20^th Century Home Entertainment continues to explore their library, releasing Blu-ray editions of popular and important films. Recently, two of Woody Allen’s best films were released and are worth a second look.

Allen as a comedian was a witty, smart writer and performer, coming from a literate line of humor that was in rapid decline by the 1960s. In some ways, he was the bridge between that era and today when men like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert carry the mantle. His early films were very funny and as a director, he was learning the ropes, figuring out what worked while entertaining the masses.

That culminated in Annie Hall, his 1977 serious comedy featuring his then-paramour Diane Keaton. The movie was a quantum leap in sophistication, partially from the smart script co-written with Marshall Brickman, but a most self-assured hand behind the camera. Allen shows a maturity as a filmmaker that proved to audiences and critics alike he was more than just a funny and funny-looking guy. The movie went on to earn four Academy Awards including Best Picture (besting Star Wars), Best Actress, Best Directing and Best Screenplay.

Yeah, there are a lot of visual touches and even some of the dialogue that smacks of the 1970s making it feel slightly dated today, but it’s nonetheless worth watching again. Keaton’s off-kilter performance was very much the actress infusing the character with elements of her personality and her eclectic fashion sense began trends that linger today.

Allen’s Alvy is a comedian falling for Annie, a dizzy nightclub singer but his neuroses drive her from his arms and across the country. He has to conquer those fears to follow his heart and her in the hopes of true love. Along the way, he skewers conventions and social trends of the day. The cast is interesting to explore since we’re seeing a variety of performers early in their careers including Christopher Walken and Sigourney Weaver while flavor of the moment Shelly Hack is also here.  And of course, Tony Roberts is on hand as he was for most of the films during this period of Allen’s career.

Also along for the ride is Gordon Willis, the cinematographer Allen called a vital teacher. Thus the film looks terrific and even better in high-definition. Also vital to the film were editors Ralph Rosenblum and Robert Karen, who trimmed the 2:20 rough cut into the 93 minute classic. As a result, an entire movie’s worth of scenes were sliced away, reducing the story to its timeless essence. This is also the film that features one of my all-time favorite gags as a moron pontificates on the meaning of Marshall McLuhan’s work, and Allen reaches behind a cardboard standee to produce the real McLuhan to correct the speaker. There’s also a fun animated sequence with art taken from the Inside Woody Allen comic strip.

Trust me, the transfer is terrific and is worth the upgrade. As is Allen’s wont, he desires his work to speak for itself and has eschewed any extras beyond the trailer.

The maturation of Allen as a filmmaker is seen on display in the second film, Manhattan. This is his ode to the city and permanently cemented the Big Apple with Allen in the public’s imagination. It’s also the story of man, twice divorced, who embarks on a romantic relationship with a 17-year old. The ick factor is worse when you realize this preceded Allen’s own romance with the 21 year old stepdaughter of his girlfriend Mia Farrow. The 1979 movie is more than that and once more co-writing with Brickman, it features the city in its best possible light. Speaking of which, it’s in black and white with brilliant Willis cinematography. On Blu-ray the city has never looked lovelier.

Allen’s Isaac Davis has given up writing for television to write a book about Manhattan and all around him, people are leading miserable lives, cheating on one another and discovering their homosexuality. We have Yale (Michael Murphy) the best friend cheating on his wife Emily (Anne Byrne) with Mary Wilkie (Keaton) while ex-wife Jill (Meryl Streep) has come out of the closet and taken up with Connie (Karen Ludwig). Then there’s Tracy (Mariel Hemingway) who is wrong for Isaac on many levels.

Once more, Allen is dealing with issues of society and social mores, with less humor than previous films and more introspection. It’s a wonderful blend of a solid script with a lavish visual sense, topped with a George Gershwin soundtrack that is romantic. This confirmed that the previous movie was not a fluke.

Singly, or together, these are Must See Woody Allen movies, even without the usual whiz bang extras. The works themselves more than command your attention.

Andrew Niccol is an English teacher’s dream, presenting visually compelling dystopia in movies that feature pretty people in dire straits. While his 1997 debut, Gattaca, got us all interested in him as a visionary, he has offered up precious few films since and the most recent one, In Time, was more hard-scratching than captivating.

The Justin Timberlake action movie came and went fairly quickly in the fall and was released this past week by 20^th Century Home Entertainment. In a near-future, man has figured out how to alter our genetics so on our 25^th birthday, our body is locked in place and our body clock begins to countdown. If I understand it right, they have a year to live without additional time being obtained which has led to a society of the immortal haves versus the time-starved have-nots. District 1 is at the bottom of the social ladder, a slum-like environment in an unnamed portion of the United States and there, factory worker Timberlake fights back, becoming the rebel a society had been waiting for. Along the way, he falls for heiress Amanda Seyfried, who has her eyes opened to the inequity largely controlled by her billionaire father (Vincent Kartheiser). Timberlake is hunted down by a Time Keeper (Cillian Murphy) for breaking the fuzzy law.

