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Archive for November, 2007
Captain Pike Cast For Star Trek XI
Nov 8th
This will be a short entry, but today a new character was cast for the new Star Trek XI movie. I have already talked about previous cast members in earlier posts, but apparently Captain Christopher Pike, a character from the original Star Trek Pilot and the Menagerie will be in the new Movie. He will be played by Bruce Greenwood.
Although I’ll not dwell on it too much, the writers from the AP that wrote this article weren’t big Star Trek fans. First they say Christopher Pike is the first Star Trek captain when we all know it is Captain Johnathan Archer. They are probably refering to the first Star Trek captain in chronological order as they appeared on TV.
The second error they make is they say Leonard Nimoy’s character Spock is the only character to survive the original pilot “The Cage.” Although this is technically true, Majel Barrett, who also starred in The Cage also went on to play Nurse Christine Chapel, Lt. M’Ress (cartoon), Lwaxana Troi, several computer voices and more.
Also of note is that Leonard Nimoy will be making an appearance in the new movie. Unfortunately it looks like William Shatner will not be in the new movie according to CNN.
I haven’t been this excited for a movie in a while. JJ Abrams will be directing it. Although I am not very familiar with him, he did direct Mission Impossible III which was pretty good. I hope to see you all there come December 25, 2008.
Looking For Free Sci-Fi Movies?
Nov 7th
Being a sci-fi fan, I can’t discount the importance the sometimes bad “B” movies from the 50′s and 60′s had in shaping the sci-fi we have today. Although many of these movies are obviously low budget, some of them are still pretty fun to watch. You can actually find a lot of these movies in the public domain for free.
Because these movies are public domain, the copyright have expired or for some other reason the movie is no longer copyright protected. You can actually do a Google Video search for some of these movies. Many of these movies are full-length.
Looking for a movie to watch right now? Plan 9 from Outer Space is a popular sci-fi classic that can be viewed right here. What is Plan 9 from Outer Space? The plot outline from the IMDB is:
“Can your heart stand the shocking facts about Graverobbers from Outer Space?” That’s the question on the lips of the narrator of this tale about flying saucers, zombies and cardboard tombstones. A pair of aliens, angered by the “stupid minds” of planet Earth, set up shop in a California cemetery. Their plan: to animate an army of the dead to march on the capitals of the world. (The fact that they have only managed to resurrect three zombies to date has not discouraged them.) An intrepid airline pilot living near the cemetery must rescue his wife from this low-budget terror. “Can you prove it *didn’t* happen?”
Bored at home or have nothing to do at work? Watch the movie right now! Enjoy! Hopefully it isn’t too painful for you. 
Remember, you can stop the movie at any time.
High Definition For Your Sci-Fi Movies?
Nov 5th
This isn’t news to anyone in the know, but high definition TVs are flying off the shelves at record rates. As you unpackage your new LCD, plasma or projection high-def television, you’re probably thinking of all the new things you can do with it. You probably want to get the most out of your new television.
Getting high-def cable or satellite isn’t an issue right now. In fact, it is really easy to upgrade or purchase a new receiver for your high-def TV. It looks good and you can begin watching sci-fi TV. Great! But what do you do about your DVD player?
Right now there is a huge format war going on between HD DVD and Blue-Ray DVD. Unfortunately this makes getting the most out of your new high-def TV confusing, especially as to which format you should use.
HD DVD came out before Blue-Ray and got a head start in the format war. With the release of the PlayStation 3, the market was flooded with new Blue-Ray players, allowing Blue-Ray to catch up. Blue-Ray now outsells HD DVD 2:1 according to CNet’s News.com.
In case you didn’t know, Blue-Ray is developed and supported by Sony, the people who brought you Betamax and Mini Disk players. HD DVD is developed and supported by Toshiba, the people who brought you the technology behind the standard-resolution DVD player.
Recently HD DVD saw a spike in sales thanks to the release of Transformers the movie, released by Paramount, who only puts movies out on HD DVD. The most recent Transformers movie has sold over 100,000 HD DVDs, a record for any high-definition video format.
Right now Paramount and Dreamworks exclusively releases movies on HD DVD. Blockbuster will only rent Blue-Ray disks. Confused yet? I’m sure you are. A similar format war almost happened with the standard DVD format. Wikipedia says:
In the early 1990s two high-density optical storage standards were being developed; one was the MultiMedia Compact Disc, backed by Philips and Sony, and the other was the Super Density disc, supported by Toshiba, Time Warner, Matsushita Electric, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Pioneer, Thomson, and JVC. IBM’s president, Lou Gerstner, acting as a matchmaker, led an effort to unite the two camps behind a single standard, anticipating a repeat of the costly videotape format war between VHS and Betamax in the 1980s.
Philips and Sony abandoned their MultiMedia Compact Disc and fully agreed upon Toshiba’s SuperDensity Disc with only one modification, namely changing to EFMPlus modulation. EFMPlus was chosen as it has a great resilience against disc damage such as scratches and fingerprints. EFMPlus, created by Kees Immink, who also designed EFM, is 6% less efficient than the modulation technique originally used by Toshiba, which resulted in a capacity of 4.7 GB as opposed to the original 5 GB. The result was the DVD specification, finalized for the DVD movie player and DVD-ROM computer applications in December 1995.[1] In May 1997, the DVD Consortium was replaced by the DVD Forum, which is open to all other companies.
Hopefully something will eventually happen to unite the current two HD formats. Until then what should you do?
Like me, you probably already have a few sci-fi movies you like to watch. Perhaps you don’t want to fork out the money to purchase new HD DVD disks. Have you considered DVD upscaling? DVD upscalers can take your current DVDs, and with some processing power, increase the picture quality for your new HD TV.
