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Actually, the 300 to 400 emails per day figure was given by Harry Knowles of AICN. Given that he's running one of the net's more popular sites, sending that many emails per day probably isn't much of an exaggeration.

Most include some spoilers.

I'm glad Lucas isn't letting the ratings system control the content of his films, but I hope that I will eventually have a technological way of watching the films in a G-rated version so I can enjoy it with my kids.

Uhm, no. I was referring to this.

And this.

I could swear I read on AICN about Spielberg. Might be there as well. Dunno, and I don't really have the time to search (I'm at work).

It is still a bit disappointing that Zaphod does not have his 2nd head on the movie.

He has it, but I understand that is it situated below his normal head, and pops up when it has something to say. From sites where people have seen sneak previews it sounds like it plays okay, but I was sort of hoping for a dopey prosthetic like in the BBC TV version.

There is a sneak-preview review (and comments about Zaphod's head) at AICN.

They've been playing it all week (as well as the origina 70s series as well as the one in 80), and I thought you'd missed it, however, it looks like there'll be a chance to catch the miniseries again Sunday night. From AICN:
"Battlestar Galactica" 2003 Miniseries:
Jan. 8 8pm-11pm NBC: 3-Hour Version
Jan. 11 9pm-11pm SciFi: Part One
Jan. 12 7pm-9pm SciFi: Part One
Jan. 12 9pm-11pm SciFi: Part Two
Jan. 16 3pm-5pm SciFi: Part One
Jan. 16 5pm-7pm SciFi: Part Two

Aint it cool news have compiled a list of comments from american media, and they are almost all very positive.

...here he is!

Here's something for you:
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=18 062

How exactly is this news for nerds? Yeah, I'm looking forward to the movie, but I'm not looking for information about it on slashdot.

Check this out. Supposedly they will also re-release the original trilogy to include Anakin as a "ghost"? Pfft.

Saruman thing you describe is a muddle of half-truths.

We have decided to save the Saruman sequence for the DVD. It's a great little scene. 7 mins long. Chris is wonderful, as usual. Brad is in about 6 shots. It was a film maker decision - nothing to do with the studio.

The problem is that the sequence was originally shot for The Two Towers, as it is in the book. Since The Two Towers couldn't sustain a 7 min "wrap" after Helm's Deep, we thought it would be a good idea to save it for the beginning of the Return of the King. The trouble is, when we viewed various ROTK cuts over the last few weeks, it feels like the first scenes are wrapping last year's movie, instead of starting the new one. We felt it got ROTK off to an uncertain beginning, since Saruman plays no role in the events of ROTK (we don't have the Scouring later, as the book does), yet we dwell in Isengard for quite a long time before our new story kicks off.

We reluctantly made the decision to save this sequence for the DVD. The choice was made on the basis that most people will assume that Saruman was vanquished by the Helm's Deep events, and Ent attack. We can now crack straight into setting up the narrative tension of ROTK, which features Sauron as the villian.

It was a very similar situation to last year when we decided to take a nice Boromir/Denethor flashback out of The Two Towers, and put it in the DVD. It was causing us pacing problems in the theatrical version, but with the Extended Cut just coming out now, fans can see this great little scene. Thank God for DVD, since it does mean that a version of the movie, which has different pacing requirements, can be released later. The Saruman sequence will definately be a highlight of the Extended ROTK DVD.

We have a lot of great DVD material this time around. As we crafted the movie, we reduced it from an over 4 hour running time, down to 3.12 (without credits - about 8 mins long). This was done by us. There were no studio cutting notes. We now have a movie with a pace that fells ok for it's theatrical release. One more week to go. We are nearly there. Will we still be standing? It's going to be a close run thing.

Cheers,

Peter J

As he describes it, it definately sounds like just One of Those Things that happens when you're adapting books to film.

I got to see a exhibitor screening last friday, and, to put it simply, The Matrix Reloded was the first movie that I wanted to watch again immediatly after it ended. The other people I was with also agreed that it was an increadibly good movie, not only for the action (which it seems nobody is debating) but I thought the story was really good also, and brought up some interesting points of discussion. And that alone is light years more than most summer blockbuster films.
The reviewer seems to be saying that reloaded would be a terrible movie if it were not for its action, I can only think that the reviewer is an idiot, or maybe he just didnt understand the film.
As I was talking to one of my boss, after the movie, he didnt seem to think that it would do very well (boxoffice wise) because most people would not understand some of the more complex issues that the film touched on.
There was a lot of reference to the inner workings of computer systems, very vauge references - but they were there none the less. I cannot really elaborate without giving too much away, but I am sure that a lot of the /. crowd will catch on some of the stuff.

