Movie trailers can be notoriously misleading, but next year could bring some interesting fare for us science fiction buffs. Oblivion provides stunning glimpses of a future Earth ravaged by an alien invasion. And Morgan Freeman as a possibly-maybe bad guy! Meanwhile, Pacific Rim finds Jax Teller from Sons of Anarchy trading in his Harley for a giant robot which he uses to fight similarly gigantic sea monsters from another dimension. The premise is something that a ten-year-old boy might have concocted, but director Guillermo del Toro has proven himself capable of bringing some gravitas to otherworldly affairs.
Then there’s After Earth, M. Night Shyamalan’s return to science fiction. Will Smith and his real-life son crash-land their spaceship on an Earth now populated by lots of CGI wildlife that doesn’t have fond memories of humans. There’s no scenes of characters trying to flee a gentle breeze, so I’m trying to remain cautiously optimistic about this one.
