The Fiction: The Motorway

In Martha's second trip on the TARDIS in the new Doctor Who, the Doctor takes her to New New York. Much like its present-day namesake, this city is trapped by traffic.

In fact, the only living residents of the city have been stuck in a quagmire called "the Motorway" for decades, all trying to get to a better place. Some even resort to kidnapping so that they can drive in the HOV lanes, which they've heard can cut years off their travel time. Once Martha is kidnapped she finds out they'll make it the ten miles to their destination in a short six years.

The Reality: Traffic and congestion.

It's been said that Americans spend an average of over 100 hours a year commuting, so it's no wonder that scientists are constantly trying to find ways to improve the driving experience. Writers are always imagining new ways for their heroes to get from point A to point B. But how many of those writer's dreams are coming true? Read on.

The fiction: Computer driven cars

Seen in: I, Robot
Pros: You can read, nap, or solve crimes while you're traveling. Accident cleanup is a snap.
Cons: Should the computer system decide to become murderous, you're in a lot of trouble.

The Reality: The Darpa Challenge

(image courtesy of the Team VictorTango website)

DARPA presents prizes to teams creating cars that drive on their own using "various sensors and positioning systems." Their 2007 challenge asked the vehicles to navigate an urban environment and "executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles." Three and a half million dollars in prizes were awarded and six teams finished the course.

The Fiction: Mag-Lev Cars

Seen In: Minority Report
Pros: You can pave everything and make it a road, giving D.C. residents as many lanes than they could ever want. Pull right up to your 200th floor apartment.
Cons: Imagine an accident at those speeds, on the side of a skyscraper. Makes car chase a lot more dangerous.

The Reality: Mag-Lev trains.

While we haven't started putting mag-lev systems in cars yet, we have put them into trains. Japan has the most famous trains using the technology, where magnets are used to both levitate and propel the train. Using magnetic levitation for travel has a lot of advantages, including speed. Not to mention the potential benefits to the environment, and the noise reduction. As we pointed out earlier, the future of rail transport in the U.S. might very well lie with mag-lev technology.

The Fiction: Flying Cars

Seen In: The Fifth Element, many many others
Pros: No need for roads anymore, the sky is open to everybody.
Cons: The sky is open to everybody. The view becomes nothing but cars, and traffic is a nightmare still.

The Reality: Hovercraft

Vehicles that float on a cushion of air are actually more popular and widely used than most people think. They're good for going over any terrain, and they're used by militaries around the world. It also is the technology on this list that you are most likely to make in your own garage, if all the YouTube videos are any indication. It is unlikely that the flying cars in science fiction are powered by jets of air, but so far it's the closest thing we've got.

The Fiction: Vehicle A.I. that talks to you

Seen in: Knight Rider
Pros: Can let you know when it needs maintenance, keep you entertained on long drives, drive for you if you need to beat up some bad guys.
Cons: Can get a little snippy. Might lock you out.

The Reality: turn by turn GPS, cars that talk to each other

While we're not quite to the point where our vehicles are having conversations, we do have plenty of robotic female voices telling us to "turn left" and after we make a wrong turn, they scold us with a "recalculating." But GPS systems have become commonplace. What's the next frontier of the technology? Cars that converse with each other.

In this video from cNet, we see that systems are being designed where two vehicles will send signals back and forth in order to keep track of their distance from each other, their speeds, and other relevant information. The same system can also get information from stop lights to relay to the driver, letting you know if you really should try to gun through that yellow light, or maybe you should try to stop.

Does it seem like these innovations are too far outside our grasp? Well there are two famous fictional cars that science has managed to replicate, at least to some degree:

The Fiction: The Batmobile

The Reality: Voice recognition software, OnStar, and "the Tumbler."

The Batmobile's features change from model to model, in fact there is even a website devoted solely to tracking the changes in the vehicle. There have been numerous defensive innovations, as well as offensive weaponry installed over the years. While most cars aren't driving around with side-mounted spherical bombs, the Batmobile has long had voice recognition software. Now the Ford Sync system comes standard in many of their models, one of the many ways our cars are starting to obey our vocal commands.

In a set of ads using the Batman/Batman Returns style Batmobile, audiences discovered one feature that they could have installed in their own cars: OnStar. Of course, Batman has had hands free calling to his support network (namely Alfred) for years.

The most important thing to note is that when Christopher Nolan brought his own spin to the Batmobile in Batman Begins, the "Tumbler" was actually a functional vehicle. According to The History of the Batmobile:

"Their primary focus was to make this Batmobile as real as possible: at 9 feet wide and 15 feet long, the car weighed in at 2.5 tons but was still capable of 0-60MPH in under six seconds with a top speed of 110MPH. Thanks to its unique design, it is also capable of making unassisted jumps up to 30 feet."

One of the best car shows in the world, Top Gear, was able to actually have the car in the studio for a segment where they talk about its actual working features. There's a rumor that The Stig even took it on a lap around the track:

The Fiction: James Bond's Scuba Car from "The Spy Who Loved Me."

The Reality: The sQuba Submarine Car

James Bond was able to tool around underwater in a modified Lotus Espirit without getting his impeccable suit damp. The sQuba Submarine Car is not quite so watertight, but it still is a car that handily swims around underwater, just like the vehicle in the film. As Jalopnik reports:

"Though you're not going to stay dry if you want to go diving, because theres no airtight canopy to enclose you. To breathe, you'll have to wear a scuba mask connected to the car's integrated compressed-air tank. But who cares?! This is a car that goes underwater!"

You can read a complete write up of the car here.

See the car in action and learn about all its other features:

Since the sQuba is just a concept car at the moment, if you want a car that will travel land and water, you might have to settle for an amphibious car. In one of their most infamous segments, the gentlemen at Top Gear were challenged to make their own amphibious cars, and then cross the English Channel. You might be surprised at the results:

What's next in the future of transportation? The best place to find out is probably the science-fiction section of Netflix.

