Thanks to Bonnie from StarWars.com and Peter from Slashfilm for both suggesting Fire in the Sky. Vote on which movie listed below you think is the most scary, or suggest other ideas in comments.

In an interview with Hollywood.com Guttenberg opined:

It's definitely time for another Police Academy. And I think they could make another Cocoon. They're surefire hits and I think they're good for the world. They make the world a better place and that's what it's all about.

So let's consider all the franchises, TV shows and movies that still haven't been slated for a comeback. Which would destroy your mind the most if it got remade?

Nothing would make us happier than a return to zombie greatness like Dawn of The Dead and Night of the Living Dead. Sadly, it's been a hard road for this much-loved zombie director. Especially after his last flicks Diary of the Dead and the zombies-that-can-learn feature Land of the Dead. But we haven't lost hope yet, and this is the first trailer for his new film Survival of The Dead that has us really excited. But what do you think?

Yes, vampires. You knew they were coming, and here they are: Mainstream Culture's Favorite Super Creeps. But here's the question: Can a witch defeat a vampire? Which is quicker on the draw, the hypnotic gaze of a vamp or some kind of speedy spell to stake toothy nemeses? You'd think that years of watching Buffy would've given me an answer for this, but I'm turning to you for it instead. Don't let me down, people.

For those looking for clarification: This is a hypothetical generic vampire versus an equally hypothetical generic witch we're talking about here. Yes, Dracula would probably be able to defeat all but the most wizened witch because he's a particularly big and bad Big Bad, but what about Joe B. Vampire? We know the general vamp characteristics, but how useful is any of that against someone who can overrule the rules of reality with enough practice and preparation?

As with all the earlier polls, this one will be open until midnight PST tonight, and the winner will be named... and, perhaps, given a particularly fitting prize... tomorrow. Vote before you head out to your Halloween party of choice.

What was the pop culture moment when you said "no more" to the End Times?

Alan Ball revealed to TV Guide

"Somebody is going to bite the dust and it's going to be really good to see them get what they deserve," Ball says. The only clue the Blood boss would reveal is that "it's a person we'll be happy to see go."

So who should it be, now that my blood lust has been quenched with the death of Eggs I have to admit, one good turn deserves another, can we kill him again? If not can his death be at the beginning of all the "last week on True Blood" recaps? It would be better than vampire dirt sex.

But moving on, completely disregarding any book spoilers, let's wager who "gets it" next year....

Fall is officially in full effect, which means the big bad summer sci-fi season is over! Now, personally, I set my bar so impossibly high that no film could ever come close to pleasing me unless our lord and saviour Michael Bay himself were to direct it. But perhaps some of you plebs are able to enjoy lesser entertainment - though I fail to see how you can watch anything beyond those low brows of yours. So, now that we've had a little while to absorb and reflect the entertainment we've witnessed, what really was a disaster? So, enjoy a mini "clip-show" to refresh your memory and then vote on what was truly a disaster!


WATCHMEN:



DOLLHOUSE:



TERMINATOR SALVATION:



BSG FINALE:



STAR TREK:



X-MEN ORIGINS - WOLVERINE:



TRANSFORMERS-REVENGE OF THE FALLEN:



GI JOE:



SUMMER GLAU:



DISTRICT 9:



OTHER:



Now go vote... and argue!!!

I also want to use this change in format to bring a little news. For a while now, I've been trying to bring you the best Disaster I can with the time that I have when not busy with other ventures. But, in less than two weeks, I will be welcoming a tiny disaster of my own into the world. So between that and other "official" work that I've been involved in, I will be having far less time to put together a weekly "This is a Disaster". So I am going to take a short hiatus.

I will return, I would just rather promise future greatness than deliver regular mediocrity.


I'll still be lurking around here doing the odd 'shop when time and inspiration meet. But if you want to see what work I'm up too check out my blog. I have big plans for ROACH, so continue to check there periodically. And if you are curious what the fuck I'm going to do with a baby, I just started a new blog that I will do my best to keep up with so follow along there.

