Indice dei contenuti per Summer 2019 in SFX

Subscribe at myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/endgame19 With the feral dogs playing in the background adding to the Wild West-style ambience, it almost feels like Red Alert is really exploring some ancient fortress on the edge of a remote civilisation. But we’re actually just a short ride from the centre of Belgrade, on the set of The Outpost. Originally shot in Utah, the fantasy series has relocated to Serbia for its second season, a move that seems to have paid off. “We really wanted to increase the scope of the show in terms of production value, the size of the sets and the number of extras,”explains Kynan Griffin, who co-created The Outpost with fellow executive producer Jason Faller. “All the things that make a show grand and epic, and to do that on the…

Audio drama production company Big Finish celebrates 20 years of Doctor Who releases with The Legacy Of Time. The box set brings together six Doctors and numerous companions and recurring characters to face a threat to time itself. All of the living Doctors from the classic era appear, as do Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor and Tim Treloar’s take on the Third Doctor. “It’s six one-hour dramas”, says Producer David Richardson. “Each features a different Doctor. At first the stories seem standalone, but as you get further into the set, the different strands get tighter and tighter and you’ll start to see how things have been linked all along.” Although the stories are separate, that doesn’t mean the various incarnations of the Time Lord never meet. “It was a balancing act.…

#AVENGERS: ENDGAME HOT TOPIC Your views on the month’s big issue Robert Young, Facebook It was a mostly satisfying film with some really amazing moments. However, it was also a bloated, convoluted mess. Robert William Graham, Facebook Best superhero movie ever made, and I didn’t think anything could top The Dark Knight. Marvel has raised the bar for all superhero movies from now on. James Willis, Facebook Endgame’s slow, perhaps pedestrian, pacing in the first third of the movie felt like an error, and I’m afraid the time travel aspect forced its way into the plot with all the subtlety of a Hulk shoulder barge. The comedy felt older and more self-conscious this time round, which left many of the attempted gags falling flat. It was the movie equivalent of…

In which monsters aren’t scary but lovely old ladies and human fallibility really are ROCK ON I want to play a game. The game is, how can we make another Saw movie be a good thing in a time when it feels like original, intelligent horror is having a heyday? Last month it was revealed that Chris Rock would be behind a Saw spin-off slated for 2020. He won’t direct (that’ll be Darren Lynn Bousman, who made Saw II, III and IV); instead he’ll be “reinvigorating the brand with his wit, creative vision and passion for this classic horror franchise”, according to Lionsgate chairman Joe Drake. Maybe this is a good thing – after all, I’d never have believed Jordan Peele would be able to change the face of modern…

Where do we see Mike at the start of season three? Season two ends a little bit vague with Eleven and Mike’s relationship. But we start off in season three, we’re a full blown couple. But every couple has their issues and so do we. There’s also a nod to “friends don’t lie”. Mike gets caught up in the summer love, and completely misses the point of the friendship or anyone other than El. He kind of threatens that relationship with everyone else. How is this season bigger than the last? Honestly, it’s hard to top. It’s the Duffers’ job. But in season three there’s definitely way more horror, way more action, way more comedy. Everything that you’ve loved about Stranger Things, hyped up. It was great to do the…

Hyped in true Stan Lee style as “the greatest villain of all for ol’ Spidey”, Mysterio first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man 13 in 1964. A failed actor, former stuntman and special effects genius, Quentin Beck created his globe-domed alter-ego to pass as a hero while framing the web-slinger for a spate of crimes. Boo! A master of hypnotism and illusion, Mysterio’s hi-tech arsenal includes a holographic projector, paralysis gas, hallucinogens and a fine acid spray capable of dissolving Spidey’s webbing. Artist Steve Ditko’s elaborate, theatrical design is an enduring classic, from the regal cape to the crocodile-hide bodysuit to the immortal fishbowl helmet, at once goofy and yet unshakably sinister with its shadowy glimpse of the man behind the plexiglass. There’s a touch of Dali, too, in those spooky…

Legion season three brings David (Dan Stevens) and Syd’s story to a close, but that doesn’t mean the actors, or the audience, will get absolute clarity with this closure. At this point, do you feel like you now have a better handle on the whole story? I’m still wrapping my head around this whole show. I feel like at the end of it, maybe, I’ll have a better understanding about what it all meant, and what it is. The love story has been the beating heart of the story, even when everything else gets very weird. Is there any hope for their love to continue this season post David’s rape of Syd? I wonder if the nature of unconditional love is in the balance here. I think we see her…

