Science Fiction – 261112 – The Electronics Deli

On a Sunday night in 1938, some people in the United States heard a radio announcer say that something had landed in New Jersey. The visitors were from Mars. It was a play based on a book, but it sounded enough like the news to fool some listeners. The next day, newspapers made the scare sound bigger than it was. The Martians were imaginary. The confusion was real. What changed when a story people could read became a story people could hear? Source

In the News

Artemis II astronauts safely back on Earth after historic trip around moon — Reuters, 10 April 2026. Four astronauts flew around the Moon and returned safely to Earth after nearly ten days in space. Their capsule used parachutes to slow down before landing in the ocean. The journey gives us a real spacecraft to compare with the Moon vehicles that writers and filmmakers once imagined. Source

Beijing’s first World Humanoid Robot Games open with hip-hop and martial arts — Associated Press, 14 August 2025. Robots shaped like people danced and played musical instruments at the opening ceremony. One robot fell during a fashion show and had to be carried off by two people. Fiction often imagines machines that move like us, and the games showed both how far engineers have come and how much work remains. Source

Apple debuts thinner, $999 iPhone Air at ‘awe-dropping’ annual product event — The Guardian, 9 September 2025. Apple announced earbuds with live translation, which lets a listener hear a translated version of someone’s speech. Other companies had already offered similar tools. The idea is familiar to viewers of Star Trek, where a universal translator helps people from different worlds understand one another. Source

What do you think?

If you could send one ordinary object 200 years into the past, what would people make of it?
What makes a voice on the radio sound trustworthy?
If you joined a film halfway through, what important detail might you miss?
What could you check before sharing a surprising clip with a friend?
How could you make a toy car look full-sized in a video?
What sound could make an empty room seem frightening?
Why might two people picture the same creature differently when they read a book?
What makes a costume funny when it is supposed to be scary?
What makes you want to follow the same characters into another story?
When has an old movie helped you understand what people used to worry about?
If you made a machine that could speak, what would you owe it if it said it was lonely?
What would you do first if you found an object that seemed useful but might be dangerous?
What might a visitor learn about your class by looking through its rubbish?
What would you want a visitor to ask before changing something in your home?
How would you greet someone if you had no language in common?
When might a tool translate your words correctly and still miss what you meant?
Why might people who disagree on Earth choose to work together far from home?
What part of an imaginary journey would be hardest to make real?
What job would you give a robot at school, and why?
What would you change about everyday life if you could show people one possible future?

Did You Know?

In A Trip to the Moon, the Moon has a human face. The travellers’ vehicle lands directly in its eye. Source
In Robot Monster, the villain wears a gorilla suit and a diving helmet. The film expects the audience to be frightened by both at once. Source
To share the 1969 Moonwalk, NASA switched between receiving stations in the United States and Australia. At one point, viewers saw pictures received in Australia and heard audio from California. Source
In Plan 9 from Outer Space, filmmakers reused footage of actor Bela Lugosi after he died. The story itself features aliens raising the dead. Source

Vocabulary

announcer — 방송 진행자
broadcast — 방송
capsule — 우주선의 캡슐
parachute — 낙하산
trustworthy — 믿을 만한
halfway through — 중간쯤에
full-sized — 실제 크기의
creature — 생명체
muscle — 근육
bring to life — 생명을 불어넣다
responsibility — 책임
cannon — 대포
shell — 포탄
conquer — 정복하다
overseas — 해외의
vanish — 사라지다
stage magician — 무대 마술사
makeup — 분장
tune in — 방송을 듣기 시작하다
witness — 목격자
survey — 조사
nationwide — 전국적인
headline — 기사 제목
rival — 경쟁 상대
flying saucer — 비행접시
budget — 예산
prop — 촬영 소품
grant a wish — 소원을 이루어 주다
battered — 낡고 여기저기 손상된
accent — 말할 때 드러나는 발음의 특징

