A scene from Fox's 'Minority Report' official trailer. — AFP pic

LOS ANGELES, July 18 — 1984 classic “The Last Starfighter” is inspiring a TV series about interstellar peackekeeping called “Starfighter Chronicles” that is set to come with a virtual reality twist, but it won’t be the only sci-fi film to turn episodic in the near future. Bone up on “Minority Report” and “Limitless,” both of which start later this year, and prepare your suspension-of-disbelief sensors for 2016’s “Westworld” which has been attracting serious talent.

Looking ahead to this year’s live action offerings, the “Minority Report” heritage can be traced back to a Philip K. Dick novel through 2002’s Tom Cruise film.

It’s got Stark Sands of “Six Feet Under” and “Inside Llewyn Davis” and Meagan Good of “Stomp The Yard” and “Deception” as its leads — Good plays the detective Lara Vega, Dash her assistant trying to keep his outlawed precognitive powers a secret.

Max Borenstein, who wrote Gareth Edwards’ 2014 “Godzilla,” is overseeing production for FOX which will broadcast in September.

CBS’s “Limitless” September debut is sci-fi with with a biochemical bent, carrying on from the 2011 crime thriller that had Bradley Cooper in the lead role.

This time, it’s Jake McDorman whose intellectual capacity has been unlocked by an experimental drug. Cooper, star of McDorman’s recent cinematic outing “American Sniper,” will also take a cameo role, and Jennifer Carpenter of “Dexter” is also among the supporting cast.

The 2016 broadcast ambition of “Westworld” has to look back a little further than 2011 or even 2002 to find its roots. Co-created by “Burn Notice” producer Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, scriptwriter on “The Prestige,” “The Dark Knight” and its sequel, and “Interstellar,” it takes its inspiration from a 1973 film of the same name, written and directed by Michael Crichton of “Jurassic Park.”

Set in a future where androids have become indistinguishable from humans, the film was named after a fictional theme park in which robots had started malfunctioning — or functioning more accurately as humans, as it would appear, becoming a threat to the park’s guests.

Joy and Nolan already have a serious cast lined up, including Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, James Marsden, Thandie Newton, Roberto Santoro and Evan Rachel Wood, with HBO preparing the first season for a 2016 debut. — AFP-Relaxnews