Journey Through Sci-Fi: Science Fiction Film History – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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Journey Through Sci-Fi: Science Fiction Film History

James Payne

Cinéma & Séries

Fréquence : 1 épisode/13j. Total Éps: 196

A film history podcast that takes one big science-fiction idea and follows it through the decades. Hosted by James Payne and Matt Willcock, Journey Through Sci-Fi traces the evolution of science fiction on screen, from the silent era to the present day. Each episode pairs two films to ask what changed in between: how they were made, what they reveal about the world that produced them, and how science fiction keeps reinventing the same hopes, fears and questions for a new generation. Previous journeys have explored Artificial Intelligence, from Metropolis and The Terminator to Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix and Ex Machina. Space Opera, from the Star Wars trilogies and Dune to Starcrash and the silent-era A Trip to Mars. Plus Time Travel, Dystopias, Virtual Reality and Mad Science, with regular detours into science-fiction television. Next journey: Friendly Aliens, We Come in Peace! New episodes every other Thursday. Bonus episodes, Patron's Picks and franchise deep dives at patreon.com/JourneyThroughSciFi Part of the EOH Network

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The 27th Day (1957) & The Space Children (1958): Who Would You Trust with the Bomb?

Saison 8 · Épisode 4

mercredi 21 octobre 2026 • Durée 01:20:17

The 27th Day (1957) and The Space Children (1958). Two films that hand humanity a weapon and
watch what happens next.

Journey Through Sci-Fi continues We Come in Peace, our series tracing the history of friendly
aliens on screen. This time, one alien picks five adults at random and gives them all the power
to end the world. The other skips the adults entirely and goes to the children.

First, The 27th Day. Five strangers from five countries are abducted, handed capsules that can
kill every human within 3,000 miles, and dropped straight back home. Only they can open the box.
Anyone can fire what's inside. It's a thought experiment with a script wrapped round it, it runs
75 minutes, and the final act takes a turn neither of us saw coming.

Then Jack Arnold, a year on from It Came from Outer Space. A glowing brain washes up near a
missile base where the Air Force is about to park a hydrogen bomb in orbit. It never speaks,
never explains itself, and does all its work through the children of the men building the bomb.

In this episode:
- An alien who introduces himself as "the alien", in a leather jumpsuit, wasting nobody's time
- A lock that only opens for you, and a weapon anyone can fire once it's open
- Shaving off a moustache as a witness protection programme
- A nuanced Soviet soldier and a cartoon Soviet general, in the same 1957 American film
- An H-bomb parked in the sky, and the kids who think it's brilliant
- Wisdom and innocence, and why the alien never once talks to an adult
- A stepdad with it coming, and a body nobody grieves

Also discussed: The Day the Earth Stood Still, It Came from Outer Space, Warning from Space,
20 Million Miles to Earth, The Colossus of New York, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Twilight
Zone, The Box, The Blob, Flubber, Micromegas, The Midwich Cuckoos, Five Children and It,
Spirited Away and Space Truckers.

Five adults or a gang of kids? Tell us who you would trust with the button.

Next time: The Man from Planet X (1951) and The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976).

Hosted and produced by James Payne and Matt Willcock.
Edited by James Payne.

Bonus episodes on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/journeythroughscifi
Join the JTSF Logbook, our free newsletter: https://journeythroughscifi.beehiiv.com
Full back catalogue and everything else: https://journeythroughscifi.com

Follow the show so you never miss an episode, and if you can, a review or a share costs nothing
and helps a lot.

Journey Through Sci-Fi is part of the EOH Network.

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It Came from Outer Space (1953) & Warning from Space (1956): Don't Be Afraid

Saison 8 · Épisode 3

mercredi 7 octobre 2026 • Durée 01:04:25

It Came from Outer Space (1953) and Warning from Space (1956). Two sets of aliens who mean us no
harm, and both decide the safest thing to do is put on a human face.

Journey Through Sci-Fi continues We Come in Peace, our series tracing the history of friendly
aliens on screen. This time, two films where the visitors are not hostile, and nobody believes it
until they see it with their own eyes.

First, Ray Bradbury's desert. A meteor that isn't a meteor, an amateur astronomer nobody listens
to, and townspeople going missing one by one. Bradbury handed Universal the monster movie they
asked for and the one he actually wanted to make, and got away with it. We get into Jack Arnold's frontier eye, the 3D gimmicks, and the spider speech that says everything the film has to say and changes nobody's mind.

Then Japan, three years later. Starfish aliens in fabric suits, a rogue planet on its way, and a script by one of Kurosawa's regular writers. Japan's first science fiction film in colour swerves from horror to magical girl comedy to a bleak disaster movie, sometimes inside one scene. It has the friendliest aliens we have met so far, which does not stop them acting mostly in their own interest.

In this episode:
- Universal's first 3D film, and the cork boulders fired at the premiere audience
- An intermission 55 minutes into an 80 minute film, and why the projector is to blame
- Barbara Rush's Golden Globe and her three identical screams
- Starfish pyjamas, and the scene that shows you far too much
- A ring communicator, a tennis match, and a magical girl detour into a nuclear disaster movie
- Friendly aliens, or just extremely risk averse ones?

