Neuromancer’s trailer gets the right feel — now comes the hard part

I’ve watched the Neuromancer teaser a few times now, and it has me hooked. It looks polished, but more than that, its world feels believable. TV sci-fi can sometimes look like a set everyone’s trying very hard to pretend is real. This doesn’t. At least, not in the footage we’ve seen.

I’ve been excited by trailers before. I thought Alien: Romulus looked promising, and I had high hopes for Rebel Moon. Both left me disappointed. So I’m trying to keep my expectations in check.

Still, it’s William Gibson’s Neuromancer, with Callum Turner, Briana Middleton, Mark Strong and Peter Sarsgaard among the cast. 

I’m allowed a little hope, right?

Dune: Part Three trailer — the hero and the poison

I shared the teaser back in March, but the official trailer has me thinking about Paul in a different way.

I first read Dune in CÉGEP, and it felt unlike any science fiction I’d encountered. The closest comparison I had was Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, though even that didn’t prepare me for what Herbert was doing with religion, politics and the weight of a single person’s destiny.

In Villeneuve’s first two films, it’s easy to see Paul Muad’Dib Atreides as the hero. The Harkonnens destroyed his family and oppressed the Fremen. Of course you want to see them brought down. What fascinates me about this trailer is that it lets the poison inside Paul’s messiah story come into view. I’m eager to see how far Villeneuve takes that turn.

I loved Parts One and Two, so yes, I’m excited for this one. I’m also waiting on my limited Portfolio Edition of Dune: The Storyboards, which I backed late last year. If it arrives around March 2027 as expected, I’ll get to revisit the whole trilogy through the storyboards, artwork and proofs. First, though, I want to see where Paul’s story ends on screen.

December 18th can't come soon enough...

Book review: Crawlspace — A slow-burn science-fiction mystery

A quick note before I get into it: I’ve tried to keep this review fairly spoiler-light, but I do touch on the book’s tone, setup and a few elements of how the story unfolds. If you want to go in completely blind, you may want to read the book first.

A lot of the reviews I read mentioned that Adam Christopher’s Crawlspace was too slow and not scary enough for something being sold as science-fiction horror. They were right about one. They were wrong about the other.

I picked it up because the premise sounded interesting—a small crew, an experimental spacecraft, a prototype SLIP drive that takes them nowhere they expected to go. Going in, I was braced for the complaints. But what kept me reading the whole way through wasn't being scared; it was not knowing what the hell was happening.

The real tension comes from active uncertainty.

Dark Matter Season 2 is upon us in less then 3 weeks!

I went into Season One of Dark Matter knowing absolutely nothing about it—which, in retrospect, was probably the best possible way to experience it. A former coworker had simply told me I had to watch it. That it would blow my mind.

And yes, suffice to say, my mind was thoroughly blown.

There’s a point in the season where you think you understand the ramifications of the Box and the alternate realities it opens. Except you don’t. You’ve barely scratched the surface. By those final episodes, the full breadth—and potentially infinite consequences—finally begins to sink in.

That’s what stayed with me. 

Not simply the science-fiction premise, but the uncomfortable personal question underneath it: how many different lives might each of us have lived? What if we’d been more cautious, less cautious, more direct—or simply made one different choice at precisely the right moment?

Season Two premieres August 28, so now is the perfect time to watch the first if you have not seen it — or in my case, binge it again so everything is still fresh for Season 2. 

I've only watched the Season 2 trailer twice, so I genuinely have no idea where the story goes from here, and that’s precisely why I’m excited.

Silo: The strange grief of an adaptation

A note for show-only viewers: no major plot spoilers here — just one book reader's reflections on how much the characters have changed.

Watching Silo with my teenage daughter has reminded me of something I hadn't expected.

We're watching the same show. But we're not watching the same story.

She's experiencing Silo exactly as it unfolds on screen. Every mystery is new. Every revelation lands for the first time. Every theory is still possible.

I've read Hugh Howey's trilogy — Wool, Shift, and Dust — at least twice, if not three times. I've lost track.

I don't just remember the story.

I remember the characters. As actual people.

And that's made Season 3 a surprisingly more difficult experience so far.

Dune Part Three: Darker, bigger, and exactly what was needed

The teaser for Dune: Part Three — the final chapter in Denis Villeneuve's trilogy — dropped yesterday.  I've been watching it over and over, trying to pick up every hint and detail buried in those two and a half minutes. If this teaser trailer and the first two films are any indication, we're in for a hell of a ride. What an epic finale this will surely be!

