SciFi Stream

The previous entry in our ‘Best of Trek 2008′ series looked at all the top stories related to Paramount’s Star Trek movie over the last year. Today we look at all the other official productions related to Star Trek coming from CBS and the various official licensees, including picking our favorite Trek episode, DVD, book, [...]

Just in time to tie in with the movie written and directed by Frank Miller—and to outclass it by several orders of magnitude—comes this beautiful artifact, taking the original Will Eisner story that introduced the Spirit’s childhood love Sand Saref and opening it up into all sorts of pop-up goodness.

It needs to strain a little to get all of Eisner’s original story in, including a couple of substantial sections in booklets that are next to impossible to return to their slots without causing massive damage, but let’s face it: that’s not the worst thing to happen to the Spirit recently. Nor does the story suffer from the pop-up contrivances that oblige readers to pull on paper tabs to make critical word balloons emerge from hiding like the sun rising behind the Earth in the first few minutes of 2001.

Either flat or three-dimensional, Eisner’s art is gorgeously fluid, and the Spirit we first see towering over pages as he examines a recent murder victim didn’t need feats of cardboard engineering to have far more presence than the one who acted against green-screen. As for Sand Serif, let’s face it: she’s one hell of a woman, whose sexy criminality brings double meaning to the phrase, “the one that got away.”

Get this to show folks who scratch their heads and want to know what certain people were thinking.

This story contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the final episodes of “Battlestar Galactica.” Lots of rumors have circulated on what fans can expect in the last 10 episodes of “Battlestar Galactica” when they premiere on SciFi Channel beginning Jan. 16 — many of which have originated right here at SyFy Portal. But as a New Year’s Eve gift, SyFy Portal is releasing what is likely one of its biggest spoilers of all: we’re sharing how “Battlestar Galactica” is going to end. Will this final scene reveal the final Cylon? No. Keeping our promise to unidentified members of the “Battlestar Galactica” cast and crew, we’re still not going to reveal that information. But the final scene could be considered a spoiler surrounding events that fans are eagerly awaiting answers, so continue reading at your …

James Cameron’s seminal SF movie The Terminator said he’d be back, and it’s only taken the Library of Congress 24 years to recognize what the rest of us have known all along: The movie is a classic.

The original Terminator is one of 25 movies that Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on Dec. 30 added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Other sci-fi movies to make the cut include the genre classics The Invisible Man (1933) and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958). Given how long it took those movies to be recognized, maybe Cameron shouldn’t complain.

This year’s selections bring the number of motion pictures in the registry to 500.
The registry recognizes movies that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant, to be preserved for all time.

Of The Invisible Man, the library said director James Whale “brought a dazzling stylishness to what were essentially low-budget horror films and, in the case of The Invisible Man, produced sophisticated special effects, aided by John P. Fulton.” The library also praised the casting of Claude Rains in his American film debut to star.

For The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, the library praised the work of special-effects master Ray Harryhausen, who created a giant cyclops, fire-breathing dragons and a sword-wielding animated skeleton, all in glorious Technicolor, as well as the film’s score by Bernard Herrmann.

The library said that Cameron’s Terminator became one of the sleeper hits of 1984, blending an ingenious, thoughtful script–clearly influenced by the works of sci-fi legend Harlan Ellison–and relentless, nonstop action. The library singled out the movie’s “outstanding synthesizer and early techno soundtrack” and star Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star-making performance as the mass-killing cyborg with a laconic sense of humor (“I’ll be back”) and calls the movie one of “the finest science fiction films in many decades.”

The full list of this year’s additions to the National Film Registry can be found here.

Each year, the staff at SyFy Portal and Rabid Doll are asked to share what they felt were the best television shows of the year. In the past, we had to scrape the bottom of the barrel simply to fill out the list, which probably would’ve included “Knight Rider” if it had been out in the past. But science-fiction and fantasy has become a very popular trend in mainstream television, so the list of possible shows to choose from was quite extensive … and I mean that. I think the list we had to pare down had at least 30 different programs on it. But we did pare it down, and present to you this list, in reverse order, of what we thought were the best genre television episodes of 2008. This is just our word for it. If you want to have your own say, then don’t hesitate … jump over to our message …

Picking the top series of the year may be hard, but that’s nothing compared to trying to figure out which of the hundreds of episodes produced in 2008 should make the top 10 list from the SyFy Portal and Rabid Doll staffs. We did it somehow, and I know you likely won’t agree with many of them. Heck, there are some even I don’t agree with … but this is what happens when you allow a group to decide instead of just one person. Share your thoughts, however, on the SyFy Portal message boards, which you can find by clicking here. So here it is, the top television episodes of 2008. 10. “Faith,” Battlestar Galactica — “You made me believe,” William Adama tells Laura Roslin about whether Earth is real or not, and if you weren’t a believer at the beginning of “Faith,” you were at the end. …

The Dark Knight, which took in about $531 million domestically, topped the 2008 box office rankings, whose total will fall short of 2007′s records, the wire services reported.

Through New Year’s Eve, 2008 domestic revenues are expected to come in just shy of 2007′s record of $9.7 billion.

The Dark Knight shattered the record for best opening weekend and was far and away the year’s biggest success. Iron Man came in second, with $318.3 million.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull followed closely with $317 million.
The year’s other big hits encompassed animation, fantasy and science fiction: Hancock, Quantum of Solace, Wanted and WALL*E, as well as Twilight.

An attorney for 20th Century Fox says the studio will continue to seek an order delaying the release of Watchmen, the Associated Press reported.

U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess last week agreed with Fox that Warner Brothers had infringed its copyright by developing and shooting the superhero movie, scheduled for release March 6.

Feess said on Dec. 29 he plans to hold a trial Jan. 20 to decide remaining issues.

Fox claims it never fully relinquished story rights from its deal made in the late 1980s, and sued Warner in February. Warner contended Fox isn’t entitled to distribution.

Warner said in a statement released Monday afternoon that it still thinks Fox’s case has “no merit” and that it will win the case, either at trial or through an appeal.

Fresh off his role as an editor of the IDW Trek comics, Andrew Steven Harris returns to writing. This time he brings us the first “What if?” Star Trek comic, set at the end of the sixth fearutre film,, “Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country”. Does it stand up to scrutiny? And who [...]

Fans of Star Trek novels have a lot of variety to look forward to in 2009. Pocket Books has scheduled books from all five TV series as well as some of the novel-only series. TrekMovie, with the help of Pocket’s Trek editor Margaret Clark, has put together an overview of the upcoming year with exclusive [...]

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington on Dec. 30 added 25 more movies to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, including the genre classics The Invisible Man (1933), The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and James Cameron’s original The Terminator (1984).

>a href=”http://spoilers.fringetelevision.com/2008/12/fringe-television-exclusive-spoilers.html” target=”outside”>Fringe Spoilers has posted spoilery credits for the upcoming new episodes of Fox’s SF series Fringe, which returns on Jan. 20.