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New Trailer For Adywan’s Empire Strikes Back Revisited!
Feb 17th
Many of you have probably heard of Star Wars The Phantom Edit. The Phantom Edit is a fan edited version of The Phantom Menace. Why edit the movie? Because many of you have the talents and abilities to do so. Many people didn’t like Star Wars Episode I, so they have since edited the movie the way they like it, usually featuring less Jar Jar.
While tracking down some fan edits of The Phantom Menace (after watching Star Wars Episode I – The Rise of the Sith by Slumberland) I came across what I consider to be the best fan edited movie I have ever seen. The guy goes by the name Adywan. I learned about this guy while visiting the forums at originaltrilogy.com.
This guy created his own edit of Star Wars A New Hope named Star Wars Revisited. He has re-edited scenes, added music, added planets and many special effects. The end battle scene at the death star is stunning. I highly recommend that you torrent Star Wars Revisited and watch it for yourself. I got mine in xvid format at mininova.org. I would like to state, however, that you should legally own a copy of Star Wars ANH before downloading the torrent. Who doesn’t? 
You can see a trailer for Star Wars Revisited here:
I just came across a new trailer for Empire Strikes Back Revisited. There is also a forum discussing the new edit you can find here. My hopes are pretty high for this one and I am certain the quality will be just as good, if not better, than Star Wars Revisited. Adywan, you’re a bloody genius!
Empire Strikes Back Revisited Trailer:
In Need Of Last-Minute Sci-Fi Gifts?
Dec 21st
For those of you who celebrate Christmas, there are only a few days left. Have you gotten your friend or loved one a Sci-Fi gift yet? If not, here are some great TV, Movie, Video Game and Book suggestions.
Recommended Sci-Fi TV Seasons:
1. Star Trek the Next Generation (TNG)
2. Star Trek the Original Series (TOS)
3. Firefly
4. Stargate SG1
5. Stargate Atlantas
6. Futurama
7. Babylon 5
8. Doctor Who
9. The X-Files
10. Battlestar Galactica
Recommended Sci-Fi Movies:
1. Star Wars Movies
2. Galaxy Quest
3. Chronicles of Riddick
4. Star Trek Movies
5. Planet of the Apes
6. Dune
7. Blade Runner
8. Terminator Movies
9. Alien Movies
10. The Matrix Trilogy
Recommended Sci-Fi Video Games (For Current Generation Systems):
1. Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
2. Unreal Tournament 3 (PS3)
3. Mass Effect (Xbox 360)
4. Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360)
5. BioShock (Xbox 360)
6. Gears of War (Xbox 360)
7. Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
8. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii)
9. Crysis (PC)
10. Galactic Civilization II: Dark Avatar (PC)
Recommended Sci-Fi Books:
1. Dune
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
3. The Time Machine
4. 2001 – A Space Odyssey
5. Fahrenheit 451
6. Ender’s Game
7. 1984
8. Foundation Trilogy
9. Starship Troopers
10. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?
Good luck! I’m sure any true Sci-Fi fan would be happy with any of the above listed movies, TV shows, games and books. The games may be a little more difficult as you need a specific console to play them. The books, movies and TV shows are a pretty safe bet. Merry Christmas!
Blade Runner Now In HD – Today!
Dec 18th
It’s dark, a little dreary and one of the most enjoyable Sci-Fi movies made in the 80′s. Blade Runner was released today in all its glory in high definition on Blue Ray and HD DVD. You can pick up a couple different versions of this movie today. You can choose from the five-disk Complete Collector’s Edition or the five-disk Ultimate Collectors Edition.
The Ultimate Edition comes in a replica of Rick Deckard’s briefcase. Also included is a lenticular motion film clip from the original feature, miniature origami unicorn figurine, miniature replica spinner car, and collector’s photographs, as well as a signed personal letter from Sir Ridley Scott.
