Hailing Frequencies Issue #320

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Well? Have you finished/begun your Christmas shopping yet? Oh, and this week celebrates both my nieces' birthdays. Happy B-day, Jenna and Isabel! Now, go wash your hands.

Verrrrrry interesting. Despite spending zillions on promoting Aeon Flux, Paramount has canceled all preview screenings. That's usually a sign they think the critics won't like the product.

Even Aeon's creator, Peter Chung, isn't doing the usual bit about how great the film's going to be. Instead, he told SCI FI Wire, "I'm not involved in the movie....I honestly [was] very against it, because I wanted to do an animated movie, and I thought that was the best way to do it. It took me a long while to get adjusted to it, and then eventually I said, 'OK, if it's going to get done, it will get done this way.'" There is still a possibility of doing an animated version eventually. Chung also talks about the character's ambiguous sexuality (with robots) and her death (pre-Kenny) at the end of every episode here.

Okay, despite all those cast changes, the fans don't want to let Alias go. Check out Save Alias and Alias Undercover, where protests are being organized. If you want to join in, mail a brown paper bag with "Save Alias" written on it to Stephen McPherson this month, then write a letter next month.

Okay, we Americans have been patient, but it's time to see the new Dr. Who, dangit. And, as it happens, we get a choice of venue.

We can get it on television "soon," or we can buy it before then on DVD Feb. 14. Doctor Who: The Complete First Series has the thirteen first-season episodes, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, and over five hours of extras, such as audio commentary by cast and crew, "making of" and actor interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage. There's also a new Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound mix on all the episodes. SRP $99.98.

Forbes has listed The Forbes Fictional 15, including such luminaries as Santa Claus (#1) and Lucius Malfoy (#15). Here's Lex Luthor's entry (#4)

The incredibly uptight (unless you have kids, and then the incredibly useful) Family Media Guide has a list of the Top 10 Most Violent Video Games for 2005, ordered without rank.

Resident Evil 4: Player who fails to recover the President's daughter in the first few minutes may find the corpse of a woman pinned up on a wall by a pitchfork through her face.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: We all remember this one, right? Player is a gang member earning his patch who rests up with whores, then beats them to death.
God of War: Player seeks revenge on the gods who made him slaughter his own family by burning people or tearing them in half.
Narc: Player kills people while smoking pot and popping Quaaludes, ecstasy, LSD, and “Liquid Soul” – a drug that lets you kick your enemies' heads off.
Killer 7: Player leads band of assassins who collect the blood of their victims.
The Warriors: Player runs with gang to get back to their turf while looting/bashing everything and getting the stuffing beaten out of them.
50 Cent: Bulletproof: Player engages in gangster shootouts and loots the bodies of victims to buy new 50 Cent recordings and music videos. (I'm waiting for the expansion pack that lets me buy Cher CDs instead.)
Crime Life: Gang Wars: Player leads a gang who just run around killing people at random.
Condemned: Criminal Origins: Player is an FBI serial killer hunter in one of the first titles for the Xbox 360. Game emphasizes the use of melee weapons over firearms, allowing players to use virtually any part of their environment as a weapon. The next generation graphics provide a new level of detail to various injuries, especially “finishing moves.
True Crime: New York City: Player is a NYC cop who frames people and shakes them down for extra cash.

THQ is doing the game for Columbia Pictures' The Monster House for console and select handheld gaming systems. Look for it and the film in Summer 2006. Three kids battle a house that eats trick-or-treaters. (Guess they shouldn't have thrown those rotten eggs, now, should they?) Interesting note, the movie will be released in more than 100 theaters in REAL D's digital 3D format day and in regular 2D.

Activision has closed an exclusive deal for the videogame rights to the Spider-Man film franchise through 2017.

Nokia will launch Space Alliance, a multiplayer online game, in the first quarter of 2006, for Java-enabled mobile phones and the Nokia SNAP Mobile service.

