Before really digging into my question, let me offer a few disclaimers. The "First Thanksgiving", as it is popularly known, is a mix of real history and folklore, and most accounts gloss over the complex nuances of early relations between the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony and the Pokanoket Tribe. And even if the First Thanksgiving does help promote an image of peaceful relations between Europeans and Native Americans, it's hard to ignore that centuries worth of disease, war, and oppression were to follow that idyllic scene in 1621.

But even so, for all these complications, it's surprising how rarely media science fiction has been willing to consider first contact between humans and aliens that is premised on peaceful settlement and coexistence, rather than invasion and occupation, as depicted in the popular conception of the First Thanksgiving.

By my count, five films this year deal with human-alien relations — the pleasantly diverting Monsters & Aliens, the vaguely didactic Battle for Terra, the awesome District 9, the kinda stupid Planet 51, and the, um, Avatar-ilicious Avatar. Oh, and I guess I shouldn't forget television's V.

Beyond suggesting that no one is willing to depict aliens in full live action anymore, these six works all have similar conceptions of how aliens and humans would interact: One is going to invade the other. (District 9 is the only exception, but then we never do learn what the aliens' original goals in coming to Earth were.) Indeed, in most cases, the invasion is militaristic in character, whether it's General Hemmer in Battle for Terra or SecFor in Avatar.

There are some recent works of popular science fiction that fit the pilgrim archetype, but only imperfectly. The inhabitants of the Outer Rim in Firefly don't just act like Pilgrims; they also dress and talk like them. Indeed, Joss Whedon has famously described the "River almost gets burned at the stake as a witch" episode "Safe" as "The Crucible in space."

Malcolm Reynolds talks a lot about moving just a little bit further into space to escape Alliance oppression, something meant to recall the pioneer spirit of the 19th century that just as easily fits the ethos of the Plymouth colonists, who fled first to the Netherlands and then to the New World in search of religious freedom. The Pilgrims might be there, but with the exception of an upside down cow fetus, there weren't any aliens to complete the setup.

It's the same problem with Battlestar Galactica. The 50,000 survivors of the destruction of the Twelve Colonies were fleeing a rather more tangible threat than the religious policies of King Charles I, but the opening titles always made their real objective clear: they were looking for a home. Again, that's a decent fit with the Pilgrims' goals, and the on-ship tensions that led to the creation of the Mayflower Compact recall the factional tension that formed a key part of BSG's dramatic backbone. (And that's not even mentioning all the religious zealotry.)

But again, since the Cylons remained fundamentally tied to their human origins, the humans never really encountered any aliens. Well, unless you want to get into some rather tedious arguments about the humans in the finale. But that part was over with in about thirty seconds.

So what's left? Even an old warhorse like Doctor Who hasn't really explored the notion of peaceful coexistence between humans and aliens. Last year's "The Doctor's Daughter" at least ends on a hopeful note, but a lot of Hath had to be slaughtered to get there. Probably the best example of this sort of idea is 1971's Colony in Space, in which humans fled the polluted, overcrowded Earth in favor of Uxarius, where they eke out a living as farmers and live in an uneasy truce with the planet's "primitive" indigenous inhabitants.

The only problem is that the serial is just as much about an evil mining company, ferocious reptiles, and the Master trying to get his hands on an ancient super-weapon, and as such the human-alien relations angle doesn't get to be developed quite as much as it deserves.

And even in Star Trek, where the complexities of human-alien interaction is at the franchise's core, that pesky Prime Directive keeps humans from just up and settling any already inhabited rock, vastly limiting the space pilgrim potential.

Perhaps part of the reason science fiction has eschewed this approach is that the Pilgrims don't feel terribly relevant today. The age of exploration and colonization is now in our past (and, if we're lucky, maybe our future), and in a world where pretty much all territory is already known and claimed, invasion and forceful conquest seems a far more plausible way for boundary lines to be redrawn between humans and aliens.

Well, maybe it's just the tryptophan talking, but I think science fiction is seriously missing a beat here. Recent works ranging from Battlestar Galactica to District 9 have intelligently explored how hoary old science fiction cliches might work when approached realistically, but all have pretty much assumed it would be impossible for all parties to approach such situations in good faith. After all, even when attempting to forge a truce with the humans, the Cylons always (allegedly) have a plan.

But since I'm pretty sure we're still supposed to be in a bold, optimistic new age, I'd like to see what happens when you take a bunch of human separatists, throw them in a rickety old spaceship, and have them try to coexist with those already living on the planet they choose to settle. I'm not saying it would end well - if history is any indication, it won't - but it would be interesting to see, just once, humans and aliens both start out with the best of intentions.

Planet 51's tragedy is that it could have been a decent movie. It starts off with a neat premise: on a distant planet, there is an alien civilization that strongly resembles 1950s Americas — right down to everyone speaking English and grooving to The Chordettes. They even have a love for alien invasion movies, and, through a remarkable stroke of coincidence, the scifi franchise du jour is titled Humaniacs and features a monster that looks like an astronaut. Into this world plunges Captain Chuck Baxter, a middling US astronaut who has been sent to explore the planet (which NASA mistakenly believed was uninhabited) and suddenly finds that, on this world, he is the alien. Naturally chaos ensues. The movie also has some endearing and well-animated characters, especially in rock-craving robot Rover, and a Xenomorph-shaped dog that pees acid. The early clips promised a fun, if light, movie filled with cute science fiction references.

