Sci-Fi on Locodigital

Disclosure Day: Spielberg returns to science fiction in 2026

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 10:00:00 -0300

Forty-four years after E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Steven Spielberg has returned to the territory that made him a legend: first contact between humanity and something that shouldn't exist. Disclosure Day opens tomorrow, 12 June, and the first reactions out of the United Kingdom — where the film opened yesterday — point to something rare: the best Spielberg in two decades.

Spielberg and aliens — fifty years of obsession

Spielberg's relationship with the subject predates Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). He grew up on 1950s science fiction and always saw the alien not as a threat but as a mirror — something that reveals more about us than about them. E.T. (1982) was the fullest expression of that view: the vulnerable alien, the boy who protects him, the state that hunts them both.

The Day After Tomorrow: 22 years of the end of the world

Thu, 28 May 2026 10:00:00 -0300

On 28 May 2004, a 30-metre wave surged over Manhattan on cinema screens. New York submerged up to the tenth floor of a building, then freezing solid. The Statue of Liberty buried up to the neck in ice. This was Roland Emmerich in maximum catastrophe mode — and it worked: the film took more than $540 million worldwide. Exactly 22 years ago.

What The Day After Tomorrow is about

Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) is a palaeoclimatologist who spends the whole film trying to convince the US government that Earth is on the brink of climate collapse. The mechanism: global warming is melting Arctic ice too fast, dumping fresh water into the North Atlantic and shutting down the thermohaline circulation — the current system that regulates the climate of half the planet.

The Empire Strikes Back at 46: the film that changed Star Wars

Thu, 21 May 2026 09:00:00 -0300

On 21 May 1980, The Empire Strikes Back opened in 126 screens across the United States. Not two thousand, the way blockbuster sequels do today — 126, a deliberately small number designed to manufacture scarcity and queues. It worked: the per-screen average on opening day was over $10,000. That Memorial Day weekend became legend. And the sequel nobody was sure would work became, decades later, the near-universal consensus pick for the best Star Wars ever made.

Dune: Part Three — when the messiah becomes the villain

Fri, 15 May 2026 10:00:00 -0300

I watched Dune: Part Two twice in the cinema. The second time, without the nerves of opening night, I started to notice something the film plants subtly and most people miss: Paul Atreides is not a hero. He is the catalyst for a space jihad that will kill billions of people — and he knows it. The final scene isn’t a triumph. It’s the beginning of the nightmare.

Dune: Part Three arrives in December 2026 to prove exactly that.

The Mandalorian and Grogu: Star Wars returns to cinemas in May

Thu, 14 May 2026 10:00:00 -0300

The last time I went to the cinema specifically for a Star Wars film, I came out with that feeling of not quite knowing what had just happened. It was Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker — and nobody in the room seemed sure what they had seen. Since then, Star Wars has migrated almost entirely to streaming, with The Mandalorian as the high point of that whole phase. Now, on 22 May, Din Djarin and Grogu arrive on the big screen. And I can say quite calmly that it's the first time in many years I've been genuinely excited about what's coming.

The Man in the High Castle: what if the Axis had won?

Fri, 08 May 2026 10:00:00 -0300

On this day, 8 May 1945, the world exhaled in relief. Nazi Germany signed its unconditional surrender. Squares in London, New York and Paris overflowed with people celebrating — Victory in Europe Day, VE Day. It was the end of six years of war in Europe. Eighty-one years ago.

It's a very good day to watch a series that imagines, with cold and unsettling detail, what would have happened if it had gone the other way.

Project Hail Mary: the best sci-fi in years

Thu, 07 May 2026 10:00:00 -0300

Three days before watching Project Hail Mary, I reread parts of the book. I wanted to know whether my affection for the text would ruin the experience or amplify it. The result was more than I expected: the film is at once faithful to what matters in the novel and different enough to be its own thing. For fans of Andy Weir's book it's a gift. For anyone who has never heard of it, it's a doorway into one of the best pieces of science fiction cinema has produced in many years.

Star Wars Day: how the Force turned 4 May into a pop holiday

Mon, 04 May 2026 10:00:00 -0300

Every time 4 May comes round, half the internet writes "May the 4th be with you" and the other half doesn't quite know why. If you belong to the second group, this post is for you. And if you belong to the first, you'll enjoy knowing that the habit started in a way far more mundane than the saga deserves.

The pun that started with Margaret Thatcher

Most people assume the link between 4 May and Star Wars emerged naturally when the first film came out in 1977. Not quite. The earliest recorded connection turned up two years later. On 4 May 1979, Margaret Thatcher won the general election in the United Kingdom and took office as prime minister. The London Evening News ran a congratulatory advert that read: "May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations."

Metropolis: the 1927 sci-fi every worker needs to see

Fri, 01 May 2026 12:00:00 -0300

Every time International Workers' Day comes round, the conversation inevitably turns to automation, robots stealing jobs and artificial intelligence replacing workers. It sounds like a 2026 debate. But on 10 January 1927 — 99 years ago — a German director called Fritz Lang put exactly that anxiety on a cinema screen, in a silent film with metal robots and exhausted labourers working ten-hour shifts in the bowels of a futuristic city. The film is called Metropolis. And it's more current than most of this week's releases.

Hubble at 36: The Sci-Fi Films Science Inspired

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:00:00 -0300

I remember being a kid and seeing those photos at school. Colourful nebulae, spiral galaxies, stars being born in pillars of gas and dust. I didn't know the telescope's name, but I knew those images were out of this world — literally. Today, 24 April 2026, the Hubble Space Telescope turns 36 since its launch. And as a proper sci-fi fan, I can't help celebrating by looking back at the films this telescope inspired — or even starred in.

Stranger Things: Tales From '85 — Hawkins Is Back, Now Animated

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:00:00 -0300

When word got out that Stranger Things was getting an animated series, my first reaction was scepticism. The original show is famous precisely for that heavy atmosphere, for scares that work because you're watching flesh-and-blood people genuinely suffering. How was an animated version supposed to capture that?

Then the trailer dropped. And I got it.

What Stranger Things: Tales From '85 Actually Is

Tales From '85 is an animated spin-off that premieres today, 23 April, on Netflix — with all 10 episodes available at once, the way the platform likes it. Produced by the Duffer Brothers themselves (the creators of Stranger Things) alongside Flying Bark Productions, the series makes a bold choice: instead of copying the live-action show's heavy visual tone, it dives headfirst into the aesthetic of 1980s Saturday-morning cartoons.

The Boys 5: the final season that's afraid of nothing

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 14:00:00 -0300

There’s a scene in the second episode of season 5 of The Boys that made me pause, put the remote down and stare at the ceiling for a minute. Not because of the gore — and there is gore, plenty of it — but because of what that scene says about where we’ve ended up. Not the characters. Us.

The Ending We Always Knew Was Coming

The fifth season landed on Prime Video on 8 April 2026, with two premiere episodes and six more arriving weekly through to May. Eight episodes in total to close out a series that debuted in 2019 and completely changed what we expect from science fiction on television.