Space, the final frontier. A feline starship embarks on a mission to boldly go where no cat has gone before.

Cats in Space is a short film created by Dastoli Digital that boldly takes cats on a Star Trek-like mission.

via Nerdcore

Sci-fi author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke predicted in this 1974 TV interview that in 2001, regular people would have personal computers that communicate and retrieve information using a system that sounds rather like the Internet.

He will have in his own house…a console through which he can talk to his friendly local computer and get all the information he needs for his everyday life, like his bank statements, theatre reservations—all the information you need in the course of living in a complex modern society. This will be in a compact form in his own house. You”ll have a television screen…and a keyboard and he’ll talk to the computer and get information from it. And he’ll take it as much for granted as we take the telephone.

The interview is from the archives of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

via Explore & Open Culture

In February of last year the we wrote about the successful Kickstarter campaign to install a RoboCop statue in Detroit. More than a year later, project organizer Jerry Paffendorf has announced that the statue is about to be cast in bronze. Hollywood-based robot replica builder Fred Barton has already built a 1:1 replica of RoboCop. It is currently being 3D scanned and scaled up to a 10 foot tall foam form at Across the Board Creations in Canada. Once that process is completed, the statue will be cast at Venus Bronze Works in Detroit. No word yet on where exactly the statue will be installed.

via The Detroit News

thanks to Shelby DeNike for the tip!

photo by Fred Barton

This tentacular 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea poster is by Australian illustrator Ken Taylor.

via OMG Posters!

“Ruin” is an incredible short animated chase film that is set in a post apocalyptic future. The film is written and directed by Wes Ball and produced by Oddball Animation.

via io9

French comic book artist Jean Giraud, AKA “Moebius” died on March 10 at the age of 73. Giraud specialized in sci-fi and fantasy comics and graphic novels, including The Silver Surfer: Parable and Blueberry. His unique visual style can also be seen in a number of sci-fi and fantasy films for which he provided concept art and storyboards: Alien, Willow, Tron, and The Fifth Element. For more on the influence and works of Giraud, see this remembrance by Neil Gaiman and this obituary by Comics Alliance.

photo by Jarek Obwazanek, image from The Incal by Jean Giraud

The Sci-Fi Film Alphabet by graphic designer Stephen Wildish is his latest poster in an ongoing series. This one will quiz your sci-fi movie knowledge.

All of his challenging film alphabets to date have been posted on our site and cards, prints and posters of the alphabets are available for purchase.

My longtime friend Will Viharo (aka “Will the Thrill”) has recently co-authored a book with Scott Fulks titled It Came From Hangar 18. Illustrator Michael Fleming created the lovely art for the book’s cover.

The book is described as “the most action-packed, erotic science fiction epic since The Bible – but with even more sex and violence! IT mixes hardcore sex with hard science, conspiracy theories with conspicuous satire, mythological monsters with mutated mobsters, flesh-eating feminists with voyeuristic vampires, and creates a potent literary Tiki cocktail pulsating with pulp, planets, pulchritude, politics, and a plethora of other “p” words. This is essential end-of-the-world desert-island flashlight-under-the-covers reading, the ultimate B movie in literary form, and the most tantalizing textbook in the annals of anarchic academia.”

Here’s the book’s trailer which was filmed in various locales in Alameda, California (including my favorite local tiki lounge, Forbidden Island):

Co-author Will Viharo at the official book release party held at Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge on March 1, 2012.

images via It Came From Hangar 18

Actor Guy Pearce plays cybernetics pioneer Peter Weyland in this imagined TED Talk from the year 2023. The video is a viral promotion for the upcoming Alien prequel Prometheus, directed by Ridley Scott.

Comics illustrator Ryan Andrews has been creating pixelized versions of Star Wars characters in his own adorable style. “I’d like to do all the main characters from ep 4 first,” he says, “then move on to minor characters until I have basically the whole cast…within reason.”. You can follow his progress via his blog.

It’s totally worth mentioning that Ryan makes some fantastic comics too. You should check out “Our Blood Stained Roof” and “Nothing is Forgotten” online for free… Don’t everyone thank me at once.

At this year’s 11th annual SF Sketchfest, comedian Dana Gould wore a Planet of the Apes Dr. Zaius costume and performed a hilarious standup routine based on Hal Holbrook’s 1950s Mark Twain one man show, Mark Twain Tonight! The performance occurred on January 20, during John Hodgman’s show “An Evening Of My Expertise” at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco. The performance was in response to a challenge that John Hodgeman presented to the Internet back in December:

THE FIRST AND BEST TO PROVIDE TO ME video of Maurice Evans doing Zaius doing Twain, whether FOUND FOOTAGE or NEWLY CREATED FOOTAGE will get a personally signed copy of MY BOOK and something else from my survival bunker that I will determine later.

via John Hodgman

“The Future”, the latest music video by The Limousines, is filled with catchy hooks, DeLoreans, and disturbingly morbid endings. Sort of Back To the Future meets No Country For Old Men. “The Future”, which focuses it’s eye on how things end, eventually led to the band’s choice to leave their label:

We left the label. Gave it a year and weren’t happy so we left. They said no to the video so we made it with our own money and no help from them.

In case you missed it before, be sure to check out their fantastic video for Internet Killed The Video Star.

Iron Sky is a new feature-length sci-fi dark comedy set in 2018 about moon Nazis invading Earth. The films tagline: “Get Ready, The Fourth Reich Is Here.” According to the plot, Nazis from WWII have been secretly hanging out on the moon since 1945. Iron Sky is directed by Timo Vuorensola and opens in theatres on April 4, 2012.

