Home//SFX/September 2016/In This Issue
SFX|September 2016MOBILE MAYHEMSubscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx SCI-FACT! A Cell adaptation almost happened much sooner with Hostel’s Eli Roth originally set to direct back in 2009. We live in an “always on” world. We get up, check our Twitter and email. We text our friends. We take selfies and share every intimate detail. For Cell director Tod Williams, it’s all a bit of a nightmare. “Cell was sent to me with John Cusack already attached and that was something that really attracted me,” says the director, previously best known for directing Paranormal Activity 2. “And I began to feel more and more strongly about the concept, more personally connected to it and the thinking around connectivity and how it’s kind of a horrible, terrible thing in many ways… There seems to be a belief…3 min
SFX|September 2016CAPTAIN MARVELHard facts, wild speculation SCI-FACT! X-Men’s Rogue once absorbed Carol Danvers’ powers and personality when she was Ms Marvel. PASS THE PARCEL You’d think that with a name like Captain Marvel the character would be Marvel’s signature hero, but he/she has had a fragmented history with at least seven different men and women going by that name. The original Captain Marvel wasn’t even published by Marvel. He was created by Fawcett in the ’30s, but DC sued, claiming the Captain was too similar to Superman. Later the character rights went to DC but by then Marvel had copyrighted the name. CAPTAIN MAR-VELL Marvel’s first Captain Marvel was created by Stan Lee in 1967. He was a Kree soldier, Captain Mar-Vell, sent to Earth as a spy but who instead becomes…3 min
SFX|September 2016MARK DE JAGERCan you describe the world of Infernal? War has engulfed the two greatest kingdoms, a war that’s grown more terrible with each passing year. Cities are being burned to the ground, their entire populations vanishing, and stories of unspeakable creatures are spreading too fast to be rumours... What is your protagonist Stratus like? Brutal. In modern terms we’d probably label him as some variant of a paranoid schizophrenic, save for the fact that he’s absolutely correct in asserting that he’s not human and is being hunted. He’ll do whatever it takes to find the answers that will silence his inner demon, even if it means killing his way across the kingdom. What was the initial idea that sparked the novel? I was watching random clips on YouTube. One was of…1 min
SFX|September 2016X-PLOSIONSCI-FACT! Tom Baker presented Yorkshire Television’s The Book Tower for three series, from 1979 to 1981. While X-Men: Apocalypse marked the end of the second X-Men movie trilogy, writerproducer Simon Kinberg says the possibilities remain endless for Marvel’s mutants on screen. “If you know the X-Men comic books,” Kinberg tells Red Alert at this year’s Saturn Awards, “you know that there’s hundreds, even thousands of other good storylines, some big storylines we haven’t told yet, or storylines like Dark Phoenix that maybe we’d want to tell a different way. We’re deep in the trenches of that now, but we have a sense of a few different areas we could explore.” Kinberg adds that the X-Men films will continue to jump forward in time, though perhaps not as much as one…1 min
SFX|September 2016DEVELOPMENT HELLSubscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx WHAT’S UP THE WIZARD’S SLEEVE? MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN Move over, Doctor Strange! Or at least shuffle an inch or two sideways into the Astral Plane. Rival comic book sorcerer Mandrake the Magician is heading for the big screen in the improbable form of Sacha Baron Cohen. Yes, the man behind Borat and Ali G is set to play the dapper, impeccably moustached occultist in a new Warner Bros blockbuster. The creation of Lee Falk, Mandrake first appeared in 1934, predating even Batman and Superman. A stage magician with a neat line in top hats and hypnotic illusions, he originally came to cinemas in a cliffhanging serial in 1939 and made the small screen in animated form in ’80s fave Defenders Of The Earth (all together now: “Master…6 min
SFX|September 2016Penny DreadfulDreadful thing to do Look out for the London Horror Festival, the annual fest devoted to horror in the performing arts. This’ll be the sixth year of the event, which showcases all kinds of scary theatre. It’ll run from 10-30 October in The Old Red Lion Theatre, Islington. Fancy being in it? Submissions close on 30 July – email londonhorror festival@gmail.com. Be afraid. FrightFest’s coming and so is Moose Jaws... SECOND COMING Horror sequels that stink up the first part come out all the time. But is it possible it could work the other way? I saw Lights Out this month, and despite a slightly dodgy backstory, it’s pretty damn scary. And director David F Sandberg – a Swedish first-timer who made awesome shorts and clearly knows what he’s doing…3 min
SFX|September 2016138 Facts About STAR WARSRNING ! POSSIBLE SPOILERS It’s not just about the films, you know. Sure, The Force Awakens was amazing – and we know a bit about the upcoming Rogue One – but there’s so much more to Star Wars than the big screen. In fact, without the new-look Expanded Universe, with its all-encompassing, consistent, cross-media canon, you’ll have serious gaps in your knowledge of that galaxy far, far away. So we’ve plundered facts from comics, TV, books, novelisations, news, interviews and even Rey’s vision – all legitimate sources, mind you; no unofficial leaks for us – to help enhance your understanding of the Star Wars universe. There’s also some wonderfully random trivia. May the Force be with you! BEFORE A NEW HOPE Anakin Skywalker’s old Clone Wars apprentice Ahsoka Tano (who…15 min
SFX|September 2016ZACHARY QUINTOEnCcolousneters FACE TO FACE WITH THE BIGGEST STARS Biodata Occupation Actor, producer Born 2 June 1977 From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Greatest Hits Heroes, Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, 24, Hitman: Agent 47 Random Fact What scares Quinto? “co*ckroaches, nuclear apocalypse...” Whether it’s because he’s a producer as well as an actor or just a very intelligent guy, Zachary Quinto is one of Hollywood’s most erudite and thoughtful movie stars, perfectly cast as the modern incarnation of Mr Spock, the logical yin to Captain Kirk’s gutinstinct yang in Star Trek Beyond. Just like his on-screen alter ego, Quinto is rarely lost for words, considers each question carefully and knows just where he’s at. Unlike the Vulcan, however, he is similarly up front about his emotions, as SFX discovers when we talk…4 min
SFX|September 2016Harry Potter And The Cursed Child Fact FileThe play started as a story by Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, and has been adapted for the stage by Thorne – familiar to SFXreaders as the man behind the wonderful TV showThe Fades. He also adapted vampire dramaLet The Right One Infor the stage, so his “cool” credentials are high. The official synopsis reads: “It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children. While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable…2 min
SFX|September 2016DOCTOR STRANGEOUT 28 OCTOBER Doctor Strange is more than just a movie. It’s an almighty summoning spell, cracking open reality itself and unleashing all manner of dark forces and occult phenomena into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Seriously, people, cast a protective hex while you can – this is the stuff they don’t tell their shareholders… Yes, the introduction of Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme unlocks a whole new vault of comic book mythology, from mind-melting mystical realms – the Astral Plane and the 13th Dimension are just begging for the big screen – to a demonic pantheon of potential villains, from Blackheart to D’Spayre, Mephisto to Baphomet. It’s also a chance to explore Marvel’s colourful roster of supernatural heroes. Perhaps future films will see Benedict Cumberbatch team with the likes of vampiric ’tec…2 min
SFX|September 2016THE DARK TOWEROUT 17 FEBRUARY It took Peter Jackson three marathon movies to bring The Lord Of The Rings’ “unfilmable” 1,300-or-so pages to cinematic glory, so spare a thought for Danish director Nikolaj Arcel, whose job is to condense a total of 3,824 pages (volumes dependent) of Stephen King’s seven-book magnum opus into a single film. And that not insignificant task conveniently ignores the saga’s recent eighth entry (a further 355 pages) and the dozens of King novels inexorably tethered to the series’ wider plot. It’s therefore more realistic to consider 2017’s The Dark Tower less as a retelling of King’s complete post-apocalyptic Western and more an adapted novella taking part in its universe; quite possibly one that’s set after the conclusion of the final book if a recent tweet by Stephen…1 min
SFX|September 2016STATE OF GRACEBryce Dallas Howard talks her new creature feature You’ve had two big summer movies in a row with Jurassic World and now Pete’s Dragon. Are there any connections between the women you played in each? Claire and Grace are very different people but they both have intimate relationships with giant reptiles [laughs]. You’ve said you really pushed to be cast in Pete’s Dragon. How did you go about it? I asked to see the script secretly with my agents because I was curious. I loved the original Pete’s Dragon and I was like, “What are they doing?” When I read it, I realised it was a departure. I thought it was beautiful and innocent. I told my agents I’d like to be considered for the role. Six months went by…2 min
