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Star Wars fans jam ‘Rogue One’ ticket window

Jyn Erso
Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, in “Rogue One.” (Disney / Lucasfilm via YouTube)

The past 24 hours have brought good news and bad news for throngs of Star Wars fans who are eagerly awaiting “Rogue One,” the next installment in the film saga.

Let’s start with the bad news: Many of those fans faced hours of frustration on the night of Nov. 27, scrambling for advance tickets. At 9:01 p.m. PT, theaters and websites started selling tickets for the show, including seats for opening night on Dec. 15.

At least that was the plan.

Seattle’s Cinerama struggled with its overloaded online reservation system for hours: Users encountered repeated error messages when they tried to connect – and even if they were able to get through to the website, many couldn’t get all the way through the payment process. “Could Not Get Seat Data” was a frequent response.

For the Cinerama’s harried staff, and for hard-core fans who had a hard time getting opening-night tickets to “Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens,” it was deja vu all over again.

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The inside story behind Jeff Bezos’ Star Trek cameo

Lydia Wilson and Jeff Bezos
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos plays a Starfleet official (at right) who assists a rescued spacefarer (played by Lydia Wilson, at left). Credit: Justin Lin via Twitter

When “Star Trek Beyond” comes out on DVD next week, you can freeze-frame on the big-name cameo appearance that zipped past so quickly in the theaters: Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ moment as an alien Starfleet official.

If you missed recognizing him, don’t feel bad. Even Bezos acknowledges that it was a quickie, and the fact that he’s loaded up with face prosthetics doesn’t help.

“You will have to watch very carefully. Do not blink. You will miss me,” he said during Oct. 22’s Pathfinder Awards banquet at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. Bezos was one of the honorees, along with airplane restorer Addison Pemberton.

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‘Voyage of Time’ puts scientific genesis on screen

Europa and Jupiter
“Voyage of Time” makes use of cosmic imagery like this view of Europa with Jupiter’s Great Red Spot as a backdrop. (Credit: Broad Green Pictures)

Is it possible to create a visual gospel, to be seen on a movie screen rather than read from a parchment? If so, that’s what filmmaker Terrence Malick has created in “Voyage of Time.”

The 40-minute IMAX documentary is in its first week of release at theaters across the country, including the Boeing IMAX Theater at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center. There’s also a 90-minute, 35mm version that’s coming soon.

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Contest could make your Dreamliner come true

Image: Kung Fu Panda jet
Hainan Airlines is letting contestants design livery for one of its Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets with a Kung Fu Panda theme. (Credit: Hainan Airlines / Dreamworks Animation)

How can you top a Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet painted to look like Star Wars’ R2-D2 robot? How about a Kung Fu Panda Dreamliner? Hainan Airlines is teaming up with the Boeing Co. and DreamWorks Animation to make it so, and give away some sweet trips to China in the process.

The contest, which runs through Sept. 30, makes it easy to design the livery for Hainan’s jet: All you have to do is go to Hainan’s website, arrange a set of online stamps, symbols and paint patterns to fill out the livery on a 3-D plane template. Click a button to submit your design, and you could be a winner.

The design elements have to include the usual corporate branding, but you can also choose from the characters in DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda movies, including roly-poly Po (the panda, of course) plus Tigress, Ox, Rhino, Wolf and so on.

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IBM’s Watson makes AI trailer about AI movie

Image: Morgan
IBM’s Watson AI software selected creepy moments for a trailer touting the AI thriller “Morgan,” including this close-up of the Morgan AI. How meta! (Credit: 20th Century Fox / IBM)

Experts may reassure us that artificial intelligence won’t take over the world anytime soon – but they just might invade the multiplex.

At least that’s the plot developing at IBM, where the Watson artificial-intelligence team programmed a computer to come up with a scary trailer for “Morgan,” a thriller about a genetically modified, AI-enhanced super-human.

GeekWire’s crack team of movie critics gave “Morgan” an average grade of C – but I have to say Watson’s trailer gave me the creeps. Maybe it’s the way short cuts are spliced together to create a sense of ominousness without revealing what the heck is going on. Maybe it’s the eerie music. Or maybe it’s just knowing that a faceless piece of software helped create it.

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5 tech tidbits from ‘Star Trek Beyond’

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A starship takes on a swarm of foes in “Star Trek Beyond.” (Credit: Paramount Pictures via YouTube)

Spoiler Alert! This post doesn’t reveal any major plot twists, but it does explore some new twists seen in “Star Trek Beyond.” Stop reading now if you want it to be completely surprised.

