Every iPod owner knows that the reflective, silver-plated backing -- while initially quite pretty -- easily gets scratches and gouges. But one advantage is that it's fairly easy to carve and customize.

Enter the iPod laser etching contingent, which is responsible for these undeniably awesome Star Trek iPod carvings. I'm particularly enamored of the splay-fingered iPod Spock and the MacBook Pro Picard Carving. While I'm not quite willing to pay the exorbitant figures these guys undoubtedly want, I'm tempted to take out my house keys and make a go of it myself.

Star Trek Engraved Apple Products [Geek Stir]

I never cease to be amazed at the utterly unique and organic simulacrums LEGO mavens are able to create out of a cardboard box of rigid, polygonal plastic blocks. This bust of the Predator is replete with crab-like mouth fangs, sinuous dreadlocks, and day-glo alien blood.

The decapitated LEGO Predator bust is made by bricmeister MisterZumbi. I have no idea how these guys do this: Even one of those stock Star Wars X-Wing construction sets utterly confounds me, and I end up making a Rebel Alliance themed castle instead.

LEGO Predator [Brickshelf]

Science fiction is filled with allegories about the USSR., most poignantly George Orwell's powerful realization of "a boot smashing into a human face forever" in 1984. But the 1971 book Prisoners of Power -- a Soviet science-fiction novel written during the height of the Cold War -- was also truly subversive. The story surrounds Maxim Kammerer, who crash lands on a brutal planet of totalitarian medieval cruelty, where the populace is subjugated by a ruling elite and a worldwide network of mind control towers. Prisoners of Power is a rare contemporary allegory for the dangers of communism from behind the Iron Curtain itself.

Thirty-seven years later, that novel is on its way to theaters by way of a new title: Inhabited Island. A $40 million dollar epic, it's one of the most expensive movies to come out of Russia in recent years, and it currently filming in Moscow and the Crimea for release in 2009.

This is one to keep our eyes on. Let's just hope it's of the Solaris school, not the Nightwatch.

Russian Sci-Fi Inhabited Island [The SciFi Blog]

Sam Rockwell is a hit or miss actor in sci-fi spoofdom. There is, of course, his excellent performance in the Star Trek spoof Galaxy Quest to recommend him. On the other hand? There's his "I Spit on Douglas Adams' Grave" performance as Zaphod Beeblebrox in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to recommend disemboweling him.

So I guess it's a tie. But maybe Rockwell's latest project, Moon, will be the tie-breaker. Quizzed on why he had a beard by MTV, Rockwell explained that his next role was a Robinson Crusoe-style castaway stuck on the dusty surface of the moon for three years.

Moon will be directed by Duncan Jones... a former ad exec who is also known as Zowie Bowie, the son of David Bowie. It sounds like a perfect storm of bizarre retro-spaceman sensibilities.

Sam Rockwell Over the Moon for New Project [MTV Movies Blog]

Pixar has been coy with the teaser trailers for their upcoming CGI sci-fi film, WALL-E -- the story of a tiny robot who must clean up the planet after humans have abandoned it for a better place among the stars. Here's the latest trailer, which premiered during Super Bowl Sunday.

Despite the non-informative (if entertaining) nature of the Super Bowl ad, the latest previews show WALL-E being nearly hit by a spaceship colliding into the Earth -- and WALL-E seems to hitch a ride on it to the stars. This may be the probe that the robot EVE, WALL-E's love interest, arrives on, sent by humans from across the galaxy to check on Earth's clean-up occupation.

This one's looking like a winner, although that's no surprise from a Pixar production. The rumor has it that it's a remake of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights... an ingenious twist, as WALL-E will not have any speaking main characters.

Pictures from the new Indiana Jones movies are now cropping up like snakes in a tomb. In recent days we've seen glimpses of Harrison Ford holding a bazooka, the titular Crystal Skull, and of course Cate Blanchett looking extremely, well, Reichish, holding a sword against Ford's throat.

But she won't be the first woman to try to handle Jones' whip. Who do you think is the good Doctor's most eligible bachelorette?

As bad an idea as remaking Knight Rider was, the decision to cast Will Arnett as K.I.T.T. was a stroke of genius. Best known as the cocky and utterly incompetent magician in Fox's genius sitcom Arrested Development, his gravelly basso voce was perfect for the part of a talking car. A bad idea suddenly became tolerable thanks to a casting director's moment of brilliance.

But now Will Arnett has left the show. After all, not for good reason: Arnett is the voice of General Motors, and they aren't keen on Arnett voicing the new K.I.T.T... a Ford Mustang GT500KR. And now Val Kilmer has signed on to replace Arnett as the voice of K.I.T.T. Depressing.

Kilmer Voices K.I.T.T. [Slice of SciFi]

Continue reading "Will Arnett Plugs into GM Instead of K.I.T.T." »

• Stargate Atlantis attracts another sci-fi television has-been to take over for a departing star, this time in Star Trek: Voyager's Robert Picardo.

• SF Signal asks sci-fi authors what idea they wish they'd written about first?

• Eloi eloi lama sabachthani. When will people just nail Brett Ratner to a cross already?

• The Road gets its post-apocalyptic prepubescent protagonist.

• iTunes will be the first to publish Iain M. Banks' latest novel. Bizarre.

Continue reading "Daily Scan: 02.07.08" »