If you liked Star Trek... And who didn't like J.J. Abrams' breezy reinvention of the 1960s space adventure show, focusing more on the coming-of-age of Kirk and Spock, and their journey from rivals to friends? Anarcho-syndicalists, that's who.

...You'll Love Ringworld by Larry Niven. The defining "big object in space" novel, Niven sees your scary Romulan drilling platform and raises you a huge ring-shaped world orbiting a star, with "shadow squares" to provide a day/night cycle, and many weird ecosystems and cultures thriving on it. And if you enjoy that, delve into more classic space opera by Heinlein, Clarke, E.E. "Doc" Smith, David Weber and Lois McMaster Bujold.

If you liked Wolverine... Maybe you enjoyed the way the latest X-Men spinoff used the experiences of a lonely mutant to talk about the ravages of war. Maybe you just liked the purer distillations of mutant angst and feeling like an outsider in non-mutant society. Or perhaps you just liked the sexy mayhem.

...You'll love Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey. The tale of a lonely mutant in a town on the U.S.-Mexico border, this novel's young female version of Wolverine named Loup blew us away. She's been genetically engineered not to feel fear, and she becomes her town's secret superhero.

If you liked The Dark Knight... Who didn't love The Dark Knight's reinvention of superhero comics' "grim and gritty" cliches in an even more noir, even more mind-blowing vein? Whether you were into the portrayal of a Gotham City that destroys the best among its citizens, or you just liked the brooding, this film was instantly iconic.

...You'll love Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey, or just about anything by Richard K. Morgan. If you love noir anti-heroes squaring off with madmen for the future of a city that doesn't deserve saving, then you'll want to spend some serious time with Sandman Slim — sure, the city in question is L.A., and that's automatically less cool than the fictional Gotham. But still, the hero who's crawled out of Hell and now fights his power-mad former friend is the best fix for your Nolan Batman addiction right now. And for more noir, check out Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs novels as well as his noir fantasy The Steel Remains.

If you think you'll like James Cameron's Avatar... Okay, you can't really know if you're going to like Avatar yet, since it's just a couple of trailers and one preview day so far. But a lot of us are pretty pumped up about the cool concept, of a human put into a hybrid alien body to interact with cool blue aliens... not to mention all the war-machine technology and battle scenes.

...You'll love The Color Of Distance by Amy Thomson. Why not try another take on the idea of a human who's transformed into an alien-human hybrid to live among aliens? Juna is a human who lands in the rainforests of the planet Tendu, whose pollen gives humans deadly allergies. Juna's atmosphere suit gets ruptured and she nearly dies, but the planet's elders save her by transforming her into something like one of them. She learns their skin-color-based language and grows to understand their weird culture, and accept her own half-alien self.

If you liked Hancock... Maybe you liked the look at a more flawed superhero. Maybe you liked the alienation, or the feeling of futility in spite of great power. Maybe you enjoyed the cynicism.

...You'll love Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman. In any case, you should definitely check out this smarter, cooler look at what superheroes would be like in the real world. Where Hancock fobs you off with repeated gags and muddled mythology, Grossman (an io9 contributor) gives you real psychological complexity and sharp characterization.

If you liked The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button... It sure did look impressive: a love story involving a man who ages backwards, and somehow keeps finding the same woman over and over again as she ages forwards in time. Set against the backdrop of history as it was, maybe you liked the epic feeling.

...You'll love Confessions Of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer. This is definitely a case where a book did it first, and way better. (Yes, Button was nominally based on a HAITE story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.) Greer both pioneered and perfected the "backwards-aging love story" concept, without ignoring the potential creepiness of a boy who looks like an old man having a crush on a girl his own age. Heartbreaking and epic, this is the story Button should have been.

If you liked Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen... Umm... Well, you might have enjoyed the battle scenes and huge robots fighting alongside military hardware. You might have been into the love story between Shia and Megan, or Shia learning to grow up and accept responsibility. Oh, whatever. Let's assume you liked this movie for the big robots and military hardware.

...You'll love Hammer's Slammers by David Drake. This 1979 story collection, as much as Heinlein's Starship Troopers, is a landmark in the history of military science fiction. And it has the big hardware in spades — most notably the giant super-tank that the Slammers roll around in, which comes equipped with a massive 20 centimeter power gun that fires high-energy copper plasma. You might also really dig the Jon and Lobo novels by Mark Van Name, which are about a guy who makes friends with a giant artificially intelligent battlesuit, and they go off having adventures together.

If you liked Knowing... Maybe you liked the weird clues and all the numbers that secretly predicted all the disasters in the world. But most likely, you liked it for the same reason people seem to be liking 2012: for the apocalypse.

...You'll love Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. For a somewhat more light-hearted look at the end of days, you really can't beat this book. Or if you want a post-apocalyptic novel which shows how America continues after everything has collapsed and we've reverted to slavery and other nineteenth century institutions, try Liberation by Brian Francis Slattery.

If you liked Monsters vs. Aliens... With its A-list cast and zany monsters banding together to save the world, who didn't like this movie? Plus, it had a super-basic, but still welcome, message about being yourself and how it's OK to be different and all that stuff.

...You'll love Monster by A. Lee Martinez It's got the same spirit of fun, and a similar misfit cast of characters who save the day despite being weirdos. But it's maybe a little less kid-friendly, and the eponymous Monster is more of a slob who gets rid of the paranormal creatures threatening all the normal people, even though he'd rather just crash on the couch and drink beer. His paper gnome companion will definitely remind you of a cartoon character, and could easily be voiced by Hugh Laurie or Will Arnett in the movie version.

If you liked District 9... With its look at otherness, and the predicament of a human who accidentally gets infected with alien DNA and starts losing his privileged status, District 9's alien-ghetto tale was full of metaphors for the way humans treat each other.

...You'll love Mind Of My Mind by Octavia Butler. Nobody wrote about hierarchy, oppression and otherness better than Butler. And Mind Of My Mind deals with the idea of losing your humanity and becoming something unfamiliar and terrifying with incisive brilliance.

If you liked Moon... You probably got into the chilling depiction of loneliness on our only satellite and the slow madness that overtook our hero, played by Sam Rockwell. But you probably also loved the depiction of two Sam Rockwells, and the questions of identity this doppelganger story raised.

...You'll love Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley. If you want a really thought-provoking tale about cloning, you'll definitely want to check out Ophiuchi Hotline. Varley deals with a far-future society where only the dead can be cloned legally, then plunges us into a world of outlaws whose cloning goes far beyond the permissible.

If you liked Wanted... It probably wasn't for any vestigial supervillain trappings. In its movie version, this film was mostly about a man realizing he's inherited his dad's gunman powers, and getting inducted into a society of super-assassins. But more than anything, it was about becoming an ubermensch and realizing that the "little people's" rules don't apply to you.

...You'll love Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. If you really want a story of a super-assassin who has gone beyond traditional morality, you should check out the tale of Horza, a shapeshifter who has rejected the super-advanced Culture and is willing to do whatever it takes to win. Or if you just want the tale of an ubermensch who comes into his power, read Frank Herbert's Dune for the tale of Leto Atreides II.

Those are our book recommendations for the movie addicts in your life. What are your suggestions?

Thanks to Graeme, Meredith and Annalee for suggestions!

As you might know, the writers' strike forced Bay to start work on TF2 without an actual script — all he had was an outline by writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. So a lot of the movie's early designs and ideas came about without a real script, and when Orci and Kurtzman came back to work after the strike, Bay was able to tell them which robots he wanted in the movie. As he says in this clip, all of that pre-visualization work and brainstorming with artists actually informed the movie's script, once it finally had one. You probably have your own ideas about whether that was a good thing.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen comes out on DVD tomorrow, October 20, on Blu-Ray and DVD, wherever awesomeness is available.

Here's what the press release says about the two-disc DVD/Blu-Ray edition:

Two-Disc Special Edition DVD & Blu-ray:
The TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen two-disc Special Edition DVD is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 televisions with Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround, French 5.1 Surround and Spanish 5.1 Surround with English, French and Spanish subtitles. The Blu-ray will be presented in 1080p high definition with English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital with English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese subtitles. The disc breakdown is as follows:

Disc 1:
• Commentary by Michael Bay, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman

Disc 2:
• The Human Factor: Exacting Revenge of the Fallen-This multi-chapter documentary chronicles the entire creation of the film and includes interviews with the cast and crew:
o Seeds of Vengeance - Development and Design - After the overwhelming success of 2007's Transformers, how do the filmmakers top themselves for the sequel?
o Domestic Destruction – Production: United States - Michael Bay believes in going big: Big action and big explosions. Cast and crew are pushed to the limit as they traverse the U.S. from New Mexico to Pennsylvania.
o Joint Operations – Production: Military - No other filmmaker in the world enjoys the kind of military access and cooperation Michael Bay has. Here we see just how efficient our armed forces are and the awe and respect shown by the cast.
o Wonders of the World – Production: Middle East - You can't really reproduce Egypt anywhere but Egypt so off we go to Giza and Luxor.
o Start Making Sense - Editing - In order to turn over the massive amount of film as quickly as possible to VFX, four editors work tirelessly in a unique tag-team approach to shape the film.
o Under the Gun – Visual Effects – Revenge of the Fallen features the most complicated VFX in film history. So complicated in fact that the filmmakers were unsure they would make the deadline. The DEVASTATOR VFX alone required 83% of ILM's total render farm capacity.
o Running the Gauntlet – Post-Production and Release - Working seven days a week, Michael Bay and company usher the film through sound design, Digital Intermediate color-timing and a globe-trotting whirlwind of premieres.
• A Day with Bay: Tokyo-An intimate and fun all-access journey with Michael Bay as he travels to Tokyo, Japan tor the world premiere of the biggest film of the year.
• 25 Years of TRANSFORMERS-Access an all-new featurette celebrating a monumental milestone for one of Hasbro's most successful and popular franchises.
• NEST: Transformer Data-Hub-Explore conceptual artwork created by the production for 12 of the most popular AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS from the film.
• Deconstructing Visual Bayhem with Commentary by Pre-Vis Supervisor
Steve Yamamoto- A series of multi-angle pre-visualization sequences allowing viewers to learn how some of the film's most spectacular scenes were created with an introduction by Michael Bay.
• Extended Scenes
• Music Video: Linkin Park's "New Divide"

BLU-RAY EXCLUSIVE:
• The ALLSPARK Experiment-Viewers get their chance to unleash the power of the recently recovered ALLSPARK shard on Earth vehicles. Begin by selecting and customizing a vehicle with a selection of parts and accessories. Then apply the ALLSPARK to this creation and watch what happens. Applying the ALLSPARK to certain custom combinations enables four new robot characters with special powers. If viewers discover all four, they unlock a fifth vehicle, which reveals a top secret message about the future of the TRANSFORMERS movie franchise.
• NEST: Transformer Data-Hub-A database of some of the TRANSFORMERS characters that appear in the new film, offering users access to each robot's confidential file including:
o Innovative 3D spin galleries of each robot
o A timeline for each TRANSFORMERS character charting its origins, back story and design evolution from toys to animated series to comics and finally feature films
• Giant Effing Movie – A very personal look at the making of the movie.
• The Matrix of Marketing-An archive of the film's promotional media including trailers, posters and television spots.

In these clips from next week's DVD release, we get a peek at trying to film in Egypt, blowing up a college campus and the enduring mythology of the Transformers in their 25th anniversary year.

Best part? Megan Fox sharing that Michael Bay is about as fun-loving as we'd expect.

"There's no, like, 'Oh, he would like for us to try (a scene) at least.' That's not it, - we weren't giving the option.
"You do it, or something bad is gonna happen to you."

Revenge of the Fallen's release comes hand-in-hand with the 25th anniversary of the toys, and that fact is reflected in the DVD and Blu-Ray releases next Tuesday.

Separately, another DVD box set called Transformers: The Matrix Of Leadership Collector's Set comes out on Oct. 20 and offers a retrospective on the original cartoons, including some rare PSAs and complete annotated scripts for some episodes. Here are four clips the studio released, which include Bumblebee playing video games, Dinobots in training, and Starscream on the run:

On the two-disc Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen DVD, there are five special features.

The first is called The Human Factor: Exacting Revenge of the Fallen, a documentary chronicling the entire creation of the film and featuring interviews with the cast and crew. The doc is separated into chapters discussing the design of the film, Bay's extraordinary military access, and of course a portion devoted to the visual effects full of fun facts.

For example, on Fallen, the effects for Devastator alone required 83% of Industrial Light & Magic's total render capacity. The special goes in depth about ILM's design of the robots for the sequel and the differences from the first.

Other features include:

• A Day with Bay: Tokyo - An intimate and fun all-access journey with Michael Bay as he travels to Tokyo, Japan for the world premiere of the biggest film of the year.
• 25 Years of TRANSFORMERS - Access an all-new featurette celebrating a monumental milestone for one of Hasbro's most successful and popular franchises.
• NEST: Transformer Data-Hub - Explore conceptual artwork created by the production for 12 of the most popular AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS from the film.
• Deconstructing Visual Bayhem with Commentary by Pre-Vis Supervisor
Steve Yamamoto - A series of multi-angle pre-visualization sequences allowing viewers to learn how some of the film's most spectacular scenes were created with an introduction by Michael Bay.

On the DVD version, NEST is an interactive feature similar to one you'd find on a DVD-ROM, covering a few robots and allowing the user to learn about each of the Transformers. The Blu-Ray version covers the robots' history, from their first appearance to those (if any) in the original animated series and comics and finally in recent films.

The Blu-Ray also features a crew-made film, appropriately titled "Giant Effing Movie," their own take on making the movie. Also, there is "The ALLSPARK Experiment."

Viewers get their chance to unleash the power of the recently recovered ALLSPARK shard on Earth vehicles. Begin by selecting and customizing a vehicle with a selection of parts and accessories. Then apply the ALLSPARK to this creation and watch what happens. Applying the ALLSPARK to certain custom combinations enables four new robot characters with special powers. If viewers discover all four, they unlock a fifth vehicle, which reveals a top secret message about the future of the TRANSFORMERS movie franchise.

Ooooh, is that what foretells the death of Fox in T3?

I was thinking about this the other day, when I was watching Gene Roddenberry's Genesis II TV movie. I was wondering why this post-apocalyptic story of tyrannical dominatrices and mutants was less interesting than Star Trek, and I couldn't escape the conclusion: Genesis II was less interesting because it was less fun — and especially less escapist. Instead of cool people on an awesome spaceship packed with fantastic toys, like Communicators and Tricorders, you had a guy trapped in Planet Of The Apes without any apes. And with an extra helping of Roddenberry's signature preachiness.

And I started thinking about escapism, and why we tend to look down on it. We have a bias — myself included, on occasion — against works that allow people to burst out of the bonds of unpleasant reality. They're automatically less smart or interesting than works which seek to confront you with the real world's unpleasantness, to impress on you how unsavory our world really is.

Escapism is the candy-coated pill, the sedative designed to lull you away from realizing quite how messed up things are — and how much culpability you, as a no-doubt middle-class person, have for the situation. Escapism is opium, soma.

The distinction between escapist and "realist" fiction isn't even a matter of utopian versus dystopian narratives — after all, much escapist fiction is dystopian, and plenty of realistic fiction has an utopian impulse at its core. But when movies or books depict someone escaping from the world's unpleantness, or just offer a vision which allows the watcher or reader to escape through their imagination, then we deplore the cowardice of anyone who seeks to run away from their problems in this way. Most of all, escapism is inherently just not serious.

Escapism: pulpy and tacky

Ursula K. Le Guin makes the case against escapism very potently in her essay "Escape Routes," gathered in the collection The Language Of The Night: Essays On Fantasy And Science Fiction:

What if we're escaping from a complex, uncertain, frightening world of death and taxes into a nice simple cozy place where heroes don't have to pay taxes, where death happens only to villains, where Science, plus Free Enterprise, plus the Galactic Fleet in black and silver uniforms, can solve all problems, where human suffering is something that can be cured — like scurvy? This is no escape from the phony. This is an escape into the phony. This doesn't take us in the direction of the great myths and legends, which is always towards an intensification of the mystery of the real. This takes us the other way, toward a rejection of reality, in fact toward madness: infantile regression or paranoid delusion, or schizoid insulation. The movement is retrograde, autistic. We have escaped by locking ourselves in jail.

And inside the padded cell people say, Gee wow have you read the latest Belch the Barbarian story? It's the greatest.

They don't care if nobody outside is listening. They don't want to know there is an outside.

Because the most famous works of SF are socially and culturally speculative, the field has got a reputation for being inherently "relevant." Accused of escapism, it defends itself by pointing to Wells, Orwell, Huxley, Capek, Stapeldon, Zamyatin. But that won't wash: not for us. Not one of those writers was an American. My feeling is that American SF, while riding on the tradition of great European works, still clings to the pulp tradition of escapism.

That's overstated, and perhaps unfair. Recent American SF has been full of stories tackling totalitarianism, nationalism, overpopulation, pollution, prejudice, racism, sexism, militarism, and so on: all of the "relevant" problems.

She was writing this back in the 1970s, so the specific accusations about SF are outdated. But as a summation of the "escapism is childish and not literary" viewpoint, it's pretty much perfect. And as you can tell, a big part of the hatred for escapism comes from a desire to be literary, and to be taken seriously by the upper echelons of the (supposedly monolithic) literary world. Writing in The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction in 1976, Barry N. Maltzberg raged that the literary/cultural establishment "either does not know we exist or patronizes us as pulp hacks for escapist kids."

One more quote. In his book On SF, Thomas M. Disch characterizes escapism as a "security blanket," and adds:

There are times when all of us would rather flee our problems than confront them head-on with the heightened awareness that genuine art forces on us. For such times, nothing will serve but escapism.

He goes on to say that certain trashy SF authors are as bad as Star Trek or Magnum P.I. (even though the latter show constantly bombarded us with Magnum's Vietnam War flashbacks.)

