Land Of The Lost:

Here's a new still from Land Of The Lost, showing Will Ferrell and another glimpse of those naughty Sleestaks. Naughty! (Click to enlarge.) [MoviesOnline]

Dragonball:

The Japanese poster for Dragonball includes our first look at Justin Chatwin in full costume as Goku. [SuperheroFlix]

Watchmen:

And here are a couple of new pictures from the movie of Alan Moore's classic graphic novel Watchmen. One is a Vargas-esque pin-up illustration of Carla Gugino as Sally Jupiter from the 1940s (possibly NSFW due to see-through top). And the other is a photo of the Minutemen superhero team in their prime.
[AintItCool News and Warner Bros.]

Virtuality:

Battlestar Galactica showrunner Ronald D. Moore's new TV movie/pilot Virtuality, about astronauts stuck on a long-haul space voyage with only virtual reality headsets for company, is sort of like a late 21st century office show. It contrasts the claustrophobia of the deep-space ship Phaeton with the open expanses the astronauts can visit in virtual reality. There'll be three layers to the storytelling, each with its own visual style: the claustrophobic ship, the virtual world, and the reality TV show the astronauts are starring in. And there's a gay relationship (the bickering Manny and Val) that's as honest and multi-dimensional as anything on TV. [Chicago Tribune and AfterElton and Chicago Tribune again]

Battlestar Galactica:

Apollo spends some time running around with a bunch of extras, shooting people, in the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. (At least, that was the last thing he filmed.) [E! Online]

Fringe:

Here are a couple of new trailers for Fringe, J.J. Abrams' new evil-science show:

Lost:

Malcolm David Kelley, the no-longer-little kid who plays Walt on Lost, is not "on call" to appear as the character in season five. But he says he still could pop up next season, you never know. [Lost Spoilers]

Heroes:

The Heroes good guys will spend more time having their paths cross this season. We'll discover that there are people who are way worse than Sylar. We'll see the rise of a power that all our heroes have to band together to keep from running wild. Something scary happens to Claire, which changes her and sets up the possible future where she becomes evil bad-hair Claire. She's also becoming more of a rebellious teenager, and has reached that stage where you'd ask permission, but then go ahead and do whatever you wanted anyway. West is gone for good, and Claire has no new love interest in sight.

Peter is "not quite himself" in season three, and a newly introduced character has a lot to do with the change in him. And even though he's the most powerful of the Heroes doods, he's heading for a fall.

Ando and Hiro travel all over the planet in the first five episodes. Also, Ando is secretly Nathan and Peter's half-brother — but I think the actors might have been kidding about that. [E! Online]

Smallville:

As we've mentioned, Jimmy asks Chloe to marry him, and she eventually says yes. But not before her love life gets very complicated. She won't be wanting for a date, in any case. And while she'll still be there to save Clark when he's in trouble, there won't be any romance between Chloe and Clark. Jimmy also faces some major challenges.

Clark, meanwhile, is starting to realize he needs a "double identity" if he's going to move forward with his heroic destiny. We may see Clark get those trademark glasses, but not in the way you'd expect. We'll see less of Clark's Kryptonian heritage, although he can never fully escape it. [TV Guide]

Sarah Connor Chronicles:

Here's a new promo for season two of the Terminator spin-off TV show. Also, it sounds like the show may be adding a new regular character, a twenty-ish female resistance fighter who will do anything for the cause. [SarahConnorSociety via SpoilerTV]

Chuck:

And here's a new trailer for Chuck, the show about the minor-league nerd with the spy database in his brain.

Writes Cody:

Upon arriving at the Universal lot, I'm directed to an airplane-hangar-size soundstage tricked out to look like a Sleestak temple. It actually takes my breath away; I've never been on a set of such massive scale. The first thing I notice is how the production design, extravagant though it may be, manages to retain the camp charm of the original show. Rocks look like fantasy rocks, in the best possible way. Storybook moss creeps across rugged stone paths. A suspended iron cage intended for poor Holly (played by Anna Friel) evokes those great Chuck Heston-style adventure movies of yesteryear. Best of all, there's a menacing lava pit surrounded by a bay of talking Sleestak-head oracles. ''When they're turned on, their eyes glow. It gets totally Vegas in here,'' director Brad Silberling says, pleased.