SFX|September 2016SCREAM!“Despite what some thought, the end product was a good one” With its “Not for the nervous” tagline and its otherworldly, fictional editor, Scream! was clearly intended as a horror-themed equivalent to 2000 AD. Described by John Wagner – who penned two of its most popular offerings, Monster and The Thirteenth Floor, with his then-regular writing partner, Alan Grant – as “merger fodder”, IPC’s attempt to launch a new boys’ anthology comic proved remarkably short-lived. Debuting in late March 1984, Scream! lasted only 15 issues before it was combined with Eagle just over three months later. But its stories – boasting work by such top British talent as Brendan McCarthy, Cam Kennedy, Ron Smith and even Alan Moore – have lingered in the memories of those who read the original…8 min
SFX|September 2016THE BFGGet sci-finews, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx RELEASED 22 JULY PG | 117 minutes Director Steven Spielberg Cast Mark Rylance, Ruby Barnhill, Penelope Wilton, Jemaine Clement The BFG reunites Steven Spielberg with ET writer Melissa Mathison after 34 years. It was worth the wait – there’s boundless wonder to be found in this gloriumptious Roald Dahl adap. After orphan Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) catches the eye of a figure as tall as a house outside her window one night, she’s whisked away to Giant Country. Fortunately for Sophie, this giant (a mo-capped Mark Rylance) is friendly. The BFG can’t let Sophie return home for risk of revealing his kind, but it’s equally dangerous for Sophie to stay in Giant Country, where nine bloodthirsty man-eaters inch closer to sniffing her out. All…2 min
SFX|September 2016BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICEGet sci-finews, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx “Remains a badly structured mess” RELEASED 1 AUGUST (Blu-ray/ DVD)/OUT NOW! (download) 2016 | 12 | Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/ DVD/download Director Zack Snyder Cast Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane Bruce Wayne. Clark Kent. Diana Prince. Properly together on the big screen in live-action for the first time ever. Surely you can’t mess that up? And yet Zack Snyder, so consumed with the grim and serious tone he set in Man Of Steel, gives it a royal try, sucking the fun out of a landmark cinematic event. But let’s find the positives, shall we? Ben Affleck makes for a decent, haunted Bruce, enlivened by his spiky interplay with Jeremy Irons’s Alfred and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. Gadot’s warrior is a…4 min
SFX|September 2016TERRAHAWKS Series OneRELEASED 25 JULY 1983 | U | Blu-ray/DVD Creators Gerry Anderson, Christopher Burr Cast Denise Bryer, Windsor Davies, Jeremy Hitchen, Anne Ridler BLU-RAY DEBUT “Terrahawks! Stay on this channel! This is an emergency!” With this pulsequickening call to arms Gerry Anderson entered the ’80s, abandoning his live-action dreams to return to the puppets that made his legend. He may have dressed it up with box-fresh buzz-words like Hudsoncolor and Supermacromation, and made his new heroes out of flexible latex, not wood, but make no mistake: this is a bid to reignite old glories. Terrahawks recycles classic Anderson tropes for post-Star Wars kids, delivering yet another worldwide defence force with a hidden base and a sleek fleet of vehicles, defending Earth against an alien menace. But there’s a new, contagious glibness:…2 min
SFX|September 2016ZOOTROPOLISRELEASED 25 JULY 2016 | PG | Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD/ download Directors Byron Howard, Rich Moore Cast Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Nate Torrence The winning formula of recent Disney animated movies continues with Zootropolis. While it’s essentially a buddy comedy about a rabbit cop (Ginnifer Goodwin’s Judy Hopps) and a con man fox (Jason Bateman’s Nick Wilde), the film has a lot more on its mind. There are smart subtexts about racism and police behaviour, and how tough it is for people to live together. But everything is delivered with panache and joy, including imaginative designs, clever gags, a story that wends its way through cop drama and noir to slapstick and back again, and jubilant vocal performances that always serve the film. Hopps and Wilde are an endearing…3 min
SFX|September 2016THE MERMAIDRELEASED OUT NOW! 2016 | 15 | Blu-ray (HMV Exclusive/ download Director Stephen Chow Cast Yun Lin, Chao Deng, Show Luo, Yuqi Zhang The Mermaid is the highest-grossing movie in Chinese history, was directed by Chinese acting legend Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer) and has a pertinent environmental theme. But you deserve a medal if you get past the first ten minutes, which make you wonder how on earth it made so much money. And yet... once you do, you might find that your brain has reached a level of sludgy, stoner, sub-Austin Powers mirth that makes you enjoy the rest. You might even laugh. There’s a chance you might even laugh out loud. Somehow, giggles are there amidst the dross, and they just about save the film. It centres on…1 min
SFX|September 2016TIMESLIPRELEASED OUT NOW! 1970 | U | DVD Creator Ruth Boswell Cast Cheryl Burfield, Spencer Banks, Denis Quilley, Iris Russell Conceived, in the words of creator Ruth Boswell, as Associated Television’s more “down to earth” rival to Doctor Who, this fondly remembered children’s sci-fisaga arrived just as the Time Lord himself swapped space and time for exile in the Home Counties. Though the central conceit of two teenagers disappearing through a time portal is pure Narnia fantasy – with the wardrobe replaced by a hole in some MOD fencing – efforts were made to give the show a covering of scientific legitimacy: Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle lent his son Geoffrey as series consultant, while the first two stories were introduced by ITV science correspondent Peter Fairley. Cheryl Burfield and Spencer…2 min
SFX|September 2016DARK MATTER“Crouch is a better writer than this” RELEASED 11 AUGUST 352 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Blake Crouch Publisher Macmillan When Michael Crichton died in 2008, the world was robbed of the master of what we might call the cutting-edge ideas thriller. Forget Crichton’s latter-day excursion into climate change denial in State Of Fear, in his pomp he was brilliantly adept at finding pop-fictional takes on abstract ideas: complexity theory in The Lost World or the experiential economy in Timeline. Indeed, the more time that goes by, the more he seems an outlier, possibly the only true master of the cutting-edge ideas thriller. Which isn’t to say writers haven’t tried to follow his example. Philip Kerr once looked as if he might follow Crichton’s path, but latterly seems to have turned…3 min
SFX|September 2016BEYOND THE AQUILA RIFTRELEASED 21 JULY 784 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Alastair Reynolds Publisher Gollancz There’s always something ironic about the kind of weighty volume that seeks to gather up the best of an established novelist’s shorter work. But don’t let the sheer heft of Al Reynolds’s new collection (20 stories, seven previously uncollected) put you off because, in addition to being one of our best SF novelists, he’s also turned out some spellbinding shorter fiction down the years. For proof, newcomers to Reynolds’s fictional world should turn immediately to the novella “Diamond Dogs”. It’s a story that, according to a “Story Notes” afterword, was inspired by mountaineering and “the peculiar allure of dangerous spaces”. In Reynolds’s hands, this raw idea becomes a tale of adrenaline junkies trying to solve the mysteries of…2 min
SFX|September 2016SOUTHRELEASED OUT NOW! 411 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Frank Owen Publisher Corvus Books In an America where the civil war ended with the country split in twain, a second eruption of hostilities in the 21st century culminates in the North unleashing a wave of biological attacks. For brothers Dyce and Garrett, the plague of viruses is the least of their troubles, as they’re on the run from the Callahan clan, the most powerful militia in the decaying South. Sheltering from a storm, they meet Vida, who’s searching for medicine for her infected mother, and the three decide there might be safety in numbers. South might not contain any zombies, but it offers numerous comparisons with The Walking Dead. Alongside the postcivilisation backdrop, redneck siblings Dyce and Garrett have a fractious…1 min
SFX|September 2016THE KING’S JUSTICE/THE AUGUR’S GAMBITRELEASED OUT NOW! 128/192 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Stephen Donaldson Publisher Gollancz “Smart, violent and moving, with brilliant twists” The term “Gordian Knot” comes from Alexander the Great’s approach to disentangling an impossible knot – he cut it in two. The King’s Justice and The Augur’s Gambit have experienced their own Gordian Knot. Packaged in the States as one book, they’ve been separated for the UK release. We can see why. The King’s Justice is a ridiculously enjoyable magical tale, packed with reveals we don’t want to spoil here. It follows a man in black – called Black – who arrives in a village to investigate a murder. The mysterious man’s special gifts aid him on his quest, but could be used against him… It’s smart, violent and moving, with…1 min
