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Robot Avatar, Apocalypse Nerd on TV

The word is out that Robot Chicken will be giving the full treatment to Avatar and Twilight, as it did for Star Wars. They have done the first handful of episodes for season 5 and are continuing with production. Seth Green estimates 10 months until we get to see it on TV, but in the meantime season 4 is on the store shelves.

And then there is Fallout, a BBC funded project based on the Dark Horse Comics series Apocalypse Nerd. You can never have too much British End of the World comedy, after all. Right now it is only a pilot but with luck the BBC will pick it up for a full series. Thanks to SF Signal for the heads up on this one.

Fallout: Teaser Trailer from tupaq felber on Vimeo.

Something to Watch: DVD’s

First, a bit of news that depresses the heck out of me: my main computer died. I developed some kind of hardware issue that locked it up to the point where I had to unplug it to turn it off, and nothing I have done since will turn it back on again, or even allow BIOS to run. I was in the middle of Second Life, which none of my other computers are powerful enough to support… my Avatar may be dancing there still. Nor can I watch anything on Streaming Netflix (or streaming anything else), I have lost all my iPhone apps, email is evaporated, and worst of all, all the blog entries I was building in advance are gone. I commit initial surgery to the box to try to get it back tomorrow and am already exploring replacement choices, but in the meantime bare with me if these entries are not up to my usual standard.

I am happy to report that Tremors the Complete Series is finally being released on disk. The four movies in the franchise have been available forever, but until now your only option for the TV series was to watch full episodes online. This quirky little TV show was politically incorrect and better for it, and I am looking forward to adding it to the permanent collection.

Justin Time is a direct-to-video release targeted at tweens that could be enjoyable for the right age group. At least I hope it is targeted at tweens. Another direct contender is the Second Best Science Fiction Movie Ever Made, for obvious reasons.

Of the American animations coming out this week, Planet 51 is a very fun film. It didn’t do well with the critics, mostly because we have all seen it before (except the other times humans were the ones living in the 1950s with serious paranoia), but it has quality 3D animation, first class voiceover work, and enough of a twist on the type to be worth your time.

On the Anime front, the total rebuild Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone takes the first six episodes of the original series and retells them in feature film format. All of the classic Mecha goodness is here; if you don’t know NERV, this is a great place to start.

Another favorite Anime series, Your Under Arrest, has one more volume available in the US: You’re Under Arrest: Fast & Furious Collection 1. There has never been anything subtle about this series, and they are not starting now. And while a cop show might not be what you expected to hear about from a Sci-Fi site, like Tank Police this one has some serious science fiction aspects (although more like James Bond movies rather than the more obvious genre forms).

Then there is the classic GaoGaiGar for all the Giant Robo fans; it predates many of the series that helped create the modern concept of mechanized warcraft worshiped as gods, and had a formative effect on a lot of them.

I rarely post about documentaries here, but one worth mentioning is Hisashi Tenmyouya: Samurai Nouveau. It tells the story of a graphics designer turned full-tilt artist, and is part of the Viz New People Artist series of documentaries. To get an idea of just how well he can mix the traditional with the modern, visit his home page and see what he has done.

I would have to include Something unknown is doing we don’t know what, another documentary, for the fantasy they pursue if nothing else. And then include it again because there are very few films based on a quote by Sir Arthur Eddington, even if the movie has nothing to do with anything the world-class scientist was referring to. Remember, this was the man who said We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about ‘and’. While he got a lot of things wrong, and some of his best quotes have been stolen by mystics and charlatans (not at all the same thing), his best work was explaining subtle differences in the nature of reality. For a physicist, there is no higher calling.

Things to Watch: DVDs

Two films mark this week as a major release date for the young and young at heart. Ponyo was supposed to have been on the shelves before Christmas, and then again in January, but each time they pushed the date back. Unfortunately I can’t read the official Studio Ghibli site, nor do I know which country it is telling us the DVD date is for. But Amazon seems to think it will come out Tuesday, so unless they pull another last-minute reschedule we may hopefully see it this time.

