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

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

That cropped pic up there -- that's the first Scott Pilgrim v. the World poster! See it in its entirety over at Coming Soon.

Porn stars play Dungeons and Dragons, or is an industry trying to reclaim their hold on the geek? io9 talks to Satine Phoenix.

GalleyCat spots the book trailer for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls.

Steve Jobs Head Cheese hits the plate! Errr.. Rather Jobs' head made of cheese, over at Neatorama.

SGU finale ... "upsetting and cruel?" SciFi Wire shares a video with Brian J. Smith (Lt. Matthew Scott).

The Awesomer previews the PS3 game, 3D Dot Game Heroes... ""He builds giant, evil stone golems with lasers... because it's fun to blow them up."

Kathryn Bigelow turned down the chance to direct the new Spider-Man according to the LA Times.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Syfy channel. I enjoy awful Z-grade movies and Twilight Zone reruns as much as the next guy, but after they had the nerve to produce the incredible Battlestar Galactica, I feel like giving the network a big slap on the face and shout "See what you did there? Why can't you do more things like that?" They also changed their name from Sci-Fi, which accurately describes their content, to Syfy, which sounds like 18th century slang for what happens when a sailor isn't careful while in port. I really have to wonder who is running the show over there.

That guy is apparently Mark Stern, who has greenlit a new pilot called Three Inches for the network. The show "...centers on an underachiever who gains the power to move any object using his mind, but only for a distance of three inches. He recruits a team of fellow heroes, each with their own less-than-spectacular abilities." Sounds like either an intentionally comedic Heroes or a TV version of the flawed-yet-fun-and-forgotten Mystery Men. Says Stern: "It's a very postmodern approach, with a really wonderful, tongue-in-cheek script."

A postmodern, tongue-in-cheek superhero series? Consider me there for the pilot, at the very least. The 90-minute pilot will premiere at a time and date that has not been announced yet. What do those sci-fi dreamers/afflicted colonial merchant marines have up their sleeves? More as it happens.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

This is one of my favorite posters for a comic book movie, and I have it in a tube somewhere, awaiting framing. It reflects the active choice Peter Parker makes in Spider-Man 2, to maintain his Spider-Man identity as a means of helping others. It kind of makes me nostalgic now -- odd for a poster from just a few years ago. I don't think Spider-Man 3 was a proper farewell to that cast, and I would've liked to have seen one more adventure from Sam Raimi with Tobey Maguire in the costume. I don't think I'm alone here.

Just when you thought it was safe to take a break from Conan news...

Variety reports Marcus Nispel and crew began filming two days ago in Bulgaria. Strange how they neglected to tell us that Rose McGowan had joined the cast. I last saw Ms. Gowan a'splodin' zombies with her machine gun leg in the Robert Rodriguez portion of Grindhouse, so we know she's up for just about anything. What will she be doing in Conan?

"McGowan is to play an evil half-human/half-witch."

I've put my analytical mind to task and have attempted to dissect this phrase and pull as many tidbits forth as possible. Here is what I discovered through my painstaking art of deduction: McGowan will play an evil half-human/half-witch. Sorry. Spoiler alert.

In all seriousness, this is quite the kooky cast. Jason Momoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Ron Perlman, Rose McGowan. No one A-list, but some top shelf B-listers for sure. Fingers crossed that Nispel has learned how to shoot an action scene.

Will my endless whining about the never-shooting, never-starting, all-talk-no-play Hobbit movies finally come to a dramatic end? Maybe!

That endless source of all things movie news called Ian McKellen's official website is now reading that the two Hobbit movies will commence shooting in June of this year, not June of 2018, as previously assumed. Why take it from me when you can take it from Sir Ian (or his website editor) himself:

"The Hobbit's, two films, start shooting in New Zealand in June. Filming will take over a year. Casting in Los Angels, New York City and London has started. The script too proceeds. The first draft is crammed with old and new friends, again on a quest in Middle Earth."

Old and new friends? Talk about upping the ante!

There you have it. The year-long shoot commences this summer. The script is still being worked on. Ian McKellen is back. There will be a quest in Middle Earth. Now we just need to hear some other minor details, you know, like who is playing Bilbo. You know. Little things like that.

Thanks to Coming Soon for finding this little nugget.

I haven't seen Caprica yet, but word-of-mouth has been getting better since the debut of the pilot episode. Battlestar Galactica was a weekly religious event for me, so I'm not sure why I didn't jump into Caprica from the start, but I'm glad to hear it's good -- means I have something to look forward to as the seasons start hitting DVD.

Ratings have been getting better for the show as well, with strong demographics in the golden "young adult male" category that tthe advertisers love so much. The show is doing well enough that SyFy are pursuing Ronald D. Moore to build another spin-off around the Galactica universe, this one set in space like the original show.

