Epic: This is what a good children’s film looks like

Movies for kids generally exist in a zone of lowered expectations. Recycled sitcom jokes and microwaved pop culture references dot a paint-by-numbers story about rehashed characters. So it’s refreshing to see a film like Epic, which actually packs a real story, along with some gorgeous imagery. Minor spoilers ahead…

Seriously, it seems like every year, there are a tiny handful of movies for kids that actually have a decent story, an emotional punch and some fun bits that aren’t reconstituted from freeze-dried material. In recent years, those films have included ParaNorman, Despicable Me, Rise of the Guardians, Wreck-It Ralph and Brave. When it comes to animated films, there used to be a clear distinction between Pixar and non-Pixar films, but we’ve been lucky enough to have decent films from Pixar and other studios recently.

In any case, Epic feels very much in the same league as the aforementioned five movies, in terms of: A) having a story rather than just a collection of tropes, B) bringing some real emotion instead of just a sporadic sentimentality, C) being about something, D) constructing some thrilling, dynamic set pieces that move the story forward and come out of a strong sense of the physical, E) having characters you root for.

In Epic, M.K. (Amanda Seyfried) is a teenage girl whose mother has just died, and she’s been shipped off to the middle of nowhere to live with her father, a mad scientist named Professor Bomba (Jason Sudeikis). He’s obsessed with proving that there are tiny little people living in the forest, who are a crucial part of the ecosystem and move too fast for humans to see unaided. And this obsession has not just ruined Bomba’s career, it also drove his wife and daughter away. And in fact, M.K. quickly realizes she can’t stay with her crazy dad this time around, either, because his obsession with finding the little people in the forest is making him impossible to be around.

Except that, just as M.K. is preparing to leave her dad and go back to the city, she encounters those little people in the forest that her dad was talking about. And she gets shrunk to little-person size, and has to help save this tiny society of quasi-fairies from their enemies the Boggans, who represent the forces of death and decay.

So basically, it’s a portal fantasy — M.K. accidentally falls into a portal that leads to a magical world where she has to learn the rules, and she’s entrusted with a vital mission by the Queen (Beyonce!). And among other things, Epic shows why portal fantasies work so well, especially for audiences that aren’t steeped in fantasy tropes: M.K. gets to be the audience surrogate, discovering this world alongside us. And instead of characters in the fantasy world randomly dropping references to pop culture or consumer electronics, all that wry juxtaposition comes via M.K. herself.

And the fantasy world in Epic is just plain gorgeous, even better than the concept art we featured a while back. The thing that jumps out at you, watching this movie, is the amazing work on textures: every leaf and every sword and every bird wing has surfaces you can practically reach out and touch. This is the result of years of evolution in computer animation, which has now reached the point that computer-generated surfaces feel tangible.

For a movie where there are three separate worlds that need to feel real and distinct — the “real” world, the world of the Leafmen and flower people, and the revolting decaying world of the Boggans — the contrasts between different textures and surfaces is absolutely essential, and brilliantly done. It doesn’t feel like we’re going from reality to a paper-cut fantasy world, but just that we’re transiting between two different real places.

And the action in the film is great. The Leafmen ride on little birds, and the Boggans have bats and bugs — and there’s dogfights. There’s also some great “Forest of Endor” type chase scenes and fight scenes. And a lot of really lovely swordfights and battles. The main baddie, Mandrake, is voiced by Christoph Waltz, and he totally commits to being a cartoon villain, with his whole heart.

And the movie manages to give M.K. two arcs — realizing her father wasn’t crazy, and stepping up to become a fantasy hero — without shortchanging either one of them. In fact, the two arcs keep feeding into each other, in a way that feels pretty seamless and elegant, and without giving too much away they come together nicely at the end. This is one of those films where the plot resolution is also a character resolution, without anybody having to lean on any big clunky plot levers.

At the same time, the other character arc in the film is pure cliché — there’s a young “Leafman” (basically plant-themed fantasy knight) named Nod, who is irresponsible and doesn’t want to step up, and just wants to do his own thing, etc. etc. Voiced by Josh Hutcherson, Nod is doing exactly the same “irresponsible young guy won’t step up” thing you’ve seen in a million similar movies, without anything particularly new added. Except, maybe, the relationship between Nod and his mentor Ronin (Colin Farrell), which has a few nice moments.