Thanks for all your interest so far and I will return before you notice I'm gone.

-Garrison Dean

Variety reports on the fact that Warehouse 13, the show that became the flagship for the "new" Syfy, was the most successful show ever to appear on the network, with viewership rising throughout the first season, and quotes VP of programming for channel Mark Stern as suggesting that it showcases the future direction for the network:

We're looking for new summer series for next year — for something that would be more along the lines of a more traditional genre piece... We're [also] looking at a potential latenight show, a potential single-camera show, possibly animation. I think that on some level, we're always going to maintain a sense of entertainment and not get too dour.

I have to admit; with Warehouse 13, Eureka and the brand new (and hit) Stargate Universe as flagships, I think that the network's looking healthier and more interesting than it has in a long time, despite skepticism about the rebranding. So much so, in fact, that I'm more willing to entertain the idea of a Syfy late night show. But am I alone? You tell me:

Okay so clearly we just had some fun with Nic Cage and Superman toys, but why stop with the Tim Burton movie? What if he was Cyborg Superman, or Zombie Superman... and so on. And while we're at it, what about these guys for the big red-and-blue blur? Just throwing it out there: Jon Hamm as Superman seems like a good idea:

But in all seriousness we want to know what you think about the original image, which we ran the other day. Real, or bad Photoshop job?

io9 movie pitch photoshopping by Julia Carusillo.

Of course there's always this:

Let us consider the following images. Above, we have the classic corridor that started it all in 2001. Check out the rest before taking our poll, all the way at the end of this post.

Here's the fine corridor, packed with babes, from classic 80s James Bond flick Moonraker.

Here the Sandmen go zooming around their domed, doomed city in the silvery future-car corridor from Logan's Run.

This is pretty much the classic scifi horror corridor, from Aliens. As Anderson points out, versions of this corridor have appeared in countless first-person shooter games.

Whoa, dude, it's the wavy weirdy corridor from Saturn 3.

And here's the retro-style corridor from recent indie flick Moon, which has a mirror all the way at the end to give you the illusion of prefab hell going on forever.

Here's another classic corridor, from the ship Nostromo in the original Alien film. Its industrial feel gave this outer space flick its grittiness - you knew you were a long way from Star Trek when you saw it.

Read more about these corridors and others in Anderson's article at Den of Geek.

io9 pal Rene Najera, a public health worker with the state of Maryland, wrote in to ask if we could do an informal poll about how people prepare for flu season. This year, unlike those previous, you'll have the option to get two flu vaccines: The regular one, which includes antibodies for several anticipated flu strains; and one which can provide immunity against H1N1. So, for the sake of immunological research, give us your vaccine strategy.

The film follows a boy, turned half-vampire at the hands of Reily. The youth cashes in mortality to save his friend, and in return has to work as an "assistant" in the traveling circus that's got plenty of side show acts.

I'm very curious to see your reaction to the movie based on the books Cirque du Freak now retitled as the Vampire's Assistant So weigh in — interested or over it? VA will be in theaters October 23.

If you can't remember what all these new shows are — which is a bad sign for some of them, to begin with — then check out our handy guide to the new TV season, for all the details.

Cameron told reporters at Comic Con, that he kept tweaking his Na'Vi aliens, asking his all-male crew over and over, "Would you want to do her?" (Probably in reference to Zoe Saldana's Neytiri.) So now that you've seen the movie's trailer — and many of you have seen 16 minutes of the film in full-on 3-D Imax — what's your verdict?

Anderson grew up listening to bands like Pink Floyd and Rush (he's now pals with Rush drummer Neil Peart), and when we cornered him at Comic-Con he said that he thinks there's a lot of overlap between the themes in prog rock and those in science fiction. "These are songs about dragons and crystal cities," he said with a grin. "You probably couldn't make music like that now, but science fiction movies still use prog rock-like music for their soundtracks. You need music for alien civilizations and this is what works."

