Fans who'd grown up on the original "Star Wars" trilogy were adults when they went through the ordeal of Han, Luke and Leia dying on screen. If tears were shed then, however, spare a thought for the kids who'd queued to watch "Transformers: The Movie" back in 1986, only to see many of their heroes expiring in the cartoon spin-off's opening act.

If you can have a bloodbath of sentient machines, this was it, as robots in disguise met their maker at an alarming rate. Ironhide? Dead. Ratchet? No more. Starscream? Pushing up mechanical daisies. Not even the iconic Optimus Prime was spared, as the noble leader of the Autobots met a brutal end at the hands of his nemesis, Decepticon leader Megatron.

This may seem like a recipe for traumatizing the film's target audience — and for many of "Transformers: The Movie"'s young viewers, it was a genuinely disturbing experience. But toy manufacturer Hasbro had ulterior motives for killing their darlings.

Like "Masters of the Universe" (and many other '80s cartoons before and after), the popular "Transformers" TV show was a thinly veiled commercial for one of the hottest toylines on the planet. But, the theory went, the kids who'd been watching since the series debuted in 1984 would now be familiar/bored with the original line-up, and already have the relevant robots in disguise in their toyboxes. By instigating an on-screen cull, Hasbro believed they'd be able to make way for new characters, and keep their young fans coming back for more.

"They created the story using characters that could best be merchandised for the movie," director Nelson Shin (who, in a previous life, had helped to animate the lightsabers in the original "Star Wars") told SFX magazine in 2011. "Only with that consideration could I have freedom to change the storyline. What I tried to focus on was animation-izing the story. For example, when Optimus Prime died, I changed his color from red and blue into gray in order to show that the spirit was gone from his body."

Although screenwriter Ron Friedman was sceptical — "I told Hasbro and their lieutenants they would have to bring him back, but they said no and had 'great things planned'," he recalled to Todd Matthy.com — many of the production team had little idea of the emotional carnage they were about to unleash.

"We didn't know that [Optimus Prime] was an icon," story consultant Flint Dille admitted in an interview on the "Transformers: The Movie" DVD. "It was a toy show. We just thought we were killing off the old product line to replace it with new products.

"Kids were crying in the theaters," he continued. "We heard about people leaving the movie. We were getting a lot of nasty notes about it. There was some kid who locked himself in his bedroom for two weeks."

Forty years on from its original release, a movie with such a high death count looks like a misguided brand extension for a popular Saturday morning cartoon — especially as the TV incarnation hadn't killed anyone across its two seasons to date. But for all its flaws, "Transformers: The Movie"'s storytelling was arguably bolder than any other Hollywood animation of the era.

It was also an impressive technical feat. Although the visuals are a visible step-up from the TV version, Shin (who'd been supervising producer on the cartoon from day one) and his team had to work to extremely tight deadlines to meet the film's release date:

"Time constraints and the sheer amount of work needed were the two biggest challenges, since everything had to be hand-drawn by people!"

The film is set in 2005, some 20 years on from the original series. The Decepticons have taken control of the Transformer homeworld of Cybertron, while human Autobot chum Spike Witwicky (a kid in the TV show) is now grown up with a son of his own. When the villains attack the Autobots' base on Earth, Optimus Prime is fatally wounded, with Megatron also at death's door.

A moment where he pleads, "Don't leave me, Soundwave!" to his loyal cassette player lieutenant is unintentionally hilarious, though still can't compete with a later sequence in which the surviving Autobots dance for joy with some new allies — tonally this movie is all over the place.

Having been cast adrift by the duplicitous Starscream, Megatron runs into a planet-sized robot in disguise named Unicron, who has a similar world-chomping MO as Marvel's Galactus. He wants to get his hands on the Autobots' Matrix of Leadership (the only thing in the universe that can kill him), so he transforms a reluctant Megatron into the souped-up Galvatron, and sends him out to hunt for the McGuffin.

It makes for a madcap 85 minutes as two factions of mostly unfamiliar faces vie to come out on top. The story is mostly told via the medium of fast-paced laser battles, alongside encounters with the surprising number of robotic lifeforms who populate the galaxy. Among them are a five-faced being with a penchant for feeding its fellow machines to mechanical sharks, and some scrapyard dwellers whose conversation is based on snippets from TV ads.

The "Junkions"' leader, Wreck-Gar, is voiced by Monty Python's Eric Idle, just one of the numerous star names whose presence would have meant little, if anything, to the film's young audience back in 1986. Megatron's Galvatron upgrade brought with it the dulcet tones of "Star Trek"'s Leonard Nimoy, reckless Autobot up-and-comer Hot Rod was voiced by "The Breakfast Club"'s Judd Nelson, and Robert Stack (whom readers of a certain vintage will recognize from "Airplane!") was Optimus Prime's ultra-serious number two, Ultra Magnus.

The biggest name of all was a bona fide Hollywood legend, as Orson Welles delivered his final performance as Unicron. Of the "Citizen Kane" auteur, Shin said, "He was co-operative and professional, and I liked working with him," though Welles was apparently a little less convinced.

"You know what I did this morning?" he reportedly complained to a friend. "I played the voice of a toy… I menace somebody called something-or-other. Then I'm destroyed. My plan to destroy whoever-it-is is thwarted, and I tear myself apart on the screen."

The filmmakers also spent more of their reported $6 million budget than they probably should have on a soundtrack powered by '80s hair metal and power ballads — Stan Bush's "The Touch", originally written for Sylvester Stallone vehicle "Cobra", went on to have a second life when the fictional Dirk Diggler "covered" the song in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Boogie Nights".

In hindsight, few of the creative decisions above were conducive to winning over a fanbase who'd have been happy with an extended episode of the TV show. "Transformers: The Movie" subsequently struggled to make back its budget at the box office, an also-ran in a packed summer that also included "Aliens", "Flight of the Navigator" and "Short Circuit".

It's since gone on to pick up a cult following, but still feels like one for completists — ask a casual fan to name a Transformer, and they're going to say Optimus Prime, Bumblebee or Megatron ahead of movie debutants Kup, Arcee (belatedly the first female Autobot) or Rodimus Prime.

Perhaps inevitably, Optimus Prime didn't stay dead for long, and made his inevitable comeback in the next season of the TV show. The good/bad thing about living in a modern pop culture universe is that death doesn't have to be the end.

"Transformers: The Movie" returns to theaters with a 40th anniversary re-release on September 17. It's also available to buy or rent on Amazon Prime Video.

On Episode 222 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik are joined by space writer Rich Edwards to discuss the best ways to repel space invaders.

We've all seen the movies... the aliens come to Earth, the aliens overcome the inferior humans, and the aliens fall prey to something dumb they overlooked, like microbes, Windows 95, or most absurdly, water. From the 1950s through yesterday, some of the best movies we've seen were about the invasion of our planet. They can be clever, scary, or even downright dumb, but they are all fun.

Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

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Space news of the week

• Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters
• Blue Origin traces origin of huge New Glenn rocket explosion to oxygen valve, CEO says
• Where will the total solar eclipse 2026 be visible from?
• SpaceX Question Time
• How to invade planet Earth: A sci-fi movie alien's guide to bringing the human race to its knees
• Alien movies in order: chronological and release
• Aliens' at 40: Here are 26 reasons why James Cameron's sequel is still the greatest sci-fi action movie of all time

Model Falcon 9!

Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes' stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.

About This Week In Space

This Week in Space covers the new space age. Every Friday we take a deep dive into a fascinating topic. What's happening with the new race to the moon and other planets? When will SpaceX really send people to Mars?

Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.

There are some things you can always rely on in "Star Trek". Vulcans are rarely great company at parties, for example, and you can be approximately 93% certain that the alien you're about to meet will be more-or-less human in form — give or take a few adornments around the forehead area.

And, just as most holodeck adventures turn out to be bad for the blood pressure, going on vacation is never as restful or relaxing as it's supposed to be. In fact, most starship crews would be better off saving the "out of office" for another day.

SPOILERS AHEAD! ANYONE YET TO WATCH "HUMAN BEST FRIEND" SHOULD PROCEED WITH CAUTION TO AVOID VIOLATING TEMPORAL PRIME DIRECTIVES.

That said, it's entirely understandable that the members of the Enterprise's Alpha Shift (aka the usual bridge crew) would want to take a break. They've been working non-stop for months, are on their way to mediate some potentially stressful peace negotiations, and — in the meantime — the mostly unseen members of Beta and Gamma Shifts have managed to sneak in some R&R of their own. But a quick trip through Starfleet history would tell them Pike and co's communal jolly in "Human Best Friend" (the latest episode of "Strange New Worlds" season 4) was doomed from the moment their shuttlecraft touched down.

Even James T Kirk and the Original Series gang take a brief sojourn away from their famous five-year mission. In aptly named season 1 episode "Shore Leave", the crew beam down to a theme park planet that was channelling "Westworld" several years before the 1973 movie unleashed a gunslinging android named Yul Brynner.

This seemingly idyllic vacation world is home to sophisticated tech that can read visitors' minds, and manufactures robots to manifest their thoughts in live-action. Some of these recreations are relatively harmless — Wonderland alumni Alice and the White Rabbit were, of course, no strangers to the '60s counter-culture — but Kirk somehow ends up face-to-face with a former school bully, while Dr McCoy winds up dead, Jim, on the end of a knight's lance. The ship's physician is subsequently resurrected by the park's in-house Caretaker, but it's not the sort of experience that earns five-star ratings on TripAdvisor.

