Core Dump 2.0

We went to see The Avengers last night and I’m wondering what all the fuss was about. Given the hype this movie has engendered, you’d think it was the second coming of Citizen Kane. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy it – it’s probably about as good a Saturday night popcorn flick as you’ll find and it is visually spectacular. But it’s not very deep, despite having Joss Whedon as screenwriter and director. It lacks the characterization of The Watchmen (the book, not the movie) or the moral complexity of Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight series.

If I was rating it on IMDB I’d give it about 7.5 or maybe 8.0, just because the special effects are so good. If you go, do stay until the very end of the credits. There’s a final Easter egg to reward you. And you’ll also understand how a movie can have a budget of $200 million.

Ridley Scott’s Prometheus opens June 8th and it’s getting some buzz in the SF blogosphere. I’ve seen a couple of trailers for it and it looks spectacular. But more than that, it looks like there might be some depth to it as well. This article from SF Signal compares it to 2001: A Space Odyssey. That’s a bit of a stretch, I think, from a couple of trailers, but we can hope.

It’s been a long time since I’ve so eagerly anticipated an upcoming film.Prometheus, which is slated for a June 8 release, feels to me like a cultural, psychological, and philosophical landmark even before I’ve seen it. And its profound resonance with two other cultural, psychological, and philosophical landmarks in the history of science fiction is become more clearly evident with each passing day and each newly released marketing item.

I would never call myself a Trekkie although I did enjoy watching the TV shows. My favourite of the series would definitely be The Next Generation, although Deep Space Nine did have it’s good points – maybe more than I thought at the time I watched it, if this article is right. Alex Knapp looks at Star Trek and what a modern TV Star Trek series could be like.

It’s the most ambitious of the Trek series by far, and while there were some very bad episodes, it wasn’t because of a lack of trying. Now, I’ll admit that Next Generation had more great episodes than DS9, but the quality of DS9 was consistently higher. And in my opinion, there is no finer episode of science fiction television that the DS9 episode “In the Pale Moonlight.”

But I know what you’re thinking. “Snark is cheap, Knapp! The question is, what would you do to putStar Trek back on the air?”

That’s a fair question. And here’s my response: give me total creative control and a decent budget, and I won’t put one Star Trek series on the air. I’ll put threeon the air. Three smaller series – 32 episodes total, per season, for all three. The point of each series is to explore different issues of the Federation and universe it inhabits, while at the same time getting back to both classic science fiction and morality plays.

Iron Sky, the long awaited movie about Nazis in space, is finally finished and will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival this weekend. It opens in theatres on April 12. I can’t wait!

In the last moments of World War II, a secret Nazi space program evaded destruction by fleeing to the Dark Side of the Moon. During 70 years of utter secrecy, the Nazis construct a gigantic space fortress with a massive armada of flying saucers.When American astronaut James Washington (Christopher Kirby) puts down his Lunar Lander a bit too close to the secret Nazi base, the Moon Führer (Udo Kier) decides the glorious moment of retaking the Earth has arrived sooner than expected. Washington claims the mission is just a publicity stunt for the President of the United States (Stephanie Paul), but what else could the man be but a scout for the imminent attack by Earth forces? The Fourth Reich must act!

Two Nazi officers, ruthless Klaus Adler (Götz Otto) and idealistic Renate Richter (Julia Dietze), travel to Earth to prepare the invasion. In the end when the Moon Nazi UFO armada darkens the skies, ready to strike at the unprepared Earth, every man, woman and nation alike, must re-evaluate their priorities.