ProductionNinja.com

Blogging will begin again tomorrow, after a short rest for my Space Shuttle launch excursion (Video of that will be up tonight or tomorrow). But for now take a gander at the trailer for the new Star Trek movie. It was released with the new James Bond flick, but just hit the net officially today.

Some like the looks of it, others think it looks like 90210 in space. I for one am very excited about it though.

I’m sure this is a pretty common trend these days, but of course I first noted it with the geeky sci-fi flick The Mummy 3… some filmmakers are opting for staggering amounts of security to prevent spoilers from leaking out to fanboys in their parents basements. On the other hand there are others, like Rob Cohen on The Mummy that are actually blogging the whole process. Latest on that list is McG, the director of Terminator 4… which is already filming.

He’s even posted a couple of minor spoilers:

This movie takes place several years after Judgment Day, but prior to 2029. Just like it took a long time to get an HD plasma screen in our world, it took Skynet a lot of research and development to get to the T-800, and this movie explores that “space between.” We have all been fascinated with the world after Judgment Day. Here it is.

In this film, there are Hydrobots that patrol the water, Transports that move human prisoners around, Harvesters that collect human beings as lab rats for Skynet and Aerostats that survey all that is going on with the resistance the world over.

A Hydrobot sounds like something a Transformer would play with in their bathtub, but other then that, it’s looking pretty promising.

One other interesting plot note from the blog is the fact that they filmed a scene at the Griffith Observatory. If I’m not mistaken, that’s where Ahhnold ran into a very blue-haired Bill Paxton in the original movie.

Oh, and Anton Yelchin will be playing Kyle Reese, who I assume will actually be younger than his son in this movie…

They just starting filming, but the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still already has two strikes against it. First they cast Keanu Reaves as Klaatu and now comes news that the movie won’t be in DC:

Twentieth Century Fox has begun filming its remake of the 1951 classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

Keanu Reeves, who plays (what else?) a humanoid alien, stars along with Jennifer Connelly and Kathy Bates in the sci-fi tale of visitors from outer space who encourage the human race to shape up.

So given that the original contains one of Washington’s iconic celluloid scenes — a flying saucer settling down on the Ellipse — we’ll surely be seeing Keanu & Co. here in D.C., right?

Wrong. Sources with knowledge of the production say that while some exteriors will be shot here, most filming will take place in Canada, because the city didn’t have the right ‘look’ for this version.

You would think that Keanu alone would be enough to doom the flick, but their other casting choices have been pretty solid. Jennifer Connelly will play Helen, and Kathy Bates will be taking the role previously played by Aunt Bee. I also noticed that Aaron Douglas has been cast as well… maybe he’ll play Gort, since he does after all have experience playing a Cylon.