Actually, none of these are really ‘possible cover art’, but these images are kinda-sorta how I’d like the cover of Princesses In SPACE!!! (not the actual title) to appear, if and when it finally comes out. Well, there’d also have to be, you know, the Princesses. And maybe a spaceship or two. Ayup! (I swiped these all from Tumblr…mostly here.) Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….
When I got home from work today, I walked in the door, took care of the mail, unpacked my lunchbox, changed my clothes, and checked the news…to learn that George Lucas has sold Lucasfilm to Disney…including Star Wars. This news really stunned me at first, but as I thought about it, some things crystalized in my head. :: For years I’ve read and heard people pining that the Star Wars franchise would go the way of James Bond, with different directors getting cracks at it. That seems pretty possible now, for better or for worse. :: I don’t really haveDown the rabbit hole….
A couple of science fiction booknotes! Zap! Pow! :: I’ve seen some mention of a book over the last year or so on various SF blogs called Ready Player One, by a writer named Ernest Cline. Aside from those mentions, I knew nothing about the book until I picked it up on a lark when I saw it at the library. Boy, am I glad I did – what a fun book! Thirty years from now, the world is a corporate dystopia, and the prime form of escapism is a virtual reality ‘game’, created by two men who grew upDown the rabbit hole….
I’ve mentioned more than once, over the years, that I have a tendency to not be up on the big pop-culture things when they’re big, or up on what’s the cutting-edge thing in my favorite genres right when it’s at the cutting edge, and so on. For four years back during the 2000s, I heard nothing but good things about the ‘reimagined’ Battlestar Galactica series – well, nothing but good things, that is, until the show ended, at which point I heard some divisive stuff. But since I didn’t have cable, I had to file BSG away for future reference.Down the rabbit hole….
one two three Aaaaand again, it’s been ridiculously long for an installment of this series, for which, again, my apologies. But this time the reason is different, aside from the fact that time, as always,, continues to occasionally get away from me. No, this time I’ve genuinely been vexed with how to fix the part of Revenge of the Sith we’re now entering. This part of the film – the political part – is the most problematic. After a slam-bang first forty minutes or so, the film has to spend half an hour or so going set-up for the lastDown the rabbit hole….
Here’s Page One of one of my copies of A Princess of Mars. This copy is part of something called the “Library of Wonder”. I bought it off the Bargain Books table at Barnes&Noble. Even though I already owned a copy (an omnibus I bought, in turn, back when I was a member of the SF Book of the Month Club), I couldn’t resist this one. I read A Princess of Mars a while back, and I was surprised at how well the writing holds up after 100 years; I expected a pulpy work that would be difficult to readDown the rabbit hole….
It seems that, aside from the occasional Star Trek movie, we just don’t do big-screen space opera much in this country anymore. That’s a shame…but at least there’s Japan, who was nice enough to come up with Space Battleship Yamato in 2010. And what a movie this is. This thing scratched nearly every space opera itch I have: war against nigh-unstoppable aliens, a hero who is a discipline case and who has a history, a love story, a crusty captain, a warship that is humanity’s last hope, and so on. And the warship looks like a 20th-century seagoing destroyer…made intoDown the rabbit hole….
I know, I know…I’ve said a bunch of times that I have little to no use for the Alien movies, which I suppose would rule me out of bothering to see the forthcoming Prometheus, which as I understand it isn’t actually a direct prequel or anything of that nature, but is set in the same universe, so I suspect there’d be some overlap. This trailer for the film, though, is making me question that resolve. This looks less like Attack of the Killer Space Vaginas, and more like a dark space opera, with ships exploring the unknown, massive alien artifacts,Down the rabbit hole….
Ralph McQuarrie, conceptual artist for many films, died the other day. Every article and blog post out there cites his art that heavily influenced the eventual look of, among other films, Star Wars, and the frank truth is that without McQuarrie’s concept paintings, Lucas might well have never convinced any studio to bankroll the film in the first place. Here’s a sampling of his work, via AICN: Enjoy the stars, Mr. McQuarrie! Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….
one two And…we’re back! And in a lot less than ten months, too. Huzzah! In the ‘Credit Where Due’ department, for the purposes of this series I’m referring to the film’s script here. When we left off last time, our Jedi Heroes had been caught, with Chancellor Palpatine and R2-D2, whilst trying to escape the ship of General Grievous. The space battle is raging on, but our heroes are brought to the bridge of the ship, where they come face to face with Grievous, a fairly bizarre individual who seems to be mostly robot, but with some kind of biologicalDown the rabbit hole….