Movies

Microsoft and 343 Industries have recruited film director Steven Spielberg in the creation of a new Halo live-action TV series.

The companies announced the new series during their Xbox One unveil event today.

Spielberg presumably will produce the new show in conjunction with Halo developer 343 Industries. Halo, the popular franchise that has anchored Xbox for years, used to be developed by Bungie Studios. Microsoft did not specify what Spielberg's role would be.

Though Spielberg was not able to attend Microsoft's Xbox One event in Redmond, Wash., he appeared on screen, noting that the Halo franchise is "… Read more

Disney said today that it has begun production on "Star Wars Rebels," a new animated television series. It will air in 2014, first as a one-hour special, and then will continue as a regular series.

The special will be shown on the Disney Channel, while the series will air first on Disney XD channels globally, Disney said. It will be produced by LucasFilm Animation.

The announcement that production has commenced on "Star Wars Rebels" comes just two months after Disney shut down "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a popular and long-running cartoon series. What's unclear is whether the announcement of "Star Wars Rebels" will do anything to ease the enmity toward Disney that has sprung up in the wake of the "Clone Wars" shutdown, as well as the closure of LucasArts, the video game arm of LucasFilm. … Read more

SPOILERS AHEAD: The new "Star Trek" movies with J.J. Abrams at the helm have turned into commercial successes, but some long-time Trekkies aren't thrilled with the direction the franchise is taking. Check out the Reddit responses to Wil Wheaton's take on Abrams to get an idea of the discussion.

I, for one, am a bit in love with the reboots. Sure, I was suspicious at first. I enjoyed the 2009 "Star Trek" well enough, and thought it clever how it totally wiped out the timeline from the original series and gave itself a new universe to play in for the subsequent films. But it was seeing "Star Trek Into Darkness" yesterday that truly turned me into a fan of the new films. I'm going to tell you why.… Read more

NICASIO, Calif. -- Growing up in the 1960s, Ben Burtt was such a big "Star Trek" fan that when he went off to college at a school where he had no TV, he had his father record the audio from each week's episode and mail it to him.

Sitting in his dorm room, Burtt would listen to the shows with headphones on, taking in each new episode with no pictures. But he didn't need the video to understand what was going on. "It was so vividly portrayed with excellent sound effects," Burtt said, "… Read more

'Ij, eartHlIngh, veng SuvwI' Hol chu' tu'lu'. I'm not sure how accurate that really is, but, according to Bing, it means, "Listen up, earthling, there's a new language in town."

Bing is so excited about the new "Star Trek Into Darkness" movie that it added Klingon to Bing Translator, the translation service that usually handles Earth languages like Bulgarian, Turkish, and Polish.

Bing didn't just throw together some guttural sounds and call it done. Microsoft got together with "Star Trek" studio Paramount, the Klingon Language Institute, and Marc Okrand, the creator of the Klingon language, to do it up right.… Read more

Any fan of "Star Wars" will immediately recognize the Lars Homestead, where Luke Skywalker grew up. But they may not realize that the sets used to film those scenes in the 1970s were left essentially untouched after George Lucas and his crew departed Tunisia.

Thanks to Laughing Squid, I stumbled across the beautiful and haunting photographs by visual artist Ra di Martino, who visited the location in Chott el Gharsa, Tunisia, where Lucas filmed those scenes, and captured their decrepit state years later.

Of course, there are a lot of people who want to keep the Lars Homestead … Read more

One my biggest disappointments with Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" was its failure to include Tom Bombadil, the immortal woodsman who is immune to the One Ring.

The character has a small but intriguing part in J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, but of course there's no room for him in a blockbuster film. Not so, however, with this very cool Periodic Table of Middle Earth, which replaces elements with earthly characters from LOTR and "The Hobbit." … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--What I'm about to tell you is 100 percent true, no matter how much you will want to tell me I'm full of it: there are American adults who have never seen "Star Wars."

The 1977 George Lucas film is a timeless global phenomenon and may be one of the most embedded of all our cultural artifacts. It spawned an empire that Disney ended up buying for $4 billion, in large part because of the passion and commitment of its worldwide audience. But still some people, even those who watch other movies, and are part of mainstream society, managed to make it to 2013 without ever seeing it.

For one group of "Star Wars" newbies, though, their lifelong exclusion from one of the biggest clubs on Earth is over. … Read more

Spark your sabers, feed your Rancor, and fire up the X-Wing. It's May 4, a fabulous makeshift holiday that plays off the saying "May the Force be with you" and gives fans of the sci-fi saga yet another reason to openly celebrate "Star Wars" films and culture.

To commemorate the occasion, check out an incredible collection of conceptual drawings for "Return of the Jedi" by legendary artist Ralph McQuarrie.

The illustrations, which hugely influenced the aesthetics of the sets, characters, and vehicles in the movie -- astounds due to McQuarrie's sensational use … Read more