VOTE NOW

By now I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors that there may be some new, Razor-style DVD movies in Galactica’s future.  While no official announcement has been made, various sites have reported that NBC/Universal is currently mulling over as many as three new movies.  Since the series finale (which airs sometime in 2009) will bring the saga to a close, educated guesses suggest that these DVDs will take place in the past; but how far back?  Will there be more, untold stories that cover ground between the miniseries and the finale?  How about more backstory for the Final Five?  Perhaps we’ll see the return of Young Adama and the first Cylon War.  Would you like to see Husker turn more old-school Cylons into scrap metal?  I know I would.  Well, your voice can  be heard!  My favorite BSG site, Galactica Sitrep, is running a poll to find out what you  want to see.  I suggest you click over there right now and cast your vote (scroll down a bit and you’ll find the ballot on the right side of the Sitrep homepage).  And if you’d like to see more of our friend in the picture above… you know what to do. 

glowstick warriors

Last year, as part of the Star Wars  Celebration in Los Angeles, collectible prop & model makers Master Replicas held a party at Henson Studios.  Perhaps their most popular item is the Force FX Lightsaber, possibly the single most fun “toy” ever to grace our green Earth (and if you ever played Star Wars as a kid and have yet to buy one of these, trust me – you want one).  The highlight of their party was the Lightsaber competiton, in which dressed-to-impress ultra-nerds duelled each other to the multicolored, LED-strip death.  Naturally, I was there grab photos…

crystal skulls and such

How can you resist a review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull  that begins with “Lucas, Spielberg, Ben Burtt – the legends of film making. The film masters.  Ben Burtt is the guy who did the Lightsaber sounds.” 

Ok, so this video review is from some fifteen year old kid in his basement and I really shouldn’t make fun… but come on:  “I like the fact that in the opening, in the military base, they played that music, like in Raiders of the Lost Ark; I was like man, this really feels like a classic film.”  Click inside and watch the video If you want to know how he drew this conclusion: “I don’t usually give a rating, but Raiders of the Lost Ark, Crystal Skull and Last Crusade are all tied.   And the lowest is Temple of Doom.”

Legostar Galactica – UPDATED!

What do fans do while they wait for new episodes of Galactica?  They make their own BSG playsets out of Legos, of course!  This morning I received an email from my friend Liz, who wanted to share the Lego Viper her ten-year old son had made.  It was quite a complex undertaking for the little Viper-pilot to be, and as I sat back and stared at the Lego Viper that’s been sitting on my  shelf since the start of the third season, I began to wonder: just how many Lego Vipers are out there?

A billion points of light

So literally seconds after I had finished writing a follow-up comment to the post below this one (in which I talked about how, under the right conditions, you can see the cloud of the Milky Way from Earth) I bumped into this picture (yes, that’s real).  But this picture isn’t the story – the real story is that the folks over at GLIMPSE (Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire) have used NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (Hubble’s infrared brother) to create a 5 gigapixel  image of the entire Milky Way galaxy – the largest in history.

BSG VFX: A Thousand Points Of Light

Imagine you’re driving on a moonless night in a desolate area with no street lights.  Now let’s say your car’s headlights don’t work and you’re approaching an 18-wheeler who’s decided to have some fun by turning off all his illumination.  The above image is pretty much the last thing you’d see before a bright, orange and yellow fireball reminds you to get your headlights fixed.  It’s also what you’d see on Battlestar Galactica  if we didn’t put some lights on our spaceships! 

B5 flashback #2: The Forgotten Miniature

Babylon 5  turned the sci-fi world on it’s pointed ear by being the first-ever production to use zeroes and ones instead of film and models to create visual effects.  That’s right, folks, the CGI nightmares you must endure all summer long can be traced back to 1992 in Valenica, California!  Computer effects pioneer Ron Thornton had seen the writing on the wall and convinced Warner Brothers that it was possible to forego plastic spaceships on strings in favor microchips on desktops.  Despite being billed as the first all-CG effects show, Babylon 5  almost had a dirty little secret…

Sci-Ficandy: 1-7-oh-wonderful!

