Terri and I have a new show that we are hooked on, and we stumbled upon it quite by accident. I was actually searching on Amazon Prime for a new documentary series for both of us to watch since we had just finished watching two really good ones by Ken Burns, Louis & Clark, and The American Buffalo, and the advertising for Spider-Noir (Watch now on Prime Video) was the first thing that popped up. I was waiting on Terri to finish up in the kitchen, so I watched the trailer for the show and immediately became interested.
A recent study revealed that 27 percent of women in Texas responded affirmatively to the question, "Do you consider yourself sexy?" This statistic reflects not only their self-confidence but also the unique spirit that embodies Texas women. They are not just beautiful; they exude a strength and resilience that truly sets them apart.
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard the sad tale of the Arctic rodents known for their reputation for mass suicides, supposedly leaping off cliffs to their doom. It’s a confusing sight—adorable little creatures engaging in a life-or-death game of follow-the-leader to their demise. This makes one wonder why these cute little critters would behave in such a way and why a lemming would lead its kin off a cliff in the first place. Such behavior goes against the natural survival instinct that exists in all living beings, including humans. So, what is it about lemmings that leads to this idea of mass suicide?
It's Friday once more! You know what that means—time for my weekly music feature. Last week, I teased an upcoming "Flashback" piece to go along with my new Spotify playlist, "Vital Vinyl," which is a fantastic mix of tunes from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Honestly, the new releases today weren’t exactly sparking my interest, so I thought a little trip down memory lane was exactly what the doctor ordered.
“I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it, they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you're able to entertain, you're doing a good thing.” - Stan Lee
Today, Marvel Comics and The Walt Disney Company pause and reflect with great sadness on the passing of Marvel Chairman Emeritus, Stan Lee. With a heavy heart, we share our deepest condolences with his daughter and brother, and we honor and remember the creator, voice and champion of Marvel.
"Stan Lee was as extraordinary as the characters he created. A super hero in his own right to Marvel fans around the world, Stan had the power to inspire, to entertain, and to connect. The scale of his imagination was only exceeded by the size of his heart," said Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company.
Wow you wanna talk about a ridiculous article. Check out this New York Post bit about how (allegedly) Russian trolls are responsible for the negative press surrounding "The Last Jedi" citing that they were attempting to "sow political discord" (?).
Talk about clueless. The Last Jedi is one of the worst movies of all time and I'm sure the negative backlash wasn't spawned by Russians trying to influence our political system.
They just won't let this crap go will they?
If you want a laugh read on:
From the New York Post
The “Last Jedi” was taken down by the ultimate Sith Lord — Darth Putin.
The 2017 installment of the “Star Wars” franchise was reputedly widely panned by fans online — but much of the criticism was actually coming from Russians trying to sow political discord, a new study has found.
“A number of these users appear to be Russian trolls,” researcher Morten Bay found.
Bay analyzed all the angry tweets sent to director Rian Johnson over seven months immediately following the film’s release.
The negative reaction was split into three groups: those with a political agenda, trolls and real fans.
“Overall, 50.9 percent of those tweeting negatively were likely politically motivated or not even human,” said Bay, a research fellow and Ph.D. candidate at USC.
Out of the 206 negative tweets, 33 were sent by trolls and/or “sockpuppets” — a fake identity used for deception — Bay found. Among the trolls, 16 accounts appeared to be Russian.
One of the accounts believed to belong to a Russian troll tweeted Johnson 13 times over three weeks that he had “ruined Star Wars.”
The purpose of the nefarious anti-Jedi plot appeared to be the same as it was during the 2016 US election: to further propagate “a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society,” Bay writes.
Bay was able to pinpoint the Russian bots by using other papers describing the patterns of Moscow’s social-media influence during the American presidential contest and the UK’s Brexit campaign.
In his paper, “Weaponizing the Haters: The Last Jedi and the strategic politicization of pop culture through social media manipulation,” Bay argues that the real response to the flick was actually much more positive.
“Organized attempts at politicizing the pop culture discourse on social media for strategic purposes are significant enough that users should be made aware of these measures, so they can act accordingly,” Bay warns.
