4.11.06
HELLO
And here's the three hundred and thirty-fourth edition of "Hailing Frequencies."
If you want to be notified when this newsletter is updated, email me to be put on my "notification" list.
Dang, I left my air-conditioner on at home again. That energy bill's gonna kill me.
ALIAS/LOST (et al.)
Disney-ABC Television Group is going to try something new: free (with commercial) episodes of four ABC primetime shows -- Lost, Alias, Desperate Housewives, and Commander in Chief -- on the Internet. You'll will be able to pause and move back and forth between chapters in the episodes, but you can't fast-forward through the three one-minute-one-sponsor ads. Episodes will be streamed in 16x9 formatting in Flash 8 for both Mac and PC platforms in two different sizes. It's a two-month experiment and definitely a sign of the changing times.
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
Congrats to the show for getting a Peabody for being "A belated, brilliantly re-imagined revival of a so-so 1970s outer-space saga, the series about imperiled survivors of a besieged planet has revitalized sci-fi television with its parallax considerations of politics, religion, sex, even what it means to be "human."
Mediablvd.com has parts of their interview up with Paul Campbell (more to be posted later) about his career since leaving the show and why he left in the first place. Fave bit:
MB Mag: Do you think that Billy's death was necessary for the story? Or how did that decision come about. Were you involved in it?
Paul: It was kind of my choice in a way. I was kind of given an ultimatum eventually because in between the end of season one and the beginning of season two I had actually gone to LA and booked a pilot. Because Battlestar production didn't have me under contract, I was free to go and do that. And it was their loss if the show got picked up and I wasn't able to come back for season two. I think that was a problem they had with a few of the cast members, that everyone was a free agent after season 1, and I think that scared them a little bit. They could have potentially lost half their cast after season 1, and I think after that, they pretty much ended up signing everyone to a contract. But I'd already been cast in another show and decided to go off on my own and see if it worked. As it turned out it didn't work, and I ended up having a two episode hiatus after episode 4. I was gone for 5 and 6, then came back for Home Pt. 1, I think it was. Or Home Pt 2, I came back for. So after that kind of gave me the ultimatum and said sign a contract for 5 years, or we kind of need to go our separate ways. And I kind of put it off and put it off, then eventually they just said "Look, we can tell your not really committed to the show, and we can't write story lines. So we've decided to kill the character." It wasn't really a surprise, but I wasn't expecting it to happen when it did. But I certainly wasn't surprised that they had to do that.
BOOKS
George R.R. Martin talks with SCI FI Wire about his Hugo Award nomination for A Feast for Crows. Robert Charles Wilson talks about Spin at SCI FI Wire. Sean Williams has an interview up at SCI FI Wire as well.
More than 500,000 copies of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code sold in its first week of paperback release, setting records.
Interview with Naomi Novik at Sci-Fi Crow's Nest, and another with Peter Hamilton.
I'm sorry to say that the great Stanislaw Lem died in his home city of Krakow on Monday, March 27, 2006 at 84.
BLOG: Da Vinci Code Not a Work of Plagiarism
BLOG: Doctor Who Season Two
GAMING
Microsoft is British game developer Lionhead Studios, which made the successful Fable games for the Xbox.
OMG! There's a breast (sorta) in the latest Tomb Raider game! Explore the silliness here.
And the next game for the screen will be...Cold Fear! Avatar Films and Sekretagent Prods. have bought the options for the so-so-selling game because of the storyline: a Coast Guard Officer trying to reconnect with his daughter is adrift on a whaling ship infested with aliens. No, I'm not kidding.
HARRY POTTER
The Independent has an interview up with David Thewlis (Lupin). Fave bit:
Thewlis has at least two more Harry Potter films coming, a prospect that fills him with almost childlike glee. "I'm really glad I'm going to see everybody again, and it'll be weird to see the kids grown up. I'm not sure how they're going to make the other films, it would be a shame not to have the same actors, but Rupert [Grint, playing ginger Ron] is going to be married with kids or something by the end."
PotterCast #34, the first part of LeakyCauldron's call-in show with the cast, is now available for download.
