Next Gen on Blu in 2012... and sooner?!

Lots of cool news makes its way out of Comic-Con each year, but this is really exciting. According to a very reliable report, the long-awaited Star Trek: The Next Generation in Hi-Def project is coming our way in 2012 - and a taste even sooner than that!

The challenges in upgrading Next Gen were formidable - while the show was shot on film, all the effects and post production was done on SD analog video. So  to convert the series to HD  all the original camera negatives would have to be scanned in HD resolution, then all of the special effects and post production would have to be completely redone in HD using a similar CG upgrade process akin to the remastered Star Trek: The Original Series. They'd essentially have to rebuild each episode for HiDef. Because if they just upconvert from 480i to 1080p, they are going to find a lot of angry Blu-ray fans. But rebuilding the show in HD is obviously a time-consuming and expensive process.


As reported by Bill Hunt at the phenomenal Blu-ray website, The Digital Bits, his sources at Comic-Con confirmed that the wait may finally be over:
"Multiple sources I spoke with at Comic-Con have also confirmed our report from earlier this year that CBS is hard at work on Star Trek: The Next Generation – Remastered for Blu-ray release starting sometime in 2012. The latest word is that 4 test episodes are currently being worked on for release as a sampler/demo BD disc of the project, and that sampler disc will somehow be available to fans by the end of this year."
2012 is Next Gen's  25th anniversary.The remastered project for Original Series Trek was released in 2006, just in time for the 40th anniversary. Can't wait to find out which 4 episodes are coming our way!

Dead Man Walking: Fond farewell, Frank...

There's nothing worse than having something awesome, then going and screwing it all up. For some completely unfathomable reason, the great Frank Darabont is stepping down as showrunner from AMC's uber-hit The Walking Dead.

Either that or he was pushed.

Frank was just at Comic Con, too, enthusiastically promoting the series' second season.

Darabont invested 5 years trying to get Robert Kirkman's zombie saga on television, ultimately writing and directing the pilot for AMC, giving the network their highest ratings of all time. Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist) is from the feature world, and he may have had difficulty adjusting to the daily grind of series television, having expressed some frustration with TV-sized budgets. But he'd also spoken of the new environment in positive terms: "In TV, you have to get ideas across in a more economical way," he said. "But the process is fundamentally the same, just accelerated. There’s no time for second-guessing. The wheels are in constant motion. I love that about television. If I’d known how much fun it was, I’d have done it years ago."


Glen Mazzara, his number two, will step in as showrunner in his place. Mazzara has worked previously on The Shield (good news), but was also quickly replaced as showrunner on Showtime's first season adaptation of Crash (bad news).

Here's hoping Frank stays on in some capacity as consultant, because if Mazzara and company lose the tone and vibe that's been established, The Walking Dead will start staggering fast. This development really bums me out.

School's out - forever...

After a decade of delighting fans worldwide, the incredible saga of The Boy Who Lived takes a bow in spectacularly satisfying fashion.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 does magnificent epic justice to all that’s come before, easily one of the best films in the franchise.

After all the buildup and positioning of Hallows: Part 1, all hell breaks loose and polyjuice potion be damned. This is one of the least talky of the recent films, darker in tone, handsomely staged and continually involving.

Things get cracking right away with a rip-roaring break-in of Gringott’s Goblin bank, and a spectacularly rendered dragon. The beast is a terrific achievement, making you completely forget that there’s any CG involved. It looks fantastic.

Before you know it, Voldemort and his minions are massing outside of Hogwarts and launching an attack to annihilate the school. There are some tremendous performances in Hallows: Part 2, but it’s Ralph Fiennes who dominates. He’s never embodied Voldemort as fully or as fearfully as he does here. Going beyond mere malevolence, when Harry & company succeed in destroying one of the horcuxes containing a piece of his soul, Fiennes gives us a glimpse of shocked vulnerability as the dark lord realizes he’s lost a valuable piece of himself.

When He-Who finally breaches the grounds of Hogwarts and leads his forces into the ruins, fasten your seatbelts. It’s a phenomenal series of sequences, and Fiennes has never been better as he taunts the school’s survivors, mad with ambition and hate.

Nearly everyone in the cast has a moment to shine and it truly feels as if awareness of this being the final outing has inspired everyone - on both sides of the camera - to deliver their very best. Like Return of the King, things wrap up with a real mix of the grandeur of battle and the emotions that come with saying goodbye.

FIRST IMAGE: Ridley Scott's Prometheus!!!

Howdy, Alien fans -- Comic Con brings us the first official image from Ridley's return to the Gigerverse. No context here, but just the notion of astronauts and a ship - and Ridley - has me drooling. What say ye?

Dark Tower crumbling...

"It's too expensive. It makes us nervous!" What gives, Universal? The folks at Uni stopped feeling the love for Ron Howard's ambitious cross-platform adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower saga.
Howard and Akiva Goldsman planned a series of epic films as well as a concurrent television series. The seven-book saga has been in development for a while. But when Universal's first-right-of-refusal was about to expire, they closed up shop, worried that the expenses and risks would be too great. Talk about a lack of vision!

The good news is that Howard's Imagine Entertainment retains the rights and is now free to shop the project elsewhere. Here's hoping a studio like Warner Brothers, whose had some small success marketing franchises with Harry Potter and The Dark Knight will swoop in and see the colossal potential here. But they'd better move fast, before Howard shifts gears and takes on Rush, his project about Formula 1 racing in the seventies.

Trek in the Park: Portland's summer tradition is back!

