A Trip to the Moon (1902) follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return to Earth with a captive Selenite. The film was written, directed, produced, designed, and edited by Georges Méliès, a special effects pioneer and literal magician.

HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) is an artificial intelligence that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft and interacts with the ship's astronaut crew. While part of HAL's hardware is shown toward the end of the film, he is mostly depicted as a camera lens containing a red or yellow dot.

Very loosely, apparently, as director Ridley Scott never finished reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? before making the film. Neither did David Webb Peoples, who wrote the script.

While The Martian gets much of its science right, the massive windstorm that sets the story in motion and leaves Mark Watney stranded on Mars is scientifically inaccurate. Since Mars' atmospheric pressure is so low, even a fierce storm like the one shown would do little more than mess up your hair.

Doc unveils a time machine built from a modified DeLorean and powered by plutonium stolen from Libyan terrorists.

Lynch is wary of even talking about Dune today, and he's refused on multiple occasions to work on a special edition DVD, saying that it would be too painful to revisit.

The Matrix is known for popularizing a visual effect known as "bullet time", where the heightened perception of certain characters is represented by allowing the action within a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera appears to move through the scene at normal speed. Bullet time has been described as "a visual analogy for privileged moments of consciousness within the Matrix," and throughout the film, the effect is used to illustrate characters' exertion of control over time and space.

When asked if E.T. was male or female in an interview, Spielberg said neither. He envisioned the character as being a plant-like organism without any gender.

In writing the script for Alien, Dan O'Bannon drew inspiration from many previous works of science fiction and horror. He later stated, "I didn't steal Alien from anybody. I stole it from everybody!"

Watney interacts with several real-life pieces of existing technology, including a real-life NASA probe: Mars Pathfinder. Using Pathfinder's camera and motor, he establishes rudimentary two-way communication with Earth, first using hand-written signs, and then sending and receiving ASCII in hexadecimal.