If you read these quotes carefully, a few things jump out at you. First of all, there's the equation of escapism with "pulp" traditions — which was obviously a big deal for authors like Le Guin and Maltzberg, who were trying to escape (sorry!) from the "pulp" label and prove that they deserved a higher grade of paper stock. And then there's the idea that escapism prevents your SF from being "relevant" or commenting on real-world issues — when, in fact, the most escapist narratives are often the most topical. (Just watch the original Star Trek.) There's the idea, which was way more prevalent in the 1970s, that explicit social commentary automatically made your work better or smarter.

There's also a certain feeling of disapproval, even dismay, that people are having too much fun. If I hadn't read tons of books by Le Guin and Disch, and discovered first hand how enjoyable (and frequently, how escapist) their work can be, I would think both authors wrote dry Socialist Realist works, in which their protagonists were born and died in the same gutter.

There has been a move to re-embrace escapism in recent years — Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay was about the fictional creation of a Golden Age superhero who was actually called The Escapist. And Chabon shows us exactly how The Escapist's real-world origins reflected the political and social trends of the 1930s and early 1940s, and how much his adventures reflect the struggles and traumas Sammy and Joey are going through in their real lives — everything from Sammy's secret homosexuality to Clay's family trapped in Nazi-controlled Eastern Europe becomes part of the secret backstory of the Escapist and the League of the Golden Key. In Chabon's novel, backstory is the story — when you try to strip the League of the Golden Key and the other details from the Escapist's origin, you chip away at what makes the Escapist who he is, and the reasons why he does what he does.

It's no coincidence, of course, that Chabon has also been a champion of bringing the pulps back into the sphere of the literary — he edited two anthologies of mock-pulp science fiction stories for McSweeney's a few years ago, chock full of literary and genre superstars doing pastiches and homages to the plot-heavy stories of the past. Authors like Chabon and Dave Eggers are able to celebrate the pulpy and retro in a way that Maltzberg never could back in the 1970s, because they're already assured of their literary status, and need not fear being marginalized. (And meanwhile, the "new space opera" and posthuman SF novels that throng on our shelves are the very picture of escapism, with their heroes who live for zillions of years and can port themselves into new customized bodies whenever they feel like it.)

But in any case, we're now far enough from the pulp era that the "pulpy" label has lost much of its sting, even as unabashedly pulpy urban fantasy heroines in tight pleather pants are eating science fiction's market share for lunch. So maybe it really is time to reclaim the word "escapism" and transform it into a paean to works that liberate and illuminate us.

A theory of escapist art

So I promised you an explanation of why escapism is the highest form of art — and yes, there may be a slight amount of hyperbole involved there. At the same time, escapism has given us some of our greatest speculative art works, and has the potential to spawn even greater ones in the future, if we recognize it for what it is.

First of all, let's dispose of this false dichotomy between "escapism" and "realism." Neither of those things is ever entirely pure, and each always contains elements of the other. Any time you have a flight of fancy, or a grace note, or an elivening metaphor, in a "realist" work, you are engaging in escapism. Because whenever you invoke the imagination, or suggest another world (made out of thought, or images) beyond your protagonist's "real" world, you're allowing the reader a brief escape. And in fact, if you look at "real life," some of our "realest" experiences involve escape.

Think about that old literary standby, the "coming of age" narrative — it is the most pure escapist story you can have, even if it doesn't always have a happy ending. (More on happy endings later.) The "coming of age" tale is about someone outgrowing his or her childhood, and casting off the stifling restrictions of parents, school and conformist expectations. It is a story about reaching escape velocity, and bursting out of childhood's gravity well. This is never a tidy process in real life, nor is it often in literature. But it's the original escapist tale, and in many ways, it's the template on which all other escapist tales build.

The reverse is also true — escapist elements don't automatically make a work less realistic. Just as the "coming of age" story is about escape in the "real" world, it's more than possible to tell a realistic story about a world that repesents an escape from our reality. We've all accepted, by now, that you can tell a realistic story about that ultimate avatar of escapism, Batman. (Batman is in many ways a more escapist figure than Superman, because Batman is just like us — except that his amazing training and gadgets turn him into an unstoppable force.) Look at Paul Pope's amazing, stark graphic novel Batman: Year 100. And if you want SF that comments on real-world issues, it's hard to get more topical than the first few seasons of the Battlestar Galactica remake.

And that leads to another point — escapism can be incredibly dark. I said earlier that many escapist works are dystopian, and it's clearly true. The "last survivors of a post-apocalyptic world" story is full of escapism — for one thing, you're one of the chosen few, and you're incredibly special and wonderful as a result. You no longer have to pay taxes (like Le Guin's heroes), and you live in a world where the worst has already happened. And many escapist films are show someone escaping from an incredibly dark world, even if it's only through the power of the imagination. Think of Guillermo Del Toro's beautiful Pan's Labyrinth, which is at its core a work about the escape into fantasy. Even if both the real world and the fantasy are dark and disturbing. Or Terry Gilliam's Brazil, which takes place in a dystopian world and shows us Sam Lowry's flights of the imagination as well as his attempts to escape in real life. Did I mention that escapist works don't have to have happy endings?

At the same time, who says that realism is the best thing a literary work can aspire to? It really is true, as many SF writers have said lately, that we live in a world that's changing so quickly, that any attempt at pure realism will become historicism instead. And then there's the subjective nature of "reality." But most of all, realism is like art that attempts to be purely representational: it can't show any deeper reality beneath the surface, nor can it reflect all of the stuff that's happening just beyond the frame of our perceptions. We've all lived through historical moments where a new meme or phenomenon seemed to "come out of nowhere," only to look inevitable in retrospect, once we see all of the early indicators that we ignored at the time, because they were outside of the narrative we were telling ourselves about "reality."

If the goal of a literary work (and remember, "literary" is not synonymous with "good." More on that here) is to reflect "reality," then "realism" is one tool among many for doing so. And escapism is another.

I already suggested, above, that metaphors are inherently escapist because they take us away from the strict view of what the thing "is." And the reverse is also true: escapism is a metaphor. TV shows like Lost In Space and Star Trek are so transparently metaphors for the hopes and fears of the Space Age that it's impossible to watch them now without thinking about what people were living through at the time. You get as revealing a mirror into the Space Age, Cold-War psyche from Star Trek as you do, say, from John Updike's Rabbit Run and Rabbit Redux. The stuff Star Trek tries to say about the politics of the 1960s is fascinating, but even more fascinating is the stuff that it says without meaning to, about Manifest Destiny and the post-colonial project of redeeming the Third World.

We tend to think of escapism as a childish impulse, but that's by no means always true — like Brazil, or The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, many great escapist works are about adults, who are trapped as only adults can be, in prisons partly of their own making, and look for a way out.

Escapism also shows what we're trying to escape from — this seems like an obvious point, but it's one that often seems to be overlooked. This changes over time, and also varies from creator to creator. Some escapist works are concerned about breaking out of a totalitarian, oppressive state, others are more concerned with running away from middle-class American life. There's escapism from war, from conformity, from individualism, from failure, from success. Whether or not an escapist work explicitly shows us what we're escaping, it's still always there, revealed by what the escapist elements aren't. Escapism always reveals what we're escaping, and serves as a mirror of whatever the artist (or corporate overlord, as the case may be) views as the most horrendous elements of current reality. It's convex where dire reality is concave, like a plaster cast mold. If your goal is to get the clearest possible picture of "reality," looking at that reflection may be your best shot.

And yes, escapist entertainment does reflect the era that spawned it. The Space Age gave us lots and lots of space heroes, but today's escapist avatars are much more likely to be superheroes — who existed during the Space Age, but were much more confined to comics and the occasional weak TV series. Actually, thinking about it some more, our most escapist works currently seem to fall neatly into three categories: superheroes, vampires and post-apocalyptic survivors. All of whom share a few categories that seem emblematic of our times: they're individualistic, they're special, and they're often at odds with a world that doesn't understand how special and great they are. In other words, they're the perfect heroes for a time when we're no longer involved in a collossal economic struggle like the Cold War, but instead are facing a crumbling middle class and a number of insoluble global struggles, in North Korea, Iraq and Iran, among others. Escapism illuminates our times.

Escapism also does go hand in hand with the epic, the same impulse to celebrate great heroes that gave us the Odyssey and the Iliad.

Returning to the Le Guin quote, it strikes me that what she's describing as escapism is actually better described as "weak story-telling." Stories in which there are no consequences, in which the choices are easy and the heroes always right, aren't escapist — they're just bad.

If escapism is frequently tawdry and dull — if our culture gives us Transformers 2 instead of Superman II — blame the creators, don't blame escapism itself. In fact, holding a low opinion of escapism (and saying things like "It's just a movie about explosions and robots, don't expect too much from it") lets the Michael Bays of this world off the hook too easily.

Let's give the last word to C.S. Lewis, who's quoted by Arthur C. Clarke as having once said, "Who are the people who are most opposed to escapism? Jailors!"

First up, this new concept art from Ben Proctor's work on Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, is utterly beautiful. There's no doubt about that. So when did the writers, director of producers just decide, "You know what? Let's go to Egypt, and to hell with plots — we'll have these King people just make a coffin house out of their bodies, that works right?"

