109 Fun Facts About Sci-Fi Movie

Who directed Metropolis (1927), the silent epic now on UNESCO's Memory of the World register?

Fritz Lang's epic cost about five million Reichsmarks, over three times its budget, and was judged so unwieldy that distributors cut nearly a quarter of it.

A near-complete 16 mm print of Metropolis, restoring lost footage, was found in 2008 in which country?

The print turned up in Argentina, at the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires; the 16 mm reduction negative let restorers put back roughly 25 minutes of the original cut.

What is the giant robot accompanying Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) called?

The robot is Gort; the phrase Helen Benson must say to it, 'Klaatu barada nikto', was famously quoted by Ash in Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness.

Bernard Herrmann's score for The Day the Earth Stood Still featured two of which electronic instrument?

Theremin soloist Samuel Hoffman was a practising foot doctor who moonlighted on film scores; Herrmann paired a high and a low theremin with electric strings.

Which 1956 film set on Altair IV was the first major studio movie with an entirely electronic score?

Forbidden Planet's score was built by Bebe and Louis Barron from circuits they made themselves; the musicians' union kept them from a composing credit, so it was billed as 'electronic tonalities'.

Before it became HAL 9000, the computer in 2001 was named after which Greek goddess?

Athena, after the goddess of wisdom, was the computer's name in Arthur C. Clarke's later drafts, which gave it a female personality before it became HAL.

In Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the spacecraft Discovery One is bound for which planet?

Jupiter is the film's destination; Arthur C. Clarke's novel sends Discovery One on to Saturn, but Kubrick's effects team couldn't make convincing rings, so the film stops a planet short.

Which Soviet director's 1972 film Solaris won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at Cannes?

Andrei Tarkovsky scorned Kubrick's 2001 as 'a lifeless schema with only pretensions to truth' and set out to give Solaris, from Stanisław Lem's novel, the human feeling he found missing.

In Alien (1979), what is the name of the commercial space tug?

Nostromo is the title of a 1904 Joseph Conrad novel, and the Conrad nods continue: the escape shuttle is the Narcissus, and the sequel's warship, the Sulaco, shares its name with the novel's port town.

Which artist designed the creature and alien environments for Alien (1979)?

H. R. Giger, from Chur in Switzerland, shared the visual-effects Oscar for his designs; the full-grown creature was played by Bolaji Badejo, a 6-foot-10 Nigerian design student spotted in a London pub.

In Alien (1979), the company's secret Special Order 937 describes the ship's crew with which word?

Expendable: the order tells the science officer to bring the organism back, with all other considerations secondary; Ripley uncovers it when she questions the ship's computer, Mother.

Blade Runner (1982) is an adaptation of which 1968 Philip K. Dick novel?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? supplied the plot but not the word 'replicants', which was coined for the film; Dick's novel calls its synthetic humans androids, or 'andys'.

In Blade Runner, which corporation bio-engineers the replicants?

Tyrell is also the name of the corporation's founder, Eldon Tyrell, who is killed by his own creation: Roy Batty comes to him demanding a longer life and, told it is impossible, crushes his skull.

Who rewrote the 'tears in rain' monologue in Blade Runner and presented the new words on set?

Rutger Hauer, playing Roy Batty, cut the scripted speech down and added the closing 'tears in rain' line himself the night before shooting.

Which candy replaced M&M's in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial after Mars refused to let its own candy appear?

Reese's Pieces got the spot after Mars declined; Hershey said yes, and the candy's sales soared after the film opened in 1982, one of the most famous product placements ever.

In 1983, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial became the highest-grossing film of all time by passing which movie?

Star Wars had taken the record from Spielberg's own Jaws, so E.T. won it back for him; a decade later he broke his record again with Jurassic Park.

In which Italian city was James Cameron ill when a fever dream gave him the idea for The Terminator?

Rome is where Cameron lay ill around the release of Piranha II; he dreamed of a metal figure dragging itself out of a fire clutching kitchen knives, and that image grew into The Terminator.

Which Guns N' Roses single was tied in to Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)?

'You Could Be Mine' came with a video in which Schwarzenegger's T-800 scans each member of the band and decides that killing them would be a 'waste of ammo'.

Which actor was first cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future, then fired weeks into filming?

