Recent and random reportings...

Snow on the ground here in the mountains of the northeast, day off, and a little downtime, so I bringeth forth tidbits regurgitated from the bowels of the web...

Star Wars toys are still among the most popular, and up near the top are Star Wars Lego and Transformer stuff. Color me kid at heart, but the Vader Transformer is totally hot!

Star Wars stuff kids big and small want for the holidays

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Never heard of this company, but it's not like I'm a crazy hardcore gamer. This teaser trailer looked pretty sweet!

Obviously it's not by Lucas Arts, so I dunno if this will be hitting any stores... anywhere.

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I'm currently working through Star Wars Lego: The Complete Saga which is totally rocking. I hadn't really been into gaming at all in recent years (since my friend who had all the consoles moved away :p) but now with my shiny new PS3 I am loving life... when I have the time. I'm currently only about 20% through the game since I'm playing straight through story mode first. About to start Episode V, which is appropriate since snow is now on the ground where I live. Maybe that will help me get into the groove of winter, which I am really resistant to right now. I'll probably dedicate an entry to the game in the future. I just wanted to say that now, I am starving for ALL Star Wars games - more than ever before. Even the once much more wildly popular Star Wars Galaxies. RPG's have always been much lower on my list, but after reading about the new Chapter 7 Galaxies stuff.. of course I want. Now I just need an updated PC and XBox 360. And maybe a couple more jobs to pay for it all. Nah. If I did that I wouldn't have the time to play with them!

Um, did I mention that I started Renegade Squadron on the PSP too? Yeah. Started being the key word. Then Lego Saga entered my life.

Perhaps Lego SW will have to step aside for Lego Batman and Lego Indy! Of course, when Force Unleashed is out, I won't be leaving my PS3 unless absolutely necessary.

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Forget about games - how about real life stuff? The Royal Air Force are on their way to becoming true X-Wing pilots! I wish there were pictures available - RAF fashions helmets after Star Wars. Thankfully they're not making them like the original Battlestar Galactica King Tut helmets :p

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Yoda or Darth Vader slippers? Bah. I want Chewie or Ewok slippers! But when it comes to backbacks, I don't want Chewie. I want a Yoda pack so I can be Luke in training! I don't like the head and face on the Yoda pack tho.

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There's a ton of other Star Wars stuff out there right now, of course as the holidays are upon us. Bleh.

Animated Clone Wars hits theaters... we hope!

Since everyone else is reporting it, I'm jumping aboard. I needed an excuse to post here anyway. I've been slacking (i.e. busy with life and playing Star Wars Lego: The Complete Saga)...

Earlier today at the Hasbro Fall 2007 Analyst Event, it was announced that the upcoming Star Wars animated series would premiere with a theatrical release in August 2008. When asked, Lucas Film LTD did not confirm, but simply offered that they are playing with different ideas to launch the series.

TFN reports


That's all I got for now, except: This site's for you Pitt

Boba Fett Strikes Back

Long time, not much blogging here. I've been in a lull, and so has a lot of fandom news. For me at least :p

But new talk worthy things have arisen! First and foremost are the reports back from Star Wars Reunion 2 taking place in France (their own Celebration me thinks), and some details from Rick McCallum about the live-action Star Wars series. Read full report on TFN, and if you're feeling Frenchy, follow their links to the French site starwars-universe.com. Some of the highlights everyone is buzzing about for the live-action news (more Clone Wars news is in the article too):

- Boba Fett will appear in the live-action series, but no actor has been picked as of yet, but I think Daniel Logan would be an AWESOME and logical choice, since he's all grown up now. Apparently Rick agrees. *Original commented edited*

- Other than Fett, there will be all new characters, at least for the first 100 episodes. Rick says there are hopes to add EU characters after that. Young Mara Jade PLEASE!

- "Six screen writers have been hired and will start work in November" *Um.. LOL. I guess those writers aren't with the WGA. But then again, LFL isn't Hollywood!*

- John Williams is slated to work on the series. YAY!

- Check out Rick clips below, or watch it here in HD!



Another interesting rumor-oid in the article, but not having to do with the live-action series:

Saga Box Set:
- Lucasfilm is waiting to see who wins: HD DVD or Blue Ray.
- The box set will have around 100 hours of documentaries about the 6 films. (wow, we are shooting for a hundred of everything at this point...sweet!)

