New Poster for Mel Gibson's Apocalypto

The new poster for Mel Gibson's Apocalypto looks amazing. I am getting excited about this one. Probably because I read Orson Scott Card's PastWatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus a few months ago. Both deal with the fall of the Mayan culture.
Source

Lost Connections

I found this diagram of Lost connections and some of them puzzle me. I must not be watching as close as I thought I was.
So, if anyone has some info on:
Rose being Walt's grandmother?
The Bernard/Hanso connecton?
Jack and Claire being siblings (although I guess that this was shown when Jack's dad went to that house looking for his daughter?)

Ghost Rider Trailer

Two different teaser trailers went up for the Marvel Comic's movie Ghost Rider. They look great. Sam Elliot's narration rocks!

X-Men 3 has scene after credits.

If, like me, you are heading out to the theatres this weekend to see X-men 3, Filmeforce has some news for you:

when the audiences begins to filter out of the exits... keep your seat. And then, perhaps, share this little secret with a few of your friends: the movie isn't over.

We don't want to spoil anything for you, but we want you to know that the scene that follows isn't your typical post-credits tack-on. It's a coda for one of the main characters. The scene is maybe 30 seconds in length, but it's enough. And it will surely be one of the more talked moments in the fan community.

So, stick around. I just hope I can get my little nephew to stay seated.

Review - Orson Scott Card's The Worthing Saga

Why did I read this book?

If you read this blog a lot you know that we are huge Orson Scott Card fans. That being said, I had never heard of The Worthing Saga until a few months ago. As soon as I read the premise I knew it was something that I would be interested in. Not that I wouldn't read anything Card put out..

What is it about?

On a planet where they have never known physical or mental pain, the sudden introduction of it, a Day of Pain changes the world: deaths are remembered, people are horribly killed, and everyone feels a great loss of a protection they never knew they had.

Soon after, two people come from the stars. They choose a village and the inn-keeper's son to tell their story. Their story is one of a galactic empire, a drug that prolongs life, a man that became a god, and a universe without pain that had to wake up.

Why you should read this book:

As always, Card's storytelling and character development is superb. If you have read the Ender books you will feel like you are returning to an old friend with this work. Yet, in many ways this book surpasses the stories of Ender.

With The Worthing Saga Card asks the question, how can humans be human without the pain of humanity? It's an intriguing question that I had never thought about before. One that makes me look at some of the "wonderful" things people try to do for the world in the "now," and wonder if they will still be "wonderful" in 100-1000 years .

Watch the full episode "Scar" of Battlestar Galactica at Sci FI

SCIFI.COM has posted the full episode of Battlestar Galactica. The episode, "Scar" is one of the best of last season. If you haven't gotten a chance to see it you should take the time to watch a great episode.

Ghostbusters 3 could finally be on its way!

Two of my favortie sci-fi comedys are the two Ghostbuster movies and I am one of the many who have been waiting for a long time for the next installment. Well, Ramis tells Hollywood.com that the wait might soon be over. Dan Aykroyd has delivered a script called Ghostbusters in Hell and wants Ben Stiller to be a player. Ramis states that the,

What Danny had originally conceived was sending us to a special-effects hell--a netherworld full of phenomenal visual environments and boiling pits.

But what works so well about the first two (films) is the mundane-ness of it all. So my notion was that hell exists in the same place as our consensus reality, but it's like a film shutter--it's the darkness between the 24 frames.

So we create a device to do it, and it's in a warehouse in Brooklyn. When we step out of the chamber, it looks just like New York, but it's hell--everything's grid locked; no cars are moving and all the drivers are swearing at each other in different foreign languages. No two people speak the same language. It's all the worst things about modern urban life, just magnified.

del Toro helms Roald Dahl's The Witches

According to SCI FI WIRE,

Guillermo del Toro, whose Pan's Labyrinth will screen in competition at this week's Cannes Film Festival, will team with fellow Mexican helmer Alfonso Cuaron on an English-language adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1973 book The Witches for Warner Brothers

Technorati tags: del Toro, witches, news, blog, pan's labyrinth

A live-action Blood: The Last Vampire is on its way

Variety.com reports from Cannes that,

Bill Kong, producer of "Crouching Tiger" and "Hero," is to reteam with helmer Ronny Yu for "Blood: The Last Vampire," an English-language adaptation of a best-selling Japanese manga comic series.