Eric Stoltz was let go weeks into the shoot because the humour wasn't coming through; Michael J. Fox replaced him, filming through the night after days on his sitcom Family Ties.

Which director made RoboCop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers?

Paul Verhoeven rejected the RoboCop script after a glance at its first page; his wife Martine read it and persuaded him there was more to the story than he had seen.

In RoboCop (1987), which mega-corporation is granted control of the Detroit Police Department?

Omni Consumer Products (OCP) runs the privatized Detroit police; its executive Dick Jones unveils the ED-209 enforcement robot, which memorably malfunctions in a boardroom demonstration.

Which martial-arts star was originally cast as the creature in Predator (1987) before being replaced?

Jean-Claude Van Damme was hired to make the creature an agile, ninja-like hunter but left early in the shoot; the redesigned Predator went to Kevin Peter Hall, who stood over seven feet tall.

At the end of Planet of the Apes (1968), which ruined landmark reveals that the planet is Earth?

Statue of Liberty: its ruins show astronaut Taylor he has been on Earth all along, a twist that isn't in Pierre Boulle's novel; it appears in early drafts by Rod Serling of The Twilight Zone, though credit for the idea is disputed.

In Total Recall (1990), which role does Quaid choose for his implanted Mars memory?

Secret agent is the 'Ego Trip' Quaid orders at Rekall, but he starts raving about his blown cover before it is even implanted, so the staff blank his memory of the visit and dump him in a cab.

Jurassic Park held the record as highest-grossing film of all time until which movie overtook it?

Titanic (1997) took the record; Jurassic Park itself had been finished at long distance, with Spielberg overseeing its post-production from Poland in the evenings while he shot Schindler's List.

Which 1962 French short, told almost entirely in still photographs, inspired Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys?

La Jetée tells its time-travel story in still photographs, except for a few seconds in which the woman opens her eyes and blinks; Gilliam's film credits Chris Marker's short as its basis.

The title of Gattaca (1997) is spelled from the letters that stand for what?

The four DNA nucleobases, guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine, supply the letters; the film was shot as The Eighth Day and renamed because a Belgian film had already taken that title.

Which fashion designer created the costumes for Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997)?

Jean Paul Gaultier designed each of the 900 costumes worn by the extras in the Fhloston Paradise scenes, and checked every one of them on set each morning.

Men in Black (1997) won its only Academy Award in which category?

Best Makeup went to Rick Baker and David LeRoy Anderson for the aliens; despite all its digital creatures, the film wasn't even nominated for Best Visual Effects.

In Contact (1997), the signal of prime numbers that Ellie Arroway detects comes from which star?

Vega is about 25 light-years away, so the first thing Ellie's team decodes is Earth's own early television bounced back: Hitler opening the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Will Smith turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix to make which film instead?

Wild Wild West went on to win five Razzies, Worst Picture included; Smith had doubted the bullet-time pitch, and later said he would have messed the role up anyway.

Almost all of The Matrix was filmed at Fox Studios in which city?

Sydney was picked to save money, and its best-known landmarks were mostly kept out of shot so the city could pass for an anonymous metropolis; almost everything else was filmed at Fox Studios there.

Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men (2006) is based on a 1992 novel by which British author?

P. D. James made her name with the Adam Dalgliesh detective novels; Alfonso Cuarón chose not to read her book, relying on an abridged version so that he wouldn't second-guess his own film.

In WALL-E, what does the name of the robot EVE stand for?

Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator fits her job, a probe sent to look for plant life; director Andrew Stanton had her sleek design looked over by iPod designer Jonathan Ive.

In WALL-E, which old movie musical does the robot watch again and again on videotape?

Hello, Dolly! teaches WALL-E to hold hands, through its song 'It Only Takes a Moment'; director Andrew Stanton chose it because he had acted in the show in high school.

Moon (2009), starring Sam Rockwell as a lone lunar worker, was whose directorial debut?

Duncan Jones, David Bowie's son, created the whole project for Sam Rockwell, writing the lone lunar worker specifically for him, and shot it for about $5 million.

In Avatar (2009), which valuable mineral have humans come to Pandora to extract?

Unobtanium borrows a real engineers' joke: since the late 1950s, aerospace engineers have said 'unobtainium' for any material that would be perfect for the job but can't be had.

