Gary is a longtime blogger, editor, writer, and critic. Most recently, he spent eight years as Senior Writer at Entertainment Weekly, where he launched and edited EW.com's flagship blog, PopWatch. Other regular outlets have included CNN, MSNBC, People, the Village Voice, Life, the Guardian, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Boston Phoenix, for which he has written since 1989. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics. He blogs about popular culture and politics at Pop Culture Warrior. He lives in New Jersey, which as we all know is a parallel reality.

Say hi to Gary - he'll be with us all week.

Usually, the blurbs for fake DVDs are just babbled translations of whatever description the Chinese came up with. Maybe after years of having those lampooned, DVD piraters decided to copy-paste reviews from online instead. Only, I guess it's really hard to tell what's a good review when you don't speak English.

In case you were wondering, the review was from IMDB. Good job, marytothemax! Betcha didn't know millions would be using your review to decide whether to pick up a pirated version of Fox's Terminator show!

You'd easily miss some of the more gorgeous moments in the action-packed trailer, so we're capturing still shots faster than you can say pause button. You might want to refresh the post as more are added, as we are updating on the fly.

My favorite part of the trailer? The English subtitles. I'm a big fan of understanding what is going on, and English subtitles are about as close as many FF games can get to making sense. While the battles themselves look rather...standard...at least we'll be able to look forward to some amazing cutscenes, right?

First announced back in April, the comic based on the upcoming multiplatform Activision game will run six issues and looks like it will cost your $4 a pop starting on April 1.

The comic will be written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti with the art and cover by Darick Robertson and Matt Jacobs. More interesting is this snippet of back story:

"Follow New York homicide detectives as they track a serial killer unlike any they've ever faced, and enter a new era where human extinction and monstrous evolution collide!"

Serial killers AND monstrous evolution? Sign me up.

PROTOTYPE

Fresh from the Kotaku source line come these amazing concept images of what would have happened if Obi-Wan Kenobi turned to the Dark Side.

Here's what Free Radical did to turn the lovable teacher, into a frightening hermit for what would have been Star Wars Battlefront III:

Tatters rags for clothes, like Yoda's but more decayed.
Yeollowed teeth and claw like nails
Relics and artifacts with strong dark side resonance kept in pouches and threaded through his clothes.
Belts and straps made from Krayt dragon leather
Fur lining from Wampa slain on his travels
Mayny layers of robes, cloaks and cloth mask his shriveled wiry frame.
Mostly a hermit, Dark Obiwan wanders searching for places and things with strong connections to the dark side.

I sure hope the new developers take this in the same direction.

Leaked Star Wars Battlefront 3 Gameplay Footage

We've already caught a glimpse at some pretty impressive TimeSplitter 4 and Star Wars Battlefront 3 art. Now we've got what is supposed to be early footage of Star Wars Battlefront 3.

The footage, we're told, was taken at an internal alpha meeting with Free Radical back in November. It looks pretty amazing and features some pretty detailed cut scenes.

When Charlie Jane quoted Carl Zimmer suggesting that science fiction movies "are not really about science" and only use "fragments of science," you all found yourselves rather engaged - and not just because of the picture of Jeri Ryan than somewhat inexplicably accompanied the post:

goldfarb: "'Science fiction movies are not really about science.' I'm sure I've said that a dozen times... as painful as it is to even think about - SF really does need a new name."

Grand_Marquis: "I don't think you need 'hard science' to call something sci fi, but SOME kind of reasoned or logical though MUST be involved somewhere. Good lord... It's less of a travesty that there isn't a comprehensive understanding of realistic space travel, than it is that modern sci fi just pulls overused tropes out of its ass left and right like it's some kind of morbidly obese hermit welded to its couch and complaining that it needs more potato chips."

