SpockSoc

Hi everyone,

Wow, five weeks in already! I hope you’ve all had a chance to enjoy some of the beautiful weather we had this weekend, in between all the work and study.

This week, we’re going to read some books and fuck with the space-time continuum! Also I’m super-tired and forgot I’d run out of email buffer, so this email might be less of a novel than usual. Benefits!

 Wednesday

Yes, you’ve heard me talk about it for a solid two months, and now the day has finally arrived! The first meeting of the Spocksoc book club will take place on Wednesday – so if you haven’t finished the book you’ve got two days left.

(ok, more like one by the time this email goes out)

This month’s book is Sabriel by Garth Nix, a fun epic fantasy adventure with a touch of horror. We’ll be kicking off proceedings at 6pm in the Rupert Myers theatre – you can find the location on the map below:

Please feel free to swing by even if you haven’t finished the book. Check out our facebook event for more details, including how we’ll be selecting next month’s book!

 

 

Friday

On Friday, [something something space-time continuum something] with the fourth and final of our Merry Month of Arrowverse screenings: Legends of Tomorrow!

When last we left our time-travelling heroes, they’d somehow managed to defeat the Totally-Not-Time-Lords thanks in part to a heroic sacrifice by Captain Cold. We have yet to see if the team can survive without his effortless charisma. We also said a not-entirely-regretful goodbye to Hawkman and Hawkgirl, who having destroyed Vandal Savage, left the team to search for some better written storylines. Godspeed!
Now, the remnants of the team must confront a new player, who claims to have come back from their future to get his parents to hook up prevent their deaths. If you need a recap, one can be found here.

We’ll be starting from the beginning of season 2 and watching about seven episodes. As usual, we’ll start around 5pm at the Macauley Theatre and have a dinner break around 7pm. You find more information on facebook.

What else is on?

We’re back at the movies tomorrow night for Disney’s latest live-action endeavor: Beauty and the Beast! Meet us at the Ritz at 6pm for a night of music and creepy CGI furniture – more details on facebook here.

Finally, the deadline to sign up for the Japan trip is this week! If you haven’t already, drop our trip leaders James and Joel a line at Japan@spocksoc.org and make sure you come to the meeting next week – details here.

We look forward to seeing you this week!

Jenn

 

Hi everyone,

With the excitement of O-Week over and done with, another year of Spocksoc begins! I’d like to extend a particularly warm welcome to our new members – congratulations on joining the best club on campus! – and a hearty welcome back all our returning members.

If you haven’t already, now’s a good time to check out our website and join our facebook and orgsync pages, so you can stay up to date. If you haven’t already, we’d also appreciate you filling out our intake survey.

Moving into a new phase of your life (starting uni, getting a new job, joining an awesome sci-fi club…) can always be a little daunting. And sure, it seems like getting superpowers would make it easier, but if TV has taught us anything, it’s that there’s always room for things to get more complicated. And with that awkward segue, let’s talk about this Friday’s screening – Supergirl!

This Friday, we’re kicking off what is basically our Mega Month of Superhero Nonsense with season two of Supergirl. When we last saw National City’s favourite superheroine, she’d managed to defeat an evil Kryptonian mindcontrol device (and the evil Kryptonians who came along with it), establish herself as more than Superman’s cousin, earn the respect of her boss and get the guy. Everything’s coming up Kara! But it wouldn’t be a modern TV show without a last-minute cliffhanger, because god forbid your audience stays loyal because they like the characters or something.

So! Who (or what) is in the mysterious pod that crash-landed? Will Kara be able to juggle her hero work alongside new responsibilites at CatCo? Is it possible for the show to top the cuteness overload of last season’s Flash crossover? Is J’onn J’onnz the best Space Dad ever? We just don’t know!

(well, unless you’ve been watching it week-to-week I guess. Such mystery!)

If you haven’t watched season 1, you can catch up with a recap at this link. Or just watch all 20 episodes before Friday – it’s not like you have important uni work to get started on!

After a brief flirtation with other locations last week, we’re back in trusty old Macauley Theatre (Quad 1027 in new money). It’s located on the upper level of the quad, at approximately the location of the totally elegant red splotch on the map below:

We’ll have our banner by the door. As always, we’ll start around 5pm with a dinner break for pizza around 7pm. You also find all these details on our facebook page here.

And now, in other news, we have so much other news!

