July 2004 Archives

Continuing the Batman theme the Batman Begins site has some photos up, including the jumbo wheeled, super-mean batmobile. [Via slashdot].

The trailer is also online, via a nasty javascript pop up window (boo!) but in an array of formats and sizes (hurrah!) and it looks really cool.

What I liked most however is the new BatLogo.

Very moody.

I've been getting an increase in comment spam (as I notice have SFSignal). Spammers are twats, I hate them with a passion. I'm very tempted to write a DOS attack on their sites. However I've resisted retaliation and instead installed the wonderful MT-Blacklist.

Christopher Nolan made a conscious decision to include previously unfilmed villains the Scarecrow and Ra's Al Ghul in the story of the caped crusader's origins.

[Via Sci Fi Wire]

I can't wait to see what Christopher Nolan does with Batman, he is such a cool director.

I told my son (who is three years old) that a new Batman film is being made. Now everytime I remind him about the new Star Wars film coming next year (got to start them early) he says "and Batman too".

I finally got around to reading The Dark Knight Returns after getting it out of my local library. Only seventeen years late, but hey. Anyway, it's brilliant. If you haven't read it, get it now. I don't read many comics these days and it reminded me how awesome they can be.

Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh YES! Star Wars episode iii is officially Revenge of the Sith.

That is so cool. It is cool for many reasons. Firstly it is just cool. Secondly as many of you I'm sure know, Return of the Jedi was initially called Revenge of the Jedi, before revenge was thought to be un-jedi like. Thirdly, it is just cool.

I'm gibbering with excitement.

The Disembodied Brain has a photo gallery from Comic-Con 2004.

Lots of pictures of people dressed up as weird stuff.

I want one.

I saw my first I, Robot poster in London today (Arthur posters seem to be everywhere at the moment). It's out in the UK on 6th August. Staggered release dates are rubbish.

Out of those links I posted earlier I found this interview with Charles Stross on infinity plus. It's from 2002 and so a bit out of date (in terms of his publishing schedule) but still very interesting. Also Charlies weblog is here

I watched the new Star Wars web documentary a few times this morning on the way into work (as you do). I really like those web docs. I like pausing them and trying to spot cool things in the background. This one had some footage from the Anakin / ObiWan fight and also some music that I didn't recognise that was very dark and moody. The actual content is pretty interesting too, about how the use of digital cameras has opened up the use of large plasma screens to watch the playback, and even doing some on-set editing to see if a shot works. Very cool.

Engadget give us Isaac Hayes Three Laws of Robotics...

• A robot must risk his neck for his brother man, and may not cop out when there’s danger all about.
• A robot must be a sex machine to all the chicks, except where such actions conflict with the will of his main woman.
• A robot must at all times strive to be one bad motha-shutchyomouth.

Following this link from Boing Boing I got to Unwirer, a story by Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross (done collaboratively on a blog). From there (in the side bar) there are also links to other of their stories that are online. Lots of good reading.

Happy (Belated) Anniversary, SF Signal!. SFSignal is one. Well done guys. No sign of blog burnout yet. It's interesting reading a group blog because you form mental images of each person and their personalities, plus it adds a nice random freshness as well.

The New York Times reviews Britain's Next Wave, including IRON COUNCIL, by China Mieville and Newton's Wake by Ken MacLeod.

The next Star Wars web documentary entitled Video Village is online., and it's about the use of digital cameras.

I, Robot has conquered the US box office on its opening weekend. There's reviews all over the web. As usual in the UK we have to wait to see it.

According to the BBC , and they should know, some filming for the new series is taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday this week in Cardiff city centre. If you're there send us a report.

An interview with Douglas Adams from 1988 is available online as an MP3 [Via Boing Boing]

Following a link for Stargate Atlantis photos I discovered that About have quite a few Sci-Fi/Fantasy picture galleries.

Just to make me feel a bit worse about not going to Comic-Con, Rick McCallum is appearing and is bound to give away juicy tidbits.

Lots of models from the classic series Space 1999 [VIa Boing Boing]. I had a toy of one of those eagle spaceships, it had a green nose and was brilliant.

The schedule of Comic-Con has been released. [Via Disembodied Brain]. It looks very, very cool. Wish I was going. Anyone going to blog it?
A couple of the things I'd love to see : Star Wars Spectacular with Lucasfilm’s Steve Sansweet and guests (of course), Joss Whedon talking about Serenity (and showing previews?) and Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean talking about the MirrorMask movie.

