a byte of sci fi

Iron Man 2 is just a little over a month away (May 7th release date) and anticipation is building.  Here is the latest trailer for the movie:

Gil Gerard and Erin Gray are probably best known for playing Buck Rogers and Wilma Dering in the NBC series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century in the late 70’s/early 80’s and they will be returning to that franchise this fall.  Only not quite in the same roles.  Cawley Entertainment Company and Retro Film Studios are currently working on an online revival of the character slated to debut later this year as a web-series and the two actors will make an appearance as the parents of Rogers, played by Bobby Quinn Rice.  According to the press release, the web-series “will be bringing Buck back to his beginnings” and will attempt to recreate “the original Buck from the comic strips”.  See the two clips below to get an idea of “retro” look we can expect to see.  James Cawley of Cawley Entertainment has previously made a name for himself with his fan-made web-series Star Trek Phase 2 which continues the original 5 year mission of the Starship Enterprise and in which he stars as Captain Kirk.

And get prepared for some Buck Rogers overload as a big screen take on the character is in the works as well.  Director Paul WS Anderson (Event Horizon, Alien vs. Predator) has signed on to helm the production and Iron Man writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway will pen the script.  And if that’s not enough comic strip space-heroes for you, then watch for the upcoming big screen reboot of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon with Disney star Zac Efron’s name being bandied about for the lead role.

The Season 5 premiere of Doctor Who, with Matt Smith taking over in the lead role, is this Saturday on BBC followed by its premiere in the States two weeks later on April 17th.  Following is the synopsis of this first episode written by new producer Stephen Moffat along with the one minute trailer which shows glimpsed of the Daleks along with the Doctor firing a gun:

The Doctor has regenerated into a brand new man, but danger strikes before he can even recover. With the TARDIS wrecked, and the sonic screwdriver destroyed, the new Doctor has just twenty minutes to save the whole world – and only Amy Pond to help him.

Get more info on the upcoming season and see more clips at BBCAmerica.com.

Next month, Syfy brings us a four hour mini-series based on Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld series of books.  It stars Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica, Dollhouse), Laura Vandervoort (Smallville) and also has Penikett’s fellow BSG co-star Alessandro Juliani dropping in.  It will focus on a mysterious “afterworld” that collects together all of the people who have ever died on Earth onto one planet covered with rivers.  The mini-series, which will air in a four hour block on April 18th, will act as a “backdoor pilot” for a potential series.  Syfy previously made a stab at this concept in 2003 (when it was known as the Sci Fi Channel) with a television movie that also adapted Farmer’s books.  That attempt never made it past the pilot stage, though.  Following is a trailer for the new version of Riverworld:

Matt Groening’s sci fi spoof Futurama returns to Comedy Central in June with new episodes (with the original voice cast intact).  Here is a first, quick look at what to expect:

Back in 1910, Thomas Edison Productions tackled Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein as a project for the nascent film industry.  A silent movie running only 12 minutes, it provides a “liberal adaption” of the classic book.  The later, and better known, 1931 Universal movie with Boris Karloff obviously drew more heavily from this movie than the original book (though it added much more to the story including the “abnormal” brain). In the 1910 movie, Victor Frankenstein goes off to study and in the process creates a living being. However, he is appalled by the creature and flees from it. He returns home to marry his bride and the monster follows which leads to a final confrontation on the wedding night.  The Edison movie will get a full DVD treatment later this year, but you can watch it online here.  Note that this is a very early example of the cinema with crude effects that the current generation spoiled by the visuals from such blockbusters as Avatar and Alice in Wonderland may not take a shining to.  We liked it, though, and suggest you give it a look.