Like the lower price-point game consoles you can get at Gamestop, Star Trek (the original series) is getting refurbished.

You can read the entire article here, at StarTrek.com (from yesterday), but the rundown is that the original episodes are going to be re-mastered, namely in the special effects department, but also in the music. Among the things to be re-done are the show’s opening, backgrounds from on-planet moments, exterior shots of the vessel, and viewscreen shots. Expect a lotta CGI work to go down.

Oddly, instead of heading directly to DVD, it’s going to air on TV first, with the first episode dropping on September 16th. Didn’t anybody tell these guys all the cool kids are on DVD sets? And besides, what channel is it going to be on? All news reports are telling me to check my local listings, but my local listings don’t go out that far. Will it be on CBS? UPN? I’m assuming it won’t be on G4 or SpikeTV. Or at least, it won’t be for a good 10 years.

Interestingly, there was a fan doing work on this already, who put in a bid for this project. Obviously, without the vast resources of a visual effects company, he couldn’t compete, but on the upside, a clip of what he made is available on YouTube. You can find it under the title Trek Refurbished.

It’s an interesting look at what we might be seeing when this hits. His site can be found at TrekEnhanced.com, where the most interesting draw right now is his talk about this new development, where he discusses his bid, and how he actually pitched this three years ago in 2003.

Like a lot of the civilized world, I don’t watch the Emmy Awards. Thankfully, INTER-NET saved host Conan O’brien’s introductory sketch. Conan is heading to the show, and crosses paths with many other TV stars on the way.

Bonus points to whoever selected music for the inclusion of “Police On My Back” by The Clash at the end.

On the anniversary of Judgement Day, The Movie Blog brings us news that the franchise seems to be getting ready for a TV property, following the life and times of Sarah Connor after the events of the second movie. David Nutter, of the Smallville pilot, will be directing.

Oh happy day! The Tick Season 1 is out! I ran out to the store to get my copy. What a great show it was and how I was excited to watch the first season again in it’s entirety!

Looking at the package I had some trouble telling how many episodes were in season 1. I still wanted it I just wondered whether it was a bargain or not because to be honest if it was just 13 episodes for 37.99$ Canadian that’s a pretty crappy deal. Looking through the episode titles on the back I see “Does not contain episode 11”.

Why the God damned hell not?!

Needless to say the DVD remains on the shelf where I found it. I may very well buy it later but 12 episodes for 38$ on it’s own is pretty sub par not to mention the aggravation of knowing I’m missing that one episode. What a debacle of Sailor Moon R ADV boxed set proportions. Okay sorry I take it back nothing could be that bad. Anyway I was just too pissed off so I left it on the shelf and thought I’d look in to what the hell was going on.

Well apparently Internet has known about this for about 3 months now. I get all my relevant news from Powet and they must have missed that one. Oh well. The reasons it seems have something to do with rights. Not sure why. The episode is the one where the Mole people come up from the ground and the one Mole wants to marry the supermodel with a mole on her face like Cindy Crawford has. Now I get that this was a Cindy Crawford parody but I’m sure they don’t pay Batman royaltees for the Die Fledermaus character who’s a rip off of him or Superman for that matter. Bah. Anyway that pisses me off. And maybe that’s not even it but those fat cats at Disney felt while it was okay to rip an episode out of this boxset it wasn’t acceptable to give us an honest explanation of why we’re not getting it.

It’s so God damned easy to do things right. Why the hell do idiots have to make it so damned complicated? Think twice before picking this one up my friends and screw all you Tick fans who say it’s no big deal just so you can justify your purchase. You’re allowed to buy something and still be pissed off about it you know.

On Thursday August 24th 2006 Pluto’s status was downgraded from “planet” to “dwarf planet” taking it out of the ranks of such greats as Earth, Mars and Uranus to name a few! While this decision is being disputed by those with a political interest in having Pluto remain a planet, as Robin Catchpole says “My own personal opinion was to leave things as they were”, for the time being there are only 8 known planets in our fine solar system. But what does this really imply?