BioWare is holding a contest for talented writers to help develop roleplaying games. Read more at Cinescape.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire made about $408 million worldwide after its second weekend. Meanwhile, Goblet of Fire: The IMAX Experience and The Polar Express: An IMAX 3D Experience registered the highest-grossing weekend ever at IMAX theaters, with combined grosses of $3.1 million, with Goblet getting about $1.85 million of the pot.

A Norwegian film director questions whether Rowling is really the author of Harry Potter, or if she's just an actress/front for corporations. In other news, historians have discovered Shakespeare was actually Queen Elizabeth's handpuppet and Mozart was a tone-deaf go-go dancer.

Ever sit around, wondering why they didn't do a sequel to the insanely successful Independence Day? Well, Producer Dean Devlin told SCI FI Wire that he and partner Roland Emmerich did write a script, but nixed the project after the country's reaction to 9/11. "[The script] was actually inspired by 9/11....But when we finished the script, and we looked at it, ... we said, 'Yeah, it's good, but is it right?' And what we meant by that was, the genesis of Independence Day was to not tell an alien-invasion story, but to tell a disaster movie using an alien invasion as the natural disaster. So after that we thought, 'Can we think of a disaster movie that had a good sequel?' And we couldn't think of one. Because...what makes it so spectacular is it's a once-in-a-lifetime disaster."

The full review has spoilers, including character deaths, but you won't mind if you saw the original King Kong.

Disney's got a nine-minute (rather fuzzy) preview at Sweden's TV4. Major spoilers -- then, you need to read the books before seeing the movies, anyway!

Title: ? (Land of the Dead 2)
Origin: sequel
Screenwriter/Director: George A. Romero
Studio: Universal
Premise: Brains. Must eat brains.
Production Date: Unknown

Title: ? (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider 3)
Origin: sequel/videogame
Studio: Paramount
Premise: Angelina Jolie shoots a lot of stuff.
Production Date: Unknown
Extra: Tomb Raider Legend hits stores for Easter for PlayStation2 and Xbox 360.

Title: The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp
Origin: Book by Rick Yancey
Screenwriter: David Iserson
Studio: Warner Brothers
Premise: Fifteen-year-old boy wields Excalibur.
Production Date: Unknown

Title: The Historian
Origin: Book by Elizabeth Kostova
Screenwriter: David Magee
Studio: Columbia
Premise: Vampires & woman searching for dad.
Production Date: Unknown

Watch the Disney trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest for either Quicktime or Windows Media, then check out some publicity pix at Dark Horizons, including the Flying Dutchman, whose captain, Davey Jones, is owed a blood debt by Captain Jack Sparrow. The sequel stars Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Stellan Skarsgard, and Naomie Harris.

Shrek writer/director Andrew Adamson told SCI FI Wire that the third movie in the series is "a story that I came up with at the end of Shrek 2." Shrek now has to face the possibility of becoming kind of Far, Far Away, or find a replacement. Look for it in 2007.

Well, well, well. It looks like there's a chance, maybe, that we'll be getting another TNG film after all! SFX has posted that at an impromptu interview with Patrick Stewart regarding his new TV series Eleventh Hour, Stewart suggested that "there's been a turnaround, because he revealed there've been lots of serious meetings lately about a new film, and there are money men who want it to happen. However, he also made it clear that he's signed up to working with the Royal Shakespeare company for the next 16 months, so even if another Next Gen film did get greenlit, he wouldn't be able to start filming it until after that."

Kelsey Grammer as "Beast" is getting a lot of buzz. Director Brett Ratner is looking to deal with Beast's non-"normal" looks -- odd on a good guy...or is he?

Last week's fake news story (did you guess it?): While talking about her upcoming appearance in David Letterman (I am so there.), Oprah Winfrey discussed her recent sessions with a "psychic psychologist" (Think Medium for living people.) and plans for a future show on the subject.