SFX|September 2016HOPE AND REDRELEASED OUT NOW! 512 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Jon Skovron Publisher Orbit After watching the entire population of her village die in agony at the hands of the Emperor’s biomancers, Hope is set on a path for vengeance, living first in a male-only monastery and then aboard a lively trader’s ship. Orphaned at around the same age, Red grows up in the slums, becoming a cunning thief and loveable ne’er-do-well. Though the two only meet halfway through Hope And Red, their separate adventures don’t feel like stalling before the main event. And the main event itself, once they are united against the empire, is an action-packed riot of swordfighting, knife-throwing and, well, literal riots. There are a few moments that feel a little too convenient to be entirely believable, but…2 min
SFX|September 2016BEAST WAGONsfx loves RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Changeling Studios Writer Owen Michael Johnson Artist John Pearson ISSUES 1-4 Feasting and fornication – that’s all life boils down to according to this visceral, hot-blooded series. Initially funded through Kickstarter, it proves that indie comics don’t necessarily have to use traditional distribution networks to succeed. With its compelling storyline, impressive art and high production values, Beast Wagon is as good as anything you find at Image or Dark Horse. Set in the fictional Whipsnarl Zoo during a heatwave, each of the four issues to date has taken place over the course of an hour. As temperatures and tempers both rise, a looming ecological apocalypse begins to manifest, as we move towards the hottest time of the day. Owen Michael Johnson deftly draws parallels…1 min
SFX|September 2016MONSTERRELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Rebellion Writers Alan Moore, John Wagner, Alan Grant Artists Heinzl, Jesus Redondo GRAPHIC NOVEL Tune out the hype: this isn’t some long-lost masterwork by the mighty Alan Moore, finally disinterred from the dusty bowels of Scream! comic. In fact the Northampton magus only wrote the opening instalment before Judge Dredd’s Wagner and Grant took charge. So it’s no proto-Watchmen, then – but it is the last gasp of a peculiarly British strand of comic storytelling, one that piled Dickensian misery on blind ballerinas and one-legged footballers, and wallowed in shadow and insurmountable despair. Inky gothic, let’s call it. Monster positively drips with it. Moore sets up the mystery: a young boy, a violent father, something awful in a locked attic room. Then we go behind the…1 min
SFX|September 2016MIGHTY NO 9RELEASED OUT NOW! Reviewed on PS4 Also on XO, Wii U, 3DS, PS3, 360, PS Vita, PC Publisher Deep Silver VIDEOGAME This throwback platformer is one of many crowdfunded game reimaginings, reboots and sequels we’ll be seeing in the next couple of years. If they all turn out like this we should probably stop Kickstarting things. It’s mighty boring, and suffers from more technical issues than you’d expect. You play Beck, the titular Mighty No 9, whose mission involves saving Mighty Nos 1-8 from their malfunctioning selves. Each has a distinct theme – ice, fire, lightning, ranged attacks, sniping – which dictates the style of the level, and resulting boss battle. Every stage also boasts an army of minions, ranging from simple robots to more complex mini-bosses. It’s a spiritual…2 min
SFX|September 2016GAME OF THRONESSCI-FITV IN HIGHER DEFINITION ZOOM IN BEST EPISODE Just when we thought it couldn’t get bigger than the “Battle Of The Bastards”, season finale “The Winds Of Winter” (6.10) steps it up another gear with Cersei’s explosive power play. NITPICK It does sometimes feel like characters travel around at lightspeed, but story editor/writer Bryan Cogman has an explanation: “The timelines of the various story threads don’t necessarily match up all the time.” BEST MOMENT Hodor’s “Hold The Door” death (6.05) isn’t just an instant internet meme – it’s utterly heartbreaking, all the more tragic because the gentle giant’s demise was always his destiny. BEST MOMENT 2 Or for pure poetic justice, it has to be Ramsay Snow’s death by hounds – and Sansa’s little grin after letting the dogs out…4 min
SFX|September 2016OUTLANDERUK Broadcast Amazon Prime, finished US Broadcast Starz, finished Episodes Reviewed 2.01-2.12 SCRIPTEASE A TV season distilled LINE UP The month’s most quotable dialogue CASSIDY “He’s walking the earth with a face like an arsehole. He should have tried heroin.” Preacher, Episode 1.02 DUKE OF SANDRINGHAM “You’ve always known that in my heart, I am a Jacobite.” CLAIRE “I’m reasonably sure that you don’t have a heart.” Outlander, EPISODE 2.11 THE HOUND “You’re sh*t at dying, you know that?” Game Of Thrones, Episode 6.08 DR SEWARD “I’m a New Yorker, Sir Malcolm. We know our way round random gunplay.” Penny Dreadful, Episode 3.09 ALISON “What can we do, Sarah? I have the runs but I’m packing heat!” Orphan Black, Episode 4.10 Scotland, 1948. CLAIRE runs down a road in an…2 min
SFX|September 2016DEATH!Blastermind The SFX quiz QUESTION 1 PICTURE QUESTION Name the film about the alien serial killer, and the star. QUESTION 2 In the comics’ Death Of Superman, in whose arms does Superman die? QUESTION 3 In the original Star Trek TV show, 59 crew members were killed. How many were redshirts? (Within five gets a point.) QUESTION 4 Which broadcaster complained on Twitter about the Radio Times spoiling it for him regarding Han Solo’s fate in The Force Awakens? QUESTION 5 PICTURE QUESTION Name the film and its director. QUESTION 6 How many times did Rory “die” in Doctor Who? QUESTION 7 PICTURE QUESTION How does Robert Patrick’s T-1000 finally expire? QUESTION 8 Which major character dies – properly – in the acclaimed comic Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #107?…2 min
SFX|September 2016The Ed ZoneStar Wars is big. Really big. And we’re not just talking about its unparalleled box office muscle. The galaxy that George Lucas created sprawls for light years beyond the seven (soon to be eight) live-action movies – and even though the post-Disney takeover Lucasfilm has reset the old Expanded Universe to create a new beyond-the-movies continuity, there’s already enough new story to fill several Star Destroyers. So much, in fact, that it’s difficult to keep up with all that’s going on, even if you can already recite The Force Awakens word-for-word. So we’ve pored through piles of novels, comics, reference books and more to give you an extensive guide to the key events, people (and aliens), and happenings in that galaxy far, far away. Think of it as a fun,…1 min
SFX|September 2016STILL BOLDLY GOINGFew science fiction events are as anticipated as Bryan Fuller’s Star Trek. The first iteration since Enterprise set in the franchise’s original “Prime” universe, the show will cap Trek’s 50th anniversary year, debuting on the CBS All Access website in January 2017. Its creator tells Red Alert he’s looking forward to taking Star Trek once more where no one has gone before… “The thing that’s exciting,” says Fuller at this year’s Saturn Awards in Burbank, “is carrying on the progressive tradition of Star Trek. What we have to do is tell stories in a different way, a modern way. That’s a big indicator of where we’re going in terms of style and storytelling.” Fuller adds that the show’s online format, a first for Trek, will enable him to carry out…1 min
SFX|September 2016TRIPLE THREATSCI-FACT! Dredd’s gone up against the Predator before, in a 1997 miniseries from Dark Horse. AFTER LIFE CELEBRATING ICONIC SCI-FISTARS 119 TAMI STRONACH The Childlike Empress in The NeverEnding Story Tami Stronach was just 11 years old when she was cast as the Childlike Empress inThe NeverEnding Story, her first and only Hollywood movie production. Despite the film’s success, Tami quit the movies to focus on a career as a dancer and has her own dance studio in New York. Would you ever play the role again? Part of the reason that playing the Childlike Empress was fun is that her inside and outside don’t match. I don’t know that, at 43, I’d want to play a child, but I’d love to be in a remake! What would she be…2 min
SFX|September 2016DANIELLE PANABAKERSCI-FACT! Panabaker signed on to The Flash knowing nothing about the comics. LET IT SNOW “I think at the beginning, Caitlin Snow was scarred from her experience with the particle accelerator explosion. But we’ve really seen her starting to come into her own.” A FROSTY RECEPTION “Last season I finally got to suit up [as Earth 2’s Killer Frost]! It’s a little funny, as an actor, because so much of Killer Frost’s powers are done in special effects rather than stunts, so on the day it feels a little ridiculous at times, because I’m just shooting my arms out.” YOU KNOW NOTHING, CAITLIN SNOW “I know nothing about season three yet, but I’m desperate to read the scripts! I think it’ll all depend on what happened with the timeline. We…1 min
