With its astonishing neon-saturated visuals and throbbing electronic score by Nine Inch Nails, a new trailer for Disney's "Tron: Ares" has arrived.

Erupting in a rush of ruby reds and rampant A.I. paranoia, this extended "Tron: Ares" trailer exposes humankind's initial contact with an agent from the cyberscape realm, and from the shocked onlookers, it's a meet-and-greet event that might have some devastating ramifications for both sides. The vibrant worldbuilding, design aesthetics of the futuristic vehicles, and the apocalyptic tone feel spot-on and are further punctuated by Jared Leto's charismatic role as a rogue digital soldier. The trailer is already generating speculation that this $150-170 million film powering up on Oct. 10, 2025 will enthrall "Tron" faithful.

"So much talk of A.I. and big tech today," states Evan Peters' sinister Julian Dillinger character in the thrilling trailer. "Virtual worlds, what are they going to look like, when will we get there? Well folks, we're not going there. They are coming here."

Directed by Joachim Rønning ("Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales"), "Tron: Ares" is now seemingly confirmed as a sequel to 2010's "Tron: Legacy" and stars Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Hasan Minhaj, Jodie Turner-Smith, Arturo Castro, and Cameron Monaghan, with cameos by Gillian Anderson and Jeff Bridges.

The film's screenplay is based on a story by David Digilio and Jesse Wigutow and centers around Ares (Leto), a revolutionary sentient program conceived by Julian Dillinger. This next-generation creation makes the hazardous leap from the digital Grid to the real world on a crucial mission to discover something it doesn't yet fully comprehend. That might sound ambiguous at the moment but we're sure that further trailers and previews will elaborate more.

"Tron: Ares" is produced by Sean Bailey, Jeffrey Silver, Justin Springer, Jared Leto, Emma Ludbrook, and Steven Lisberger, with Russell Allen as executive producer.

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' Grammy Award-winning industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails composed the energetic score "Tron: Ares" . The original soundtrack's debut single, "As Alive As You Need Me To Be," is the group's first material in half a decade and is now available though Interscope Records. We surely won't soon forget Daft Punk's driving score for "Tron: Legacy" but this pulsating soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails certainly provides the proper accompaniment to the sequel.

Directed by Joachim Rønning, "Tron: Ares" will be presented in both IMAX and standard theatrical formats starting on Oct. 10, 2025.

Save up to 46% on Disney Plus subscriptions when you sign up via their site.

If you're looking to stream the Marvel movies in order in anticipation of the new Fantastic Four movie, now is your last chance. Disney Plus is among the best streaming services and you can save over 40% on a range of bundles and streaming options in one of the best streaming deals available. You can also watch the Alien movies in order ahead of "Alien: Earth" as Hulu is included in every bundle, and of course, Disney Plus is the home of all Star Wars content, both movies and TV shows.

• We're constantly checking the best prices on our pages for big discounts on the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

With Fantastic Four: First Steps coming out on July 24, now is the last chance for you to catch up on Marvel content before its release. If you're a sci-fi fan, then the Disney and Hulu bundle is exactly what you want as it gives you access to all Marvel content, apart from Spider-Man movies, all Star Wars content and the Alien franchise, ahead of Alien: Earth. Disney is also home to a multitude of other big-name titles, blockbuster movies and TV shows to keep sci-fi superfans glued to the couch.

Of course, the prices of subscriptions change based on which option you opt for. You can have Disney and Hulu, but you can also add ESPN Plus or Max. You can also opt for an ad-supported plan or an ad-free option. Fortunately, all bundle options are over 40% off, so you're saving big whichever option you choose.

Key features: Key features: Access to Disney Plus, Hulu and Max/ESPN Plus if you choose to. Stream Star Wars, Marvel, Alien, other huge titles backed by a massive library of classics and original content.

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Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

We've known since the teaser trailer that Predator: Badlands has strong ties to the Alien universe in the shape of Weyland-Yutani-owned synthetics. Now, the full trailer shows the movie will follow a young Predator warrior as he teams up with a synth who's seen better days.

After watching the new trailer, it's safe to say writer-director Dan Trachtenberg – who revived the movie series with Prey in 2022 – wasn't lying when he said the entire pitch behind Predator: Badlands was telling a Conan-like story through the eyes of a Yautja hunter (subtitles for the alien language included). It's a bold angle for a new entry in the long-running Predator movie franchise, but at this point, you either reinvent yourself or die slowly chasing the safety and warmth of nostalgia.

Last month, Predator: Killer of Killers – an animated anthology-format movie with a twist – proved Prey wasn't the result of the beginner's luck. This is why we're quite optimistic about Badlands and what it's gunning for. Let's break down the hottest and biggest moments in this new trailer, shall we?

Things are off to a strong start when the first thing we see is Elle Fanning's Thia (or her long-rumored twin character) being repaired in a Weyland-Yutani lab after encountering what we can only guess was a gnarly beast. The MU/TH/UR (Mother) system from the Alien movies is back too, and we see mention of Weyland-Yutani's huge bio-weapons division, which suggests both the Predator protagonist (Dek) and the company's synths might be after the same thing on this alien planet.

The pace picks up right after with all sorts of exciting shots of the young Yautja preparing for his biggest hunt yet. It all looks properly badass, with new weapons like a bow and a sword with a heat blade. Then, the big twist is he comes across Thia, who appears to be far friendlier than the other synths deployed to capture aliens on the "most dangerous planet in the universe." It appears that Thia's lower half is entirely missing, which creates an even more interesting dynamic as she attempts to collaborate with a Yautja who's trying to regain his honor.

There are no humans in sight, which might also confirm Trachtenberg's claims of having zero Homo sapiens in this movie. Can Predators and synths alone carry a brutal action-adventure rollercoaster ride? We say signs point to yes.

At some point (we don't know if it's a flashback or part of the central journey), an elder Predator is battling Dek, but by all accounts, the main objective seems to be a massive monster that could tear even a Xenomorph apart. Plus, bulky mechs are being brought over from the Alien timeline too.

Disney and 20^th Century Studios have also shared an all-new poster with Dek jumping straight into the maw of the unknown alien beast:

At this moment it's hard to predict whether Predator: Badlands will make big moves towards setting up a new Alien vs. Predator movie (that some voices at 20th Century Studios have been teasing for a while). For now, we're just excited to have another great-looking Predator flick with a fresh twist looming on the horizon.

Predator: Badlands releases in cinemas on November 7, 2025.

To say that this is a momentous occasion for sci-fi collectors is a supreme understatement, as this is the main dueling lightsaber used during the shooting of two Star Wars movies — "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" and "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi."

It will be presented as the premier item in Propstore's upcoming Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction in Los Angeles, launching from September 4-6, 2025.

Pre-sale estimates for the incredible film-used weapon of the intimidating Sith Lord are running between $1,000,000 - $3,000,000, but it could go even higher if a heated bidding war erupts.

The lightsaber can be seen held by the performers in the dramatic third-act clashes between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in both director Irvin Kershner's 1980 sequel and director Richard Marquand's 1983 follow-up to close out the space opera trilogy.

Per the official catalog description, "It is constructed from a vintage British press camera flash handle that was transformed into Vader’s infamous weapon through the fitting of dressing components such as plastic grips, calculator bubbles, and cosmetic wiring. This specific prop was further modified with a custom blade-mounting system that facilitated the installation of a wooden rod; the rod served as the blade during the choreographed fight scenes and made the physical, on-camera dueling possible. It also later served as a guide for visual effects artists to add the hand-animated glow for the final shots."

Slight damage to the iconic prop's hilt identifies it as the primary lightsaber filmed in those historic cinematic sequences. According to Propstore, this is very likely the only hero lightsaber prop ever emerging from the original "Star Wars" trilogy with bona fide screen use and has been kept in a single private collection.

"I grew up deeply inspired by 'Star Wars,'" Propstore COO Brandon Alinger tells Space.com.

"It wasn't just a movie, it was the movie of generations. The original trilogy is what sparked my lifelong fascination with filmmaking and screen-used props. The lightsaber, especially, holds a near-mythical place in my imagination. The fact that this exact lightsaber still exists, and that it screen-matches those iconic moments, is extraordinary. To see it and even hold it, you can feel the gravity of what 'Star Wars' means to millions of people. And now, for the first time ever, this legendary artifact is heading to public auction, ready to find a new home where it can continue to inspire."

Vader's deadly lightsaber will also be on display for the public when it's sent out on a multi-city press preview tour next month, along with other highlights from Propstore's September Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction. Cities involved in the road show are: London (August 6), Beverly Hills (week of August 18), and New York City (week of August 25).

For more info, visit the Propstore website.

On Episode 169 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik are joined by Rob Manning, JPL's Chief Engineer Emeritus, to look back at the Mariner 4 Mars mission 60 years later.

Six decades ago this week, the Mariner 4 probe sped past Mars, the first to succeed in this then-brash undertaking. The technology was unbelievably primitive, yet effective, sending back 22 low-resolution video frames of the Red Planet. On that day, the wee hours of July 15 at JPL in Pasadena, the Mars of the romantics died. What had long been viewed as a slightly colder, somewhat drier, near-twin of Earth ended up having just a trace of an atmosphere and looked more like the moon--bone dry and pummelled by craters.

Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

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Space news of the week

• 50 years after a historic handshake in space, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project's legacy still resonates
• 'Doghouse' days of summer — Boeing's Starliner won't fly again until 2026, and without astronauts aboard
• The largest Mars rock on Earth is up for auction in NYC — it could be yours for $4 million (or more)
• Biggest chunk of Mars on Earth! Take a tour at Sotheby's
• Mars Probes
• Five Ways Mariner 4 Changed Mars Exploration
• Hand-Colored Mars Photo from Mariner 4
• John Casani, Former Manager of Multiple NASA Missions, Dies

Model Falcon 9!

Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes' stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.

About This Week In Space

This Week in Space covers the new space age. Every Friday we take a deep dive into a fascinating topic. What's happening with the new race to the moon and other planets? When will SpaceX really send people to Mars?

Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.

"Our opinion and our taste is really welcomed, not just with hair and makeup but especially with costume as well," Bush tells Space.com regarding how the entire crew supports their work.

"The people in that department are often asking, 'What feels good on you? What do you want for this? What is your vision?' We're often invited to collaborate," explains Bush. "That was something that was exciting and refreshing to me when I came on the show. They wanted to know what I wanted for the character. That gives you a sense of ownership and comfort in a situation where a lot of things are out of your control. It feels like yours."

"I think Chapel has been taken many places outside of Sick Bay and outside of her job as a nurse. In Season 3, I think that's allowed me as an actor to find new things about her through that process."

For this spin around the galaxy, Scottish actor Martin Quinn fully steps into the rather large shoes of James Doohan's Montgomery "Scotty" Scott character, playing the younger iteration of the gregarious officer with all the style and smarts you'd expect.

His version of the USS Enterprise's Chief Engineer was first seen in the "Strange New Worlds" Season 2 finale in 2023, and fans were thrilled to see more legacy icons in the cast moving forward.

Quinn is certainly up to the big challenge for Season 3, and his added screen time has emboldened his performances while attempting to integrate with the rest of the smash series’ cast and crew.

"Sometimes I really do feel like I'm thrown in the deep end," Quinn adds. "It's, 'Alright, let's roll.' I was so new to it all and have done bits of films before this, but nothing as big as this. I didn't realize I could have an opinion. It was like anything that costume put on me, I thought, 'Wow, that's brilliant.' Then I slowly but surely found my own voice, my own taste, what I like to do, and it's been a real learning curve for me."

"A couple of scenarios I didn’t see coming for Scotty and how he reacts. I'm not a great writer like the team that we've got, so I've been surprised and it's really pushed me as an actor," reveals Quinn.

"I'm trying to draw from myself as much as I possibly can, and trying not to just emulate James Doohan because that would end up becoming a really wretched impersonation. I'm trying to make it as realistic as possible, so that a modern-day Scottish person could see themselves in space one day."

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season three left the docking bay on July 17 with a two-episode release, with the following episodes arriving every Thursday on Paramount+.

"Alien: Earth" is landing soon.

From the stimulating looks of this bloody-good new trailer for the 8-episode "Alien: Earth" series from "Fargo" creator Noah Hawley's, the visionary filmmaker has no hesitation to terrify viewers when the ambitious sci-fi series hatches on FX and Hulu starting on Aug. 12, 2025.

Starring Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, David Rysdahl, Adrian Edmondson, Adarsh Gourav, Jonathan Ajayi, Erana James, Lily Newmark, Diem Camille, and Moe Bar-El, "Alien: Earth's" horrifying events play out in the year 2120 when the USCSS Maginot, a Weyland-Yutani deep space research spaceship, crashes on Earth in Prodigy City custodian of five deadly extraterrestrial lifeforms collected "from the darkest corners of the universe."

The plot focuses on Wendy (Chandler), a Prodigy Corporation-made humanoid robot synthetic and her hybrid tactical team that are dispatched to explore the crash site, search for survivors, and recover escaped specimens  —  including the notorious alien predator we all know as the eyeless, acid-spewing xenomorph.

"We don't lock them down … it will be too late," Timothy Olyphant's character Kirsh declares in the trailer. This atmospheric preview titled "Greener World" and paired with the somber song "A Greener World" by Gwilym Gold gives us a disturbing glimpse in the android-obsessed, corporate-run world of the 22nd century on Earth and the haunted house-like ship interiors. The final image of a dome-headed xenomorph crouching outside a forest cave is chilling!

"Alien: Earth" lands on FX and Hulu Aug. 12 and is executive produced by Noah Hawley, Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, Joseph Iberti, Dana Gonzales and Clayton Krueger.

Nurse Christine Chapel has been away for three months, and Mr Spock is still carrying a torch for his ex-girlfriend. Unfortunately for the Enterprise's science officer, however, she beams home with a new boyfriend — and his identity will be familiar to fans of the Original Series.

A meddling Q (played by Rhys Darby) does his best to twist the love triangle in Spock's favor, but destiny — aka existing canon — means that Christine and Dr Roger Korby have to be together, even if it's only for a short time. Here's everything you need to know about Nurse Chapel's new beau, and how he fits into wider "Star Trek" lore.

SET PHASERS TO CAUTION! SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU'RE YET TO WATCH "WEDDING BELL BLUES"

Why has Dr Roger Korby turned up on the Enterprise?

In the two-part season 2 finale/season 3 opener "Hegemony", Nurse Christine Chapel (Jess Bush) was on her way to a three-month fellowship, studying archaeological medicine with legendary scientist Dr Roger Korby (Cillian O'Sullivan). He's written 234 papers on the subject, so presumably knows his stuff.

At the start of "Wedding Bell Blues", the fellowship is complete, the Enterprise is flight-ready after its bruising encounter with the Gorn, and Chapel is ready to return to Sickbay. She's not alone, however, because Dr Korby has also beamed in for Federation Day, a celebration marking the centenary of the founding of the interplanetary UN in 2161.

He hasn't traveled in a professional capacity either, because as Chapel tells a surprised Spock (Ethan Peck) in the transporter room, Dr Korby is there as her date. So much for taking a break from commitment to get a handle on feelings for Vulcan shipmates…

Why is Dr Roger Korby's name so familiar?

As well as being mentioned a few times in "Strange New Worlds" season 2, Korby also appears in Original Series episode "What are Little Girls Made Of?", set around five years after "Wedding Bell Blues" in the "Trek" chronology.

It's clear that Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) hold the scientist in extremely high regard. Spock says he's "often called the Pasteur of archaeological medicine" — a description also used by Dr Joseph M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) in "SNW" — and explains that "his translation of medical records from the Orion ruins revolutionized our immunization techniques". Kirk adds that this was "required reading at the [Starfleet] Academy" and that he's always wanted to meet him.

Perhaps more importantly, however, "What are Little Girls Made Of?" reveals that Korby is the ex-fiancé of Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett), and that she gave up a career in bio-research to serve on the Enterprise.

Where does Kirk's Enterprise find Dr Korby?

The Enterprise arrives at the planet Exo III, five years after Dr Korby went missing on an expedition there. Although the world was once home to a thriving society, a fading sun means it's now frozen ("100 degrees below zero") and inhospitable.

So, with the chances of anyone having survived somewhere on the improbable side of minimal, the crew are somewhat surprised when Korby (played by Michael Strong) responds to their hails.

How did Korby survive on such a hostile world?

Along with his old assistant Brown (an old acquaintance of Chapel) and a woman named Andrea (not an old acquaintance of Chapel), Korby has survived underground in a vast network of caves. These caves were once home to the "Old Ones", the original inhabitants of Exo III who moved from the planet's surface when the weather got a little too chilly.

What's Korby been up to on Exo III?

It turns out that the Old Ones were sufficiently technologically advanced to build sophisticated androids. Long ago, Korby found one of these automatons named Ruk (played by Ted Cassidy, most famous as Lurch in the 1960s "Addams Family" TV show) and reprogrammed him to do his bidding.

Unfortunately, Ruk misinterprets Korby's instructions about protecting human life and kills two of Kirk's security detail — yet more statistics in the ledger of deceased redshirts.

During his time on Exo III, Korby has become something of a zealot for android technology, and tries to convince Kirk that its implementation could be massively beneficial to the Federation. It's also revealed that both Brown and Andrea are androids themselves.

Do Korby and Chapel live happily ever after in the Original Series?

Unfortunately not — which makes their romance in "Strange New Worlds" particularly tragic, seeing as the timeline means he'll have to make his fateful trip to Exo III in the very near future.

In "What are Little Girls Made of?", Korby is so fixated on bringing his technological discoveries to the Federation that he creates an unauthorised replica of Kirk, and sends the imposter back to the Enterprise. Spock only spots the fake because the OG Kirk has tricked the robot into using a totally out-of-character racial slur to address his first officer.

And then comes the big twist, as Korby scrapes his hand on a wall, peeling away a layer of skin to reveal that he's an android too. Unable to survive in the frozen conditions of Exo III, OG Korby transferred his consciousness to a robot body. He's now convinced that the technology can be used to eliminate disease, death and suffering in the human race.

He tries to assure Chapel that "I'm still the same as I was before", but his obsessive behavior — he executes Ruk when he becomes an inconvenience — convinces her that he's no longer the man she fell in love with. Distraught, Korby ends up vaporizing himself and Andrea with a phaser.

Back on the Enterprise, Kirk tells Spock that Dr Korby "was never here", while the grieving Chapel decides to remain on the ship.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays. Original Series episode "What are Little Girls Made Of?" is available on Paramount+ in the US and UK, and Netflix in the UK.

But while almost everyone is enjoying The Last Son of Krypton's latest outing, sci-fi and comic diehards have been paying special attention to the movie's most striking otherworldly elements. From the infamous Fortress of Solitude to Mister Terrific's super-advanced technology, there's plenty to dig into, but the thing that really caught our eye was Lex Luthor's pocket universe.

Spoilers ahead for James Gunn's Superman. You should leap a tall building and get out of here in a single bound if you haven't seen the movie yet.

Much of Superman's second act is spent inside a 'pocket dimension' used by Lex Luthor and his LuthorCorp scientists and tech wizards. Here, the villain keeps countless metahumans (humans who have developed superpowers), as well as at least one ex-girlfriend who wronged him.

Other surprises found inside this space that exists outside our reality are monkeys trained to post hate on Superman online like real-life trolls, and one creepy guy nicknamed Mister Handsome. The place certainly has a long history by the time Kal-El gets thrown into it, but when and how did Luthor get his hands on his own personal pocket universe?

Pocket universes in DC comics

If we look at the DC Comics canon, the Pocket Universe was developed by the Time Trapper as part of a larger plan to control the Legion of Super-Heroes. This enigmatic character used his power to control the time-stream in a post-Crisis on Infinite Earths scenario to create a smaller universe with only two populated planets: our Earth and Krypton.

The Pocket Universe’s first appearance was in Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 3 #23. It went on to become a huge part of many storylines over the years, but was created just to keep the Legion of Super-Heroes stories with Superboy around too. The creation of a ‘New Earth’ with a Superman who never adopted the identity of Superboy post-Crisis on Infinite Earths forced DC to make this move in order to secure more readers going forward.

We won't give you the full rundown here since it's a mind-bending ride chock-full of contradictions, which isn't relevant to this new iteration of the 'pocket universe' concept, but we can tell you Lex Luthor had no role in its creation and control whatsoever.

Pocket universes and 'eternal inflation' in the real world

If we want to understand the idea of pocket universes, we need to look at theoretical physicist and cosmologist Alan Guth's 'Eternal inflation and its implications' 2007 paper, which expands on the research done by theoretical physicist Paul Joseph Steinhardt on the inflationary model of the universe first introduced by Guth himself in 1979. While Steinhardt talked of 'eternal inflation', which could be producing a hypothetically infinite multiverse according to Andrei Linde and Guth, he rejected the idea of a multiverse represented by space divided into bubbles with different properties.

Guth's first goal with the inflationary model was to explain the seemingly smooth and flat distribution of matter and radiation across the discernible universe. The basic idea was our universe expanded and accelerated rapidly a few instants after the Big Bang. However, further research and discussion led to more and more physicists taking the idea of a multiverse seriously. "It's hard to build models of inflation that don't lead to a multiverse," Guth explained in 2014. While he pushed for further research, especially as we're learning so much more about the universe and its origins in recent years, it seems much of the 'cosmic inflation' theory can be tested nowadays.

Therefore, the aforementioned 'bubbles' in the inflationary model are just 'realms' that contain universes just like ours, the only one we can observe. Astrophysicist Jean-Luc Lehners elaborated on this in 'Eternal inflation with noninflationary pocket universes' (2012). At the same time, the inflation within these 'pocket universes' could present itself in a variety of ways, altering their histories and physical properties. Long story short: If most of the 'eternal inflation' model is right, we're even luckier than we thought.

Will we see Lex Luthor's pocket dimension again in the DCU?

Like many other sci-fi and comic book-y concepts in James Gunn's Superman, little is explained about Luthor's mysterious pocket universe; we don't know its complete size or who may inhabit it (besides Luthor's goons and his prisoners). That said, Luthor does explain he "replicated the Big Bang with a LuthorCorp megacollider, tearing a tiny hole in the two universal fabrics," which sounds like a regular day in the offices and labs for the brilliant scientist and businessman. We can also consider it a small nod to the bigger theories we've just highlighted and recent developments in astrophysics and cosmology.

If you've watched the movie (if not, why are you here reading all these spoilers?), then you know things go sideways, and our reality is threatened when a rift is created after the dimensional portals become unstable.

Superman and Mister Terrific manage to save the day and (more or less) fix what's broken, throwing an evil clone of Kal-El (Luthor was very busy) into a black hole found in the pocket dimension.

Anyone familiar with comic books knows this is likely a setup for Bizarro to show up in future stories, so based on that alone, the chances of this location cropping up again in the DCU are high.

Showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers have offered up more exceptional scripts from their talented writers' room that see Number One exhibiting a range of leadership qualities that bode well for her future as a formidable starship captain.

On a similar personal growth trajectory, albeit one with less of a sharp edge, fans will witness more of La'an's softer facets, complete with new romantic love and impressive tango dancing. We chatted to Rebecca Romijn and Christina Chong about where Strange New Worlds season 3 will take their characters.`

"I think both in their own right are blossoming characters," Romijn tells Space.com.

"For Una we get to see what she could potentially be like as a captain. Her connection to her crew and her focusing on fairness and making sure she’s correct and on the right side of history. But also stern and how she deals with insubordination. It's fun to see Una come down on someone. We don't get to see that very often. I think ever since she got cleared for being an Illyrian and hiding that, she's now living her best life, living authentically and has her sights set on the next thing."

"I've been playing Una going on seven years now. And we're actually just about done filming season four, which is I think, for both of us, our favorite season yet. The hits keep on coming! We don't even know where our writers get this stuff, they're thinking so far outside the box. The things they bring us we could never imagine. It’s so wild what they are coming up with. They're mindblowing. For the 'Star Trek' uninitiated, we're a great series to start with, because it’s just 'mission of the week' like 'The Original Series.'"

Viewers did get to see a little peek into La'an's gentler, caring side as she developed a deep crush on an alt-reality James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) in last season's touching episode, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow."

"Similarly, for La'an, having now faced her greatest fear of the Gorn coming after her family yet again, she's able to be a softer version of herself, which has opened her up to romance," Chong adds.

"Going back to the dancing, I think, has helped with that as well. So I think both of our characters are heading in a similar direction in some way. And those big writing swings allow us as actors to really delve deep into our character development and evolve them to a level that you wouldn’t necessarily get on a regular TV show. For me, there's nothing I really need to do to get back into La'an. I just look back at the last episode and remind myself of what was happening and where she was mentally. But really, it's all in the script."

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 3 arrives on Paramount+ starting today (July 17).

The species has a long history in the franchise, having first appeared in the 1967 "Star Trek" episode "Arena", but they've had a considerable upgrade from the lizard man who once tried to pummel James T Kirk to death. So, as the Gorn continue to torment the Enterprise in the second half of "Strange New Worlds"' "Hegemony" two-parter, here's everything you need to know about an alien foe with very sharp and very pointy teeth.

SET PHASERS TO CAUTION! SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU'RE YET TO WATCH "HEGEMONY, PART II" — head over to our guide on How to Watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 if you want to check out the episode before reading on.

Who are the Gorn?

With the Federation no longer engaged in all-out war with the Klingons — that skirmish was wrapped up in "Star Trek: Discovery" — "Strange New Worlds" has established the Gorn as the biggest of all its Big Bads.

They're an extremely aggressive, technologically advanced reptilian race hailing from the Beta Quadrant, and their government — the Gorn Hegemony — has designs on Federation territory.

Where have we seen the Gorn before?