The Nazis set up a secret base on the moon in 1945 where they hide out and plan to return to power in 2018.

via Success is Not an Option

photos by Tarja Jakunaho

Irene Gallo over at Tor.com has posted a wonderful roundup of sci-fi and fantasy illustrations that are inspired by classic works of art.

image 1 by Luke Radl, image 2 by John Mattos, image 3 by Paolo Rivera, image 4 by Tristan Elwell, image 5 by Michael Whelan

San Francisco-based science illustrator Jenny Parks has creatively mixed felines with science fiction in Doctor Mew, her 2010 illustrated series of Doctor Who-inspired cats. Doctor Mew posters and buttons are available for purchase.

TurnStyle News recently interviewed Parks about Doctor Mew:

Doctor Mew was born years before the new Doctor Who series began in 2006. I was a fan of (perhaps obsessed with) the old show when I was a teenager, and I did a lot of Doctor Who fan art at the time. The inspiration to make them all cats wasn’t something new to me, however. When I was much younger, I started drawing my favorite characters as cats for the simple reason that I didn’t draw people too well yet, so it was natural to me to turn them into cats instead. The logical progression from there once I became a Whovian was to do the same. I did find though, that there was something inherit about the connection between Doctor Who fans and cat lovers, and so I kept improving on the Doctor Mew image until it became the one it is today.

via io9 and Forbidden Planet International

“The Silent City” is an upcoming post apocalyptic web video series in which a lone man in New York City fights to survive (trailer). The series will include filmmaking tutorials on such subjects as: how turn an actor into a zombie, and how to destroy the Empire State Building using 3D effects software. Series writer and director Rubidium Wu is raising funds for the project on Kickstarter.

When an unexplained event decimates the human race, the survivors fight for their lives in the ruins of civilization.

A decade later, the dangers of the new world taken their toll. Hopelessness and isolation have felled many of the original survivors, and now one man walks alone, determined to endure against all odds.

via Boing Boing

The Star Trek Electronic Door Chime by ThinkGeek is a motion sensitive door chime styled after the Star Trek wall communicator panels from the original series. The chime makes either the starship Enterprise door opening “swoosh” sound, or the red alert siren.

From Shove Mink of Croshame, the creator of that wonderful crocheted Krampus we posted about recently, comes the easy-to-make slip-on Star Trek-inspired Crocheted Spock Ears. She’s even included a pattern for them which she estimates will take half hour to produce.

While we might not be traversing far-off galaxies, transporting ourselves onto to Klingon spaceships, or shuffling off to the holodeck for exasperating Sherlock Holmes RPGs, many of the objects people use today – cell phones, video conferencing, GPS devices, stun guns — were predicted by Star Trek many decades ago.

Well, Christmas has come and gone and you’ve already gotten all the fancy stun guns and tricorders and communicators your heart could desire, so why not try out some of that fabulous Star Trek fashion sense with my pattern for crocheted Spock Ears?

images via Croshame

In order, here are the debate videos:

The trailer has been released for Prometheus directed by Ridley Scott, a prequel to his 1979 sci-fi horror film Alien.

Visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott returns to the genre he helped define, creating an original science fiction epic set in the most dangerous corners of the universe. The film takes a team of scientists and explorers on a thrilling journey that will test their physical and mental limits and strand them on a distant world, where they will discover the answers to our most profound questions and to life’s ultimate mystery.

Prometheus scheduled for release on June 8, 2012.

Minnesota-based post-production company Splice Here created the humorous Splice Holiday Video 2011 as their sci-fi holiday video greeting. Shannon Pettini acted as the creative director for this short that tells a humorous tale of Santa trying to deliver gifts to surprised space station workers.

via Kuriositas

CoDdesigns and rtofirefly took familiar doctors from pop culture, like Doctor Who and Dr. Dre, and combined them with the Head-in-a-Jar gag from sci-fi animated television show Futurama to make Doctorama.

Did somebody call a doctor? Maybe back when they had their full working bodies they could have been good use but now in the distant future they are useless but funny heads in a jar!

A tee-shirt has been made from the original design:

images via CoDdesigns

via Shirtoid

YouTuber crysknife007 has isolated the ambient engine hum of the Starship Enterprise as heard in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The sound is looped repeatedly into a 24 hour long YouTube movie.

One of my favorite things about the Star Trek franchise are all the great ambient sounds that represent the engine noise on the various ships. My favorite ambient noise from the whole series is the engine idling noise in TNG. I have cleaned up a sample from the show and then looped it for 24 hours. Great for ambiance and imagining that you’re in deep space.

via io9

“Page 23″ is an eerie sci-fi short film that takes places in the false rooms of an IKEA-style furniture catalog. The film won the jury prize and audience award at the 2011 48 Hour Film Project in Utrecht, Netherlands. “Page 23″ is by Jeroen Houben, Tim Arts and Stefan van den Boogaard.

Advertisements usually display unruffled domestic happiness. But, as we will see in Page 23, this world looks too good to be true. Behind the beaming smile of fashion models loom adultery and the stifling daily routine.

Thanks to Joel Betancourt for the tip

The Cthulhu Christmas Calendar is an H. P. Lovecraft-themed advent calendar app by UK-based Red Wasp Design. It is available for iPhone/iPad and Android.

via Coudal Partners