiation (but poisoning the planet in the process).

Dougherty orders the Enterprise to leave. Picard states the rejuvenation benefit of the radiation does not justify Dougherty's plans for the Ba'ku and violates the Prime Directive. He plans to alert the Federation of the forced relocation.

Picard is joined by some of his crew to help the Ba'ku escape from being abducted while Riker takes the Enterprise to a transmission range and communicate the violation to Star Fleet. The Son'a send robotic probes to locate and capture the fleeing Ba'ku. The Son'a leader, Ahdar Ru'afo (F. Murray Abraham), convinces Dougherty to allow two Son'a ships to attack the Enterprise.

Riker defeats the attacking ships and the Enterprise escapes. Their plan exposed, Ru'afo insists upon harvesting the radiation source immediately. Picard, Anij, and several Ba'ku are transported as prisoners onto the Son'a ship. Picard reveals to Dougherty that the Son'a and the Ba'ku are the same race and involving the Federation in a blood feud. The Son'a are a splinter faction of Ba'ku who gave up their bucolic existence a century earlier to embrace the use of technology.

They attempted to seize power but failed, and the Ba'ku elders exiled them from the planet, denying them the rejuvenating effects of the rings. The Son'a developed an artificial and imperfect means to extend their lives at the cost of disfigurement. Ru'afo kills Admiral Dougherty when he backs out of the plan and Ru'afo proceeds with his plan.

While Picard is escorted to be executed, he convinces the Son'a Gallatin (Gregg Henry) to help him stop Ru'afo. Picard masterminds a ruse to transport Ru'afo and his bridge crew to the holoship and shutdown the harvester. Ru'afo discovers the deception and transports to the radiation harvester ship to manually restart the process.

Picard follows and sets the harvester to self-destruct, which kills Ru'afo while Picard is rescued by the Enterprise. The remaining Son'a are forgiven and welcomed back by the Ba'ku. Picard arranges a meeting between Gallatin and his Ba'ku mother. The Enterprise crew take a moment to enjoy their rejuvenated selves before returning to their previous mission.

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​Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for Star Trek: Nemesis
​Star Trek: Nemesis is a 2002 American science fiction film directed by Stuart Baird and based on the franchise of the same name created by Gene Roddenberry. It is the tenth film in the Star Trek film series, as well as the fourth and last to star the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

It was written by John Logan from a story developed by Logan, Brent Spiner, and producer Rick Berman.

In the film, the crew of the USS Enterprise-E are forced to deal with a threat to the United Federation of Planets from a Reman clone of Captain Picard named Shinzon, who has taken control of the Romulan Star Empire in a coup d'état.

Principal photography for the film took place from November 2001 to March 2002. Jerry Goldsmith composed the film's score. The film was released in North America on December 13, 2002, by Paramount Pictures, and received generally mixed reviews, with publications criticizing it for being the least successful in the Star Trek franchise.

The film went on to earn $67 million worldwide, making it a box office disappointment. Following the failure of the film and the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise, Berman and Erik Jendresen began development on the unproduced Star Trek: The Beginning. Three years later, Viacom split from CBS Corporation, and Paramount eventually rebooted the film series in 2009 with Star Trek, directed by J. J. Abrams.

Plot:

On Romulus members of the Romulan Imperial Senate debate whether to accept the terms of peace and alliance with the Reman rebel leader Shinzon. The Remans are a slave race of the Romulan Empire, used as miners and as cannon fodder. A faction of the military is in support of Shinzon, but the Praetor and senate are opposed to an alliance. After rejecting the motion, the Praetor and remaining senators are disintegrated by a device left in the room by a military-aligned senator.

Meanwhile, the crew of the USS Enterprise-E prepare to bid farewell to first officer Commander William Riker and Counselor Deanna Troi, who are being married on Betazed. En route, they discover a positronic energy reading on a planet in the Kolaran system near the Romulan Neutral Zone. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Lieutenant Commander Worf, and Lieutenant Commander Data land on Kolarus III and discover the remnants of an android resembling Data. When the android is reassembled it introduces itself as B-4. The crew deduce it to be a less-advanced, earlier version of Data.

Picard is contacted by Vice-Admiral Kathryn Janeway and orders the ship on a diplomatic mission to nearby Romulus. Janeway explains that the Romulan Empire has been taken over in a military coup by Shinzon, who says he wants peace with the Federation and to bring freedom to Remus.

On arrival, they learn Shinzon is a clone of Picard, secretly created by Romulans to plant a high-ranking spy into the Federation. The project was abandoned when he was still a child and he was left on Remus to die as a slave. After many years, Shinzon became a leader of the Remans, and constructed his heavily armed flagship, the Scimitar.

Initially, diplomatic efforts go well, but the Enterprise crew discover that the Scimitar is producing low levels of thalaron radiation, which had been used to kill the Imperial Senate and is deadly to nearly all life forms. There are also unexpected attempts to communicate with the Enterprise computers, and Shinzon himself violates Troi's mind through the telepathy of his Reman viceroy.

Dr. Crusher discovers that Shinzon is aging rapidly because of the process used to clone him, and the only possible means to stop the aging is a transfusion of Picard's own blood. Shinzon kidnaps Picard from the Enterprise, as well as B-4, having planted the android on the nearby planet to lure Picard.

However, Data reveals he has swapped places with B-4, rescues Picard, and returns with Picard to the Enterprise. They have now seen enough of the Scimitar to know that Shinzon plans to use the warship to invade the Federation using its thalaron-radiation generator as a weapon, with the eradication of all life on Earth being his first priority.

The Enterprise races back to Federation space but is ambushed by the Scimitar in the Bassen Rift, a region that prevents any subspace communications. Two Romulan Warbirds come to the aid of the Enterprise, as they do not want to be complicit in Shinzon's genocidal plans, but Shinzon destroys one and disables the other. Recognizing the need to stop the Scimitar at all costs, Picard orders the Enterprise to ram the other ship.

The collision leaves both ships heavily damaged and destroys the Scimitar's primary weapons. To assure their mutual destruction, Shinzon activates the thalaron weapon. Picard boards the Scimitar to face Shinzon alone, and eventually kills him by impaling him on a metal strut.

Data jumps the distance between the two ships with a personal transporter to beam Picard back to the Enterprise, and then fires his phaser on the thalaron generator, which destroys the Scimitar, and Data, while saving the Enterprise. The crew mourn Data, and the surviving Romulan commander offers them her gratitude for saving the Empire.

The Enterprise returns to Earth for repairs. Picard bids farewell to newly promoted Captain Riker, who is off to command the USS Titan and begin a possible peace-negotiation mission with the Romulans. Picard meets with B-4, discovering that Data had copied the engrams of his neural net into B-4's positronic matrix before he "died". Though B-4 does not yet act as Data, Picard is assured that he will become like his friend in time.

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​Star Trek Movie (2009)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Star Trek Movie"
​Star Trek is a 2009 American science fiction adventure film directed by J. J. Abrams and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. It is the eleventh film in the Star Trek film franchise, and is also a reboot that features the main characters of the original Star Trek television series portrayed by a new cast, as the first in the rebooted film series.

The film follows James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) aboard USS Enterprise as they combat Nero (Eric Bana), a Romulan from their future who threatens the United Federation of Planets.

