Star Trek

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?

Hot on the heels of the news that Avatar's Stephen Lang is in talks to play the villainous Khalar Singh in Marcus Nispel's upcoming Conan comes the news that the heart-stoppingly gorgeous Rachel Nichols has officially joined the cast. She'll be playing Tamara, who

"...is 18 to 24 years old, Caucasian or Middle Eastern, open to all ethnicities; beautiful, studious, correct, a novitiate of a Greek influenced monastery. A master of martial arts, she has been trained to be the Queen's servant, bodyguard and best friend...She finds herself in league with Conan because of a mutual need to find Khalar Singh. She is not in the least intimidated by Conan's size or grim demeanor and their alliance eventually blossoms into something that surprises them both."

Once again, this comes from Latino Review's leaked casting outline. They have even more spoilerific plot details, so hop on over there if you so desire.

Science fiction and fantasy fans should remember Nichols popping up as the green-skinned and, ahem, underdressed roommate to Uhura in last year's Star Trek. She had a bigger role in the very silly G.I. Joe, where her main job was to deliver technical exposition and look very, very cute in tight leather body armor.

What makes the Star Trek score so good? I can hum it. And not just the main theme, but some of the smaller themes as well. That's from seeing the film twice in theatres, and once on blu-ray -- I don't even own the soundtrack. I realize that's not insightful musical criticism, but, really, when was the last time you could whistle a main title theme after the film was over? It's a rare thing these days, and I'm glad Michael Giacchino isn't afraid to make his music really stand out in a movie, like John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith before him.

Giacchino got noticed in a big way by the International Film Music Critics Association, taking home awards for Star Trek and Up (another exemplary score that I judge solely by its "humability"). Giacchino was named Composer of the Year, with Up winning the Best Score of the Year and Best Score for an Animated Feature. Star Trek took the prize for Best Score for a Fantasy/Science-Fiction Film.

It's good to see a return to sweeping, memorable themes in film after what seemed like a trend toward run-of-the-mill percussion-heavy background music for the longest time. I've no doubt this won't be the last time Giacchino gets to walk away with an armload of awards for his work.

(via TrekWeb)

While the rest of the world was celebrating Valentine's Day with their loved ones this year, a group of Star Trek fans decided to skip the lovefest and do a little something different ... like try to break a record for the most amount of people dressed up in Trek costumes in one place. Now, when you think of such a record, you'd probably imagine it to be at least in the hundreds, right? Especially considering all the Star Trek conventions held around the world each year, as well as the many different groups of fans spread out in every city in every country. That said, go ahead and give a guess as to how many people in costume broke the record.

Ready?

99. Yup. All it took was 99 Trek fans dressed up in costume in one location in order to break a world record. Kinda lame if you ask me, Trek fans. The event was pieced together by the folks over at Star Trek Online, and, hey, I guess you gotta give them credit for breaking a world record ... even though it was probably one of the easiest to break ever. (And I wonder ... do you think any of them hooked up? I mean, it being Valentine's Day and all?)

[via Joystiq]

Ever wonder how the Starship Enterprise is able to travel at light-speed through unexplored cosmos? Well, it doesn't. It's not real. Star Trek is fictional. BUT...If it were real, it still wouldn't be able to.

You can read all about the science behind it on NewScientist, but basically anyone that attempted warp speed travel will burn up with radiation exactly one second into a sub-light trip. Your body would be blasted with a refreshing shower of hydrogen atoms in a way that one scientist vividly describes as being the same as standing directly in the path of the Large Hadron Collider. Ouch.

Next thing we know, scientists will be telling us there's no way to clone dinosaurs or create all-new sexy blue bodies for ourselves featuring USB-ready ponytails.

SXF, the Brit Sci Fi Fantasy mag, has announced their awards. And why should you care? Because it's a very interesting list. The magazine announced the awards at their annual convention earlier this month. Curious as to what they think about science fiction on the other side of the pond? Not surprisingly, it's brit heavy, but it's still interesting. Here are the sci-fi highlights:

Best Film Director: JJ Abrams (Star Trek)
Best TV Episode: Torchwood "Children Of Earth" Episode Five
Best Actress: Eve Myles (Torchwood)
Best Actor: David Tennant (Doctor Who)
Best Novel: The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
Best Comic: Batman: Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader? Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert
Best Game: Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady)
Best Collectible: The Journal of Impossible Things (Doctor Who)

Hope for the Future: Steven Moffat (succeeding Russell T. Davies on Dr. Who)
Lifetime Award: Gerry Anderson (Thunderbirds, UFO, Space 1999, Terrahawks and much more)
Cult Hero: Ianto Jones (Actor Gareth David Lloyd on Torchwood)
Sci-Fi Phenomenon: True Blood (they've only seen season 1)

Unfortunately, some of the most interesting categories are not available online, such as the Best Death Scene, Biggest Disappointment, and Best Dialogue. But my favorite award up there is easily Gerry Anderson. Not only did his work influence the SFX team as children, it made me very nostalgic.