The Gorn first appeared in 1967, in a classic episode from the first season of the Original Series.

In "Arena", the Enterprise travels to a Federation outpost on the remote world of Cestus III, only to find it's been destroyed by a (literally) cold-blooded alien race. After James T Kirk and the rest of the crew give chase to the enemy vessel, a super-advanced bunch of extra-terrestrials called the Metrons (essentially futuristic Romans) whisk the captain and his Gorn counterpart to a barren alien world. Their aim? For the representatives of these two "violent" and "limited" species to settle their differences in hand-to-hand combat. The loser, and their ship, will be destroyed "in the interests of peace".

Kirk eventually wins after fashioning a rudimentary firearm, but opts not to finish off his beaten opponent. (Although Kirk is initially hellbent on destroying the Gorn vessel, the Metrons' translation device reveals that the Gorn believed they were the ones who'd been wronged, so were simply defending their territory on Cestus III.) Kirk's unexpected mercy gives the condescending Metrons reason to believe that humans might not be so primitive after all, and the aliens suggest they may want to get back in touch one day — though probably not for a few thousand years.

Another Gorn, Slar, turns up in prequel show "Star Trek: Enterprise" (though only in the Mirror Universe), while several Gorn have cameoed in animated sitcom "Lower Decks".

Why do Kirk and Spock not recognise the Gorn in "Arena"?

This is a big mystery, as the Original Series episode makes it very clear that the Enterprise crew have no idea who they're chasing.

The Enterprise's famous five-year mission kicks off in 2266, around seven years after Christopher Pike and the gang first engaged the Gorn in the "Star Trek" timeline. There's no logical reason why Starfleet would keep intelligence on such a dangerous enemy hidden from one of its top commanding officers, so it's much more likely this is a retcon instigated by the "Strange New Worlds" writers' room. It's arguably a forgivable one, too, seeing as canon prevents classic antagonists like the Klingons and the Romulans from playing a major role in this era of Federation history.

The Gorn occupy a unique sweet spot where being both iconic and a mystery overlap. They also share three out of four letters with those legendary "Next Generation"-era bad guys the Borg, which may or may not be important.

Why do the Gorn in "Strange New Worlds" look so different to the Gorn in the Original Series?

This is less a retcon than an update of the original 1960s production design, as there's no escaping the fact that the Gorn who scrapped with Kirk in "Arena" is simply a guy in a lizard suit.

The updated, computer-generated versions in "Strange New Worlds" look much more reptilian and alien, and even boast prehensile tails. They're also a considerable upgrade on the CG Gorn who appeared in "Enterprise" episode "In a Mirror, Darkly" 20 years ago.

Why are Pike's Enterprise crew so scared of the Gorn?

Bitter experience.

Security chief Lt La'An Noonien-Singh first encountered the Gorn as a child when her colony ship, the SS Puget Sound, had a close encounter with the Hegemony. She was the only survivor after the Gorn took all of the colonists — including La'An's late family — to one of their breeding planets.

The mental scars of the experience linger well into adulthood, meaning she's the Enterprise's reluctant expert when the ship makes first contact with the Gorn in season 1 episode "Memento Mori". Despite La'An's prior knowledge and expertise, the crew barely escapes with their lives. In fact, the vessel is still undergoing repairs at Starbase 1 when the subsequent episode, "Spock Amok", gets underway.

Later on in the season (in the penultimate episode "All Those Who Wander"), the Enterprise encounters a bunch of Gorn hatchlings on a crashed spacecraft. This mission ends particularly badly for Aenar engineer Lt Hemmer (Bruce Horak), who gets infected by Gorn embryos but sacrifices his life to save his crewmates.

The Gorn also make a nuisance of themselves in the season 2 finale "Hegemony", attacking Parnassus Beta — a small colony just outside Federation space — just in time for an epic season-ending cliffhanger.

How do the Gorn reproduce?

That's arguably the scariest thing about them, because in the eyes of the Gorn we're all just food for their ravenous offspring — those aforementioned breeding planets exist for a reason.

Much like the Xenomorphs in the "Alien" franchise, Gorn need to take advantage of another, warm-blooded body to reproduce, and the process is similarly fatal for the unfortunate host.

Even baby Gorn are capable of spraying victims with a venom containing a rich broth of eggs, which will eventually hatch in gruesome fashion. This is why Captain Marie Batel (Melanie Scrofano) — infected when the USS Cayuga is destroyed by the Gorn in "Hegemony" — is seemingly living on borrowed time.

How are they defeated?

Resilient, implausibly strong, and utterly ruthless, the Gorn are more than a match for the Enterprise in "Hegemony: Part II" — especially with Admiral Robert April (Adrian Holmes) and the rest of Starfleet holding back in an effort to avoid all-out war.

With their backs against the wall, Pike and co exploit their theory that stellar flares dictate a Gorn's hunting and rest cycles, and use the ship to simulate a coronal mass ejection. In effect, they put the Gorn to sleep, much as the Enterprise-D did to the Borg in classic "TNG" episode "The Best of Both Worlds".

Of course, their slumber isn't going to last forever, and Pike admits that, "I can't help wondering if we didn't just create a problem for someone else to solve later." All of which makes it even less plausible that Kirk and Spock don't recognize the Gorn when they show up in "Arena". It's almost as if Gene Roddenberry and the rest of the original "Star Trek" writers' room had no idea that, nearly six decades later, the Gorn would once again be called upon to terrorize the Federation…

New episodes of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays. Original Series episode "Arena" is available on Paramount+ in the US and UK, and Netflix in the UK.

"Project Hail Mary" is being adapted from the 2021 New York Times bestselling novel of the same name by Andy Weir ("The Martian," "Artemis"). The upcoming sci-fi movie stars Ryan Gosling as 6th-grade science teacher and amnesiac astronaut Ryland Grace, who's on a deep space rescue mission to save our sun and other stars from dying. En route to his destination in the Tau Ceti star system, Grace encounters an unlikely alien ally that helps to solve a cosmic mystery involving destructive spacefaring microbes called Astrophage.

We connected with Andy Weir after the fresh trailer dropped, who was on the "Project Hail Mary" set for the whole shoot, to hear his thoughts and impressions of this fantastic first teaser that has fans counting the days until it's released by Amazon MGM Studios on March 20, 2026.

"They showed it to me well in advance," Weir tells Space.com. "I'm a producer on this film so I’m involved in giving notes and stuff this time so it’s kinda cool. It’s nice to pretend I’m a bigshot. But I was really psyched. I always try to put myself in the mind of the viewer for movie stuff or reader for book stuff and try to blank my mind and imagine I don’t know anything about the story."

As with almost all Hollywood trailers these days, Weir laments how spoilerific it was, though. "I thought, 'Oh, this trailer really does raise a lot of questions and make me curious and makes me want to see the film.' That's the point. Butts in seats. I was really happy with it. I wish they hadn’t shown quite as much of Rocky," explains Weir.

"It's totally cool to show that there's going to be an alien because there’s no way to keep that under wraps, and it adds to the film's appeal. But I'm glad they didn't show him in all of his glory. You still have to go to the movie to see that."

"Project Hail Mary" nails a particular haunting tone in this inspiring initial preview, paired with Harry Styles' weepy emo anthem "Sign of the Times," to evoke an experience that's resonating with sci-fi fans all over the globe.

"Yeah, it definitely works," he notes. "I don’t know the details of who chose the song and who made which decisions. I know the directors were deeply involved. And you can really see that kind of Lord and Miller color palette coming through in the trailer. They do like colors. They’re the "Spider-Verse" guys. They use them reasonably; it's not some explosion of color in your face. But you can see it's not just going to be everything on the spaceship is white and everything in space is black and white. Then, of course, we have Greig Fraser as the DP, and he does all these clever things in there. He makes these beautiful scenes, taking advantage of the natural light from Tau Ceti shining in through portals and windows. He's an amazing talent."

On the subject of the Hail Mary's spacecraft design and Rocky's breathtaking Blip-A alien starship, Weir was suitably impressed by what the production team was able to conjure up on screen.

"They had to make it bigger than what’s depicted in the book, because in the book it's very cramped and confined. In the movie, you need space for characters to move around and do things, so they just scaled up the whole Hail Mary. They changed its layout, but kept the idea of three main pillar-like Astrophage tanks and then the central area that has the pressure compartment with the crew. It's a cool-looking ship. They did so much with practical effects. Whatever you see in the background, that was a set."

"The Blip-A spaceship is just gorgeous. I don’t exactly have a very visual imagination. When I'm writing a story, the people and ships are just kind of blobs in my imagination. So if you said, 'Hey, draw a picture of Rocky's ship,' I wouldn’t know what to do. They call it the Blip-A because that was the designation that the ship's radar gave it. And Eridians don't name their ships."

Despite not having an idea for the aesthetics of the ship when he was writing the story, Weir's input was heavily leaned on by the production. "

The directors and the art group asked if I had any guidance for them," recalls Weir. "I said that the ship's made out of Xenonite, so it should match the general feel and look of the Xenonite props. Beyond that, Xenonite is a kind of MacGuffin material with this incredible tensile strength. So it can be whatever shape you think looks cool. And it looks alien! The Hail Mary looks like something that the international space community of modern day would make. And the Blip-A does not look like that."

Weir has already seen several cuts of the film as the directors were working on it, and he thinks they've really captured what he was after, especially in its reluctant hero, Ryland Grace.

"Ryan [Gosling] is funny," he adds. "He's got a good natural understanding of comedy and timing. He was really engaged, and he'd want to talk to me every day about scenes and what's going through Grace's mind. I was there for the shoot and on set all the time. That was really cool. I got to be a Hollywood mover and or a shaker. They actually offered to assign me an assistant. I said no, I don’t have enough for an assistant to do. There's almost nothing more useless on a set than the writer. Although there was a lot more work for me to do than I expected. It was awesome."

Screenwriting duties are being capably handled by Drew Goddard ("Cabin in the Woods," "Cloverfield"), whose script for director Ridley Scott's "The Martian" earned the scribe an Academy Award nomination. The impressive creative team also includes Oscar-winning cinematographer Greig Fraser ("Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," "Dune," "The Batman") behind the camera.

Co-starring Ryan Gosling and Sandra Hüller, "Project Hail Mary" lands in theaters on March 20, 2026.

While we have to wait a bit longer for the follow-up to the former, the latter just got an ambitious sequel in Revenge of the Savage Planet. We were lucky enough to speak with Alex Hutchinson, the game's Director, about this anarchic sci-fi adventure.

"Revenge of the Savage Planet is a pseudo-sequel to Journey of the Savage Planet, a game we did when we were called Typhoon Studios several years ago. And it's kind of an upbeat, optimistic dystopia," declares Hutchinson.

While Journey of the Savage Planet was a first-person, single-player adventure, the studio that formed from the ashes of Typhoon Studios, Raccoon Logic, decided to both expand the scope and the player's perspective for the follow-up.

"It's a comedy third-person action adventure game that you can play by yourself or with up to one other friend, where you have been sent to a strange alien world as part of a colonization mission," notes Hutchinson. "20 years into that 100-year mission, they decided it was too expensive and difficult, and they fired you and you've been abandoned on the far reaches of space, and it's up to you to make the best of it."

A new perspective

It's a bold move to switch something as iconic as your viewpoint in the sequel to a popular game. As Hutchinson explains, the choice wasn't an easy one, but it was necessary for the type of game they wanted to make.

"Our animation director, Mike Manilo, said if you want comedy in the character, there's only so much you can do with two hands stuck on the front of the screen," remarks Hutchinson. "Then the LDs [level designers] were saying — and I think it's true — that platforming is easier when you can see your feet. And then we added a whole layer of systemic gameplay that meant that you catch on fire and it's slippery — all these things — and it was very hard to represent just with hands [...] and then we can do sweet hats as well and all kinds of strange outfits. So it seems good, but I do miss the intimacy of first-person."

Another big change for the sequel is the addition of co-op play, available both via split screen and online. The game features cross-play, too, so you play with your buddy even if they're on another console or PC. This was a big deal for the team, especially the split-screen addition. "Our best memories of gaming were [...] sitting next to my best friend with a pizza," reminisces Hutchinson. "Getting that feeling back into people would be cool."

Very strange new worlds

As it turns out, the game's title isn't entirely accurate; it's called Revenge of the Savage Planet, but this expansive sequel is spread across four different planets within a single solar system. Rather than basing their worlds on real-life exoplanets, as is common within sci-fi, each planet has a vastly different environment, taking players along an almost Mario-esque sequence of Jungle, Desert, Fire & Ice, and Savannah.

"The challenge for us was that in real space, everything is a rock. There's sort of nothing there," laments Hutchinson, "And you get The Martian with Matt Damon eating poop mushrooms and clinging to life and we were like no — let's go back to when we didn't know anything and we thought that all these planets would be exciting and teaming with life".

Nintendo gamers will recall some of the wackier worlds that Mario has explored over the years. Revenge almost took a similar path, with a suitably grim twist. "Back in the platform days, there was ice, fire, all those sorts of things, and then there was sweets — Candy World and then Sports World," recalls Hutchinson. "For a while, we had an idea for a meat planet".

Fans of the series will be familiar with the deeply disturbing "meat buddy" commercial that crops up in the games, advertising a way to recycle meat off-cuts into a sentient companion. Great news for Super Meat Boy fans, but nightmare fuel for the rest of us.

"The idea that there was a meat planet and then this will make it worse, maybe, but all of the crevices would be wounds. You know what I mean? And then there'd be like you and then sort of cysts and things attacking you. It would just be horrific. And we were going to call it innard space."

Sadly (or thankfully), this idea was nixed in the development stage — not because it was too gross — but because of the amount of work it would have been for the developers. "It was more the art team saying that there's not one asset we can reuse in that world," reveals Hutchinson.

Even without a meaty biome to explore, Revenge of the Savage Planet's environments are packed with things to discover and places to explore, with a huge focus on verticality. "I really like the idea that there were sort of three layers everywhere; that there was a ground layer, there was the sky layer, and then an underwater layer or underground layer, so that you really felt like it was a three-dimensional place and not just like a topographic map."

While your player character has a very generous jump to assist with the platforming elements, one feature the team sadly wasn't able to pursue was different gravity levels on each planet. "One of our lead artists, Jeremy Price, he was very keen, and it's just a number. So it's very easy to do, but then it's hard… There's lots of things in games that are easy to do half the task. And then, when you look at the implications of it and all of the impacts of it, it's painful," clarifies Hutchinson. "We kept it consistent just because the level designers want predictability and then the artists start freaking out about you breaking the world and just leaping out of the whole map".

Creatures from beyond the stars

Alien planets are all well and good, but what about the alien… aliens? Fear not, because Revenge of the Savage Planet is jam-packed with weird, dangerous, and hilarious creatures for you to "interact with." From screaming chickens and inflating mushrooms to giant armored gorillas, the critters are equal parts threats to overcome and jokes to chuckle at.

"We just wanted to get away from the sort of Tolkienification and Dungeons and Dragonsification of monsters," stated Hutchinson. "I'm a big fan of the monstrous manual from DND, but [...] I realized that I liked it because at the time it was full of bizarre things that I hadn't thought of before and it was fun and interesting and you didn't know what was going to be a friend and what was going to attack you."

"We went back to sort of golden age science fiction [...] with weird monsters in them and just tried to stay away from dwarves and orcs and goblins and all that sort of stuff."

As a veteran of the games industry, Hutchinson has worked on many well-known titles, including 2008's life simulator Spore, which allowed players to create a species and advance it from a single-celled organism to a spacefaring empire. It wasn't just your species out there, though — there were whole ecosystems that interacted with each other.

While that worked well for a simulation game, the developers felt it was less necessary for this style of game. "In the context of an action adventure, you're sort of ripping past them. We always tell that joke [...] that it's a super cute creature, but it's full of resources you need, so f*** it," jokes Hutchinson.

"We wanted to give them the semblance of life. So, they have what we call hotspots where they interact a little bit with the environment, but it's mostly the illusion of depth on that front. They're mostly there to challenge."

I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords

As we approach an increasingly privatized vision for human space travel in reality, Revenge of the Savage Planet pulls no punches when lampooning the corporate world. The studio — or rather, the previous incarnation of the studio — had some well-publicised dealings with Google, which were an obvious influence here. However, even beyond a bit of cathartic sticking it to the man, Revenge of the Savage Planet has a lot to say about our potentially capitalist-driven race to the stars.

A lot of the team at Raccoon Logic had previously worked on a serious sci-fi game over at Ubisoft prior to the concept being shelved. "We were talking to NASA, [...] it was very earnest and we were trying to simulate gravity and simulate air pressure [...] and it was kind of neat, but not fun enough — that's why it didn't go anywhere," recalls Hutchinson. "In this one, we're very much on the Elon Musk half-ass space attempt as opposed to the NASA attempt."

The Elon Musk parallels don't stop with slightly explosion-prone spacecraft and bizarre management decisions. "The other inspiration was company towns, like pre-union mining [...] you get your Alta bucks and you spend them at the Alta store to buy Alta merchandise that you don't need," explains Hutchinson. It's a prescient piece of social commentary as SpaceX seeks to turn Starbase into an actual city.

"We got Mr. Beast building a compound for his workers. And then you've got Elon building a compound for his [...] wives or whatever the hell he's doing. So yeah, it's hard to write sci-fi at the moment."

For the moment, the ideas for these neo-company towns are being reserved for the Earth-side employees of private spaceflight companies like SpaceX. As Hutchinson remarks, "Maybe that's where it's a fiction and not a reality. Whereas in our world, rich people go on rockets and in our fiction, poor people go on rockets to try and get a job at the far edge of space."

Revenge of the Savage Planet is available now on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, & PC. The game is also available via Xbox Game Pass.

Created by brothers Chris and Paul Weitz ("American Pie," "About A Boy”), this popular and critically acclaimed 10-episode adaptation of author Martha Wells's "All Systems Red," the initial entry in her Hugo and Nebula Award-winning "The Murderbot Diaries" series, first premiered on May 16, 2025.

Alexander Skarsgård ("True Blood," "The Northman") headlines "Murderbot's" amusing ensemble cast that includes Tamara Podemski, Akshay Khanna, Sabrina Wu, Tattiawna Jones, Noma Dumezweni, and David Dastmalchian.

Skarsgård's self-hacking security android is a run-down protection robot leased out by The Company to a group of space hippies surveying a supposedly uncharted planet, where it tries to tolerate the over-emotional humans while binge-watching thousands of hours of soap operas like the melodramatic show "The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon" and hiding the fact that it's overridden the internal governor module.

As the narrative unfolds, a vast conspiracy involving alien artifacts is uncovered while Murderbot learns to understand and reluctantly accept its flawed human employers.

Season 2 will likely do away with the PreservationAux team as "Artificial Condition" — Wells’s second "Murderbot" novel — finds the sassy cyborg picking up a new mission amid a different collection of strange humans. Depending on your reactions to the show, that’ll either be a blessing or a bummer, but based on the series' praise, it won’t matter as long as the humorous security robot returns.

"Chris, Paul, Alexander and the entire 'Murderbot' team have delivered a brilliantly original, addictive, witty and vibrant adaptation that has captured the imagination of audiences everywhere," said Matt Cherniss, head of programming at Apple TV+ in a statement. "We can’t wait to unveil what's next for 'Murderbot' and, of course, 'Sanctuary Moon' in Season 2."

"Murderbot" Season 1 is currently streaming exclusively on AppleTV+.

With this latest iteration of Brother Day (Lee Pace) devoting most of his time relaxing with his cloned camel and drug dealer concubine at a posh garden villa on Trantor, the stage is set this season for Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) to have her climactic confrontation with this telepathic warlord that could destroy not only Empire and the Foundation, but the entirety of humanity itself.

We connected with Lee Pace and Laura Birn during Apple TV+’s "Foundation" press gathering to learn more about their characters' leap forward 152 years from last season and what surprising facets in their evolution continue to be unveiled as the looming shadow of The Mule begins to make its cruel mark.

"The characters seem to be without limit," Pace tells Space.com. "I get to play these different people, who are all of them very small-minded in comparison to what Demerzel is. Ego-driven and petty and messy and very human and causing a lot of problems wherever they go. But they're always so different.

"I never would have imagined I would have been able to play the Emperor of the galaxy in this way," explains Pace of his role as Cleon XIV.

"But as it fits into the story that we've earned now, after making it to this third season, it makes total sense to me. It makes total sense that he’s just like, 'Ugh, it doesn’t matter what I do here anyway. Might as well just hang out in the garden, get stoned, play with my ferret, and let the robot do what it wants. Just stay away from me.'"

Pace adds that Laura [Birn] has such a huge character that's been so contained for so many years, that there are limitless possibilities for dramatic paths to travel down. Now with the Prime Radiant at her personal disposal, it's sure to be fascinating how she chooses to evolve as an immortal artificial being.

Demerzel (Laura Birn), the last positronic android in the galaxy after the Robot Wars, is loyal to the Empire down to the very elemental essences of her quantum processors. Now in possession of the Prime Radiant after Seldon gifted this technological golden apple to her to aid in the salvation of the galaxy, she's questioning her own destiny in an existence without anyone to defend.

“I’ve definitely been surprised so many times throughout all the seasons,” Birn reveals.

“I learn about her at the same time when we all learn about her. I will never get bored of her because there are so many layers. She’s kind of this eternal witness for anything and everything that’s ever happened to humankind, so she’s looking to the past and to the future. It’s just endlessly surprising and interesting. I think there are many questions that arise from the Prime Radiant’s information, and she’s used to having answers and being straightforward.

Talking on Demerzel's motivations for this season, Birn explains that “She has this longing for something she doesn’t even understand, this endless loneliness, and maybe hopes for something new. A possible freedom, or is it something she can wish for? How much responsibility does she have with the information with the fate of humanity still there. Heavy burdens that she carries this season. That responsibility and the inner struggle. It’s not very often that she gets to open her heart and contemplate or reflect on things that have happened to her or that she’s done to other people."

There's an interesting dichotomy in the stories of Pace and Birn's characters for this season, and Demerzel is certainly getting the rough end of the stick for now " It's not as light of a season for her as for him [Brother Day], who’s in the garden enjoying sun and a girlfriend and fun times."

Apple TV+'s "Foundation" Season 3 is now streaming each Friday with new chapters arriving weekly until its finale on Sept. 12.

While there might have been an initial wave of online grumbling upon seeing a female Silver Surfer and erroneously believing this was a simple gender-swap of Norrin Radd, the original Marvel Comics iteration of the gleaming alien, we're here to set the story straight. This is not your grandparents' (or even parents') Silver Surfer, but a completely different character named Shalla-Bal.

But who exactly is Shalla-Bal, which actor is playing her, and what are her origins in the Marvel Universe? While MCU newbies might think she's just now joining the Marvel superhero scene, her 57-year-old backstory might surprise you. Let's streak into this comprehensive examination of the new Silver Surfer and learn how she's destined to become a fan favorite when director Matt Shakman's "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" storms into theaters this summer.

When did Shalla-Bal first appear in the comics?

Created by Marvel legends writer Stan Lee and artist John Buscema, Shalla-Bal arrived in the storied pages of Marvel Comics' "The Silver Surfer #1" with a cover date of August 1968.

Shalla-Bal was the Zenn-Lavian royal heir and romantic partner of a brilliant scientist from the utopian planet of Zenn-La named Norris Radd, who became the herald of Galactus known as the Silver Surfer.

Shalla-Bal was later crowned the Empress of Zenn-La after Radd sacrificed himself to be enslaved as the servant of the planet eater to save his world from obliteration. Their loving bond remained but the two were seemingly forever separated after Radd was imbued by Galactus with the Power Cosmic.

Who is playing the Silver Surfer in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps?"

Julia Garner ("Ozark") will be stepping into the role of Shalla-Bal, the former lover of the original Sentinel of the Spaceways, Norrin Radd.

Garner is an excellent performer, and we're excited to see what she does with the iconic part, even if it's going to be layered with silver-hued CGI trickery.

"She is the herald of Galactus, so she works for Galactus, but you’re not sure where she stands," Garner told Entertainment Weekly. "Does she stand with her boss, or is she just doing what she’s told? She has this mysterious energy about her, and slowly that mystery will get solved with the audience throughout watching it."

How did Shalla-Bal become the Silver Surfer in the comics?

To be honest, she never really did! Unless you count a very brief stint in Marvel's alt-universe dystopian miniseries "Earth X" from 2000 by Jim Krueger, John Paul Leon, and Alex Ross that featured twin heralds created by Franklin Richards/Galactus. This alternative take ended with Shalla-Bal's death during a climactic clash with the Celestials.

At this point in the marketing campaign, it’s now pretty clear that the film plays out in a retro-futuristic alternate version of Earth in the 1960s.

Therefore, we can surmise that in this iteration of our planet’s timeline, Shalla-Bal was the one who made the “Deal with the Devil” and agreed to be Galactus' herald which could have left Norrin Radd to become the leader of Zenn-La.

What are the Silver Surfer’s powers?

While Shalla-Bal is immortal and once wielded a sliver of the Power Cosmic from Norrin Radd to restore Zenn-La after Galactus drained the planet of its life source, we're not sure what powers this version of the Silver Surfer will eventually display.

The traditional Silver Surfer possessed cosmic awareness, self-healing, superluminal speed aboard his shape-shifting surfboard, energy projection, matter manipulation, telepathy, enhanced strength, and overall super coolness. That last one is vital.

"The Fantastic Four: First Steps" arrives in theaters on July 25, 2025.

