Sci Minus Fi Sci Minus Fi

Who knew Galaxy Quest offered such a deep exploration on the nature of history and truth. In today's landscape, Chris and Nathan discuss the Star Trek homage and parody Galaxy Quest. With a great cast of character and funny story, they dissect what Galaxy Quest says about truth, documenting history and how bad actors take advantage of our information.

One "who controls the spice, controls the universe." You guessed it! This week we're talking about Denis Villeneuve's latest film, Dune. Chris and Nathan get on their stillsuits and share their thoughts on Part One of this political epic about young Paul Atreides and his family's time on the desert planet Arrakis. Looking at the technology of the Dune universe, Nathan remarks on its uniquely mechanical and manual nature as we discuss ornithopters, stillsuits and Holtzman shields. Note: we recorded before the announcement that Part 2 has been confirmed!

This week, Chris and Nathan watch Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly and compare its technologies to our contemporary world. From surveillance and scramblesuits to the dangerous Substance D they find current tech that is similar to what they see in the movie. You'll also learn about the merits of the interpolated rotoscoping that Linklater used to animate the film.

Today Chris sits down with guest host Veronica Sullivan to discuss Denis Villeneuve's 2016 film Arrival and how it explores linguistic relativity and another classic Sci Minus Fi topic - time. Veronica provides insight on speaking multiple languages and discusses the idea of determinism as explored in the movie. 

What does life look like on other planets? How similar would it be to life on Earth? And, as a side note, who brings a cat on a mission in space??? Nathan and Chris get into these hard hitting questions as they discuss Ridley Scott's 1979 film, Alien, starring Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt and Ian Holm. They discuss the movie's creepy aesthetic brought to you by H.R. Giger as well as the science of space ship design and extraterrestrial life.

After a brief hiatus, Chris and Nathan are back and talking about Interstellar! Christopher Nolan's 2014 film was the film that inspired this show. Now, we use it to discuss black holes, Murphy's Law and debate whether humans will actually become interstellar beings. You'll also learn about Spielberg's connection to the film and what exactly is Hawking Radiation.