SF Signal

…another Star Wars post. This one is about Star Wars Asciimation which is, well, just what it sounds like. And, when you get tired of that, there’s the Star Wars Blooper Guide. Still not satisfied? There’s always Star Wars Fonts, Star Wars Legos, Star Wars Origami, Star Wars cartoon spoofs and the Star Wars name generator!

Filed under: Star Wars

The now-defunct Ambit site has an interesting page…it’s the Sci-Fi Hall of Shame. Hey, any page that manages to connect Lyle Waggoner and Peter Graves is OK in my book.

Filed under: Movies • TV

Um yeah it is. And to help us all feel a little more geeky and keep the theme of SWSignal, I found this link for: Star Wars Force FX Lightsabers. It was over on Thinkgeek.com.

Filed under: Star Wars

This TV season’s SF lineup looks pathetic , at least with respect to new shows.

The only non-animated show that seems even remotely interesting, if not overtly SF, is Lost. I might, might, check it out.

As for the animated shows, I’ll be looking forward to the conclusion of the Clone Wars mini-toons and, possibly, Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce, Go!, cause its got robot monkies along with the voice talents of Mark Hamill and Clancy Brown (oh, and Wil Wheaton). Of course, my brother might tune in the One Piece, except that, due to the magic of Bittorrent, he’s already watched the first 40 episodes…

The verdict: One big, gigantic, enormous ‘Meh!’.

Pathetic. Maybe the mini-series/mid-season replacements will be better, or at least have some SF, like time travelling martian nazis…

Filed under: TV

In an effort to keep our impromptu Star Wars Post-a-Day trend going (not that I troll Star Wars sites or anything) here’s one from Sci Fi Wire concerning Anthony Daniels’ last day of C-3PO shooting. He says that (surprise!) Lucas has overbalanced the prequels with too much CGI work at the expense of the story. Let’s not forget, Mr. Daniels, the story getting derailed with dialogue making comparisons to skin and sand!

Filed under: Star Wars

Looks like the planned Speilberg/Cruise remake of War of the Worlds was upstaged by the announcement of another remake that is just about to wrap production. Maybe the two can option one of Pel Toro‘s books?

Filed under: Movies

At the risk of breaking up our Star Wars blogging, Trek Today notes that Enterprise has won two Emmy awards. Of course, they were for visual effects and music compostion and for the glamour categories like best episode or best actor/actress.

Which is funny, because Shatner just won an Emmy for his guest role on The Practice. Go figure.

Filed under: TV

The Salt Water Pizza blog is having some fun with Google images via their Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy Cliches. Simple but effective.

Filed under: Web Sites

Ok, lots of juicy Star Wars goodness today. First up, a couple of reviews of the DVD set:

• From The Digital Bits – Review – The Star Wars Trilogy
• From DVD.Net – SW Box Set Review

In other Star Wars news, LucasArts announces that KOTOR II for the XBox will be available in December, two months early. This could be good or bad. The PC version is still slated for 2005.

If you’re all hopped up about the forthcoming release of the Star Wars miniatures from Wizards of the Coast, then Star Wars en Direct has an entire program dedicated to them tonight at 7PM EST. Looks like SWED is a fan-run, internet only radio show. Which is cool, from a technical point of view….

And TheForce.Net is saying the animated Clone Wars has won an Emmy of some sort. Stay tuned. Or not.

Filed under: Star Wars

On Friday, LucasFilm re-releases THX 1138 in a limited release. THX 1138 , George Lucas’ first film, was made in 1971. Lucas talks about the film on CNN.

Filed under: Movies

Internet Movie Database lists the Top 50 Best (and 10 Worst) Sci-Fi Titles.

Ratings determined by user votes as explained on the page. Here are the TOP 10.

1. Star Wars (1977)
2. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
3. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
5. Matrix, The (1999)
6. Metropolis (1927)
7. Alien (1979)
8. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
9. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
10. Aliens (1986)

Filed under: Movies

Grumpy Gamer is a blog about the gaming industry, among other things, by Ron Gilbert. You may know Ron from some of his past hits like Total Annihilation and Monkey Island.

The vibe I get from him is: curmudgeonly

Filed under: Meta

Well, we’re a little over a week away from the September 21st release of the Star Wars Trilogy on DVD. We’re all buying it, so I thought it might be a good idea to collect best prices and freebies from the release. If you’re not sure about buying it (or are in denial about being a fanboy or are innanely protesting the change from the original theatrical release), watch the DVD teaser trailer – if that doesn’t get you stoked, nothing will.

There are two things to consider when buying the DVD: The price and the freebies.

PRICE

Many will only be looking at the price tag.