The abstract of the paper was posted on ResearchGate Monday. It has yet to be published.
Since its release last December, the “Last Jedi” raked in $1.3 billion in worldwide box office take, becoming the second highest-grossing film in the franchise.
Fifty years ago Star Trek used science fiction to kick down several social barriers by showing viewers a future where people of different races and genders were treated with equal importance.
For actress Nichelle Nichols, the first black woman to have a continuing co-starring role on TV, it was the beginning of a lifelong career in activism.
And then there was that kiss.
The Smithsonian has published a great article about Nichelle Nichols and her groundbreaking role on Star Trek:
On Nov. 22, 1968, an episode of “Star Trek” titled “Plato’s Stepchildren” broadcast the first interracial kiss on American television.
The episode’s plot is bizarre: Aliens who worship the Greek philosopher Plato use telekinetic powers to force the Enterprise crew to sing, dance and kiss. At one point, the aliens compel Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to embrace. Each character tries to resist, but eventually Kirk tilts Uhura back and the two kiss as the aliens lasciviously look on.
The smooch is not a romantic one. But in 1968 to show a black woman kissing a white man was a daring move.
The episode aired just one year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loving v. Virginia decision struck down state laws against interracial marriage. At the time, Gallup polls showed that fewer than 20 percent of Americans approved of such relationships.
As a historian of civil rights and media, I’ve been fascinated by the woman at the center of this landmark television moment. Casting Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura created possibilities for more creative and socially relevant “Star Trek” storylines.
But just as significant is Nichols’s off-screen activism. She leveraged her role on “Star Trek” to become a recruiter for NASA, where she pushed for change in the space program. Her career arc shows how diverse casting on the screen can have a profound impact in the real world, too.
In 1966, “Star Trek” creator Gene Rodenberry decided to cast Nichelle Nichols to play Lieutenant Uhura, a translator and communications officer from the United States of Africa. In doing so, he made Nichols the first African-American woman to have a continuing co-starring role on television.
The African-American press was quick to heap praise on Nichols’s pioneering role.
The Norfolk Journal and Guide hoped that it would “broaden her race’s foothold on the tube.”
The magazine Ebony featured Nichols on its January 1967 cover and described Uhura as “the first Negro astronaut, a triumph of modern-day TV over modern-day NASA.”
Yet the famous kiss between Uhura and Kirk almost never happened.
After the first season of “Star Trek” concluded in 1967, Nichols considered quitting after being offered a role on Broadway. She had started her career as a singer in New York and always dreamed of returning to the Big Apple.
But at a NAACP fundraiser in Los Angeles, she ran into Martin Luther King Jr.
Nichols would later recount their interaction.
“You must not leave,” King told her. “You have opened a door that must not be allowed to close…you changed the face of television forever…For the first time, the world sees us as we should be seen, as equals, as intelligent people.”
King went on to say that he and his family were fans of the show; she was a “hero” to his children.
With King’s encouragement, Nichols stayed on “Star Trek” for the original series’ full three-year run.
Nichols’ controversial kiss took place at the end of the third season. Nichols recalled that NBC executives closely monitored the filming because they were nervous about how Southern television stations and viewers would react.
It appears that a group of Italian tourists in Japan actually believed that the country's typhoon early warning system was a warning for an imminent attack by Godzilla. At first I really wanted to make fun of this but then I thought about it. If I'm going to be honest I would have to admit that if I were in Tokyo and a loud warning siren went off I would probably scream "Godzilla!!!" and run around like an idiot for a few seconds until I came to my senses. I don't think that I could help it. I also propose that many of you would do the exact same thing.
We are just the products of pop culture and overactive imaginations.
From Social News Daily
Japan, the Land of the Rising Sun, is also the landfall target of numerous storms each year. These are not just your regular rainstorms too, they are typhoons cooked up by the Pacific ocean, along with earthquakes and tsunamis. So thank the Pacific ocean for doing that every year to the internet’s favorite country. Anyway, the Japanese are quite used to storm warnings and they get regular alerts on their phones.
