Sci-Fi Storm

Breaking news – a family representative has released a statement that actor Bill Paxton passed away due to complications after surgery. He was 61.

It is with heavy hearts we share the news that Bill Paxton has passed away due to complications from surgery,” the statement said.

“A loving husband and father, Bill began his career in Hollywood working on films in the art department and went on to have an illustrious career spanning four decades as a beloved and prolific actor and filmmaker. Bill’s passion for the arts was felt by all who knew him, and his warmth and tireless energy were undeniable. We ask to please respect the family’s wish for privacy as they mourn the loss of their adored husband and father.”

Bill starred in so many things where he made the role so memorable. The earliest I recall was Weird Science, where he played older brother Chet who would antagonize Wyatt to the point that he was turned into a giant talking turd by Lisa. Just a year later came the role that would make me look forward to anything else he did, as Private Hudson in Aliens, for which he won a Saturn award. While these roles seemed to point him towards playing the “lovable dumb guy”, he broke that by getting much more scientific as astronaut Fred Haise in Apollo 13 (co-winner of a Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance of a Cast), storm chaser Bill Harding in Twister, and treasure hunter/deep sea explorer Brock Lovett in Titanic. My kids even remember him from the role of “Dinky Winks” in Spy Kids 2.

More recently he had a recurring guest role on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and was currently appearing on the CBS cop show Training Day.

The colony ship Covenant, on its way to a distant planet to start a new human settlement carrying a crew of couples and an android named Walter (who looks remarkably like the android David in Prometheus), discover what they think is an idyllic paradise but instead turns out to be a dark and dangerous world.

In this prologue, the crew of the Covenant enjoy a little free time before they enter their long hypersleep on the way to their destination.

Alien: Covenant stars Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, Demián Bichir, Carmen Ejogo, Amy Seimetz, Jussie Smollett, Callie Hernandez, Nathaniel Dean, Alexander England, amd Benjamin Rigby

XYZ films has acquired international sales rights for Code 8, the Indiegogo-funded feature film based on a short film that will star cousins Robbie Amell (The Tomorrow People) and Stephen Amell (Arrow).

Jeff Chan, who directed the short (shown below) will also direct the feature as well as produce. The Amells, screenwriter Chris Paré, Thick Water Entertainment and Lee Kim for Resolute Films are executive producing.

The short film takes place in a world where 4% of the population are born with some type of supernatural ability. Instead of being billionaire superheroes, most ‘specials’ live in poverty and resort to crime, forcing the police to become more militarized.

The story follows a young man with special powers (Robbie Amell) struggling to find work as a day laborer. After a dispute over payment, he finds himself in a confrontation with a police officer (Sung Kang, The Fast and the Furious franchise) and the autonomous robots backing him up.

Best Picture nominee Arrival arrives in [asin=B01LTHYE0E]Blu-ray[/asin], [asin=B01LTHYE0O]4K Ultra HD Blu-ray[/asin] and [asin=B01LTHYE04]DVD[/asin] next Tuesday, February 14th! The film was hailed by critics as “mesmerizing” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone), “amazing” (Brian Truitt, USA Today) and “the best film of the year” (Christopher Orr, The Atlantic).

Arrival was released in [asin=B01MDTS4VZ]Digital HD[/asin] online on January 31st.

Arrival, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, received eight Academy Award® nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing. In addition, Arrival has been named one of the best films of the year by the American Film Institute, National Board of Review, New York Times, USA Today and many more.

Five-time Academy Award® nominee* Amy Adams “delivers one of her best performances” (Brian Truitt, USA Today) as expert translator Louise Banks. When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team races against time to decipher their intent. As tensions mount between fearful governments, Banks discovers the aliens’ true purpose and, to avert global war, takes a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity. Oscar® nominee Jeremy Renner and Academy Award® winner Forest Whitaker co-star in this epic film with “a mind-blowing ending” (Brian Truitt, USA Today) that “you will want to see again and again”(Brian Formo, Collider). The Arrival 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Combo Packs include over an hour of engrossing special features, with in-depth explorations of the film’s subject matter, sound, score, editing and more.

Arrival Blu-ray Combo Pack
The Arrival Blu-ray is presented in 1080p high definition with English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, and English Audio Description and English, English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles. The combo pack includes access to a Digital HD copy of the film as well as the following:

Blu-ray

• Feature film in high definition
• Bonus Content:
• Xenolinguistics: Understanding Arrival
• Acoustic Signatures: The Sound Design
• Eternal Recurrence: The Score
• Nonlinear Thinking: The Editorial Process
• Principles of Time, Memory & Language

Arrival 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack
Fans can enjoy the ultimate viewing experience with the 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack, which includes the Blu-ray detailed above, as well as an Ultra HD Disc with the film presented in 4K Ultra HD with English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, and English Audio Description with English, English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles. The Combo Pack also includes access to a Digital HD copy of the film.
The Blu-ray Combo Pack and 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack available for purchase include a Digital HD Version of the film that can be accessed through UltraViolet™, a way to collect, access and enjoy movies. With UltraViolet, consumers can add movies to their digital collection in the cloud, and then stream or download them—reliably and securely—to a variety of devices.