In any case, Epic is a fun fantasy adventure that you can take your kids to without cringing. And in a time when we’re being saturated with reimagined fairytales, this is a movie that treats its fairytale elements lightly and with a certain amount of cleverness. There’s no ponderous attempt to give any of the procedings some artificial “fabulist” gravitas. And this is the second movie in the past six months from children’s book author William Joyce, who also gave us the quite decent Rise of the Guardians. (If you liked Guardians, you’ll like this, too.) This time around, Joyce is not only writing and producing, he’s the film’s production designer.

So yeah, Epic isn’t just a good kids’ movie, it’s also a good fantasy film in which the origin of a hero is done well and heroism is celebrated. (And the scientist father ends up being treated well, and science isn’t demonized, yay.) Epic actually lives up to its title, and might wind up being one of the summer’s better action-adventure films.

[Charlie Jane Anders]
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First look at DC’s animated Flashpoint movie

The Flash didn’t just wake up on the wrong side of bed, he woke up in the wrong universe. He has no powers, the Justice League doesn’t exist, and someone else is wearing Batman’s cowl — and he’s starring in Flashpoint, DC’s next straight-to-home-video animated movie. here’s the first trailer.

Flashpoint is the comic event that birthed the New 52-niverse (or killed the original DC universe, if you’re being negative about it). Here’s the official synopsis, if you’re not worried about spoilers:

When time travel allows a past wrong to be righted for Flash and his family, the event’s temporal ripples prove disastrous, creating a fractured, alternate reality where the Justice League never formed, and even Superman is nowhere to be found. Amidst a new world being ravaged by a fierce war between Wonder Woman’s Amazons and Aquaman’s Atlanteans, Flash must team with a grittier, more violent Batman and government agent Cyborg to restore the continuity of Flash’s original timeline.

I love that Thomas Wayne is Batman, mostly because I love the idea that all members of the Wayne family are genetically predisposed to fighting crime while dressing like bats. Anyways, Flashpoint does have a pretty epic voice cast:

Primetime television stars Justin Chambers (Grey’s Anatomy) and Kevin McKidd (Grey’s Anatomy), the voices of Barry Allen/Flash and Thomas Wayne/Batman, respectively, unite with numerous greats of television and film to fashion the famed animated roles. Adding to the celebrity-laden voice cast and providing thrilling additions to the Justice League series are Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale, Friday Night Lights, Chronicle) as Cyborg, C. Thomas Howell (Southland, The Outsiders) as Thawne/Professor Zoom, Nathan Fillion (Castle) as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Ron Perlman (Hellboy) as Slade and Deathstroke, Dana Delany (Body of Proof) as Lois Lane, Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride) as Aquaman, Danny Huston (Magic City) as General Lane, Sam Daly (The Office, The Daly Show) as Superman, and Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series) as Batman.

It’s always nice to hear the DCUC regulars, although since this is event is all out out with the old DC and in with the new, I wonder if DC is trying to say something here. Hmm. Oh well, Cary Elwes as a Wonder Woman-hating Aquaman sounds pretty awesome, if nothing else.

[Rob Bricken]
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Watch 9 months of Curiosity on Mars in a one-minute time-lapse video

This fascinating time-lapse video shows nine months of the Mars Curiosity Rover digging and moving its way across the red planet, in just one minute. Unlike the typical Mars beauty shots, the video shows the rover actually getting its work done.

The Front Avoidance Hazard Cameras or “Hazcams” produce far less glamorous images than the wide panoramas and sweeping vistas provided by the mastcam or the robotic hand camera — but these daily black and white photos provide a view of what Curiosity is actually doing. Youtube user Karl Sanford collected the images from the left Hazcam from Aug. 8, 2012 to May 21, 2013 into a single video that shows Curiosity digging in and sampling the Martian soil along its journey. It is really interesting watching the rover leaving its mark on Mars with tread tracks and little holes.

The original images and views from the other hazcams can be seen at the Curiosity Rover website.

[Amanda Yesilbas]
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13 Post-Apocalyptic Stories That Actually Teach Valuable Lessons

A lot of post-apocalyptic tales look really awesome with their explosions and rotting monsters, but they don’t have a lot of philosophical depth. Here are 13 stories about armageddon that actually teach valuable lessons about the real world — and its demise.

