Prime Video’s Star Wars Replacement Is Hailed as the Best Space Show of All Time
Julio is a Senior Author for Collider. He studied History and International Relations at university, but found his calling in cultural journalism. When he isn't writing, Julio also teaches English at a nearby school. He has lived in São Paulo most of his life, where he covers CCXP and other big events. Having loved movies, music, and TV from an early age, he prides himself in knowing every minute detail about the things he loves. When he is older, he dreams of owning a movie theater in a small countryside town.
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Space may be the final frontier, but you don't need to go to galaxies far, far away to find some good space adventures. In fact, the best one is set right here, in our very own Solar System. Over its six seasons, Prime Video's The Expanse has quietly built its reputation as the best space series on television, surpassing even mighty sci-fi franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek, and amassing quite a following among fans of the genre. Having debuted in 2015, it was even brought back from cancellation, proving how beloved it really is — fans just wouldn't let go. All that wouldn't have happened with just any series, of course, so what is it that makes The Expanse so special, even among titans?
‘The Expanse’ Follows a Ragtag Crew of Spacers Caught in a War in the Solar System
Although it is set right here on our cosmic doorstep, The Expanse also takes place roughly some 200 years into the future. It's a time of war, with three main factions fracturing the Solar System: the United Nations of Earth and Luna, the Martian Congressional Republic, and the Outer Planets Alliance. The latter comprises all the planets and stations working in the asteroid belt, which have been part of Earth, but are now fighting for independence. Tensions are at an all-time high, and the tiniest mistake can lead to all-out war.
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Collider Survival Assessment
Which Sci-Fi World
Would You Survive?
8 questions · 5 worlds · one honest verdict
Five of the great screen futures, and not one of them is built for comfort. Answer eight questions about instinct, loyalty and the line you would cross, and the scan will tell you which one you would still be standing in. Worlds in range
▦︎The Matrix
◈︎Mad Max
◑︎Blade Runner
▲︎Dune
✦︎Star Wars
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Question 01 of 08INSTINCT
The world as you know it ends overnight. What is your first move? No wrong answer. There is a wrong hesitation.
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Question 02 of 08RESOURCE
You can stockpile exactly one thing. What is it? Choose carefully. You are not getting a second run.
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Question 03 of 08THREAT
Which kind of enemy scares you the most? Be honest about what keeps you up.
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Question 04 of 08AUTHORITY
How do you handle the people in charge? Every world has them. Even the ones that pretend otherwise.
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Question 05 of 08ENVIRONMENT
Pick the place you would rather wake up in: You will be there a while.
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Question 06 of 08ALLIANCE
Who do you want standing next to you? Pick one. You only get one.
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Question 07 of 08MORALITY
Which line would you cross to survive? Everybody crosses one.
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Question 08 of 08PURPOSE
What are you really fighting for? Last question. Make it count.
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Scan completeYou would survive
▦︎ The Matrix The Resistance, Zion You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
You would survive The Matrix because you were never fully sold on the version of reality you were handed. You notice the seams. You ask the second question. In a world built to keep people comfortable and incurious, that instinct is the whole fight, and it is why Morpheus would have found you long before you found him. From the Collider file
- The Wachowskis' 1999 film won four Academy Awards, including Visual Effects and Film Editing.
- Bullet time was shot with a rig of roughly 120 still cameras firing in sequence around the actors.
- Keanu Reeves trained in martial arts for about four months before a frame was shot, recovering from neck surgery the whole time.
- It opened the same year as Fight Club and eXistenZ, in a run of films about not trusting the world in front of you.
Red pill energy Pattern spotter Built to question
◈︎ Mad Max The Wasteland Oh, what a day. What a lovely day.
You would survive the Wasteland because you do not waste energy mourning the world that ended. You move, you improvise, and you are very good with whatever is bolted to the thing in front of you. Furiosa would let you drive. That is not a compliment anybody earns easily. From the Collider file
- Mad Max: Fury Road won six Academy Awards in 2016, more than any other film that year.
- George Miller storyboarded the entire film as roughly 3,500 panels before there was a script.
- The chase was shot almost entirely practical in the Namib Desert, with real vehicles and real stunt performers.
- Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth carried the prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, in 2024.
Keeps moving Improviser Good with engines
◑︎ Blade Runner Los Angeles, 2049 All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
You would survive 2049 because you know how to be small in a very loud city. You keep your head down, you do the job, and you hold onto one private thing that belongs only to you. That quiet stubbornness is exactly what both Deckard and K run on, and it is what keeps either of them going when the case stops making sense. From the Collider file
- Blade Runner 2049 won Roger Deakins his first Oscar for cinematography, on his fourteenth nomination.
- The film also took Best Visual Effects, 35 years after Ridley Scott's 1982 original.
- Villeneuve shot it on large-format film and kept the fog and rain practical on set wherever he could.
- Three short films by Luke Scott and Shinichiro Watanabe bridge the 30-year gap between the two movies.
