Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 8, 2006 in Star Trek
Today Star Trek hits middle age and turns forty. I grew up watching the re-runs of the series, although I was a tad too young at the time for the first mega “Bring back Star Trek” conventions in the 70s. Back then the show had a cult following, but it wasn’t until after the success of movies like Star Wars that Hollywood came back to the series. The show was a cultural icon even in the 70s, but I think most people had no idea that there would be not one, but four more TV series that would be created in the years to come.
Yet in my mind as much as I loved the shows and movies that followed, none quite came close to capturing the magic of the original series (although Wrath of Khan came close). There’s a sort of charming magic to that show which stands the test of time, although the series is very much a product of the 60’s (but like the Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds perhaps that’s why we love it so much).
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 7, 2006 in Star Trek
This is pretty funny stuff, however Shatner isn’t the only sci fi guy with a fear of flying — when Issac Asimov was alive he was afraid to take airplane trips:
“Star Trek legend William Shatner has been offered a real-life space flight — but he won’t go boldly. Shatner — who plays fearless Kirk — says he is terrified of taking up Sir Richard Branson’s offer of joining Virgin Galactic’s first passenger flight in 2008. The actor fears he will throw up in space or the craft will crash. Shatner, 75, said yesterday: “I’m interested in man’s march into the unknown but to vomit in space is not my idea of a good time.”
…however the article notes that Alien’s Sigourney Weaver is signed up!
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 7, 2006 in Comic Books
I found this sad story via Boing Boing, it seems there is a feud between designer Paul Frank and the company that bears his name. The designer is no longer part of the $40 million empire built on his cute animal drawings:
“Depending on whom you ask, late last year Frank either quit or was forced out of the company he co-founded with Oswald, the C.E.O., and Heuser, the president. To Frank’s defenders, it’s as if Walt Disney had been separated from his eponymous empire. That’s because Frank created his own Mickey Mouse in Julius, the widemouthed monkey that adorns a substantial portion of the products sold by the company.”
…after reading this it would make me think twice before buying another Paul Frank Industries product.
“Playing to new parents who want to pass their love of comic book heroes on to their wee ones is Marvel Babies, a comprehensive licensed baby brand that will have a product for every infant and toddler need. Marvel has turned back the clock on superheroes including Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor and Rhino-Man, using a pastel palette to render them as roly-poly infants in diapers and sucking on pacifiers.”
“Although no official announcement has been made yet, it’s clear that Sony has plans to leverage its massive PlayStation brand equity among gamers looking at the phone market. The real question is whether the company intends to add phone functionality to the PSP, introduce an entirely separate PlayStation phone device from Sony Ericsson, or do something else entirely. According to an interview in Japan’s Nikkei BP with Sony Computer Entertainment corporate executive Izumi Kawanishi, Sony hinted that going forward the PSP may become more and more of a network device.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 4, 2006 in Videogames
This is the very first Legend of Zelda commercial in the United States for the NES (created in Japan in 1986). The commercial is pretty funny stuff, it features a vintage hip hop beat:
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 4, 2006 in Television
This is a 1975 commercial for Braniff Airways showing the future of supersonic air travel, keep in mind during that era everyone was pretty darn sure that the SST would replace those ugly looking 747 aircraft. It’s sort of ironic that the Concorde has gone the way of history and there are more 747 looking airplanes than ever before. And other sad footnote is that Braniff Airways wouldn’t last past 1982:
“CHINESE government officials are planning a Bruce Lee theme park, complete with a rollercoaster that emits the martial arts actor’s signature grunts and screams on high-speed bends. According to local reports, the park will be patrolled by Bruce Lee “mannequin robots”, radio-controlled from within a giant statue of the late star. The £10m theme park will be built at Shunde, a picturesque town of canals and bamboo gardens northwest of Hong Kong, which Lee’s grandfather left in the late 19th century to start a new life in America. ”
But there is still a chance that this may not happen yet:
“However, all this may be brought to a halt by Shannon Lee, the actor’s only surviving child, who plans to visit Shunde for the first time later this year “to find out what else they are dreaming up over there”. The 37-year-old Californian entrepreneur has her own plans including a television series that will use computer graphics to re-create Lee. “The technology is nearly here to make it look as if he is back,” she said last week. She has authorised a Broadway musical as well and hopes to work with the Chinese government, which is also discussing with the BBC a documentary about Lee’s life and his death at 32, following an allergic reaction to a headache pill.”
…I hope if they do a computer game they don’t do anything too cheesy!
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 3, 2006 in Videogames
One of my favorite games of the CD-ROM era was Sam and Max put out by LucasArts. In an era of Doom shooters, Sam and Max was based on storytelling and characters. I also loved the fact that it used humor and has some very good writing and artwork as well. I was very happy to read that there is work being done on a new Sam and Max game, my only regret is that looking at the screen shots it seems like they are doing it in 3D, it would be nice to see if they went with a flat cartoon style: Sam and Max Are Real! A Visit to Telltale Games
“You might have surmised from reading previous entries on this very blog that I am a fan of Sam and Max Hit The Road. It’s fair to say that the classic LucasArts adventure game was “one of the defining events of my mid-adolescence,” as I put it to one of Telltale Games’ marketing gurus as he drove me from the bus station to their office in San Rafael. Oh! Did I mention that I took the bus up to San Rafael to visit the offices of Telltale Games? And saw a real live demonstration of their upcoming Sam and Max title?”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 2, 2006 in Videogames
This is a neat hybrid live-action/stop-motion animation featuring a Japanese girl dressed up in a Mario outfit, riding a claymation Yoshi through the Super Mario World landscape which is populated with bottles and cans of Kirin Lemon instead of the typical coins and pipes:
“The BIG news has finally hit. A Ringer Spy who was recently in the New York offices of New Line Cinema has reported that they clearly saw ‘The Hobbit’ on the film schedule for 2007. Here’s what the spy had to say: “Please leave my email anonymous as I have some very exciting news to report. I was in New Line’s NY offices to discuss upcoming projects when I clearly saw something very intriguing on a year planner. ‘The Hobbit’ was clearly marked on what looked like July 2007. I couldn’t exactly take a moment to investigate the calendar with my audience in the room, but it definitely said ‘The Hobbit’. Lets hope this is a PJ project”!”
