The Awesome Giant Robots of Pacific Rim

There are bunch of great movies to get excited about this summer, but let’s not forget about a potential dark potential dark horse — or at least a potential tentpole flick with a much lower profile than Iron Man 3: Pacific Rim.

You remember Pacific Rim, right? Guillermo Del Toro‘s giant robots vs. giant monsters movie. Well, the studio has released a quartet of character posters featuring four of the robots (known as Jaegers in the movie universe):  Australia’s Striker Eureka, Russia’s Cherno Alpha, Japan’s Coyote Tango and China’s Crimson Typhoon.

Which is your favorite? So far, I like Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon, but we haven’t seen a full-length shot of Gypsy Danger yet, have we?

Mark your calendars for July 12.

Best DOCTOR WHO News Possible Right Now!

Matt Smith, the reigning 11^th Doctor, has told the new issue of the UK’s Radio Times that he is sticking around for a while! This confirms that we won’t have to say goodbye to floppy-haired incarnation of the Doctor in the 50th anniversary special — or anytime soon.

Matt’s exact words were: “I’m attached to the show for the next year, and I take it year by year.”

Implicit in those remarks is the idea that he could be back the year after that, and so on and so on…

Combine Matt’s announcement with Jenna-Louise Coleman earlier confirming her participation in series eight, and it looks like we have a TARDIS crew. (For the first episode, at least.)

The Prequel to “The Bells of Saint John”

Steven Moffat has done it again: He’s gone and created a wonderful prequel, this one for the second half of season seven — specifically the first story back, “The Bells of Saint John.” This piece has many things going for it: It’s short; it’s charming; and it provides another hint about the nature of Jenna-Louise Coleman’s Clara.

I love Matt Smith’s performance in this — all melancholy about “losing” Clara so soon after really losing Amy and Rory. And there’s just something about the way his 11th Doctor sparks with children; it’s a wonderful connection for a Doctor to have.

Don’t miss “The Bells of Saint John” this Saturday at  8 p.m. on BBC America.

Finally! First Footage from Riddick!

Every time that I’m reminded of the forthcoming Pitch Black sequel, Riddick, I get excited about it — but the production is so tightly under wraps that leaks have been few and far between, meaning the movie is mostly out of sight and out of mind.

But that should be changing — starting now, with the very first teaser trailer for Riddick, which catches up with the title character sometime after 2004’s The Chronicles of Riddick. The best part is that writer/director David Twohy is back, and both he and star Vin Diesel want to take the movie back to its Pitch Black roots.

The Secret Genius Behind DOCTOR WHO

Who was the MVP of the earliest days of DOCTOR WHO? Recently uncovered evidence suggests that perhaps writer Anthony Coburn — best-remembered for scripting the first ever story, “An Unearthly Child” — deserves a lot more credit for the series’ mythos than he has been given credit for before.

A box of never-before-seen scripts and paperwork belonging to Coburn was uncovered in the British town of Herne Bay, and the materials suggest that Coburn conceived the TARDIS after seeing a police box near BBC headquarters. The discovery was made by prop-maker and lifelong WHO fan Jason Onion, who was researching the town’s connection to the long-running series.

Onion initially brushed off the script discovery as merely copies of the first four 1963 episodes that were penned by Coburn and would later come to be known as “An Unearthly Child.” Onion said:

“With the consent of Anthony’s wife, Joan Coburn-Moon, and other family members, the family lent me a box of his work and I saw the scripts, but put them to one side. When I scanned the cover later, I realized it didn’t have the right title for the first episode. I had a look, and as soon as I saw the first few pages I knew it was not the episode that had been televised. I just sat there, and stared and stared. I wanted to cover them with glass. They are unbelievably precious, and I had them in my hand.”

The pages turned out to be early drafts of the episodes, including two versions of the first episode, and alternate second episode, three other scripts — and the “Masters of Luxor” story, which was dumped in favor of the original Dalek serial, “The Mutants.”

Attack of the DOCTOR WHO Promo Photos!

The BBC has released over 130 photos teasing the return of series seven of DOCTOR WHO, so I’ve decided to pull out just a few interesting images to make a gallery Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman‘s best. If folks want to see more I’ll put up another gallery or two. (Seriously, there are a lot of pictures out there now…)

Did you spot the other returning old friends? (All three of them?)

If your appetite has been whetted, DOCTOR WHO returns to BBC America on Easter Saturday, March 30, at 8 p.m.

Are You Looking Forward to ORPHAN BLACK?

This ORPHAN BLACK show looks pretty promising. It’s an original series from BBC America that will premiere after the return of DOCTOR WHO on March 30.

The series focuses on Sarah (Tatiana Maslany), who discovers she is one of a number of clones — but has no idea when or why any of this happened. She stumbles onto the secret in this clip when she meets Beth, a familiar face, at a train station.

Sarah decides to uncover the truth about her clones, and when it leads to a twisted conspiracy she has to struggle to stay alive.

Matt Smith Confirms He’s in DOCTOR WHO 2013 Christmas Special

Whatever fireworks the special story celebrating the 50^th anniversary of DOCTOR WHO may have to offer, the golden light of regeneration will not be among them — because Matt Smith’s 11^th Doctor is going nowhere anytime soon.

While he did not go as far as Jenna-Louise Coleman and commit to the eighth season, Matt appeared on The Jonathan Ross Show this week and, when asked about his future as the Time Lord, responded thusly:

“I’ve got to be diplomatic…because if I give the whole game away I’ll be screwed. The thing is with Who, you’ll understand this more when you’ve watched it. 

“I go and I do the anniversary special, then I go away for a bit [to shoot a movie in Hollywood], and then I come back and do the Christmas special. It’s one of those jobs that you have to take year by year; it’s 10 months a year; it’s all-consuming.

So I don’t think you can plan five or six years ahead, or even two years ahead. It’s a year by year thing, and at the moment it’s 2013, and we’ll see what 2014 holds.”

So there you have it, straight from Matt’s lips: He’s committed to doing the Christmas special!

DOCTOR WHO’s Latest “Movie-Style” Posters

Here we have the “movie-style” posters for the second half of series seven, which kicks off March 30.

You will recall that show-runner Steven Moffat’s remit for this season was to make each story feel like a widescreen movie — to which end the first half of the season featured episode-specific posters that felt like they belonged in a cinema. And now, the… er, first part of the second half of the seventh season gets the same treatment.

I think my favorite is the one for “Cold War,” though it could have been “The Rings of Akhaten” is the typeface were more like Raiders of the Lost Ark, of which this poster reminds me. I also cannot help noticing that “The Hider in the House” has been renamed again, this time to simply “Hide.” Well, it’s still better than “Phantoms of the Hex.”

A Gallery From “The Bells of Saint John”

Here are a bunch of lurvely pics from the “Bells of Saint John” episode of DOCTOR WHO, which airs March 30, ushering in the second half of series seven. I’m not sure how I feel about the Doctor dressed in… plumb? Purple? But the style is pretty good.

Of course we get some nice images of the Doctor (Matt Smith) and Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman), as well as actress Celia Imrie.

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely cannot wait for 7b to begin!