Yu recently directed "Fearless," the Jet Li-starring actioner that with "King Kong" heads the B.O. standings in China this year, with a gross exceeding RMB100 million ($12.5 million). Kong produced "Fearless" through his Hong Kong-based Edko Films.

"Blood" will be produced by Edko with France's Pathe group.

I own the anime and was really impressed by the animation, but the story was lacking. I have never read the manga, but I read the Dark Horse novel a few months ago and was a little bored. Let's hope the live-action version has a good storyline to back up a great concept.

Technorati tags: movie, Bill Kong, blood, vampire, live-action

News Roundup: Superman poster, Caspian push, and Supernatural renewed

Aint it Cool News has some small interesting stuff today including the news that Narnia's Prince Caspian will be pushed back to Summer 2008.

An update on the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Caroline.

SCI FI WIRE reports that the WB and UPN have decided to renew Smallville and Supernatural when the networks join forces in the fall.

Now we just need to wonder if Veronica Mars is going to make it (though the article notes that it is "expected."

NBC will not renew Surface

According to the North Carolina newspaper StarNewsOnline, NBC will not renew the sci-fi show Surface.

Though the show suffered from some cliches and never fully held my interest, I did fall in love with the idea of Kaiju style sea creatures and the marine biology angle. I was looking forward to where they took the story in the second season.

Well, we can always hope Sci Fi Channel will pick it up. If you missed the season, it will hit DVD in August.

Myspace to offer "24" episode downloads

According to Yahoo News, in a move to be more like iTunes and other video download for cash sites, Myspace will start selling episodes of the Fox show "24" for $1.99 an episode.

Just another stupid move by Myspace. If they wanted to become a video download site they should offer "24" for free, like ABC is doing with Lost and other shows (Which is up now, with the full season of Alias!).

Very few of Myspace's customers are going to pay to download something that they all know how to get from bittorrent for free. And it should be free. It's a TV show. Throw some commercials in it and stick them up there for download. Internet video watchers would flock to it. I know I would.

AnotherJoss Whedon Interview

Whedon always brings the funny.

Via Geek Week.

Short Joss Whedon interview at the Saturn awards

Whedon reveals nothing new in this short interview with The Movie Reporter, but his acolytes need to hear his voice once in a while.

Check it out HERE.

Ben Affleck as Captain Kirk? Please God No!

The latest rumor to hit the web, J.J. Abrams is going to make the best Star Trek movie yet, but his casting is going to ruin everything. According to Ciniscape,

Ben has also been talking to Paramount about possibly playing a lead role in a new Star Trek film from J.J Abrams. Apparently Abrams is coming down to visit the set [of Affleck's latest movie] in a few weeks...

They are not saying Kirk, but that doesn't count it out!

This has to be an agent talking out his butt! Why can't we just clone Shatner and start the movie at Kirk's birth. That is the only way a project with a young Kirk is going to work.

Affleck isn't even a good enough actor to play a red shirt!

New Lady in The Water Trailer

The new trailer gives a glimpse into the plot. Seems like other things are coming through the portal in the pool besides Bryce Dallas Howard. I am a sucker for M. Night Shyamalan and his monsters.

Review - Vernon Vinge's "Marooned in Realtime"

Why did I read this book?
I read the comic Unshelved. On Sundays they publish synopses of books. One such book was Marooned in Realtime. A science fiction mystery? I was there.

Yes, the name is stupid and the cover of the edition that I read was really unattractive. One day I will rant on No Blasters about science fiction and book covers. But I digress.

What is it about? Check out the Unshelved synopsis.

Why you should read this book:
I like reading science fiction because the people who write it are usually a lot smarter and more imaginative than I am. The ideas presented in this book are intriguing. The description of Earth millions of years from now is interesting. The characters are sympathetic and their motivations and actions are believable. I was not bored reading this book.

Why you should pass:
I was disappointed in the answers given to the main question of who murdered Marta. I did not feel that there was sufficient development of the characters for me to guess who the murderer was. Characters disappeared for pages at a time. Also, other questions remained unanswered. I kept on wondering had I read the prequel if I would be able to understand what was going on better.

Also, I found some relationships unbelievable. The narrator and the person who he ends up with just did not make any sense. Further, why is there a lesbian relationship in the story when there is no chance of artificial wombs? It seemed to me that the author was just trying to be politically correct.

I believe that the author needed to expand on the motivations and choices that the survivors would have to make. It would have made a better novel.

