News Around the Net
New production video for The Hobbit! Yay!
Do you have $275 burning a hole in your pocket? Then why not consider buying yourself (or me!) a print of Drew Struzan’s gorgeous Dark Tower painting (originally featured in Frank Darabont’s vastly underrated adaptation of Stephen King’s The Mist)?
Star Trek geek red alert! This is an outstanding, in-depth article about the special effects of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, including a focus on the brilliant redesign of the USS Enterprise for that film (which still stands, in my mind, as the definitive version of the Enterprise).
Speaking of Star Trek, this is an interesting — albeit completely wrong-headed — defense of Star Trek: Voyager. The writer is correct in lamenting the complete absence on TV these days of the type of optimistic, humanistic sci-fi that Star Trek embodied. And he is also correct in praising the strong female characters of Voyager, and the way that, on the show, “female authority was assumed and unquestioned.” That’s still a surprisingly forward-thinking and not-all-that-common point of view for a mainstream TV show. Unfortunately, I wish Voyager was actually the groundbreaking show that writer remembers. I’m afraid to say that Voyager was derivative and boring, a show that totally failed to follow through on any aspect of its strong premise, instead presenting us with rehashed, watered down versions of Trek stories we’d seen done before, and far better. It’s the worst of the Trek series by quite a wide margin, in my opinion.
Boy, I loved Ender’s Game when I first read it a decade or two ago, but the more I learn of Orson Scott Card’s political views, the more disappointed I become. Meredith Borders at badassdigest.com has written a concise and powerful evisceration of Mr. Card’s most recent anti-gay rights statement, and I think it’s worth a read.
As a weirdly connected follow-up piece, allow me to recommend this spotlight on the life of Conrad Veidt. I didn’t think I knew who he was, until I ready the article and realized that I did (and I bet you do too, if you’ve ever seen Casablanca), but I didn’t know about his incredible life. Very cool short article.
Nothing particularly revelatory in this first teaser poster for Captain America 2. I’m excited that they will be adapting Ed Brubaker’s fantastic Winter Soldier storyline — I hope they don’t stray too far from his original story. We’ll see.
Oh, I love this possible premise for a sequel to This is the End! I can’t imagine we’ll ever actually see that, but if they made that movie I’d be there.
Let’s end with the most awesome thing I have seen in weeks: Vanity Fair’s Freaks and Geeks reunion photo shoot! Featuring pretty much every single cast-member (Millie! Coach Fredricks!), photographed over a decade after that brilliant show was cut down after its first season. Bonus: Paul Feig’s thoughts on where the never-made second season would have gone… (His plan for Cindy Saunders would have been GENIUS!! Aaargh!!)