Screenhead

And I don’t mean A Terminator, either.  I mean the whole shooting match. Lock, stock, boxtop and rights.  You too can own the rights to a pretty successful franchise that usually costs plenty to exploit, though it usually makes its money back.

Interestingly, though, Joss Whedon actually made an offer for the Terminator rights, but it was significantly less than the current owners wanted:  a whopping ten grand.

He even had some pretty sweet ideas, including branching out into porn (cue that wa-wa pedal guitar!) and even doing a musical.  He thought twice about the musical, but I say it could work.  I’ve actually got part of the opening song already written and would be happy to contribute for the low, low cost of ten percent of the grosses.  You’re welcome, in advance.

But seriously, this is a move that might actually end well, assuming the right people get a hold of the rights.  I doubt they’ll get the twenty five million they want for them, though.

Ridley Scott is one BUSY individual.  But let’s face facts–the man’s got like thirty hojillion projects in the works right now, so his announcement that he’s considering an Alien prequel needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  A grain of salt about, say, the size of a Buick.

But he’s clearly been thinking it over, and even has some possible strategies.  Dig the word:

“It’s a brand new box of tricks. We know what the road map is, and the screenplay is now being put on paper. The prequel will be a while ago. It’s very difficult to put a year on Alien, but [for example] if Alien was towards the end of this century, then the prequel story will take place thirty years prior.”

There are possibilities here.  After all, I seem to remember that one of the earliest parts of Alien described an alien ship that crash-landed on LV 426.  Checking Wikipedia confirms my scattered memories, so a great point for an Alien prequel would be, what is that ship, and how did it get jam-packed with xenomorphs?

Of course, it’s a fair bet that that’s a Predator ship that was seeding the planet for use as a hunting ground, so they may have already kinda sorta covered that already.  Still though, I find myself plenty interested in where they’re looking to go with this one.

You can see the same trailer today at Apple. Trailer Addict has a decent copy that shows the story that will sell the tickets. This movie is pure entertainment. Awesome!  Enjoy the trailer.

I think I just about swallowed my own tongue when I heard the baffling and downright shocking news that George “Total Wackjob” Lucas was about to stage a new Star Wars trilogy.

But that was what I spotted mere minutes ago, folks, and it’s downright cringe-inducing.

Be advised, however, that this is GOSSIP.  From an outfit called Market Saw comes the following chunklets of possibility:

1. An actual three-part live-action Star Wars series is possibly coming out.

2. George Lucas will NOT be directing said titles. He will be producing only.

3. All three titles would be released in 3-D.

Well…anything’s possible, I suppose.  Considering the sheer amount of money these movies made, and considering the fact that there’s a whole lot of strangeness that could be happening either between episodes Three and Four or after Six or even before One or even at the same time in another part of the Galaxy Far Far Away, well, we could do just about anything with this.  And with George Lucas just signing checks, they might even be good.

I admit that, before I wrote this one up, I had to hit Wikipedia and get better acquainted with the Red Dwarf series.  All I had seen of it was some occasional PBS episodes back in my high school days, and frankly, it looked WAY too low-budget to be entertaining.

Of course, I’ve caught a few more since then, and improved my outlook considerably, but I still needed a refresher going into the newest adventure of the Dwarfers, Red Dwarf: Back To Earth, a copy of which was recently sent my way.

Here, the crew of the Red Dwarf, a mining ship stranded in space for fully three million years following an accident, find themselves in another dimension after an attempt to get home and restart the human race: namely, our own, in which the Dwarfers are the cast of a popular sci-fi sitcom.  They’ve also just found out something horrible–they’re about to be canceled.  Now, can they get their series renewed and get back to the Dwarf?  Or will they share Star Trek’s fate?