The latest big-screen saga about the voyages of the Starship Enterprise, “Star Trek Beyond,” pays tribute to all the Trek technologies we’ve come to know and love over the past 50 years. In fact, the crew members go old-style when it comes to the communicators they use to stay in touch, the transporters that beam people back and forth, and the tricorder that Bones uses to check Spock’s medical condition.

One slight upgrade is that the tablets they use on the bridge look more like an iPad Air and less like an Etch-a-Sketch.

There are a few new twists to the science and technology on view in “Star Trek Beyond,” blending the totally fictional with the somewhat factual. To find out how the movie universe resonates with the real world, read on. But if you’re super-spoiler-phobic, stop right now and wait until you’ve seen the movie.

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Here’s how Jeff Bezos looks as ‘Star Trek’ alien

Image: Jeff Bezos in "Star Trek Beyond"
Jeff Bezos wears a Starfleet uniform (and heavy makeup) in “Star Trek Beyond.” (Credit: Justin Lin)

You’d hardly recognize Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos in the super-heavy makeup he wears as an alien Starfleet official in “Star Trek Beyond,” the latest big-screen voyage of the Starship Enterprise.

But just to make sure you’re able to spot him, Bezos posted a Vine video in which you can see him getting a bite while waiting for his scene. “Cheers,” he says into the camera.

In a Twitter update, Bezos said the “Star Trek” appearance checked off an item on his bucket list. He also gave a shout-out to director Justin Lin, the cast and the crew.

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‘Voyage of Time’ trailer sends you on cosmic trip

Image: 'Voyage of Time' poster
The poster for “Voyage of Time” emphasizes the film’s cosmic subject matter. (Credit: IMAX)

The video trailer for “Voyage of Time” provides a trippy taste of a movie that’s been more than 30 years in the making – and tells the story of a universe that’s been billions of years in the making.

Make that two movies: The big-screen IMAX version of Terrence Malick’s film, narrated by Brad Pitt with a running time of 40 minutes, is due for release on Oct. 7. There’ll also be a 90-minute version narrated by Cate Blanchett.

What’s the difference? That’s not exactly clear. The longer version is described as a “poetic and provocative ride full of open questions,” while the IMAX experience “immerses audiences directly into the story of the universe and life itself.”

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‘Star Trek’ exhibit relives 50 years of the future

Image: Starship Enterprise
A model of the Starship Enterprise hangs from the EMP Museum’s ceiling. (GeekWire photo by Kevin Lisota)

From several yards away, the bridge of the Starship Enterprise looks as if it was beamed down from the 23rd century into the “Star Trek: Exploring New Worlds” exhibition that opens Saturday at Seattle’s EMP Museum.

But up close, you can tell it’s a 50-year-old movie prop, with rocker switches from the ’60s and bits of plastic peeling off the control console.

In a weird way, that’s a big part of the golden-anniversary exhibition’s appeal. When the TV show had its premiere in 1966, “Star Trek” was all about a bright and shiny future. It still is, but the exhibition also casts a spotlight on the social issues and foibles that have shaped the saga over the course of five decades.

“Star Trek” is famous not only for its optimistic vision of spaceflight and technology, but also for its allegorical references to the civil rights movement and cultural diversity, East-West tensions and the rise of environmentalism, gender identity and same-sex relationships.

“All these are ingredients that you can see get funneled into ‘Star Trek,’” museum curator Brooks Peck said today during a preview of the exhibit. And they’re funneled into the exhibition as well.

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Astronauts reflect on future final-frontier films

Image: Terry Virts on ISS
NASA astronaut Terry Virts aims his camera through the Cupola, the best window on the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

“A Beautiful Planet” is a 3-D visual feast for the eyes, but the astronauts who filmed the IMAX space extravaganza made sure that’s not all it is.

For example, NASA astronaut Terry Virts said he recalled the feeling of life on the International Space Station as he watched the movie today at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center. “When I was going down into the Soyuz to say goodbye, I can feel what that suit felt like. Just how to move in weightlessness,” he said.

His crewmate, Kjell Lindgren, was struck by the sounds of a spacewalk.

“The microphone captured the sound coming through the structure of the suit,” he told GeekWire. “The anchors banging around, the sound of the breathing, just the suit flexing, the joints slipping on each other. Just the sensation of what it’s like to move outside, and to see these guys moving around outside. That’s what it feels like. It’s very visceral.”

When a spacewalker’s tether pulled taut, the resulting twang drew a gasp from the audience – as if they were watching a “Gravity”-type thriller, not a real-life documentary about the space station and our planet below.

That’s the kind of scene that producer/director/editor Toni Myers, who’s been in on 10 IMAX movies, loves to spring on filmgoers. “There’s such a thing as a golden eight seconds, and that was one of them,” she said.

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