This game is going to change slightly. Instead of having to wait until next week, you can reveal the fake news item by highlighting below.

Reveal the fake (highlight): After tossing Kevin Federline out after a screaming argument, Britney Spears announced to The New York Daily News that she's agreed to do a nude scene in her latest project, a remake of Saturn III. (Sorry, teenage boys.)

This Week's Question: Name the character who gave Jadzia Dax some Klingon earrings.

Send your answer to scifi@about.com. All correctly answering trivia maniacs will have their names mentioned in the next letter. The first winner gets to make a request, anything they like -- within reason -- for the next "Hailing Frequencies" Issue. Please let me know if you don't want me to post your email address if you win.

Last Week's Question: Gary Graham played Soval on ENT. For what other Trek role was he strongly considered?

Answer: Captain Sisko. (He was briefly considered for the role that became Janeway as well.)

Send in your best caption for the picture below. The best (as in, my favorite) entry will appear in next week's issue.

Honorable Mentions..

“Of course, if we remove the candles, the owl would fly away.” - Talleyjames69

“And what's more, if you order in the next ten minutes, not only do you get the owl candle holder and the four mega candles, we will double the order to include eight
mega candles all for only three easy payments of $19.95. Call now 1-800-OWL-WING!!” - - Talleyjames69

"I want to fly like an eagle..." - Linda

"Ladies and gentlemen, the new Rolls-Royce hood ornament!" - Linda

"Fly away, little Starling. Fly, fly fly." - BTCHONWHLS

"You're getting very sleepy...your eyelids are getting heavy...when you awake you will have no memory that I was ever an thin Irish bloke with a raspy voice..." -
Chris

“Oh, Great” snarled Snape. “Dumbledork is reading from the Torah again!” - Alex

“Simon says put your hands in the air…” - Alex

“Come now, boys; you act like you’ve never seen butterflies erupt out of blue-uniformed girls.” - Raymond

“…nothing up my right sleeve… nothing up my left… damn, where is that rabbit…?” - Raymond

“Are they making faces behind me?” - Raymond

“And, finally, the Saturday Night DVD Club is showing that old classic “Night of the Lepus”…. Again.” - Raymond

“I caught a baby dragon… and it was THIS big!” - Michele

This week's topic: This isn't sci-fi or fantasy, but I feel like venting. What behavior by your fellow movie-goers bothers you the most in the theatre?

Fellow movie-goers? What fellow movie-goers? We just make sure to go to a Thursday night 9pm showing, and we pretty much have a private screening. Who wants to put up with cell phones, kids talking, people hogging seats for their friends, or someone kicking the back of your chair? In fact, with all that plus the price of tickets going up PLUS the COMMERCIALS before the film -- that really oughta be outlawed -- unless it's something which really needs a big screen, we stay home and wait for the DVD.

The thing that bothers me the most are people talking through the movie. We went to see Harry Potter and the woman behind us kept comparing the movie to the book. I have had this happen in other movies, where the people carry on a conversation and are not even paying attention to what is on the screen. I could also complain about young children in the movies, but don't want to offend anyone.

Lil

It's that Claudia Black is being brought back. I found her character gratting and boring at best. It really looks like an attempt to push Amanda Tapping out the door. Rumors were some time ago that they wanted to bring on a "hotter" female lead to play opposite Michael Shanks as a sort of love interest.

Sorry but I don't see the chemistry. Then again I didn't see her having any on Farscape either. Why is it the one time I want the love interest to get killed off they don't? However, I am pleased with Ben Browder's performances and feel that he's been poorly used. Right now Stargate looks more like the Michael Shanks show than anything resembling the Stargate SG-1 I came to look forward to watching each week.

I was pleased originally when they de-ascended the Daniel Jackson character...but now I'm not so sure. Now that we are adding Claudia as a regular...more and more I'm thinking that I need to just give up on this show and move on to Atlantis.

