I've said this more than once over the last few weeks, but I'm honest-to-YHWH starting to believe it's the truth: Toys are now the premiere vehicle for movie spoilers. It makes sense, in a way: the design of toys has a long lead-in time, so they are privy to the final design of unrevealed movie elements like costumes, gadgets, and vehicles -- and there's not the same sort of PR control over the information.

The latest details to get leaked from a toy are about Star Trek XI... specifically, the look of the phaser and the new uniforms. We've long been wondering if J.J. Abrams was going to stick with the futuristic go-go chic of the original series... and if this eyewitness at the recent German Toy Convention is to be believed, the answer to that is an emphatic "probably."

Continue reading "Star Trek XI Action Figures Reveal Uniforms, Uhura's Cleavage" »

If I had to choose, I'd pick Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars animated series as the one decent thing to come out of George Lucas' Star Wars prequel afterbirth. Although the animation style was strange for the source, it succeeded where the prequels failed in showing a universe where Jedis, far from being mystical old bores, were limb-lopping, laser-wielding death machines. And the writing, scant though it was, was far more compelling than anything Lucas put on the page after The Empire Strikes Back.

The series was a deserved success and a good bridge vehicle between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. It went over so well that Lucasfilm has started an entire CGI series based on the Clone Wars... bizarrely jettisoning Tartakovsky's direction while they're at it. And to launch the new series, Lucasfilm is releasing a prequel feature film to theaters on August 15th.

Continue reading "USA Today's First Look at CGI Clone Wars Movie" »

We don't talk about the forthcoming G.I. Joe movie very much here. It's nebulously science fiction with its laser guns and snake men, but the movie looked like it could go either way: A romping revisitation of some of the 80's more execrable 30-minute toy commercials, or a post-9/11 anti-terrorist franchise with -- shudder -- real guns and bullets.

But this smidge of casting news is too sci-fi to miss: Paramount has apparently confirmed the identity of the actor to fill the silver-plated bald cap of C.O.B.R.A. second-in-command Destro, and that actor will be Christopher Eccleston.

That's right: Doctor Who is Destro. Although you almost have to wonder why they'd cast someone like Eccleston, who has repeatedly resisted franchises, pulling out of both Heroes and Doctor Who after only one season. Surely Paramount must want an actor who will stick around for a trilogy. Here's hoping they word the contract in such a way that Eccleston can't wriggle out of it the second he feels typecast.

Breaking News: G.I. Joe's Destro Has Been Re-Cast! [IESB]

The Coen Brothers have made quite a career for themselves, but they've spent most of it oscillating wildly between mood-saturated neo-noirs and wacky, surrealist comedies. They've never taken a good stab at sci-fi.

But it looks like that's all about to change. The Coens' follow-up to their award-winning adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men will be an adaptation of Michael Chabon's alternate-universe novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Of course, it won't entirely eschew the neo-noir genre for which the Coens' are most widely known. The Yiddish Policemen's Union takes place in an alternate-history Alaska that Jewish refugees have made their own mini-Israel. This will form the backdrop to a murder mystery in which a rogue cop investigates the killing of a heroin-addicted chess prodigy...one who just might be the Talmudic messiah.

Oh, sure, it's not like the Coen Brothers are taking on Snow Crash or Neuromancer. But let's hope this opens the door for more experimentation in the Coens' genre formulas: I would love to see the Coens adapt a Philip K. Dick novel someday.

Coens To Helm Yiddish For Sony [SciFi]

Seventy years ago, television was not the 500+ channel sensory overload it is today. The proper comparison might be to imagine a dusty Thomas Edison type screaming at Watson through an ancient camera that's hooked up to cables and to a flickering two-inch cathode ray in the other room.

But on this day in 1938, the BBC made television history by airing the first sci-fi television show ever to an audience comprised of approximately four techno-fetishistic early adopters. An adaptation of Czechoslovakian author Karl Capek's play R.U.R., it introduced television to the field of robotics just as the play had introduced theater-goers to what would prove to be the 20th century's metallic, servo-controlled answer to the Golem.

Continue reading "R.U.R. Marks 70 Years of Televised Robot Revolutions" »

It's hard to break into print. The slushpiles of publishing houses fester; talented and untalented writers alike have a hard time getting their manuscripts plucked from the bunch. It's no wonder, then, that more and more amateurs are turning to the web to get their works in the public eye.

But even wildly successful authors stand to benefit from e-book releases. The latest author to jump on the bandwagon is none other than the dreamy Neil Gaiman, who is currently taking a vote for which of his books people would most like to read for free.

Which book will it be? Gaiman is offering readers their choice: Possible contenders are American Gods, Anansi Boys, Coraline, Fragile Things, M is for Magic, Neverwhere, Smoke & Mirrors, and Stardust.

Go over and vote. A free book is a great thing

The Birthday Thing [Neil Gaiman's Blog]

• Pink Raygun examines the supposed feminization of the SciFi channel. I'm unconvinced, given that Bonnie Tyler, the new head, was just promoted.

• Curious about who will be the latest selfish, incompetent hedonist to join Torchwood? 

• Action figures give the best spoilers these days. Here's a first look at The Abomination in the new Hulk.

• Cinematical looks at doomed romances between famous monsters.

• Approximately one million Star Trek action figures were up on eBay this weekend.

Continue reading "Daily Scan: 02.12.08" »

Another day, another Wall-E trailer. The previews for the latest Pixar hit are inexorably spurted out by Disney's marketing department: a group of cynicists so diabolically capable that before Pixar's Incredibles was released, they had already managed to spend 300 million on promotional materials.

But this trailer's a bit different, in that it's the first trailer to actually deal extensively with the plot: a remake of Charlie Chaplin's City Lights that involves the last robot of a polluted Earth finding love in the form of the plucky, propellor-like probe of exodus earthlings now located across the galaxy, curious about the clean-up efforts on their homeworld.

I have to admit, the more I see of this, the more ineffably charming Wall-E seems. Now if only I could comfortably predict seeing it in a theater without three year olds shrieking to the left and right of me, and a petulant 7 year old in the seat behind me kicking my chair with the incessant rhythm of a metronome.

Last week the Scanner reported rumors that metal thrasher and all-around-weirdo Rob Zombie was in talks to direct a sequel to Conan the Barbarian. Well, it now seems he is just one of the directors that has been approached about the loinclothed project. Neil Marshall, the Brit whose upcoming horror flick Doomsday looks, well, awesome, is in talks, as is Hitman helmer Xavier Gens. Rob and Xavier may have cooler names, but do they have the right stuff for the job?