Everything is fuzzy about the movie. The world’s economy has shifted from cash and oil to time and it can be bought, sold, traded, and stored. How that works and how the genetics work are never clearly explained. Nor is the society and why is has been divided into a dozen distinct districts (Suzanne Collins does a better job of this in her Hunger Games trilogy). The power stems from the prime district called appropriately enough New Greenwich.

Yes, this feels familiar as William F. Nolan explored this similarly in the Logan’s Run books, movie and television series.

What is hinted at but demanded exploration was how a society functions when everyone physically looks the same – everyone is 25, sometimes many times over. So, we see a variety of television stars make brief appearances including Olivia Wilde as Timberlake’s mom ad Matt Bomer as an immortal ready for death and bequeathing Timberlake with a century, who is ready to share. Johnny Galecki is the hard luck best friend who tragically mishandles his newfound time.

Timberlake and Seyfried make an attractive pair of protagonists and they run, jump, and kiss nicely enough but it’s a lot of sound fury without signifying anything. There’s ultimately too much left unexplained to make you care one whit what happens to them or their world. With Niccol writing, producing, and directing, he had no one to point out these glaring flaws.

The DVD release was sent for review and it looks and sounds just swell on a television screen and suspect the Blu-ray version looks even crisper. On the DVD, there are a ton of trailers for other films and a handful of deleted/extended scenes, none of which were missed from the film itself. The Blu-ray contains an additional featurette, “The Minutes”, and access to a game app.

There are some great ideas hinted at here but without a single one being fully fleshed out and explored, the film is an entertaining near-miss.

Thank goodness the wicked Helen did not bring about the end of mankind and civilization as we knew it. This meant the characters of ITV’s Primeval could come back for a fresh go-round. The show took a breather after the third season ended in 2009 and came back in seven and six episode arcs, making for abbreviated fourth and fifth seasons respectively and they are now available as a combined third volume in either standard DVD or, for the first time, as a Blu-ray option from BBC Video.

I find myself enjoying the series more for the characters than the writing, which either leaves holes as big as the anomalies the heroes deal with or are overly convoluted, leaving me wishing for a happy middle ground.

Season three ended with three of our heroes – Connor Temple (Andrew Lee Potts), Abby Maitland (Hannah Spearritt), and Danny Quinn (Jason Flemyng) – trapped in different eras of the past while life back at the ARC continued, presuming them lost but not dead. Still, the near destruction of reality meant a rethinking of the operation which allowed the creators – Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines – to retool the show a bit, mostly for the better.

The new installments open with Connor and Abby miraculous still alive a year after being trapped in the Cretaceous with minimal supplies. They look remarkably healthy and unscathed, including their clothes being intact. Their budding romance, there from episode one, has clearly deepened and they rely on one another until fate gives them a way home. They return and find things have changed including Philip (Alexander Siddig), a private entrepreneur, largely in charge in conjunction with the affable and posh James Lester (Ben Miller). The pair literally has to fight to regain their jobs and then begin picking up the pieces of their lives, although oddly, they seem unconcerned with those elements including Abby’s annoying brother NAME from the previous season.

Among the newcomers is young wunderkind coordinator Jess Parker (Ruth Kearney) and Matt Anderson (Ciarán McMenamin), a rugged field agent with his own mysteries which begin to tie into the convoluted meta arc that stretches across the thirteen installments.

Long last Danny finally returns and propels stories in other directions as well. But the most interesting new addition to the show is the time-tossed Ethan Dobrowski (Jonathon Byrne) and Emily Merchant (Ruth Bradley), with which much more could have and should have been done. One has a deep secret revealed later on and the other is an innocent, coming from the Victorian Era and trying to do what’s right but seems oddly unfazed by living in her future.

Speaking of the future, that too plays a role in the later installments as the anomalies grow in number, threatening the world with more creatures, and there’s Philip trying to harness the power to supply energy to the world. Everything gets whipped up into a frenzy that ties back to previous season threads and issues. The climax is noisy and explosive and then people dust themselves off and get back to work as a new mystery arrives to set up the next season.

All too often, the meta arc, which is dubbed New Dawn, is doled out in small pieces while the bulk of each episode is given over to the dinosaur of the week. Thankfully, CGI for television has improved to the point where each season, the creatures look better and better which is a plus for this season now that it can be enjoyed in Blu-ray. (And they look far more convincing than the dinos found on Fox’s Terra Nova.) On the other hand, ever since the very first episode, the show has always felt like the writers ran out of steam and let the dino battle consume too much screen time. The show has therefore found itself in an odd place between the dark and dramatic Torchwood and the whimsical science fiction of Doctor Who, but both feature far stronger writing.