How you feel about that probably depends on whether you want your Sleestak temple to get "totally Vegas," I'm guessing.

And yes, the new version of Lost, starring Will Ferrell, will be more of a broad comedy than the original. Ferrell tells ReelzChannel:

I think it's a great blend of paying homage to the show mixed with what I think could be a different genre, this kind of adventure comedy where we really use the adventure to set up the comedy and we're able to comment on these situations that you would love to see characters comment on.

[EW and ReelzChannel]

One glance at this mini-episode from Land of the Lost will tell you everything you need to know about why Will Ferrell is in the remake.

By far my favorite Krofft show, even cooler than Doctor Shrinker and Wonderbug, was ElectraWoman and DynaGirl. They worked for a magazine by day, and donned cute outfits and fought crime by night. Hey, at least I grew up to work for a magazine-like thing, even if I don't always wear yellow tights. I cannot believe how utterly funktastic their theme song is. Do you think ElectraWoman and DynaGirl were superlovers?

What I find really interesting about these cut-down MySpace episodes is that they actually work in their new, shrunken, share-this-video-online format. Some 70s culture does seem to survive the upgrade to the web, even if it has to become even more short-attention-span to do it. Really, I don't mind losing the boring parts of these episodes. Now I've got the very best stuff, and I'm actually going to visit MySpace to check out future mini-episodes as they become available.

Sid and Marty Krofft on MySpace [via MySpace]

Says Silberling:

There is a sense of humor that I loved from the original show that can only come from an actor trying to negotiate the suit. If it became CG, they'd be too perfect. For the Sleestak to remain in people's memories, it tells you that it was about who was in the suit."

According to USA Today, the new movie features three adults (Will Ferrell, Anna Friel and Danny McBride) thrust into a land of "dinosaurs, monkey-men called Pakuni and the murderous Sleestak." The three adventurers hope that a giant crystal will zap them back to their own "dimension." [USA Today]

• The first attempt by the Kroffts to bring scifi the masses was arguably The Bugaloos. You've got mutant kids with wings, a crazy mad scientist lady named Benita Bizarre who wanted to capture them, and Billy Barty as a humanoid firefly.

• 
  
• Little known fact: Phil Collins actually auditioned to be a Bugaloo in 1970, before later joining Genesis that year. Who knows what would've happened to all those copies of No Jacket Required if he would've become a mutant.
• 
  
• While The Bugaloos only lasted one season, the next show with a scifi bent turned out to be Sigmund and the Sea Monsters in 1973. It ran for two seasons, and featured mutant monsters living near the sea. Sigmund was the nice monster, while his family wanted to make a living scaring humans.

• 
  
• Little known fact: Sigmund was actually Billy Barty. The Kroffts sure loved this guy.
• 
  
• In season two, Rip Taylor played an extremely effeminate genie named Sheldon who lived in a shell and had a penchant for making bad jokes and throwing confetti. Ouch.
• 
  
• In 1974, the Kroffts scared thousands of kids by introducing the Sleestaks in Land of the Lost. We've already covered our secret obsession with this show in a triviagasm. In fact, we're waiting on a Pylon to show up any day on Lost.
• 
  
• 1975's Far Out Space Nuts was the first Krofft show set in outer space, and it featured Bob "Gilligan" Denver and Chuck McCann as two hapless NASA employees who accidentally blast themselves into space when they hit the "launch" button instead of the "lunch" button. Nice button layout, NASA.