SFX|September 2016FUNERAL GAMESFormer Doctor Who Tom Baker’s imagination is being let loose in a new audio series, in which the actor plays… Tom Baker! After Paul Magrs wrote three Who audio series starring the actor, the two stayed in touch, trading “silly rambling stories” by email. From those have grown the punninglytitled Baker’s End, which begins with Tom’s funeral, after he fakes his own death... “It’s Tom playing Tom, involved in spooky earthbound mysteries,” Magrs explains. “He’s retired and trying to get away from fandom, but mysterious events pursue him into his everyday life in this village, Happenstance, where all the villagers are quite peculiar.” Who fans can expect the odd familiar reference. For example, episode three features a talking cabbage (Baker once infamously suggested the Doctor’s next companion could be one).…2 min
SFX|September 2016Image BankPick up your visual scanning SCI-FACT! Cinema Alchemist also features a blow-by-blow of the Alien chestburster sequence. There will be fake blood... MASTER BUILDER This never-before-seen shot from behind the scenes on Star Wars is just one of many being unveiled in Cinema Alchemist, a new book that charts the work of production designer Roger Christian. Out 26 July from Titan Books, it will reveal trivia like how Christian created the Millennium Falcon, the lightsaber and R2-D2 (the latter using a 10 shilling lamp top for a head). VOTE BRUCE! Did you know that Bruce Campbell has never won an Emmy? No, NEVER. That’s probably why the cult icon has taken matters into his own (chainsaw-wielding) hands with a campaign that invites Emmy voters to “make a terrible but fun…1 min
SFX|September 2016ALL THAT MATTERSFOREPEISNPIOEANK WHERE WRITERS AND OPINIONS COLLIDE “AS A SPECIES WE HAVE A GREAT NEED TO TRY AND UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER” I’ve been called Structure Girl – which as superhero names go isn’t very cool – but I accepted it because my ability to plot is probably what made it relatively easy for me to move between novels and screenplays. In novels you have some leeway to sprawl. Not so much in a script. You need to know where you’re going and get there cleanly and efficiently. Early in my writing career I couldn’t start a project until I knew the final scene. As I became more adept I found myself asking other writers in my critique group: “Tell me what your book is about – in one sentence.” It wasn’t…3 min
SFX|September 2016ROCK AND ROLL SUICIDEON SET EXCLUSIVE! TWISTED FIRESTARTER JAY HERNANDEZ IS DIABLO “The mechanics of every hero is different, whether it’s shooting or it’s cutting or it’s boomerangs, but there’s this metahuman aspect to my character which is really intriguing. Part of the story is waiting for the moment when the change comes and he decides to fight. Because I’m resisting for almost the entire film, being violent and hurting people, even if it means for the greater good. So that’s part of my struggle as a character. You don’t really know what he can do, the extent to which he can hurt people. You’re waiting for him to explode, and eventually he does and it’s insane.” CLOWNIN’ AROUND MARGOT ROBBIE IS HARLEY QUINN What role does Harley play in the Squad? The…13 min
SFX|September 2016What Did Harry Potter Ever Do For Us?1 Harry Potter... made reading books cool We’re not implying that before JK Rowling came along, children didn’t read. But books weren’t exactly flaunted; kids didn’t necessarily feel comfortable reading in their lunch break or outside of class in case they’d be labelled a nerd or, if you went to school in the dark ages when we did, a “swot”. But then along came Harry... and, gradually, not only could a child (or even an adult) whip a book out of their bag and start reading on the bus, someone might actually tap them on the shoulder and want to talk about the story. How amazing is that? Which leads us to... 2 Harry Potter... brought people together Humanity is all about tribes, isn’t it? People are happier when they’re…6 min
SFX|September 2016MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDRENUnleash the blockbusters! Your essential guide to 15 unmissable movies soon to be released into the wild… OUT 30 SEPTEMBER Eternal champion of the misfit Tim Burton is back with another call to arms for society’s outsiders. Based on the bestselling novel by Ransom Riggs – a book inspired by a true-life cache of creepy vintage photographs – it’s the tale of a houseful of orphans gifted with extraordinary powers. “Someone actually asked me in an interview two years ago, ‘If there was one director you could work with, who would it be?’” star Asa Butterfield tells SFX. “And I said ‘Tim Burton’. A few months later I get a script, with the words ‘Directed by Tim Burton’ on it… I’m like, ‘God, this is it!’ “It’s a real Tim…2 min
SFX|September 2016FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEMOUT 18 NOVEMBE Eddie Redmayne continues his quest to unseat Mr Cumberbatch as “that British actor you see bloody everywhere” with this adaptation of JK Rowling’s titular book. The original tome, a bestiary of magical creatures used by Harry Potter at Hogwarts, was written by a wizard named Newt Scamander in 1927 and detailed the creatures he’d studied in his world travels. The film, written by Rowling and directed by Potter veteran David Yates, shows us what Redmayne’s Scamander actually got up to when he wasn’t scribbling down important factoids about Fwoopers and Puffskeins. However, the biggest twist comes with the setting. After eight movies set in the British school system, the action has moved across the pond to Prohibition-era New York – the first time Rowling’s world has visited…1 min
SFX|September 2016POWER RANGERSOUT 24 MARCH While some summer blockbusters opt to go down the road of maximum dourness (Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, we’re looking at you), don’t expect the same tone from Power Rangers – the upcoming movie reboot of the spandex-draped kids television show. “This is more of an Amblin sort of experience,” says director Dean Israelite, on set in Vancouver. “There’s a real sense of adventure and fun. To me this is a love story between five kids who start off in their own worlds, but who find each other. There’s a joy and a buoyancy to the movie.” “The journey of these five teens becoming the Power Rangers and the journey of them growing up are one and the same. To me, what’s been exciting about the…2 min
SFX|September 2016NICOLAS WINDING REFNTo date, Nicolas Winding Refn’s career has only occasionally seen him tacking towards SFX territory, but it wouldn’t be too much of a shock if the future saw him becoming a more regular visitor to our far-flung shores. Over the last few years the Danish-born director of Drive has spoken enthusiastically about bringing Wonder Woman or Batgirl to the big screen, and toyed with remakes of Logan’s Run and Barbarella. And his latest film, the ultra-stylish The Neon Demon, sees him gleefully splashing about in the horror genre. Refn is clearly a cinephile, having lent his name to the likes of a high-end book of movie posters and a range of vinyl soundtrack reissues. So it’s something of a surprise to learn that he seems to have stumbled into this…6 min
SFX|September 2016INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCEGet sci-finews, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx “Gone is the sense of an ordinary world” RELEASED OUT NOW! 12A | 120 minutes Director Roland Emmerich Cast Jeff Goldblum, Maika Monroe, Liam Hemsworth, Bill Pullma In 2008 Roland Emmerich opened his luxury London home to the world’s media. His taste in interior decor was remarkable: a painting of Jesus in a Wham! T-shirt; a diorama of the doomed Kennedy motorcade; a life-size waxwork of Pope John Paul II, reading his own obituaries. Did we really have Emmerich wrong all these years? Was the man behind such earnest catastrophe p*rn as 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow really an exponent of high-end kitsch, more art world prankster Jeff Koons than disaster movie merchant Irwin Allen? Was it too late to wrap quote…3 min
SFX|September 2016THE PURGE: ELECTION YEARRELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 105 minutes (TBC) Director James DeMonaco Cast Elizabeth Mitchell, Frank Grillo, Edwin Hodge 2014’s The Purge: Anarchy expanded on the original home invasion thriller, and added political comment that was more in your face than some of the violence. Now here comes Election Year, which goes full Trump, milking the rich vs poor arguments for all it can. Frank Grillo’s back as police sergeant Leo Barnes, here protecting a crusading politician (Elizabeth Mitchell) running for president so she can take down the New Founding Fathers of America and end the annual ritual of lawless mayhem for good. Much like the previous outing, the messaging is less than subtle, though the characters spouting it are at least a touch more interesting. Writer/director James DeMonaco is still…1 min
SFX|September 2016SUPERGIRL Season OneGet sci-finews, reviews and features at gamesradar.com/sfx RELEASED 25 JULY 2015-2016 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Creators Greg Berlanti, Ali Adler, Andrew Kreisberg Cast Melissa Benoist, Calista Flockhart, Mehcad Brooks, Chyler Leigh Superman may have had a tough time of it on the big screen this year, but life hasn’t been all bad for citizens of Krypton. Supergirl, the latest DC Comics spin-off from the team behind Arrow and The Flash, shares much more DNA with the Christopher Reeve movies than the mopeathon that was Batman V Superman – it’s a fun, upbeat and incredibly likeable action drama that doesn’t have a miserable bone in its superpowered body. That’s despite the fact that things don’t look too promising after the first few episodes, which feel like a throwback to the 20th…3 min