What’s interesting about some of these stories is that they are about anticipating a post-apocalyptic world, or moving through many stages of apocalypse — perhaps it’s the long view in them that allows their creators to pull lessons out of an apocalyptic scenario.

1. Dollhouse, “Epitaph”

There is something very valuable about the idea of “birthmarks” found in the two-part series ender “Epitaph.” Birthmarks are a tattoo of a person’s real name, on his or her back, so that people can distinguish between people still in their own bodies and people who have been imprinted. Priya, who had been the doll Sierra, came up with the idea: “So I’ll always know who I am. If I wake up thinking I’m someone else, I’ll have to face up to that hideous lie.” There are two great lessons in the birthmark: no matter what, know who you are; and make sure other people know it, too.

2. Logan’s Run

The ending teaches a lesson that we really shouldn’t forget: Garbage in, garbage out. Computers aren’t infallible, no matter how appealing it may be to let a supercomputer run our whole world, we need to make sure that they’re making determinations based on truth. In Logan’s Run, no one bothered to check to see if the planet was still uninhabitable, just let the computer run their lives based on that assumption.

3. Waterworld

Yes this movie was a trainwreck. But it actually offered a few interesting ideas to mull over, including ones about how humanity might evolve to deal with a world that has been transformed by global warming into a giant ocean. We learn that humans should embrace helpful mutations, like gills, that will help you survive the changed world. Also, don’t be afraid to drink your own pee.

4. The Postman

Both the movie and the book teach that symbols are important, and that rebuilding infrastructure and lines of communication are the first steps to rebuilding society. The book focuses more on how people will cling to normalcy to survive and how extreme views embodied by the Holdnists, a group of hyper survivalists, can derail and actively work against rebuilding. Most of all, the story teach us that the true heroes of the post-apocalypse are the humans who fight to help disconnected groups stay in touch with each other.

5. Mass Effect

This is one of those stories that is about planning ahead for the future post-apocalypse. The main lesson is: Always leave a detailed plan for future cycles. You might not be able to survive personally, but you can give hope to the future. It was only by building on the work of previously harvested civilizations that the Crucible could be built and the cycles of galactic annihilation could end.

6. Foundation Trilogy

Like Mass Effect, the original Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov deals with storing up knowledge for future civilizations that will rise from the ashes of a dark age or apocalypse. When the mathematician Hari Seldon discovers that galactic civilization is headed for a 30 thousand-year dark age, he also discovers that if he can build storehouses of knowledge that these dark ages will only last for a thousand years. The books deal with his efforts to build two Foundations, at either side of the galaxy, and the struggle to create a new Galactic Empire after the first has fallen — just as Seldon predicted.

7. Always Coming Home, by Ursula Le Guin

Le Guin’s novel is a direct retort to Foundation. Instead of preserving the old civilization in vast storehouses, this book advocates throwing out the old civilization and starting over fresh with new ideas that won’t lead to a repeat of past mistakes. This book’s particular new civilization on a an idyllic, primitive matriarchy. Perhaps a little to Utopian for reality, but it does make a case for not repeating history.

8. Last and First Men, by Olaf Stapledon

In this classic novel from 1930, Stapledon explores the long future of humanity, which punctuated by many apocalypses and returns from the brink of destruction. Though humanity does continue on, evolving into dramatically different creatures and colonizing the solar system, we don’t seem to learn much from our mistakes. Ultimately the sun grows dimmer and humanity faces its demise after dozens of cycles of savagery and civilization. Perhaps it is our fate to never quite get out of the cycle of destruction and rebirth.

9. Canticle for Lebowitz, by Walter Miller, Jr.

An even darker (and less whimsical) version of Last and First Men can be found in this horrifically depressing novel, where humanity is doomed to repeat its mistakes and obliterate itself in war over and over again. There is no hope for us to really evolve beyond where we are now — human civilization is always rising only to strangle itself.

10. Star Trek: First Contact

Leave it to Star Trek to bring back hope out of the post-apocalypse. Even though humanity does go through a dark age in the Star Trek timeline, we finally get a close look at how we pull ourselves out of it in this film. Humans continue to innovate technology in the rubble, despite the witchhunts and hunger and collapse of government. And at last, one man with a vision invents warp drive. That’s when the Vulcans arrive and invite humans into a partnership that eventually becomes the Federation. So scientific innovations will save us and lead us forward into a better future, despite our best efforts to sabotage ourselves.

