A company called BAE Systems revealed something truly terrifying today: The world’s first automated stealth bomber. The aircraft, which for some reason they’ve given the terrifying name “Taranis” (It’s named for the Celtic god of thunder), is an unmanned killing machine designed to deliver death deep into enemy territory without a human telling it what to do. Instead it will think for itself.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a subject which has been covered endlessly by Hollywood in everything from Wargames to Stealth and, let’s face it, this never ends well. Maybe our military should watch more movies? If there’s one thing any sci-fi fan knows, it’s that when given the opportunity to think of themselves, machines will generally start thinking about wiping out their human masters. read this entry »

Battlestar Galactica may be gone from television, but now there’s an even better way to experience Ron Moore’s brilliant television series. You can walk right up to it and touch it.

Battlestar Galactica: The Exhibition will go on display in Seattle at EMP|SFM where it will run from October 23, 2010 through March 4, 2012. The exhibit will have not just props, costumes, music, and sketches from the series… but actual, life-size ships.

On display will be two different, full size versions of Colonial Viper fighters and one Cylon Raider. Here’s a few sketches of what the displays will look like when finished: read this entry »

I’m far from an expert on the subject but it seems to me that outside of Warcraft, none of these Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing games ever actually work. It’s a simply question of audience. They require a large group of interested players sticking with it over a long period of time and while your Star Trek Onlines of the world might have a brief period of popularity, they never seem to have any staying power and the people playing them invariably seem to drift back to Warcraft.

But it’s safe to say that if you’re going to try and launch an MMO that you’d better launch one with the biggest, existing fanbase possible. Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings. Making MMOs out of these make sense and yet, even those have struggled to find enough players. So what the frak are the people at a company called Bigpoint doing making a MMO out of Battlestar Galactica? I have no idea.

Don’t get me wrong, I love BSG and so did a lot of other people. But BSG’s fanbase is less then 10% the size of Trek’s or even Lord of the Rings, and that’s being generous. Turning it into an MMO seems doomed to failure, but it’s happening anyway. As long as they’re doing it, sign me up for my own Raptor.
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Before Hollywood announces yet another reboot of some already beloved science fiction movie franchise, let’s give them a few better ideas. Since we’re talking about the entertainment industry, we can’t expect anything to original. But it doesn’t have to be. There’s a wealth of science fiction out there, just waiting for some movie studio to pick it up and do something with it. No more waiting. Drop that Back to the Future remake Hollywood and do something with these already brilliant sci-fi properties instead:

FuturamaIt worked for The Simpsons and they ran out of jokes ten years ago. Futurama on the other hand, thanks to frequent network cancelling, is still young as when the world was new. Matt Groening’s other animated masterpiece has never gotten a fair shake, but with its spacey setting and tendency towards blaster fire, it’s far more suited to the big screen than Springfield’s favorite family. It’s animation, yes, but animation for adults. Feel free to take things up a notch for the theatrical version, hook Bender up with a three-nippled robot hooker, and slap it with an “R” rating. Or if you’re really feeling spendy, ditch the animation and give us a live action version.

The Pitch: A pizza delivery boy is accidentally frozen for a thousand years, and wakes up in the future. There he finds employment at the interplanetary delivery company, Planet Express, and struggles to fit in with the company’s strange assortment of employees. His best friend is an alcoholic robot, he’s in love with a smoking hot kung-fu Cyclops who finds him repulsive, and he’s employed by a mad scientist with an increasingly bad case of dementia. Hilarity ensues. Think Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets Encino Man.

Quantum LeapWe’re running out of time on Quantum Leap. Scott Bakula isn’t getting any younger. In fact we’re probably out of time and if there’s any hope that the early 90s most brilliant sci-fi show will ever get its cinematic due, it’ll have to start all over with a new Sam Beckett. Much as I love Bakula, I can live with that. It’s Dean Stockwell Quantum Leap can’t live without. Stockwell’s stint in Battlestar proved he’s still spry enough to play the wise-cracking, cigar-smoking Al and Quantum Leap’s resonate style of character-driven storytelling is still as relevant as it ever was. Maybe even more so. Imagine Sam leaping into 9/11. Oh boy.

