In the future — I can’t tell you when, but it must be pretty far — people can live forever. The catch is that you need lots of money for that, so things haven’t changed much, really. Since having that happen because of better medical treatments and hormone therapies and such isn’t very dramatic, they have a distinctly sci-fi twist here. When you’re born, you age normally until your 25th birthday. The second you turn twenty-five, your body stops aging and your clock starts ticking down. No, seriously.
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The Three Musketeers
I’ve read that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, when writing a Sherlock Holmes story, used to start with the solution and then fill in the plot and clues that would lead to that solution. My suspicion is that something similar happened here. I think someone said, “Hey, you know what would be really cool? If there was an airship battle over Notre Dame that knocked gargoyles off the roof!” Then someone else said that it would be even better if they were steampunky airships, and then someone else said that it would be even better if there was lots and lots of swordfighting, too.
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The Thing
Once upon a time, a crazy Norwegian man in Antarctica tried to shoot a dog, and before anyone knew quite what was happening, a horror movie called The Thing broke out. Now yet another horror movie called The Thing has popped up out of nowhere. Well, yes, out of Antarctica again, but that’s basically the middle of nowhere. This flick is, as you may have heard, more a prequel than a remake of the original, though I’m told some scenes are fairly similar.
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Real Steel
In 1956, a man named Richard Matheson had a short story called “Steel” published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and it was good. Then it was made into an episode of The Twilight Zone, also called “Steel”, and it was less good. Now, with the word “Real” tacked onto the front of the title, it’s made the leap to the big screen — sort of, since it’s only very loosely based on the story. But if you think this sounds uncomfortably like the horror that was The Box, don’t worry.
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Dream House
Once upon a time, there were two little girls who lived in a house in the middle of a forest. Actually, it’s in the middle of a subdivision in the middle of a forest, but sometimes it really does seem like it’s terribly isolated and some scary guy is going to get you before you can run across the street to the neighbors’ house.
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