This movie also features the actress Sean Young, who many of you may remember as Chani from the 1984 classic Dune. Sean plays the lovely replicant Rachael. Can you believe this movie takes place in 2019, just 11 years away? We have a lot of catching up to do if we are to have replicants in time for 2019! I really enjoy seeing writers’ and directors’ visions of the future, even if it is often now in our past or in the not too distant future.
Is The Gears Of War Movie To Become A Reality?
Dec 8th
Gears Of War is considered to by many to be one of the best video games ever produced. Released in 2006, its stunning graphics on the Xbox 360 make it a high-def must for any hardcore gamer. The storyline is great and the cinematic are awesome. It’s no surprise that New Line Cinema purchased the rights to produce a movie based on this hit game.
So what is the status of this movie? It appears to be scheduled for a 2009 release, according to the IMDB, but many rumors are circulating around the Internet that Gears of War the movie may be going the way of the Halo movie. Enormous budgets, fears of lost money and other issues seem to be plaguing the movie. I’m happy to say that I think the movie will still become a reality, and here’s why.
It all started with the announced back on March 10, 2007 that New Line Cinema had purchased the rights to the movie. Stuart Beattie, one of the best writers in current cinema, was hired to write the movie script. Stuart Beattie has written scripts for movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, 30 Days of Night and more. I should also mention that he is currently writing the script for Spy Hunter and G.I. Joe. You can read a lot about what Stuart Beattie has to say about Gears of War here.
Watch what Cliffy B has to say about the movie:
Len Wiseman was to direct the movie, but this appears to still be in limbo. He is a genius, directing Underworld, Underworld: Evolution and Live Free or Die Hard. All three are great movies and are highly recommended. He was going to also direct the remake of Escape from New York, but was recently replaced by Brett Ratner. Perhaps this will free up more time for Gears of War.
LatinoReview managed to get their hands on a 22-page draft of the movie written by Stuart Beattie. They have since leaked the draft and have posted it on their Web site. Be aware that there are spoilers. The ultimate draft will more than likely change quite a bit. You can read the draft here.
When talking about Len Wiseman being replaced as director, IESB.net had this to say about the future of the Gears of War movie and Len Wiseman:
Does this mean Len Wiseman will now be moving forward with the highly anticipated Gear of War film? Nope, the IESB has been informed Wiseman is off Gears as well*** and that New Line Cinema will most likely not move forward with the film at all. Our source is saying that the studio has concerns with ballooning budget of the film.
Video game adaptations are not proven blockbusters the way comic book films have become in the last 10 years. Studios have a hard time gambling $100 million dollars plus to a genre that has not been able to break out of the “Uwe Boll” stereotypes.
The best hope that future video game films may have, and this is totally IMO, is to have Michael Bay make Prince of Persia after he is done with Transformers 2 and prove that a video game movie can make $300-400 million in worldwide box office receipts.
Until then be prepared for less than mediocre video game films with hacks as directors.”
I’m not entirely sure where these guys are getting the idea that video game adaptations are not proven blockbusters. I don’t believe there have been enough video game adaptations to warrant this view. It is also false that Wiseman is “off Gears as well.” Although his position as director appears to be in limbo, it looks like he may still with the project.
According to Cineplex.com, Cliffy B seems to still be optimistic that the Gears of War movie will become a reality. He says in an interview posted on the site:
Slamming the lid on the rumours to the contrary, Clifford Bleszinski (alias ‘CliffyB’) wants fans to know that the ‘Gears of War’ movie is still alive and well. It is in the development phase and moving ahead on all fronts.
“We are currently at the point where we have had a couple drafts of the script and now we are talking to different directors and trying to feel out who would be the best fit for it,” Bleszinski told Cineplex Entertainment while he was in Toronto promoting the Windows PC release of ‘Gears of War’.
I certainly hope this movie becomes I reality. I will try to keep you all posted on the status of this movie as information becomes available.
Starship Troopers: Marauder – A Third Starship Troopers Movie!