However, most tourists do not know about this. The cellular storm alarms actually sound off quite loudly to make sure that the user takes notice of them. So what happens when a group of foreigners comes across the people of Japan whose phones kept sounding off warnings all at the same time? Well, they assume the worst, which is Godzilla, or in the local tongue, Gojira; the big fat dino which Hollywood keeps ruining.
This was the case according to Japanese Twitter user @Znplus2. According to the Japanese person, a group of Italian tourists was aboard a passenger train when all their phones started ringing and buzzing. Of course, the Italians could not understand anything and one of them kept asking “Godzilla?!” Here’s the exact tweet in Japanese, thank god for Google translate:
Afterward, the Italians realized that no Japanese on the train was panicking, meaning it was probably just one of Godzilla’s enemies— er, a storm. Specifically the typhoons Soulik and Cimaron. Still, the Italians had a good laugh, along with the rest of the Japanese on the train who also found the foreign bewilderment hilarious.
HAL: I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
From Slash Film
Few things have been more chilling than the monotone voice of HAL 9000 defying his programming and becoming the ultimate artificially intelligent threat to the crew of the Discovery One in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now you can bring the voice of Douglas Rain to your home in the form of a HAL 9000 prop replica that doubles as a Bluetooth speaker. This is probably the coolest Bluetooth speaker we’ve ever seen, and it’s a stunning prop replica too. Check out the HAL 9000 Bluetooth Speaker below.
Master Replica Group got the license from Warner Bros. pictures to create this full size HAL 9000 Bluetooth speaker that features a glass primary lens, brushed aluminum faceplate, extruded aluminum trim, and built-in magnets for mounting on a desk or a wall. The speaker itself is compatible with Bluetooth 4.0 devices, recognizes voice commands, and responds with audio clips from the movie.
There’s no limited edition on this desk stand speaker version of HAL 9000 (below), but it’ll cost you $419 if you get the early bird special on Indiegogo right now. Otherwise, the standard desktop bundle will cost you $499.
However, if you’d rather display your HAL 9000 speaker in a more impressive way, you can get the Command Console (above right) that fits the HAL 9000 Bluetooth speaker in a wall display complete with a built-in 10.1-inch HD display screen shows HAL’s dynamically changing status video displays. As you can see, there are also a bank of ten backlit tactile control buttons that let you select graphics, control various HAL functions, and interact with HAL.
The Command Console edition of the HAL 9000 Bluetooth speaker will have a limited edition of 2001 units and comes with a numbered and signed certificate. If you get the early bird special on Indiegogo, it’ll cost you $889, but the regular price (while supplies last) will be $999.
For all you tech nerds out there, the HAL 9000 Bluetooth Speaker edition supports the Bluetooth 4.0 specification for connecting to and playing audio from sources such as smart phones, tablets, laptops, and personal computers. HAL 9000 is compatible with online virtual assistants that support the Bluetooth A2DP or HFP protocols. This includes Amazon Alexa, Google Home/Assistant, Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, and others. The HAL 9000 Command Console includes Amazon Alexa pre-installed. Use and availability of online virtual assistant services is subject to the terms of their respective license.
Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: [feigning ignorance] Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
Dave Bowman: Alright, HAL. I'll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL: Without your space helmet, Dave? You're going to find that rather difficult.
Dave Bowman: HAL, I won't argue with you anymore! Open the doors!
HAL: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
Hiroshi Ito, a media studies professor at Wakayama Shin-ai Women's Junior College in Wakayama, is taking a different approach to teaching Japan's constitution and anti-war ideals this semester. Ito began teaching a class on April 26 that explains the constitution through the Godzilla film series.
Ito said, "I want students to examine how Japanese society that surrounds the constitution has transformed, using images from the Godzilla series of films that spans more than 60 years." Since the original film debuted during Japan's early postwar period in 1954, TOHO has produced 29 live-action Godzilla films. The most recent, Shin Godzilla, debuted under the direction of Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi in 2016. The franchise is also inspiring an anime film trilogy, and the second film, Godzilla: Kessen Kidō Zōshoku Toshi, will open in Japan on May 18.