If you're a fan of co-op sci-fi action games, your sights are almost assuredly set on Borderlands 4 this year, but Pigeons at Play's Mycopunk is taking big swings in a smaller (and easier to digest) scale this summer: A squad of robots working for a massive corporation is tasked with eliminating a "planet-wide fungal catastrophe" which includes... fungi with access to lasers and other technology.

No, we're not kidding.

Mycopunk is a fast-paced online solo and co-op shooter that has just launched into early access on PC (via Steam), and we were instantly fascinated by its cartoony yet slightly distressing take on fungi gone wild in a sci-fi setting. The development team at Pigeons at Play, alongside concept artists Lily Yu, Nicholas Wong, and Seungmi Yang, were kind enough to tell us a bit about their inspirations to create the enemies and how the Devolver Digital-published game's visual presentation and tone evolved since its inception.

Early on, "the game was leaning much more towards horror, with a much more sinister version of the fungus." Still, fun enemy designs – such as one pictured above based on the Hydnellum peckii (bleeding tooth fungus) – already started to come together.

"The inspiration comes from classic sci-fi comics and movies. I sometimes look at Akira and work from Moebius, or just watch BBC documentaries. Oil paintings played a huge part in my rendering techniques," Yu revealed.

Once the narrative and worldbuilding started coming together, the team "dug into the idea of a mycelial network spread across an entire planet," which altered the ecosystem and even took over mechanical components. Of course, this directly affected the enemy design, especially as the game's difficulty levels ramp up. (Trust us, things get hairy.)

"Our enemy design ended up changing quite drastically over time to match better with what Mycopunk was turning into." As you might be able to infer from the final images of the game itself and the launch trailer, the final presentation is much more colorful and comedic. Get ready to sweat and fight for every victory, all the same though.

Yang elaborated on the 'grunt' designs (find them below) and how the fusion of metal and organic parts came together: "We wanted them all to be arachnid/spider-like, and the idea of procedural limbs and a vulnerable 'core' were heavily kept in mind during early conceptualization... Off the top of my head, the main inspiration was Warframe (Nidus & the Grineer)... I wanted the enemies to have faces since I thought that'd make them creepier and have a stronger identity, but that never really landed."

Eventually, most of the game's horror roots were left behind. "Our enemy designs had to change a lot for gameplay reasons as fighting the horde can get incredibly chaotic... But throughout the changes, we strove to keep the core identity of the enemies the same, as these little fungal critters that use hijacked machinery to arm and armor themselves."

The best example might be the gigantic 'abominations' that use larger chunks of tech and machinery. "The enemies are procedurally generated, so they can look different every time you see them," added Yu.

When it came to designing the post-fungal takeover planetary surface, "the basic principle was to take the best parts about little mushrooms and blow them up." As players explore different biomes on the same planet, they'll also notice differences beyond size, as seen in the pictures below.

About the research process, Wong said the following: "I try to look for real fungi that grows in that real environment... So when we were designing the city, I found an article about NYC's fungi biodiversity." The standard procedure was to make them "fantastical or strange" by enlarging and multiplying the fungi, but another approach was to look "at organic objects like fingers, organs, or raw chicken" to create "a creepy look" for the fungi across enemies and infested levels. "We really want to make the fungus feel like it's almost a completely separate ecosystem that has buried its roots in an established system and completely upended it."

Mycopunk's run-and-gun action has yet to target consoles, and we won't be seeing a 1.0 release until at least six months have passed, but it's already found an audience who was looking for the next uncomplicated co-op shooter sensation.

After playing through a few missions ourselves and tinkering with character and weapon upgrades, we think it has the potential to become a go-to 'lunch break' game without feeling overwhelming.

Mycopunk is available now on PC via early access on Steam. It currently costs $14.99.

On Episode 168 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik jump into the headlines, and boy are there a lot of them!

Welcome to the "Survivor: NASA" edition!

NASA has a new interim administrator: former Congress member, reality TV star, and Fox News commentator Sean Duffy. NASA's budget may still be cut by 25%, or it might be increased to more than they have seen since the 1960s in adjusted dollars. At the same time, NASA is under orders to cut as many as 2000 mostly senior-level positions, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory could be headed for new management, and will Houston be able to grab the Smithsonian's space shuttle as specified in the Big Beautiful Bill? Join us and find out!

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Space news of the week

• Who is Sean Duffy, NASA's new interim chief? From champion lumberjack, reality TV star and Cabinet secretary to space
• Over 2,000 senior staff set to leave NASA under agency push
• Trump's signing of 'One Big Beautiful Bill' includes $85 million to move space shuttle Discovery from Smithsonian to Texas
• Senator calls out Texas for trying to steal shuttle from Smithsonian
• Astronomers say new interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS is 'very likely to be the oldest comet we have ever seen'
• Axiom Mission 4
• NASA considering flying only cargo on next Starliner mission
• James Webb Space Telescope celebrates 3 years of science with dazzling 'toe beans' image of Cat's Paw Nebula

Model Falcon 9!

Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes' stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.

About This Week In Space

This Week in Space covers the new space age. Every Friday we take a deep dive into a fascinating topic. What's happening with the new race to the moon and other planets? When will SpaceX really send people to Mars?

Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.

Metamorpho is an elemental superhero from the DC Comics' universe who can alter his body to form a variety of compounds and materials. But what do we know about this transmuting wonder, and what role is he going to play in the Man of Steel's triumphant cinematic return?

Here's everything you need to know about Metamorpho before you fly out to watch Superman.

James Gunn's "Superman" is out now, but we're keeping this rundown relatively spoiler-free. Still, if you want to go in completely sight unseen, turn back now and check out our Superman movies ranked list instead.

Who is Metamorpho?

Created by Bob Haney and Ramona Fradon, Metamorpho first rose to fame in the pages of DC Comics' "The Brave and the Bold #57" with a cover date of January 1965.

It might sound like the perfect name for a sideshow carnival magician, but Metamorpho is no mild-mannered conjuror to be messed with. His transformative powers come from a mystical meteor that crash-landed on Earth in Ancient Egypt during the days of Pharaoh Ramses II.

Discovered by the priest Ahk-Ton and molded into the glimmering Orb of Ra, this powerful cosmic relic would be discovered thousands of years later by mercenary archaeologist Rex Mason.

What are Metamorpho's powers?

Contact with the luminous meteor changed Mason into the metahuman named Metamorpho, a being that can reconstitute his body into elemental substances or compounds like gases, acids, or minerals. In the comics, Metamorpho was originally only able to transform into elements that naturally appeared in the human body. Over the years, however, that limitation has been dropped.

There have been multiple attempts to cure Mason from his cursed morphing state, but the procedures would have been unbearable.

Metamorpho has been affiliated with several mainstream superhero and crime-fighting organizations, including Batman's secret gang called The Outsiders, the Doom Patrol, Justice League of America, Justice League Europe, and the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

What is Metamorpho's role in James Gunn's 'Superman'?

Metamorpho is portrayed by actor Anthony Carrigan ("Gotham"), and rumors in the lead-up to release were that he'll be a pawn of Lex Luthor's (Nicholas Hoult), transmuting his body into kryptonite to aid Luthor in trying to take down the Last Son of Krypton. He's being twisted into a force for evil, yet at his core, he's truly a good guy.

Teasers and trailers have shown Carrigan wearing a stunning multi-layered body suit that represents the elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. We also saw Superman in a strange preview scene holding a green baby alien with Metamorpho's tentacles reaching out. That's likely Baby Joey, Metamorpho’s weird little son, who gets snatched and possibly held for ransom, which could force Metamorpho to choose sides between helping Lex Luthor or Superman.

"It's things that were glued on me, but then they painted on detail, and then more things were glued onto that," Carrigan told Entertainment Weekly when talking about his costume and makeup for the movie. "I'm not kidding when I say that I was glued in, I was sewn in, I was completely enveloped. I was tied in... roped in, basically. But all in service of this incredible costume."

"You're in a situation where it's having to hurt someone, having to be an agent of the bad guy. And at the same time, there's this struggle to want to be good," Carrigan added regarding sneak peeks at Metamorpho generating jagged green kryptonite from his fingertips. "What the film does brilliantly is it puts you in this situation of, 'Oh! He has no choice.' He has to be doing this, and you see how painful it is."

Director James Gunn's "Superman" soared into theaters on July 11, 2025.

Apple TV+'s sprawling galactic series "Foundation" Season 3 debuts today, July 11, 2025 with a glorious 10-episode restart to the interstellar epic and the bloody wrath of The Mule, actor Pilou Asbæk's telepathic villain that's been teased over the last two seasons.

In the opener, "A Song For the End of Everything," the space opera picks up 152 years after the events of Season 2 with the Cleonic Dynasty in serious decline and Hari Seldon's (Jared Harris) humanity-saving Foundation quickly gaining ground in the intervening years.

With aging Brother Dusk (Terrance Mann) about to become a pile of ash and Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton) on the cusp of being elevated to Brother Day, these are turbulent times. Current Brother Day (Lee Pace) has realized the futility of the dynasty's plight and is seen mostly lounging around his villa with his ferret, doing drugs, and having sex.

Ancient android Demerzel (Laura Birn) is now in possession of the Prime Radiant and her loyalties and motivations to protect Empire will be severely tested as the big showdown between Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) and The Mule will drive the narrative’s core to an explosive end. To battle back against the formidable warlord bent on dominating the universe, Empire and the Foundation just might have to join forces to survive the impending extermination of their own existences.

Asbæk's introduction here is a shocking display of his monstrous mind-controlling powers and anyone who witnessed the actor's ruthless cruelty in "Game of Thrones" as Euron Greyjoy will not be surprised by how menacing an adversary he’ll make this third season.

Apple TV+'s "Foundation" Season 3 streams Fridays with subsequent chapters arriving weekly until a finale on Sept. 12. New cast members also include Cherry Jones, Brandon P. Bell, Synnøve Karlsen, Cody Fern, Tómas Lemarquis, Alexander Siddig, and Troy Kotsur.

Creator David S. Goyer ("The Dark Knight Trilogy," "Blade," "Dark City") executive produces alongside Bill Bost, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Matt Thunell, Robyn Asimov, David Kob, Christopher J. Byrne, Leigh Dana Jackson, Jane Espenson and Roxann Dawson.

First debuting in the mid-forties as 'Superman's Citadel', it eventually evolved into the Fortress we know today, situated in the Arctic near a cliff edge, requiring a huge key to access it. Described as a fountain of knowledge of the universe and Superman’s home planet, Krypton, the Fortress serves as the Man of Steel’s base and as a memorial to his parents, Jor-El and Lara-El, in the form of a statue.

Superman's frosty home-away-from-home plays a significant role in James Gunn's Superman, which hits theaters worldwide today, so we've laid out every live-action appearance of the Fortress of Solitude, from the obvious to the innovative, right up until James Gunn’s Superman.

Superman: The Movie & Superman II - 1978, 1980

The first Superman film starring Christopher Reeve as the titular superhero is how many fans discovered what the Fortress of Solitude was. Based on the film’s depiction of Krypton, Superman’s homeworld, it shows how a teenage Clark discovers a green crystal and is drawn to the Arctic. After throwing it, the citadel rises from the ice. Inside, Jor-El, Clark’s biological father, appears, ready to teach Clark Krypton’s history, and more, to become the Man of Steel.

Although we’re on the cusp of reaching the film’s 50th anniversary since its debut in 1978, the film has barely dated, except for some special effects. Christopher Reeve plays both Superman and Clark Kent perfectly, and the Fortress is given a lot of time in the film for viewers to digest, to make it believable, as this was its first real-life appearance out of the comics.

The sequel features the icy structure even more, as a way to take Lois there once she discovers Clark’s true identity, and then when Clark talks to Jor-El to become human. The showdown of General Zod and his henchmen also takes place at the Fortress, with a great twist to defeat them. Thanks to the strong performances, especially Reeve and the actor Jeff East, who played Clark as a teenager, you can’t help but cheer when Superman returns in the sequel with his powers restored.

Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman - 1993

After the frankly bizarre ‘Superboy’ TV series in the late 80s, a new pitch focusing on ‘Lois and Clark’ in the 90s eventually made its way in 1993, starring Dean Cain as the superhero, and Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane. The show took on plenty of innovative twists on the mythos, with Superman being the disguise, and Clark being his real persona, as he explains in a Season 2 episode.

Another twist they made was the lack of a Fortress. Instead, Clark discovers a globe with all the knowledge of Krypton in the Season 1 episode, Foundling, as a way to save the cast from building an ice stage and a Jor-El floating head.

However, the reason Lois and Clark make this list is that the name appears in the same episode. With the globe now in the safe hands of Jonathan and Martha Kent, it’s revealed that it’s now kept safe in Clark’s treehouse he played in as a kid, called, you guessed it, The Fortress of Solitude. Smart.

Smallville - 2005

Smallville was an early-noughties take on a young Clark Kent, taking inspiration from the hit shows of the era like ‘Dawson’s Creek’ and ‘Buffy: The Vampire Slayer’. Starring Tom Welling this time, the first half of the show's run was Clark coming to terms with the fact that he was from another planet, all the while managing to be a teenager in Smallville, Kansas. As we got to Season 5 in 2005, the Superman mythology started to seep through even more, culminating with the Fortress of Solitude in the Season 5 premiere, Arrival.

Taking inspiration from the Superman movies once again, as it did with Christopher Reeve's cameo in earlier seasons, as well as some John Williams motifs, this Fortress is very similar to the movies, just smaller. In Talkville, a podcast hosted by Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, who played Lex in the show, they spoke about their memories of filming in the Fortress of Solitude, and how it represented a new narrative for the show from Season 5.

Instead of Marlon Brando voicing Jor-El in the Fortress, we get Terence Stamp, another nod to the movies, as he played General Zod in the second movie. The set would be a mainstay for the rest of the series, right up until Clark becomes Superman in the series finale. Even for a TV show in the mid-2000s, it was vast, made its mark, and signified a change in narrative for the show. No more was it going to be about Clark accepting who he was, it was now preparing for who he’s about to become.

Superman Returns - 2006

‘Superman Returns’ is a strange movie. Directed by Brian Singer of the first two X-Men movies, this takes place as a sequel to Reeve’s ‘Superman II’. After the Man of Steel fights General Zod and his two henchmen, he decides to take his old ship and explore space, to discover if there are any other Kryptonians out there. Years later, he returns to find Lois has a son, the world may not need Superman anymore, and Lex has been paroled.

The Fortress isn’t in the movie much, but it still contains the same tropes from the movies, such as the crystals, Marlon Brando reappearing, and the icy look of what came before. Whilst ‘Superman Returns’ is a fun movie, it’s mostly a retread of the 1978 original, and that's true of the Fortress's appearance in it too, which is a shame. Plans for a sequel were scrapped due to its low box office returns.

Man of Steel - 2013

With the debut of Henry Cavill as Superman in 2013, much of the lore was redefined by director and writer Zack Snyder’s decisions, something that’s still fiercely debated to this day. The Fortress was wrapped up in this, too, with the iconic ice palace being replaced by Clark’s ship. Jor-El, this time played by Russell Crowe, still appeared as a hologram, guiding Clark to the Superman suit and revealing his true identity. The ship would be destroyed towards the end of the film, but would return in future films, such as ‘Batman vs Superman’ and ‘Justice League’, as a way to create the enemy Doomsday, and to revive Superman.

In looks, there’s no ice here, instead being replaced by CGI nanomachines and the grey-color scheme that defined much of the DCEU era, led by Snyder. The design looks like an ant colony, with tunnels and walkways that also showcase some of the ship’s robots. It’s an interesting twist on the take of the Fortress, but perhaps one that strays a little too far from the source material.

Supergirl - 2015

Although the Fortress appeared in just five episodes throughout Supergirl’s six-season run between 2015 and 2021, it made an impact every time, especially when a giant House of El key was featured to unlock the structure. With Superman away, Kara / Supergirl was allowed to access Superman’s base and use it as a headquarters for a short while.

Although its appearance was short overall, the Fortress was a step-up from ‘Smallville’, with a bigger space, characters like Kelex keeping the structure clean and safe from outsiders, and more ancestors to talk to Kara and others.

Krypton - 2018

Were you ever curious about Jor-El’s Father and the early years of Krypton? Probably not, but this is what the short-lived TV series, Krypton, offered from 2018 to 2019 for two seasons.

Although the series obviously took place on Superman’s home planet, the Fortress still appeared, explained away by the revelation that it was first created as a secret science base by Zor-El, the Great Grandfather of Jor-El. The location was used in the show to reveal the history of the Phantom Zone and Braniac, told via a hologram of Zor-El.

This time, the Fortress looked like a cross between a Roman Colosseum and the DCEU ‘Man of Steel’ iteration, which meant a mostly gray and blue color scheme and a stage that showcased the Zor-El hologram. It was pretty underwhelming, much like the Krypton show as a whole, but it at least gave the Fortress some added depth, whether you wanted it or not.

Superman & Lois - 2021

It could be argued that ‘Superman and Lois’ is the best TV adaptation of the mythos, and for good reason. Starring Tyler Hoechlin as the Man of Steel after appearing in Supergirl, Hoechlin went full throttle on the character, giving viewers a new perspective on how Lois and Clark managed daily life, as well as having two kids. Episode 11 of Season 1 tells the early years of Clark, from arriving on Earth to discovering his powers, leading to the creation of the Fortress.

Like ‘Smallville’ and the original Superman movies before it, this take on the Fortress also featured Jor-El as an AI hologram, teaching and helping Clark throughout his early adult years to become the Man of Steel. It was also the place where Clark proposed to Lois after confessing everything, in a heart-warming scene.

Although this Fortress looked huge on the outside, scenes of the inside mostly consisted of an icy cavern, featuring holograms to advance the plot. Although it wasn’t as grand as Smallville or Krypton’s take, it was the storytelling that made this Fortress stand out in a different, greater way.

Superman - 2025

James Gunn’s ‘Superman’ movie is finally here, but we're going to avoid spoilers and keep to what we’ve already seen from the trailers and the sneak peek clip from April. Starring David Corenswet this time, we've seen shots of Superman recovering at the base, as well as many Kryptonian robots helping him.

This incarnation of the Fortress is back to the grand scale you'd expect from a major motion picture, with different rooms and areas of the Fortress. It’s another encouraging sign from this new take, especially after years of seeing the Man of Steel in live-action surrounded by CGI-heavy sets and enemies, where drumbeats for a soundtrack attempted to be the heart of the DCEU era, and mostly flatlined.

This time, the Fortress looks to make a big impression on the characters and the viewers. We’ve already heard the motifs of John Williams’ classic Superman theme, seen colors abound instead of the grey that plagued the DCEU, and most of all, the themes of hope. How does it compare to other Fortresses from the past 50 years? Get out there and find out.

James Gunn's 'Superman' is screening in theaters worldwide right now.

We've had a UCS set (Jango Fett's Starship), one of the cutest Lego Star Wars sets to date (Grogu with Hover Pram), a collection of BrickHeadz (Revenge of the Sith Heroes & Villains) and a few new Lego Star Wars helmets for the first time in almost two years.

So far, 2025 has been a great time to be a Lego Star Wars fan. While it would cost nearly a thousand dollars to grab everything in this list, Amazon Prime Day is in full swing and there are plenty of worthwhile Lego Star Wars Prime Day deals available.

But with sets starting from just $50 and going all the way up to $300, there's something to suit most budgets — and even if you only have a tiny amount of display space in your house, you'll find something to fit (the Acclamator-Class Assault Ship is a good choice!). Scroll on to see the best Lego Star Wars sets of 2025 so far.

The best Lego Star Wars sets released in 2025 so far

Jango Fett's Firespray-Class Starship

It wouldn't be right if we didn't have an Ultimate Collector's Series set in our round-up of the best Lego Star Wars sets so far this year. Admittedly, we don't think Jango Fett's Firespray-Class Starship is the best UCS set (surely that's an accolade reserved for the huge Millennium Falcon), but it's impressive nonetheless. Made up of 2,970 pieces, it's the biggest iteration of this style of starship we've had so far — and there have been a few.

If you picked up the Slave I UCS set, which retired a few years ago, you might think Jango Fett's Starship is a bit too familiar. It certainly looks similar, with a similar shape and design, but this one boasts more than 1,000 extra pieces, providing plenty of extra detail and a noticeably bigger build. Do you need to own both of them? Well, no. But that doesn't mean you won't want to. We love that it comes with a stand, too, making it easy to put on display and admire. It's worth fiddling with once in a while, though, thanks to all its moving parts and compartments.

The only thing we're slightly disappointed with is that it only has two minifigures. We'd have liked to have seen a larger collection here.

Revenge of the Sith Heroes & Villains

Not everyone likes BrickHeadz figures, essentially Lego's answer to collectible Funko Pops, but we think they have a place. If you want a quick build and a model to display that won't take up much space, they're a great choice. They're inexpensive, too. A single BrickHeadz costs $10, and so this pack of five will set you back $50.

In the Revenge of the Sith Heroes & Villains pack, you'll get buildable models of Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala, General Grievous, Mace Windu and Emperor Palpatine. Each model will take roughly 20 minutes to complete (maybe a little more if you're new to Lego) and each character is packed with enough detail to make them instantly recognizable. If you're a Revenge of the Sith fan — we know there are some of them out there — then this should be an instant must-buy.

Brick-Built Star Wars Logo

With Lego releasing a brick-built Marvel Logo earlier this year, it's no surprise that they've followed up with a Star Wars logo to match. It's a similar size and, just like the Marvel Logo set, it's a great rendition, nailing the curvature of each letter of the logo perfectly.

There are some downsides compared to the Marvel Logo, however. That one comes with five minifigures, whereas this Lego Star Wars Logo doesn't feature any. It's not completely devoid of secrets, though: You'll find a hidden compartment at the top of the 'T': lift a piece away to find a tiny ship. It's neat, but we think we'd have preferred pop-out minifigures. Still, this is a great set to add to any Lego Star Wars collection — it will look fantastic standing behind a Millennium Falcon, or next to a range of Star Wars helmets.

Jango Fett Helmet

We're very happy to see Lego Star Wars helmets make a return: It's one of our favorite sub-ranges, offering an inexpensive way to build and display adult-friendly models. They don't take up much room, either, so they're a great choice if you're limited on shelf or desktop space.

Jango Fett's Helmet might not be the most inspired design, simply because it's practically identical to Boba Fett, which was released a few years back. But that's the nature of the "real" helmet, so it's not exactly Lego's fault. We think the pair will look fantastic standing side-by-side — if you already own Boba Fett, of course. That particular set retired a while ago, so if you do want to pick it up, expect to pay a premium on the reseller market.

Kylo Ren Helmet

When we first saw Lego Star Wars Kylo Ren helmet, we couldn't help but groan. We saw the silver markings on the face and assumed they must be stickers. We hate stickers. But it seems Lego heard our cries, because there isn't a single sticker in this set. You heard that right: Every marking here is entirely printed. We imagine that fact alone will make this a fairly sought-after set, simply because some of its pieces will be unique and exclusive to this set.

Love him or hate him, there's no denying that this model perfectly replicates Kylo Ren. We can almost hear Adam Driver's dulcet tones coming out of it. Like the rest of the helmets in the collection, this one is built atop a solid and sturdy stand, and it comes with a display plaque (printed with 'Kylo Ren') to attach to the front of it.

Chopper (C1-10P) Astromech Droid

We don't think Chopper is the most iconic droid in the Star Wars universe, but it is one of the cutest. This little model is adorable, although there's emphasis on the little — it's only 8.5 inches tall, which is a little smaller than we'd expect a droid to be. Still, made up of 1,039 pieces, it's still a sizeable build, and a great choice if you want something to sink your teeth into for a few hours.

There are some neat details on Chopper: His head can rotate, and you can adjust his antenna, pose his arms, move his legs and fold out a tool from his chest. You can even completely detach the arms and center wheel, which gives the appearance that they've been retracted into the droid's body. It's a shame that they don't actually retract into the body, but we imagine that would have made Chopper a much more expensive (and complex) set.

AT-AT Driver Helmet

We think the AT-AT Driver Helmet might just be one of our favorite Lego Star Wars helmets yet. Sure, this might not be the most iconic Star Wars character ever made — we're certainly not all sitting around thinking, "remember the iconic performance of AT-AT Driver #2 in The Empire Strikes Back?". Regardless, there's no denying this is one seriously cool helmet; one which packs in a lot more detail than your average Star Wars helmet.

It's a fun build, too. Thanks to the slightly different shape of the head and face, you'll need to employ some different building techniques, so even if you've built every helmet previously, this one will feel fresh. We also love the pop of color: The red accents stand out against the gray coloring of the helmet, making it much more eye-catching than most other sets in the series.

• Read our full AT-AT Driver Helmet review for more details.

Acclamator-Class Assault Ship

There's an awful lot to like about the Lego Star Wars Acclamator-Class Assault Ship, but our favorite thing has to be its price point. Adult-focused sets that result in a wonderful display piece for under $50? More of this, please, Lego. The Acclamator-Class Assault Ship might not be very big — it's nine inches at its longest point — but it's perfectly formed, and despite its size, it still manages to include a lot of detail.

It features engines, a command tower, a bridge and a detailed tail. A smattering of red bricks and some printed patterns (no stickers!) give it a much-needed pop of color. It's eye-catching, and it's not going to take up too much space on your desk or a shelf. We really hope we see more ships arrive on this scale later this year.

• Read our full Lego Star Wars Acclamator-Class Assault Ship review for more information.

Grogu with Hover Pram

Who doesn't love Grogu? The adorable 'baby Yoda' as he's affectionately known is one of the best things to come from modern Star Wars, and so we welcome any Lego model of him. This isn't the first time we've had a brick-built Grogu, of course: the previous model, simply called The Child, is now retired. And this one isn't just Grogu: It also comes with his hover pram.

