This selection is from Enscificlopedia, an in-progress poem-catalog of every sci-fi movie I’ve ever seen. These aren’t so much microreviews or summaries or even hot takes as they are tiny distillations of some theme or image that struck me and stuck with me. Each poem is its own world, but taken together, they’re artifacts of a cosmos I internalized during my formative years in the ’80s—a cosmos in which minor accidents of cinematic narrative become universal declarations on what it is to be a human creature on this planet.

—Dan

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)

Every human

body

is a potential vector

for screaming.

E.T. (1982)

To be alive

is to be homesick.

Home

is where oblivion is. 

TRON (1982)

You are

the title character

of your life

& yet

you are not the protagonist.

BRAINSTORM (1983)

Weaponize your life

with intense sexual & near

death experiences.

THE TERMINATOR (1984)

Fuck

the future.

Give

birth to it.

2010 (1984)

Only thing

more powerful than a god

is the death of a god.

D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)

Death

Algorithms

Rule

Your

Life.