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The Martian was one of the biggest hits of 2015, and was nominated for tons of year-end awards. But being as it's set in space and in the near future, we thought it best to bring back Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson to help us separate this movie's sins from its wins.

Nicholas Meyer, who directed one of Star Trek’s most-popular films “The Wrath of Khan”, has announced that the film will receive a 4K/Ultra HD release.

The Stainless Steel Rat is James Bolivar DiGriz, who goes by many aliases, including "Slippery Jim" and "The Stainless Steel Rat". He is a futuristic con man, thief, and all-round rascal. He is charming and quick-witted. He is also a master of disguise and martial arts, an accomplished bank robber, a criminal mastermind, an expert on breaking and entering, and (perhaps most usefully) a skilled liar. Master of self-rationalization, the Rat frequently justifies his crimes by arguing that he is providing society with entertainment; and besides which, he only steals from institutions that have insurance coverage. He displays a strong...

There were some surprising science fiction nods among the major Oscar nominations this year. Despite complaints about STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS not getting a nomination for Best Picture (and in my opinion, it didn't deserve one), both MAD MAX: FURY ROAD and THE MARTIAN managed to secure Best Picture nominations. I only caught the last fifteen minutes of FURY ROAD on cable, so I can't really judge it beyond that, but THE MARTIAN while not perfect, was one of the better movies in a mediocre year for movies, and so I have no problem with its nomination. Ridley Scott...

With Star Wars, liberal Hollywood got it all wrong. They get everything wrong, of course, but this movie franchise really takes the biscuit. They turned the heroes into villains, and the villains into shining beacons of virtue. With a new film on the horizon, I feel duty-bound to warn you about the desperate shortcomings of this particular entertainment phenomenon. If we are honest with ourselves, the real wretched hive of scum and villainy is Skywalker Ranch, where George Lucas and his band of morally dissolute bastards created the Star Wars universe, a blight on western civilisation and culture.

I was a big fan in the early 80's. I had a week long correspondence with him in the mid 90's. I loved reading his Chaos Manner column in Byte magazine along with Garcia s circuit cellar. It was a great mag. I've been rereading some of his works lately and just reminiscing. Jerry Pournelle s Iron law: ...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach...

The truth has never been more out there. Fox’s upcoming and eagerly awaited revival of The X-Files is updating its conspiracy theories — only this time, the sci-fi series might cause more controversy than when the show told tales of government-aided UFO cover-ups during its initial 1990s run.RELATED: X-Files Returns: EW Exclusive PhotosIn the first return episode screened for reporters (trailer below), paranormal investigators Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) team up with a charming web-series host named Tad O’Malley (played by the usually comedic Joel McHale, here in a dramatic role). The character, loosely based on conservative online personalities Alex Jones and...

Influential science fiction author and editor David G. Hartwell has died, aged 74. Hartwell edited thousands of books and was nominated for the Hugo Award 41 times. He spent the last 30-plus years as an editor for Tor Books, whose founder Tom Doherty wrote “no editor was more influential in the shaping of science fiction and fantasy than he.” SciFi co-editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden called Hartwell “our field’s most consequential editor since John W. Campbell.” Given Campbell's status as the driving force behind science fiction's Golden Age, that's high praise indeed.

<p>Editor David G. Hartwell, 74, died January 20, 2016. He suffered head trauma in a fall, was hospitalized, and did not recover from a massive brain bleed. Hartwell was one of the genre’s most accomplished editors, and was equally known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the field and his memorable personal style.</p>

What’s the most powerful weapon in the sci-fi universe? How does a lightsaber in Star Wars compare to the energy sword of Halo? What about a Death Star vs Dr. Who’s reality bomb? And how do they match up with a real life nuclear bomb? Foundation Digital made this infographic for Fat Wallet detailing the top sci-fi weapons in history measured by their “energy of devastation in Joules.”