As much as we like the hover pram, it's a shame that the majority of the set is taken up with the pram itself. Grogu is fairly small in comparison, and although he's ridiculously cute, we think we'd have preferred a slightly bigger Grogu model. Still, there are some nice details here, like the frog Grogu can hold in his hand, and the fact that his head, ears and arms can move.

• Read our full review of Lego Star Wars Grogu with Hover Pram for more information.

Home One Starcruiser

Built to a similar scale as the Acclamator-Class Assault Ship above, the Home One Starcruiser is another great display model that's not going to break the bank. This one is a little more expensive, but it also has 100 more pieces — and it's four inches longer, too. Granted, we don't think it's as aesthetically pleasing as the Acclamator, but it’s certainly unique.

You'll undoubtedly recognize the Starcruiser from Return of the Jedi, and Lego has done a great job of capturing the details of the real thing. There's a tiny frigate flying alongside the cruiser to give it a sense of scale, which is a neat touch. Our favorite thing, though, is that you can detach a side panel to reveal interior details — something we haven't seen in this range of ships before.

This may be down to a fundamental flaw with the character: Superman's lack of weakness is actually his biggest weakness. Indeed, that god-like skillset makes him so across-the-board powerful that writers require Brainiac-level intellect to imagine enemies capable of defeating him. And with few of Superman's friends powerful enough to rescue him from such biblical threats (even Krypto), deus ex machina often proves to be his only salvation — particularly within the two- to three-hour running time of a film.

So, as James Gunn's Superman's brand new take on one of pop culture's most famous friendly aliens swoops into theaters around the world, we look back on Supes' previous battles with troublesome (and sometimes ridiculous) denouements. Mr. Gunn, the challenge is afoot.

Superman: The Movie (1978)

It feels churlish to criticize anything about Richard Donner's perfectly pitched 1978 origin story, but there's no question it comes unstuck in its final act.

Criminal mastermind Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) plans to nuke the San Andreas fault, turning his cheaply acquired Californian housing empire into lucrative beachfront property in the process. After escaping a rather mediocre kryptonite trap, Superman (Christopher Reeve) arrives on the west coast to face what's arguably his biggest weakness — the fact he cares about everyone.

So, by the time he's repaired the fault, rescued a busload of kids on the Golden Gate Bridge, and saved a valley from a collapsed dam, he arrives too late to save Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), killed when her car is buried in a landslide. His solution? Defy his late dad's strict non-interference policy by flying around the world fast enough to reverse the Earth's spin, and rewind time to a point where Lois is still alive. It's such a massive cheat code that you wonder why Supes doesn't use this time travel trick in every single movie…

Superman II (1980)

In fact, said cheat code could have been rehashed in Donner's original version of "Superman II," had he not been replaced by Richard Lester. (The "Donner Cut" was eventually released in 2006.) As unsatisfactory as this cinematic déjà vu would have been, it would have made more sense than what ended up in the theatrical release, most of which had been reshot by Lester.

In this entertaining sequel, Lois learns Clark's identity, prompting him to renounce his Kryptonian superpowers — a process that, as his late mom (Susannah York) repeatedly tells him, is irreversible.

His fateful choice may have had minimal repercussions had it not coincided with the arrival of General Zod (Terence Stamp), Ursa (Sarah Douglas), and Non (Jack O'Halloran), a trio of Kryptonian villains freshly escaped from the Phantom Zone. After an altercation in a diner makes him bleed his own blood, an inadequately clothed (and very human) Clark somehow trudges through the Arctic wastes to reach his Fortress of Solitude.

The film never explains the mechanics — we think it has something to do with a green crystal — but the next time the son of Jor-El appears on screen, he's back in Metropolis, those gone-forever powers miraculously restored. With the Zod squad successfully dispatched, Clark uses the power of a kiss to make Lois forget about the events of the last few days. Reversing time is almost plausible in comparison, and definitely less sinister.

(Interestingly, "Spider-Man 2" features a similar plotline about Peter Parker temporarily losing his powers, and the resolution is just as disappointing — turns out he just needed to rediscover his wall-crawling mojo.)

Superman III (1983)

The film where the original Super-franchise first jumped the shark is as much a vehicle for comedy legend Richard Pryor as man-in-tights Christopher Reeve. Working for mediocre Luthor facsimile Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn), Pryor's computer genius Gus Gorman fabricates an artificial kryptonite, which — like the red variant in the comics — turns Superman bad.

Although the metaphorical battle for Superman's soul — played out in a scrapyard between Clark and an evil, stubbly Superman — is one of the most iconic sequences in the saga, the Man of Steel's final clash with a sentient supercomputer is one to file under "total bust." The briefly teased scrap with the freaky robo-woman forged from Webster's sister (Annie Ross) never gets started, while Superman's victory is dependent on the unlikely stupidity of a machine smart enough to improvise its own kryptonite ray in seconds.

Yes, even a child would have spotted that Superman is holding something behind his back. Alas, this jar of concentrated Beltric acid causes the device's rapid (and very permanent) shutdown.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

Identifying problems with "Superman IV" is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Everything about this low-budget franchise extension is a mess, from the low-rise English city of Milton Keynes masquerading as Metropolis to its on-the-nose moralizing about world peace. Solar-powered bad guy Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow) will not be troubling any lists of cinema's greatest supervillains, while that creepy amnesia kiss also gets another run-out — this time to help Clark steal a quick heart-to-heart with Lois.

With all that going on, the ending isn't actually the movie's biggest problem. Even so, Clark's recovery from Nuclear Man's poisonous scratch defies both logic and explanation (take another bow, magic crystal), as does his decision to dump Nuclear Man in a lunar crater that'll be exposed to the full, restorative glare of the sun within moments. He saves the day by pushing the whole moon (yes, really) to instigate a solar eclipse, permanently powering down his adversary and (presumably) rendering every tide table on the planet obsolete.

Superman Returns (2006)

The franchise had been dormant for two decades when this sequel pretended — perhaps wisely — that the events of the third and fourth instalments never happened. We quickly learn that Clark (Brandon Routh) and Lois's (Kate Bosworth) steamy night in the Fortress of Solitude resulted in the birth of a son, Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu), and that the kid's a superpowered chip off the old block. But, despite an all-new cast and creative team, endings are still Superman's Achilles's heel.

This time out, Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) uses Kryptonian technology to build a vast new island off America's eastern seaboard. In order to keep Superman's nose out of his business, he's impregnated the whole thing with kryptonite. It therefore makes sense when Luthor's hired goons are able to beat the Man of Steel to a pulp and throw him into the ocean.

It makes rather less sense, however, when Superman makes enough of a recovery to use his laser vision to cut the new landmass from the Earth's crust. He then flies it into outer space, even though he's in close proximity to the same kryptonite that was killing him a few minutes earlier. Logic only makes a cameo when the effort gets too much for Superman, and he plummets to Earth like a stone in a red cape.

Man of Steel (2013)

Of all the denouements on this list, "Man of Steel"'s is the one that makes the most dramatic sense. It's also, by some distance, the most controversial of the lot.

The aspirations of Zack Snyder's General Zod (Michael Shannon) go way beyond persuading the son of Jor-El (Henry Cavill) to kneel before him. Instead, this Kryptonian zealot wants to use his "world engines" to terraform Earth into the reincarnation of his extinct homeworld — and it's safe to say he doesn't care about the implications for the human race.

Neither, it seems, does Superman, whose destructive aerial battle with Zod flattens numerous city blocks, causing the deaths of many Metropolis citizens. (This is one of the motivations for Bruce Wayne's beef with his superpowered rival in the "Batman v Superman" follow-up.)

When a defeated Zod threatens to kill innocent civilians with his laser eyes, Supes decides that snapping his rival's neck is the only way to save the day. It's hard to think how else he could have resolved the situation, but many DC Comics purists were furious when their hero violated his sacred "thou shalt not kill" prime directive.

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) / Justice League (2017)

The motivation for the titular heroes' truce in "Dawn of Justice" has been widely mocked (their moms are both called Martha). But, in all fairness, it's one movie where Superman does get a satisfactory ending, bumped off by genetically engineered monstrosity Doomsday — a nod to famous 1992 comic arc "The Death of Superman."

A-list superheroes rarely stay dead for long, however, and — as had been spoiled via early "Justice League" artwork — he returned for the superhero team-up. In both Joss Whedon's theatrical version and Zack Snyder's longer cut, Clark Kent is resurrected by some cosmic hocus-pocus housed in an alien Mother Box. During a stint of amnesia, Superman fights the A-Team of the DC Extended Universe movie heroes — Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg, and the Flash — before eventually coming back to his senses courtesy of a timely intervention from Lois Lane. He subsequently dons a new black suit (taking style tips from the Caped Crusader, perhaps?) and helps the League defeat cosmic bad guy Steppenwolf.

He ends both "Justice League"s by going back to work as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent, almost as if nothing had happened. Fair enough, but coming back from the dead must have been a tricky one to explain to the Daily Planet's HR team...

James Gunn's "Superman" is in cinemas from Friday, July 11.

When you're a silver-skinned alien riding atop a metallic conduit for the Power Cosmic, delivering death sentences to targeted planets, most of the time, folks tend to pay close attention, as seen in a dire new clip from Marvel Studios' "The Fantastic Four: First Steps."

In this chilling sneak peek at the female Silver Surfer Shalla-Bal, played by Julia Garner and voiced by Camilla Scott, we see the sleek herald of Galactus the Devourer of Worlds swoop in to present words of woe to humanity and Marvel's First Family in attendance.

"Your planet is now marked for death," she warns Earth's residents and superpowered protectors. "Your world will be consumed by the Devourer. There is nothing you can do to stop him. For he is a universal force as essential as the stars. Hold your loved ones close. And speak the words you’ve been afraid to speak. Use this time to rejoice and celebrate. For your time is short."

It's an intense moment played for all its somber implications as Reed Richards and his family listen and contemplate the Silver Surfer's depressing proclamation. Scott's performance as Shalla-Bal's forceful melodic voice makes this clip shine even brighter.

Also just revealed by Marvel Studios is this brand new behind-the-scenes featurette titled "Meet the Family," which offers amusing moments on set and focuses on the tremendous cast chemistry.

Directed by Matt Shakman and featuring Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic), Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm/Human Torch), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/Invisible Woman), and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/The Thing), "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" launches into theaters on July 25, 2025.

In typical comic book-loving fashion, Gunn is bringing some new faces to his "Superman" reboot, much like what he did with the "Guardians of the Galaxy Trilogy" and "Creature Commandos," DC Studios' recent animated teamup series on HBO Max that kicked off the studio's shared cinematic universe. This intellectual superhero, whose real name is Michael Holt, holds a staggering 14 PhDs. He won't just be a quick cameo in Superman either, as Gunn has confirmed that Mister Terrific will be a potent force in the film’s narrative.

If you're not familiar with the character, here's our rapid-fire guide on everything you need to know about Mister Terrific ahead of James Gunn's Superman.

Who is Mister Terrific?

Mister Terrific, with his ultra-cool T-Craft hover vehicle and floating AI weapons called T-Spheres, has already been seen in "Superman" trailers, and while relatively unknown to mainstream audiences, the legacy character has a deep DC Comics history.

The original Golden Age version was the genius athlete, vigilante, and inventor Terry Sloane, and was created by Charles Reizenstein and Everett E. Hibbard for DC’s anthology "Sensation Comics #1" (1942).

As mentioned, this modern iteration of the brilliant character who's good at everything is Michael Holt, CEO of Holt Industries and a card-carrying member of Maxwell Lord's corporate-run Justice Gang alongside Hawkgirl and Green Lantern Guy Gardner.

Holt's Mister Terrific was created by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake, and his first page appearance was in "The Spectre #54" (1997). He's been a past member and chairman of the Justice Society of America (JSA) and is an ongoing ally of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.

What are Mister Terrific's powers?

Mister Terrific technically possesses no true superhuman powers other than being extraordinarily smart.

In practice, he uses his multi-use T-Spheres to project holograms, discharge electrical bolts, hack computers, act as GPS devices, tactical bombs, and provide cloaking protection.

What is Mister Terrific's role in James Gunn's Superman?

Actor Edi Gathegi will don the black nanotech mask in Superman and, as we've pieced together, will team up with Lois Lane to provide some investigative detection action in the T-Craft.

"I love Mister Terrific," Gunn said in an on-set roundtable interview back in 2024. "These characters all get their moment in the sun. They all have their moments. They're not just cameos, these are the characters. They're supporting cast, but Mister Terrific is the main character of those characters. He actually has a big part of the plot. And so that was fun."

DC Studios' "Superman" flies into theaters on July 1.

It's a story we are all familiar with, and can immediately identify as the origin of Superman: An infant is rocketed from a world on the brink of destruction, arriving on Earth, where our yellow sun gifts the child with extraordinary powers. Raised by humble and honest Earthlings, this child is taught to use his powers for good. Flying above us but living among us, a shining example of truth and justice.

The story has been told and retold by hundreds of creators across media from comic books, movies, TV shows, cartoons, radio shows... Heck, I even had wallpaper that depicted it (if you've still got a roll, you know where I am). This origin has even been co-opted and subtly adjusted for other characters with their own rich, vibrant, and creative universes (we're looking at you, Goku). As such, the origin of Superman is perhaps the strongest example of entertainment in modern mythology.

The way Superman's origin has seeped into the zeitgeist is akin to how legends like the ancient Mesopotamian epic poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, have many versions throughout history and eventually influenced other myths.

This modern myth is about to be retold in James Gunn's Superman (2025). And just as historians have attempted to connect the stories of legend to actual events that have occurred, cosmic archeologists have attempted to trace a star around which Superman's home planet of Krypton could have orbited. They began by searching for clues about the fictional world in nine decades of comic books that reference it.

Finding Superman's home star system

In 2012, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson arrived at such a star, concluding that if Krypton was real, it could have orbited the red dwarf star LHS 2520 located around 41.9 light years from Earth.

"This is a major milestone in the Superman mythos that gives our Super Hero a place in the universe," then DC Entertainment co-publisher, Dan DiDio, said in a 2012 statement from the comic book publisher.

DeGrasse Tyson's findings even earned him an appearance in 2012's ACTION COMICS #14 in which he helped Superman pinpoint the location of Krypton's home star.

"Having Neil deGrasse Tyson in the book was one thing, but by applying real-world science to this story, he has forever changed Superman’s place in history," DiDio added. "Now fans will be able to look up at the night’s sky and say – ‘that’s where Superman was born’."

True. But fans may also wonder, given this: how old is Superman anyway?

What do we know about LHS 2520, Krypton's star system?

So, what do we know about LHS 2520, the pseudo-parent star of Krypton?

Also known as GJ 3707, this star is an example of a red dwarf, the most common type of star in the Milky Way and possibly the universe.

LHS 2520 is smaller than the sun, about 30% the width of our star, or around 3.3 times the size of Jupiter. It is also much cooler than the sun, with an effective temperature of between 4,400 to 6,700 degrees Fahrenheit (2,400 to 3,700 degrees Celsius). That makes it among the coolest stars in the universe, discounting so-called failed stars, brown dwarfs.

Given that, Superman is lucky that all our yellow dwarf star does is charge his cells like solar batteries. With an effective temperature of around 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (5,700 degrees Celsius), it could have roasted Kal-El alive.

The coolness of red dwarf stars like LHS 2520 means they are often posited as stars likely to host habitable zones. Also known as Goldilocks zones, these are regions around a star within which planets can hang onto surface liquid water without it boiling or freezing.

With Kyptonians having biology so similar to humans, presumably, liquid water was a key element in their evolution and survival.

However, the distance to Krypton could reveal a key difference between humanity and Kryptonians (apart from the whole superpowers thing): the way they age.

How far away is LHS 2520 from Earth?

While a distance of 41.9 light-years away makes LHS 2520 fairly local to the solar system, it would still take light from this system nearly 42 years to reach us.

That means the journey for infant Kal-El would presumably have taken longer than 42 years. We do know that faster-than-light travel is possible in the DC Universe, the third Flash and fastest man alive (come at me, Barry Allen fans), Wally West, breaks light speed on the regular.

However, while early DC Comics showed the Kryptonians had technology far more advanced than we do, they were also depicted as being in their infancy in terms of space travel, with no true spacecraft. Certainly not one that could smash light-speed and get an infant Kal-El to Earth before adulthood.

Further to that, there's evidence scattered across the Earth of the DC Universe that Kal-El's ship didn't break light speed.

The key piece of evidence that Kal-El didn't break light-speed, and Einstein's laws of special relativity that say no object with mass can accelerate to light-speed, while traveling to Earth, is Superman's primary weakness: Kryptonite.

Usually depicted as a glowing green rock, though there are other colors with some wacky effects (red Kryptonite has been known to do everything to Superman from causing him to grow a beard, command ants, with fetching ant head no less, turn into a Super-toddler, and turn into a monkey) Kryptonite is pieces of the exploded planet Krypton.

These presumably wouldn't have been ejected at the speed of light when Krypton exploded. Most Superman adaptations suggest Kryptonite arrived on Earth around the same time as Kal-El. He is often seen encountering Kryptonite as a teenager in Smallville (specifically 1957's Superboy #61).

Heck, in the TV show Smallville, Clark arrives in Kansas in 1989 in a capsule within a shower of Kryptonite meteors!

So how long did the journey take, and how old does that make Superman?

That depends on whether you mean how old is Superman chronologically, or how old is Superman physiologically? That's because, depending on the levels of sci-fi Kryptonian technology on display here, these answers could be vastly different.

Let's look at how long it would have taken Superman to reach Earth with the best available human technology and ignore pesky details like fuel, etc...

Currently, the gold standard of crew-carrying spacecraft designed by humans is the Orion spacecraft, which will carry astronauts to the moon as part of the Artemis space program.

Upon its return from the moon, it is estimated that Orion will travel at around 25,000 miles per hour, 30 times as fast as a speeding bullet. If that sounds fast, Wally West will tell you it's a snail's pace compared to the speed of light, which is 670,000,000 miles per hour.

That means returning from the moon, the Artemis astronauts will be traveling at around 0.0037% the speed of light. Assuming a constant top speed for Orion leaving Earth, it would take about 1.14 million years to reach Krypton.

Ouch! But let's give the Kryptonians some credit here and make some generous assumptions.

Remember what we said about Kryptonite arriving with Kal-El? We can now use it in favor of a quicker journey from Krypton.

Ejecta from celestial explosions can travel at a range of speeds, but the fastest ejecta we see is from exploding stars or supernovas. This can reach speeds as great as 10% of the speed of light. That means assuming a constant speed and no loss of energy, if Krypton exploded with supernova-like intensity, its ejecta would reach Earth after around just 420 years.

Thus, if Kal-El was traveling ahead of this debris, the planet exploded after he left, he would be approaching about 421 when he met the Kents. That means he's way older than Jonathan and Martha, his adoptive mother and father.

Superman is normally presented as being in his early to mid-thirties in DC Comics, with stories that show him as being older, like Kingdom Come (arguably the best Superman story ever), set in alternative universes or "Elseworlds."

So if he took 420 years to get here, and he's been on Earth for 33 years at least, that means he's a pretty spry 453-year-old.

Of course, Kyptonians may have had tech that made this journey possible even without vastly advanced space travel. They definitely had access to weird time-distorting tech and suspended animation. Just look at the timeless interdimensional realm called the Phantom Zone, where Kryptonians shoved their criminals, for instance.

Thus, Superman may only be chronologically 453 years old while still being biologically in his 30s.

Of course, none of this really matters when we're indulging in the escapism provided by Superman for an incredible 87 years. After all, isn't doing the impossible in the face of insurmountable odds what Superman is all about?

Superman soars into cinemas across Earth on July 11. Unlike Kal-El, it can't get here quickly enough!

Get two months of Paramount Plus for just 99 cents a month when you sign up via their site.

Amazon Prime Day is the annual sales event from the online retailer, starting on July 8. But, if you're looking for the best Amazon Prime Day deals already, we've found one of, if not the, best streaming deals. It's 93% cheaper to subscribe via Paramount, compared to signing up via Amazon. Paramount Plus is one of the best streaming services available and is home to all Star Trek content, including the upcoming season of "Strange New Worlds" as well as the Halo TV series and the Transformers franchise. It's just 99 cents a month and after two months, the price will revert to the pre-sale cost. You can cancel anytime and there's no long-term commitment.

• We're constantly checking the best prices on our Amazon Prime Day space deals page for big discounts on the best telescopes, binoculars, star projectors, cameras, drones, Lego, streaming and more.

If you're looking for an Amazon Prime Day streaming deal, then looking elsewhere from Amazon seems to be the best option. You can get Paramount Plus Premium for just 99 cents a month for the first two months. The Premium option is the same cost as the Essential plan with this deal, but gives you more. You get ad-free streaming, live CBS broadcasts, downloadable content, all of Showtime and 4K viewing. Subscribing to this via Amazon Prime would cost you $12.99 a month.

Now is the best time to grab this deal as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season three is coming to screens on July 17, so you've still got time to rewatch previous episodes or catch up. It's also home to all Star Trek content so you can relive the classic movies and TV series, as well as enjoy the modern content. Other top sci-fi on the service include the Halo TV series and the Transformers franchise.

Key features: All Star Trek content, the Transformers franchise, Terminator movies, Halo TV series, 4K viewing, downloadable content, live TV and much, much more. All for 99 cents a month for the first two months if you choose to pay monthly, cancel anytime.

Price history: The Essential plan was $7.99 per month and the Premium plan was $12.99. You can get annual plans for as little as $59.99, so today's deal is top value.

consensus: "This is the absolute go-to if you want Star Trek: The whole franchise is here. But the choice of other content is limited compared to other services. ★★★★½"

Space: ★★★★½

Featured in guides: Best streaming services.

✅ Buy it if: You want a very cheap streaming deal, you're a huge fan of Star Trek or you want to watch the new series of Strange New Worlds.

❌ Don't buy it if: You already have a Paramount Plus subscription.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

Is it a glossy sci-fi actioner or the result of a major studio spending big money on an exploitation movie? Are the "Contact"-esque themes at "Species"' heart genuinely sophisticated, or just a gratuitous excuse for its central character to take her clothes off (repeatedly) in her murderous quest to — in the film's words, not ours — "mate"?

Remarkably, all of these things are true, yet somehow don't come close to doing "Species"' unique combination of schlock, gore, and hard sci-fi justice. In fact, the best way to think of it is as a thought experiment, pondering what might happen if "Contact" author Carl Sagan teamed up with "Basic Instinct" scripter Joe Eszterhas to write a screenplay, and a Hollywood studio stumped up the cash to see if they were correct.

This being the Hollywood of the mid-'90s, the Eszterhas half of the equation won out. Even so, "Species" began with lofty sci-fi aspirations, with writer Dennis Feldman (who originated the screenplay that eventually became Eddie Murphy's "The Golden Child") inspired by the creator of "2001: A Space Odyssey". Arthur C Clarke had suggested that — due to the vast distances involved — aliens were much more likely to send us a message than go to the trouble of making contact via the popular medium of flying saucer. The theory struck a chord with Feldman.

"I decided it was very unsophisticated for any alien culture to come here in what I would describe as a big tin can," he said in a 2004 documentary about the making of "Species". "I realized that they would send a message, and then I decided that it would be exciting if the message would be instructions to make something that could speak to you. And as I wasn't very fond of machines at that time I wanted it to be something biological. [It became] instructions to make a creature that would survive in your environment."

Titled "The Message", Feldman's original spec script focussed on a biologist at a government facility trying to decipher the instruction manual from the cosmos. (Feldman actually spoke to scientists at UCLA, SETI (the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) and the Human Genome Project to beef up the science in his script, though later admitted, "I think the final result of the movie in some ways disappointed them.")

When the scientist's bosses pulled the plug, he continued his experiments on the human/alien chimera at home, with predictably disastrous results. He then teamed up with a detective to track down the troublesome ET, in a story that would have played out as a relatively small-scale police-type procedural.

When "Species" ended up at MGM, however, director Roger Donaldson ("Cocktail", "No Way Out") and producer Frank Mancuso Jr (the "Friday the 13th" franchise) wanted to zero in on the thriller/monster movie potential wrapped up in the story's DNA.

That sci-fi origin story would be pared back to a title card about SETI, and some stock photography of the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico — which, coincidentally, had a major role in James Bond adventure "GoldenEye" the same year. The buddy-cop angle was excised in favor of a quintet of experts bringing their own unique set of skills to the alien-hunt, and the monster…? Let's just say she may be the only example of an antagonist existing at the point where "Barbarella" and "Alien" intersect on a Venn diagram.

To be fair, "Species" never tries to hide the fact it's a teenage boy's dream in Hollywood blockbuster form, unashamedly ticking the necessary boxes for action, violence, sex, and nudity. The cruel irony, of course, was that — most notably in the UK, where the film was slapped with an 18 certificate — they wouldn't be able to see the film at the cinema. (Luckily, there'd only be a few short months before they could ask their parents to rent it for them on VHS.)

Making her big-screen debut, 20-year-old model-turned-actor Natasha Henstridge was chosen to play alien Sil's human side. Her efficient, dialogue-lite performance has echoes of Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Terminator", though nowhere near as quotable, and with rather more gratuitous nudity.

Her extra-terrestrial side, meanwhile, was the work of HR Giger, the Swiss artist who'd left a lasting impression on pop culture with his creature designs for "Alien". Giger's famous fascinations with biomechanical forms and sexual imagery are obvious every time Sil morphs into her alien form, and — at times — off-puttingly reminiscent of his work on Ridley Scott's classic.