The special features include New Dawn: Making the New Primeval, Part 1 (21 minutes) and Part 2 (16 minutes) covering the retooling and thinking that went into the new seasons. It starts off slowly but is worth sticking with as they move along as part one is all about season four and part two covers season five. There are also five webisodes that were produced to teased the series’ return and briefly cover what occurred while we were watching other shows. In the 17 minutes we discover season three addition Sarah Page (Laila Rouass), was lost during Captain Becker’s (Ben Mansfield) attempt at rescuing the missing trio.

The show looks good on disc and sounds fine. There’s a real goofy charm to the overall series and if you watch an episode every now and then, it’s a fine guilty pleasure. It’s not something that works best in a concentrated dose, and you certainly wish it were stronger, but as entertainment goes, a visit to the world of Primeval can be quite satisfying.

It’s a busy time for Phil Morris.

Easily recognizable to sitcom viewers as the hilariously slimy lawyer Jackie Chiles on Seinfeld, and renowned throughout the fanboy realm as J’onn J’onzz/Martian Manhunter on Smallville, Morris is splitting his time this February celebrating his latest triumphs.

Morris is a NAACP Image Award nominee in the category of Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series for Love That Girl!  While he prepares for the awards ceremony and all of its requisite celebrity gatherings, Morris is also making time to attend both the New York (2/13) and Los Angeles (2/16) premieres of Justice League: Doom.

The consummate nice guy, Morris shifts to a darker, villainous approach for Justice League: Doom as he reprises his Justice League animated television series role as the immortal Vandal Savage. Morris is one of nine actors returning to the booth to record their original roles.

Produced by Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, the all-new, PG-13 rated Justice League: Doom arrives February 28, 2012 from Warner Home Video as a Blu-ray™ Combo Pack and DVD, On Demand and for Download. Both the Blu-Ray™ Combo Pack and DVD will include an UltraViiolet™ Digital Copy.

Justice League: Doom finds Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Cyborg and Batman on their heels when a team of super villains – orchestrated by Vandal Savage – discover and implement the Dark Knight’s “contingency plans” for stopping any rogue Justice League member. The story is inspired by Mark Waid and Howard Porter’s much-heralded “JLA: Tower of Babel,” and scripted by the late Dwayne McDuffie.

Morris is more than just an actor with a tendency to perform in fanboy-centric productions – he is a devout fan of the genre and its comic book origins. His comics collection exceeds 20,000 and includes gems like a 1948 “Captain America,” issues 1-18 of “Silver Surfer,” the first 20 Barry Windsor-Smith issues of “Conan,” and many of the original run of the “Fantastic Four.” “It goes back pretty far,” Morris says. “I collect to this day.”

Prepping for the onslaught of reporters’ queries on the red carpets on both coasts prior to the premieres of Justice League: Doom, Morris welcomed the opportunity to answer a few questions about Vandal Savage, comics collecting, and the possibility of someday voicing his Smallville character Martian Manhunter in an animated form.

QUESTION: What’s the mindset of Vandal Savage, and what’s been the joy of playing this role?

PHIL MORRIS: Vandal Savage is an immortal who has been around the human species for all time. He’s extremely intelligent – he’s incredibly evolved because of contact with a meteor that landed in his village. And he’s always trying to overthrow the world. His vision is that the world should be his, as many of these despots feel. But he feels that because he’s lived so long, he’s entitled.

I love Vandal. I played Vandal for the Justice League series a few times, but this is a little bit of a different take on Vandal. Back on the series, he was more of a smooth criminal – he was more nuanced, he had more style. Now, I guess, he’s just had it. He’s kind of approaching things as if to say “I don’t have time to play with you.” He has no more guile left in him. He’s straight, no chaser, which makes him much more dangerous, much more evil, and much harder edged, especially in my vocal performance.

And I love this script. Dwayne (McDuffie) really made it a walloping good romp for the Justice League players. And then Vandal is a bit like the Lex Luthor of the show – it’s his mastermind, his ideas, his design that almost or does bring the world to its doom. You’ll have to watch to see. Vandal is very much the thrust of the evil of this show. That’s fun to play.

QUESTION: What’s it like for you to be recording with all these original voices from the series again?

PHIL MORRIS: It’s great to have these actors back in these roles, but that’s the magic of these animated projects. I think one of the things the DC/Warner Bros. people do very well is get the right people for the job, from the top down. From Bruce (Timm) and Andrea (Romano) all the way down to the cast – and they take pains to make sure that everything is as accurate as possible because they know that, as fans, we’re watching and we’re listening and we need to be served. And they serve us very, very well. They give us some of the greatest vocal talent in the business.

