59 Fun Facts About Sci-Fi Movie

Who directed Metropolis (1927), the first sci-fi film on UNESCO's Memory of the World register?

Fritz Lang directed Metropolis; its budget ballooned to about 5.3 million Reichsmarks, several times what was planned, and nearly bankrupted the UFA studio.

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?

The instrument is the Theremin: Herrmann used two of them, paired with electric violin, cello and bass, and the wail became shorthand for flying saucers for a generation.

Which 1956 film set on Altair IV was the first 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?

Early drafts named the computer Athena, after the Greek goddess, before it became HAL 9000; the finished HAL was voiced by Canadian actor Douglas Rain.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the spacecraft Discovery One is bound for which planet?

In the film Discovery One is bound for Jupiter (Clarke's novel sends it to Saturn); Kubrick had a 30-ton rotating centrifuge built by Vickers-Armstrong for the ship's interiors, costing about $750,000.

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

Andrei Tarkovsky's 166-minute Solaris adapts Stanisław Lem's novel and won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at Cannes in 1972; Steven Soderbergh remade it in 2002 with George Clooney.

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

The tug is the Nostromo, named after a Joseph Conrad novel; the sequel's warship, the Sulaco, takes its name from a town in that same book.

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, which numbered Special Order declares the ship's crew expendable?

Special Order 937 instructs the science officer to bring the organism back, 'crew expendable'; Ripley reads it when she interrogates 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; the film's synthetic humans are called replicants, a word that never appears in the novel, which calls them androids.

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

The Tyrell Corporation, run by Eldon Tyrell, makes the Nexus-6 replicants; the story is set in a rain-soaked Los Angeles of 2019, and Ridley Scott's Final Cut reached cinemas in 2007.

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. after Mars refused to let its candy appear in the film?

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?

E.T. passed Star Wars in early 1983 to take the record; its Oscars all came in music, sound and effects categories, and Spielberg beat his own mark again with Jurassic Park.

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

Cameron was sick in Rome, where he had gone for the release of Piranha II: The Spawning; the finished film cost about $6.4 million and grossed over $78 million worldwide.

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

'You Could Be Mine' was the lead single from Use Your Illusion II and plays over the film's end credits; Schwarzenegger's T-800 appears in its music video.

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 shooting in January 1985; Michael J. Fox replaced him, shooting the film at night while making Family Ties by day.

Which director made RoboCop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers?

Paul Verhoeven threw the RoboCop script away after reading its first page; his wife Martine persuaded him to give it another look, and Total Recall and Starship Troopers followed.

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 the original Predator but left early in production; the 7-foot-2 Kevin Peter Hall took over, fresh from playing the sasquatch in Harry and the Hendersons.

Although set in a Central American rainforest, most of Predator was shot near which resort city?

Filming was based near Puerto Vallarta, in the jungle around Mismaloya on Mexico's Pacific coast, with further scenes shot at Palenque in Chiapas.

In Total Recall (1990), Douglas Quaid visits which company to have false memories implanted?

Quaid goes to Rekall for an implanted memory of a Mars trip; the film adapts Philip K. Dick's 1966 story 'We Can Remember It for You Wholesale' and won a Special Achievement Oscar for visual effects.

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

Titanic (1997) took the record from Jurassic Park, whose original run grossed over $900 million worldwide; Jurassic Park won three Oscars for its effects and sound.

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

Chris Marker's La Jetée, a 28-minute photo-roman, supplied the time-loop premise of 12 Monkeys; Brad Pitt won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for playing the twitchy Jeffrey Goines.

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

The letters stand for the four DNA nucleobases: G, A, T and C are guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine; the film was writer-director Andrew Niccol's feature debut and grossed only about $12.5 million domestically.

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

Jean Paul Gaultier designed more than 900 costumes, including the extras' outfits for the Fhloston Paradise scenes, and checked each one on set every 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; the film was adapted from a Malibu Comics series by Lowell Cunningham.

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

The signal comes from Vega, about 25 light-years away; the film is based on Carl Sagan's 1985 novel and won the 1998 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

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

Smith chose Wild Wild West, which flopped, after the bullet-time pitch left him unconvinced; The Matrix went on to win Oscars for editing, sound, sound effects editing and visual effects.