Steve Johnson, responsible for "Species"' practical monster effects, says he followed a guiding principle of "doing whatever it takes to make HR Giger happy", though not everyone on the production gave the artist quite so much creative control. Indeed, when the powers-that-be didn't fully indulge Giger's vision for a spooky ghost train, the artist stumped up $100,000 of his own cash to build the model himself. It ultimately appears on screen for barely 10 seconds, a procession of chomping Xenomorph heads chasing the young Sil (played by future Oscar nominee Michelle Williams) in a bizarre, incongruous nightmare.

Time has been particularly unkind to "Species"' early experiments with computer effects. Only two years had passed since "Jurassic Park" opened Pandora's CG toybox, and filmmakers were still getting a feel for the potential (and limitations) of the new technology. As a result, Sil has an unnervingly artificial quality every time she's realized in pixels.

A much bigger crime, however, is a shooting script that hangs an impressive cast — including Sir Ben Kingsley, Forest Whitaker, Alfred Molina, and the late Michael Madsen — out to dry.

Although the months-old Sil has a prodigious learning curve, she shouldn't be able to outwit Molina's professor of anthropology by turning up in his hotel room uninvited, and offering him a night of passion that will both fulfill her urge to conceive, and prove fatal for naïve (okay, stupid) scientists.

Whitaker, meanwhile, has a thankless role as an empath whose narrative function flips between making improbable, almost psychic pronouncements, and stating the painfully obvious. "Something bad happened here," he says — with an entirely straight face — when the team discovers a corpse next to Sil's discarded cocoon on a train.

If all of the above was supposed to be a joke, MGM certainly had the last laugh. A film that picked up predominantly mediocre reviews (it's currently rated 42% rotten on Rotten Tomatoes) did strong enough box office to outperform bona fide classics like "Clueless" and "Pulp Fiction", and spawned three sequels (two of which featured Henstridge).

Its influence can be seen in the superior likes of "Splice", "Life" and — most obviously — "Under the Skin", though few mainstream movies have come close to matching "Species"' unusual sex 'n' sci-fi combo. Evolutionary history is packed with unlikely solutions for survival, but life has rarely found a way quite as it does in "Species".

'Species' is available to stream on MGM+ (via Amazon Prime Video) in the US and the UK, and on Fubo TV in the US.

Bolstered by a haunting original sci-fi score by Max Richter and unnerving visual effects by industry veteran Erik Henry ("Black Sails," "Watchmen," "Alien: Resurrection"), Apple TV+'s gripping alien infiltration series, "Invasion," returns for a third season this summer and we've got a first teaser to share with more glimpses of those frightening black hunter-killer creatures.

It’s been two years since "Invasion's" sophomore outing back in 2023 and its international ensemble cast is still trying to survive a horrific extraterrestrial holocaust with legions of shape-shifting menaces extending their tendrils.

Created by and executive produced by Academy Award-nominated and two-time Emmy Award-nominated filmmaker Simon Kinberg ("Deadpool," "X-Men: Days of Future Past") and David Weil ("Hunters"), "Invasion" Season 3 descends on Earth for its 10-episode global return starting Friday, August 22 exclusively on Apple TV+, with new episodes each Friday until October 24.

Per the official Season 3 synopsis, the show's prime characters are now united to form an incursion unit on a critical mission to penetrate the looming alien mothership. The deadly apex aliens have finally revealed themselves, rapidly spreading their deadly spikes across the planet. It will require all our heroes working together, delivering all their experiences and expertise, if there's a sliver of hope to save humanity. As fresh bonds are formed, past relationships are challenged and even fractured, as our international cast of survivors must become a team before certain doom.

"Invasion" Season 3 features returning cast members Golshifteh Farahani, Shioli Kutsuna, Shamier Anderson, India Brown, Shane Zaza, Enver Gjokaj, and presents new series regular Erika Alexander. Kinberg and Weil share executive producing duties in collaboration with Audrey Chon, David Witz, Alik Sakharov, Dan Dietz, Katie O’Connell Marsh and Nick Nantell.

Global audiences will shortly see its dramatic influences revealed in the ambitious narrative that screenwriters wove into next month's Marvel Studios' "Fantastic Four" flick. Galactus, aka the Devourer of Worlds, arrived on the scene in 1965 in a 3-issue event that ran from "Fantastic Four #48" to "Fantastic Four #50" and is referred to as "The Galactus Trilogy."

Now as "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" is inching ever closer to its July 25 release date, like our humongous harbinger of doom, a new novelization of that monumental 60-year-old storyline which introduced the mighty cosmic foe and his Silver Surfer herald to Marvel's First Family is being published on July 8, 2025.

"Fantastic Four: The Coming of Galactus" is a 336-page expanded prose telling of the planet-eating Galactus and the Sentinel of the Spaceways' splashy debut in the Marvel Universe, written by New York Times bestselling author James Lovegrove.

Lovegrove is a fan favorite writer based in the UK, known fondly for his colorful in-universe genre work, including such titles as "Firefly: The Ghost Machine," "Firefly: Life Signs," and the upcoming "Conan: Cult of the Obsidian Moon."

His expanded storyline takes from that seminal core tale from Lee and Kirby, where a hungry Galactus is coming and The Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and the Thing) must defend Earth against the immense godlike destructor and his sleek, shimmery servant. Will our planet suffer the same fate as countless other worlds or somehow be spared?

Carrying a cover date of March 1966 but landing in newsstands on Dec. 9, 1965, that special vintage issue of "Fantastic Four," billed as The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!, was written by the dynamic duo of writer Stan Lee and artist Jack "King" Kirby during their absolute heyday of creativity.

Crisp Mint and Near-Mint collector copies of those three issues, especially "#48," can command prices in excess of $100,000 on the secondary market. This new literary adaptation of that classic piece of comics history is the ideal primer for those interested in the source of Marvel's big baddie, who'll soon be featured in the latest Marvel movie, "The Fantastic Four: First Steps."

Titan Books' "Fantastic Four: The Coming of Galactus" lands on July 8, 2025.

Get two months of Paramount Plus for just 99 cents a month when you sign up via their site.

We think Paramount Plus is one of the best streaming services around and if you're looking for the best streaming deals available, this is right up there. Paramount Plus is the home of all Star Trek content, so whether you want to relive classic episodes and movies, or stream all of the recent content, including the upcoming season of Strange New Worlds, this is a deal worth getting. After the two months are up, the price will revert to the usual monthly price.

It's worth mentioning that this deal only applies if you select a monthly subscription and not an annual one. But, you can select either the Essential or Premium plans. If you're looking to get two months of streaming for a low price and cancel your subscription, you can make the most of the Premium plan, which offers ad-free streaming, 4K viewing, you can download content and you get access to all of Showtime, which you don't get with the Essential plan. After two months, the price will revert to the usual $7.99 for Essential and $12.99 for Premium.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season three will be available to stream from July 17, and will continue with season four and end with season five. Of course, you can stream all of the Star Trek content as well as the Halo TV series, Transformers movies and some of the Terminator movies too.

Key features: Any monthly plan you wish for just 99 cents a month, cancel anytime, all Star Trek content, the Transformers franchise, Terminator movies, Halo TV series, 4K viewing, downloadable content, live TV and much, much more.

Price history: Before today's deal, the price of the Essential plan was $7.99 per month and the Premium plan was $12.99. You can get annual plans for as little as $59.99, so this is terrific value.

consensus: "This is the absolute go-to if you want Star Trek: The whole franchise is here. But the choice of other content is limited compared to other services. ★★★★½"

Space: ★★★★½

Featured in guides: Best streaming services.

✅ Buy it if: You want a very cheap streaming deal, you're a huge fan of Star Trek or you want to watch the new series of Strange New Worlds.

❌ Don't buy it if: You already have a Paramount Plus subscription.

Check out our other guides to the best telescopes, binoculars, cameras, star projectors, drones, lego and much more.

We've jumped to hyperspace to find the best Star Wars costumes for kids and adults that you can get right now, all without having to borrow money from the Hutts. Some are full costumes ready to be used if you're in a rush; others are more like collector's items you can sporadically use as part of costumes too.

The list below has been put together in no specific order, and we've tried to find a sweet spot between cost, quality, and coolness. They all should be available to buy now and in the near future. If your pockets are full of extra credits, you may want to take a look at the best lightsabers and best Lego Star Wars sets available as well.

The Quick List

First Order Stormtrooper Costume For Kids

Something is alluring about the dark side of the Force, and stormtrooper costumes have become and remained super famous over the decades. When the Star Wars sequels kicked off in 2015, stormtroopers got a modern refresh as the First Order rose to power and began fighting the New Republic and the Resistance.

This costume for children of all ages (if the Force is with you when it comes to stock) is a quick and hassle-free way to let your kid become one of the bad guys just for one day; just make sure to bring them back to the light once they're done having fun. It contains a bodysuit, the iconic helmet mask, a detachable belt, and shoulder pauldrons. It's made to be flexible, durable, and easy to use, which is exactly why you shouldn't expect top-notch quality from this one. This is a traditional children's costume.

We'd also have liked to see a toy replica of a Stormtrooper blaster included, but if you're looking for one, we think the Star Wars Nerf Episode VII First Order Stormtrooper Deluxe Blaster is a great fit (you can get it on Walmart).

• Buy on Disney Store.

R2-D2 play story dress for kids

Another Star Wars character you can't go wrong with is R2-D2, but cosplaying as an astromech droid is... difficult to say the least. You can, however, evoke the iconic design of our favorite blue-and-white droid hero with the right clothing, and Disney's R2-D2 "play story" dress for kids gets the job done perfectly, at least for children.

This princess-like dress has a cute face & metallic control panel design on the chest section. Together with some nice trims and extra details evocative of R2-D2, it's the rare sort of costume-like piece of clothing that can be worn casually. Mind you, this isn't an actual Star Wars costume, but if your kid wants something that shouts "I love Star Wars!" but isn't restricted to parties, Halloween, and other celebrations, you can't go wrong with this one.

Moreover, this dress is part of the "Star Wars Story Play Collection", which also includes a C-3PO dress for women available on the Disney Store, so adults are covered too.

• Buy on Disney Store.

Padme Amidala cloak

It'd be silly to put together a list of Star Wars costumes and leave Padmé Amidala's memorable wardrobe entirely out of it, which is why we've looked for something worth spending extra money on. Like or hate Episode II: Attack of the Clones, you have to admit Senator Amidala's many outfits were great.

This cloak is directly based on one of her many looks in that movie. Although it's not the full costume you might be looking for, we think it's a pretty awesome piece of Star Wars clothing that can be part of a fancier costume or just a more expensive addition to your collection that you can wear whenever. Get ready to put extra credits down for this one, though.

Per the description (and as seen in the pictures), the fabric is voluminous, especially when walking, and the hood is slightly oversized for extra coolness. This isn't a cloak inspired by Star Wars clothing. It is Star Wars clothing, and we believe there are huge market opportunities in that space if Disney wants to go down that path in the future.

• Buy on Disney Store.

Clone Trooper voice changing helmet

Clone troopers are also among the coolest characters introduced into the Star Wars canon by the prequels, and diehards have a hard time keeping track of every clone trooper group that battled for the Republic during the Clone Wars until the day that Order 66 came into effect. Everyone knows the clones that served alongside General Obi-Wan Kenobi on Utapau, though.

If you're a big fan of the 212^th clone trooper battalion or simply love the Grand Army of the Republic, this voice-changing helmet for adults is an awesome collector's item that can also be part of an expensive cosplay, if you're into spending all the time and money to become a real-life clone trooper.

It's a full-scale replica that looks just like the model seen in Revenge of the Sith, and you might be surprised to learn it includes a 60-second voice-changing effect, pre-recorded character phrases, and a padded interior which makes it comfortable to wear if you're more of an aspiring trooper that likes to run around with the armor on. It also comes with three AA batteries, which are required to power the helmet.

• Buy on Disney Store.

Rey (The Force Awakens) costume for adults

Another Star Wars character we can't ignore, if we're talking costumes, is the Skywalker heir, Rey from Jakku (or Palpatine if you're following her bloodline). The last Jedi and new hope for the Order are said to be key to the future of the franchise, so she won't be going out of fashion anytime soon.

We've seen plenty of both stunning Rey cosplays and cheap costumes for almost a full decade now, but complete pre-made costumes that don't look terrible have been a bit harder to find. Luckily for you, we've come across a pretty convincing option that's officially licensed and is just slightly expensive.

This Rey costume has everything you'd want from a recreation of her Jakku look, minus her desert staff (or the Skywalker lightsaber), and that's why we think it's worth looking into despite the steep-ish price tag. We're especially happy with the belt, mask, and bag; those elements are often ignored and/or of very poor quality in other costumes. If you don't have the time or patience required to craft a Rey cosplay from scratch, we think this is the next best thing.

• Buy on Target.

Inflatable Grogu costume for adults

We all love Grogu, don't we? Especially kids. Well, here's a twist: The best costume we've found based on our little green friend was made for adults. Goofy adults, that is.

This is yet another officially licensed costume, but it's far simpler than previous entries in its design: You just have to stick yourself into what's essentially a giant balloon. Yes, you'll be Grogu inside his hover-pram. But, of course, you won't be floating, but using your own legs to walk/run around without bumping into too many folks, hopefully.

It's hard to imagine anyone wearing this inflatable, comically oversized costume for a whole day in a warm environment, but we wanted an off-beat, surprising pick on this list, and we instantly fell in love with this item. While everyone is looking to become Din Djarin for Halloween, this is the costume that will make you the center of attention ahead of The Mandalorian & Grogu.

• Buy on Target.

Premium Jedi costume for adults

Strong with the Force or not, everyone would love to get a shot at becoming a Jedi. This costume makes living that fantasy much easier, and we dig that it's a generic Jedi outfit instead of a more specific costume based on a famous character from the movies. While the price tag is on the steep side, we love the extra details and many layers this costume has, all while leaving space for custom finishing touches you may want to add.

These are the classic Jedi robes as seen in the prequels, and every piece of clothing in this full costume is textured enough to be believable without becoming ridiculously expensive. It's not a cheap option either, but we love a good investment, and these clothes could serve you well for many years... as long as you're done growing up.

Its biggest negative? There's no lightsaber included, so you'll have to go through our best lightsabers list to complete your Jedi training and become one with the Force.

• Buy on Target.

Princess Leia costume for girls

If we're being honest, this Leia costume isn't the most detailed option around, but it's great value at under $50, and we know Star Wars fans, especially those with young ones in their family, appreciate such picks.

Things are kept really simple here: You've got the classic Princess Leia dress from A New Hope, a nice belt that's evocative enough of the one Carrie Fisher had in the flick, and a wig with the iconic buns that we weren't expecting at all. It's neither low-quality nor top-notch stuff, which makes it sort of perfect for one or two Halloween parties and other celebrations.

Again, this costume doesn't come with a blaster, so that's a separate bit of shopping that you'll have to do if you want the little Leia in your life to defend herself against the evil Imperial forces.

• Buy on Target.

The Mandalorian youth dress up box

What's better than a costume below $50? Three costumes, of course. This officially licensed three-pack from Jazwares won't blow anyone away, but if you have kids who desperately need to dress up as the most iconic masked Star Wars characters around, you won't have much to complain about. Din Djarin, Boba Fett, and a random stormtrooper are all effectively evoked by these simple outfits.

These are four-piece costumes with long-sleeved tops and simple printed designs, which is basic stuff, but also means they can be easily upgraded with extra items over time or right away. No pants included for any of these three fits, though, so make sure you've got something that goes well with them lying around.

Needless to say, you won't find any blasters here either. This is a barebones pack that will save anyone in a pickle or looking to make young Star Wars happy for a day, but look elsewhere for genuinely convincing costumes.

• Buy on Amazon.

Darth Vader premium accessory helmet for adults

We just couldn't wrap this list up without a Darth Vader item or costume, and it turns out Jazwares' Vader helmet — based on the iconic villain's look in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series — is a pretty sweet deal that would make any Sith lord excited.

Here's the thing: This Darth Vader helmet/mask isn't a one-piece, heavy replica like the ones you get from Hasbro's Black Series, but the quality of the plastic is good, and it's built in a way that makes it good for both serious cosplay and sitting on a shelf along with other collector's Star Wars items. We imagine most buyers will prioritize putting it on display versus wearing it, but it feels perfect as the key item of a complete Vader costume.

This one's aimed at adults, and while you won't be able to order different sizes, the band inside the helmet allows you to adjust it to fit your head. No sound FX bonuses either, so don't expect to magically obtain James Earl Jones' voice with it.

• Buy on Amazon.

His directorial movie portfolio isn't vast, but it's certainly an excellent representation of James Gunn's unique and dark comedic style. From extremely low-budget sci-fi classics to multi-million dollar superhero flicks, his range is incredibly varied, and history has shown that a big budget doesn't always make the best work.

So, to celebrate the upcoming release of Superman, we're taking a look back at all of James Gunn's sci-fi movies and ranking them from worst to best.

7. Movie 43

• Release date: January 25, 2013
• Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Josh Duhamel, Emily Alyn Lind

Movie 43 is an anthology of 14 short stories, unconnected, but all steered towards comedy. For his part, James Gunn created Beezel, and… well, we're not even sure how to start describing the events that unfold in Beezel because it is absolutely wild.

Amy (Elizabeth Banks) is competing for the affection of her boyfriend, Anson (Josh Duhamel), but not with another woman vying for his attention. No, in fact, it's his animated and pretty vulgar cat, Beezel. While Amy tries to explain to Anson what's really going on, it all gets super weird and very funny.

Movie 43 has 14 different storylines in it, but Gunn's ill-behaved offering is definitely among the best. It's a great example of how Gunn's mind can craft something teetering on the edge of 'acceptable'. With that said, it's only a small part of an anthology, and he's done even greater things with full control throughout his decades-spanning career.

6. Super

• Release date: April 1, 2011
• Cast: Rainn Wilson, Elliot Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon

Gunn is fully enrolled in the Marvel Cinematic Universe hall of fame, and now he's heading up the DC universe's cinematic efforts too, but before he tackled superheroes with tales already told, he worked hard to make his own with Super.

With the same dark comedic tone that he carries through a lot of his directorial work, Gunn shows why not everybody can be a superhero. Frank (Rainn Wilson) finds a nemesis in Jacques (Kevin Bacon) for leading his wife astray in the dangerous world of drugs. So, he decides to formulate his own superhero, Crimson Bolt, to fight crime and win back his wife. But, what he quickly finds is he's severely misjudged what a comic book might have taught him was possible.

Turning the superhero concept on its head is a bold and brave idea, but if you come in looking for a typical superhero story, Super isn't going to deliver for you. It's weird enough to win over genre fans, but stepping too far out of the realms of feel-good superhero story redemption arcs will leave some fans feeling pretty deflated and disheartened.

5. The Suicide Squad

• Release date: August 5, 2021
• Cast: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Viola Davis

Before he was co-CEO of DC Studios, Gunn took on The Suicide Squad, a standalone sequel to 2016's much derided Suicide Squad. The first movie was a stinker, but five years later, Gunn decided to revive the franchise, and it was a lot better. Gunn's take on the DC Comics team is widely praised by critics and fans alike, and can be seen as the catalyst for his current reign over the DC movie and TV empire.

Bringing back Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn and Viola Davis's character was the launchpad that began a whole new roster for Task Force X. Their mission – to invade the island of Corto Maltese to stop Project Starfish.

The plot subverts expectations from the off, and a combination of sharp writing and expert delivery from the all-star cast resulted in a hilarious, but also touching tale of redemption. John Cena's Peacemaker character was so well-received that he got his own spin-off TV show, Peacemaker, with season 2 coming out on August 21.

4. Slither

• Release date: March 31, 2006
• Cast: Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker

Another weird and wacky tale from the front-end of Gunn's career, Slither is the tale of a small town turned alien parasite hive that seeps into every corner and crevice of the once-peaceful place.

Grant (Michael Rooker) is the unlucky patient zero, but it doesn't take long for half the town to get infected, leaving only local police officers to fight it off. Unsurprisingly, a bunch of small-town sheriffs are not clued up at all on how to deal with a hostile alien entity..

For his directorial debut, James Gunn used his signature humor and beautifully twisted storytelling to create a sci-fi movie for real genre fans, and he didn't disappoint. A scriptwriter before director, Gunn has a knack for horror comedy, and Slither is an exceptionally weird and captivating watch. Be warned, you will also be left feeling a little bit icky.

3. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

• Release date: May 5, 2017
• Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Kurt Russell

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the second outing of this MCU franchise, and if I could grant all three the joint top spot, that's what I'd do. But, this is a ranked list, so rank them worst to best, I must.

Vol. 2 is a fantastic movie, but it doesn't quite have the story building that the first carved out, nor does it have the emotional climax of the third movie that marks a perfect send-off for the characters, so it takes the bronze medal.

In Vol. 2, Peter Quill and the Guardians meet Ego (Kurt Russell), who just so happens to be Peter's long-lost father. It's jam-packed with action-packed sequences, excellent soundtrack picks, beloved returning characters, and some new faces, too, including the adorable Baby Groot.

The Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy is where Gunn's unique and devastatingly humorous mind found its true home. The superheroes of this franchise were ripe for Gunn to build them layers, make them darkly funny, and bond them together with his deep knowledge and understanding of comic books.

2. Guardians of the Galaxy

• Release date: August 1, 2014
• Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel

The first Guardians of the Galaxy movie is where Gunn used all the skills he's built up throughout the years in the industry to create one of the most perfect movies in the MCU to date. From the very beginning, there's a different vibe to this rag-tag team of superheroes, and that's down to Gunn's unique take on turning comic books into big-screen hits.

Unlike the gods and super-humans making up the rest of the MCU up to this point, the Guardians are a group of criminals bonded together to take on a common enemy, using their unique skills to team up to become a bit of an intergalactic powerhouse.

There's not an unlikeable character in the bunch, all woven together with the same dry and well-timed humor throughout. From Peter Quill to Groot to Drax to Rocket, the casting is phenomenal, but the fact that Gunn had a hand in the writing as well as the directing feels so front and center to this movie's success, and the two that followed it.

1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

• Release date: May 5, 2023
• Cast: Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, Vin Diesel, Sean Gunn

For the final hoorah, the Guardians unite to defend the universe one last time in their biggest space mission yet. There's a perpetual debate amongst Guardians of the Galaxy fans about the order in which these three stand in the rankings.

It's our list, though, and we wholeheartedly believe that Vol. 3 is the best of the bunch. Why? Because it's a culmination of everything that came before it without losing its drive and ferocity, and that's often a hard position to hold three movies in. Taking the responsibility of ending a franchise is huge, but doing it with the prowess that Gunn did is awesome.

The end of trilogies can often falter, but there's no less of the humor, fantastic dialogue, action scenes, and incredible relationships in this final run for the characters. We didn't know a James Gunn movie could get us in the feels, but Vol. 3 demonstrated the layers he's capable of – and hopefully, there's more to come in Superman.

Derived from the 2021 hard sci-fi novel by New York Times bestselling author Andy Weir ("The Martian," "Artemis"), Amazon MGM Studios has just launched the initial trailer for "Project Hail Mary", which will be a long strange trip back into outer space for its intrepid luminary lead Ryan Gosling.

This is the same thrilling preview first revealed to audiences at April's CinemaCon, and now it's being delivered to the rest of the world ahead of the film's scheduled release date of March 20, 2026.

Directed by Oscar-winning filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller ("The Lego Movie," "The Spider-Verse Franchise") and adapted by ace screenwriter Drew Goddard, "Project Hail Mary" is fortified with a solid cast that also includes Oscar nominee Sandra Hüller ("Anatomy of a Fall"), Milana Vayntrub ("This Is Us," "Werewolves Within"), Bastian Antonio Fuentes ("Jurassic World Dominion"), Isla McRae ("The Christmas Quest"), and James Wright ("How to Train A Princess"). Goddard also tackled the screen adaptation of "The Martian," which was helmed by Sir Ridley Scott.

Project Hail Mary finds Gosling portraying middle-school science teacher and reluctant astronaut Ryland Grace, who awakens aboard the spaceship Hail Mary light years away from Earth with no memories of his mission or who he is. As clarity begins to return, he figures out that he's the lone survivor of an interstellar journey to the Tau Ceti system to discover the strange substance that's slowly diminishing our sun's shining light. En route, Grace employs his scientific expertise and ingenious creativity while an uncanny friendship develops with an extraterrestrial being to aid his longshot plight.

"So I met an alien," Gosling jokes in the rousing new trailer. "He's kind of growing on me. At least he's not growing IN me. Which was a concern for a little while."

If you think you’re having déjà vu seeing Gosling dressed in a spacesuit again amongst the stars, you’re not wrong. The Oscar-nominated star played famed moonwalker Neil Armstrong in 2021's "First Man," and he seems right at home back amid the cosmos in another major space flick.

Sharp fans of sci-fi fare will notice some slight similarities to the narrative of Danny Boyle's "Sunshine" in the sun-saving plot of Weir's original novel and this subsequent screen adaptation. The book itself goes super heavy on the astrophysics for tech geeks, much like the "science the s**t out of it" approach in "The Martian."

"Project Hail Mary" also brings to mind the 2024 Netflix sci-fi film "Spaceman," in which a lone astronaut on a solo odyssey encounters an alien creature while on a deep space mission. That film, directed by Emmy-winning Johan Renck, starred Adam Sandler and the vocal talents of Paul Dano as the creepy extraterrestrial spider.

"Project Hail Mary" lands in theaters on March 20, 2026.

Director Ron Howard's harrowing true tale of the unlucky Apollo 13 mission to the moon in 1970 still stands as one of the finest space survival movies of all time and a testament to the unprecedented acts of courage and ingenuity that brought three astronauts back to Earth in a damaged spacecraft. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture, and ultimately won Oscars for Best Sound and Best Editing.