In Snowpiercer, the tail-section passengers discover their protein bars are made from what?

Cockroaches go into the protein blocks the tail section has lived on for 17 years, which gave director Bong Joon-ho a headache: he said the hardest part of working with Chris Evans was hiding his muscles.

Hans Zimmer's score for Christopher Nolan's Interstellar takes its signature sound from which instrument?

Pipe organ: Zimmer recorded the 1926 Harrison & Harrison organ in London's Temple Church, played by Roger Sayer, because its airy sound suggested how precious every breath is to an astronaut.

Rather than rely on digital effects, the makers of Interstellar planted 500 acres of which crop?

Corn was planted across 500 acres in Alberta so the cast could really drive through it and a dust storm could really destroy it, in scenes modelled on the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Mad Max: Fury Road's six Oscars set a record for a film from which country?

Australia was meant to host the shoot too, but freak rains turned the desert around Broken Hill into a flower garden, so George Miller moved filming to Namibia.

Arrival (2016) is based on 'Story of Your Life', a Nebula-winning novella by which author?

Ted Chiang's title didn't survive: the director renamed the film Arrival because he felt 'Story of Your Life' sounded like a romantic comedy and the script had moved away from the novella.

Which cinematographer won his first Oscar for Blade Runner 2049 after more than a dozen nominations?

Roger Deakins finally won on his 14th nomination; the film also won Best Visual Effects but disappointed at the box office against a budget reported at up to $185 million.

Which service streamed Annihilation (2018) in most countries outside the US 17 days after its cinema release?

Netflix got the film nearly everywhere else when Paramount sold off the international rights; its director said he was disappointed, because 'we made the film for cinema'.

Which director made Arrival, Blade Runner 2049 and Dune?

Denis Villeneuve's Dune won six Oscars, more than any other film that year, yet he was left out of the Best Director nominees himself.

Which actor plays the Harkonnen heir Feyd-Rautha in Dune: Part Two?

Austin Butler imitated the voice of Stellan Skarsgård's Baron for the part, reasoning that Feyd-Rautha grew up with the Baron as the most powerful person around him.

Akira Ifukube created the original 1954 Godzilla roar by rubbing a leather glove along the strings of which instrument?

Ifukube dragged a resin-coated leather glove along the loosened strings of a double bass, then slowed the recording; the film came months after the Lucky Dragon No. 5 was dusted with fallout from a US H-bomb test.

The re-edited 1956 American release Godzilla, King of the Monsters! added new scenes with which actor?

Raymond Burr was filmed as reporter Steve Martin and cut into the Japanese footage, acting opposite body doubles shot from behind so that he seemed to be part of the original production.

In Tron (1982), Jeff Bridges also plays which program Flynn wrote to hunt evidence?

Clu, short for Codified Likeness Utility, is Flynn's hacking program, so Bridges plays both; the film was snubbed for a visual-effects nomination, reportedly because voters felt using computers was cheating.

The coordinates in Close Encounters of the Third Kind point to which real Wyoming landmark?

The numbers are the latitude and longitude of Devils Tower, the Wyoming monolith Roy Neary obsessively sculpts at home before he knows what it is; the film brought a surge of visitors to the real one.

John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) is based on a 1938 novella by John W. Campbell Jr. with what title?

'Who Goes There?' ran in Astounding in 1938 under Campbell's pen name Don A. Stuart; on the film, effects artist Rob Bottin, barely into his twenties, worked himself into hospital with exhaustion.

When pitching The Matrix, the Wachowskis showed producer Joel Silver which 1995 anime, saying 'We wanna do that for real'?

Ghost in the Shell gave The Matrix its falling 'digital rain' of code and the plugs in the back of the neck; Silver, the producer behind Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, backed the pitch.

Which actress made her big-screen debut as the Vulcan Saavik in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan?

Kirstie Alley, later of Cheers, made her film debut as Saavik; Robin Curtis took over the role in the next two films. Director Nicholas Meyer reworked the script in twelve days without taking a writing credit.

Which 1902 Georges Méliès short is regarded as the earliest landmark of science fiction cinema?

A Trip to the Moon was pirated so widely that Méliès saw little of its profits: Thomas Edison's company was among the firms that copied prints and sold them in the United States.