The problem is, Planet 51 has no idea what it's precisely about. Sure, it has a plot: a teenager named Lem has to help get Chuck back to his ship and off the planet before the military captures him and removes his brain (and, hopefully, without ruining Lem's life in the process). But it has the feel of a movie written by committee: too many ideas stuffed in and not enough fat trimmed off. Planet 51 tries to be about so many different things that it ends up being about nothing at all. Is it about the dangers of automatically attacking that which we don't understand? How the media makes us suggestible and paranoid? What it's like to learn that the universe is much larger than you ever imagined? Or is it about having the cojones to take risks and do the things you dream of doing? Okay, so the pants-less aliens have no visible cojones, but you get the point. And this lack of a center is symptomatic in the film's cast of predictable stock characters. Only the dog-like characters get any bite.

Even the jokes are just so much spaghetti thrown at the wall. Crude jokes about alien probes are mixed in with references to classic science fiction films, and great swaths of the film rely on forgettable sequences of slapstick. The odd joke hits, but when it does, it's just a solitary joke, and doesn't contribute anything to the movie as a whole. And, though it's a ostensibly kids movie, the rare jokes that elicited laughs went over the younger viewers' heads. During the viewing I attended, the audience laughed in unison just once — at a penis joke.

There are certain sins that children's films can sometimes get away with because they're geared toward younger viewers: being too busy or too cloying, or having a wearying or simplistic sense of humor. But Planet 51's problems are far deeper: it's a film that simply never engages, and for a science fiction film, leaves us with depressingly little to think about after it's over. Do yourself a favor and, instead of seeing Planet 51, watch these clips and pretend you've seen the entire movie. You'll be better off for it.

Star Trek:

By all accounts, there's still no script for the sequel, so any predictions anyone might make are purely based on what they had for lunch. But after saying J.J. Abrams told him he'll be in the sequel a week or so ago, Bruce Greenwood is now saying he may not be there after all.

I'm not sure if we'll see Pike or not. He was mainly there to bring Kirk aboard the Enterprise and it's hard to say if he'll be popping up in the sequel.

[MovieWeb]

And co-writer Roberto Orci says that even if Khan is in the sequel, chances are it'll be a character they created, who they then decide to turn into Khan:

Cause in a way, even if we do Khan, or not, we're trying to approach the story as just what's best for it, and then [asking] can that character become Khan or not, you know. You're not trying to rely on previous knowledge or love of it, so you almost want to strip all the names away and just come up with the emotional forces and the scientific forces that are going to come into play, and then start letting the details kind of bleed in.

[Newsarama]

Avatar:

Here's a new French poster for this James Cameron alien epic! [Slashfilm]

Daybreakers:

Here's a new European poster for this vampire epic. [ShockTillYouDrop]

New Moon:

Taylor Lautner admits the film never really addresses the fact that he should be naked when he changes back from a werewolf into a human. [MTV]

Planet 51:

More (mostly negative) reviews, more spoilers for this animated "we're the alien invaders" film. The 1950s jokes include a parody of "Duck and Cover" drills. The planet's skies rain rocks instead of water. Chuck's alien friend Lem is an astronomy nut, who's convinced the universe is only 500 miles wide and his planet is the biggest one. Also helping Chuck are a comic book geek, Skiff, and Lem's love interest Neera. The aliens sent to track down Chuck are led by General Grawl (Gary Oldman! What will Gary Oldman not do?). Chuck only has 48 hours to return to his spaceship, or it'll return to Earth without him. [Star Telegram and the Canadian Press and Alibi]

Lost:

Ian Somerhalder says the script for the season opener is so detailed, it weighed three pounds. And he had to wear the same clothes he wore in the original pilot. He'll be back for a couple more episodes after the first one. [ABC News]

Meanwhile, Lost was filming in the old Honolulu Police Station, which was previously seen as the lockup where Sarah bailed Jack out. Some filming included LAPD cruisers, and Josh Holloway was the main character on set. [Hawaii Weblog]

Doctor Who:

The BBC posted an eight-second audio clip from "The End Of Time":

Dollhouse:

Three new stills from "The Left Hand" showcase tons of destruction centering around Summer Glau. [SpoilerTV]

Fringe:

Olivia's niece is back in tonight's episode, but her sister remains MIA. [EW]

And here's a behind-the-scenes glimpse of tonight's episode.

Also, here's what happens in episode 2x09, "Snakehead":

After a cargo ship runs aground, the shoreline becomes littered with bodies hosting a giant squid-like creature. The Fringe team descends upon the scene to examine the bodies and discovers that the mysterious organisms are actually giant parasites.

And here are some pictures from the episode. [FringeSpoilers and FringeSpoilers]

And in episode 2x15, we'll meet a slightly overweight seven-year-old boy with brown hair and very blue eyes. [SpoilerTV]

V:

Now that Scott Rosenbaum is taking over as showrunner for the 2010 episodes, he says the series will become more fast-paced and we'll get more answers about the mythology of the Visitors faster. He adds:

Listen, my goal is that in every single episode there will be an "Oh my God, I can't believe that happened" moment, or a "Wow" moment – at least one – in every single episode. And I think that would not only be a mythology plot reveal, but also a character reveal. I want the characters to be able to make mistakes, to make the wrong choices sometimes, and that's where you get the most amount of drama. I would prefer that the stories come from them making mistakes, and the snowball effect of those mistakes, or, rather than mistakes, choices made for the right reason, but then there are consequences of that. I don't want people to watch this show and ever be able to guess what's going to happen next, because that's the problem with some of the TV I watch.

