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News for: January 15, 2002 - April 30, 2002
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Analog and AnLab awards |
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The Master, Tuesday, April 30, 2002 |
Analog Science Fiction and Fact presented its AnLab Awards, and Asimov's Science Fiction handed out its Readers' Awards on April 27,
at the Nebula Awards weekend in Kansas City, Mo.
Analog readers determine the winners of the Analytical Laboratory (AnLab) awards, and readers of Asimov's pick the winners of that magazine's awards.
Congratulations to the winners:
Analog AnLab Awards
Novella
•"Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl's" by Adam-Troy Castro
Novelette
•"Tower of Wings" by Sean McMullen
Short Story
•"Jake, Me, and the Zipper" by Rajnar Vajra
Fact Article
•"Up in Smoke: How Mt. St. Helens Blasted Conventional Scientific Wisdom" by Richard A. Lovett
Cover Art
•Bob Eggleton, July/August 2001
Asimov's Readers' Awards
Novella
•"Stealing Alabama" by Allen Steele
Novelette
•"Into Greenwood" by Jim Grimsley
Short Story
•"Old MacDonald Had a Farm" by Mike Resnick
Poem
•"January Fires" by Joe Haldeman
Cover Artist
•Michael Carroll
Interior Artist
•Darryl Elliot |
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source: Scifi.com |
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Effinger dead at 55 |
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The Master, Tuesday, April 30, 2002 |
Award-winning cyberpunk SF author George Alec Effinger died April 26 in his home in New Orleans. Effinger was an alcoholic and suffered from recurring health problems according to his former wife, fantasy author Barbara Hambly. The cause of the 55 year old Effinger's death has not been determined.
Effinger wrote nine novels, including thrillers and mysteries, and six short story collections. He enjoyed early success with his first novel, What Entropy Means to Me (1972) and with a series of cyberpunk novels in the 1980s, including When Gravity Fails. "Schrodinger's Kitten" won the 1988 Nebula Award and the 1989 Hugo Award for best novelette.
Effinger was perhaps best known for a series of stories featuring Maureen Birnbaum, a shopping-crazy teen dropped into settings and situations that parody science fiction. The stories were collected in 1993 in Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordperson. |
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source: Scifi.com |
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Men In Black II promoting new aliens |
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The Master, Friday, April 19, 2002 |
The official site for the upcoming Men in Black II, due out this summer, is promoting the new aliens in the film by featuring a new one each week. These features include pictures, bios, and statistics about the alien.
The flash heavy website features a slick looking interface...although somewhat noisy...and a number of interesting features, but currently lacks any production or behind the scenes info many fans enjoy on movie promo sites. |
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source: Men In Black II official site |
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Raime tips hat to Sept. 11 in Spider Man |
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The Master, Friday, April 19, 2002 |
Sam Raimi, director of the upcoming Spider-Man movie, told Sci-Fi Wire that he tweaked the New York-based story in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, adding a line of dialogue and putting in an American flag. "I was devastated by September 11th, and I didn't know anybody in the buildings," Raimi told reporters while promoting the film. "I was moved like every other American when I watched the real heroes go in there and help those people in the tragedy at the attack site risk their lives and many times lose their lives."
Raimi added a bit of dialogue in a scene late in the film in which one New Yorker tells the Green Goblin that if he attacks one of us, he attacks all of us. "After Spider-Man has been misunderstood by the New Yorkers throughout the course of the whole movie--he does nothing but risk his life for them--I wanted a small group to appreciate him, because I thought it would give him back something. I had put in before September 11th a bunch of New Yorkers seeing what Spider-Man was doing, risking his life to save these kids, and helping him a little. I thought that would be cool. I wanted the audience to go, 'Finally, somebody appreciates this guy. If not the whole city, somebody.' Then there was September 11th, and I decided to add and slightly change their dialogue, because I really wanted it to be a tip of the hat to those brave rescue workers who risked their lives to be heroes. So the dialogue has been tweaked slightly. Although it may not fly in other countries, I don't know, but I really wanted to give something to those heroes, the real heroes."
Raimi also added an image of a flag. "I've always been a big American, and I think I would have had that flag in anyway. It didn't come out of 'How can I put the flag in?' It came out of 'Where is he going to land? How about a building top at the end? Yeah, land at the building top. What'll be there? ... Oh, I'll put a flag there, yeah. Yeah, Spidey and the flag, he really is a great American or represents a great American who's not real.'"