QUESTION: You say “we” – and that collection of 20,000+ comics at home attests to your love for this genre. This is more than just work for you, right?

PHIL MORRIS: It feels as though I’ve been doing homework on these characters since I was 7 years old, and I loved being able to tell my mother that I’m finally making my comic book collection pay off. Actors use whatever reference material is at hand to flush out their characters, and in that I have been a comic collector for so long, I don’t have to go too far to relate to the process of the villain or hero in this universe of comics. I feel like I am one of the rank and file who has gotten lucky enough to embody these characters. It’s a pleasure and an honor.

QUESTION: Which way do your comic book tastes venture these days?

PHIL MORRIS: It’s interesting because they always ask the question: “Is it DC or Marvel?” If you’re a real comic book fan, you had to pick a side. You couldn’t go down the middle. As a younger comics reader, I liked Marvel a lot, because Marvel reflected African Americans sooner than DC did. I think that gave me a little bit of an affinity for them. But now in my more mature years, it’s all about good story telling, and I find DC tells great stories and has great, solid characters. They have probably my favorite character in Batman. So I’m much more interested in the continuity of the universe – I was an artists guy before, relating to the pictures and the artistry. That really thrilled me. Now it’s about the concepts and the writing. I’m always looking for a good yarn.

I like reading Garth Ennis, J. Michael Straczynski, Mark Waid, Jeff Loeb … guys like that. The writers have become fantastic – they have taken what society is and spun it on its ear. It’s not really kid stuff anymore. Kids can still invest and enjoy the books, but so can adults. Mark Millar. Ed Brubaker. There are a lot of great comic writers out there right now, and the world of comic books is much better for it.

QUESTION: You played J’onn J’onzz /Martian Manhunter on Smallville. Would you like to transition that role to voiceover for animation?

PHIL MORRIS: Carl (Lumbly) did one helluva job as Martian Manhunter for the Justice League series, and he hasn’t lost a step for this film. I don’t think he’s going to give up the role without a fight, and I have a total respect for Carl and his performance. It would be wonderful to do J’onn J’onzz as an animated character, as I did on Smallville. We’ll see. They keep me busy over here.

QUESTION: You’ve recorded a full library of characters for animation, including many in the super hero realm. What character does your inner geek still crave to voice?

PHIL MORRIS: I’ve been doing a voice for the Black Panther, but I’m not playing the Panther. They got Djimon Hounsou, and he’s terrific. But I would love to play the Black Panther. I wanted to play Green Lantern in this film. I’m an African American actor, but I don’t want that to matter at all. I think you should be able to close your eyes and voice any character, whether he’s African American or Anglo or Latino or Asian. That’s what I love about these great characters. I’d love to do the Silver Surfer, too. But for DC, I’d love to do a version of the Batman. I know Kevin Conroy IS Batman, and I love Kevin to death. But I think every actor who knows comics and loves comics would jump at the chance to do Batman. I think each of us would want to bring his own take to that darkness, to that inner turmoil that is Bruce Wayne. So it would be Batman. Kevin, I love you, but give me a one-off!

QUESTION: You frequently work in both the live-action and animated worlds. What’s your favorite part of doing voiceovers?

PHIL MORRIS: The best part of working in voiceover is the people you work with. I was very surprised when I first came into this world that the actors were so talented. They weren’t just people who did funny or clever voices. They are very intelligent, well-read, well-spoken, funny actors, and you get into that room and they cut it up – and THEN they go to record and they’re suddenly the most evil or heroic person on the planet. Then in between takes they’re jokey, jokey, jokey. Their wit and their imagination is unparalleled. I really have a great time working with whomever I work with from the voiceover community.

Related articles

• Justice League: Doom Coming in February (comicmix.com)

Back in the early days of cable, movies were rerun endlessly so if you liked one, you could burn their frames onto your retinas and it became a part of yourself. As a result, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for 1974’s Busting. You sit there, scratching your head, and can’t recall the film and there’s no shame in that.

Written and directed by Peter Hyams (The Star Chamber, Outland), it is a buddy cop film before that became in vogue and is very much from the era. It has a nice grainy film stock, makes the cops and the thugs slovenly and a visual shambles. While most of Hyams’ peers set their gritty tales of big city corruption and the only honest cops’ efforts to bring down the kingpin of crime in New York City, Hyams set his in Los Angeles, although you’d be hard-pressed to tell. This is a totally urban LA, one without starlets or the Hollywood sign glimpsed in the distance. It’s a grimy city of pimps, pushers, hookers, strippers, and a few good men.

