📣 REMINDER: Next The Ark Mastodon watch / rewatch party will this upcoming Saturday, July 11th 3:00 pm EDT (UTC-4).

S1E7 A Slow Death is Worse

S1E8 Every Single Person Matters

I host there from my account @AlsoPaisleyCat@tenforward.social.

We took a hiatus for the US national holiday last week but will be continuing with the first season this Saturday.

Please feel welcome to join in. There’s a groupbot to help boost posts and federate. If you would like to participate or just lurk, please make a follow request to to the fedigroups bot and I will approve.

While the production information in US-based entertainment media have emphasized that the new Apple Cold War 1980s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters spinoff — working title Birdwatcher — will be shooting in Australia or South Pacific locations, it appears that production licences are in place for Prague and surrounding areas in Czechia.

Given the Cold War focus, locations in Eastern Europe make sense. Canadian locations can only stand in for so much of Russia and Kazakhstan (as they did in Monarch). Prague features in many shows needing urban Eastern European locations now that Russian coproductions are not viable.

In the May issue of Location Internationalmagazine, Czech Film Commissioner Pavlína Žipková discusses international productions filming in the country this year, and references the project under the title The American Birdwatcher. 

Stillking Films, one of the Czech Republic’s leading production service companies, has registered the project with the Czech Audiovisual Fund and will coordinate local production activities.

JG Dillard shared this first behind the scenes production photo on Instagram for the new ‘Young Lee Shaw’ Monsterverse Apple spinoff series starring Wyatt Russell.

The working title is ’Birdwatcher’. Production started in mid June.

Just watched the Mainland Chinese movie Per Aspera Ad Astra on Netflix. It’s the summer movie I’ve been wanting.

It had a cinematic release earlier this spring and was released on Netflix June 18th.

While set in space, it’s focused on virtual reality and AI. Some have described as a mix of EEAAO and The Matrix. I’d add in a fair dose of high concept Star Trek too.

It’s a fun ride with a good message. Highly recommend it for sci-fi fans looking for a well executed story with competent problem solving and positive values.

Dylan Wang He Di, Victoria Song Qian and Wang Duo deliver a compelling and action packed tale. While I watched with subtitles because the cast all voiced their own parts in the original Mandarin, the English language dub is reportedly excellent. I found the special effects well done (but would really welcome the views of experts here ).

Here’s the synopsis from Netflix:

An AI system lets people live their dreams during space travel, but when a crisis arises a technician must enter the dreamscape to save the passengers.

And here’s a translation of the original promotion for the movie:\

High school student Zhang Qi Meng, focused on preparing for exams, is pulled out of the examination hall by a stranger named Brother Biao, who breaks through the window. He is then informed of a shocking fact: his world is just a virtual metaverse program. In reality, Qi Meng is an astronaut in hibernation, and at this moment, disaster is rapidly approaching their spaceship...

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For those not aware a ‘Godzilla El Niño’ is forecast for Africa in the coming months.

It’s a serious threat to the well-being of the population on the continent. Seems worthy of the name.

Severe damage to agriculture and infrastructure is expected across large parts of the continent, and Africa has just a few months to prepare.

Both droughts and floods may cause “severe” exacerbation of food insecurity, says Rainer, who notes that some of the worst affected areas are also grappling with the effects of conflict. “In the worst case, drought can mean a complete loss of the harvest including the seeds for the next season, especially if non-adapted varieties, for example of maize, are grown.”

Climate models suggest Africa has just a few months to prepare for the short-term impacts.

This cash-crop industry perspective from a coffee industry publication definitely is doing its bit to serve its clientele.

Given the overlap between OG The Magic School Bus and science fiction / genre fans, this project from Legendary Entertainment to bring the show to the big screen in live action may be of interest.

Given the quality of Legendary’s Dune and Monsterverse productions, there’s reason to believe that it will be a cut above many other legacy IP adaptations.