SFX|September 201610 CLOVERFIELD LANERELEASED 25 JULY 2016 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Dan Trachtenberg Cast Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr sfx loves “Perfectly paced and utterly compelling” Let’s get one thing clear straight away: this ain’t a Cloverfield sequel. JJ Abrams may claim that the two films share DNA, but it’s probably about as much as humans share with lobsters… Let’s not carp, though, because that marketing sleight of hand ensured a sizeable audience for a film which thoroughly deserves it. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Michelle, who, after her car crashes, wakes up in an underground bunker. Its owner Howard (John Goodman) tells her there’s been a chemical or nuclear attack, so they could be stuck down there for years. Is he lying? It’s a deliciously Twilight Zone-ish premise, but…2 min
SFX|September 2016APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLDRELEASED OUT NOW! 2015 | PG | DVD Directors Christian Desmares, Franck Ekinci Cast Marion Cotillard, Philippe Katerine, Jean Rochefort It seems Brian Talbot’sGrandville doesn’t have a monopoly on steampunk versions of Paris filled with talking animals. But in this effervescently imaginative French animation – based on a graphic novel – the steampunk trappings are not merely aesthetic. The wrong turn history takes, which leaves the world bereft of subsequent scientific breakthroughs, is an important plot point. In 1941, the sooty French capital is a sprawling steampunk metropolis, with France on the verge of war with Canada. The orphaned great granddaughter of the scientist who inadvertently helped cause this world continues his work into an invincibility serum, with the help of her talking cat… While the character designs and animation…1 min
SFX|September 2016MIDNIGHT SPECIALRELEASED 8 August 2016 | 12 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Jeff Nichols Cast Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver Though not Jeff Nichols’s first foray into the fantastic – 2011’s Take Shelter concerned a man suffering apocalyptic visions – Midnight Special still seems like a departure for the indie director. A homage to family-friendly adventures of the ’70s and ’80s – Nichols has namechecked Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Starman; you could add Escape To Witch Mountain to the list – it uses plot elements of those movies, but tonally feels quite distinct. Michael “Zod” Shannon plays Roy Tomlin, whose son Alton (Jaeden Lieberher) has astonishing, inexplicable abilities. A religious community referred to as the Ranch see the boy as a saviour. For the government he’s a…2 min
SFX|September 2016LOVE & PEACERELEASED OUT NOW! 2015 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD Director Sion Sono Cast Hiromi Hasegawa, Kumiko Asô, Toshiyuki Nishida, Kiyohiko Shibukawa Pixar’s Toy Story films were one take on the concept of sentient toys with a life of their own – and old, thrown-away toys mourning their lost owners and the love they once knew. This Japanese film is another; it couldn’t be more different. Ryoichi is a pathetic character, bullied at work and literally bowed down with the weight of his own self-loathing. He finds happiness in a pet turtle, Pikadon, to whom he whispers his dreams of rock stardom, but is left distraught when his tormentors at work force him to flush the turtle away. Pikadon is washed to an underground lost and found, full of abandoned toys and…1 min
SFX|September 2016UNDERGROUND AIRLINESRELEASED OUT NOW! 368 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Ben H Winters Publisher Century Author Ben H Winters citesThe Man In The High Castle as an influence on this alternate history novel, in which slavery remains legal in the southern states of America. But while he must have written it before the Amazon TV adaptation aired, Underground Airlines feels more like the show than Philip K Dick’s novel: world-building wins over plot. The world it builds is very impressive. This is a carefully considered, micro-detailed examination of a modern America where those pesky Southerners have maintained their right to treat fellow men like subhumans (even if it does ignore how the rest of the world might react). It doesn’t always take the obvious route, and cleverly uses a morally-dubious black man…1 min
SFX|September 2016BULLET TIMETHE WORZEL BOOK RELEASED OUT NOW! 342 pages | Paperback Author Stuart Manning Publisher Miwk Publishing • This exceptionally good making-of book puts the spotlight on Third Doctor Jon Pertwee’s other big TV series: Worzel Gummidge. Also covers late ’80s Kiwi spin-off Worzel Gummidge Down Under. • Meticulously researched, it uses archive documents for both the companies who made the show. • Also draws on dozens of new interviews with cast and crew – plus Pertwee’s son, Sean. • Very well illustrated, with design sketches, on-set Polaroids, and ephemera. • The lion’s share is an episode guide – which even details script edits. • Also looks at previous BBC Worzels (for both radio and TV), a 1979 musical, a never-made Irish TV series, and the Look-In strip. • Great fact…1 min
SFX|September 2016THE INTERMINABLESRELEASED OUT NOW! 416 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Paige Orwin Publisher Angry Robot Some fantasy novels want to show off their worldbuilding, filling every page with explanations of magic and battles, explaining in detail their history and rules. Others just give you little hints; a bit of history here, a bit of magic theory there, letting you do the work of building this into a detailed world. The Interminables is one of the latter – and it’s all the better for it. Edmund Templeton is a wizard, survivor of the Wizard War – which isn’t surprising, as he’s also immortal. Known as the Hour Thief, he takes snippets of time from others and uses it to prolong his own life. He struggles to help restore a world devastated by the…1 min
SFX|September 2016THE HIGH GROUNDAN EXTRACT FROM A NEW BOOK Emperor’s daughter Mercedes and scholarship boy Tracy have just arrived at The High Ground military academy, where they will soon find that many want them to fail… The Author Melinda Snodgrass is the acclaimed author of many science fiction novels, including the Circuit and Edge series. She has had a long career in television, serving as the story editor on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and has written scripts for numerous other shows. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They were flying closer to the Apexcosmódromo. The space station was immense. There was a fat central hub that extended above and below the central ring. Four large spokes attached the bulbous ring to the hub, and eight massive cables stretched from the central…7 min
SFX|September 2016HOW TO TALK TO GIRLS AT PARTIESIn association with www.selfmadehero.com sfx loves RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Dark Horse Comics Writers/Artists Fábio Moon, Gabriel Bá GRAPHIC NOVEL First published in 2006 collection Fragile Things, the charm of Neil Gaiman’s short story is how it moves from the ordinary to the extraordinary. And there’s little more ordinary than Croydon in the 1970s. This original graphic novel by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá expertly captures the wistful lyricism of Gaiman’s prose. Keeping exposition to a minimum, they allow pictures and dialogue to mostly tell the tale while keeping the best bits of first-person narration. It begins with the painfully shy Enn searching out a party and stumbling upon a house full of mysterious female exchange students. He gradually comes out of his shell, before it becomes evident that the…1 min
SFX|September 2016HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD“Will leave devotees desperate to watch it again” OFFICIAL OPENING 30 JULY Venue Palace Theatre, London Director John Tiffany Cast Jamie Parker, Paul Thornley, Noma Dumezweni, Poppy Miller, Alex Price, Anthony Boyle STAGE PLAY “The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution,” sighs Dumbledore in The Philosopher’s Stone, and it’s a sentiment that The Cursed Child’s writing team of JK Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany urge people to keep in mind. Arriving with a hashtag that casts Silencio on spoilers (the audience are handed #keepthesecrets pin badges after each show), The Cursed Child is an audacious play that will have stunned fans scrolling through PotterPedia, fact-checking every twist and turn of the plot. Enjoyment of the play doesn’t depend on audiences…2 min
SFX|September 2016THE TECHNOMANCERRELEASED OUT NOW! Reviewed on PS4 Also on XO, PC Publisher Focus Home Interactive VIDEOGAME Back in 2013, French studio Spiders pumped out Mars: War Logs, a tale of powerful water guilds fighting it out after a century of trouble for the human race on the Red Planet. This is officially a sequel, though it’s more like a remake. You control Zachariah, a Technomancer just learning his trade. These sci-fimages are a bit like low-grade Jedi, able to control electricity and summon it in attack. Fighting is what you’ll be doing most of, with levels guiding you through locked-off section after locked-off section, each populated by scavengers hunting for the planet’s resources, or arachnid-like locals. Combat is well balanced – a button-basher this is not. Less slick are the story…1 min