• 
  
• Besides featuring a total ripoff on the Skipper/Gilligan dynamic, the show also starred their alien friend Honk who made honking noises instead of talking.
• 
  
• Legendary actor John Carradine played an alien on the show, and according to Bob Denver's website his acting ability left Denver speechless.
• 
  
• The Lost Saucer also first appeared in 1975, and like Far Out Space Nuts it only ran for one season as well. It featured Jim "Gomer Pyle" Nabors and Ruth Buzzi as two dingbat androids named Fum and Fi who land on Earth and invite a young boy and his babysitter aboard. However, as onlookers gather and the crowd starts to panic, the androids take off with Jerry and Alice still aboard. The ship, which can also travel through time, becomes damaged, and the series is all about the bumbling idiot-bots trying to return them home.
• The androids had a pet "dorse" aboard the ship, which was half dog, and half horse.
• Jim Nabors had a bizarre "elbow laser" that he frequently used to... er, comic effect.
• 1976 gave us The Krofft Supershow, which was a Saturday morning kid's variety show. It was made up of other shows and musical acts like Kaptain Kool & The Kongs. It introduced the world to my personal favorite Krofft creation, Dr. Shrinker. Three kids crash-land their plane on a mysterious island, and a creepy mad scientist and his assistant (played by Billy Barty, of course) shrink them down as an insidious experiment. For the rest of the show, the "Shrinkies" try to evade the Doctor and figure out how to re-enlarge themselves.

• 
  
• Dr. Shrinker wanted to capture the Shrinkies to prove to the world that his shrinking ray worked, because it blew up after he shrunk them down. However, rather than try to repair it, he spent all of his time trying to catch the diminutive teens. What an idiot. As he said himself, "I chase the Shrinkies. I catch the Shrinkies. The Shrinkies escape. It's a vicious cycle and it's driving me mad!"
• 
  
• The Krofft Supershow also gave us one season of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, which borrowed heavily from the 1960s Batman television show, as well as Wonder Woman. The show featured two women who were reporters (in their spare time) and who could turn into superheroes with their "Electra-Change". They drove around in an "Electra-Car," had an "Electra-Base," and talked to their scientist buddy Frank via "Electra-Coms." They also had a huge variety of "Electra-Powers", like "Electra-Vision" and "Electra-Beams."

• 
  
• The show starred Deidre Hall from Days of Our Lives as Electra Woman, and a new pilot for the show was shot in 2001 starring Markie Post as Electra Woman, but it did not get picked up. If the writer's strike would've lasted longer... who knows?
• 
  
• We can't go without mentioning the bizarre Wonderbug show that was part of the Supershow. Three teenagers fight crime and solve mysteries with the help of their jalopy Schlep who could turn into a magical dune buggy when they honked his magic horn. It's not really science fiction, but it was a talking car long before K.I.T.T. ever was. Plus hey, he could fly. Try doing that with Turbo Boost.

• 
  
• Sadly, with season two the Krofft Supershow dropped both Dr. Shrinker and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. Instead, they added Magic Mongo, about a wacky genie, and Bigfoot and Wildboy, which was all about a boy orphaned in the Pacific Northwest who was raised by Bigfoot. Together they fight people who would do harm to the regions forest.

• 
  
• Bigfoot and Wildboy actually got picked up as a standalone show for ABC, and they would edited two 15 minute shows together into one episode. The show featured a lot of 70s style slow-motion, to show how strong Bigfoot was. Kind of like The Six Million Dollar Man. Remember when Bigfoot was on that show? Look for more on that later.
• 
  
• Probably the most bizarre thing the Kroffts ever produced (besides Lidsville) was The Krofft Superstar Hour in 1978. It was a reworking of The Krofft Supershow, and they dropped Kaptain Kool & The Kongs, and replaced them with the real life band The Bay City Rollers. They added two skit segments to the show called Horror Hotel, featuring Witchiepoo from Pufnstuf as a bitchy hotel owner, and The Lost Island, which is where things truly went wonky.
• 
  
• The Lost Island featured cameo appearances by Enik the Sleestak, H.R. Pufnstuf, Sigmund the Sea Monster, and Dr. Shrinker, now called Dr. Deathray. They'd have bizarre interactions with the Bay City Rollers, and then there'd be a musical scene. True bizarreness. Check out Part One and Part Two of this mindmelting segment.
• 
  

