THE ZOCALO TODAY – April 20, 2008

WHAT'S NEW
There isn't a lot new, but I thought I'd drop you a line nonetheless,
just to stay in touch. JMS has not posted information in quite a
while. I suspect he has just been overloaded with work. Hopefully he
will update us on all of his projects when he can.

There is a little news – HULU.COM now includes the first season of
Babylon 5! That's new – so you can watch Babylon 5, Firefly, Twilight
Zone and many of your favorite old series online. The best part – its
FREE!

BABYLON PODCAST
This week's Babylon Podcast is not to be missed. Jeffrey Willerth
(Kosh) brings in George Johnsen, co-producer of Babylon 5, to
reminisce about their times on Babylon 5 productions – and we hear
about what George is up to now. Go to www.babylonpodcast.com to hear
it all.

NEW DISCUSSION TOPIC

To celebrate HULU.COM's including season one of BABYLON 5 online,
let's talk about season one. What is your favorite episode; your
least favorite one. Why?

I have at least two favorites – and for totally different reasons. I
love "By Any Means Necessary" because it shows the complexity of the
station and what it means to command such a facility. I also love "A
Sky Full of Stars" because it fills in many of the blanks with
Commander Sinclair's history – and leaves you with a continuing
mystery of the Earth-Minbari War. But then there's "Babylon Squared"
and "Chrysalis". How can one pick just one! Least favorite – I think
that is a bit easier. "The Quality of Mercy" is my least favorite.
While there is a lot going on in the episode, it just didn't do it for
me. Now many will say "TKO" is their least favorite. For me, I love
the one brief moment between Sinclair and Ivanova -- as he comforts
her following her father's death.

OK, I've told you my most favorite and least favorite. Now it is your
turn. Send in your selections to sgbruckner@... and I'll post
them so we can all share.

QUESTIONS FOR BABYLON 5 AUTHOR
Ranger Jan has just gotten a wonderful assignment and she would like
us to help her out. Here is her note to all of us:

I've been asked by a publication to interview Kathryn Drennan about
her B5 first season episode "By Any Means Necessary". The goal of the
interview is to ask the questions fans want to know about this episode
and her experience writing for Babylon 5.

Of the non-JMS scripts this is a particular fan favorite, so please
email me questions you would like to have her answer. Once the article
is done I will be able to announce when and where you can read it.
Send as many questions as you like to JanMSchroeder@...

Here is a synopsis of the episode:
Following a fatal accident in a docking bay the workers stage an
illegal strike. Earth Central sends in a negotiator who inflames the
situation further and invokes the "Rush Act" whereby striking workers
can be arrested and replaced. Meanwhile, due to the accident in the
docking bay, a plant necessary for a Narn religious ceremony was
destroyed and Londo Mollari possesses the only one of its kind on the
station. It's up to Commander Sinclair to find a solution to all of
these issues.

I'm not sure when Jan is doing the interview, so if you haven't sent
in your questions, please do so now!

NEW DVDS
I've gotten a ton of new DVDs from Warner Bros. and they have sent me
a number of clips to share with readers. My favorites are the BBC
series put together for Earth Day. These are videos you can watch
with your kids – or just enjoy yourself. The photography is just amazing.

If you are an old movie fan, the WARNER GANGSTERS COLLECTION may be
one you'll like. It has a number of movies you don't regularly see on
the cable channels, including PICTURE SNATCHER, SMART MONEY, BLACK
LEGION and MAYOR OF HELL. They don't make them like that anymore!

AROUND THE WORLD OF SCIENCE FICTION

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES
The TV Guide posted the following yesterday:
Although Fox declined comment, multiple sources confirm to me
exclusively that Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles has been renewed
for a second season. The series stars Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker,
Summer Glau, Richard T. Jones, Brian Austin Green, Dean Winters and
Garret Dillahunt.