Despite what some will say, I'm not usually one to go full fanboy, but I'll make an exception here. 

Villeneuve's adaptation of the Dune universe has been close to perfection — though honestly, after Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, I shouldn't be surprised. The man knows how to make magnificent cinema. But even Villeneuve would be the first to admit that none of this works without Frank Herbert's brilliance on the page. This pulls me right back to cracking open that first Dune paperback in college (what we call CÉGEP here in Québec) and realizing I'd found something different — a universe so layered with political intrigue and backstory that it felt less like science fiction and more like something that actually happened, or would in humankind's far future. 

That's a long way from the almost comical early adaptations we endured on both the big screen and television.

And now we're getting Messiah.

Disclosure Day: Spielberg goes back to what he does best

The legacy

What happens when the world finds out we’re not alone? That’s the premise behind Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg’s new sci-fi film, hitting theatres June 12th in IMAX.

Spielberg built a good chunk of my childhood imagination when it comes to making first contact. Close Encounters (1977). E.T. (1982). Even War of the Worlds (2005), which doesn't get enough credit for how effectively terrifying it is. The man knows how to make these moments feel real — the awe, the dread, the quiet terror of realizing the universe is bigger than you thought.

Disclosure Day looks like it's tapping into all of that again.

The mirage of a safe place and a taste for revenge

This short story was inspired by real events in New Eden. Names and star systems have been changed to protect the anonymity of the pilots involved. What follows is sort of fiction — and another attempt (not my first) at writing.

*************

Suspended in gel and wired into the ship’s nervous system, a capsuleer’s thoughts were translated by implants into clean data—synthetic voice, clipped text-bursts, or raw intent—riding laser-tight comms hull-to-hull, between star systems, across the void of New Eden — threading light through the dark like a needle through black silk. Replies didn’t reach ears. They arrived inside the pod-feed as overlays and sensations, as natural as breathing used to be.

“Natural,” in the same way a scar eventually became part of your skin.

The corp channel drifted under everything: under route calculations, under market pings, under the soft lies stations told. It was always there, a cold thread woven through the skull.

A presence joined.

ROOK VEYLAN: Greetings...

His salute didn’t make a sound. Instead, it bloomed as a bright glyph at the edge of vision, paired with a faint pulse of recognition—comradeship translated into harmless bytes on a hyperdata-stream.

Another presence flared immediately after—hot, ragged, too fast for the smoothing routines to hide.

SABLE WRAITH: Guys. Quick question.

A hitch in the feed—hesitation rendered as a fraction of delay.

SABLE WRAITH: If someone attacks and my drones kill them… I can strip the wreck, right?

Two replies snapped back almost at once. Clean, low-emotion packets—the kind veterans used when they already knew exactly where this was going.

HASK MEREV: Yes.

IRON KADE: Yes. If you’re still on grid.

Sable Wraith’s signal surged again, spilling context like a cracked seal.

The Time Masters: the weird, beautiful French sci-fi I’m finally revisiting

I first saw Time Masters (Les Maîtres du temps) in my early teen years, and it grabbed my attention immediately.

Not simply because of the visuals, or the title, but because it was different. Very different...

It looked nothing like the cartoons I’d grown up with on TV or in theaters. This was before I’d even stumbled into Akira, Nausicaä or Robotech—back when “animation” mostly meant one familiar lane: Disney, Warner Bros. or Hanna-Barbera. And then this showed up, looking like it came from a completely different universe.

So this past Christmas, I did what any reasonable middle-aged guy does when nostalgia starts tugging at his sleeve: I put it on my wish list. A few days ago, it finally landed in my hands. I wasn’t sure what I’d find. Was the magic just nostalgia doing its thing? Or was the film really as special as I remembered?

Either way, I hit play.

I wasn’t disappointed.

Avatar: Fire and Ash — stunning to look at, but falls flat (★★★☆☆)

Let’s get the rating out of the way first, because it frames everything else.

If Avatar was a 4.5/5, and Avatar: The Way of Water landed at a solid 4/5, then Avatar: Fire and Ash sits at a 3/5 for me.

That doesn’t mean it’s bad.

It does mean it didn’t stick with me.

And notably, my two teenagers were even more disappointed than I was. These are kids who watched the first film over and over again, and who happily went to see the second Avatar film twice on IMAX (they were much too young to see the first in theatres). 

