tech tatva 2017: science fiction quiz prelims

Sci-fi quizEpisode i

Rules

• 25 questions.

• +1 for every correct answer.

• Tie breaker questions are Death Star marked.

• Top 8 teams make it to finals.

Prelims

q1. iD the island / where have you seen it?

• This is a remote island about 120 miles (190 km) off the west coast of Costa Rica.

• The name means "clouded island", though phonetically its name is incorrect. Its name is most likely an allusion to the Costa Rican island Isla del Coco, which is the only island with cloud forests in the eastern Pacific.

SAFETY SLiDE

• Isla Nublar from Jurassic Park

q2. Name the series/ Name the first book

SAFETY SLiDE

2001: A Space Odyssey

q3. iD the song and the character

The title of Radiohead’s X was taken from an iconic character from science fiction, Y, as a joke by singer Thom Yorke. “The title was chosen as a joke. It was like, 'Oh, I'm so depressed.' And I just thought, that's great. That's how people would like me to be. “, Yorke said.

The song however, has nothing to do with the character and has to do with a bad experience Yorke had at a bar.

SAFETY SLiDE

X-”Paranoid Android”Y- Marvin The Paranoid Android from HGTTG

q4. x?

• X, thought by many to have been ___________’s last work made an undeniable impact on sci-fi , a Scholar Nutall even credited X for “Inventing science fiction”.

• X was the basis for the 1956 film Forbidden Planet.

• In the film, the crew of Starship C-57D visits Planet Altair in search of an expedition that had crash-landed years ago, only to find one of the survivors, Dr Mobius living in isolation with his daughter, Altaira, and Robby the robot , one of the first movie robots with a distinct personality rather than being a tin can with legs.

SAFETY SLiDE

“The Tempest” by Shakespeare

q5.

• The scene is taken from the play Rossumovi Univerzální ______.

The play is known for introducing _____s to both, the English language, as well as to Science Fiction as a whole.

Which word?

SAFETY SLiDE

Robot

• From Carl Kapek’s Rossumovi Univerzální Robot

q6. Which book is being talked about?

When first released in 1818, the book was titled “___________ - The modern Prometheus” and the author used this allusion to signify that the main character demonstrated ‘hubris’ against god/nature in his experimental desire to create life from dead body parts, much like the Titan Prometheus, who stole fire from The Gods to benefit mankind, without realizing the ramifications of his actions.

SAFETY SLiDE

Frankenstein

q7. What is shown here?

SAFETY SLiDE

Fremen alphabet (from Dune)

q8.

• Shown here are Huey, Dueyand Lewis, who were three service robots in the 1972 film Silent Running.

What did they inspire?

SAFETY SLiDE

R2D2 from Star Wars

q9. FiTB

________ ______ on Mars is a 1964 independently made American technicolor film produced by Audrey Schenck. As the title indicates, the film was a science fiction retelling of the classic novel ________ ______.The movie tells the story of two astronauts en-route to Mars who are forced to use up all their fuel to avoid an imminent collision with a meteoroid, leaving them marooned upon landing on The Red Planet. The movie entails their survival and encounters with aliens on Mars during their time stranded on it.

SAFETY SLiDE

Robinson Crusoe

q10. What is being talked about?

“One of the things we still have to shoot is the X. Shooting that ___ is actually one of the hardest things on these shows. The artwork itself is only about four feet long and maybe a foot wide. The camera is real low to the ground and we use a tilting lens to eliminate a lot of the focus problems. But everything has to be lined up just perfectly and you spend days running through tests. Every little blemish shows up. Any little bump, any little movement of the camera is going to screw up this big 2,000-frame-long take. It's fun, but pure torture."

SAFETY SLiDE

Star Wars opening sequence

q11. FiTB

• The character _______ is voiced by legendary sound designer Ben Burtt. Burtt is best known for his work on Star Wars though he’s worked on films like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the Indiana Jones series as well. The Russian Satellite Sputnik 1, which in 1957 was the first man-made object to be placed in Earth’s orbit is featured in the film.

• The American Film Institute named it one of their best movies of 2008 and the jury states it has the best storyline and emotion in its genre since Chaplin’s “Little Tramp.”