Even so, the Enterprise gives the Omicron Delta region's hottest tourist destination another shot in Animated Series episode "Once Upon a Planet". But, following the kindly Caretaker's demise, the park is now under new management, in the form of a master computer that's become so resentful of its fleshy overlords that it's decided to rebel, kidnapping crew members, unleashing monsters from the darkest corners of their minds, and hatching a scheme to hijack the Enterprise — hardly a recipe for repeat business.

By the time the "Next Generation" era rolls around, Risa (a purpose-built "pleasure planet" with an artificially idyllic climate) has become the only place for vacationing Starfleet types to be seen.

When the famously workaholic Jean-Luc Picard bows to crew pressure in "Captain's Holiday" and agrees to spend a few days buried in a book by the pool, he instead finds himself embroiled in an Indiana Jones-esque quest to recover a powerful artefact from the future. It's not a bad experience, per se — numerous romantic sparks sizzle between Picard and professional relic hunter Vash — but it doesn't deliver on the R&R brief.

In "Deep Space Nine" episode "Let He Who is Without Sin…", meanwhile, the popular view of paradise proves too much for taciturn security guy Worf when girlfriend (and future wife) Jadzia Dax drags him to Risa.

Famously "not a merry man", he refuses to wear his civvies and sabotages the planet's weather systems, proving he's the kind of grump who'll think nothing about ruining the fun for everyone else. Some people really are only happy when it rains…

(The crew of the USS Voyager are presumably relieved that, being trapped in the Delta Quadrant, they have an excuse for giving the vastly overrated Risa a miss.)

That said, steering clear of pleasure planets is no guarantee of a happy vacation experience. When Picard decides to go back to the family vineyard to recover from his Borg assimilation ordeal in "Family", he spends most of the time butting heads with his stubborn brother, Robert — sometimes you just yearn for the simplicity of life in an emotionless cyborg collective. And Benjamin Sisko's own attempt at a family excursion with son Jake in "DS9"'s "Explorers" also proves to be far from peaceful, when the vintage lightship he's built from ancient Bajoran instructions warps them into uncharted waters and a run-in with the Cardassians.

So Pike and his crew should have known better when they embarked on shore leave of their own. Indeed, if anyone had bothered to read the microprint within the fine print — as highlighted by the Ceznar Grand's maître d' (played by "The Kids in the Hall" and "A Bug's Life" star Dave Foley) — they'd have been more prepared for the thumping headaches and memory gaps that come as standard when you're hanging out on a planet with a naturally intoxicating atmosphere.

Cue "The Hangover"-style hijinks as Ortegas and Scotty try to recall the night before via an extended game of "hunt the shuttlecraft", Nurse Chapel reveals a secret passion for bingo, and Number One karaokes her way through a succession of Klingon power ballads (aka the best kind).

They'll all be relieved to know that, in "Star Trek", whatever happens on shore leave tends to stay on shore leave — even questionable facial tattoos that, without futuristic Federation medical tech, Pike might otherwise have come to regret.

But crucially, we will always know what went down when Alpha Shift let their hair down. And at least Kirk and Spock had an excuse to enjoy the hugs and deep-and-meaningfuls we know they've always wanted.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays.

It's always the way, you wait 40,000 years for a Warhammer series from Amazon Prime Video, and then two come along at once.

Spinning off of Prime Video's animated video game-based anthology, "Secret Level," a new "Warhammer 40,000" animated series is marching down the creative pipeline. This spin-off series is spawned from "Secret Level's" "Warhammer 40,000" episode titled "And They Shall Know No Fear," which debuted in December of 2024.

The show doesn't have a name yet, but we know it's coming courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios, Blur Studios, and the miniature wargame's British parent company, Games Workshop.

Hollywood megastar and king of the nerds, Henry Cavill ("The Witcher"), has signed on to executive produce, alongside his role on the previously announced live-action "Warhammer 40,000" series in development at Amazon MGM Studios, which is coming from prolific writer/producer Mike Flanagan ("Midnight Mass," "Carrie").

We don't know much about the plot at this time, other than that it will focus on the Deathwatch, who are a group of intimidating cybernetically enhanced Space Marines who are particularly adept at slaying nasty extraterrestrial xenos.

Dave Wilson directed the original short, and he's signed on again here as co-creator and director, with John Orloff ("Masters of the Air," "Band of Brothers") aiding in the development process.

"Secret Level" creator Tim Miller ("Love, Death + Robots") serves as executive producer with Dave Wilson for Blur Studios, alongside Cavill and Natalie Viscuso. Joining them are Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment and Games Workshop's Andy Smillie.

"'Secret Level' wasn’t conceived simply as an anthology. It was designed as a launchpad for larger stories," said Wilson in a statement. "The response to the 'Warhammer' episode was extraordinary, particularly from fans who understood how much care went into getting the world right. This series gives us the opportunity to build on that foundation and tell a much larger story. I've wanted to tell a long-form story set in 'Warhammer 40,000' for more than twenty years, and I'm incredibly grateful to Games Workshop and Amazon MGM Studios for the opportunity to do it."

Prime Video is knee-deep in gaming adaptations with its acclaimed "Fallout" series and a "Tomb Raider" show starring "Game of Thrones"' Sophie Turner on the roster. Amazon MGM Studios is also hard at work on an epic "God of War" project, with "Guardians of the Galaxy's" Dave Bautista currently topping the list to portray Kratos after Ryan Hurst left the production due to an injury.

No specific release date was unveiled for "Warhammer 40,000's" animated event series, but we’ll keep you briefed on any major details in the coming months!

You might think you're done with the multiverse, but the multiverse is not done with you, as Apple TV preps the next season of its mind-bending sci-fi series, "Dark Matter."

Adapted from New York Times bestselling novelist Blake Crouch's 2016 novel of the same name, "Dark Matter" is another stellar series from the streaming platform that's become the go-to destination for premium science fiction content with hit shows "Foundation," "Silo," "For All Mankind," "Star City," "Invasion," "Pluribus," "Severance," and "Murderbot."

The debut season in 2024 took audiences into a reality-warping nightmare, and season 2 kicks things into a darker dimension when it rolls out on Aug. 28, 2026.

Season 1 found Joel Edgerton ("Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith," "Zero Dark 30," "Train Dreams") portraying Jason Dessen, a quantum physicist who gets sucked into an alternate reality and must struggle to prevent his second self from hijacking his life and family. Season 2 sees the Dessen family jolted out of their safe, quiet life once again when an unimaginable threat forces them to run once again.

"As Jason's obsession with the Box deepens, Daniela's growing paranoia pushes her to the brink, threatening to tear their fragile stability apart," reveals the synopsis. "Elsewhere, Amanda and Ryan join forces in a desperate attempt to find their way home. With Blair determined to stop him, while Leighton relentlessly chases his grand vision of creating a perfect world."

Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly ("The Rocketeer," "A Beautiful Mind") plays his prime world wife, Daniela, and Alice Braga takes on the role of Amanda Lucas, Dessen’s girlfriend in the shifted universe. Crouch ("Wayward Pines," "Recursion," "Upgrade") again serves as "Dark Matter's" showrunner and executive producer, where he steers the first-class production with a steady, capable hand beyond the book's storyline for its sophomore season. He'll share executive producing duties alongside Joel Edgerton, Jakob Verbruggen, Don Kurt, David Manpearl, and Matt Tolmach.

"Dark Matter's first season was an engaging and underappreciated sci-fi series that should satiate fans of sci-fi shows like "Fringe," "The Man in the High Castle," "Black Mirror," and even "Rick and Morty." We can't wait for season 2.

Speaking of which, starring Jimmi Simpson, Dayo Okeniyi, Oakes Fegley and Amanda Brugel, "Dark Matter" season 2 appears on Apple TV for a fresh 10-episode outing on Aug. 28, 2026.

Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi may not be the Star Wars TV show you were looking for, but after having watched its entire first season, I can confidently say it's something the franchise desperately needed.

With several new Star Wars movies on the horizon without a cohesive plan in sight and a surprising lack of new live-action Disney+ series beyond Ahsoka Season 2, it seems like the galaxy far, far away's future looks brighter in animation.

Shows like The Bad Batch and Maul – Shadow Lord have proven there's room for more tonal experiments and expansions of the canon canvas, yet it's the Legends-like Star Wars: Visions formula that's produced the most striking tales starring Jedi, Sith, Rebels, and whatnot in years.

After a second short released as part of last year's Star Wars: Visions Vol. 3, Production I.G's The Ninth Jedi has evolved into an eight-episode anime series that's far outside what we've come to expect from the canon Star Wars timeline.

And yet, the traditional nature of its story and setting showcases what an icon Star Wars could be for younger generations if it looked forward more often than backward.

A well-calculated evolution

Back in 2021, The Ninth Jedi became a fan-favorite what-if Star Wars scenario with a first short (which you can watch for free on YouTube right now) set generations after the disappearance of the Jedi Order. It's a familiar setup, but crucially, one that doesn't invoke the Skywalker family name, the Republic, or the Empire.