LOST
Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have signed on to keep producing Lost for another year.
BLOG: Follow-ups for last week's episode
CNN.com has an interview up with Naveen Andrews (Sayid). Fave bit:
He relished the improbability of the love affair between his character and Shannon (Maggie Grace), a self-absorbed American blonde, which he'd suggested to producers.
"I said, 'Wouldn't it be crazy if your Iraqi from the Republican Guard has a relationship with somebody who looks like Miss America?"' he recalled. "If they'd met any other way, there's no way anything would have come of it."
REAL SCIENCE NEWS
We surely aren't surprised to hear that the federal government is keeping the public from learning about research that the federal government doesn't like, but we can still be sad (or mad). Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post reports:
Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.
These scientists -- working nationwide in research centers in such places as Princeton, N.J., and Boulder, Colo. -- say they are required to clear all media requests with administration officials, something they did not have to do until the summer of 2004. Before then, point climate researchers -- unlike staff members in the Justice or State departments, which have long-standing policies restricting access to reporters -- were relatively free to discuss their findings without strict agency oversight.
The "missing link" may have been discovered, according to The Times:
Scientists have discovered fossils of a 375-million-year-old fish [with feet-fins], a large scaly creature not seen before, that they say is a long-sought missing link in the evolution of some fishes from water to a life walking on four limbs on land.
SLITHER
Director James Gunn talks with Moviehole. Fave bit:
Tell us about the hardest day on the shoot
We shoot a lover's quarrel of sorts between Starla Grant (Elizabeth Banks) and her husband Grant Grant (Michael Rooker). It's like any other argument between a husband and a wife, except that Grant takes up half the house at that point and has many enormous tentacles growing from him. 95% of what makes the scene work are the performances between the two actors, but 95% of dealing with the scene on set was trying to get the fucking puppeteered tentacles to move right, and feeling sorry for poor Michael Rooker in this agonizing makeup.
SMALLVILLE
A federal judge in Los Angeles has found that Smallville may be infringing on the copyrights held by the widow and daughter of Jerome Siegel, Superboy creator for DC Comics. This means that the original suit, filed in 2004, will probably go to trial.
STAR TREK
Mambo has a retro review of DS9's "Rocks and Shoals."
Tokyopop will publish its first volume of Star Trek manga this September as part of the 40th anniversary celebration of Trek. Creators include Chris Dows, Gregory Johnson, Jeon-Mo Yang, Jim Alexander, Joshua Ortega, Michael Shelfer, Mike Barr and Rob Tokar. The 192-page volume (MSRP $9.99) carries an age rating of 13+.
SciFiBrain has an article on Bethesda Softworks’ latest efforts: Star Trek: Legacy and Star Trek: Tactical Assault.
STAR WARS
TheForce.net has a report on the exhibition Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination.
SneakPeak at Hallmark's Christmas Ornaments 2006 Collection.
STARGATE
IESB has a video interview up with Robert Picardo about his future in the recurring role of Richard Woolsey, who will be featured heavily next season in the Pegasus galaxy. Fave bit: "I'm a bad guy who means well."
Stargate-sg1 has an interview up with Lynn Smith, who talks about the difficulties of finding shooting locales. Fave bit:
S-p.de: What's your favorite location?
LS: Studio/Stage of course, that's a nice easy day for an L.M. HA! HA! I enjoyed shooting 1969 it was fun, fun, fun and silly, silly, silly, but I liked blowing up things and I like challenges so I liked when we blew up the house (and the owners had just renovated). It all went very smooth, of course Wray Douglas and his team (special effects) are theee best in the city, so thank them I guess.
X-MEN
IGNFilmForce has an article on the role of Wolverine in the next film:
The scene takes place at night on Alcatraz. Magneto, you see, has taken one end of the bridge and attached it to the island. Where the roadway meets the land is a panorama of destruction - an ascending bluff of fragmented concrete, with automobiles upended and crushed within. As the scene is filmed, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine lies on his back in agony, yelling, his blades scraping at the dirt, as McKellan as Magneto holds his gloved hand over him, palm outward. In between shots, Jackman gets to his feet and dusts himself off. "He's destroying me, breaking my pain threshold. I really hate that guy."