Glossary

Science fiction — Science fiction is a kind of story. It asks what might happen if we made a discovery, built a new machine, or met life from another world. The changes can affect people’s lives and choices. 과학 소설과 영화 등 과학적 상상에 바탕을 둔 이야기.
Thought experiment — A thought experiment is a test you carry out in your mind. You imagine a situation and think through what would happen. It can help you decide what to test in real life. 사고 실험.
Acceleration — Acceleration is a change in how fast something moves or in the direction it moves. A rocket accelerates when it speeds up after launch. A very sudden change in speed can harm the people inside. 가속도.
Special effect — A special effect makes a scene look or sound a certain way. Filmmakers can use models, costumes, camera tricks, or computers. Effects can make a small spaceship model look enormous. 특수 효과.
Radio bulletin — A radio bulletin is a short news report. It can interrupt another programme when something important happens. A radio play can copy its sound and style. 라디오 뉴스 속보.
Radioactive fallout — Fallout can form when a nuclear explosion sends dust and other material into the air. Some of this material gives off harmful radiation. Wind can carry it far from the place where the explosion happened. 방사성 낙진.
Space Race — The Space Race was a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Both countries tried to do things in space before the other did. Sending people into orbit and landing astronauts on the Moon were major goals. 우주 개발 경쟁.
Scale model — A scale model represents an object at a different size. Its parts keep the same size relationship as the parts of the object it represents. A filmmaker can shoot a small model from an angle that makes it look much larger. 축척 모형.
Wormhole — A wormhole is an idea in physics for a possible shortcut between distant places in space. Some mathematical models allow shapes like this. Scientists have never found a wormhole or shown that people could travel through one. 웜홀, 우주의 먼 곳을 잇는다고 가정한 통로.
Machine translation — Machine translation uses software to turn words from one language into another. Some systems can work with speech while people are talking. They can make mistakes when words have several meanings or when the sound is unclear. 기계 번역.

Early writers asked what might happen when science gave people new powers

People imagined trips beyond Earth long before they could build rockets. About 1,800 years ago, a writer named Lucian told a story in which a storm lifted a ship and carried it to the Moon. The ship was the sort that normally sailed on water, which makes the journey hard to recommend. Lucian was making fun of writers who told unbelievable travel stories. His tale shows how old the pleasure of imagining strange worlds is. Later writers began to give such journeys a different kind of explanation. They asked what people might do if they had new knowledge or better machines. Source

How did Lucian’s ship reach the Moon?
How did later writers change the way they explained such journeys?

In 1818, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein. At the time, researchers were studying how electricity could make muscles move. Shelley imagined a young scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who brings a creature to life. The book leaves the exact method unclear. The famous laboratory sparks belong to the way later films pictured the story. Once the creature opens its eyes, Victor has a problem that no experiment can solve. He has made a living being and must decide how to treat it. Shelley gives the creature feelings and a voice, so readers can ask what responsibility Victor has toward it. Source

What were researchers learning about electricity in Shelley’s time?
How might hearing the creature’s own thoughts change a reader’s opinion of Victor?

In the nineteenth century, new machines were changing the speed at which people could travel. In From the Earth to the Moon, published in 1865, the French writer Jules Verne imagined passengers riding inside a shell fired from a giant cannon. He used numbers and engineering details to make the journey sound possible. A cannon powerful enough to launch people toward the Moon would speed them up far too suddenly for them to survive. The idea makes the story a useful thought experiment. If you wanted people to make the trip alive, what would you need to change about the launch? Source

How did Verne make the imagined journey sound possible?
What would make his launch dangerous for passengers?

In 1898, The War of the Worlds appeared in book form. H. G. Wells imagined that Martians landed in England and had machines far more powerful than anything the people there could build. British readers lived at a time when their country ruled many places overseas. Wells asks readers to think about how powerful countries had treated the people they conquered. Then he puts England on the receiving end. The places in the story felt familiar to his readers, which made the invasion feel close to home. The same idea would later work in a very different place. Source

Why might an attack in familiar English places feel especially disturbing to Wells’s readers?
What real behaviour did Wells ask readers to think about through the Martian invasion?

Early films made space travel playful, while The War of the Worlds showed how much people trusted a voice on the radio

In 1902, French filmmaker Georges Méliès made A Trip to the Moon. In one famous shot, a rocket lands in the eye of a Moon with a human face. The Moon looks understandably annoyed. The film drew on earlier stories about lunar travel and gave the audience a picture they could all see at once. Méliès had worked as a stage magician. Film gave him a new way to make objects appear or vanish. He could stop the camera, change something on the set, and start filming again. On screen, the change seemed to happen in an instant. Source

What happened to the Moon in the film’s famous shot?
How could Méliès make an object seem to vanish?

PBS Shanks FX, 5 min 41 sec — Reverse Motion Effects

Video questions

What change does Joey Shanks make to the order in which the action is shown?
Which movement looks most surprising when it is played backwards?
How could you use this effect to make an ordinary object seem to have a strange power?

