Back! With a little Blood and Chrome...

Sorry for the absurdly long absence - March will do that to you. Many a glimpse of awe emerged from last weekend's Wondercon, and this is one of the real gems. Being a massive Battlestar Galactica fan, I somehow could just never get into Caprica. But a glimpse of the new prequel series, Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome, from producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, has got my flight deck scrambling. Set during the military mayhem of the famed first Cylon war, we should be spending time with young William Adama and Saul Tigh as they duke it out with the first generation of tiffed toasters. Blood and Chrome looks awesome - though it's unclear if it will make the light of day before 2013 - Check this out and bring it on...

The passing of a visionary - Ralph McQuarrie

There may be no other man more responsible for influencing the look and feel of the Star Wars universe - and so many others - than visionary concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, who passed away this weekend after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. Star Wars, Close Encounters, the original Battlestar Galactica, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. - McQuarrie took his experience as an illustrator for Boeing and his work animating the moon landings for CBS to give far-flung fantasy a realistic and technologically believable edge. He was hired by George Lucas to illustrate the Star Wars screenplay to a very skeptical 20th Century Fox. So little was changed from McQuarrie's visualizations to the final product. He gave us so many icons, including Darth Vader, Boba Fett and droids R2 and C-3PO. Gaze with wonder at the vision of a master. He was one in a billion.

A real company man - a TED talk from the future...

Get ready for the best viral promotion you've maybe ever seen. You know "The Company" in the Aliens movies? Weyalnd-Yutani? Responsible for all that "crew expendable" stuff. Well as part of a promotion for his Alien neo-prequel, Prometheus, Ridley Scott (and his son Luke) have given us a futuristic TED Talk with actor Guy Pearce as company visionary Peter Weyland - a kind of hyper ambitious Steve Jobs - giving us a window on his plans for the future. Pearce is off the charts! This may be the best three minutes of film you see for quite a while - not a spoiler, but it gives me chills to see Ridley looking at the future through his Alien/Blade Runner lens again -VOLUME REQUIRED... if this doesn't make you foam at the mouth for Prometheus, then I don't know what!