Frankie Adams plays a Martian Marine in “The Expanse.” (Syfy / Alcon TV Group Photo)
Just days after the Syfy channel announced it was canceling “The Expanse,” sparking a fan campaign to save the space opera, The Hollywood Reporter says Amazon Studios is in talks to keep the show going into a fourth season.
Variety and Deadline said they confirmed the report with their sources. But all three news outlets quoted sources as saying a deal had not yet been closed, and Amazon Studios said the reports were still speculative.
“We are have not confirmed anything about ‘The Expanse’ yet,” Tammy Golihew, director of publicity for Amazon Studios, told GeekWire in an email.
Some see the film as a metaphor for the yin-yang, love-hate, fanboy-hacker relationship we’ve developed with our hyperconnected world. But for techies, one of the biggest allures of “Ready Player One” may well be the way it amps up today’s frontier technologies to reveal tomorrow’s everyday realities.
During a Cinerama preview organized by Madrona Ventures Group, managing director Matt McIlwain told the audience that the movie reflected the VC firm’s interest in intuitive “multisense” interfaces that are on track to transform the way we use high-tech applications.
If you want to go into the theater knowing absolutely nothing about the movie other than what you’ve seen in the teasers, put this story on pause and come back later. But if you’re ready for a quick rundown on five real-world gadgets and tech trends that are amped up for “Ready Player One,” read on.
Patrick Stewart and his wife, Sunny Ozell, stand beside MacKenzie and Jeff Bezos at the Oscars. (Jeff Bezos via Twitter)
Kirk, Picard or Janeway?
That choice of Star Trek captains is a standard question on our Geek of the Weeklist, and now Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos has let all of us know where he stands.
What would an R-rated “Star Trek” movie directed by Quentin Tarantino look like?
We may find out someday soon: The director of “Kill Bill,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Inglorious Basterds” and other violence-laced neo-noir films is reportedly working with “Revenant” screenwriter Mark L. Smith and producer J.J. Abrams on a harder-edged version of the Starship Enterprise’s saga.
Science fiction and fantasy writers around the Pacific Northwest and around the world are paying tribute to award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin, who died peacefully at the age of 88 on Jan. 22 at her home in Portland, Ore.
“She left an extraordinary legacy as an artist and as an advocate of peace and critical thinking and fairness, and she was a great mother and wife as well,” The Associated Press quoted her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, as saying. He told The New York Times that her mother had been in poor health for several months.
Le Guin was best-known for her exploration of feminist themes in books such as “The Left Hand of Darkness,” a 1969 novel set on a planet whose inhabitants have no fixed sex. Her magic-infused Earthsea series of novels made as much of an impact in their day as J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books.
“Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams” comes to Amazon Video in January. (Amazon Video via YouTube)
The dust has barely settled on the premiere of “Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.” Or is that a thin layer of salt? In any case, it’s already time to look forward to the science-fiction screen offerings in the months ahead, leading up to the next Star Wars story on Memorial Day weekend.
This personal top-10 list should get things started, with a couple of caveats. I’m not including the long list of next year’s Marvel and DC comic-book spinoffs, which adds “Game of Thrones” veteran Maisie Williams (Arya) to the marquee for “The New Mutants.” For that list, check ComicBook.com’s roundup.
I’m also not including a couple of favorites that are still lacking release dates for their 2018 seasons, such as “The Handmaid’s Tale” (on Hulu) and “The Expanse” (on Syfy).
With those preliminaries out of the way, here are 10 shows to put on your radar screen for the next five months.
Caitlin Jacques, Nathan Battern and Kay Ahern strike a pose while standing in line outside the Cinerama, waiting for “Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi” to start. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)
For Star Wars fans, it’s the hap-happiest season of all — and that makes dress-up artists like Kay Ahern something akin to Santa Claus.
“Forget Christmas,” said Ahern, who was costumed as emo villain Kylo Ren tonight for the premiere of “Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi” at Seattle’s Cinerama. “This is my religious holiday.”
Sci-fi author Andy Weir (“The Martian,” “Artemis”) makes a point while Neal Stephenson (“Seveneves,” “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.”) looks on. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)
What could be better than hearing a science fiction writer talk about how to create whole new worlds? How about doubling that to two science fiction writers?
That was the case for a Seattle-area appearance by Andy Weir — the author of “The Martian” and “Artemis,” a just-released novel set on a moon colony in the 2080s.
When he showed up at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park on Nov. 30, he brought along Seattle’s own Neal Stephenson, the author of science-fiction novels ranging from “Snow Crash” to “Seveneves” to “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.”
A standing-room-only crowd of 600 or so heard Weir and Stephenson hold forth on the writing racket. Here are some gems from the conversation:
Luke Skywalker looks worried in the trailer for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” (Disney / Lucasfilm)
The Force is clearly with “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” The trailer for Episode VIII of the movie saga made its debut in the midst of Monday Night Football, kicking off ticket sales for the Dec. 14 premiere and beyond.
And the truly magical part was that you could actually buy tickets.
First, about that trailer: Although fans have gotten glimpses of the upcoming movie at Comic-Con and other special events, this is the biggest fully loaded dose of Star Wars lore to go public since the first official trailer was released in April.
The starship Discovery’s captain, Gabriel Lorca (played by Jason Isaacs), lists Elon Musk among the pioneers of propulsion in a 23rd-century scene from “Star Trek: Discovery.” (CBS via All Access)
Apparently, Musk will be held in as much esteem as the Wright Brothers and the builder of Earth’s first warp drive, Zefram Cochrane, by the year 2256.
That’s the time frame for “Star Trek: Discovery,” the latest manifestation of the 51-year-old space saga on CBS All Access, the TV network’s streaming video service.
Musk, who celebrated this year’s 14th successful launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rockettoday, gets name-checked during a key scene in the Oct. 8 episode, during which the captain of the starship Discovery tells the science officer that his careful study of space mushrooms would have to be put aside for a high-risk activation of an experimental “spore drive.”
“How do you want to be remembered in history?” Captain Gabriel Lorca asks. “Alongside the Wright Brothers, Elon Musk, Zefram Cochrane? Or as a failed fungus expert? A selfish little man who put the survival of his own ego before the lives of others?”