Early film also gave familiar fears a body. In the 1931 film Frankenstein, actor Boris Karloff’s heavy walk and the makeup on his face helped shape the image many people still have of the creature. On the page, Shelley’s creature can explain his thoughts at length. On screen, a look or a movement can make the audience feel sorry for him before he says a word. Film can change the details people remember about a story. If you picture a flat head and metal pieces at the neck when you hear the name Frankenstein, you are remembering choices made for a movie. Source

Which two things helped Karloff create the creature on screen?
How could an actor show the creature’s feelings without speaking?

On 30 October 1938, Orson Welles and his team performed The War of the Worlds on American radio. They moved the landing from England to New Jersey. Early in the play, a music programme was interrupted by a series of fictional news bulletins. Actors played reporters and witnesses. Listeners could hear voices and pauses, but they had to picture the scenes themselves. The programme said it was a play. Someone who tuned in late could miss the opening announcement and hear the story in a form they already knew from real news. That familiar sound made the performance unusually convincing. Source

Where did the Martians land in the radio version?
Why might someone who tuned in late believe the broadcast?

PBS American Experience, 22 sec — A Grave Announcement

Video questions

What event does the bulletin report on Mars?
Which part of the announcer’s delivery makes the report sound urgent?
What would you check if you heard this recording in a short clip today?

Some listeners called police stations, newspapers, and radio stations. Newspapers then ran dramatic stories that made the reaction sound like a nationwide panic. Historians have looked at audience surveys and accounts from the time. They found genuine alarm, but the evidence points to a smaller audience and a less widespread scare than the headlines suggested. A familiar format can make a made-up event feel real. A dramatic headline can also make a real event seem bigger. If a recording or clip surprises you today, it is worth finding out where it came from and what happened before it started. Source

What two kinds of evidence did historians use to study the reaction?
How did newspapers change the way people remembered the broadcast?

In the age of nuclear weapons and the Space Race, flying saucers carried fears and Star Trek offered hope

In 1951, The Day the Earth Stood Still imagined a flying saucer landing in Washington, D.C. The visitor, Klaatu, comes with a warning about human violence and the danger it could pose beyond Earth. At the time, the United States and the Soviet Union were rivals in a period known as the Cold War. Both had tested nuclear weapons. A story about a visitor from space gave audiences a different point of view on a real question. How might people look to an outsider who saw them building weapons powerful enough to destroy cities? Source

What is Klaatu worried about?
Why might his warning have felt important to people in 1951?

Japan’s Godzilla, released in 1954, gave the danger of nuclear weapons a different shape. Earlier that year, a United States nuclear test in the Pacific exposed the crew of a Japanese fishing boat to radioactive fallout. In the film, nuclear testing disturbs an enormous creature that attacks Tokyo. The filmmakers used a performer in a suit and small models of buildings to show the destruction. The sight could be frightening because viewers already knew what a ruined city looked like. The film turned a danger that can be invisible into something that could fill the screen. Source

What happened to the crew of the Japanese fishing boat?
How did the filmmakers make Godzilla look large enough to threaten a city?

Some 1950s films are remembered for what happened when a big idea met a small budget. In Robot Monster, the invader looks like a gorilla who has signed up for a diving lesson. In Plan 9 from Outer Space, aliens raise the dead. Keeping the story straight appears to have been the more difficult job. A cheap costume or a confusing scene may make viewers laugh just when they are meant to hide behind the sofa. That can make these films fun to watch with friends. Everyone can see the effort it took to suggest an entire alien world with a few props. Source

Why might the costume in Robot Monster make an audience laugh?
What might friends enjoy about watching a film with very obvious special effects?

In 1966, Star Trek brought a different picture of space into people’s homes. The United States and the Soviet Union were competing in the Space Race. The show imagined a future in which people from different countries worked together aboard the Enterprise. Uhura, a Black woman, was the ship’s communications officer at a time when Americans were debating equal rights. Weekly episodes gave viewers time to get to know the crew and see them solve different problems. Three years after the show began, people around the world could watch real astronauts take their first steps on the Moon. Source

How did the crew of the Enterprise offer a different picture from the competition of the Space Race?
Why might seeing Uhura at work have mattered to viewers in the 1960s?

PBS, 2 min 59 sec — Apollo 11 Launch

Video questions

What moment in the Apollo 11 journey does this clip show?
What sounds help you follow the launch?
If you were making a film about an imagined journey to the Moon, what detail from this clip would you use?