Mister_Adequate: "Anyone who thinks science fiction is about science is shockingly misguided. Science - whether realistic or fantastic - is simply a vehicle used to examine existing issues."

corpore-metal: "Sure, science fiction isn't really about science but anyone who claims that science doesn't matter in science fiction doesn't understand why science fiction and fantasy are different shelves. Really if science didn't matter at all, it would all be fantasy."

twDarkflame: "As long as sci-fi is constant to its own rules and laws, and those laws are clearly ones regular and of a scientific nature, it is still sci-fi. The laws of the universe the sci-fi takes place in *does not need to match our own*. But that dosnt mean they shouldnt be self-consistant, and it dosnt mean it has to be fantasy."

But it wasn't all discussions about what sciene fiction should be; there was also a history lesson, as well:

Belabras: "It's true really. In order to pose interesting questions of story, bad or non-existant science is used to create the situation. SciFi has been moving away from hard science basically since it's inception."

Moff: "Actually, isn't the inception point generally considered, uh, Frankenstein?"

Belabras: "Well, probably The Other World: The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (1657) by Bergerac, but fair enough. What I meant, was that SciFi in the 20th century started out mostly hard science and became more and more story focused. So, really, my original statement is totally false."

The last word, of course, falls to Moff, who came up with the ultimate proof of Zimmer's words:

Substantiation: What always follows the rules of science perfectly and is totally boring? Real life.

Why Is It So Hard To Start A New Franchise?
In an alternate universe, we're all obsessing about the impending release of The Matrix V and Chronicles Of Riddick 9. Even as we're drowning in retreads of things that launched in the 1960s, just think of all the more recent works that tried — and failed — to launch a franchise. Why is it so difficult?

Gift Ideas for the Ten Major Species of Science Fiction Fan
We've got the definitive guide to what you and your fannish pals should have on your holiday lists this season. Not sure what to buy for the Star Wars fan in your life? Got a steampunker or zombie lover on your list and no clue where to look? Wondering what's out there for the Battlestar Galactica watcher, the Trekkie, or the Whedon devotee? Our gift guide offers ideas for the ten major species of scifi fan.

No Final Cylon Will Ever Be Good Enough
With Battlestar Galactica returning in less than two months, anticipation is at fever pitch over the identity of the show's Final Cylon. We've looked at the clues to date and offered some theories of our own, but with SyFyPortal claiming that it knows the character's identity for sure - and then offering up five possible choices to choose from - it's time to look at it from another angle: Which character would be ruined if they turned out to be the Final Cylon?

What Superpower Should Wil Wheaton Have On Heroes?
Final proof that social networking can make the world a better place: Heroes' Greg Grunberg and baby-faced Wil Wheaton (Star Trek:The Next Generation) have been networking publicly on Twitter. And the upshot may be that Wheaton becomes the latest Trek veteran to pass on his wisdom to those troubled mutants. But which superpower should Wil Wheaton have? Click through to vote.

Plagues, Hidden Cities, and Harbingers of Doom at the Bookstore This Month
Nothing is better than curling up during the holidays with a good book, and December brings a lot of terrific options. Dark urban fantasy dominates, with The Engine's Child and Knights of the Cornerstone, but there's also some good space opera from Mike Resnick and Karen Miller - and a whole lot of apocalypse with a new Wild Cards novel and Scott Sigler's latest "virus ate the world" book. Check out what's coming to your local bookstore in the next few weeks, below.

Hot Flashes: 10 Uses For Lightning That Ben Franklin Never Guessed
It can power a time machine, steal Superman's strength and even help Zack Morris graduate high school. Oh, lightning – is there anything you can't do? Long before nuclear energy and genetic engineering joined the team, lightning reigned as the top catch-all explanation for the funky phenomenon of the week, even transcending genre to become a standard sitcom plot device. Click through for clips of the flashiest lightning this side of Mt. Olympus.

You Will Sweat Nanoblobs: Your Future Workplace!
Chances are, you're reading this blog at work. At the same time, you're pretending to be a cat princess in a bestiality-quest MMO with your left hand, making a new Lynyrd Skynyrd/MC Frontalot mashup with your right hand and denouncing Saxby Chambliss with both feet. And you're still bored. But fear not — the workplace revolution that's coming will eradicate boredom forever. You will be amazed.