MTV sat down with Michael Caine and asked him what happened to the Philip Seymour Hoffman and Johnny Depp rumors that he'd helped start a while back. Sadly, Caine filled us all in that not only did he get in trouble but there's "nobody, there's no script there's nothing." And we most likely have a long wait ahead of us with Inception being Nolan's number one priority right now. But most importantly,

"Johnny Depp is great in anything, but there is no Johnny Depp in this Batman," he smiled. "They tell me in no uncertain terms."

Here's the full video interview...

[ MTV and Picture via Joy Hog}

Ghostbusters 3:

Harold Ramis says the third movie definitely won't go the Batman Begins route of being super slick and high-tech — the Ghostbusters crew are not suddenly going to be sporting amazing gear, or skulking around in suits with built in pecs for that matter. What made the original films funny was the low-tech nature of the gadgets. It's always going to be about the pseudo-science and the characters. And it sounds like he's pretty opposed to having it be too heavy on the CG fight scenes where everyone's flying around. [Making Of via Slashfilm]

Zombieland:

Writer/producers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick talk more crazy zombie action. Like, every single ride at the amusement park gets used to kill zombies at the end. Zombies go flying off one of those blast-off things that shoots the seats up and down. There are "multiple roller coasters." They add:

There's this great moment where this thing called the Rattler, which is this huge thing, pendulum-type device that has all these seats around the outside and it swings back and forth and the seats turn. Columbus runs underneath it and it just misses him. And then some zombies are chasing him and it comes back and just , just knocks them all out of the way.

And separately, a Hummer gets jumped into a lake. Also, there are flashbacks, including one showing the start of the zombie outbreak, and main character Columbus' first meeting with a zombie. But the movie doesn't bother to explain why the zombie outbreak happened — because, hello? Zombies. And the Columbus-Tallahassee friendship is sort of a Felix Unger-Oscar Madison thing: Columbus is scared of everything, Tallahassee is totaly fearless. Oh, and Tallahassee starts the movie with a craving for a Twinkie, and the whole movie is his quest to get his hands on one. He talks very rhapsodically about Twinkies. And there are plot twists, and a couple of zombies who are more important the others. But no "boss zombie." Tons more info on this movie at the link. [Slashfilm]

G.I. Joe:

How hot will this movie be? Burning hot, according to a new poster. Also? Ice cold. Posters don't lie. [SpoilerTV-Movies]

Fringe:

The first scene of this show's second season is a killer — literally and figuratively. And Kirk Acevedo's Charlie appears in the season opener, and you'll never believe what happens to him. (Possibly, something that keeps him from being in the rest of the season? Just guessing here.) [EW]

Apparently the character Luke Goss plays in the season premiere is called Lloyd Parr. [Fringe Television]

Lost:

Not really spoilers so much as rumor patrol. But TV Guide's Matt Mitovich speculates that Claire may come back as the latest disguise for the mysterious enemy of Jacob, now that his Locke masquerade is over. And apparently it's definitely not true that Matthew Fox and Malcolm David Kelley filmed some scenes together back in season one, for use during the final season. [TV Guide]

Smallville:

The famous S-shaped shield logo will be all over this show next season — including on Clark's chest. But meanwhile, there's no truth to the rumor that the show's producers are talking about creating a spin-off called Metropolis. (And how would that differ from the current show format, exactly?) [EW]

FlashForward:

There's a new casting call for the show's second episode. We meet Bhadra, a fifty-something East Indian professional woman who is well-spoken and controlled, and she'll be in at least two episodes. Also definitely recurring: the nine-year-old autistic kid Jimmy, who can only focus for short periods of time and is disconnected the rest of the time. Another possibly recurring character is Anastasia, a forty-something government worker who butts heads with others on a regular basis. A fourth possibly recurring character is the sonographer who conducts an ultrasound on a pregnant woman — maybe Sonya Walger?

And it sounds like our FBI agents travel to a small town (via helicopter, maybe since, there's a helicopter pilot who gets one line.) In that town, we meet the small-town sheriff, an attractive, plain-spoken woman named Keegan. And we also meet a suburban housewife named Kiki who owns a cupcake shop and gets involved in a situation that's out of her depth. There's a playground scene where a "ringleader" named Zack and his sidekick Anna provoke one of the kids, and various other kids discuss what they've "imagined." Plus we meet elementary school teacher Ms. Gerber, and the principal, Ms. Byrne, who handles a sensitive matter with tact. [SpoilerTV]

And here's a new promo:

Stargate Universe:

Alaina Huffman (Smallville) plays 1st. Lt. Tamara Johansen, a medic who's quite skilled but insecure. And those insecurities get amped up massively when the team is thrown to the other side of the universe. It's a chance to play a character who's more conflicted than the tough-chick roles she usually plays. [TV Guide]

Warehouse 13:

So eventually we'll learn that there's a whole complex mythology behind the number "13" in the warehouse's name. The Syfy Channel sent us a transcript of a conference call where producer David Simkins explains:

In our mythology the first warehouse was created by Alexander in an effort to keep hold of the artifacts that he, you know, collected on his wars. And it didn't last - it didn't last long because Alexander died young but then the library at Alexandria was a warehouse too where research and development and things were stored and books.

And so we've kind of tracked the chronology of empires and our feeling is that the warehouse has moved from empire to empire throughout the ages, moving to the country that was best able to protect it. It was in the Western Roman empire, the Hunnic empire, the Byzantine empire, you know, all the way up through the Russian empire, the British empire, and then finally the United States. It was always - it always located itself in the empire that was best able to protect it.

And it was early, early on in warehouse - in one of the early warehouses in iterations, it was established that a board of directors essentially would be in charge of it, an ever-changing sort of like I guess a Supreme Court called the Regents. And the Regents were in charge of deciding when and where to move the warehouse. I think the longest it lasted was in the Western Roman empire for about 500 years and the shortest was about 14 years in the - I think it was the (Khmer) empire.