Now in its pre-order period, this remastered release of the Atari classic is getting some enthusiastic reviews.

This may be billed as a remaster, but Pipeworks hasn’t just juiced the resolution and called it a destroyed city. These monsters – and the environments they’re rampaging through – look great. Seriously, go find footage of the original game and then go watch footage from this.

I’ve undertaken on Mastodon to host watch/rewatch parties for seasons 1 & 2 of The Ark.

It’s a lower budget Dean Devlin created show produced for Syfy that’s distributed on a patchwork of streamers internationally.

It’s caught the interest of many longtime Star Trek fans. While the initial setting on Earth — that The Ark colony ship has left — was dystopian, the overall tone of the show is aspirational.

Its third season will premiere at the end of July.

Mastodon has a great number of watch and rewatch communities.

#Remonsterdon looks to be new. Dedicated Godzilla watch parties will be taking place the first Sunday of each month.

Information in the upcoming one this Sunday, with the 1956 English release with Raymond Burr, is in the linked post from the Mastodon host @klu9@ohai.social.

These watch parties are not affiliated with this Lemmy community or StarTrek.website but look interesting.

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/40147491

While kdramas having been established in global popularity, cdramas are having a bit of a moment with international audiences.

Pursuit of Jade was recently the first to crack mainland China production to crack the Netflix non-English language top ten, and stayed on it for several weeks.

Outside China, cdrama fans seem to intersect with Star Trek fans more than one might expect. Perhaps it’s the willingness to watch massive numbers of episodes to enjoy a series? cdramas typically come in with 40 episode series, and in earlier years some had 60 or 70 episodes.

So, it seems inevitable that Star Trek cdrama fans would want to fancast reboots of classic Star Trek legacy characters with top Chinese Idol drama actors.

u/universalaxototal created these and posted them on cdramafans subreddit today. Shared with permission.

More are in the works for some of the women characters.

From the original post:

• ⁠Tan Jianci righteously commanding as Xiang-Luc Picard mic drop 🎤

• ⁠Liu Yuning looking so natural in Starfleet uniform. He definitely plays the saxophone […and towers over everyone at 1.91 metres.]

• ⁠Hou Minghao as Captain Kirk, absolutely seducing an alien woman on a distant planet while the away team pretends not to notice

⁠Deng Wei as Spock/Data 🖖

• ⁠Deng Wei also somehow managing the wearing of a hair accessory on his face (it is the future, luxury brands have collapsed, so the House of Chanel has had to pivot into quantum optics and interface technology)

While kdramas having been established in global popularity, cdramas are having a bit of a moment with international audiences.

Pursuit of Jade was recently the first to crack mainland China production to crack the Netflix non-English language top ten, and stayed on it for several weeks.

Outside China, cdrama fans seem to intersect with Star Trek fans more than one might expect. Perhaps it’s the willingness to watch massive numbers of episodes to enjoy a series? cdramas typically come in with 40 episode series, and in earlier years some had 60 or 70 episodes.

So, it seems inevitable that Star Trek cdrama fans would want to fancast reboots of classic Star Trek legacy characters with top Chinese Idol drama actors.

u/universalaxototal created these and posted them on cdramafans subreddit today. Shared with permission.

More are in the works for some of the women characters.

From the original post:

• ⁠Tan Jianci righteously commanding as Xiang-Luc Picard mic drop 🎤

• ⁠Liu Yuning looking so natural in Starfleet uniform. He definitely plays the saxophone […and towers over everyone at 1.91 metres.]

• ⁠Hou Minghao as Captain Kirk, absolutely seducing an alien woman on a distant planet while the away team pretends not to notice

⁠Deng Wei as Spock/Data 🖖

• ⁠Deng Wei also somehow managing the wearing of a hair accessory on his face (it is the future, luxury brands have collapsed, so the House of Chanel has had to pivot into quantum optics and interface technology)