It’s been over a year since we’ve seen any significant developments regarding Slingers, the Firefly-meets-Ocean’s Eleven television show from UK writer Mike Sizemore. The last anyone heard, Slingers was in a developmental holding pattern, existing only as a “sizzle reel.” But now it seems that the show might be moving forward sooner than anyone realized. Jose Molina (fan-favorite writer of sci-fi gems Firefly and Dark Angel) revealed in a tweet that he was prepping to start writing Slingers with Sizemore. Follow the jump for all the details.
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If you’re a Hubble Space Telescope fan, odds are you will REALLY be a Webb fan. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), previously known as the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), is in the assembly phase. The Webb team is targeting a 2018 launch date. Webb offers several (forgive the pun) astronomical advances over the Hubble. For starters, the aperture, or eye through which the telescope looks into the universe, will be about five times larger than the Hubble’s. Webb will also be parked in a gravitationally stable point in space called the Lagrange Point two, or L2, that will always keep the Earth and the sun to its back — so not only will it be technologically able to see farther into the universe, but the light pollution from the sun will be minimized by keeping Webb in the shadow of the Earth.
The blurry photo above is making the rounds today, proving that the promo photo (currently shown on the new movie’s IMDb page) isn’t a fluke: Superman is indeed losing his red briefs — or at least wearing them on the inside — just like he did a while back in the comics.
As you might imagine, this has created quite a buzz among aficionados. Change scares the hell out of fans, but it’s not all negative talk. Hell, it’s not even the first costume change for the Man of Steel in recent years. As RoboticJesus points out over on ComicVine, Supes wore jeans and boots once. And he’s a character that response well to change. What do you think?
(via @TheOperatorGWC)
This, folks, is just seriously awesome: OK GO takes on the Muppet Show theme. Yes, that’s every bit as cool as you’d imagine, complete with lots of Muppet references (“OK GO and the Muppets? That sounds pretty exciting. Let’s watch cat videos.”) and even a nice OK GO treadmill in-joke.
The vid promotes The Green Album, a set of twelve Muppet tunes performed by pop artists like Weezer, The Fray, and My Morning Jacket. Released yesterday, it’s available digitally and in CD form now. How cool is that?
The Green Album [Muppet Wiki]
Via Amazon
(via @TheOperatorGWC)
Last year I wrote about this amazing SyFy show that debuted in July 2010 set in a quaint Northeastern coastal town called Haven. Based loosely on Stephen King’s The Colorado Kid, this show continues to amaze and captivate me. It’s a well put together story with great acting and, as Chuck often puts it, “a lot of heart.”
But Haven’s got troubles. No, not the kind that face Eureka (or any Fox show). Haven’s residents are somehow bestowed with special powers — powers that laid dormant but recently returned. Together these powers are called “the troubles.” But what are these troubles exactly? Who or what is causing them? And more importantly: what could ultimately quiet the troubles?
How was the universe created? What would an alien invasion be like? Why do people like sex? It almost sounds like any given GWC podcast. In fact, if you put GWC on TV with amazing special effects as well as international expert guest hosts like Stephen Hawking, NASA experts, and Hollywood stars like Michelle Rodriguez, you’d have the new Discovery Channel program called Curiosity: The Questions of Life.
Collider reported this week that MGM hired Noah Oppenheim to pen the forthcoming WarGames update, with Seth Gordon to direct. Oppenheim is a bit of a question mark as a screenwriter. His IMDb page lists producer credits (Losing It with Jillian, Today, Hardball with Chris Matthews), but no completed screenwriting gigs — though Collider reports he’s working with Spielberg and other big-name producers at present. Gordon recently directed Horrible Bosses, and offered Collider some insight into his WarGames take:
“I love the original. I’m a bit of a hacker fanatic, and know a fair bit about that industry and cyber crime and cyber warfare. I have a real point-of-view on the material and how things have changed. And also, I think the politics of the world have changed in really fascinating ways since 1983. There’s no longer a monolithic evil empire somewhere, spreading a different philosophy of life. That doesn’t exist. It’s a much more complicated, nuanced, political world we’re in, and I think that actually makes for a more interesting plot to tell. Frankly, cyber attack is a lot more real.”
If you’d asked me five years ago, I’d have wholeheartedly agreed with the idea that warfare has gone entirely unconventional: that we no longer live in a world of large empires battling as much as we do a world of large empires struggling to retain their stability among many smaller factions fighting to destroy it. And I’d say that’s still true when it comes to guns-and-bullets warfare. But cyber warfare seems like a different story.
The Oxford English Dictionary is, well, the single standard reference of the English language. Printed, it comprises a 20 volume set that pretty much demands its own bookcase. The one pictured above is Audra’s copy, the “compact edition,” which literally compresses nine pages of the big version onto each single 11-1/4″ by 17.5″ page, resulting in a single massive tome weighing in at around 12 pounds. The OED really shines online, though, where it receives updates every three months. And the last few updates have been quite geek friendly, including words like “woot,” “follower,” “retweet,” “auto-complete,” and even “sexting.”
Fans at last week’s Las Vegas Star Trek convention got a bit of a shocker from Walter Koenig. His quote (via TrekMovie.com):
“[J. Michael Staczynski] told me that he is in negotiations to re-acquire the rights to Babylon 5 and it looks pretty good. Now what that portends I am not entirely sure. It could be a new series or it could be a feature film, but he was quite animated about it. He seemed very excited and Warner Brothers is dealing with him in good faith. So you might see another Babylon 5 in the not too distant future.”
So maybe there’s reason for B5 fans to get excited after all. Or maybe not. Straczynski is denying the rumors. “Walter misspoke,” he told Spinoff Online, “I am not in negotiations with WB to develop more Babylon 5.”
Earlier this year Warner Bros’ Alcon entertainment made entertainment news headlines by acquiring the “film, television and ancillary” rights to Blade Runner sequels, firing up the rumor mill with possibilities of new Blade Runner content — though not a remake/re-boot as “Alcon’s franchise rights would be all-inclusive, but exclude rights to remake the original.” Fans much lamented the possibility of a Scott-free ‘Runner future. Weep no more, though: Today Alcon announced that Ridley Scott will helm the next Blade Runner.
The Operator tipped us off today to an Entertainment Weekly piece interviewing Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, the husband-and-wife team who wrote the seriously awesome RotPotA screenplay. The bombshell drops when the interviewer asks about the possibility of sequels. While Jaffa and Silver clearly state that “there hasn’t been any official discussion yet about a sequel,” they admit that they had sequels in mind when they penned RotPotA — and they mention some specifics.
Audra and I ventured down to the Angelika this week to check out an indie sci-fi flick about which we’d heard good things: Another Earth. Penned by the director, Mike Cahill, and the lead actor, Brit Marling, Earth tells the tale of “an ambitious young student and an accomplished composer” whose “paths cross in a tragic accident on the night of the discovery of a duplicate planet in the solar system.”
Cahill, from a video interview: “I love the fact that audiences will not get what they’re expecting… You see the concept–this other Earth and this thing. It feels like a certain thing. Is it sci-fi? Is it a drama? Is it minimalist sci-fi? Is it a story of redemption?” By Sean’s classic definition, it’s sci-fi simply because it includes modified scientific elements — in this case, a second, duplicate Earth. But in the film, the alternate Earth serves only as a backdrop to a classic indie-film drama plot. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either.
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