Exclusive Clip Shows Why Keanu Can't Fill Original Klaatu's Boots
Michael Rennie, stoic actor and first to don the silver spaceman duds in the 1951 classic The Day The Earth Stood Still, has left Neo some mighty big space boots to fill. Don't take our word for it — just check out this exclusive clip from one of the featurettes from the new TDTESS DVD re-release, and find out what went into making Rennie the definitive Klaatu.

Gifts for Geek Causes
If you'd like to donate to a geek cause this holiday, we've got a big list of fifteen organizations you might consider helping out with a charity gift. Let's say you'd rather not get another sweater for the holidays (even if it has a Star Wars pattern). Consider asking people to give that gift money to a charity instead - the kind of charity that helps nerds in need.

Hundreds Of Tests Needed To Get Spaceship Right, Says Earth Stood Still Designer
Those giant glowing spheres that trash Manhattan in the Day The Earth Stood Still remake took painstaking work — on everything from color schemes to the way they looked reflected in people's hazmat suit visors. We talked to production designer David Brisbin about reinventing a science fiction legend, and he explained why the new film is such a visual departure from the 1950s version.

We had grown sick of all the ARG marketing schemes for movies like The Dark Knight, which try to drum up fan support and brand recognition for forthcoming franchises with semi-mysterious websites and phone numbers and instructions on where to buy a cake that has an iPhone in it. Profoundly uncreative, the Batman ARG had done little more than inspire a lot of people to wear Joker makeup. While other ARGs are more fun and thought-provoking, we felt that in general ARG-making had become so bland that you could practically never tell what the games were about. They're little more than walk-in ads.

So we schemed, and said to ourselves, "Well what if we came up with an ARG that was so generic that people would think it was related to practically every movie coming out next year?" Seemed like a sure win — people would see the ARG and start guessing "Oh it's for GI Joe," or "It's for Watchmen." But we wanted our super-generic ARG to be a commentary on the super-generic nature of ARGs too, which is a rather tall order.

You Are Being Deceived was carefully crafted to seem as if it could be about Watchmen, G.I. Joe, or Heroes. Well, carefully crafted might be too strong a phrase — perhaps "slapped together in a caffeine-induced frenzy" would be more accurate. We put together the basic ingredients of every generic ARG: a "personal blog" written by somebody who has gotten into a huge conspiracy they don't understand and is telling you all about it; a corporate website from the conspiracy-manufacturing company (why do all ARGs include fake corporations?), and a phone number you can call (listed on the blog) to get more clues about the conspiracy.

We even invented a back story about how an evil corporation is controlling superheroes and the populace via a chemically-enhanced television signal. On the You Are Being Deceived blog, you'll see the main character, code-named Sheep Snake, who discovers that all her paranoid theories about chemtrails are nothing compared to the mind-control plot hatched by her employer Elegiac International. Using superheroes (like, say, the ones in Heroes or Watchmen), they're selling this thing called RapidEnhance that's already being used on soldiers (like, say, the ones in G.I. Joe). When Sheep Snake discovers the plot, then gets a FedEx package with her friend's severed arm in it, she goes on the run with a plan to stop Elegiac from turning the whole world into TV-watching, mind-controlled drones.

So why didn't anybody call Sheep Snake's voice mail, or send us e-mails, or even look at our ARG? You can claim it's because the ARG was lame, and that wouldn't be entirely inaccurate. But was it really lamer than the Batman ARG, which was just a website with a few messages telling people to dress up like the Joker to see some footage?