SFX|September 2016HARRISON WELLSBEST IN SHOW The characters who make TV great UK Broadcast Sky 1, finished US Broadcast The CW, finished The gamechanging cliffhanger at the end of The Flash season two – with Barry travelling back in time to save his mother – promises great things for season three, but also presents one major concern: with the subsequent changes to the timeline, are we going to get yet another version of Harrison Wells? We’ve already had one change. In season one he was actually evil speedster Eobard Thawne (aka Reverse-Flash) disguised in a Wells skin suit. As the show’s resident evil genius he was driven and ruthless but with a hint of melancholy. In season two we were introduced to Earth-2’s version of Wells, and the change in the character was…1 min
SFX|September 2016PERSON OF INTERESTUK Broadcast Channel 5, TBC US Broadcast CBS, finished Episodes Reviewed 5.01-5.12 It seemed to take forever for season five of Person Of Interest to hit US screens, with CBS ignoring it for an entire year before declaring this the final season... which they then apparently scheduled by blindfolding themselves and throwing darts at a calendar. (We’re still waiting to see it in the UK.) Still, it’s aired. And now it’s over. What began as a fairly simple crime show mutated into one of the finest science fiction series in years, incorporating – and often predicting – real-life events with its storylines about surveillance and corruption. You have to wonder if Edward Snowden ever watched it and nodded along as he saw his life played out on network television, except…2 min
SFX|September 2016TEN YEARS OF TERRORIt probably isn’t the case nowadays, but back in the day factual film books could play a big part in nurturing a love of the movies. My generation had no internet (thankfully), so the likes of Alan Frank’s Horror Films and Michael Weldon’s Psychotronic Encyclopedia Of Film fired us up and, in some cases, changed us forever. Initially I borrowed film books from the local library and later bought lots, but one that came along in 2001, after my formative period had passed, is my favourite: Ten Years Of Terror: British Horror Films Of The 1970s by David Flint and Harvey Fenton; I consider it the best book ever written on British horror films. Back in the day, some magazine called SFX awarded it five stars in its review. I’d…2 min
SFX|September 2016SHORT SHARP SHOCKTHE FUTURE FIRST! SEPTEMBER 2016 NEWS / / / / INTERVIEWS / / / / INSIGHT / / / / BAKER “It was just a year and a half ago that we got the phone call from Hollywood saying, ‘The movie is happening, get on a plane,’” recalls director David F Sandberg, “so we just had to lock the door to our apartment and fly over here. We didn’t even know where to live...” Sandberg’s trajectory from making a terrifying three-minute short called Lights Out that went viral, to completing his first feature for Warner Bros with James Wan as the producer, has been nothing if not rapid. And no one is more surprised than him. “In two weeks I start shooting Annabelle 2,” he marvels. “People keep telling me…6 min
SFX|September 2016ANTON YELCHINSubscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx SCI-FACT! Anton Yelchin was actually Russian-born, unlike original Chekov Walter Koenig. This year continues its extraordinary tally of taking the great and the good away from us by adding 27-year-old Anton Yelchin to its list – just one month before the release of Star Trek Beyond, the third film in the franchise that made his name. As the teenage navigator on the USS Enterprise, Yelchin stepped into the shoes of Star Trek’s original Pavel Chekov, Walter Koenig, in 2009 and brought a wide-eyed wonder to the bridge. His charismatic performance – not to mention his outrageously enthusiastic Russian accent – made him a fan favourite and helped to bring him to the attention of Hollywood. Although, given that Yelchin had been acting since the age of nine…2 min
SFX|September 2016GAME CHANGERSubscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/sfx SCI-FACT! Zelda is going sci-fifor the first time, with Link using tech-y gadgets. Even the casual player will know that E3 week is the most important on the gaming calendar. For a few days in June the entire videogames industry descends on LA to show off their wares, which this year included two new consoles from Microsoft and a suite of new games from Sony, headlined by a reboot of God Of War and the latest from Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima. Despite the dominance of Xbox and PlayStation, it was The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild that was hailed as game of the show – impressive seeing as it was playable only on the soon-to-bemothballed Wii U. Red Alert was able to play a…2 min
SFX|September 2016WESTWORLDAIRING AUTUMN 2016 SCI-FACT! Creator Jonathan Nolan calls the show “a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness”. The Buzz RUSSELL I love this concept, as well as the original film, so I’ll try and watch. Looks a bit dark and violent though, and the focus seems to not be on the tourists, which may be a mistake. JAYNE This show has one of the best casts in years and the production values look movie-level! There’s a real BSG vibe, too – this almost seems to be a Cylon parallel universe. NICK Has the potential to be a timely take on the idea of an AI revolt. I can’t quite shake the feeling Yul Brynner was Westworld but Ed Harris has the right kind of implacable chill, at least.…2 min
SFX|September 2016WORDY WEEKENDERConventions, shows and beyond DATE 17-18 September LOCATION Foyles, Charing Cross Road The UK’s longest-running SF and fantasy publisher, Gollancz, is rounding up the cream of its creative crop for a weekend packed with otherworldly wonder. In association with your very own SFX, Gollancz Festival 2016 will take place over two days at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, with the likes of Scott Lynch, Joanne Harris, Elizabeth Bear, Joe Abercrombie and Ben Aaronovitch all in attendance (to name just a few of the 50 talented types making an appearance at the fest). They’ll be participating in panel discussions, in-conversation events and, naturally, book signings, with each event broken down into a three-hour time slot, which are priced at £15 each. You’ll also be able to nab books at a special discount…2 min
SFX|September 2016PRINCE OF THE UNIVERSESCI-FACT! Lambert became friends with Sean Connery on set and Connery helped with his Scottish accent. NEWS WARP HIGH-SPEED FACTS Nicolas Winding Refn wants to direct a Batgirl movie following Barbara Gordon. Wreck-It-Ralph is getting a sequel! Directed by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, it’s due in March 2018. Peter Jackson is currently working on a secret project with Steven Spielberg – no, it’s not Tintin 2. Bryan Cranston has joined the cast of Power Rangers as Zordon. Justice League has cast Willem Dafoe as Aquaman hero Nuidis Vulko. Hannah John-Kamen has joined the cast of Ready Player One. Vampiric sequel Stake Land 2 has already wrapped shooting with Nick Damici. Noomi Rapace will appear in Alien: Covenant after all. Marvel’s animated Spider-Man movie has nabbed director Bob Persichetti. TV’s…3 min
SFX|September 2016THE HAN SOLO MOVIEWHAT YOU WANT TO SEE IN UPCOMING MOVIES AND TV YOUR DREAM CAST COMING SOON WOLVERINE 3 AND BLACK PANTHER Next issue you tell us how Hugh Jackman should bow out as Wolvie, and after that it’s Black Panther’s solo debut. Keep your eye on gamesradar.com/sfx for details. YOUR TOP 5 REQUEESTS HEY, CHRISTOPHER MILLER, PHIL LORD, LAWRENCE AND JON KASDAN... YOUR MOVIE BETTER INCLUDE ALL THIS STUFF! TWO HANS ARE BETTER THAN ONE 1 Two words turned up in your replies more than any other: Harrison Ford. But how to crowbar the actor in, given that thing that happened (look, there’s probably still one person who’s somehow not seen it…)? Maybe he could feature in some kind of framing device, as @JohnPhantom explains. “It should start with Harrison Ford…3 min
SFX|September 2016REPLAYCELEBRATING CLASSIC SF & FANTASY NOVELS Oh, for the gift of second chances. I never have a problem with the Weeping Angels in Doctor Who. How are they monsters? Who wouldn’t want a shot at that? Just go back in time and buy up all of central London real estate. And bet on Leicester City or something. Why anyone would ever run away from an Angel is a mystery to me. Anyway, this may have some bearing on why Replay, by Ken Grimwood, is my choice for Book Club. It’s about exactly that; every time Jeff Winston dies, in a disappointed middle age, he wakes up again as a teenager and gets to have another run at it. Like all great time-travel books, the premise is incredibly simple; and like…3 min
