Beloved science fiction author Robert Asprin died last week, on Thursday. If you don't know Asprin's work, think Terry Pratchet, but in the science fiction realm. I latched on to him via his "Phule's Company" series, the story of a bunch of lowlife space soldiers winning against impossible, and occasionally humorous odds with the help of their brilliant commander.

During his decades spanning literary career, Asprin wrote more than 50 books. He's survived by his mother, sister, daughter, and son.

According to various reports Asprin was found, appropriately enough, lying in bed with a Terry Pratchet book in one hand and his glasses by his side. I can't imagine a better way to go than peacefully reading a good book. No word yet on what caused his death, he was not known to have any serious health problems though word is he was notorious for avoiding doctors.
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Fringe, the new show from JJ Abrams, figures heavily into Fox's fall television schedule. They're expecting big things from it, and they're already prepping their promotional campaign. We've dug up 5 really cool posters for the television show, which you should start seeing in print ads and on billboards near you soon. Take a look:

Babylon A.D. has a new teaser trailer. Unfortunately, it's in French. Yet even in French, it kicks the ass of that somewhat lackluster teaser trailer we got a few weeks ago here. Take a look:

He changed the way we look at Science Fiction on television with Lost, now J.J. Abrams is moving to the Fox Network with an all new, sci fi thriller. Next season Fox will debut his new show, Fringe.

Here's how Fox describes the show:

When an international flight lands at Boston’s Logan Airport and the passengers and crew have all died grisly deaths, FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham (newcomer Anna Torv) is called in to investigate. After her partner, Special Agent John Scott (Mark Valley, “Boston Legal”), is nearly killed during the investigation, a desperate Olivia searches frantically for someone to help, leading her to Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble, “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King”), our generation’s Einstein. There’s only one catch: he’s been institutionalized for the last 20 years, and the only way to question him requires pulling his estranged son Peter (Joshua Jackson, “Dawson’s Creek”) in to help.

When Olivia’s investigation leads her to manipulative corporate executive NINA SHARP (Blair Brown, “Altered States”), our unlikely trio along with fellow FBI Agents Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick, “The Wire”), Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo, “Oz”) and Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole, “Law & Order: Criminal Intent”) will discover that what happened on Flight 627 is only a small piece of a larger, more shocking truth.

With the start of filming on T4 last week, Warner Brothers has launched a Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins production blog for the film. There's already one post on the blog, from director McG in which he talks about getting started on mankind's latest fight against the future.

What McG has to say sounds good, until you remember it's McG, a guy whose made a career out of bad movies. Still, when he says things like "John Connor will be pushed to the brink. And for me, Christian Bale embodies Connor’s strength and tenacity perfectly." it's hard not to get a little tingle.

Along with his announcement of the start of production, is very cool looking piece of concept art. It's a preliminary look at what post-Judgement Day Los Angeles might look like. Check it out below:

After weeks of beating us over the head with discussions of faith and the meaning of god, last week Battlestar Galactica finally got back down to the business of moving its plot along. It was good. Damn good. Unfortunately, they must have known how good it was because now BSG is skipping a week and making us all wait till May 30th to find out what the frack is going on with Athena.

To tide you over, we've got a preview clip of next week's Battlestar episode entitled "Sine Qua Non". Be warned, the clip below is somewhat spoilerish, so if you don't want to know anything, then go no further. Here it is:
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One of the movies I'm most interested in keeping an eye out for later this year is something called The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It stars Brad Pitt as a man who, well basically, he has Merlin's syndrome in the most literal sense. But in the most literal sense. He's born in the 80s, and then ages backwards through time. The plot sounds fascinating, and right now the movie's first trailer is playing in theaters.

Unfortunately that trailer isn't online yet, but while we wait an international trailer has shown up on the internet. It's in Spanish, but it's still worth watching, even if you don't speak the language of hot Latin women. Check out the trailer below, courtesy of JoBlo:
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Even though they insist on sticking with the extremely stupid title of Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, I'm going to go right on calling the next Terminator movie T4, as it should be.

Today we finally found out just exactly what T4 will be about, as Warner Brothers announced the start of principle production, proving this thing is really happening, and also sent out the film's first official plot synopsis. Here it is, the plot of T4:

Christian Bale stars as John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.

Fox's big animated movie this summer is a sci fi flick about monkeys. The plot sounds a lot like Farscape... except for the monkeys of course. NASA sends a bunch of chimps into a wormhole, on the other side the chimps find an alien civilization which they try to rescue from an evil dictator.

The movie's first official, domestic poster is here. Take a look:

I loved Transformers. You loved Transformers. But it was missing something. His name was Soundwave and let's face it, he was by far the coolest Decepticon. He may not have made it into the first movie, but now screenwriter Robert Orci tells IGN that he will be in the second one. Huzzah!

The question is, how will they do it? Soundwave as he was in the cartoon would never work in the real world. We're talking about a 20 foot tall robot which somehow, inexplicably, transformed into a 1 foot tall microcassette recorder. I'm pretty sure that breaks a few laws of physics. Orci doesn't reveal anything other than that Soundwave will be present, along with at least one of the transforming tape robots who used to leap out of his chest, probably Ravage. But obviously, Soundwave is going to have to be turned into something besides a tape player. It's the only answer, especially since the previous film already had a radio robot and we all stopped using tapes more than 15 years ago.

I'm all for it. It doesn't really matter what Soundwave transforms into, as long as they keep the voice, and find a way for him to say "Ravage eject". So we're talking about some sort of robot which has smaller robots leaping out of it. Soundwave is one of Megatron's chief lieutenants, so he'll also need to be big. What else could they turn Soundwave into? Here's a few alternatives:
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