From Roadside Picnic and Star Wars to Stargate and today’s stories, imagined worlds let us ask what kind of future we want

In the 1972 Soviet novel Roadside Picnic, alien visitors have already come and gone. They leave strange objects behind in places called Zones. Imagine ants finding the remains of a picnic. A bottle cap might be a useful shelter, while a drop of liquid might poison them. The ants have no way to know what the people were doing there. In the novel, people risk their lives to collect objects they barely understand. The 1979 film Stalker took the idea of a dangerous Zone and focused on a room said to grant a person’s deepest wish. Source

Why do people enter the Zones even though the objects are dangerous?
How does the picnic comparison help explain what the aliens may have thought of humans?

In 1977, Star Wars gave audiences a fast adventure in a galaxy full of battered machines, strange creatures, and people fighting an empire. Filmmakers used small models and carefully controlled camera movement to make the battles look enormous. Viewers could laugh at the quarrels between two robots and care about whether the rebels escaped. The Empire Strikes Back followed in 1980, and Return of the Jedi completed the original trilogy in 1983. Other films took space in different directions. Alien, released in 1979, made a spaceship feel like a haunted house and also grew into a series. Source

How did the filmmakers make the battles in Star Wars look enormous?
How did Alien use a spaceship to give audiences a different experience?

PBS Shanks FX, 4 min 4 sec — Stop-Motion Star Wars

Video questions

Which Star Wars ship does the team try to show in motion?
What does the team do to give the impression that the ship is moving?
What toy or classroom object could you turn into a convincing spacecraft, and how would you film it?

In the 1994 film Stargate, a team discovers that an ancient ring opens a path to another world. The television series Stargate SG-1 began in 1997 and sent a team through the gate on new journeys. A door was a simple idea that could produce a different story each week. The people the team meets have languages, beliefs, and problems of their own. The story uses a wormhole, an imagined shortcut through space. Its link between aliens and ancient Egypt is fictional. Real Egyptians built their monuments with human skill and labour. The series asks what explorers owe the people they meet. Source

How did the gate give the television writers a way to tell a new story each week?
What might the team need to learn before deciding how to help people on another world?

Science fiction keeps finding new forms. On streaming services, people can watch a whole series at their own pace. Films such as Arrival, released in 2016, ask how humans might communicate with visitors whose language is completely unfamiliar. Star Trek imagined a universal translator. Real tools can already translate some speech, but a joke, a noisy room, or an unfamiliar accent can cause mistakes. A story can help us think beyond the device itself. If more people could understand one another, who would gain a voice in a classroom or a hospital? Writers can make that future easier to picture. People still have to decide how to build it. Source

What communication problem does Arrival ask people to think about?
Where could machine translation help people take part in a conversation, and what might still go wrong?

Homework

Writing tasks

In about one page, describe what might happen if an ordinary object from your home appeared 200 years ago. Explain what someone might get right about it, what they might get wrong, and why.
In about one page, explain how you would check an alarming recording before sharing it. Describe three things you would check and what each could tell you.
In about one page, plan a scene in which a toy car looks full-sized. Explain where you would put the camera, what you would put in the background, and what sounds you would use.
In about one page, argue what a person owes a creature they bring to life. Explain what that person should do on the first day and what they should do if the creature causes trouble.
In about one page, tell the story of a familiar place from the point of view of an alien visitor. Explain two things the visitor might misunderstand and what would help them learn.
In about one page, argue whether people should be allowed to bring objects out of a Zone. Explain who might benefit, who might be harmed, and what rule you would use.
In about one page, design a first meeting between two groups that share no language. Explain what each group could show, which gestures could be misunderstood, and how they could check their guesses.
In about one page, explain how a silly monster can still express a real fear. Choose the fear, describe the monster, and explain how an audience might respond.
In about one page, argue whether a story you invent would work best as a book, a radio play, or a film. Describe one scene and show how your chosen medium would make it work.
In about one page, describe one future you would like to live in. Explain what would change, who would benefit, and one problem people would need to solve along the way.

Debate topics

1] Should a fictional radio drama be allowed to sound like a real news bulletin?

Side A — Yes, because: 1) it makes the story more convincing; 2) it gives artists more ways to tell stories; 3) clear announcements can help listeners understand what they are hearing.

Side B — No, because: 1) people can tune in late; 2) frightening reports can prompt people to act quickly; 3) recordings can spread without the opening announcement.

2] Should explorers bring home objects they find in an unknown place?