SFX|September 2016CRAZY IN LOVE“It appears that she’ll be handled with a lot of affection and intelligence” While no Batman foe since the Dark Knight’s golden age has had quite the cultural impact of Harley Quinn, maybe it’s a little unfair to call her a villain. The former Dr Harleen Quinzel – a psychiatrist who carried her fascination with the Joker a little too far – is really a free-spirited antihero, a loveable sprite who was led astray by her “Mistah J”. Writer-producer Paul Dini created Harley for Batman: The Animated Series in the ’90s, and partly based her on his friend, actress and comedienne Arleen Sorkin; who voiced the character throughout the show’s run. “I knew I wanted a henchgirl in one episode,” Dini tells SFX. “And I felt it was a character…3 min
SFX|September 2016Behind the MagicWhat was your initial reaction when you read your first JK Rowling book? I loved it right from the start – not only did it make me laugh, but it also had drama, action, magic, thrilling danger. The writing was so fluent, and in no way patronising. The bestselling series for children at the time was RL Stine’s Goosebumps series; horror stories, very short, so very different! Our thoughts were how to break out this debut, brilliant writer when the bestselling books were so different. Did you see her grow in confidence as a writer? From the very beginning it struck me how confident and deft Jo always was in handling the world of Harry Potter, and marshalling her characters. Jo had such a wealth of information about the characters,…3 min
SFX|September 2016THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTSOUT 23 SEPTEMBER The bestselling zombie novel with a big chewy heart is coming to the big screen, directed by Peaky Blinders and Doctor Who’s Colm McCarthy. With an unusually plant-based take on zombie infection, it focuses on 11-year-old Melanie, who has retained her intelligence despite being infected and might be the key to finding a cure. She’s taken on a dangerous trip to the UK’s last remaining city by teacher Miss Justineau (Gemma Arterton), soldier Sgt Parks (Paddy Considine) and scientist Dr Caldwell (Glenn Close), who’d very much like to dissect Melanie to find out how she ticks. “Every time I watch it I feel this ridiculous, complete happiness,” says author MR Carey, who wrote the book and the screenplay concurrently. “For ten months I was just living that…1 min
SFX|September 2016ASSASSIN’S CREEDOUT26 DECEMBER In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes and the inevitability that any big-screen videogame adaptation is guaranteed to be bobbins. Assassin’s Creed is looking to change that, precisely because director Justin Kurzel isn’t approaching it as a videogame adaptation. “It’s an incredible, visceral experience playing the game,” Kurzel tells SFX. “I know it’s deeply, deeply loved, and with that comes a responsibility to find the true DNA of the brand, but at the same time it has to be different from the game in terms of a cinematic experience.” The film’s tale does take its cue from the first game, however, and sees Michael Fassbender’s Callum Lynch saved from death row by Sophia Rikkin (Marion Cotillard) and Abstergo industries – creators of…2 min
SFX|September 2016DRAGON HEARTSome say the ’70s was Disney’s forgotten decade, overshadowed by the golden eras either side of it. But the House of Mouse had a prolific, inventive run of movies back then, from ambitious SF epic The Black Hole to a liveaction musical featuring an animated dragon... While Pete’s Dragon was a modest success at the time, it never received the critical acclaim that met Mary Poppins, another live actionanimated hybrid. Nor does it have the cross-generational nostalgia of that Julie Andrews classic. So in 2010 Disney targeted this boy-and-his-dragon tale as part of the back-catalogue that might be ripe for reinvention. They stripped the musical aspect from its DNA and asked writers to pitch them new takes. Indie director/writer David Lowery, best known for Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, was one…6 min
SFX|September 2016BLAKE CROUCHBrought To Book THE SFX AUTHOR To Book INTERVIEW Biodata Occupation Novelist Born 1978 From Statesville, North Carolina Greatest Hits The Wayward Pines novels – Pines (2012), Wayward (2013) and The Last Town (2014) – spawned a hit TV series. Random Fact Crouch grew up in “an almost Steven Spielbergstyle suburban neighbourhood” and was partly homeschooled. “I learnt to be alone and to be okay with my own company.” There are moments in life when you just decide to go for it. For Blake Crouch, one such moment came in the wake of his Wayward Pines trilogy, when he decided to write a novel exploring ideas rooted in quantum mechanics. “I just decided f*ck it, I’m going to do the research, and I’m going to write this next book because…4 min
SFX|September 2016MAIKA MONROEWas the original Independence Day part of your childhood? I was two when it came out but I was probably about 10 or 11 when I saw it for the first time. My dad was a huge fan of the film, so he showed it to me. I think we rented it on VHS! The good old days! It’s a super-special film. What’s Roland Emmerich like as a director? He’s very specific and I like that in a director. He’s very focused on all the green screen and the extras and everything that’s going on in the background but he cares most about the performances, because without that you really have nothing. So we’d really take our time – sometimes we’d be doing 15 takes on a scene. You had…1 min
SFX|September 2016HARDCORE HENRYRELEASED 1 AUGUST 2015 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD Director Ilya Naishuller Cast Sharlto Copley, Tim Roth, Haley Bennett, Andrei Dementiev PS4 knackered? Then stickHardcore Henry in your player. It’s essentially a first-person shooter, and a very violent one to boot. The drawback for gamers is that they can’t actually influence events. Those concern a cybernetic soldier who’s brought back from the dead with no vocal cords or memories. Given instructions by a variety of characters, all played by Sharlto Copley, he embarks on a mission to thwart a Magneto-like villain, Akan (Danila Kozlovsky). If you like violence, you’ll love it. Flamethrowers, machine-guns, pliers… you name it, they’re all used to inflict pain on human beings. The stunt work is remarkable and the technical prowess awe-inspiring. But although the film is…1 min
SFX|September 2016THE TIME TRAVELERSRELEASED OUT NOW! 1964 | PG | DVD Director Ib Melchior Cast Preston Foster, Philip Carey, Merry Anders, John Hoyt People often talk about the magic of cinema, but this colourful, undemanding sci-fiadventure is one of the few films that delivers it in spades – and in the most literal terms. Pulpily Wellsian, it sees four scientists transported to a post-apocalyptic 2071 after their experimental “time-viewer” short-circuits, turning a window on the future into a doorway. There they find the last few humans living underground, besieged by aggressive mutants. It’s a film low on plot and high on exposition, with much of the screen time spent showing us this future world. Fortunately, with its bald, grid-mouthed android servants, outlandish costumes and, er, tanning room for half-naked ladies, it’s an endearingly…1 min
SFX|September 2016MASTERS OF VENUSRELEASED OUT NOW! 1962 | PG | DVD Director Ernest Morris Cast Norman Wooland, Mandy Harper, Robin Stewart, Robin Hunter “Like toast with jam on a cold winter’s night” Bless the BFI! Here’s another British sci-fiobscurity resurrected, and while it’s not spellbinding, it’s as welcome as toast with jam on a cold winter’s night. A black and white Children’s Film Foundation serial told in eight parts of 15 minutes each, it bears interesting comparison with the more slam-bang American serials that had their heyday two decades before. It’s certainly a good deal milder: in a story light on real threat, a pair of children accidentally end up on a rocketship to… guess where. There they uncover a plot to poison everyone back on Earth, and run to and fro chased…1 min
SFX|September 2016THE BOYRELEASED OUT NOW! 2016 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD Director William Brent Bell Cast Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans, Jim Norton, Diana Hardcastle This horror comes across like an extreme spin on My Fake Baby, a 2007 BBC documentary on the phenomenon of “reborns” – ultrarealistic dolls that are sometimes bought by bereaved parents to comfort themselves. The Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan plays Greta, an American nanny taken aback to discover that her new ward Brahms is not a real boy but a porcelain doll. Twenty years ago her employers lost their eight-year-old son to a fire; since then, this simulacra’s taken his place in their affections. They promptly leave it alone with Greta, who becomes increasingly convinced it’s become the vessel for the disturbed boy’s spirit. A spiritual heir to evilventriloquist’s-doll…1 min
SFX|September 2016GOTHAM Season TwoRELEASED 1 AUGUST 2015-2016 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download Showrunner Bruno Heller Cast Ben McKenzie, David Mazouz, Donal Logue, Robin Lord Taylor, Morena Baccarin For a show as dark as Gotham, its second season comes as rather a surprise. Sure, there’s all the gritty misery, murder and mayhem from its first year, but now reality has been nudged just a little bit further to the side and the ridiculousness is inexorably rising. If this continues, by season four Gotham will be into full-on Adam West territory. The reason for the uplift in craziness? A focus on the villains. Cory Michael Smith’s twitchy Edward Nygma gets a huge arc, careening towards his final “Riddler” moniker and having a ball along the way. We get to meet Mr Freeze, so reserved that he’s…3 min
