Sunday, July 27, 2008

Random Links: Mostly SF Edition

Illusion Sciences: A blog that presents and explains all kinds of optical illusions, often in nifty interactive ways. Fascinating, if occasionally eye-hurting.

Recent Volcanic Activity: Stunning pictures of active volcanoes.

Watchmen Trailer Breakdown: A frame by frame comparison between the Watchmen trailer and the equivalent panels in the comic book. Man, I'm just getting more and more excited about this. I really ought to find a way to lower my expectations to avoid potential disappointment, but stuff like this really isn't helping me do that.

Moffat Interviews from SDCC: Links to a bunch of interviews that Doctor Who's Steven Moffat gave at the San Diego Comicon this weekend.

First Glimpse of Doctor Who's Christmas Villain: A report on the Comicon Doctor Who panel, featuring grainy cell phone footage of a new trailer for the Christmas special.

O'Bannon to Write Farscape Comic: Also from Comicon, a video of Rockne O'Bannon talking about the upcoming Farscape comic book series, which it was just announced that he's going to write. I'm getting pretty darned excited about this, too. You can also find an article on the subject at CBR News.

Doctor Who Proms 2008 - Music of the Spheres: A short Doctor Who video with David Tennant that was screened at the "BBC proms," a big classical music festival at Albert Hall. Apparently the Doctor writes music, as well as saving planets. Who knew? It doubtless loses something -- or even most things -- when watched on YouTube without what was clearly intended to be a lot of audience interaction, but oh, well.

6 comments:

  1. I like that Steven Moffatt. I think he'll go far.

    That "Music of the Spheres" video is a little weird without the other side, obviously live in the Albert Hall. Still, cute.

    I wasn't thrilled with the Cyberman episodes of the second season, but I'll reserve judgment until I see the special in a fuller and less grainy format.

    Visually, the Watchmen trailer hits all the right notes. It's the other stuff that usually proves to be more difficult, but I'm very cautiously optimistic.

    And is it wrong that there's a tiny part of me doesn't want to know what happens after the Peacekeeper Wars?

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  2. The more I hear from Moffat, the happier I am with him, so I am expecting good things from his stint as show runner.

    I agree that the Cybermen episodes haven't exactly been standouts (although I did like "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday"). But there are still worthwhile things to be done with them, I think, and I'm a little intrigued by the idea of seeing them in a historical story. We'll see how that comes out.

    And, no, there's nothing wrong with that part of you. There are quite a few shows that I liked immensely but that I really don't want to see sequels to. (I actually got a little annoyed at JMS for telling me more than I wanted to know about the future of the Babylon 5 universe.) Farscape, however, is not one of them, as I regard that story as still far from finished. The end of PKW might be a pretty good place to leave Crichton's story with an implied "and they lived happily ever after" (or a far more qualified Farscape equivalent), but so many of the other characters are still kind of in the middle of their own stories. It sounds like the comics will give us more of a resolution for Rygel at least, which is great.

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  3. I liked this interview bit.
    Having the Doctor be able to open his door [by snapping] is not a big deal. You've seen him change his face.

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  4. I have to admit, he does have a point there. :)

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  5. I think that my favourite Moffat quote from those interviews was: "He's the man who never gives up, and that's his super-power."

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  6. Yeah, that's a good one, too. :)

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