Giant Freakin Robot

The more promotional material that comes out for Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming monsters versus robots adventure Pacific Rim , the more I wish I could just put myself into a state of suspended animation and not wake up until July 12. But since that isn’t feasible at this juncture, I’ll just have to content myself with videos like this new feature that talks about the concept of Drift Space.

What is Drift Space, you may ask? That is an excellent question. When giant monsters called Kaiju emerge from the bottom of the ocean, the human race creates giant robots dubbed Jaegers to stand up to these new bullies. As we’ve seen from the previous trailers, two pilots working in tandem control the Jaegers. Through a process called Drift they go through a kind of mind meld that allows them to operate in more complete collaboration.

Writer Daniel H. Wilson made quite a splash a few years back with his novel Robopocalypse, which unsurprisingly inspired a Steven Spielberg movie adaptation, which may or may not actually wind up in theaters at some point. But if you’d like to see a cinematic version of one of Wilson’s stories sooner rather than later, look no further than the short film based on his short story The Nostalgist. We first reported on the short last January, and now the project has turned to Kickstarter to raise funds to finish up the effects work and post-production.

Ground Control to major streamers, we are a go. There’s no reason to cancel all of your Maypole parties this week, as this isn’t the most prolific time for streaming releases. Nothing wildly popular here, but we’ve got a few things that have particularly strong fanbases, so here’s hoping there’s something you guys like.

Alphas (Amazon Instant Prime)
When this Zak Penn and Michael Karnow-created superpowers drama first hit Syfy, it was discarded by many as just a rip-off of NBC’s Heroes, though the fact that it wasn’t Heroes should have brought viewers in droves. It didn’t take long for this show’s decent blending of character drama with powers and special effects to catch on, and the show avoided its predicted early cancellation…only to get cancelled later on, but still. Dr. Lee Rosen (David Straithaim) leads a team of five hero types with interesting abilities who fight crimes committed by Alphas of the villainous variety. The show also stars Ryan Cartwright, Warren Christie, Malik Yoba, Laura Mennell, Erin Way, and Azita Ghanizada. All 24 episodes are here for you to dive into, so get started. Don’t make me get Nina to tell you to do it.

SPOILERS BELOW FOR STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS! READ WITH CAUTION!!!

Now that Star Trek Into Darkness is in out theaters everywhere, let’s take a look at how J.J. Abrams and his team at Bad Robot Productions made the Star Trek sequel…more specifically, how they kept the reveal of the villain a secret for so long. While we knew that British actor Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Star Trek Into Darkness’ villain, it was unclear which villain from the Star Trek mythology that was.

The Khan rumors had been around forever, or at least since the days when Benicio del Toro was rumored for the role, but Abrams and company just kept denying them. So when when Bad Robot invited members of the press to their Santa Monica headquarters to watch some footage from the new Star Trek film, they had prepared a bit of sleight-of-hand. The scene Bad Robot screened for the press was the thrilling space-jump sequence from the film’s second act. While it’s exciting, and reminiscent of the space-dive scene from the first Star Trek reboot film, it was clear that Benedict Cumberbatch’s character was named John Harrison. This was the first time that Bad Robot revealed the character’s name in any promotional materials.