It's not the first effect the terrorist attacks have had on the film. An early teaser trailer featured the World Trade Center towers prominently and had to be pulled from distribution after the attacks. An early poster also featured images of the center reflected in Spider-Man's eyepieces and also had to be changed. But unlike other films that featured the center as part of their storyline, Spider-Man did not, and the film itself remains virtually the same. Spider-Man opens May 3.
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source: Scifi.com |
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Braga disses fans concerned with Enterprise continuity |
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The Master, Friday, April 19, 2002 |
In an interview with Cinescape magazine Brannon Braga had harsh words about fans and Internet message boards that talk about continuity issues in Enterprise.
"I do read the [Internet message] boards, but people who log onto these boards represent a small part of the show's audience," he says. "They are, however, an audience. And they are fans of the show, so I'm interested to hear what they have to say. But if you try to track everything, you'll go crazy. Some of these people are vicious. It can really bruise your ego. They get personal. And some of them are 12 years old, but you don't know that."
Continuity is something many hard core Trek fans hold dear and feel is a important aspect of the series. Braga's response to concerns expressed by fans over some of the continuity issues in Enterprise was mixed.
"We're very aware of that, and we try very hard," he says. "We have made a few mistakes, but nothing major. I read all these things on the Internet, these 'continuity pornographers' as I like to call them, though I didn't invent the term. These people honestly think that Rick and I are morons! Of course we know that the Ferengi didn't make first contact with Archer. They made it with Picard. The only people who see the Ferengi are Trip, T'pol and Archer, and they never find out who they were. They were 'those weird-looking guys' and they never see them again, so you can have fun with continuity!"
Braga's statement that "they think that Rick (Berman) and I are morons" may be accurate. Many fans had been calling for the team to step aside while Voyager was on the air, blaming the duo for the series perceived faliure and rehashed storylines. Concerns were similarly expressed over them helming Enterprise. It seems unlikely that Braga's statements will do anything to appease his critics. |
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source: Cinescape |
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Ronald Moore to write new Battlestar Galactica |
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The Master, Thursday, April 18, 2002 |
Rumor and petitions have plagued the possibility of a new movie, mini-series, or possible new regular series based on Battlestar: Galactica. Now the project is moving forward again, this time with official news from Sci-Fi Channel that Ronald D. Moore will write the screenplay.
Galatica alum Richard Hatch tried for years to revive the series as a big screen movie or as a Star Trek: The Next Generation style sequel. Last year, X-MEN director Bryan Singer and producing partner Tom DeSanto were supposed to revive the series on Sci-Fi Channel. However, now Singer is shooting X2, and Sci-Fi apparently didn't want DeSanto in charge on his own.
Now it is reported that David Eick (Spy Game) will executive-produce the script written by Moore, and Breck Eisner (Taken, The Invisible Man) will direct.
Moore is a veteran of the now cancelled Roswell as well as Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. According to reports, the new Galactica series will not follow in the footsteps of its Trek cousins and be a sequel. Instead, it will be a "re-imagining" of the original story.
"I'm going to go back and retell the origin story, and that will form the basis of the miniseries,? Moore said, revealing that the planned four-hour mini-series will serve as a pilot for a potential ongoing show on Sci-Fi.
"There will certainly be changes," he said. "I'm trying to just take a different approach to the material. I want to keep the underlying myth of the show, which is what makes people remember it, and update a lot of it."
"I was a fan as a kid," he said. "I was right there in the '70s, watching along with everybody else. I remember everybody was talking about it? In the broadest strokes, I don't want to do Star Trek and Star Wars all over again. There's a certain style of filmmaking associated with those shows, which is a very romantic, glossy approach to science fiction, with big, lush, orchestral scores, etc? I've been wanting for a while to go in a different direction with film science fiction, and we're doing it with Galactica. We're going to try to make it, for want of a better word, more real, a real place, down and dirty, with a sort of 'You are there' feel to it."
In the meantime, some fans continue to pursue petitions against this very re-imagining of the series they love. |
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source: Zap2It |
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UPN announces finale schedule |
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The Master, Thursday, April 18, 2002 |
UPN announced its season finale schecule for May, including the series finale of the teen-alien show Roswell on May 14. Roswell ends its three-year journey run and wraps up the story of aliens Max, Michael and Isabel, not to mention the romantic entanglements of Max and Liz and Michael and Maria. The show airs at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer will have a four-episode sixth season-ending arc that leaves one of Buffy's friends dead and another looking to exact revenge on the killer, the network said. The two-part finale starts at 8 p.m. ET/PT on May 21.