It's almost a shame how beautiful some of the concept art is, because we never really got to appreciate the finished product with everything moving so fast and Shia going to robot heaven and all.

But even more interesting is this concept design of the Cement Mixer, with Brendan Gleeson's face next to it? Um....why? I love that they picked a totally random actor to inspire this also totally random transformer. I wish they had done it with all the bots, it could have made them stand out more while on screen.

Here's a list of all the movies with production budgets of $170 million and over, for the past ten years. (We chose the threshold of $170 million because there were a ton of movies clustered around the $150 million-$160 million mark.) Movies that failed to make back their budget at the U.S. box office are underlined.

2009:

Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince: $250 million

Avatar: $237 million (according to AP)

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen: $225 million (according to NY Post)

Terminator Salvation: $200 million

G.I. Joe: The Rise Of COBRA: $175 million

Up: $175 million

2008:

Quantum Of Solace: $230.6 million

Prince Caspian: $225.6 million

Iron Man: 186.5 million

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull: $185.5 million

The Dark Knight: $185.5 million

Wall-E: $180.5 million

2007:

Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End: $317.4 million

Spider-Man 3: $272.9 million

The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials: $213.4 million

Rush Hour 3: $187.4 million

2006:

Superman Returns: $295.3 million

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: $223.1 million

X-Men: The Last Stand: $209.3 million

Poseidon: $171.3 million

2005:

King Kong: $232.5 million

Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe: $197.6 million

Sahara: $176.8 million

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire: $150 million (2005 dollars)

2004:

Spider-Man 2: $232.2 million

Troy: $199.9 million

Van Helsing: $182.8 million

The Polar Express: $186.6 million

Alexander: $175.4 million

2003:

Terminator 3: $238.4 million

The Matrix: Reloaded: $176.7 million

Master And Commander: $175.6 million

The Matrix: Revolutions: $175.6 million

2000:

The Perfect Storm: $175.6 million

1999:

Wild Wild West: $221 million

The World Is Not Enough: $173.3 million

The 13th Warrior: $206.8 million

Notes: All figures are in 2009 dollars, adjusted for inflation. These figures are just production budgets, and are based on the most accurate figures we could find. They don't include marketing budgets. And of course, many of the films which failed to break even at the U.S. box office did make a profit when you factor in international box office.

Conclusions:

There hasn't been a movie as expensive as Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End since 2007, so you could argue that, over all, movies are not getting more expensive. However, after a few years where there were four mega-budgeted movies per year, the last two years have each seen six movies with budgets over $170 million (in inflation-adjusted dollars.) And as we mentioned above, this year had the most movies costing $200 million or more of any year, with next year likely to see even more films over $200 million.

And the listing above doesn't reflect this fact, but we also found a steep rise in the number of movies costing around $150 million every year — this seems to be the safe point for a film that is expected to do well, but may not be a blockbuster. Films like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Batman Begins, Star Trek and many others all have production budgets in the magic $150 million zone.

At the same time, Hollywood seems slightly better at picking winners lately. We haven't had a year where most of the hugely expensive movies failed to make back their budget at the U.S. box office since 2004, when two historical epics, The Polar Expressand Van Helsing all bombed. Or 2003, when one of two Matrix sequels underperformed, along with Terminator 3 and Master And Commander.

One thing jumps out at me: There were apparently no budget busting movies in 2000, 2001 or 2002. Apparently the first X-Men movie, which came out in 2000, had a budget of only about $75 million. And the Star Wars prequels, hideous though they were, were apparently on the cheap side, costing around $120 million each (in non-adjusted dollars.)

Why would this be? Well, look at the three big-budget movies from 1999. Notice anything the three of them have in common? Hmmm... Other mega-expensive bombs in the late 1990s include Speed 2: Cruise Control, Lethal Weapon 4 and, of course, Waterworld. The only mega-budget movies to make money in the latter half of the 1990s were Armageddon and Titanic.

Sources: Know Your Money, Forbes.com, Listphobia, The Numbers, IMDB, Box Office Mojo, Wikipedia, and other sources as cited.

I'd like to see Michael Bay bring this level of wrongness to Transformers 3. If anyone can do it, Bay can.

We caught up with Orci on the red carpet at the SyFy/Entertainment Weekly party, last Saturday evening, and we had a lot of questions for him.

First of all, we asked Orci about his statements the other day that Star Trek 2 and 3 might have a linked storyline — maybe with a cliffhanger, or a plot thread that continues from one movie into the next. Orci downplayed the speculation, saying he, writer Alex Kurtzman, director J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and producer Bryan Burk had had one meeting, lasting 15 minutes, and they had considered for a brief moment the idea of doing the next two movies as a linked story. But it's still way too early to say anything definite, and they're still in the phase of throwing ideas out there and seeing what sticks.

When we interviewed Orci and his writing partner, Alex Kurtzman, about Transformers 2, they pointed out that it's very common for the second movie in a series to feature the protagonist trying to quit the "hero" racket. (Think Superman II or Spider-Man 2.) Transformers 2 follows that pattern, with Sam wanting to go off to college and lead a normal life. So we were wondering if Star Trek 2 would follow that formula as well — would we see Kirk thinking about quitting the Enterprise and going back to Iowa?

But Orci says the formula isn't iron-clad, and it doesn't apply to every second movie in a series. In the case of Trek, he sees the Enterprise crew as being much more committed to their mission and to doing good in the universe, so that kind of "hero no more" story wouldn't fit.

Meanwhile, Orci says that the Fringe writing staff had originally wanted to wait a few years before unveiling the "alternate world" storyline — but doing it now forces them to be more inventive about what happens next, and to create an even larger world to explore. "Let us force ourselves to come up with a bigger world. So you get a little bit of both. We wanted to answer things and see where that leads.

As for Cowboys And Aliens, the movie with the world's most self-explanatory title, Orci says, "We're wrapping up another draft, and hopefully that one will be good enough."

The desert battle scenes look a lot more impressive (and coherent) in Church's imagination, and the underwater salvage of Megatron suddenly looks moody and Cameron-esque. Here are more of our favorites:

You can see the rest of Church's Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen concept art (plus tons of other great art) at the link. [Ryan Church via TFW2005]

Testicles on the page:

When we got the chance to talk with Kurtzman and Orci about Transformers, we had to ask about the movies' signature moments of freakiness, like robots peeing on people or — in the new movie — a set of giant testicles hanging down from Devastator, the massive robot made out of five construction vehicles. (He's a bunch of construction vehicles, and there are two wrecking balls hanging between his legs.) Do Orci and Kurtzman write these things into the script, or does director Michael Bay "ad lib" them?

Generally, the duo said, these things are in the scripts. Although they couldn't remember the origins of Devastator's testicles. Orci thought that Bay had demanded "a big pair of testicles." But Kurtzman reminded him that it was actually co-writer Ehren Krueger's idea, when the three of them were holed up for a few months writing the script after the writers' strike. "The testicles are in the script," Kurtzman said. "Well, it's a construction machine, so you of course have wrecking balls. And Michael, immediately, of course, loved it."

As for how that strike impacted the writing process, Kurtzman explained:

We broke the story together, two weeks before the strike, handed in twenty pages of a treatment. Michael and Ian Bryce and everyone went off and started to prepare the movie off of that. The strike ended, and we had three months between the strike ending and the first day of shooting. So in those three months, we actually wrote the script, the three of us. Giving Bay pages every day or two, until we had a movie. So it was crazy.

Humor in Trek and Transformers:

There's a lot of humor in both Transformers and Star Trek, which the duo also co-wrote, but it seems like it works somewhat differently in either franchise. So we asked Orci and Kurtzman where the difference comes from.

Kurtzman explains:

Well, our director has a very different sensibility as far as where he's getting his humor from. The The Transformers are generating humor from the way they talk. And the humor in Star Trek is very much about the circumstances our characters find themselves in. It's literally the difference between cracking jokes and being in a funny situation. They're different franchises.

So how much of their sense of humor comes from their early experiences writing for Sam Raimi-produced shows like Hercules? Some of it, they said, although it has deeper roots than that.

"It comes from the voice that we learned," says Orci. "Certainly, Hercules was one of htose interesting shows where it lived in a world where everyone perceived it as camp, but we had to never approach it that way in the writers' room. It had a real sense of humor, and I think actually, the seeds of that sense of humor in [Producers] Rob (Tapert) and Sam (Raimi) come from the screwball comedies, like the Preston Sturgess screwball comedies and Billy Wilder. And in a weird way that stuff did fuse itself into Hercules. We paid homage to those shows very frequently in our writing."

"And they gave us the freedom to do it," Kurtzman said. "They weren't afraid of that stuff." And you can see that kind of humor in Evil Dead 2, he added.

Why does Sam want to leave his awesome girlfriend and robot?

One question that io9 readers have been asking lately is, Is Sam Witwicky nuts? He has an amazingly cool car that transforms into a robot, and he has an awesome girlfriend who changes into a killer white dress to bring him flowers. Why would he want to leave them to go off to college and hang out with dorky roommates?

