November 19th, 2019

Sci-Fi at the Movies
NOVEMBER 19, 2019 / CHESHIRELIB / LEAVE A COMMENT
Harold our sci-fi-guy is going to the movies in today’s blog post!

Science fiction is an extremely popular film and video genre and the Library has a sizeable collection of sci-fi movies, videos, and television programs.

If the Force is with you, you can check out a film from the most successful film series of all times: George Lucas’ Star Wars. The library has every Star Wars movie on DVD.  My favorite is: Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back.  The library also has a collection of Star Wars novels that have spun off from the films.

You can share in the voyages of the Starship Enterprise with Star Trek.  The library has many of the Star Trek movies and television shows in their catalog including one of the most acclaimed Star Trek films: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  I enjoy all of them, but one of my favorites is Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The library also has the complete first season of the new Star Trek Discovery Series along with a great collection of Star Trek books that span all the Star Trek television series and movies.

If more contemporary science fiction movies are more your style, there are some great ones on the shelves at the Cheshire Public Library. Some favorites:
Arrival debuted in 2016. It stars Amy Adams as a linguistic professor recruited by the U.S. Army to figure out how to communicate with intelligent aliens who have landed on earth. It is based on the 1998 short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang that is available from the Library as a downloadable audio book. His book of short stories, Exhalation, is also well worth reading.
Ex Machina is a 2014 British science fiction film. IMDB.com says that it is about “A young programmer [who] is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a highly advanced humanoid A.I.”
Gravity – This 2013 critically acclaimed film stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as American astronauts who are stranded in space because of a Shuttle accident and their attempt to return to Earth. It received 10 Oscar nominations and the Golden Globe Award for Best Director along with the 2013 Ray Bradbury Award.
The Martian – This 2015 film one of my favorites. Directed by Ridley Scott, it is a modern-day Robinson Crusoe story about an astronaut, played by Matt Damon, who is stranded on Mars and his efforts to survive. It is based on the book by Andy Weir that is also and available in print and as an audiobook at the library.
Here are some other great science fiction movies that are available at the CPL:

• 2001:  A Space Odyssey (1968)
• A Clockwork Orange (1971)
• Back to the Future (1985)
• Blade Runner (1982)
• Cloud Atlas (2012)
• I, Robot (2004)
• Jurassic Park (1993) and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
• Planet of the Apes (1968)
• The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
• The Matrix (1999)
• Men in Black (1997)
• Tron (1982) and Tron: Legacy (2010)
• WALL-E (2008)
• Firefly (a terrific 2002-2003 sci-fi tv series)

If you have some favorites that I have missed that are in the library’s collection, let me know and I will add them to a future blog. ​