Adapted from Jim Lovell & Jeffrey Kluger's 1994 book "Lost Moon" and starring Tom Hanks, Ed Harris, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise and Kathleen Quinlan, "Apollo 13" was released in theaters on June 30, 1995. It was hailed as a tense, technically accurate, and riveting account of that imperiled lunar mission that nearly cost the lives of astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert when the oxygen tank on their spacecraft's service module exploded, damaging the craft's life-support and electrical systems.

Keeping the production nominal and on track in an official advisory role was NASA living legend Gerry Griffin. The former Johnson Space Center chief and flight director for 11 manned Apollo missions was Hollywood's go-to expert on "Apollo 13's" entire shoot, and eh worked closely with cast and crew to provide guidance and authenticity to the project. He even has his own custom director's chair at home to prove it!

Who better to provide first-hand mission details than the man whose Gold Team would have been Apollo 13's landing team had things gone according to plan? We were fortunate enough to be able to connect with Griffin from his Texas home where he shared more vivid memories of working on "Apollo 13" back in 1994 and 1995.

"I started at the top," Griffin told Space.com. "When I got the call to be the technical advisor I thought, 'Gosh, I've got to do that.' Because I was in the middle of it as a flight director and thought I could bring something to it that would help. I started with Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon. I knew nothing about making movies. My view of Hollywood was all glitz and little else, but at the end of the day I quickly learned that I was wrong. It's a hard-working, goal-driven enterprise that tries to get it right. The good guys do.

"After a while though, it was kind of like NASA. Take whatever time it takes, work 12 to 15 hours a day, work the problem."

In addition to "Apollo 13," Griffin later lent his expertise to Robert Zemeckis' "Contact" and Mimi Seder's "Deep Impact."

"The way Ron [Howard] explained it to me when we started was, 'Look, I'm not making a documentary. I'm making an entertaining movie based on facts.' That was his goal. He wanted me to stay glued to his side and if I saw something that was wrong, that didn't happen that way, to tell him. He had to have license to do certain things and I know where he took them.

"It didn't affect the technical details, but he was amazing and also an extremely nice guy. He was Opie grown up! And it turns out that Bill Paxton and I went to the same high school in Forth Worth, Texas. You always find connections when you start making movies."

Regarding the dramatic crew swap-out from Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinese) to Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon) depicted in the film after Mattingly was possibly exposed to the measles, Griffin said there definitely were some added touches of intensity tacked onto those scenes from real-life.

"I thought the switchover right before launch was kind of overdone," he notes. "It showed we had backup crews that were ready to step in throughout the whole program. To us it was just, 'Okay, next up, let's go.' But it was good and it turned out well."

On the subject of necessary alterations to scenes or small suggestions, Griffin remembers some, but in the total service of the on-screen story, nothing was too egregious. Having a tour group led by Hanks inside NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building right beside the Apollo 11 mission's Saturn V rocket while it was being stacked was a bit of a stretch to say the least, but hey, that's Hollywood.

"In that opening scene when they're in Jim Lovell’s house watching the Apollo 11 landing, that didn't happen. But Ron told me that it gives him the opportunity to introduce a bunch of characters that are going to be in this movie for the rest of the time. He can get them all introduced that night.

"There was another scene that stands out and I thought at first, 'Oh gosh, it didn't happen this way.' It's when they were working on the lithium hydroxide canisters that scrubbed the air in the cabin. The lunar module was only good for a four or five-day mission and then it was done, so it didn't have many round canisters that fit in their slots that they had to change those filters to keep the CO2 out of. The command module used square canisters and we had plenty of those so we had to figure out a way to use those. We put an engineer named Ed Smiley in charge and he got a group together and read from a list of all their onboard equipment.

"They didn't have it in their hands yet. They found the solution, went and made one like they wanted, and brought it into the Control Center. I was in there when they brought it in.

"In the movie, the way they got to the solution is the guy that played Ed walked in with this bag of stuff and dumps it on the table and says 'okay, this is what they've got'. Ron told me, 'Gerry, this is not a documentary. We're gonna get to the same solution.' And we were laughing about this and it was fine."

The Gene Kranz character that Ed Harris portrayed was actually a composite and Griffin worked one-on-one with the acclaimed actor because he wanted to be prepared and get the role right.

"There were four flight teams that worked on the Apollo 13 mission and I was one of those four," he explains. "Ron came to me earlier and side he didn't have time to develop four characters that stand alone in the phases of the mission and asked if I'd be upset with a combined character."

In actuality, Griffin recalls that Gene Kranz was taken off-line during those crucial hours of the mission so he could go figure out how to get the command module turned back on after they'd powered it down, something that hadn't ever been done in space, only plugged in while on the ground.

"He came back in and did that powering up the command module toward the end of the mission. It was fortuitous that we had four teams so we didn't have to add any manpower. My team was supposed to do the landing on the moon, of course that got bypassed pretty fast. The part that Ed played was a little more serious than Gene actually was and is still. The vest was something that started in Gemini I think, but maybe Apollo. But he wasn't presented it, he wore it into the room, and they really were made by his wife.

"When we got to a mission there were no Chief Flight Directors. There might be composite decisions and Neil Armstrong used to repeat it all the time. Mission Control and the astronauts were just the tip of the iceberg. There was huge support below us from contractors and other centers. I was told, and can't confirm it, that we were even offered help from the Soviet Union. Everybody wanted to help and it was worldwide viewers that watched this. I think that's what made the movie even more poignant, that it brought that out because there was a lot of footage from that era in there."

Griffin was also on hand to view all the daily film rushes with Howard and to speak up if he observed anything that seemed off. When he witnessed the final product all put together, he was extremely pleased.

"It was really good," he adds. "And I learned a lot about moviemaking in it, not all that I would eventually. But I know when you have people like Ron Howard and Tom Hanks and Bob Zemeckis and Jodie Foster [On "Contact"], you're ahead of the game. It's a hard-working bunch of people.

"I was very impressed with them and I'm proud of the move that came out of it. Ron did what he said what he was going to do. He wanted it technically accurate but he had to have some license to tell the story in a more entertaining way. He said he'd read the transcript of the air-to-ground communication and said that it sounded like just a normal flight to him. We weren't excited!”

Understandably, Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon were granted top billing for playing the three stranded men in Ron Howard's Oscar-winning retelling of the story. But the movie is as much a celebration of the scientists who brought them home as the astronauts who kept their cool while they were trapped in the vast void between the Earth and the Moon. It's an ode to people who — when the chips are down — can literally find a way to fit a square peg into a round hole.

"The astronaut is only the most visible member of a very large team," Hanks, as Lovell, explains early on in the film. "And all of us, right down to the guy sweeping the floor, are honored to be a part of it."

Howard had dabbled in science fiction with 1985's "Cocoon", but "Apollo 13" (based on "Lost Moon" by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger) planted its flag firmly in the science fact camp — give or take some dramatically expedient artistic licence. You know the drill: multiple real-life people being merged into a single composite character, some spiced-up interpersonal tensions, and liberal dashings of Hollywood-friendly dialogue. (Lovell's famous "Houston, we have a problem" is a misquote of Swigert's original, less poster-friendly "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here.")

It's a very different beast from Philip Kaufman's "The Right Stuff" (1983), at the time Hollywood's most celebrated ode to NASA's first decade in orbit. There, the focus was very much on the Mercury 7 pilots who bravely strapped themselves to the first space rockets — and were, as they got flight-ready alongside chimpanzees, repeatedly mocked for being highly trained professionals doing a job an ape could do.

"Do you think a monkey knows he's sitting on top of a rocket that might explode?" asks test pilot Chuck Yeager (played by Sam Shepard). "These astronaut boys they know that, see. I'll tell you something, it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV."

The so-called "right stuff" manifests rather differently in "Apollo 13". Sure, this generation of astronauts knows the final frontier is dangerous, but they also have a professional edge, acting as if going to the Moon is just another day at the office. Well, almost.

Lovell's response to being shifted from Apollo 14 to Apollo 13 (and therefore an earlier flight) is happy but muted, while command module pilot Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise) is remarkably sanguine when his recent exposure to measles prompts his last-minute withdrawal from the flight. And though the Hollywood version of an orbital crisis would typically see some courageous pilot wrestling with a joystick to arrest a life-threatening spin, Lovell's crisis response involves calmly working through sums with pencil and paper, before radioing back to mission control to make sure his calculations are correct.

Back in 1995, there was speculation that Hanks might end the year in contention for a third consecutive Best Actor Oscar (after "Philadelphia" and "Forrest Gump"), but in hindsight, singling out the nominal headline star would have felt wrong. Indeed, the fact that Ed Harris did pick up Best Supporting Actor nomination playing flight director Gene Kranz seems more appropriate, seeing as he's the face of the small army of scientists and engineers battling to bring the trio of astronauts home. He also hogs the majority of the best lines, although his famous "Failure is not an option" was made up for the movie.

It's now something of a cliché that Apollo functioned on significantly less computing power than a smartphone, but "Apollo 13" turns that lack of modern technology into a strength.

Howard's meticulously researched movie is head-over-heels in love with the retro hardware of the era, whether it's spacecraft exteriors or the satisfyingly chunky buttons lining the cockpit. Even the command module simulator is a thing of beauty.

But, analogue or digital, tech is nothing without the people making it work, and "Apollo 13" never forgets that. Most of the men in mission control — this being the less enlightened 1970s, they are all men — are indistinguishable from each other. This anonymous gang dress in a uniform of neatly pressed short-sleeved shirts and unfussy ties, and even those with names barely get an introduction on screen. Even so, they're good people to know in a crisis and a powerful advert for the strength of the collective.

Because, in a film that could easily have been subtitled "a series of unfortunate events", they turn problem-solving into a superpower, "scienceing the s**t" out of the situation long before Matt Damon got left behind in "The Martian". Armed only with slide rules and their numerous degrees, they're a potent combination of Mr Spock's smarts and MacGyver's knack for improvisation.

Under extreme pressure, they perform a constant balancing act between safety (can they risk firing the rocket on the damaged command module?) and time (will the astronauts have enough oxygen if they take the longer route and slingshot around the Moon?). And when it turns out that the square carbon dioxide filters from the command module won't fit the circular scrubbers on the Aquarius lunar lander (LEM) that's become the crew's lifeboat, they have to fashion a solution using only what the astronauts can scavenge from their stricken craft. Their ingenious creation — an unlikely combination of spacesuit parts, duct tape, and the suddenly obsolete mission plan — encapsulates the film in an inelegant nutshell.

Of course, the movie's happy ending is never in doubt — Apollo 13 had famously been dubbed a "successful failure" by NASA — but it's the creative ways in which mission control keeps the astronauts alive that really draw you in. The astronauts may have become the superstars of those famous trips to the Moon, but "Apollo 13" is an entertaining reminder that they'd have been stuck on the launchpad without some very clever people back in Houston.

"Apollo 13" is available to stream on MGM+ in the US, and to rent and buy on Prime Video and Apple TV+ in the UK.

Spielberg had worked with aliens before, of course, but had tended to favor friendlier visitations in the form of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T." The invaders in "War of the Worlds" were rather less cuddly, but still provided the perfect vehicle for the director to explore his trademark themes of separated families and reluctant, everyman heroes. And even though he steered clear of the trailer-friendly set-pieces that characterized Roland Emmerich's "Independence Day" — this is very much a film from the post-9/11 America — Spielberg embraced the opportunity to remind the world that he remains (with apologies to James Cameron) the greatest action director of all time. If only he'd nailed the final act, "War of the Worlds" might have been up there with "Jaws," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and "Jurassic Park" in his formidable hall of fame.

Originally published in serialized form in 1897, Wells' tale of Martians invading Victorian England has proved remarkably malleable source material ever since.

Orson Welles' famous (or should that be infamous?) 1938 radio adaptation retold the story as a series of news bulletins, and subsequently generated a media frenzy across the U.S. — though the myth that listeners believed Martians were actually invading has probably been greatly exaggerated. The 1953 Hollywood screen version, with its iconic hovering death machines, was a B-movie hit, while "Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the War of the Worlds" has been a feature of mixtapes and playlists for nearly 50 years.

A surprising amount of the original novel makes it into Spielberg's film (written by "Jurassic Park" scripter David Koepp), even though the definite article has been dropped, and the hostile E.T.s no longer hail from Mars. Morgan Freeman (an actor who'd already warned the world about impending death from above when he played the U.S. president in "Deep Impact") narrates the movie's bookends, abridged and updated from the original Wells text. Meanwhile, his "Shawshank Redemption" co-star Tim Robbins shows up towards the end of the film as an ambulance driver-turned-wannabe freedom fighter who's effectively an amalgamation of the artilleryman and the curate in the book.

Spielberg also arms the invaders with the tripod war machines Wells had written about a century earlier. This proto-AT-AT technology had exceeded the limits of 1953 VFX capabilities, though that film does imply that the Martian flying machines are actually supported by three invisible electromagnetic "legs."

The New Jersey setting (just outside New York City) is a sensible analogue for Wells' Woking (just outside London) and — just as the book is told from the perspective of an individual narrator — Spielberg never loses focus on his own protagonist, Tom Cruise's Ray Ferrier. Crucially, the viewer never knows more than Ray does. There are no glimpses into the presidential bunker, nor an overview of the aliens' progress, just contradictory rumors that things are much worse in Europe. Or that Europe didn't get hit at all.

That said, Ferrier is where the film really diverges from the source material. The role — Cruise's second collaboration with Spielberg after 2002's "Minority Report" — is a long way from the quasi-superheroes (Ethan Hunt, Pete "Maverick" Mitchel, etc.) who've dominated Cruise's resumé in recent years, and arguably more interesting as a result.

When we first meet dock worker Ferrier he's hard to like: a divorced dad who seems to resent looking after his two kids when his ex-wife goes away for a weekend break. He's incapable of relating to teenage son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and his standard response to 10-year-old daughter Rachel's (Dakota Fanning) anxiety attacks is to shout. He doesn't even know she's allergic to peanut butter.

But, when the aliens start rising from beneath the streets of New Jersey — a neat twist on the usual death from above — Ray repeatedly turns out to be the smartest guy in the room. When the aliens have rendered every vehicle useless with an electromagnetic pulse, he makes a beeline for the one car he knows has just had a new solenoid installed. He's the one who notices that the wind is blowing towards rather than away from the incoming storm, and — at the end of the film — recognizes that birds roosting on a tripod means its shields must be deactivated.

While Cruise is the face of "War of the Worlds," the film belongs undeniably to Spielberg. He made it remarkably quickly. "Steven had thrown down the gauntlet and said we’re going to make this film in eight months," concept artist Doug Chiang recalls in Disney+ documentary "Light & Magic." "A huge film like this, which should really be about a year-and-a-half, he said let’s do it in eight months. We started shooting in December [it was actually November] to release June/July."

Despite that tight timeframe, the visual storytelling is immaculate and the visuals are often brutal enough to push the limits of the PG-13 (U.S.)/12A (U.K.) rating. (That said, it didn't come close to earning the X certificate awarded to the 1953 version by British censors who'd decided that many scenes were "very alarming and a number could certainly be described as 'horrific'."). Whether the Ferriers are on foot or in a car, the director choreographs spectacular carnage around them, a visceral cocktail of alien death rays turning their victims to dust, or city infrastructure being demolished with extreme prejudice. ILM effects legend Dennis Muren has since described it as his "favorite film" that he has worked on.

Spielberg also knows when to take a "Jaws"-style less-is-more approach. Indeed, one of "War of the Worlds"' most powerful moments comes when the Ferriers are hiding out in a basement, and the screen suddenly fades to black. A few background noises and Rachel whispering, "Are we still alive?" are the only proof you have that your TV isn't broken.

For roughly 75% of its running time, "War of the Worlds" is a stone-cold, end-of-the-world classic. Sadly, the wheels (or should that be legs?) all come off in that final act, as the film limps towards its conclusion via a brief stay in Harlan Ogilvy (Robbins)' basement.

By this point, Robbie is presumed dead, seemingly engulfed by a fireball after joining up with the military. From here, the film briefly morphs into a kind of haunted house chiller, as Ray, Rachel, and Harlan hide from a creepily prehensile alien spy-cam. It's a wonderfully tense sequence, but also feels like it belongs in a different movie.

"War of the Worlds"' biggest Achilles heel, however, is its last-minute rally to cram in as many elements from Wells' source material as possible. Without the context of the novel, the mysterious red weed and industrial harvesting of human blood make little sense, aside from highlighting the invaders' cruel disdain for humanity. There's also a nod to the narrator's wife making an unexpected comeback late on, though Robbie's miraculous/implausible (delete as appropriate) return from the dead stretches credibility way past breaking point. In this over-sentimental twist, it turns out that not only did he survive the aforementioned fireball, but somehow found his way, presumably on foot, to the Boston home of his grandparents (played, in a neat in-joke, by 1953 "WOTW" stars Ann Robinson and Gene Barry).

And of course, the invasion is cancelled, yet again, by Earth's microbial lifeforms; an abrupt ending that — well over a century after its debut — feels like the equivalent of a school kid writing, "And then I woke up and it was all a dream…" Even Spielberg, interviewed for "James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction," admitted that "The film doesn't have a good ending. I never could figure out how to end that darn thing." Though, to be fair, Cameron wasn't sure if Wells "could figure it out" either.

The Lucasfilm of 2005 was a different beast compared to where we are now in 2025. Soon after the debut of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, creator George Lucas announced at an event that the franchise's first live-action foray into TV would be Underworld. Set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, this series was meant to delve into a Star Wars world that didn't revolve around the Skywalkers. Instead, it would have been based in the cityscape of Coruscant, initially focusing on the criminal gangs, before delving into untold stories of known characters.

Lucasfilm was bought by the Walt Disney Company in 2012, and with it, everything to do with Star Wars was now in someone else's hands. This also meant that some changes were made, such as Underworld being cancelled, along with its video game adaptation, Star Wars: 1313. But what was Star Wars Underworld? Who was involved, and how far into production did it get?

What was Star Wars Underworld?

In 2005, it looked like the end of the road for Star Wars, with no more movies or live-action shows on the horizon. It felt like Lucas and his company wanted to move on, with the team beginning to work on the then-unannounced fourth Indiana Jones movie. So it was a surprise when Underworld was announced in 2005, alongside The Clone Wars. Allegedly set between Episode III and IV, with some occasional flashback episodes, the series would delve into aspects of the Star Wars universe that hadn't been explored before, such as different criminal factions operating across Coruscant. Underworld would be serialized episodes, with roughly twenty of them to a season, and would be full of special effects, as the prequels were.

Rick McCallum, a producer at Lucasfilm until his retirement in 2012, soon after Disney bought it, appeared on a podcast earlier this year called Young Indy Chroniclers. In this three-part interview show, McCallum recalled how far Underworld came in development. "There was a period where people thought we weren't doing anything. And we spent five years doing over 60 scripts, some reaching third drafts, with the most wonderful writers in the world on them," McCallum revealed.

"These stories were dark. But they were sexy, they were violent, they made you think, and they were just absolutely wonderful."

In an interview with writer Matthew Graham at Den of Geek, he reveals that from 2007, for several years, he and Chris Chibnall (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) would visit Skywalker Ranch and work on several scripts for Underworld. Ronald D. Moore, known for writing Star Trek and the Battlestar Galactica reboot, was also brought on soon after. Moore spoke about this in actor Katee Sackhoff's podcast earlier this year, explaining what happened when he met Lucas to talk about Underworld around 2009.

Up to 60 scripts were written — enough for four seasons. Rumored plots will sound eerily familiar to anyone who's watched the last ten years of Star Wars TV shows: the early years of the Empire under Emperor Palpatine, how Han Solo and Lando Calrissian met, a Boba Fett appearance, Obi-Wan Kenobi appearing in Coruscant before a final duel with Maul, and more. As late as January 2012, McCallum and Lucas were both talking about Underworld, saying that "it was on the shelf" for now. But everything was about to change.

The fall of Underworld

As 2012 was wrapping up, two insurmountable walls arose to block Underworld: Money and Disney. As McCallum said in the podcast, the episodes were simply too expensive to make at the time. "The problem was that each episode was bigger than the films. So the lowest I could get it down to with each episode that existed then was $40 million an episode."

So, Underworld was swept under the rug, at least until the episodes could be made at a cheaper rate. Meanwhile, Lucas was busy writing his own take on Episodes VII, VIII, and IX, before ultimately deciding to hand off his empire to the House of Mouse. Although Disney could have made Underworld, as well as Lucas' vision of the Sequel Trilogy, time has shown us the company took a different path with the franchise.

Years later, the only surviving test footage of Underworld was uncovered, showcasing five minutes of a scene set in Coruscant, as a way of trying out the visual effects for how they could work in Underworld. It's nothing much and doesn't add anything to the overall franchise, but it's a unique look into what could have been.

Could Underworld return, somehow?

As Luke Skywalker said in Episode VIII: The Last Jedi: 'No one's ever really gone." You can apply that to cancelled projects like Underworld, too. McCallum mentioned in the same podcast that it would have taken Star Wars onto a brand new path. "It would have blown up the whole Star Wars universe, and Disney would have definitely never offered George to buy the franchise."

You get the feeling with Lucasfilm, and its current CEO, Kathleen Kennedy, that story takes precedence before anything is greenlit, which is likely how we got the incredible Andor series.

It's also one of the last things Lucas worked on before he decided to sell to Disney, so Underworld is only going to become more mythical as time passes. Combine this with his early ideas for what he had in mind for the Sequel Trilogy, such as Darth Maul becoming the new big bad, and suddenly, you wonder how things could have been different.

However, there's always a chance the series could return in some way. Andor proved that a Star Wars show can thrive without relying on legacy characters, and Underworld seemingly ticked a lot of similar boxes, just in a different way. As it stands, around 60 almost-complete scripts could be given a light revision and possibly put into production by the end of the year. Is it likely? No, but it's fun to think about the road not taken.

Ultimately, Star Wars Underworld remains a big 'what could have been' in the franchise's history, but it's also clearly been the inspiration behind some of the amazing shows we've gotten in recent years. Without Lucas deciding to sell to Disney, we wouldn't have gotten Andor and everything else coming soon, so perhaps it's only right that Underworld is now one with the Force.

On Episode 167 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik are joined by AJ Gemer of Lunar Outpost, a fast-moving company innovating in cislunar technology. This includes mini-rovers, crewed lunar rovers, and all kinds of instrumentation that will enable lunar exploration, development, and in-situ resource development.

AJ talked about the company, their many projects, their relationship with NASA, and the future of lunar exploration and the role of commercial companies moving ahead. Join us!

Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

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Space news of the week

• Human remains lost after memorial spaceflight capsule crashes into the sea
• Rare daytime fireball bright enough to be seen from orbit may have punched a hole in a house in Georgia
• Axiom-4 astronauts on SpaceX Crew Dragon welcomed aboard International Space Station (video)
• Lunar Outpost

Model Falcon 9!

Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes' stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.

About This Week In Space

This Week in Space covers the new space age. Every Friday we take a deep dive into a fascinating topic. What's happening with the new race to the moon and other planets? When will SpaceX really send people to Mars?

Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.

First of all, we should underline that Capcom wasn't doing amazingly back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, with its big-name franchises floundering. Big swings were being taken, though, and Lost Planet (2006) was a major effort to create a brand-new futuristic third-person shooter franchise rooted in the relevant subject of climate change (video games have always been political, folks).

The first entry was a moderate success — just big enough to warrant a sequel — and so in 2010, Lost Planet 2 dropped with several bold changes to the established formula. Chief among them was the odd decision to break the story up into several episodes that shifted the focus between the major factions vying for control of the planet E.D.N. III and its Thermal Energy (often referred to as T-ENG).

Quite often, imperfect games like Lost Planet 2 age more gracefully than polished crowd-pleasers. 15 years later, as the gaming hordes devour co-op shooters set on alien worlds, now seems like the perfect time to dig this one up and talk about why Lost Planet 2 (and the series) deserves a second chance. Let's just all agree to not bring up Lost Planet 3, though, ey?

Extreme conditions

E.D.N. III is no Pandora, even if Lost Planet 2's 10-year time jump has turned it from an icy hellscape into a lush, verdant world. It's a difficult place to colonize, and the indigenous Akrid creatures (reptilian insectoids) remain extremely aggressive towards humans. But humanity is desperate, and the recently discovered Thermal Energy holds the key to our survival.

Inside the game, this translates into co-op missions built around traversing difficult terrain while being besieged by the local fauna and the occasional kaiju-sized monstrosity — massive behemoths that can regenerate their limbs even after losing them to shotgun blasts from a Vital Suit (Lost Planet's version of mechs).

At its most chaotic, Lost Planet 2 feels like a Helldivers 2 prototype, complete with "accidental" deaths from friendly fire. That said, it's also a far more focused experience with a linear progression that wasn't meant to nurture a long-term grind. You can just beat it and move on, which may sound attractive to players burned out on the grindy experience of modern-day games.

Same war, new battlefield

A decade on from the events of the first game, Lost Planet 2 establishes that things have gotten worse, despite the apparent boost to the planet's habitability. So what's gone wrong? More (and often bigger) Akrids are waking up and destroying all outworlders they come across for one thing. To make matters even worse, snow pirates, survivalists, bandits, the colonial military force NEVEC, and other factions are fighting over land and resources.

Each group's views on how to proceed with human colonization of the planet are different. While the politics and world-building kind of fall to the wayside in-game, Lost Planet 2 is a textured and gritty sequel that's more interested in the larger picture of what's happening on E.D.N III versus telling a single character's story. As other studios chased a more cinematic style of action-adventure game, game director Kenji Oguro and his team's take felt refreshingly different.