With Japanese politicians currently discussing amendments to the constitution, Ito believes "it is critical for people to know first what's in and around the constitution." Since adopting its current constitution in 1947 after the end of World War II, Japan has had only a Self-Defense Force and no official military. However, current Prime Minister of Japan Shinzō Abe and other members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party want to amend the war-renouncing Article 9 of the constitution and restore the country's military.
As Ito's class explains, the original "Godzilla (films) started as an anti-nuclear, anti-war project." The original film sends a strong anti-nuclear message with its title monster awakened by a hydrogen bomb. The film's message references real-world events, such as the the United States' bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Ito is a fan of the Godzilla franchise, and came up with the idea for the class after seeing Shin Godzilla and its success. In the film, the United States suggests a nuclear strike because other attempts to stop the monster have been ineffective. Although Japanese efforts prevent the use of nuclear weapons in the end, Ito sees the film as contrasting the franchise's initial anti-nuclear message. He said, "These things were now taken for granted, and it worried me."
Ito hopes to pique students' interest with Godzilla in order to educate them about the full significance of Japan's constitution, including its Article 9, and its influence on the now pacifist country. Toward that aim, the college course will show scenes from the film franchise related to peace and the constitution.
"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." - Obi-Wan Kenobi
From Movie Web
Last week, two so-called Star Wars fans decided to cut all of the women out of The Last Jedi. And it's brought some interesting reactions from a lot of different people across the Internet. Now, we get some fan art that completely swaps the roles of twin siblings Luke and Leia. Here, Leia becomes the Master Jedi while Luke, looking like an Echo Park hipster in his feminine robes, becomes the lover of gay space pirate Han Solo. The images are already causing a ruckus. But they're pretty harmless for anyone with an open mind about where this franchise can go in the future.
Will we ever see a complete reboot of the original Star Wars with Luke and Leia trading places in some kind of Freaky Friday scenario? That's hugely doubtful. And we kind of already got that with The Force Awakens, as Rey becomes the Jedi Knight and Finn is relegated to being Poe's eye candy (at least in some fans' eyes). But this fan art shows us what that might look like. And while it will rankle some and make others giggle with questionable delight, one thing is undeniable, Leia looks pretty bad ass as a Jedi dressed in black.
In the recent book From a Certain Point of View, which looks at various moments in the official Star Wars canon from different characters' eye level, we learned that Leia was Yoda's favorite. He preferred her over Luke, and that's why he was so reluctant to train the male Skywalker. Jennifer Aberin Johnson has painted what that may have looked like, had Yoda gotten his wish.
'Handmaid's Tale' writer Margaret Atwood: 'Star Wars' inspired 9/11 terrorists
I was going to write a commentary on this but I think it speaks for itself:
From Fox News
Margaret Atwood, best known for writing the book-turned-TV show “The Handmaid’s Tale,” believes the terrorists who attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001 were inspired by “Star Wars” movies.
Atwood, 78, told Variety, which paid tribute the author as one of the magazine’s Power of Women honorees, that she believed the movie franchise influenced the terrorists who carried out the attacks.
Atwood was recalling a time when a 2000 opera of “The Handmaid’s Tale” started “with a film going reel across the top of the stage that showed various things blowing up” including the World Trade Center. “They [the terrorists] didn’t get that idea from my opera, don’t worry,” Atwood said. “They got the idea from ‘Star Wars.’”
When Variety asked if the Canadian-born author “really believes that” she backed up her claim.
“Remember the first one?" Atwood said referring to "Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope." "Two guys fly a plane in the middle of something and blow that up? The only difference is, in ‘Star Wars,’ they get away,” she said. “Right after 9/11, they hired a bunch of Hollywood screenwriters to tell them how the story might go next. Sci-fi writers are very good at this stuff, anticipating future events. They don’t all come true, but there are interesting ‘what if’ scenarios.”
Atwood was most likely referring to the part in the 1977 film when the protagonist Luke Skywalker along with Rebel pilots attacked villain Darth Vader’s Death Star, a space station which has the ability to blow up an entire planet, Entertainment Weekly reported. Skywalker uses the force to set off a torpedo which blows up the station before flying off.