Dec 4th
Starship Troopers (Special Edition) is easily in my top 20 Sci-Fi movies of all time. I know the plot is fairly simple and parts of it are just plain stupid, yet it’s awesome! I love watching the troopers in training, the battle with the bugs and the great action shots. I really appreciated Casper Van Dien as Johnny Rico and Denise Richards wasn’t too hard on the eyes either.
Not soon after the movie came out I discovered Roughnecks – The Starship Troopers Chronicles – The Complete Campaigns. I ordered a copy of it on Amazon and now have in my Sci-Fi DVD collection. For the time, the CGI was pretty good. All the episodes were pretty fun to watch, if not for anything else it gave more background on the Starship Troopers world.
Soon thereafter, in 2004, came Starship Troopers 2 – Hero of the Federation. What a huge disappointment. That piece of junk wouldn’t even qualify as a bad horror movie. I have seen some pretty bad Sci-Fi movies and this is right at the top. If you haven’t seen it already, don’t even bother. You’ll thank me. Johnny Rico and the others aren’t in it and the acting is atrocious.
Brenda Strong, who played Captain Deladier in the first Starship Troopers, was the only original cast member to come back. The only thing is that she came back as a completely different character.
After ST2 I was pretty bummed out. I have since discovered that a Starship Troopers 3 is being produced. At first I was afraid this would be another direct to DVD piece of garbage, but Casper Van Dien is coming back! This means I will be seeing it regardless of how bad it may be.
Jolene Blalock, known as Sub-Commander T’Pol to my fellow Star Trek buddies, will be co-starring with Van Dien as Captain Lola Beck.
I’m not aware of an official release date, but I have heard that filming has been going on in South Africa. According to the IMDB it is in pos-production. It will be released direct to DVD.
Casper Van Dien hasn’t had anything too big on his plate lately, except some so-so “Made for Sci-Fi” channel movies. This is probably a pretty good career move for him.
The new Starship Troopers 3 movie, known as Starship Troopers: Marauder, is about Johnny Rico who is now colonel. There will supposedly be a new villain bug, similar to the brain bug from the first movie.
You can read some informational interviews over at StarshipTroopers3.net.
Logan’s Run – A Great Sci-Fi Movie – Remake Coming?
Nov 23rd
It is funny what PG movies were able to get a way with back then. I had no idea about the nudity when watching it on TV (being that it was edited) and was a little surprised watching it with my wife for the first time on DVD, especially being PG.
I have never read the book itself, and probably should. I have read online and elsewhere that the movie only loosely follows the book. Roger M. Wilcox has created a great side-by-side comparison between the book and the movie which you can find here.
I had no idea that there was a TV series about the book/movie until I was talking about it with some friends and one of them asked me what I thought about the TV series. I’ll have to see if I can get a hold of it. I suspect the TV series was pretty low budget, especially since they supposedly recycled clips from the movie for the TV show.
You’ll notice that the 1976
Joseph Kosinski is now signed up as the current director of the remake. I have no idea what credentials this guy has and there appears to be nothing on him in the IMDB. The movie now appears to be scheduled for release in 2010. Who knows if it will ever really happen. I sure hope it does, but with the juggling act that has gone on so far I really don’t know for sure.
Riddick Revisited: The Chronicles of Riddick – Possible Sequel?
Nov 18th
There are few movies that get my sci-fi blood pumping more than The Chronicles of Riddick and Pitch Black. Both of these movies have great plots, lots of great action and hold true to the way sci-fi should be. The entire universe of Riddick is rich and not only includes the two movies, but also a hit video game (The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay) and an animated short film called The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury.
Sadly (chuckling) I own three copies of The Chronicles of Riddick on DVD including the The Original Release, the The Unrated Director’s Cut and the Riddick Trilogy. I even purchased the animated film The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury before I discovered it was bundled with the Riddick Trilogy. Surely I’ve spent enough money to fund a third Riddick movie!
