Sci-Fi Storm

There is a Q&A over at The Digital Bits web site about the production of the soon to be released Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace DVD with Lucas and others.

I made a correction to the setup that should now display correct times on articles, based on your time zone preference. It WAS showing about 5 hours behind.

Also, two minor store updates: With the release of Doctor Who DVDs, I’ve added a Doctor Who section to the Sci-Fi TV Store (DVDs only so far), and the Babylon 5 Store had a minor update, now including JMS-related stuff that aren’t strickly Babylon 5, as well as the cover art for the third Techno-mage book.

Update: I’ve also added “UFO” to the Sci-Fi TV store…

Coming Attractions is reporting that a number of movies have been affected by Tuesday’s tragedy. Production on the War of the Worlds remake has been suspended, while Schwarzenegger’s next film, Collateral Damage, scheduled to be released October 5th, will be indefinitely delayed and all advertising removed. All advertising and trialers for Spider-Man has likewise been pulled, having prominantly featured the WTC. And Men in Black 2 was to have shot scenes still in and around Battery Park.

Update: Countingdown is reporting that MiB2 was to have featured the WTC prominently – they are hurrying to rewrite some important scenes.

It’s always difficult to get back into a normal routine after such events, but life does go on. Here is a nutshell report of some of what is going on in Sci-Fi, mostly condensed from Sci-Fi Wire: Buffy‘s James Marsters will guest on Andromeda as Nietzschean; Lucasfilm added $4 million worth of perks for the Episode I DVD; Roxann Dawson (B’Elanna Torres on Star Trek: Voyager) completes directing Enterprise‘s 7th episode; and AICN is offering X-Files spoilers.

I don’t want to reiterate what you already know, but a lot of us have been affected in one way or another by the cowardly attacks. I knew one of the passengers that was on board the first plane. Please focus your thoughts and prayers on the families of the thousands of victims.

djryan writes “JMS has posted a new update on what he’s up to. Some exciting news about Jeremiah, Rangers, and Rising stars here: I was about to repost this, but djryan saved me the time… :^) Here is a simpler link for the graphic novel: Delicate Creatures. Some other important things: Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers will debut January 2nd; Jeremiah on January 11th.

(continue reading…)

I’m working on updating the site to use Slashcode 2.0. You might notice some glitches in the look-and-feel – I’m still sorting out some errors in the “theme”. Once I get all this straightened out, then we can see about tackling the features…

Update 9/6: Now that I’ve got a handle on the new templates, I’m adding a bit of 3D flair, so don’t complain too much if it looks funny…hmm…after adding the 3D stuff, I’ve noticed that it looks bad in Netscape 4.X. Looks OK in either IE or Mozilla/Netscape 6. Still trying to figure it out.

According to Variety, New Line is going ahead with the third Austin Powers movie, subtitled Goldmember. Mike Myers will be returning to all three of his previous roles (Powers, Dr. Evil, and Fat Bastard) as well as the new title character villain. Others are under negotiations.

Neverworld, a new pilot about a young man in a parallel universe created by Robert Nathan (writer from Law & Order) and executive produced by him and Kelsey Grammar (Frasier) through Paramount, has been picked up by Fox for a Fall 2002 debut, according to Variety.

We’ve already seen what happened with Planet of the Apes. We’ve heard rumors about Willie Wonka. Now Dreamworks has snatched remake rights from New Line for Forbidden Planet. When are they going to learn?