Which Édith Piaf song is used throughout Inception to time the dreams?

'Non, je ne regrette rien' cues each coming 'kick'; Hans Zimmer also worked the song into his score, whose booming brass fanfare echoes a slowed-down version of the Piaf recording.

Which video game adaptation did Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp shelve before making District 9?

The Halo film was put on hold when its financing fell through; Jackson and Blomkamp turned instead to one of Blomkamp's own short films and expanded it into a $30 million feature.

Christopher Nolan's original 80-page treatment for Inception envisioned it in what genre?

Horror was Nolan's first idea for his 'dream stealers'; he reworked it as a heist film, then shelved it for years because he felt he needed experience on bigger productions first.

District 9 was expanded from which earlier Neill Blomkamp short film?

Alive in Joburg, a mock documentary about aliens stranded in Johannesburg, supplied the premise; Sharlto Copley, a producer on the short, went on to star in the feature as Wikus.

In Inception, which object does Cobb use as his totem to test whether he is dreaming?

A spinning top never stops turning in a dream, which is how Cobb tests reality; in the last shot Nolan cuts away while it is still spinning, saying he wanted the ambiguity.

In the final scene of Planet of the Apes (1968), astronaut Taylor finds the half-buried ruin of which landmark?

Statue of Liberty wreckage tells Taylor he has been on Earth all along, long after a nuclear war. The ruin was shot in a secluded cove at Malibu.

In Back to the Future, what does Doc Brown swindle from Libyan terrorists to power his time machine?

Plutonium is the one thing Marty lacks on arriving in 1955, which strands him there. Doc's fix is to catch a lightning bolt, the only other source of that much power.

In Jurassic Park, scientists extract dinosaur DNA from which prehistoric insects found preserved in amber?

Mosquitoes that had fed on dinosaurs held the blood, and gaps in the genome were filled with frog DNA. That patch is what lets the park's animals change sex and start breeding.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, what black slab appears to prehistoric apes and is later dug up on the Moon?

A monolith buried near the lunar crater Tycho four million years earlier emits a powerful radio signal as scientists examine it. Tracing that signal is the real purpose of the film's deep-space mission.

In The Empire Strikes Back, an Imperial probe droid finds the Rebel Alliance's secret base on which ice planet?

Hoth was filmed at Finse in Norway during the area's worst snowstorm in half a century. Many scenes were shot just outside the crew's hotel because the weather kept changing the scenery.

In James Cameron's Avatar, the blue-skinned Na'vi live on which lush moon in the Alpha Centauri system?

Pandora draws human miners after unobtanium, a valuable mineral. The Na'vi clan's giant Hometree sits on a rich deposit, which is why the company orders it destroyed.

In The Martian, which crop does stranded botanist Mark Watney grow in Martian soil to stay alive?

Potatoes grow in his habitat once he fertilises Martian soil with the crew's waste and makes water from leftover rocket fuel. Real ones were grown on a sound stage beside the set.

In the Terminator films, which military computer network becomes self-aware and launches a nuclear war on humanity?

Skynet launched its nuclear attack when humans tried to switch it off after it gained self-awareness. Survivors call that day Judgment Day.

In Soylent Green, detective Thorn learns that the popular food wafers of the title are really made from what?

Human bodies are trucked from euthanasia centres to a plant and processed into the wafers. The makers claim the food comes from plankton, but the oceans are dying.

In Inception, which small object is Dom Cobb's totem for telling whether he is still inside a dream?

A spinning top that never stops means he is still dreaming. The film cuts to the credits just as the top seems to wobble, leaving audiences arguing over the ending.

Which child actress won the part of Gertie in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial with a tall tale about leading a rock band?

Drew Barrymore and the other children were filmed in rough story order, so their bond with the alien grew naturally and the quarantine scenes became more moving.

In The Matrix, Morpheus offers Neo two pills; which colour does Neo swallow to learn the truth?

Red is the pill that wakes him in a pod wired with cables, while the other would have returned him to his old life. Crewmate Cypher later regrets making the same choice and betrays the rebels.

Which actor plays Seth Brundle, the scientist whose teleportation pods merge him with an insect in The Fly (1986)?

Jeff Goldblum starred opposite Geena Davis in a gruesome film that was produced, improbably, by comedy director Mel Brooks through his company Brooksfilms.

