Welcome Message | 'Starship Troopers' big-screen reboot coming from 'District 9' director Neill Blomkamp — would you like to know more? | The special effects in Netflix's 'The Electric State' look amazing, but we can't stop thinking about the animatronic Mr Peanut cameo (video)
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Hello there, and welcome to Watch This Space, your guide to the best sci-fi entertainment in the cosmos!
The highly-anticipated sci-fi dark comedy Mickey 17 hit theaters this month to rave reviews and a disappointing box office. I’d shout at you all for not supporting non-franchised sci-fi movies more, but I haven’t been to see it yet either — I’ll go next week, and so will you!
The Electric State dropped onto Netflix this month, answering the question of what happens when you spend $320 million on creating a sentient Mr. Peanut robot. The answer? It haunts our very souls. It was also confirmed that District 9 director Neill Blomkamp will be heading up a Starship Troopers reboot, which simultaneously fills me with excitement and dread — I love Blomkamp’s work, but the original movie is damn close to perfect (even if it strays from the source material). He’s got his work cut out for him to live up to the expectations is all I’m saying.
If you’re looking for something to watch that won’t haunt your nightmares, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds just started filming season 4 before season 3 even airs, so now is a great time to grab Paramount+ and catch up on maybe the best Star Trek show ever… probably too soon to call that, but it’s up there.
Outside of the news, we had an excellent retrospective on Jupiter Ascending, gazing back ten years to look at the movie’s few strengths and many failings. We also had a warp-stop tour of all the various faster-than-light travel methods that sci-fi franchises use to cheat their way around the universal speed limit. One commenter rightfully pointed out that we skipped Warhammer 40K’s Immaterium and they’re right, that’s on us. The Inquisition has taken the author away for questioning.
Speaking of Warhammer 40K, Space Marine 3 has been announced! Space Marine 2 was an absolute blast and one of the best Warhammer 40K games to date, so I can’t wait for the follow-up. Although given how long AAA games take to make these days, we’re going to have a wait a few years at least.
While we’re waiting, there are plenty more exciting articles from the past month that I haven’t had time to shout out below. Killing machines who just want to watch TV all day, Hawaiian pizza in space, and a piece on 2009’s Moon starring Sam Rockwell — he’s the best actor in any movie he’s in, though in this case, he’s basically the only actor. Check them out below.
I’ll see you next month and remember — the only good bug is a dead bug!
See you out there,
Ian Stokes, Entertainment Editor, Space
P.S. Got any feedback for us? Drop us an email at community@space.com. Be nice, or you will be turned into a servitor.
Lost my heart to a Starship Trooper — Watch this Space
After a long wait and a bunch of disappointing straight-to-DVD sequels, Starship Troopers is still trying to live forever with a theatrical reboot now in development.
SpaceX sets new reuse record with spy satellite launch | Space Quiz! What element do scientists think predominantly filled the early universe? | Dark energy is even stranger than we thought
Created for znamenski.spacecom@blogger.com | Web Version
SpaceX set a new rocket-reuse record early Friday morning (March 21).A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base Friday, on the NROL-57 mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The rocket's first stage also lofted the SPHEREx space telescope and PUNCH solar probes for NASA on March 11, according to a SpaceX mission description. NROL-57 was therefore the booster's second launch in a little over nine days, besting the previous Falcon 9 turnaround record of 14 days.
New results from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) suggest that the unknown force accelerating the expansion of the universe isn't what we believed it to be. This hints that our best theory of the universe's evolution, the standard model of cosmology, could be wrong.
A partial solar eclipse will occur at sunrise in North America and mid-morning across Europe on March 29, 2025. One of the most cost effective and safest ways to view the eclipse or for general safe sungazing is with a pair of the best solar eclipse glasses.
(ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Carniani et al./S. Schouws et al/JWST: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Phill Cargile (CfA))
Astronomers have found oxygen in the farthest, and thus the earliest, galaxy ever seen. This marks the most distant detection of oxygen ever made by humanity.
Engineers and astronomers at the University of Utah have designed a unique new kind of telescope lens: a flat lens with microscopic etchings to refract light. If the concept can be scaled up, these lenses could one day replace the heavier, bulkier lenses and mirrors typically used in telescopes, particularly those of professional observatories on the ground and in space. Down the line, they could also be implemented on amateur telescopes, the team says.
Scientists are confident Mars was once abundant with water, as seen in massive flood-carved channels, ancient river valleys, and minerals that form only in liquid water. But how the Red Planet lost its water, leaving behind the arid world we see today, is still up for debate.