At the same time, the show's approach to the Force, the Jedi, and the Sith doesn't collide with what we've already seen. It almost feels like a canon Star Wars story that's just set centuries into the galaxy's future. Even the visuals, which evoke an old-fashioned style as possible — despite some jarring bits of CG imagery — use the same language Lucasfilm veterans like Doug Chiang have developed over the decades.

The Ninth Jedi sticks to the few rules established by the two previous shorts, but also dreams slightly bigger to paint a richer canvas that doesn't always feel like a genuine part of George Lucas' original universe, which is almost necessary at this point to avoid stagnation.

There will no doubt be back-and-forth conversation about its place within the franchise, but such chatter is less interesting than dissecting what it means for how Disney and Lucasfilm approach the property moving forward.

Honoring the recent past

Interestingly, The Ninth Jedi borrows quite a lot from modern Star Wars entries the loud online types called unmitigated disasters: namely The Last Jedi and The Acolyte.

Lah Kara feels like the direct result of Rey's impact on a new generation of creatives and fans, and Lah Zhima – Kara's father – quickly goes from a missing sabersmith to a far more complex Jedi figure that lands close to Luke Skywalker's divisive role in Episode VIII. General Nawaam — the main villain — also makes for a memorable character that has more Kylo Ren (or The Stranger) than Darth Vader in them.

The nature of lightsaber-wielding warriors like the Jedi and Sith — both ancient concepts to the galaxy's common people — is also questioned. These are religions that, at least in their original shape, have gone extinct for a good reason.

While Kara and Jedi Knights like Margrave Juro — essentially the Obi-Wan Kenobi of this story — and Ethan fight to bring back the Order from the brink of extinction (again), it becomes evident there's no path forward for the guardians of peace and justice without some introspection. These shades of grey only deepen when lightsabers start to change colors, and unlikely heroes rise.

Over the course of this eight-episode season (with more teased but not confirmed), the Production I.G anime veterans Shunsuke Tada (director), Mitsuyasu Sakai (writer), and Kenji Kamiyama (supervising director) make a strong effort to bridge Star Wars' past and present, even if there was no real need to respect what had come before. The Ninth Jedi is its own thing, but not really.

It may be limiting for the Visions experiment — as many fans favor bolder swings as stylish and disruptive as The Duel — but ironically, that makes it a valuable endeavor for Lucasfilm as they navigate an uncertain future trying to conquer the big screen once again. How much classical Star Wars do we need in future projects? This show gives a very reasonable answer.

Star Wars for a new generation, even if the bones are old

Veteran Star Wars fans need to remember newcomers don't care about canon outside of stories meant to be connected. Instead, they're looking for captivating tales starring new characters who are fun to spend time with, and on that front, the first of the Star Wars: Visions shows (more are rumored to be in the works) is a resounding success.

On a surface level, there are enough new planets, spaceships, alien species, and factions in The Ninth Jedi to fuel an entire trilogy of movies, yet it's all put to good use over the course of eight breezy episodes which tell a complete story, just in case Season 2 isn't a possibility.

Thematically, it's also among the richest explorations of the Force, the Jedi, and a cycle of conflicts sparked by the need for more Star Wars forever and ever. Even if corporate needs are the main reason why creatives are still getting to tell stories set in a galaxy far, far away, the meta conversation found in these tales might help refresh and save Star Wars. Beyond that, it shows that Rian Johnson and Leslye Headland had the right idea, even if they didn't nail the execution.

Those who have been around for decades will spot and appreciate the tradition holding this all together, but even with a Death Star-like threat and reheated plot beats peppered throughout the journey, The Ninth Jedi has the pulse and patience to build new legends that deserve a moment in the spotlight.

The galaxy Kara is fighting for might look a little different from the one we know, but this is the most Star Wars-feeling Star Wars entry in quite some time.

Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi (full season) is now available to stream on Disney+ following its premiere on Aug. 5, 2026.

As evidenced by Paramount's live-action "Transformers" movies and the recent "Masters of the Universe" film released by Amazon MGM Studios, nostalgic toy lines can serve as fertile grounds for a variety of engaging Hollywood projects leaning into vintage intellectual properties.

With Mattel ramping up their own film production efforts and toy-to-screen endeavors after enormous success with "The Barbie Movie" and hi-octane plans for Hot Wheels movies rolling into theaters, the toys-to-silver screen craze shows no sign of slowing down. What could be next? We think there's a perfect choice hiding in the Mattel goldmine that might just become the next big thing.

We're of course talking about Major Matt Mason, that Plastisol astronaut action figure and kids' playset product line from the 1960s, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.

Born in the 1960s, during the heat of America's space race with NASA's Apollo program aiming for the lunar landing by the end of the decade, Mattel's design mastermind's found inspiration in visionary space concept artists' wild dreams of futuristic moon bases, lunar buggies, and space vehicles.

Major Matt Mason was one of the first serious space toys to exist in the marketplace, first hitting the shelves of toy shops and department stores across the country in 1966.

Capitalizing on the daily news stories of Gemini missions and Apollo moon-walking dreams, this spacefaring fellow and his astronaut pals let kids everywhere imagine colorful cosmic adventures.

Back in 2019, Variety reported that Tom Hanks was attached to star in a Major Matt Mason live-action film being set up at Paramount Pictures with Akiva Goldsman ("A Beautiful Mind," "The Da Vinci Code") hired to write the screenplay.

Hanks is an enthusiastic advocate of NASA history after starring in Apollo 13 and co-executive producing the Emmy Award-winning HBO docuseries "From The Earth To The Moon" alongside "Band of Brothers" super producer Graham Yost. Despite the heavy hitters attached, momentum has since stalled on the sci-fi project and it's sadly been shelved for the immediate future.

Matt Mason's line-up of bendy 6-inch astronaut action figures was developed as a competitor to Hasbro's 12-inch G.I. Joe toys that ruled the marketplace in the mid-60s.

Along with Matt's fellow rubberized space buddies — available in a variety of color-accented spacesuits — Mattel also offered a complete universe to create your own space outpost and ramped lunar headquarters, alongside accessory vehicles, moon gear, expansive playsets, and Matt's "allies from the stars": A purple-and-pink creature called Scorpio, and a green-skinned friendly Jovian alien called Callisto.

With the Vietnam War raging in Southeast Asia and televised on the nightly news, Major Matt Mason blasted into Sears and JCPenney catalogs when soldier action figures were losing their appeal.

He wasn't a gun-toting commando but a heroic explorer "ready and able to cope with any space task or fierce danger." In addition to the action figures and peripheral playsets, Matt Mason became a pop culture phenomenon with his own board game, coloring books, lunch boxes, and puzzles.

Named after Mattel's co-founder Harold "Matt" Matson, the Matt Mason line carried a certain air of authenticity as many of its designers happened to be former aerospace engineers. Some of the toys' far-out designs were taken straight out of NASA conceptual art and prototypes seen in the pages of Popular Mechanics, Life, and National Geographic magazines.

But, the general public is difficult to please for any extended period of time and following the Apollo 11 moon landing in July of 1969, space toys faded in interest. Just one year later, Major Matt Mason was no more, destined only to be coveted decades later as collectors items .

As NASA ramps up their Artemis program with 2027's Artemis 3 mission, before an Artemis 4 moon landing set for 2028, and the space agency doubling down on plans for a recently announced permanent lunar base, can there be any better time for Hollywood moguls to resurrect this cool project for a fantastic, retro-styled Major Matt Mason movie or TV series?

It's certainly a better idea than a Matchbox movie.

On Episode 221 of This Week In Space, Tariq Malik and guest host Rick Jenet of the National Space Society talk about SpaceX's Starship Flight 13, which deployed new Starlink V3 satellites and stunned viewers when the ship survived reentry intact enough to float in the ocean for days afterward.

They also discuss NASA's Roman Space Telescope, now just a month from launch, and an in-progress emergency effort to save the ailing Swift Space Observatory using a servicing spacecraft that is itself now experiencing technical trouble. Finally, they look into Boeing's continued Starliner delays and India's first successful private orbital launch via Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 rocket. Tune in!

Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

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Space news of the week

• SpaceX's Starship megarocket makes the 'softest splashdown' ever after launching next-gen Starlink satellites in Flight 13 test
• X: Landing burn and splashdown of Starship on Flight 13
• X: The Starship Recovery team has continued gathering imagery of the vehicle, which is still afloat in the Indian Ocean
• Experts warn current Starship heat shield tech is a “dead end” for rapid reuse
• SpaceX wins $1.6 billion in launch orders for military satellite networks
• 'It's going to do things that currently are impossible': The Roman Space Telescope, NASA's next great observatory, is ready to launch Aug. 30
• NASA Fuels Roman Space Telescope for Late August Launch
• Actually, Starliner might fly into space this year
• 'The dawn of a new space era': Vikram-1, India's 1st private orbital rocket, aces debut launch
• Should Artemis IV astronauts actually land near the moon's south pole? Artemis II pilot says the lunar equator might be better
• Astronomers may have discovered the 1st moon outside of our solar system — or is it something weirder?
• A SpaceX rocket will crash into the moon next week, and scientists aren't sure what to expect
• An 'almost blood moon' is coming on Aug. 27 and it'll be the best lunar eclipse until NYE 2028
• Perseid meteor shower 2026 — When, where and how to see it

Model Falcon 9!

Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes' stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.

About This Week In Space

This Week in Space covers the new space age. Every Friday we take a deep dive into a fascinating topic. What's happening with the new race to the moon and other planets? When will SpaceX really send people to Mars?

Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.

Despite Han Solo's protestations to the contrary, travelling faster than light on screen is usually just as straightforward as dusting crops. So whether you're in "Star Wars", "Star Trek" or "Battlestar Galactica", jumping to hyperspace, going to warp or spooling up the FTL really is as simple as popping out to the store.

In fact, Albert Einstein's time-dilating general theory of relativity tends to be little more than an afterthought, with films highlighting the inconveniences of interstellar travel definitely in the minority. For this reason, the very existence of "Flight of the Navigator" is even more improbable than its premise.

The Disney family movie — which celebrates its 40th anniversary this weekend — sends an ordinary kid on an unlikely journey that's part "Interstellar", part "Back to the Future".

On July 4, 1978, 12-year-old David Scott Freeman is briefly knocked unconscious after he falls into a ditch near his Florida home. When he wakes up — seemingly moments later — he finds strangers living in his house, and gradually comes to realize that eight years have passed for everybody else. In the meantime, David has been declared dead, his little brother is now his big brother, and — perhaps weirdest of all — music videos are now a very big thing on MTV.

He doesn't know it yet, but much like Matthew McConaughey's Cooper in "Interstellar", David has been caught in the crosshairs of relativity. It turns out that he's unwittingly taken a ride in a Trimaxion drone ship, making the round trip to the planet Phaelon (some 560 light years away) in a mere 4.4 solar hours.

NASA scientists explain away the eight-year time slip as a consequence of "light speed theory", the idea that "time slows down as you approach the speed of light". And if that sounds like a big concept for "Flight of the Navigator"'s target audience to grasp, the filmmakers weren't particularly worried.

"I think kids can understand it," director Randal Kleiser said back in 2020. "'Back to the Future' was sort of like that, and kids are smarter than most people think. You just tell them that you’re going at the speed of light and time slows down, and they get it."

Kleiser was best known for the musical smash hit "Grease", the highest-grossing movie of 1978, when he got the "Flight of the Navigator" gig. When he came on board, the film's paymasters were already disagreeing about the direction they wanted to take Mark H Baker's story.

Disney, unsurprisingly, were shooting for a family movie "with dancing little animals", while their production partners at Producers Sales Organization (PSO) were looking for something a little edgier. "They wanted to have the army come in and shoot down the spaceship," Kleiser recalled.

Eventually, a gun-free compromise was found, though the opening act of the movie would remain surprisingly bleak and emotionally complex. Now living in 1986, David has to come to terms with his new reality as a human guinea pig in a world where his family looks familiar, but he no longer really knows them. Also, how did his brain come to be filled with weird alien languages and complex star maps?

The role was always going to ask a lot of its actor, and Kleiser ultimately selected a young Vancouver native named Joey Cramer. Cramer beat hundreds of other kids to the role, including future Hollywood stars Chris O'Donnell and Joaquin Phoenix, who appeared in "Space Camp" the same year.

"Joey was so easy to get to cry," Kleiser said of his casting decision. "For him to be able to do it in the audition — and be also so personable and likeable — was the thing that put him over the top."

Cramer's main co-star would prove even more difficult to find, however, seeing as faster-than-light spacecraft from distant worlds called Phaelon don't — as far as we know — exist.

In the second half of "Flight of the Navigator", David makes a credibility-stretching escape from a top-secret NASA facility — seriously, where did they find such a negligent bunch of security guards? — to hitch a ride on board the aforementioned Trimaxion ship.

Nicknamed Max and voiced by Pee-wee Herman star Paul Reubens (credited here as Paul Mall), the spacecraft reveals that David is one of several alien species taken to Phaelon for study; we also meet a menagerie of puppets on board, including a hungry little guy who eats David's hat, and the pocket-sized, implausibly cute Puckmaren.

Max would usually return the test subjects back to the time and place he found them, but says that David's human physiology is too fragile to make the journey back to 1978. In the meantime, he also needs to access the maps he uploaded to the human kid's brain, seeing as a collision with some electricity pylons has damaged his navigational databanks. It's here that the movie evolves into childhood wish-fulfilment fantasy, as David and the fast-learning AI become BFFs on the run from the authorities.

The spaceship exterior, meanwhile, is arguably the most groundbreaking thing about the film, a mirrored, shapeshifting update of the classic flying saucer design popularized by "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

Kleiser persisted with that shiny surface, despite the advice of a former University of Southern California classmate (a certain George Lucas) who told him that all those reflective surfaces would make the ship "more trouble than it's worth". (By the time "The Phantom Menace" was released 13 years later, Lucas had clearly changed his mind, so maybe "Flight of the Navigator" had a tiny bit of influence on a galaxy far, far away.)

"I wanted to find something different that hadn’t been done before," Kleiser explained. "I was driving down the freeway behind a big silver truck, and I could see my car reflected behind it. And I thought, 'Wow, I've never seen a spaceship like that.' It took a while till we figured out how to do it!"

After several unsuccessful experiments involving silver paint and mylar glued to paper plates, salvation came courtesy of Kleiser's brother Jeff, who'd worked on the VFX for "Tron" and was a pioneer in the nascent field of computer graphics. And while the liquid metal effects aren't quite as, ahem, polished as James Cameron's genre-defining efforts in 1991's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day", "Flight of the Navigator" deserves to be mentioned in the same breath.

Despite having an innovative spaceship and a considerably happier ending than "Interstellar" (spoiler: David does eventually make it home), "Flight of the Navigator" struggled at the box office. It eventually found its audience on home video, however, and deservedly so, seeing as it's an inventive, witty, and surprisingly sophisticated family movie that refuses to talk down to its audience.

"When it first came out, I think maybe it just wasn’t marketed properly," said Kleiser, "but the fact that it’s become kind of a cult classic is nice. I run into people all the time who say that it's their favourite movie. [Lots of them] really like the fact that it explored how time travel could change a sibling relationship."

As we said, "Flight of the Navigator" really is "Back to the Future" and "Interstellar" rolled into one.

'Flight of the Navigator' is available to stream on Disney+ in the US and Prime Video in the UK. 'Life After the Navigator', a documentary about the film, is also available on Prime Video in the UK.

"Doctor Who" may have a reputation for making kids hide behind the sofa, and the "Alien" franchise famously sold itself on the futility of screaming in outer space, but "Star Trek"'s traditional "story of the week" format has also provided numerous opportunities to bring sci-fi scares to starship corridors.

But few of the franchise's horror outings have been quite as overt as "The Griffin Incident", the latest episode of "Strange New Worlds". In it, Spock (Ethan Peck), La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) and James T Kirk (Paul Wesley) are making their way back from the Future Federation Leaders Retreat (sounds like a blast) when they receive a mysterious signal in uncharted space.

SPOILERS AHEAD! ANYONE YET TO WATCH "THE GRIFFIN INCIDENT" SHOULD PROCEED WITH CAUTION TO AVOID VIOLATING TEMPORAL PRIME DIRECTIVES.

It turns out the communication originated from the USS Griffin, a starship that went missing with 300 souls on board nine years earlier, so — being the conscientious Starfleet officers they are — the trio beam aboard to investigate. It's a decision they quickly come to regret, as they realize they've stumbled on a haunted house floating through the darkness…

This unashamed ghost story soon becomes a chilling mix of psychological terror and body horror, as Kirk hears the cries of his young son David, Spock unexpectedly comes face-to-face with his spurned fiancée, T'Pring, and La'an becomes closely acquainted with the Griffin's ghostly chief security officer, Rose Harper (Sorika Wolf).

As in "Event Horizon" (originally pitched as "'The Shining' in space"), the ship is a malevolent force preying on its victims' insecurities: for Kirk, it's the fear of being an absent father; for Spock, it's the conflict between his human and Vulcan heritage; and for La'an it's the growing fear that her previously latent Noonien-Singh DNA might be stirring something dark within her.

In the tradition of many of "Star Trek"'s scariest missions, "The Griffin Incident" puts a sci-fi spin on classic tropes. Indeed, as far back as "The Man Trap" (the very first Original Series episode aired), the franchise has been transporting recognizable genre conventions light years beyond the confines of planet Earth.

"The Man Trap" is essentially a vampire story, albeit with a "monster" that feasts on salt rather than blood. Meanwhile, "The Enemy Within" (which materialized a few weeks later) is a 23rd-century take on "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", in which a transporter malfunction splits Captain Kirk into a good and bad version of himself — two William Shatners for the price of one.

There have also been several captain's log entries concerning close encounters of the zombie kind, from the re-animated corpses of "Strange New Worlds"' "Shuttle to Kenfori", to the Borg in "Star Trek: First Contact" — despite their quest for technologically enhanced perfection, the movie's cyborg hordes wouldn't look out of place in "The Walking Dead".

