Deltron 3030, Deltron 3030 (75 Ark)

Release date: May 23, 2000

In the mood for a science fiction mind-screw that’s visually and sonically mesmerizing but narratively incoherent? Check out the 2011 film Beyond the Black Rainbow, director Panos Cosmatos’ ‘80s-inspired trip into the oddest of Kubrickian/Lynchian genre cinema.

Fans of Del the Funkee Homosapien and Dan the Automator’s 2000 collaborative album Deltron 3030 will feel right at home. With its spacey beats and disorienting structure, Deltron 3030 is essentially Beyond the Black Rainbow: The Album, albeit with a slightly more streamlined story. Here, the hero Deltron Zero is an interplanetary soldier fighting against the New World Order, a governmental machine dedicated to stripping humans of their rights and their love of hip-hop music. Instead of gunplay, though, Deltron Zero gets into heady rap battles with the NWO’s coldest lyricists.

Watch Beyond the Black Rainbow’s excellent trailer, insert the lyrics heard within Deltron 3030, and you’ll have a sense of what the film version could be. Then you’ll hope some insanely ambitious director makes it happen as soon as humanly possible.