[SyFy]

Here are some promo pics from episode four, "Claudia." [SpoilerTV]

Eastwick:

No, you didn't have a weird nightmare that ABC was making a soap opera out of the John Updike novel and the Jack Nicholson film — it's really happening. And apparently, the pilot includes strings plucking in the background and a wise old narrator voice. [KansasCity.com]

The good news is, the pilot is directed by David "pilot king" Nutter. The bad news? Apparently it's full of "stilted acting" and "cringe-inducing dialogue." Apparently the script is full of double entendres — the devil is swinging some pipe — and one of the three witches, Joanna, goes from shy librarian-type to sexy minx by letting down her hair and removing her glasses.

As for the plot? Auntie Bun (Veronica Cartwright) tells some kids at the local historical society that the town of Eastwick is rumored to have had witches in the past, and there may still be magic there. And then three women each find a special coin, and they each make a wish at the town's fountain — to have a different life than their current ones. And then the mysterious stranger Darryl Van Horne shows up and buys half the town, granting the three women's wishes in the process. He buys Joanna's newspaper, and gives her the freedom to write the stories she wants. He reopens the candle factory, giving Kat's husband her job back. And he gives Roxy the struggling artist/single mom the excitement she craves by sleeping with her and helping her get more money. But all the people in these women's lives are resentful of their new friendship and sorta-empowerment. Eventually, visions, hospital-bed omens and old records prove Darryl Van Horne isn't who he claims to be. [Futon Critic]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Moore has turned down tons of interview requests lately, but the comics giant did talk to the Guardian newspaper, about his 750,000 word novel Jerusalem among other things. And he gave a new explanation for why he didn't think Watchmen could work as a movie:

There is something about the quality of comics that makes things possible that you couldn't do in any other medium.. Things that we did in Watchmen on paper could be frankly horrible or sensationalist or unpleasant if you were to interpret them literally through the medium of cinema. When it's just lines on paper, the reader is in control of the experience – it's a tableau vivant. And that gives it the necessary distance. It's not the same when you're being dragged through it at 24 frames per second.

Not that he's all that attached to the story anyway - turns out Moore doesn't own a copy of Watchmen, or any of his other writings that he doesn't own the rights to. But even more than his usual diatribe about movies versus comics, there's this lovely quote, which encompasses exactly why Hollywood writers might want to try and create their own original stories instead:

To me, all creativity is magic. Ideas start out in the empty void of your head – and they end up as a material thing, like a book you can hold in your hand. That is the magical process. It's an alchemical thing. Yes, we do get the gold out of it but that's not the most important thing. It's the work itself. That's the reward. That's better than money.

Meanwhile, The Rumpus talks to Michael Uslan, who's owned the movie rights to Batman for the past thirty years. Almost as if he's responding to Moore, Uslan says that in a sense, comic books are "frozen movies. If you look at a comic book, you are seeing the storyboard for a film." And he talks about the thorny issue of film-makers trying to make their movies look as much like the static images of the comic as possible:

I remember in the early days, in some of the early comic book movies, certain white dissolves were used that would try to emulate the look and feel of comic book panel borders. Sometimes they would frame shots in panels or circles that gave it a real comic book feel. With the Batman television show, they always liked to skew the camera and give it a tilted look, and often played with colors and lighting, and many of the comic book-based movies and TV projects over the years, particularly some of the early ones, loved to play with primary colors, reflecting the fact that at that time, all comic books were done at a four-color press. But you could have somebody like a Tim Burton, who, in creating the first serious comic book movie, chose to create an entire universe. As Tim brilliantly said, from the opening frame, Gotham City had to be created in a way that audiences would believe in Gotham City, in order for them to suspend their disbelief and truly believe there could be a guy dressing up as a bat and going out and fighting criminals like the Joker.

He also explains exactly what went happened with Batman Forever and Batman And Robin. (Short version: it's a mixture of paying homage to the 1950s and 1960s versions of the character, and the studios wanting lots of villains with brightly colored costumes, so they could sell toys.) [Thanks to James Tiberius Quirk for the Guardian heads up!]

Batman exists in a universe full of science fictional elements.

Batman hangs out with aliens from the planet Krypton and Mars and the 30th century and the 5th dimension, and so on. "But wait," I hear you say, "that's in the comics. In the movies, Batman's separated from that. He's a stand-alone character who's never even heard of Beppo the Super-Monkey." It doesn't matter.

Here's the only question you need to ask yourself: is Batman a superhero? If the answer is yes, then he's still connected to all that stuff. Superheroes are more than capes and funny insignias — they're part of a whole tradition of larger-than-life archetypes and tropes.

You can't even look at Batman without seeing him as part of the superhero tradition. You don't question why he can jump off a tall building without going splat, even though he has no superpowers — because you're used to superheroes. (Yes, he's got a sort of hang-glider thingy and a grappling hook line and stuff, but still. It's also just a convention of the superhero genre.)

Even when he's in a movie, Batman is still a comic-book character, and he's still part of that fine comic-book tradition of mashing up noir vigilantes with aliens, wizards and giant robots. It never occurred to comics writers to try and separate these genres.

The comics have frequently admitted as much — when Grant Morrison took over writing Batman, he had a scene where Batman opened up his "scifi closet" full of alien artifacts, weird future technology and other
toys.

You can strip all that away, but it creeps back in.

Okay, so you're still not convinced? After all, Chris Nolan did such a great job of burning away all of the campy baggage that had glommed onto the Caped Crusader in the 1990s movies, and he explicitly tried to keep Bats more down to Earth.

The same thing happened in the comics, actually. Starting in the late 1980s, then-editor Denny O'Neil decreed that Batman would exist in a slightly more realistic world than the rest of the DC Universe. He kept Bats out of the Justice League, and even changed old stories to say that Batman had never been a Leaguer.

But the more grim and "realistic" Batman became, the more otherworldly elements found their way in. Like the replacement Batman, Azrael, who turned out to be part genetically engineered monkey as well as part human. (Please don't ask me to explain Azrael's origin. It made my head hurt the first time.) Or Dr. Shondra Kinsolving, who magically healed Bruce Wayne's shattered spine with her mental powers.