In the final instalment of Timothy Zahn’s bestselling trilogy, Thrawn’s mastery of strategy must guide him through an impossible choice: duty to the Chiss Ascendancy, or fealty to the Empire he has sworn to serve. COMMUNICATIONS TO AND FROM a Star Destroyer like the ISD Chimaera came from many directions, and at many different status and security levels. Each message carried a numerical code specifying the degree of importance, and those codes defined how and by whom each was to be handled. Commodore Karyn Faro knew all of those codes. But somehow, in a still-youthful corner of her mind that years of Imperial military regulation and order hadn’t quite eradicated, those codes also somehow ended up as colours. Identification signals from nearby ships or status reports from mid-distant bases, routine…

For all its grittiness, “Children Of Earth”still has moments of typically Torchwood-esque lunacy. Maybe the most memorable comes in episode two when, after Jack Harness has been encased in concrete, Ianto crashes through the wall of a military base (in reality a former explosives factory in Caerwent, used for training by the MOD) on a stolen bulldozer and carries him off… “Releasing the immortal hero from a block of concrete with a runaway bulldozer was nuts!”Davies laughs. “I remember being delighted when the ratings for episode three went up, because that was pure Torchwood! There’s barely a nod towards the BBC One audience, or anyone who’d never seen the show before. I have to say, everybody in that military base has a very bad aim! Just because you’re on a…

Now that Disney owns Fox, did Kevin Feige have any input into the film? With the Fox Marvel movies, Marvel always had the right to read drafts of the script and look at cuts of the movie. But Kevin didn’t have an active role in this film. He was working on some other big movie at the time. In the comics Phoenix was “born”when Jean Grey died telekinetically piloting a space shuttle. Was the space shuttle scene in the film a direct nod to that? Oh yeah, 100%. It was one of the first things we shot. It was certainly a sequence, even going into the writing process, that I wanted. In X-Men: Last Stand you have no idea where Jean got her power from. I wanted to be true…

▶ RELEASED 28 June 18 | 118 minutes ▶ Director Peter Strickland ▶ Cast Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Leo Bill, Hayley Squires, Gwendoline Christie Are you one of those people who felt that Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Dario Argento’s Suspiria lacked something in the “heightened”and “unhinged”departments? Then you’ll do well to go shopping in the department store at the centre of Peter Strickland’s drop-dead gorgeous In Fabric, a truly demented haunted-dress movie (!) that fashions itself after the stylised gialli of the ’60s and ’70s. Dentley & Soper’s the name of the store, and the hypnotised masses converge upon it much like George Romero’s zombies shuffled mindlessly to the mall in Dawn Of The Dead. Sheila (Marian Jean-Baptiste), recently separated from her husband, is one such shopper, and she leaves clutching an “artery…

Great Scott! UK/US Netflix, streaming now ▶ Showrunners Charlie Brooker, Annabel Jones ▶ Cast Anthony Mackie, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Andrew Scott, Miley Cyrus EPISODES 5.01-5.03 It’s the epitome of first-world problems, but after two six-episode runs on Netflix, it feels underwhelming to be delivered an abbreviated fifth season of Black Mirror. Sure, Charlie Brooker and his team invested so much time on interactive drama “Bandersnatch”that something had to give. All the same, it’s disappointing – particularly since two of the three instalments are middling fare. Kudos is due to “Striking Vipers”for its casual afrocentric casting and the way it posits a new frontier in sexuality: if two straight mates (Anthony Mackie, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) play an immersive Street Fighter-style game, then have M/F sex in their avatars… what is that?!…