The story takes place in an alternate reality because of time travel by both Nero and the original Spock (Leonard Nimoy). The alternate timeline was created in an attempt to free the film and the franchise from established continuity constraints while simultaneously preserving original story elements.

The idea for a prequel film which would follow the Star Trek characters during their time in Starfleet Academy was discussed by series creator Gene Roddenberry in 1968. The concept resurfaced in the late 1980s, when it was postulated by Harve Bennett as a possible plotline for what would become Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but was rejected in lieu of other projects by Roddenberry.

Following the critical and commercial failure of Star Trek: Nemesis and the cancellation of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise, the franchise's executive producer Rick Berman and screenwriter Erik Jendresen wrote an unproduced film titled Star Trek: The Beginning, which would take place after Enterprise.

After the separation of Viacom and CBS Corporation in 2005, former Paramount Pictures president Gail Berman convinced CBS to allow Paramount to produce a new film in the franchise. Orci and Kurtzman, both fans of Star Trek, were approached to write the film, and J. J. Abrams was approached to direct it.

Kurtzman and Orci used inspiration from novels and graduate school dissertations, as well as the series itself. Principal photography commenced on November 7, 2007 and ended on March 27, 2008. The film was shot in various locations around California and Utah.

Abrams wanted to avoid using bluescreen and greenscreen, opting to use sets and locations instead. Heavy secrecy surrounded the film's production and was under the fake working title Corporate Headquarters. Industrial Light & Magic used digital ships for the film, as opposed to the previous films in the franchise. Production for the film concluded by the end of 2008.

Star Trek was heavily promoted in the months preceding its release; pre-release screenings for the film premiered in select cities around the world, including Austin, Texas, Sydney, Australia, and Calgary, Alberta.

It was released in the United States and Canada on May 8, 2009, to critical acclaim; critics praised its character development, as well as its storyline, effects, stunts, action sequences, direction, and its score by Michael Giacchino. 

Star Trek was a box office success, grossing over $385.7 million worldwide against its $150 million production budget. It was nominated for several awards, including four Academy Awards at the 82nd Academy Awards, ultimately winning Best Makeup, making it the first Star Trek film to win an Academy Award.

It was followed by two sequels, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and Star Trek Beyond (2016), with a fourth having been announced.

Plot:
​
In the 23rd century, the Federation starship USS Kelvin is investigating a "lightning storm" in space. A Romulan ship, Narada, emerges from the storm and attacks Kelvin. Narada's first officer, Ayel, demands that Kelvin's Captain Robau come aboard to negotiate a truce. Robau is questioned about the current stardate and an "Ambassador Spock", whom he does not recognize. Narada's commander, Nero, kills him, and resumes attacking Kelvin. George Kirk, Kelvin's first officer, orders the ship's personnel, including his pregnant wife Winona, to abandon ship while he pilots Kelvin on a collision course with Narada. Kirk sacrifices his life to ensure Winona's survival as she gives birth to James T. Kirk.

Seventeen years later on the planet Vulcan, a young Spock is accepted to join the Vulcan Science Academy. Realizing that the Academy views his human mother Amanda as a "disadvantage", he joins Starfleet instead.

On Earth, Kirk becomes a reckless but intelligent young adult. Following a bar fight with Starfleet cadets accompanying Nyota Uhura, Kirk meets Captain Christopher Pike, who encourages him to enlist in Starfleet Academy, where Kirk meets and befriends doctor Leonard McCoy.

Three years later, Commander Spock accuses Kirk of cheating during the Kobayashi Maru simulation. Kirk argues that cheating was acceptable because the simulation was designed to be unbeatable. The disciplinary hearing is interrupted by a distress signal from Vulcan. With the primary fleet out of range, the cadets are mobilized. McCoy and Kirk board Pike's ship, the Enterprise. Realizing that the "lightning storm" observed near Vulcan is similar to the one that occurred when he was born, Kirk breaks protocol to convince Pike that the distress signal is a trap.

Enterprise arrives to find the fleet destroyed and Narada drilling into Vulcan's core. Narada attacks Enterprise and Pike surrenders, delegating command of the ship to Spock and promoting Kirk to first officer. Kirk, Hikaru Sulu and Chief Engineer Olson perform a space jump onto the drilling platform. Olson is killed but Kirk and Sulu disable the drill. Despite their efforts, Nero launches "red matter" into Vulcan's core, forming an artificial black hole that destroys Vulcan. Spock rescues the high council and his father Sarek, but Amanda dies.

As Narada moves toward Earth, Nero tortures Pike to gain access to Earth's defense codes. Spock maroons Kirk on Delta Vega after Kirk attempts mutiny. Kirk encounters an older Spock, who explains that he and Nero are from 129 years in the future. In that future, Romulus was threatened by a supernova.

Spock's attempt to use "red matter" to create an artificial black hole and consume the supernova failed, and Nero's family perished along with Romulus. Narada and Spock's vessel were caught in the black hole, sending them back in time. Nero stranded Spock on Delta Vega to watch Vulcan's destruction.

Reaching a Starfleet outpost on Delta Vega, Kirk and the elder Spock meet Montgomery Scott. With the elder Spock's help, Kirk and Scott beam onto Enterprise. Following the elder Spock's advice, Kirk provokes younger Spock into attacking him, forcing Spock to recognize himself as emotionally compromised and relinquish command to Kirk.

After talking with Sarek, Spock decides to help Kirk. While Enterprise hides itself within the gas clouds of Titan, Kirk and Spock beam aboard Narada. Kirk fights with Nero and Ayel, killing the latter and rescuing Pike, while Spock uses the elder Spock's ship to destroy the drill.

Spock leads Narada away from Earth and sets his ship to collide with Nero's ship. Enterprise beams Kirk, Pike, and Spock aboard. The older Spock's ship and Narada collide, igniting the "red matter". Kirk offers Nero help to escape, but Nero refuses, prompting Kirk to give the order to fire, dooming Narada to be consumed in a black hole.

Kirk is promoted to Captain and given command of Enterprise while Pike is promoted to Rear Admiral. Spock encounters his older self, who persuades his younger self to continue serving in Starfleet, encouraging him to do, for once, what feels right instead of what is logical. Spock remains in Starfleet, becoming first officer under Kirk's command. Enterprise goes to warp as the elder Spock speaks the "where no one has gone before" monologue.

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​
​Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Star Trek Into Darkness"
Star Trek Into Darkness is a 2013 American science fiction action film directed by J. J. Abrams and written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof. It is the twelfth installment in the Star Trek film franchise and the sequel to the 2009 film Star Trek, as the second in a rebooted film series.

The film features Chris Pine reprising his role as Captain James T. Kirk, with Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, and Leonard Nimoy reprising their roles from the previous film. 

Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller are also credited in the film's principal cast. It was the last time Nimoy would portray the character of Spock before his death in 2015. Set in the 23rd century, Kirk and the crew of USS Enterprise are sent to the Klingon homeworld seeking former Starfleet member-turned terrorist John Harrison.

After the release of Star Trek, Abrams, Burk, Lindelof, Kurtzman, and Orci agreed to produce its sequel. Filming began in January 2012. Into Darkness's visual effects were primarily created by Industrial Light & Magic. The film was converted to 3D during its post-production stage.

Star Trek Into Darkness premiered at Event Cinemas in Sydney, Australia, on April 23, 2013, and was released on May 9 in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Peru, with other countries following. The film was released on May 17 in the United States and Canada, opening at IMAX cinemas a day earlier. 

