By
Robbie Graham
Alien contact movie based on “factual data” seeks funding
A new independent film
about alien contact based on “factual data” is seeking public funding. According
to io9.com, the movie – titled Ellipse – “is about a girl who is
destined to be an astrophysicist. It's also about an Enlightenment-era woman who
helped discover longitude. And it's about aliens. Plus, it's made by seasoned SF
filmmakers in collaboration with scientists at the Royal Observatory
Greenwich.”
The filmmakers behind
Ellipse describe it as
follows:
“Leo is from another
world, many light years from Earth. He is a player in an intergalactic game,
travelling to other worlds and planting the seed of knowledge about whether we
are alone in the universe.
On Earth he has tried
many times to point us toward the truth but our technology and the recipients of
his 'sharing' have not been able to take the steps needed to unlock the
secret.
Then he finds Ro, an
exceptionally bright girl who he draws into the game. She becomes fated to study
astrophysics and, as a grown up astronomer, her research leads her to identify a
particular comet and send a lander to explore it…
The film begins over
400 years ago at The Queen's House. We meet Louise de Kerouaille, a mistress to
Charles II. She was responsible for convincing the King to create the
observatory as a way to map the stars and solve the problem of longitude, an
amazing woman.
Next, the whole of
Ro's study and the data seen in the film from the alien world is from NASA's
Kepler mission and the amazing app called EXOPLANET. Hanno Rein, from the
Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton has chosen several stars with
exoplanets to be discussed on screen and in the educational pack we are
producing to support the film for schools, this will be written by Dr Lewis
Dartnell and Marek Kukula, the Public Astronomer at the
ROG…
Also, the whole film
is being made in collaboration with the Royal Observatory Greenwich, home of the
Prime Meridian.”
Ellipse needs £12,000 to get off the ground. If you want to support this
movie, you can make a donation here.
‘Jupiter Ascending’ gets a release date
Warner Bros. has announced that its epic (and, by the sounds of it, completely bonkers) science-fiction movie Jupiter Ascending will be released on July 25, 2014.
Directed by the Wachowski brothers (Cloud Atlas, The Matrix) and starring Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Eddie Redmayne, and Sean Bean, Jupiter Ascending “focuses on higher forms of life who are watching us from other worlds. Kunis will play a Russian immigrant who is busily scrubbing toilets for a living. Unbeknownst to her, she actually possesses the same perfect genetic makeup as the Queen of the Universe and is therefore a threat to her otherwise immortal rule.”
‘Defiance’: SyFy’s new alien drama reviewed
The hotly-anticipated
(exopolitical?) TV series Defiance will premiere on SyFy on
April 15. io9.com has already seen the first
three episodes and has delivered its verdict:
“On a Syfy scale of Battlestar Galactica to Piranhaconda, Defiance is in the upper middle. It's got heaps of promise and an amazing cast… It's got a lot of heart and so far is a lot of fun.”
For the full, spoiler-free review of Defiance – which is set on Earth 30 years after a collective of five alien races arrives, turning our civilization upside down – head on over to io9.com.
‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ TV show
DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs. Aliens is headed to the small screen as a Nickelodeon TV series.
Based on the 2009 feature film, Monsters vs. Aliens tells the story
of a team of monsters brought together to protect the Earth from interstellar
threats.
The pilot episode – titled "Welcome to Area Fifty-Something" – will premiere on March 23, with the series proper beginning April 6.
Check out the series trailer here...
The pilot episode – titled "Welcome to Area Fifty-Something" – will premiere on March 23, with the series proper beginning April 6.
Check out the series trailer here...