I really have doubts that LFL is waiting out the high-def format "war". I would think that like Spielberg, Lucas will release on both formats, and if forced to choose I would think it would be Blue-Ray (I hope!), since it has far better output capacity and about half the compression of HD DVD. But I'll take 100 hours of bonus features and a saga set on anything! Just let them be new bonus features.

Heh!

My boyz

ROX - you did it again. I'm such a non-sports fan, but I grew up with the Red Sox. Can't help getting all sports-fan giddy when my boys are kicking ass. Congrats!

No news is still no news. Lucas' live-action not so active atm...

Every once in awhile we get a little nip of info about the Star Wars TV shows. Slowly but surely, Clone Wars is coming along, and the live action show is creeping in behind it. It's just so painful to think that it will probably be several or more years until the live-action show comes to our TV screens - but then again, when it finally gets here, perhaps because so much time will have passed since the last Star Wars film, we will feel a similar nostalgia for the prequels as we have/had for the original trilogy.

Here's the lates nip of info, from the LA Times. Snifters optional (I prefer straight out of the bottle meself):

George Lucas planning 'Star Wars' TV series

"Filmmaker George Lucas said Tuesday that he has "just begun work" on a live-action television series rooted in the "Star Wars" universe, which is huge news not just for fans of the science-fiction epic but also for networks looking for a piece of the Lucas magic that has grossed $4.3 billion in theaters worldwide...

... That model (the upcoming animated Clone Wars series) may also be used for the live-action show, although producer Rick McCallum said Tuesday that it's too early to say. McCallum is interviewing writers for the live-action series.

Lucas is confident he can find a home for his droids and Jedi, but he also knows the projects are unorthodox enough to give network executives pause."

- By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 17, 2007


That's why I think us fans need to encourage George to create his own gorram television network. Are ya with me?


Yeah, I borrowed this pic from the article. Love it!



A couple more niblets for your giblets, thanks to Club Jade:

EW.com from Oct. 12 reports on Lucas search for writers

and...
This awesome insideskywalkerranch.com link <--- so amazing I had to borrow a yodacon from starwars.com! (hey - that rhymes)

Does Deckard dream of electric sheep?

Word on the streets of Venice is that Blade Runner: The Final Cut is even darker, but still doesn't give any more or less clarity as to whether Deckard might indeed be a replicant. I don't need an answer either way, since I like the mystery of it all.

I have to admit, it's been a loooong time since I've seen Blade Runner. I have a VHS version of the Director's Cut, and it's just been... years. I've intentionally held off on getting the DVD since having heard that there was to be several better versions coming out in the future. Little did I know it would be in one fell swoop. Maybe I'll have to bust out the VHS to compare (even though when I get the bombastic version of the DVD I'll be able to see the same version again).

Warner Brothers have been pumping up this release with a new-ish website (ya'all have seen links to that here before), with special clips. Here's the latest:

More movie stuffs...

Thundercats is getting made into a CGI feature film! Even better, it's going to be developed by Gears of War art director Jerry O'Flaherty. NWOICE (okay, so the writer of linked article may not be so enthusiastic). Yeah, I know - another toon and/or superhero story goes to the big screen, but now that we can do this stuff for the big screen with much better results, I'm game.

I've been trying to keep up with the possible Wonder Woman movie that has been bouncing around the movie studios for a couple of years now. Joss Whedon was first signed on to develop the screenplay, only to be bagged.. er, or "leave" the project while Warner went with a spec script that is locked in a vault somewhere. More recently Wonder Woman has been coming up again, with the development of the Justice League movie. Some of the JLA characters would possibly get developed for offshoot films, Wonder Woman included. Jessica Biel was one of the more recent WW prospects but she (thankfully IMO) declined the role. What I wanna know is why the heck hasn't anyone approached Megan Fox (Transformers) - and if they have, why the heck hasn't she taken it. She is perfect! Okay, my opinion again.



So the non-news didn't end there. There were recent rumblings of a Warner top-exec saying that the studio would not produce any female led feature films. W00t? Okay, I'm a girl, so this one hits me a little hard. Supposedly Warner, and Robinov are denying any such remarks (see an article with updated WB response here). I admit, I'll agree with one of their angles - that any WW movie that goes to production will have to be the right combination of the right actor(ress), director, and timing. But even the rumor of such a mentality kills the morale, ya know? With characters like Starbuck from the new BSG, and... Starbuck from the new BSG (LOL - I stop here), I saw hope for women leads in action and sci-fi. *I'M* interested, but apparently the DWG's at studio top seats are skeptical. Just wait until I walk into that town ;)