Weirdly enough, one of the most grim and realistic-feeling Bat-comics from the O'Neil era is 1992's Batman Vs. Predator, written by Dave Gibbons and published in conjunction with Dark Horse. It's a harrowing story of Batman facing a superior foe he doesn't know how to beat, and in the introduction to the trade, O'Neil explains how it fits in with his grittier, more grounded idea of Batman:

We generally put the planet-hopping variety of science fiction off-limits to Batman scripters; Batman's roots are in the dark myths — vampires, demons, were-creatures, ogres, all the shadow beings that creep from the nether side of the human psyche. Rocket ships and Batman are not a good mix: our Caped Crusader may use technology — he has to, to be a credible crime-fighter in the twentieth century — but he is not of technology; it has nothing to do with what he is. And it has nothing to do with what the Predator is, either. Take a look at him and then search your memory for predecessors. Shiva, Satan, Grendel, the Fenris Wolf — the fiends, the devils, the devourers, the enemies of mercy and humanity — those are the Predator's kinfolk. Do we really care that he arrived by spacecraft instead of being belched up from a fiery pit? Not unless we're very picky indeed... Batman shouldn't tangle with just any old bug-eyed monster who slides through the ozone, but the Predator was the right alien for him to fight.

So there ya go — the biggest opponent of "scifi Batman" is saying that Batman is about as science fictional as the Predator.

He uses tons of improbable gadgets — including his suit.

Okay, okay, so you want me to shut up about the comics. Lots of people who saw TDK had never read a single comic book in their lives, so only the movies should count anyway.

Fine. So let's talk about the movie. It's full of Bat-toys that are either way beyond our current level of technology, or at the very least five minutes ahead. In the same way that many of the James Bond films are science fictional to greater or lesser extents, Batman's toys, in themselves, make him what Alan Moore would call a "science hero."

Remember the Batpod, that awesome motorcycle? It violates just about every law of physics except for the Law Of Awesome. Just ask Popular Science. (Also, the Batmobile/Tumbler has a "stealth mode," which works like a cloaking device.)

And then there's the doodad that Lucius Fox comes up with, which allows Batman to jump out of an airborne plane — and then jump back into it when he's done with his mission. Oh, and did I mention the supercomputer that lets Batman turn every cellphone in the city into a listening device, and then listen in on all of them at once? I didn't? Well, I don't think that's within our current technology, despite what some conspiracy theorists might say.

Actually, go read the comments on that Popular Science piece on the physics of Batman. They're full of people saying "Batman is fantasy, you can't expect it to be realistic." Or: "Batman has an exoskeleton that gives him superstrength." Which reminds me: the Batsuit? Totally science fictional. Nobody questions that Iron Man is scifi because he's in an obvious exoskeleton, and he has a reactor in his chest. But Batman's suit is only different from Iron Man's by degrees, not type. That's where I disagree with Denny O'Neil. These days, at least, Batman really is of technology.

He fights science fictional supervillains.

Still not convinced? Maybe you think Batman just gets a free pass on physics and plausibility the way Bourne does, or the Transporter or whatever. So let's talk about his villains.

Even if you ignore the comics, and all of the Burton and Schumacher movies, you still have to admit that The Dark Knight takes place in the same universe as Batman Begins, right? That's not much of a leap, since they share the same stars and director (except for Katie Holmes).

In Batman Begins, we meet Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka the Scarecrow, a psychopharmacologist who's developed a powerful hallucinogenic that directly targets the fear centers of the brain. This amazing substance can be delivered in an aerosolized form, at close range. But it can also be dumped into the water supply of Gotham City, where it'll be just as effective at driving the entire populace into a panic. It' s a pretty versatile substance, given how effective and fast-acting it is. (Crane makes a very brief reappearance in The Dark Knight.)

There's also Ra's Al-Ghul, of course, who's a super-ninja pretending to be a French guy. He's not so much a science fictional figure, except for his whole supervillain-esque desire to "save the world"
through mass murder.

That's the thing about Batman: he fights supervillains. By contrast, the Punisher fights regular criminals (except maybe Jigsaw.) Even though some of the same arguments I'm making could apply to the Punisher just as well as Batman, the Punisher clearly isn't a superhero and doesn't belong to quite such a fantastical world, unless you put him in a room with the Avengers.

As for the main villains of The Dark Knight, there's nothing overtly superhuman or high-tech about the Joker or Two-Face... except that as badly destroyed as Harvey Dent's face looks, he might not be running around quite so nimbly. As for the Joker, he's just barely a realistic figure, until you consider everything he gets up to in the film. Which brings me to my last point.

The Dark Knight is either science fiction or urban fantasy

Some movies are works of strict, inescapable realism. Off the top of my head, Sideways is such a film. There are the Dogme 95 films, which adhere to a strict set of rules designed to remove anything artificial or fancy.

Needless to say, TDK is not one of these films.

I could be here all day listing all the unlikely stuff that happens in the movie, but a lot of it has to do with the Joker, who technically doesn't have superpowers but possesses some fantastic luck. As the Guardian puts it:

Wait, so the Joker really orchestrated that big truck chase just so that he could get caught and go to prison, then he could kidnap that guard and grab his phone to make the call to set off the bomb he'd previously sewn inside the henchman in the next cell? That would kill the guy who stole the mobsters' money, thus enabling him to … er, what?

Not bad for a guy who says, "Do I look like a guy with a plan?" He also manages to rob a bank, blow up a hospital, kidnap the district attorney, and set explosives on two big ferries, all without getting caught.

I know, I know — it's just a movie. But it's a fantastical, larger-than-life movie, full of improbable technology, weird science and comic book characters. To my mind, that makes it science fictional.