Into Darkness was a financial success and received positive reviews from critics. Its gross earnings of over $467 million worldwide have made it the highest-grossing entry in the Star Trek franchise. At the 86th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

It was followed by Star Trek Beyond in 2016.

Plot:
​
In 2259, Captain James T. Kirk is removed from command of the starship USS Enterprise for violating the Prime Directive: he exposed the ship to the primitive inhabitants of the planet Nibiru in order to save them, and Spock, from a cataclysmic volcanic eruption.

Admiral Christopher Pike is reinstated as commanding officer with Kirk demoted to the rank of Commander and first officer. Commander Spock is transferred to another ship. Shortly after, the Section 31 installation in London is bombed, perpetrated by the renegade Starfleet operative John Harrison. Harrison then attacks Starfleet Headquarters in a jumpship during the emergency meeting about the situation, killing Pike and other senior officers. Kirk disables the jumpship by throwing a rifle into one of its engines, but Harrison escapes by transporting to Kronos, the homeworld of the hostile Klingons.

Admiral Alexander Marcus reinstates Kirk and Spock to Enterprise with orders to kill Harrison by using a new Long Range Stealth Photon torpedo. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott strongly objects to allowing untested torpedoes on board the ship without knowing any specifications but when he is overruled he resigns from his post.

Kirk assigns Pavel Chekov to replace Scotty. En route to Kronos, Enterprise's warp capabilities mysteriously become disabled. Kirk leads a team with Spock and Uhura onto the planet in a small landing craft, where they are ambushed by Klingon patrols who order them to land. Uhura leaves the landing craft to talk to the Klingons, but they don't care that Harrison is on their planet. They instead decide to kill Uhura, but Harrison, with a little help from Kirk and the landing party, manage to kill the Klingons. After the battle, Harrison comes up to Kirk demanding to know the number of torpedoes on board the Enterprise and surrenders when Spock tells him.

Dr. Leonard McCoy and Marcus's daughter, Dr. Carol Marcus, open a torpedo at Harrison's behest. Inside is a man in cryogenic stasis. Every torpedo aboard Enterprise contains a human in stasis. Harrison is taken to the ship's brig, where reveals his true identity as Khan, a genetically engineered superhuman awakened by Admiral Marcus from centuries of suspended animation to develop advanced weapons of war against the Klingon Empire.

Khan reveals that Marcus had sabotaged Enterprise's warp drive, intending for the Klingons to destroy the ship after it fired on Kronos, creating an act of war by the Klingon Empire. Khan also gives Kirk a set of coordinates. Kirk contacts Scotty on Earth and asks him to investigate. Scotty discovers they lead to a covert Starfleet facility near Jupiter.

Enterprise is intercepted by a Starfleet designed but much larger warship, USS Vengeance, commanded by Admiral Marcus. Marcus demands that Kirk deliver Khan, but Enterprise, with a hastily repaired warp drive, flees to Earth to expose Marcus.

After Vengeance intercepts and disables Enterprise near the Moon, Kirk reveals Carol's presence aboard the ship. Marcus forcibly transports Carol to Vengeance before ordering Enterprise's destruction, Kirk offers Khan and himself for the lives of his crew, but Marcus rejects Kirk's offer and orders Vengeance to attack. However, Vengeance suddenly loses power, sabotaged by Scotty, who infiltrated the ship.

With transporters down, Kirk and Khan, with the latter's knowledge of the warship's design, space-jump to Vengeance. Spock contacts his older self, who warns that Khan is ruthless and untrustworthy, and, in another reality, was only defeated at a terrible cost. Meanwhile, after capturing the bridge, Khan overpowers Kirk, Scott, and Carol, kills Marcus, and takes control of Vengeance.

Khan demands that Spock return his crew sealed in the cryogenic tubes in exchange for Enterprise officers. Spock complies but surreptitiously removes Khan's frozen crew and arms the warheads. Khan beams Kirk, Scott, and Carol back aboard Enterprise, but betrays their agreement by critically damaging Enterprise; however, Vengeance is disabled when the torpedoes detonate.

With both starships caught in Earth's gravity, they plummet toward the surface. Kirk enters the radioactive reactor chamber to realign the warp core where he sacrifices himself in the process to save the ship.

Khan crashes the Vengeance into downtown San Francisco in an attempt to destroy Starfleet headquarters, destroying some of the city. Khan survives and escapes the wreckage so Spock transports down in pursuit. McCoy discovers that Khan's blood has regenerative properties that may save Kirk. Spock chases down and pursues Khan through the city and is about to kill Khan before Uhura stops him.

Nearly one year later, Kirk speaks at Enterprise's re-dedication ceremony. Khan is sealed in his cryogenic pod and stored with his compatriots. The Enterprise crew embarks on a five-year exploratory mission.

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​
​Star Trek Beyond (2016)
YouTube Video of the Movie Trailer for "Star Trek Beyond"
Star Trek Beyond is a 2016 American science fiction adventure film directed by Justin Lin from a screenplay by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung and based on the series Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry.

This is the thirteenth film in the Star Trek film franchise and the third installment in the reboot series, following Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). 

​Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto reprise their respective roles as Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock, with Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, and Anton Yelchin reprising their roles from the previous films. Idris Elba, Joe Taslim, Lydia Wilson, and Sofia Boutella also appear.

​Principal photography began in Vancouver on June 25, 2015. The film premiered in Sydney on July 7, 2016, and was released in the United States on July 22, 2016 by Paramount Pictures. The film is dedicated to the memory of Yelchin, who died a month prior to the film's release, as well as to fellow Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, who died during pre-production.

 The film grossed $343.5 million at the box office and received positive reviews from critics, with many praising its performances, action scenes, musical score, visual effects, and its tributes to Yelchin and Nimoy.

At the 89th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, but lost to Suicide Squad.

Plot:
​
Three years into its mission, the USS Enterprise arrives at Yorktown, a massive space station, for resupply and shore leave for her crew. Struggling to find meaning in their endless exploration, Captain James T. Kirk has applied for a promotion to vice admiral; he recommends Spock as his replacement.

Meanwhile, Hikaru Sulu reunites with his family, Montgomery Scott works to keep the ship operational, and Spock and Nyota Uhura amicably end their relationship; Spock also receives word from New Vulcan that Ambassador Spock, his counterpart from the original timeline, has died.

The Enterprise is dispatched on a rescue mission after an escape pod drifts out of a nearby uncharted nebula. The occupant, Kalara, claims her ship is stranded on Altamid, a planet within the nebula. As the Enterprise enters the nebula, a massive swarm of small ships ambushes the starship.

The leader of the swarm, Krall, and his crew board the crippled Enterprise and unsuccessfully search for a relic, the Abronath, that Kirk had recently obtained. Krall captures and removes many crewmembers from the ship; he also has his swarm cut the Enterprise into pieces. Kirk orders the crew to abandon ship, leaving the remains of the Enterprise to crash on Altamid.

On the planet, Krall captures Sulu, Uhura, and other survivors. Kirk and Pavel Chekov, accompanied by Kalara, locate the Enterprise's saucer section; realising that Kalara knew they would be attacked, they trick her into revealing herself as Krall's spy. To escape Krall's soldiers, Kirk and Chekov flip the saucer over, crushing Kalara.