When he set out to make a prog rock album to go with his novel, Anderson worked with record label owner Shawn Gordon and the band right from the beginning. He came up with a proposal for the novel and used that to develop the final book and lyrics for the music. Gordon said that some of the original story for the novel had to go in order to make a good album. "Some of the legend backstory would have worked well in a novel, but would have been an absolute cheesefest in music." Each song on the album captures a scene from the novel, and taken together gives us a sense of the emotional tenor of the book. Sometimes, songs became scenes or vice-versa.

Some scenes from the book, however, didn't work as lyrics due to the cheese factor. "We couldn't write a song about a sea monster attacking a ship," Anderson confessed. "So we just made it instrumental."

Anderson came away from the experience completely excited. "I had a fanboy blast," he said.

What do you think the music of science fiction is?

The crew over at Slashfilm was tipped off with a casting tape of the latest casting reels for vampire remake Let Me In, from director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) . They also recently posted a crop of concept posters which lead me to believe that Eli, would no longer be the androgynous little vampire playmate we all came to love. I speculated that the tights and long hair concept art meant that the studio might be toying with simply ignoring Eli's wicked backstory and make her a cute little girl. The name change from Eli to Abby isn't calming these fears.

That said, I quite like one of the little youngsters for the role. But I'd like to see what you all think, so to the polls!

We already know that Syfy is working on reboots for both Alien Nation and Quantum Leap, but why stop there? There are some fine dearly departed shows out there that could easily serve as the network's chance to get back into the space opera genre. Here're some of our picks - and why we think they could work.

UFO


What's that, you say? You don't think UFO is space operatic enough? Well, if you just duplicated the original series - where the secret organization SHADO worked to prevent alien invaders from harvesting human organs without anyone knowing - we'd agree... but what if you took the battle back to the aliens in addition to keeping the intergalactic Cold War going on Earth? We're seeing something not unlike Torchwood: Children of Earth mixed with BSG's silent space battles in our heads, a gritty, political take on the alien invasion idea... and we like it.

Blake's 7


Escaped convicts fighting for freedom against a fascistic government in the distant outer space future? There's nothing about the concept behind Terry Nation's 1970s BBC series that doesn't scream win, and as a plus for Syfy, the British Sky network is already working on a revival so they don't have to do everything from scratch. The potential for political allegory illustrated with impressive special effects rivals Galactica at its best, if done right, and there'd be less outcry from fans of the original - This one was always downbeat and depressing.

Farscape


Yes, we know that people have gotten mad when we suggested remaking Farscape before, and to them - and to those keeping the dream alive with the current Farscape comics - we'll suggest this: How about we don't reboot the series entirely, but relaunch it and find a new focus without undoing everything that's come before? If nothing else, that's got to be better than waiting for the perennially-forthcoming webisode sequels, right?

Lost In Space


It's a classic for a reason, people. Don't let memories of William Hurt and Matt LeBlanc put you off, Lost In Space is ready for a revival. What other show offers the chance for family drama, fantastic aliens and cowardly scientists hamming it up on a weekly basis? Take the Buffy route of using genre staples as metaphors for familiar problems, add a generous helping of humor, and voila: A Space Opera for all the family. Hell, just get Josh Friedman onboard as showrunner and you'll be set.

Star Trek


When you think of Space Opera TV, you can't help but think of Trek... and with the success of the new movie relaunching the franchise, and Bryan Fuller (under contract to Syfy's parent company NBC/Universal to come up with new shows) constantly talking about his desire to create a new Trek TV show, it almost seems like fate. TrekMovie even made the case for Syfy launching a new Trek, leading the network's Craig Engler to respond "A good, new, affordable Trek would be great on Syfy." Take note of "affordable," though; as we've pointed out before, the rights issues involved alone may make this idea financially a bad idea.

What do you think? Would you watch any of the above, or are you aghast at the very idea of yet another remake? Use the poll below to let us know just how wrong we are.