The award for best drama performance while wearing a rug-thick costume with built in animatronics goes to Where The Wild Things Are, the Spike Jonze implementation of the famous children’s book. This live-action film is designed for slightly older kids than the animated Ponyo, but both are wonderful stories that any adult can relate to.

Then there are two made-for-TV programs that you might think were for children, but they aren’t. The 1966 BBC program Alice in Wonderland was definitely built for adults, and even originally aired after 9PM. This masterpiece had such starts as Michael Redgrave, Peter Cook, Peter Sellers, and John Gielgud in it, and its release onto DVD is long overdue.

The other one goes by the shorter title Alice, and was on the Sci-Fi Channel in December. Also designed for adults from the same source material, this one stars Caterina Scorsone, Andrew Lee Potts, Matt Frewer, Tim Curry, Colm Meaney, Cathy Bates, and many others. I don’t think it is any great surprise both of these are hitting the shelves the same week that the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp version opens in Theaters. And that one also has some amazing actors, including Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway; one would think this story draws almost as many quality actors as Hamlet, a tale everyone wants to be in at least once.

For fans of disaster movies, 2012 does its best to kill off the entire planet, and you can’t get much more disastrous than that while we are all stuck in a single gravity well. While this one feels a bit more like a thrill ride than a movie, it is fun.

Speaking of fun, do not miss Gentlemen Broncos; while more a story about a Sci-Fi author than science fiction itself, this one is downright funny.

For classic TV, this time around it is Doctor Who: Dalek War, two John Pertwee era stories. Frontier in Space is grand space-opera told on a tiny budget, and features not only the Daleks but is also the last time we saw Roger Delgado as The Master. Planet of the Daleks may look like a Hartnell story, but it does have some original Dalek background information, plus after the photo layout I just have to grin any time I see Jo Grant with a Dalek.

Besides the previously mentioned Ponyo, there are several other anime titles this week. The Yozakura Quartet don’t play instruments, but are a mixed-blood (demon and human) demon fighting team; this boxed set is the complete collection. Season three of ARIA The Origination is also out, and the 13 episodes are packaged up with the OVA for extra value.

Eureka Seven: Good Night Sleep Tight Young Lovers was a re-imaging of sorts; they took all the same characters from the same world but changed the core premise of Eureka herself. That change to the character’s origin completely changed the dynamic of the plot line. Which means, even if you own the original TV series, you haven’t seen this story yet.

Kurokami The Animation Part 1 show a run time in the product description of 200 minutes, which tells me it is only the first 8 episodes of this 24 episode series. Since that would make the combined total for all three DVD releases somewhere around $90, I think I will watch it on Crunchyroll first and decide if it is worth that much cash, or if I should wait for a less expensive “Complete Series” release.

And I think I finally understand why they delayed Ponyo; because also on Tuesday there will be Special Editions of three other Studio Gibli classics; Castle in the Sky, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro. If you are missing any of these, now is the perfect time to add them to your collection.

Something to Watch: DVDs

In live action domestic movies, The Box comes out Tuesday. I missed that one at the theaters, but I think I’m going to rent it to watch before I decide if it needs to be part of the permanent collection. The one I will be bringing home for sure is Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, since my collection needs more comedy. For the imported live action movie this week, Battle Girl: Living Dead in Tokyo Bay would be the perfect gift for that Troma fan on your list.

The top TV offering this week is the first 10 episodes (first half of season one) of Flash Forward, one of the few SF TV series currently running based on an actual science fiction book, written by Robert J. Sawyer. While the whole DVD Release Pattern for Season 1.0 and Season 2.0 seems mostly to be a scam to get you to pay more for fewer episodes (my local BestBuy charged $49.95 each for seasons One and Three of Battlestar Galactica, but 44.95 each for seasons 2.0, 2.5, 4.0, and 4.5, even though the full season 4 had almost the same number of episodes as season 3, as one example), this time they did it right. The Season 1.0 package has a coupon to get the Season 1: Complete release at $15 off when it comes out. Since it only costs $20 for 1.0, you are basically paying $5 to catch up on the first 10 episodes now, as we get ready to roll into season 1.5. I hope this works out for them, so we can see this distribution model used for other TV series going forward.