11. The Hunger Games books

There are a number of possible messages to take away from The Hunger Games books. The series, for all its faults, an excellent primer on media manipulation. But what it does, especially in the third book, is remind us that manipulation is not the sole province of one side or the other. Katniss’s allies in the fight against President Snow and the Capital are just as, if not more, willing to use her as a symbol.

12. The Newsflesh Trilogy, by Mira Grant

When the zombie pandemic comes, the only news outlets that report on it truthfully are blogs and social media. This is a simple lesson, but effective. If you want to know what’s really going on in the world, don’t trust the mainstream media.

13. Zombieland

The movie features 49 rules, including the famous “cardio” and “double tap.” These are of course very useful in almost every circumstance.

[Annalee Newitz]
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Why Publishers Are Always Looking For The Next Old Man’s War

Many of us have been reading science fiction for years, and we bring all of that weight of experience and knowledge to every new book we read. But to keep growing, science fiction has to reach readers who know nothing about the genre — so publishers need to find good “entry level” books, says Tor editor Patrick Nielsen-Hayden.

Interviewed in Locus Magazine, Nielsen-Hayden and his wife and collaborator Teresa talk about their experiences in fandom, and the challenges of genre publishing. And Patrick Nielsen-Hayden explains:

These days I’m actually less interested in finding the next Book of the New Sun, and more on the lookout for books like Old Man’s War or Little Brother, what John Scalzi calls entry-level science fiction. It’s comprehensible even if you haven’t been pickled in SF for the last 25 years. The Book of the New Sun is a great piece of work, it’s a masterpiece for people who have spent decades inhaling vast quantities of science fiction and fantasy. I’m at least as interested in books like Spin by Robert Charles Wilson, because it tore through a pile of readers inside Tor who almost never read SF. They all latched onto Spin and went, ‘Wow! This is science fiction that I actually like!’’’

There’s also some great stuff about the fact that books aren’t just competing with other books any more — they’re competing with DVDs and video games and the internet and 500 channels of cable TV. The whole thing is worth checking out. [Locus Magazine]

[Charlie Jane Anders]
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These Terry Pratchett quote posters are lovely

The boundless wisdom and humor of Terry Pratchett get immortalized in a series of motivational posters that you only wish were hanging in your office right now.

They don’t seem to be the kind of thing Buzzfeed normally posts, but that’s where I found them. No source or attribution, natch :|

[via Buzzfeed]

[RadioSilence]
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Henry Cavill wants to make a Superman/Batman team-up film!

The rising star that Joss Whedon supposedly wants to play Scarlet Witch in Avengers 2 has now said that she would like to play Scarlet Witch in Avengers 2. Hugh Jackman explains why Wolverine kind of just wants to die in his latest solo film. Plus Grimm, Arrow, Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and more! Spoilers abound!

Top image from The Wolverine.

Man of Steel

Star Henry Cavill says he’d like to make a World’s Finest movie, assuming Warner Bros. can actually figure out what they’re going to do with the Caped Crusader now that Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale have departed:

“I think it would be really interesting with the age-old Batman/Superman conflict. Because they are two different sides of the same coin and their methods are entirely different. And I think it would actually make for an interesting story as to why, first of all, they were going head to head and how. I think that would make a great story… Who knows, I’m sure there’s all sorts of ideas being thrown around at Warner Bros right now.”

There’s almost certainly nothing to this beyond Cavill doing a little good old-fashioned geeking out, but it’s at least cool to hear the hopeful new face of Warner Bros.’s superhero franchises is interested in making a team-up movie with Batman. [SFX]

The Avengers 2

Hanna and The Host star Saoirse Ronan says she’s aware of the rumors that she is the prototype for the sequel’s interpretation of Scarlet Witch, which means the production team is using Ronan as their reference point in the casting process. She says she’d be up for saving them the trouble of finding somebody like Saoirse Ronan by just doing the job herself:

I have heard about it and yes, I would. Yeah, of course I would. I love Joss and I love those films, and I love his handle on them and how he portrayed these kinds of superheroes. I think it’s very different from what anyone else has done. So yeah, I’d love to be in it.

