Fly Me To The Moon:

Here's some last minute spoilerage for the bugs-in-space epic. The young fly Nat dreams of being an explorer like his grandpa McFly, who helped Amelia Earhart on her first cross-Atlantic solo flight. So Nat talks his friends, the brainy IQ and the food-loving Scooter, into sneaking onto the Apollo 11 moon rocket with him. They sneak on board, but then ground control orders the astronauts to trap the flies inside a test tube. They have to break out so they can go on the moonwalk, plus save the day from a tiny but important glitch. Meanwhile, Grandpa McFly learns from his Russian old flame Nadia that a KGB bug, Yegor (Tim Curry) is trying to sabotage Apollo 11 from the ground. And then Buzz Aldrin shows up in person to tell the slow kids in the audience that this movie is a work of fiction and it didn't really happen. [NewsOK]

Fringe:

Here are some new promo pics and posters for Fringe, J.J. Abrams' new show about the FBI and weird science. What do we learn from these images? Well, the show will be about people looking at equations on a glowy board, a lot. And charts. it'll basically be an hour of power-point presentations every week, with an explosion at the end. [Fringe Television]

Chuck:

Are you sick of looking at Chuck promo videos yet? Sorry, here's a couple more. New stuff includes Chuck putting his "moves" on Sarah, Chuck falling some more, and silly banter. [Spoiler TV]

Smallville:

The replacement Lex Luthor, Tess Mercer, has a mysterious connection to Oliver "Green Arrow" Queen in her past. [CW Source]

True Blood:

Here are synopses of the first four episodes of True Blood, HBO's new show about vampires and synthetic blood substitute based on the bestselling novels.

Episode 1.01: Strange Love (series premiere) — September 7

Across the country, vampires have “come out of the coffin” following the invention of mass-produced synthetic blood. In Louisiana, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a waitress with telepathic abilities, falls under the spell of sexy, 173-year-old vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) – whose thoughts she can’t read. After saving Bill from the Rattrays (James Parks, Karina Logue), a pair of ruthless “vampire drainers,” Sookie tests the limits of Bill’s gratitude when the two are left alone in the dark. Meanwhile, Sookie’s best friend Tara (Rutina Wesley) goes to work for Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) at his bar and grill, while Sookie’s roguish brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten) finds himself in hot water when a “fangbanger” with whom he’s been intimate meets a tragic end.

Episode 1.02: The First Taste — September 14

Bill returns Sookie’s favor by rescuing her from the Rattrays’ revenge, healing the wounded waitress with his own blood and leaving her with temporarily heightened senses. After being invited into Gran’s (Lois Smith) house for a “get-to-know-you” gathering with Jason and her family, Bill joins Sookie for a nocturnal sojourn. They end up at Bill’s dilapidated antebellum estate, where he fights off his primal vampire urges for the acquiescent Sookie. Later, Sookie’s desires get the better of her as she returns to Bill’s – and is greeted by a gaggle of his bloodthirsty vampire friends.

Episode 1.03: Mine — September 21

Foiled in their attempt to “glamour” Sookie, vampires Malcolm (Andrew Rothenberg), Liam (Graham Shiels) and Diane (Aunjanue Ellis) make a hasty retreat after Bill lays claim to the waitress. At Merlotte’s, Sam seeks a short-term remedy to his long-term loneliness, while Tara seeks respite from her mother’s alcohol-fueled rage. Spurned by Dawn (Lynn Collins) for lack of performance, Jason turns to Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), Merlotte’s short-order cook, for help with his problem.

Episode 1.04: Escape From Dragon House — September 28

Another killing in Bon Temps finds Jason back in custody with officers Andy (Chris Bauer) and Bud (William Sanderson). Tara gets him off the hook, but neither she nor Lafayette has the antidote to his current ailment. Urged by Gran to use her telepathic abilities to weed out the murderer and exonerate her brother, Sookie persuades Bill to take her to a Shreveport vampire bar called Fangtasia, where she impresses a dominant Nordic bloodsucker named Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) with her prescient powers. Later, Bill demonstrates his own considerable powers when an abusive patrolman stops the couple on their way home.

[SpoilerTV]

There's been plenty of animated scifi before this summer, of course — Fox and Blue Sky put out the bog-awful Robots a few years ago, and Disney/Pixar did The Incredibles. There's been underground-y weird animated scifi like Heavy Metal since the 70s, and plenty of animated science fiction/comics stuff on TV. And while we've been dragging our feet in the U.S., the Japanese have been putting science fiction anime on the big screen for decades.