A sequel would be nice. Unfortunately the movie The Chronicles of Riddick bombed in the theaters, temporarily holding back the reigns on a possible sequel. The movie also got mixed reviews, which I still don’t understand. The movie cost $105 million to make and only made $115 globally. Luckily it appears that DVD sales, video game sales and merchandise have helped make the movie profitable.
There hasn’t been much information for a possible sequel, but I feel pretty good that it will happen. I’ll explain why. Back in 2006 ComingSoon.net featured an interview from Vin Diesel where he briefly talked about the possibility of a sequel. This is an excerpt from ComingSoon.net:
The ever so accommodating and entertaining Diesel was rather amusing and answered all of our questions without hesitation until I asked about “Riddick.” Oops, guess I unknowingly touched a nerve. Sorry about that Vin. But, he was very gracious and finally talked about it but only after he put his head in hands and sighed for a couple of minutes.
“My God. You know, now that you said that… I haven’t… Right before I did ‘Riddick,’ I would look in the mirror and I’d see two blue eyes staring back at me. So I haven’t seen that for a while. [laughs] But it’s coming. It took me five years to make ‘The Chronicles of Riddick,’ and [I'm] very precious about it. It went through many, many, many writers. Hopefully it won’t take five years for the next one. But when I was in the process of creating this mythology for ‘Chronicles of Riddick,’ the idea was to create a story, a trilogy, that would start at the end of ‘Pitch Black’ in the same way that ‘Lord of the Rings’ is a trilogy that starts at the end, essentially, of ‘The Hobbit.’ So I wanted ‘The Hobbit’… I wanted ‘Pitch Black’ to be ‘The Hobbit’ to ‘The Chronicles of Riddick.’ I wrote a storyline, essentially, that covered three pictures, so where Riddick goes in the next two pictures is already mapped out. It’s not in script form, but it is being all developed, and it is going to surface when you least expect it.”
It is rumored that The Chronicles of Riddick sequel will cover the Underverse and that the third Chronicles movie will feature a return to Furya.
Those comments aren’t the only reasons I suspect their will be a Riddick sequel. In Hollywood it all boils down to money. Will a sequel be profitable? I mentioned earlier in in this post the video game The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay. This game was reviewed well and became an Xbox platinum hit. I enjoyed playing the game apart from the language being too strong for my taste.
There appears to be enough interest in the Riddick world/games that a second game is being released for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. This new Riddick game is called The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. The new game even has it’s own site up from Sierra Games (www.riddickgame.com). This game is also to include a cleaned up version of Butcher Bay.
Gamespot.com says about the game:
“This isn’t a case when we took the old-gen game and up-rezed it,” said Wanat. “All the textures are being redone so it truly looks like a next-gen game.” The producer also confirmed that developer Starbreeze, Universal Pictures, and Tigon Studios–Vin Diesel’s game company–are all collaborating on the new game. Diesel himself is also doing new voice work for the expanded storyline.
Wanat also confirmed that the PS3 version of the game will take advantage of the console’s motion-sensing Sixaxis controller. He called the controller “totally perfect” for the game’s shiv-based prison combat, but did not elaborate. Wanat also dodged questions about whether or not Assault on Dark Athena would have a multiplayer component, saying only “it would be beneficial if it did in the era of Xbox Live.”
[UPDATE 2] Early Wednesday, Sierra formally announced Assault on Dark Athena–and answered some of the questions Wanat left hanging. The game will indeed “for the first time in the Riddick universe, take action in intense multi-player combat.” Sierra clarified that said MP mode would be online-enabled. Both the 360 and PS3 editions of Dark Athena will be released later this year.
Sierra also revealed some plot details about the game. “The game introduces the ominous Merc-ship Dark Athena, which sits silent like a marauding spider, awaiting helpless prey in the dark reaches of the galaxy,” the publisher said in a statement. “Players must face a large, bloodthirsty operation led by the dreaded Captain Revas and her slaves-turned-controllable combat drones, storm though death-defying events and fight fierce enemies in a battle of malice and gore.”