"Most of us go off to school, don't we, and leave home," said Orci. "Didn't that happen to you? Why'd you do that?" And the college where Sam is studying doesn't allow freshmen to have cars. "Thematically, it turns out to be what gets him trouble," Orci adds. "The lesson of the movie is, don't leave your girl or your Transformer."

"The grass is always greener, right?" Kurtzman added. "You get used to what you have."

In a sense, Transformers 2 has a similar theme to Spider-Man 2, where Peter Parker tries to give up being Spider-Man.

Orci explained:

Sam never expected to find himself at the center of an alien war. He just wanted to have a normal kid and have a normal kid's experiences, and so he's at the natural point in his life where college would be the next step for him, and he wants that... the sequels we grew up loving, like Superman 2, Terminator 2 and Aliens are often about the hero's refusal of the call, and the consequences that follow.

Transformers 3?

It's been widely reported that Orci and Kurtzman are definitely not writing the script for Transformers 3, but actually they sounded pretty open to doing it.

"We never say never, but since the movie's not even out, it's impossible for us to go, 'Yes, we're in,'" Kurtzman said.

What's the difference between having a mythos and being mythic?

Transformers is a franchise with a lot of mythos, meaning that there is tons of backstory about Cybertron and the Allspark and the Fallen and so on. What is the difference between having a rich mythos and having a mythic storyline?

Kurtzman took a stab at this question for us:

I think mythos, in the way you're talking about, is set up to deal with more what is the past. Mythic is about what's happening to you now, it's epic, going into the future. Star Trek doesn't rely too much on the history of the world, it's mythic, and you're taking someone from childhood and taking them all the way from the womb back to space. It's a long journey, as oppposed to discovering something about your past.

Cowboys And Aliens:

We had to ask the duo what's going on with their movie adaptation of the graphic novel Cowboys And Aliens, which is about alien invaders falling afoul of cowboys and Apache warriors in 1800s Arizona. Orci said they're three or four weeks away from finishing their script draft, and hopefully they'll find a director and take it from there. "There's been a lot of invention, and a lot of reinvention, and we took the spirit of the graphic novel and figured out how to [bring it to the screen.]"

"But certainly, there are cowboys and aliens," said Kurtzman.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

In the new movie, the Autobots have found a home on Earth, but they're only seen as a "smart tool" and a potential threat. We see them going from a mission to park in a hangar where they sit waiting for their next mission, instead of hanging out and conversing together. And you get a sense that Sam's dad is emotionally scarred, because of the Witwicky family history with transforming robots. [TFormers]

And here's some more concept art, from the movie's opening Shanghai sequence, including Demolishor and two of the girl motorcycles, Arcee and Chromia. [TFG2 via Seibertron]

Optimus Prime has a sword made out of energy, sort of an energon sword, and he wields it like a ninja. And in the final battle, he recites a verse that's sort of based on the old cartoons: "One shall stand, one shall fall/Arise Rodimus Prime" [MTV]

And here are some TV spots I don't think we've shown you before, one of which shows off the whole "Sam goes off to college" storyline.

Gamer:

See a bit more of that weird orange-wigged girl in another still from this living-video-game movie. [IGN]

Cowboys And Aliens:

Co-writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman say their movie version of this graphic novel keeps the basic story of aliens trying to invade Arizona in the mid-1800s, only to face opposition from cowboys and native Apache, but they get pretty creative with it and add a lot of their own stuff to it. [Sci Fi Wire]

Frankenstein:

Guillermo del Toro probably won't be directing this movie for another five years, but he's already scheduled Doug Jones for a makeup test to play the monster in the near future. And Jones says the monster's look will be based on Bernie "Swamp Thing" Wrightson's artwork. Also, Jones says he's playing at least one creature in The Hobbit, but he doesn't know which one(s) yet. [Sci Fi Wire]

Harry Potter:

Much like The Hobbit, the final Potter book is being divided into two movies, and there'll be a cliffhanger separating them, says director David Yates. It'll probably happen soon after the scene where the Snatchers capture Harry, Ron and Hermione in the woods. [L.A. Times via Cinemablend]

Battlestar Galactica:

Not sure if this counts as a spoiler... but Edward James Olmos reportedly told a convention that the only reason "The Plan" TV movie was airing on TV was so that the special effects people would be eligible for an award. Apparently the special effects will be wonderful and amazing, and we're in for a treat. He also said the version airing on Syfy would only be 88 minutes, but the version on the DVD would either be 126 or 155 minutes, depending on which version of his remarks you believe. [Battlestar Blog]

Fringe:

The second episode of season two will be called "Night Of Desirable Objects," and it's co-written by showrunner Jeff Pinkner and regular contributor J.H. Wyman. [Fringe Television]

Heroes:

Greg Grunberg explains a bit more about what to expect from Matt Parkman next season. Apparently the guilt of mind-wiping Sylar will continue to prey on his mind. And the interaction with Sylar's brain may have left a "residue," like there's a bit of Sylar left in Matt. And when the Sylar mind-wiping inevitably goes wrong, everybody's going to look to Matt to fix it. [Lots Of Interviews via SpoilerTV]

Virtuality:

Suffice to say, Ronald D. Moore has not gotten over his obsession with death by airlock. [E! Online]

True Blood:

This Sunday, Sookie finds out that Eric has been keeping Lafayette in his basement and freaks out about it. In exchange for Lafayette's release, Sookie agrees to that Dallas trip we've been hearing about. And in the June 28 episode, Sookie faces a mythological creature with a bull head, a half-animal, half-human body, gnarly claws and the poison of a komodo dragon. It killed that voodoo lady in the season opener, and it almost kills Sookie, but Eric and Bill help make her as good as new. And Evan Rachel Wood's lesbian vampire queen of Louisiana doesn't show up until the Aug. 30 and Sept. 6 episodes, but she may be back in following seasons. [E! Online]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Spider-Man 4:

A somewhat unlikely comeback: Michael Papajohn, who played the carjacker who kills Uncle Ben in the first movie, reportedly told a convention he'll be back in the fourth. A flashback? Or is the carjacker getting out of prison? Or something else? It could be just a bit part, but it's odd that Papajohn claims to have this gig already, when the script was probably just finished a week ago. Of course, Papajohn may not have said this at all, and it may just be a garbled report. [Superhero Hype]

Star Trek 2:

Co-writer Roberto Orci tells ComicBookMovie it's "tempting" to introduce Khan in this sequel, because the sequel will probably weave in and out of the original continuity the way the first one did. But it's risky, because you open yourself up to comparisons. [ComicBookMovie]

Inception:

Chris Nolan's "architecture of the mind" thriller has reportedly started shooting, and our only real spoiler is that locations reportedly include Tokyo, Tangiers, London, Paris, Calgary and Los Angeles. And did we already pass along the rumor that Ken Watanabe plays an exec who blackmails Leonardo DiCaprio's character? [Slashfilm]

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

Here's another new clip from this movie — Shia drops a fragment of the Allspark, and it sets his floor on fire and makes all the household appliances freak out. Hilarity, as they say, ensues.

The Box:

So you might have wondered just how Richard "Southland Tales" Kelly manages to turn Richard Matheson's six-page short story into a feature-length movie. Apparently, it's by treating the original story as the "first act" of a three-act structure. In the original 1970 story, a young couple receive a box with a button in it, and a man tells them that if they press the button, they receive $50,000 but someone they don't know will die. And there's a twist ending you can see coming a mile off if you've ever encountered a twist ending in your life. Kelly continues the story after the twist ending, as the couple struggle to survive and to discover the secrets behind the box. He keeps the story in the 1970s, but ups the reward to a cool million dollars. [Sci Fi Wire]

Doctor Who:

Timothy Dalton "plays a terrifying judge who puts the Doctor on trial in an intergalactic court case," claims a Welsh newspaper. (But I suspect this is made up — I think they're getting this from the Sun, which invented this plot strand when they were running our photos without attribution last week.) [Wales Online]

Fringe:

J.J. Abrams explains what's coming in season two:

First of all, I would say that the first year was about learning there is an enemy and I would say that Season 2 is about knowing the enemy. As the show progresses, and in the second season, it's building to a specific confrontation and a really interesting shift in the fundamental paradigm on the show in a very cool way. Without going into any details about it, it has a fun, fresh way in next year that I think you never know how it's going to work, but cross your fingers people are going to like it. Next season is thrilling for me, not in that they audience is coming back to experience what we're doing, but the excitement is not just these characters, but now playing with [those characters].

[IF Magazine via HeyUGuys]

FlashForward:

We will find out why everyone on Earth blacks out for exactly two minutes and 17 seconds, in particular. Alex Kingston (River Song from Doctor Who) has a role in the pilot and it's hinted she'll be back. The show's first thirteen episodes take place in six countries, including one episode in Dubai (with subtitles.) There are 10 main characters and each of them has his/her plot arc mapped out on a "mega bulletin board" made out of six regular-sized boards. And the MosaicCollective website will be an actual plot device on the show — everyone on Earth can go on there and map out what their flashforwards were, and cross-reference with other people's. It's the new Facebook. Saying "I Mosaiced you" will become common and grammatical.

