Giant Freakin Robot

Kickstarter is the new hot thing these days, with high-profile projects from people like Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas and Scrubs actor Zack Braff making headlines with projects on the crowdfunding site. One questions that’s been asked quite a few times is simply this: Why should I give some famous person my hard-earned money to make their thing when I’m not going to profit from it myself? Of course, your pledge will get you goodies ranging from the banal to the extravagant, but it’s a vaild point. Ultimately, the only reason to donate to a Kickstarter project is if you are excited about it and you want to help make it happen. In that spirit, here’s one for your consideration: a new science fiction series based on David Gerrold’s Star Wolf novels.

With the release of Iron Man 3 tomorrow, the Marvel Cinematic Universe officially enters “Phase Two.” Marvel Studios will release new movies that will eventually lead to Joss Whedon’s The Avengers 2 in 2015. One of the odder entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be Guardians of the Galaxy, which will be released in 2014. Marvel producer Kevin Feige has now confirmed the casting of a very recognizable actress who will be joining her third big-screen space franchise.

Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Kevin Feige officially announced that Zoe Saldana will, in fact, join the cast of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Saldana will play the sole female member of the Guardians: Gamora, the deadliest woman in the galaxy. Feige says that “audiences will respond to an alien Zoe Saldana,” in his interview with the entertainment outlet.

Of course, Saldana once played an alien in James Cameron’s Avatar back in 2009. She played the Na’vi princess warrior Neytiri, but for Guardians of the Galaxy, Saldana will exchange Neytiri’s blue skin for green.

Kevin Feige also revealed a few plot details from the upcoming cosmic superhero team-up movie, including a young Peter Quill’s first encounter with extraterrestrials, before he is taken on his space journey to become Star-Lord. Guardians of the Galaxy will also take place within Marvel continuity, but take place on the other side of the galaxy. Check out the concept art for Peter Quill’s alien encounter below:

With the upcoming release of Star Trek Into Darkness in a few short weeks, J.J. Abrams has been busy promoting the new Star Trek sequel film. In a new interview with BBC News, Abrams talks about why he initially turned down the Star Wars: Episode VII job. He didn’t want to be a director known for rebooting film franchises. His feature film debut in 2006 was the third installment of the Mission: Impossible film series, and then he followed it up with the Star Trek reboot in 2009, and now with Star Wars: Episode VII in 2015. In the end, Abrams had to listen to his “gut” and take the Star Wars directing job when Disney and Lucasfilm offered him the position. Abrams says,

“And then Star Wars came along. It was one of those things where Star Wars felt like one of those once in a lifetime opportunities that forced me to stop and reconsider whatever the rulebook was.”

Abrams also elaborates on how he’ll approach Episode VII when he starts working on the film. Abrams doesn’t want his “geeky fan-boy” side to emerge while he’s directing a Star Wars movie, but he also doesn’t want to make Episode VII look and feel like Star Trek Into Darkness. Abrams continues:

‘It’s just about about approaching it from as authentic a place as possible, and not trying to apply what you believe or think, as much as trying to filter everything and get at it from the core of the characters. [It should be] what you deeply want to see, never what you assume the fans might like.’ He proceeded, ‘To me they are such wildly disparate universes — the back story, the tone, the mood, certainly the history [and] the characters — that I’m in no way worried.’

The TV adaptation of Stephen King’s Under the Dome will premiere this June on CBS. The story of a small town that becomes trapped (as the title suggests) under a mysterious dome should be one of the highlights of the summer TV season. The premise sounds very promising, but it also sounds very, very familiar.

Of course, it’s the same premise as The Simpsons Movie from 2007, where the small town of Springfield becomes trapped under a dome after the town’s pollution levels become unmanageable and the head of the EPA presents President Schwarzenegger with five “unthinkable” options. You might think King got the idea for his best-selling novel from The Simpsons Movie, you’d be wrong. The novel was released in 2009, two years after The Simpsons Movie, but King claims he started working on the book in 1976.

The Simpsons creator even acknowledges the eerie coincidence in a later episode, where Mr. Burns threatens to place the town of Springfield in a transparent dome. Burns said he got the idea from a best-selling novel and continues to hold a copy of King’s book to show the townspeople. This leads nuclear power planet worker Lenny Leonard to say, “It’s been done.”