I must say though, do not get discouraged- this is an awesome film! there are also a number of reviews on aint-it-cool-news.com

On the other hand Harry Knowles says this is nothing. (Not that his track record is that great, mind you) Ain't It Cool News

Apparently, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool "reports" that the rumour is simply a rumour.

I have little sympathy for fans of cancelled TV shows. The typical response I hear from Farscape fans is to say that everyone else's show is "written to the 13 year old level". Ironically the writer of that remark illustrates his comment by attacking of all shows CSI as "95% star-trek style technobabble around a loose and predicable crime scene". Maybe if fans would show a little more respect for the tastes of others I would have more sympathy. But to be honest, if their attitude is that everyone else is inferior for not watching their show, then I am happy that their show is cancelled.

Why can't Farscape or other SF fans find a way to praise their own show without questioning the intelligence of fans of other shows?

I don't know why people have to feel that the only way to advocate their tastes is to tear down the choices of others. Do these people go around saying that everyone else's cuisine sucks because they really like one of their own particular dishes? Maybe the shows would have more fans if their advocates weren't always acting like a bunch of juveniles.

so will this new games site be as innovative, world-changing, dynamic, and incredible as AICN's other non-movie/TV project, Voices?

Oh, so that's what they've been doing when "taking time off from their on-line stroke photos of Jessica Alba"!

The re-tooled fox schedule can be seen here.

They leave hope that 'Firefly' may be moved to the Monday 9/8c timeslot at a later date. Hiatus doesn't always mean a show is canceled. 'Andy Richter Controls the Universe' is coming back soon after an extended break, for which I am thankful.

-R

For proof, check out this awesome poster for Spirited Away, Buena Vista's (ie Disney's) first foray into the world of Japenese animation on a wide-release scale since Princess Mononoke. The film has broken all kinds of records in Japan and I hope it does the same here as well. The poster looks great, I've heard nothing but fantastic stuff about it, and this should easily top Millenium Actress if the marketing push works.

Here's to hoping it does.

ps - and I hope they don't screw up the DVD and force an uproar like Princess Mononoke did :)

"We gave the writer of the CNET article a summary of the film (an accurate one) over the phone, which he summarized very, very inaccurately. Rendezvous with Rama will, under no circumstances, be "Starship Troopered"...

Uh.. dude. Ain't It Cool News has a discussion forum. If you want to go talk about not-yet-created movies in which aliens kill things, go there.

Star Wars EP. III *Yawn*

Lord of the Rings Part II !!!WHOHOOO!!!

I definately sense a cultural shift among geeks. Or is it just that PLOT DOES MATTER!!!

Okay... you're wrong, and Harry says so. :)

Actually this was mentioned weeks ago on aint-it-cool-news.com. The episode title is "Jump the Shark", a reference to jumptheshark.com.

But then again, I have been living 23 minutes into the future lately. (I watched the Star Trek episode of Futurama with full end credit this morning.)

you forgot the .com :-)
==>
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com

i dont recommend clicking it though it tries to install some sort of spyware and 90% of the reviews on the site are wank

Ever the skeptic, I greeted the announcement yesterday and went into the demo with tremendous trepidation. I have devoted every single day of the last four years of my life to the DVD format, and have hundreds of well-earned discs to prove it, so how could I not greet the arrival of a new format with anything but a nervous gulp? ... HD is simply the Holy Grail of home theater and the demos bore this out.

Sounds more fanzine-ish than serious journalism. But I guess slashdot is like that on other stuff, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

According to AICN, the title of the Wallace and Gromit is THE GREAT VEGETABLE PLOT.
Will this rule or what??? :-)

As the AC noted there have already been several screenings of LotR in Iceland. Most of those screenings have been semi closed (eg. one needed to take part in some contest to get tickets) but there was also one public screening on December 10th (that is, anyone could buy tickets). I believe this was the first ever public screening of the movie in the world - and I was there :)

In total, I guess around 1% of the Icelandic population saw the movie between 10th and 12th December - that is before Harry Knowles got to see it :)

Such sources will undoubtedly come in handy when tracking T3, given how long it's been in the rumor mill.