Enterprise's maiden voyage ends 8 p.m. ET/PT May 22, when Starfleet orders the ship to return home after the crew seemingly causes the destruction of a planet.
Wolf Lake, recently picked up by UPN from its grave over at CBS, ends its first season on UPN at 9 p.m. ET/PT May 1, with a finale in which a crackpot Web adventurer has cornered Ruby in a cage in wolf form and plans to expose the Wolf Lake community to his Internet audience. |
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Kevin Smith dies at 38 |
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The Master, Saturday, February 16, 2002 |
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News submitted by: Bmat |
Leading New Zealand actor Kevin Smith has died in a Beijing hospital after he was critically injured in a fall.
Auckland-based Smith was injured in the Chinese capital 10 days ago and doctors treating him were concerned that he would not recover from serious injuries.
The accident occurred on February 6, the day after the actor finished work on a joint US-Chinese production, and as he was preparing to return to NZ.
The hunky local star was then to have headed to movie "boot camp" to prepare for what many believed would be his big break, a role in a Hollywood blockbuster starring Bruce Willis.
The doctor treating Smith told the Herald last night that staff from China's top movie production house, Beijing Film Studio, rushed him to the Beijing Union Hospital after the fall. Smith was believed to have been on a life-support machine before his death.
The doctor, who did not wish to be named, said Smith had suffered a severe injury to his skull and had been in a critical condition.
Acting sources have said he was injured when he fell from a great height, possibly six storeys.
Li Hao, a spokeswoman for one of the companies involved in Warriors of Virtue II, said Smith, who had completed his film contract the day before the fall, had made a big impression.
Smith's wife, Suzanne, and his parents, Geoff and Yvonne, are understood to have been with him.
In addition to his wife, Mr Smith leaves his three children, Oscar, 11, Tyrone, 9, and Willard, 3.
Smith starred in many New Zealand stage, television and feature films and is perhaps best known for his role as Ares in Xena: Warrior Princess. |
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source: New Zealand Herald |
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Queen deleted scene posted online |
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The Master, Thursday, February 14, 2002 |
The 13th Street Web site has posted a deleted scene from the upcoming vampire movie Queen of the Damned. The clip features a song by the Lestat character, who is a rock star in the film, with Marliyn Manson providing the vocals.
View the clip |
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source: 13th Street |
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Wells talks about Time Machine FX |
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The Master, Thursday, February 14, 2002 |
In an interview with Sci Fi Wire, Director Simon Wells said that his remake of The Time Machine will feature more than 400 special-effects shots, enabling him to create a visual landscape light-years beyond what George Pal was able to realize in his 1960 film version. "There's a place in the original where the time machine gets encased with rock," Wells said in an interview. "Hundreds of years go by, and the Time Traveler is trapped inside the rock, which was basically a really clever cheat to get around showing that huge sweep of time changing."
Added the director, "We don't do that cheat. We stay out in the open. We see geological time travel. We see, literally, an ice age come and go. Right there, that's something you couldn't possibly do even five years ago."
Simon Wells, who is the great-grandson of Time Machine author H.G. Wells, noted that his film will have one thing very much in common with the Pal version: Alan Young. The 82-year-old actor, who portrayed Filby in the first film, will pop up briefly in the remake. "We met with Alan, because we were told, 'He's this wonderful old guy, and you have to meet him,'" Wells said. "We thought it would be nice to have him in the office and the studio and show him what we were doing on the new movie. When he came in, we just fell in love with him. He's such a nice guy. After he left, David Valdes, our producer, turned to me and said, `We've got to put him in the movie.' So he has a one-line cameo appearance. Aficionados of the original movie will be pleased to see him in there." The Time Machine opens nationwide on March 8. |
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source: Scifi.com |
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Rings leads Oscar Noms, with some controversy |
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The Master, Thursday, February 14, 2002 |
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring led the oscar pack with 13 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and a Supporting Actor nod for Ian McKellen.
The Best Picture nomination has one hurdle...who will be listed as producer. Under new Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rules, only three producers can be listed. New Line submitted four names as producers of the film: director Peter Jackson, Frances Walsh, Barrie M. Osborne and Tim Sanders. For now, the film is listed as "nominees to be determined", and the the academy's producers' branch will arbitrate and select three names to be formally listed as nominees. Only those three persons will be permitted onstage to accept the statuette should Rings win as Best Picture.
Last Thursday, Rings passed Shreck to become to second biggest money grossing movie of 2001, behind Harry Potter.