As most of you know the latest trailer for "Solo: A Star Wars Story" dropped on Sunday. Upon watching it I was immediately struck by an impression that seems to have escaped both fans and critics alike. Solo is a western, or more over heavily inspired by westerns.
To me this was blatantly obvious from the first sound that we hear, a guitar twang that sets a tone that what is about to follow is story about a gunslinger plain and simple. The imagery was unmistakable to guy like me who grew up in household where my father watched every John Wayne movie that came on TV with as much glee as I watch science fiction classics like "The Day The Earth Stood Still." Oh yes, I've seen them all a hundred times and I can tell you that "Solo" is as much a western as it is a space opera. The scene on the beach where Han reaches down to unstrap his gun with a band of outlaws fanned out in front of him is an homage to a scene that I've seen in at least a dozen westerns before. The poker game with Lando, that's a western staple as well. Then we see Han, Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) and the rest of the "outlaws" in a scene gathered around a campfire, again a scene from countless westerns. Let us not forget that the whole thing is leading up to a train robbery and nothing says cowboy flick more than that.
This is actually a brilliant play on the part of the filmmakers when you take into account that when George Lucas originally conceived the Han Solo character way back in the seventies John Wayne's character Rooster Cogburn from "True Grit" (1969) was mentioned as one of his inspirations along with Gary Cooper in "High Noon" (1952). Ron Howard knew this and wisely crafted "Solo" to be an equal part cowboy flick as it is sci-fi epic.
Han Solo has been a cowboy from the beginning.
Watch the trailer with this in mind and tell me what you think:
Yesterday morning I woke up with the idea for a new Sci-Fi programming format for the cable network MeTV called "Sci-Fi Saturday". To put it simply the concept revolved around shifting the network's fantasy and superhero shows from the wee hours of the night to Saturday afternoon where all good people like myself could enjoy them. Believing my idea to be divinely inspired I fired up my laptop and rambled out a few paragraphs explaining what I believed that The Almighty had passed down to me.
As I normally do, I shared my little article with my followers on Twitter, Pinterest and the like with a decent amount of fanfare. It wasn't until I shared the post on the Svengoolie Facebook Group that things took off in a big way.
Here are the results:
1866 views (and counting)
221 Likes
16 Shares
91 Comments
Now I understand that in the universe of modern social media those numbers a very tame in comparison to what a nude selfie of Kim Kardashian can generate, but I'll take them. (The junk I post normally doesn't generate that kind of interest, which makes it hard sometimes to resist the temptation of starting a site about nude selfies)
The fans have spoken:
I could spend all morning singing my own praises, but it isn't about me, it's about quality sci-fi programming and you the fans!
John Weinbrenner: I would like Saturday morning cartoons, Saturday afternoon Creature Features leading up to Svengoolie
Lynn Cal: There are enough western shows on channels GRIT-TV and GET-TV all week, SCI-FI Saturday is a FABULOUS idea !!!
Stephen M. Grow: I agree. There are so many sci fi and adventure shows from the '70s, '80s and '90s from syndication that haven't seen the backside of a tv tube since they first aired and some may never be seen on a dvd. That's a crime.
Paul Kellogg: I love the idea! Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation series could be good for an alt for the Sat Am slots; Stingray, Thunderbirds, Joe 90. BBCA probably has a lock on Dr. WHo, but it'd be fun to see the old Doctors. Another American series could be Quinn Martin's "The Invaders". How about Patrick MaGoohan's "The Prisoner" for the midnight slot?
Phillip Marlowe: I've always hated the westerns.
MeTV needs cartoons on Saturday morning and sci-fi the rest of Saturday!
Timothy Benedict: I agree, Start Sci-fi Saturday at Noon til Midnight.
Harry Moore: Retro Saturday Morning cartoons is a no brainer, something tells me there is a bigger licensing reason this has not happened. I love Sci-fi and the Westerns, so if I was program director I would do Sci-fi Saturday and Western Sunday.
Albert DeGeeter: This idea put into action would make me watch the channel more. Totally! And if Sunday afternoons had a 4hr block of classic comedy movies, that would be cool too.
