Topic

first contact

2 articles in this route.

Editorial composition divided between 2001 and Solaris, with a monolith, an oceanic planet and a projection room.

May 20, 2026

2001, Solaris and the Cinema of Impossible Contact

Two films suggest that extraterrestrial contact is not chiefly a technical problem but a philosophical one: how do we speak to what resists understanding?

first contact Kubrick Tarkovsky Solaris science fiction

Luminous figure over Earth surrounded by scenes of messianic extraterrestrial visitors.

February 9, 2026

The Messianic Extraterrestrial

The extraterrestrial as messiah is one of science-fiction cinema's persistent motifs: an outside agent who arrives to redeem us from ourselves.

messianism first contact benevolent aliens science fiction