A full-time VR sanctuary, Green Valley isolates itself from the tech-hating city of Stanton. But when Green Valley children are found dead inside Stanton’s borders, Lucie Sterling must venture inside… I SAT AT THE COUNTER IN THE WINDOW so that David would see me. An incredibly toned man in a tight shirt came over to ask me if I needed anything. “Just waiting for someone.” “Sure.”He smiled, with perfect teeth. “Just shout when you’re ready. We have muffins fresh out of the oven.”As he spoke, I sensed a whiff, right up my nose – emitting from inside my nose – of the rich, warm scent of chocolate and raspberry muffins, something I was sure I hadn’t smelled before he’d spoken. I was hungry and thirsty, a cosy feeling, because I…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Reviewed on PC ▶ Also on PlayStation 4, Xbox One ▶ Publisher Bethesda Softworks VIDEOGAME One of the main complaints regarding the first Rage was that it was far too serious and drab, despite having solid combat mechanics. The developers took this criticism and flipped it on its head: Rage 2 is wild, wacky, but not quite as wonderful as the pre-launch trailers would have you believe. As Walker, the last ranger, your mission is to kill General Cross, the leader of the Authority, an army of weaponised mutants intent on taking over the wasteland. He’s the ultimate Big Bad, and it’s set up to be a long narrative which should see you gradually becoming more powerful with help from several colourful characters, but instead……

→Make it so! Star Trek: Picard will stream in the UK on Amazon Prime. →Secret Cinema brings an immersive Stranger Things experience to London in November. →The BBC has commissioned a second series of spectral sitcom Ghosts. →Brent Spiner, Amy Madigan and Lin Shaye set to star in 1930s LAset spinoff Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels. →Channel 4 has cancelled Humans after three seasons. →Wubba lubba dub dub! Season four of Rick And Morty hits Adult Swim in November. →PlayStation Productions reportedly developing a TV version of Twisted Metal. →Disney XD ordering a third season of Spider-Man, rebranding it as Spider-Man: Maximum Venom. →Hulu developing a pilot based on Stephen King’s 1984 novel Eyes Of T he Dragon.…

CLOTHES MAKETH THE WOMAN “In my first week, they were like, ‘It’s lovely to have a character that we can really dress up.’ I go in for my fitting and get to try on these amazing clothes, and it helps me build my character. She comes from a certain place, and the clothes she wears really signify that. I think the entire wardrobe probably cost more than my rent! I said, ‘Where is she getting all this? Because Jessica’s not paying her this much money.’ She must hit those sample sales!” BABY GOT BACKSTORY “I think Gillian’s had to work really hard to get [where she is]. When I’m building her backstory, that’s what I think about. The other day, it occurred to me, ‘Oh, she probably has a journalism…

DARREN SCOTT EDITOR RAVES →Adored the new advert based on the 80s Dungeons and Dragons Marvel cartoon. Check it out on our website now! →Got to try the new (no, newer than the one you’re thinking of) Doctor Who VR, The Edge of Time, and it’s awesome. So good I almost fell over. Out in September – send knee pads. IAN BERRIMAN DEPUTY EDITOR RAVES →Visited a very cool set for BBC One’s new take on Dracula. What’s more, it was at Bray Studios, home of Hammer. Bucket list tick! →The Stanley Kubrick exhibition at the Design Museum is incredible – packed with treasures, like the typewriter from The Shining and the apeman costume from 2001. IAIN NOBLE PRODUCTION EDITOR RAVES →I finally got to see Avengers: Endgame. Bravo! A…

GRAHAM JOYCE WAS ONE OF my favourite writers before I met him. That persisted when we became friends, and it’s still the case to this day, when I remember him and wish he was still with us. In a very real way he is. Of all his fantastic novels – and there isn’t one I don’t like – it’s The Tooth Fairy that sticks with me. It’s one of those precious few books I’ve read more than once, and it holds a power that’s as bewitching as the power the eponymous creature maintains over the central character, Sam. On the surface it’s a coming-of-age story, following a group of friends growing up in the Midlands in the ’60s. Sam receives a visit from the Tooth Fairy and, shocked that he…

At the end of season two, Hopper officially adopted Eleven. How’s he dealing with being a dad? Not well! She’s discovering boys and that’s just awful for Hopper – I think it’s more terrifying to him than any interdimensional monster, in a sense. He has to let his little girl off the leash a little bit and let her discover herself, but I think Hopper’s kind of a controlling guy and he doesn’t like that at all. While it’s a very big theme to get into, there’s also a lot of fun to be had with this guy who’s really a throwback to the ’60s and ’70s and just completely inadequate in that department, having to deal with a girl becoming a woman. There’s still a lot we don’t know…

How does it feel to go from being a part of the Marvel movie machine to a show that pokes fun at the Marvel movie machine? I don’t necessarily think it pokes fun. Here’s the thing that I really responded to: it offers a different narrative. We have so many television shows and movies out there that are predominantly focused on the stereotypical idea we all have of superheroes. What intrigued me was reading this material and that being completely flipped, and seeing these superheroes were tragically flawed and anything but heroic. That appealed to me. It appealed to me that it was a story essentially about the little guy taking on the man. When researching your character, did you sense that the writers were going to be able to…