First up, we have a movie outing tomorrow – join us at the Ritz at 7pm as we grit our teeth through a White Saviour narrative for the sake of some amazing action sequences in The Great Wall! You can find all the necessary info on our facebook page here.

True to form, we actually have a bunch of movie outings coming up – next week we return to the X-Men universe with Logan, then in a fortnight we’ll be travelling to Skull Island! There are many more to come: you can check them out on our event page here. More will be added as the Ritz confirms release dates!

Secondly, the first meeting of our Book Club will take place on Wednesday 29th March at 6pm! Our location: the Rupert Myers Theatre, located inside the artistically lopsided circle on this map:

Our first book will be Sabriel by Garth Nix, a fantasy classic with a touch of horror that made Nix a household name. Now, I know that you’ve probably all had to buy overpriced textbooks and have no room in your budgets for fun, so I have ordered twenty (20) copies of Sabriel which I will distribute on a first-come first-served basis at the screening this Friday! If they arrive on time, otherwise I will make other arrangements. This is only because it’s the first session, books will not be provided for any future sessions. My intention is to provide copies to people who are not able to afford their own, so if you’re able to buy/borrow a copy please feel free to do so. You can find a little more information here on our facebook page.

Thirdly, the first info night about our 2018 Japan trip will take place at 6pm on Wednesday 8th of March, room yet to be decided. If you’re thinking of joining the trip, this is your opportunity to find out more! We’ll be discussing everything from the dates to the itinerary to the cost (including fundraising), and if you have any ideas we’d love to hear them. Keep an eye on our facebook event for more information, including a confirmed location.

And with that I think I can bring this monstrous novel of an email to a close. We look forward to seeing you around this week!
Jenn

Hi everyone,

Where has the year gone? With only a few short weeks to go before we bid 2016 goodbye forever (and good riddance), we’re going to wrap up our regular screenings with an old favourite.

This week, we travel back to the far-off days of the early 2000s to enjoy the weird, wonderful, occasionally Muppet-y, even more occasionally Australian Farscape! We’ll be starting from episode 2 of season 3. And yes, I’m pretty sure that’s where we’re up to this time.

Over the course of the last couple of seasons, intrepid astronaut John Crichton has been kidnapped, drugged, assaulted by Peacekeepers, assaulted by various aliens of the week, drugged again, forcibly engaged, frozen in totally-not-carbonite, kidnapped again, drugged once more for good measure, had his mind invaded by everyone from higher-order beings to more Peacekeepers, mentally traveled through time, actually traveled through time and suffered a wide variety of head injuries.

Honestly, it’s a miracle he’s still standing, and the fun certainly isn’t over yet. For a recap of all the other times Crichton’s had something awful happen to him, check out the link below:
http://farscape.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Episodes

As per usual, we’ll be kicking off at about 5pm in the Macauley Theatre, with a pizza run for dinner around 7ish.

You may have also noticed that we have a movie outing coming up! Keeping up with the Non-Skywalkers Rogue One: A Star Wars Story isn’t even a fortnight away, and we’re teaming up with Vadersoc for a midnight screening! You can find all the details here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/574035582789720/

If not even the finest Jedi meditation techniques can help you make it to midnight (or you just want some company while you rewatch the movie for the umpteenth time in five days) we have a regular Tuesday night outing here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/721373238020382/

Don’t forget that next week is our Christmas Party and official last screening of the year!

Hope to see you on Friday,
Jenn

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Hi everyone,

A lot has happened in the past week, and many of you might be feeling helpless, or disheartened, or just plain upset and angry. You’ve probably read a lot of words about it, and I don’t really want to add any more. So I’ll just say this: it is not the end. Right now, it feels like humanity has taken a collective step back, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about human beings it’s that we are tenacious bastards. We might not be directly affected by the events of last Wednesday. We might not even know anyone who is. But that doesn’t mean we can’t offer help and support for the next four years and beyond. And keep fighting for that future we know is just around the corner.

*steps off soapbox*

It’s become a Spocksoc tradition to run some more old-school programming in the summer and winter breaks, and we’re certainly not making an exception this summer. This Friday, we’re continuing our rewatch of the 90s classic Babylon 5.

Babylon 5 is set on the eponymous station, a multi-species centre for trade, diplomacy and the accompanying amount of nefarious scheming, watched over by the humans of the Earth Alliance.