The men happen to be Elliot Gould and Robert Blake, a year before he became a big star on Baretta. They are companionable detectives, taking no guff from anyone and with a casual attitude, begin working their way to Rizzo (Alan Garfield), the man effectively running the city. Their superior tries to protect them but has given up, throwing his hands into the air, and warning the guys to stay away from the criminal. This is clearly Gould’s film as more is revealed about him and his life than Blake, but they are watching one another’s backs from gay bars to strip clubs.

I’m not giving anything away by saying they get their man, but the lessons the detectives learn along the way, and the harsh reality Rizzo reveals in the final scene gives the film an edge and poignancy missing from many of its contemporaries. Hyams’ script is sharp in subtle ways. As a director, he has some impressive tracking shots notably during the set piece, set inside a sprawling farmer’s market as the detectives hunt down three gun-wielding thugs.

The film received good notices when it first came out, with The New York Times noting Hyams “brings off something of a feat by making a contemporary cop film that is tough without exploiting the sort of right-wing cynicism that tells us all to go out and buy our own guns.” It clearly made an impact on me but it also heavily influenced Aaron Spelling, who more or less ripped off entire sequences frame by frame for his television series Starsky & Hutch. If you want a stronger version with some fun performances and more than a few comics references, Busting is finally available from MGM’s direct-to-disc Limited Edition Collection.

Few 20^th century novels have been as warmly regarded as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Currently a perennial work taught in high schools around the nation, it was an acclaimed, award-winning work when released in 1961 as the southern author tried to recapture her childhood life in a small Southern town. I enjoyed the book as a student, then a parent, and now that I’m studying to become a teacher, recognize it as a great piece of literature and great teaching tool.

She wrote in 1964, “I would like to leave some record of the kind of life that existed in a very small world. I hope…to chronicle something that seems to be very quickly going down the drain. This is small-town middle-class southern life as opposed to Gothic, as opposed to Tobacco Road, as opposed to plantation life.”

It was a story of rights and responsibilities, tolerance, fear of the unknown, race relations and many other issues. When first released, it kicked up quite a bit of dust, especially from people who felt maligned by her glaring spotlight on the small town and its small-minded people. But most everyone else embraced it.

The book screamed to be a motion picture and although it quickly obtained the rights, Universal Pictures was reluctant to take on a story that was as baldly about race relations as this was. Lee finally wrote the book after a series of cruel white hatred cost several young black men their lives. The civil rights movement was well underway but Universal wasn’t a studio prone to making social consciousness movies. They were about big stars and glitzy escapism.

Enter Gregory Peck, one of the most popular leading men of his day. When he said he was ready to sign on as Atticus Finch, the movie got made. Horton Foote trimmed the story, sharpening its focus so a huge percentage of the film focused on the trial of Tom Robinson while other threads and characters got ejected. Filled with a familiar assortment of supporting players (including Star Trek’s Brock Peters, Paul Fix and William Windom) and director Robert Mulligan delivered a visual record of a time rapidly vanishing from American memory.

The movie remains a classic and continues to show up on the American Film Institute’s varied lists, including noting that Finch is the number one Hero of All Time, earning him a spot here at ComicMix. And now, in time for its 50^th anniversary, Universal’s centennial celebration kicks off with this release. The movie has been painstakingly restored and was today released on Blu-ray for the first time. The restoration work makes the film well worth a second (or third or fourth) viewing and makes for fine family fare. Yeah, it’s slow and deliberate, but done intentionally, capturing the feel of Depression-era Alabama. Elmer Bernstein’s score has never sounded better thanks to the audio work.

I wish the bonus features had been freshened but everything we’re provided are retreads from previous releases. It’s great to have them, though, notably the 90 minute Fearful Symmetry, a 1998 documentary about the novel and film, focusing on cast and crew interviews. There’s a mini-documentary on Peck, along with clips of his Best Actor acceptance speech from the 1963 Academy Awards, his AFI Life Achievement Award, and excerpts from “Tribute to Gregory Peck”. Mary Badham, who memorably played Scout, is featured in clips from an NBC interview she did more than a decade back. The film has commentary from Mulligan and producer Alan Pakula which is somewhat interesting but the facts are covered better in the documentary.

Still, this is a loving restoration and comes in a variety of editions and we heartily recommend it find a place in your library.

There is absolutely nowhere near enough story to sustain the 2:30 running time of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. This third installment in the live-action adaptation of the classic toys and anime is loud, noisy, and very busy but ultimately empty. I kept wanting to turn the channel as I watched the Blu-ray release of the film, available Tuesday in a variety of packages including the four-disc combo (Blu-ray 3-D, Blu-ray, DVD and Ultraviolet digital copy).