What's more likely is that nobody saw our ARG because we didn't have tens of thousands of dollars to promote it. We printed out 1000 postcards, and thought we'd just hand them out to people — even if only a few saw it, they might blog about it and it could spread via word-of-mouth. We even enlisted the extremely non-devious-looking Gina Trapani from Lifehacker to hand out our cards so nobody would guess it was the io9 crew behind it. She tried handing them out in the Expo, and was promptly kicked out for handing out postcards without having a booth. Without a ton of cash to pay for giant signs, a booth, or to hire people to hand out millions of cards outside the Convention Center, there was no way we could get our ARG started. We wound up handing the cards out surreptitiously, but mostly we left them out on the "freebies" table where they disappeared (but to where?).

Ah, you say with a cynical smile, you are so naive. Did you really think you puny creatures with your 1000 cheap postcards printed with a URL could put even a tiny dent in the promotional juggernaut that is Comic-Con? The simple answer is yes, we really did. I think that's partly because we'd actually fallen for the ARG hype, despite the fact that we'd criticized it and should have known better. We imagined that ARGs really could be kind of grassroots and DiY, and that people would want to go to a cool URL like YouAreBeingDeceived. We thought our snarky little ARG might stir up some shit. But we deceived ourselves.

ARGs are not grassroots. They are not about community, or word-of-mouth. They really are about saturating the market with brands in order to generate interest in something, just the way old-fashioned advertising is. I don't mean to disparage the cleverness of ARGs — a lot of them are terrifically fun. But the ARGs that get noticed at a media event like Comic-Con are always going to be the ones with lots of resources behind them. To create a "grassroots feeling," you need to have a top-down corporation with wads of cash. So when you play an ARG associated with a commercial property, you are in some sense being deceived. You're being made to feel as if you've discovered something, as if you're part of a community spontaneously coming together to play at something, when in fact you've been targeted by an extremely well-funded marketing campaign.

Or maybe it's a plot by Elegiac International to control your minds and corrupt your heroes. Yeah, I like that version of the story better.

I kicked things off by talking about what it means for science fiction to change your life. Either it can truly alter your entire identity, the way SF often does when you read it as a young adult. Many of us have stories about reading a novel or seeing a TV show that completely altered our world view and made us into dramatically new people (if only in our own minds). Then there is science fiction that can change your mind or opinions without making you a radically different person: I think a lot of SF affects us that way as adults, when our identities are a bit more formed but our opinions are still malleable. I mentioned a few scifi tales intended to change people's minds like The Matrix (whose red pill/blue pill scene has spawned a simple way to explain the process by which people choose to continue believing a pleasant lie or face a difficult truth) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (where humanity must change its destructive ways or perish). I also admitted, later in the panel, that science fiction inspired me in two ways: It made me want to change the world for the better, and set me on my lifelong quest to have sex with aliens.

Next Austin Grossman talked about three novels that he considers a kind of cross-decade trilogy about nerd power and political agency. He described the way William Gibson's Neuromancer offered him a picture of the future that was totally different from his parents' idea of the future: "It didn't contain the Cold War," he said wryly. "It was full of things they didn't understand, like computers." He went on to say that Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon explores the way nerds have always had a vital role in history, and that today's scifi and science geeks are just the latest in a long line of world-changing geeks going back to the 1950s Manhattan Project and even back to classical antiquity. His final pick was Cory Doctorow's latest novel Big Brother, which he said was a present-day speculative novel about geekery as the only possible response to the United States' current "loose understanding of what it means to have civil liberties."

Graeme McMillan confessed that the only thing that rescued him from the horrors of growing up in Scotland was reading science fiction and comic books. His passion for both started with John "Triffids" Wyndham's young adult novel Chocky, and when he grew a little older he became fascinated by comics by his fellow Scot, Grant Morrison — especially Doom Patrol and The Invisibles. "Those comics taught me that there were other worlds out there that I had never realized existed." Later, he said, Morrison's comics got him interested in the writing of Jeff Noon, especially the novel Vurt, which is trippy and philosophical in many of the same ways Morrison's work is.