Batman: The Dark Knight

Harvey Dent is only Two-Face for "a couple of minutes" towards the very end of The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins. The transformation into Two-Face at the movie's end sets up a confrontation in the third movie, making the Nolan Bat-films seem even more like a trilogy. (And Knight a bit more Empire Strikes Back-ish.) Mind you, this whole spoiler is based on what some reps told a guy at a costume show, where there was no Two-Face costume on display. [Superhero Hype]

Y: The Last Man (the movie)

As we'd previously reported, the Y: The Last Man movie only covers the first 12 issues of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's comic, unlike Vaughan's own movie script which tried to cover the entire saga. D.J. Caruso's Y movie would be the first of a planned trilogy, says Caruso. Also, Caruso will use a real monkey for Ampersand, and Shia LaBoeuf is definitely the front-runner to play Yorick. [Ain't It Cool]

Land Of The Lost:

Here's a first look at Will Ferrell as a park ranger who explores a hidden land and meets dinosaurs, Sleestaks and other weird creatures, in the new Land of the Lost movie. He's kind of a slob, since apparently this scene ends with him tossing his cigarette butt and cheetos bag in the lake. [JFX Online]

The reason Ferrell's scientist character is working as a park ranger (at the LaBrea Tar Pits) is because he assaulted disabled physics great Steven Hawking during an interview on Anderson Cooper 360. A young scientist, played by Anna Friel, approaches Ferrell at the Tar Pits and asks him to guide her (and his kids, for some reason) to the Land of the Lost. Are you excited yet? At least Anna Friel is fun to watch. [Slashfilm]

Doctor Who:

Here are some new Doctor Who season four teasers that have been airing on British TV. They're really only spoilery if you didn't know the Daleks were coming back:

Smallville

The person who dies in the April 17 Smallville has never been presumed dead by the audience... which means he/she may have been presumed dead by the characters on the show, as long as we knew better. [Ask Ausiello]

Also, that April 17 episode, "Descent," is when Lex Luthor jumps off the good/evil fence once and for all, and goes totally evil. He falls into his "own personal hell," says executive producer Brian Peterson. "There is a major turn that happens in his life that drives him into pure darkness. ... It's Lex's real descent into the villain he becomes." [Sci Fi Wire]

Lost

There actually will be a Jack-centric Lost episode this spring, despite reports to the contrary. [Ask Ausiello again]

Secret Invasion

More spoilers for Secret Invasion, Marvel Comics' upcoming "everyone is a shape-changing Skrull invader" storyline: Supposedly Jarvis, the Avengers' man-servant, is a Skrull, who uploads an alien virus that makes all of Tony Stark's technology crash, including Iron Man's armor. A Skrull briefly impersonates Invisible Girl, just long enough to send the Fantastic Four into the Negative Zone. A Skrull Hank Pym shoots Reed Richards, and a Skrull Captain Marvel blows open Thunderbolts Mountain. Also, a Skrull busts all the supervillains out of their supervillain prison, the Raft. Meanwhile, one of the X-Men, Nightcrawler, is a Skrull, and the X-men are the only ones on the West Coast standing in the massive Skrull Armada.

Secret Invasion #1 begins with a Skrull ship crash-landing in the Savage Land, Marvel's version of the Land of the Lost. Both the New Avengers and the Mighty Avengers rush to the crash site. The ship opens up, and the classic 1970s versions of the Marvel characters come out, including webbed-armpits Spider-Man, nose-armor Iron Man, tiara-wearing Power Man, the furry Beast, Sue Storm, Mockingbird, Wonder-Man, Captain America, evil Emma Frost and old-school Wolverine. "The modern, darker, dirty versions of all the characters stare at their more innocent version of themselves in shock." But it turns out the 1970s versions aren't the real characters returned, but a Skrull trick meant to sow doubt. Or something. Only Mockingbird turns out to be real. [Schwapp!!!]