There's an aspiring musician who has a "flashforward" showing that he becomes a huge rock star, but the two minutes and 17 seconds end just before he's about to play his signature song — leaving him uncertain what that song might be, and whether he's written it yet. None of the people who are in the audience during that flashforward know what the song is, either. And we'll find out if animals also experienced the "flashforward" phenomenon. [Zap2It]

Heroes:

New set photos show Milo Ventimiglia and Zachary Quinto on set together. Are Peter and Sylar going to have an encounter, after Matt's incredibly inept brainwashing wears off for the first time? (Really, it was more like a brain-splashing. Or even a brain-sprinkling.) Way more pics at the link. [Just Jared via SpoilerTV]

Warehouse 13:

Star Eddie McClintock describes his character, Pete Latimer:

He's a very impulsive, intelligent, man-child who has joined the Secret Service, in order to make good on some feelings of guilt that he has, in relation to the death of his father, when he was a child. He wants to make the world right.

And there's an episode where he's stuck in a cave and an artifact is trying to attach itself to his body, and he's in pain and terrified. Also, Myka (his fellow agent) gets into an altercation with Pete at one point, where she's punching and kicking him, and he's getting thrown over a table, knocking over lamps, and then falls down a hole.

Normally, though, Pete and Myka have a sort of brother-sister relationship, with Pete being the annoying younger brother. Over the course of the show, the Warehouse full of arcane artifacts becomes more of a main character itself, with the artifacts serving as antagonists. But around episode four, we meet a flesh-and-blood antagonist who's someone from warehousekeeper Artie (Saul Rubinek)'s past. [IESB]

Batman: The Brave And The Bold:

A few more details about that upcoming musical episode starring Neil Patrick Harris. Apparently, it co-stars Aquaman, voiced by John "Bender" DiMaggio, who also voices Gorilla Grodd — and Aquaman sings! Given how boastful and shallow DiMaggio's version of Arthur Curry is, that ought to be fun to watch. [Newsarama]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

USA Today was on set for next week's most anticipated movie. They witnessed one scene where Megan Fox is hiding behind a wall, and Joshua Duhamel rushes over and tries to rescue her, and he grabs her hand. And then another scene where a Decepticon knocks over a giant pillar in a temple building, trying to crush Shia and Megan. And there are a couple of photos we may not have shown you before. [USA Today]

And here are seven new pics, which are pretty similar to what we've seen before, except maybe a better look at the Twins, and a new Megan image. [Paramount]

Iron Man 2:

Olivia Munn, host of Attack Of The Show, will play an unspecified (probably minor) role in this sequel. [Variety]

Zombieland:

Abigail Breslin describes this movie:

Zombieland is about the world being overrun by zombies, and four of the only people on Earth who are not zombies join together. It's funny and scary - the zombies in it are pretty scary. It should be fun.

And there may be a cameo by a zombiefied Matthew McConaughey in it. [MTV]

Harry Potter:

A new TV spot for "Half-Blood Prince":

Plus some new posters. [Movies-Spoilers]

FlashForward:

Producer Jessika Goyer explains that some episodes of this show will be funny instead of tragic:

The disastrous part of the event, the catastrophic part, only happens in this season. Obviously, we're not going to ignore it. ... But this level of what's happening to people will never be as scary and apocalyptic again. Week to week, what we'll follow is what's going on with these characters.

And here's a possibly new pic. [New York Daily News]

Fringe:

The first episode of the second season isn't called "A New Day," but rather "A New Day In The Old Town." [Fringe Television]

Heroes:

Even more pics of Claire on campus. Now she's learning to cook! Because the show is more grounded. More pics at the link. [SpoilerTV]

Green Lantern: First Flight:

Warner Bros. released a bunch of new images from this direct-to-DVD movie recently, including our first look at Arisia. And Ch'p! OMG Ch'p is in it! Where's Salakk though? [Warner Bros.]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Eureka and Degree Antiperspirant

What is it? In almost every episode of this Syfy Channel show, Degree Antiperspirant makes its presence known. In most, it's just someone using the product in the line of duty. But in one case, Degree sponsors a consumer products lab, which features prominently in this mock commercial for a new type of Degree antiperspirant.

Does it fit the story? Sure. In this case, it's a story about products, so it makes sense to showcase these products. And a commercial products lab sponsored by a company also fits reality.

Would people buy it? Not sure. It's a fictional product, but watchers of Eureka are probably also antiperspirant buyers. So audience members probably will buy Degree products.

Does it still exist? Well, the fictional product never existed. But the company still exists.

Knight Rider and Ford

What is it? In the revived 2008 Knight Rider series, the semi-sentient car, KITT, is a Ford Mustang. But it is also equipped with the ability to transform into other forms, coincidentally a variety of Ford models. In this clip, which prominently features the Ford logo, KITT transforms from a Mustang into a Ford F-150.

Does it fit the story? Sometimes. It makes sense that a sophisticated future-car would have some transformation abilities. But it's hard to believe that the optimum form for KITT would happen to be another Ford model in every single case.

Would people buy it? Maybe the F-150, but only a precious few are likely to buy the Mustang featured in the show.

Does it still exist? Yes. Most of the models shown are currently available, including KITT's normal form, the Ford Shelby GT500KR Mustang. But the show also acts as a general ad for the Ford motor company, which still exists.

Star Trek and Nokia / Budweiser

What is it? In the latest Star Trek movie, at one point, a stolen car is equipped with a car phone that plays the classic Nokia ring tone. Later, in a bar, a Starfleet cadet orders a "Bud Classic," a future Budweiser product.

Does it fit the story? No. This kind of product placement is supposed to reinforce the connection between the world we are seeing and the real world. But in these cases, I found myself pulled out of the movie, distracted by these products. In an otherwise entirely immersive film, these examples did more to hinder than help.

Would people buy it? Maybe. People will still buy Bud. And Nokia did more Star Trek tie-ins off screen as well, so that might boost sales. That is, if there's no backlash against sloppy product integration.

Does it still exist? Certainly, no one is buying car phones anymore, but integrated dashboard phone interfaces aren't entirely gone. And "Bud Classic" doesn't exist. But both companies are still doing all right.

Transformers and Chevy

What is it? In the first Transformers movie, Michael Bay showed off a variety of GM cars. In the new movie, he's apparently teamed up with Chevy to showcase their newest cars. This commercial is actually edited by Bay to tie in with the movie, since the movie will be the first look at some of Chevy's upcoming offerings.

Does it fit the story? Yes and no. Sure, there have to be cars. It's a Transformers movie. But I suppose the logos don't have to be so prominently displayed.

Would people buy it? Sure. There's some excitement over these models, which might indicate some future sales. Time will tell if the Transformers stigma hurts this at all.

Does it still exist? Yes. The Chevy Volt is an electric car supposed to be essentially getting its debut in this movie. Some of these models come out next year.

Smallville and Stride Gum

What is it? Smallville resident Pete Ross gains super powers from chewing kryptonite infused Stride gum. It's true. He gains stretchy powers from the altered gum, found at a One Republic concert in an abandoned Stride factory.

Does it fit the story? Yes. It's goofy, but not because of the Stride gum. Though apparently the writers of Smallville developed the plot point about gum in conjunction with Stride. Maybe not a perfect fit...

Would people buy it? Sure. Stride gum is a popular gum, and I don't think there's gonna be any real fear of actual Kryptonite-infused gum leaking into the market.

Does it still exist? Yes. Stride gum not only still exists, but it's branching out in its product placement, even sponsoring internet videos.

Wall-E and Mac

What is it? While it might just be an inside joke and not a product placement, Wall-e is filled with little Mac nods, including a post-apocalyptic theater constructed from an iPod and Wall-e making the Mac start up sound when he recharges, as in this clip.

Does it fit the story? Sure. The iPod theater certainly does, since it wouldn't surprise me if a cleanup robot stumbled on a few still-operable iPod video screens. But the Mac sound for Wall-E's start-up makes less sense... We can chalk that one up to inside joke.

Will people buy it? No. This model of iPod video doesn't exist anymore. And people don't buy Macs for the start up sound. It's certainly a nice shout-out, but it's probably not an effective ad.

Does it still exist? Not the iPod video. And Wall-e never really existed as a product. Mac as a company certainly still exists.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dodge

What is it? Parts of this episode of the Sarah Connor Chronicles felt more like a commercial for the Dodge Ram than an episode of a science fiction television show. Montages showcased all of the features of the new Dodge Ram model, and the car helps our heroes on their fight against robot oppression.

Does it fit the story? Not exactly. The car does, but the sequences featuring the car really draw the viewer out of the story.

Will people buy it? Sure. The car does its part in the resistance, and it seems to run well and be well featured in the show. Anyone on the run from robot assassins will be convinced that this is the car for them.

