Sci-Fi Squad Sci-Fi Movies, News, Trailers, DVDs and More

Total Recall is one of my favorite movies, a hyper-violent, tongue-in-cheek sci-fi action movie that starts with people having fake vacation memories implanted in their brains and concludes with a man's mutant conjoined twin crawling out of his stomach to tell Arnold Schwarzenegger some important exposition. Like Robocop and Starship Troopers, Total Recall is the perfect merging of director Paul Verhoeven's sensibilities: plenty of boobs and gore on the outside, but a strong core of satire and intelligence.

That's why it irks me that they're remaking Total Recall...a modern big-budget take on the material wouldn't have the nerve to go where Verhoeven was willing to go in the original. At best, we'd get a vanilla action movie. Len Wiseman stepping into the director's chair seems to confirm this.

As a human being, Len Wiseman's greatest accomplishment has been scooping Kate Beckinsale off the Hot and Single list. I'd be hard-pressed to name his second greatest accomplishment, because his filmography consists of two Underworld movies and Live Free or Die Hard. Don't get me wrong, all of Wiseman's films are competently directed, the man's no technical slouch, they just have the nasty habit of being boring and/or stupid.

How's this for a story pitch?

"Boilerplate purports to tell the story of the world's first robot, who, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fought alongside Teddy Roosevelt and Lawrence of Arabia, journeyed to the South Pole and was involved in the silent movie business before disappearing on the battlefields of World War I."

Great movie concept or greatest movie concept? When reduced to a single sentence synopsis, this sounds like the coolest movie ever.

Either way, Heat Vision is reporting that JJ Abrams' Bad Robot production company has picked up the rights to Boilerplate, which I've never heard of until right now, but it seems to be sort of a graphic novel by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett that found release last year. I say "sort of" because the book's style is half "history" text and half art/doctored photographs depicting the journey of a Victorian-era warrior robot.

Welcome to I Would Revisit/Abandon, a regular SciFi Squad feature where we take a science fiction or fantasy universe, franchise, or series and examine whether or not we would like to see more of it or if the door should be permanently shut. Expect new entries every Wednesday and Friday, and watch out for potential spoilers beyond the jump!

This week, we'll be re-thinking those plane tickets to...

Today's poster is for a sci-fi classic, 20 Million Miles To Earth (1957). But I'm mixing things up a bit and showing you the Belgian poster for the film, which uses different art than the US posters.

It also uses the title "Les Rescapés De La Planete Venus," which Google Translate says means The Survivors Of The Planet Venus. Interestingly, that title is not among any of the known AKAs on IMDB.

That being said, I hope that one of you speaks Dutch and can tell me what the tagline "De Vlughtelingen Van Planeet Venus" means. Google Translate thinks it means "Vlughtelingen From the Planet Venus," which is decidedly unhelpful.

Click through for the full poster and the US trailer. The best part of the trailer is when a scientist tells a group of reporters that a rocket crash-landed on Venus, and we get this exchange:

Girl Reporter [incredulously]: Venus?
Guy Reporter [quizzically]: The planet Venus?

Yes, moron. The planet Venus. Geez. Who let that guy into the press conference?

Laura Mennell has joined the cast of SyFy's superhero drama 'Alphas.' For those with a short memory, she played Doctor Manhattan's ex-girlfriend Janey Slater in the movie 'Watchmen.' In the movie, her character is stricken with cancer as a part of a conspiracy to bring down the superheroes. One could call this ironic casting.

Also joining the cast is Malik Yoba, whom is most known for his role in 'New York Undercover' but I remember best as the 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' parody called Ice in 'Arrested Development.' Mennell's character has an interesting twist to her power. She can manipulate anybody into doing whatever she wants, but as a result she never knows if people's feelings towards her are genuine. It's sort of like working in Hollywood.

'Alphas' sounds a bit like a redux of 'Heroes.' Hopefully Zak Penn and company can make it into something that won't fizzle out quite as quickly.

