Sci-Fi Storm

This isn’t from some random rumor site. ITV is reporting that the Harry Potter producers have been having trouble finding a replacement for the late Richard Harris, who played Professor Dumbledore in the first two films, and have targeted Sir Ian McKellen – Gandalf of the Lord of the Rings. Warner Bros. is expected to make an announcement after the New Year.

Update 12/30: Well, people are saying that The Sun (about as reliable as Weekly World News here) “broke” this story, so its probably bogus – but most of the refutes I’ve seen seem to be dated prior to this, so they may be refuting the earlier rumor.

Update 12/31: Well, according to E! Online the new Dumbledore is British – and he ain’t McKellen. Michael Gambon (Lyndon Johnson in HBO’s Path to War) is all but confirmed…

Update 1/4:Or not. I give up.

Finally got out to see The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers yesterday. This installment definitely pushes The Lord of the Rings saga into one of the best epics of all time, if not THE best.

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IMDB is awsome. Some times just following the various links you end up finding things you may have forgotten. To wit – I came across this page regarding the Logan’s Run TV series starring Gregory Harrison and Heather Menzies. The series basically “retells” the movie and Logan’s flight from the City of Domes, with a much smaller budget (reusing some shots from the movie). It lasted 14 episodes, and I managed to catch it again some years ago on SCI FI. This excellent synopsis page is by the same person who did the page for yet another obscure show of the past, The Starlost, which we’ve discussed before.

Well, nothing earth-shattering news-wise has taken place, and of course my time is limited in the coming days, so everyone enjoy the holidays…

Christopher Judge, who play’s the Jaffa-in-residence Teal’c on Stargate SG-1, say’s he’s glad for the seventh season in a interview for SCI FI Wire. He says, “So it’s going to be great. I’m just glad all the business stuff worked out.” New episodes begin January 10th at 9pm. And head over to the Stargate SG-1 Store – all 5 individual DVDs for season 2 are available for order (released on Feb. 4th), plus a 2003 Calendar.

Variety has a report that Showtime is looking to order a pilot for a series version of Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions, but budget may be an issue. Also reported is that Odyssey 5 could be on the chopping block because Showtime is gearing up Fridays to have just one SF show, and that is Jeremiah.

Could Max Headroom finds his way back twenty minutes in the future? Matt Frewer, who played Edison Carter and his stammering virtual ego in both british and US version of the show, says he is working on a Max Headroom project, but can’t say much else right now…

Not exactly Earth-shattering – the rumors have been around all weekend – but Jos Whedon has confirmed that Fox has cancelled Firefly. There is hope yet – Fox is letting him shop the show to a new network. In the meantime, production has shut down.

Just a couple of days after I was telling someone how create my DSL line was, DirecTV announced they are shutting down DSL service. I got the service when it was Telocity – $49/month for static IP, 640 down/90 up (which they bumped to 800/160 a while back), no restrictions, no commitment, self-install. And its worked great except for a minor DNS glitch they had (which was solved by running my own…) Now I have to figure out what I’m going to do. Sci-Fi Storm is not tied to that line, but the stores are, so I will be scrambling to deal with it. I may have to go with a Dynamic IP from Verizon, since Covad doesn’t have a DSLAM here…stay tuned.

Jon Casper writes “EDITORIAL REVIEW
The familiar theme of alien invasion is treated in author Michael Kirshteyn?s THE NEUTRINO EFFECT with refreshing optimism and a sure-handed style. Told from the point of view of a Russian Scientist entrepreneur named Vladimir Ustinov, the story takes place in a future some seventy years from now, in which the author speculates that peace among the nations may not be such an outrageous concept.” Read Moe for the rest…

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