Finally, a Sci-Fi Movie Heavy on the Science: “Europa Report”

The producers of a new movie called “Europa Report” have released a new trailer about their film, which features a near-future mission to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, in search of extraterrestrial life. From the trailer, the film looks to be of extremely high quality, and it stars Sharlto Copley (District 9), with music score from composer Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica, Eureka).

And while this is a sci-fi flick, the makers of “Europa Report” say they have steeped it in real science. JPL scientists acted as advisers on the film, and it’s been called “One of the most thrilling and realistic depictions of deep-space exploration since ‘Moon’ and ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’” by Space.com

Enjoy the trailer below.

The film will be released on for download on June 27th and theatrically on August 2nd through Magnolia Pictures. The premiere showing of the film will be in the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History on August 1st.

27 Replies to “Finally, a Sci-Fi Movie Heavy on the Science: “Europa Report””

  1. I hope you’re right, because it looks like yet another horror film masquerading as science fiction.

      1. They can, but what generally happens is these sorts of movies are mostly horror, and very little science fiction.

      2. They’re not, but the science crowd has been duped into paying movie fare for a “science fiction” film many, many times.

        Expect Pandorum, which looked like horror but ended up being a neat little scifi movie. Loved the end.

      3. the end would have been better if it had been left how it should have ended … they had been out there so long the stars and galaxies had drifted apart leaving nothing but an inky black void of nothing… instead of a sodding fish…!

      4. I hated Pandorum. It was really a lot like 28 Days Later IN SPAAAAAACE, with inconsistent pacing and a pathetic twist ending. Not even a typically classy performance by Dennis Quaid could save it.

  2. This is an entertainment fiction movie, not a science movie, please treat it as such. If it contains good science, so much the better.

  3. Sheesh, if you want your movie science to be lectures in physics, go to a museum. If you want an interesting story where the science is ubiquitous, this trailer looks like a good yarn in a universe we understand and not fantasy pseudo science. No unexplained artificial gravity, no FTL B.S. Real solar power and chemical rockets: not a flux capacitor in sight – etc. etc.

    Maybe there are “monsters.” From our human-centric perspective any organism intent on defending itself or just being hungry are monsters by that standard. This looks
    like an imagining of first contact – I expect we are more likely to encounter a parental creature protecting its young or territory than Vulcans, ET or ALF.

  4. From Edward Bellamy to Stanley Kubrick, Cameron’s “Shane saves the Natives” to Kubrick’s cheesy ape costumes, we love our science and our questions and get both way wrong when “predicting” the near future. Saw the 2018 based “Blade Runner” last night, please, when in the 20th century did we stop in-office smoking? Pass on this one.

  5. A minor critique I have is that the launch shows a Delta rocket that could in no way loft a spacecraft this large.

    LC

    1. It looks more like footage from the Atlas V-551 launch of the Juno mission towards Jupiter a couple of years ago.

  6. Lots of screaming and running around in total panic. Horror flick. Maybe there is some decent science in it. Overshadowed by – horror flick.

  7. Looks a lot like 2010 (the book) where the chinese landed on Europa and were attacked because of their lights. And if ya’ll ever get a chance, read all 4 books of Clarke’s odyssey.

    1. Yes, read all four, but be aware 3001 has about 15 pages of the Odyssey plotline and the rest is all Clarke’s vision of the future – which though interesting, isn’t much on plot.

  8. Mike, I think you are right. Another space opera horror film. There is so much right here on our own planet far stranger than any of the run of the mill garbage coming out of Bollywood. Google “The Doctrine of Convergent Timeline Paradox”.
    The DCTP suggests the remaining
    presence of the J-Rods in our timeline, having originated
    from the alternate prior timeline, will effectively be world
    line immigrants from a future that they helped never happen
    for us. This is Area 51 stuff and the claim is that at least some of the ET’s are from one of our possible future and is claimed to be real. Way more interesting than sci-fi horror in outer space.

  9. Isn’t Europa too radioactive for humans to safely visit? It orbits within Jupiter’s radiation belt and unlike big brother Ganymede, Europa lacks a magnetic field.

  10. To Universe Today: Now and then when I go to a page I get the “You 404’d it, gnarly, dude.” I haven’t been able to pin down why it happens – my end, your end, or the server end, but it’s usually checking pages I already know exist. After going away and coming back later I get in.

      1. I will try that, but It’s still weird. I can get into other articles on UT, but not one. then it clears up. This doesn’t happen to any other site.

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