Wikipedia says this about DVD upscaling:
Upscaling DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) Players are a reasonably cheap way of upscaling standard DVD-Video discs using a video scaler to match the pixel count of the signal to the physical pixel count on a high-definition television or computer monitor, resulting in better detail and color consistency. Standalone DVD players which feature upscaling use either a standard component video or VGA analog cable, or a DVI-D or HDMI digital cable to connect to the high-definition television. Standalone DVD players with component video or VGA output connectors use a digital-to-analog integrated circuit microchip which does the upscaling, while DVD players with DVI-D or HDMI output connectors use a digital-to-digital integrated circuit microchip which does the upscaling. Computer software DVD-Video players like PowerDVD and WinDVD also features upscaling of DVD-Video.
I am considering going with DVD upscaling for video playback until the format wars are over, someone has won or there is a good duel-format player available. DVD upscaling players are widely available and can be purchased at any electronics store as a stand-alone unit. Most DVD upscaling players use an HDMI cable for video output. I have seen these players in action and the picture quality looks very good.
My Xbox 360 can use an optional HD DVD player, at a price of about $179, that will not only play HD DVD disks, but will also upscale existing DVDs. The PlayStation 3 also touts the ability to upscale DVDs as well.
Good luck in your search for the ultimate DVD player and sci-fi movie experience!
Getting The Most From Your Sci-Fi Movie
Nov 4th
If you’re like me, you probably have wide collection of Sci-Fi DVD movies that are sitting around and collecting dust. You may have watched them once and set them to the side. I even have some movies I purchased, intending to watch them, that are still sitting around in shrink wrap.
There are a few things you can do to give your movie an extended life. The first thing I recommend is to do some research on bloopers in the movie. I love to go to the IMDB and look up a movie and read through the “goofs” as they are called. This is a collection of continuity issues, bloopers and other inconsistencies. This can be fun after watching a movie, or when re-watching a movie that has been sitting around.
A good example of this would be Star Wars. That movie, although a favorite, is filled with continuity issues, errors and bloopers. This is to be expected as many movies are filmed out of sequence and editing often causes a lot of these bloopers to make it to the final cut. There are even people hired to watch for continuity issues, but some errors still seem to make it through.
Just look up Star Wars on the IMDB. Under “Fun Stuff” they have a link called goofs. You can find Star Wars ANH goofs here. I have yet to find a movie that doesn’t have goofs and continuity issues. Look up Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn. Its has goofs as well. Although this may take away some of the “magic” of the movie, I find it fun to print out a list of goofs and re-watch the movie.
The second thing I recommend doing is looking for “Easter Eggs.” Easter eggs are bloopers, trivia and other tidbits thrown into a movie on purpose. Sometimes Easter Eggs are simply bonus features on a DVD that are not obvious to the viewer. An example of this would be the Star Wars DVDs releases a few years ago. To access the bloopers reel, you have to go through a few steps. The steps are as follows:
Put the bonus disk from the original trilogy into your DVD player and highlight “Video Games and Stills Galleries.”
Using your DVD remote, type the following numbers followed by the “enter” button:
11 (enter)
3 (enter)
8 (enter)
This will then take you to a bloopers reel with about 4 minutes of bloopers from Star Wars ANH, ESB and ROTJ. Please note that the remote control numbers are 1138. This is a number seen throughout the Star Wars movies and is the name of George Lucas’s film THX 1138. A similar Easter Egg can be found on Star Wars TPM, AOTC and ROTS.
There are several places you can go to find Easter Eggs for your movies. I recommend going to DVDEasterEggs.com or EEggs.com. There are many sites and forums out there discussing DVD Easter Eggs.
Have fun re-watching your sci-fi movies!
X-Files 2 Starts Filming Soon
Nov 1st
That’s right! If you were like me during the 90′s, there is a good chance you were a fan of the TV series X-files. There has been talk about a sequel to the 1998 hit X-files movie for years now, but it sounds like it may actually be coming to a reality soon! According to several sources, the movie may begin filming as soon as December 2007.
In a July 2007 interview with Access Hollywood, David Duchovney said:
“I’m supposed to see a script next week,” said Duchovny, adding that “X-Files” creator Chris Carter and series executive producer Frank Spotnitz wrote the screenplay.
The article continues:
The film’s story reportedly will avoid the steep (and oftentimes confusing) “alien conspiracy” mythology developed throughout the series’ nine-season run and in the first film, and will instead focus on a self-contained threat for Mulder and Scully to contend with.
“No, we’re not going into the mythology (in the sequel),” Spotnitz told SciFi.com in May of last year. “One of the things that was exciting about doing it is to not make it a mythology story, and it’s like one of the stand-alone episodes. It’s a bit scary. Of course, we will catch up with the characters and what is going on in their lives, but it’s not about the alien conspiracy. It’s not about that.”
Apparently a big part of the delay was due to a disagreement between Chris Carter and 20th Century Fox Television. A lawsuit was filed in 2005 by Chris Carter due to alleged payments owed to Carter for the television series.
The following was posted yesterday on Gillian Anderson’s official site:
The rumors were right! An “X Files” sequel is headed to theaters next summer, to be released July 25, 2008, Twentieth Century Fox announced today.
The plot is top secret for now.
The studio’s news release said only that “the supernatural thriller is a stand-alone story in the tradition of some of the show’s most acclaimed and beloved episodes, and takes the always-complicated relationship between Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Anderson) in unexpected directions.”
The studio confirmed that shooting will begin in December in Vancouver. The announcement comes after rumors of a sequel hit the web on Monday.
July 2008 isn’t far away and should be a great summer movie. I find it interesting that the plot will not focus on the ongoing Alien Conspiracy seen throughout the TV series. I hope they stick to the original feel the TV series had.
You can read more about the new X-files 2 movie at Countingdown.com.
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