There’s a lot going on in this show, and we’re starting this session from episode 17 of season 2, which I swear is not a deliberate attempt to be difficult. If you’ve never watched B5 before (and you miraculously have free time this week), I’d definitely urge you to watch a few episodes or the entire first season and most of the second, after all sleep is for the weak and this show is worth it in order to get up to speed. Otherwise, you can find summaries of the first and second seasons here and here.

As per usual, we’ll be kicking off at about 5pm in the Macauley Theatre, with a pizza run for dinner around 7ish.

We also have not one, but two movie outings this week. On Tuesday, Amy Adams attempts to unravel an alien language, save humanity and score an Oscar nomination in Arrival:
https://www.facebook.com/events/845497935587298/

Then on Wednesday night Eddie Redmayne leads us back into the Wizarding World with a special midnight screening of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1808069939451269/

Of course if you value your sleep there will be a regular screening of Fantastic Beasts next Tuesday:
https://www.facebook.com/events/910799725686613/

We hope to see you there this week,
Jenn

Spocksoc is proudly supported by Arc

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Hi everyone,

Exam season is upon us, bringing a faint chill to even the warmest of late spring days. As you fight with formulae, struggle with sources, and pray you’ve taken all the right notes in class, know that in this dark time, Spocksoc will continue to be there for you. If by some miracle you have a spare few hours this week, come on down to our Friday screening, where we’ll be watching the Wesen-tastic Grimm!

In this, the last of our ‘mainstream’ screening sessions before switch into old-school mode for the break, we’ll be wrapping up season five of Grimm, from episode 15 onward. When last we checked in on our favourite Portland residents, they’d finally, finally managed to get around to resolving that bloody Templar Keys plotline that’s only taken four and half seasons to get somewhere. Now they have a magic stick, so we’ll see how that works out. Also, Renard’s playing politics, Adalind and Nick are still Attempting Domesticity (good luck with that, guys) and something dreadful may have happened to Wu. Again. A recap of all the fun and games can be found here:
http://grimm.wikia.com/wiki/Season_5

As per usual, we’ll be kicking off at about 5pm in the Macauley Theatre, with a pizza run for dinner around 7ish. . Please be aware that we have eight episodes to get through rather than the usual seven, and thus will be starting right on the dot of five.

We also have some movie outings coming up! Arrival is this year’s Thoughtful Sci-Fi Blockbuster and features Amy Adams as a linguistics professor dealing with a first contact situation. We’ll be seeing it on the 15th November, details are here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/845497935587298/

If one movie per week isn’t enough for you, we’ve got a midnight screening of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them the very next day! Click the magic link to find out more:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1808069939451269/

If you can’t make the midnight screening (or would like to watch the movie again without sleep deprivation blurring the experience), we have a regular Tuesday outing coming up on the 22nd, and you can check on the details here:
https://www.facebook.com/events/910799725686613/
Hope to see you all this week!
Jenn

Hi everyone,

I should say something clever about the end of semester and tying up loose ends, but honestly I’m exhausted and also I used that line last week. Anyway, we’re finishing up a couple of other shows that we’ve only got like two or three episodes left of, and the theme for this week is Awesome Ladies!

First up, Emmy Award-winning omg actress Tatiana Maslany does her usual dazzling turn as approximately fifty different characters in season four of Orphan Black. Clone Club have been forced into an uneasy alliance with Susan and Rachel Duncan, but it’s probably only a matter of time before someone gets double-crossed. Also, Allison’s doing another musical. Fun times all around! A recap of all the twists and turns of the penultimate (sniff) season can be found here:

http://orphanblack.wikia.com/wiki/Season_4

Next, not-yet-Emmy-Award-winning-but-I’m-sure-it’ll-happen-soon actress Hayley Atwell takes Peggy Carter out for one last impeccably-styled ass-kicking outing in the final (sniffle) episodes of Agent Carter. LA is under threat from Whitney Frost and her plans to dissolve the patriarchy into goo. Which is a great idea conceptually speaking, but is now directly threatening characters I like, so it’s probably worth putting a stop to. A musical number will also be in the offing. You can catch up the rest of Peggy’s final (sob) adventures here:

http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Agent_Carter_(TV_series)/Season_Two

And we might also be watching the final episode of Daredevil since we didn’t get to it last week, but I wrote like a whole paragraph on it in the last email and it doesn’t fit the theme anyway, so yeah.

As per usual, we’ll be kicking off at about 5pm in the Macauley Theatre, with a pizza run for dinner around 7ish.

