Star Trek Personality Test

—Star Trek Personality Test Apparently I’m the middle-aged, toupee-sporting movie-era Kirk, though I’m 36 now, which is about the age of the TV-era Kirk. Ah, well… I’m still Shatner, and to be Shatner is good! My wife picked up two more Star Trek paperbacks for me at the library booksale… one tells of Spock’s first…

Q&A: Billie Piper

Q. If you could travel in time, where would you go and why? A. I’d like to see what my 30s look like, not too far – we’re talking about eight years down the line. I’d like to see what’s going on in my life, that’s quite interesting to me. —Q&A: Billie Piper (BBC) My wife,…

Lucas plans 3-D Star Wars

Appearing as part of a sextet of high-profile directors promoting 3-D and digital cinema at film industry convention ShoWest on Thursday, Lucas said he hadn’t yet committed to a precise schedule but hoped to have the first film ready for the 30th anniversary of the original “Star Wars” movie in 2007 and that he would…

The Machine Stops

There were buttons and switches everywhere – buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced…

He, She, It: Engendering Machines, Gendering Intelligence

Traditional gender binaries such as male/female, science/nature, mind/body, are replayed and reinforced again and again in sci-fi films, in which (male) scientific creativity is continually represented as a dangerous affront to “natural” human (female) values. Supercomputers in film are created by male scientists–I can think of no exceptions–and what makes them valuable (according to their…

Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor

Let me just come at this one from sort of a big picture point of view. (the sound of a million Slashdot readers hitting the “back” button…) —Neal Stephenson —Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor (Slashdot) Link found via MGK. Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way…

Riverside feels 'Wrath of Con'

William Shatner’s low-budget sci-fi flick, “Invasion Iowa,” that was supposedly filming in Riverside, turned out to be an elaborate hoax. To borrow the phrase from MTV, the entire town was “punk’d.” Yes, William Shatner is there, and yes, there is a film crew, but the whole thing wasn’t for a movie, but for a “reality”…

Shatner, Nimoy team up on sci-fi project

William Shatner, who played the commander of the starship USS Enterprise in the ’60s Star Trek series, arrived in Riverside [Iowa] Tuesday to hold auditions for four small parts in a low-budget, sci-fi movie he wrote with Star Trek co-star, Leonard Nimoy…..Although Kirk’s hometown was never mentioned in the TV series, Gene Roddenberry, the show’s…

Naked Wookiees and broken R2-D2s

“Yoda’s philosophy was quite simplistic. ‘If you get angry, you’re gonna lose.’ ‘Don’t try, do.’ He has a basic philosophy that is very charming. Not very profound, although young people consider it profound. I wish they would read more.” —Irvin Kershner, mentor of George Lucas. —Naked Wookiees and broken R2-D2s (CNN/AP) Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch…

Radio 4 revives Hitchhiker's game

A computer game written by Douglas Adams is being revived to coincide with a new BBC Radio 4 series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. The text adventure will appear on the station’s website and was described by the late Adams as “the first game to move beyond being ‘user friendly’”. “It’s actually ‘user…

Scotty Says Goodbye

“Beam Me Up Scotty…One Last Time” is the quite-serious title to a three-day event at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel billed as a farewell to the actor who, as fiery Montgomery Scott, ran the U.S.S. Enterprise’s engineering deck on Trek’s 1966-69 flagship series and six big-screen adventures. —Joal Ryan —Scotty Says Goodbye (E! Online) I managed to…

Oscar-winning composer Goldsmith dies

Academy Award-winning composer Jerry Goldsmith, who created the memorable music for scores of classic movies and television shows ranging from the “Star Trek” and “Planet of the Apes” series to “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and “Dr. Kildare,” has died. He was 75. —Oscar-winning composer Goldsmith dies (CNN/AP) Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9)…

Guide to the Early Star Trek Novels

Today STAR TREK spans six television series, ten feature films and several interactive CD-ROMs. In addition, the STAR TREK afficionado had hundreds of novels to choose from with dozens more being published each year. It was not always thus. Those of us who were loving STAR TREK in the late 1960’s and into he early…

Beowulf Goes To Movies

Warner Brothers is developing a film based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Newcomer Matthew Sand will write the script for the film version of the story, about a knight who takes up the sword against a monster. The eighth-century tale centers on Beowulf of the Geats, who is called…