Elsewhere on the planet, a wounded Spock and Dr. Leonard McCoy search for other survivors; Spock confides to McCoy that he intends to leave Starfleet to continue the late Ambassador Spock's work. Jaylah, a scavenger who previously escaped Krall's encampment, rescues Scott and takes him to her makeshift home, the grounded USS Franklin, an early Starfleet vessel reported missing over a century earlier. Scott is reunited with Kirk, Chekov, McCoy and Spock.

After repairing the Franklin, they raid Krall's camp using Jaylah's technology and transport the crew aboard, then escape Altamid. Krall coerces Ensign Syl to hand over the Abronath that she had kept hidden for Kirk, then dissolves her completely using the Abronath, the missing half of an ancient bioweapon that can disintegrate any humanoid. With the device complete, Krall intends to attack Yorktown and kill its inhabitants before going on to attack the Federation. Kirk and the others free the crew as Krall launches into space with the bioweapon, leading his drones to Yorktown.

As the Enterprise survivors pursue Krall in the Franklin, they deduce that such a massive swarm must coordinate its attacks via radio signals. Scott transports Spock and McCoy into one of the swarm ships. Matching the swarm's frequency, they jam and disorient the swarm by broadcasting "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys over the channels, destroying almost the entire fleet. Krall and his three surviving ships crash in Yorktown. As Krall flees into the starbase, Uhura and Kirk discover from the Franklin's logs that he is actually Balthazar Edison, former captain of the Franklin.

A pre-Federation human soldier, Edison rejected the Federation's principles of unity and cooperation with former enemies like the Xindi. When he and his crew were stranded on Altamid by a wormhole, the three survivors used the technology of the planet's extinct natives to prolong their lives at the cost of the others, and re-purposed their dormant drone workers into the swarm.

Thinking that the Federation had abandoned them, Edison now plans to destroy the Federation and resume galactic conflict. Kirk pursues Edison into Yorktown's ventilation system, where Edison activates the bioweapon. Before it can be unleashed, Kirk ejects Edison and the bioweapon out of Yorktown, disintegrating him in space and leaving the weapon lost forever. Spock and McCoy save Kirk moments before he is also blown into space.

In the aftermath, Commodore Paris closes the unsolved cases of Captain Edison and the USS Franklin crew. Kirk decides to remain as a captain, and Spock chooses to remain in Starfleet. Jaylah has been accepted into Starfleet Academy on Kirk's recommendation. The crew celebrates Kirk's birthday and wait for the completion of their new ship, the USS Enterprise-A. They depart on their next mission soon after; each member of the crew recites a line from the "Where no man has gone before" monologue.

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The Movie "Time Machine" (1960)​Pictured below: Movie Poster of the 1960 version of the Time Machine 
The Time Machine (also marketed as H. G. Wells' The Time Machine) is a 1960 American period post-apocalyptic science fiction film based on the 1895 novella of the same name by H. G. Wells. It was produced and directed by George Pal, and stars Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, and Alan Young.

The story is set in Victorian England and follows an inventor who constructs a machine that enables him to travel into the distant future. Once there, he discovers that mankind's descendants have divided into two species, the passive, childlike, and vegetarian Eloi and the underground-dwelling Morlocks, who feed on the Eloi.

The film was originally released on August 17, 1960, and was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It received the Academy Award for Best Special Effects for its time-lapse photographic effects, which show the world changing rapidly as the time traveler journeys into the future.

Plot:

On January 5, 1900, four friends arrive for a dinner at the London home of their inventor friend George. He is absent, then suddenly appears, bedraggled and exhausted. He recounts what happened to him.

At the group's earlier dinner on New Year's Eve, George says time is "the fourth dimension". He shows David Filby, Dr. Philip Hillyer, Anthony Bridewell, and Walter Kemp a scale model time machine. When a tiny lever on it is pressed, the device disappears. George says it went forward in time, but his friends are doubtful. The groups leaves George's house, Filby reluctantly, as he senses George is not himself. Shortly thereafter, George retires to his private laboratory which holds a full-size time machine.

George travels forward in the machine, first in small increments and then to 1917. He meets Filby's son, James, who says Filby died in a war. George returns to the time machine and stops in 1940 during the Blitz, finding himself in the midst of "a new war".

A disillusioned George then travels to 1966. People are rushing to fallout shelters as air raid sirens are blaring. An elderly James Filby urges George to take cover. George barely makes it back to his time machine as an "atomic satellite" detonates, causing a volcanic eruption. The approaching lava rises, cools, and hardens, trapping George as he travels far into the future.  Eventually the lava wears away, revealing a lush, unspoiled landscape.

George stops at October 12, 802,701, near the base of a sphinx. He encounters young men and women wearing simple clothing gathered at a stream. One woman, carried off by the current, screams for help. When her indifferent companions do nothing, George rescues her.

The girl is Weena and her people are the Eloi; they do not operate machines, work, or read, and know little of their history. Their food is always provided for them. One young male shows George a library, but the books crumble to dust when touched. Outraged, he decides to leave, but his machine has been dragged into the closed sphinx.

Weena, who stays with him, says that Morlocks are responsible and they only come out at night. A hideous-looking Morlock jumps out and tries to drag Weena away, but is warded off by George's torch fire.

The next day, Weena shows George domed structures dotting the landscape: air shafts lead down to the Morlocks' caverns. Weena then shows George an ancient museum where "talking rings" tell of long-ago war between east and west that lasted 326 years and contaminated the atmosphere.

Another ring describes humanity's struggle for survival; many lived underground, while some eventually returned to the surface. George realizes this was the beginning of the speciation that resulted in the Morlocks and Eloi. He starts to climb down a shaft, but stops when sirens emerge and blare from the sphinx.

The Eloi go into a trance-like state and head for the opened doors at the sphinx's base. The sirens stop and the doors close, trapping Weena and others inside, while those outside merely walk away.

George enters the caverns through the air shafts. He discovers that the Morlocks raise the Eloi as food. He finds Weena and fights off the creatures, finally inspiring the Eloi to defend themselves. George sets fires and urges the Eloi to climb to the surface. He directs them to drop tree branches down the shafts. The resulting fires cause the caverns to collapse.

The next morning, the sphinx's doors are open. George's time machine is inside. Upon his entering, the doors close, and George is attacked by Morlocks. He escapes in his machine and returns to 1900.

After George recounts his story, his friends remain skeptical. He produces a flower Weena gave him, and Filby, an amateur botanist, identifies it as an unknown species. George bids his guests good evening. Filby returns shortly after to find George and his time machine gone.

His housekeeper, Mrs. Watchett, notes that nothing is missing except three books that she is unable to identify. When Mrs. Watchett wonders if George will ever return, Filby knowingly remarks that "he has all the time in the world".

Cast:
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​E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982) Pictured below as (L)  Poster; (R) ET with "Elliott" (Henry Thomas)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American epic science fiction-family film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Spielberg and Melissa Mathison, featuring special effects by Carlo Rambaldi and Dennis Muren, and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore and Peter Coyote.

