We’ve mentioned this before, but finding three sci-fi movies worth recommending on Peacock is truly a challenge. This site’s sci-fi selection is like a mirage. There are a few great titles, but most of the movies are made up of titles like Airplane vs. Volcano, Bermuda Tentacles, and Jurassic City. Those are all actual films on Peacock, in case you thought we were joking.
Since the idea behind this list is to find something worth recommending, we’ve decided to go with the very first film that Vin Diesel appeared as Riddick, a science fiction knockoff movie from producer Roger Corman, and the final (for now) film in the Jurassic World franchise. These are the three sci-fi movies on Peacock that you need to watch in December.
Pitch Black (2000)
Before Vin Diesel’s Richard B. Riddick became Space Dom in The Chronicles of Riddick, he was a true antihero in the classic sci-fi horror flick, Pitch Black. In fact, Riddick could have easily been the villain of this movie if there hadn’t been a far greater threat. After a transport ship crashes on an alien world, the lone surviving officer, Carolyn Fry (Radha Mitchell), makes it her mission to get the rest of the passengers off the planet safely.
Riddick was also on the ship while being transported to prison by a bounty hunter named William J. Johns (Cole Hauser), and he used the crash as a way to escape. Unfortunately for all of the remaining humans, Riddick is far from the scariest monster on this world when the sunlight gives way to darkness. But Riddick may also be their only hope of getting out alive.
Watch Pitch Black on Peacock.
Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
Later this month, Netflix will debut Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, a sci-fi film about a young woman who assembles a small group of warriors to defend her home world against an evil intergalactic empire. The Roger Corman-produced Battle Beyond the Stars beat Snyder to that premise by about 43 years. But only because The Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai did it first.
Battle Beyond the Stars also borrows a lot from the original Star Wars, which was released only three years prior to this film. Richard Thomas stars as Shad, a young farmer from a planet called Akir who only has seven days to save his world from the evil warlord Sador (John Saxon). That’s why Shad needs new allies like Space Cowboy (George Peppard), Gelt (Robert Vaughn), and Saint-Exmin (Sybil Danning). The best things about this movie are the incredible score by composer James Horner and the special effects by a pre-Terminator James Cameron.
Watch Battle Beyond the Stars on Peacock.
Jurassic World Dominion Extended Version (2022)
The theatrical cut of Jurassic World Dominion is also on Peacock, but the extended version is the one favored by director Colin Trevorrow. Think of this film as The Avengers of the Jurassic Park/World movies, as the main cast members from all five of the previous films come together in a world where humans and dinosaurs are now forced to co-exist everywhere.
Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) reunite for the first time since Jurassic Park because they recognize that a plague of giant locusts is part of a sinister man-made plan. Meanwhile, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) are out to save their adoptive daughter, Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), from the madman who unleashed the giant locusts. Through that connection, two generations of heroes will unite.
Watch Jurassic World Dominion Extended Version on Peacock.
