Gene manipulation to better our kids is still a few years off, but since we live in a society which still hasn’t really come to grips with the notion of birth control, designer babies is sure to be a hot topic then it happens. The upcoming sci-fi movie JIM will apparently tackle the topic, though exactly how they’ll go about it remains unclear.

The movie opens in limited release on October 15th and when it does it’ll include some sort of fake, gene manipulation company called Lorigen. We still don’t have a trailer for the film but we do have a promotional video from Lorigen, which explains their approach to maximizing your kids. Take a look: read this entry »

This past weekend we all got pretty excited over this. A never before seen deleted scene from Star Wars which George Lucas unveiled at Celebration and promises will be one of many pieces of polished up archival footage he’s including on his upcoming Star Wars Blu-ray box set.

The video was actually leaked online for awhile and though it’s gone now, if you caught it, you saw what appeared to be Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, constructing his first lightsaber. Hamill was actually on stage with Lucas when they announced the Blu-ray set and seemed to let everyone thing it was a real scene he filmed. He even related some amusing anecdote about his costume. Unfortunately, like everything George Lucas does, it’s probably all just a big lie.

The thing is, the whole scene probably isn’t real. It’s not a deleted scene, we know that, because back in 2009 Mark Hamill told everyone that the scene in question was never filmed. In fact, here’s the interview: read this entry »

Here’s something that will come as no surprise to anyone who’s watched the Star Wars prequels: George Lucas altered the plot of Return of the Jedi to sell more toys. Here’s something that probably will be a surprise though: Doing so might have made it a better movie.

Talking to the LA Times producer Gary Kurtz revealed that “The original idea was that they would recover Han Solo in the early part of the story and that he would then die in the middle part of the film in a raid on an Imperial base.” Presumably that’s the Imperial base on Endor where Han, Leia, Chewie, R2D2, and C3PO are saved by the Ewoks in a massive battle with Imperial stormtroopers.

After Han’s death the movie would have ended with Luke walking off into the distance, bitter and alone. A Clint Eastwood-style loner. Princess Leia would have gone off to struggle dealing with new responsibilities. The Luke ending sounds great but “struggling with her new responsibilities” smacks of all the political slog in the prequels which no one cared about and just didn’t work. read this entry »

Celebration V is happening today and George Lucas used the gathering of Star Wars fans to announce the impending release of Star Wars on Blu-ray. All six movies will be released in high-def, all at once, in fall of 2011.

But more importantly the new Blu-ray box set will contain never before seen, lost footage from the original Star Wars trilogy. During the event Lucas showed off one of the moments they’ll include, a scene in which Luke Skywalker constructs his own lightsaber before going off to save Han Solo at Jabba’s palace.

If you’re quick, you won’t have to wait for the DVD to see it. The entire scene has leaked online, and it’s every bit as cool as you’d expect. Here it is, watch it while it lasts:

UPDATE! It seems the entire thing may be a fraud. Details here.

If you live in the UK, you’re very lucky. Back to the Future is getting a theatrical re-release in the Queen’s country, to celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary. BTTF returns to theaters on October 1st to be followed by the release of the entire Back to the Future trilogy on Blu-ray October 25th. The new theatrical version will be digital and beautiful, and better than ever before. And because it’s Back to the Future and it deserves it, they’ve put together a poster and a trailer to celebrate the occasion. They should look familiar. Why mess with a good thing? Take a look: read this entry »

You’ve seen alien abduction movies before, but I promise, you’ve never seen anything quite like this. Skyline is a movie about alien abduction on a “massive scale”, and when they say it’s on a massive scale, they aren’t kidding. The movie’s first trailer has arrived and it features, rather prominently, alien space craft sucking up whole city blocks full of people and dragging them into the ship’s gaping maw. These aliens aren’t exactly subtle. Watch: read this entry »

Sure she wore the gold bikini, but apparently that was as close as Carrie Fisher got to wearing a bra in Star Wars. Blastr caught up with the aging Princess Leia who’s putting on a one woman show in which she tells weird stories. The way she tells it, Lucas wouldn’t let her wear a bra during shooting. Why? Believe it or not he actually had a completely nerdy, scientific reason for it. Here’s how Fisher says Lucas explained it:

He explained that in space you get weightless, and so your flesh expands. What? But your bra doesn’t, so you get strangled by your bra. That’s why I couldn’t wear a bra in the first Star Wars. George actually came backstage when I did the show in San Francisco and told me that.

Is that true? If so, does that mean female astronauts wear no underwear? I guess this means my fantasy of rocketing across the Milky Way with corseted space-babes will never come true.

I don’t think anyone saw this coming, which is perhaps why no one was really paying attention when Scott Bakula broke the news at Comic Con that Quantum Leap is being turned into a movie. There’s a problem though: Bakula isn’t involved. No surprise, he’s now too old. Here’s what Blastr picked up from the original Sam Beckett:

The good news is that Don [Quantum Leap creator Donald P. Bellisario] is working on the film script and has a big time Hollywood producer who wants to do it … It’s about time. But what I always thought would happen, happened … [that he's now too old for the role]. But Dean [Stockwell, who played Al] and I will have a part in it somehow.

Don did say that as he was writing, he told me he was having trouble, ‘getting you and Dean out of my head.’ But I know he will do it.

It’s hard to imagine the Leap without Bakula in the lead and Stockwell has his ever-present sidekick Al, but there’s no denying that they’re both probably too old for the role now. On the other hand, the storyline of the show could be fantastic if turned into a movie series and because of the way the show was structured, with Sam leaping into a completely different life every week, they could do it without having to really revisit territory the show already covered. Don’t think of it so much as a reboot as a resurrection of one of the greatest science fiction stories ever told on television.

You can probably blame her Cowboys & Aliens costar Adam Beach for the rumor. He went to the Toronto Sun and waxed poetic about a nude scene he saw GFR’s Sci-Fi Siren Olivia Wilde shoot on the Cowboys & Aliens set in front of a bonfire. But Wilde has jumped on Twitter and set the record straight. She wasn’t naked, you won’t see her naked, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see a lot of her wearing as little as possible. She explains:

don’t want to disappoint, but my “nude” scene in Cowboys & Aliens is very PG13. I was in a bikini but we’ll make it look as naked as we can. it’s all about what you don’t see (wink face emoticon)

Count me as PG13 excited.