TrekWeb has an exhaustive look at Star Trek: Planet of the Titans, the aborted feature film project from 1976 that was tossed in favor of what became Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The scrapped film from screenwriters Chris Bryant and Allan Scott would have seen Spock discovering Kirk living as a wildman on the former homeworld of the Titans -- a technologically advanced race wiped out by the current residents of the planet, the Cygans. To save the planet from a collision course with a black hole, the Enterprise and its crew enter the hole, only to find themselves traveling thousands of years backward in time. In a twist ending that plays with the paradox of time travel, the crew is revealed to be the Titans themselves, bringing their technology to the distant past of this primitive world.

Producers felt the script was "pretentious" and lacked the elements that made Star Trek unique. That, coupled with drastic management changes at Paramount at the time, also killed the project. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry began work on a new Trek television show, Phase II, an idea that snowballed into becoming the 1979 Robert Wise film.

Of particular interest in the article are scans from the out-of-print book The Art of Ralph McQuarrie. McQuarrie, famous for his design work on Star Wars, did a handful of concepts for would-be Planet of the Titans director Philip Kaufman. In those images, you can see a very different looking Starship Enterprise, pairing harsh geometric angles with some of the low-tech design that the ships of Star Wars would become famous for. You can also see McQuarrie's shuttlecraft designs, as well as an impressive-looking asteroid-based space dock. TrekWeb's piece is a fascinating, in-depth look at the Trek that might've been, and it's interesting to see McQuarrie's unique take on the Star Trek universe.

Our nerdy little genre looks pretty legit today, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made its 82nd annual Academy Award nominations. While you can see the full list of nods on Cinematical, I've taken the time to single out the science-fiction/fantasy films that are in the running at the upcoming Oscar ceremony. The winners will be announced on Sunday, March 2nd.

Some of them are the typical tech award nominations, which we've come to expect for spectacle movies, but there are also a lot of surprises this year, like the Original Screenplay nomination for Up or that the exemplary District 9 is in the running for Best Picture, beating out ill-received obvious Oscar-bait like Nine and Invictus.

You can see all of the sci-fi/fantasy Academy Award nominees after the jump.

"I'm stepping away from Star Trek for at least two years -- no movies, no conventions, no anything for a while." That's what Zachary Quinto told Wired, but did he change his mind in an interview with USA Weekend?

"They're just now beginning to write the Star Trek sequel so my feeling is that it probably won't be in production until early next year, 2011," Quinto says. "I'm really looking forward to it, the process."

So, I guess that means he spoke too soon about that two-year break. I don't want to see the ensemble get burnt out so quickly for purely selfish reasons -- I'd like to see these guys to make at least another half-dozen Trek films. I don't want anyone to get tempted to reboot the reboot just yet. Anyhow, it's reassuring to know Quinto is still game for the sequel.

(via TrekWeb)

Could the sequel to 2009's Star Trek be Spockless? "I'm stepping away from Star Trek for at least two years -- no movies, no conventions, no anything for a while," actor Zachary Quinto told Wired, while promoting the upcoming PC game Star Trek Online. In it, he plays holographic Vulcan medic Mark VI, not Spock, as the game is set in the original "Prime" universe. (Leonard Nimoy will provide the voice of Spock in the game.)

The interesting news here is that Star Trek 2 (or whatever it'll be called) laid claim to a June 2012 release date last week. That would put Quinto back in the Spock ears sometime next year. If Quinto wants a two-year break from Spock, he's simply going to have to find a new job. Paramount needs to get on the phone with him quick and work this out.

I'm certain he's contractually bound for another Star Trek film, whether he wants a vacation from Trek or not. Surely, he, of all people, would understand that a Star Trek film without Spock, this early in the renewed franchise, would be highly illogical.