Futurama

Fry is a pizza delivery boy. Moments before the year 2000, Fry is frozen in time for the next 1000 years.  In the year 3000, he refuses to return to being a delivery boy, and meets a new friend named Bender by accidentally stepping into a suicide booth. They both live and decide to mooch off of his living distant nephew, Dr. Farnsworth, incidentally Dr. Farnsworth is looking for a delivery team for Planet Express. Leela the career assignment officer decides to abandon her job, and joins Fry and Bender on the Planet Express team. Fry meets Dr. Zoidberg the Planet Express doctor who is an lobster-like alien, and Amy Wong a rich engineering student at Mars University. The main plot revolves around the Planet Express company and it’s employees and the central group (Fry, Leela, and Bender).

Voice Actors: Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, and David Herman.

WE LOVED THIS SERIES! Mostly me though. I was so thrilled when I saw the ending, which is a real tearjerker and an utter surprise at that. Even though this show had lots of crudeness it was maybe one of the best endings to a TV series that I’ve ever seen. I was very pleased that it didn’t end on a cliff hanger.

Available on: Netflix, Google Play, and Amazon.

Caprica

Caprica is about two families on the planet Caprica the Greystones and the Adamas. Both families are among those devastated by a terrorist attack. Each family responds to the attack in their own way. The attack is found to be the work of a small group advocating the worship of one God over the worship of many Gods which is the norm on Caprica.

With major advances in virtual reality Daniel Graystone decides to attempt to build an VR avatar of his daughter and offers the same to Joseph Adama but the one God group has different ideas for the VR technology. Greystone’s company is working on battle robots for the Caprican government and in an attempt to bring his daughter into the real world he attempts to install the avatar of his daughter into his prototype.  Here ends the spoilers!

Caprica is a 2010 spin-off prequel of the Battlestar Galactica series. It is set about 50 years before the Battlestar Galactica timeline. The show has a very complicated storyline but it holds together well. Effects are good enough but not amazing. There is some decent action but a lot of dialogue getting to it but a complicated storyline requires a lot of plot and character development. Caprica did and does offer the science fiction fan a few new ideas and that is rare. This is a really good show.

Cast includes: Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson, Alessandra Torresani, Magda Apanowicz, Sasha Roiz, Brian Markinson, Polly Walker

Available on: Google Play, Amazon, Netflix

Automata

It is the year 2044. The Earth’s pollution damaged atmosphere has allowed solar flares to cause the progressive desertification and irradiation of the world killing over 99% of the population. Robots called Pilgrims were created to stop the desertification and rebuild but when they failed were made manual labor.

The robots are controlled by two unalterable protocols first they cannot harm any form of life, and second they cannot modify themselves or other robots. The reason for the first protocol is clear but the second protocol was so that robots couldn’t evolve.

The main character is Jacq Vaucan (Antonio Banderas) an insurance investigator for the robotics company. A robot is shot when it appears to be self-repairing and Jacq is sent to investigate…

This movie was done very well. All the actors did a really good job, except for Antonio Banderas who did great! The effects were nearly undetectable from live action. The story is classic science fiction done very well. All in all I am surprised this movie wasn’t a bigger hit. Enjoy it!

Cast includes: Antonio Banderas, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Dylan McDermott, Robert Forster, Tim McInnerny, Melanie Griffith

Available on: Google Play, Amazon, Netflix

Robot and Frank

This science fiction movie is set a short time in the future. Frank is an aging expert burglar and ex-con. He is cantankerous and moody and is having some difficulties taking care of himself due to the onset of mental deterioration and dementia. Since his kids can’t adequately take care of him his son gives him a state of the art robotic companion to help him. The robot is programmed to among other things to provide theraputic care, help set a daily routine, and provide cogitative enhancing activities such as gardening and games. Frank rejects his robotic friend to begin with but soon warms up to it. Frank even finds new cognitive enhancing abilities he and his robot friend can perpetrate.