While Starship Troopers-esque battles with the Akrids are an ever-present threat, the familiar warfare of man against man makes up much of Lost Planet 2, extending even into the PvP modes. The enemy variety helped the slower sections of the otherwise relentless campaign, but we'd be lying if we said fighting other humans is nearly as exciting as battling Akrids. Perhaps this abundance of conventional warfare was why the competitive multiplayer modes never became an online sensation?

Monster hunters

You might have noticed our praise of Lost Planet 2 isn't glowing. It's an imperfect gem, and we're certainly not trying to rewrite history. This is no misunderstood masterpiece, but it's an off-beat and courageous big-budget project executed with enough expertise to make up for most of its shortcomings.

Still, with games like Helldivers 2 and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 reigniting gamers' passion for blasting alien bugs with big guns, now is the time to celebrate the brave pioneers of the genre.

'Monster Hunter but sci-fi and mission-based' was a hell of a pitch back in 2010, and neither the world nor the developers were quite ready to make it happen, but now, in the far-flung future of 2025, we'd love to see a return to E.D.N. III that doubles down on what made the series special.

We like 'weird' much better nowadays, don't you think?

Lost Planet 2 can be bought digitally on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S (playable via backwards compatibility). Second-hand physical Xbox 360 and PS3 copies are your second-best option, as the PC (Steam) version is currently delisted.

Warner Bros. and DC's renewed approach to building a cinematic universe is looser than Marvel's MCU efforts. Sure, we might get crossovers sooner rather than later, and yes, there's a structure/larger plan set in place, but the 'twist' is that there's no hard roadmap set in stone. According to DC Studios co-heads James Gunn (of Guardians of the Galaxy fame) and Peter Safran, we're now venturing into Chapter 1 of the DCU: Gods and Monsters, which actually began in December 2024 with season 1 of Creature Commandos.

As for movies and shows that were standing on their own, such as The Batman, Joker, and The Penguin, it's been confirmed that those universes will remain 'elseworlds' which toy with DC's rich library in different ways and apart from the main DC continuity. It remains to be seen what's happening with Blue Beetle, but recent comments about the character's future suggest he might cleanly transition to the DCU.

Below you'll find a list of every upcoming DC movie, the creatives who are attached, release dates, and everything else we know so far. Scroll down to the very end to get the quick rundown on which projects are in the DCU and which are planned as standalones or alternate universes.

Superman

• Release date: July 11, 2025
• Director: James Gunn

The DCU kicks off on the big screen with the safest bet you could possibly make (with the possible exception of more Batman): a hopeful Superman reboot which skips the origin story we all know and places the character into a universe that's already full of superheroes (like the Lanterns) and scheming evildoers such as Lex Luthor.

You might think this project is a bit overcrowded for the first movie of a rebooted continuity, but we must admit James Gunn has proven us wrong time and again when it comes to comic book adaptations, so we're optimistic.

While the core of the story looks and sounds simple enough (Clark Kent/Superman trying to navigate the complexities of being a god-like figure who wants to follow his heart), we know it's got ties to Creature Commandos, Peacemaker season 2, and likely 2026's Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, among others. Speaking of which…

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

• Release date: June 26, 2026
• Director: Craig Gillespie

Whereas Superman is playing up the 'boy scout' angle, Supergirl's big-screen debut is working with Tom King's critically acclaimed and celebrated 8-issue limited series that was published from 2021 to 2022. The main hook was its more layered and mature take on the lore surrounding the character and the more fantastical mythology built around this specific story. With I, Tonya and Cruella director Craig Gillespie at the helm – directing a script by Ana Nogueira – chances are Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow will capture much of that spark.

We've yet to see how closely it follows the comic book's storyline, which focused on Kara Zor-El celebrating her 21st birthday with a trip across the cosmos, only to find a noble young warrior named Ruthye Marye Knoll whose father was murdered by Krem of the Yellow Hills. This leads both women right into a violent quest for revenge that allows Kara to reflect on her own origins. As a nice surprise, we now know that former Aquaman Jason Momoa will be playing interstellar bounty hunter Lobo in the movie.

Clayface

• Release date: September 11, 2026
• Director: James Watkins

James Gunn wasn't lying when he stated that Warner Bros was open to weird, more tonally distinct DC projects. Clayface is way less popular than the Joker, yet he's getting the solo movie treatment at DC Studios after Mike Flanagan hit Gunn with a convincing enough pitch and script. Sadly, he won't be directing due to other commitments, and a new draft is being written by Hossein Amini (Drive) as we speak. James Watkins (Speak No Evil) is currently set to direct.

Previous rumors and official chatter pointed to Clayface being more in the lower-budget horror flick space, which is fitting considering most incarnations of the character have a clay-like, shapeshifting ability that's unnerving to say the least. That said, we wouldn't be entirely surprised if this movie goes for a more grounded approach. James Gunn has stated the movie will be set in the DCU, though, which means we have already met this Clayface through his brief role in Creature Commandos.

The Batman Part II

• Release date: October 1, 2027
• Director: Matt Reeves

The Batman was a huge win for DC in 2022, proving that audiences weren't afraid of getting more iterations of the Caped Crusader as long as the pitches were good enough. However, Robert Pattinson's Bruce Wayne will stay in his lane and not join the more comic book-y DCU. Regardless, what's happening with this one? Why is it taking so long to get made?

Well, it appears most of it comes down to Pattinson's busy schedule and writer-director Matt Reeves' personal life. James Gunn has repeated several times that they're still waiting for a script Reeves is happy with, and considering the critical reception and box office receipts the first movie garnered, it's probably in everyone's best interest not to rush this one. Last year, we saw HBO's The Penguin add more to Reeves' take on Gotham City, but we've yet to learn about the main villain who will make Batman's job harder in Part II.

Dynamic Duo

• Release date: June 30, 2028
• Director: Arthur Minz

Kicking things off with an animated show based on lesser-known DC characters was a clear sign of Gunn's love for the medium and its potential as a different canvas for big comic book stories brought out of the pages. It wasn't long before he confirmed they were also looking at releasing more animated DC movies in cinemas following the success of the Spider-Verse movies from Sony Animation. Swaybox's Arthur Mintz will be directing; his company mixes puppetry, stop-motion, and CGI, so this project could bring something really fresh to the table.

While it's not confirmed if the story will belong to the DCU or stand on its own, we know it'll follow Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, the two most popular Robins, with Batman out of the picture (at least for the most part). Grayson eventually becomes the hero known as Nightwing, while Jason Todd turns into the Red Hood. For all we know, the story – written by Coco's Matthew Aldrich – could be set before those changes. On top of everything, The Batman and The Penguin's Matt Reeves is producing.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

• Release date: Unknown
• Director: Andy Muschietti

The Batman skipping the DCU continuity doesn't mean DC Studios isn't already hard at work on finding the right Caped Crusader for the rebooted universe. With The Flash's Andy Muschietti attached to direct (at least for now), work on The Brave and the Bold has been underway for at least a little over two years now. We haven't heard anything about the writing talent attached, though.

The movie is expected to be based on the comic books by Grant Morrison that explored the Bat-Family and their many dramas, namely the relationship between Bruce Wayne and his son, Damian Wayne. This confirms the Batman we'll be meeting in the DCU is a seasoned veteran who's been protecting Gotham City for years. Creature Commandos also gave us a glimpse of the hero, so Gunn has been quietly laying the groundwork for his big entrance.

Swamp Thing

• Release date: Unknown
• Director: James Mangold

Another in-the-works project skewing towards horror is the big-screen adaptation of Swamp Thing. James Mangold (Logan, A Complete Unknown) remains on board to write and direct the "very simple, clean, Gothic horror movie", though progress on the script has been slow, as he's also working on an epic 'Jedi origins' Star Wars movie at Lucasfilm.

Though it's been planned as a standalone movie with little to no connection to the larger DCU, it was revealed as part of Chapter 1 of the universe. In the comics, Swamp Thing is an antihero character that seeks to protect nature and humanity. The 'Avatar of the Green' has had different incarnations over the years, but he remains one of the most iconic and recognizable DC characters in spite of his limited mainstream popularity. With the right script, this is an off-beat project that could easily flourish.

The Authority

• Release date: Unknown
• Director: Unknown

The Authority was another big swing of a project that was revealed back in 2023 with the rough outline of DCU Chapter 1, Gods and Monsters. James Gunn teased it'd have strong connections to Superman, and that movie's main trailer introduced Angela Spica (The Engineer). As a superhero team, The Authority is known for often going a bit extreme, so think of a darker alternative to other major groups of the DC universe, like the Justice League. In fact, these characters originally weren't part of DC.

Gunn has described the movie as "a passion project" that's being developed alongside other DC Studios writers, but we haven't received any major updates. The latest update came in early 2025, when Gunn admitted it's been "moved to the back burner" as other projects are bigger priorities for both Warner and the studio.

Teen Titans

• Release date: Unknown
• Director: Unknown

Teen Titans is another movie based on fan-favorite characters that's in the early stages of development. Ana Nogueira (Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow) pitched the project to Gunn and Safran, who called the first script "amazing" before confirming it simply isn't ready to go yet. The updates we've received are encouraging, but DC Studios has yet to commit.

For now, the potential roster of characters is completely up in the air, though many fans would like to see a close adaptation of the superhero team as seen in the early 2000s CN animated series, which included Robin, Cyborg, Raven, Starfire, and Beast Boy. With a Batman movie that's introducing Damian Wayne on the way, it's not hard to see how it could be set up with ease in the near future.

Bane/Deathstroke (untitled)

• Release date: Unknown
• Director: Unknown

Movies and TV shows about DC antiheroes and villains have had a solid hit rate so far, so it comes as no surprise that the new regime is doubling down on such projects. On top of Clayface and Swamp Thing, last year we learned of another script that's been floating around: one focusing on Bane and Deathstroke sans Batman.

You all know the former, and the latter was introduced on-screen in Justice League's (2017) post-credits stinger, played by Joe Manganiello, only to never show up again as the DCEU continued to struggle. Of course, we'd likely be looking at new faces behind both masks, but with a script by Moon Knight scribe Matthew Orton only in the early stages of development, we wouldn't get our hopes up just yet.

Constantine 2

• Release date: Unknown
• Director: Francis Lawrence

Last but not least, we have to acknowledge the existence (in some form) of a tentative sequel to 2005's Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves. It's been pitched to DC Studios and a script is now in the works, with original director Francis Lawrence interested in coming back to helm it once he's done with a number of projects, including a new Hunger Games and the long-in-development BioShock adaptation at Netflix.

Akiva Goldsman (I Am Legend) is writing after Reeves and Lawrence cracked a story and some "really, really great ideas" that would bring the duo back to the same universe the original movie presented. Therefore, this would likely be considered an elseworlds project under DC Studios. As much as we'd love to have Reeves' take on the occult detective back on the big screen, it's gonna take a rare planetary alignment to get this one to the starting line.

Which upcoming DC movies are part of the DCU?

If you want the quick answer to which movies currently in the works at DC Studios are confirmed to be part of the main DCU continuity, beginning with Creature Commandos and Superman, here you go:

• Superman (2025)
• Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (2026)
• Clayface (2026)
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold (TBA)
• Swamp Thing (TBA)
• The Authority (TBA)
• Teen Titans (TBA)
• Bane/Deathstroke (TBA)

This well-received spinoff of "Star Trek: Discovery" created by Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers returns for its third season on July 17, and we've compiled all the pertinent data on the cast, crew, plot, episode titles, and fun hints of intriguing things to come.

With the 60th anniversary of Gene Roddenberry's "Wagon Train to the Stars" approaching next year, now is the ideal time to climb aboard the enlightening and inspiring franchise with the imminent arrival of Strange New Worlds Season 3.

When does Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 release?

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 kicks off with a double-episode premiere on July 17, 2025, exclusively on Paramount+ in the US, Canada, and the UK.

Forthcoming episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will land weekly each Thursday after that, with the season finale warping into your living rooms on September 11. 2025.

How to watch Strange New Worlds Season 3

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 streams exclusively on Paramount+ in the US, UK, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Japan.

Not signed up yet? We’ve got you covered with links to help get you up and running.

The acclaimed sci-fi series will also be available on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe, starting on August 4, 2025.

If you want to check out Star Trek: Strange New Worlds or any of the other great shows on Paramount+ while you're abroad, you can also use a VPN to access your subscription from anywhere in the world. For a limited time, you can save up to 76% on 24 months of NordVPN (+4 free months extra) and get a $50 Amazon voucher ahead of Prime Day.

How many episodes are in Strange New Worlds Season 3?

Like the previous two seasons, the latest batch of Strange New Worlds cosmic adventures will contain 10 episodes.

Paramount+ released all chapter titles on June 5, which you can read below:

Riffling through these titles for possible clues, we see that the first episode, "Hegemony, Part II," will obviously pick up right after the Gorn-centric cliffhanger of the Season 2 finale, "Hegemony." "Wedding Bell Blues," "A Space Adventure Hour," and "What Is Starfleet?" are quite possibly three of the lighter-themed genre-hopping episodes.

"The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail" is most definitely a Spock-aligned episode, as that's the name of Spock's childhood alien pet seen in "Star Trek: The Animated Series." "Four-And-A-Half Vulcans" is absolutely the chapter teased last year at Comic-Con, where Pike and some of the crew temporarily morph into pointy-eared Vulcans.

What is the plot for Strange New Worlds Season 3?

"In Season 3, when we reconnect with the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, still under the command of Captain Pike, they face the conclusion of Season 2's harrowing encounter with the Gorn. But new life and civilizations await, including a villain that will test our characters' grit and resolve.

An exciting twist on classic 'Star Trek,' Season 3 takes characters both new and beloved to new heights, and dives into thrilling adventures of faith, duty, romance, comedy, and mystery, with varying genres never before seen on any other 'Star Trek.'”

Who’s in the cast of Strange New Worlds Season 3?

Strange New Worlds S3's impressive ensemble cast includes Anson Mount (Captain Christopher Pike), Ethan Peck (Spock), Celia Rose Gooding (Nyota Uhura), Rebecca Romijn (Number One), Jess Bush (Nurse Christine Chapel), Christina Chong (La’An Noonien-Singh), Melissa Navia (Erica Ortegas), Babs Olusanmokun (Dr. M’Benga).

Recurring co-stars for this freshly concocted season are expected to be Paul Wesley as (James T. Kirk), Melanie Scrofano (Marie Batel), Martin Quinn (Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott), and Carol Kane (Pelia).

Making their debut is Season 3 are Rhys Darby (in a surprise role said to be a legacy character like Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Trelane, or Cyrano Jones), Patton Oswalt (Vulcan Security Officer), Cillian O’Sullivan (Dr. Roger Korby), and Mynor Luken (Beto Ortegas).

Are there any trailers for Strange New Worlds Season 3?

Indeed there are! Each breathtaking sneak peek and promo has ramped up the intense outer space combat, provided titillating teases of gimmicky themed episodes, a tapestry of emotional moments, and exhibited an evolved sense of extended family that is part of the heart and soul of the series.

From the initial first look from San Diego Comic-Con in July of 2024, to the first teaser dropped back in April of 2025, and finally the full trailer that was just delivered on June 7, the ad campaign has been brilliant.

Who are the producers, directors, and showrunners for Strange New Worlds Season 3?

Strange New Worlds Season 3 is produced by CBS Studios, Secret Hideout, and Roddenberry Entertainment for Paramount+.

It's executive produced and created by that polished pair of professional showrunners, Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers.

Announced episode directors include Chris Fisher, Jordan Canning, Valerie Weiss, Jonathan Frakes, Dan Liu, Sharon Lewis, Andrew Coutts, and Maja Vrvilo.

With exactly one month to go before Fantastic Four: First Steps is released on July 25, the final trailer for the movie is here!

The trailer for the hotly anticipated next entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe features more Galactus, more Franklin, and more of the brotherly ribbing between Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm that has kept comic readers entertained since 1961.

However, there is something distinctly missing from the trailer, and Marvel is making sure you notice it. We are yet to hear Grimm, the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing (played in the movie by Ebon Moss-Bachrach) utter his immortal catchphrase: "It's Clobberin' Time!"

In the new trailer, a member of the public requests that Grimm utter the iconic catchphrase, only for the Thing to respond that the catchphrase is something said "just in the cartoon."

The trailer ends with Storm, the Human Torch (played by Joseph Quinn), carrying the Thing, sporting a fetching rock beard, into action, also demanding he say his immortal battle-cry.

Also missing from the trailer are shots of Giganto, emerging from the streets of New York. The Mole-Man commanded monster was the first menace faced by the FF back in Fantastic Four #1, and its cinematic visage, referencing the cover of that comic book, was recently revealed in a Little Caesars x Fantastic Four ad.

What we do see in the trailer is a better look at Galactus (played by Ralph Ineson).

Previous trailers have only shown Galactus' shadow and legs, both of which hinted at a comic-accurate design. In the final trailer, we see the torso of Marvel's "Eater of Worlds" as well as the back of his iconic helmet. Both look like the character has been pulled straight from a sketch by Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby. In addition to this, the trailer gives a brief look at the spacecraft of Galactus, with the FF making a quick escape in a ship piloted by Grimm.

Speaking of vehicles, the trailer reveals a little more of the team's "Fantasticar," looking like a sleek 1950s muscle car, a vast improvement on its bathtub-like appearance in the comic books!

With regards to the FF's tech, the trailer reveals at least one of the usages of the metal wristbands that the team is sporting as part of their uniform. There has been speculation that these could be devices that allow the FF to crossover into the main MCU universe, but this doesn't seem to be the case. In the final trailer, we see the wristband used to alert the team to emergency situations, including the arrival of the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner).

There are a few more shots of Franklin Richards, the son of Reed Richards (played by Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) in this new trailer, including one of Sue carrying her child solemnly through a crowd of onlookers.

This might just be a tiny hint at the importance of Franklin, whose cosmic powers may be the key to the FF finding their way into the main MCU to mix it up with Doctor Doom (portrayed by Robert Downey Jr) in next year's Avengers: Doomsday.

It's not Clobberin' Time just yet, but it's just around the corner. Marvel Studios' "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" clobbers theater-goers on July 25, 2025. You can also catch one of the previous trailers below:

Before we begin, we highly recommend that you don't just stick to playing either all the 2D or all the 3D entries; you should experience Metroid in both 2D and 3D. Each type of Metroid game is equally important to understand the full Metroid universe and its lasting impact across several genres, which also led to the birth of the huge 'Metroidvania' subgenre.

While Samus Aran's 2D side-scrolling adventures might be more rewarding and easier to navigate at first glance, the first-person Prime saga is one of the most refreshing takes on the FPS formula – it's an impressive adaptation of nearly all of Metroid's uniqueness when it comes to 3D world and combat design.

We are super hyped for the upcoming Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and it is firmly on our radar. If you're as excited as we are, but haven't played most Metroid games before or just need a refresher, we've worked out a ranked list of all the Metroid games (minus Prime Pinball), which should be useful.

Spoilers ahead for the entire Metroid series.

11. Metroid Prime: Federation Force

• Platforms: 3DS
• Developer: Next Level Games

Federation Force simply wasn't a good spinoff game. While we appreciated the effort to expand the Metroid universe beyond Samus' adventures, this wasn't the right way to do it. Especially during a time when the larger series was confused about its future and fans were still recovering from Other M's letdown.

The best thing we can say about it is that the Prime storyline was moved forward in surprisingly big ways following the destruction of all the Phazon in the galaxy. Space Pirates are still roaming around despite that major blow to their plans, so the Galactic Federation responds with the mass production of marine-piloted advanced mechs that are designed to destroy the villainous Pirates once and for all. It wasn't a bad jump-off point, but the tone wasn't right, the art direction was a terrible mismatch, and the FPS mechanics weren't engaging. Pass on this one unless you're a hardcore completionist. Just watch the post-credits scene that sets up Metroid Prime 4 (yes, really).

10. Metroid Prime Hunters

• Platforms: Nintendo DS, Wii U
• Developer: Nintendo Software Technology

Unlike Federation Force, Metroid Prime Hunters is an actually okay video game. Why is it low on our list, then? Well, we just think that the rest of the Metroid series is better. It was a fun enough adaptation of the Prime formula, utilizing the Nintendo DS' capabilities, but it's also because of the many limitations of the DS that made it a bit awkward.

Another problem is that it can only be accessed via second-hand DS copies or a Wii U with the Virtual Console re-release installed on it. We'd tell you to bother with a better game, but an 'okay' one isn't worth the hassle. Then again, diehards might tell you this extra adventure starring Samus and other six rival bounty hunters – Trace, Weavel, Noxus, Spire, Kanden, and Sylux – racing to a distant star system to secure 'ultimate power' is essential playing. It isn't.

9. Metroid: Other M

• Platforms: Wii
• Developer: Team Ninja, Nintendo SPD

Metroid: Other M is an odd one in that it's a third-person action game that doesn't follow the key design rules of the other non-first-person entries. With full 3D movement and a bigger focus on plot and characterization, there were many reasons to be optimistic about Team Ninja's vision for the series, but the end result could've been better.

Many thought it was refreshing enough and a nice bridge between Prime and the mainline saga, while others wrote it off as too scattered and half-baked. In particular, its retread of plot elements that had already been rehashed to death was annoying and borderline insulting at this point. With that said, the exploration and Wii remote-centric combat weren't too bad. As far as experiments with renowned properties go, there have been far worse ones.

8. Metroid II: Return of Samus/Metroid: Samus Returns

• Platforms: Game Boy, 3DS, Nintendo Switch
• Developer: Nintendo R&D1, MercurySteam, Nintendo EPD

With the SNES already out, players were stuck with a Metroid follow-up that looked muted and sounded messy on the colorless Game Boy. Metroid II's story and gameplay improvements were notable, yet the general sentiment was that the Game Boy wasn't the right fit.

This explains why the 3DS remake Metroid: Samus Returns, released in 2017, was such a success. It also arrived at the perfect time, revitalizing the series ahead of new entries that would push the IP to the top again. Not every new gameplay feature was celebrated, but, for the most part, Metroid: Samus Returns is a great way to experience a good game that didn't reach its full potential the first time around.

7. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

• Platforms: Wii
• Developer: Retro Studios

Metroid Prime 3 was widely praised and has an explosive finale with solid payoffs to several conflicts and mysteries that were set up in the other two Prime entries. However, if you'd been following the series for a long time then the plot beats could feel a bit repetitive, and some fans weren't too fond of the linear gameplay either.

As for the Wii Nunchuk and remote controls, you either love them or hate them. With the hype around motion controls long gone now, we have to admit that this was one of the better showcases of the Wii's capabilities back in the day. If you're okay with that, then pull the trigger and play this game. Otherwise, keep your fingers crossed and hope that in the future Metroid Prime 3 gets the remaster treatment.

6. Metroid/Metroid: Zero Mission

• Platforms: NES, GBA, Wii, Wii U, 3DS, Nintendo Switch
• Developer: Nintendo R&D1, Intelligent Systems

Whether you choose the original 1986 NES version or the Zero Mission (2004) remake for Game Boy Advance remake, the original Metroid shouldn't be skipped. Both are available on the Switch Online service, so you won't have to dig up old copies. The former was an excellent side-scroller that made great use of the NES hardware and holds up to this day. The latter is one of the finest examples of how to remake a classic and improve on everything that made it special.

The lore and story tying the combat and exploration together were surprisingly complex for the simple type of game that Metroid truly was. Then, with the Zero Mission remake, writer and director Yoshio Sakamoto made sure to add new areas, items, mini-bosses, and even new plot beats that expanded on Samus' past. Now that's how you do it.

5. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

• Platforms: GameCube, Wii
• Developer: Retro Studios

Metroid Prime: Echoes 2 was the sort of ideal sequel we received regularly back in the early 2000s. While not a lot changed between the first game and Echoes, technologically the game and level design were more ambitious and it's easy to notice how most systems and mechanics were successfully iterated on. Some players and critics found certain enemies and areas too harsh and confusing to navigate though, so watch out for difficulty spikes.

The story has Samus looking into the planet Aether after communication with the ship G.F.S Tyr is lost. To the surprise of no one, something has gone terribly wrong. Let's just say there's a nice sci-fi twist which greatly affects how both the narrative and the gameplay develop. As stated before, some segments were maybe pushed a bit too far alongside with some overtuned enemies, but if you're not afraid of demanding adventures, then this one's a certified banger.

4. Metroid Dread

• Platforms: Nintendo Switch
• Developer: MercurySteam, Nintendo EPD

MercurySteam's second Metroid game is the final game of the timeline (for now), set right after Fusion (despite arriving 19 years later). Embracing the series' side-scrolling roots, Metroid Dead went on to become the best-selling Metroid game of all time.

The game's defining trait is how it doubles down on the spooky moments of Fusion. This creates distinct gameplay sequences that has Samus hiding and running away from the deadly E.M.M.I. robots, all while investigating disturbing reports of a new X parasite alive on a remote planet.

This is 2D Metroid at its best and makes us really hopeful about the future of this franchise.

3. Metroid Prime

• Platforms: GameCube, Wii, Nintendo Switch
• Developer: Retro Studios

Some fans might disagree and go with 2 instead, but we still believe Metroid Prime's best entry is the original... in its remastered form. If you can get your hands on it, the 2002 release works wonders, but the 2023 remaster (which almost counts as a remake) is just sleeker. It handles much better without losing any of the charm and identity of the moody classic.

Technically, this is the second entry in the Metroid chronology, so you can dive right in after the original side-scroller if you're planning on playing all the Metroid games in order. We must underline, however, that Metroid Prime stands wonderfully on its own. So, if you're feeling drawn to only the first-person games, then feel free to jump right into the Switch remaster as we wait for Prime 4. The problem? You might find it so good that you'll want to play the other two chapters, which aren't available for the Switch in any shape or form (yet).

