Did you like Days After Tomorrrow? Well, director Roland Emmerich is back with yet another end-of-the-world disaster movie, (what is with this guy and disasters?)

Expect to see giant set pieces of worldwide destruction, include an aircraft carrier crashing into the White House, Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil come crashing down, and choas everywhere you look. Yes, very Emmerich.

The film has an ensemble cast, including John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Woody Harrelson. The film will open worldwide on November 13, 2009.

With the new Transformer sequel opening next week, a new clip have gone live at Yahoo Videos featuring Megan Fox.

Fans of Michael Shanks can rejoice as he reprises his SG-1 role of Dr Daniel Jackson in an episode of Stargate Universe.

He is slated to appear in an episode of Sanctuary titled "Penance", reuniting with his former SG-1 co-star Amanda Tapping.

Sanctuary's upcoming second season in fall picks up from where season one cliffhanger left off, with Ashley unwittingly doing the bidding of the Cabal. Season two will feature problems to the other sanctuaries around the world, while Dr Magnus (Amanda Tapping) and Will (Robin Dunne) try to keep the network together.

SCIFI Channel has released a new sneak peek at the upcoming Stargate spinoff, Stargate Universe. "Grittier", "sexier", "different look, different feel" are just some of the words used by the cast to described this new spinoff.


The community however has been less kind, calling this show a wannabe Battlestar Galactica, even dubbing it "Stargate Galactica", with many wondering why the wonderful Stargate Atlantis was cancelled only to be replaced with this new installment.

But, these are early days, and hopefully, the producers of the show will do the Stargate fans proud and create a worthy successor to a great series that fans care about.

Watch the sneak peek at SGU official website.

Ok, I know I'm pretty late into the game here, since I only managed to catch the show last night, one week after it opened here in Singapore. Before going to the movie, I already read critics slamming the movie, and was quite unsure if I wanted to contribute my hard earned money to this movie. Since I did go watch it, I might as well pen down my thoughts.

I did not like...

• Christian Bale's role as John Connor. Such a complex character, with a such a heroic destiny even before he was born, was reduced to a one-dimensional character barking and shouting. I learnt absolutely nothing new about such a central character. What a waste!
• The women. Terminator shows were a standard for strong female role models and that's precisely what Bryce Dallas Howard's Mrs Connor, nor Moon Bloodgood's Blair Williams were not. Howard's screen time didn't amount to anything more than 10 mins, with token lines. Bloodgood's Williams was nothing more than to provide eye candy and move the plot forward for Marcus Wright character.
  
• Cycle terminators - really? Why roll when you can fly? Even T3's little flying killer bots makes more sense than these road-bound menace. Don't get me started on why Skynet goes through all this trouble to trap Connor, just to send 1 T-800 Terminator to kill him. I'm sure there are more Terminators in Skynet's arsenal. What a poor T-800 at that, it can't even dispose of a single human being. This is suppose to be a mean killing machine!
  
• Unbelievable plot. This is probably the most chaotic and disjointed Terminator movie I've seen. Connor single-handedly going into the Skynet controlled territory? Resistance fighters mutiny on the word of a disgruntled Connor who didn't agree with his superior's strategy? Connor surviving an iron rod through the chest? Hmm... need I go on?

What I did like...

• Sam Worthington's Marcus Wright. I enjoyed the Marcus story line, which was much more coherent and intriguing. What was his purpose? Why is he different from the other Terminators? Even the explanation given at the end by Skynet, although was a bit far fetch, but was still believable (if you really stretch your imagination a bit - is Skynet really that clever?)
  
• Anton Yelchin's Kyle Reese. What a difference to see him here and in Star Trek. I took an interest in Yelchin's character immediately, after all, he is the father of John Connor, and has to be a solid person to have Connor send him back in time.
  
• The action and CGIs are top notch. Well worth the ticket price to see the set pieces and explosions. The look of the show is was spot on, with barren landscape beautifully captured through the bleached cinematography (which is ironic, given that Christian Bale's on-set tirade was against the man in charge of the look of the show.)
  
• Arnie is back! Yes, I know he's not the real Arnie... unless Arnie has found the secret to turning back his age. It was a grand moment when Arnie T-800 steps out of a smokey doorway.
  

So is it worth the admission price? I would say yes, after all, it is a summer action blockbuster and plenty of action there was. Just remember, this is not going to bring anything new to the Terminator lore, you didn't already know from the previous movies.

This is probably the best Star Wars trailer I've seen. Although it's not for a new Star Wars movie or TV show, but for the upcoming game by LucasArts and Bioware - Star Wars: The Old Republic.

The game is set 3 millenia (that's 3000 years) before the Star Wars films, and 300 years after the events in The Knights of the Old Republic game. SWTOR will be a fully voiced Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game like World of Warcraft. You can choose to be Jedi, Sith or any of the classic Star Wars roles.

The trailer is done in a "stylised realism" (something like the Final Fantasy type style) instead of a photo realistic approach. The trailer show a pivotal moment when the Sith comes to Coruscant and wipes out the Jedi. Accompanied with the excellent score, watch for the massive lightsaber orgy, and heroic deaths.



Visit the website, and check out the web comic backstory from Dark Horse Comics

You can also download the wmv version here.

According to the data at ShowBizData's daily report, Star Trek has earned an impressive US$194 million so far. Edging pass the extremely loveable Monsters vs Aliens at US$193 million.



Worldwide, Monsters vs Aliens is the top film at the moment with an estimated US$360 million. X-Men Origins:Wolverine has taken US$224 million.