We'll delve into questions like what the Visitors eat, whether they're capable of love or empathy, and so on. [SciFiTVZone]

Supernatural:

The show's 100th episode, airing in March or April, will be a big one for Jensen Ackles. (Does he say "Yes" to Michael in it??) [EW]

Smallville:

Chloe's love interest is called Steven Swift, aka Warrior Angel. (Bwa ha ha ha.) And he's played by Carlo Marks, who played Chloe's "what if" fiance back in season seven's "Apocalypse." [EW]

Star Wars: Clone Wars:

Here's a new image from Friday's episode, "Legacy Of Terror," in which:

When Luminara disappears while tracking the Geonosian warlord, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker lead a platoon of clone troopers in search of her. Following her trail, the heroes descend deep into the lair of the grotesque Geonosian queen – Karina the Great – where they discover that the hive is alive and teeming with undead defenders

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

Spider-Man 4:

Are we going to meet Peter Parker and Mary Jane's baby in the fourth movie? There's a casting call for a baby boy (aged two to three years) with red hair. (Actually, they want twins, so that they can keep filming and swap them out when one of the kids has to take a break. But it's almost certainly for just one kid.) A lot of fans are jumping to conclusions, assuming this means Spidey will have a kid — but as SpoilerTV points out, this could be a baby Cletus Kasady, who grows up to become Carnage. Or it could be any number of other things. All we really know is that they're starting to cast this movie, and apparently there's a red-headed kid in it. [SpoilerTV-Movies]

Superman Returns Again:

James McTeigue is still super-interested in directing the next Superman film, but sounds less certain that it'll ever happen. But he does offer one more hint of how he'd approach the Man of Steel: "It's ripe for a retconning." Whatever that means. [MTV]

Planet 51:

But screw all this superhero shit — you really want to know about this animated film, in which The Rock is an astronaut who lands on a 1950s planet where he's the alien invader. Right? Apparently in the movie, an alien teenager decides the only way to protect himself from an anal probe is by using a champagne cork. There's a cute Mars Rover robot named Rover (who probably doesn't say "Gadget Gadget," alas) and an alien Chihuahua shaped like the creature from Alien, and something quasi-hilarious happens when he pees.

When The Rock first lands, he hums "Thus Spake Zarathustra," and then realizes he's interrupted an alien barbecue in which all the 1950s aliens are dancing to old-time rock 'n' roll. Chuck (The Rock) says to himself that "Kennedy's going to freak" when they find out about "sea monkeys dancing to the oldies." Other classic SF movies referenced in this film include Plan 9 From Outer Space and E.T. [Kansas City.Com]

Lost:

A new and exciting twist on the "alternate universe where Flight 815 landed safely" concept: a dapper Sawyer was spotted filming a scene at the upscale Diamond Head restaurant, part of the Lotus hotel, and his lunch companion? Was Charlotte (Rebecca Mader) last seen dying on the island. [Hawaii Weblog]

Fringe:

Here are the first two minutes of this week's Observer-centric episode. Plus a new photo. [Fox]

And here's a new promo for the episode. [Fringe Television]

And a load of promo pictures from episode 2x09, "Snakehead." [SpoilerTV]

Supernatural:

Mark Pellegrino explains more about his approach to playing Lucifer and what's coming up:

As you know, the angels in the show can be, well, a—-holes. It is Lucifer who is kind and empathetic and truthful. So, play the "Prince of Lies" as the most sincere one of the bunch and you have a fresh take. But I have a feeling things are gonna change. Lucifer has a big chip on his shoulder and that can't be restrained for long... The proverbial crap is gonna fly. Hell, it's the apocalypse for crying out loud. Something's gotta give. If I tell you more than that I'll have to kill you.

[PopStar via SpoilerTV]

FlashForward:

Here are some promo pics from episode 10, "A561984". [SpoilerTV]

Assuming this show gets a second season, we'll see more of Mark Benford in season two — there will be new mysteries, but the second season is definitely a continuation of the first, says Jessica Goyer. [PopCorner.PL via FlashForward.PL]

Smallville:

Lois arrives in the future, in a new clip from Friday's episode:

Michael Shanks explains about his version of Hawkman, appearing February 5:

When we first meet Carter Hall he's in his museum. We'll learn he's a reincarnated prince from a thousand years ago. There is a reference to The Justice Society's time in the ‘70s, but we have since disbanded.

And apparently there's lots of flying and mace-swinging, but no bare chest — instead Hawkman has a weird bronze chestplate thingy. And here's a picture. (Full version at the link.) [TV Guide Magazine]

Stargate Universe:

But Shanks isn't just flying around Metropolis and giving Clark Kent advice — he's also a figment of Dr. Nicholas Rush's imagination in the upcoming Rush-centric episode "Human," in which we discover more about how he recruited Rush into the Stargate program. Shanks and Richard Dean Anderson also appear in the 18th episode, "Subversion." [Gateworld]

And here's a sneak peek at Friday's episode.

Heroes:

And here are five clips from the "Thanksgiving" episode. What are you thankful for? [The ODI]

Additional reporting by Josh C. Snyder.

WARNING, there are a lot of spoilers in these clips.

While the plot is very predictable, how adorable is this little moon rock collecting bot who pees oil when scared? Actually that's two urine gags, what with the Alien puppy peeing acid and all. Planet 51 is out November 20th.

