[Weekly Update] Hard sci-fi round-up

Hope you had a great April Fool's, and didn't use it as an excuse to confess your true love.

CHANNEL UPDATE

Our silly little video on Vtuber is gaining a lot of attention, which surprises me. Our channel viewer demographics have very little overlap with Vtubers, and the comment section shows that.

In the video, I said "I want to learn new things, and I assume you do, too". I guess my assumption was correct. A lot of comments are saying they aren't into Vtubers, but the comparison with wrestling really help them put things into perspective.

Yes, you can tell I'm somewhat of an avid viewer. Though I'm nowhere close to an expert, I still hope my perspective on the circle is fun.

Believe it or not, originally I planned to make a video on the philosophy and the history of Japanese... tentacle animation. But the realization that I might have to send a couple grand on buying octopus stock footage stopped the project dead on its track. Maybe in the future, though. I do have a lot to say about it.

For now, we have a video on "Whisper of the Heart", the live action sequel, currently in the work. Preliminary research for Wandering Earth II has also begun. Not sure when that movie will come to home media, though.

MEDIA TALK

I could just talk about Vtubers, but you are into that, you already have your favourite. And if you aren't, you probably aren't interested in recommendations. So, instead, let's talk about hard sci-fi movies and books.

With the Three-Body animation wrapping up, I'm still in a bit of a hard sci-fi high. Of course, Three-Body as a book series is a bit of an odd one, as it deals with concepts in theoretical physics and math. It's unlikely I'll even find a book that explores the implication of a three-body problem in real life vs in an ideal simulation. But I'm glad there is at least one book about it.

For now, I can revel in the fact that hard science continue to thrive in literature and film. The Martian is a little over a decade old now, and remains as one of the best hard sci-fi book in recent years. This book and the movie adaptation honestly reads more like a fun series of lab experiment than it does a novel, because the drama always gives way to the fun and surprising discovery. Can Martian soil actually support the growth of potatoes? NASA tried it, it's a yes!

Another sci-fi film that I enjoy way more than most is Interstellar. The film's grandiose space adventure and monologue about "love" may take away from its scientific realism, but there is no denying that the film has a lot of good science in it. The most famous example is its expensive simulation of what a black hole looks like. The Hollywood machine and its money managed to create one of the most detail calculation on the effects of extreme gravitational lensing. And the image has since become the de facto look for black holes.

But my favourite is the part where Cooper time traveling inside a black hole. You see, our current mathematic breaks down inside a black hole. To put it simply, our axis of space and time swapped places in there. We have no idea what that REALLY means in real life, but the Nolan brothers took that as Cooper being stuck in the same place, but is able to freely travel through time. And I find that idea far more clever than most people assumed.

Finally, 2001 A Space Odyssey needs no introduction. It truly is a marvel of a movie, because you have to remember, this 80s looking sci-fi film was made in the 60s! Before the Moon landing! The film really solidified what hard sci-fi movies should look like. Its rotational artificial gravity. Its depiction of AI overtook by its objective and not by emotions nor malice. They are sci-fi topics way ahead of its time.

But the thing that I never saw people talk about is that... The monolith is a sort of Von Neumann probe. In case you don't know, a Von Neumann probe is a type of self-sufficient spacecraft that will travel the universe, and use found resources to create copies of itself, thus spreading itself throughout the universe.

That was the intention in the book, but Kubrick removed the reference in the film last minute, so that the monolith appear more mythical. Anyway, in most stories I've read, Von Neumann probes are berserker machines made to destroy the universe. The Reapers from Mass Effect is one such example. But the monolith is actually a seeder ship, a benevolent machine made to uplift civilizations. In the sequel, 2010 The Year We Make Contact, the monolith actually turned Saturn into a sun and seed life on its moon, new planets. Maybe it was made by some lonely alien life who just wanted the universe to be full of friends.

Anyway, that's my rambling on sci-fi. I love these stuff, and I hope it's fun to read. What are your favourite sci-fi concepts in movies? Let me know!

See you next week!