About Force Fed Sci-Fi and the Force Fed Sci-Fi Movie Podcast

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Welcome to Force Fed Sci-Fi!

Meet The Force Fed Sci-Fi Team…

Chris

I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and developed a love for science fiction from marathons of The Twilight Zone with my dad and numerous viewings of Predator with his friends. I think sci-fi allows us to tell relevant and entertaining stories that are appreciated by everyone. Some of my current favorites include Black Mirror, Stranger Things and Blade Runner 2049. I’m also a fan of craft beer, Chicago sports, especially the Cubs, and all things that appeal to nerdy sensibilities.

Sean

In 1997 my parents bought us the Star Wars VHS trilogy set and instantly I became hooked on sci-fi adventure movies. That love for sci-fi transitioned into watching Star Trek Voyager, Independence Day, The Fifth Element and so much more. Sci-fi allows our dreams to become a reality. From films like Back to the Future 2 to Brazil, sci-fi is a genre that makes me feel like a kid again.

Jeremy

My passion for science fiction films and television was inevitable. My father was and still is a fan of many sci-fi franchises like Star Trek and Stargate. Naturally, I became a sci-fi fanatic as well since I was exposed to it growing up. Fast forward to today, and I can’t wait for the next big science fiction film to hit theaters when I see the trailer. It’s fun to immerse myself into a futuristic story that one day may be reality!

Our Mission and Purpose…

Our love for sci-fi is evident if you read our quick bios above. Our conversations about sci-fi films have always been fun and memorable. Then we decided we’d bring those conversations to you via the Force Fed Sci-Fi (Movie) Podcast as well as ForceFedSciFi.com!

We uncover events leading up to these sci-fi films being released, hidden meanings and themes that might be lurking, our favorite and not-so-favorite parts of these films, nominations and legacies, and a few of our own quirky and unique picks from each film.

Force Fed Sci-Fi Category Picks and Rating System!

The Red Shirt of the Week…

If you are a supreme sci-fi fan, you may know what a “red shirt character” from Star Trek The Original Series is. If not, it’s simple. On quite a few episodes, if a landing party went down to a new planet, the team would consist of a few main characters, but also include a no-name character that wore a red shirt. If you haven’t put the clues together by now, that no-name character often was the one to die in that episode.

We try to pick out a no-name character with every sci-fi film we cover who dies. Sometimes there isn’t anyone that dies, so in its place we may pick an animal that’s killed or an object destroyed, and in rare instances, we may not have one at all. However, it is a fun element to include while we watch these films and to share those picks that we make with you and our audience!

Family Guy touches on the Star Trek Red Shirt character briefly, but comically…

The Lens Flare of the Week…

While many have been impressed with J.J. Abrams’ versions of Star Trek and Star Wars, there was something noticed in these films that was included a bit much, especially in his Star Trek films. If you don’t know what a lens flare is, it is when light enters the lens of the camera which is typically bright (sometimes blindingly bright) and in addition, the object producing light in the image or film is often blurry.

While J.J. Abrams even recognized himself he included too many lens flares at times, we thought it might be fun to point out something in each sci-film that A) was included throughout the film too often, or B) did not really need to be in the film as it didn’t add to the story.

Force Fed Sci-Fi’s Film Rating System…

We have four categories a film can be labeled as:

Wouldn’t watch – watch it once and are comfortable never seeing it again
Would watch – watch it if it makes it’s way on television or Netflix
Would own – adding it to your film collection in order to watch it when the mood strikes
Would host a viewing party – watch with friends and/or family as you are positive everyone will enjoy viewing the film and maybe even talk about it after

Lastly…

Join us each week as we pick a film to watch, study it, and critique it both on ForceFedSciFi.com and on the Force Fed Sci-Fi Movie Podcast! Make sure to subscribe to our podcast as well if you enjoy our episodes! Also, rate us on the platform you listen to the podcast on as it will help drive us up the charts and help others like you find our show and website!

Finally, if you ever have any questions or concerns, email us at support@ForceFedSciFi.com and we will be more than willing and happy to help you out!

All the best and may the force be with you Sci-Fi fans!