It tells the story of Elliott (Thomas), a lonely boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed "E.T.", who is stranded on Earth. He and his siblings help it return home while attempting to keep it hidden from their mother and the government.
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The concept for the film was based on an imaginary friend Spielberg created after his parents' divorce in 1960. In 1980, Spielberg met Mathison and developed a new story from the stalled science fiction/horror film project Night Skies. It was shot from September to December 1981 in California on a budget of US$10.5 million. Unlike most motion pictures, it was shot in rough chronological order, to facilitate convincing emotional performances from the young cast.

Released on June 11, 1982 by Universal Pictures, E.T was a blockbuster, surpassing Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time—a record it held for eleven years until Jurassic Park, another Spielberg-directed film, surpassed it in 1993. It is the highest-grossing film of the 1980s.

Critics acclaimed it as a timeless story of friendship, and it ranks as the greatest science fiction film ever made in a Rotten Tomatoes survey. In 1994, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

It was re-released in 1985, and then again in 2002 to celebrate its 20th anniversary, with altered shots and additional scenes.

Plot:

A group of alien botanists secretly visit Earth under cover of night to gather plant specimens in a California forest. When government agents appear on the scene, the aliens flee in their spaceship, but in their haste, one of them is left behind.

In a suburban neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley, a ten-year-old boy named Elliott is spending time with his brother, Michael, and his friends. As he returns from picking up a pizza, he discovers that something is hiding in their tool shed. The alien promptly flees upon being discovered.

Despite his family's disbelief, Elliott leaves Reese's Pieces candy to lure the alien to his house. Before going to sleep, Elliott realizes it is imitating his movements. He feigns illness the next morning to stay home from school and play with it.

Later that day, Michael and their five-year-old sister, Gertie, meet it. They decide to keep it hidden from their mother, Mary. When they ask it about its origin, it levitates several balls to represent its planetary system and then demonstrates its powers by reviving dead chrysanthemums. 

​At school the next day, Elliott begins to experience a psychic connection with the alien, including exhibiting signs of intoxication (because it is at his home, drinking beer and watching Tom & Jerry), and he begins freeing all the frogs in his biology class.

As the alien watches John Wayne kiss Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man on television, Elliott then kisses a girl he likes in the same manner and he is sent to the principal's office.

The alien learns to speak English by repeating what Gertie says as she watches Sesame Street and, at Elliott's urging, dubs itself "E.T." E.T. reads a comic strip where Buck Rogers, stranded, calls for help by building a makeshift communication device and is inspired to try it himself.

E.T. receives Elliott's help in building a device to "phone home" by using a Speak & Spell toy. Michael notices that E.T.'s health is declining and that Elliott is referring to himself as "we".

On Halloween, Michael and Elliott dress E.T. as a ghost so they can sneak him out of the house. That night, Elliott and E.T. head through the forest, where they make a successful call home. The next day, Elliott wakes up in the field, only to find E.T. gone.

Elliott returns home to his distressed family. Michael searches for and finds E.T. dying next to a culvert. Michael takes E.T. home to Elliott, who is also dying. Mary becomes frightened when she discovers her son's illness and the dying alien, just as government agents invade the house.

Scientists set up a hospital at the house, questioning Michael, Mary and Gertie while treating Elliott and E.T. Their connection disappears and E.T. then appears to die while Elliott recovers.

A grief-stricken Elliott is left alone with the motionless E.T. when he notices a dead chrysanthemum, the plant E.T. had previously revived, coming back to life.

E.T. reanimates and reveals that his people are returning. Elliott and Michael steal a van that E.T. had been loaded into and a chase ensues, with Michael's friends joining them as they attempt to evade the authorities by bicycles. Suddenly facing a police roadblock, they escape as E.T. uses telekinesis to lift them into the air and toward the forest, like he had done for Elliott before.

Standing near the spaceship, E.T.'s heart glows as he prepares to return home. Mary, Gertie, and "Keys", a friendly government agent, show up. E.T. says goodbye to Michael and Gertie, as she presents him with the chrysanthemum that he had revived.

Before boarding the spaceship, E.T. embraces Elliott and tells him "I'll be right here", pointing his glowing finger to Elliott's forehead. He then picks up the chrysanthemum, boards the spaceship, and it takes off, leaving a rainbow in the sky as everyone watches it leave. 

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Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Avatar: The Way of Water is a 2022 American epic science fiction film directed and produced by James Cameron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver from a story the trio wrote with Josh Friedman and Shane Salerno.

Distributed by 20th Century Studios, it is the sequel to Avatar (2009) and the second installment in the Avatar film series.

Cast members include: the above reprise their roles from the original film, with Sigourney Weaver returning in an additional role.

New cast members include: 
In the film, Na'vi Jake Sully (Worthington) and his family, under renewed human threat, seek refuge with the Metkayina clan of Pandora.

Cameron stated in 2006 that he would like to make sequels to Avatar if it was successful, and he announced the first two sequels in 2010, following the widespread success of the first film, with the first sequel aiming for a 2014 release. 

However, the addition of two more sequels, for a total of five Avatar films, and the necessity to develop new technology in order to film performance capture scenes underwater, a feat never accomplished before, led to significant delays to allow the crew more time to work on the writing, pre-production, and visual effects. 

The filming process, which occurred simultaneously with a currently untitled third film, began in Manhattan Beach, California, on August 15, 2017. The filming location moved to Wellington, New Zealand, on September 25, 2017, and concluded in late September 2020 after three years of shooting.

With an estimated budget of $350–460 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made.

Following repeated delays in the expected release schedule, Avatar: The Way of Water premiered in London on December 6, 2022, and was theatrically released in the United States on December 16, 2022. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the film for its visual effects and technical achievements but criticized the plot and lengthy runtime. 

The film has grossed over $1.957 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2022 and of the COVID-19 pandemic era, as well as the sixth-highest-grossing film of all time.

The film also received numerous accolades, including nominations for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director at the 80th Golden Globe Awards.

Plot:

15 years after the Na'vi repelled the RDA invasion of Pandora, Jake Sully lives as chief of the Omaticaya clan, and raises a family with Neytiri, which includes sons Neteyam and Lo'ak, daughter Tuk, and adopted children Kiri (born from Grace Augustine's inert avatar) and Spider, the Pandora-born human son of the late Colonel Miles Quaritch.

To the Na'vi's dismay, the RDA returns to colonize Pandora, as Earth is dying. Among the new arrivals are recombinants—Na'vi avatars implanted with dead human soldiers' memories—with Quaritch's recombinant serving as leader.

Jake leads a guerilla campaign against the RDA. During a counterinsurgency mission, Quaritch and his subordinates capture Jake's children. Jake and Neytiri arrive and free them, but Spider remains captured by Quaritch, who recognizes him as his son. After the RDA fails to get information from Spider, Quaritch decides to spend time with his son to draw him on his side, in turn of Spider teaching Quaritch about Na'vi culture and language.

Aware of the danger posed by Spider's knowledge of his whereabouts, Jake and his family exile themselves from the Omaticaya and retreat to Pandora's eastern seaboard, where they are given refuge by the Metkayina clan. There, the family learns the ways of the reef people, Kiri develops a spiritual bond with the sea, and Lo'ak befriends Tsireya, the daughter of chief Tonowari and his wife Ronal.

After getting in a fight with Aonung, Tonowari's son, Lo'ak apologizes at Jake's insistence. Aonung and his friends then entice Lo'ak to a trip into a sea predator's territory and leave him stranded. Lo'ak is saved and befriended by Payakan, a Tulkun—an intelligent and pacifistic whale-like species whom the Metkayina consider their spiritual brethren.

