Nathan Fillion’s Captain Mal of Firefly beat out William Shatner’s iconic Kirk as best Starship captain in the recent Blockbuster poll. While I am a long time Trek fan, I have to agree; he just did a better job as a captain. Of course, the timing of the poll was no coincidence, since Star Trek 11 hits the big screens today (or tomorrow, depending on where you live). With Quinto doing Spock and Pegg as Scotty, I can’t wait to see how the new one turns out. In the same poll, Star Wars’ Darth Vader made best villain, David Tennant’s Doctor Who was voted hunkiest, and Jeri Ryan’s 7 of 9 won the babe category; good choices all.
The Fan Film The Hunt for Gollum premiered at SciFi London yesterday, and was posted online at the same time (in HD, no less). Besides the movie’s home page, you can find it at Daily Motion, which also hosts the Sci-Fi London TV archives. Author Walter Jon Williams has posted a fun video called Mutant Powers, explaining graphically why you don’t want them. He also found the exploding gummi bears video below. And the first trailer is out for District 9, another thinking-person’s sleeper hit in the making, along with Moon.
It looks like we have an entire summer of great Sci-Fi movies in front of us, but for the moment let’s just look at this month. For this weekend, to open, top of the list is X-Men Origins: Wolverine, another world-class entry from the Marvel Movie House team. Since they brought the film making in-house, the movies just keep getting better and better. Also out this week is Battle for Terra, a 3D animated SF story, and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Next week, the primary film is Star Trek 11, and the week after that has nothing I have recognized so far (I can’t count the Dan Brown movie since he only wrote one book, over and over). But one more week after that we have two fun flicks, Terminator: Salvation and Night At The Museum: Smithsonian.
Getting ready to step out the door and hit X-Men Origins: Wolverine in an hour or two, which I have been looking forward to for a while. If I was anywhere near Michigan, though, I would be joining Elizabeth Bear, Wil Wheaton, John Scalzi, and over a thousand others at Penguicon 7.0. A three day Con celebrating Linux, free and open source software, and Science Fiction? Had I heard about this a few weeks ago I would have been there; thanks to GeekDad for the heads up!
By the title of this entry, you have probably guessed that MacLeod won the Clarke Award this year, for his book Song of Time. Pretty impressive, since his competition included Paul McAuley, Alastair Reynolds, Neal Stephenson, Sheri S. Tepper and Mark Wernham. The Clarke Award was presented last night at the Sci-Fi London 8 Film Festival, and presenting an award for a best book at a film festival is not as unusual as it sounds. This film fest has grown into one of the best SciFi Cons in the UK, and even has its own awards show for best short film made specifically for the event.
Eyeborgs opens this week in London, even though it’s a US movie. So does The Clone Returns Home, and Stingray Sam (a space musical western with unique design features). But there are other movies opening soon, including Star Trek 11 and Moon. And besides the Sci_Fi London festival, another party in that town is Anime Extravaganza at the East End Film Festival. Without getting Close Up and personal, I can tell you one of the Anime’s I am looking forward to is Oh! Edo Rocket!, and let’s not forget Death Note Day on the 28th in New York, and all across the country when the showing of Death Note 3: Change the World hits all the Fathom Events digital theaters. And don’t forget the Robot Penguins working for the Army.