The Pitch: A botched experiment sends Sam Becket leaping through time. But Sam can explain it better than I can. “It all started when a time travel experiment I was conducting went… “a little caca”. In the blink of a cosmic clock, I went from quantum physicist to Air Force test-pilot. Which could have been fun… if I knew how to fly. Fortunately, I had help – an observer from the project named Al. Unfortunately, Al’s a hologram, so all he can lend is moral support. Anyway, here I am, bouncing around in time, putting things right that once went wrong, a sort of time traveling Lone Ranger, with Al as my Tonto. And I don’t even need a mask… Oh Boy” read this entry »

After a long wait, the Battlestar Galactica spin-off Caprica finally made it’s official debut on the SyFy channel this last Friday. Now we’ve got a look at what the show’s first full season has in store. read this entry »

Buffy’s ex-nemesis Spike, James Marsters, has a new gig, and it’s on the SyFy channel’s Battlestar Galactica spinoff Caprica. In it, he plays a character named Baranabus Greely, and our friends over at CB scored the first ever photo of Marsters on the show. Take a look:

BSG went out with a frakking bang. The numbers are in and the show’s finale was the most watched episode of the series in more than three years. In total, more than 2.4 million viewers tuned in to watch.

Battlestar did so well that the finale, even though only viewable on basic cable, actually outperformed network programs in certain categories. In fact it was the #1 entertainment program on television Friday night for adult male viewers, soundly trouncing competing episodes of network shows like Dollhouse and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Granted, Dollhouse and Terminator have struggled in the ratings recently but those are network shows. This is a show on basic cable, a basic cable channel which a surprising number of people don’t even get through their cable provider. Going toe to toe with network programming, any network programming, is a pretty big deal. Smoke em while you’ve got em Sci-Fi Channel, now that BSG’s gone you’re not likely to see ratings like those again.

As you’d expect, showrunner Ronald Moore had more than one idea about how to end his operatic space series Battlestar Galactica. In fact the ending you saw this weekend wasn’t his first choice.

Talking with io9 he reveals that he had something else on the front burner until after the writer’s strike, when they changed tracks. He says:

There was a different ending that we had, it was all about Ellen aboard the Colony. She was sort of turned by Cavil, because she found out that Tigh had impregnated Caprica Six, and that deeply embittered her. And she sort of became dedicated to the idea of destroying Galactica and the fleet out of revenge. And [she and Cavil] got Hera, and then the final confrontation became very personalized between Tigh versus Ellen, and should they forgive.

That was the story, generally speaking. We didn’t have a lot more than just what I spun out to you, when the writer’s strike hit. Over the course of the writer’s strike, I rethought about it and thought, “That’s not going to do it. It’s not epic enough. It’s not interesting enough.” That’s when we decided to start over, and reinvent the last arc of the show.

This year’s Hugo Award nominees have been announced. What are they? They’re the org dedicated into recognizing the best science fiction the world has to offer. That includes science fiction in print, magazines, and television and film. While awards like the Saturns may be a lot of fun, there’s no better honor for hardcore science fiction than the Hugos.

Noteworthy nominees in this year’s batch include Joss Whedon’s web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog, nominated for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. Also nominated in the same category are excellent, overlooked television shows like Battlestar Galactica and two nominations for Dr. Who.

Check out the full list of nominees after the jump. For more Hugo info visit TheHugoAwards.org.
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Battlestar Galactica’s run on television is drawing to a close, and greedy Glen Larson has taken steps to ensure that the version of BSG that you love will never get it’s due in theatrical form, but all’s not bad in the BSG fan universe. There’s still Caprica.

Caprica is a prequel spin-off to Ron Moore’s current BSG TV series. It’ll start it’s run on the Sci-Fi channel next year but weirdly, the TV movie which launches the new show will be out on DVD April 21st. No need to wait till next year, you’ll be able to walk into any store and get your first taste of Caprica in just a few months.

Universal has sent us a first look at the DVD box art for the show’s release, along with brand new stills from the show. See it all after the jump: read this entry »