This time, walking out of the theater, the reaction was basically: “Yeah… that was fine.” 

Which, for Avatar, feels telling.

**Warning: spoilers ahead!**

ASTRA ARCANUM — Part II: Where the pressure actually lives

Artwork by Eren Arık (Metis Creative), originally shared via ASTRA ARCANUM Developer Logs.
All Rights Reserved.

After my first look at ASTRA ARCANUM, I went back and spent more time with the project’s Developer Logs. Not trailer but the actual dev logs from Kickstarter: the messy, in-progress stuff where systems are still being argued over, broken, rebuilt, and occasionally thrown out.

That context matters, because everything below is very much in the works. These aren’t promises etched in stone. 

They’re design intentions, openly shared while the game is still being shaped.

What follows is a breakdown of the key ideas emerging from the developer logs — all very much still in progress.

ASTRA ARCANUM — First look at a solar-system RPG with some serious grit

 I'm launching a new series for the upcoming TTRPG from Metis Media / Creative

Every once in a while, a TTRPG trailer drops and you just feel your brain whisper, “Yeah… we’re gonna need to talk about this.” That’s exactly what happened when ASTRA ARCANUM rolled onto my radar.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the Release Trailer that kicked off my whole descent into the Solar Reach. 

Go ahead, I’ll wait...

…Right? I know.

Reflections on "Dune: Part Two The Photography"

Latest addition to my Dune collection: Dune: Part Two – The Photography.

I first saw David Lynch’s Dune in the late ’80s, long before I truly understood what spice, prophecy, or politics meant. It was strange and mesmerizing, more bizarre dream than story. Later, in college, I devoured Frank Herbert’s novels, and that’s when his universe truly came alive in my imagination — a vast and fragile ecosystem of power, where politics, mercantilism, and religion intertwined with prophecy and war. It was a story of humanity stretched to its limits: empires built on faith and fear, knowledge traded like spice, and intelligence evolving into something both divine and dangerous.

But for decades, every adaptation felt slightly out of phase with what I’d imagined — like trying to hold onto a dream that dissolves the moment you wake. Lynch’s film had its merits, flashes of brilliance even, but it never quite captured the spirit of Herbert’s universe I had imagined. The later television miniseries, though ambitious, was almost unbearable to watch. Over time, I began to accept that no cinematic version would ever align with the mental landscape I’d built through years — decades — where the map of that universe improved in my mind with every reread.

Then Denis Villeneuve came along.

When your teenagers become your fellow geeks

I never thought this would happen or planned for it.

Back when I was a teenager, way back, buried in dog-eared paperbacks of Asimov, Herbert, and Tolkien, dice scattered across the dining room table, I figured by the time I hit middle age I’d be expected to “grow out of it.” You know, leave the fantasy novels and sci-fi shows behind for mortgages and lawn care. At the time (the 80's), parents just didn't play the way we did as kid. Video games, roleplaying games, weren't their thing.

Will "The Astronaut" crash or soar? Trailer thoughts

So this trailer for The Astronaut just dropped.

Kate Mara crash-landing back to Earth, Laurence Fishburne running the quarantine, and some weird extraterrestrial presence maybe tagging along for the ride? Yeah, I’m intrigued. It feels like a mix of grounded sci-fi and slow-burn horror, and I kinda dig that vibe.

I don’t know if it’s going to be brilliant or just another “alien hitchhiker” story, but there’s enough here to make me curious. I might actually go see this one in theatres when it lands October 17. Having said that, I’m a little apprehensive about the ending though, since a few (okay, a bunch of them,... okay okay, most of the) critics mentioned it starts strong but stumbles in the final act, so I’m keeping my expectations in check. 

At the very least, it’s giving me a reason to keep an eye on Jess Varley as a director, and my options open.

Anyone else planning to check it out?