And the horror callbacks don't end there. The parasites who infiltrate the upper echelons of Starfleet in "The Next Generation"'s "Conspiracy" are "The Wrath of Khan"'s Ceti Eels given "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" delusions of grandeur. And "Deep Space Nine"'s own enemy-within episode, "The Adversary", features a shapeshifting Founder hiding in plain sight — think "The Thing", but with less of the ick.

But the franchise's move to streaming has undoubtedly allowed "Trek" to become more extreme than it was in the syndication/network days of the '80s, '90s and '00s. That's not to say "Trek" didn't push the censors' limits back then — the aforementioned "Conspiracy" was heavily edited by the BBC in the UK, who decided a "Scanners"-like exploding head wasn't suitable for teatime viewing.

In the main, however, the horror was more likely to be built on psychological scares than full-on gore — REM sleep deprivation driving everybody mad in "TNG"'s "Night Terrors", for example, or crews becoming alien test subjects in "TNG"'s "Schisms" and "Voyager"'s "The Scientific Method" — the latter storylines could almost have been lifted from "The Twilight Zone". Even the Vidiians, a race of aliens who borrow heavily from the David Cronenberg playbook with their frequent body modifications, are portrayed in a resolutely PG way.

Fast forward to the present, and "Strange New Worlds" has given the Gorn — who famously looked like a guy in a crocodile suit in the Original Series — a new lifecycle, including an "Alien"-style penchant for impregnating humans with their parasitic offspring. An unwanted Gorn infestation subsequently paves the way for Captain Marie Batel to become the Beholder, protecting the galaxy from the horror movie-worthy Vezda.

"The Griffin Incident" is a continuation of this push towards R-rated horror territory, in which T'Pring cuts off the tips of Spock's ears with scissors, and La'an stabs Kirk so enthusiastically you'd think she was auditioning for the next "Scream" movie.

Crucially, however, "Trek"'s latest mission makes a significant departure from most of its horror predecessors in not attempting to provide a quasi-scientific explanation for the Griffin's transformation into the scariest destination in the entire Alpha Quadrant. Instead, Captain Pike delegates the investigation to Division 12, a mysterious branch of Starfleet that specializes in unexplained phenomena.

Expect the descendants of Agents Mulder and Scully to have a field day with this one — assuming, of course, that the truth really is out there.

New episodes of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays.

SYFY’s optimistic space opera series, "The Ark," embarks upon its third thrilling season today, occupying a unique entertainment spot as the only weekly scripted sci-fi series currently on regular broadcast television.

With an impressive creative resume featuring executive producers Dean Devlin ("Stargate," "Independence Day") and Jonathan Glassner ("Stargate SG-1") and a hopeful premise about humanity’s search for a new home amid the stars, it’s a refreshing show perfect for a laidback, summertime watch.

Season 3 delivers more dangerous exoplanets inhabited by ravenous toothy monsters, the mystery of an alien stone tablet, and Captain Sharon Garnet’s Ark One searching for long-lost colonists. We caught up with Devlin to find out more about this third outing.

"We got so lucky with this cast," Devlin tells Space. "Some were cast from Canada, some from Spain, from England, and a lot of them were from Serbia. You never know if they’re going to gel, if they’re going to get along, if there's going to be any egos. It's truly an amazing group of individuals."

Talking more on the unique shooting location, Devlin notes, "I do also believe that because we shoot this show in Serbia, it kind of forces them to live together in a way. They work together, they go out to dinners together. They really spend all their time together, and I think it's created a bond off-screen that you can really see on screen."

Season 3 accelerates all the careful plot mechanisms set up in the previous outings, and the result is a colorful blend of space fantasy action and interpersonal melodrama that makes for good old-fashioned fun.

"Season one had been this crazy hit, and it did so much better than anyone thought," he explains. "While we were making season two, we had discussions about maybe splitting the show into two shows. And that one show takes place on the new colony, and the other show takes place rescuing people. When the season was over, we thought maybe we’d just stick with one show. Then suddenly I had two shows I had to cram into one show. It became twice as big with more locations, more cast, and more adventures.

"We went nuts. We went wildly over budget and just made the biggest, craziest season we could possibly imagine. Our industry has moved so far into streaming, which is great in so many ways. But the weekly viewing on cable is still something that I really treasure and really am grateful that I have a chance to do that. We have two shows doing that this summer [with TNT's "The Librarians: The Next Chapter"] and in both situations we're the only scripted show on each network."

Devlin hints that viewers are going to be shocked at some of the unexpected surprises this season and where it goes on a character level.

"That's always been the strength of this show," he adds. "These characters and bringing out new information about them and seeing how that causes conflicts amongst our group and how they overcome those conflicts. 'The Ark' always has had a mystery element, but this year the mystery box is enormous.”

One thing that’s immediately noticeable is the impressive range of visual effects on 'The Ark' this year, and Devlin admits that this is where a good chunk of the budget-busting occurred.

"The main VFX team is in Serbia, a company called Fried, and they’ve been with us this whole time. I put another team together in Los Angeles that used to be part of our Electric Entertainment effects company. So we basically had two houses because we wanted to step it up; we had a lot more shots to do, and we split the work between us. I’m really proud of the collaboration. In season one, I promised everybody that there were no aliens on 'The Ark,' but maybe down the line. Well, I guess we’re down the line.

"This is a season where if you've never seen the show before, you can jump right in. But if you have been with us for the whole journey, you're going to get some extra love by the time we get to the end of the season. This may be the most emotional ending of a season we've ever done, and I'm anxious to watch people go on that ride with us.”

Starring Christie Burke, Reece Ritchie, Richard Fleeshman, Pavle Jerinic, Stacey Read, Samantha Glassner and Ryan Adams, SYFY's "The Ark" Season 3 launches weekly starting Wednesday, July 29, 2026.

In Apple TV’s "Silo" season 3, we lunge back 352 years to the Before Times to see how the greatest engineering project in the history of the world began… and would end.

Center stage in this dark sci-fi drama are ambitious Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) and journalist Helen Drew (Jessica Henwick), the pre-apocalypse duo we were first introduced to in Season 2's final episode.

In that scene, the handsome couple met on a first date in a Washington, D.C. restaurant in the aftermath of a dirty bomb that had irradiated the city.

Daniel and Helen play pivotal roles in "Silo's" elaborate conspiracy to save humanity, helping to orchestrate a colossal project in Georgia to build a controlled network of survival bunkers that will last centuries until the Earth somehow becomes habitable again after a mysterious calamity. Wait, that sounds familiar...

Zukerman and Henwick create a completely believable relationship as they’re reluctantly drawn into this mind-boggling plot to save the human race. We connected with them to learn details about cultivating their chemistry and intimacy on the show.

"It's nothing we worked to generate; it was really just there from the beginning," Zukerman tells Space. "We hung out, and we certainly didn’t hang out for the purpose of building that chemistry. I think we got very lucky to find a teammate to be able to do that with."

"We share the same taste and work ethic," elaborates Zuckerman. "When you go on a journey that’s this big with someone, and we shot every day for four months together, we just always had each other’s backs, and there was an immense amount of unconditional respect and excitement. I’m not the kind of actor that could fake it."

Henwick discussed the complexities of her resourceful character and her expanded role in season 3 by exploring what she drew from to compose a layered Helen.

"It was my memory of working on the school newspaper when I was 14," she explains. "And also my natural inclination to ‘Spanish Inquisition’ everyone. I do feel quite an affinity to journalists. I always love to ask questions, and I want to know why and want to understand things. I’m really curious about the world. I didn’t feel like I had to generate much for Helen. I actually felt like she was very close to me."

"Silo"'s impressive set design certainly helped the cast immerse themselves in the doomsday world of author Hugh Howey's dystopian novels and in this lavish Apple TV adaptation.

"I'm sort of a terrible guest to sets, especially if I'm a part of the production," Zukerman adds. "I have to remember to sit in wonder for a second at the scale of the operation. Usually I just try to live as the characters live. Then I'm so thankful that you actually get to live in a real space, especially in a sci-fi, which is not our real world.

"Where the drawers open and when you're looking at something, you're not looking at a blue screen or a green screen, you're actually able to experience life as close as you can within this alternate reality."

Likewise, Henwick absorbed "Silo's" immense scope and scale right from the start.

"I've done a lot of fantasy and sci-fi where I’m stuck in front of a green screen, or there's a tennis ball on a stick, and you have to follow it, and that's the spaceship," she shares. "It was nice to be on a show where so much of it was done practically. I remember the first day going to visit the stairs, and that blew my mind. It is a massive set, one of the biggest sets I've been on."

Executive produced by Graham Yost, “Silo” Season 3 is now streaming on Apple TV.

All systems are go! PBS just launched the second episode of its "Once Upon a Time in Space" miniseries on Tuesday, titled "The Russian Thing," and we’ve got an exclusive clip from the harrowing chapter that focuses on near disasters aboard the Space Station Mir in 1997.

In addition to the video, we’re also proud to share an exclusive interview with NASA's celebrated British-American astronaut Michael Foale, who is featured prominently in the new segment regarding the infamous cargo pod collision on Mir, which caused a decompression incident that became a life-threatening crisis.

Hailing from British filmmaker James Bluemel and his crew that delivered the award-winning "Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland," "Once Upon a Time in Space" is a 4-part exploration of human spaceflight. Its weekly episodes trace pivotal events in spacefaring history via the personal experiences of astronauts, cosmonauts, and loved ones left on Earth from the birth of the Space Shuttle program to the blossoming of today’s commercial spaceflight industry.