Keeps her head down Private Noir soul
▲︎ Dune Arrakis Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
You would survive Arrakis because you think in decades while everyone around you thinks in weeks. You read the room, you learn the customs, you wait. The desert does not reward speed. It rewards people who understand that patience is a weapon, which is the one lesson the Fremen never had to be taught. From the Collider file
- Denis Villeneuve's Dune won six Academy Awards in 2022, including Cinematography and Original Score.
- Hans Zimmer turned down Christopher Nolan's Tenet so he could score Dune instead.
- Dune: Part Two arrived in 2024 and brought in Austin Butler, Florence Pugh and Christopher Walken.
- David Lynch's 1984 version and Alejandro Jodorowsky's unmade one are both their own legends by now.
Plays the long game Reads the room Patient
✦︎ Star Wars A Galaxy Far, Far Away Rebellions are built on hope.
You would survive the galaxy because you never try to survive it alone. You collect people. You end up in the middle of other folks' problems and you stay anyway. Every version of this story, from the Falcon's crew to the Ghost's, runs on somebody exactly like that holding the group together. From the Collider file
- The 1977 original won six Academy Awards plus a special achievement award for sound effects.
- John Williams' score was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra and became the best-selling symphonic film soundtrack ever.
- Andor took the galaxy somewhere colder and earned Emmy nominations for drama series in both seasons.
- The saga now runs across eleven feature films and a growing shelf of series on Disney+.
Collects people Shows up Hope merchant
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At the center of all that is an unlikely group of heroes and their aptly named gunship, the Rocinante. Led by James Holden (Steven Strait), they start out working hauling ice to the dwarf planet Ceres, but a distress call from a derelict ship in the middle of nowhere suddenly puts them in the middle of a conspiracy that threatens the whole system. With a sort of "found family" dynamics, the Rocinante crew is at first only looking to stay out of trouble, but, as it often happens in these stories, they quickly grow into heroes.
Meanwhile, on Ceres, the disappearance of a young woman has police investigator Joe Miller (Thomas Jane) rattling some cages that are dangerously close to making the planet the place where the war actually starts. With resources like air and water being rationed because of all the tension, everyone is on edge, and, unbeknownst to everyone, the thread Miller finds himself pulling ties all that together. As this soon-to-be-very-hot war gears up, there are still some people on all sides trying to work a way through it.
‘The Expanse’ Incorporates Space and Its Dynamics Directly Into Its Worldbuilding
Star Wars and Star Trek have a much wider scope than The Expanse, granted, as they deal with a galactic scale, while the latter stretches as far as the asteroid belt, at first. Still, after a while, distances don't seem to matter as much when you have technologies like hyperdrives or warp drives. In The Expanse, however, there is no faster-than-light travel, so distances actually matter. This is one of the ways in which the Prime Video series uses space to its advantage, making it feel much more real than any other sci-fi galaxy.
Considering this, it's only natural that there would eventually be a divide between Earth and Mars, as well as a secessionist movement in the belt. It's precisely there that the most interesting effects of space life are felt. So far away from the two other planets, life in space turned Belters almost into an ethnicity of their own, with physical differences and their own language, Belter Creole. Because of that, they are usually seen as a lower caste by both Earth and Mars, hence the OPA's struggle for independence.
To go with this rich worldbuilding (or spacebuilding?), The Expanse also pays a lot of attention to production design, particularly ships and space stations. Instead of flat rooms and hallways, ships are built more like skyscrapers, with decks serving different purposes. This allows for acceleration to create a gravitational pull that's small enough for the human body to feel comfortable with, and maneuvers like "flip and burn" turning, and the effect of G-forces on the crew also make The Expanse the most scientifically accurate space series around.
Prime Video Took Over ‘The Expanse’ After Public Outcry and Made It Into a Sci-Fi Classic
All that makes The Expanse one of the best sci-fi adaptations on TV. Its six seasons adapt only two-thirds of James S.A. Corey's book series, though, so, despite Prime Video having concluded the series with Season 6, we still can't say we've gotten the whole thing. But it could have been even shorter, because, in 2018, The Expanse was cancelled by Syfy after only three seasons for its poor ratings on TV and its complicated business and distribution model.
However, the audience wasn't ready to say goodbye, and they made their feelings known. The resulting #SaveTheExpanse campaign quickly became one of the most memorable fan movements in recent TV history, including crowdfunding efforts, targeting Amazon executives and even Jeff Bezos directly, and even getting an airplane to fly a banner over Amazon Studios. It also helped to have notorious celebrity sci-fi buffs like Wil Wheaton, George R.R. Martin, and Patton Oswalt join in.
This kind of loyalty and dedication isn't seen often, proving just how good The Expanse really is. Amazon picked it up for three more seasons in 2018, raising the bar with production value and consolidating the series as a sci-fi phenomenon. Few series have managed to pull off what The Expanse did in terms of worldbuilding and storytelling in this genre, and, right now, it doesn't look like any other will any time soon, either. Not even Star Wars or Star Trek.
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