Communist Amerika

Although the United States passionately feared a communist takeover, there is surprisingly little science fiction that imagines what the United States would be like under communism. During the Cold War, there were a lot of movies about communist spies and communist agents and communist invasions, but few stories tried to grapple with what the United States would look like in a long-term communist scenario. The propaganda movie Red Nightmare from 1962, with its grim portrait of small town commie USA, gestured at this idea a little bit. But it wasn't really until the 1980s with the miniseries Amerika that we saw a fully-fledged communist USA. The miniseries imagines what the United States would be like 10 years after the Soviets invade in the late 1980s. Hint: It's evil and must be stopped.

Two books from the 1990s offer slightly more plausible scenarios. In Maureen Mchugh's China Mountain Zhang, the United States suffers an economic collapse in the 21st century, followed by a revolution led by Chinese communists. China has become an economic superpower, while America founders through its own cultural revolution. And in the British short story collection Back In The USSA, Theodore Roosevelt is reelected as a progressive candidate in 1912, thus setting in motion a series of events that lead to a people's revolution in the United States in 1917. Russia, however, remains Czarist. It's a fun thought experiment for people who like to geek out about early 20th century American progressive politics.

Could it happen?
It's telling that Back In The USSA has to reach so far back in history to make its scenario plausible. And McHugh posits a future disaster. The point is that this scenario is an extreme deviation from the country's current trajectory. Sure, anything could happen – there are always black swans. But this possibility feels more like a thought experiment than a genuine possibility.

Fascist Fragments

Americans have feared a fascist takeover perhaps as much as they have feared communism in the past. In fact, the two are often lumped together in political polemics. But in science fiction, Philip K Dick's early 1960s novel The Man In The High Castle set the standard for fantasies of a fascist takeover. In Dick's vision, FDR is assassinated early in his presidency, which results in a weak government that fails to pull the country out of the Depression. So the United States doesn't have the economic or industrial capacity to aid the Allies, Germany conquers Europe, Japan conquers the Pacific, and the United States is broken up and divided among its conquerors. Parts of the nation remain free, parts go to Germany, and most of the West Coast goes to Japan.

Other fantasies about a fascist United States also imagine the country as having broken up. Even the recent television show Jericho depicts (at one point in the series) a post-nuclear apocalypse in the U.S. resulting in its fragmentation into small, authoritarian regions. Obviously there are some alternate histories that imagine a unified United States going fascist, but the idea of a fragmented country falling prey to authoritarians is a common one.

Could it happen?
The United States has sometimes flirted with authoritarianism. Presidents like FDR and Richard Nixon consolidated so much power that many historians would call them proto-fascist. The fact that the United States does not have a parliamentary democracy often makes it appear to resemble nations whose leadership is confined to a small cadre. However, the country also has a history of correcting itself when power is too closely tied to one group. Term limits were set for presidents after FDR died, and the Watergate scandal destroyed Nixon's regime. The question is, would this self-correcting mechanism remain healthy if the country fragmented into smaller pieces? The Man In The High Castle, even after all these years, still makes a persuasive case that a divided America could become fascist.

Corporate Feudalism

Many cyberpunk stories are predicated on the idea that in the near future the United States will be ruled by corporations who are more powerful than governments. This is the premise in William Gibson's classic Neuromancer, Marge Piercy's post-cyberpunk He, She, and It, and is even an important idea in the TV show Fringe. Although a shell of the U.S. Government might remain intact in these scenarios, true power is held by multinationals. Neal Stephenson does a terrific job showing what this would be like in his novel The Diamond Age. Corporations create enclaves with their own cultural norms that function as city-states. (One such enclave adopts Victorian social values and fashions, for example.)

This situation leads to a scenario like feudalism because the corporations become like kingdoms, with an executive class serving as aristocrats and workers as serfs. The world is fragmented economically and culturally, but in many versions of this story the governments remain the same. Still, these governments are more ceremonial than anything else. The world is run by capitalists, not politicians.