"James Bluemel is a very perceptive director, and he was different from others that have interviewed me," Foale tells Space.

"What I loved about his method was he would dig up clips from our training or at different points when I was a brand new astronaut, looking really young and had a surfer boy haircut. I love windsurfing. He would dig up clips I don't know where from. And then he'd show it to you, and then he'd say, 'What do you think?'"

Foale — a distinguished veteran of six space missions who retired in 2013 — takes us back to that day of May 25, 1997, when a manual docking maneuver caused an unmanned Progress cargo ship to collide with Mir, ripping a large hole in the Russian space station’s Spektr module.

The crew’s valiant attempt to halt the pressure leak and save the station is like something straight out of a Hollywood thriller. With only 23 minutes of oxygen left, Foale and cosmonauts Vasily Tsibliev and Alexander ‘Sasha’ Lazutkin were able to repair the damage and stop the tumbling spacecraft from spinning wildly out of control.

"The root cause of the accident was trying to save money," he explains. "And the root cause was an attempt to do a manual docking from a large distance longer than any cosmonaut or astronaut does a manual docking from and doing it without the radar. The radar was built in Ukraine and cost $2 million in that timeframe. And the Russian managers did not want to pay Ukraine $2 million.

"So someone in the Energia corporation — they're the guilty company — decided they would try and get this crew at the last minute to try and do a manual rendezvous and docking without the radar from about a six-kilometer starting point. And that test was with a Progress we'd already filled up with trash and was meant to be de-orbited into the Pacific Ocean. Before it was going to be de-orbited finally, it was going to do this test."

Unfortunately, that test went horribly wrong due to Vasily Tsibliev not being able, based on measurements he could make in real time, to determine the exact closing velocity of the Progress.

"He couldn't ascertain distance very well, but you need the distance first, and then you need to divide by time to get the velocity,” notes Foale. “That was not possible in that situation and never attempted again. It caused a much higher velocity than Vasily could extinguish using the one thruster set that were turned on the Progress.

"So it bounced off, literally bounced off after crumpling part of the Spektr module and bending one of the solar arrays. The joint cracked at the base of the solar array into the module, and that's where the unseen hole is or was. And that's where the air was leaving from. It was a multiple hit that caused it to float away. And we were told as a crew about three days later, because we asked what had happened to it. They said, 'Well, engine was capable of being fired. It was capable of reorienting itself, and it de-orbited into the Pacific.'"

In the aftermath of the collision, an adapter was sent up to try and connect power back from the Spektr module into the Mir system.

"Vasily and Sasha were planned to do an internal spacewalk into the Spektr module to get to those cables that Sasha and I had had to disconnect to save the station," Foale adds. "They were going to go back in during an internal EVA. Vasily, because of the stress of the event, didn't pass the medical test done before the spacewalk, and they wire you up for a heart monitor.

"So then a day later, a call came up from the head of the program, Valery Ryumin, saying, 'Oh, Michael, you're on the radio. I'm going to ask you, would you be willing to go in and do the spacewalk inside the Spektr module instead of Vasily?'", remembers Foale. "I just knew that that was going to create a huge issue with me and Vasily because it was so humiliating for him. And he took all the blame of the collision on his shoulders, which was unfair."

Foale retired from NASA and space travel after a brilliant 30-year career with the agency and six space shuttle missions, but the lifestyle adjustment was a bit troubling at first.

“That was a depressing moment when I was being told, 'Oh, you're done,'" he shares. "I knew I couldn't survive the envy of my astronaut colleagues who are younger than me and haven't flown but once or twice. So I knew I was kind of done in space, at least with NASA. I was dreaming of being an astronaut guide like Peggy Whitson or Michael Lopez-Alegria on an Axiom mission. Those were my daydreams initially. I miss space, but I’ve found other things to replace that fun.

“I've always been turned on emotionally and romantically by soaring and flying. So living in Texas amongst the mountains with fantastic stars every night and soaring here, it's not space. It's not in a spacesuit outside the Mir looking at it, but it's pretty cool. I do go back to a much more comfortable situation in the evening, and I do ride my bike.

"As a 69-year-old now, I have a pretty good late-life pastime. But you have to make do. And hey, you have to keep telling yourself you're one of the luckiest guys around. I would say I was naively optimistic about the international collaboration in space. The show that James Bluemel has put together, "Once Upon a Time in Space," in some ways it looks like a fairytale to me when I look back on it."

"Once Upon a Time in Space's" "The Russian Thing" episode aired on July 21, 2026, at 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS, PBS.org, and the PBS app, with the final two chapters coming on July 28 and Aug. 4.

On Episode 220 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik are joined by Dr. Pascal Lee and astrobiologist Dr. Penny Boston to mark the 50th anniversary of Viking 1's landing on Mars.

This week, we cover how Starship Flight 13 finally prepares to launch amid a legal battle over SpaceX's proposed land swap at Starbase, plus a Chinese Long March 3B rocket gets struck by lightning during liftoff, yet still delivers its satellite safely.

Then, we revisit the Viking 1 mission's groundbreaking life-detection experiments and the decades-long controversy over what they actually found. The conversation traces Mars exploration from the earliest Mariner flybys through Viking's ambiguous, still-debated results — later explained by perchlorates in the Martian soil — and the fierce scientific rivalry the findings sparked. Join us!

Download or subscribe to this show at: https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-space.

Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit

Space news of the week

• SpaceX will now try to launch critical Starship Flight 13 test today after delays. Here's what to expect.
• 'The court has to intervene now': Indigenous groups and conservationists condemn SpaceX's South Texas land swap
• Lightning strike on Chinese rocket captured in epic launch photo
• ‘Triumph of Mariner 4’
• Slice of History - 50 Years of Mariner 9 in Orbit
• Viking Lander
• Life on Mars detected ?... Viking 1...
• Viking lander biological experiments

Model Falcon 9!

Finally, did you know you can launch your own SpaceX rocket? Model rocket maker Estes' stunning scale model of a Falcon 9 rocket that you can pick up now. The launchable model is a detailed recreation of the Falcon 9 and retails for $149.99. You can save 10% by using the code IN-COLLECTSPACE at checkout, courtesy of our partners collectSPACE.com.

About This Week In Space

This Week in Space covers the new space age. Every Friday we take a deep dive into a fascinating topic. What's happening with the new race to the moon and other planets? When will SpaceX really send people to Mars?

Join Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik from Space.com as they tackle those questions and more each week on Friday afternoons. You can subscribe today on your favorite podcatcher.

Henry Alonso Myers and Akiva Goldsman are the primary ringleaders behind "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds", and they're about to unleash the next cluster of 10 Season 4 episodes for their spirited space show.

With an abundance of genre-crossing indulgences that are scary, surreal, and sometimes silly, the Paramount+ hit is operating at full warp speed in this penultimate outing, the debut episode of which just premiered on July 23, 2026.

We hitched a ride with the acclaimed executive producers to learn all about their vision for "Strange New Worlds'" fourth season and why they believe it will prove to be the finest one yet, taking cues from ‘90s-style time-travel odysseys, haunted starships, noir crime thrillers, puppet mishaps, and utopian fantasies.

"It’s hard to come up through the ‘90s and not feel affected by a lot of the films that came out in that era, some of which my partner is directly responsible for," Myers tells Space regarding the solid one-two punch of the first two episodes.

"I think part of the goal is to come out swinging when you do a premiere. It needs its own premise that stands on its own, and then you need to figure out how to set up everything else for the season through that.

"How do you tell an emotional story that expresses where the season is going to go? And also, we want something that we think is cool. The minute we started talking about doing dinosaurs [In "Valles Marineris"], we were like, 'Yeah, let’s figure out a way to do that.' Then it became a question of how do we fit all of this into the same box."

For the unsettling (and pretty gruesome) horror episode titled "The Griffin Incident," Myers admits that Goldsman is his true north for all the horror elements because the Oscar-winning screenwriter loves it so deeply.

"I always look to see his reaction if whether or not we feel like we've hit it. And every season we’ve tried to do one, and we’ve done some decent ones. But we haven’t quite done something like a ghost story. His reaction to that made it all worth doing."

Goldsman finds it interesting that he understands the rules of the horror genre, yet he actually doesn't watch that much horror anymore, short of the horror projects that he's somehow been involved with creatively.

"The older I get, the harder it is for me to watch," he reveals. "This particular convergence of the open-hearted optimism of 'Star Trek' and the kind of haunted nature of the world behind the world. There's a cadence to this, an almost Lovecraftian sense of there’s something out there that’s more than we know and maybe not so pleasant. I just think that is really interesting in 'Star Trek.' So we built it and shot it like a horror movie, and for me it worked. It’s nice and scary.”

In choosing some of their favorite moments of Season 4, Myers and Goldsman share observations on a few key crew members as they embark on their own inner voyages.

"There is stuff that Uhura goes through this season that really gets me," notes Myers. "She was the new recruit at the beginning of the show, and this is the part where she's suddenly a bit more in charge. She also manages to risk her life and save people in ways we haven't seen on screen. And it builds to something I love, which is she looks at who she's going to be, and looks back at who she was, and has some really great emotional stories around that. I love seeing her on that journey."