Talking to the LA Times' Geoff Boucher, Nolan denied that The Dark Knight was in the works from the end of Batman Begins:

We’ve never attempted to save anything for a sequel or set up anything for a sequel. That seems improbable to some people because, particularly with "Batman Begins," the film ended with a particular hook [with Jim Gordon showing Batman a Joker playing card announcing the arrival of a new villain in town]. But for me that was just about the excitement of people leaving the theater with the sense that now we have the character up and running. I wanted people to walk away with that sense in their head. You know, that he’s become the Batman in the movie. That’s why we had the title come up at the end, because it was "Batman Begins," and it was all very specific to that.

Nolan also denied that The Dark Knight wasn't intended to be complete in and of itself:

[W]e tried our hardest to really do everything in this movie that we would want to see the Joker do and to get that in the fabric of the story as much as possible. We wanted the Joker’s final taunt to Batman to be that they are locked in an ongoing struggle because of Batman’s rules. There’s a paradox there. Batman won’t kill. And the Joker is not interested in completely defeating Batman because he’s fascinated by him and he enjoys sparring with him. It’s trapped both of them. That was really the meaning of it. Of course what happened is Heath created the most extraordinary character that you would love to see 10 movies about. That’s the bittersweet thing. It was incredible characterization. It is a bittersweet thing for all of us.

And so, what are the chances of Nolan returning for a third visit to Gotham City?

There are two things to be said. One is the emphasis on story. What’s the story? Is there a story that’s going to keep me emotionally invested for the couple of years that it will take to make another one? That’s the overriding question. On a more superficial level, I have to ask the question: How many good third movies in a franchise can people name? [Laughs.] At the same time, in taking on the second one, we had the challenge of trying to make a great second movie, and there haven't been too many of those either. It’s all about the story really. If the story is there, everything is possible. I hope that was a suitably slippery answer.

If he does return, one of the actors from The Dark Knight wants to come with him... even though it would require a small amount of suspension of disbelief. Maggie Gyllenhaal has expressed interest in playing Catwoman in a third Batman movie, although she admits, "it seems unlikely at this point, right?"

Christopher Nolan on 'Dark Knight' and its box-office billion: 'It's mystifying to me' [Hero Complex]

Whedon claims that his bat pitch was in the same vein as Nolan's, but I still think Whedon deserves his own caped crusader movie. Whedon's bat-story went a little something like this:

“In my version, there was actually a new [villain], it wasn’t one of the classics — which is probably why they didn’t use it,” he explained. “It was more of a 'Hannibal Lector' type — he was somebody already in Arkham Asylum that Bruce went and sort of studied with. It was a whole thing — I get very emotional about it, I still love the story. Maybe I’ll get to do it as a comic one day."

Always the gentleman, Whedon praises Nolan's dark work as worlds above the current directors that cannot seem on encompass what making comic book movies is really all about.

“I thought Christopher Nolan’s done an amazing job of bringing out the comic book, and I see a lot of movies [coughs “HULK”] — sorry, I had a Hulk stuck in my throat — that don’t really have the aesthetic or the pathos or really get why the comic book works.”

In over "what could have been news" both comic book big wigs Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, and Brad Meltzer discussed what they would do to make a Superman movie actually heartfelt as well as entertaining. Both Morrison and Johns have pitched Superman reboot films to Warner Bros., and Morrison talked about what his film would do.

First, forget Superman Returns ever existed, and stop trying to make him such a martyr who gets kicked around all the time. But that doesn't mean Morrison would have a totally invulnerable Supes. Instead, his movie pitch to Warner Bros. involved a compressed version of his All-Star Superman arc, about Superman confronting his own mortality.

[MTV Splash and MTV Spalsh]

Reasons your future self will be mad at you if you're not watching The Middleman now:

1) The characters have conflict without hating each other or being drama queens. And they're likeable. Really. I know, it's hard to imagine. When trainee superhero Wendy Watson lets her boss, the Middleman, down, he gives her a really sweet talk about how sometimes you have to follow your emotions and it's okay. The characters all insult each other, but you can tell they like each other, which is rarer than it should be. (Except for Ada, the robot secretary, who seems to hate everybody for reals.) The two leads, Natalie Morales and Matt Keeslar, manage to be likable, obnoxious, clever and dumb all at once. It's like watching a master class. Plus they're both as cute as buttons. (Okay, I'm shallow.) Keeslar is like a young Bruce Campbell sometimes, making his ridiculously square milk-drinking character seem the hippest person in the room.

2) It's actually funny. I don't know why this is, but most attempts at doing "funny" science fiction on U.S. television fall flat for me. Like the Sci Fi Channel's Eureka, which always seems a little too cute and full of pizzicato violins signifying "wackiness." But The Middleman is the rare scifi comedy that actually has humor, both through crackling dialog ("A man asked me that question once. I kicked his male reproductive organs into his watch pocket. Now he must check the time whenever he wishes to copulate") and through bizarre situations like Wendy assaulting a robot interrogation practice dummy. It's both witty and silly, without giving itself a sprained eye tendon from winking too much.

3) It's got a nice Men In Black vibe. In last week's episode, we learned that there are alien refugees living on Earth among us, disguising themselves as rich plastic surgery victims to explain their weird features. And our heroes aren't here to mess with the aliens, but to protect them and keep their secret for them. The world isn't just full of monsters and genetically modified gorilla gangsters trying to destroy everything, there are plenty of aliens and weird creatures who are neutral or good. And MM and Wendy, our heroes, are privy to this whole secret world in the process of saving it. It makes you want to know more.

4) Each episode is just crammed with stuff. Each of the show's episodes so far has had an engaging "A" plot, with some fun "B" plots involving Wendy's flighty roommate Lacey or her butthead ex-boyfriend Ben. There's always at least one or two fun twists, like Wendy having to fly down to Mexico to rescue the Middleman and their teacher, Sensei Ping from a ton of Mexican wrestlers who are using a perfect diamond to create an unbreakable force field inside a pyramid. That thing that so many shows do ineptly, where there's a big A plot and a personal B plot, really works here. I care equally about Wendy's work life and personal life and am happy to see them intersect.