Hancock 2:

So much for those reports that the sequel would focus on Jason Bateman's character developing his charity project, and working on his relationship with his superhuman wife. Bateman says he hasn't been contacted about being in the sequel, and it's implied that he may not be in it. (Of course, he may get a call next week, but it's still surprising.) [Collider]

Deadpool:

Rob Liefeld Twittered about his meeting with the producers of this spin-off film, including Lauren Shuler Donner. And Ryan Reynolds, to nobody's surprise, is on board. Also:

Deadpool movie checklist- DP in costume-check! Breaking 4th wall-check! Loads of killing-double check!

And he was excited to talk to the producers about the possibilities of featuring Cable in future X-films. [Twitter via Cinemablend]

The Box:

Here are a few more stills from Richard Kelly's Twilight Zone-esque movie set in the 1970s. [Sci Fi Scoop]

Planet 51:

A new poster for the movie about The Rock accidentally invading an alien planet. [Teaser-Trailer]

2012:

And here are some new stills from Roland Emmerich's latest disaster film. [Movies-Spoilers]

Dollhouse:

Fox released three clips from tomorrow night's season opener, "Vows." [Fox via Whedonesque]

Lost:

More set pics and reports — here's a pic of Jack and Kate at the LAX airport set, plus Claire looking very pregnant. And one pic shows the construction of an elaborate temple set, and another shows the construction of a "rugged rock face." One scene being filmed today involved three gunshots ringing out and a bunch of extras, many of them dressed in the distinctive garb of the Others, running out of the temple. More pics at the link. [Hawaii Weblog]

A source claims both Juliet and Sawyer get "closure" on the island in the season premiere. And the cab driver whom Kate car-jacks is played by David H. Lawrence XVII, the "puppet-master" from last season of Heroes. (And yes, the number 17 is really part of Lawrence's professional name.) [SpoilersLost]

Warehouse 13:

It's not too soon to talk about season two of this hit show, which will air in 2010. Producer Jack Kenny says he's already got some ideas about how to deal with the huge cliffhanger at the end of season one — Leena has been made into "some sort of sleeper agent" and we'll have to "unsleeper her" or use her to trap McPherson. We'll find out where Claudia went and what she's doing, whether trying to clear her name or find McPherson. And we'll deal with the apparent death of Artie.

And then in season two proper, we'll mix it up some more. We may see Pete and Artie go out on a mission together, or Myka and Artie. We'll explore the core foursome (Pete, Myka, Artie and Claudia) in greater detail. We'll find out more about Pete's past alcoholism and possible drug addiction, and the lingering effects of Claudia's instituationalization. And both Pete and Myka will date people — maybe we'll see more of Jeff Weaver, Joe Flannigan's character from "Elements," and Myka can date him. And we'll see their reactions to each other's dating. Also, Claudia will possibly date a "local kid in the town," and maybe Pete, Myka and Artie will have different reactions to him. And we'll see more of the Regents, but maybe not all of them — maybe they'll have a spokesperson.

Also, Kenny says he wants to do an episode about "Hitler's microphone." [iFMagazine]

FlashForward:

Speaking of recovering alcoholics, apparently FBI agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) is one. And his nanny is a devout Christian, who's making out with her boyfriend on the couch when the "flash forward" happens — so she takes the "flash forward" as a sign of divine retribution. [NY Times]

The Benfords' daughter Charlie says "I had a bad dream. I dreamt that there are no more good days." (And that's where the episode's title comes from.) By the end of the first episode, we get our first hint as to who/what is responsible for the flash. [Boston Herald]

Sonya Walger's surgeon character, Olivia, is put out that the entire surgical team flops to the floor in the middle of an operation. And her fellow doctor Bryce, played by Zachary Knighton, has gone to a pier to contemplate suicide when the flash happens. [Washington Post]

Here's the official synopsis of episode four, "Black Swan":

Olivia struggles to accept Bryce's suggestion that a patient's flashforward holds the key to a correct diagnosis and treatment. Meanwhile, Demetri accuses Mark of waiting for the future he saw in his flashforward to come true without incident, while Mark feels Demetri is letting his fear of what he witnessed envelop his life; and Nicole returns to work as Mark and Olivia's daughter's baby-sitter, and discloses her shocking future vision - involving a murder.

And some pics. [TV Overmind]

House:

In episode nine of this season, House tells someone he loves Cuddy. [EW]

True Blood:

And it's not too soon to talk season three of this show. Alan Ball says he's currently seeking someone to play Talbot, the "trophy husband" of the queer "vampire king of Mississippi" (played by Denis O'Hare). [EW]

Chuck:

Emmy winner Armand Assante guest stars as a Castro-esque dictator whom Casey has tried to assassinate numerous times. [EW]

Viktor Sakhay says that there will be more tension with the management at Buy More. And Lester will temporarily change something drastically about himself. [E! Online]

Sanctuary:

Here's a new trailer for season two of this Syfy show:

Smallville:

In his new quest to become the perfect hero, Clark is pretty icy to everyone, but especially to Chloe, for whom he refuses to go back in time and save Jimmy. But he does come to Lois in her hour of need. And Lois has sex on the brain — at least when she's sleeping. [TV Guide]

More on that: Lois has a scary/sexy dream sequence at the end of tomorrow night's season premiere, full of sweat, sex and blood. And death. And Jor-El tells Clark the reason he still can't fly is because he still thinks he's human. [E! Online]

We'll learn exactly where Lois went when she was missing for three weeks — and it'll look remarkably similar to the red dust storm sweeping over Sydney. [EW]

Here are two sneak peeks from tomorrow night's season opener:

Eastwick:

Rosanna Arquette will play Greta Noa, a New York gallery owner who's connected to Darryl Van Horne. She'll appear in two episodes, and there's more to her than we realize at first. [TV Guide Magazine]

The Fourth Kind
It's the unofficial sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind as Milla Jojovich plays a therapist dealing with survivors of alien abductions (which are, apparently, close encounters of the fourth ki - Oh, you're there already). The movie claims to be based on real-life video footage, but feel free to take that with a Blair Witch-sized piece of salt.

