Charlie Jane Anders

9 Vital Questions to Ask Before Destroying a City in Your Movie

Everybody loves blowing up major cities in widescreen action movies. Wholesale municipal destruction looks great in 3-D and even better in IMAX, and every movie needs those “trailer moments” regardless of story or plot. But are are nine questions we wish film-makers would ask before destroying another city. All images from Transformers: Dark of the…

Artist collaborates with her four-year-old daughter, and magic results

Artist Mica Angela Hendricks was drawing in her sketchbook, when her four-year-old daughter insisted on helping out. At first, Hendricks was resistant — but the daughter used her own “mommy words” on her. “If you can’t share, we might have to take it away.” So she let her four-year-old finish some drawings, with surreal, lovely…

First Under the Skin Teaser: Scarlett Johansson as a Seductive Alien

We’ve been obsessed with Jonathan Glazer’s film Under the Skin since we saw the first set photos a couple years ago. Now, at last, here’s the first footage from this movie where Scarlett Johansson plays Isserley, an alien who picks up male hitchhikers using her “voracious sexuality.” Hard to tell from just a one-minute teaser,…

Who’s the greatest movie director of all time?

Science fiction and fantasy movies depend on amazing visuals and canny storytelling to carry you along — and certain directors are just brilliant at pulling you into their strange worlds. But who’s the greatest director, living or dead, of fantastical movies? Please include a film still or clip that illustrates why your chosen director is…

Marvel at the Brilliance and Creativity of Dragon Con Cosplay!

Nobody does amazing costumes like the 50,000 fans at Dragon Con in Atlanta. Check out some of our favorite cosplay photos from Dragon Con 2013 — including some Star Wars characters like you’ve never seen them before. Top image: deejayqueue/Flickr. Photo by deejayqueue/Flickr. Photo by deejayqueue/Flickr. Photo by deejayqueue/Flickr. Photo by deejayqueue/Flickr. Photo by deejayqueue/Flickr.…

This Week’s TV: Watch a Clip from Futurama‘s Huge Series Finale!

This week on television, we say a tear-filled farewell to Futurama — watch the first clip from the episode right here. Bubblegum Princess and Flame Princess have an explosive meeting on Adventure Time. Top image: Futurama Today: Adventure Time (7 PM, Cartoon Network): Yay, it’s a Bubblegum Princess-Flame Princess episode! Princess Bubblegum subjects Flame Princess…

The Glamour! The Drama! The Full Results of the 2013 Hugo Awards!

The Hugo Awards just happened at San Antonio’s LoneStarCon 3, and it was a night of dramatic reveals. The winners: Game of Thrones! John Scalzi! Tor’s Patrick Nielsen Hayden! Ken Liu! Pat Cadigan! Stanley Schmidt, twice! Brandon Sanderson, twice. And Saga! Full details below. Top image: Kevin Standlee. Paul Cornell MCed the Hugo Awards this…

Want to follow the Hugo Awards? You can watch them live via UStream (unless it gets taken down again), or read the official liveblog. Plus @WWEnd and @LightspeedMag will Livetweet. Plus check back here for the complete list of winners later this evening!

The Star Wars/Game of Thrones crossover you NEED: Darth Drogo!

What if Khal Drogo, the Dothraki horselord, came over to the Dark Side? It would probably look a lot like this. Behold Darth Drogo by jbcasacop on Deviant Art, the first in a new series called Star Wars: The Throne Wars. Check out the whole thing below. Writes jbcasacop: Dark lord of the Khalasar. I’m…

Draft script for Doctor Who‘s “The Tenth Planet” has different ending

Almost everyone knows how the Doctor Who story “The Tenth Planet” ends — it’s the last story where William Hartnell plays the mysterious time-traveling Doctor. Except that a newly unearthed draft script by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis leaves out the Doctor’s regeneration. Instead, the climax of the story is much more about the Doctor…

Learn from the future… today! The University of California at Riverside is launching a program in Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies, for people who want to study how science fiction addresses our anxieties around technological change.

The Most Intrepid Superhero Spaceships

On Earth, superheroes can soar through the air and swing through the urban jungle like Tarzan. But when costumed crime-fighters go into deep space, they often need a ship to zoom around in. Here’s a round up of insane and awesome superhero space vehicles. Note: This doesn’t include most of the actual “space heroes,” like…

Top 10 Greatest Space Zombies Of All Time!

Zombies. They’re your ultimate nightmare. But the only thing that’s more intense than regular zombies? Is space zombies. Because zombies are automatically way more terrifying when there’s noplace to run. Here are the 10 greatest space zombies of all time! Possible spoilers ahead… We hadn’t realized quite how many space zombies there are out there…

Seriously Cute Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug Poster Art

We don’t see enough Drew Struzan-ish poster art for upcoming movies any more. Luckily, there’s this gorgeous artwork for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, featuring lots of elf and dwarf action. These images come from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Annual 2014 (via TheOneRing.net) and they fill your all-important elf-glamor-shot quota.

Britpop singer Robbie Williams nearly starred in Doctor Who

Justin Timberlake wants to play the Riddler in the next Batman movie — but he should aim higher. Robbie Williams, lead singer from Take That!, came surprisingly close to playing the Doctor on Doctor Who. In the animated adventure “Scream of the Shalka,” that is. The 2003 animated story, which appeared on the BBC website,…

We can’t wait for Space Dandy, from the creator of Cowboy Bebop

We’ve got a long wait for Guardians of the Galaxy. There’s no Stainless Steel Rat movie. But luckily, to fill the gap, there’s Shinichiro Watanabe’s Space Dandy, the new anime series debuting in early 2014. I love everything about this teaser, which first screened at Otakon. The visuals. The space battles. The giant weird aliens.…

Continuum just made our heads explode!

The season finale of time-travel show Continuum contains so many bizarre twists and revelations, our heads were spinning. The whole premise of this show has been turned sideways. Let’s try and make sense of all this crazy new information, together. Spoilers ahead! Top image via Imgur. My favorite thing is when a story moves at…

Spend your long weekend laughing at the weirdest porn spoofs [NSFW]

Porn isn’t exactly known for its brilliant acting and intricate storytelling. But when X-rated videos take on some of the most high-concept movies and TV shows in history, the results are hilarious. Check out the silliest Harry Potter, Hobbit, Star Trek, Star Wars, Batman and Doctor Who porn spoofs. Warning: NSFW! https://gizmodo.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-science-fiction-and-fantasy-porn-1217176178

How can you make the ebook novella boom work for you?

When Jeff Noon made his long-awaited return to science fiction, it was with a novella called Channel Sk1n, rather than a full-length novel. And Noon says that the rise of ebook publishers made it possible for him to publish a book that might have seemed too slight in print form. Over at Forbes, Suw Charman-Anderson…

Know your Star Wars fighters with these gorgeous posters

If you find yourself in a galaxy far, far away, and some unidentified starfighter is attacking you, make sure you can figure out who’s flying it — with these amazing, informational posters. Created by Deviant Art user Thong Le, these posters take the movies’ already-beautiful starfighter designs and add a nice poster-art sensibility to them.…