The Mandalorian is set after the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order. We follow the travails of a lone gunfighter in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic.

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This is what you get when you search VUDU for free science fiction movies. The plot is banal enough. A spacecraft is discovered in Colorado that is 14,000 years old. A linguist and her lover are hired to read an inscription and then summarily paid and told to go home by the mysterious and unlikeable head of the project, Richard Kontral.

This description in no way does justice to how bad the script is. My first theory was that a rich father gave his fourteen year old son a chance to create a movie for his birthday present. But it's really just a low budget sequel to an obscure cult film called Moontrap.

The lead character, Scout, is played by Sarah Butler who evidently rose to wordly fame in I Spit on Your Grave. Every line that Scout says to the villain includes adolescent sexual insults. The villain is I believe a washed up actor from an old sitcom called The Nanny. This guy is really hard to watch, the acting is as bad as the script.

There's a scene of robots fighting that looks like it was choreographed with Rockem Sockem Robots, a toy from my childhood. If you're a collector of bad movies, this is a true gem.

It was tough to watch, but our free streaming was slim pickings that night. I wanted to watch Day of the Triffids a classic bad movie from the '60's , but got outvoted. At least that movie was based on an interesting SF novel by John Wyndham. Maybe tomorrow night.

Here in 2019 the overwhelming majority of all currency is virtual and commerce on any appreciable scale occurs electronically. But consider a sci-fi/space opera setting where reasonably fast FTL is commonplace, but FTL communications are not possible. Obviously one could still "communicate" at FTL with a courier, but you would still be limited to the speed of the courier ship. You certainly wouldn't have instantaneous communication between star systems, meaning there can be no interstellar electronic banking: transactions would take years to complete.

The Traveller tabletop RPG uses exactly this setup: FTL travel is common, FTL communication does not exist. In Traveller you have the Third Imperium minting currency that is accepted essentially everywhere, the currency is Imperial Credits and they're printed on polymer bills. The result is an effectively cash-only economy.

But what if your setting has no centralized government? Do people revert to using gold? Are there fleets of merchant ships schlepping precious metals around the cosmos, as if the American Old West has been transplanted into space? Would they come up with a cryptographic solution? Could something like a blockchain work without instantaneous communication cross the entire network that accepts the cryptocurrency?

What if quantum computing is widespread in your setting, rendering most forms of encryption obsolete? That would seem to eliminate the blockchain based option, FTL comms or not, and once again send us back to needing a fiat currency, or a gold standard.

Years and Years is a British political near-future soft SF programme. Being British it's one short series - 6 episodes, 1 hour per episode. Mainstream broadcast SF isn't going to push all the boundaries, but this has some neat ideas. The political stuff feels realistic enough to work.

Emma Thompson is always impressive and she does excellent work here as a populist, fascist, politician. Jessica Hynes plays Edith with suitable intensity.

Here are a bunch of links:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8694364/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[spoilers] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/years-and-years-1220415

[spoilers] https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/years-and-years-review-emma-thompson-hbo-1203243714/

[spoilers] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/14/years-and-years-review-a-glorious-near-future-drama-from-russell-t-davies

Hello fellow Tildos! I normally never write reviews, but i just had to after i finished watching. It's also an easy way for me to continue practice my English/writing skills, feel free to pm any feedback that you might have :)

The first time i put on the movie Primer closer to it's release i ended up putting it on the shelf half way through or so, i was probably to tired and not in the mood, because it´s one of those movies that requires your full attention.

Years went by and i forgot all about the sci-fi indie that shook Sundance back in 2004, only for it to emerge not long ago when i made another list of movies to either watch or re-watch once more, as i do now and then. I usually make these lists with a theme, or dedicated to a specific genre, this time it being sci-fi.

During my time watching this super low budget movie made by the software engineer Shane Carruth(his background really shows off in the movie) i had a hard time not thinking about the high quality of cinematography. We are shown some really nice angles right from the start, and very appealing lines of symmetry all the way through, similar to scenes found in movies made by Wes Anderson for example. Same goes for the acting and writing, - some of the dialogue really got me captivated. Every scene had things to say about the characters early on, but it also leaves enough out to keep you curious of who they really are, and what their motives might be, character development, check. An example of this is how they used wardrobe + setting to describe said characters, which obviously was very limited due to the extremely low budget, I have not looked up the actual numbers, but i think i have watched enough indie movies to identify extreme cases like this one. They did a lot with how little they had, which is an art in itself in the business of movie making. This probably bit me in the butt a bit(in a good way, no not that way, grow up:), instead of trying to figure out the time paradoxes, i was captured by how well the movie was made.

After i finished watching i had an ocean of questions. Questions i wont mention here because it might spoil the experience for you. This is a good tell that it's a movie in my taste in a sense that it leaves gaps in the story for you to fill in yourself, it´s a type of storytelling i enjoy, but also a type of storytelling that many dislike.

There is no hand holding in this movie, no explanation at the end, it trusts you to re-watch the movie until you have figured it out, or at least think you have, which is bold, but also embraces the charm of time traveling themed story's in a way, making you travel back in time by rewinding and figure out the time-lines. Or do as i did and watch an explanation video on youtube for closure.

I understand now what all the fuzz was about, why it won prices at sundance, and why it became such a strong cult classic almost instantly.

If you want a mind bender, and a movie that treats you with the respect that you can think for yourself, this might be something for you. If you are into sci-fi, and especially time travel, it's a must watch as long as you can allow yourself to get confused more then you usually get by this type of movie. I also recommend watching this when you have a fresh and rested mind, not after a long day of work.

7.8/10 - will paradox again sometime in the future

I Am Mother is a sci fi movie centered in a dystopian future with a novel twist.

If you prefer neat, predictable endings, then this movie is probably not for you.

What is particularly interesting, is the movie is almost deliberately ambiguous, and it constantly challenges the usual assumptions you might make.

The final reveal subtly explains away some of the elements that at first seemed a little jarring or confusing. Other aspects are not fully explained. This creates enough space to construct some very interesting back story theories, while ultimately leaving you guessing.