That said, I popped in to work this weekend to upgrade my servers AV protections (liveupdate refuses to work on my email servers. grr.) and, sure enough, I've been averaging one infected document every two hours. So it's possible we'll see a whole host of fun come Monday, 9am, when all those folks who got infected emails over the weekend open them up...

This isn't going to be the standard "I submitted the Doh is in the OED story two days ago and it got rejected" whine. I mean, I did submit it two days ago, but when I did it, I also included this story about the new Simpsons DVD box sets. So this whine also educates and informs.

Difference: no one is getting paid (either directly or by "perks") to say that Mozilla is great (and it is, which is why I'm posting this using Mozilla nightlies). When you see a glowing quotation attached to a movie, it's because someone was almost certainly paid to say it.

Getting back to the topic, this is why until recently, I've been a huge fan of Ain't It Cool News. But even Harry seems to be slipping into the machine. He recently wrote an entire series of articles based on his trip to the set of Lord of the Rings. It really smacked of the "we'll fly you to New Zealand and show you a good time, you just write whatever you want," sort of approach to tainting idealistic reviewers.

But AICN is still the best place to get movie news that's anywhere near honest and biased only by artistic concerns (which often include number of zombies ;-)

--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)

Friday night in my room trying to deceipher the system of websites. There are hundreds of pages of information set up all pretending that we are in the future. By decoding a chemistry cryptogram here I found out that coronersweb.org set up a case file for Evan Chan who died on a boat having sex with a sexbot. I found out about Evan Chan by calling Jeanine Salla's number, 212-502-1177 and going to extention #2. The number I found on her website. She's important because she's the sentient machine therapist listed in the credits in the trailer.

But perhaps the most esoteric thing I found was that there are notches in the 'Coming "Spring 2001"'. Spring 2001 has 10 characters, the same as a telephone number. That number was, corresponding the notches, 503-321-5122.

The information above is only ~3% of all information found on the web pertaining to the movie. It must have taken programmers well over a thousand man hours to put all this up. AICN is definitely the way to find out more.

---

There was some information on aint-it-cool-news last year:

TREK TV Series 5 to be called ENTERPRISE?

A Fifth life for the Star Trek TV Series?

Also of interest: Three of the ideas they were floating before test groups. Personally, I think that the "Star Trek 90210" series sounded so bad that it's good, but I guess I'm in the minority.

I look forward to the re-release. There were a lot of things about Akira that might seem minor today, but were HUGE at the time. The two that come right to mind are:

• Akira was the first animated movie to use computer-generated wireframes for all of their perspectives. This is why the obviously hand-drawn cityscapes have perfect perspective through long, and often complex pans.
• This was the movie that convinced the world that animation != cartoons. The level of gore and adult plot you might actually have to think about stunned most non-Japaneese that saw it (I know I was one).

1. Looks nice. Seamless effects, has that "big-budget" look. As long as they don't mangle the story, this could be great.

2. I didn't know, but it's a trilogy! Three movies, each to be released at Christmas a year apart. The Fellowship of the Ring 2001, The Two Towers 2002, The Return of the King 2003. Enough screen time to do the story right? Maybe... I hope so!

3. There is a review of this trailer on Ain't It Cool News.

4. It made me want to pull the books out and read them again!

steveha

1. Looks nice. Seamless effects, has that "big-budget" look. As long as they don't mangle the story, this could be great.

2. I didn't know, but it's a trilogy! Three movies, each to be released at Christmas a year apart. The Fellowship of the Ring 2001, The Two Towers 2002, The Return of the King 2003. Enough screen time to do the story right? Maybe... I hope so!

3. There is a review of this trailer on Ain't It Cool News.

4. It made me want to pull the books out and read them again!

steveha

Q. Well, it will be nice to see the Molly character [a total she-badass character that Trinity from "The Matrix" is clearly modeled on, and who appears in the original "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Neuromancer" stories] actually show up.

A. Yeah. See, that was one of the things with "Johnny Mnemonic," was that I never WANTED the Molly character to show up, because if she HAD shown up she'd be part of the "Johnny Mnemonic" franchise. That's why Molly wasn't Molly.

Q. [sarcastically] Yes, that highly lucrative "Johnny Mnemonic" franchise....

A. Yeah. Well, you know, that was always a possibility, too -- so I'm very glad that we kept her.

AICN has a great piece covering Harry's trip to the set in New Zealand. This link is to the index, which has a conclusion, and then a link to each of the ten other articles that he wrote.