Upon his return, Lo'ak wins Aonung's friendship by taking the blame for the trip, but is told that Payakan is an outcast among the Tulkun. Later, Kiri links to Metkayina's underwater Spirit Tree and meets her biological mother Grace, whose consciousness lives within Pandora, but suffers a seizure and falls unconscious. Jake summons Norm Spellman and Max Patel for help using their medical equipment, where they diagnose Kiri with epilepsy and warn that she cannot connect to the Spirit Tree again.

Although Kiri is saved by Ronal, Quaritch tracks Spellman and Patel's aircraft to the archipelago where the reef people live. Bringing Spider with him, Quaritch commandeers a whaling vessel which hunts Tulkuns to extract an anti-aging serum called amrita. Quaritch's squad raids the archipelago, interrogating the tribes about Jake's location to no avail.

Quaritch then orders the whalers to kill Tulkuns near the villages to draw Jake out. Lo'ak mentally links with Payakan and learns that he was cast out because he went against the pacifist ways of his species and attacked the whalers who killed his mother, causing many deaths.

When the Metkayina learn of the Tulkun killings, Lo'ak takes off to warn Payakan, followed by his siblings and friends. They find Payakan being hunted, and Lo'ak, Tsireya, and Tuk are captured by Quaritch. Jake, Neytiri, and the Metkayina set out to confront the humans and rescue the kids.

Quaritch forces Jake to surrender, but Payakan attacks the whalers, triggering a fight that kills several crewmen and cripples the vessel. Neteyam rescues Lo'ak, Tsireya, and Spider, but is fatally shot by Quaritch. Devastated, Neytiri flies into a grieving rage and brutally murders Quaritch's team, but accidentally breaks her father's bow in the process.

Jake faces Quaritch, who uses Kiri as a hostage, and when Neytiri does the same with Spider, Quaritch at first denies their relationship, but desists once Neytiri attempts to kill Spider.
Jake, Quaritch, Neytiri, and Tuk end up trapped inside the sinking vessel.

Jake strangles Quaritch unconscious and is rescued by Lo'ak and Payakan, while Kiri rescues Neytiri and Tuk. Spider rescues Quaritch, but refuses to go with him to rejoin Jake's family. After Neteyam's funeral, Jake informs Tonowari of his decision to leave the Metkayina, but he respectfully identifies Jake as part of the clan and welcomes him and his family to stay.

Before vowing to resume his campaign against the RDA, Jake and his family accept and live their new life at the sea.

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Technology in Science Fiction, including a List of existing technologies predicted in science fiction Pictured below: The Metaverse – How Science Fiction Drives Technology
Click on "List of Existing Technologies predicted in Science Fiction"

Technology in science fiction is a crucial aspect of the genre.

As science fiction emerged during the era of Industrial Revolution, the increased presence of machines in everyday life and their role in shaping of the society was a major influence on the genre. It appeared as a major element of the Proto SF, represented by machines and gadgets in works of Jules Verne, George Griffith, H. G. Wells, Edward Bellamy and others. 

Technology has been portrayed both in positive or negative ways; in some works it is a solution to the world problems, in others, a means of its destruction. Such things as robots and space travel became commonplace in the fiction of the 19th century.

​Concepts and illustrations of technology in science fiction have been a significant influence in the formation of popular culture images of future technology.

Science fiction has often affected innovation and new technology – for example many rocketry pioneers were inspired by science fiction.

See also:






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Isaac Asimov (Science Fiction Author)Pictured below: Isaac Asimov, the candy store kid who dreamed up robots: our most durable ideas about robots don’t come from science, but the imagination of sci-fi pioneer Isaac Asimov
​Isaac Asimov (January 2, 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University.

During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke (See Below for both authors) A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as much nonfiction.

Asimov's most famous work is the Foundation series, the first three books of which won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. His other major series are the Galactic Empire series and the Robot series. The Galactic Empire novels are set in the much earlier history of the same fictional universe as the Foundation series.

Later, with Foundation and Earth (1986), he linked this distant future to the Robot stories, creating a unified "future history" for his stories. He also wrote over 380 short stories, including the social science fiction novelette "Nightfall", which in 1964 was voted the best short science fiction story of all time by the Science Fiction Writers of America. Asimov wrote the Lucky Starr series of juvenile science-fiction novels using the pen name Paul French.

Most of his popular science books explain concepts in a historical way, going as far back as possible to a time when the science in question was at its simplest stage. Examples include Guide to Science, the three-volume Understanding Physics, and Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery. He wrote on numerous other scientific and non-scientific topics, such as: 
He was president of the American Humanist Association. Several entities have been named in his honor, including:
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Robert A. Heinlein (Science Fiction Author)  Pictured below: Robert A. Heinlein’s 5 Rules For Writers
Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer.

Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction.

His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His plots often posed provocative situations which challenged conventional social mores. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally.

Heinlein became one of the first American science-fiction writers to break into mainstream magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s. He was one of the best-selling science-fiction novelists for many decades, and he, Isaac Asimov (see preceding topic), and Arthur C. Clarke (see following topic) are often considered the "Big Three" of English-language science fiction authors.

Notable Heinlein works include: 
His work sometimes had controversial aspects, such as plural marriage in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, militarism in Starship Troopers and technologically competent women characters that were formidable, yet often stereotypically feminine—such as Friday.

A writer also of many science-fiction short stories, Heinlein was one of a group of writers who came to prominence under the editorship (1937–1971) of John W. Campbell at Astounding Science Fiction magazine, though Heinlein denied that Campbell influenced his writing to any great degree.

Heinlein used his science fiction as a way to explore provocative social and political ideas and to speculate how progress in science and engineering might shape the future of politics, race, religion, and sex. 

Within the framework of his science-fiction stories, Heinlein repeatedly addressed certain social themes:
  • the importance of individual liberty and self-reliance,
  • the nature of sexual relationships,
  • the obligation individuals owe to their societies,
  • the influence of organized religion on culture and government, and the tendency of society to repress nonconformist thought.

He also speculated on the influence of space travel on human cultural practices.

Heinlein was named the first Science Fiction Writers Grand Master in 1974. Four of his novels won Hugo Awards. In addition, fifty years after publication, seven of his works were awarded "Retro Hugos"—awards given retrospectively for works that were published before the Hugo Awards came into existence. 

In his fiction, Heinlein coined terms that have become part of the English language, including grok, waldo and speculative fiction, as well as popularizing existing terms like "TANSTAAFL", "pay it forward", and "space marine". He also anticipated mechanical computer-aided design with "Drafting Dan" and described a modern version of a waterbed in his novel Beyond This Horizon.

Several of Heinlein's works have been adapted for film and television.

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Arthur C. Clarke (Science Fiction Author)Pictured below: 11 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke CBE FRAS (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host.

He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, widely regarded as one of the most influential films of all time. Clarke was a science fiction writer, an avid popularizer of space travel, and a futurist of a distinguished ability. He wrote many books and many essays for popular magazines.

In 1961, he received the Kalinga Prize, a UNESCO award for popularizing science. Clarke's science and science-fiction writings earned him the moniker "Prophet of the Space Age". 

His science-fiction writings in particular earned him a number of Hugo and Nebula awards, which along with a large readership, made him one of the towering figures of the genre. For many years Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction.