JOURNEY TOTHE CENTER OF THE EARTH - 3D
Walden Media has released a new trailer for JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF
THE EARTH 3D, the action-adventure starring Brendan Fraser, Josh
Hutcherson and Anita Briem. Warner Bros.' New Line Cinema will release
the film in theaters on July 11. The link to the trailer is
http://www.walden.com/walden/experience/journey/index.php

LOSTSCAPE
ABC.com today launched LOSTscape, a unique, engaging, immersive
environment where fans can explore and interact with iconic items from
the hit series "Lost." Fans can also view 34 clips from the show in
which the items were used, as well as enjoy sneak peeks of upcoming
original episodes not available anywhere else. In addition, they can
enter for a chance to win a trip for two to the 2008 San Diego
Comic-Con to attend the "Lost" panel in person. Participants will
instantly be immersed in the setting of the island and its immediate
surroundings, discovering and collecting objects along the way. As
visitors scroll across the LOSTscape, they'll encounter various items,
some obvious, some not. Most items trigger a popup window containing a
brief video clip from the episode in which they first appeared, along
with textual, story-related information about it. There are 34 items
to be found, but once fans have identified seven, they'll be invited
to enter for a chance to win a trip to Comic-Con for themselves and a
friend. The Comic-Con trip will consist of round-trip airfare, hotel
accommodations and transportation for two people to San Diego, CA to
attend the "Lost" panel. In addition to preferred seating, there will
be a meet-and- greet with special cast members and executives from the
show. Entry deadline is June 30. No purchase necessary. Go to
<http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/lostscape/index?pn=rules> for more
information on the sweepstakes.

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN
The Hollywood Reporter writes that Brett Ratner (X-Men: The Last
Stand) is in negotiations to direct Universal Pictures and Imagine
Entertainment's remake of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. Brian Grazer
is producing the project, which has Eddie Murphy attached to star. An
updated version of the best-selling novel and 1957 SF classic starring
Grant Williams, MAN is taking the comedic approach to the fantastical
material, telling the story of a famous Las Vegas magician who is put
under a spell that causes him to shrink. He must find a way to reverse
the spell before he gets so small that he disappears. Thomas Lennon
and Robert Ben Garant wrote the most recent draft of the screenplay
for the project, which had previously seen Pete Segal and Keenen Ivory
Wayans in the director's chair.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
According to Variety, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's executive producer David
Eick is expanding his role in the NBC universe, signing a two-year
overall deal with the studio.

Meanwhile, GALACTICA's show runner Ronald D. Moore is making a major
move to the big screen, signing with United Artists to create and
write an SF movie trilogy. UA's keeping details of the project under
wraps. Moore has written extensively for TV and film, with feature
credits on the upcoming THE THING as well as previous credits on
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: II, STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT and STAR TREK:
GENERATIONS. Moore is the co-creator, writer and executive producer of
SCI FI Channel's BATTLESTAR, which airs Fridays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

IMPACT
JAG fans will be happy to learn that David James Elliott has been
tapped to star in IMPACT, a four-hour disaster miniseries from Muse
Entertainment, Jaffe/Braunstein Entertainment and Tandem
Communications. Budgeted at $13 million, the effects-heavy IMPACT
chronicles the aftermath of a meteor shower during which a piece of a
dwarf star lodges itself in the moon. That triggers a series of
anomalies on Earth, including cell phone service interruption,
exaggerated tides and the occurrence of sporadic weightlessness.
Astrophysicist Alex Kinter (Elliott), with a help of a female
astronomer, discover that the moon has been dislodged from its orbit
and is on a collision course with Earth. Michael Vickerman
("Superfire") penned the script for the mini, which is being exec
produced by Michael Prupas, Howard Braunstein, Rola Bauer and Jonas
Bauer. Filming is slated to begin this month in Victoria, B.C.

X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE
The latest X-FILES movie now has a title: I WANT TO BELIEVE. The
source of that title will appear in a key scene: When Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson) reunites with her former FBI partner, Fox Mulder
(David Duchovny). Mulder has been living in a house in the woods
outside Washington, D.C., since 2002, the year the Fox TV series
ended. Six years will have elapsed since the end of the show and the
film sequel, set to open on July 25. Mulder "was a fugitive, as you
know at the end of the series," co-writer/producer Frank Spotnitz said
during a tour of the set. "So there was really very little continuity,
but there is this." He points to the office, now in the old house, a
loving recreation of Mulder's FBI basement space. "And there's the
poster," Spotnitz said: A flying saucer over the words "I want to
believe." Spotnitz added: "I don't actually know where the ... set
department got this poster from, whether it was one of the original
Vancouver or L.A. posters. But it is one of the originals." The house
actually sits in a soundstage built from a converted ice rink in an
abandoned amusement park in this Canadian city (the house set doubles
one in a nearby town that was used for exterior shots). The house has
an office with features that will seem very familiar to X-Philes: A
bulletin board crowded with news clippings and a drawing of the
creature from "Post-Modern Prometheus," sunflower seeds in a bowl on
the old wooden desk, pencils stuck in the ceiling, a photo of Samantha
on the desk and a basketball. There's even a fishtank in another room.
The office is the location of a scene being shot this day, in which
Scully, dressed in a long camel coat with her red hair grown long,
shows up at Mulder's house. He's facing away from her, sitting at his
desk, clipping something from a newspaper. He stands, turns to face
her and walks as he speaks over to the wall where the poster comes
into frame. Spotnitz and X-Files creator Chris Carter remain coy about
the movie's storyline, saying only that it picks up the characters in
real time and will stand on its own rather than pick up the show's
arcane mythology. "I'd say we're trying to scare the pants off of you,
like a really good episode of X-Files," Carter says during a break in
filming. "It's not a mythology episode, but it [deals with] the
characters' lives, what they've been through, their relationship and
the arc of the show."

