Strangers and Aliens: Science Fiction & Fantasy from a Christian Perspective

A road trip to see Shang-Chi, featuring Ben, Evan, and Evan’s sister-in-law! Road trips include three segments: spoiler free discussion on the trip to the theater about what we’re expecting; a spoiler free reaction after the movie in the parking lot; and then a spoiler filled discussion on the ride home. In this episode:Ben does […]

Ben and Evan reunite for a good ol’ fashioned ROAD TRIP EPISODE!!! The movie this time? FREE GUY! An original concept, science fiction movie? In the summer? More importantly . . . is it any good?

Ben wants to talk. Ben wants to talk about M. Night Shyamalan. He wants to talk about M. Night’s style. M. Night’s risk taking. M. Night’s filmography. M. Night’s twist endings. And he wants to talk about OLD. Which features M. Night’s style. M. Night’s risk taking. M. Night’s filmography. M. Night’s twist endings. He […]

John Harju is back and that means we’re talking about horror . . . or at least suspense thriller . . . and for this episode that means we’re talking about the “not-quite-Saw-but almost” franchise, or at least the “higher-budget-Cube” franchise: Escape Room, consisting of Escape Room and Escape Room: Tournament of Champions.

A few years back, Ben had the chance to write an essay for the book “Tarantino And Theology” (edited by Jonathan and Jerry Walls). The result was a chance for Ben to dive into his favorite Tarantino movie, Jackie Brown, and dive into a book by his favorite author, C.S. Lewis. Now, in 2021, with […]

We continue our series about THE TWILIGHT ZONE (that started in 2013 . . . and only has one other episode in the series) by covering two season five episodes of the show: “Probe 7 Over and Out” and “The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross”. These episodes were chosen by Steve and Evan and one of […]

This episode is why we created Strangers and Aliens! In this episode we: Explore a classic sci-fi story (“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin)! Review a new sci-fi movie (STOWAWAY, on Netflix now – don’t worry, we’re spoiler free about the movie . . . although the movie’s inspirations may spoil the movie . . […]

Evan, Steve, and Ben take a look at some of their favorite stories that should be big budget motion pictures, and in the process explore some of their favorite stories . . . and there just may be a couple new projects that come out of this . . .

Ben and Steve are joined by frequent guest host Nathan Marchand to battle each other about how good Godzilla Vs. Kong was! Where did they watch it? (At the BOX OFFICE, or the HOME Box Office???) Did they like it? Which one are they: team Godzilla or team Kong? And what did Evan think? He […]

Ben, Steve, and Even take on Zack Snyder’s Justice League! Is it different? Is it better? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it Whedon? One thing’s for sure: it’s LONG!!!

Last year, Ben and Evan ALMOST embarked on a project: to explore the Zach Snyder DC film universe in preparation for the four hour Justice League Snyder Cut. This project never happened. But an episode was recorded. This is that episode . . . “Welcome to the Snyder Cut” . . . the podcast that […]

In this episode, we dive into the show that got many people’s hopes up that mutants were coming to the MCU . . . or if not mutants, Reed Richards . . . or at least a multiverse connection to the X-Men . . . and instead was a simple story about a person dealing […]

Ben plays through the SNES inspired “Noah and the Flood”, a game Evan designed in Dreams on PS4! As he plays, they discuss: how the game came to be, artistic choices in art based on the Bible, the story of Noah, and many other things!

The “What If?” question has been a comic book mainstay for decades, from the “imaginary stories” that would pop up in old Superman comics to the actual “What If?” comic series from Marvel to “Elseworlds” and other series more recently. For this episode, we explore some “what if”s of our own – focusing in on […]

This is the Way . . . And this is the episode we talk about the way. Ben and Steve dig into the second season of The Mandalorian, from the theological ramifications behind rebellion to the meaning of removing the helmet to the geek out moments to the fan service. It’s a fun series and […]

This episode is divisive! It’s divided between two movies that hit streaming services on Christmas. It’s divided by the opinions about the movies . . . Evan likes one and not the other, Ben likes one and not the other, and Steve sort of likes both but kind of doesn’t like either. It’s divided between […]

In a sequel to the first Hobbit Tales from the Green Dragon Inn episode that we played back in May, Ben, Steve, and Evan play Hobbit Tales from the Green Dragon Inn once again! This episode was actually recorded back in May, but was put on the proverbial back burner — or on the literal […]

Christmas time is here! And the Strangers and Aliens were given a request: could we cover the Rankin Bass Christmas specials? And if you send us a request for something we love? We do it! So for our Christmas episode this year, we take a dive into some of the best Christmas specials of the […]

Just before we started recording about another topic, we became aware of some HUGE announcements Disney had made about upcoming Disney Plus series and also some movies and some interesting Hulu series. So we called an audible and switched our plans . . . to talk about Marvel movies, Star Wars series, and other upcoming […]

Ben is joined by John Hart for their semi-annual Halloween exploration of some classic horror movies! This time: THE THING. Starting with THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and then going into the remake THE THING from 1982 (the most famous in the franchise) and the prequel THE THING from 2011, Ben and John explore the […]

A good theme song may not save a TV show from being bad, but it definitely makes it more memorable. For this episode, we nominate our favorite themes songs and bring in some listener nominations, and we tally the votes to come up with the official Strangers and Aliens list of top five theme songs […]

Ben and Evan ventured to the theaters to see Tenet, the movie they THOUGHT would be the first movie back in theaters. Instead, Ben had already seen a few movies and Evan went to a movie theater on the east coast . . . so Tenet was not the road trip they expected. But was […]

Ben heads out on what could be an excellent adventure . . . or a bonus journey. This road trip has almost as many twists and turns as the movie he’s seeing, from the question of if he will even GET to the movie to the possibility of not seeing the movie even if he […]

Ben heads out to the first new release movie he’s seen in theaters since the beginning of the shut down for the pandemic. After seeing The Empire Strikes Back (and The Greatest Showman), he gets to see a new movie that has been waiting for release for a few years . . . NEW MUTANTS!!! […]

Ben heads out to his first movie in theaters since the beginning of the shut down for the pandemic. It’s a different experience, with the masks requirements and the like, but it’s also a familiar experience, being a movie he’s seen many, many times . . . THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK!!! There are some audio […]