Michael Bay by now has mastered how to fill the screen with kinetic action, spectacular explosions and CGI galore. What he continues to misunderstand is that all of this action needs to be grounded with characters we can care about and root for. While Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman gave it a valiant attempt in the first film, they were kind of coasting with the second feature and their writing partner Ehren Kruger was allowed to go solo this time out. Maybe the film feels so pointless because Bay himself didn’t want to make the film for another year, but Paramount forced his hand, announcing the June 2011 release, in 3-D no less.

Kruger had to find a story that would find the Autobots and Decepticons at one another’s throats with the fate of the world once more at stake, while putting good old Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) in the middle. It’s a tall order, no doubt, but the thin story feels like so much linkage between action pieces.

We open three years later as the Autobots have been integrated into the United States’ intelligence community, working with the NEST (Networked Elements: Supporters and Transformers) military force, policing the international political scene. Meantime, Sam has finally graduated college and in a nod towards current economic times, is having a tough time finding a job. Now, for most people that should be a real issue, for a Presidential medal winning hero, he should be the exception, snapped up by NEST or some related field. But that would make him less the everyman; a conceit the franchise seems bent on maintaining. Of course, most Everymen don’t go from one hot girl friend to another and the film makes some comments about this, casually dismissing Megan Fox’s character, who was booted form the franchise because the actress couldn’t avoid pissing off Bay and Steven Spielberg. She is replaced here with English model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, already in a deep relationship with Sam (who calls her “The One”). Unlike Fox’; character, who actually had some emotional stake in the first film; she is merely an attractive appendage throughout this film.

The Decepticons have not sat idle but have been manipulating events to bring about the enslavement of humanity in the name of saving Cybertron, their homeworld. And it all dates back to a Transformer crashing into the Moon in 1961 which we’re told is the real reason President Kennedy insisted we land a man on the satellite within a decade. They needed to beat the Russians to see what collided so near home.

Complicating Sam’s life is the no-nonsense director of National Intelligence Charlotte Mearing and Dylan Gould, his girlfriend’s boss and traitor to mankind. Both new roles are played by actors (Frances McDormand and Patrick Dempsey respectively) who either needed the paycheck or were slumming. Of course, once evil has risen once more, Sam finds himself working alongside the more familiar USAF Chief Robert Epps (Tyrese Gibson) and Seymour Summons (John Turturro), the former Sector 7 thorn in his side from the earlier films.

And with that, we’re off across the world, climaxing in the utter destruction of Chicago as the forces of mechanical good and evil make a lot of noise.

The film is bloated, in need of editing and depth.  No doubt it looked spectacular on both IMAX and in 3-D. This has to be why the film did so well on the international stage, bringing in over $1.2 billion.

Thankfully, it looks and sounds great on both the television and laptop. The CGI is better than ever and it’s fun hearing familiar actors voicing the various Transformers (Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving are joined by Leonard Nimoy, James Remar, George Coe and others).

There’s a disc of Blu-ray extras that are fun to sift through and certainly show the amount of effort went into the film’s production. We have the five-part Above and Beyond: Exploring Dark of the Moon, which is all the usual making of stuff you would expect. Deconstructing Chicago: Multi-Angle Sequences if a four-part exploration of the overblown climax and is really for filmmakers and CGI buffs. The Art of Cybertron gives you a plethora of views of the various mechanical lifeforms and their environments. The Dark of the Moon Archive includes some fun footage of the Russian premiere and other short featurettes. The Matrix of Marketing offers you trailers and a marketing gallery. The best of the bunch I the min-doc Uncharted Territory: NASA’s Future Then and Now, using the film’s premise to look at the real science.

Really, you have to deeply love this nonsense to put up with such an overblown film but at least it gets very nice treatment from Paramount Home Entertainment. It should be noted this is also included in the seven-disc limited collector’s edition that contains all three films and might be the version diehard fans lust after.

Star Trek: The Next Generation had to do a lot to convince fans of Gene Roddenberry’s trendsetting original series that it was the same vision, merely updated. By then, there had been two decades of just Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The fans felt a certain ownership having saved it from cancellation during the original network run and then created an unprecedented following that led to an animated series and four feature films. The notion of continuing the series and setting it 78 years in the future left people wary.

The turmoil surrounding the birth of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the haphazard production of the first season had fans even more concerned before the new show debuted in late September 1987. In those early Internet days, word still spread at warp speed as familiar names David Gerrold and D.C. Fontana joined and left staff while other producers and writers seemed to be named with startling regularity.

The show survived a very shaky first year and matured into another trendsetting series that paved the way for tons of syndicated fare and showed that the Star Trek brand could be extended. And now, the second series has to prove itself all over again. The special effects for the seven seasons were produced using video production techniques, making it difficult to upgrade to Blu-ray. But not impossible.