[The Mary Sue]

The Wolverine

Star Hugh Jackman says this movie will explore the vulnerable side of Wolverine, and in particular how he is potentially ready to die after losing Jean Grey in X-Men: The Last Stand, the previous film chronologically:

[Wolverine’s] sort of interested in [the offer of mortality], because if your life is not great and there is a lot of regret and pain, would it be great to live on and on?… Yes, (‘The Wolverine’) is a character piece, and I would say it may be a little darker in tone than the others, and it certainly feels a little different, (but) it’s just as much fun. The action is probably in this is more inventive than we’ve ever had before.

He goes into more detail about his character’s arc:

(He) loses the love of his life, (and) we’ve seen that impact. He’s one of those people where whenever he gets close to someone, bad things tend to happen. So in a way, not only for himself but for the world, he decides to just completely go off the reservation and sort of deny who he is and be like a recluse.

But there is something that’s bringing him back?
There is something bringing him back. … He just can’t help himself, you know? I think the thing I love about him is, you know, he’s reluctant, he doesn’t want to get involved, he’s not an idealist, but at the end of the day when there is an injustice, he can’t help but rise to the occasion.

There’s more at the link. [CNN]

Thor: The Dark World

Costar Ray Stevenson talks some more about his character, Warriors Three member Volstagg, and the movie in general:

In the first “Thor,” Asgard had this tremendous peace among the 9 realms. They were riding at the heights. Everything is working and looking as it should be. In this one, the realms are being whipped up into various rebellions. There is a darker malignant force out there and we are in the process of engaging in long protracted skirmishes and battles. The luster and shine of the city has been taken off and it all leads to a huge assault, an attack at the heart of Asgard. It could be completely wiped out, the stakes are a lot higher.

And what do we see of Volstagg?

He’s great on a battlefield. He is one of the warriors three and doing what they do, their time is spent fighting on many different fronts. They’re not always fighting together. Volstagg is struggling, he has a brood, they are fighting for hearth and home as much as for the idea of Asgard itself. That’s where he has trouble.

What do you mean?
He’s all too aware of how potentially threatening this new enemy is on both the home front and the battlefield.

There’s more at the link. [Speakeasy]

This is the End

Here’s a TV spot for James Franco and Seth Rogen’s apocalyptic film, in which they and all their celebrity friends play versions of themselves as the world crumbles around them. [First Showing]

Monsters University

Here’s the latest trailer for Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. prequel. [First Showing]

Poltergeist

A new report from Moviehole indicates that the upcoming Poltergeist movie, though centered on new characters, will be set in the same universe as the original films:

In one scene in the new film, the kids’ find some things behind the sliding panel in the attic. Yep, you guessed it – they find some of the Freeling’s possessions, intentionally left behind. There’s the Star Wars bed sheets (from Robbie’s room), a black-and-white TV set (why, of course!), and some Christmas decorations.

The report also indicates that the new movie will revisit some of the original’s more iconic moments:

There’s the scary tree that proves a looming threat to our youngster (and gets pulled underground), the freaky ‘clown’ that sits upon a rocking chair in the bedroom (in this case, the clown sits in younger brother Griffin’s room), and of course there’s ‘phone’ trouble (in this case, older sister Kendra’s iPhone gets damaged by unseen forces), and of course the little girl – Madison – who makes friends with ‘The Lost People’ that nobody can see (but who don’t mind ‘showing off’ – making Madison’s hair stand up like she’s just been struck by electricity, being just one of their ‘tricks’).

[Moviehole]

Grimm

Star David Giuntoli says he doesn’t actually know if the writers have actually figured out the resolution to the big, season-ending cliffhanger, which found Nick captured by Renard and placed in suspended animation:

Yeah, we don’t know what Eric Renard has planned for Nick. I don’t know if the writers know, either. But it does not look like it’s a friendly parlor game. It’s going to be bad. It’s a big power play that the Royals are making for Nick, and they have him. They are probably going to ship him off somewhere, and I have no idea how it’s all going to end.

Have you shot the first episode of next season yet?
No. I haven’t read it. I don’t know if it’s been written. I’m being honest when I’m saying I don’t even know if the writers quite know. I assume I’m going to be on the show next year.

Nick and Capt. Renard still have a very tentative alliance at the end of the season. How do you think Nick would react if Sean Renard eventually sided with his brother against Nick?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Renard sided with his brother. Renard and Nick… again, I’m not comfortable with this guy. Yes, the whole thing with Juliette was kind of not his doing, but he did try to kill my aunt… I can’t really forgive that. He’s so mysterious. He has so many motivations and he’s so cool, he doesn’t show them. Nick would not be surprised if [Capt. Renard] teamed up with Eric and went against me.