Lauren Shuler Donner (producer) speaks with SuperheroHype.com and calls X-Men: The Last Stand "the best of the three." She adds, "Our original goal was to have like 'Star Wars', 'X-Men' 7, 8, 9 and 10 because there are certainly enough comics out there. And of course to have spin-offs. It would be nice as we incorporated new characters into each movie if they could continue to move on." She confirms plans for a Wolverine film.
Check out X-Men: The Official Movie Game preview at IGN.
X-Men: The Last Stand hopes to have you sitting in theatres May 26
BLOG: Young Frankenstein: The Musical
NEWS BITS
One of the following news items is false. Can you spot it? (For the answer, highlight below.)
Reveal the fake (highlight): Evidently realizing the need to laugh at himself a little, Tim Cruise will have a cameo on Scary Movie 4, playing a guy handing out leaflets for you-know-what at the airport. (Tom Cruise?? Laugh at himself??)
INSANE TREK TRIVIA
This Week's Question: What episode of which show is the first time we hear about
"gold-pressed latinum"?
Send your answer to scifi@about.com. All
correctly answering trivia maniacs will have their names mentioned in the next
newsletter. 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: What Trek character sings "Old Black Magic"?
Answer: [Yes, this was a trick question.] Both Seven of Nine and the Doctor
sing "That Old Black Magic": Seven in the holodeck while believing she's Mlle
le Neuf in "The Killing Game" and Doc to cover for the failing Kimtones in "Virtuoso."
First winner
evay
For her request, evay would like people to suggest entries for a BSG2K drinking game. *evil cackle*
BLOG: CHECK OUT THIS WEEK'S CAPTION CONTEST WITH DR WHO
BLOG: TOP SF/F MOVIES, SHOWS,
BOOKS & DVDS FOR THE WEEK
"LETTERS TO THE EDITOR"
This week's topic: Is the whole vampire horror genre about played out?
***
Actually, there have been some intriguing ideas out there about vampires (i.e., the British series Ultraviolet) folding the fantasy construct of vampires into a sci-fi universe. Unfortunately, many of these ideas have been embedded in crappy movies (Underworld, Dracula 2000). Hopefully, someone will figure out how to put spiffy new variations on the vampire myth into a film that also features a compelling plot, intriguing characters and, I dunno, actual scares! Most of the recent vampire flicks have been action films. How about concentrating on the truly creepy and disturbing idea that your dead loved one comes back as something not quite alive and wants to turn you into a vampire? The last time anyone did that was in Frank Langella's Dracula, when they made Lucy into Van Helsing's daughter and he had to stake her. Why not explore the idea from the viewpoint of someone actually becoming a vampire and the horror of being dead and ruled by an ungodly hunger? What is it like to see your family or lover and see them primarily as food? There have been hints of this in various movies but they can't seem to get past the "being a vampire is cool" idea. Why not do a vampire film as a psychological horror piece, a character study of damnation? Come on, Hollywood; be creative!
***
I'll go for a yes, the genre is just about played out. There's only so many original stories you can base around a particular thing before it gets repetitive - yes, the specific events may change but the underlying themes don't. Vampire films are no exception. What I do feel let down by is the Blade trilogy of films. These are arguably the best films in terms of updating the whole genre and bringing it into the 21st century. But what on earth happened with Blade Trinity? The good bits were very good indeed but there were also some fairly awful and cheesy bits which didn't work so that, while it could have gone out on a real high and left little chance of being bettered by another film in the near future, it just left me a little... unfulfilled.
So yes, the genre is virtually played out, but there's still room there for that one exceptional film to put a stake through the heart once and for all....
***
Next week's topic: Who's the best sci-fi and/or fantasy author out there working right now?
***
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.)
HAILING FREQUENCIES CLOSED
Visit the "Hailing Frequencies" Archive
http://scifi.about.com/blhailarchive.htm
Julia Houston
Sci-Fi/Fantasy Guide @ About.com
scifi@about.com