This really is good stuff, folks.  Even if you haven’t seen a whole lot of Red Dwarf, you should still be able to appreciate the panoply of jokes thrown at you from the sidelines, and all the extra-strange minutiae isn’t just sci-fi. There’s one great sequence where Lister, quite possibly the last human being alive, commandeers his series’ creator’s typewriter and proceeds to run amok, commanding hologram Rimmer to repeatedly bash his crotch against a writing desk and android Kryten to step on a series of rakes, in the grandest Sideshow Bob tradition.

Yes, Simpsons already did it.  I love subreferences.

Anyway, the Screenhead Ten Scale hands this riotous British sci-fi a full eight out of ten for being obscure yet  hilarious.

Man, when you actually hear this chunk of news, chances are you’ll nod your head in agreement, convinced that you’ve already heard it somewhere, but no.  You heard it here, folks–there’s going to be a special appearance in Tron: Legacy by vaguely electronica group Daft Punk.

No, seriously.  Daft Punk.  You know, that club band everyone was listening to back in the late nineties, early two thousands or so?  They’re not just appearing in it, either, they’re also scoring it.

Just for reference’s sake, I’ve attached a video directly below courtesy of YouTube to give you a better idea who these guys are and why it’s actually terribly appropriate that they show up in a movie like Tron.  Like I said, this is actually a pretty good idea; so much so that you’d almost be convinced you heard it already, it’s just that rational a fit.

Tron: Legacy hits theaters this Christmas where it will likely pound holy hell out of its competition.

Fantastic Fest saw more footage of Avatar and six high-resolution production photos became available at Spoilers TV-Movies.  

Of course, this photo is without special effects, but I thought you’d like to see how everyone looks when they are normal.  For more fantasy-science fiction photos click on Sigourney Weaver.

I walked into Pandorum feeling pretty peppy about the whole affair.  It had been a goodish while since I’d seen an actual space opera in theatres (I seem to remember my last experience with a massive spaceship in theatres as being Event Horizon but that was way back in high school) and so I was definitely looking forward to it.

And then the surprises started.  The interesting thing here, however, is that they did not let up until the very end of the movie, and it is for this reason I’m actually surprised to report that Pandorum kicked a whole lot of ass and I’m actually surprised to BE surprised.

The plot of Pandorum is actually pretty simple–it’s what they DO with it that’ll kill you.  We join a young corporal and his grizzled lieutenant on the flight deck of a massive spaceship that’s probably a few miles long at least.  It’s heading somewhere.  But no one’s sure exactly where because they’ve all been unconscious for who knows how long in hypersleep chambers and they’re just now coming around.  The ship is pitch black, seemingly falling apart…oh, and there’s SOMETHING running around belowdecks.

This bad day in space will only get worse–you may rest entirely assured of that.

And like I said, there will be a whole lot of fantastic surprises, and not just the ones built into the plot, either.  You’ll get an incredible performance from Dennis Quaid who most definitely has still got it.  You’ll discover Cam Gigandet can do more than swishy sparkly vampires.  You’ll discover all sorts of cataclysmic plot twists that will do an excellent job of holding your interest–at least, they held MY interest, and that’s saying something.

But perhaps the most mind-blowing surprise of all is that this really good lump of science fiction glee was brought to us by Paul W.S. Anderson.

You did in fact read that last sentence correctly.  Pandorum, a fantastic sci-fi deep space action flick, is directly connected to Paul “I Turned Resident Evil Into A Slipknot Video” W.S. Anderson.  Of course, he just produced this one, which is awesome as he’s finally found a niche where he can’t ruin perfectly good video games by turning them into godawful movies that are only vaguely related to their original titles.

Of course, the result is that anyone calling this a “Resident Evil in Space” will not be terribly far off, but the combination is surprisingly palatable and plenty of fun.  Call me biased if you must but I’ve always been fond of big ship movies, be they oceanic or interstellar, and Pandorum definitely provided.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands over a full-on nine out of ten for Pandorum, a movie that managed to bring a whole bunch of surprises to the table, defy plenty of expectations, and still managed to let me have  a good time watching.  If you’re even vaguely into science fiction, folks, especially with a little dystopia on the side, well, this one’s definitely for you.

