It’s been over a year since we’ve seen any significant developments regarding Slingers, the Firefly-meets-Ocean’s Eleven television show from UK writer Mike Sizemore. The last anyone heard, Slingers was in a developmental holding pattern, existing only as a “sizzle reel.” But now it seems that the show might be moving forward sooner than anyone realized. Jose Molina (fan-favorite writer of sci-fi gems Firefly and Dark Angel) revealed in a tweet that he was prepping to start writing Slingers with Sizemore. Follow the jump for all the details.
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SLINGERS from Mike Sizemore on Vimeo.
It’s got circa-1960s style and spaceships. It’s got con artists in black-tie formal wear and holographic roulette wheels. It’s got a classic casino heist storyline and a self-aware pistol with a sense of humor. It’s got women in cocktail dresses…and one who changes out of hers into a spacesuit in an airlock. Slingers has all the anachronistic juxtaposition a sci-fi fan could hope for in a TV show, and it promises to return a level of playfulness to gritty, naturalistic sci-fi that we haven’t seen since the days of Firefly. If this all sounds too good to be true, it’s probably because it isn’t…yet.
The sci-fi film/television production community is surprisingly close knit. Everyone seems to know everyone else, and it would be difficult to come up with two movies or shows that couldn’t be connected “six degrees of separation”-style. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that a lot of sci-fi contains nods to other works in the genre. One of my favorite things to do when rewatching sci-fi is to keep my eyes peeled for robots/ships/props/etc. from other TV shows or movies to make cameo appearances. And believe it or not, it’s actually pretty common. Allow me to be your guide as we take a look at sci-fi past and present to explore some of the coolest — and some of the most well hidden – of these appearances.
In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, everyone’s favorite engineer, Scotty, gave materials science a slight nudge forward when he handed the secret of making transparent aluminum to a San Francisco plastics company in 1986. Unfortunately, our world (with its fancy reality) still lags a bit behind. We don’t yet have transparent aluminum — at least not in the Star Trek sense. Several recent advancements in the field of material science have arguably moved us a bit closer to that ultimate goal, though. So while I continue my dream to be the architect of a brave new world of materials (hey, how do you know I didn’t invent the thing?), check out these two fairly new materials that have had the name “transparent aluminum” attached to them.
It turns out Purefold isn’t the only sci-fi project coming down the pipe for famed director/producer Ridley Scott. Late last night, Variety confirmed that the original Alien helmer will direct the upcoming Alien prequel. If we didn’t know better, we’d think this had been timed to perfectly coincide with our crüe’s Alien arc!
If there’s one thing we’re good at as sci-fi fans, it’s second-guessing story creators. Every writer’s room decision echos across the ‘net: “That was a horrible choice! They totally should have… If I were the writer, I would have…” Purefold — envisioned as the first large-scale, open media sci-fi franchise — asks us to put our time and effort where our (collective) mouth is. They’re handing us the responsibility of developing the story and universe — and giving fan fic a whole new meaning.
Hollywood may turn out most of the big screen’s sci-fi/fantasy/horror films, but it isn’t exactly an exclusive relationship. In fact, many of the most unique (and occasionally offbeat) of these genre’s films come out of other nations’ studio systems. Unfortunately, due to the relationships between theater chains and major studios, a large percentage of these worthwhile flicks never reach your average cinerama.
With many of the summer blockbusters already behind us, the the long and dreary winter months are looming closer, taunting us with their lack of major releases. Why not dust off the ol’ Netflix account and add these eight worthwhile flicks from the farthest corners of the planet. (Some are from the nearer corners, too.)
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