The Men Who Stare At Goats
Adapted from the non-fiction reporting of British journalist Jon Ronson, George Clooney's new film goes inside the more-than-slightly ridiculous world of a US military unit dedicated to investigating possible uses for telepathy and psychic powers in warfare. Yes, there really is goat staring involved... as well as Kevin Spacey as a runaway psychic and Ewan MacGregor as the reporter who's out to tell the world about the whole thing.

November 13th
2012
The end of the world is very nigh in Roland Emmerich's disaster porn to beat all disaster porn. John Cusack, in a part that screams "Nicolas Cage was busy" is one man trying to hold his family together as every prophecy about the world ending in December 2012 simultaneously comes true, and we all marvel at the work of the special effects folk.

November 20th
Planet 51
As if Monsters Vs. Aliens wasn't enough, here comes another cute CG movie about tolerance and cute aliens, with voice stars including Dwayne Johnson, Justin Long and Seann William Scott. Call us cynical, but only the involvement of Gary Oldman gives us that much hope about this one.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Be warned: You only have two months to prepare for the next Twilight movie, in which werewolves come into the equation and the boys take their shirts off. Or something. The controversial (Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke was fired from the franchise and replaced on this movie by The Golden Compass' Chris Weitz, and there was fan outcry when Taylor Lautner, who played best friend Jacob in the first movie looked to be replaced as well - he wasn't) second movie offers less Robert Pattinson and, hopefully, less teen angst, than the first, but also more special effects and topless lupine thrills. But will that be enough to keep the faithful happy? Two months until we find out and counting.

With September already underway, we're a little late in providing this guide, but try not to hold it too far against us. We've split everything up month-by-month, to help you fill your calendar without too much worry - Just click on the links below.

September
October
November
December

I know I'm being hard on a kiddie film when I ask for a more inspired look into another world's lifestyle. But I shudder at the thought that on a distant planet aliens are lounging about on their lawn chairs just like me. Even though it was a a terrible film, I still prefer Terra over this - just because its aliens world were so much better than baseball cap-wearing green people. But that's just me. I will admit the Aliens-inspired fido is genius.

Planet 51 will be out November 20th.

Spider-Man 4/Iron Man 2:

Here are a couple of promo banners for upcoming Marvel superheroes' films. Note that Iron Man doesn't have those weird bands on his arms in this picture. Bigger versions at the link. [AICN]

Deadpool:

Meanwhile, Ryan Reynolds says he'd like to see Cable pop up in the Deadpool solo movie, especially since the two shared a comic for years. But the studio has told him it's probably not happening. More likely to appear, however, are the villains Ajax and Black Tom Cassidy. [MTV]

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

Here's the last poster for the film, featuring Optimus with two swords, and lots of confusey-splodey action. Bigger version at the link. [Empire via IESB]

Meanwhile, Shia LaBoeuf talks to Wizard World and explains about how Sam's visions of symbols form a map that leads to the Energon, which the Decepticons need to restore Megatron to life. And he talks about how people are falling out of the sky via a mode of transportation called the Space Bridge, and that's when Sam's hand gets injured (to explain Shia's real-life hand injury). Also, Shia explains why his father doesn't give a "rat's vagina" about Optimus Prime, and how the sailors on an aircraft carrier reacted to having Megan Fox staying on board. [Wizard World via TLAMB]

Harry Potter:

Here are a ton of new (I think) TV spots for this July adaptation. I'm getting excited despite myself!

Land Of The Lost:

Chaka spends the whole movie groping Holly. Will Ferrell's character gets high on the local equivalent of LSD, for no particular reason other than to have some jokes about tripping balls. [Cinemablend]

Anna Friel's Holly was educated at Cambridge and moved to L.A. for work, and she's totally in love with Will Ferrell's character, but he doesn't realize it. Friel says she just tried to play it as her character believing Ferrell's is a genius under all his weird eccentricities. And there's a sequence where Ferrell goes out on his own and dances across the caldera. [IESB]

Planet 51:

A preview of this first-contact movie's video game provides some spoilers. Lem, the alien boy who befriends the human astronaut, has a sequence where he's on his bicycle delivering newspapers to the 1950s-esque alien town. And then his love interest Neera walks by with her boyfriend, and she throws books at him which he has to catch. In another sequence, there's a huge car chase. [Sci Fi Wire]

New Moon:

And because it wouldn't be a day without a bit of New Moonage, here's a new behind the scenes video with interviews. I don't think I've heard the phrase "cool, cool CGI" used seriously before:

Lost:

So there's a rumor going around (partly fueled by Matthew Fox) that Jack will die in the final episode. Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse refuse to confirm or deny the rumor, saying that otherwise "it would be like watching the Sixth Sense and knowing that Bruce Willis is dead." Which the interviewer takes as a "yes." [Sunday Mercury via Lyly Ford]

Meanwhile, Cuse confirms that Claire will be back full time as a regular character for the final season:

Damon and I are very excited to bring Claire back to the show, and even more excited for people to experience just how she will return.

