Sci-Fi Storm

Remember that story about Harlan Ellison possibly working with J.J. Abrams on future Trek? Well, apparently Ellison wasn’t too happy about the way it was worded on SCI FI Wire, so he contact them to set the record straight – and threaten the correspondent (tongue-in-cheek, I think…)

The Thunder Child webzine has begun experimenting with Hubpages, and to that end we’ve uploaded an article about Willy Ley there.

Willy Ley, one of the founders of the German Rocket Society and an acknowledged expert on the subject, left Germany as soon as Hitler came to power (out of conviction rather than fear, as he wasn’t Jewish) and eventually settled in the US, where he became friends with Isaac Asimov and a host of science fiction writers, wrote science essays for Galaxy, and so on.

Check the article out at http://hubpages.com/hub/Willy-Ley-Science-Popularizer-Extraordinaire.

Patrick Stewart is about to be addressed as “Sir” for real – he is to be knighted during this year’s New Years honors.

Dan O’Bannon, who wrote a number of genre screenplays including Alien and Total Recall, passed away Thursday at the age of 63 after battling Crohn’s Disease for over 30 years.

This seems to be making the viral rounds, but has since been picked up by the British tabloids The Telegraph and The Sun. A strange, tetrahedral shape (often described as a pyramid, but from what I’ve seen it is more a tetrahedron) seemingly just hovering and rotating in the skies over Moskow. Goa’uld coming for the Stargate, or just God rolling a d4?

SCI Fi Wire has learned that Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix, CSI) has joined the cast of the new Predators movie, which takes the franchise off Earth and onto a “hunting planet” on which several humans awake to find themselves as the hunted. Already in the cast are Adrien Brody (King Kong), Topher Grace (Spider-Man 3), Walton Goggins (The Shield) and Danny Trejo (The Grind, and pretty much every other Robert Rodriguez production, who is producing Predators). Nimród Antal (Vacancy) is directing.

UPDATED: Following up on a previous story, Fox confirmed that Bryan Singer will return to direct a new X-Men movie, entitled X-Men: First Class, which will focus on some of the primary characters in their teenage years Professor Xavier and Magneto and the forming of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Jamie Moss (Street Kings) is currently assigned as the writer.

Lucasfilm has had another setback in its case against artist Andrew Ainsworth. An appeals court has ruled that the Stormtrooper’s helmet is not a copyrightable work of art, and therefore Lucasfilm cannot prevent Ainsworth from selling replicas. Ainsworth is the artist who sculpted the original helmet design.

It may not be true at this point, but I can see him in it…Tobey Maguire responded to web reports by saying he is not in discussions to play Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, and wasn’t considering it as he believed previous rumors that James McAvoy had been cast (which were untrue), but now seems amenable to the idea. “…I certainly wouldn’t take myself out of the conversation … if I was part of it.”

SyFy has renewed both freshman series Stargate Universe and second-year Sanctuary from its Friday night staple lineup, giving both series new 20-episode orders. Some insights into the upcoming SGU half-season as well include more serialized episodes, and less reliance on skipping back to Earth – and finally some aliens.