Has Peter Parker grown up at all? I think we’re seeing a very similar Peter Parker to the one we saw in Spider-Man: Homecoming. I really enjoyed, in the first one, the aspect of seeing a teenager with superpowers. I really want that to come across again. He’s still a 16-year-old who just wants to enjoy himself. What’s the dynamic like with Nick Fury? Working with Sam is great, really, really fun. I’ve been such a big fan of his, not just since the beginning of the MCU but very early on in my life with Pulp Fiction. It’s an interesting character to see on the screen with Peter Parker, because obviously Peter is kind of upbeat and Nick Fury’s so scary; kind of like Robert Downey Jr, just without…

How has your life changed between the two movies? A lot. I mean, a lot has happened in my career. I’m very thankful and very fortunate to have been able to do so many things after Spider-Man. I feel like I haven’t really processed the whole thing, being that everything happens so quickly. I mean, now that I’m able to, it’s been a really fun, wild… such a blessed life. Ned has a girlfriend in this one. How is that romantic relationship? That’s actually coming out really sweet. I feel like you don’t really get to see that type of person in that situation a lot. So it’s really cute and very endearing, and a really great part of the movie. You guys all became friends on the set of…

IN EARLY 2017, VV JAMES FOUND HERSELF IN THE USA. As the director of a BBC 1 documentary, her job was to help Jeremy Paxman cover the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. Even during these tumultuous days, when it seemed like anything might happen, a tweet from singer Lana Del Rey grabbed her attention. “She called for witches to unite in hexing Donald Trump,”James says. ‘And I was like, ‘This is absolutely wild, the idea that witches are going to hex the new president.’ I just thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if they really could?’”Such was the “mood music”when James, who writes for six months of the year and spends the other half working in television, began to write Sanctuary, her supernatural thriller set in an alternate USA where…

“Children Of Earth”’s most unusual legacy is surely Ianto’s Shrine. This fan memorial for Gareth David-Lloyd’s character at Mermaid Quay in Cardiff Bay (the location used as the entrance to Torchwood’s base) still exists – now complete with an explanatory plaque for the benefit of puzzled passers-by. It’s such a permanent fixture that it’s even listed on TripAdvisor! “I think it’s hilarious!”Russell T Davies hoots. “I wonder what a bad review would be like? ‘I don’t think it was respectful enough!’? I do sometimes wonder what it must be like if you’re genuinely grieving and you walk past that – that must be slightly strange. But it’s brilliant. He’s a TV character who was so brilliant, and whose death was so brilliant, that it’s still remembered all these years later.…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 12A | 132 minutes ▶ Director Michael Dougherty ▶ Cast Millie Bobby Brown, Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Godzilla We hear a deep rumble and an iconic roar, then it begins. Two behemoths, with a long history of battle, begin to grapple. It’s an ugly sight at times. At others, it’s beautiful. But there’s only going to be one winner. Are we talking about Godzilla vs Ghidorah? No. Rodan vs Mothra? No. They all appear (as themselves, according to the credits), but the most significant struggle at the heart of King Of The Monsters is between action and drama. Two old foes, fighting dirty. In Gareth Edwards’s 2014 film, drama won, of course. But the slow-build subtlety of that movie is dragged across concrete almost immediately in…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 105 minutes ▶ Director Jim Jarmusch ▶ Cast Adam Driver, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, RZA “Hipsters, and their irony,” hipster director Larry Fessenden ironically states during The Dead Don’t Die. By then, we’ve already had RZA making deliveries for WU-PS, heard Adam Driver talk about the opening credits’ “theme song”, and seen Caleb Landry Jones wearing a Night Of The Living Dead badge. Hipsters, and their irony, indeed. The trouble with irony is it’s used to distance, and if there’s one thing this film needs less of, it’s distance. Jim Jarmusch’s take on the zombie genre is a strange creature. The plot – a small town is invaded by zombies thanks to polar fracking – stumbles from one scene to the next with the…