“The “Terminator” franchise is rising again, this time as a Fox TV series. Andy Vajna and Mario Kassar’s C2 Pictures, which produced the most recent “Terminator” feature, has pacted with Warner Bros. TV and scribe Josh Friedman (“War of the Worlds”) for the tentatively titled “The Sarah Connor Chronicles.” Skein will focus on robo-warrior Sarah Connor and her savior son John Connor.”
At long last the digital film making revolution is allowing indy film makers to go after subject matter like space opera on a low budget! A digital film company based in Scotland has just released a new film called “The Planet”. What’s cool is that this film looks pretty neat, but was done on on small budget of £8000 (that $16,000 American with the exchange rate). The film which took two years to make follows a group of shipwrecked mercenaries and their struggle for survival on an alien world.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 1, 2006 in Television
It seems that there will be new episodes of Babylon 5 on the way:
New Babylon 5 coming
“As many of you may already know, a few days ago as I write this, I canceled all of my convention appearances through February of next year due to the press of work, both in terms of finishing up work on my script for Ron Howard, and in order to free up room to begin the process of writing, producing, and directing the first in what we hope will be a series of new Babylon 5 anthology episodes for DVD.
The other result of this is that we are going to push back volume nine just far enough to make room for me to get these projects up and on the rails. It will not be much of a delay, it will be a September release, but the Babylon 5 scripts team and I wanted to make sure everyone knew about the delay, and that it is only a delay.
The good thing is that the delay is caused primarily by the creation of new Babylon 5 episodes, to be produced with the original cast, which is a cause for celebration on every level imaginable. We hope to follow up this with another announcement with the September publication date for volume nine as quickly as possible, so stay tuned, for as they say in the television business…there is more to come.”
It’s great news to see that NASA might get back to the moon, not quite as cool as going to Mars but I’ll gladly settle to see some real manned space exploration in the next few years. I grew up on Long Island so i would have liked to see Northrop Grumman get the project, but maybe just maybe this is the start of a new day for NASA:
“Lockheed Martin on Thursday won NASA’s multibillion-dollar nod to build the Orion crew exploration vehicle, a spaceship with a look and a mission that echoes the space agency’s giant leap to the moon in the 1960s.
The announcement kicks off an effort to produce spacecraft that would replace NASA’s fleet of space shuttles, due for retirement in 2010. NASA’s timetable calls for the cone-shaped Orion ships to bring cargo or up to six crew members to the international space station by 2014, and carry up to four astronauts to the moon and back by 2020.
For 13 months, two high-profile aerospace teams — one led by Lockheed Martin, the other led by Northrop Grumman and The Boeing Co. — have worked on paper proposals to fit NASA’s specifications. Now it’s up to Lockheed Martin to turn the concept into a reality.”
One of the best under rated TV series of all time is the original Outer Limits, it always is viewed as a runner up to the Twilight Zone, but there were a number of episodes that were A+ and stand up as true science fiction classics. Joseph Stefano who produced the show has sadly just passed away:
“Joseph Stefano, producer of the classic televison series, “The Outer Limits” and script writer for the the film based on Robert Bloch’s novel, “Psycho,” has passed away at the age of 84.
In 1959, Mr. Stefano got a contract writing at 20 Century Fox and his work caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock who had him adapt the book “Psycho” to the screen. Mr. Stefano created the whole back story of Marion Crane stealing the $40,000 from her boss and being murdered in the now immortal, shower scene.
Of course, there was the classic, “The Outer Limits” television series which was some of the best television ever created. A pilot Mr. Stefano created, “The Unknown,” was a spin-off of the series but, sadly, it never interested the networks. Instead, it was incorporated as an episode to the “Outer Limits” entitled, “The Forms Of Things Unknown” with David McCallum and Barbara Rush.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 31, 2006 in Star Trek
It looks like Leoard Nimoy holds the approval rights on the casting of a new Spock. If Paramount was smart they’d make the approval process a reality TV show!
Leonard Nimoy Holds Approval Rights for Casting of New Spock
“All I know is what I’ve been reading, probably the same as you, that (J.J. Abrams) has been engaged and expressed interest in a Star Trek movie, and the idea expressed so far is that it would be a prequel that would deal with the time and place where Spock and Kirk first met in their academy days. “Who might be his choice of actor in the role of young Spock? “I haven’t gone there yet, I think it’s premature,” said Nimoy. “Although I do, by contract, have the right to approve the casting.”
It may be safe to assume that William Shatner has similar influence over Kirk’s new face. When asked about Abrams’ film, Shatner replied, “I have no idea. All I know is I’ve received an okay from Paramount to go ahead with a series of books that I’m writing on the young Captain Kirk and the young Mr. Spock. I started work on that just recently. And that will be my idea of what the story should be”.”