There’s more at the link. [TV Line]

Under the Dome

The eighth episode will reportedly see “Barbie, Linda, and Big Jim try to take back control of the town’s main water supply from Ollie.” [SpoilerTV]

Arrow

Executive producer Marc Guggenheim indicates Laurel’s role will change in season two:

“Because her building has been destroyed, Laurel is looking for a new job and she will not be returning to CNRI next year. She’ll have a new job and a new mission and I’ll leave it to people to speculate for the next three months as to what that mission could be.”

[TV Guide]

The Vampire Diaries

Showrunner Julie Plec discusses the major narrative arcs for season five:

“One thing we’re looking forward to so much next season is Elena on her own as a vampire and living her new life in college. And to see a vulnerable Katherine, who is able to be hurt and able to be killed and in need of the protection much like the first Elena we met four years ago.”

[TV Guide]

The Originals

Stars Daniel Gillies and Joseph Morgan discuss the sibling relationship between Elijah and Klaus as they head off to their very own Vampire Diaries spin-off:

Gillies: “It’s just going to be that ultimate dynamic of Elijah in pursuit of making certain that the family is reinstated as they once were, which is sort of this pursuit of a fantasy, almost. And Klaus is a lot more malevolently in pursuit of power. It’s no less of a fantasy. And it’s sort of watching those two dynamics intersect.

Morgan: We ended the backdoor pilot in a good place, moving forward together, a tentative partnership between us. But as things complicate, as the series pans out, there’s room for throwing that up in the air. As far as the baby is concerned, I can’t imagine that we both have identical plans of how this child should be raised. So I imagine we’re going to have a conflict of interest.

And Morgan adds this hint about the show’s overall direction:

I didn’t for the life of me see [the baby surprise] coming and I’m so happy with the potential it gives us for exploring these characters. The Originals have always revolved around this idea of family and I think the baby storyline really gives us a chance for that to escalate, way beyond what it would have done just keeping it the three of us.

There’s more at the link. [Just Jared, Jr.]

Warehouse 13

Here’s a promo and a sneak peek for the next episode, “Instinct,” which airs June 3.

In the Flesh

Here’s a trio of short promos for BBC America’s upcoming three-night zombie event, which kicks off June 6.

The BBC has also confirmed plans for a second season, set to premiere in the United Kingdom sometime in 2014. [TV Equals]

Continuum

Here’s a promo for the fifth episode of season two, “Second Opinion.”

Lost Girl

Season four is reportedly set to film between June 3 and October 21. [SpoilerTV]

Additional reporting by Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders.

[Alasdair Wilkins]
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The new Avengers Assemble cartoon looks… actually kinda okay

The first clip from Avengers Assemble, the new Marvel cartoon debuting this Sunday on Disney XD, has arrived, and… well, it looks fine. As a lover of the needlessly cancelled Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, this is difficult to say, but Assemble feels like EMH, just with the movie roster.

I guess we won’t know for sure until we see the whole episode, and the show will almost certainly lack EMH‘s ability to cover the history of the entire Marvel universe (for instance, I’ll eat my hat if Beta Ray Bill shows up). Still, for now, the more Earth’s Mightiest Heroes-like Avengers Assemble is, the better.

[Rob Bricken]
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EXCLUSIVE: Orci Opens Up About Star Trek Into Darkness, Part 2

StarTrek.com ran an interview with Star Trek Into Darkness co-writers and co-producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman a couple of weeks before the film opened, but when we got a chance to speak with Orci again after we saw the film, but still before it opened to the public, we decided to take advantage of the opportunity. Somewhere in the middle of this second, and solo, conversation with Orci, it was agreed that we’d touch on some spoilers and hold the interview until after the film debuted. Well, the film is in theaters and now is the time to run the story, spoilers and all. Below is part two, and click HERE to read part one.


Star Trek Into DarknessStar Trek Into Darkness has wall to wall action. How do you “write” action? Do you put on paper, “Five-minute space chase sequence here”? and “Seven-minute fight scene here”? And then, how much of it comes to life on set? At ILM?

