CITIES IN THE SKY Doc Sets to Rewrite Sci-Fi History

By: Jan. 10, 2013
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Today Cities in the Sky: Science Fiction's Forgotten Visionaries made several announcements concerning the content of the film including additional interviews provided by leading authorities from academic, entertainment, and industry who will be interviewed. This art, animation and VFX infused project takes a look at forgotten and overlooked science fiction writers. Many of the authors covered have been forgotten or marginalized for hundreds and, in some incidences, even thousands of years. Yet, these visionary authors foresaw modern developments with often shocking accuracy.

The film's interviews will include many of today's top directors, producers, VFX experts and actors from the entertainment industry. Cities in the Sky interviewees have been integral to the production of the following films and television programs: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, Looper, Independence Day, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Titanic, Falling Skies, Heroes, Being Human, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, Stargate: Atlantis, 2012, The Amazing Spiderman and many more. Additional interviewees including science fiction writers, academics and technology experts will be announced shortly.

Science fiction experts and die-hard fans may know many of the names that are covered in Cities in the Sky, but for the overwhelming majority of viewers, the information covered in this documentary will be unexplored terrain. A wide range of authors from around the globe and throughout thousands of years of history are covered. Space travel, aliens and more staple science fiction concepts were all contemplated and detailed by Lucian in his work True History in the 2nd century AD. This is a controversial selection for this documentary, but the date of authorship and the sheer number of science fiction themes explored in his writing makes it an easy pick. For example, Edward Page Mitchell's work The Clock That Went Backward predated H.G. Wells's much better known work about time travel The Time Machine. Additionally, Mitchell penned several other gems involving invisibility and other topics often seen in modern science fiction. The work of Russian Vladimir Odoevsky is also explored in Cities in the Sky. Odoevsky's The Year 4338: Petersburg Letters was written in 1835 and yet prognosticates an impressive array of technological breakthroughs and concepts including communications breakthroughs like blogging. This sampling is a mere fraction of the numerous authors discussed in Cities in the Sky: Science Fiction's Forgotten Visionaries, as the documentary has been designed to offer surprises for both the average viewer and the die-hard fan.

Cities in the Sky: Science Fiction's Forgotten Visionaries, which is currently in preproduction, is running a Kickstarter campaign through Tuesday February 5th at 9:04pm EST with the goal of upgrading the film's artwork, animation, VFX and music. For more information about the project, visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1611134277/cities-in-the-sky-science-fictions-forgotten-visio.


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