At least I have my DVD's for the first five seasons and soon to add 6 and 7 for Christmas. I think that's where I'll leave it.

Of course, we have the new guy in Atlantis that is so much like the guy from Andromeda..they can send him off to some distant planet. We have plenty of good people to work with already. Why did we need him? I like what they did with Ford but want him to still be a part of the show...and could be a really interesting story line.

They are always talking money and budget....well, they could save a lot by dropping Claudia and the new guy on Atlantis. You could probably save enough to go back to 22 episodes a season instead of 20. Stargate SG-1 did it with four team members and Hammond and a supporting cast of small but important supporting characters (Davis, Major Davis, Siler, Bra'tac, Martouf, Janet, Jacob).

Oh course, Hammond's in DC, Martouf, Janet and Jacob are dead and Jack's AWOL somewhere in the universe. Still, we got Davis who's now Harriman...Major Davis and Siler....and there's Bra'tac.

And yes, I am a Richard Dean Anderson fan, though I am just as much a fan of Amanda and Chris. They are going to kill this show when it was so easy to continue with good writing and good characters.

This season has been mediocre at best...and a number of the episodes just plain boring.

One can only hope that the episode Ripple Effects brings back permanently a much missed character. Now THAT would get me back to give the show another try.

Having gone and done the ultimate time travel trip...all bets are off on what's canon now and what isn't. Sam Carter warned them back in one of the episodes about the danger of time travel. The fact that there were fish in Jack's pond at the end of last season proves that some things have changed.

The writers have free reign to do what they want and bring anyone or everyone back if they want...of course, you have to wonder about how they looped it all up. I've got more than a few headaches about how they tied up all those loose ends flipping back from the alternate universe to the current one....or did they? Yep...there comes that headache again...who actually did come back from the past? Was it SG-1 or the alternate SG-1? or some mix? You see my problem.

Anyway....perhaps this is just an alternate SG-1 and some where in some alternate universe there is something that more closely resembles the show that I so miss.

Next week's topic: Would you like it if they made another Star Trek Next Gen movie?

Send me something if you've got something to say. It can be about anything that's on your mind! (Please let me know if you don't want your email address to accompany your name in either contest or for the LTE.)

1 Harry Potter & Goblet of Fire....$207,544,120 (saw)
2 Walk the Line........................$57,652,803 (wanna see)
3 Rent....................................$18,776,001 (saw opera)
4 Pride and Prejudice.................$17,489,000 (read book)
5 Just Friends..........................$15,000,000 (hate title)
6 Yours, Mine and Ours..............$25,741,908 (saw original)
7 Chicken Little........................$119,303,000 (wanna see, I guess)
8 Derailed................................$30,144,867 (no wanna see)
9 The Ice Harvest.....................$5,801,000 (waiting for DVD)
10 Jarhead..............................$59,846,240 (heard it's bad)

1. Lost 12.0
2. Medium 8.1
3. Ghost Whisperer 7.2
4. Invasion 6.2
5. Surface 6.2
6. Smallville 3.3
7. Night Stalker 2.7
8. Charmed 2.7
9. Supernatural 1.2

1. Alias 2.3
2. Smallville 1.9
3.Stargate SG-1 1.8
4. Stargate Atlantis 1.7
5. Star Trek: Enterprise 1.3
6. The Twilight Zone 1.2
7. Farscape 1.0
8. The Outer Limits 1.0
9. Sabrina 0.7

1. Narnia box set
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
3. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
4. Harry Potter paper box set
5. The Penultimate Peril (Lemony Snicket 12)
6. A Feast for Crows (Ice and Fire 4)
7. Eldest (Inheritance 2)
8. Wicked
9. The Da Vinci Code

1. Star Wars: Episode III
2. The Polar Express
2. Madagascar
4. Mr. and Mrs. Smith
5. Lost season one
6. Cinderella platinum edition
7. Firefly complete series
7. War of the Worlds
8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
9. Batman Begins