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source: Zap2It |
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Berman confirms cameos in Nemesis |
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The Master, Thursday, February 7, 2002 |
Rick Berman confirmed that Kate Mulgrew (Kathryn Janeway), Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) and Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan) will make cameo appearances in the next Trek movie, Star Trek: Nemesis.
"John Logan, who wrote the script, very much wanted Kate to portray an admiral that we had, and Kate was delighted to do it," Berman said. Also, "we have a wedding in the movie. and guests at the wedding include Wil Wheaton and Whoopi Goldberg." Berman added that Majel Barrett Roddenberry will not reprise her role as Deanna's mother, Lwaxana Troi. "There's a plot point I don't want to give away, but there's a reason." |
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source: Star Trek Official |
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Chronicle Cancelled |
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The Master, Thursday, February 7, 2002 |
The Sci-Fi Channel has announced that it is canceling The Chronicle, which will air its last episode, "Snitch in Time," on March 22. "The Chronicle was a good show with a talented cast and creative production team that unfortunately didn't find the audience it deserved," Sci-Fi president Bonnie Hammer said in a statement. "Sci-Fi continues its commitment to original programming with Firestarter: Rekindled in March; new seasons of the hit series Farscape and exclusive originals of Stargate SG-1 this summer; the original movie Riverworld, based on Philip José Farmer's classic books; and Steven Spielberg's Taken, an unprecedented 20-hour, 10-night epic miniseries. Sci Fi is increasing its commitment to original programming in 2002 and 2003, with a development slate of series, movies and miniseries that reflect the current mass popularity and broad appeal of the sci-fi genre."
The latest casualty in a string of failed original programming, The Chronicle is about a tabloid newspaper that covers real pararnormal phenomena. The series debuted July 14, 2001, and will continue to air in its regular timeslot of Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT through March. |
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source: Scifi.com |
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WGA Nominates Lord of the Rings |
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The Master, Thursday, February 7, 2002 |
The Writers Guild of America on Feb. 7 nominated The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for outstanding achievement in writing for the screen. The screenplay, by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and director Peter Jackson, which was based on the first of J.R.R. Tolkien's Rings books, was nominated for best screenplay based on material previously produced or published.
The prestigious awards honor films that were released in 2001 under the jurisdiction of the Writers Guild of America, West, and the Writers Guild of America, East, and their affiliates in Australia, Canada, French Canada, Great Britain, Ireland and New Zealand. The 54th Annual Writers Guild Awards will take place March 2 simultaneously in Los Angeles and New York.
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source: Scifi.com |
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Nemec to join SG1 |
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The Master, Tuesday, January 22, 2002 |
Corin Nemec (Parker Lewis Can't Lose) will join the cast of Stargate SG-1 for its sixth season. Michael Shanks, who played Daniel Jackson, is leaving the show at the end of the current season.
Nemec will play Jonas Quinn, a human leader from another planet, who visits Earth and becomes entangled with the SG-1 team, the network announced. Quinn is introduced in the season-five finale. Nemec joins regular cast members Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping and Christopher Judge.
SG-1 begins production on the new season in February in Vancouver, B.C., and the show moves to Friday nights on The Sci Fi Channel from Showtime this spring with all-new episodes. Sci Fi will also air reruns of all five seasons of SG-1 from the beginning on weekdays, starting in the fourth quarter of 2002. Reruns are also shown in syndication.
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source: Scifi.com |
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Buffy to take a dark turn |
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The Master, Tuesday, January 22, 2002 |
In an interview with Sci-Fi Wire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer executive producer Marti Noxon said that the series will turn darker as it enters the home stretch of its sixth season. "One of the questions we've been getting a lot of is there doesn't seem to be a big bad this season," Noxon said. "And what I can say is that the climax is going to be big. There may not be a big bad, but there's a big bad climax coming. I think basically what people can expect is that the seeds that have been planted throughout the season, the kind of troubles that have been brewing with all the characters, are all going to come to a head. But ... this whole season has been very character-driven. There's not so much stuff coming from the outside."
This season the show has focused more on issues of growing up and facing young adulthood, Noxon said during UPN's winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif. "Buffy is dealing with a ton of adult issues, because of the fact that Giles has left and Joyce has passed away. And she's got her sister to deal with. But I also think the adult responsibility of how you deal with sexuality and relationships." Among other things, Buffy and Spike's relationship will reach a turning point. "She's made a choice right now that is very adult, because she's in a relationship that is a lot more sexual and less romanticized. But there's also going to be a price to pay for that, because it's obviously not the healthiest situation. So she's dealing with something that I think only happens when you get out of that sort of dreamy, romantic teen-age period. And then, you know, obviously Xander facing marriage and the responsibility of being a husband. And then Willow dealing with how she deals with her power and addiction."
