The Austrailian director of The Proposition explains how his long-awaited adaptation turns the Mad Max post-apocalyptic genre on its head and addresses why it took so long to bring Cormac McCarthy's novel to the big screen.

Q: You were originally against the idea of doing a post-apocalyptic movie. What turned you around?

A: There are brilliant films made in that genre that I love: Dr. Strangelove is one of my favorites. But a lot of the genre is so clichéd and entrenched, so it was about trying to find ways of breathing life into them again. And those movies tend to be so much about the big event that there's no human dimension. That's what was so refreshing about the book -- it turned a lot of that stuff on its head.

Q: In fact there's almost nothing about the "big event." Without a specific cause, what rules did you set for the state of the planet?

Continue reading "Director John Hillcoat Explains Why He Cut The Road's Controversial Baby Scene" »

• io9 wonders how traditional science fiction magazines can stave off extinction. The answer, of course, is selling out, although I too am curious: Why isn't there a scifi McSweeney's?

• James Cameron's Avatar comes out on December 18th, but apparently thirty minutes of footage still aren't finalized yet. Better get hustling, guys.

• Speaking of Avatar, a USC linguistics professor was asked to come up with an entire alien language for the movie.

• February 2nd, 2010 is the official start of Lost season six.

• This gallery of the cheesiest and most inappropriate book covers of all time is pretty great. I actually have those exact copies of Starship Intercourse and The Little People (a surprisingly good novel, that one).

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.23.09 - Avatar Is Unfinished, Lost Gets Premiere" »

Fantasy has a lot of monsters. Sure, they turn up in science fiction from time to time, but nuclear mutations aside, enormous beasties are typically the result of imagination -- and fantasy has the lock-down on sheer ferocity. Monsters make a ready conflict for the hero, and raise the stakes in ways that no mere human villain can. The question remains: Which beastie is the most deadly?

10. Mulgarath in The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)
This shape-shifting ogre -- voiced by Nick Nolte -- is terrifying precisely because he can appear as anything. His plans for world domination start with fairy kind, but he's not thinking small: The only thing standing between him and victory is his need for the Book. Though he has the possibility for widespread destruction, he doesn't live up to his potential and actually kill anyone on screen, which is why he's stuck in the 10-spot on our list.

9. Kali in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
Brought to life by the magic of the evil Koura, (Tom Baker) the six-armed idol of Kali gives Sinbad (John Phillip Law) a run for his money. Against any other opponent, she would win the day without even thinking -- which she doesn't, being an animated statue and all. She gets points for style but the execution is lacking. Literally: To be deadly, you need to execute people.

8. Grendel in Beowulf (2007)
Ogres and trolls run through fantasy the way magic runs through a wand, and the archetype starts with Grendel (Crispin Glover). Ferocious and a deadly killer, Grendel can rip apart dozens of trained Viking warriors. And let me tell you, having lived for a year in Iceland, the Vikings are tough, tough people. Even missing an arm, Grendel's still a match for most men, and the only one who can defeat him is, of course, our hero Beowulf (Ray Winstone).

Continue reading "Mary Robinette Kowal - The Ten Deadliest Monsters in Fantasy" »

• Rebecca Mader, who played Charlotte on Lost, will be back for the show's final season. Looks like they're bringing everyone back, though my guess is that it's going to happen in another timeline that runs parallel to the main one.

• Brad Pitt is now attached to a movie based on the video game Dark Void, about a pilot lost in the Bermuda Triangle who wakes in another world.

• Seems like every actress under the sun has been slotted to play the Black Cat in Spider-Man 4. Add another, perhaps more likely contender to the list: Anne Hathaway.

• Will Lost's Richard Alpert play Khan in Star Trek 2? He would be a fantastic choice.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.20.09 - Pitt Fills Dark Void, Campbell Eyed as Khan" »

Here's an interesting question, sent along in e-mail, which I've trimmed down to the bare bones:

"Do you think science in science fiction movies would be better if science education were better in the United States?"

This is of particular relevance to me since the home video release of Star Trek was this last Tuesday, and while watching with my wife I alternated my enjoyment of seeing the franchise revived with the aggravation of the science of the movie being aggressively bad, even for Star Trek. I've noted before with the Trek franchise that at this point one has to just let that go, but then I see "red matter" again and I want to hit something. Clearly, I have issues.

Let me be the first to say I'm a huge proponent of more and better science education in our schools. In the tech-oriented world of today, a firm grounding in science will make our kids economically competitive and also better able to understand the changes in the world around them. I think science education more than any other is subject to the whims of people who have social, religious or political goals, which can limit what and how much science kids learn. This is stupid and short-sighted. More bad things will happen because people don't understand science than will happen because they do. So yes: More science education, please.

