Giant Freakin Robot

It was the sort of slip-up every TV production dreads. After keeping the finale’s secrets under tight wraps for the months leading up to last Saturday’s airing of “The Name of the Doctor,” a major SNAFU resulted in pre-ordered copies of the Doctor Who: Season 7.5 Blu-rays shipping out two weeks early. Suddenly the spoilers were out in the wild, and in a world where the internet exists, that could have been disastrous.

The powers that be at the BBC and BBC America took to social media to implore Who fans not to spoil the surprise, and they promised to release a special behind-the-scenes video if fans stayed mum. Thankfully, the fans kept their lips buttoned and, while one of the finale’s big twists had been rumored for weeks, for the most part you could go into the finale spoiler-free unless you actively chose not to. True to the BBC’s word, you can check out a short video above, with Matt Smith and David Tennant talking about playing the Doctor, and what it’s been like working together on the 50th anniversary special.

I love Timecop, I really, really do. Put Jean-Claude Van Damme in anything, and I’ll watch it. That said, I can’t claim that Peter Hyam’s 1994 time travel joint is great cinema. And you have to wonder, if Universal is talking about remaking, or rebooting, or whatever they’re calling it this time, Timecop, are they getting down towards the bottom of the barrel?

Granted, Timecop did make more than $100,000,000 at the box office, and it is Van Damme’s second highest grossing movie to date, behind Kung Fu Panda 2. I’m not going to ask if this is a good idea, or even if this is necessary. No, my only question, Universal, is how the fuck are you going to remake Timecop without Van Damme? Come on. No one else in the world combines a wooden delivery, sweet feathered hair, and splits-doing ability quite like the Muscles from Brussels. Sure, he wasn’t involved in the short-lived TV show or the unfortunate sequel, but still…

For those of you not familiar with this particular bit of science fiction cinema, Timecop is precisely what the title implies, the story of time-travelling law enforcement officers. Set in the futuristic world of 2004, officers of the Time Enforcement Commission leap around in time, stopping those who would use time travel for nefarious purposes and screw with the space-time continuum. It’s a noble pursuit.

Return of the Jedi will celebrate its 30th anniversary of its release on May 25. To celebrate, The Huffington Post’s Mike Ryan wrote a pretty engaging article on the upcoming book The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Author J.W. Rinzler details how the third installment in the Star Wars trilogy’s title went from Revenge of the Jedi to Return of the Jedi, and George Lucas’ rough ideas of how Anakin Skywalker became the Sith Lord Darth Vader.

This gives insights into George Lucas‘ vision of what would become the Star Wars prequel trilogy, but from the vantage point of the early 1980s, while Return of the Jedi was still in production. Although there are some conflicting details, it’s surprisingly accurate to what audiences eventually saw in the produced Star Wars prequels, beginning with The Phantom Menace in 1999.

At the time, Lucas described the Force as something that anyone could learn to use, as if it were a martial art or yoga. He also said that Yoda was not a real Jedi, but rather a teacher of the Jedi Arts, ergo Jedi Master. As such, Lucas said audiences would never see Yoda fight, a decision he obviously reversed for Attack of the Clones in 2002. There is also no mention of midi-chlorians.

Now that Star Trek Into Darkness is out in the world, director J.J. Abrams will be moving into his role on Star Wars: Episode VII. It will be the first new Star Wars movie in more than 10 years, after the 2005 release of Revenge of the Sith. Needless to say, there is some serious anticipation surrounding Episode VII. With a 2015 release slated, Abrams and his team at Bad Robot are taking their time with this one because they want to get it right for fans and general audiences alike.

While promoting Star Trek Into Darkness, J.J. Abrams appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live to talk about what fans will see in Star Wars: Episode VII. In the video above, Abrams takes audience suggestions for what we should see in the next Star Wars film. Hopefully, most of their suggestions don’t make it into the final film. Do Star Wars fans really want to watch Princess Leia doing it with Chewbacca? The video also reveals that J.J. Abrams is a terrible actor!