All over the web is the news that Chris de Burgh has bought Alien 'icon'. The BBC say "He paid just under £29,875", so the bidding went to £1 increases? CdB (as I shall now call him said "I bought it because I believed it was a defining moment in cinema history for its sheer horror." and left unsaid that he also bought it because he is very rich and can just do things like that. Wouldn't that be nice, to be able to bid for your favourite movie props. I'll have.....let me think.....ermmm......oooh! I'll have Darth Vader's helmet.

The Orac3 is an incredibly complex custom computer, named in tribute to the idiosyncratic Orac computer in Blake's 7, a cheapo British sci-fi TV show from the '80s.

[Via The Cult of Mac Blog] Cheap(ish), but classic. www.blakes7.com

Star Wars History is a wiki based Star Wars encyclopedia. However it kept asking me to login to view stuff and I couldn't be bothered. Nice idea though, although aren't the Star Wars RPG source books the definitive encyclopedia?

TTA Press who have taken over the publication of Interzone have a message board discussing the upcoming issue. It includes details of the stories that have been accepted so far. Sounds very cool (plus groovy new artwork) can't wait for it to arrive, although no publication date has been mentioned yet.

If you didn't know that games such as Star Wars Galaxies existed then the is entry in TK421 sounds incredibly crazy. In fact the first time I read it I thought it was crazy, "What? There's a guy out there selling lightsabers?" Sadly not.

Another SciFi webzine with original fiction Ultraverse.

Sci Fi Wire has some news on the upcoming Firefly movie, Serenity.

I've just discovered a couple of Science Fiction mags..

Albedo One which has a terrible front page, but a few stories online and a some interviews including a great one with Kim Stanley Robinson
and
Abyss and Apex, which looks very nice and has some good stories online, including some very groovy super short flash fiction.

Cory Doctorow has put an image of the cover art of his upcoming book online. [Via Boing Boing]. Although the novel is a departure from his usual scifi it still sounds like an interesting read (it's out spring 2005).

Charlie Stross has put online the talking cat scene that was cut from his new book Iron Sunrise.

I like the idea of that, it's like the DVD special edition of a book on the web. Will authors begin creating special edition content whilst writing their new novels?

I finally got aorund to reading Ansible 204, July 2004. As usual it is good.

About.com has some pictures from Stargate SG-1 - Season Eight [Via solar Flare]

Stargate creator ready for Atlantis which premieres July 16.
It's been one of those days where I read about cool SF TV series that I' won't get to see for years (unless I buy the DVD's). On the plus side I stayed in a motel just over the road from where they film Stargate (but didn't see any men with sticks that shot llaser beams out the end.)

A quick introduction to The 4400 sounds intriguing....
"A comet is hurtling towards Earth, and it looks to be the end of civilization, when it suddenly slows and finally stops. It explodes, and 4,400 people come out, people who've been missing throughout the decades. They have no recollection of where they were, why they were missing and what date it is now."
[Via Sci Fi Wire]
I wonder if there is any chance of it being shown in the UK? The trouble is that unless series are mega hits then UK terrestrial TV won't buy them. Which is rubbish.

Wired have an article entitled A Wretched Hive of Fan Films which is about the upcoming Star Wars Fan film awards and also discusses fan films in general.

Looking slightly better than the version I used to play on my BBC Micro, here's GLtron a version of the Light cycles arena from Tron.

The BBC break the news that there will be no Daleks in Doctor Who's return. And the reason that talks have broken down over their usage? The BBC had tried to commission a cartoon series about gay Daleks for BBC Three. Critical mistake.

Another one to file under "I would go if I wasn't 6000 miles away", Robinson will speak to The Bee Book Club at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 15, at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria, Sacramento. [Via The Sacremento Bee]
I had a quick look for a list of KSR's schedule but couldn't find anything. Anyone know if he as a tour schedule somewhere?

Star Trek: Enterprise producers Rick Berman and Brannon Braga have told Starburst magazine that they're interested in having William Shatner guest-star during the next season of the sci-fi series. [Via Digital Spy]
Break out the ham.

Apparently Gary Oldman may be voicing a SW EPIII character, possibly General Grievous. Cool. [Via SFSignal: Two Interesting SF Tidbits]

The 2004 Locus Awards winners have been announced announced. [Via The Write Hemisphere] The best novel is won by Dan Simmons for Ilium.

A few days ago I laughed at The Arizona Republics article on WesterCon57. I've just found some more stuff about the con, the website is here, Dragon Page are broadcasting live from it and the programme listing looks amazingly diverse. Sessions that I would fancy going to if I wasn't 4000 miles away include....

• Coyote and Roadrunner, The physics of the Chuck Jones universe
• Southwestern Cats: The Eating of Geckos (?!)
• Future Weapon Systems in SF Stories - Fantasy vs. Reality
• Farscape: Frel No, We Won’t Go!
• Beyond X-Prize