In conclusion, I think the stars may be aligning themselves in favor of the Riddick universe. Here’s to hoping there’s a sequel in the very near future!
Best Sci-Fi Video Game to Movie Adaptations
Nov 17th
It’s seems like it is hard to do, and it rarely turns out well. The video games we love to play, for some reason, don’t seem to adapt well to movies. Movies, however, have been turned into some good video games.
There are many examples of sci-fi video games that did not turn out well on the silver screen. My favorite example of the absolute failure to adapt a sci-fi video game to movie is the flop Wing Commander. What a great video game and what a complete waste of my time to watch in the theater.
The other day Wing Commander was on TV and I thought I would try stomaching another try at it. I lasted about 15 minutes and had to change the channel. This is coming from someone who loves to watch cheesy sci-fi movies like Enemy Mine, Soylent Green
There have been some decent sci-fi movies that have been turned into games. There aren’t many sci-fi video game to movie adaptations however. Keep in mind that there are some good video game adaptations, but I am specifically talking about sci-fi video games.
My top two favorite sci-fi video game adaptations have to be Resident Evil, which is a sci-fi/horror and Doom, which is also a sci-fi/horror. Both of these movies were exciting, enjoyable and kept me on the edge of my seat. It also helps that these movies used great actors and actresses such as The Rock, Carl Urban and Milla Jovovich. By the way Milla, congrats on the new baby (born November 3, 2007).
I need to give an honorable mention to Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within. That was a good adaptation and a fun movie to watch as well.
What sci-fi games should be made into a movie? There are a lot out there. A movie based on StarCraft would be very fun. How about Contra? Even a Metroid movie would be fun to watch.
And what about Halo? That movie has great potential. First it was official, then canceled and now it seems it may still yet become a reality. Gears of War is another video game that is slated to become a movie in the near future (2009).
No matter what you think about sci-fi video games, they have a large fan base. Something Halo 3 has proved to Hollywood is that as video games make a lot of money. There is plenty of money to be made in making those games into movies. There is already a guaranteed fan base, and as long as the movie is well made, it will be very profitable.
Here Comes Battlestar Galactica: Razor
Nov 15th
The new version of Battlestar Galactica has to be one of the most innovative and exciting sci-fi shows I have seen on TV in years. I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed a sci-fi TV series like this since Star Trek The Next Generation.
The stories are good, although they can be a bit soap opera-ish at times. I loved how Star Trek TNG would begin an episode and typically end. Battlestar Galactica can drag on for several episodes. With that little bit of criticism put aside, it is visually stunning and exciting to watch.
The new season is about to start and should begin airing on the 24th of November. A total of 22 episodes have been scheduled for season four. The first two episodes of the fourth season will be Battlestar Galactica: Razor, which is a two-part episode that will be released to DVD on the 4th of December. Fans were allowed to vote on the cover, which is a nice tribute to the fans. You can pick up your copy here: Battlestar Galactica – Razor (Unrated Extended Edition)
Battlestar Galactica: Razor will cover the adventures of the Pegasus, which was seen in past episodes of Battlestar Galactica. This should be very exciting. It is supposed to cover the survival of the Pegasus against the Cylons during the beginning of the war. So why is it called RAZOR?
Lee Adama’s new XO, Major Kendra Shaw, is plagued by memories of her service and sacrifices under Admiral Helena Cain, who was able to save her ship during the Cylon attack — but only by making Shaw and her fellow officers rationalize suicidal battle tactics and brutal war crimes against their own people.
In the crucible of war, Shaw must let her hesitation and doubts burn away, until all that remains of her is the honed edge of a living human weapon — what Colonial veterans call “a razor.” But an edge so fine cuts in more than one direction. It can cleave an enemy to pieces … or it can carve away a person’s soul.
I especially love seeing Michelle Forbes play Admiral Helena Cain. You may remember her as Ensign Ro Laren from Star Trek TNG. She sure call play a total witch!
I can’t wait. The premier is just nine days away!
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