Screenhead

So the crew out at The Asylum dropped me a copy of Megafault, part of the Sci-Fi Channel (I will NOT call it SyFy)’s big lineup of generally horrendous disaster movies.

And as it turns out, it’s nowhere near as bad as I was expecting.

In this one, horrible science combines with B-list actors to bring us the Megafault, a geological phenomenon that suggests a never before seen fault so large it runs the breadth of the United States from roughly West Virginia to the Ring of Fire.  And after a round of dynamite in some mountaintop removal work, somehow, the fault activates (they don’t really explain this well at ALL) and starts tearing hell out of the United States.  So now, the government’s got to find a way to fix this before half the country is torn apart.

I say that Megafault isn’t really a bad movie; it’s just kind of confused.  See, it watches like it was scripted by a really, REALLY overstimulated twelve year old who just started screaming plot elements whilst on a Mountain Dew and Pixy Stix rush.

Things seem to happen almost at random with this one, explosions, people falling into fault lines, people bursting into flame, the world’s biggest avalanche…and all of it seemingly in aid of an absolutely ridiculous core concept.  It’s fun, just like watching that overstimulated twelve year old run around would be fun.  But you wouldn’t want to have to take him home with you either.

Thus, the Screenhead Ten Scale admits that it had a good if confused time, ignores the godawful science involved with this (seriously, even Doctor Venture would know this was a dumb idea) and gives it a fair-enough six out of ten.

Twitch found this trailer at Apple and brought it to my attention.  It’s worth a look and has an interesting premise. I am not sure if LOVE is just a flow of consciousness or a steady take on the horrific situation an astronaut is confronted with — his space station has become stranded. He’s lost in orbit and slowly the life support system of the space stations dwindles down as he loses his sanity.   I dig the music by Angels and Airwaves.

No, seriously–aliens.  Yes, I find myself just as horrified to pass on this newsy bit to you, but apparently the film remake of the Hasbro board game will actively involve ALIENS.

Now, there’s no real word in what SENSE aliens are involved in this one, whether they come down to earth to join in some naval warfare or the whole thing’s suddenly a science fiction movie (which, admittedly, is at least kind of cool–we don’t get a whole lot of movies that feature space opera elements), but that’s the last word–that aliens were involved.

On the one hand, it’s not like I was expecting all that much out of the Battleship movie to begin with.  It’s a movie about a board game.  How much COULD it do?  But I do have some high hopes–we could get something really impressive out of this.  Think Wing Commander, only, you know, good.

We’ll have a long wait to find out, though, and hopefully when we do, it’ll turn out for the best.

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.