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Armageddon

summer movies

When Did Summer Become Science Fiction Overkill Season?

This summer will be the biggest "blockbuster" movie season ever, with no fewer than 23 would-be smash hits coming out between early May and mid-August. It didn't used to be this way. Back in the mists of time — like, say, in the late 1990s — there were only one or two big science fiction movies per summer, and only a handful of huge summer movies total. But summer movies have gotten bigger and more franchise-driven in the past decade, and science fiction is at the center of that transformation. We chart the rise of summer-movie gridlock, with a list of every summer scifi hit since 1980. More »

chart

Bad Movie Physics: A Report Card

Space epics almost always play fast and loose with science, treating the laws of physics like suggestions. Sound in space, unprotected bodies splatting in vacuum, and alien planets that all look just like Calabasas. But some movies dismember Newton and Einstein with way more gusto than others. We rated 18 movies based on how many laws of physics they mangled, and here's our report card. More »

j.j. abrams

J.J. Abrams: Genius Or Hack?

Here's the most awesome moment from Mission Impossible III, where Tom Cruise improvises a homemade defibrillator to deactivate the bomb in his brain, while teaching his fiancee how to shoot a gun. Since J.J. Abrams wrote and directed this instant classic, he's become one of science fiction's major creators, directing the new Star Trek movie, producing Cloverfield , and creating Lost and his new show Fringe. But is he a brilliant auteur, or just a great huckster who knows how to keep people guessing? Click through to find out. More »

triviagasm

The Explodiest Outer Space Crashes Ever to Rock Your Movie Theater

Crashes, smashes, and destruction sequences in science fiction movies have gotten a lot more spectacular over the years, even if our storytelling hasn't. When the Death Star blew up in Star Wars, it was sort of like a big pop and then it was gone. These days you have shots of flaming debris, screaming victims, and radiating spherical explosions that can drag out an action scene for eons. Even in movies where the plot doesn't make sense, the acting is hammy, and you don't really care whether the characters live or die, a good crash sequence can rouse the audience from their boredom and at least engage their animal instincts. Here's our list of the five best crashes in modern day scifi — with beautiful video carnage. More »

charlton heston

The Speckled SciFi Career of Charlton Heston

Long before Charlton Heston was strutting his stuff as the gun-toting president of the National Rifle Association, he was lending his iron-jawed profile to films The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur. However, he is cemented in the minds of millions of movie fans as the face of the human race in 1968's The Planet of the Apes. The success of this film led Heston into other, equally cheesy, scifi movies. Take a tour of his late 1960s/early 70s flirtation with scifi after the jump, including his own take on I Am Legend. More »