Sailor Pluto, one of the 8 Sailor Soldiers sworn to protect the Princess of the Moon and future Queen of Earth, is no longer representative of a planet like her 7 fellow guardians. While she’s always been an outcast of types forced to spend most of her time in solitude protecting the door of time she was still technically ranked equally with the rest. Is Sailor Pluto dead? Does she lose her powers now that she doesn’t have a planet? Will her true star seed which gives her that power be downgraded to a normal one like the rest of the 6 billion people on this planet have? Well… no.

Many are shown to have star seeds who represent celestial bodies which aren’t classified as planets. The most obvious example of this being Sailor Moon herself who, being the most powerfull of soldiers and with a star seed that shines brighter than any other, is only the Sailor of the moon of a planet. Then there’s Phobos and Dymos, Sailor Mars’s crows, who represent the moons of Mars. Luna and Artemis are … a whole other story.

But who else is named after a dwarf planet? Sailor Ceres represents Ceres, a large asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter which is also classified as a dwarf planet. Her and the rest of the former Amazon Quartet protect Chibi Usa as she is destined to succeed Sailor Moon and needs a posse of her own.

What does this mean for Pluto then? Well probably nothing. But hey maybe she’ll change camps and go protect Chibi Usa. Fitting though that of all the planets this should happen to it would be Pluto considering she is the one who in 30th century Crystal Tokyo is shown to have a close personal relationship with Chibi Usa while the other girls are still taking care of the Queen. Pluto who’s mentioned to be both the same and different from the other girls as she has that different duty of protecting the Door of Time really is the odd planet out.

According to AICN, a new Thundercats show is in the works from WB Animation.

WB animation is remaking the Thundercats as an animated TV series.
The animation style is whimsical, Americanized-anime, along the lines of Teen Titans.
The setting is modern-day Earth, in a major city (possibly LA)
The Thundercats are all teenagers.
Their leader is Snarf (!) who is now a mystic with a “third” eye.
Each of the Thundercats has a weapon with an “Eye of Thunderra” and transformative powers (not just Lion-O)
When they aren’t fighting evil, the Thundercats play together as a rock band. That’s not a typo, or a joke. They are rockin’ cats in their present form.
Mum-Ra now has wings.
And I bet he laughs a bit more than he used to =P
Developing…

I think the best comment from that page was here. I’m not sure they could be more unfaithful to the original material if they wanted. Where are the Four Horsemen when you need them?

Slashdot posted the cancellation of Stargate SG-1. The show will not be renewed for another season. Stargate Atlantis will continue on for its fourth season.

The SCI-FI network offered the following statement:

“SCI FI Channel is proud to be the network that brought Stargate SG-1 to its record-breaking 10th season. Ten seasons and 215 episodes is an astounding, Guinness World Record-setting accomplishment. Stargate is a worldwide phenomenon. Having achieved so much over the course of the past 10 years, SCI FI believes that the time is right to make this season their last on the channel. SCI FI is honored to have been part of the Stargate legacy for five years, and we look forward to continuing to explore the Stargate universe with our partners at MGM through a new season of Stargate Atlantis.”

Quote Source: Gateworld

or “Excuse me, Sessler!”

Resident X-Play fan spooie alerted us that conservative crusader Jack Thompson was on G4 TV’s “Attack Of The Show” on a panel with G4 host Adam Sessler discussing the forthcoming game “Bully”
While they got heated and voices were raised, the 9 minute clip is ultimately disappointing as the debate is cut short for crude sex jokes and a feature on how “… some chicks have bad hygiene”
Next time G4 wants to host a serious discussing with one of the gamings most notorious figures, it would do well to give it air time during a less infantile show and not consistently set up to be bullied by one of their own. Of course, our position here is well known, as the oldest post in our archives is simple “G4 sucks“