STARGATE: CONTINUUM
MGM confirmed a July 29 release date for the second of its upcoming
Stargate SG-1 straight-to-DVD movies, STARGATE: CONTINUUM, which will
also be released on Blu-ray disc. In the movie, members of SG-1 find
themselves returning to a world where their history has been
dramatically altered. CONTINUUM brings back original SG-1 star Richard
Dean Anderson as Jack O'Neill, along with series regulars Ben Browder,
Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, Claudia Black, Beau Bridges and
Michael Shanks. CONTINUUM was filmed partly in the Arctic and is the
most ambitious Stargate production yet. The disc will also feature
commentary from producer/writer Brad Wright and director Martin Wood,
as well as three making-of featurettes that explore how the U.S.
military provided the production with a Navy nuclear submarine and
F-15 fighter jets, what it was like shooting in the Arctic and how
science and science fiction collide. STARGATE: CONTINUUM will carry a
suggested retail price of $26.98 (DVD) and $39.98 (Blu-ray).

007 EXHIBIT OPENS
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, the first major exhibition devoted to British
author and James Bond creator Ian Fleming, opens at London's Imperial
War Museum on April 17 to mark the centenary of the writer's birth.
Reuters reports that the exhibit runs until March 1, 2009. On display
is Fleming's desk from his Jamaican home, Goldeneye, where he wrote
his Bond books; a jacket he wore during a raid by British forces on a
French port in 1942; several Bond manuscripts; and props from the
blockbuster film franchise based on the books.

LEGION OF 5
Variety reports that the Vancouver, Canada,-based animation company
Rainmaker Entertainment is partnering with Stan Lee's POW!
Entertainment, Inc., and Brighton Partners to launch Lee's latest
superhero creation, LEGION OF 5, as a series of animated feature
films. The movies will be supported by print and electronic comics,
games, merchandising and online and mobile releases. Details of LEGION
OF 5 are being kept under wraps. Spider-Man co-creator Lee will
receive the inaugural New York Comics Legend Award at New York Comic
Con this weekend.

ATLANTIS RISING
According to the Hollywood Reporter, DreamWorks has optioned the
rights to Platinum Studios' comic book ATLANTIS RISING for a
live-action feature adaptation to be produced by Star Trek co-writers
Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Platinum chairman and CEO Scott
Mitchell Rosenberg also will produce. Created by Rosenberg, ATLANTIS
is a five-part miniseries first published by Platinum Studios Comics
in November. The fifth and final installment in the series, written by
Scott O. Brown and drawn by Tim Irwin and Andy Elder, is due on
comic-book shelves in late April. In ATLANTIS, seismic disturbances at
sea force world militaries to investigate the deepest part of the
world's ocean, where an underground civilization emerges to wage war
with planet Earth. ATLANTIS marks the second property that DreamWorks
has optioned from Platinum. DreamWorks, along with Universal, optioned
the rights to COWBOYS AND ALIENS last year and is currently developing
the SF western adventure with Kurtzman and Orci and Imagine
Entertainment. Kurtzman and Orci are currently working on TRANSFORMERS
2 and have teamed up with STAR TREK director J.J. Abrams to
executive-produce Fox's two-hour SF drama pilot FRINGE.

I guess that's about all for now. I hope that you will visit the
website (http://www.isnnews.net) on a regular basis to get the most
up-to-minute news from the world of science fiction. There is quite a
lot there, but if something is missing, let me know and I'll see about
adding it to the mix.

Take care and have a great Sunday.
Sandy

Sandra Bruckner
Editor/Publisher
ISN News: The Zocalo Today
http://www.isnnews.net