Picking his pair of intrepid Starfleet officers, Goldsman looks toward Sickbay.

"I think there's a set of relationship beats between M’Benga and Chapel in the back half of the season that really deepens both those characters and helps us understand where everybody's going that I think Jess and Babs did beautifully," he adds. "So I’m really looking forward to that."

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" Season 4 is now streaming on Paramount+.

2026 is the 60th anniversary of "Star Trek". To help celebrate the show that creator Gene Roddenberry described as "Wagon Train to the Stars,""Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" returns to Paramount+ for its penultimate season.

From teasers and trailers that first dropped last summer and fall, we’re anticipating a rollicking batch of dynamic episodes that draw on diverse subgenres, with everything from classic film noir crime stories and time travel to spooky ghost stories and sword-clashing swashbucklers.

But the end is nigh for this colorful modern interpretation of "Trek". Next year's truncated fifth season will be the crew's final mission, so let's revel in the time we have left and beam onto the Enterprise bridge for a promising round of missions. Here's our guide to everything you need to know about "Strange New Worlds" Season 4. Hit it!

When is the "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" Season 4 release date?

"Strange New Worlds" season 4 premieres Thursday, July 23, 2026, exclusively on Paramount+ in the US, Canada, and the UK with the first of 10 weekly episodes.

Fans can catch up and binge on all three previous seasons on the streaming platform. There are 30 previous sci-fi excursions into the known and unknown corners of the vast universe.

Forthcoming episodes of "Strange New Worlds" will land each Thursday after that, with the season finale warping into your living rooms on Sept. 24, 2026. Not signed up yet? We’ve got you covered with links to help get you up and running!

How to watch "Strange New Worlds" Season 4

"Strange New Worlds" season 4 streams on Paramount+ in the US, UK, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Japan.

The engaging sci-fi series will also be available on SkyShowtime in the Nordics, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe, starting July 24, 2026.

If you want to check out "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" or any of the other great shows on Paramount+ while you're abroad, you can also use a VPN to access your subscription from anywhere in the world. It doesn’t work so well in neighboring solar systems or in the proximity of supermassive black holes!

What is the plot of "Strange New Worlds" Season 4?

After the bittersweet season 3 goodbye to Captain Marie Batel, Captain Pike’s longstanding love interest, it's back to bold business seeking out new life and new civilizations in the galaxy.

"The crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, led by Captain Christopher Pike, embarks on a series of thrilling and emotional adventures across the stars," states the official synopsis. "On their journey, they will battle inner demons and external threats, encounter colorful new characters, reunite with familiar faces, and confront terrifying aliens. Through it all, they strive to embrace a bright, hopeful future."

Check out the individual episode titles and their scheduled air dates:

• Episode 401: "Valles Marineris" — Jul. 23
• Episode 402: "The Griffin Incident" — Jul. 30
• Episode 403: "Human Best Friend" — Aug. 6
• Episode 404: "A Case of Chiaroscuro" — Aug. 13
• Episode 405: "Level Five Transporter Accident" — Aug. 20
• Episode 406: "Off-Hour" — Aug. 27
• Episode 407: "Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass" — Sept. 3
• Episode 408: "Orders of Magnitude" — Sept. 10
• Episode 409: "Once La'An a Time" — Sept. 17
• Episode 410: "Tomorrow's Enterprise" — Sept. 24

Are There Teasers and Trailers for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 4?

You bet your coveted dilithium crystals there are!

Paramount+ delivered the main full trailer for season 4 on June 15, 2026, and it’s packed with dinosaurs, cowboys, horses, space storms, dreams, nightmares, fire-breathing dragons, haunted spaceships, and hallucinatory pleasure planets. Strap in for another genre-hopping season that could be the series’ best yet as we honor the franchise's big 60th birthday!

On July 18, Paramount+ also offered up a fun 20-minute video presenting some of the most memorable moments of Season 3 and it’s definitely worth a watch… or two!

But the funniest surprise came last summer on July 25, 2025 during San Diego Comic-Con, with the hilarious teaser that featured Captain Pike in the center seat as a Muppet! Yep, a Muppet! And we guarantee that episode is destined for immortality.

Who Are The "Strange New Worlds" Season 4 Cast And Creators?

It’s going to be all hands on deck for this fourth and penultimate season of "Strange New Worlds," with the U.S.S. Enterprise exploring the final frontier with a full cast complement and its tireless executive producers and co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers at the creative helm.

Returning to Paramount+'s adventurous space fantasy show are Anson Mount (Capt. Christopher Pike), Rebecca Romijn (Number One), Ethan Peck (Spock), Jess Bush (Christine Chapel), Christina Chong (La’An Noonien-Singh), Celia Rose Gooding (Nyota Uhura), Melissa Navia (Erica Ortegas), Babs Olusanmokun (Dr. Joseph M’Benga), and Martin Quinn (Montgomery Scott), and Adrian Holmes (Admiral April).

Recurring guest stars for "Strange New Worlds" season 4 include Carol Kane as the quirky long-lived Lanthanite engineer Commander Pelia and a charismatic Paul Wesley as a younger James T. Kirk.

Will there be a "Strange New Worlds" season 5?

Yes indeed, we will be getting one final season next year, shortened to just six episodes.

The series' swan song will introduce Thomas Jane portraying Leonard "Bones" McCoy and Kai Murakami playing Hikaru Sulu. The original gang's almost all here. Will we get an Original Series reboot/reimagining after this? Our money's on yes.

If you're of a Martian persuasion, "Strange New Worlds"' season 4 opener couldn't have timed itself much better.

Not only does this week mark the 50th anniversary of Viking 1 touching down on the surface of the red planet, new research from University of Oxford scientists recently suggested that Mars once had an active, interconnected system of magma beneath its surface. If accurate, this discovery might have made our Solar System next-door neighbor more habitable in its distant past.

While life on Mars has long been an obsession of sci-fi creators — from HG Wells' "War of the Worlds" to "Doom" via John Carter and John Carpenter — "Star Trek"'s Martians have tended to be human expats. Indeed, by the 24th century of "The Next Generation", "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager", it's home to the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards that would later be destroyed by rogue synths ahead of "Star Trek: Picard"'s debut season.

SPOILERS AHEAD! ANYONE YET TO WATCH "VALLES MARINERIS" SHOULD PROCEED WITH CAUTION TO AVOID VIOLATING TEMPORAL PRIME DIRECTIVES.

Homegrown Martians had traditionally been in shorter supply, however, until "Valles Marineris" paid them a visit. The only catch? Captain Pike and his USS Enterprise crew have to travel a mere 65 million years back in time to say hi.

There's something undeniably delicious (though not, luckily, the crew) about Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn), La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) and Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navia) getting to visit the real Jurassic Park (technically Cretaceous Park) on an away mission to recover the iridium they need to repair an Enterprise stricken by its accidental trip through a quantum entangled spatial anomaly.

In the tradition of "Planet of the Apes", it turns out that this particular third rock from the sun was Earth all along. It also, according to star Rebecca Romijn, features an actual puppet from the original "Jurassic Park", and gives La'an that rare opportunity to punch a dinosaur in the face. That's definitely one to tell the grandkids — assuming, of course, you can avoid stepping on a bug, unleashing a butterfly effect, and preventing them (and the entire human race, for that matter) from ever being born.

But it's no coincidence that Pike has a copy of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars" on his bookshelf, because it's what happens in orbit that makes this episode such a pulpy sci-fi joy.

Although Battle Commander Cassell (Saffron Burrows) and her crew have the familiar, human-esque appearance of most "Star Trek" aliens, Martian evolution has got them there millions of years before Vulcans, Klingons, and the rest become top dogs in the galaxy. (Spock notes that Martian DNA is present in many modern-day species, though it's unclear how their family tree aligns with the "Progenitor" origin story of "TNG"'s "The Chase".)

These technologically advanced Martians are embroiled in a bloody ongoing war with a "Starship Troopers"-adjacent arachnid species known as the Dol'Drm, who call the fifth planet of the Sol System home. Science purists will note that this strange new world is not the famously gaseous Jupiter, but an extra, science textbook-rewriting ball of rock located roughly where the Asteroid Belt is now.

Unfortunately, once Cassell has sneaked a peek at a future where her "homeworld is a barren red wasteland", she's in no mood to listen to Federation lectures about finding diplomatic solutions. She subsequently steals some of the Enterprise's antimatter and fashions a makeshift weapon of mass destruction to eliminate the Dol'Drm once and for all. But the shockwaves of this cataclysmic blast will stretch far beyond the fifth planet.

Spock confirms that many of the fragments left behind by the obliteration of the Dol'Drm homeworld will form the Asteroid Belt, essentially a riff on the so-called "Disruption Hypothesis" of the belt's origins.

Originally postulated by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers in the early 19th century, the theory suggested that a rocky planet, roughly the size of our Moon, existed between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

It was the destruction of this world (by means unknown, though we doubt anyone suggested an antimatter explosion) that led to the formation of the belt. The hypothesis is now largely discredited — current scientific thinking suggests that the belt is the result of dust and rock coalescing due to gravity — but it's a fun revisionist spin on old scientific ideas.