Side A — Yes, because: 1) the objects might help answer important questions; 2) specialists at home could examine them more carefully; 3) carefully chosen samples could help people prepare for later visits.

Side B — No, because: 1) the objects could be dangerous; 2) they might belong to someone; 3) leaving them in place preserves clues about where they came from.

3] Should schools let students use live translation during group projects?

Side A — Yes, because: 1) more students could join the discussion; 2) groups could share ideas sooner; 3) students could compare the translation with what they heard.

Side B — No, because: 1) errors could change someone’s meaning; 2) students might get less practice speaking a new language; 3) a device could record conversations students want to keep private.

Answer the following questions in full sentences. If you don’t know the right answer, add a (?) mark, and later we can look at it together.

What kind of writing was Lucian making fun of in his Moon story?
What scientific experiments were people discussing around the time Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein?
How did Jules Verne plan to send his travellers to the Moon?
How did H. G. Wells use an attack on England to make readers think about conquest?
What could early film show audiences that a printed story left them to picture for themselves?
What would a filmmaker change while the camera was stopped to make an object disappear?
What changes did Orson Welles’s team make when it turned H. G. Wells’s book into a radio play?
How did later historians find out whether the radio broadcast caused widespread panic?
Who is Klaatu, and why does he come to Earth?
What real event helped shape the original Godzilla?
What is radioactive fallout, and how can it travel away from an explosion?
How did Star Trek show a possible future for people from different backgrounds?
What did television allow people around the world to witness in 1969?
What are the Zones in Roadside Picnic?
What is the room in Stalker supposed to do?
Which three films make up the original Star Wars trilogy?
Why could the writers of Stargate SG-1 use the same gate to tell many different stories?
What is a wormhole, and what do scientists know about whether one has been found?
Why can a real translation tool make mistakes during a conversation?
How can a science fiction story help people think about a decision they may face in the future?

Teaching illustrations and similes

Imagining a new power — Ask students to imagine a pencil that answers back. Start with what it could do, then ask how students should treat it if it says it can feel pain.
Sudden acceleration — Think of how your body presses back into a seat when a bus starts quickly. Verne’s passengers would face a much more sudden change in speed.
The camera stop trick — Hold up two photos of the same desk, one with a pencil and one without it. Switching between them quickly makes the pencil appear to vanish.
Shared pictures — Ask students to draw the same creature from a short description. Then show a single drawing to the whole room. The first activity shows what readers supply, and the second shows what a filmmaker can choose for everyone to see.
The sound of authority — Read the same made-up sentence in a chatty voice and then in the voice of a newsreader. The change in tone can change how the words feel. The words themselves give the same evidence both times.
A headline can enlarge a story — Imagine three pupils jumping when a door slams. A headline saying “School Terrified by Mysterious Bang” makes three pupils sound like the whole school.
Models on film — Put a toy car close to a camera and have a person stand far behind it. The toy can seem larger than the person because of where each is placed.
Seeing a future crew — Ask students to choose the crew for an imaginary school mission. Compare who gets to lead, who gets to speak, and what happens when the team needs several different skills.
The roadside picnic — Imagine a bird finding a bus ticket. The bird could use the paper in a nest while having no way to know what a bus ticket does.
Translation and meaning — Take the sentence “That was cold.” It could describe the weather, a drink, or an unkind remark. A translator needs clues about the situation to choose the right meaning.

10 science fiction movies to watch before you die

A Trip to the Moon (1902) — Start with the silent film that gives the Moon a face and then sends a vehicle into it. Source
Godzilla (1954) — Watch the original Japanese film for the human story beneath the monster attack. Source
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) — A slow, strange journey that uses images and music to make space feel vast and unfamiliar. Source
Star Wars, later titled A New Hope (1977) — The first film released is the place to start. Its worn-out machines and quarrelling robots make a faraway galaxy feel lived in. Source
Stalker (1979) — A slow, unsettling film inspired by Roadside Picnic. It asks whether getting your deepest wish would be a good thing. Source
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) — An alien visit seen through a child’s eyes, with friendship at the centre of the story. Source
Stargate (1994) — An adventure built around a wonderfully simple idea. Step through a door and find an entirely different world. Source
WALL·E (2008) — A small rubbish-collecting robot makes a lonely future feel funny, sad, and possible to change. Source
Arrival (2016) — A first-contact story in which learning how to ask a question is more important than firing a weapon. Source
The Wild Robot (2024) — A robot stranded on an island has to learn how to live with animals. Its hardest task turns out to be raising a gosling.

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