Sci-Fi News: Zombies Are Yesterday and What the Future Holds
Kim Russell
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Hey sci-fi lovers. Welcome to another installment of Sci-Fi News with Kim at TV Fanatic.
Since we last talked, Next Gen came out on Netflix, which was a decent movie and sci-fi is showing more evidence of steering toward a bright future instead of doom and gloom.
We're seeing the end of zombies in the sci-fi world. They're not intimidating anymore and have been done to death.
Pun intended.
If you pay attention to the zombie shows still running like The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead, zombies are like annoying gnats at this point. Nobody is running in terror at the sight of zombies coming their way.
Now when a zombie shows up, it's just a pain in the butt. That tells us the zombie reign is nearing its end or has reached it all together.
So, what's next for sci-fi?
There's growing chatter about the future and how we depict the end of the world. Apocalyptic views of destruction, misery, and the near-extinction of humankind is tired.
People naturally want to be hopeful about the future, about technologies, and about humanity. It used to be in the times of the original Star Trek that there was hope. Technologies in Star Trek were forward-thinking and seemed to predict the future or at least inspire it.
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We want to look at sci-fi and experience the future. We want to see the possibilities it can bring. Now science fiction is headed back in that direction. The focus is into space and technologies that lead to a better world. There's still going to be destruction.
We'll see worlds end, and we'll encounter worlds who want nothing more than to wipe us off the face of the Earth or knock us out of space. What I see right now is a lot of psychological sci-fi. There are space explorations, but shows are exploring the mind as well.
Sci-fi is exploring death and the meaning of life. It's finding ways of cheating death by moving consciousness from one ailing body to a fresh one. We're traveling around the planet by sharing awareness with others who live in a completely different part of the world or other worlds.
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A sci-fi anthology series titled Warning is currently filming in Romania. It's like Netflix's Black Mirror in that it will look at loneliness, death, and the meaning of life in a tech world.
That's relevant.
People want the answers to these questions before they get there themselves.
Dreamers and creators can put ideas and solutions out there for us all to consume and ponder. Science fiction is looking at science that propels humanity and the universe into places we never dreamed possible.
Isn't that the beauty of sci-fi?
We're going to see more worlds beyond our own, and the cool thing is, they don't take place on a movie set. These environments exist in our very own world and are so unbelievable they easily pass for another far-out world. Mind-blowing.
Take Netflix's Lost in Space Season 2 for example. They're filming scenes in South Iceland at Skógafoss using a waterfall as a backdrop. Producers chose Skógafoss because of its impressive and unworldly waterfall that comes from two surrounding glaciers and the rugged cliffs.
The spray coming off the falls consistently produces a rainbow, and there's a legend of Viking treasure at the bottom. This type of beauty and magic exists here but lends beautifully to the view of a world beyond ours.
They also did some shots on the black sands west of Dyrhólaey peninsula in Iceland. Both locations sound other-worldly and amazing.
Science Fiction shows are ramping up in general, and Netflix is leading the charge.
They've added the most sci-fi shows and movies out of all the streaming services, and it seems to be working for them.
One series coming out that is reminiscent of LOST is I-Land. I-Land is a sci-fi adventure series, and since we reported on it, the series has added Kyle Schmid (Six, Being Human, Lost Girl) to the mix.
Another Netflix series in the works is Recursion. The surprising thing about it is that Shonda Rhimes and Matt Reeves are developing it based on the novel of the same name.
We usually associate Shonda with Shondaland of Grey's Anatomy and Station 19 tugging at your heartstrings and making you cry every damn episode.
She's good at that.
You don't usually associate her with Science Fiction, so the fact that she's involved in this project automatically makes you stand up and take notice. Because of her reputation and production style, you can be sure this series will hit you right in the heart. It's going to be a different kind of sci-fi, and that's exciting.
Another trend continuing on sci-fi is turning books into movies or series shows. Turning a book into a film is nothing new, but some of these are old books, like Larry Niven's classic sci-fi collection from the 70's called Ringworld.
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Some aren't as old, like the comic book Lazarus, which is going to come to life as well.
One more is Snow Crash, based on a cult novel by Neal Stephenson.
There's no telling where these novels turned shows will air, but it does show that people are dusting off books in all forms and re-creating them for us to enjoy. The future of sci-fi may just be lying in books that are already on your shelves.
Where are we headed in sci-fi? What do you see in sci-fi that you're excited about? What do you think of Shonda Rhimes working on a sci-fi series? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Kim Russell was a staff writer for TV Fanatic. She retired in January 2019.