SFX|September 2016THE IMPOSSIBLE HAS HAPPENEDRELEASED 21 JULY 390 pages | Hardback Author Lance Parkin Publisher Aurum Press Do we really need another book on Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry? Not long after his death in 1991 came both an approving official biography and an unofficial one which hurled rocks at his statue. Any fresh work can surely only triangulate between the two, so what’s the point? True, Lance Parkin’s portrait doesn’t tell us much new, being completely based on preexisting interviews. The focus is more on the work than the man, and at times, as Roddenberry is pushed to the margins of the franchise, it can start to read like just another history of Trek. However it does a good job of making a dialectic between “Roddenberry was a visionary genius and philanthropist” and…1 min
SFX|September 2016THE RACERELEASED OUT NOW! 448 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Nina Allan Publisher Titan Books For several years now, Nina Allan has been making a name for herself with clever, layered short stories – especially among UK readers, as a 2014 British Science Fiction Association award for her novella Spin attests – as well as for thoughtfully probing book reviews. Her debut novel, originally published in 2014 by a small press, has now been reissued in a revised, expanded edition, and it’s the perfect showcase both for her interest in how stories work, and for the skill and sheer readability of her writing. Like much of Allan’s fiction, The Race is very carefully constructed, the sort of book that reveals more of itself the more you think about it. (Far from everything,…2 min
SFX|September 2016THE HATCHINGRELEASED OUT NOW! 304 pages | Hardback/ebook Author Ezekiel Boone Publisher Gollancz As lurid plot hooks go, “killer spiders” alone would be enough to get a major proportion of the audience shivering in fear, but new thriller The Hatching doesn’t stop there. The arachnids in question aren’t just deadly – they’re also relentless flesh-eating parasites that are soon wreaking major havoc in this ludicrously entertaining blend of disaster epic and creature-feature B-movie. The basic concept is that an ancient species of spider is woken from a lengthy slumber, and quickly spreads across the globe. As Delhi is overrun and China starts dropping nuclear bombs to contain the outbreak, the spider swarms arrive on American soil, and it’s up to a small group of disparate characters to discover some way of…1 min
SFX|September 2016THE HIGH GROUNDRELEASED OUT NOW! 419 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Melinda Snodgrass Publisher Titan Books Starship Troopers with a dash of Sweet Valley High, The High Ground takes us into a future dominated by the princely descendants of modern-day corporate CEOs. Battles with several extraterrestrial races drove the creation of a feudal aristocracy. Now mankind rules the stars, these new toffs are well bedded in to society... Until now! The Emperor, short of a male heir, sets the established order all-a-wobble by sending his eldest daughter to the High Ground, the starship academy where the scions of noble houses are trained to discharge their military duties. This is the kind of oldfashioned, rollicking space opera that right-wing SF protest groups would love, if there weren’t so many women and non-whites in it.…1 min
SFX|September 2016VIGILRELEASED OUT NOW! 368 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Angela Slatter Publisher Jo Fletcher Books When Angel first span off from Buffy, it was a noirish supernatural private detective show – then epic arc plots took over and it developed into something very different. Vigil is very much like those early Angel episodes, except with a female lead (very not Buffy… think more Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice) and set in Brisbane. It’s the first in the Verity Fassbinder series, and Verity is the best thing about the book. A half-Weyrd/half-human hybrid, she’s a surly, straight-talking, Doc Marten-wearing punchbag who investigates Weyrd-related crime on behalf of the beleaguered “normal” police. She’s an adorably flawed creation with a great turn of phrase that’s part Chandler, part Whedon: “I reckoned she could spit and…1 min
SFX|September 2016CIVIL WAR IIRELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Marvel Comics Writer Brian Michael Bendis Artists David Marquez, Justin Ponsor “Lacks any real sense of freshness or genuine excitement” ISSUES 0-2 Big, over-the-top “event” crossovers are a fact of life in mainstream superhero comics, and the saga that cemented this approach for Marvel was Civil War. A 2006/7 smash hit with an aftermath that affected the Marvel universe for years to come, Civil War is the yardstick that most subsequent event comics have been measured by – something that’s even harder to resist now that Marvel have finally hit the button marked “sequel”. Civil War II is only a thematic follow-up, however – there are no real narrative connections, beyond a thorny moral question that splits the superhero ranks and Iron Man’s presence as one…2 min
SFX|September 2016THE UNBELIEVABLE GWENPOOLRELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Marvel Comics Writer Christopher Hastings Artist Gurihiru ISSUES 1-3 Gwenpool is the latest in a line of comics never meant to be actual comics. There was Spider-Gwen, a one-off paralleluniverse story where Peter’s love interest Gwen Stacy has the spider-powers, and DC Bombshells, a series of retro WWII-style pin-ups reimagining DC’s heroines. In both cases the audience said that, actually, they’d buy those comics. In the wake of Spider-Gwen, Marvel did variant covers of various heroes as Gwen Stacy. Deadpool became Gwenpool. What larks! But actually, she looks awesome. Could you make that a thing? And all these comics are female-led. Almost as if there’s an underserved market crying out for books reflecting their tastes, isn’t it? That’s how Marvel came to be publishing two unrelated…1 min
SFX|September 2016TORCHWOOD: BROKENRELEASED OUT NOW! 60 minutes | CD/download Publisher Big Finish AUDIO DRAMA One of the big puzzles in the first season of Torchwood was Ianto’s change of heart regarding Jack. At the end of “Cyberwoman” he’s filled with hate and rage towards his boss (“One day I’ll have the chance to save you and I’ll watch you suffer and die!”), but by the end of the series they’re in an obvious sexual relationship – so how exactly did Ianto get from A to B? Actor Gareth David-Lloyd says it’s his most-asked question from fans, and now this new audio story explores exactly that. Set in the background of the episodes immediately following “Cyberwoman”, it deals with just how Ianto comes to terms with his loss as well as his developing…1 min
SFX|September 2016COLLECTABLES1 We’re not sure if these melamine Star Wars blueprint plates (FPI price £8.99; product code D5965) are square because gastropubs have made round ones unfashionable, or simply because that’s how things are in a galaxy far, far away. Either way, they’re poorly researched kitchenware. Among the seemingly random line drawings are a couple of glaring factual howlers: no, R2-D2 and C-3PO did not ride an escape pod in The Empire Strikes Back, and the Death Star destroyed in A New Hope was not the underconstruction version. Tut. 2 Hey, what about the Hufflepuffs? Half Moon Bay’s range of Harry Potter bowls (FPI price £9.99 each; product codes F3688, F3689, F3690) includes red Gryffindor or green Slytherin designs – deep and chunky, with the house crest on one side and…3 min
SFX|September 2016ORPHAN BLACKUK Broadcast Netflix, finished US Broadcast BBC America, finished Episodes Reviewed 4.01-4.10 When we reviewed Orphan Black’s third season in Viewscreen one year ago, we mentioned that the show had perhaps steered too much into dark territory, thus contrasting badly with its more comedic elements. We hoped this would be fixed in time for season four. Were our hopes realised? The answer’s a resounding yes. Tonally this year has been absolutely spot-on, able to juggle grim scenes of stinky dead bodies being exhumed with the Hendrixes having phone sex; maggot-bots being dug out of victims’ cheeks with a pregnant Helena complaining about farting too much. There’s no whiplash, no jolts: everything fits together seamlessly. This is probably the most assured season of Orphan Black since it began. Fittingly, given that…2 min
SFX|September 2016SFX’S SPURIOUS AWARDSSCOOBY SNACKS OF THE MONTH When Ramsay got his comeuppance in Game Of Thrones, for a second we thought the dog was going to rip his mask off to reveal Old Man Withers. WEAPON OF THE MONTH Mack takes the spork to extremes in Marvel’s Agents Of SHIELD. What do you call that, then? A knifle, perhaps? CROSSOVER OF THE MONTH Gotham and Preacher are both DC but we weren’t expecting Arseface so soon on the Batman show! CAMEO OF THE MONTH The last place we expected to see a Dalek was in French animated film April And The Extraordinary World. WORZEL GUMMIDGE OF THE MONTH Jesse Custer wakes up in the Preacher pilot wondering which head to put on today. Just a mildly pissed off head? AUDITION OF THE…1 min