A fistfull of years ago, I did a few covers for Star Trek: The Magazine.  Sadly, this slickly-produced, lovingly written periodical folded in 2003, but as I was digging through my archives (in other words, as I was finally looking to see what was on a bunch of old CD-ROMS entitled “label me”), I ran across the original, hi-res renders created for the publication.   Knowing how bad I am with technology, it’s entirely possible that I put the CD in my drive and accidentally uploaded them to my blog, where anyone can download and enjoy them…  

The Best Star Wars Movie You’ve Never Seen

 

Put a group of Star Wars  fans in a room for long enough and I guarantee the conversation will eventually turn to prequel bashing.  No matter how much time has passed, we just can’t seem to forgive and forget the poodoo that our long-awaited prequels turned out to be.  Personally, I felt Episode Two was the most frustrating; at it’s core, it has a complex plot and compelling story, but the film is so hampered by clumsy dialog, misplaced humor and bloated action sequences it feels like a Robert DeNiro performance trapped inside the body of Pauly Shore. Imagine a version of “Attack of the Clones” where Threepio’s head doesn’t get put on a Battle Droid’s body, Ben never visits a robot burger joint and Anakin makes no reference to “sand”. Well, Jedis and Jedettes, that movie is here and you can watch it now…

happy birthday star wars – updated!

[NOTE: This post has been updated with new goodies – check back as I will continue to update with more material as it comes in]

Today (May 25th) is the 31st anniversary of Star Wars!  It’s time for all good nerds to silently give thanks to George for creating the world we live in.  Without Star Wars, there would be no Battlestar Galactica,  Star Trek might never have come back and flash lights would just be flash lights.  I’m sure in some crazy, parallel universe, George Lucas was killed in that high school car crash and Logan’s Run  had five sequels so, Jar Jar or not, be grateful!  I’ve got a few goodies for you inside to help celebrate…

movie review: indiana jones and the kingdom of the oh whatever

Ok it’s late.  I saw Indy 4 last night (this morning?) at midnight, didn’t get much sleep and spent the whole day hard at work tossing Vipers around and bitching about the movie.   It’s past midnight now so this will be a short, spoiler-free review, but see the picture up above?  That’s basically how I feel about it…

bsg lolcats!

Unless you’ve either been living under a rock or traveling through space looking for Earth, you’re probably familiar with the “lolcat” phenomenon.  Well, Craig from Puntabulous has cooked up a whole series of lolcats in a BSG stylee!  

BSG VFX: “Guess What’s (not) Coming To Dinner”

Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of working on Battlestar Galactica  is the creative freedom we’re given; Ron Moore encourages his team to go the extra mile by always being open to new ideas and concepts.  Many writer/producers expect to see their script produced verbatim on screen,  while Ron sees the entire film making process as very fluid.  In a sense, the final draft of the script  becomes the first draft of the show; on stage, contributions from the cast and director begin to evolve the process, while the editing suite becomes Ron’s typewriter for the final draft of the episode.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Pon Farr Edition)

It seems like only yesterday that a crack team of visual effects artist back at Foundation Imaging embarked on the project of a lifetime – creating a special edition DVD of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  The goal?  To actually finish the movie.  Director Robert Wise was so rushed to get the thing out the door he never felt like the movie was done, so finally, almost 25 years later, Paramount invited him to come back, pick up the pieces and make them all fit right.  One “special feature” that was never going to make it on the DVD is presented here for the first time – proving that even room full of computer nerds have a sense of humor:

More on the making of this clip after you get done choking on your coffee.

happy one-month anniversary!

Isn’t it sickening when someone you know is so head-over-heals for their current fling they go around proudly proclaiming their one month anniversary?  One month?  Gimme a break, I could do a month with Jennifer Aniston if I really had to.   Still, the unbridled enthusiasm of the newly infatuated sure is fun; you see each other all the time, talk incessantly every night and the sex is still great.

stormtroopers drool, cylons rule

WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE?

Oh look, another guy dressed as a Stormtrooper! YAWN!  Ok, we get it.  I mean, does anyone even notice Stormtroopers at conventions anymore?  How many thousands of those black and white Michellin-man wannabes are out there?  The first time I saw one it was cool. Maybe even the fourth and twentieth time. But now? Even fans yell “get a life” at these guys.  But when you’re dressed as a Cylon?  Now that’s style.

MOVIE REVIEW: THE ASSASSINATION OF SPEED RACER

“We come to bury Speed Racer, not to praise him” might as well have been imprinted on the foreheads of critics as they marched into their screenings of the new Wachowski flick. Sure enough, page after page of critical vitriol has been spewed all over this film, creating the widespread perception that Speed Racer is the “must avoid” movie of the summer.

So, it was with little-to-no enthusiasm that the Super Summer Movie Fun Club – Go!  took their seats last weekend, prepared to endure the headache-inducing groan-fest that we’ve all been warned about.