Sci-Fi Storm

The second trailer for the much-anticipated Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which premiered on the WB’s premiere of Family Affair, is now available from the official web site. Seems a few voices have dropped an octave since the first movie… :^)

Actress Kim Hunter, best known for her roles as Dr. Zira in three of the Planet of the Apes movies and Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire (for which she won a Best Supporting Oscar), died on Wednesday at the age of 79.

Think the plots of the 10 Star Trek films are a bit repetitive? So does the New York Times, which refers to the upcoming Nemesis as “the 10th film in a series that has five plots.” And they explain it.

JMS posted the text for the 9/11 response issue of Amazing Spider-Man 36, which contains some of the most moving words I have yet read about the event. Not bad for someone who initially refused because he didn’t think he could come up with the words. Read More for the full text.

Update: There is also an article about the issue.

(continue reading…)

Seems the Earth may have third natural moon. The object, dubbed J002E2 (or J002E3, depending on the report), may have arrived recently, and is currently in a 50-day orbit. It still is undecided if it truly is a natural body or perhaps a piece of terrestrial space junk. The Earth’s second “moon”, called Cruithne, is apparently a Trojan asteroid scribing a horseshoe-like path.

Update 9/12: Looks like it could just be a Saturn V S-IVB stage, likely from Apollo 12.

A&E debuted their new adaptation of Ursula K. LeGuin’s classic Lathe of Heaven last night (4 times, no less). If you missed it, fret not – check your listings because it will be shown several more times. Having not read the story or seen the 1980 PBS production, I was pretty impressed in general, if a bit confused. But I’m hearing on various mailing lists and such that quite a bit was left out. What was your opinion?

There is a report and excerpt from a chat log at AICN that SCI FI has executed an out clause of their contract for the 5th season of Farscape, and cancelled the series. There has been no confirmation from SCI FI yet, but it is all over the boards. Note that Season 4 picks up again in January.

Update 9/9:SCI FI has now confirmed it. Its inability to grow its audience and the rising production costs are cited.

Locus Online (which won the Hugo for best Web Site) has additional news coming from ConJose: Glasgow will host WorldCon in 2005; the nomination breakdown for the Hugos (not even a single vote? :^( ); and the Dramatic Presentation Award is to be split into separate awards form Film and Television.

It’s hitting all the Highlander forums, and onto Dark Horizons: apparently Davis/Panzer Productions, the owners of the franchise, have announced to fans that there will by a 5th installment in the feature film series, titled “The Source”. I was appalled at the second movie, disappointed in the third. Alas, a hard drive crash with my TiVo prevented me from seeing the 4th…

I swear I looked there earlier today, but it’s there now (I found out from Bureau42) – SCI FI Wire is reporting that Witchblade has been cancelled. TNT gives reasons in the article, but they seem to say even though the series did what they asked of it, they predict it couldn’t do it again and cancelled it. Maybe they didn’t think Yancy Butler was worth the risk? Or perhaps TNT execs just don’t have a clue – remember Crusade?