In other news, that great media machine that is the MCU is once again kicking into high gear. Don your Cloak of Levitation and open your Eye of Agamotto – Doctor Strange is in! The good doctor will be seeing patients from Thursday onward, and by the hoary hosts of Hoggoth, Spocksoc will be making an appointment! We’ll be making our usual outing Ritz-ward on Tuesday 1st November – all the gory details can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/658791564282436/

Looking forward to seeing you on Friday,

Jenn

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re all enjoying a well-earned break from the daily grind of classes (or frantically studying for looming exams, whatever floats your boat) this week. We’re taking a break too – from superhero TV, that is! Yes, our regular Friday screening will be going ahead as usual, and after a solid month of watching spandex-clad people punch things and angst a lot*, we figured it was high time to wander over to another subgenre – or even two.

This Friday we’ve got an exciting double-bill as we wrap up a couple of short-form shows from the Syfy channel. First up, a jaunt into the science fictional as we travel from Earth to the asteroid belt in The Expanse! Then after dinner, we’ll be flipping over to the fantasy side of the spectrum to trek through the elf-infested wilderness of post-apocalyptic Earth in The Shannara Chronicles.

We’ll be tackling episodes 8-10 of each show. If you need to catch up with all the fun shenanigans on Ceres and beyond, a recap of The Expanse is here:
http://expanse.wikia.com/wiki/Season_1
For a summary of Will Ohmsford’s adventures in Shannara so far, click here:
http://shannara.wikia.com/wiki/The_Shannara_Chronicles_(TV_series)
As per usual, we’ll be kicking off at about 5pm in the Macauley Theatre, with a pizza run for dinner around 7ish.

*For those of you who are only interested in spandex-clad people punching things and angsting a lot, never fear – superhero-based coverage returns in two weeks!

In other news, I can now announce that the AGM and Trivia night will be taking place the Friday of Week 10 – 7th October – from 5pm onward. We’ll be in Colombo LG02, which I believe is next door to the Goldstein building. Once again, I’d like to remind everyone that the AGM is an incredibly important part of our reaffiliation process with Arc, and if it doesn’t happen we don’t have a club anymore. If you only come to one Spocksoc event this year, make it this one!

It’s a great opportunity to sit down face-to-face with the exec and regulars and help us make decisions about the future direction of Spocksoc. We’ll also be electing a new exec, so if you want to have a say in who runs the club – or want to run for an exec position yourself – you should definitely come along!

Following the AGM (which should run for about an hour or so, depending on the length of the agenda) is the Trivia Night, where the best and brightest of Spocksoc compete in a no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle struggle to prove the depths of their geeky knowledge and win some fabulous prizes! There’s generally a lot of excited shouting and at least one ridiculous party game, and I can guarantee a good time will be had by all.

The Ritz’ Sci-Fi Film Festival is also approaching quickly, and we’d advise you to grab your tickets sooner rather than later. We’re big fans of the Ritz here at Spocksoc, and it’s really great to see a local cinema supporting geeky interests like this, so it’s only fair that we support them right back! More details which nights Spocksoc will be running official outings on are still forthcoming, but for now the relevant information can be found here:
http://www.ritzcinema.com.au/Promotion/The-2016-Sci-fi-Film-Festival

Anyway, I think that’s more than enough blather from me for one week, so we hope to see you all on Friday!

Jennifer

Hi everyone,

Life can be funny, can’t it? One minute you’re balancing your double life as a successful lawyer and badass vigilante, the next there’s a dozen ninjas on your tail and it seems like Friday will never show up.

Nope, wait. That’s not us, that’s human disaster Matt Murdock, the subject of this week’s screening – Daredevil!

That’s right: if last week’s foray into the Netflix end of the MCU pool wasn’t enough, we’re diving right back in to find out what happens next to the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, starting from episode seven of the second season. Elektra’s back in town, the Punisher’s going to trial and about five separate groups of people want Matt dead. Won’t this be fun?

If you need a recap on the story so far (and a reminder that Foggy Nelson deserves better), you can find one here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daredevil_(season_2)

As per usual, we’ll be kicking off at about 5pm in the Macauley Theatre, with a pizza run for dinner around 7ish.

Thanks to everyone who showed up on Friday to support the bake sale – it was a resounding success! Make sure to keep an eye on our facebook page for more events in the coming weeks!

We look forward to seeing you on Friday!
Jenn