SciFi News For 12-10-11

Massive Amounts Of CGI And Unfriendly Aliens At Sea - New "Battleship" Trailer
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2072357/Battleship-trailer-Rihanna-fights-aliens-sea-Battleship-trailer.html  

Luc Besson's "Lockout". Word Is...At Least It Will Be Fun! (Video 1:54)
http://www.scificool.com/first-trailer-for-lockout-aka-taken-meets-escape-from-new-york-in-outer-space/
  
Buzz For Sci-Fi Short "Rosa" Leads To Movie Deal For Comic Book Artist (Video 9:30):
http://www.sfx.co.uk/2011/12/09/rosa-goes-from-online-sci-fi-short-to-major-motion-picture/

Gerry Anderson Moving Forward With Updated "Thunderbirds"
http://www.scifiheaven.net/index.php/2011/01/12/thunderbirds-are-go-again/ 

Mars Rover "Curiosity's" Landing To Be Even More Hi-tech: (Video 2:26):
http://www.youtube.com/user/janlafata?feature=guide#p/c/9E98B3D9AA529836/12/_KLxmGLZQSY 

Win A $5000 34-inch Model Of The Enterprise From Star Trek.com:
http://www.trektoday.com/content/2011/12/uss-enterprise-replica-sweepstakes/

OTHER NEWS

While we wait for plot-line news about Star Trek XII rumors continue to circulate as to who the villain might be and one name that keeps popping up is "Khan". Dan Madsen of  The Official Star Trek Fan Club says "I would love to see that happen. Of course, I have a hard time imagining anyone doing a better job than Ricardo Montalban who made that role his own in The Wrath of Khan. Meanwhile it's also been announced that original "Robocop" Peter Weller is joining the cast.

After years of one sci-fi reboot after another, the ideas for fresh story lines is finally  starting to shift over some to the world of books. The latest in this movement comes from 1492 Pictures, which has has acquired the rights to Charles Yu's "How To Live Safely  In A Science Fiction Universe." The novel centers on a time travel machine repairman who has spent the past 10 years traveling back and forth in time in search of his father, who has disappeared.

In a recent Wall Street Journal interview Director Ridley Scott brought science fiction fans up-to-date on two of his upcoming projects. Regarding the highly anticipated "Blade Runner" follow up, Scott said his new film is "liable to be a sequel" and that he’s searching for writers who can help him with the screenplay. He was asked if Harrison Ford's Deckard character would return and put that idea to rest quickly. The film will feature all new characters.

Fox has confirmed plans for a follow up to "Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes" Andy Serkis, the actor who wore the digital effects attachments that guided the animations  returns as the lead chimpanzee Caesar. Writers and producers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver are again writing and producing. Apparently a sequel was always planned and a third film has already been plotted. At this stage it's not known if James Franco's scientist character Will Rodman will return. Rodman was originally supposed to be killed off, but the studio re-shot an alternate ending where he survived after negative test screening feedback.

Sources say that that pre-production is continuing to move forward at a fast pace for the two planned "Independence Day" sequels and they are now actually getting closer to the shooting stage. "Independence Day" was directed by Roland Emmerich and he is onboard to direct the sequels too, but it appears unlikely Will Smith will star after asking for a huge salary.
 

Director James Cameron has been sued by a former employee who claims he stole the idea for Avatar from him. Science fiction fan Eric Ryder wants unspecified damages for his contribution to the film. He claims that in 1999 while working for Cameron he wrote a story called K.R.Z. 2068 which has remarkable similarities to Avatar. But in 2002 the project was shut down because "no one would go see an environmentally themed feature length science fiction movie"

In an open letter Thursday, a prominent Russian scientist took the blame for the failure of the country's Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, which was meant to collect samples from Mars' moon Phobos, but instead is barely chugging along in low Earth orbit since it's Nov 8th launch. Lev Zelenyi, director of the Space Research Institute and Chair of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Solar System Exploration Board said the reason for the failure has yet to be determined.The spacecraft is expected to enter Earth's atmosphere in early January as a piece of space debris.

The Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in California is once again searching planetary systems for signals that would be evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Among its first targets are some of the exoplanet candidates recently discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope. The ATA had been placed in hibernation mode last April as the result of the withdrawal of the SETI Institute's former partner, U.C. Berkeley, due to budgetary shortfalls.

NASA's New Horizons mission reached a special milestone today on its way to explore the Pluto system, coming closer to Pluto than any other spacecraft. It's taken New Horizons 2,143 days of high-speed flight, covering more than a million kilometers per day for nearly six years to arrive at it's ongoing location.  Operators at the Applied Physics Lab will "wake" the spacecraft in January for a month of testing and maintenance activities.

BOOK REVIEWS
"Micro" - Micheal Chrichton:
http://www.thesetonian.com/pirate-life/michael-crichton-s-micro-is-a-major-success-1.2729098#.TuNyUfIR2ZR
"Count To A Trillion" - John C. Wright:
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-c-wright/count-trillion/
"I, Robot: To Protect" - Mickey Zucker Reichert
http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-revew-i-robot-to-protect/
"Civilizations Beyond Earth" Extraterrestrial Life and Society - Douglas A. Vakoch and Albert A. Harrison.
http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title.php?rowtag=VakochCivilizations 

SCIFI NEWS QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within ten years."

Alex Lewyt - Vacuum cleaner manufacturer, 1957.