5) There are insane gadgets. Like a scientific gadget that detects things beyond the realm of science, a BTRS scanner. And Wendy's ray gun, which sadly has "training wheels." And the big shiny answer ball, the HEYDAR, which plugs directly into Ada the android's head and lets her scan all of the world's information feeds. And the goggles which let Ada see through the Middleman's eyes. Plus teleporters! And the Middlemobile!

6) It's comic-booky, in the right way. Not surprisingly, with comics dominating the movie world, you're also seeing more of a comics influence on television, with shows like Heroes being self-consciously comic-booky. But The Middleman just revels in the best comic-book traditions, like mad science and crazy magic existing side-by-side. (The way you'll have Iron Man hanging out with Doctor Strange in Marvel Comics, for example.) It's not just based on a comic, it's actually a comic book in video form. The non-stop onslaught of superintelligent gorillas, weird aliens, crazy robots and more, reminds me of the best bits of Warren Ellis' Nextwave, Matt Fraction's Casanova and a whole host of great Fred Van Lente comics. That really should be all I need to say: "It's very Van Lente." And that should make you program your TiVo and stay home for it.

Reasons you can give your future self for not watching The Middleman:

Well, it is a bit fluffy sometimes, but it's a comedy, duh. The character of Noser, who apparently lives in the hallway outside Wendy's apartment and recites song lyrics, is a one-joke character who gets less funny every time he shows up. It won't make you debate afterwards as much as Lost or BSG, and it's not quite as clever as Doctor Who at its best. That's all I got.

So The Middleman is on tonight at 10 PM on ABC Family. It's about zombie trout and stuff, and it's going to be awesome. But what else is there to watch this week? Here's what I see:

Tonight at 8: there are two awesome competing movies: the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie on ABC Family, and White Chicks, the FBI weird prosthetic body transformation film, on FX. Also, neo-noir dimension-hopping show Charlie Jade is on tonight at 3:00 AM on Sci Fi. It's the episode "Dirty Laundry."

Tomorrow night, there's an "HBO First Look" at The Dark Knight at 9:30 on HBO, natch.

Wednesday night at 9, there's a new episode of PBS' science anthology series Nova ScienceNOW, focusing on birdsong and violent space weather. Meanwhile, the History Channel jumps on the Bat-mania bandwagon with Batman Unmasked: The Psychology Of The Dark Knight, also at 9. Here's a clip:

Thursday night, there's a new episode of horror anthology series Fear Itself on NBC at 10. Darren Lynn Bousman's episode, "New Year's Day," focuses on a young woman trying to escape from zombies in a post-apocalyptic landscape. Here's the previous episode, by Stuart Gordon: Also, the Sci Fi Channel is having a marathon of Jake 2.0, which was really like Chuck 1.0, all day Thursday.

Friday night, the Sci Fi Channel once again has its strongest original programming: the Doctor Who episode "Turn Left" at 9, followed by a new Stargate Atlantis, "The Seed." I loved "Turn Left," in which Donna visits an alternate world without a Doctor, almost as much as last week's episode, and you can read my recap here. As for "The Seed," all I really need to tell you is "Jewel Staite-centric episode." Apparently she gets infected by some kind of nasty spore or something. What do you care? It's Jewel Staite, on camera more than usual.

Saturday morning at 10, there's a new Ben 10: Alien Force, "Plumber's Helpers." A pair of alien plumbers kidnap Kevin, thinking he's an alien. That's on the Cartoon Network.

Sunday night at 11:30, the Cartoon Network has a new Venture Bros.: "Tears Of A Sea Cow." Also, ABC Family is showing the quaint old Tim Burton Batman 2:00 PM. To which I say, "Keep bustin'." And FX is showing Batman Begins at 8 PM.

Okay first of all, now that you've agreed to be spoiled: this summer's movies featuring untrustworthy mentors include Iron Man and Wanted. In Iron Man, we hear a lot of vague stuff about how Obadiah (Jeff Bridges) gave all this guidance to Tony Stark after Tony's dad died, and then of course Obadiah turns out to be a backstabbing asswipe. And in Wanted, Morgan Freeman does a huge Obi-Wan impression (but doesn't teach James McAvoy how to shop for fresh fruit) and then of course we discover his whole happy magic-loom-of-murderous-destiny story is a monstrous lie.

So here are some other great lying mentors from classic scifi, and the lessons you can learn from their mendaciousness.

So yeah, Obi-Wan: not the most honest mentor out there either. Here's what he tells Luke in the original Star Wars:

A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father.

Takeaway lesson: We've all had mentors who pulled shit like this. Like trying to convince you that their rivals in middle management were evil SOBs who totally wasted the office snack budget on their own "sales fiesta."

Of course, Obi Wan's a paragon of honesty compared to Palpatine, who takes young Anakin under his wing in the Star Wars prequels and feeds him all sorts of nonsense, including "the Dark Side of the Force can save your wife from death."

Takeaway lesson: Mentors who give you advice about your marriage are always evil. Always.

Ra's Al Ghul teaches Bruce Wayne how to be a stealthy head-kicking shadow of justice in Batman Begins. Which is great, until it turns out his League Of Shadows is really an evil organization that wants to destroy Gotham City for some vague reason.

Takeaway lesson: You can learn some useful skills from your mentor... even if you end up hating what the mentor wants you to use them for.

As this TV Tropes entry on Evil Mentors points out, Sylar becomes a mentor to Maya, the girl with the runniest mascara in the world. He tells her a bunch of lies about who he is and where he comes from, and also tells a lie of omission about that whole "I killed your brother thing." But mostly, he tries to influence her into using her runny-mascara powers for ebil.

Takeaway lesson: When your mentor tries to get you to go on a goo-eyed killing spree, or generally compromise your deepest principles, it may be time to find another shoulder to cry on.

Jordan Collier in The 4400 takes super-healer Shawn Farrell under his slimy wing and becomes his mentor and surrogate father... until Shawn realizes that Jordan is secretly using death-ninjas to commit terrorism against all those annoying vanilla non-superpowered people.