To summarize, he lavishes praise on the director, costumers, actors, effects people, etc. and says that the only down side was a bit of bad food that he got one day. This is Harry, and he's prone to hyperbole (espcially when he wants to like something), but he's very specific in these artciles, and I'm at least impressed with the apparent attention to detail for Gandolf (the Gray/White).

Here's hoping, but of course, there's no way I can be as pleased with it as I was with The Matrix. Not because The Matrix was a better film (we'll see), but because that was the one movie that was furthest from my expectations. No matter what happens, the best Jackson can do is bring The Lord of the Rings as I've already read it, to life. That's a tall order, but in general I'm more impressed when someone starts with a blank slate and suprises me.

Anyway. Go read, download the trailer and start your countdown timers!

You know, This is part of a Trilogy

It is supposed to be much more faithfull to the book then the David Lynch movie. Review of the series here.

--

The net can "turn a child's heart dark and murderous". The net is just another form of media, and it has the same disadvantages that other media has.

What about capcom's Resident Evil seris? The games are almost movielike... It would be interesting to see them in the big screen... altho it'd probably be a disappointment. :-)

They are, and it will

What about capcom's Resident Evil seris? The games are almost movielike... It would be interesting to see them in the big screen... altho it'd probably be a disappointment. :-)

They are, and it will

Let's think about it. Nothing (to most people) is more interesting than gossip. Knowing other people's business is just plain fun to most, myself included. So I'm nosy. I love to read rumors (film myself, Ain't It Cool News and Dark Horizons just rule) and I like to gossip about them. Wonder if this is true or if that is a fake.

The most important thing that gossip generates is PUBLICITY. When people begin to talk about your rumored products, whether they be true or not, they still are talking about YOUR company. Why else would the film industry suddenly be escorting the webmasters of those aforementioned film rumor sites to very advanced preview screenings? (This super early review of How The Grinch Stole Christmas comes to mind.)

You should not condemn those who gossip. With gossip comes truth AND lies, but whats important is the talk, not the substance. Didn't someone once say that there is no such thing as bad publicity?

Are you listening Apple?

I for one am hoping for the best. Brian Singer is a great director (give it up, The Usual Suspects fuckin RULED) and given that his budget was cut in HALF and his due date for the film pushed back from December to Friday, I'm really amazed at the good reviews for such a rushed project. The Danger Room as well as Beast and Angel had to be left behind, but that's what sequels are for, right?

I for one am hoping for the best. Brian Singer is a great director (give it up, The Usual Suspects fuckin RULED) and given that his budget was cut in HALF and his due date for the film pushed back from December to Friday, I'm really amazed at the good reviews for such a rushed project. The Danger Room as well as Beast and Angel had to be left behind, but that's what sequels are for, right?

Since there has NOT been a Japanese-language, region-2 DVD of PM for the Japanese market, the release of a US (region 1) DVD which can be enjoyed in all three ways I just described is problematic to the people who will eventually distribute the PM R2 DVD in Japan.

Here in the US PM only did small art-house-type business - less that $30 million IIRC. So it comes down to pissing off a relatively small market of anime fans, or risking the revenue that will be provided when the most popular domestic film in Japanese history makes it to DVD in its home country.

Then there's the other issue - the fact that the powers-that-be in Japan (Buena Vista Japan to be specific) don't think they can trust the region encoding mechanism to enforce international market segmentation. This is doubly ironic, since the main reason for that nasty MPAA-DeCSS legal fight is (presumably) the DVD industry asserting its rights against people who want to do things like unraveling region encoding.

Hopefully, this is just going to be a Princess Mononoke thing. I think the main thing people are on about (go look at Ain't It Cool News for an example) is that this is going to affect all the other Miyazaki titles (Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Laputa/Castle in the Sky), and NONE of them will get the "proper" DVD treatment (look at "Grave of the Firefiles" for an example of a well-done anime-on-DVD).

...is for someone to design some Battlefield Earth skins and levels to make the whole ordeal complete!

As far as the Aint-it-cool-news piece, I wouldn't put too much stock in it. First of all, this news comes second hand from a minimum-wage employee of a video store, not the greatest of sources. Also, on the very same page is someone else who seems much more reliable saying that there will be absolutely no DVD in the forseeable future. Furtheremore, Lucas has said time and time again that there will be no Star Wars DVDs until all 6 are finished, so I think it's a safe bet that we still have a long wait ahead of us.