Also discussed: The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Message from Mars, The Incredible Shrinking Man,
Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Space Children, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Godzilla,
Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Ran, The Hidden Fortress, I Live in Fear, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura and
Star Trek: First Contact.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951 & 2008): Come in Peace, Or Else

Saison 8 · Épisode 2

mercredi 23 septembre 2026 • Durée 01:28:00

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and its 2008 remake. The alien who comes in peace and brings a threat with him.

Journey Through Sci-Fi continues We Come in Peace, our series tracing the history of friendly aliens on screen. This time, the foundational one. A saucer lands on a Washington baseball field, a man walks out with a gift and a message, and he is shot for it inside a minute.

Klaatu is polite, patient and 78 years old in a 35 year old body. Behind him stands Gort, seven foot seven of rubber suit and near limitless force. We get into what 1951 audiences carried into the cinema with them, why a film about world peace was built from a short story that had nothing to do with world peace, and how much of the friendly alien playbook starts right here.

Then 2008. Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, a swarm of nanobots and a McDonald's. The nuclear threat becomes an environmental one, Klaatu arrives having already decided we are not worth saving, and the remake we both expected to be terrible turns out to be an admirable attempt at updating the classic sci-fi movie.

In this episode:

Flying saucer mania
Farewell to the Master: Harry Bates' 1940 story, and the twist Fox threw away
Michael Rennie's charm offensive, and the two separate times he gets gunned down
Gort's little pants, circus strongmen and the Superman connection
Who would you take an alien to today? Brian Cox or Martin Lewis
Milk, milkshakes, and the day the American dairy industry stood still
GORT as an acronym
Old Testament orbs, arks and biblical locusts
Is humanity worth saving? Asked and answered in a McDonald's car park

Also discussed: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, A Message from Mars, Destination Moon, The Man from Planet X, The Twilight Zone, War of the Worlds (2005), The Happening, WALL-E, Armageddon, The Matrix, John Wick, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Alien: Romulus, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Disclosure Day.

Gort or GORT? Tell us which robot you would rather meet in a field.

A Message from Mars (1913): The First Friendly Alien

Saison 8 · Épisode 1

mercredi 9 septembre 2026 • Durée 50:04

Where does the friendly alien begin? Not with E.T., but with a Martian exiled to Edwardian London to reform the most selfish man alive.

Journey Through Sci-Fi returns with a brand new series. We Come in Peace traces the history of friendly aliens on screen. In this opener we set out the stall: what makes a visitor friendly rather than hostile, why everything gets measured against E.T., and how one mistranslated Italian word put Martians in our heads.

Then we go back to 1913 and A Message from Mars, widely held to be the first British science fiction film. Ramiel, a Martian stripped of his rank and banished to Earth, has to reform a selfish London bachelor called Horace Parker. It is A Christmas Carol with a spaceman, and almost every benevolent visitor since owes it something.

In this episode:

Friendly visitor or invader? Where the line actually sits
Voltaire's Micromégas (1752), possibly the first friendly alien story ever written
Kenneth Arnold, Roswell, and how 1947 gave us the flying saucer
Schiaparelli's canali: the mistranslation that built fictional Mars
Ramiel's tough love, the zap power, and some baffling 1913 camera trickery
Lizard people or Arthurian courtiers?
Britain in 1913: picture palaces and a film industry inventing itself

Also discussed: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Cocoon, Batteries Not Included, Earth Girls Are Easy, It Came from Outer Space, Aelita: Queen of Mars, A Princess of Mars, Project Hail Mary and Armageddon.

Watch along with us. A Message from Mars is free on BFI Replay: https://replay.bfi.org.uk/video/7f470ecc-3ccd-5cde-aca0-ac97153f8ecd

Lizards or courtiers? Tell us what you saw.

Next time: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) meets its 2008 remake.

Hosted and produced by James Payne and Matt Willcock. Edited by James Payne.

We Come in Peace! Series Trailer

mercredi 26 août 2026 • Durée 01:39

Some of them came to warn us. Some of them just wanted to go home.

We Come in Peace is a new series from Journey Through Sci-Fi, tracing the friendly alien across a century of film and television. We start in the earliest days of visitors from other worlds and work our way to the present, asking how and why that image kept changing.

Along the way: The Day the Earth Stood Still, It Came from Outer Space, Warning from Space, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Starman, Cocoon, Alien Nation, Coneheads, Men in Black, The Iron Giant, Arrival and plenty more.

Episode one arrives (in peace) on 10 September, with new episodes every other week.

Journey Through Sci-Fi is part of the EOH network. Hosted by James Payne and Matt Willcock.

Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss the first episode.

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Sci-Fi Starter Pack: Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Mad Max & More

jeudi 30 juillet 2026 • Durée 26:31

New to Journey Through Sci-Fi? Start here.

Before we launch our next full series on friendly aliens, we're taking a journey back through the archive with a special starter pack episode, featuring some of our favourite clips from past series.