Here's the biggie o' the day - Anakin and Mace are back and badder than ever before. Sam Jackson and Hayden Christensen star in this sci-fi action thriller about people with the ability to jump time and space, and those who have to hunt them down. Hayden is a "jumper" and Sam is a hunter. The folks who brought us the Bourne movies made this, so aside from Hayden and Sam, that's all I need to get me to the theater to see this. Check out the latest Jumper trailer:

DEFINITELY something I'll be looking forward to for February. Did you see the url at the end of the trailer? Got it linked for ya right here: anywhereispossible.com

Movie stuff n' things

First of all, I'm a little P'Oed that Transformers will see a DVD release on HD, but not Blu-ray. Michael Bay even threatened Paramount for it's HD exclusive decision, but it seems the Bayster doesn't have the same clout as Spielberg who will still have his films released on both formats. I'm not sure if I'll be able to wait for a possible Blu-ray release for this. Maybe I'll break down and get an HD player, since they are finally becoming an almost acceptable format. I'm also irked that BSG is going to HD but not Blu-ray. Then there's Heroes too, which I probably will never buy anyway. Hmph. At least I'll get Blade Runner in Blu-ray.

Speaking of.. Transformers 2 has a green light, and Spielberg is putting a rush on it (can you put a rush on T1 on Blu-ray too Steve?). Lets see how much we can squeeze out of this franchise, shall we? It's just barely been talked about, and the leaks are already dripping. The TESB of Transformers? :p

The bigger news right now is some confirmation on Trek XI. The story looks to be Kirk and Spock intensive, but there is still no Kirk casted as of yet. Exec producer Roberto Orci tells trekmovie.com all about it.

This one sounds pretty cool - Jake Gyllanhaal will be working on a "moon movie". Not a lot of details on this one yet except:

"The SF action movie revolves around a private expedition to the moon and the race for lunar colonization."

That sounds geeky enough for me!

Did I mention that I'm miffed about Transformers not going to Blu-ray? Help me Stephen Spielberg. You're my only hope.

Geeze! I haven't looked for any new and exciting Indy 4 news. I guess we know that it's being made, and that's all that's important. I've kind of slacked in that area, but surely indianajones.com will keep feeding us :D

LOLz!!1234! Desine UR dreem homez

My first pass results. Click link at the end to design your own (thanx mirax!)...

Your home is a Coder's Mansion Your kitchen consists of dilithium-powered food replicators, manned by obedient robot slaves, who are sure to never, ever rebel. I mean, it's preposterous to even consider it. There's a Chocolatessen, which is rapidly becoming your favorite room of the house. Having one is also becoming a trend among your wealthy neighbors. Your master bedroom is decorated to look like the treetop village of the Galadhrim. Your study has every language reference book ever written, including now-useless titles like Learn Javascript 2.0! and C++ Programming for Windows 95. (Why are you keeping those?) One of your garages contains a life-sized X-Wing fighter, and KITT. (KITT was a gift from a well-meaning uncle.) Your home also includes a robot repair bay, where your mechanized servants are routinely fitted with new restraining bolts. (It's just a precaution.) Your guests enjoy your home theater with hi-def plasma screen TV, and the thrones you watch it from. Outside is your radio telescope, listening constantly for alien transmissions. Especially invaders. They'll come eventually, even if nobody believes you. (Nobody does.) And, you have a pet -- a unicorn named "Shadowhooves". Below is a snippet of the blueprints:

Find YOUR Dream House!

Heh - second pass gave me much of the same, but with a few key additions... Time-Lord's Manor gives me a bonus beach right outside the door, with perma-killer waves, the animatronic Mos Eisley Cantina, and my study now includes "all Star Wars novels cross-referenced by incongruities"

Sweet!

7307 Takei

This one is for the Trekkies and the Heroes fans (does the latter get a fandom name?). Okay, for you astronomy fans too - startrek.com reports that George Takei now has an asteroid named after him.

"Last week the Committee on Small Body Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union approved the name "7307 Takei" for the asteroid previously labeled "1994 GT9." The Takei reference will be used in the scientific community to identify this minor body from now on, presumably forever. Only about 14,000 asteroids have been named after specific people, out of about 400,000 such bodies known to exist."

Read the full article here

Kewl! Good job George.


In other Heroes and Trekkalicious news - by now if you're a fan of either, you know Zachary Quinto, aka Sylar from Heroes, is cast as Spock in the coming Star Trek XI movie. Other than that, STXI seems to be trudging along, supposedly for a Christmas 2008 release date. For more Star Trek XI updates, well, you can follow along at startrek.com for that too... along with a zillion other places on the web.