Doc Jensen speculates that either Juliet really did reset time and Claire is now alive, or she'll just turn up from the jungle and people will have to wonder if she's another imposter like Locke. [EW]

Fringe:

John Noble explains what to expect in season two: There will be a lot more revelations about Peter now that we know he's "from another place." Also, there will be conflict between Peter and Walter. But also, having opened up the interdimensional can of worms, there will be some huge events. The writers have some "stunning" and "mind-boggling" ideas coming up.
[Access Hollywood]

Also, more details on that female FBI agent who will replace Kirk Acevedo's Charlie on the show. She's brash, outspoken, quick-witted and capable, and she has a deep-seated belief in the wonders of the universe. [EW]

Smallville:

Some details of some casting pages that have been sent out for new character "Mason," who's probably the show's new big bad. Tess is rushing to the Queen Industries jet, and she's surprised to hear Mason's voice asking if she's "all work and no play." She chides him, saying she'd hoped he would have mastered more than a "lexicon of cliches" by now. Mason says Tess can stand down, because "it's me." But she replies, "precisely who 'you' are is a little nebulous at the moment." Mason says that's just how Tess likes it, and then he keeps trying find ways to seduce her.

Later, Tess comes back to Luthor Mansion, to find Mason there. Mason says she betrayed him, but he survived it. And he psychoanalyzes her some more. He tells her he trusted her, and he was the one shot she had at a fairy-tale ending. She pulls a gun on him, and he reminds her that she still needs him. She realizes that, gosh darnit, he's right. [Kryptonsite via CBR]

Stargate Universe:

Death will be a big part of this show, so don't get too attached to people who you think will be series regulars. [TV Guide]

Flash Forward:

Here's another TV spot for the new ABC series that explains everything. Totally. If you don't understand this video, it's your fault:

True Blood:

Sookie, Bill and Jessica arrive in Dallas in the season's fourth episode, but there's a surprise waiting for them at the airport. And an even bigger surprise happens later, when a special visitor drops by Sookie's hotel room. [EW]

The Vampire Diaries:

So how is this show different than Twilight? Let star Paul Wesley explain:

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Avatar:

More dirt from E3. Here are some shots of the model of the "Heavy Loader" armor that was on-site. More at the link. [Collider]

Iron Man 2:

Director Jon Favreau appeared on Jimmy Fallon, and... he didn't reveal much. They're filming scenes set at Hammer Industries, the company run by rival industrialist Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell). [IESB]

G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra:

Here's a new TV spot, pretty similar to what we saw at the MTV Movie Awards the other day:

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

New concept art gives a much better look at this movie's main villain. Who looks more and more like Doctor Who's Sutekh, the more I see of him. [TFG2 via Seibertron]

Ooh, and here are some new TV spots, with a bit of new footage here and there. The first one is the one with all the Megan Fox:

Harry Potter:

Warner Bros. gave Snitchseeker.com an exclusive pic from the new film, showing Harry, Hermione and Ron in the boys' dormitory. Bigger version at link. [Snitchseeker via IESB]

Paul:

More details about Simon Pegg's alien road-trip movie. Sigourney Weaver's on board, and she may play an old crackpot whom Pegg and Frost meet, who claims to have witnessed the crash of Paul's ship and pulled him from the wreckage. The duo are on the run from government agent Lorenzo Zoil (Jason Bateman) and they accidentally kidnap a Christian girl (Kristen Wiig). [Slashfilm]

Planet 51:

Some new details about this animated film, which we've written about a lot, but not lately. The Rock plays Chuck Baker, who's the 37th sexiest person in America, but he wants to break into the top 10 by discovering a new planet. When he lands on Planet 51, he thinks it's an uninhabited rock (he can't scan it from orbit?) and does a "one small step" style Moon landing thing.

Then he realizes it's a 1950s-esque planet full of green humanoids. He runs and hides in the local observatory, where he meets Lem (Justin Long) who explains to him that he's the alien here. Lem helps Chuck avoid the military force who are hunting for him. The main difference between the aliens' 1950s USA and ours is that theirs is flying-saucer based, with saucer-shaped houses and cars. (They used saucers to visit us years ago.)

The film has lots of in-jokes, like the aliens' dogs resemble the xenomorphs in Alien. They have a pet that resembles the Mars rover. And there's an E.T. nod. Jessica Biel plays Lem's love interest, Neera. Gary Oldman plays General Growl, the military man hunting Lem. And John Cleese plays the wise Professor Kipple. [Sci Fi Wire]

Twilight:

Here are a few more New Moon pics, including shirtless Taylor Lautner. [Twilight Sweden via SpoilerTV-Movies]

Meanwhile, the movie series is casting three new characters for the third movie, Eclipse. Riley's a handsome, clean-cut college boy who becomes a vampire after he's victimized by Victoria, as part of her attempt to murder Bella Swan. The Clearwater twins, Seth and Leah, will be played by Native American or First Nation actors. A tall, gangly 19-year-old with a happy grin, Seth idolizes Jacob Black (Lautner). Leah is the only female member of the "wolf pack." She's tall and slender with beautiful skin and short black hair. She'd be lovely, except for her perpetual scowl, due to a broken heart. [On The Flix]

Heroes:

Tim Kring sent out a "Heroes All Access" newsletter to fans and revealed that "we're all very excited" about season four. (What do you mean, "We"?) But actually, his description of the themes and storylines of the next season does sound pretty intriguing:

One of the big issues we'll be exploring is how should a person with abilities live his or her life. Should they try to assimilate by hiding their abilities, or should they live more honestly, exposing their powers to the world?