Across this episode, we revisit some of the biggest ideas in sci-fi cinema: the mythic storytelling of the original Star Wars trilogy, the artificial intelligence and uneasy humanity of Blade Runner, the time-loop perfection of Groundhog Day, the simulated reality of The Matrix, the collapsing world of Mad Max, and the haunted-house-in-space horror of Event Horizon.

Featuring discussions of:

Star Wars Original Trilogy
Blade Runner
Metropolis
Groundhog Day
The Matrix Trilogy
Mad Max
Event Horizon

Whether you're a longtime listener revisiting old favourites or a new listener looking for the best place to begin, this episode is a guided tour through the many worlds, subgenres and strange obsessions of Journey Through Sci-Fi.

Our new series, We Come in Peace, exploring the history of friendly aliens on screen, begins soon. Follow Journey Through Sci-Fi now so you don't miss it.

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Disclosure Day: Spielberg and the Return of Friendly Aliens

mercredi 24 juin 2026 • Durée 08:22

A little bonus transmission from the JTSF Patreon feed.

We've been chatting about Spielberg's Disclosure Day, and because our next main-feed series is all about the history of friendly aliens in sci-fi cinema, this felt like the perfect thing to share.

In this spoiler-light extract, we talk Spielberg returning to alien territory, why big first-contact movies feel rarer now, and how Disclosure Day turns the friendly alien story into something closer to a conspiracy thriller for the misinformation age.

The full spoiler episode is available now on Patreon, where we get into the ending, the film's bigger ideas, and whether good old Stevie has still got it when it comes to visitors from the stars.

Hear the full episode on Patreon
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The Mad Science Movie Awards: 58 Films, So Many Bad Ideas

Saison 7 · Épisode 31

mercredi 6 mai 2026 • Durée 01:34:00

We close out our Mad Science series the only way we know how: with a very serious, deeply prestigious and completely unofficial Mad Science Film Awards.

After 58 films and more than a century of sci-fi cinema, we look back at the scientists, monsters, labs, experiments and terrible decisions that defined the season.

From Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Invisible Man to The Fly, Re-Animator, Jurassic Park, Get Out and Poor Things, we trace how mad science evolved from gothic cautionary tales to atomic-age anxiety, body horror, corporate genetics, surveillance, consent and control.

Categories include Best Mad Scientist, Biggest Ego in a Lab Coat, Most Unethical Experiment, Best Creation, Best Lab, Hidden Gem and the big one: Best Mad Science Movie.

Plus we unveil what we will be covering the next series of Jounrey Through Sci-fi!

🚀 Join The JTSF Logbook
Recommendations, discoveries and updates from our journey through sci-fi cinema: journeythroughscifi.beehiiv.com

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Mad Science in Star Trek: Khan, Bashir and the Eugenics Wars

Saison 7 · Épisode 30

mercredi 22 avril 2026 • Durée 59:37

This week on Journey Through Sci-Fi, we head into the Star Trek universe to explore one of its most enduring mad science taboos: genetic engineering. From Space Seed and the rise of Khan to Enterprise's Augments arc and Deep Space Nine's shocking Bashir reveal, we trace how Star Trek keeps returning to the dangers of trying to "improve" humanity.

Along the way, we get into the Eugenics Wars, creator-creation relationships, scientific hubris, and why a utopian future still casts a long shadow over forbidden science.

Plus: Brent Spiner being superbly awful, Bashir's identity crisis, and why this theme runs through Star Trek for more than 200 years of in-universe history.

Episodes discussed:
Star Trek: The Original Series — "Space Seed" (S1E22)
Star Trek: Enterprise — "Borderland" (S4E04), "Cold Station 12" (S4E05), "The Augments" (S4E06)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" (S5E16)

Also referenced:
Star Trek — "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
Star Trek: The Next Generation — "The Schizoid Man"
Star Trek: Voyager — "Tuvix"

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Frankenstein (2025) & The Bride! (2026): Mad Science Comes Full Circle

Saison 7 · Épisode 29

jeudi 9 avril 2026 • Durée 01:32:05

What happens when one of sci-fi's oldest stories is reimagined for a modern audience?

In this episode of Journey Through Sci-Fi, we return to the origin of mad science — Mary Shelley's Frankenstein — through two new adaptations: Frankenstein (2025), directed by Guillermo del Toro, and The Bride! (2026), directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal.

This isn't just another adaptation.

It's a full-circle moment for the genre.

From the obsessive creator who dares to make life… to the creation who refuses to belong to him, these films show how the Frankenstein myth has evolved over 200 years of science fiction.

In this episode we explore:

• Why Frankenstein is still the blueprint for every mad scientist story
• How these new versions reinterpret the act of creating life
• What they keep — and what they completely reinvent — from the original myth
• Why The Bride! flips the perspective from creator to creation
• What this tells us about where sci-fi — and mad science — is heading next

From gothic horror roots to modern sci-fi storytelling, this is the evolution of one of the genre's defining ideas.

And a fitting end point for our Mad Science series.

Because sometimes the most important sci-fi story isn't about the future…

…it's the one we've been retelling all along.

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