▶ RELEASED 24 June (download out now) 2019 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD/download ▶ Director Joe Cornish ▶ Cast Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Patrick Stewart, Rebecca Ferguson, Angus Imrie Joe Cornish hides his inspirations in plain sight. Take Alex Elliott, the name of the 12-year-old hero of his latest film. Elliott’s a salute to the bike-flying protagonist of E.T. And Alex? Half a Scrabble hand away from Excalibur. Both movies took root in the imagination of the teenage Cornish and here’s the result: shining Arthurian myth bolted to Spielbergian suburban fantasy. It’s a pointedly timely retelling of the legend. “People’s hearts grew hopeless and hollow,”intones the opening voiceover. “The country became lost and leaderless.”No, we’re not live from Leeds with this week’s Question Time – these words accompany a beautifully rendered animated…

▶ RELEASED 1 July 2018 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD ▶ Director Mamoru Hosoda ▶ Cast Haru Kuroki, Moka Kamishiraishi, Gen Hoshino, Kôji Yakusho Anime legend Mamoru Hosoda’s latest film is one of his most simple yet. It may have some of the time travel elements of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and the anthropomorphic animals of The Boy And The Beast, but what it centres on is Hosoda’s affinity with growing up. Young Kun’s life is turned upside down when his baby sister is born. As he struggles with no longer being the centre of attention, he gains the magical ability to speak to family members from the past and future. In its best moments, Mirai is a fantastic slice of family life seen through the eyes of a…

▶RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher Marvel ▶ Writer Chip Zdarsky ▶ 1Artist Mark Bagley ISSUES 1-3 Every comics fan knows that superheroes aren’t allowed to age in real time, especially when they’re a character like Spider-Man, who was first introduced as a teenager back in 1962. However, the new Marvel miniseries Life Story throws this rule out of the window and asks: what would happen if Peter Parker did age just like everybody else? Told across six oversized issues that each cover a different decade, this ambitious story treats the Spidey saga as one chronological epic, and also tackles an angle previously seen in DC classic The New Frontier, with our protagonist having to deal with serious real-life contemporary issues. This means that in the opening 1966-set instalment we get a…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher DC Comics ▶ Writer Frank Miller ▶ Artists John Romita Jr, Danny Miki issue 1 Given that he celebrated his 80th birthday last year, you’d think there wasn’t much more that could be added to the origin of the Man of Steel. And you’d be right. Beyond a hint that the infant Kal-El psychically persuaded Jonathan Kent to adopt him, Frank Miller doesn’t radically reinvent Superman’s formative days in part one of this three-issue mini-series. Instead, he expands upon what’s previously been chronicled in Smallville and various comics. There’s a wistful nostalgic feel, and barring the presence of mobile phones and an emo schoolmate, the story could have taken place at any point during Superman’s long history. Opening with a thrilling prologue depicting the…

▶ OPEN UNTIL 26 August ▶ Venue Barbican, London EXHIBITION Before our robot masters rise up and enslave us all, we may as well have a little fun with them, right? And maybe learn something at the same time. After all, as this fascinating exhibition at London’s Barbican Centre repeatedly reminds us through the use of a stunning range of interactive installations, AI is currently learning an awful lot from us, so why shouldn’t it return the favour? There’s a dizzying amount of content packed into a relatively small area here, much of which can be prodded, poked and played with to your heart’s – or, indeed, organic brain’s – content. Throw a ball for a robot dog. Help AIs compose poetry and music. Enter a virtual world in a…

QUESTION 1 Which famous plane travels back in time to the Cretaceous Period in 1982 Doctor Who “Time-Flight”? QUESTION 2 What’s the official name of the X-Men vehicle nicknamed X-Jet? QUESTION 3 Which 1886 Jules Verne novel features a multirotorgyrodyne called the Albatross? QUESTION 4 PICTURE QUESTION Supply the title that’s been removed from this movie poster. QUESTION 5 In which Star Trek episode does the Enterprise beam aboard a US airforce pilot after his fighter jet is torn apart by its tractor beam? QUESTION 6 In Lost, what’s the flight number of the doomed service on which Hurley, Kate, Jack, Sayid, Sun and Aaron were travelling? QUESTION 7 Which TV series had an episode called “Out Of Time”, in which a plane takes off in 1953 and lands in…