Could it really happen?
As we see in the TV show Fringe, corporate feudalism seems as if it has already happened. Although the show is not set in the future, the corporation Massive Dynamic clearly has as much power as the government, if not more. Wealthy companies like Google and Microsoft have more money than many nations. If Google merged with Northrop Grumman and bought Blackwater, could they take over the U.S. Government? Sounds a helluva lot more plausible than a communist revolution.

Since we still live in a democratic society, go ahead and exercise your right to vote. Take our poll and tell the world what you think is going to happen to the U.S. Government.

Top image by Alon Chou.

According to Levy, history will ultimately realize that the two Matrix sequels just ruined the original movie so much that even Jar-Jar will seem greater in context:

A factor that I think especially fueled the battering of [The Phantom Menace] was the advent a mere month earlier of a genuine classic of science fiction cinema, "The Matrix." ...At the time, the cool kids were absolutely vivid in declaring the Wachowski brothers' film an immortal stunner and to see in Lucas's reemergence an abject failure. Indeed, if you had polled people in the summer of 1999 and asked them which franchise was going to produce better results over the next two films, I'm pretty certain that 90% or more of respondents would have declared for "The Matrix."

Well, with both trilogies complete and behind us, I'm not sure that those people would have been correct in the least. Lucas improved on quite a bit of "SWEP1" in the subsequent prequels, while the Wachowskis absolutely crash-landed "The Matrix" in their sequels to it. (Let's leave off "Speed Racer," shall we, so as not to be overly cruel....) Especially given a decade of reassessment, I'd call Lucas' three-film enterprise by far the more successful.

I'm an entirely impartial judge of this, having a surreal and unexplainable dislike of the Matrix series, so I'm throwing it open to you, dear readers: Did Keanu leave more of a bad taste in your mouth than Hayden Christensen?

SWEP1 + 10 = ? [Oregon Live] (Via Star Wars.com)

Please note: Yes, I've probably forgotten a show or two, but things like Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica aren't included on purpose; we're really asking about the finales on the main broadcast networks over the last month. And if someone wants to make the case that stylistic similarities between the end of House and Fringe really mean that Greg House is just traveling between alternate Earths, we'll happily take that as an excuse to finally claim that the show really is sci-fi, honest.

Lost island map from Lostmap.Blogspot.Com.

And here's a bonus poll. Now that we've gotten all the possible use we could out of the time-honored phrase "raping my childhood," what can we replace it with?

Note: As with last year's similar poll, we're not including movies that are expected to be hits, like Star Trek or Terminator. If you want to make a case in the comments as to why you'd be surprised if Star Trek makes tons of money, go ahead. I was debating whether to include Wolverine, but a lot of people seem somewhat pessimistic about its chances now.

Have you never heard of some of these movies? More information about Pandorum is here. More info on District 9 is here. More about Moon is here. And here's Game.

Note: As with last year's similar poll, I'm not listing every summer movie. Just the ones which seem to have a high expectation of making bucketloads of your money. Which of these movies will have a shocking shortfall?

Two Methods Of Hitting On The Shrink

Note when Piven hits on his new shrink, it's so aggressive it makes me shudder. Meanwhile. the new guy (Bobby Cannavale) can stare down the lovely Sarah Paulson's backside in a completely inappropriate manner. and somehow it's not threatening. Maybe it's in Piven's yelly delivery? Neither of them sells me on the idea that they are attracted to the Doctor anyway - it's a poor match up from the get go for the two of them (that doesn't mean we don't love Sarah Paulson any less). I want to see Piven and Paulson do a back and forth, I think there could be sparks.

On His Expulsion


The difference is "hilarious."

On Mount Olympus

Plus 100 points to Bobby for slipping in Unicorn and making this Mount Olympus banter interesting. Piven, you're losing me. I also enjoy how they're both kind of terrible at acting "broken."