– Chris, Sean, and Jeremy

So why doesn’t the BBC TV series ‘Dr. Who’ have any competition in its genre? Maybe
it’s time (hee, hee) that it did? And maybe NODE RIDERS can provide it?
NODE RIDERS is the story of Emilio Ravelli and Brian Healy who accidentally discover
gravitational nodes and who, along with Isabella Healy and Marty Lobesky, exploit them to
travel through space and through time. Emilio is completing his PhD in physics, and Brian is a
“genius” mechanical engineer whose company NovaTek Engineering does state-of-the-art
mechanical design and development. Isabella, Brian’s sister, is a finance wizard and Emilio’s
girlfriend, while Marty is an electronics and computer specialist who becomes Brian’s right hand
man. A Node is a volume of space that has no gravity. It is formed by the interaction of the
gravitational fields of massive objects like the Sun, Jupiter and planet Earth. Depending on
where these objects are located, their fields can cancel each other’s resulting in zero gravity.
Because there is no gravity inside a Node, its spacetime is flat, unlike the curved spacetime in the
surrounding Universe. A Node can be made to move through space by changing its shape, much
the same way a non-spherical oil drop moves through water because the external pressure varies
over its surface. Emilio and Brian figure out how to ‘hop aboard’ a Node and how to distort its
shape to move it through space in any direction at any speed, even lightspeed or faster! When a
Node travels at lightspeed anything inside it, even a material object, also moves at the speed of
light because no energy is required to move the Node’s contents. And, just like what a photon
experiences because it always travels at lightspeed, space and time simply cease to exist for a
Node travelling at lightspeed as required by Special Relativity. Brian and Emilio realize that a
gravitational Node can be made to move through space at lightspeed and made to re-enter the
normal Universe at any point in space and at any time, past, present or future! Their theory and
hardware are put to the test by sending Emilio’s cat Kepler on a trip into space. When Kepler
returns none the worse for his adventure, Emilio and Brian themselves take a Node ride, and, to
convince Isabella that they actually time-travelled, come back to Earth with two of tomorrow’s
newspapers in hand. Isabella is at first reluctant to take ‘the boys’ up on their suggestion that all
three of them become Node Riders, but eventually she acquiesces, while Marty remains on Earth
for the time being as ‘Ground Control.’ The Node Rider communicates with Marty using two
macro Quantum Entangled ‘Nodebooks’ – anything written in one instantaneously appears in the
other. The story closes with a twist in which the four NODE RIDERS, who had previously
sworn to keep secret their discoveries and adventures, decide to let the whole world know about
NODE RIDING, which, sure enough, in about 200 years in the future becomes as common as
driving a car.
The NODE RIDERS story is available on request to Richard A. Formato, rf2@ieee.org
(~1.2MB PDF). Regards, and thanks for considering this!

1 thought on “About Force Fed Sci-Fi and the Force Fed Sci-Fi Movie Podcast”

Richard Formato says:

September 12, 2022 at 8:49 am

So why doesn’t the BBC TV series ‘Dr. Who’ have any competition in its genre? Maybe
it’s time (hee, hee) that it did? And maybe NODE RIDERS can provide it?
NODE RIDERS is the story of Emilio Ravelli and Brian Healy who accidentally discover
gravitational nodes and who, along with Isabella Healy and Marty Lobesky, exploit them to
travel through space and through time. Emilio is completing his PhD in physics, and Brian is a
“genius” mechanical engineer whose company NovaTek Engineering does state-of-the-art
mechanical design and development. Isabella, Brian’s sister, is a finance wizard and Emilio’s
girlfriend, while Marty is an electronics and computer specialist who becomes Brian’s right hand
man. A Node is a volume of space that has no gravity. It is formed by the interaction of the
gravitational fields of massive objects like the Sun, Jupiter and planet Earth. Depending on
where these objects are located, their fields can cancel each other’s resulting in zero gravity.
Because there is no gravity inside a Node, its spacetime is flat, unlike the curved spacetime in the
surrounding Universe. A Node can be made to move through space by changing its shape, much
the same way a non-spherical oil drop moves through water because the external pressure varies
over its surface. Emilio and Brian figure out how to ‘hop aboard’ a Node and how to distort its
shape to move it through space in any direction at any speed, even lightspeed or faster! When a
Node travels at lightspeed anything inside it, even a material object, also moves at the speed of
light because no energy is required to move the Node’s contents. And, just like what a photon
experiences because it always travels at lightspeed, space and time simply cease to exist for a
Node travelling at lightspeed as required by Special Relativity. Brian and Emilio realize that a
gravitational Node can be made to move through space at lightspeed and made to re-enter the
normal Universe at any point in space and at any time, past, present or future! Their theory and
hardware are put to the test by sending Emilio’s cat Kepler on a trip into space. When Kepler
returns none the worse for his adventure, Emilio and Brian themselves take a Node ride, and, to
convince Isabella that they actually time-travelled, come back to Earth with two of tomorrow’s
newspapers in hand. Isabella is at first reluctant to take ‘the boys’ up on their suggestion that all
three of them become Node Riders, but eventually she acquiesces, while Marty remains on Earth
for the time being as ‘Ground Control.’ The Node Rider communicates with Marty using two
macro Quantum Entangled ‘Nodebooks’ – anything written in one instantaneously appears in the
other. The story closes with a twist in which the four NODE RIDERS, who had previously
sworn to keep secret their discoveries and adventures, decide to let the whole world know about
NODE RIDING, which, sure enough, in about 200 years in the future becomes as common as
driving a car.
The NODE RIDERS story is available on request to Richard A. Formato, rf2@ieee.org
(~1.2MB PDF). Regards, and thanks for considering this!