CELEBRATING ICONIC SCI-FI STARS Jason David Frank is authentically kick-ass. In the ’90s he played the back-flipping, karate-kicking Tommy Oliver, who had a number of alter-egos across various Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series and a movie – no stuntman ever required. To mark the show’s 25th anniversary he recently appeared in Power Rangers Ninja Steel, and he’s now teaching martial arts to the next generation (morphin not included). Have you enjoyed going back to the role? Definitely. I just had my new episode come out where I was Tommy the Green Ranger, the White Ranger, Black Dino Thunder and Zeo in the current season of Power Rangers Ninja Steel. Where do you want Tommy to go next? We’re doing a book called Soul Of The Dragon that’s going to be…

Get sci-fi news and features at gamesradar.com/sfx “I was absolutely sure nobody would read it,”Cornelia Funke tells Red Alert about her novelisation of Guillermo del Toro’s classic fairytale Pan’s Labyrinth. “This is the most perfect movie I know – how can anybody turn it into words?” Funke had met del Toro while working on the Pan’s Labyrinth section of his book Cabinet of Curiosities – an in-depth exploration of his famously intricate notebooks – and from this moment on she was the only name on his list. So when the director approached her about adapting his fairytale, the task felt like its own epic fantasy quest. It was a quest that she relished, because, “As we know from fairytales, we have to take on the impossible tasks.” Pan’s Labyrinth’s journey…

→Robert Pattinson to play the Dark Knight in Matt Reeves’s The Batman, which is set for release June 2021. →Fire up your flux capacitor! Back To The Future: The Musical opens at Manchester Opera House in February 2020, before heading to London. →Bruce Campbell reveals a “fully immersive”Evil Dead videogame is in development. →The Amazing Spider-Man’s Marc Webb in talks to direct live action Snow White for →Disney. →Comic book writer Tom King to co-write DC adaptation The New Gods for Warner. →Taika Waititi’s Akira arriving 21 May 2021. →Lucasfilm rumoured to be developing a Knights Of The Old Republic movie, written by Alita: Battle Angel’s Laeta Kalogridis. →Paramount launching an Atlas Comics universe with Akiva Goldsman overseeing the writers’ room.…

Tell us about your protagonist. David Mogo, demigod, freelances as a godhunter in a post-Falling Lagos. An offer to capture gods comes his way, and it all goes to shit from there. His story becomes a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t case of finding home. He breaks himself and puts back the pieces in order to truly become. What mythology inspires the book? Primarily myths from the Yoruba pantheon, as Lagos is in the Yoruba-dominated Nigerian west. Gods and stories from other ethnicities still appear, though. Since deities and tales overlap with other pantheons, I was able to mix myths from my own native Edo/Bini ethnicity in there. Did you have to do much research? I knew a bit about Yoruba mythology, but had to read books and articles, and consult friends and family.…

“WE NEED TO TURN TROPES INSIDE OUT. THEY NEED TO SURPRISE” SOMETIMES IT FEELS LIKE “TROPE”IS A DIRTY word – one often accompanied by “tired”or “old”. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of love for well-known conventions in fantasy. And I get the frustration – no-one wants to keep treading the same territory. I know the disappointment of a really good book sinking into cliché. Sometimes, it’s a matter of unlucky timing – books gestate over long periods, so while a love triangle might be fine when the writer gets started, years later, on publication, readers have become jaded. But here’s the thing: I really like tropes, even love triangles. I think the careful use of familiar story threads and patterns can enhance a book. Many of what we…

Tell us about where we find Max in season three… She’s much more aware of what’s going on in Hawkins and she’s established friends. Things are a little bit better with her and Billy now that she’s straightened things out. I think I got to learn a lot more about who Max is this season because we get to see a lot of different sides of her. How is her relationship with Lucas? Max and Lucas’s relationship is hilarious. They’re on again, off again. She’ll wake up and say, “You know what, I don’t want a boyfriend today.”She’ll dump him, and then they’ll get back together. Max and Eleven are friends now, what’s that like? Millie is my best friend off screen, and it’s great because Max and Eleven have…

Where do we find Dustin this season? Dustin is kind of disconnected from his usual group. It’s kind of upsetting, to viewers and to myself. I didn’t get to work with the kids as much, but it opened up an entire door for a world of opportunity for character development on my part. Which is so amazing, just to have those opportunities in this show. We hear that Dustin’s got a girlfriend now… Everybody wants to know – is Dustin’s girl real? It really is written very well in the script, and it just shows how much dedication the Duffer Brothers put into their characters. It shows how much the writers and directors really do try to give the fans what they want – in ways that people never would…

