{"id":572831,"date":"2025-11-15T21:47:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T21:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/572831\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T21:47:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T21:47:16","slug":"11-years-ago-a-great-sci-fi-movie-bombed-despite-having-one-of-the-best-twists-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/572831\/","title":{"rendered":"11 Years Ago, a Great Sci-Fi Movie Bombed Despite Having One of the Best Twists in History"},"content":{"rendered":"

The science fiction<\/a> genre is home to many great twists<\/a>. One of the better examples in recent memory comes from Christopher Nolan\u2019s Interstellar, which sees the young Murph Cooper encounter a ghost that turns out to be her father, who travels into a tesseract and learns he can communicate with his daughter across time and space. The reveal is so great that it essentially forces a second watch, as that\u2019s the only way to pick up all the breadcrumbs that Nolan leaves behind early in the film. However, Interstellar only gets that treatment because it\u2019s one of the most successful and well-known sci-fi movies of all time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There have been plenty of sci-fi twists that fly under the radar because they\u2019re in bad movies. The Butterfly Effect, for example, can\u2019t decide what kind of film it\u2019s going to be, delivering four different endings that drastically change Evan Treborn\u2019s story. Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber\u2019s director\u2019s cut totally flips the script, though, having Evan travel back in time and kill himself in the womb. A movie that came out ten years after The Butterfly Effect can\u2019t claim to have a moment as wild as that, but it doesn\u2019t get the credit it deserves, even though it has not only a great story but a great twist as well.<\/p>\n

Interstellar Didn\u2019t Have the Best Sci-Fi Twist of 2014<\/p>\n

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A few months before Interstellar tugged at heartstrings all over the world, a low-budget film from Focus Features hit theaters called The Signal<\/a>. Starring Brenton Thwaites and Laurence Fishburne, it follows a group of college students on a road trip to California. Nic and Haley are seeing one another, but their relationship is in a rough patch because the former believes his Muscular Dystrophy is causing too many problems. While Haley disagrees, they aren\u2019t able to work through all of their issues before they track a hacker named \u201cNOMAD\u201d who\u2019s been messing with their work at school to a house in Nevada. After going inside, the group blacks out and wakes up in a government facility.<\/p>\n

Nic can\u2019t get straight answers from the facility\u2019s head, Dr. Wallace Damon, who explains that the group interacted with an alien lifeform, and things only get stranger when he realizes that his legs have been replaced by alien technology. Once Nic\u2019s friend Jonah escapes, the rest of the group follows suit and begins putting the pieces together. Another confrontation with Damon gives Nic a good look at the man\u2019s nametag, which, of course, reads \u201cNOMAD\u201d spelled backward. With the cat out of the bag, Damon reveals his true form and that the students are not in a government facility but on a ship headed for an alien planet. The twist will send chills down even anyone\u2019s spine, but it hasn\u2019t been enough to secure a future for The Signal.<\/p>\n

The Signal Was Never Given a Fair Shot<\/p>\n

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Prior to its release, The Signal received positive buzz from critics, who appreciated its big swings. Positive word of mouth didn\u2019t lead to a successful run at the box office<\/a>, though, as the movie only grossed $2.4 million on $4 million budget. That return didn\u2019t give the powers that be much faith in the property, so a follow-up never made it off the ground, despite director William Eubanks teasing a \u201ccrazy sequel\u201d<\/a> that would give Haley a bigger role.<\/p>\n

The only hope for The Singal now is for a streaming platform to give it a second life. If enough people start singing its praises online, the status of its sequel could change. But there\u2019s no guarantee that\u2019ll happen, as the world of streaming is as confusing as the situation that Nic and his friends find themselves in.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Leave a comment below and\u00a0join the conversation now in the\u00a0ComicBook Forum<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The science fiction genre is home to many great twists. One of the better examples in recent memory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[24111,77,3943,181703,181704,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-572831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-answer-feature","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-sci-fi-genre","12":"tag-the-signal","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115555916493498876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}