Sci-Fi Storm

A duo of returning items…first, the 80s sci-fi program Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future is underdevelopment as a reboot under the title of Phoenix Rising, with original co-creator Gary Goddard on board with former Syfy executives Greg Vitale and Craig Engler.

The original show followed a small band of guerilla fighters in the 22nd century revolting again the intelligent machines which enslaved mankind after the Metal Wars. The show was notable not only for their storylines that could appeal to kids and adults, but also the direct marketing the show also as a “game” that kids could play along with using specially equipped toys they needed to purchase. The show proved to be expensive to produce and the complex storylines and allegories drew criticism, and it was canceled after one season.

In other news, it appears that a fourth Star Trek reboot movie is already in the works, and this one will feature the return of Captain Kirk’s father, who was played (briefly) in the first movie by Chris Hemsworth. Not sure how that will be accomplished, but it’s Star Trek, and the “Kelvin Timeline” was kicked off by playing with time travel…

I wish I was in London this weekend for Star Wars Celebration! Lots of cool things coming from across the pond. One of which is this sizzle reel for Rogue One! Enjoy!

UPDATED 7/8: See below.

Actor John Cho, who plays the character of Hikaru Sulu, the helmsman of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the rebooted Star Trek movie franchise (which has been officially dubbed the “Kelvin Timeline”), revealed while on a promotional tour in Australia that his character will be revealed to be gay in an upcoming scene in Star Trek Beyond. The revalation will be muted – “I liked the approach, which was not to make a big thing out it, which is where I hope we are going as a species — to not politicize one’s personal orientations,” according to Cho.

However, in an interview with THR, the original Sulu George Takei says he is unhappy with the decision to take an established character rather than present a new character. When Cho called him to tell him the news, “I told him, ‘Be imaginative and create a character who has a history of being gay, rather than Sulu, who had been straight all this time, suddenly being revealed as being closeted.'”

Takei, who came out of the closet in 2005 and has since become a vocal supporter of LGBT rights, had a discussion with director Justin Lin, and believed that they had rethought the decision. But when Cho had emailed him about the promotional tour and that the revelation would likely come out, Takei was disappointed.

The character of Sulu as originally depicted appeared straight although it never was formally established outside of secondary sources like novels. What was established is that he had a daughter, Demora Sulu, but whether she was adopted or not isn’t necessarily canon. However, given his occasional targeting of women including Uhura, if he was actually gay that would seem to indicate that he was “in the closet” during the original mission – which would raise the question as to whether there was a closet in the 23rd century to be in.

Update 7/8: Simon Pegg gave a very reasonable counter-argument.

Opens July 22nd!

Actor Anton Yelchin, who has been playing the role of PAvel Checkov in the three recent Star Trek movies, as well as roles in Terminator: Salvation and Alphas Dogs among others, passed away early this morning in a freak automobile accident at the age of 27.

It appears that Yelchin had exited his car while it was running, and it rolled, pinning him against a brick post next to a security gate, suffering traumatic injuries.

Yelchin was born in St. Petersburg, Russia (back then it was still called Leningrad as part of the Soviet Union), but emigrated with his parents (professional figure skaters ho qualified for the 1972 Olympics but because they were Jewish were not permitted to represent the USSR) to the United States when he was only 6 months old. His parents went on to become skating instructors, but at a young age he showed more interest in acting than skating. He made his acting debut at the age of 10 in a guest spot on ER in 2000. and just a year later earned acclaim opposite Anthony Hopkins in Heart of Atlantis, earning a Young Artist Award.

While it’s been a couple years and it doesn’t seem like much movement forward since we reported that Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich still planned to reboot the Stargate movie franchise, the fact that they are still talking about it is a good sign it might still happen, and it appears they are actively developing it at Warner Bros.

After MGM took the rights and decided to develop a TV series without the duo, also responsible for Independence Day and it’s upcoming sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence – the first sequel that Emmerich has actually worked on, apparently – spawning two additional TV series, the studio now considers the TV franchise as “played out”, sitting idle since 2011, opening the door for the reboot. The various regime changes at MGM likely has helped as well.

“It was taken away from us, and it’s tough to have your children raised by other parents, even if they do a very good job…for us, it’s not putting down what has been done. It’s to let us finish telling our story,” according to Devlin.

Devlin and Emmerich have always talked about how they planned Stargate as a trilogy, but now with over 20 years having passed since the original movie, instead of just moving on to a sequel the two feel an entire reboot would make the most sense. It will be interesting to see – it worked for the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

After almost 13 years in Hollywood purgatory, a feature film based on J. Michael Straczynski’s maxi-series comic Rising Stars may finally move forward.

We last heard about a movie based on the comic in 2003, when we learned that everything was on hold due to a dispute between writer JMS and Top Cow Productions, the comic producer, over rewrites that possibly violated WGA rules (and common courtesy) and radically changed the story, and even halted the production of the comic, with the final 3 issues not being released for a couple years.

Now it seems that things are on the movie again with MGM optioning the rights for a feature film, with JMS writing a new script and Atlas Entertainment’s Alex Gartner and Richard Suckle producing, along with JMS under his Studio JMS shingle.

Rising Stars is the story about 113 people born after the appearance of a mysterious comet. These people, dubbed “Specials”, are born with unique abilities. The story explores how society reacts to the Specials, and the Specials to society – and themselves.

Battlestar Galactica may in fact get it’s long-rumored big screen treatment…Deadline reports that Lisa Joy, currently working on the HBO series Westworld, is working on a script, while Francis Lawrence, who helmed the last three Hunger Games films, may be tagged to direct.

The film is expected to be a new retelling, and unrelated to the 2003-2009 remake on Syfy.

Bluegrass Films partners Scott Stuber and Dylan Clark are producing with Michael De Luca through his Michael De Luca Productions.

X-Files alum Gillian Anderson is the latest actor to sign on for Starz’ series adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, about the struggle between the old gods of mythology and the new gods that represent modern society’s influences – money, power, technology, etc.

Anderson will play Media, who is – surprise – the spokesperson for the New Gods. Ricky Whittle (The 100) portrays the protagonist Shadow Moon, an ex-con who becomes the bodyguard of conman Mr. Wednesday, who is actually on a mission to marshall the old gods in preparation for battle.

I’ve been thinking that I might be living in the Domed City before we get the long, LONG promised remake of Logan’s Run that Joel Silver and Warner Bros has been trying to make for years, but it may have finally taken another step forward.

Simon Kinberg was last reported to be working on a script, and he is still involved but now they have brought in Colony co-creator Ryan Condal to build off of Kinberg’s work.

This movie isn’t a remake of the 1976 film (which modified the story in several ways, such as increasing the age of Lastday to 30), but is to be based on the original novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. It follows Logan, who works as a Deep Sleep Operative (also referred to as a “Sandman”) – the police of the of the post-apocalyptic world where population is strictly controlled. The Sandmen were charges with hunting down and executing “runners” – those who upon reaching the age of 21 refused to report to a “sleepshop”, where they were humanely executed to keep the population steady. The Sandmen use a gun that can fire different types of projectiles, including the dreaded “Homer” which zeros in on body hit and upon contact ignites every pain nerve in the body, causing an excruciatingly painful death. Logan decides to become a runner on his Lastday in order to track down and infiltrate an underground railroad for runners.

Call us cautiously optimistic. The current appetite for young adult post-apocalyptic action movies might increase the interest in finally getting this done.