Shaun Sipos’ track record reeks of death. In fact, death first claimed the actor in Final Destination 2. Those untimely and violent demises continued in Texas Chainsaw 3D, The Vampire Diaries and Dark Matter. So far – touch wood – the Canadian native has managed to avoid any fatality on his current gig, Krypton. Not that he’s been playing it safe. The TV series finds Sipos portraying Adam Strange, a time traveller who journeys to Krypton’s past to thwart a plot to wipe Superman from existence. Last year, Adam survived dangers like the monstrous Doomsday, the power-hungry Zod, rioting rebels and, worst of all, the Collector of Worlds, Brainiac. But given how the stakes keep escalating in season two, bodily harm again appears inevitable for Sipos. And he wouldn’t have…

What’s it like to go back to this character? Oh, it’s been really, really fun. Yeah, I missed it. It’s been nice to explore her more. I had to figure her out like, “Hmmm, now she’s going to have to be more digestible in longer increments of time than just two seconds of popping in and saying something.”I guess you just get to see a different side of her. Obviously the first time around I was just there to be the comedic relief, and pop in and pop out. And this time around… You just get to see different sides of who she is, and different layers of the character, and get to know more about her rather than just a girl who reads a book in the corner, you…

The creator of Elric and Jerry Cornelius, sometime rock’n’roll musician, and the editor and publisher of New Worlds, Michael Moorcock is the eternal hipster, a figure whose influence can be felt in all kinds of corners of the collective culture. But who influenced Moorcock? Which writers does the man himself rate? What inspires him to continue working even as he approaches his 80th birthday? There’s nobody better to ask than the man himself. Which is precisely what SFX did recently, heading out to the comfortable Paris apartment where Moorcock and his wife Linda, whose gloriously laconic comments pepper any conversation with her husband, spend half the year. He’s in good spirits, seemingly pleased with the way The Woods Of Arcady, the sequel to his autobiographical fantasy The Whispering Storm, is…

A PLAYGROUND FULL OF CHILDREN, standing stock-still and speaking in unison. A hero being blown apart by a bomb stitched inside his stomach. Green vomit splattering against the walls of a tank as some unspeakable alien horror thrashes about inside… A decade on, these images from Torchwood’s third season – the best-received version of the protean Doctor Who spin-off – still linger in the mind’s eye. Stripped across a single week, with all five instalments airing on BBC One from Monday 6 to Friday 10 July 2009, “Children Of Earth”grew out of a basic idea Torchwood’s creator Russell T Davies had had squirrelled away for years: every child, across the world, standing motionless and saying, “We are coming.” “It was one of those stories that was always going to come…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 12A | 114 minutes ▶ Director Simon Kinberg ▶ Cast Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult The curtain draws on Fox’s X-Men franchise with a film that’s had the marketing push and online buzz of a non-committal shrug. Which is a shame, because Dark Phoenix gamely tries to inject some new life into the Marvel movie mutants. For a good while it succeeds, until the final act when it comes across more like the cinematic embodiment of, “Oh, what’s the point?” Let’s cut to the chase, though. What you really want to know is whether it’s better than its overblown, hollow predecessor X-Men: Apocalypse and the train wreck of a film whose multiple failings it’s trying to rectify, X-Men: The…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 90 minutes ▶ Director David Yarovesky ▶ Cast Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A Dunn, Gregory Alan Williams Superheroes and horror have been reliable box office performers (the former during the last two decades or so, the latter more frequently), so combining the two sounds like a no-brainer. The key, however, is in the execution, and in that regard Brightburn is largely content to be a mid-brainer. The basic concept here – Superman, only evil – is one that comics have dabbled with through the years. But with this movie the writers Mark and Brian Gunn and director David Yarovesky have gone up several notches with the viscera quotient and, to an altogether less successful degree, the scare factor. Farm couple Tori (Elizabeth Banks)…

UK TBC US DC Universe, Fridays ▶ Showrunners Mark Verheiden, Gary Dauberman ▶ Cast Crystal Reed, Virginia Madsen, Andy Bean, Maria Sten EPISODE 1.01 DC’s plant-based avenger is given a John Carpenter’s The Thing-style makeover in this first episode of Swamp Thing – at least two moments teeter between homage and rip-off. But if no-holds-barred body horror floats your boat then this latest take on the DC comic delivers with a side order of veg. When CDC biologist troubleshooter Abby Arcane (Crystal Reed) returns to her Louisiana hometown to investigate a strange illness affecting the locals, she crosses paths with disgraced scientist Alec Holland (Andy Bean), who has discovered something equally weird about the nearby swamp’s vegetation. By the end of the pilot he’s become victim to the show’s ecologically…