ORCI: You will get different answers from different writers. Alex (Kurtzman) and I pride ourselves on having the action be extremely specific. We started in TV and what you always joke about in TV is that you want to make your scripts director-proof, because you have a different director every week. So we always joke that you can rely on anyone to tell you what the action is going to be; you’ve got to write it in there. Now, the flip side of that is you get to a movie and you have J.J. Abrams and you have Roger Guyett at ILM, and suddenly you realize that you don’t have to be so director-proof. These guys actually know what they’re doing. So it’s a mix. I would say that we don’t leave anything to the imagination. We absolutely describe it. The action on the page. On the other hand, not amount of writing, no amount of anything you can write on the page, can ever recreate what J.J. does or what Roger Guyett does or what Scott Chambliss, the production designer, figures out in terms of what it looks like. You’ll see an interesting handoff. We imagine it as far as we can, and then the people who have to take it further do an amazing job.

Star Trek Into DarknessThe character that takes the biggest beating in Star Trek Into Darkness is the Enterprise. Why did you torture the old girl?

ORCI: (Laughs). OK, but admit it: you thought the Enterprise was going down, and it survived. This is a question only us fans can understand, and I know what you’re saying. Actually, we screwed up. In the first movie we were pitching that the Enterprise should totally be destroyed. It was actually (then-Paramount president) Gail Berman who said, “No, please don’t do that.” She was right, and we realized, “OK, destroying the Enterprise is sort of a cliché.” So we changed our minds and didn’t destroy the Enterprise. We said, “The Enterprise is a sacred thing that we’re not going to screw with. God bless the Enterprise. If we ever end up on the case of being part of its demise, you’d better believe it’s going to be a super-important reason why it gets destroyed. But we’re not just going to just do that willy-nilly.” The Enterprise in (Star Trek Into Darkness) comes close to being destroyed, but it survives.

Star Trek Into Darkness OrciJ.J. Abrams is probably going to be too busy with Star Wars to direct a third Star Trek film, but how eager are you to be involved with it?

ORCI: Look, man, my uncle got me into Star Trek. I named the Kelvin, the very ship that Kirk was born on, after my uncle. To me, Star Trek is so important and I love it so much that it is very difficult to imagine other people working on it. Yet, if somebody has a better idea than I do, then they should be the ones handling Star Trek. We’ve always said that we didn’t create Star Trek, that we don’t own Star Trek. It existed before us. I only want to be on Star Trek as long as I’m useful and helpful to what Star Trek is. The minute that I’m a burden on it, then I should not be here. I want the best idea to win. Hopefully, if this movie works, Paramount will be thinking about a third movie and, if I have the best idea, I should win. If I don’t, someone else should win. That’s how much I love Star Trek. The best idea should win, period.

Star Trek III was the most contemplative and downbeat of the original cast films, and we say that in a good way. Given the marketplace these days, could a third Star Trek film from the Bad Robot team in any way resemble The Search for Spock?

ORCI: I hope that, in a certain way, we’ve earned the right to get a little bit crazy and maybe go more sci-fi? I’m going to flip this interview on you. What do you think?

Star TrekWe wouldn’t mind a little less action, a little more character development. We’re not sure they need to beam down to Risa for a whole movie, but maybe even just a few minutes of them relaxing, like in that wonderfully cheesy campfire scene in Star Trek V, would be welcome…

ORCI: I agree with you completely. You brought up, jokingly, the campfire scene in Star Trek V. I love that scene. I love it. I feel like that’s pure Star Trek. Again, let the best idea win and we may not be around and it’s going to be a competition, but maybe we earned the right to do some sci-fi in this third movie and sort of have earned the right to do whatever Star Trek needs to be. We’ve done these two cool, big, action Star Trek movies. Are we allowed to do more than that now? I’d like to think so. You’re from StarTrek.com. You know that Star Trek: The Motion Picture is panned by some people and yet, hell man, V’ger going off and becoming sentient is awesome. It’s such a trippy thing.

Click HERE to read part one of our interview with Roberto Orci.

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The Hunt for Alien Megastructures

When most people think about searching for extraterrestrial intelligences, they imagine someone like Ellie Arroway searching the skies for radio transmissions. But what about looking in other ways? Perhaps a highly advanced alien civilisation might build structures large enough for us to see.