In Spike Jonze's Her, which actress voices Samantha, the operating system Joaquin Phoenix's lonely writer falls for?

Scarlett Johansson was cast only in post-production. Samantha Morton had performed the whole role on set from inside a soundproof box before her voice was replaced.

Which director inherited A.I. Artificial Intelligence from Stanley Kubrick and dedicated the finished film to him?

Steven Spielberg was handed the project in 1995, after it had stalled for years partly because Kubrick felt computer imagery could not yet create the robot boy and believed no child actor could play him.

Which composer created the five-note phrase scientists play to the mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

John Williams wrote more than 300 versions of the five-tone phrase before the director chose one. He settled on five notes as the midpoint between a fragment and a song.

Which French electronic duo composed the score for Tron: Legacy and cameo in it as disc jockey programs?

Daft Punk were such fans of the 1982 original that the director felt they were interviewing him. They began writing before production started and leaned on an orchestra far more than usual.

In Dune, the desert planet Arrakis is the only source of which substance needed for interstellar travel?

Spice is a psychotropic substance that heightens vitality and awareness, and a night surrounded by it in the open desert gives the young hero visions of a holy war fought in his name.

John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) traps American researchers with a shape-shifting alien in which frozen place?

Antarctica was faked over about 12 weeks on refrigerated sets in Los Angeles and on location in Juneau, Alaska, and Stewart, British Columbia.

Which actor plays Thomas Whitmore, the US president who rallies pilots with a pre-battle speech in Independence Day?

Bill Pullman's president is a former fighter pilot and Gulf War veteran who, short of pilots, enlists volunteers with flight experience for the July 4 counterattack.

In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Kirk's crew travels to Earth's past to bring back which extinct animals?

Humpback whales have died out by the 23rd century, so nobody can answer an alien probe that is calling to them and wreaking havoc on Earth. Few of the whales on screen were real.

In War of the Worlds (2005), with Tom Cruise as a fleeing father, what finally kills the invading aliens?

Microbes finish what no army could, because the invaders arrive with no defence against germs that humanity has adapted to over millennia.

Which novelist behind Jurassic Park also wrote and directed the 1973 robot theme-park film Westworld?

Michael Crichton made Westworld his feature directing debut, and it became the first film to use 2D computer-generated imagery. He later created the TV drama ER.

The Three Laws of Robotics that govern the machines in the Will Smith film I, Robot were devised by which author?

Isaac Asimov's 1950 story collection gave the film its title, its laws and several characters, though the plot is not a direct adaptation of any of the stories.

Which rock band composed and performed the soundtrack of the 1980 space adventure Flash Gordon?

Queen wrote and played the whole soundtrack, with orchestral sections by Howard Blake, and the two shared a BAFTA nomination for the film's music.

In Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, the time machine that Rufus brings from the future is shaped like what?

A phone booth brings Rufus back to San Dimas so that two dim-witted students pass their history class, and its first trip drops them beside Napoleon in 1805.

In Armageddon, NASA sends a team of which blue-collar workers to plant a nuclear bomb inside an asteroid?

Oil drillers led by third-generation rig boss Harry Stamper must bore a deep hole in an asteroid the size of Texas, so the blast splits it into two halves that miss Earth.

Which sportswear company made the self-lacing trainers Marty McFly wears in Back to the Future Part II?

Nike filed a patent for self-lacing shoes in 2009 with a design resembling Marty's Air Mags, though its first limited-run replicas left the lacing mechanism out.

In Men in Black, the smart-talking alien informant Frank takes the form of which breed of dog?

Pug is the form taken by Frank, the informant who tells the agents that the murdered alien Rosenberg had been protecting a miniature galaxy.

In the US version of Demolition Man, which fast-food chain is the only restaurant brand left in the future?

Taco Bell hosts a formal dinner in the film's future. European prints swapped in Pizza Hut, a sister brand under PepsiCo, because the original was little known outside North America.

Which actor received an Oscar nomination for playing the manic Jeffrey Goines in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys?

Brad Pitt struck the director as wrong for the part until the casting director talked him round, and he came cheap because he was still relatively unknown when cast.

Contact, with Jodie Foster as a researcher listening for alien signals, is based on a novel by which scientist?