Does it still exist? Yes. But not The Sarah Connor Chronicles. That show's run is over, sadly.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

New concept art shows Skids (one of the comedy robots) and the unnamed "purple motorcyle Autobot," one of three female motorcycles, I guess. The other two are Arcee and Chromia. (I thought the three motorcycles joined together to form Arcee, but apparently not.) [TFG2 and TFG2 via Transformers Movie Chronicles and Seibertron]

At one point, Sam's mother utters the line, "Hi, professor — I'd do anything for an A." The comedy stylings of the "twin Transformers" are also hilarious. The movie goes way downhill about halfway through and just turns into one long, nonsensical action sequence. [Culch]

And here's yet another Entertainment Tonight segment on the movie, which hopefully won't start autoplaying in an annoying fashion. [TLAMB]

Ghostbusters 3:

The new team of five newbie Ghostbusters, including two women, was in the outline that the movie's scriptwriters pitched, confirms Ivan Reitman. But there's no telling what the final script, due in about a month, will contain. [MTV]

New Moon:

Some new photos prove this movie really is made of cheese. [IGN]

Torchwood:

An Australian trailer and a BBC America featurette for the upcoming "Children Of Earth" miniseries. [Life, Doctor Who & Combom]

The first episode of "Children Of Earth" includes a big, huge revelation about Captain Jack which fits in with the story's theme of "sins from the past." (I'm guessing it's his daughter.) The first episode hits the ground running, and only gets more intense as it goes along — but star John Barrowman says that's only a five out of ten, compared to the intensity of the other four episodes. And there's still time for flirty banter. Barrowman doesn't rule out one more meeting between David Tennant's Doctor and Captain Jack. [Chicago Tribune]

Lost:

Shannon (Maggie Grace) may be making a return visit to the island next season, despite being dead. At least, Grace said she's going back to Hawaii soon. [E! Online]

FlashForward:

Wherever you think this show is going after the first episode, you'll be wrong. There are three "acts" to the first season, and the first "act" consists of the first seven episodes, in which the pieces are all moved out onto the board. And each of those first seven episodes contains at least one "holy shit, I didn't see that coming" moment, where you'll realize things are way different than you thought. Also, the first "flashforward" that everyone sees takes them to April 29, 2010 — which isn't when the season finale airs. So we'll actually catch up to the flashforwards before the season ending. Also, Seth MacFarlane's character, Agent Kirby, will be recurring. And the kangaroo you see on the street in the pilot will also be back. [Futon Critic]

Also, you'll see early on that characters lie about what they saw in their "flashes," or withhold some information. [Time]

Fringe:

The season opener will be called "New Day." [Fringe Television]

V:

After watching the pilot, you get the impression that someone we thought was a series regular is actually only guest-starring in the first episode. [EW]

Heroes:

Rick Worthy (aka Simon, the most underused Cylon on Battlestar Galactica) is in talks to join this show's cast as Matt Parkman's new partner, an experienced and capable L.A. cop whom Matt can lean on for advice. [Hollywood Reporter]

The show is going to explore the characters living "everyday, normal lives," and yet coping with the fact that they've been through this crazy series of events, James Kyson Lee tells TV Guide. And Ando is going to get better at controlling the laser-beam blasts from his hands, and he and Hiro are going to start a new business together, involving glitter and spandex. Yes, really. (Isn't Hiro still a mega-zillionaire? I miss him being a lowly office worker.) [TV Guide]

Warehouse 13:

This show's first batch of episodes will have the titles "Pilot," "Resonance," "Magnetism," "Claudia," "Elements," "Burnout," "Implosion," "Duped," "Regrets" and "Breakdown." [SpoilerTV]

True Blood:

Here are the titles and synopses for this show's July episodes:

July 12: "Shake and Fingerpop"
With Jessica in tow, Bill and Sookie head to Dallas to carry out Eric's vampire-reconnaissance mission — but a surprise awaits them at the airport. At the Light of Day Institute, Jason falls victim to a practical joke, but has the last laugh when the Newlins anoint him for a higher calling. Maryann throws Tara a birthday party at Sookie's, attracting much of Bon Temps to its Bacchanalian revelry. Sam postpones his departure from town to attend the bash, connecting with Daphne in the process. Having barely escaped Fangtasia, Lafayette (finds himself reluctantly pulled back into Eric's orbit.

July 19: "Never Let Me Go"
In Dallas, Sookie connects with one of her own, then joins Bill and Eric for a strategic summit at the lair of the missing vampire, Godric, attended by his lieutenants, Stan and Isabel. Meanwhile, Jason shows his mettle at a Light of Day boot camp, and is rewarded for his hard work with a gift from Sarah. Rebuffed by Tara in her relocation efforts, Maryann decides to cast her spell on the staff of Merlotte's, softening Tara up towards her new "family." Eric shares a little-known secret about his past with Bill, and Sookie makes a decision that might solve the Godric mystery — or get her killed.

July 26: "Hard-Hearted Hannah"
Accompanied by Isabel's human boyfriend Hugo, Sookie embarks on a dangerous mission to locate Godric. Meanwhile, Bill is shocked when a vampire from his distant, more violent past resurfaces in Dallas. In Bon Temps, Daphne presses Sam to get comfortable in his own skin(s); Hoyt continues his unlikely courtship of Jessica; Andy interrogates Lafayette about his disappearance; and Tara and Eggs take a detour while on a road trip. At the Light of Day camp, Jason faces difficult emotional and physical choices.

Impact:

Salon.com has the funniest review ever of this Syfy Channel miniseries which is unaccountably appearing on ABC instead. A giant meteor goes flying towards Earth and smacks into the Moon, causing effects that are felt for many long, boring days afterwards. People resolve their differences and/or fall in love in the face of impending armageddon. Every few minutes someone says something like "But that makes no sense!" And then they have another boring conversation about "brown dwarfs or mass or gravity."

Actual dialogue from Impact:

"We have no other choice, sir. You can't hide from gravity!"

"Look, I can't even answer the questions on 'Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader,' but even I know the moon is not capable of manipulating gravity at this level."

"We are a part of something here that's going to be written about in the same context as Newton and Einstein. I know you don't want to miss out on that!"

"Science has very much come under question these last few days. But, it's all I have."

There's a scene where an old guy is driving in his car, and it suddenly floats into the air in a very Mary Poppins way. The whole Salon review is well worth reading, it's a masterpiece. Unlike Impact itself, by the sound of things.[Salon.com]

Apparently, that brown dwarf? It actually gets embedded in the Moon. Oops. That's not good. Also, the President is a straight shooter who doesn't understand all this sciencey talk, and there's a gruff stupid general, who wants to keep secrets from the Chinese and the Russians even though the world is ending in a few weeks. And we see how the scientists' families are affected by the fact that the scientists have to go off and try to figure out how to save the world. [Cinemablend]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

The writers' strike has caused incalculable damage to genre television, including helping to kill great shows like Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. But it's also inflicted maximum damage on this summer's movies. We detailed all the ways the strike impacted movies like Wolverine, Terminator Salvation, Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe a while back — it's probably no coincidence that the one movie whose script was in perfect shape before the strike hit, Star Trek, was also the only really watchable genre film in months.

(I think part of the reason I'm so over-the-moon about Trek is because I'm grading on a curve. Put it next to Iron Man and The Dark Knight, and it might not score quite so well. I was also thinking the other day that if The Incredible Hulk had come out in 2009, we might have appreciated it a bit more.)

So how about the movies coming this fall and winter, and even into next year? Did the strike hurt them as well? I did some digging, and here's what I found out about the crop of upcoming Hollywood movies:

District 9. (August 14) Not really a Hollywood movie, this Peter Jackson-produced alien imprisonment saga was filmed in South Africa and produced by QED Films. And reading between the lines of this Variety story from November 2007, it sounds as though director Neill Blomkamp and his partner Terri Tatchell had already written the script before the film was greenlit.

Pandorum. (September 4) This Dennis Quaid-Ben Foster space-horror film was greenlit in May 2008, a few months after the strike ended, and written by newcomer Travis Milloy. Which means it was a spec script, and unless it required major rewrites, it should be fine. The film only started shooting in August 2008, which means there should have been time to make rewrites, if any were needed.

Gamer. (September 4) This Gerard Butler-starring epic about prisoners who are forced to become video-game avatars for rich kids was actually filmed during the writer's strike, so its script was long since done. It's been on ice for quite some time — rumor has it test screenings in October 2008 produced almost entirely negative responses. The movie's gone through several titles, including Game and Citizen Game. So it may not be great... but that won't be the writers' strike's fault.

Splice. (September 18, limited release). Vincenzo Natali's genetic manipulation film stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley as researchers who mess with the human genome... and get burned. And there was a script in November 2007, when the writer's strike started. Or at least, producer Guillermo del Toro was able to say in a statement:

Vincenzo is taking Splice to really edgy places. The moment I cringed while reading the script, I knew I wanted to help him realize his vision.

And a still from the movie came out in February 2008, while the strike was still going on. (The movie's complex visual effects have required a long time to complete.)

The Surrogates. (September 25). This one's a bit unclear. Disney bought the rights to the robot-avatar graphic novel back in March 2007. They hired the writers of Terminators 3 and 4, Michael Ferris and John Brancato, to write the screenplay. The following November, Bruce Willis signed up to star, and T3 director Jonathan Mostow was announced as director. The film was supposed to start filming in February, but the rest of the cast wasn't announced until the following April, a few months after the strike ended. So it's entirely possible the script needed some rewrites. And got them. So it may be fine. Except that it's from the writers and director of Terminator 3.

