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

All right, Terry McGinnis fans, prepare to get really happy. DC is bringing back McGinnis as Batman for a six-issue Batman Beyond series. Judging from the cover art by Dustin Nguyen, it looks like they're moving away from the uniform, angular look of the animated series (which ended in 2001), to draw McGinnis as they see fit.

I was very dismissive of Batman Beyond when it aired, in large part due to the awful music on the show, but I've since come to see the charm in the character through projects like Revenge of the Joker and Justice League Unlimited. The series took place in a future version of the DC Universe, where an aging Bruce Wayne mentored the hotshot McGinnis into becoming the new Batman. According to The Source, the mini-series will feature an old foe from Batman's past coming back to trouble McGinnis.

The series, written by Adam Beechan with art by Ryan Benjamin, hits the stands in June. Could this be a test for a potential large-scale comeback?

I promise: I read A Wrinkle In Time; I just can't remember much about it. Maybe Disney's planned major motion picture version will refresh my memory? They've just hired Jeff Stockwell (who also adapted Bridge to Terabithia) to take on the scripting, from the classic fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, A Wrinkle In Time is about three kids that travel to another world to save one girl's scientist father. I distinctly remember a centaur in there somewhere. I also remember some controversy surrounding L'Engle for her personal beliefs. Growing up for a time in a private Christian school, I remember some parents and teachers who frowned on L'Engle's work. I never knew why until researching this article today, whereupon I discovered that L'Engle believed in the controversial concept of universal salvation (that Christ died for us all, and that we are all saved, whether we believe in Jesus or not). As an adult, I'm interested in seeing how those beliefs inform her fantasy novels.

The fact that every kids' book series ever created is getting made into a movie, as the studios scramble to find the next Harry Potter, is what excites me. I was a Lloyd Alexander junkie when I was in elementary school, and this shotgun production approach means I'm hopefully getting closer to a live-action adaptation of The Book of Three. Fingers crossed.

Hammer Films is best known for their gothic horror movies, but the British studio also made quite a few science-fiction films as well, including 1953's Four Sided Triangle. The story revolves around two childhood friends and their love for the same woman. As adults, they create a machine that can clone humans, which one of the two uses to create a replica of the girl they both have feelings for. I have yet to see the film, but the set-up sounds interesting. Would you create an android of your perfect woman if you could, even knowing that she wasn't really real?

In Hanna-Barbera's first foray into live-action movies, a robot dog is created for home security purposes and then becomes the center of a wacky corporate espionage plot as a rival company tries to steal him. I like the very 1970's design work of the poster for C.H.O.M.P.S., despite the film being just as disposable as today's kids' flicks. Next time Hanna-Barbera tries to make a movie about a robot dog, I hope they just go ahead and do Dyno-Mutt. I'm surprised no one has attempted a C.H.O.M.P.S. remake yet.

Much press has been given to Second Life, the virtual world/social network "game" in which participants can live out their fantasies in a polygonal wonderland, free of the restrictions that come with real life. Imagine a perfectly visualized chat room, only with its own user-created socio-economic structure. Companies have found clever ways to monetize the free experience, while over 15 million users work virtual jobs, buy virtual items, have virtual sex, and dance the night away in virtual nightclubs.

Life 2.0, a new documentary by Jason Spingarn-Koff, finds a human story within the world of Second Life, by focusing his attention on the experiences of four of its users. One is a young woman working from her basement, making a six-figure salary designing clothing and houses for sale in Second Life. A male Second Life addict tries to make sense out of his relationship with his created avatar, an eleven-year old girl that he feels controls him through the game, not vice versa. In another thread, a couple tries to bring their Second Life romance into the real world, despite being committed to other partners.

By putting a human face on the participants, Spingarn-Koff is able to help us understand the society of Second Life, while creating an incredibly compelling human drama. I don't have an addictive personality, so it's hard for me to relate to the desire to spend countless hours living out a fantasy in a "fake" world. Spingarn-Koff makes it real to me, by making the people real to me.

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.

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)

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?

This is probably one of my all-time favorite movie posters, but I have mixed feelings about the film itself. No amount of rainbow colors on the poster can make me forget that Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a bit drab. J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek reboot was advertised with a poster that was black and white -- an unusual design move in modern movie posters. Do you think that might've been an intentional reversal of this poster's multi-colored array?

This 1983 film isn't a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone in 3-D is a nice reminder of how far 3-D technology has come. The description on the poster sums up the movie nicely, and it bears a strong influence from both Star Wars and Mad Max, without being nearly as good as either one. Ultimately, it's just an interesting footnote in the checkered past of 3-D technology -- a creaky ancestor to modern day marvels like Avatar.