Additional information:

• Wikipedia – The Astronaut (2025 film)
• Cosmic Book News – The Astronaut Trailer Release Date, Cast
• The Guardian – The Astronaut review: Kate Mara sci-fi is an underpowered dud
• The Hollywood Reporter – ‘The Astronaut’ Review: Kate Mara and Laurence Fishburne in Sci-Fi Thriller
• People – SXSW 2025: Kate Mara Teases ‘The Astronaut’ (First Look)
• FilmHounds – A Promising Outing Ruined by a Ludicrous Conclusion: The Astronaut Film Review
• Rotten Tomatoes – The Astronaut (2025)
• Letterboxd – The Astronaut (2025)

Why does the Academy snub sci-Fi? A look at iconic science fiction films that went unrewarded

At last evening's 97th Academy Awards, Dune: Part Two secured two Oscars: Best Sound and Best Visual Effects. While these awards recognize the film's technical excellence, they also highlight the Academy's historical tendency to limit recognition of science fiction (sci-fi) films to technical categories, often overlooking them in major awards such as Best Picture, Best Director, and acting categories.​

Historically, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has shown reluctance in honoring sci-fi films in major categories. Notable sci-fi classics like Blade Runner (1982) & Blade Runner 2049 (2018), The Matrix (1999), and Inception (2010) received acclaim for their groundbreaking visuals and storytelling but were largely confined to technical awards. For instance, The Matrix won four Oscars, all in technical categories, without nominations for Best Picture or Best Director. ​2018's Blade Runner 2049 won for Best Visual Effects and Best Cinematography, but wasn't even nominated for Best Picture, nor Best Director.

SOLSTICE - 5: Forgotten Archives – A haunting reflection on progress and power

 Some stories entertain, some inform, and then there are the rare few that leave you staring at the screen, deep in thought long after they end. SOLSTICE - 5: Forgotten Archives is one of those.

This short film is a stunning blend of immersive storytelling, world-building, and a sobering look at what happens when technology and ambition spiral out of control. 

THE STORY: The discovery of the planet "Solstice 5" sets off a high-stakes power struggle between two superpowers: the Continental Alliance and the Coalition. Their relentless race to control the planet quickly turns into a technological arms race, where automation becomes the key to expansion. But in their rush to outpace each other, they unleash forces they can no longer rein in.

Right from the start, the video pulls us into a future that feels disturbingly real.

The music.

The industrial space opera feel to it.

The Sands of Arrakis Beckon Again: Dune Part Two Unveiled

Tonight, for me and a few millions aficionados, the desert planet of Arrakis comes alive once more in the highly anticipated sequel to Denis Villeneuve's epic adaptation of Frank Herbert's masterpiece, Dune: Part Two. After the groundbreaking success of the first installment, expectations are sky-high, and from what I've gathered, the sequel is set to not only meet but exceed them.

Dune: Part One left us on the brink of monumental change, with Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) stepping into his destiny among the Fremen of Arrakis. Part Two promises to dive deeper into the political intrigue, the battle for the control of the spice mélange, and Paul's journey towards becoming the prophesied Muad'Dib. The storyline is expected to explore themes of power, betrayal, and destiny, with a focus on the complex dynamics between the Atreides (what's left of them), the Harkonnens (Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen), and the native Fremen (looking forward to seeing more of their way of life showcased). It's this intricate narrative, combined with the breathtaking landscape of Arrakis, that sets the stage for a cinematic experience of epic proportions.

Cosmic Rebellion Unleashed: Zack Snyder's 'Rebel Moon' Sets to Ignite Netflix This December

Mark your calendars for a cinematic extravaganza as Zack Snyder’s latest creation, “Rebel Moon,” is gearing up for its grand release on Netflix this December 22, 2023. This space opera unfolds the captivating tale of Kora, a former soldier who has carved out a peaceful existence on the agricultural moon of Veldt. However, tranquility is short-lived as Admiral Atticus Noble and his Motherworld army land on Veldt, threatening her peaceful life and reawakening her warrior spirit. In a daring move, Kora joins forces with Gunnar, a local farmer, rallying a ragtag team of rebels to counter the oppressive might of the Imperium and its malevolent leader, Regent Balisarius.

Making Of The Creator - Best of behind the scenes, set visit & SFX

 

 

Behind the Scenes of "The Creator" - A Glimpse into the Magic of Movie Making

In an era where blockbusters are often defined by their visual spectacles, "The Creator," a film by 20th Century Fox, stands out as a beacon of storytelling and visual mastery. This behind-the-scenes look offers a fascinating glimpse into the making of a movie that blends sci-fi with deep human emotion, set against the backdrop of a war between humans and robots.

A Visionary Director at the Helm Gareth Edwards, known for his ability to blend spectacle with storytelling, lead the project. Renowned for injecting compassion into the sci-fi genre, Edwards operated the camera himself, preferring long takes that challenge and engage his actors. This approach resulted in a deeply emotional and visually rich narrative.