When I started putting this poll together, I was shocked by how many remakes are currently on the slate. Some of them are more definite than others: Jason Statham in Death Race, Brendan Fraser in Journey to the Center of the Earth and Keanu Reeves in The Day The Earth Stood Still are definitely happening. (Oh, and Will Ferrell's Land of the Lost.)

Less definite: Gerald Butler is supposed to be starring in the remake of Escape From New York, with a director TBA, but some reports say Butler has pulled out. (Butler himself said recently he's still considering doing it.) Peter Berg's Dune is in the early stages, and so is Roland Emmerich's Fantastic Voyage. Robert Rodriguez's Barbarella is in limbo, but he's still trying to get it made with Rose McGowan.

Even less definite: The remakes of Logan's Run and Metropolis seemed so uncertain, I left them out of the poll. Oh, and I forgot to include The Greatest American Hero and Scanners, which are also in the early planning stages, in the poll.

I started to make a joke along the lines of, "next they'll remake Westworld or something," only to realize a Westworld remake is also in the planning stages.

So leaving out the super-iffy Westworld, Greatest American, Scanners, Logan's Run and Metropolis, there are still a lot of forthcoming remakes to choose from. Which one fills you with the most revulsion?

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

• The Marshalls were stuck in a place that existed outside or normal space and time. During their stay in the Land of the Lost, they encountered a Confederate soldier, found the bones and diary of a soldier from the Revolutionary soldier, a glider pilot from the future, the weird invisible, telepathic alien named The Zarn, and Holly even met a future version of herself.
• There were Pylons scattered around the Land (hatches, anyone?) that were larger on the inside than the outside (TARDIS, anyone?). Their sole purpose was to house these funky crystal matrix chessboard tables which did everything from control the weather to open time doorways. Sadly, the Marshalls never really figured out how to work them right.
• The Sleestaks had a Library of Skulls, which contained the sentient skulls of their ancestors, who could still speak and dispense knowledge, despite being just a skull. They could also predict the future, show visions, and annoy the hell out of people who just wanted a straight answer. Plus they ran things for the Sleestaks and told them what to do. Kind of like that mysterious Jacob ghost/spirit/whatever the hell thing on Lost.
• If you screwed up a Pylon or it started malfunctioning, these bizarre flying shapes would appear in the sky and flash the colors that you'd need to arrange on the matrix table in order to fix things. Rick Marshall dubbed them Skylons, and they appeared to be some form of automated repair units with limited artificial intelligence. Black smoke monster, anyone? Bueller?
• The Sleestaks were descendants of the Altrusians, an alien race who lived a thousand years before the Sleestaks. They were shorter than them, had an extra digit on each hand, and had limited psionic abilities. Plus they weren't nearly as creepy.
• The Land of the Lost existed inside its own closed universe. The Marshalls once tried to take the river out of the land, but found that it looped around and put them back right where they started. In another episode, Holly descended into a pit on a rope, and found herself dangling upside down over the Land. Just like the Hotel California and the island on Lost, you can check in, but you can never leave.
• David Gerrold's backstory for the series explains that the Altrusians actually built the Land as a way-station intended to let travelers cross between various places. The time doorways are gateways which allow users to cross into the Land on their way to their destination. The reason that travel through the time doorways is unpredictable, at best, is that the Land has fallen into disrepair in the time since it was built.
• While the Sleestaks might have been scary as hell, they only had three of those rubber suits, so they couldn't have more than that on the screen at the same time. The producers had to rely on the miracle of editing whenever they wanted it to seem like a Sleestak army was on your ass. Fairly ironic because the Library of Skulls says that the Sleestak number about 7,000.
• The furry Pakunis on the show actually had their own language, created by Professor Victoria A. Fromkin from UCLA, who also created the vampire language for Blade. Keep in mind, this was a Saturday morning kids show that had its own invented language. Not too shabby.
• Sleestaks were played by UCLA basketball players, because they were tall enough to fit the suits. Future Detroit Pistons star Bill Laimbeer famously played a Sleestak for awhile.
• Harlan Ellison submitted a treatment for a Land of the Lost script, but it was never produced. However, you can read a copy of it here.
• David Gerrold who wrote "The Trouble With Tribbles" episode of Star Trek and science fiction writer Larry Niven of Ringworld fame were both writers on the series. Gerrold even served as story editor.
• The intelligent and friendly Sleestak named Enik first appeared in a script written by Walter Koenig of Star Trek fame, and was supposed to be named Eneg. This was a tribute to Gene Roddenberry, since it was his name spelled backwards, but the producers nixed it.
• In order for something to leave the Land of the Lost, something of equal mass had to enter. The show used this in both clever and idiotic ways. At the end of Season One, the Enik explains to them that they can leave, but in doing so they also cause the event that brings them into the Land of the Lost in the first place, so they're stuck inside a repeating loop forever. They did this in case the show didn't get picked up after its first year, but then they never explained how they broke the loop in Season Two. That's the fairly clever way.

