This 5-Hour Love Letter to ’80s Sci-Fi Celebrates All Your Favorite Movies

Sometimes the only thing better than watching your favorite movie is watching someone talk about it. That might sound counterintuitive, but no matter how many times you’ve seen The Empire Strikes Back, RoboCop, Aliens, Flash Gordon, or The Last Starfighter, you’ve definitely seen the people involved talk about it less. And getting a new perspective on your favorite films is always worth doing.

Those films and many, many, many more are part of a new documentary called In Search of Tomorrow from director David Weiner (read our interview with him here!), who previously did In Search of Darkness. That film studied 1980s horror films—and now he’s blasted into an even more robust genre: 1980s sci-fi. Think about it. There are so many movies that came out in the 1980s that were sci-fi and this documentary, over the course of five hours, seems like it basically covers them all. Don’t believe it? The new trailer speaks for itself.

See? That’s a lot of amazing sci-fi movies all in one film—and the talent Weiner and his team assembled to talk about them is equally impressive. “To craft a five-hour documentary/love letter devoted to territory that’s so close to my heart is the ultimate treat,” the director said in a press release. “An entertaining ride that mines never-before-heard tales from the creative minds who drove this influential decade of filmmaking, In Search of Tomorrow is a celebration of human challenge and potential, recontextualizing the films that not only were important to all of us, but changed our lives.”

Now, you’re probably wondering, how and when can I see this film? That’s where things get… a little complicated. You can definitely see it by pre-ordering on its official site. By doing so not only can you get a digital version, hard copy, and all sorts of cool extras, you also get your name in the credits too, if you do it by March 27. The digital version would then ship in April and the physical one in May. Beyond that? We aren’t quite sure when or where the film will be available (In Search of Darkness, the horror doc, is currently streaming on Shudder). We’ve reached out to the team behind it for clarification and will update this post when we know.

Either way, that a movie of this scope is out there, paying homage to the movies many of us grew up with and shaped us, is very exciting.

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