Last September, CBS Home Entertainment announced they had solved the technical dilemma in a cost effective away, allowing them to remaster the entire series for Blu-ray release, with season one due later in 2012.  Recently, we posted a video to show how the work was done, comparing scenes from the original video to the Blu-ray and it looked pretty amazing. The question then became, could this be sustained for entire episodes.

To allay those fears, they are releasing on Tuesday, Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Next Level, a sampler Blu-ray, containing “Encounter at Farpoint”, “Sins of the Father”, and “The Inner Light”, selecting three popular episodes from across the seven seasons.

Having watched these, it’s good to know the project has received the required TLC. The images look sharp and amazing, with new details revealed in the effects. Everything is sharper and richer, from the uniform colors to the effects. To achieve this, Paramount’s technical staff has gone back to the original film negatives before the shows were edited on video tape and reedited the episodes to match their broadcast versions. As a result, the film effects were able to be recompositioned with high-definition and 7.1 DTS Master Audio. Thankfully, Michael and Denise Okuda were hired on as technical consults ensuring the fans the right people were overseeing the endeavor.

It’s interesting to watch the pilot and selected episodes from the transitional third and strong fifth seasons. The first thing you notice is how bare the original Bridge set appeared and how still all the actors appear, with the exception of Jonathan Frakes’ Riker.  From the pilot forward, the one who may have loosened up the most was Gates McFadden if you compare her from “Encounter” to “Sins”. Stewart’s character was softened by the writers and he adapted accordingly, strengthening his work which is nicely on display in all three episodes. (And it’s nice to be reminded of just how menacing Q was in the pilot before he was played with menacing tongue in cheek in later appearances.)

While Fontana wrote a pilot with the necessary exposition, it still felt awkward as the Q and Farpoint storylines never really gelled. Characters weren’t properly introduced or the ship’s mission fully explored so it felt sort of like Star Trek but not quite.

Looking at “Sins”, though, this was a pivotal episode as it deepened the character of Worf and cast a spotlight on Klingon society and how all the talk of honor was more often than not just talk. Worf stood as an example of what it truly meant to embody the notions of honor and family. This was when the show was finally gaining its stride and it shows. This was also the season the spandex uniforms were traded in for more realistic wool gabardine and the regular cast looks far more natural. By now, the sets were better decorated and lit, enriching the shipboard experience.

The final episode was a showcase for Patrick Stewart but also showed how the writing had grown with confidence, letting them take chances such as this exploration of an alien culture doomed to extinction, reaching out to Picard to be remembered. It’s a terrific blend of acting and writing that made for not just good science fiction but great television.

These three samplings demonstrate that the series will be worth rewatching as it celebrates its 25^th anniversary this year with the Blu-ray editions.

Hugh Jackman stars in Real Steel, out on home video this week, and the native Australian is best known to ComicMix fans for his work as Wolverine in  X-Men, X2 and X-Men: The Last Stand before spinning off into X-Men Origins: Wolverine and cameoing as the canucklehead in X-Men First Class.

In the fall of 2009, Jackman made a return to Broadway in the Keith Huff-penned A Steady Rain.

On February 22, 2009, Jackman took on the prestigious role of hosting the 81st Annual Academy Awards live from the Kodak Theater, he wowed those in attendance and helped ABC score a 13% increase in viewership from the previous year. Previously, Jackman served as host of the Tony Awards three years in a row, from 2003-2005, earning an Emmy Award for his 2004 duties at the 58th annual ceremony and a nomination for his 2005 appearance at the 59th annual ceremony.

In 2008, Jackman was seen in Twentieth Century Fox’s Deception opposite Ewan McGregor and the romantic action-adventure epic Australia, directed by Baz Luhrmann.

Jackman has also starred in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige and Woody Allen’s Scoop. He has lent his voice to the animated features Happy Feet and Flushed Away. Other films in which he has had leading roles include Someone Like You, Swordfish, Van Helsing and Kate and Leopold, for which he received a 2002 Golden Globe nomination.

For his portrayal of the 1970s singer-songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz, Jackman received the 2004 Tony Award® for Best Actor in a musical as well as Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World awards.

Previous theater credits include Carousel at Carnegie Hall, Oklahoma! at the National Theater in London (Olivier Award nomination), “Sunset Boulevard” (for which he won a Mo Award, Australia’s Tony Award) and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (Mo Award nomination).

Q:        Your character, Charlie, has a tough relationship with his son, Max. Being a dad yourself, was that hard to play?

A:         After a few days of shooting, Shawn [Levy] pulled Dakota and me aside. He said, “Look, Dakota, you’re obviously a very well brought up, polite kid.  And Hugh, you like children. Both of you need to stop it immediately.” After that, there were several times after Shawn called, “Cut!” that I’d see Dakota look over at his mom like he was going to get in trouble. It was kind of like, “They told me to say this, mom, so it’s okay.” It obviously went against the grain for him to talk to me the way he did.

