Sci-Fi Storm

As a followup to the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD debate, director Michael Bey said on his official blog that he may still do a Transformers sequel – after having previously said that he would because Paramount would only release Transformers in the HD-DVD format. Advice to Michael – don’t post after midnight.

Since it seem Bryan Singer would never get to it, Joel Silver’s planned remake of Logan’s Run has spent the last year in limbo. Well, Silver’s pulled it out of the pile again, attaching commercial director Joseph Kosinski (in his feature debut) and writer Tim Sexton (Children of Men).

I’ve so far stayed out of the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD wars, owing mainly to not having an HD TV set (I’m itching to get one in the fall though.) Now it seems that the lines are getting drawn a little darker, with Paramount joining the HD-DVD camp (which includes DreamWorks) with Universal, leaving Warner Bros. as the only studio still releasing in both formats, and Sony, Fox, Disney and MGM squarely on the other side. It’s Betamax vs. VHS again, except Sony isn’t alone…

Wizards of the Coast have announced the 4th Edition of the venerable Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. Alas, the load on the D&D web site was too much for them – but the forums are still up. I still like my First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons core rulebook set…

Illusion, a dedicated Science Fiction On-Demand channel, is gearing up for an October launch. Read More for the press release with a few details. Currently the only carrier mentioned is Verizon FiOS, but that will likely change closer to launch.

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The SCI FI Channel has some of the air dates for its fall schedule. Notable: Stargate Atlantis will start September 28th and the midseason “finale” will be December 7th; and mini episodes (“mini-sodes”) of Battlestar Galactica will begin airing during Flash Gordon starting in October, leading up to the movie (“movie-sode”?) “Razor” on November 24th.

I didn’t see an announcement on this yet, but Amazon shows the street date for the third series of Doctor Who as November 6th. Data subject to change if/when I see the press release.

Could Peter Jackson and New Line be talking again? Apparently so, despite previous comments from the head of New Line, Robert Shaye. So perhaps we could get some movement on The Hobbit…

TheThunderChild writes “Anthony Boucher, detective novelist, co-founder of the Mystery Writers Association and co-founder and editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, published Rocket to the Morgue in 1942, which featured a few real-life writers from The Manana Literary Society (founded by Robert Heinlein.) We solve all its mysteries (except whodunit) here.
http://thethunderchild.com/Books/AnthonyBoucher/Ro ckettotheMorgue.html
We’ve also used this book to inaugerate our new Time Travelers Guide. It’s imperative that time travelers know the places their visiting like the back of their hand. If they know too much, or too little, dire consequences could result. (For example, saving someone from being run over by a car could lead to WWII going down entirely the wrong path, as far as present history is concerned.) To guard against that happening, we present the Time Travelers guide for San Francisco, USA. 1942. http://thethunderchild.com/Books/TimeTravelersGuid e.html“

First, there was the 1976 movie starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter, and Richard Jordan (and a heavily advertised Farrah Fawcett in a small role). As with all successful movies at the time someone decided to make a TV series, which starred Gregory Harrison, Heather Menzies, Randy Powell and Donald Moffat. Was it as successful? Hardly – it lasted 14 episodes. Read More to see why, although there is a spoiler for the end of the movie – but its been 31 years…if you haven’t seen it yet, you probably don’t care about this review.

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