If it's July in Portland, it must be time for another thrilling installment of Trek in the Park, Portland's amazing live theatrical stagings of original series Star Trek episodes by Adam Rosko and the amazing crew at Atomic Arts.

This is their third year of boldly recreating old school Trek, with Mirror, Mirror, the fabulous alternative universe episode, featuring bearded evil Spock. The Agonizer, the Captain's Woman, scarred Sulu -- they've got it all, and perform in the great outdoors (for free) to wildly enthusiastic audiences. Here's a taste...

"You take a lot of chances, Lieutenant..."

As you can see, it's fun for all ages, especially The Next Generation...!

Plus, if you're lucky, you can beam back with one of these awesome t-shirts! Trek in the Park runs on weekends through July at 5:00 in Portland's Woodlawn Park. Come early. Come really early.

Trailerpalooza -- an avalanche of things to come

It must be the precursor to Comic Con, but Hollywood dumped quite a load on us over the last couple of days. Feast your eyes on some eye-popping new previews of some highly anticipated movies.

First, Andrew Stantons's live action take on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars, perversely abreviated to just John Carter...



Then at long last, the prequel to The Thing, which looks a lot like its inspiration but should still be a lot of fun. This one's a sacred cow for me, but I'm going to have a hard time staying away...



...and then from "Aarrrr"dman animation we have The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists, a return to Chicken Run form from our beloved Wallace and Gromit pals in the UK...



There's a lot more out there, including Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Contagion, Hugo and very soon The Dark Knight Rises, but that will have to hold you for today.

Welcome back, Walter - Breaking Bad and a Walking Dead treat

AMC gives it all up this weekend, so plan accordingly. Sunday night brings us the return of what's probably got to be considered the greatest show on television, Breaking Bad, beginning its 4th season with calm and stability nowhere in sight. Absolutely can't wait for this.

 

Special bonus for Walking Dead fans - sometime during the premiere they'll be airing a special preview of season 2, a little something to tide us over until Halloween.

So long, Sitcom King -- RIP Sherwood Schwartz

We bid a fond farewell to the prolific icon who practically invented syndicated TV success - Sherwood Schwartz. The creator of both Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch, Schwartz started out writing for The Red Skelton Hour before creating Gilligan in 1964. Sherwood Schwartz wrote for audiences, not critics and left an indelible pop culture mark on the universe of the ensemble sitcom.

If that's not impressive enough, he was married to his wife Mildred for seventy years!

The Three Hour Tour...                             "Oh my nose!"

Carl Kolchak and eye-popping new poster imagery

Johnny Depp loves his old TV shows! Right now he's playing Barnabas Collins in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows reimagining. Now comes word he's locking up another fantastic old chestnut, having nabbed the rights to The Night Stalker, as harried reporter of the supernatural, Carl Kolchak.



Kolchak: The Night Stalker was one of my all-time favorite shows ever. Here's hoping Depp does a more faithful execution than the lackluster Stewart Townsend retread from 2005.

Check out these two very interesting preview one-sheets. First, the teaser for this fall's quasi-prequel to The Thing...

Then feast your eyes on the complete awesomeness of this collapsing skyline motif for Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Rises. Is that a killer piece of design or what?

Weekend update: TV roundup!!!!

There's a lot of good dishes on the TV buffet this coming weekend. As mentioned earlier this week, the new season of Torchwood kicks off tonight. Should be a breath of fresh air! Can't wait.

If you can stomach a little Larry David, CNN is airing a one-hour Harry Potter: The Final Chapter special on Sunday night (July 10th) at 8 and 11 p.m. (Eastern) featuring interviews with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Tom Felton, Helena Bonham Carter, and Robbie Coltrane, as well as never before seen footage from the film.

The if you've been needing a little more curmudgeon in your life, HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm returns. This season will see Larry David moving to New York, where this outlandish crank may finally meet some cranks that are his equal. Can't wait!

First look: Hobbit Dwarves!!!

Check out this first official embiggenable pic of some of the dwarves featured in Peter Jackson's production of The Hobbit.

Feast your eyes on Dori (Mark Hadlow), Nori (Jed Brophy) and Ori (Adam Brown) in costume and ready to plunder!

Only 10 more to go! 



Don't miss: Torchwood - Miracle Day

If you haven't discovered Torchwood yet (a spinoff and anagram of BBC's Doctor Who), the timing is terrific to jump into the new season of this fascinating, superbly written UK sci-fi saga. Season Three of the series, Children of Earth involved the investigation of a global outbreak of hypnotic chanting by the world's children and an invading alien species that threatens to destroy the human race unless they're given 10% of the Earth's children. Children of Earth was my first exposure to Torchwood and it was superb - phenomenally well written science fiction with terrific characters. Torchwood features the mysterious Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), a man whose history seems to stretch back for centuries.

Season Four, Miracle Day, finds the show's characters relocated to America and includes guest appearances by Bill Pullman, Mekhi Phifer and Lauren Ambrose. In Miracle Day, we learn what happens when all deaths on Earth suddenly stop occurring: One day, nobody dies. All across the world, nobody dies. And then the next day, and the next, and the next, people keep aging – they get hurt and sick – but they never die.


The result: a population boom, overnight. With all the extra people, resources are finite. It’s said that in four months’ time, the human race will cease to be viable. But this can’t be a natural event – someone’s got to be behind it...a threat that will change what it means to be human, forever.

Torchwood: Miracle Day premieres this Friday night on the Starz network for 10 episodes and promises to be some of the smartest, most suspenseful science fiction we'll see this year.