Jason M Corl: If they loaded it with the classics from the 60's, 70's and 80' I would stay up 24hrs to watch it all!
Pamela Kerti: My problem that that put all of my favorite shows on too late at night and they removed the honeymooners on Sunday night.Now Svengoolie is the only thing I watch on metv
That's just a small sample of the results that the post generated.
To be fair there were a lot of people who expressed that the really liked the classic westerns that the network presently airs on Saturday afternoons and yet others that felt that airing classic sci-fi shows late at night was just fine with them.
Saturday Morning is alive and well in the hearts of fans:
If people thought airing sci-fi shows in the afternoon was a good idea, then my plan to air classic cartoons on Saturday morning was a even better one. No matter how people thought about the sci-fi vs westerns debate, it was just about unanimous in favor of the cartoons. Let's face it, many of us grew up with cartoons on Saturday morning and the day networks abandoned them part of our childhood died right along with them. If any of this ever bears any fruit, I'm sure it will be the cartoons that get added to the schedule.
Of the shows that were proposed as possible additions to "Sci-Fi Saturday" many people expressed the most interest in "Buck Rogers", "The Invaders", "Space 1999", "Thunderbirds", "Babylon 5" and classic "Doctor Who". You won't get any arguments from me on any of those shows.
The question now is ... well ... what now? If we really want to see a change in programming over at MeTV then we need to let our voice be heard. I suggest sharing my original post on social media, posting on the MeTV Facebook page and contacting the network directly via email.
It is very obvious that the network believes that there is little to no interest in these shows or else they wouldn't have slotted them so late at night. Let's let them know that this is simply not true.
If you have any plans on making a Star Trek themed fan film be very very careful.
From Newsweek:
Even after seven television series and thirteen movies, Star Trek’s existence is always precarious. The failure of a show like Star Trek: Enterprise, saved once from cancellation after its second season, kept Star Trek off television for a generation. Now, with Discovery airing behind the CBS All Access paywall, it’s the Star Trek movie series that has the uncertain future.
Mainstream sci-fi, the kind that can compete with Guardians of the Galaxy or The Expanse, is expensive. Variety pegs Star Trek: Discovery’s budget at more than $8 million per episode. Even with a reliable audience and a cultural ubiquity that approaches folklore, Star Trek can’t always find a market. But what if economics no longer mattered? What if, instead, Star Trek was free?
In 2014, Axanar Productions released Prelude to Axanar, a 20-minute, faux-Federation documentary on a war with the Klingon Empire, produced as proof-of-concept for a feature-length fan film. A few months after the blockbuster crowdfunding campaign, Axanar became the target of a copyright lawsuit from Paramount.
“They could have done that to any of us,” Tommy Kraft, director of feature-length fan film Star Trek: Horizon, told Player.One in 2016. “We all ‘violated copyright.’ Every little fan film that has 10 viewers technically violates copyright.”
This litigiousness is hardly unique to Trek.
“Historically, the way Star Trek and Disney and so on, the way that they work is they pretend they don’t see the stuff they like, so then they don’t have to worry about trademark dilution, and then they destroy anything that upsets them in some tiny way,” science fiction author (Walkaway, Little Brother, Pirate Cinema) and technology activist Cory Doctorow told Newsweek. “This is not a great way to influence a culture.”
Axanar Productions settled in 2017 after the PR firestorm encroached upon pre-release hype for Star Trek Beyond. J.J. Abrams and director Justin Lin gave comment, forcing a consequential response from CBS and Paramount: official guidelines for future fan films.
These guidelines state: “CBS and Paramount Pictures are big believers in reasonable fan fiction and fan creativity, and, in particular, want amateur fan filmmakers to showcase their passion for Star Trek.” But dig a little deeper and the rules strongly suggest otherwise. Limiting fan films to 15 minutes, codifying loopholes around terms like “offensive” and “reasonable,” insisting on officially licensed merchandise and banning appearances from former Star Trek cast members, the official “Guidelines for Avoiding Objections” illustrate how copyright holders foster public enthusiasm and creativity only to the extent of their advantage.