Arrival Single-Disc DVD
The single-disc DVD is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 TVs with English 5.1 Dolby Digital, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, French, and Spanish subtitles. The disc includes the feature film in standard definition.

“Welcome to the frickin’ Guardians of the Galaxy…”

We get to see a bit more of Mantis, the newest member of the team – along with Drax attempting to help. Sort of.

May 5th!!!!

Fans of writer Larry Niven have been waiting eons for adaptations of his works, most notably Ringworld, but we’ve had our hopes raised before. So far, the only works of his that have been adapted have been “The Slaver Weapon”, adapted into an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series (as “The Soft Weapon”), and a 1996 episode of The Outer Limits based on “The Inconstant Moon”.

Well, now it appears the latter might get a new adaptation, but this time a bigger one – a full feature film. Fox 2000 has started development on the film in conjunction with Arrival‘s Shawn Levy and his production company 21 Laps. Director James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now) is attached, with Daniel Casey writing the script. 21 Laps Dan Cohen, Ponsoldt and Created By’s Vince Gerardis will also produce.

“The Inconstant Moon” starts with an apparent brightening of the Moon being observed on Earth. Most simply commented on it being pretty, but the narrator of the story has a dreadful explanation – that while the Sun was shining on the other side of the Earth, it went nova, and the planet has mere hours before it is destroyed.

Hopefully this will give more exposure to Niven’s works, and we can get some Known Space stories soon!

Breaking from StarWars.com: The official title for the next episode of the saga, Star Wars Episode VIII, will be The Last Jedi. Rumors had been swirling about a supposedly leaked title of “Forces of Destiny” (similar to a licensed card game), and others that sounded a bit Indiana Jones-ish. This at least seems respectable.

Rian Johnson is writing and directing, to be released on December 15, 2017.

We can now say that the Battle of Axanar is over…Paramount/CBS and Axanar productions have reached a settlement in the suit against the fan-produced Axanar film. With things looking bleak earlier this month when Axanar was denied fair use status, so there wasn’t much surprise that a settlement was reached. It wasn’t much in the film’s favor, but it will see the light of day in a shortened form with major modifications, restricted to two 15-minute episodes released on YouTube sans ads (they will not be allowed to monetize the film), along with Prelude to Axanar with the same restrictions. Producer Alec Peters also admitted that the production “crossed the line” and was not approved by Paramount/CBS.

Axanar wasn’t the only loser here though, as Paramount/CBS lost a lot of the fan love they had by bringing on this suit.

The full text of the announcement is here:

Paramount Pictures Corporation, CBS Studios Inc., Axanar Productions, Inc. and Alec Peters are pleased to announce that the litigation regarding Axanar’s film Prelude to Axanar and its proposed film Axanar has been resolved. Axanar and Mr. Peters acknowledge that both films were not approved by Paramount or CBS, and that both works crossed boundaries acceptable to CBS and Paramount relating to copyright law.

Axanar and Mr. Peters have agreed to make substantial changes to Axanar to resolve this litigation, and have also assured the copyright holders that any future Star Trek fan films produced by Axanar or Mr. Peters will be in accordance with the “Guidelines for Fan Films” distributed by CBS and Paramount in June 2016.

Paramount and CBS continue to be big believers in fan fiction and fan creativity. They encourage amateur filmmakers to showcase their passion for Star Trek. Paramount and CBS will not object to, or take legal action against, Star Trek fan productions that are non-professional, amateur, and otherwise meet the Guidelines, which can be found at http://www.startrek.com/fan-films. Paramount and CBS would like Star Trek fans, with their boundless creativity and passion, to “Live Long and Prosper.”

I’ve never been a “fan” of the Power Rangers. I’ve watched it in the earlier years, and occasionally since…one of my daughters picked up on a more recent series so saw a bit of that. But the feature movie, due out March 24th, appears to be a step above them all. It appears to take the concept with full seriousness, and brings to bear current heavy hitters Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games, Pitch Perfect) as Rita Repulsa and Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) as Zordon in a reboot of the franchise for the big screen. It will be interesting to see how the serious reboot of the campy adaptation of the Japanese Super Sentai series will work out.

Despite the poor response to 2011’s Green Lantern movie, and no sign of any green-clad characters in the upcoming Justice League movie, it appears that Warner Bros still has the willpower to move forward with a sequel in some form, assigning David Goyer (the Batman Dark Knight movies, Batman Vs. Superman) and Justin Rhodes (Fantastic Voyage) to work on a script according to a report from Deadline.

According to the report, the script, based on a story from Goyer and DC story maven Geoff Johns will focus on two of Earth’s Green Lanterns – Hal Jordan, who was the first human Lantern (and played by Ryan Reynolds in the 2011 movie), and John Stewart, Jordan’s backup, a Marine veteran and the first African American superhero in the DC Comics universe.

A director has yet to be announced as would a cast. It would seem doubtful that Reynolds would reprise the Jordan character given the results of the first movie and the fact that he’s currently working on Deadpool 2.