Even the three nerd villains are part of the season's overriding theme. "The trio are also a reflection of that, because they're trying to do anything to sort of shortcut having to do adult things, like get a job or go to school," Noxon said. "So really the whole thing is either about evading or accepting responsibility, which is sort of what the 20s are all about, baby! The faster you run, the worse it gets." She added, "I think you can expect that we're not going to play them totally for laughs for the rest of the season. Right now, they've been played mostly for comic relief, which I think is why people haven't felt them as really threatening. But things are definitely going to take a turn. It's not going to stay quite as comedic." |
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source: Scifi.com |
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Tron2 in the works |
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The Master, Monday, January 21, 2002 |
In an interview with Cinescape Magazine Steven Lisberger confirmed he’s actively working on a sequel to the cult classic TRON, and is looking in an unexpected place for inspiration to the computer combat tale.
"I wrote the first two drafts, then Richard Jeffries was brought in and he did a rewrite," Lisberger said. He added several more passes were taken and that, "Hopefully we’ll be looking at [the script] around the beginning of the year."
That would be now. He also said he was looking to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (the book on which Apocalypse Now was based) for inspiration. "There are some Conradesque elements to it, having to do with the character of Jeff Bridges'."
Tron was recently released on DVD. |
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source: Cinescape |
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Engels to helm Andromeda |
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The Master, Tuesday, January 15, 2002 |
Writer-producer Robert Engels will run the Andromeda writing staff next season, replacing the show's co-creator Robert Hewitt Wolfe. Wolfe left the Tribune/Fireworks Entertainment syndicated series because of disagreements over the creative direction of the show.
Engels worked on David Lynch's Twin Peaks, co-wrote the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and served as co-executive producer on the SF series SeaQuest DSV.
Supervising consultants Matt Kiene and Joe Rienkemeyer and consultants Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz are returning for the series' third season.
The controversial departure of Wolfe centered on the desire of Tribune Entertainment to refocus the show to be more action oriented, self contained episodes. Wolfe wanted to continue to pursue a story oriented, multi-episode arc format. |
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source: Andromeda official |
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Whedon pens new Angel episode |
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The Master, Tuesday, January 15, 2002 |
Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon will write and direct an episode of The WB's Angel, the first time he's done so since the spinoff debuted in 1999. Whedon will reportedly helm the February 4 episode, in which Angel and Cordelia find themselves at the whim of spirits of unrequited lovers and consumed with passion for each other.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer airs Tuesdays at 8pm ET/PT on UPN. Angel airs Mondays at 9pm ET/PT on The WB. |
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source: Zap2It |
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Who will play Elektra? |
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The Master, Tuesday, January 15, 2002 |
Zap2it confirms that Alias star Jennifer Garner is being considered for the coveted role of Elektra in the upcoming Daredevil movie, but remained tight-lipped about whether she has landed the part, as has been reported in Variety.
Jolene Blalock, who plays T'Pol on UPN's Enterprise, confirmed for SCI FI Wire that she auditioned for the coveted role of Elektra in the upcoming Daredevil movie. Speaking to reporters at UPN's winter press tour in Pasadena, Calif., Blalock said she even dyed her long hair auburn for the audition. "I like to go all out for auditions," she said. "I rather enjoy auditions. And they asked to see me brown. So I went brown."
Jolene Blalock has also confirmed that she tried out for the role, but according to a report on Scifi.com she had not yet heard if a decision had been made. "I don't know yet," she said. "Hopefully we'll find out this week." But the actress is philosophical about the process. "I loved being in that room," she said. "It's all about meeting those people, getting into that room, because, you know what? You're going to run into them again. So it doesn't mean I'm going to get the job. God, I hope, you know? But who knows? I can't hold too tightly. But I love auditioning. I love walking into that room and reading for those people and leaving something good and feeling good leaving that room."
Ben Affleck will play the titular character in the adaptation of the Marvel Comics series.
In related news, game publisher Encore has announced that it has bought the rights to publish video games based on the Daredevil series. Encore holds an exclusive, five-year worldwide agreement with Marvel to publish a Daredevil action-adventure game for a next-generation gaming console, the company said. They will release a game coinciding with the premiere of the movie adaptation, which is scheduled for the 2002 holiday season. |
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source: Scifi.com and Zap2It |
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 I knew that would happen! |
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