Zombieland. (October 9) This zombie buddy comedy didn't even snag star Woody Harrelson until late August 2008, a good six months after the strike ended. And co-star Jesse Eisenberg was "in talks" to appear in the film in October 2008. So I'm guessing there was plenty of time to get a script together at some point.

The Road. (October 16) This bleak Cormac McCarthy adaptation was filmed in Western Pennsylvania early in 2008, and has been on ice for a year — it was originally supposed to open in 2008. Now all we have to worry about is that producer Harvey Weinstein forced some unwise edits on the film in the interim.

The Wolfman. (November 6) This is another one that's been sitting on ice for ages — Benicio Del Toro signed up for the lead role in March 2006 (!) and there was a script review in August 2006. (If anything, looking at this crop of movies, I'm starting to wonder why so many were delayed for so long.) Del Toro got a costar, Emily Blunt, in January 2008, and it looks like the film was filmed soon after.

2012. (Nov. 13) We covered this in our rundown of the writer's strike and summer movies — because it was originally supposed to come out this summer. (Yes, another delayed film.) But the strike didn't actually impact this film much at all, because the script was bought right after the strike ended.

Avatar. (December 18) James Cameron has been working on this film since before you were born. And yes, I don't care how old you are, it's still true. In any case, chances are he's had plenty of opportunities to tinker with the script. Here he is, talking it up in 2006.

The Book Of Eli. (January 15). The Hughes Brothers (From Hell) signed up to direct this post-apocalyptic bibliophile samurai pic back in May 2007, and they were trying to rush it into production in the fall of 2007 "before a possible strike." Obviously, this didn't work out — the film's star, Denzel Washington, wasn't even announced until September 2008, and filming didn't happen until earlier this year. So count this as another film that was delayed — maybe due to the strike.

And I think from there on out, you're looking at movies that were greenlit after the strike, so you're probably all good. Looking at the crop of movies coming up this fall and winter, the main thing that's jumping out at me is that a lot of them were delayed for various reasons — probably not all to do with the strike. There are a lot of movies coming out from August to January, which were originally supposed to come out much earlier, but they were kept in the freezer. Make of that what you will.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

Some U.K. outlets have gone ahead and reviewed this film, including fair share of spoilers. Total Film says the movie starts out with an "Apocalypto-like prologue" set in 17,000 B.C., and there are sequences in space as well as in New York, Paris and Egypt. There's a forest smackdown between Optimus and three Decepticons that's a thing of beauty to watch. There's ship-sinking a la Pearl Harbor, cities being destroyed as in Armageddon, and a Bad Boys II poster on Sam's dorm room wall.

IGN says we zip between scenes on Cybertron, Sam's first day at college, and drama at various military bases — with robot-on-robot violence in between. And the action is less confusing this time around, really. And IGN agrees that the forest fight scene is the best thing in the movie — and it's an hour in, leaving the remaining 80 minutes a bit of a letdown. And generally, the film is about an hour too long.

The Shizznit says the movie's dialog consists of ridiculous one-liners. The soldiers say things like "Bring the rain!" and the baddies say "This isn't over!". The movie's first half hour is light on robots, but Sam's parents pretty much carry it. The Fallen is spindly and doesn't get much screen time. Devastator, likewise, is underused but at least he looks awesome. Sideways crashes through an apartment building. Bumblebee takes an opponent's head off.

The Mirror says that 17,000 B.C. prologue actually features cavemen fighting robots, which I'm utterly down for. And the sequence where Sam and Mikaela find Jetfire in the Smithsonian comes after that forest fight scene. Also, Megan Fox somehow finds the time to change her jeans during all of the robot battles, so she has blue jeans in the U.S., and white jeans in the desert. Oh, and the movie is crammed with "turgid" backstory.

My favorite part is still the "cavemen versus robots" thing.

And a fan saw the film as well, and posted a detailed reaction over at the TFW2005 boards. Among other things: Barricade isn't in the movie. Megan Fox changes into a white dress and holds some flowers for no reason at one point. The three pink motorcycles never combine into a robot, and then one of them is destroyed. Optimus and Jetfire only combine temporarily during the final battle, and then what's left of Jetfire is damaged. When the battle ends, Optimus removes the Jetfire remains. Jolt appears randomly, and only gets about five seconds of screen time total, and his hands sizzle like Emperor Palpatine's. Sideways only appears in his robot mode for a split second, then changes back to a car, whereupon Sideswipe cuts him in half lengthwise. You see Megatron as a robot, a tank and a jet.

The Twins get the best lines, like "That hurt!" "It's an ass-kicking, it's supposed to!" and "Maybe he's just a pussy!" And when they see Devastator: "Look at that motherf—" (followed by an explosion). Meanwhile, the British-accented Jetfire says "Oh, bollocks" and "I'm too old for this crap." Sadly, the "Sam's mom gets stoned" scene is a waste of time, and Devastator is totally wasted in the film. Also, there's a "WTF" scene where "Sam dies and goes to Autobot heaven." [TFW2005 via IESB]

Gamer:

Here's a new still from this human-video-game movie, which is pretty similar to the one we premiered a while back, only flipped over. [IGN]

Futurama:

Series co-creator David X. Cohen explains what to expect when this show returns in 2010. The stories will delve into the everyday lives of the characters, and the everyday technology they use. The show will explore the dark side of current geek addictions like the iPhone and Twitter. Says Cohen:

I keep thinking of the insidious possibilities of the iPhone, which I use every five seconds of the day. How you can track anyone anywhere, or market your taco stand to people standing 4 feet away. Or the sinister possibilities of Twitter, and so forth. Cellphones were the size of bricks when we first went on the air, so we made jokes about tiny cellphones. Now, they're everywhere.

After the epic scope of the direct-to-DVD movies, expect the TV stories to be somewhat smaller again, and focus on exploring "the society of the future." And lots more of Bender saying mean things. And there will be at least one bizarre sexual relationship. Hot damn! [Wired]

Supernatural:

Are you somehow not pumped up for this show's fifth and maybe final season? Then here's the casting call for Lucifer, a new regular character:

30s – 40s, male. This is the devil – he is soft-spoken, strangely sympathetic, more vulnerable than evil and should have piercing eyes. This is an amazing role that will be heavily recurring...HEAVILY RECURRING GUEST STAR

"More vulnerable than evil"? Holy crap. [SpoilerTV]

Also, I don't think we showed you this promo which includes snippets of Smallville, Supernatural and Vampire Diaries. Honestly not sure if there's much new there, but here it is. [E! Online]

V:

In this ABC remake of the classic series, Laura "Supergirl" Vandervoort says she plays Lisa, an alien. "She's the seductress who has been given the task to lure the young human folk." And she sets her sights on the son of Elizabeth Mitchell's character, a resistance leader. And Vandervoort says her blue jumpsuit has been "cut in a way that is meant to be alluring, so that the humans like us right away." [TV Guide Magazine via OSCK]

Torchwood:

Russell T. Davies showed off the first episode of the miniseries "Children Of Earth," which airs July 20-24 in both the U.S. and the U.K. People posted reviews on Twitter, calling it "brilliant" and the best hour of Torchwood so far. And Davies hinted that the Doctor gets namechecked — but doesn't actually appear — in the final episode of "Children." Also, Davies said he's all set to go with a fourth year of Torchwood, if the third season gets decent ratings. Plus more rumors that Matt Smith's TARDIS interior will be getting a more "retro" look, and that Smith's Doctor will face the Daleks in his first story. [Den Of Geek and Bleeding Cool]

Stargate Universe:

Reiko Aylesworth (24, Lost) plays Sharon, the long-time life partner of Camille Wray, and she turns up in the ninth episode, "Life," where she produces a "touching turn" that's alternately heart-rending and uplifting, says producer Joseph Mallozzi. Also in "Life," Sarah Smyth plays a struggling character named Annie Balic and turns in a "wonderfully nuanced performance." Also, Mallozzi praised Jennifer Spence, who plays Dr. Lisa Park — a minor supporting character in the pilot, who's gotten a much bigger role since then because the producers liked her performance and gave her more to do. (So I guess she's not one of the early deaths.) [Gateworld]

Heroes:

The show started filming its fourth season, and Adrian Pasdar posted a brief update:

What a great first day we had. Shot a load of stuff in my office, no dialogue, just me acting up a storm. Solo. Then Mr Q joined us and the fireworks began. What a gentle man. This is going to be an amazing season. Everybody dropped by the set at one point or another today. This is one seriously tight cast. I am a better person for knowing all of them. I feel lucky.

I love the idea that he "acted up a storm" without saying anything. I'm picturing bulging eyeballs. [The ODI and Heroes Television]

Also, apparently, the first two episodes of the season will be called "Orientation" and "Jump, Push, Fail." [HeroSite]

Vampire Diaries:

Oh, come on. You never know: This show could be better than it looks. I was prejudiced against Supernatural for ages, and now it's pretty much my favorite show. Would it help if I showed you a gallery of stills from the pilot, featuring abmormally pretty people? [VampireSite]

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.