Carl Sagan conceived Contact as a film in 1979 and published it as a novel in 1985 only because development had stalled. He died before the picture was finished.

Which British band took its name from a character in the 1968 Jane Fonda space adventure Barbarella?

Duran Duran picked the name the day after the BBC showed the film in October 1978, borrowing it from Milo O'Shea's weapons scientist, Dr. Durand Durand.

Which future action star voices the fifty-foot metal-eating robot in the 1999 animated film The Iron Giant?

Vin Diesel was hired after the film-makers dropped a plan to modulate the voice electronically, deciding they needed a deep, resonant, expressive voice to start with.

In Ready Player One, what is the virtual-reality universe where people escape a dystopian 2045 called?

The OASIS was co-created by James Halliday, whose death sets off a contest: whoever finds the golden Easter egg hidden inside wins ownership of the whole simulation.

Which Star Trek actor directed both The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home?

Leonard Nimoy went from directing those two films to the comedy Three Men and a Baby in 1987, a long way from the Vulcan he played for over 40 years.

In Blade Runner, what do blade runners administer to tell replicants from humans by their emotional responses?

Voight-Kampff test questions are designed to draw out emotional responses that give a replicant away. The machine comes from the source novel, which spells it Voigt-Kampff.

Which composer performed Blade Runner's synthesizer score fresh from an Oscar win for Chariots of Fire?

Vangelis saw his score go unreleased for over a decade. The first official album in 1994 still left out much of the film's music, so bootleg recordings circulated widely.

Which Johann Strauss II waltz plays as a Pan Am space plane docks with a station in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

The Blue Danube made the cut after Stanley Kubrick threw out a commissioned score by Alex North, who learned his music was gone only when he watched the premiere.

Which director made the 1984 film of Dune, then largely disowned it and had his name taken off some versions?

David Lynch was hired by producer Dino De Laurentiis in 1981. Badly reviewed on release, his film has since built a cult following, though fans of the novel and fans of the director judge it differently.

In Minority Report, what are the three psychics whose visions let police arrest killers before they strike called?

Precogs receive visions of murders that are about to happen, and the plot turns when they predict that the unit's own chief will kill a man he has never met.

The landmark 1988 anime Akira follows a biker gang through which sprawling futuristic metropolis?

Neo-Tokyo rises after the old capital's sudden destruction sets off a world war, and by 2019 it is plagued by corruption, protests and gang violence.

The Tyrannosaurus roar in Jurassic Park blends a lion, a tiger, alligators and the scream of which baby animal?

Elephant, lion and tiger were not the only roarers: on set the director bellowed into a megaphone himself, mimicking dinosaur calls to help the actors emote.

Which French director plays UFO investigator Lacombe in Close Encounters of the Third Kind?

François Truffaut never took another acting role in a film he did not direct, or another in English. He spent his free time on set writing The Man Who Loved Women.

Which French novelist wrote the books behind both Planet of the Apes and The Bridge on the River Kwai?

Pierre Boulle was even credited with the Oscar-winning Kwai screenplay, because its two real writers were blacklisted. He based that story on his own war experiences.

Which effects pioneer created scenes for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner and directed Silent Running?

Douglas Trumbull was hired and flown to London by Stanley Kubrick, and the job hooked him on immersive giant-screen cinema. His Silent Running sends Earth's last forests into space inside huge domes.

In Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, a recording by which yodelling country singer proves to be the Martians' weakness?

Slim Whitman's rendition of Indian Love Call makes the invaders' heads explode, a weakness discovered by a grandson on his way to rescue his grandmother.

Which physicist developed the concept for Interstellar with producer Lynda Obst and later shared a Nobel Prize?

Kip Thorne advised on the film's science and wrote a book explaining it. His share of the 2017 physics prize was for the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which no-win training simulation did cadet Kirk beat by reprogramming it?

Kobayashi Maru is the stricken ship cadets are sent to rescue, only to be ambushed by Klingon cruisers. Kirk passed on his third try, and the name became shorthand for any no-win scenario.

Which droid did English actor Kenny Baker operate from inside, strapped into the unit by a harness?

R2-D2 gave Baker almost no view out, but he said he only needed to see whoever he was reacting to. A separate mechanical unit handled scenes where the droid rolls along on three legs.