More stuff:
Instapundit and Dr. Helen interviewed the author recently but I have not listened to it yet.

No Blasters rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

The project to map Middle_Earth

The Middle-earth DEM Project is, writes Carl Lingard, “a non-profit, hobbyists’ project devoted to mapping Middle-earth as a fully georeferenced digital elevation model and topographic map (using Google Earth as one of its targets). We are also seeking to develop new tools for terrain modelling/visualisation.”

via The Map Room

Serenity wins the Nebula!!!

Serenity took home this years Nebula award for best script! Now, people will give the best movie of last year some respect, or maybe they will just ponder what a Nebula award is.

BattleStar Galactica cast as Simpson Characters

Artist Dylan Meconis posts the whole cast of BattleStar Galactica characters as they would look in the Simpson universe over at the Livejournal community pantsketch. Great stuff. Check out her other work Family Man as well.

Top 25 tv shows to movies

FilmForce.com releases a top 25 tv shows to movies that is filled with some great sci-fi. My only disagreement is that they rank Serenity at number 20. It should have been top ten. I was pleasently suprised by Number 2 and agree with their nunber 1. If only Serenity would have been higher up! Come on, it was beat out by Sponge Bob?

via Scifisignal

Star Trek gets hip on G4tv

G4TV has new stop motion commercials showing Star Trek as you've never it before. It's not as funny as some Robot Chicken that I've seen but it's interesting.

See them on YOU TUBE.

Read more HERE.

What is going on in this man's mind?

Anna hasn't caught up on this season of Lost, so without giving too much away, I have to say I was floored by the last ten minutes of last night's episode. It's about time this season kicked into high gear and gave us some suprises!

Lucas lied - Star Wars hasn't died!

I am one of the millions of fans that could care less about Lucas' digitally restored Star Wars Trilogy. I saw them in the theatre and thought they were stuffed full of new crap that they didn't need.
So, last year, when I heard that they were releasing the restored trilogy without the original versions because they were, according to Lucas, the "definitive versions" I was very distraught, but I knew that Lucasfer was a money lover and someday he would change his mind about giving the fans what they wanted.
According to Sci Fi Wire,

Fox will release new two-disc DVDs, priced at $30 each, of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi that will feature the films as they first appeared in theaters, along with the new, restored versions (now available in the four-disc $70 Star Wars Trilogy).

They also state that,

The original films' video quality will not match up to that of the restored versions. "It is state of the art, as of 1993, and that's not as good as state of the art 2006," Ward said.

Well, DUH! We could care less about "State of the art." The movies speak for themselves without all the CGI and Greedo shooting first!
(I am getting down off my geekboy soapbox now).

It's about time. Of course, they will only be around for a "limited time" so that they can continue to repackadge it and sell it over and over again, but at least we will get the original trilogy on DVD.

The Superman Returns Trailer

I am too busy writing papers to watch the skies for new trailers. I caught this earlier today and you might have seen it everywhere else. I have to say that Kevin Spacey is awesome as Luthor. Now, if he only sings he will be the most hated villain of all time.

Check it out HERE.

Ender's Game the movie is Wolfgang Petersen's next film

SCI FI Wire is reporting that Wolfgang Petersen's next film will be an adaptation of the sci-fi classic Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Of course, statements like this have been made before, but it is always exciting to hear them.
Accoding to SCI FI Wire,

Petersen added that he anticipated having to audition at least 1,000 young actors to find the right person to play Card's boy genius, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, who is in training to defend Earth against an alien invasion in the late 21st century. But Petersen thinks Ender's Game could be as successful as the Harry Potter franchise. "I think Ender's was a little bit of an inspiration for Harry Potter," he said. "It could also be a great 3-D version of Ender's, with all that fighting in the battle stations."

Franchise? 3-D version? Is Petersen rubing his hands together like Lucasfer?
No word lately from Orson Scott Card on what he thinks of the new developments. Hopefully, he will help everyone keep their heads together and make a brilliant movie.

Clash of the Titans remake news!

Aint it Cool News is geeking out about how great the original Clash of the Titans was and how they can't wait for the remake that Warner Bros announced a while back.

I couldn't agree with them more! Titans is one of those movies from my childhood that I always go back to. My mine showered me with Sinbad and the other Harryhausen movies too, but Titans was the best of them all.

Looks like the WB has a writer. Now will see if CGI can render monsters as well as Harryhausen's magic.