Love Advice

One plays ping pong, the other gets crazy people to strip for him. In Piven's defense I believe the god Cupid was a little bit of a hell-raiser, but either way Piven gives advice like a GHB-peddling bartender - seriously she'll totally go for it. But maybe that's why the older series was loved by few, because Cupid had to grow as well. Cannavale is a little too sweet for my taste, but I still lean towards his cutesy delivery instead of Piven's fast talking, barking, seen-it-before behavior. Sorry Piven - it works when you're Ari, but as Cupid it's a hard sell for me, which isn't really his fault as Entourage came after this.

As I said before, I think Cupid has a place in ABC's saccharine-sweet line up with Samantha Who and Dancing With The Whosits. Plus Cannavale isn't a very difficult person to follow. He's charming and nice to look at, but sadly not terribly engaging. I hope the series can break away from the 1990s series (which was canceled, after all) and find its own stride.

I'm still split, but with the dismal ratings Cupid received this week this may be the last time I have to think about it. What do you guys think?

It's lost some of its specificity and force, and maybe it needs to retire with honor. What honor it has left.

When I learned what a nerd was, it was through Steven Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, along with Godel Escher Bach (aka the contents of a small town library) and (why be proud?) the movie Real Genius. Here's what it meant to me: intellectual play, lack of pretension, gaming, science fiction, being smart and not caring what other people thought. Nerds were people who questioned everything, who didn't accept anything until it was proven, who picked locks and repurposed lab equipment, who pursued their own passions for their own sake.

The category "nerd" overturned conventional ideas of cool, of attractiveness in both men and women, and of what it made sense to do on a Friday night. By valuing people who like cool stuff and don't care if gets them called a loser, it redefined what being a winner is. It gave me a way to value who I was and what I was doing.

So yes, I'm saying the category means something to me, which makes it all the more irritating that it's been re-branded out from under us. It's not just the mainstreaming of video games and superhero comics, it's that the whole identity is being reduced to a set of keywords, generational nostalgia and Internet trends that people can reflexively cheer for (monkeys are the next pirates are the next ninjas, pass it on).

People we once designated nerds are morphing into dot-com frat boys who play Halo and cheer for slave-Leia cosplayers at Comic-Con. In fact Comic-Con itself may once have been a refuge for an outsider nerd aesthetic, but in the year of Watchmen and something calling itself The Dark Knight it's starting to look like a smug victory lap.

Is it time to walk away? Most of what made the term meaningful was the will to be smart and quirky, and the corresponding moral courage to stand up and say so even when it wasn't cool. Without that, nerds are just another target market, a flag of convenience for random hipsters, and at worst, a marker of privilege, dot-com wealth and entitlement. Face it, nerd nostalgia has become an enormous cash-in, and I'd rather not subscribe to the banner under which the cultural identity I sweated for is now being monetized.

The good news is that there's always a place for lack of pretension, universal curiosity, skepticism and core techiness no matter where the rest of culture has gone. The qualities that made "nerd" a valuable term survive in all kinds of vital subcultures - open sourcers, makers, technologically driven activists, authors who are breaking down genre barriers. Nerdcore artists are fusing it with rap, punk, and whatever else they can get their hands on. Why do we need an identity marker that's lost its force and urgency, when we can coin new words, try new things, take risks, and leave the worn-down nostalgia behind?

io9ers, give me a cultural sounding. Am I out of touch here?

EDITOR'S NOTE: There were only supposed to be 3 choices in this poll, but a glitch in our polling software created the spurious "answer 4" and "answer 5." I was going to fix it, but now that the great 4 vs. 5 debate has begun I feel that I must allow the glitch to remain. - Annalee

Of course, there was also an hour of Clone Wars last night (although no Batman: Brave and Bold, sadly), as well. Even with TiVo, isn't this overkill for just one night?

Note: I only included shows that have not had theatrically released movies, or that don't have movies in the pipeline - even if a show's movie version didn't feature the original cast.