Clarke was a lifelong proponent of space travel. In 1934, while still a teenager, he joined the BIS, British Interplanetary Society. In 1945, he proposed a satellite communication system using geostationary orbits. He was the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946 to 1947 and again in 1951–1953.

Clarke immigrated to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1956, to pursue his interest in scuba diving. That year, he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient original Koneswaram Temple in Trincomalee. Clarke augmented his popularity in the 1980s, as the host of television shows such as Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. He lived in Sri Lanka until his death.

Clarke was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989 "for services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka". He was knighted in 1998 and was awarded Sri Lanka's highest civil honor, Sri Lankabhimanya, in 2005.

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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
YouTube Video: 2001-- A Space Odyssey (HD) -- Best Scene with Hal and Dave -- 'Hal open the pod bay doors'
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The screenplay, written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, was partially inspired by Clarke's short story "The Sentinel". Clarke concurrently wrote the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, published soon after the film was released.

The film follows a voyage to Jupiter with the sentient computer Hal after the discovery of a mysterious black monolith affecting human evolution. The film deals with the themes of existentialism, human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life. It is noted for its scientifically accurate depiction of space flight, pioneering special effects, and ambiguous imagery. It uses sound and minimal dialogue in place of traditional narrative techniques; the soundtrack consists of classical music such as The Blue Danube and Also sprach Zarathustra.
 
Financed and distributed by American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 2001: A Space Odyssey was filmed and edited almost entirely in England, using the studio facilities of MGM's subsidiary "MGM British" and those of Shepperton Studios, mostly because of the availability of much larger sound stages than in the United States.
 
Production was subcontracted to Kubrick's production company and care was taken that the film would be sufficiently British to qualify for subsidy from the Eady Levy. Having already shot his previous two films in England, Kubrick decided to settle there permanently during filming.

Despite initially receiving mixed reactions from critics and audiences, 2001: A Space Odyssey garnered a cult following and slowly became the highest-grossing North American film of 1968. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and received one for its visual effects. A sequel directed by Peter Hyams was released in 1984.
 
Today, 2001: A Space Odyssey is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

The critics' polls in the 2002 and 2012 editions of Sight & Sound magazine ranked 2001: A Space Odyssey sixth in the top ten films of all time; it also tied for second place in the directors' poll of the same magazine. In 2010, it was named the greatest film of all time by The Moving Arts Film Journal.

Plot:

In an African desert millions of years ago, a tribe of hominids is driven away from its water hole by a rival tribe. They awaken to find a featureless black monolith has appeared before them. Seemingly influenced by the monolith, they discover how to use a bone as a weapon and drive their rivals away from the water hole.

Millions of years later, a Pan Am spaceplane carries Dr. Heywood Floyd to the huge Space Station V orbiting Earth for a layover on his trip to Clavius Base, a United States outpost on the Moon. After Floyd has a videophone call with his daughter, he deflects questions from his Soviet scientist friend and her colleague about rumors of a mysterious epidemic at Clavius.

Floyd speaks to a meeting of Clavius personnel, apologizing for the epidemic cover story but stressing secrecy. His mission is to investigate a recently found artifact buried four million years ago near the crater Tycho. Floyd and others ride in a Moonbus to the artifact, a monolith identical to the one encountered by the ape-men. Sunlight strikes the monolith and a loud high-pitched radio signal is heard.

Eighteen months later, the United States spacecraft Discovery One is bound for Jupiter. On board are mission pilots and scientists Dr. David Bowman and Dr. Frank Poole, along with three other scientists in suspended animation. Most of Discovery's operations are controlled by the ship's computer, a HAL 9000 with a human personality that the crew calls "Hal". Hal says he is "foolproof and incapable of error".

Hal raises concerns about the nature of the mission to Bowman, but their conversation is interrupted when Hal reports the imminent failure of an antenna control device. The astronauts retrieve it in an extravehicular activity (EVA) pod but find nothing wrong. Hal suggests reinstalling the device and letting it fail so the problem can be found.

Mission Control advises the astronauts that results from their twin HAL 9000 indicate that Hal is in error about the device's imminent failure. Hal says the discrepancy must be due to human error. Concerned about Hal's behavior, Bowman and Poole enter an EVA pod to talk without Hal overhearing, and agree to disconnect Hal if he is proven wrong. Hal secretly follows their conversation by lip reading.

While Poole is on a space walk outside his EVA pod attempting to replace the unit, Hal takes control of the pod, severs his oxygen hose and sets him adrift. Bowman takes another pod to rescue Poole.

Meanwhile, Hal turns off the life support functions of the crewmen in suspended animation. When Bowman returns to the ship with Poole's body, Hal refuses to let him in, stating that the astronauts' plan to deactivate him jeopardizes the mission. Bowman opens the ship's emergency airlock manually, enters the ship, and proceeds to Hal's processor core.

Hal tries to reassure Bowman, then pleads with him to stop, and finally expresses fear. As Bowman gradually deactivates the circuits controlling Hal's higher intellectual functions, Hal regresses to his earliest programmed memory, the song "Daisy Bell", which he sings for Bowman.

When Bowman disconnects Hal, a prerecorded video message from Floyd plays, revealing that the mission's true objective is to investigate a radio signal, sent from a lunar artifact (the monolith) to Jupiter. Only Hal and the hibernating crew had been told this.

At Jupiter, Bowman leaves Discovery One in an EVA pod to investigate another monolith orbiting the planet. The pod is pulled into a vortex of colored light, the Star Gate, and Bowman races across vast distances of space, viewing bizarre cosmological phenomena and strange landscapes of unusual colors.

Bowman finds himself in a bedroom appointed in the baroque style. He sees, and then becomes, older versions of himself, first standing in the bedroom, middle-aged and still in his spacesuit, then dressed in leisure attire and eating dinner, and finally as an old man lying in the bed. A monolith appears at the foot of the bed, and as Bowman reaches for it, he is transformed into a fetus enclosed in a transparent orb of light, the Star Child. The new being floats in space beside the Earth, gazing at it. 

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"An unofficial list of the most influential science fiction works ever" 
(by Eric Adelson of the Washington Post 1/11/2023)
YouTube Video of the Movie "The Martian" Cited below
Picture below: ​(Video: Illustration by Elizabeth von Oehsen/The Washington Post; Mario Suriani/AP; Mary Evans/AF Archive/Cinetext Bildarchiv/Everett Collection; Baen Books; Ballentine/iStock)
​On a Monday evening last September, a NASA spacecraft intentionally blasted into an asteroid in deep space. The goal was planetary defense — protecting our planet from the kind of wayward rock that could end civilization as we know it.

The unprecedented moment seemed surreal, with a camera from the craft sending footage back to Earth of a large asteroid getting bigger and bigger until — pow! — impact. It was both incredible and credible — equal parts jaw-dropping and successful in its proof of concept.

Who could have imagined such a thing?

Well, science fiction writers did.

“Crashing big things into celestial objects goes all the way back to the 1930s stories of Edmond ‘World Wrecker’ Hamilton,” Lisa Yaszek, regents professor of science fiction studies at Georgia Tech, wrote in a text message. “In ‘Thundering Worlds,’ we throw Mercury at an invading alien army to save the rest of the solar system.”

