Sci-Fi Storm

A British judge ruled that Lucasfilm owns the likeness of Stormtroopers in the U.S., but at the same time says that, at least in Britain, the copyright on the outfits have expired. Lucas sued Andrew Ainsworth, who created the design of the troopers, when Ainsworth asserted ownership of the design and started selling replicas, including in the U.S. Lucas won a $20 million judgment in a California court, but the British judge also ruled that the actual U.S. sales, which only totaled $50k-60k, were not serious enough to justify U.S. jurisdiction or enforcement of the judgment. Ainsworth is free to sell his replicas anywhere but the U.S.

The Tales of Beedle the bard, originally a hand-written manuscript from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling of which only 6 existed and were auctioned off (Amazon bought one for approx. $4 million), will now be published as a book, released on December 4th, with the proceeds going towards her charity. It consists of five “fairy tales”, which contain lessons for children and adults alike.

Pre-orders are already available from Amazon in two versions – a standard edition, which has the 5 fairy tales, a new introduction from Rowling, reproduced illustrations from the original manuscript, and commentary on the tales by Albus Dumbledore; and an exclusive Collector’s Edition, which adds a new binder with metal clasp, corners and a skull; a case that looks like a book from the library at Hogwarts; a reproduction of the original introduction; 10 additional illustrations not in the original or standard edition; a velvet bag embroidered with J.K.’s signature; some “gemstones”, and an emerald ribbon.

Meant to get this out last night, but failed: The teaser trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been released and is available at various locations…Moviefone has it here in several Quicktime HD resolutions. It focuses on a flashback memory of Dumbledore meeting Tom Riddle for the first time…

The Thunder Child writes “I thought I’d share the news, which I’ve just put on my blog, Daily Space, that the “Sprayman” (a Slovenian artist) now offers live video streaming on his website – albeit for only 2 hours a day.

He creates space paintings – as well as other genres, using spraypaint. They look very cool, and its even funner to watch to see how he creates the effects and how long it takes him.

Check out my blog at: http://dailyspace.blogspot.com/2008/07/watch-spray man-at-work.html for the link to his site, as well as the link to the interview I did with him last year.”

Isaac Asimov’s venerable Foundation series may finally be getting a big-screen adaptation. Previously in development at Fox, Warner Brothers now has it and is giving it over to former New Line heads Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne. Having been considered in the past to be difficult to adapt because of its storyline that spans centuries and a cast of characters that changes with each book (and in some cases, each story within the book), their goal for now is to just adapt the first book, and if it works out, follow on much like they did with The Lord Of The Rings. Fox had previously tried to adapt the trilogy into a single movie.

Just a reminder: Season 3 of Eureka starts tonight at 9PM ET on the Sci Fi Channel with the first of 8 consecutive episodes…the remaining 13 will be held over until 2009 (don’t you just love SFC’s schedule?). While waiting, you can read what Ed Quinn (Nathan Stark) is saying about Season 3.

The Thunder Child writes “Steve Vertlieb is a film writer who has contributed several articles to The Thunder Child, from the music of Miklos Rosza to his first meeting with The Blob, and now, he discusses the new movie, The Dark Knight.

If you’re a fan of Steve’s, or if you want to see a different view of this new entry in the Batman ethos, please check out: http://thethunderchild.com/Movies/VertliebViews/TheDarkKnight.html

Other articles from Steve are on the work of Boris Karloff:

http://thethunderchild.com/Movies/VertliebViews/BorisKarloff.html

the music of Bernard Herrmann: http://thethunderchild.com/Movies/VertliebViews/BernardHerrmann.html

Miklos Rosza: http://thethunderchild.com/Movies/VertliebViews/RoszaStory.html“

The last (for now…) installment of the Stargate SG-1 franchise hits the shelves on the 29th with [sfs=831]Stargate: Continuum[/sfs], with the members of SG-1 expecting to see the “extraction” of Ba’al by the Tok’ra, but end up in a time-traveling paradox on the frozen wastes of the Arctic…Read More for a review of this straight-to-DVD release.

(continue reading…)

We thought it was coming, and then it vanished, and then there was renewed hope – but Tron 2 is very much real this time. Disney unveiled a teaser for the movie as a surprise to Comic-Con guests. And of course, I missed it…

Thanks to chad for pointing out that the comments system was broken – it is now fixed. Patches applied to the OS wrecked a number of Perl modules, and one escaped notice…I’m working on a “temporary” replacement to the software (Drupal most likely), even though I still intend to finish the custom software in the end. My biggest problem with Drupal right now is I have to create a theme I like for it.

You haven’t been seeing it, but behind the scenes the Story Submission queue has been spammed for months, making it difficult to find legitimate submissions (of which there have been very few). Yet another reason to get off this ancient software…