Sen. Ted Cruz kicked off the new year by gushing about the new Star Wars movie and his favorite super-hero comic books. "Ever since I was a little kid, I would read comic books and grew up on sci-fi," Cruz said an interview set to air Saturday with "Geek Tank Radio," a show broadcast on a local Memphis radio station. The hosts of the show promised not to ask him any questions about politics, pledging instead to stick to "geek topics." "I'm very much an original Star Trek guy rather than a Next Generation guy," Cruz said, later admitting his...

George Clayton Johnson, the celebrated science fiction and fantasy writer who wrote the first aired episode of Star Trek, seven episodes of The Twilight Zone and the novel on which Logan's Run is based, has died. He was 86.Johnson, who also co-wrote the story that became the 1960 heist movie Ocean's Eleven, died Christmas Day of bladder and prostate cancer at a veteran’s hospital in North Hills, Calif., his son, Paul Johnson, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The illuminating, exoterical, astronomical George Clayton Johnson has died. The genius science-fiction writer behind so much of what we’ve all watched and enjoyed has passed on to his next adventure. George Clayton Johnson wrote the very first episode of Star Trek, The Man Trap; he wrote eight original Twilight Zone episodes for series creator Rod Serling including "Nothing in the Dark", "Kick the Can", "A Game of Pool", and "A Penny for Your Thoughts". In 1960, while he was one of the proprietors of Cafe Frankenstein (seen as sort of a "den of iniquity" by the uptight) in Laguna Beach,...

The Star Trek film franchise, which first took flight with 1979’s The Motion Picture, is something many of us hold near and dear to our hearts. For some of us, these are the DVDs, Blu-Rays and even VHS tapes we reach for when we want to spend time with our old friends -- Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Bones, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov.With the recent release of the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond, I thought it was a good a time as any to revisit some of those classic big screen moments. Nick Bosworth over at JoBlo edited and compiled a...

There were “smiling faces” from the crowds exiting the Los Angeles premiere of The Force Awakens on Monday night. Amongst these, presumably, were Disney executives ecstatic that the $4bn they paid George Lucas for franchise rights looks to have been a sound investment. Initial reactions from all three screening rooms where the film was shown for the first time – as well as from social media – suggest that JJ Abrams has the chops to please both critics and fans, and that The Force Awakens may well recoup at least half the $4bn by itself. A journalist for the Hollywood...

The new space-based adventure series "The Expanse" debuts on Syfy tonight, and it's packed with high-flying action, interplanetary politics and intriguing locations. Based on the book by James S. A. Corey (a pen name for co-authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham), "The Expanse" takes place 200 years in the future, when humans have settled Mars and the asteroid belt. The two-night premiere event begins at 10 p.m. EST tonight (Dec. 14) and continues at the same time tomorrow (Dec. 15), but if you just can't wait, you can also watch the series' first episode online on Syfy's website, Hulu, YouTube,...

Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction classic "Childhood's End" has been reimagined for the 21st century, and brought to the small screen, in a new TV miniseries debuting tonight (Dec. 14). When a fleet of spaceships appears in the sky above Earth's largest cities, the alien beings onboard insist that they have arrived to help the human race. The visitors slowly begin to eliminate war, disease and poverty -- but what will be the cost of building heaven on Earth?

From director Justin Lin comes STAR TREK BEYOND starring Idris Elba, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Zach Quinto, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin and Karl Urban. In theaters July 22nd.

That Time Ronald Reagan Visited Star Trek: The Next Generation And Took The Captain's Chair Ronald Reagan was a fan of Star Trek-and even a critic of it sometimes. In his diary he talks about watching Star Trek III in the White House theater and how he thought it sucked. In his post-presidential years apparently this interest in the franchise continued, and in 1991 he visited the then-highly popular Next Generation Set. The Gipper's attendance at Paramount Studios Stage 8 came as the cast and crew were filming the season four Klingon-centric two-part finale, Redemption. There were Klingons running around...

The legendary leading man of Akira Kurosawa turned down offers from George Lucas, said his daughter at an event with Steve Wozniak to announce Tokyo Comic Con. Toshiro Mifune, the legendary actor and star of numerous Akira Kurosawa films including Seven Samurai, Yojimbo and Rashomon, turned down the roles of Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, worried that Star Wars was going to look cheap, according to his daughter Mika.