Claire will be at the forefront of that issue, starting college in Washington, D.C., and trying to discover, as all college kids do, who she really is. But re-adjusting to normal life won't be easy, especially when Claire is caught in the crossfire of her parent's divorce and a mysterious suicide on campus.

Meanwhile, Peter and Nathan are trying to get their lives back on track. Peter is trying to be a hero in the purest sense - saving on life at a time. But that means cutting himself off from friends and family. It's only when Peter makes a romantic connection with a fascinating new "powerful" woman that he'll find out that life means staying connected to others. Nathan is discovering new things about himself everyday, mostly due to the fact that he's actually Sylar.

Matt will have to live with the guilt of what he did to Sylar; making his attempts to live a normal life with his wife and child virtually impossible.

Noah Bennet (HRG), with the help of Tracy Strauss, Angela Petrelli and all of our Heroes, is tasked with forming a new COMPANY. But that new organization won't be concerned with conspiracies and prisons anymore. It will be about people. Finding them. Connecting to them. And figuring out why so many of them have been seduced by another "organization" out there that treats people with abilities in a fascinating, dangerous and potentially deadly new way.

[Next On Heroes]

Meanwhile, when Claire goes to college, she'll meet a "quirky" student, played by Madeline Zima (Californication). Gretchen is an "edgy outsider" who becomes Claire's roommate, and appears in several episodes. [Hollywood Reporter, Thanks MissMercyStreet!]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

So in Aliens In The Attic (formerly known as They Came From Upstairs) a family goes on vacation in the countryside, only to find that four aliens have gotten there first. And these aliens are the vanguard of an alien invasion fleet, although one of them really just wants to make friends. There's Sparks, the friendly one, Skip, the mean one, Spike, the dumb one, and Razor, the female one. Here's the UK trailer, with more details on these incredibly vivid personalities. Plus mind-control and crotch shots!

So seriously, what's the deal with us having to battle cute aliens all the time? First there was Battle For Terra, where we invaded the planet of lovable ETs. Then there's this movie, where the cute aliens invade us back. And then there's Planet 51, where the Rock crashes on a planet of cute aliens and gets mistaken for an invader. And finally, there's James Cameron's Avatar, where we invade the cute aliens again. What gives?

Terminator Salvation:

A few more early reviews are out, including some details. When Serena Kogan visits Marcus Wright on death row, she's wearing a head scarf to cover her baldness. She wants to turn Marcus into a cyborg, and he agrees in exchange for a kiss. "So that's what death tastes like," he says, which is not what I'd want to hear after kissing someone.

Kate Connor's pregnancy is not even mentioned in the film, even though she's visibly pregnant. Her interactions with her husband are boiled down to just a couple of scenes where she tells him to be careful.

Kyle Reese serves up a delicacy, two-day-old coyote. ("Better than three-day-old coyote," he quips.) Everybody wears snazzy camo pants and vests. Somehow a giant Harvester robot manages to sneak up on a group of people in a gas station despite the fact that it moves slowly and thunderously. Also, the bleak original ending was replaced with a "milquetoast crowd pleaser."
[Emmanuel Levy and Newsarama and BoxOffice.com]

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

Here are a couple new images. (More at the link.) [Cinematical]

Gamer:

Allison Lohman explains her character in this film:

I play Trace. She's part of the resistance. I try to get Gerard Butler back to his family. It's this dystopian future where humans are playing humans on a global scale through video games.

And she says the evil future is "debaucherous" and the film is more serious than the Crank films, from the same directors. [Sci Fi Wire]

Land Of The Lost:

A couple new TV spots. (Not 100 percent sure about the second one, but I think there's some new stuff in there.)

Also, Anna Friel says her character isn't just the standard wimpy movie chick: she's strong and ballsy and a Cambridge graduate. Friel is already signed up for the sequel. [Sci Fi Wire]

Spider-Man 4:

The fourth picture will delve into Peter Parker as a human being more deeply than the first three. It'll bring the character to life with a level of detail you haven't seen before, says Sam Raimi. [Sci Fi Wire and L.A. Times]

Planet 51:

Justin Long says he plays an alien who's the Henry Thomas character in this reverse version of E.T.: He takes in Dwayne Johnson's astronaut, who visits his planet. [Sci Fi Wire]

Thor:

Here's the casting call for the ultra-important supporting character, Volstagg:

Male. Early to mid 30s. 6'2" or taller. Obese but agile, fun, good-hearted, a warrior but prefers eating over fighting...SUPPORTING; OPEN TO ALL ETHNICITIES.

[Movies-Spoilers]

Lost:

Elizabeth Mitchell will be a regular on the V reboot, so don't expect Juliet to be a regular on Lost as well. However, she will be in an unspecified number of Lost episodes next year, so it's possible she really did survive the bomb going off in her face. [EW]

Human Target:

Just how vapid will this comic-book adaptation be? Behold four new clips. [Target419.com]

And here are some promo pics. Shiny! [SpoilerTV]

Additional research by Alasdair Wilkins.

Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) is the voice of Chuck, the lonely astronaut exploring this new alien world, or Planet 51. There's a pretty hefty list of actors lending their voices to this project including Jessica Biel, Justin Long, John Cleese and Gary Oldman.

Will Chuck befriend enough alien pals to get off Planet 51 without being discovered by the scared green residents? We'll have to wait and see — the movie hits theaters November 20th.

