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…
If they can do a Brady Bunch movie, you can be sure that sooner or later, somebody’s going to do a B5 movie. The only thing I can say without equivocation is that when that day comes, as the rights-holder, I will make darned sure that it’s done right, because I’d rather have no B5…
A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water. —Brian Berger —Exclusive: NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of Present Life on Mars (Space News) The…
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…
The first day, when they went to the bookstore and bought the book, I thought most of the kids would try to transfer out of the class. “There is no way I’m going to read a book this thick,” more than one student said to me. Another student told me the longest thing he’d ever…
Obi-Wan Kenobi is pretty weak. His articulation is minimal with a limited ball-jointed neck, ball shoulders, angled cut joints at the elbows, cut wrists, waist, and hinged hips. I know Sir Alec wasn’t exactly leaping around like a ninja, but c’mon! Speaking of Alec Guiness, Hasbro still hasn’t nailed a likeness with this figure, although…
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…
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.
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”…
The Last Starfighter, a world premiere science fiction musical inspired by the 1984 screenplay of the motion picture of the same name, will open the 2004-05 season of Off Broadway’s Storm Theatre, Oct. 15-30.The musical marks the return of lyricist-composer Skip Kennon (Herringbone, Time and Again) and draws on the Jonathan Betuel screenplay, about a…
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…
“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)
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…
“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…
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)
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…
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…
Once people overhear some pale guy with wizard hair explaining how a light saber simply isn’t possible, as the exposed plasma from the device would irradiate every living organism with a 5-kilometer radius, what are people supposed to think? “Sexy?” Yet, part of being a sci-fi fan is being its harshest critic, and so we…
Mr Crystal, a professor of linguistics at Reading University for 20 years, said Yoda – a Jedi master in the Star Wars films – was a good way to get children interested in how preferences in English word order changed from the Anglo-Saxon era to that of Middle English. —Finlo Rohrer —Yoda ‘speaks like Anglo-Saxon’ (BBC)
“When Zaphod first comes out of the temple and is approached by well wishers, the banana alien on the mole-horse needs to replace the multi-headed groupie.” You just don’t get notes like this every day. —Kerry Kirkpatrick —HHGG Interview with Myself (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy [Official Blog])