Astro Boy Will Be “Dark Pinocchio” Story Of Robot Violence

The animated Astro Boy movie, due out in 2009, will be a gorgeous and painterly homage to Hiyao Miyazaki and early George Lucas, director Colin Brady tells FirstShowing.net. This “dark Pinocchio” story (about a robot who can never become human) will feature hardcore robot-on-robot violence. And judging from the first concept art, it’ll be gorgeous.…

New Doctor Who Star Could Be His Own Worst Enemy

Could the Master be the new Doctor? That’s what one newspaper is claiming. John Simm, who danced rings around David Tennant as the psycho arch-villain, is the “hot favorite” to play the Doctor when Tennant leaves. But it’s unclear how the show could get around the fact that we saw Simm’s body being cremated: If…

The Only Good Science Fiction Poems Ever Written Are By Jessy Randall

She’s not exactly your typical science fiction writer, but Colorado poet Jessy Randall has done what precious few poets have ever done well: beautifully capture the way our emotional lives in the modern world have become infused with the imagery and alienness of science fiction. I just heard Randall give a reading in support of…

Super-Rabies Turns LA Building Into Death Trap In Quarantined

Plagues are the new monsters. Just look at Quarantined, the movie Screen Gems just green-lighted about a reporter and her camera crew, trapped inside a building where a deadly new strain of rabies rages. It sounds very 28 Days Later, but also like a zoom-lens on the future of our overpopulated and psychotic global village.…

Reaping the Flip Flop Harvest on Kenya’s Polluted Coast

Plastic flip flop sandals discarded in the oceans off the coast of Asia have formed a new kind of fauna on the coast of Northern Kenya. So many sandals wash ashore that over the past decade locals have begun harvesting them, turning them into colorful toys, and selling them for more money than they could…

TV Guide’s Brian Ausiello has an awesome chart of how long your favorite TV shows can stay on the air during the writer’s strike. Bottom line: Heroes has four eps left, Chuck has six remaining and Smallville has a whopping eight. But poor Bionic Woman only has three more episodes in the can.

Mars Astronauts Will Have Smooth Moves

The first astronauts on Mars will most likely wear smoking fetish gear that draws on the designs of MIT professor Dava Newman. Time magazine just named her ultralight BioSuit one of the top 100 inventions of the year. The current generation of spacesuits weighs up to 300 pounds, thanks to gas pressurization, life support and…

This Just In: Superheroes Not Successful Political Allegories Shocker

It isn’t surprising that lots of superhero comic books have political undertones. But what may surprise is how many of them, according to The American Prospect, have conservative undertones that even the creators weren’t aware of. In “The Revolt Of The Comic Books”, writer Julian Sanchez argues that fighting for truth, justice and the American…

“Earth’s Twin” Discovered In Distant Solar System?

If life on Earth isn’t doing it for you, then there’s good news – an alternative may be around the corner. As German scientists announce that theoretical “Super-Earths” – planets 10 times the size of Earth with similar atmospheres – could support life for 35 per cent longer than our home planet, NASA scientists have…

Battlestar Galactica Fans To Join Strike, Meet Disappointment

Pity fans of Sci-Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica who plan to join the show’s writing staff on picket lines this Friday lured by rumors that a lengthy strike may result in the show’s fourth and final season being aired in full earlier than initially expected and without the traditional mid-season break. Talking last week, show producer…

Wonder Woman: More Supermodel Than Superhero?

The new Wonder Woman could be a supermodel whose acting experience mostly consists of playing herself in Italian films. Megan Gale also served as a “fashion commentator” for the Logies, Australia’s charmingly named TV awards show. It’s all part of director George Miller’s scheme to pack Justice League with Australians. Another Ozzie rumored to be…

Sony Planning to Drop $30 LocationFree License Fee

According to Maximum PC, sometime between now and the end of the month Sony will formally announce the end of their obnoxious $30 LocationFree PC serial key license fee (rhyming!). Currently, if you want to install the software on multiple PCs you would have to cough up the extra dough. The move is believed to…

Psychedelic Dante 01 Trailer — Gorgeous But Familiar

Marc Caro, probably best known from his collaborative directing with Jean Pierre Jeunet on such films like The City Of Lost Children and Delicatessen, has a new scifi film coming out called Dante 01. It combines the visual look of THX 1138, Aliens (especially the third entry in that series), and even Danny Boyle’s underrated…

Fahrenheit 451 Is “The Most Relevant Piece Of Literature Ever Written”

Director Frank Darabont has made a career out of adapting kooky and off-beat novel and short stories, most of them from the hand of Stephen King. He impressively turned the very thin story “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” into a film that holds his own, and now he’s attempting to do the same with Ray…

Video Evidence Tells You Not To Walk Into The Mist

Whenever someone says “DON’T DO X!” in a movie, where X is go into an abandoned building, open a mystical old book, or walk into a creepy mist, you know someone just has to do it. Of course, we have the advantage of knowing that The Mist is bad from the get go, but come…

TV Makes You Kill in “The Signal”

The Signal is an upcoming flick (Feb 2008) about a TV signal that gives you “the crazy” and makes you murder people in creative ways that Hostel director Eli Roth could only dream of. Directed by three different people working in the low-budget, buckets-of-ironic-blood style popularized by Roth, The Signal follows in the footsteps of…

Winona Ryder Joins Trek Cast, Please Just Make The Damn Movie Now

Winona Ryder is the latest in a long line of actors to join the cast of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek rehash (as Spock’s mom!?), and at this point we get it. Yes, they are making a new Star Trek film. But we’ve heard more about casting these past few months than we have about the…

Weather Engineers Remove CO2 From Atmosphere, Stop Global Warming

Some Harvard scientists suggest that we could turn back the clock on global warming by sucking CO2 out of the air and de-acidifying the oceans. Says weather engineer Kurt Zenz House: The technology involves selectively removing acid from the ocean in a way that might enable us to turn back the clock on global warming…

Humans To Reach The Moon – Of Mars – In Ten Years?

Proving that the space race isn’t entirely dead, scientists have announced that while manned missions to Mars may still be some time away, manned missions to Mars’ moons could happen within the next decade According to Pascal Lee of the Mars Institute: They are the most accessible planetary bodies in our solar system. It’s counterintuitive,…

In The Future of Star Trek, Everyone Wears Trench Coats

Anticipation for JJ Abrams’ movie relaunch of the Star Trek franchise continues to drive internet fandom to new heights of pointless anticipation. Even as 36-year-old Winona Ryder is announced to play the mother of 30-year-old Zachary Quinto in the movie, moviesite IESB.net reports from the movie’s second day of shooting with twenty photos of extras…