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

The Matrix was shot at Fox Studios in Sydney, whose downtown streets doubled for an unnamed American metropolis; Morpheus's hovercraft is named the Nebuchadnezzar.

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

P. D. James published The Children of Men in 1992; the film moves to 2027, eighteen years after the last human birth, and its long single-shot sequences earned Emmanuel Lubezki an Oscar nomination.

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

EVE stands for Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, a probe sent to find plant life; WALL-E himself is a Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth-class, voiced by sound designer Ben Burtt.

Thomas Newman co-wrote WALL-E's end-credits song 'Down to Earth' with which musician?

Peter Gabriel sang and co-wrote 'Down to Earth', which was nominated for Best Original Song; the film won Best Animated Feature and drew five more nominations, unusual for an animated film.

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

Duncan Jones, David Bowie's son, made Moon for about $5 million as his first feature, with Kevin Spacey voicing the base computer GERTY.

The Na'vi language in Avatar was created by Paul Frommer, a linguist at which university?

Paul Frommer taught at USC's Marshall School of Business when James Cameron hired him to build Na'vi; the blue-skinned Na'vi stand about 10 feet tall.

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

The bars turn out to be ground-up cockroaches, a reveal that shocks Curtis; Bong Joon-ho adapted the film from the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige.

Hans Zimmer's Interstellar score is built around a 1926 pipe organ housed in which London building?

The organ is in Temple Church, between Fleet Street and the Thames; the 1926 Harrison & Harrison instrument, played by Roger Sayer, is the score's primary voice.

How many acres of corn were planted for Interstellar so a real crop could be destroyed?

Nolan had 500 acres of corn planted near Calgary, Alberta, and later sold the crop; physicist Kip Thorne served as executive producer, and the film won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

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

Fury Road's haul made it the most-awarded film from Australia in Oscar history; George Miller first had the idea in 1987, and Charlize Theron shaved her head to play Furiosa.

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

Ted Chiang's novella won the Nebula Award for Best Novella; Amy Adams plays linguist Louise Banks, and the film earned eight Oscar nominations, winning Best Sound Editing.

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?

Paramount sold the film's international rights to Netflix, which streamed it 17 days after the US cinema release; in the film the Shimmer spreads from a meteor that struck a coastal lighthouse.

How many Academy Awards did Denis Villeneuve's Dune (2021) win?

Six Oscars, all in craft categories: cinematography, editing, original score, production design, sound and visual effects; it was also nominated for Best Picture.

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

Austin Butler plays the hairless, sadistic Feyd-Rautha opposite Stellan Skarsgård's Baron; the film won Oscars for Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.

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; suit actor Haruo Nakajima sweated off pounds inside the monster costume in the original.

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 compulsively sculpts out of mashed potatoes before he knows what it is.

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

'Who Goes There?' appeared in Astounding in 1938 under Campbell's pen name Don A. Stuart; of the film's $15 million budget, about $1.5 million went on Rob Bottin's creature effects.

The Wachowskis screened Ghost in the Shell (1995) for which producer, telling him 'We wanna do that for real'?

Joel Silver, producer of Lethal Weapon and Die Hard, backed the pitch; The Matrix borrowed the anime's cascading-code title sequence and its plugged-in-at-the-neck imagery.

Which actress made her film 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, loosely inspired by Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, runs about 14 minutes; its shot of the capsule lodged in the Man in the Moon's eye is among cinema's most famous images.

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

'Non, je ne regrette rien' is the kick signal; Hans Zimmer slowed the Piaf recording down massively, and those stretched brass notes became the backbone of his score.

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

The Halo film collapsed when its financing fell through in 2006; Jackson and Blomkamp instead expanded Blomkamp's 2005 short into a $30 million feature.

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

Nolan first envisioned the 'dream stealers' idea as a horror film, then rewrote the 80-page treatment as a heist, spending nearly a decade on the script before shooting.

District 9 was expanded from which 2005 Neill Blomkamp short film?

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

Which Moroccan city doubled as Mombasa in Inception's foot-chase sequence?

Tangier's old medina stood in for Mombasa, where Cobb recruits Eames and Yusuf; the tilting hotel bar, by contrast, was built in an airship hangar at Cardington in Bedfordshire.