If you have an interest in the history of experimental animation as I do, you might find Celestial Navigations: The Short Films of Al Jarnow would be worth a look. Some of his work you have already seen in PBS presentations like Sesame Street, others will be new, and most will be interesting. Al Jarnow himself is into creating a lot of different kinds of art, check out his site when you get a chance.

There are several interesting Anime titles out this week, the most unusual of which may be the Maria-holic: Complete Collection. This starts off with several standard Anime tropes and gives each of them a twist, and then run the combined results full tilt; even when it gets more-than-normally weird, it stays fun and entertaining. And regardless what that review says, it really does come out this week.

Things to Watch: DVDs

The live action movie release to consider this week is The Time Traveler’s Wife, and yes, this is a love story, much in the tradition of Richard Matheson’s Time And Again. This close to Valentines Day, it seems appropriate, and it is a fairly decent treatment of the book.

The animation to be aware of is Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic, but be warned this animation is not for children, nor is it work friendly. The structure is the same as Animatrix, with a separate writing, directing, and production team (all leaders in the field who have created Anime classics) for each segment. This has not been released in theaters that I am aware of, although a limited number of lucky viewers got to see it on the big screen at various film festivals around the world. The DVD is being released in parallel with the game (the game company commissioned the film), both of which are based on the original epic poem.

The TV collection to look for this time around is SG-U Stargate Universe: 1.0; they lost the annoying blue vampires and re-invented the franchise as a Battlestar-style lost in space adventure. The Stargates have been relegated to the same role as Trek’s Transporters, and the galaxy spanning communications system introduced near the end of SG1 are used to keep the episodes from being limited to the ship, the landing zone of each planet, and the characters trapped on the ship. I personally loved SG1, and found any episode of SG-Atlantis that had the blue guys in it unwatchable (which did leave them with 20 or 30 good episodes over their 5-year run). So far I find SG-Universe to be about half way between the two, but if they stop trying so hard to be the new BSG (which they are failing at) and go back to the core strengths of SG1 (good mix of humor to go with the OMG moments, excellent dialog, and retain the good ensemble chemistry they have to bolster the dynamic tension), this series has the potential to equal or surpass the original.

On the anime front, Soul Eater Part 1 bears a style resemblance to Dead Leaves, both for the graphics and the audio, and looks like it could be a lot of fun. You can watch Soul Eater episodes online at that link to give you an idea if it should become part of your permanent collection. Gaogaigar Season One Litebox comes from the folks who built Godanner and Betterman, and shows you how that team started out. And while Naruto Shippuden: Volume 6 is also coming out on Tuesday, I will be waiting for the next season-long box set before plunking my money down; there are just too many episodes in the series for me to be able to afford any other choice.

Things to Watch: DVDs and TV

Best choice for DVD’s this week has to be Duncan Jones’s Moon, filmed on a tiny budget but delivering a huge and powerful story. The creative use of miniatures at a time when everyone is making CGI effects is an entire tale unto itself.

A project that did focus on CGI and Animation to get its results was The Celestial Railroad. The classic Japanese story of riding a train through the Milky Way was used as a good jumping off point for creating a program to project onto a planetarium dome at IMAX resolution, and it is now available in Blue Ray.

For TV, tonight’s season 3 premier of Chuck kicked the series off in the right direction, even if a few details (like the whole Prague decision sequence) were beat on harder than they needed to be. And yes, if you missed it you can watch it online at that link. Later this week, the Discovery Channel Sci-Fi Science series gives you the info you need to build your own working light saber. If you haven’t already been following the series, then last week you missed how to build a Starship. Some of the top physicists in the world are involved with this one, so it is not just fictional speculation, but the real deal.