Where could Battlestar Galactica go next? Do we want to see a show that centers around another ship in the fleet, taking place during the series' previous seasons? Do we want a spin-off about Cylon culture similar to the original movie The Plan? I vote for The Life and Times of Gaius Baltar, a weekly prequel series that follows James Callis' complicated villain character through his early life of arrogance and deceit (but since that one doesn't take place in space, it won't be happening). What do you want to see in a new Galactica spin-off?

(via The Hollywood Reporter)

Originally posted on Cinematical

There aren't a lot of film properties that sort of crack through the veneer of my professionalism as a journalist – that tap into the fanboy hidden behind the film critic - but Tron is one of them. Since Tron: Legacy was announced two years ago, Joe Kosinski's follow-up to Steven Lisberger's groundbreaking 1982 computer-generated adventure has become the film whose release I've anticipated most, and as each new image, clip or piece of viral marketing was unveiled, my excitement continues to grow. The fact that each of these new pieces of the puzzle is beautiful and interesting only fuels my interest further – which is, of course, what distributor Disney is counting on to help propel the film to box office success when it's released on December 17, 2010.

Last summer, Disney offered an invitation to a limited number of reporters to visit the Vancouver set of Tron: Legacy, interview members of the cast and crew, and see how the production is progressing. I was lucky enough to be Cinematical's representative, and suffice it to say I was thrilled to get a chance to check out what was in store for the film. Before we actually visited the set proper, however, we spoke to none other than the star of both the original Tron and Tron: Legacy, Jeff Bridges. The man who would be Flynn gamely answered our nerdy inquiries and revealed what he could about the challenges of taking the franchise and rebooting it, in more ways than one.

My love affair with Star Wars stopped with Episode III. I was willing to put aside my issues with the weak, convoluted screenplays to Episode I and II, in the hopes that the third installment would tie every thing up nicely. It didn't. In this fan's opinion, Episode III felt just as disconnected to the previous two films as those felt to each other. I'd had enough of Star Wars.

I've only slightly recovered from the 2005 release of Episode III. It doesn't make me angry anymore, but I have little to no interest in the universe I once loved, and that makes me a little bit sad. I can still watch the original trilogy, and appreciate them as films, but I'm not buying the toys, the shirts, the bedsheets, the video games, the kitchen appliances, or the lingerie. My interest in the trappings of Star Wars fandom seems to be dead forever.

I wonder how much of my feelings on Star Wars and its creator George Lucas affected my enjoyment of Alexandre Phillipe's documentary The People Vs. George Lucas. I've not only internalized most of the thoughts conveyed in the film, I've had some of the exact same discussions with my friends that are presented here. Why did George Lucas add so much unnecessary crap to the Special Editions? Why did The Phantom Menace disappoint so much? And what's the deal with Jar Jar Binks?

Here's a look at tonight's sci-fi TV:

Lost, "Recon" – We haven't seen much of Sawyer in the past few weeks, but the former Lafleur makes a big comeback on tonight's all-new episode. Our favorite literature lovin' grifter locks eyes and butts heads with a dangerous con woman in the sideways world. Back on the island, the Lockeness Monster sends Sawyer on a mission while Kate deals with Crazy Claire (Watch your back Kate!). (9 p.m. ET on ABC)

FlashForward, "What Did You See?" – If you're like me, you're just waiting to see Battlestar Galactica's James Callis show up on FlashForward to tell Joseph Fiennes and crew to go frak themselves and stop obsessing over the blackout already! Well, that's not gonna happen tonight, because this is just a clip show that recaps the first half of the season. (10 p.m. ET on ABC)

Head after the jump for clips and more TV picks.

Looking for something good and geeky to watch? Check out this week's new sci-fi DVD releases:

The Fourth Kind (DVD and Blu-ray)
Milla Jovovich stars in this sci-fi flick that, sadly, doesn't involve her firing two machine guns at once or kicking zombies in the face. But The Fourth Kind makes up for its lack of Resident Evil-style action with some decent chills and genuinely creepy moments. Jovovich plays a psychologist investigating a string of alien abductions in Nome, Alaska. But despite the fun scares, the film mostly falls apart when trying to balance its grainy "actual" footage of alien abduction craziness with its overstylized "reenactments."

Astro Boy (DVD and Blu-ray)
I don't know much about Astro Boy, the mega popular Japanese manga series first published in the 1950s. But I do know that Astro Boy fans were mixed over this derivative if ultimately good-hearted CGI kid's flick.

Also new this week: Mystery Science Theater 3000: XVII and Clash of the Gods: The Complete Season One.