• Price comparison sites DVD Price Search and MySimon show the cheapest at Deep Discount DVD ($41.88 delivered), although for the extra 11 cents, most will want to go with Amazon ($41.99 delivered).
• WalMart online lists the DVDs at $44.88 delivered, though historically your local WalMart beats the online price. As a reference, one of our 4 local WalMarts was selling the Indiana Jones Trilogy DVDs for $35, about $10 cheaper than the other 3 WalMarts. The local WalMarts often typically offer freebies (See below).
• Keep in mind that the big chains (at least WalMart and Target) will typically mark down a DVD’s price the first week of its release – typically $14.50 to $16 for most new single DVDs.
• Don’t forget to troll your Sunday (Sep 19th) papers. When Episode I was released, the local Toys R Us was selling them for $10!
• Any others? Bueller? Bueller?

FREEBIES

The latest trend to lure buyers of big-name DVDs is to offer freebies with purchase. When I bought Monsters, Inc. at the local WalMart, for example, it came shrink-wrapped with a Monsters Pinball PC game. Some store (I do not recall which one) was packaging key chains with the Back to the Future trilogy. Here are the very few freebies I know of for the Star Wars Trilogy DVDs.

• Best Buy has is giving away a Star Wars mockumentary DVD, R2-D2: Beneath the Dome, free with each purchase (offer good for online orders only – at $45 + shipping).
• A few Best Buy stores will also opening be open at midnight to launch the sale of the DVD and the Star Wars: Battlefront game. There will be giveaways of the DVDs and games.

If you know of any other deals, particularly freebies, let us know!

Filed under: Star Wars

Since Tim has been slacking in his /. trolling, I have taken up the burden. Which is were I saw this Neverwinter Nights module for Firefly. Interesting. I may have to check it out, but I need to get the other 2 expansions first. Additionally, the author has supposedly taken these pictures from the set of the upcoming Firefly movie. Now, I need to actually get the series DVDs and watch them….

Filed under: Movies

Finally got around to reading the first issue (August 2004) of my Locus magazine subscription, which, btw, is a magazine any sf fan would find incredibly enjoyable. Here are some news snippets from the issue:

• Reading at Risk: A survey from the National Endowment for the Arts shows that Americans are not reading as much as they used to. Less than 50% of the population reads literature – a decline of 20 million readers in the last 20 years. However, a corresponding increse in population means that the total number of litertaure readers remain at 96 million. In short: Same number of people reading but a smaller percentage of the population. The report slices the data in lots of different ways.
• ISBN Redux: Beginning January 1, 2007, a new 13-digit ISBN number goes into effect. This will mean that already-existing ISBN numbers get a 978 prefix (then 979 when 978 runs dry). The end result is a doubling of the number of available ISBNs.
• Half Price Penguins: Half price Books has purchased 100,000 books from UK publisher Penguin. Included in the sale are rare, early editions of classic Penguin titles. The sale was deemed a ‘cultural crime” by the Penguin Collector’s Society. [Another reason to visit your local HPB. That and the upcoming 20% off sale Sep. 16-19! As if we I need another reason to visit HPB ]
• The Most Popular Fairy Tale: is “Cinderella” according to a survey of 1,200 children waiting in line to see Shrek 2 and conducted by cinema chain UCI. Second place goes to “Sleeping Beauty“. Rounding out the top five are “Hansel and Gretel“, “Rapunzel“, “Little Red Riding Hood“.

Filed under: Meta

George Lucas and LucasFilm said recently that there will be no third Star Wars trilogy, but way back when, as Mark Hamill recounts with some detail in this 5 minute MP3, Lucas did have some plans for Episodes 7, 8 and 9.

[Thanks for the link, Ray!]

Filed under: Star Wars

So the boys and girls at Relic (creators of Homeworld) have a new game coming out on Sept 21. I downloaded the demo and it looks really nice. It is based on Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40000 universe. It has the feel for what a WH40K game should be with the Orks being well Orky and Marines being the bad asses they are described as. The intro video alone makes the game look fantastic. Check out the demo if you get a chance.

Filed under: Games

It is 12AM here in Houston, Texas which makes it 1AM in New York City. At this time, three years ago, nary a soul in America could’ve imagined what would transpire no more than 7 hours later…

I can remember growing up, how I’ve visited the WTC on school field trips and on weekend excursions with my parents. I’ll never be able to share that with my children.

Even though it has been 3 years, it is still heart wrenching to see the those horrific images of September 11, 2001. I remember where I was that day — at home, I woke up to the news on MSNBC.

We have been safe for the last three years, but we can never be sure that we’ll always be safe again. That day changed us all.

Let’s all take a moment and reflect upon the memories of that tragedy so that we will never forget the people who died that day and what they died for.

May they all rest in peace…

Filed under: Meta

Locus Online hosted an interview with six sf authors (Cory Doctorow, Pat Murphy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Norman Spinrad, Bruce Sterling and Ken Wharton ), asking questions about society’s future.

Filed under: Meta

CGNetworks brings us A Glimpse into the World of Japanese Animation, an interview with one of the animators on he forthcoming Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence movie (showing at the Houston Angelika Film Center for those around here). Its an interesting perspective an anime from someone who has actually worked in the field.

And the mother site is cool too…

Filed under: Anime