  The dumb way was in that the actor who played Rick Marshall left the show after Season Two, so in Season Three an earthquake accidentally knocks him into a time doorway (it was actually one of the producers seen from behind and wearing a wig) and he vanishes. However, moments later the Marshall's Uncle Jack (Rick's brother) appears. Seems like he's been looking for them since they vanished. How very convenient.

• 
  
• If reading this has made you want to go back and rewatch this entire series, or maybe see it for the first time (like it did for me), you can pick up all three seasons in a DVD box set for fairly cheap. Just don't blame us when you get sucked in.

Image by The UncredibleSkulk

• Because nobody demanded it, we're going to get to see James Kirk and his brother George as kids in the new Star Trek movie. Maybe we'll get some crucial insights into Jim's formative experiences and the childhood traumas that influenced him to be... waitaminute, this is Captain Kirk we're talking about. Anyway, the 11-year-old Jimmy Bennett will play kid Kirk, and 15-year-old Spencer Daniels will play George.

  Also, apparently the brothers have a scene together without their parents. And we get to see Kirk's mom pregnant at some point (possibly with James?). This is more proof that the Trek movie will visit lots of different time periods. [TrekMovie]

• Meanwhile, J.J. Abrams is already planning on two more Trek movies. [SyFyPortal]
• Will Ferrell's Land Of The Lost movie includes actual time-travel instead of just a hole in the ground, according to a new synopsis: "Eccentric (and remarkably unlucky) paleontologist Dr. Rick Marshall validates his discredited theory of time travel by heading back into an alternate universe inhabited by dinosaurs, monkey people and reptilian Sleestaks." [Production Charts]
• Someone will die on Lost in the second half of this new mini-season. [TV Guide]
• Here's the new official description for the Feb. 14 episode of Smallville: "Lois follows Lex to Detroit and discovers he has found Kara, who has amnesia. Finley (guest star Corey Sevier), a busboy who is obsessed with Kara, fears Lex will take her away, so he shoots Lex and holds Kara and Lois captive. After Lex's comatose body is found, Chloe offers to heal him, but Clark refuses to let her." [SpoilerFix]
• We'll see more of Andy and his chess-playing computer in an upcoming Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, it seems. [SpoilerTV]
• And here are a few new pics from the fourth episode of Torchwood season two. Apparently it's about an alien who's being used as a source of "cheap meat" (no, I'm not making this up) and Gwen's fiance Rhys gets involved as part of the Torchwood team. [SFUniverse]

Instead of a family getting trapped in the dinosaur wasteland, it'll be a "disgraced paleontologist" (Ferrell), his assistant, and his macho sidekick (Danny McBride). In other words, it'll be more of the homoerotic two-guys comedy that Ferrell has excelled at lately. Brad Silberling (Casper) will direct. And the film will still have monkey people, dinosaurs and Sleestaks, but it'll be a spoof of the TV series rather than a remake. McBride says "massive sets" have been constructed for the film. [IGN]