SAFETY SLiDE

Wall-E

q12.

• Published in The US in McClure’s Magazine , and in The UK in The Windsor Magazine in 1905, “With The Night Mail: A story of 2000 AD”, was a famous author’s first venture into the realm of Science Fiction.

The story revolves around transatlantic aircrafts in the year 2000, which ferry cargo around the world. The story consists of riot of invention, considering that it was published only two years after the first flight across The English Channel was accomplished.

• Name the author.

SAFETY SLiDE

Rudyard Kipling

q13. id the movie

Antonio Sant’Elia’s designs served as an inspiration for the 1982 Sci Fi film Blade Runner. The following are a set of pictures which served as an inspiration for another movie. (IMAGES ON THE NEXT SLIDE)

Safety Slide

Metropolis

q14.

• In S01E14 of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon falls asleep and has a nightmare where he ends up in April 28 802,721 and is subsequently attacked by cannibalistic creatures as shown in the picture, who are from a classic Science Fiction Novel.

• What creatures is he attacked by?

SAFETY SLiDE

Morlocks from H. G Wells’ ‘The Time Machine’

q15. Put Funda

SAFETY SLiDE

Route of The Nautilus in ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’.

q16. FiTB

Randy Pausch, of Last Lecture fame, had the childhood dream of "being Captain Kirk". After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (which proved fatal nearly two years later) he received a signed autographed picture of Kirk with the inscription, "I don't believe in the ____. My Best, Bill Shatner“.

SAFETY SLiDE

Kobayashi Maru

q17. What is the meme a reference to?

This is a popular meme in which people, animals or objects are depicted as if they’re suffering from pain, such as “implied” physical deformity, or otherwise uncomfortable conditions. The images are often accompanied by the caption “Kill me”, reflecting the subject’s desire to be put out of misery.

SAFETY SLiDE

The “Please kill me” scene from Aliens.

q18. Which movie?

• This cult classic sci-fi film was directed by a 26-year old film school grad who had directed just 2 short student movies before. Films that have embraced time travel and alternate realities such as Twelve Monkeys influenced the director and the protagonist from Richard Adam’s Watership Down inspired a character in the movie.

• Opening a few weeks after 9/11 didn’t help the box office. Pioneer Theatre at New York city kept playing X at midnight shows for 28 months and other theatres followed suit, this helped X gather a cult following. A special reference to E.T was made when the protagonist is shown riding his bike.

SAFETY SLiDE

Donnie Darko

q19. Which book and author?

"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God!" The above quotation was introduced to X by his editor, who was himself an author of repute in the same genre, in 1941. Inspired by the above, X went on to base one of his most famous short stories Y on the quote. Y was then adapted into a full-fledged novel in 1989 by X, a few years before his death.

SAFETY SLiDE

X-Isaac AsimovY-Nightfall

q20.

• In an episode of Rick and Morty, Snuffles develops higher intelligence and wants to enslave the Smith family. After he gets these intentions, he says he wants to go by the name 'Snowball‘.

• Why was the name ‘Snowball’ chosen?

SAFETY SLiDE

Named after Snowball in George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’

q21. iD The writer

• In 1926 writer ______ founded Amazing Stories, the first true science-fiction magazine. He tried to trademark the term science fiction though he preferred “scientification”, and he paid writers so little that H. P. Lovecraft later nicknamed him “The Rat.” Before helping to create science fiction, he was an entrepreneur in the electronics industry, importing radio parts from Europe to the United States and helping to popularize amateur "wireless".

SAFETY SLiDE

Hugo Gernsback

After whom the Hugo awards were named.

q22. This scene in HiMYM is a tribute to?

SAFETY SLiDE

E.T

q23. Where are they venturing into?

The scene is from a movie based on a Stephen King novel of the same name.

q23. Where are they venturing into?

SAFETY SLiDE

The Human Body

q24. iD The horrific creatures blanked out (0.5 points for each)

SAFETY SLiDE

• The Mummy

• The Invisible Man

• Frankenstein

• The Creature from The Blue Lagoon