Space exploration is in a renaissance, as the private space industry takes on a growing presence in the United States, and as the space agencies of several countries have joined NASA in setting their sights on the moon and other deep-space goals. But like stars that sent their light long before Earth could see it, science fiction creators helped inspire this wave of interest decades ago.

“We may envision the outcome we want to achieve through the imagination and inspiration of our team members, or we may be inspired by concepts found in the art,” said NASA’s Barbara Brown, director of exploration research and technology programs. “And then science, engineering and math drive the rest.”

Space moguls like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Paul Allen have credited their interest in the final frontier to several written and filmed works. And that doesn’t include the NASA visionaries who love sci-fi.

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The New Space Age

As humanity looks once again to the heavens, this series examines the recent boom of the private space industry, the long-term ambitions of NASA and foreign space agencies, and the potentially profound implications of this moment for society.

Read the section.

“I’ve got a wall of autographs from Star Wars actors and actresses, and this year I got an autograph from William Shatner,” said Tracy Gill, deputy manager for lander ground operations in NASA’s Human Landing System Program. “I go to Comic-Con. I’m down in deep.”
Mark Wiese, manager for NASA’s Deep Space Logistics project, grew up with “The Jetsons” and now spends his mornings watching “The Expanse” while working out on his rowing machine.

“Beyond creating a climate where innovative thinking is acceptable,” said Chris McKitterick, who directs the Ad Astra Center for Science Fiction and the Speculative Imagination at the University of Kansas, “science fiction has influenced countless scientists, engineers and technologists to make real the things depicted in science fiction narratives.”

Based on a canvassing of experts ranging from the Kennedy Space Center to academia, here is a brief tour of the sci-fi works that were most influential in helping to pave a real-life path to the stars:

Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock and William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk on the first "Star Trek" series in September 1966. (Mary Evans/AF Archive/Cinetext Bildarchiv/Everett Collection/Elizabeth von Oehsen/The Washington Post)

‘Star Trek’

It’s hard to imagine space — or even the future itself — without thinking of “Star Trek.” The original 1960s series inspired early designs for everything from desktop computers to cellphones to Zoom. Bezos even fashioned Amazon’s Alexa based on the shipboard computer of the Starship Enterprise and named one of his holding companies “Zefram LLC” after the “Star Trek” character who invented the warp drive.

Ronald D. Moore, a screenwriter and producer who worked on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” beginning in 1988, took a tour of the SpaceX craft and couldn’t help but see the influence of the iconic series.

“You get used to certain ideas for what a spaceship looks like, and it’s hard not to be impressed by the things you’ve seen,” said Moore, who is the creator of the Apple space series “For All Mankind.” “There are a lot of ways you can lay out controls, but they had chosen a black and white, high contrast, sleek design that could have been on any Hollywood set in the last 40 years.”

​But there are more layers of influence. Moore, who said he watched the original “Star Trek” series five days a week growing up in the 1970s, was moved by the noble optimism of the series. “It was one of the very few scientific shows that says the future is going to turn out okay,” he said. “We are going to solve poverty and racism and disease. I’m inspired by the hope these problems are temporary setbacks.”
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“The Man Who Sold the Moon” and "Orphans of the Sky" by Robert A. Heinlein. (Baen Books; Illustration by Elizabeth von Oehsen/The Washington Post)

Robert Heinlein’s writings

Heinlein was a revolution unto himself. He relied on science and engineering to imagine brave new worlds, he overlaid timeless human traits into a futuristic setting, and he came up with protagonists Yaszek refers to as “creative capitalists,” who leveraged private industry and navigated government oversight to chase space glory. Sound familiar?

Inside the rockets that NASA and SpaceX plan to send to the moon

In “The Man Who Sold the Moon,” central character D.D. Harriman “creates a coalition of corporations, governments, and media to create the first viable space company,” Yaszek wrote in an email, “and, not coincidentally, to secure the moon as his own private resource, free of government interference.”

Heinlein also contributed to the screenplay of the 1950 film “Destination Moon,” which imagined a manned trip to the lunar surface — less than 20 years before the real thing happened.

Heinlein’s attention to not only space travel, but also the cooperation between the public and private sectors, lived on long after him. He devoted a portion of his estate to creating the Heinlein Prize for accomplishments in commercial space — won by Musk and Bezos.
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Isaac Asimov autographs a book at the Mysterious Book Store stall in Manhattan in 1984. (Mario Suriani/AP; Illustration by Elizabeth von Oehsen/The Washington Post)

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series:

Asimov’s famous Foundation trilogy, written in the 1940s, centers on a mathematician who figures out a way to stave off the fall of a decaying empire.

Part of Asimov’s legacy — and the genre’s legacy — is not just imagining a landscape somewhere out there, but also putting humans in a setting where they can potentially solve future problems. It’s a call to action that spoke to Musk and Bezos. Asimov had so much impact on Musk that he put a copy of the series into a Tesla roadster that was sent into orbit.

Asimov and Heinlein are considered by many to be among the “Big Three” of science fiction writing, along with Sir Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which was based on Clarke’s novel.
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​“The Martian,” by Andy Weir. (Ballentine; Illustration by Elizabeth von Oehsen/The Washington Post)

‘The Martian’

Andy Weir’s tale of an astronaut stranded on Mars, which he first published on his own website, takes a unique place in sci-fi history. “The Martian” not only spawned a movie starring Matt Damon, it also boosted interest in NASA and ignited a new wonder about visiting the Red Planet.

It was a new twist on an old story: A daring sci-fi plotline nourishes ideas about what we can do in real life. NASA’s Gill said he is asked about the film whenever he visits schools.
“They tried to grow their own food, which is something we’re working on,” Gill said. “It would be considered sci-fi, but it’s really something that we’re going for.”

The connection between science fiction and real-life spaceflight has cut both ways. Moore fondly recalls when he was working on the “Battlestar Galactica” series and NASA reached out.

One of their astronauts wanted to call … from the space station. He was a fan of the show. “It blew my mind,” Moore said. “He was watching fake space on his laptop while real space is outside his window.” That astronaut, Garrett Reisman, became a key contributor to “For All Mankind,” which imagines an alternate space history in which the Soviet Union beats the United States to the moon.

A woman on the moon: Why has one small step taken so long?

As space exploration has found new reverence, so has sci-fi itself. Fighting orbital threats is now a real-life exercise, and eye-rolling has given way to respect. “It’s always been viewed as kid stuff or not taken seriously,” Moore said. “It’s always had a second-class status. Sci-fi and fantasy always get pushed to the margins. I’ve seen in the last 20 years they’ve gotten more acclaim, more critical response.”

They’ve also become more diverse. Voices like those of Mary Robinette Kowal — author of the award-winning alt-history novel “Calculating Stars” — and Ted Chiang have grown the sci-fi oeuvre over the past several years.

And just as space travel ambitions have spread to other countries, a number of international authors have emerged among science fiction’s elite.

For example, Chinese novelist Liu Cixin’s “The Three-Body Problem” has sold more than 8 million copies, is being adapted into a Netflix series and drew President Barack Obama’s praise after he read it during his time in the White House. “The scope of it was immense,” Obama said in 2017.

Indeed, it seems the possibilities for space and sci-fi are now as limitless as ever. As Asimov himself said, “Science fiction writers and readers didn’t put a man on the moon all by themselves, but they created a climate of opinion in which the goal of putting a man on the moon became acceptable.”

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