Imabikisou

I think I'll pick this one up for Halloween :D

... next year (since it prolly won't make it outta Japan any time soon)

Bionic Woman

Speaking of TV show remakes... I just watched the Bionic Woman pilot again (they reran it on SciFi this evening). The following are my first and second impressions, and spoilers for the pilot... so if you haven't seen it yet, you may want to refrain from reading further.



The Bionic Woman pilot episode is available to view in full at it's NBC hosted website. Pretty good web video quality too!

So, I was just as grumbly and skeptical about the whole prospect of yet another remake, and especially of the Jamie Sommers story, as pretty much anybody else I heard who had an opinion about it. I was quite young when the original series aired, but thanks to my parents who were relatively sci-fi saavy, I was exposed to that and the $6000k Man. Frankly I didn't really care for either. Both freaked me out, especially whenever someone would remove a human face to reveal a cyborg skull. I guess I was too young.

But aside from all the traumatic memories, the idea of a Bionic Woman remake just seemed ridiculous. I was prepared to hate it, but I knew I had to watch since my new favorite actress/girl crush/uber idol - Katee Sackhoff of BSG, was to play the new incarnation of a fem-bot villainess.

In a sense I was torn, feeling like I just had to watch something I knew I wouldn't like.

I was very pleasantly surprised, and it wasn't just by Katee's performance. In fact, my own jury is still out on how I feel about Sarah Corvus (Sackhoff). On the one hand, I would almost say that performance was a little wooden and overconfident. But that's exactly what Sarah Corvus seems to be; a regenerated bionic with a grudge who doesn't even remember what it is to be human. When I remember that, Katee Sackhoff's performance fits to a tee, and she kicks some major ass too.

Sure it all gets a little cliche and predictable, but the story moves at a good pace and the drama is good. To me, sci-fi is working when even though you're conscious of the unbelievable, you still continue to watch with interest. Bionic Woman did that for me, although I'll admit I'm not counting the minutes of each day and week until the next episode as I do for Battlestar Galactica, or secondarily Heroes.

Kara... I mean Katee certainly turned out some memorable one-liners. Yep. Still love seeing Katee in action. It's kind of funny though... she's really starting to remind me of BSG's Number 6!


And then there was Jamie Sommers. I had never heard of Michelle Ryan before. At first glance she seemed a little Plain Jane, but now that I've seen it, she seems tailor made for the part. This is where I was very pleasantly surprised. I don't remember any story specifics from the original series, so perhaps starting with a relatively clean slate was to my advantage, save for my bias.

As for the rest of the characters, I'll wait on forming opinions until further episodes.

In general, the pilot formed all the necessary questions yet to be answered and certainly to be replaced with new questions - enough to get me coming back to follow the story. Well, of course one of the other laws of attraction in effect for me are the appearances of four-and-counting Battlestar actors: Aaron Douglas, Mark Sheppard, Katee Sackhoff, and one very brief cameo by Jammer (RIP) as a heli-vac EMT, who we probably won't ever see again.

Having David Eick producing must have something to do with it too (I had to wonder if Eick pulled some of his BSG cast right off the set for last minute Bionic fill-ins). Eick has added his modern TV drama touch, which not unlike BSG is dark and gritty, almost bordering on black and white film noir (it's certainly a stark opposite of the 80's version's blazing techno-color brightness) . The less than cheerful human element is similar too, and you can bet that in following the series you will be forced to continually evaluate your feelings on who is really "evil". Sarah Corvut has obviously been done wrong, and is even a helping hand in Jamie's coming to terms with her bionic-ness. Jamie's mad scientist boyfriend only wanted her to live, and now perhaps he has paid the ultimate price, for taking advantage of his powers as well as for his involvement in Sarah's assassination. Then there's Romo... or Will's father. He was obviously involved with the lab, but somehow ended up in uber-maximum security, only to be set free after holding Chief's wife hostage. Did he have a hand in bringing Sarah back? Does he want his own son dead?

I guess we'll see next week, and I usually have Wednesday nights free, so this show is a go for me... until I potentially get totally bored with it :)

Dang, I haven't even reviewed the Heroes season 2 premiere yet. That's coming as soon as I watch it one more time. Gotta love NBC shows and the full episodes being posted right after on the website. Sorry for all you folks who live outside the US since you probably won't be able to view the epsodes on the web.

And Kaylee is on Stargate Atlantis season 4 right now!!!!