And the Enterprise's involvement in the Solar System's origin story stretches even further. The gravimetric shift caused by the absence of the Dol'Drm planet shifts Mars' orbit, making it too cold to support life. It also launches arguably the most famous asteroid in history, the Chicxulub meteorite, on a collision course with Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs, kickstarting the Cenozoic Era, and sending the planet on an evolutionary journey that will eventually lead to, well, us.

When it comes to interfering with past events, the implications are rather larger than Scotty passing on the formula for yet-to-be-invented transparent aluminum in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home". Even the Borg meddling with a few centuries of history in "First Contact" is small fry next to killing off the dinosaurs.

The intriguing twist here, of course, is that humanity's existence is briefly on a knife-edge, as Pike makes the biggest decision of his (or, indeed, anyone's) life. Standard Starfleet protocol would usually dictate that the Enterprise intervene to prevent the Dol'Drm being destroyed by stolen Federation technology, but its commanding officer sees the bigger picture.

What if the Enterprise was always meant to be there? What if the human race only exists because the ship has gone back in time to answer its own 65-million-year-old Mayday? "In our future there is no fifth planet," he reasons, before allowing the Martians to deliver their deadly payload.

It's a wonderful "what if" that puts 65 million years of history in one man's hands. Indeed, you could tie yourself in knots with all that timey-wimey stuff, but the episode is so much pulpy fun that you barely notice the unbearable weight of those existential dilemmas. Dinosaurs, Martians and an origin story for the human race? What more could you want from a season opener?

New episodes of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" debut on Paramount+ on Thursdays.

The latest "Dune: Part 3" trailer arrived back on July 8, and it was a sumptuous banquet of startling set pieces, intergalactic political unrest, close-quarter combat, and a whole lot of sand and ash. A fine follow-up to the initial March teaser, to be sure.

After letting it marinate in our minds for a while, let’s break down five items of particular interest in this newest preview of the Denis Villeneuve-directed conclusion to his trilogy of far-future sci-fi epics adapted from author Frank Herbert’s novels, "Dune" and "Dune: Messiah."

Set 17 years after Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) has ascended to the Emperor’s throne, "Dune: Part 3" explores the corrupting side of political power as his holy war against the Imperium’s Great Houses advances towards a destructive destiny.

Right out of the gate, Chani (Zendaya) is certainly not shy about displaying her displeasure with his ultimate betrayal, which was first fleshed out at the end of 2024’s Dune: Part 2. It’s also pretty cool to see Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) back as a cloned “ghola” and Paul’s powerful sister, Alia, portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy.

So behold, our five takeaways from this brand new look at Villeneuve’s "Dune: Part 3".

1. The chilling gaze of Scytale

We already knew that a platinum-haired Robert Pattinson plays Scytale, one of the film’s main villains.

Some might have scoffed at the concept of Pattinson as an intimidating foe, but from these extra snippets in the new trailer, his shapeshifting Tleilaxu Face Dancer seems up to the task of carrying out a careful plan to remove the ruthless Paul Atreides from the throne.

Pattinson has the acting chops to pull off an intimidated foe, so he might just steal the show. And come on, folks, Pattinson was The Dark Knight!! Have a little faith.

2. Alia’s bloody scream

Alia Atreides, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, is Paul’s sister. The Bene Gesserit Revered Mother Mohiam called her an "abomination" due to the Water of Life that Lady Jessica drank while she was in the womb.

A blood-covered Alia is perhaps unleashing her god-like power on a captive Mohiam in response to a conversation we’re not privy to here, which could be not exactly a scream of peril, but a stern command.

She’s definitely not someone to cross thanks to her otherworldly paranormal skills.

3. Where did Paul’s eyes go?

Towards the end of the 3-minute trailer, we catch a shot of Paul in the aftermath of a nasty Stone Burner radiation bomb detonated by conspirators in the Arrakis capital, Arrakeen, as Paul and his personal Fedaykin guard accompany him outside the palace.

We can see his eyes are severely damaged after the intense detonation flash strikes him square in the face, causing blindness and eventual exile into the deep desert per the Fremen way.

This will open up his prescient sight abilities in new and extraordinary ways as we’ll soon see for ourselves in this third "Dune" installment.

4. Attack of the Clone

Jason Momoa’s master swordsman Duncan Idaho returns here with more sneak peek screen time.

He's shown resplendent in his crisp white uniform, heavily criticizing Paul for the thousands of worlds he’s destroyed during the terror campaign inflicted by his brutal Jihad.

But, as fans of the books will know, this is not technically the same person as his former mentor. He has been resurrected as a Ghola clone named Hayt as a ‘gift’ from the Bene Tleilaxu, and unbeknownst to Paul, he plans to assassinate the crazed ruler who is deemed beyond redemption.

5. Flight of the Navigator

One of the major grumbles coming from fans, myself included, is the lack of the Spacing Guild and its bizarre Guild Navigators in Villeneuve’s "Dune" films, but all that’s seemingly about to change.

In this trailer, we see a hovering coffin tank that no doubt contains one of the mutated human creatures warped by the spice Melange, enabling them to fold space. This former Spacing Guild member is named Edric and is a pivotal player in the plot to overthrow Paul and House Atreides.

Also seen is Edric’s sinister pod sliding silently into one of the gigantic Guild Heighliner starships.

Warner Bros.' "Dune: Part 3" lands on Dec. 18, 2026.

We’re not going to bombard you with a bunch of "Hasta La Vista, Baby" jokes, but you might want to mark your calendars for Aug. 28, 2026, because James Cameron's Oscar-winning "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" is heading back into U.S. and global theaters later this summer in honor of its 35th anniversary.

While the actual anniversary of the movie's release was back on July 3rd, StudioCanal has a great reason for delaying the re-release until August.

Judgment Day in the sci-fi franchise’s mythology occurs on August 29, 1997. It's when Skynet becomes self-aware and launches a doomsday nuclear attack on the world, so that weekend chosen for the re-release is particularly appropriate and pretty cool. In honor of these big birthday party plans, a special new anniversary trailer and nostalgia poster have been composed to heighten the excitement and anticipation.

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, and Robert Patrick, "Terminator 2" was unleashed into theaters on July 3, 1991, and was ultimately awarded four Oscars, instantly cementing its legacy as one of the most influential sci-fi flicks ever.

This anniversary re-release presentation utilizes StudioCanal’s 2017 restoration and 3D conversion. For residents in Australia, the seminal classic arrives back on Sept. 3, with a United Kingdom release due to strike beginning Sept. 4. Tickets in the United States for "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" 35th Anniversary have been available online since July 17.

"T2 was made for theatres, and our lovingly-prepared 3D version, coming back to the big screen, is the absolute best way to see the film," director James Cameron added in an official announcement.

"I believe it’s safe to do spoilers after 35 years, so SPOILER ALERT: the good guys win against the AI superintelligence! And maybe that’s a message of hope we all could use this summer."

If you don't want to wait until next month, you can watch "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" on Paramount+

The first trailer for "Avengers: Doomsday" dropped yesterday, and while it’s jammed full of superheroes, surprises, and our first extended look at Dr. Doom, it is missing one big thing that has been a constant in the MCU ever since "Avengers" was released and the Infinity Stone saga kicked off: outer space.

Believe it or not, the MCU has been very sci-fi heavy for the past decade as the universe expanded into space with "Guardians of the Galaxy", "Captain Marvel", and the entire throughline of Thanos’ quest to bring balance to the universe.

Entire films took place in space, and extended exposition was delivered inside the hulls of spaceships. Alien heroes and villains swung around made-up planets and lived in the skulls of dead space giants. That whole "Eternals" thing. It's safe to say that the Marvel movies were into outer space in a big way. The MCU leaned heavily into science fiction and space for much of its life, but judging from this trailer, that may be coming to an end.

This is a very Earth-based trailer, and while the remnants of years of science fiction still permeate throughout the MCU (superhero comics are almost always dabbling in the genre), the focus on it is clearly gone. This trailer is all about the Earth and superheroes, pulling back hard on the bigger universe. Sure, it opens with the Fantastic Four exiting their spaceship — probably an unintentional visual metaphor for the MCU’s abandonment of the cosmos — but we’re kept mainly on Earth otherwise.

We have absolutely no alien heroes appearing on screen in this trailer outside of Thor and, of course, our main villain is decidedly earthbound even if he may be from a different multiverse (for those not in the know, that’s Robert Downey Jr. behind Dr. Doom’s mask).

There are plenty of reasons that the MCU may be pulling out of space. Introducing all of the X-Men means you’ve got plenty of Earth stuff to mess around with anyway, and there’s very little reason to need space travel when you’ve got time travel, quantum realms, and multiverses expanding your universe in other ways.

To be fair, all of those are sci-fi as well, but it’s not the same as outer space. We do know from casting that some of our favorite space-based heroes will be returning, but what is clear is that space is no longer the focus here. The MCU has been pulling back on space ever since Thanos fell, and this new trailer for "Avengers: Doomsday" just hammers another nail into the coffin of that universe.

Of course, Marvel is a master of misdirection and fake-outs, so anything could change as we get more details and the film finally releases, but for now it seems that the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn’t so interested in the universe part.

"Avengers: Doomsday" will hit theaters on December 18.