Charlie Jane admitted she had no memory of her life before science fiction, and that one of her earliest memories is of insisting that everybody at her fifth birthday party play a Doctor Who game, even if they didn't want to. Then she told a story about how she was on a book tour a few years ago, crashing in a group house in Vermont that belonged to an anarchist collective that was boycotting everything and trying very hard to be politically pure. At the time she was reading Ursula LeGuin's amazing novel The Dispossessed, which is about how all societies, no matter how idealistic, can never be perfect. She said that she left the novel behind in the hope that some of the people in that group house would find it and identify with it somehow and maybe learn from it.

Patrick Lee finished off our opening round by talking about how science fiction had helped him feel like there were worlds he could escape to when being the only Korean-American in his neighborhood made him feel like an outsider. He talked about reading Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and others. Star Trek also made a big difference in his life, because he started to see people who looked like himself on television. Plus, he said, it opened up a way for him to connect with other science fiction fans. He beamed at the audience, and said, "My people!" And then everybody cheered.

We talked a little bit about whether science fiction could start changing the world outside the scifi subculture now that Comic-Con has proven that scifi is a mainstream phenomenon. And then people in the audience came up to the mic, and added their own thoughts. We discussed whether scifi should be considered "legitimate" the way literature is, or whether we like the idea of it staying a little bit non-legit because that allows us to get away with telling crazier and more subversive stories. Several people talked about their favorite life-changing stories, including Ender's Game.

We concluded by talking about what scifi tech we'd like to see in real life (Patrick said he wanted a plug in his head, and I said I wanted the wearable computers from Vernor Vinge's latest novel Rainbows End — Austin admitted later that he wants Dr. Horrible's Freeze Ray). And we debated whether scifi can have a negative impact on the world because people become so obsessed with it. I suggested that people can become obsessed with anything, from soccer to the stock market, and that by and large scifi leads to community-building and cool new freedom-fighting organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties group whose whole mission would have seemed like scifi 20 years ago.

Thanks to all who came out, and use your io9 swag wisely. We still have some pins and stickers, so if you're at the Con come find us and get some.

Let us know if you took pictures of the panel, and we'll link to 'em!

Superheroes Who Can't Have Sex
Two of this summer's biggest movies star superheroes who can't get laid — or terrible things will happen. But in any case, these heroes aren't alone — a vow of chastity has been part of the "great responsibility" that has come with superheroes' great power for years now. Here's a list of great superheroes who can never get any.

Top Ten Most Realistic Planets in Science Fiction
Oftentimes, our heroes will visit the desert planet, or the Irish planet. But the best extraterrestrial worlds in science fiction are the ones with variety and a realistic ecosystem. Here's our guide to the most realistic — and interesting — planets in science fiction.

Iron Man 2 Will Have More Armored Heroes, But No Drunken Armor Mastery
Iron Man's coolest armored sidekick, War Machine will have a major role in Iron Man 2, says actor Terrance Howard. Filming for the Iron Man sequel starts next March, in the hopes of meeting the film's release date, set for April 2010.

The Last Airbender Will Be M. Night Shyamalan's Star Wars
M. Night Shyamalan has finished his script for The Last Airbender, the live action movie based on Nickelodeon's epic cartoon, Avatar — and he's told Paramount and Nickelodeon that he thought they had a new Star Wars on their hands.

Whatever Happened To These 7 Awesome Movie Projects?
Remember when we were promised a remake of Fahrenheit 451, or a new Barbarella starring Rose McGowan? What happened to those movies?

Jane Espenson On Battlestar's Morbid Humor And Superstitious Atheists
We decided to ask writer Jane Espenson — whose trademark Buffy wit finally got to shine in a BSG episode — a few questions about the most recent episode.

Six Astounding Young Adult Novels of the Pre-Potter Era
The success of Harry Potter has established that the young adult market in fiction can be insanely lucrative, as have other successful scifi series like Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and Scott Westerfield's Uglies series. We've got six more great, old-school YA books for you to rediscover or read for the first time.