Takeaway lesson: Pick your mentors carefully. And watch out for those shaggy wannabe Messiah type people.

Thomas Nau in Vernor Vinge's A Deepness In The Sky rapes and murders Qiwi's mother in front of her. But then he erases her memory using a version of his Focusing technique, and turns her into his trusted assistant. Every now and then, she starts to remember the truth and tries to escape, but he just mindwipes her again.

Takeaway lesson: Ummm... pay attention to that little voice in the back of your head, I guess?

Arvin Sloane in Alias is the perfect nurturing, caring boss for young Sydney... until it turns out that every word that comes out of his mouth is poisonous trash. Basically, he's not one of the good guys, and he doesn't really work for the CIA, and he's not trying to bring about world peace and harmony and happy vibes.

Takeaway lesson: If your father figure has your boyfriend murdered because you got careless in your pillow talk, that could be a clue to something.

Joseph Korso takes young Cale Tucker under his wing in Titan A.E., saving his life and teaching him how to pilot a spaceship and race Wake Angels for fun and good luck and all that good stuff. But then it turns out he's secretly working for the evil alien Drej.

Takeaway lesson: If your mentor has a special knack for sneaking you aboard the evil aliens' spaceships and piloting them, it could be because he has a certain... affinity for those bastards. Just a heads up.

Elijah Price teaches David Dunn how to be a superhero in M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable... but then it turns out Elijah, aka Mr. Glass, is secretly a supervillain who caused several disasters, including a train wreck, to find un unbreakable hero.







Takeaway lesson: If all the pieces fall into place for your mentor to "discover" your talents, then it may not just be a coincidence.

And then there's Alan Moore's graphic novel V For Vendetta, where V lies to his acolyate Evey about a whole bunch of things... most notably he puts her into a fake, head-shaving prison camp in order to stiffen her spine for the things that must be done.

Takeaway lesson: There's hazing and then there's crazy hazing. If your mentor believes in the "prison camp" model of employee orientation — or even just paintball gone too far — it's time to bail.

I feel like Professor X from the X-Men has lied to his pupils a thousand times, but the only examples I can think of are when he secretly suppressed Jean Grey's abilities in the third X-Men movie, and when he hid the fact that he was in love with Jean Grey in Ultimate X-Men. He also spared Magneto's life but told everyone he'd killed Magneto in Ultimate X-Men as well.

Takeaway lesson: If your mentor is secretly in love with you and is secretly holding you back and sabotaging your abilities, it maybe time to get mental on your mentor.

And then there's Bill Adama in the new Battlestar Galactica, who lies to his protegee Starbuck (and everyone else) about knowing the secret location of Earth. Laura Roslin tells Starbuck the old man has been lying, which leads to this exchange between Starbuck and Adama:

"How much longer 'til we reach Earth?" "It's hard to say." "You got a guess?" "You know I don't like to guess." "We getting closer?" "I'm sure we are. Good luck on the next test."

Finally, a pissed off Starbuck decides to obey the President's orders and go back to Caprica to get the Arrow of Apollo.

Takeaway lesson: If someone blows the whistle on your lying mentor, you may as well listen to the whistleblower instead. You can't do much worse, and you might get something useful out of it.

Other mentors we almost forgot include Sally Jupiter in Watchmen, who hides her daughter's true parentage from her. And the Confessor in Astro City, a superhero who hides his vampirism from his plucky sidekick. And of course Captain Beatty in Fahrenheit 451, who pressures Guy Montag to burn all of the books in his possession, and yet quotes constantly from books himself. Who did we forget?

Additional reporting by Lauren Davis and Meredith Woerner. Image by Stephanie Fox.

The original pilot episode of Batman Beyond offers plenty of potential for a movie. It's 20 years in the future, and the original Batman is no longer able to fight crime as well as he used to. One night, chasing a criminal gang, Bruce Wayne has a heart attack, and has to resort to threatening a thug with a gun, something he swore never to do. So Batman finally retires — until 20 years after that, when teenager Terry McGinnis flees a gang of Jokerz (Joker wannabes) and stumbles into the Batcave, discovering Bruce's cybernetic Batsuit. He ends up fighting a whole host of weird future villains, including a deaf sound expert named Shriek and a mutated WayneCorp CEO named Blight.

I loved Batman Begins, but I'd way rather have seen the origin of a twisted future Batman, working with the embittered, broken old Bats. With Stephenson's help, the Batman Beyond movie could have been a fascinating look into Terry's relationship with the suit that extends his capabilities, in the corrupt future world. Just as long as they left out the stuff that was added later (in Justice League Unlimited) about superspy Amanda Waller injecting Terry's dad with a retrovirus designed to turn his sperm into Bruce Wayne's sperm, so Terry could be Bruce's biological son. Nobody needs a movie about Bat-sperm.

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What he's working on: He's production designer on the Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight, including some new Bat-toys.

The 1970s: 1975's Jaws is widely considered the first summer blockbuster. The original Star Wars came out in May 1977 and grossed about $307 million domestically in its first run. The other big summer blockbusters of the late 1970s were Jaws 2, Animal House and Alien, according to this site.

The 1980s: Science fiction scored about one summer blockbuster per year, or maybe two in a good year. Except for the late 1980s, when science fiction had a bit of a slump. Here's the roundup, by year. (A year with an asterisk is one where no science fiction film hit the top 10 movies of the year, box-office-wise.)

1980: Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back ($209 million)
1981: Superman II ($108 million)
1982: E.T. ($359 million) and Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan ($79 million).
1983: Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi ($252 million), Superman III ($60 million) and War Games ($80 million)
1984: Ghostbusters ($260 million) and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock ($76 million)
1985: Cocoon ($76 million) and Back To The Future ($211 million)
1986: Short Circuit ($41 million) and Aliens ($85 million)
* 1987: Predator ($60 million) and Robocop ($53 million)
* 1988: None. (Although Big and Willow were big summer hits.)
1989: Batman ($251 million), Honey I Shrunk The Kids ($131 million)

The 1990s: The number of science fiction movies in the summer's biggest movies increased slightly, with some ups and downs. Some years, the biggest blockbusters included films with a lot of special effects and action-adventure themes, but no overt science fictional elements.

