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)
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.
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.”
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.
The human mind can recognize patterns that remain invisible to even the most powerful computers. But we’re stuck with some nasty limitations. We can only see relatively small amount of “raw” data at a given moment. That’s where visualization comes in. By laying out data visually, we encode data into additional channels. When we look at a visualization, we see dramatically more information than when we look at a page full of numbers. And we can see new patterns.
Take, for example, the graph above. (Or better yet, take a look at the large version in its native home, VerySmallArray.com.) What do you see?
I’m usually one to be completely engrossed in watching a movie at home. In fact, to make sure I hear the dialogue correctly, I usually turn on the closed captioning. But with a movie or franchise I’m really interested in, I know I’ll be watching the movie over and over again, like the obsessed geek I am. I’ll watch the movie, the commentaries if they’re available, and the included special features on the DVD or Blu-ray — then I’ll listen to podcasts that discuss the movie. This week I discovered a new way to geek out over a movie with more in-depth material than I’ve seen before: Disney’s Second Screen.
The Andromeda Galaxy as seen by Terry Hancock from Michigan (with permission)
Andromeda. Few words immediately bring forth imagery of science fiction, fantasy and real-life astronomy to me like Andromeda does. Andromeda is our heavens, Andromeda is in our history, Andromeda is in our music and literature, Andromeda is in our oceans and Andromeda is in our science fiction and fantasy. I’ll admit I am less knowledgeable about Andromedas than I am about Enterprises (see my 20 Favorite Ships Called Enterprises post), but several Andromedas are also at the root of my geekdom. Recently I decided to take some time and run through the Andromedas that I’m aware of. I’m confident that there are additional Andromedas of relevance out there. If you know of one, please let me know in the comments section below because I would greatly appreciate and enjoy learning about it. In the meantime, please sit back and allow me to take you through my tour of the Andromedas.
In 1977, George Lucas modeled his space opera after the matinee adventures he watched as a child. Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and Zorro were all garnished with damsels in distress. Beautiful women placed in peril allowing the male hero to rescue them and save the day. The hero fought off armies of foes while the damsel sat by idle, an inanimate object with no power over her own destiny.
A Depiction of Star Trek's Original U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 (Special thanks to Jeff Quan at http://www.jcquan.com for the use of the cool art!)
A few months ago GWCers The Operator, ThotFullGuy, and DawnAZ flooded my Twitter stream with references to the Starship Enterprise. While it was clearly evident The Operator and ThotFullGuy were discussing the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 from the 2009 Star Trek reboot movie, DawnAZ wasn’t nearly as specific. In fact, I listed off 10 different Enterprises off the top of my head in a reply requesting her to specify. It turned out that the exact ship wasn’t relevant to her Enterprise reference, but the conversation reminded me how fondly I regard the many ships called Enterprise. For those that have served on board an Enterprise or watched the various Enterprise versions on the movie or television screens over the years the name Enterprise has a special reverence in our hearts. If you search the internet you will find many web pages devoted to these fine ships. By no means am I attempting to duplicate the many long hours of work it took to assemble those fine resources. Rather, what follows is simply a list of my favorite Enterprises and where I’ve run into them over the years. I think even the most die-hard Enterprise enthusiast might find a surprise or two. So enjoy the tour and as always, drop a comment below. I’d love to hear what you have to say on the subject.
As I write this blog entry, 2010 is coming to a close and New Year’s is right around the corner. After enjoying Tron: Legacy last week with family and friends, I started to wonder what will be the holiday movie blockbuster next year. From there it was a short trip to wonder what the entire year’s worth of movies would be that interest me. So the list that follows is exactly that: dates and names of movies that I’m looking forward to in 2011 and beyond. Of course the dates get a little more fuzzy the farther out it is, so take them with a grain of salt. If I’ve missed any, please be sure to let us know in comments. If you’re interested in some in particular, let us know that, too! Here’s hoping that 2011 will be a great movie year!
Disney's 2010 Tron Legacy Film (Picture courtesy of Disney's Tron Legacy Website)
Sean posted a great blog post about the ten things he learned from Tron 1982. I know I’m late to the party, but after just seeing Tron tonight, here are ten things I learned from seeing Tron Legacy
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Recent Blog Comments
on Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut { I didn't skip ahead, but when the scene came up, I filled in what they failed to include.
} – Jan 27, 5:06 PMon 20 Favorite Ships Called Enterprise { I recently visited an exhibition here in Melbourne, Australia and on show was a three foot replica of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 from the original... } – Jan 27, 1:38 AM
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