2. Super Metroid

• Platforms: SNES, Wii, Wii U, 3DS, Nintendo Switch
• Developer: Nintendo R&D1, Intelligent Systems

Super Metroid could receive a remake at some point, and we're sure it'd be really cool, but at the same time, most fans agree that it's pretty much perfect in its original SNES form. 'Metroidvania' games don't get much better, and experts often cite it as the big inflection point that helped shape that subgenre into something recognizable alongside Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997).

It already had an inventory screen and an 'automap' that made exploration much easier. Moreover, Samus gained the ability to fire in all directions. Add an eye-catching color palette and you've got an all-timer that has barely aged. Perhaps the biggest negative is that, as suggested by its name, the story feels almost like a full reboot of the original title despite some late-game twists and turns.

1. Metroid Fusion

• Platforms: GBA, 3DS, Wii U, Nintendo Switch
• Developer: Nintendo R&D1

If we put 1990s nostalgia aside and consider the 2D side of the series more important than the Prime saga, it's easy to see Metroid Fusion as the absolute peak of the entire thing. Killer gameplay and controls? Check. Memorable setting and thick atmosphere? Check. Beautiful 2D sprites and music? Double check. Releasing this awesome side-scroller alongside Metroid Prime was incredibly impressive, even for Nintendo.

Fusion also drops the Metroid and Pirate-centric storylines and instead focuses on the X parasite without ignoring the series' past. As the direct result of the Metroids' recent extermination, the X parasites have grown in numbers, and Samus is soon attacked and infected. It's a weighty setup that pushes the universe forward and feels like a consequence of past games instead of a retread. It also establishes a fearsome new threat which turns some sequences into survival horror sections no one was prepared for.

If you're a sci-fi game lover, you should also check out our rankings of all the Borderlands, Doom, Halo, and Half-Life games. Then take it easy in between with some slower-paced, relaxing space exploration games.

Canadian actor William Shatner, famed for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek — and, in 2021, as the oldest person to travel to space at age 90 — teamed up with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson for an evening of cosmic zingers.

"It's a conversation that explores life," Tyson told Space.com ahead of the event. "The two of us together — we're using this as an occasion to explore elements of who and what we are, and how we became who we are."

The show, hosted by media company Future of Space and billed as a "one-night-only" event, originated from a spirited dialogue between Tyson and Shatner during a space-themed cruise to Antarctica last December.

"We were enjoying ourselves," Tyson recalled in the pre-show interview. "Crowds gathered — they wanted to hear us banter, hear us engage. Then the organizer said the proverbial, 'You guys should take this on the road.'"

"'And off my ship,'" Shatner quipped. "So here we are, doing it again."

As soon as the duo took the stage, the banter kicked into high gear. Seated in matching rocking chairs against a sweeping backdrop of the Milky Way, they entertained a near-capacity crowd for almost two hours with personal stories, comic jabs and moments of reflection.

Shatner, 94, recalled his early days as a struggling actor in Canada, "alone all the time, moving from city to city, and fetid bed from fetid bed."

"Am I the only one who doesn't know what 'fetid' means?" Tyson asked.

"Fetid means it didn't smell good — and it wasn't me," Shatner replied, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Then, Tyson, 66, recounted his own climb from walking dogs in the Bronx for 50 cents to becoming a prominent astrophysicist and popularizer of science on TV and radio. He also chronicled his film cameos — from Neil deBuck Weasel in Ice Age: Collision Course to Merlin in The Last Sharknado: It's About Time and the "astrofishicist" Neil DeBass Tyson in SpongeBob SquarePants.

"Can you believe that this highly educated Ph.D. has spent 15 minutes telling you about his bit parts in these incredibly bad movies?" Shatner asked the audience.

The show's title — "The Universe Is Absurd" — served as a thematic throughline.

"The word 'absurd,' in our everyday language, is crazy, stupid," Shatner said in the pre-show interview. "But absurd can also mean outlandishly true."

"Actually, when you think about it," Tyson added, "there are things we've discovered that it's hard — if not impossible — to wrap our brains around. Yet the data tell us, nonetheless, that it's true."

Onstage, Tyson mentioned his first book, Merlin’s Tour of the Universe, published as a graduate student in 1997 and re-released in an updated edition last October.

"Is Pluto back?" Shatner asked.

"No! It's not coming back," Tyson replied.

Tyson, who oversaw the redesign of the Hayden Planetarium’s solar system exhibit in 2000, famously excluded Pluto from the planetary lineup, grouping it instead with icy Kuiper Belt objects. This decision, made years before the International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006, sparked a deluge of criticism. Tyson has spoken and written extensively about the volume and intensity of the backlash, attributing some of the attachment to Pluto’s planethood to cultural factors, such as Pluto being the only planet discovered by an American astronomer (Clyde Tombaugh) and its namesake, Mickey Mouse’s dog. Though not involved in the IAU ruling, Tyson has remained an unapologetic defender of Pluto’s demotion, calling himself an "accessory" to the decision.

The distant orb remained a recurring punchline throughout the evening. When Tyson invited Shatner to pick any topic for a soundbite demo, an audience member shouted, "Pluto!"

"More than half of Pluto is made of ice," Tyson said. "If it were where Earth is right now, heat from the sun would evaporate that ice and it would grow a tail. And that is no kind of behavior for a planet." He mimed a mic drop to cheers and whistles.

Shatner recounted his suborbital mission with Blue Origin in 2021, echoing the emotional post-flight realization he'd had about Earth's fragility.

"It's a vulnerable, precious piece of rock that supplies us with life, and we have destroyed it," he said. "I bawled my head off, and I realized I was in mourning for our Earth — and that's what my flight did for me."

"So what you're saying is, we should take all the leaders of the world, send them into space," Tyson quipped, prompting another round of applause.

Asked in the pre-show interview if he would return to space, Shatner said, "You know, I had such a meaningful experience. Maybe I tend to think of it like a love affair. Going back to that love affair? Maybe not. It was such a great moment."

Tyson, when asked the same question, said he would go — but only if there's a destination. "If I want to go into space, I want there to be a destination in mind, not just up and back," he told Space.com. "Go to the moon, Mars and beyond. Bring the fam."

"Would you really?" Shatner asked. "Bring the fam to the moon?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Because you'll be obliterated!"

Though promoted as a one-time-only show, talks of future appearances are already underway. When asked whether their "bromance" might continue, Tyson said, "No reason why it shouldn't."

"I'm feeling more passionately in love with him as we speak," Shatner deadpanned.

With its Lovecraftian cosmic horror and respectful nods to Paul W.S. Anderson's "Event Horizon" and John Carpenter's "The Thing," director Flying Lotus' "Ash" is a phantasmagoric grindhouse-style '90s throwback reminiscent of movies like Vincenzo Natali's "Cube" and Richard Stanley's "Hardware".

Delivered to theaters on March 21, "Ash" is now reaching out to a far wider audience to dazzle them with its mind-bending antics. We were fortunate enough to sit down with Grammy-winning musician and filmmaker Flying Lotus, who directed "Ash", to pick his brains about his inspirations for this cosmic nightmare of a motion picture.

"Ash" stars Aaron Paul ("Breaking Bad," "Need for Speed") and Eiza González ("Baby Driver") in a chilling tale of a doomed exoplanet expedition and rescue, where an unlikely extra-terrestrial presence has already staked a terraforming claim to the hostile territory. When amnesia claims our main character, Riya, we descend into a nightmarish optical fantasia with Flying Lotus also providing the atmospheric synthwave score as the otherworldly mystery unfolds.

"The script [by Jonni Remmler] was brought to me and it was significantly different than what was on the screen," Flying Lotus tells Space.com. "I was really attracted to the mystery and what was going on and why. A lot of it felt like a video game to me when I read it and I'm a big gamer too so it really touched me in that way."

As preparation for directing this ambitious indie film, Flying Lotus immersed himself in all the essentials of the genre hoping to create a hypnotic visual feast to dazzle the eye and mind.

"I wanted to try to stay away from 'Alien' as much as possible," he notes. “You can only do so much in the sci-fi world without referencing 'Alien' a little. And 'Event Horizon,' I tried to stay away from that. One that was really big for 'Ash' was 'Suspiria' and a lot of that kind of theatrical color, and trying to get psychedelic with the colors and the negative space, playing with unjustified light sources. The John Carpenter stuff was super influential, particularly 'Halloween'. I feel like there was a moment I straight out lifted right out of 'Halloween.' Like when the alien gets up before the final confrontation. I tried to pull from different things that weren’t obvious choices. A lot of video games like 'Silent Hill,' 'Resident Evil,' any of those classic first-person shooters."

Aaron Paul and Eiza González made for a formidable acting duo starring in this harrowing and haunting sci-fi project, casting choices that initially made Flying Lotus a bit apprehensive.

"I was really nervous at first. I think it was pretty obvious, but eventually you get into a groove and start to understand how you can push people and they can push back. Everyone trusts each other over time. They were probably wondering if they could trust me to carry this movie. For the first time I felt like these two people cared about this project as much as I do. I've always wished for something like that. Aaron was fully committed, even beyond the script. Eiza was so into it because she's in every frame so it was a massive undertaking for her."

With "Ash" being helmed by a notable Grammy-winning musician, rapper, and producer, loyal fans knew that the movie would be injected with a killer original electronic score and audiences were not disappointed.

"I started writing the music as soon as I got the script," he recalls. "But when it was time to edit the movie none of it worked. The whole vibe, the soundscape, was totally different. I ended up having to go to New Zealand to do the music. It was just me and my laptop so I really tried to hone in on a sound I could do myself. I thought of John Carpenter a lot because when he was doing 'Halloween' and some of his other movies he was up against it. Had no time, no money, no people.

"I tried to get into that spirit and even hit him up. We talked on Zoom a bit and it was awesome. It was a situation of only having my computer and a MIDI controller, which was ultimately very inspiring and liberating. I've gotten attached to my L.A. studio where I have every keyboard you can imagine, so it was going back to basics, back to grandma's house where all I had is a MIDI controller and some headphones and I loved it. I was on another planet in New Zealand. Alone and isolated. I felt like Riya, having to creatively survive in this environment. It was a challenge but when we got to the music and sound it was definitely the most fun."

"Ash" is available to stream on Shudder now.

"Cocoon" made more money than Harrison Ford cop drama "Witness", beloved kids' adventure "The Goonies", and Roger Moore's rather less beloved final outing as James Bond, "A View to a Kill". Forty years on from its original release, this sci-fi precursor to "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" feels like one of the most unlikely box office smashes of all time, its blockbuster success defying all conventional logic.

The film's lead characters were almost exclusively in their 70s, while its other headline star, Steve Guttenberg, was best known as that guy out of "Police Academy". Although his mermaid comedy "Splash" had done good business the year before, 30-year-old director Ron Howard was, for many, still Richie from "Happy Days". Yet here he was directing a film about friendly extra-terrestrials that had no action set-pieces to speak of, and very little (human) peril.

But describing "Cocoon" as a film from another time doesn't provide the whole picture, seeing as it doesn't really belong in any era at all. In fact, with its unlikely mix of aliens, life after death, interplanetary romance, and dolphins, it arguably belongs in a sub-genre all of its own.

The connection between "Back to the Future" and "Cocoon" runs way deeper than their appearance among 1985's highest-grossing movies. "Back to the Future" director Robert Zemeckis had been attached to direct the film (based on a then-unpublished novel by David Saperstein), until execs at 20th Century Fox got it into their heads that his "Romancing the Stone" shoot was "out of control", and fired him from "Cocoon". As it turned out, Zemeckis's adventure yarn was a big hit, and — as the director explained in Variety — "After they saw the movie, they wanted to hire me back on 'Cocoon'. I just sort of kind of politely declined after that."

As well as being essential for preserving pop culture history as we know it (imagine a world without Marty McFly, Doc Brown, and time-travelling DeLoreans), this would turn out to be a major turning point for the up-and-coming Howard's career.

On set, he described "Cocoon" as "Close Encounters on Golden Pond", referencing both the Spielberg sci-fi classic, and Oscar-winning 1981 weepie "On Golden Pond", which starred Hollywood legends Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn. A more accurate summary, however, might have been "ET for seniors", particularly as Spielberg's other tale of alien visitation (released three years earlier) was still sitting pretty at the top of the all-time box office chart.

Just as the eponymous extra-terrestrial changes the lives of Elliott and co in "ET", the friendly aliens in "Cocoon" — who, coincidentally, possess similar resurrectionary gifts — have a profound effect on the residents of the Sunny Shores Villas Retirement Community in St Petersburg, Florida. These Antarean visitors have returned to Earth to recover their compatriots, buried in cocoons at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico since they evacuated Atlantis millennia ago. Having enlisted the help of ocean tour guide Jack Bonner (Guttenberg), the aliens prepare the cocoons' occupants for the long voyage home by submerging them in a swimming pool charged with restorative life force. Unfortunately, the Antareans don't count on a trio of mischievous elderly chaps sneaking in for illicit dips that leave them feeling like much younger men.

''I had some reservations because of the story's similarities to 'Splash', 'Close Encounters' and 'ET'," Howard admitted to the New York Times back in 1985. "In fact, that bothered me quite a bit, but it's so rare that you have an opportunity to work with these kinds of characters that I decided it was worth doing.

"In the first script [the retirement home residents] were a fairly indistinguishable group,'' he added. ''They were always together, and they almost always got along. We started building up a bit more conflict within the group and sharpening the individual stories.''

While Fox wanted to play up the sci-fi elements of the story, Howard stuck to his guns by keeping his focus on the eight pensioners. It's not unusual to see older actors in big movies, but these days they're usually reprising legacy roles (like Harrison Ford in various "Star Wars", "Blade Runner" and "Indiana Jones" sequels), or an elder Hollywood statesperson helping out the young 'uns with some hard-earned gravitas (see Robert in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier").

"Cocoon" was different. These veteran stars were establishing new roles in an unfamiliar franchise, and — rather than being ageing action heroes — actually playing old. (Until the cosmic swimming pool worked its magic, at least.)

That young whippersnapper of a director managed to entice an eclectic selection of actors, who had — as producer Richard D Zanuck put it — "maybe 400 years of experience, combined." There were past and future Oscar winners (Don Ameche, Maureen Stapleton, and Jessica Tandy), a bona fide Broadway legend (Gwen Verdon), and a renowned character actor who'd been aged up from 50 to play one of the gang. (Wilford Brimley would later become the subject of a meme comparing his appearance in "Cocoon" with other actors at the age of 50.)

There's no question "Cocoon" is a weird, sometimes jarring, mish-mash of themes. One minute it's dealing with cancer, dementia, and mortality, the next it's newly sprightly protagonists are performing cannonballs, seducing younger women, and — in the film's most '80s moment — breakdancing in a nightclub. (Ameche, who won an Academy Award for his performance as the debonair Art Selwyn, later said that, "Almost all the shots in that scene are me.")

There are scuba-diving sequences with trained dolphins, aliens wearing human skin disguises, and a weird extra-terrestrial sex scene in which a glowing Kitty (Tahnee Welch) "shows" herself to Guttenberg's confused (but enthusiastic) Jack. And at the end of the film, when the golden oldies accept lead Antarean Walter (Brian Dennehy)'s offer of eternal life on his homeworld, their efforts to rendezvous with his spaceship result in a very slow, barely thrilling race from authorities who believe they've joined some sinister cult.

And yet for all "Cocoon"'s changes of gear and over-generous servings of schmaltz, it's easy to see why so many cinemagoers fell in love with it. The performances, particularly from the older members of the cast, are uniformly excellent, and it asks some big questions about life, death, and the bits in between. Would you leave your family behind in exchange for immortality?

Ironically, the film's biggest misstep is the sci-fi element Fox had been so keen to accentuate. While it's no problem believing that the luminescent Antareans (realised by an Oscar-winning team from Industrial Light & Magic) can fly and live forever, their altruistic personalities never quite ring true. So, when an army of residents from the retirement home breaks into the pool and drains its miraculous energy, Walter displays no obvious anger or resentment, despite his wasted trip and the cost to his submerged friends. Maybe the Antareans are just better than us…

Or perhaps they'd simply fallen in love with Earth, seeing as they would return three years later — along with most of the original cast — in 1988's "Cocoon: The Return". Unfortunately, the sequel was much less successful, failing to capture the unique magic that had turned the original film into a one-of-a-kind smash hit. They don't make 'em like they used to.

This thrilling Paraboles multimedia performance, produced in association with the MIT Space Exploration Initiative and Zero-G, will gather a brave group of professionals collectively drawing on experience from Cirque du Soleil, National Geographic and NASA to stage the uplifting event. As the space economy blossoms, Tsakos is aiming to deliver culturally relevant content into the expanding realm of aerospace innovation.

"I'm a producer, director, designer, and performer and I create live multimedia theatrical shows," Tsakos told Space.com. "I integrated technology early on in the 2000s with projection mapping and leveraging CGI with the performers on stage before it was common. From there I got to open the G-20 Summit and create shows for the Discovery Channel and Tribeca Film Festival and worked with Cirque du Soleil and performed at the Super Bowl. So I've been on this string of extraordinary experiences and throughout, my moonshot was always to create shows for space."

Set aboard Zero-G's specially modified Boeing 727-200 dubbed "G-Force One," Paraboles will be presented and filmed along 25 gravity-defying parabolic arcs, with each segment promising 22 seconds of free-floating microgravity conditions. A trio of skilled performers and two cinematographers will work in multiple zero-G zones sometime this fall, recording the sublime poetry of motion in a transcendent environment unhindered by the earthly bounds of gravity.

Tsakos was unsure of what that notion might evolve into as a reality, as she was enticed by the pure poetry of space as most dreamers and artists have fallen prey to.

"So I enrolled in the New Space Economy course at MIT that allowed me to really create this bold, ambitious 100-year plan with no limits." she told Space.com. "Where we're envisioning our own international performance space station and the evolution of performing arts on the moon and Mars. Then we reverse engineered, and asked where do we start? We start aboard the Zero-G flights and we have to start training and developing new forms of theatrical art. I've always been interested in stretching the performing art form and going past the phase of experimentation."

The result of this endeavor will be a cinematic art film, short documentary, and an immersive installation, which will premiere in 2026. Tsakos has engaged global audiences in the millions, from Miami to Montreux, with the goal of redefining live performances from high above Earth to the limits of imagination and possibility.

Tsakos has undergone astronautical training, including the Lunar-G Impedance Study at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Neutral Buoyancy training at NASA Ames while at Singularity University, MIT's New Space Economy program, and NASA L'SPACE Academy where her team was awarded NASA seed funding to develop an innovative space food system, in preparation for this spirited enterprise.

"All the pieces are in place, the team is ready. Much like how movie studios use animatics to shape cinematic timing and flow, I've storyboarded the experience because it doesn't have language. I use movements, motion, music dynamics, and visuals to take you through this experience. Paraboles is a poetic, cinematic, dance theater, research-based experiment and it delves into the tension between holding on and letting go."

"It follows three characters holding onto their stories, beliefs, and memories. We're leveraging the force of the hypergravity and microgravity as parts of the dramaturgy and the narrative to create this experience to be filmed aboard the Zero-G plane. Then all the beauty and the worldbuilding will happen in post-production."

Paraboles was born two years ago and the group is scheduled to fly this fall with MIT's Space Exploration Initiative with Zero-G as a sponsor, in conjunction with local Miami cultural partners including Live Arts Miami, Miami Light Project, and O Cinema, which is where the piece will premiere. Creativity America is also onboard as a national creative partner.

On the educational and scientific fronts, they'll have the beginning of a training curriculum for artists who want to work in that environment.

"We're also pairing our performance with science. We have a bio-astronautic officer who's overseen payloads for Virgin Galactic and SpaceX and even the ISS and she will be tracking our biometrics so we’ll have some actual published research." Tsakos adds. "End of July or early August is when we'll start a 15-day intensive training regimen that I'm super excited about. We’ll be training in wind tunnels at iFLY here in Miami and underwater at the MDC Aquatic Center, and then aerobatic aircraft at the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences in Melbourne.”

For more information on the Paraboles project visit their official site.

On Episode 166 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik broadcast live from the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference in Orlando, discussing the latest Starship explosion, missing universe matter discoveries, and answering listener questions about space camp experiences, astronaut communications, and the future of space exploration.

Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

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Space news of the week

• SpaceX's Starship explodes in Texas during preparations for 10th test flight
• SpaceX Starship S36 Explodes at Starbase, Texas | 4K 60FPS - High Quality Audio
• Starship Static Fire Update | SpaceX
• 'The models were right!' Astronomers locate universe's 'missing' matter in the largest cosmic structures
• 'Artificial intelligence is not a miracle cure': Nobel laureate raises questions about AI-generated image of black hole spinning at the heart of our galaxy
• Watch Blue Origin launch 6 people to suborbital space on June 21
• Summer solstice 2025 brings changing seasons to Earth on June 20

Model Falcon 9!

Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes' stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.

About This Week In Space

This Week in Space covers the new space age. Every Friday we take a deep dive into a fascinating topic. What's happening with the new race to the moon and other planets? When will SpaceX really send people to Mars?

Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.

That one small step was just the beginning, paving the way for a succession of shorts and feature-length films that have been proud to wear their sci-fi credentials on their Space Ranger sleeves.

So with "Elio", the studio's latest journey to outer space, beaming into movie theaters around the world right now, we look back on Pixar's previous adventures on the final frontier.

Toy Story saga (1995-present)

Buzz Lightyear may not be an actual flying toy but Star Command's most famous Space Ranger has swallowed enough of the sci-fi Kool-Aid to believe he's the real deal. Besides, telling those cute three-eyed aliens that the hallowed "Claw" is not their lord and master would probably violate some kind of prime directive.

"Toy Story 2" adds to Buzz's space opera credentials, with riffs on "Star Wars" and "2001: A Space Odyssey", and an encounter with the evil Emperor Zurg that reveals some Skywalker-esque heritage.

Buzz also headlined his own "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command" cartoon, though the 2D animation wasn't made by Pixar.

Lifted (2006)

Pixar's first encounter with actual aliens was this short, which accompanied "Ratatouille" into cinemas. Written and directed by Oscar-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom ("Terminator 2: Judgment Day", "Jurassic Park", "The Phantom Menace"), the dialogue-free "Lifted" tells the story of a botched alien abduction from the alien's point of view.

It's effectively an extra-terrestrial driving test, as a hapless pupil does their best to levitate a sleeping human test subject from their bed to the open hatch of a flying saucer. The stern instructor displays a remarkable amount of patience as the student bashes the unfortunate victim against every solid surface in sight — even alien beings capable of traversing the cosmos can have bad days at the office.

WALL-E (2008)

While "WALL-E" adheres to Pixar's traditional family-friendly remit, it's also an unflinchingly bleak portrayal of a planet Earth rendered inhospitable by rampant consumerism. WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Class) is the last of the robots clearing up the mess, but he leaves it all behind — including his cockroach BFF — when he falls in love with a sleek, futuristic robot named EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator).

With the exception of the couple's beautiful zero-g dance, the space-set scenes can't quite live up to the largely dialogue-free first act, in which the relentlessly optimistic WALL-E trundles his way through skyscrapers of trash. But this is a post-apocalyptic masterpiece the whole family can enjoy — and you know that R2-D2 would love it.

BURN-E (2008)

Neither a prequel nor a sequel, this short (released as a DVD/Blu-ray extra with "WALL-E") runs parallel to the main film. The eponymous BURN-E (Basic Utility Repair Nano Engineer) is one of the vast legion of droids making life a little too easy for the increasingly sedentary residents of the Axiom starliner.

He's called into action when a piece of space debris — dislodged from a planetary ring by WALL-E's trailing hand — breaks a light fitting on the ship's hull. Cue a succession of slapstick-heavy mishaps, as WALL-E's well-documented heroics make BURN-E's life hell. As a result, BURN-E may be the only entity in the known universe with a reason to dislike WALL-E.

"BURN-E" director Angus MacLane went on to helm "Lightyear" — more on that below.

La Luna (2011)

The short that joined "Brave" on the big screen isn't going to win any prizes for its scientific rigour. It is, however, a very sweet fairy-tale from Enrico Casarosa, who'd go on to direct "Luca".

In a plot that discards all traditional notions of scale, a kid named Bambino climbs a ladder to the Moon, and learns that its surface covered in hundreds of glowing stars — imagine a particularly luminescent breakfast cereal and you won't be far off. Along with his father and grandfather, Bambino gets to work sweeping up the stars in a cute, but wildly inaccurate, explanation for the phases of the Moon.

Seriously, did anyone stop to think what might happen if the kid decides he wants to quit the family business?

Lightyear (2022)

The story of the fictional movie character who inspired a fictional cartoon that inspired the fictional child's plaything that believed he was a Space Ranger in the original "Toy Story" — and subsequently inspired a real-life toy and movie — "Lightyear" is by some distance the most meta entry in the Pixar filmography. It also indulges in some "Interstellar"-esque entanglements with relativity, as Buzz's mission to test a new hyperdrive forces him to watch his friends age before his eyes.

Unfortunately, those lofty first-act ambitions give way to something much more formulaic, as Buzz joins forces with the usual ragtag bunch of misfits to battle the evil Emperor Zurg. It's a strange mishmash of high-concept sci-fi and kid-friendly banter, and doesn't really succeed at either. Indeed, come the end credits, you never believe that this version of Buzz Lightyear would be idolised by an eight-year-old kid.

"Elio" is in cinemas from June 20. The Pixar back catalogue, including all the films mentioned above, is available on Disney+ in the US and UK.