Top image: A depiction of Larry Niven’s Ringworld. Credit: Hill/Wikimedia Commons

Vast structures, constructed on astronomical scales by advanced civilisations, is what the field of astroengineering is all about. This, admittedly, sounds audacious – and for the human race right now, it is. For us, astroengineering is still very much the realm of thought experiments, theoretical calculations, and science fiction. So it may be surprising to know that certain astronomers have made some quite serious attempts to look for astroengineered artifacts around other stars. With telescopes becoming ever more sensitive, and images being taken of exoplanets, the idea is starting to captivate imaginations once more.

Image: Artists impression of a Dyson sphere, composed of a swarm of smaller satellites. Credit: Vedexent/Wikimedia Commons

In 1960, Freeman Dyson published a paper entitled Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation. His suggestion was that any megastructure constructed around a star should show itself by emitting more infrared light than it should. The solution was, simply, to look for any sources of infrared which appeared artificial.

Dyson put forward the ideas that any potentially advanced civilisation may need a tremendous amount of power to sustain itself. A method he proposed was to build a vast array of satellites which would enclose an entire star to harvest its energy – a concept which later came to be known as a Dyson sphere. While the concept wasn’t taken too seriously by Dyson himself, it was a powerful enough notion that it garnered a lot of attention.

Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as looking for infrared light. Many stars, our own included, are surrounded by a disk of dust, and that dust emits plenty of infrared. To find a Dyson sphere, you need to look for a specific signature of infrared light, emitted at just the right set of wavelengths.

And that’s just what an ongoing project, headed by Dick Carrigan at Fermilab, has been doing. Astronomers regularly survey the sky to see what they might find, and Carrigan has been hunting through infrared data to search for Dyson spheres. To date, the project has a handful of candidates, but nothing definitive. Not yet.

But infrared isn’t the only way to spot Dyson spheres. In 2012 Geoff Marcy, an exoplanet researcher, was given a grant to hunt for evidence of Dyson spheres in data recorded by Kepler. In principle, any large artificial objects in orbit around other stars should be detectable in exactly the same way exoplanets are.

Artificial Worlds

Estimated sizes of the two Death Stars, compared with Earth and the Moon. Credit: Invader Xan /supernovacondensate.net

Astroengineering is, quite obviously, no easy feat; the larger the artefact being engineered, the more difficult it would be to create. For example, consider the infamous Death Star from the Star Wars movies. No official size was given in the original movie, but it’s been estimated to have been a few hundred kilometres in diameter (depending on who you’re asking), meaning that none of the engineering materials currently used here on Earth are strong enough to survive the kind of stresses involved in actually constructing one. In other words, White House petition or not, any attempt we were to make at constructing a Death Star sized object would crumple and break apart long before it was completed.

While the Death Star may be iconic in many of our minds as a vast artificial structure, it’s actually fairly small by astroengineering standards. Even the most grandiose estimates of how large it was are still small even compared to Earth’s moon, meaning something this size would be still be difficult to spot with a telescope. If we were to be able to actually spot an astroengineered structure, it would need to be far grander.

Similar to Dyson spheres are ringworlds, like those depicted in the Halo video games. A ringworld would consist of a giant ring in orbit around a star, constructed comfortably inside the star’s habitable zone. This would give an advanced civilisation a habitat with an area several million times the size of Earth in which to live. While a planet like our own could suffer as it begins to strain under the weight of an increasing population, an advanced society could have a population of trillions living on a ringworld.

Thinking on scales any larger, and things begin to become speculative, and some radical ideas have been put forward. For instance, a matrioshka brain would use a series of concentric Dyson spheres to harvest a star’s entire energy output to power a vast computer. Equally mind-bending is the idea of the Shkadov thruster which would use a gigantic mirror as a sail, enabling an entire star to be accelerated and moved, together with anything which happened to be orbiting it. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

One thing is quite certain – For any alien race to even consider an astroengineering project, they’d need to be dramatically more advanced than we are. Of course, as some scientists have pointed out, “There is no obvious reason why our own astronomical epoch favours the emergence of civilizations”. In other words, our galaxy is billions of years old, and there’s no reason to believe that advanced alien societies haven’t already been in existence for a long time before we humans had even evolved.

Could Dyson spheres and other astroengineered megastructures really exist elsewhere in the galaxy? Currently, we have no way of knowing. But the possibility alone is exciting enough to make it worth continuing to look. Perhaps if we find the right star to look at, we might just find something amazing.

This article by Markus Hammonds originally appeared at Universe Today.


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