1990: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ($135 million), Total Recall ($119 million), Back To The Future Part III ($88 million), Flatliners ($61 million).
1991: Terminator 2 ($205 million)
1992: Batman Returns ($163 million)
1993: Jurassic Park ($357 million)
* 1994: None. (Although True Lies, Speed and The Mask were in the top 10, and non-summer films Stargate and Star Trek: Generations were in the top 20.)
1995: Batman Forever ($184 million), Apollo 13 ($172 million), Waterworld ($88 million)
1996: Independence Day ($306 million), Phenomenon ($105 million)
1997: Men In Black ($251 million), The Lost World: Jurassic Park ($229 million), Face/Off ($112 million), Batman And Robin ($107 million)
1998: Armageddon ($202 million), Deep Impact ($140 million), Godzilla ($136 million), The Truman Show ($126 million)
1999: Star Wars Episode 1 ($431 million), Wild Wild West ($114 million)

The 2000s: It's really just in the last five years that we've seen more than two or three big science fiction movies dominating the summer pretty much every year. A lot of these have been franchises, comic-book movies and sequels, or some combination of the three. The box-office take of the top 10 movies has increased dramatically, with every year's top 10 movies each grossing well over $100 million.

2000: X-Men ($157 million)
2001: Jurassic Park III ($181 million), Planet of The Apes ($180 million)
2002: Spider-Man ($404 million), Star Wars Episode II ($302 million), Signs (228 million), Men In Black II ($190 million)
2003: The Matrix Reloaded ($282 million), X2: X-Men United ($215 million), Terminator 3 ($150 million), Hulk ($132 million)
2004: Spider-Man 2 ($374 million), The Day After Tomorrow ($187 million), I, Robot ($145 million)
2005: Star Wars: Episode III ($380 million), War Of The Worlds ($234 million), Batman Begins ($205 million), Fantastic Four ($155 million)
2006: X-Men: The Last Stand ($234 million), Superman Returns ($200 million)
2007: Spider-Man 3 ($337 million), Transformers($319 million), The Simpsons Movie ($183 million), Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer ($132 million)

Note: Data is from BoxofficeMojo.com. Dollar figures aren't adjusted for inflation. I left out movies like the original Indiana Jones trilogy, which is clearly fantasy. (Unlike the new Indiana Jones movie, if all reports are to be believed.) I also left out spy movies that might have a few science-fiction touches aren't really about a science-fictional premise. Feel free to bitch at me in the comments.

We already featured a promo reel for this Animatrix-style tie-in with The Dark Knight, but this trailer gives more of a feel for the range of styles in the finished product. We'll be seeing six different visions of the Bat here, but it looks like they mesh pretty well, partly thanks to consistent voice talent across all the films. [HD trailer at Yahoo Movies]

The Batmobile from Batman Begins. This was the first on-screen version of Batman's muscle car that didn't just look like a cheesy toy car. Instead of the stretched-out roadster of previous movies, director Christopher Nolan opted for a compact, tank-like design. In "attack mode" the driver shifts to the middle of the car, in a more secure prone position. This car doesn't look like it's only designed to impress Kim Basinger.
Top speed: 110 mph, plus jet engine and adjustable control surfaces let it jump 30 feet without a ramp.

The DeLorean from the Back To The Future movies. This car's main superpower is making those movies look incredibly dated. But it also travels in time if you feed it enough plutonium. And after a visit to the year 2015, it also gains the ability to fly, with wheels that turn sideways and become thrusters.
Top speed: A regular DeLorean could reach 124 mph. It needs to reach 88 mph to time-travel.

The flying taxi from The Fifth Element. It looks just like a regular cab, but it can fly. It handles amazingly well, judging from some of the teeny openings Bruce Willis manages to steer it through during the high-speed cop chase. And it can stop on a dime to hide behind billboards.
Top speed: Unclear, but it's fast. The original movie script says: "Korben and his flying taxi are absolute masters of the air. The cops have trouble following him."

The self-folding car from that SciFi Channel ad. Long after people have forgotten Flash Gordon and Tin Man, they'll still be passing around this ad. It looks like a regular pick-up truck, until the driver presses a button. Then it folds up to the size (and weight) of a golf ball.
Top speed: no clue.

The Whomobile on Doctor Who. Stranded on Earth in the early 1970s, the Doctor started dressing like Prince. Except instead of driving a little red Corvette, he pimped out an antique roadster named Bessie to go super fast. Then he built his own spaceship-looking car. With huge honking fins! Because, of course, an alien trapped on Earth has to stay incognito at all costs.
Top speed: 150 mph (in real life), plus the Whomobile can fly (using dodgy greenscreen.)

The Spinner from Blade Runner. Deckard's cop car flies, but also has vertical take-off and landing (VTOL). It uses regular internal combustion, plus antigrav and a jet engine. It also directs air downwards to create lift. And it has a pretty sweet glass cockpit.
Top speed: Deckard mentions a fellow cop was going 150 mph when he went off a cliff.

KITT, from the Knight Rider TV show and TV movies. KITT was a Pontiac Trans AM with a super-computer that could talk to Michael (its driver) and even drive itself. (Plus KITT prints money in one episode, which could be handy.) The new Knight Rider, airing in February, will feature a new KITT that can launch a mini-car drone and fire a rocket launcher
Top speed: 300 mph, plus a "turbo boost" lets you jump over obstacles.

The Lexus from Minority Report. Lexus designed a special flying car for Tom Cruise to zip around the city of 2054 in. The car includes an electric engine, body panels that change color at a voice command, doors and ignition that require a DNA match, and "auto valet."
Top speed: According to Lexus, this car can get up to about 350 mph. We have a winner!