R2-D2 in Star Trek

The contest is long over, but people still ask and argue about it, so here's the last word, and the picture to prove it. Our beloved little astro-droid makes his appearance at the 47 minute, 40 second mark, just after the Enterprise comes out of warp over Vulcan and takes evasive action to avoid debris:


Yep, there he is, plain as day, helpfully highlighted by Jester. Debate over? I think so!

One Ring to Find Them...

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes oh yes OH FUCK YES. At last, at last! Enough repeating! The Tolkien Estate and New Line have settled, thank Eru Illuvitar! Join in the merriment and geek-bashing that is the Fark Thread!

So, why is this good news? It clears the way for the Peter Jackson-produced, Guillermo del Torro-directed two-part over-hyphenated Hobbit adaptation! For those who are only familiar with the Peter Jackson trilogy and not Professor Tolkien's original work, The Hobbit follows the journey of one Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm in the Trilogy) as he and a party of Dwarves travel to the Lonely Mountain of Erebor. Of course, along the way, he happens upon a magic ring that makes him invisible, setting off the events that culminate in the epic War of the Ring as told in the LotR trilogy.

This comes on the heels of Ian McKellan (Gandalf) letting slip the fact that the role of Bilbo has indeed been cast, although there's no idea who it will turn out to be just yet. All we know is, according to McKellan, that people will be very happy with the decision.

So, is it Holm? Does he still have the spark enough to take on the role that made him famous to a whole new generation? I hope so! Holm is a great actor, and one of my favorites of his is the legendary Time Bandits, wherein he appeared as Napoleon. Technology has obviously progressed to the point where we can believably de-age an actor or actress (see Clu in the upcoming TR2N, to be played by Jeff Bridges, or Benjamin Button), so Holm is a viable choice indeed, especially given the techniques perfected in Jackson's films using body doubles.

Whoever it is, though, we'll finally get to see The Hobbit on the big screen in live-action, nearly 75 years after it was first published. Fellow geeks, can I get a w00t!

Harry Potter and the Protracted Film Series... Um... Of Doom, Or Something...

News has reached the Muggle masses that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final installment in the storied Harry Potter series, will have its film adaptation split into two seperate movies, thereby making it at least a three hour epic (FT). Chances are, though, that each film will most likely run closer two hours a clip.

The reason for this basically gives away the fact that these will be two (slightly) longer films than the other six: There aren't really many subplots you can cut out of Potter 7. The first film covered Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone almost in its entirety, since it was the shortest of the books by far. Weren't that many cuts from Chamber, either, but some did stand out a bit. From Prisoner on, though, large chunks were apparent, and honestly, they really didn't impact the central plot all that much (although cutting out Ron playing Quidditch (a big character progression for him) and Hermione's S.P.E.W. work (which highlights both Dobby and Kreacher more as well as Miss Granger) are arguable in many circles).

I would much have rather them done the actual Dumbledore's Army outing from the book rather than blame it on poor Cho, but what can you do, right? It's Hollywood: They'll fuck anything up (See Ang Lee's The Hulk or Star Wars Prequels), even if it's with tiny little oversights like that one.

Half-blood Prince will be coming soon, and we get some big moments in that one, but I'm not doubting that there will be important stuff cut. My guess is Harry's relationship with Cho will become the stuff of reflective dialogue, but you can't avoid the Harry-Ginny storyline, since it plays such a huge role in Potter 7/8. And oh yeah: SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE. Duh. If you don't know that by now, you've been living under a rock.

On the bright side, that's two more trips to The Rowland for me, Angel and Teddy, which will be fun. By the time Potter's 7 and 8 roll out (2010 and 2011 respectively), he'll have seen the first six, and hopefully read at least the first book (which, of course, Daddy has). Like I was born into a world just discovering Star Wars (it came out summer of 77, I came out that November), he was born into a world in love with a boy wizard at school with his friends, carrying the weight of the wizarding world on his shoulders and showing kids that, no matter what you have to deal with, it can be faced and dealt with in turn: From staring down the Dark Lord to just growing up and learning about regular life.

That's the true magic of Harry Potter...

i, reboot (alot)

This morning, while browsing through Fark, I came upon a link on the Geek Tab to an article about the 8 Most Common SciFi Visions of the Future, and why they'll never happen. Given my predisposition to reading and watching a metric ton of SciFi material, I thought it'd be fun. Besides, it's Cracked, that Mad-like sarcasm rag, so you can add the -ny as well.

Just in case you can't guess what my favorite bit is, it's really simple: In the section on Page 2 talking about the Robot Uprising, and the reason why it won't happen. So. Fucking. TRUE.

There's almost a kind of hopeless optimism hidden here. Besides the whole uprising thing, it still implies that mankind was able to, with hardware and software, create a race of beings that are actually way better than humanity. Think about that the next time Windows Vista stops and asks you if it has permission to run a program you just freaking told it to run 4 seconds ago.

Studio Goon? That's A Beatdown...

BoingBoing broke it. Fark picked it up. Wil has his $0.02 in on it. And now, it's my turn.

Warner Brothers has begun sending in goons with video cameras, and they're infiltrating a theater near you. Not to record the movie, no. To record YOU. Yep, here's an excerpt taken from an excerpt that Wil posted:

"[I]mmediately I notice an older gentleman who looked to be about 60 standing in the corner of the theater. Sporting a black suit and a black briefcase, he began to film the audience during the movie. Every 5-10 minutes he would sweep the audience with his video camera, then turn it off and just watch us, then turn the camera back on and sweep again."

Yeah. They're filming the audience, trying to catch people pirating the movie on film. And you know what? Chances are that noone saw any kind of disclosure anywhere in their theater stating that Warner was in there pulling this shit.

Privacy Violations 101: No Disclosure = Failure To Obtain Permission To Film People = Big Honking Lawsuit Against Both The Theater And Warner.

Any of you (all 6 of you, big up to Static Brain) experience this recently with any of Warner's films, such as Harry Potter 5? Horror stories in comments, please. Meanwhile, I'll be keeping a close eye on the local theaters (including the local drive-in) to see if Warner has contacted any of them to do this crap. I'll keep you posted...

Mach Go Go Go

Here he comes. Here comes Speed Racer.

MTV these days is a bastion of pop-culture and reality trash, nothing at all worth watching like it was. You see, it used to show these things called "music videos" all the time. And late at night, it showed classics like Monty Python's Flying Circus and - my personal MTV favorite - Speed Racer.

For alot of us Anime geeks, Speed was our first exposure to the genre, along with Robotech, Voltron, as well as (to an older extent) Astro Boy and Gigantor. Speed, though, took the cake easy. What made him top out giant robots and killer transforming space fighters? The Mach 5. Forget the Knight Industries Two Thousand (KITT from Knight Rider) and any of those fancy James Bond rides. The Mach 5 was the original pimped out ride.

The Wachowski Brothers have said that they want to be true to the series without just bringing an episode to life in long form, and even though the second and third Matrix movies were a bit of a letdown, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt with Speed. Anime is a huge influence on animators and flimmakers these days, and the Wachowski's are no exception. After all, just look at the effects they pioneered with The Matrix. Not to mention the storyline was nearly straight out of Akira...

2008 should be, at the very least, a good year for geeks who love movies...