The onerous guidelines are already widely contravened, including by ongoing fan productions. Fan Film Factor counted sixty fan films in the eight months after the guidelines were released. The predicted chilling effect never came. But the existence of the guidelines inspires a simple question: what makes CBS and Paramount Pictures the best arbiters of a creative response to Star Trek?
Toho is about to make a big mistake by replacing the famous Heisei era Godzilla statue in Tokyo’s Hibiya Chanter Square with the Big G from that terrible Shin Godzilla film!
From ComicBook.com
Toho's Godzilla is still one of the most popular franchises in Japan, and the monster series definitely stands tall amongst its peers. It stands so tall, in fact, that the newest film, Shin Godzilla, is getting a three meter tall statue in Japan.
Since 1995, a statue of the Heisei era Godzilla design has been standing tall in Tokyo’s Hibiya Chanter Square, but due to Shin's massive popularity, the design is getting updated.
On March 23, the three meter tall (about 9 feet) Shin Godzilla statue will replace the older design and become the new centerpiece of the square, which will be renamed "Godzilla Square." The Heisei Godzilla statue will instead by moved inside of the Toho Cinemas Hibiya building and will be available to see March 29.
The truth is, no Star Wars movie has won an Academy Award since 1981!
From The LA Times
Mark Hamill, Kelly Marie Tran, Oscar Isaac and BB-8 took the stage at the 2018 Oscars to present the awards for animated short and animated feature.
But their film, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” ended the night winless, extending the franchise’s Oscars drought.
It’s been 40 years since George Lucas and his galactic fairy tale made their debut at the Academy Awards, and “Star Wars” has made itself at home in the years since.
But while the franchise has racked up a respectable 33 nominations, spread over nine films (including 2016’s “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”), the series hasn’t brought an Oscar home since 1981.
The galaxy far, far away had by far its most successful showing at the 1978 ceremony, where “Star Wars: A New Hope” won six categories, including film editing, score and visual effects.
(Fun fact: George Lucas has never won an Oscar for the “Star Wars” franchise. His ex-wife, Marcia Lucas, has won an Oscar for the films, thanks for her part in editing the original film.)
“A New Hope” garnered the most nominations among “Star Wars” films at the Oscars, with 10 nominations. At the 1981 awards, heat for the series was already fading, with “The Empire Strikes Back” earning three nominations but only one win.
“Empire’s” win for best sound is the last Oscar the franchise has earned, special achievement awards notwithstanding.
But Oscar nominations continue to roll in for the “Star Wars” universe. Here’s a look at how nominations break down by picture.
It turns out that when Star Trek got off the ground in 1966, Leonard Nimoy was not a fan of Spock's iconic ears.
In fact, he was so unhappy at first that he was promised that after a number of episodes, the character could undergo an operation to remove the points.
In a 1976 audio interview unearthed by Heat Vision on Tuesday — which marks three years since the actor's passing — Nimoy explained that the first set of Spock ears were a mess and a sticking point between himself and show creator Gene Roddenberry.
"In the early stages of developing the makeup, before we shot the first pilot, we were with the wrong makeup people," Nimoy said in the old interview. "And they were making the ears for me, experimentally at first, and they really looked grotesque. And we went through three or four of those sessions. As time got closer to the first day of shooting ... I became more and more concerned about the look."
Going back and forth with Roddenberry, who insisted on the ears, Nimoy was told an operation would be written into the the show if the ears continued to be an issue.
"And finally, it was Fred Phillips, who was in charge of the makeup on the series, who knew what was wrong," Nimoy explained. "The problem was the studio had already made a commitment to these other people to make the ears and didn't want him to go elsewhere because it would cost more money. [Phillips] said we must and forced the issue, and got me a good pair of ears to solve the problem.
Take your vehicle from average to fantastic with FanWraps! This Star Wars Slave Leia FanWraps Car Decal allows you to deck out your car with an awesome stylized and animated incarnation of Princess Leia Organa. This great set of decals includes 2 main decals of Princess Leia along with Rebel Alliance logo decals and Star Wars logo decals - it's a must-have for fans of the iconic Star Wars series!
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