But this will be remembered as the summer science fiction animation broke out, mostly thanks to Wall-E and Clone Wars. It's not just that both films will probably end up having been box-office successes. They're also so different from each other, in style and storylines, that you won't be able to think of science fiction animation as being restricted to a kind of space-operatic goofiness or superhero pastiche ever again. Whether you love either of those films, they're both a proof of concept for two different ways of approaching big-screen CG-animated science fiction.

(Despite having the cartoony chubby humans, Wall-E is actually more photorealistic than Clone Wars, thanks to the awesome pseudo-cinematography of Roger Deakins, complete with lens flare and textures. Clone Wars, meanwhile, deliberately sets out to avoid being photorealistic and winds up with a weird puppet style of animation that may grow on me. Or not. )

At first, I thought the science fiction animated boom would be self-limiting, because of a string of wretched films in the pipeline, like Space Chimps, Fly, and (I have a feeling) the forthcoming Planet 51. These films sport a cheesy not-quite-Pixar style and paper-thin plots. Unlike Pixar films, which are aimed at kids but speak to adults on a whole different level, the Chimps/Fly movies are barely cogent enough for a really slow child.

But Pixar comes to the rescue once again, with the animated Newt, about the last two blue-footed newts in the world, who hate each other but must interbreed in order to save their species. I'm also quite optimistic about Monsters Vs. Aliens, which is based on a great comic book and has put out some really cool images and a great trailer so far. It has a 50-foot woman and a mad scientist with the head of a cockroach, plus a sort of Mars Attacks sensibility.

I'm sort of intrigued by Igor, mostly thanks to the incredible cast listing, including Eddie Izzard, John Cleese and John Cusack. It also has a cute premise: the hunch-back who wants to a mad scientist instead of an "Igor." The latest poster looks sort of clunky and awful, but the trailer is cute and funny. A brain in a jar tries to hypnotize Igor, and when that doesn't work, it just hits him with a spatula. Pure win!

We're also in for a big-screen anime explosion, with American studios involved. Studio Imagi is working on animated Astro Boy and Gatchaman movies, among others. There's also a Heavy Metal remake/homage in the pipeline.

I feel as though these sorts of kid-friendly animated movies have been dominated by fantasy and funny animals for as long as the CG variety has been around. (There's no science behind talking toys in Toy Story or talking cars in Cars.) But now the pendulum is swinging toward scifi premises, maybe as more creators who grew up on scifi in the 1950s and 1960s take charge.

I have two happy observations about the rise of CG animated scifi kiddie movies:

1) Science fiction is the new fairy tale, and that's an awesomely good thing. Who could watch Wall-E without starting to think of him as a young commoner who gets swept up into a castle by a princess, only to discover his own nobility? Etc. etc. The Igor trailer even includes the "Once upon a time" caption. I could totally see Clone Wars' Ahsoka turning into a fairy tale heroine (although she's probably destined for a bad end.) It would be great if generations of kids grew up thinking of robots and scientists the way earlier Disney watchers thought about princesses and flying elephants.

2) On the flipside, even as these animated scifi movies become fairy-tale-ish, they're also more serious and thoughtful than most "grown-up" science fiction movies. Of the summer's big blockbuster films, how many were as smart and debate-provoking as Wall-E? Off the top of my head, I'd say Iron Man and Dark Knight, and that's it. Okay, so Clone Wars is not going to be smart or thought-provoking, I'm pretty sure. But movies like Newt, Igor and Monsters Vs. Aliens at least have the potential to throw in some clever concepts and make you think about issues like extinction, the class system, and the rights of monsters. So I'm cautiously excited about the new scifi animated boom — and I think it's going to be around for a while.

In an interview with Superhero.com, Nolan expresses his disinterest in the 3D craze:

I’m interested in the massive canvas, seeing that larger-than-life canvas that IMAX gives you, and you create a massive quality by the clarity and the size and brightness of the images. So that gives you a great physical sense, like you would get in a 3D movie, but it doesn’t diminish the scale of it. So you’re still dealing with a huge, larger than life canvas, that I think is the best way to use that format. I also hate wearing those glasses.

Charlotte Huggins, the producer of Dragons and also producer of 3D pictures Journey to the Center of the Earth and Fly Me to the Moon called the change a challenge. "4K [IMAX] is the next challenge ... and the special venue really pushes the envelope," she said.

How many other producers and directors will be abandoning 3D craze and hefting the massive cameras required to shoot a film in 4K.

James Cameron is still intent on playing in both sides of the pool. Never officially stating that he will be releasing Avatar on IMAX but still hinting at the possibility.

So what will happen to our dear little indie house theaters? Will they go the way of the Drive-In making ways for massive IMAX screens and a plethora of strained necks, bad backs and headaches formed by overstimulated corneas? Gone will be the days of pre-drinks before the movie. Have you ever tried to watch an IMAX movie after a bottle of red? Not a good idea.

[Hollywood Reporter]