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.

As I said above, the story of evil humans coming and despoiling an alien planet is nothing new in written science fiction. Off the top of my head, there's Ursula LeGuin's The Word For World Is Forest, among others. I'm almost done reading Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods (review coming soon) which deals with this theme. But I can't think of too many movies which have handled this type of storyline. (Enemy Mine, I guess.)

We still don't know all of the plot details for James Cameron's Avatar, coming in 2009, but an early "scriptment" that's reputed to be real includes a lot of information. In a nutshell, Earth is ruined due to centuries of exploitation, and we've used up all our resources. So we decide to go and plunder the mineral wealth of the planet Pandora, whose atmosphere is poisonous to us. Humans can only walk around on Pandora by growing special alien bodies, akin to the native Na'vi aliens. The humans can control their own vat-grown Na'vi bodies, which are called avatars. (We don't know how much of this stuff survives in the final script, but Sigourney Weaver's comments about her character having "her own avatar" make it sound as though it's still there in some form.)

In addition to these surrogate aliens, the humans have also landed some bloodthirsty troops who hate the natives and want to wipe them out. So there's a conflict between the Avatar-using humans, who want to understand the natives (who are basically Native Americans) and the power-armor-using troops, who want to bulldoze all the natives' sacred lands and kill them all. This leads to a speech by our hero, Josh:

Pandora is not Hell, it's Eden. And Eden is being bulldozed and stripmined and raped. We have no right. We are the aliens here. We are the space monsters.

If that sounds too subtle for you, then there's Terra, which we covered the other day. The new full-length animated film is about humans coming to terraform a planet of peaceloving aliens, after Earth has become basically uninhabitable. We already terraformed Venus and Mars, but then the planets had a huge civil war. So now we have to come and use our transforming device to turn Terra's helium atmosphere into oxygen.

Are you seeing a trend here? The stories about humans as scourge of the cosmos are what come after the post-apocalyptic Earth stories. We ruin our own planet, so we have to go and fuck up someone else's planet. (That's also the storyline in the Winterson book, where Orbus is about to become unable to support human life.) There could also be some guilt about the Iraq war and our various other foreign adventures, which we could be excising.

There's also the remake of the original humans-are-assholes movie The Day The Earth Stood Still, coming this December, in which peaceful aliens warn us not to take our asshole ways out into space. And there's a new direct-to-DVD sequel to Starship Troopers coming out in a couple of months. In the original Troopers, director Paul Verhoeven's aim was to show that humans were the aggressors and the bugs were simply reacting to human colonies encroaching on their territory. This message flew over a lot of people's heads, so maybe Troopers scriptwriter Ed Neumeier (who's directing the new movie) will make it more blatant this time around.

And then there's also the animated Planet 51, starring the Rock, in which the peaceful aliens think the humans are there to invade and despoil their planet. But they're wrong... or are they?

I guess there's not enough examples there to argue that this is a sweeping new trend. And of course the post-apocalyptic Earth movie has one major advantage over the alien world epic: it's cheap to film, since you can make a post-apocalyptic landscape almost anywhere you can find some rubble.

The 3-D film, which was originally supposed to be distributed by New Line but is now coming out on Warner Bros., is about astronaut Capt. Charles "Chuck" Baker, who leads an expedition to the title world, which is inhabited by those human-fearing aliens, who dress like humans from the 1950s. Says Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson:

I go on their planet, and I'm actually the alien... Of course, I befriend a little boy [to try to] get back to my spaceship. It's really great.

Planet Due in Late 09 [Sci-Fi Wire]

Planet 51 is about a planet of paranoid aliens who are terrified of invaders. So when astronaut Chuck Baker (The Rock) shows up, they fear the worst. That in itself doesn't sound too bad, but the presence of a young cowardly alien trying to overcome his fears by helping Chuck evade capture, return to his spaceship and find his way home tends to suggest that there may be an uplifting Elton John-esque ballad or two in there somewhere, between culture-shock jokes and "Hey, aliens are, you know, just like us, why don't we all love each other?" moments. Biel and Long play aliens who fall in love. And Seann William Scott (Stiffler from American Pie) will play another alien.

The film's directed by Jorge Blanco, better known as the chief graphic artist on 1998's Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines PC game. It's due to be finished by March of next year, at which point we can all fondly remember such cinematic greats as Happy Feet. Click here for more pics. [Variety.com]

This film marks the first time that New Line will be venturing into the waters dominated by Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks Animation, and interestingly enough it was written by Joe Stillman, who wrote both Shrek and Shrek 2 for Dreamworks. The film will be directed by Jorge Blanco, who created the Commandos video games for the PlayStation 2 back in 1998.

New Line will apparently be activating their marketing juggernaut for the film. Ilion CEO Ignacio Perez Dolset said, "The deal has been made with the objective on everybody's part of going out on no fewer than 3,000 screens."

That means New Line will be spending an amount of money equal to the budget or more in an effort to put people in the seats and sell a ton of Planet 51 merchandise and video games. Let's hope they fare better than Fox did when they released Titan A.E. That sci fi animated film tanked in 2000, and single-handedly shut down Fox Animation Studios. Still, New Line won't be selling their shirts for this one, since they're only buying the U.S. distribution rights.

Based on the pictures they've released, and if they're able to attach some A-list voice talent, they might give the other players in the CGI pool a run for their money. If Planet 51 manages to capture any of the whimsy of The Iron Giant, we're in.

New Line Lands On 'Planet 51' [Variety]