All the time, we see horrible movies that never should have been made.  Some of them are video game conversions, or lousy comic book conversions, or even worse, books made into movies.  Well, I started to think about what books would really do well as movies, assuming they weren’t bungled or handed over to Michael Bay.  Although those two really are the same thing, only just more so.  So anyway, without further introduction, the Top Ten Sci-Fi novels that should be movies.

10. Top Dog / Dog Eat Dog

The two-novel series (that I know of so far) from Jerry Jay Carroll about Bogie Ingersoll, a reviled corporate raider turned into a dog for his refusal to aid a takeover plot by the devil himself.  This would be fantastic for its great action sequences and rich plot and characterization.

9. The Gnomewrench in the Dwarfworks

Back in World War 2, a 4-F fellow still working as a sales rep for a machine shop discovers the eternally feuding world of dwarves and gnomes.  Think about The Hobbit crossed with Pearl Harbor and you’ll understand why I want to see this one on screen.

8. The Wild Cards series

Going back to the eighties, this one assumes that ordinary people get incredible powers when an alien virus reaches earth–or become horribly disfigured. Spanning multiple novels, think of it as Watchmen, only a whole lot more so.

7. Ruled Brittania

An alternate history novel from Harry Turtledove, the king of alternate history, this puts a conquered Britain under the control of the Spanish Armada.  At least, until disaffected elements of the British nobility convince playwright William Shakespeare to write his greatest play–and stir the masses to revolution.  It’s a thrilling novel that would make a thrilling movie!

6. Headcrash

One of my favorite novels, this tale of the not-too-distant future puts a dis gruntled computer nerd up against a massive megacorporation.  Packed with laughs and thrills, you’d have to love this one as a movie.

5. Ender’s Game

We’ve been hearing about this one off and on and off again for years upon, and I for one would love to finally see them actually pull it off this incredible Lord of the Flies meets Battlestar Galactica sort of setup.

4. The Deathstalker Saga

If Twilight can get a saga, then why not Simon Green’s Deathstalker saga, a huge, universe spanning tale of space-based ship battles, swordplay and killer robots?  This practically has nine-picture deal written all over it.

3. California Voodoo Game

I personally can’t believe this one hasn’t been picked up already.  Pitting several teams against each other in an incredible arena of buildings with virtual reality overlays, the game is about to get played…in every possible direction.

2. The Six Families

A three book series that basically boils down to “mobsters on the moon get attacked by aliens repeatedly”, The Six Families does a great job of recasting the Godfather epics to a science fiction field.

1. Star Risk

This just may be one of the greatest series of novels ever.  Focusing on a small troubleshooting corporation, Star Risk, as it goes out on a series of jobs and discovers mayhem, intrigue and opportunities to make money everywhere they go.  This kind of adventure is fantastic for the movies.

There really, REALLY, were a lot of plot holes in Terminator: Salvation–my personal favorite is how Skynet couldn’t manage to make a better Terminator than the Sam Worthington model despite the fact that the Sam Worthington model existed BEFORE Skynet did.  And Sam Worthington, meanwhile, can see all those plot holes himself.  And he hates himself for them.  Check THIS out–oh, I cleaned it up a bit for general consumption, but I think you’ll still follow what’s being said:

“If there was a big 10 ton robot coming outside that gas station, surely we would f**kin’ hear it! And I missed that! So now I’m going to be a bit f**kin’ better when I’m going through my scripts because now I feel like an idiot for not turning to McG [and saying something].”

Of course, some would say that he was possibly encouraged to miss it, by a large paycheck or a role in a big movie, and now he’s coming back to work around the backlash.

But it’s entirely possible that he really DID miss all the plot holes, is actually now contrite and does plan to read his scripts better.  Either way, it’s a pretty entertaining picture that makes great news.