Museum of Science Fiction

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Museum of Science Fiction

The Museum of Science Fiction will be the world’s first comprehensive science fiction museum, covering the history of the genre across the arts.

The Museum of Science Fiction will be the world’s first comprehensive institution for the genre, covering its history across the arts and providing a narrative on its relationship to the real world. Planning for the Museum project began in April 2013. The museum will offer visitors opportunities to experience and learn about some of the most important science fiction artifacts and achievements. In

doing so, the museum will preserve important cultural icons and create an environment that perpetuates higher levels of learning, creativity, imagination, and thoughts about our future.

05/04/2026

Happy Star Wars Day! Time to fill in the blank!

04/26/2026

"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit."

04/04/2026

👨‍🚀 When 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered in early April 1968, it wasn’t just a groundbreaking film, it was an early example of a story designed across formats.

Inspired by The Sentinel, Arthur C. Clarke worked alongside Stanley Kubrick to develop both the movie and a companion novel at the same time.

While the film leaves much unexplained, inviting interpretation and debate, the book helps clarify key elements, from the monolith to HAL’s behavior.

Perhaps, one story told two different ways: one to experience, one to understand.

Would you start with the film… or the book?

03/30/2026

🖖 Did you know that March is packed with the birthdays of some of Star Trek’s biggest legends?

It begins on March 2 with Gates McFadden, who portrayed Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. As the chief medical officer, she brought intelligence, compassion, and quiet strength to the crew.

It continues on March 3 with James Doohan, the man behind Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, the engineer who could fix anything under pressure.

A few weeks later, on March 22, it continues with William Shatner, forever known as Captain James T. Kirk, the bold and charismatic leader of the Enterprise.

Just four days after that, March 26 marks the birth of Leonard Nimoy, whose portrayal of Spock brought logic, depth, and quiet humanity to the franchise.

And on March 29, we celebrate Marina Sirtis, who gave us Counselor Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation, adding emotional intelligence to the bridge of the Enterprise.

One month, five iconic characters, and a huge part of what makes Star Trek feel like Star Trek.

Speaking of birthdays… have you ever gotten a Star Trek–themed gift?

03/25/2026

On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to watch Project Hail Mary?

03/07/2026

🎥 When The Terminator was released, its budget was modest. The now-iconic endoskeleton scenes were created using stop-motion animation, puppetry, and practical animatronics. The slightly jerky movement of the metal skeleton, which some critics initially saw as a limitation, actually enhanced its inhuman quality. Stan Winston’s effects work gave the T-800 real physical weight and presence, grounding the sci-fi horror in something that felt tangible and believable.

Then came Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and with it, a revolution. The liquid-metal T-1000 wasn’t just a new villain; it marked a leap forward in computer-generated imagery. Working with Industrial Light & Magic, the filmmakers combined cutting-edge CGI with practical effects to create transformations audiences had never seen before.

The morphing technology pioneered for T2 didn’t just impress moviegoers… it reshaped Hollywood’s expectations. Techniques refined during the film’s production helped pave the way for movies like Jurassic Park and the wave of CGI-heavy blockbusters that followed.

What makes the Terminator franchise especially fascinating is how it bridged two eras of filmmaking. Even in T2, digital effects were supported by physical models, prosthetics, and animatronics. In the famous scene where the T-800 pulls back damaged skin to reveal machinery, the filmmakers used a realistic mechanical arm prop covered with artificial skin, not just computer graphics.

Do you have a favorite Terminator scene?

02/24/2026

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films have sparked a major resurgence of interest in Frank Herbert’s original science fiction classic.

After the first film’s awards run, sales of the novel surged dramatically, a reminder that a great adaptation can become the most powerful marketing engine a book ever gets. Movie tie-in editions returned to bestseller lists, and the older, long-standing editions of the novel climbed indie bookstore bestseller lists for months.

The renewed attention has not stopped with the novel itself. Collectors have driven up prices for rarities like The Dune Encyclopedia and early printings of the book. (Share your book covers!)

There has also been growing interest in alternative formats like Dune: The Graphic Novel, which offers a more visual entry point for readers discovering the universe through the films.

And the revival extends well beyond books. From high-end collectibles and LEGO sets to upcoming games like Dune: Awakening, Arrakis has become a full-scale sci-fi ecosystem again.

02/22/2026

✨Jeri Ryan, born on this day in 1968, is best known for bringing Seven of Nine to life on Star Trek: Voyager, one of the franchise’s most complex and fan-favorite characters. Fun sci-fi crossover trivia: her Voyager performance was so popular that it helped spark renewed interest in the franchise during the late 1990s and indirectly set the stage for later series like Star Trek: Picard, where she reprised the role decades later.

02/16/2026

The massive Star Destroyer gliding overhead in the opening moments of Star Wars is one of the most famous shots in film history. What many people do not realize is that the thinking behind that illusion has roots in academic research, not Hollywood.

In the 1960s and 1970s, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley studied how people perceive large-scale environments like highways and urban developments. As part of this work, they built detailed physical models and filmed simulated “drive-through” views to understand how planned changes might feel from a human point of view.

These experiments explored whether carefully filmed miniatures could evoke the same perceptual response as real-world scenes. The insight was that if camera movement, perspective, and lighting behave the way our brains expect, scale becomes surprisingly flexible. A small model can feel enormous on screen.

That same principle carried into visual effects work at Industrial Light and Magic. When the team developed motion control cameras for Star Wars, they applied these ideas to miniature spacecraft. The Star Destroyer looks massive not because the model is large, but because its movement and perspective match how something enormous would move through space.

In a roundabout way, techniques developed to study suburban traffic helped make audiences believe in mile-long starships.

For more on the original psychology research and how it helped shape motion control camera technology, see this National Science Foundation article: https://www.nsf.gov/science-matters/1970s-psychology-experiment-behind-star-wars-special-effects

02/13/2026

True or False: Paul Atreides was a Mentat.

02/08/2026

🦑 Jules Verne was born on on this day in 1828, decades before submarines, space travel, or moon missions were real... and yet he imagined them with uncanny technical detail. Fun fact: his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas described electric-powered submarines years before they actually existed, inspiring real engineers who later helped make that future real.

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