RAVEN In this eco-minded ITV twist on the legend from 1977, future Parklife-spouting geezer-in-chief Phil Daniels stars as a borstal boy who discovers he’s the reincarnation of King Arthur, returning to save the nation from nuclear catastrophe. DOCTOR WHO 1989 tale “Battlefield”finds Sylvester McCoy’s Time Lord encountering Arthurian knights from another dimension – and realising that Merlin will be one of his future incarnations. Wibblywobbly, mythy-wythy! Written by Rivers Of London’s Ben Aaronovitch. AVALON HIGH Meg Cabot’s YA novel from 2005 replays the legend of Camelot among the jocks, bad boys and cheerleaders of a Maryland high school. A Disney Channel adaptation followed in 2010. CAMELOT 3000 This DC Comics series by Mike W Barr and Brian Bolland gives Arthurian lore an SF makeover, reincarnating the king and his cohorts…

▶ RELEASED 24 June 1970-1977 | 18 | Blu-ray ▶ Directors John Hayes, Martin Goldman, Robert Voskanian ▶ Cast JJ Barry, Laurel Barnett, Brooke Mills, Edmond O’Brien released 24 June 1970-1977 | 18 | Blu-ray Directors John Hayes, Martin Goldman, Robert Voskanian Cast JJ Barry, Laurel Barnett, Brooke Mills, Edmond O’Brien moves between fantasy and reality is clumsy – a voiceover literally announces Grace’s delusion. Mulholland Drive this ain’t. Dark August is the pick of the set, with its shades of Don’t Look Now. JJ Barry does fine work as Sal, a down-on-his-luck fella haunted metaphorically by guilt and literally by a malicious spectre. Sal accidentally caused the death of a young girl, and now her grandpa is coming for him with the dark arts. The pacing is wayward, but there…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1971 | PG | Blu-ray ▶ Director Robert Wise ▶ Cast Arthur Hill, David Wayne, James Olson, Kate Reid Centred on the staff of Wildfire, a secret government lab hidden underground, this classy Michael Crichton adaptation maintains a rigorous concentration on methodology, meticulously detailing the investigation after something brought back by a satellite all but wipes out a small town in New Mexico. Barring a last-minute countdown (the one concession to Hollywood convention), it’s a film with no action, whose sense of threat relies on the audience extrapolating a doomsday scenario. It should be a bore, but as the protagonists proceed through stages of preparation and scientific enquiry, a powerful sense of authenticity renders the film strangely fascinating. With its primary-coloured corridors, it’s attractively mounted, with…

Pick of the paperbacks this month: Peter F Hamilton’s SALVATION (out now, Pan). First in a new sequence, it sees a team investigate after an alien shipwreck is found on a distant planet. Its protagonists don’t trust one another, but are stuck in each other’s company – and one of them may be an alien agent. We said: “Works brilliantly as a thriller, with Hamilton ratcheting up the tension. Exciting, wildly imaginative and quite possibly his best book to date.”Anyone who loves both Douglas Adams and Eurovision should get a kick out of Catherynne M Valente’s Hugo-nominated SPACE OPERA (4 July, Corsair). Featuring a breathtaking array of strange alien races, it sees two has-been glam rockers striving to avoid coming last in an intergalactic talent show. If they fail, humanity…

Titles we couldn’t quite squeeze in include THE GLASS BREAKS (out now, Head Of Zeus), the opening salvo of an epic fantasy series by AJ Smith. It centres on a 17-year-old “Sea Wolf”, able to step out of the real world and into the void, then reappear wherever he wishes. Wayward Pines creator Blake Crouch’s latest thriller, RECURSION (out now, Macmillan) sees a New York cop investigating cases involving people driven mad by memories of a life they never lived… Meanwhile, Terry Brooks’s four-part conclusion to the Shannara series, The Fall Of Shannara, rolls on with book three, THE STIEHL ASSASSIN (out now, Orbit). Monarch Sophy Dunbarron attempts to navigate a political maze as Callie Bates’s The Waking Land trilogy concludes with THE SOUL OF POWER (out now, Hodder &…