Man-hating Amazons and Bastard Children Make This Week's Comics Fun For All The Family
This is hardly a banner week for comic stores, and no, that’s not a pun to tie in with the upcoming Incredible Hulk movie. While there may be lots of new books coming out, it’s fairly light on ones that’ll grab your attention unless you’re looking to read up on this summer's big movie heroes before hitting the theaters.

Star Trek Cake Upsets Nerds
Everyone likes cake, right? Especially if the cake is a Star Trek-themed one made by Charm City Cakes. But if that were really true, then what's behind the meltdown from Trek fans once pictures of Charm City's cake were leaked online?

10 Books That Prove Science Fiction Just Got Harder
Why do so many books labeled "hard science fiction" actually contain technology that works pretty much like magic in a fantasy novel? Hard science fiction is supposed to be the branch of SF that's rigorously scientific, and doesn't gloss over difficult problems like faster-than-light travel. We've got a list of ten books that we think are redefining hard SF for the twenty-first century.

When Did Battlestar Galactica Jump The Shark?
The reboot of gritty robot-apocalypse show Battlestar Galactica was a breathtaking revelation, with its complex characters and hard-edged political allegories. But over the past three and a half seasons, little bits of schlock have started clinging to the show like so many barnacles.

New "Andromeda" Strains Credulity
The new version of Strain left some saying, "Wow, it's like a Sci Fi Channel original movie, only with an A-list cast."

Spock Has A Sweet New Ride In Star Trek Movie
Some new details about the starships in the new Star Trek movie have come out — and they answer a major nagging question about the movie's over-arching plot.

A Facelift Pill That Makes 80-Year-Olds Look 20
It may be a long time before humans can extend their lifespans to hundreds of years, but the technology to make humans look sixty years younger than their actual age is right around the corner

The Robots That Wall-E Stole From
Everyone already knows that WALL-E is a direct rip-off of Short Circuit's Johnny 5. But J5 isn't the only track bot that Pixar borrowed the WALL-E look from. We've taken a deeper look into the world of androids and bulky square robotics and compiled a list of other machines that may have given WALL-E his lensy eyes or tank-track feet.

Ass-Kicking Asian Women with Machine Guns Meet the Apocalypse
Fight scenes featuring beautiful Asian women with machine guns are sexy, scary, and fetishistic.

This Week's Comics: Babes, Zombies And The Love Of Fat Cobra
If there was one word to describe this week's (one day late, due to the holiday) haul of new comics, that word may be "brutal".

8 Things You Didn't Know About Extrasolar Planets
While most of us have our eyes on Mars at the moment, there's a special class of astronomers who have their telescopes trained on planets a little bit farther away. Actually, a lot farther away - completely outside our solar system, in fact. We've found almost 300 extrasolar planets (or exoplanets) so far, and the search continues.

We reviewed the final Y the Last Man comic book, told you about three science fiction novels recommended by free software guru Richard Stallman, and rhapsodized about The Descent, a cheesy but thought-provoking novel about how the military conquers an elusive human sub-species that has populated tunnels deep beneath the ocean. You also got to hear about Marc Guggenheim's new comic, which is about a post-post-apocalypse after the aliens leave Earth.

In science, we explained that chameleons change color to communicate, not camouflage. We speculated about how new breakthroughs in autism research would lead to pills that can make you temporarily autistic, and pills that can cure autism. We also talked about how neuroscience explains the mechanism that makes you feel pleasure when you hurt yourself.

We are also looking to hire interns and a graphic designer. Please apply before Feb. 20.

We also went science crazy! Everything scientific was mega-huge, including mega-environmentalism and a mega-chemical that cures loneliness. All of the mega-science got our brains so swelled up, we needed nano-brain-surgery.

We profiled Japan's wackiest inventor. And exposed the U.S.' burning need for a space race with China. And we talked to the directors of techno-horror-scifi movie The Signal. And we told you why the Sarah Jane Adventures is hotter than Torchwood. Now when will we get our Sarah Jane DVDs in the U.S.?