I was largely unimpressed by the toy line based on the film Avatar. Mattel's action figures were all too lanky, with funky likenesses and an overall cheap quality that looked more like an of-the-moment licensing cash-in than something they wanted to build a new, long-lasting line of toys around. I still love Mattel (I can't imagine growing up without Masters of the Universe), but I'm in love with Sideshow Collectibles.

Take a look at their Neytiri statue -- a $300 piece of polystone, lovingly rendered with all of the care that goes into every Sideshow product. They've started pre-sales on the Avatar statue, through their newsletter, and I'd expect brisk sales on their first Avatar collectible just based on the film's overwhelming popularity.

You can see a full view of the statue after the jump.

Star Trek: Nemesis, directed Stuart Baird, 2002

Like most Star Trek fans, I have mixed feelings about the final big screen adventure featuring the Next Generation cast. Nemesis delivers solid action and a few surprising moments – the Enterprise ramming a Reman warship, Data sacrificing himself to save the crew – but it lacks the heart, soul and depth of the great Trek films, especially the first TNG solo movie, First Contact.

Director Suart Baird, who mostly worked as an action movie editor before landing Nemesis, somehow managed to rob the characters and actors of all the chemistry they'd built up after more than a decade of working together. Inception star Tom Hardy does a decent job of hissing and snarling his way through playing the impossible role of Captain Picard's evil, limey, twentswomething clone despite not looking a thing like Patrick Stewart.

Ben Browder, who played John Crichton in Farscape, is one actor who I just don't see nearly enough of. Sure, after Farscape ended Browder transitioned to Stargate, but I always thought he had an everyman charm that should have launched him to a similar career path as Nathan Fillion. That has yet to happen, but at least we'll soon be able to see a little bit more of him in the web series Naught for Hire.

Naught for Hire will be a 13-episode series about a private investigator in the year 2030. SFX (via Blastr) describes it as:

"A lighthearted sci-fi romp in the style of '30s noir movies, with each episode ending on a cliffhanger, Naught For Hire is about a detective who has issues with modern technology, including a car that is in love with him, an elevator that won't cooperate and an answering machine that wants to do nothing but pull pranks on him."

No release date has been set for the series, which will begin filming soon with co-stars Juliet Landau (Buffy), Chase Masterson (Deep Space Nine) and Jennifer Sky (Cleopatra 2525). You can keep track of the show through their official website and Twitter feed.

Welcome to Captain's Log -- your round-up of sci-fi randomness from around the web. Here's what's happening:

Mark Ruffalo grew up on the Bill Bixby Bruce Banner, and likens the role to "my generation's Hamlet" in a talk with EW.

Yahoo reports that Klingon becomes a selectable language for Sydney, Australia's audio tours of the Blue Mountain Caves.

Say it ain't so! Stephen Moffat prefers Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Who, according to Blastr.

If you can handle the toxic fumes of a nail shop -- and love the tackiness -- Geekologie has spotted Star Wars-themed fingernail painting.

Superpunch finds a DC-Universe-themed Monopoly game.

Finally: A is Atari, according to the Gamer's Alphabet. [Neatorama]

Source

Earlier this year we reported on the Shirtless Kirk Star Trek Cologne. Now another Enterprise crew member is getting in on the smell-good action, as we just received word of the forthcoming "Sulu Pour Homme Excelsior Cologne."

The cologne's box promises that the fragrance will allow you to "release your own intergalactic Man of Mystery. That jaunty, fearless swashbuckler of a man who, whether the's wielding a rapier in a swordfight or commanding the helm of a Constitution-class starship, is always ready for action." That sounds like me to a T.

I'm curious to know how many of these Star Trek colognes are bought non-ironically. On the one hand, I can't really imagine someone permanently switching over to Star Trek brand cologne. On the other hand, I learned long ago to not underestimate the devotion of Trekkies.

Sulu cologne will begin shipping next month, and you can pre-order your bottle for $40 here. Click through to see the box and bottle that you'd be getting for your four sawbucks.