That said, no I don't really think the science in science fiction movies would be better if suddenly everyone's baseline of science education here in the U.S. went up a notch or two. Why?

Continue reading "John Scalzi - Education Is Not the Answer for Star Trek's Bad Science" »

• Jupiter's moon Io may have 100 times the oxygen previously thought, which means that there may be aquatic life swimming beneath its ice crust. Just like in 2010!

• Yeesh. V continues to slide precipitously in ratings just one week before it goes on hiatus for a couple months. ABC must really want this show dead.

• Famed genre director and producer Roger Corman has received an honorary Oscar. He deserves it: I'd be hard pressed to think of more directors who have given me a greater volume of joy.

• Tim Burton's exhibit at the MoMA has on display some concept art from his canceled Superman Lives project, including this adorable Brainiac drawing.

• Will Julia Stiles of the Bourne Trilogy play The Black Cat in Spider-Man 4? She does look good in black leather.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.19.09 - Corman Gets Oscar, Stiles In Talks for Spider-Man 4" »

It's New Comic Book Wednesday again, and AMCtv.com is pleased to provide you with the second free installment of our exclusive online motion comic, The Prisoner: Book One: As the Air, Invulnerable. Last week you met Rebecca Meadows, an investigative journalist who throws herself into the world of Summakor in search of her sister. This week, she awakens in a Hospital -- one that viewers of AMC's miniseries may find hauntingly familiar. Is Rebecca The Village's newest resident dissident? Find out now! There will be ten chapters in all -- and you won't find them in your local comic book shop -- so be sure to log on to AMCtv.com every week for the latest installment!

Click here to see Chapter Two of The Prisoner graphic novel.

Roland Emmerich's latest doomsday flick, 2012, hasn't just been good for the box office; it's given conspiracy theorists a new pseudoscience to call their own. Despite a lack of evidence, more and more people are preparing for the end of the world. Will planetary alignment, solar flares and neutrinos destroy the Earth on December 21, 2012 (thus fulfilling the Mayan "prophecy")? I hate to break it to the believers, but [Spoiler Alert!] the answer is no.

I know what you're thinking: "Just because something is science fiction doesn't mean it's not based in reality." Except in this case. There are no naughty neutrinos heating up the Earth's core. To be fair, there are neutrinos that come from the sun, but they're nice neutrinos: They pass through the planet without ever interacting with regular matter and more than 50 trillion solar neutrinos pass through the human body every second. Don't believe me? Believe MIT.

Continue reading "Science's Prediction? Life Goes on After 2012 (Sorry Mayans!)" »

• That'll do, pig: Disney lets McG go from the 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Captain Nemo prequel.

• io9 lists the dumbest superhero retcons of all time. Hello, Phoenix! And that's one of the less stupid ones.

• SciFi Wire lists ten great scifi oddities from Google's new digital time machine.

• If you've got a few grand to spare, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles will sell you a tour guided by Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy.

• A few weeks ago, Joss Whedon made a mock bid for the Terminator franchise. That's never going to happen, but now his brother, Zack Whedon, is doing a Terminator comic series for Dark Horse.

Continue reading "Daily Scan for 11.18.09 - McG Is Off Nemo, Whedon Writes Terminator Comic" »

Today we'll be looking at the concept of "synergy" -- you know, that word corporate bigwigs adore and regular folk despise? -- and how it applies to Hollywood's relationship with the video game industry. You see, it may have taken Hollywood a few decades to respect the raw, monetary power of video games as a medium, but studios are now making up for lost time with a litany of tie-ins and licensed games. After all, why just capitalize on one medium when you can have two for twice the price? Let's take a look at the interesting history of video game synergy, and see where it's headed in the future.

The Movie: Surf Ninjas (1993)
The Synergy: Sega Game Gear's Surf Ninjas
In one of the most charmingly shameless synergies, the producers behind Surf Ninjas decided not only to create a Sega Game Gear game based on their flick, but to give the game almost as much screen time in their movie as the actual heroes. You see, the game in the movie isn't just another hand-held diversion -- it's a magical ninja-fighting program that tells the heroes what to do and gives them advanced warning when they're about to be attacked. The message to younger viewers is clear: If you buy the Surf Ninjas video game, you'll be able to fight ninjas and a robotic Leslie Nielsen, too! That neither the game nor the movie lived up to such hype should surprise no one.

Continue reading "How Do You Make Avatar an Even Bigger Hit? Synergize it With Video Games!" »