Sci-Fi Storm

Did you like that Super Bowl ad from Volkswagen, featuring the luckless young Darth Vader attempting to use his force powers around the house? Then you might like this spoof of that ad, featuring a more successful Vader – and his rebellious parents…

Just a quick recap of any remotely genre related awards gained at last night’s Oscar festivities, beyond the periodic Hugh Jackman/Wolverine references: Inception was the big genre winner, taking Cinematography, Visual Effects, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing; Queen Amidala – or more accurately, Natalie Portman – took home the Best Actress award for her role in Black Swan; Toy Story 3 won Best Animated Feature, as well as Randy Newman taking the Best Original Music, for the TS3 song, “We Belong Together” (and gave on of the best acceptance speeches of the night); Alice In Wonderland won for Art Direction and Costume Design; and Wolfman won for Makeup (it didn’t have much competition). Tron: Legacy went home with nothing, having only had one nomination in Sound Editing – inexplicably not nominated for at least Visual Effects. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 also received none, but was the subject of an interesting musical montage thanks to AutoTune…

Side note: Star Wars: The Clone Wars fans may have heard a familiar voice. Tom Kane, who narrates the beginning of each episode, was the announcer.

The list of nominees for the 37th Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films Awards (better known by the much shorter Saturn Awards) has been released. Leading the film categories is Inception, with 9 nominations, followed by Let Me In and Tron: Legacy, each with 7. On the TV side, The Walking Dead takes 6 nominations, with Fringe and Lost each taking 5.

See the whole list below – the awards will be handed out in June.
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In the next sneak peek clip of the all-new episode of Being Human, Josh sits down with his Dad to discuss the current state of the family by bringing humor to the table, but screams for his father to not psychoanalyze him and just simply talk. In the heat of the moment the doorbell rings and Josh steps away from the chaos to answer it only to find Aidan at his doorstep. In an attempt to convince Josh that he can help, Josh tries to explain to his Mom that Aidan is just passing though and must be moving along. Unfortunately, for Josh, his roommate is invited to dinner instead. Watch the clip and tune in on Monday at 9/8c on Syfy to see if Aidan can really come to the rescue or if he just makes it all worse.

And below that, check out the recap clip of last week’s “It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Wrong”.
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The Japanese live-action version of the anime series Space Battleship Yamato (known as Star Blazers in the US) has torn up the box office in Japan – but there has been no word of a US release, dubbed or otherwise. But Deadline is reporting that an American live-action version is in the works. David Ellison, through his Skydance Productions (which financed True Grit), is negotiating the rights, and plans to hire Christopher McQuarrie to write the script. What is interesting is the article says that Star Blazers was “based on” the original Space Battleship Yamato – it was really an edited/dubbed version, with mostly only minor changes for the American audience (like rather than glorify a Japanese WWII battleship, they re-christened the ship the Argo from Greek mythology, and to tone down some of the more adult themes and Japanese patriotism), but the article makes it seem more like two independent but similar productions.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a dubbed version of the Japanese version though…I’m not sure I could sit through a feature-length visual eye-fest while having to keep reading subtitles…

We are deeply saddened to learn that actor Nicholas Courtney, who for years was best known for his role first as Colonel and then as Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, known simply as “The Brigadier”, passed away yesterday at the age of 81.

Courtney was the only actor to work with all seven of the Doctor’s original incarnations, including William Hartnell (as another character), and Hartnell’s lookalike replacement for “The Five Doctors”, Richard Hurndall, as The Brigadier (his appearance with Colin Baker was for the charity special “Dimensions In Time”), and worked with the later incarnations (except Christopher Eccleston) through many Big Finish audio adventures. A fan favorite, he was often at the top of polls of classic characters that people would like to see appear in the revived series, and he did make an appearance as the Brigadier in an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures in 2008.

He is survived by his wife and two children. He was 81.

In the next all-new episode of Merlin, Cenred has Gwen cornered and lays out an ultimatum. He threatens her and makes her very aware that she could lose her kidnapped brother that Cenred is holding if she doesn’t deliver Arthur to him. She claims she has no association to the Prince, but obviously both know better. With tears in her eyes, Gwen contemplates what is most important and how she will ever decide while Morgause sits out of sight with a sinister smirk adorning her face. Watch the clip and be sure to tune in on Friday at 10/9c to see what Gwen will decide. Will her love for Arthur win out, or will she decide family ties run deeper?

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Ghostbusters saw some renewed interest in the past couple of years, and a script has been done – so why isn’t it getting made? It’s been long said that Bill Murray has been squeamish on doing another sequel – but Ivan Reitman reportedly said in Germany this past weekend Murray had read the script. Apparently that’s not true. Murray says he has NOT read the script, and although he admits he really should read it, Ghostbusters 2 really turned him off from doing sequels in general – despite the fun had with the cast and crew.

All I know is that if there is another Ghostbusters movie – whoever the cast is – my kids want to see it. It may not be the same for me, but I think there is an audience…

Syfy has announced the following return dates. All times are in Eastern:

Stargate Universe returns March 7th at 10pm for its 10 episode final run.

Destination Truth comes back Thursday, March 17th with a live Banshee hunt in Ireland at 7pm, and then moves to Tuesday nights starting March 22nd at 9pm.

Also on March 22nd, the new high-tech cooking reality show Marcel’s Quantum Kitchen, starring chef Marcel Vigneron, at 10pm.

Fact or Faked then returns the next night, Wednesday March 23rd, at 10pm.

And finally, Sanctuary concludes Season 3 starting April 15th at 10pm.

Updated: Syfy has also acquired rights to all 31 episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and will begin airing them on April 7th.

Despite being moved into the Friday night “death slot”, Fringe seems to refuse to lay for its fate. Seems that despite two consecutive drops, the J.J. Abrams-led sci-fi series on Fox saw a 7% gain this past Friday, getting a 1.4/5 rating. So perhaps the “death slot” is highly overrated, or perhaps antiquated?