Having said that, I do have two children and there are times when you want to say things that you’re not allowed to say. It was nice to be able to let it rip for three months. It was good therapy.

Q:        Have your kids seen the movie?

A:         Yes, they love the movie. It’s the first one of my movies they’ve seen. If you think about it, there hasn’t been anything else that’s really appropriate for them, apart from a couple of animated movies I’ve done. They can’t wait to see it again. They really got into the story of the robots. They were cheering for them and I saw both of them getting a tear in their eye. My mother-in-law was at the same screening and she was crying too.

Q:        Would you like to have a robot at home?

A:         I’d love to have a robot at home. I tried to smuggle one off the set, but it was difficult. They’re very heavy and hard to put in the trunk of the car.

Q:        Do you choose roles with your children in mind?

A:         Not really. It’s icing on the cake when they can watch it and love it. My kids are not that interested in my movie career, by the way. My son in particular just wants to be with his dad and never talks about it. It was great to sit and watch “Real Steel” with all three generations and see them love the movie.

Q:        What is your character, Charlie’s, biggest flaw in Real Steel?

A:         My character, Charlie, is impulsive, but I’m not like that. As my wife says, I’m a Libra and I’m just an even-Steven. I don’t really understand the lure of gambling. I don’t understand working hard for your money and then just giving it away. That’s just not my personality. Even when I was younger, if I’d go out with my mates and we’d go drinking, I’d be four or five drinks in and say, “Time to stop. Diminishing returns.”  All of my mates would say, “Come on!” but I just never really had it in me, which I’m actually kind of grateful for. Ironically, my wife is just like Charlie.

Q:        What is your biggest flaw in real life?

A:         If you ask my wife, my biggest flaw is my inability around the house. She likes to say that the only thing handy about me is that I’m close by. I also have a terrible memory and I’m bad at saying no. I often double book.

Q:        Did you impart any acting wisdom to Dakota?

A:         I really thought I was going to have to do a lot more with Dakota, but Shawn is a master of directing younger actors. He’s done it before and he has four kids himself. He really mentored Dakota, and there were things that I did, too, from the very beginning. I wanted to give him the feeling, very quickly, of, “Hey, this is your set as much as it is mine and we’re in this together. There’s no delineation of power here. We’re all actors.” Dakota caught onto that. I kept telling him that he was doing everything right and I always asked him what he thought of a scene when we were done shooting it.  We also did quite a bit of improvisation, even if it was a bad idea, and Shawn would encourage him too. It kind of gave him the feeling that he wasn’t “the kid” on set.

The other thing was that Shawn and I really played with Dakota. We didn’t want him to feel an adult/child vibe because that’s not the dynamic in the movie. I would play practical jokes on him all the time and we just knocked around. We hung out on weekends.

Q:        Did you learn anything from Dakota?

A:         I always learn from child actors. They’re a great reminder of the simplicity of acting. As you get older, you can sometimes complicate things a little more. You can become too aware and start to think, “This is the scene emotionally and this is what I have to do. Okay, we’ve got the climax coming up….” You can start to analyze it too much. Kids are happy just to be and to listen. They have a real natural ability just to listen. Dakota is a very natural actor. It was easy to be in scenes with him.

Q:        This is the second time you’ve worked with Kevin Durand, correct?

A:         Yes. We were both on Broadway at about the same time and we met there. We’re kind of kindred spirits and he’s a great friend. I think he’s one of the most underrated, talented actors in Hollywood. People haven’t even begun to see the extent of what he can do. He took a character in “Real Steel” that could have been kind of uninteresting and made it very memorable. I’m happy to be in any movie with him.

Q:        Is it in your contract that you have to take your shirt off in every film? 

A:         It’s funny, because when I started filming Real Steel everyone was asking me if it was in my contract to take off my shirt and it really took me aback. I told Shawn I didn’t want to do it and he agreed. He said, “This movie isn’t going to be about that,” and then we never thought about it again. But there’s a scene in the script where Charlie changes his shirt in the boxing ring and he does it because all of his clothes are in his bag and he’s living out of his truck. He has no bedroom, no house, no anything. We thought that was a great story point, so it turned out that I had to take my shirt off.

Q:        Talk about your workout regimen for this film.

A:         I was already doing a movie called Sumo with Lee Daniels and had put on a lot of weight for that. Then it got canceled about three months before we started Real Steel, so I was big, I was overweight. I called Shawn up and said, “My weight is going to work for this film, too, right? I’m playing an ex-boxer and you need to believe that he could have been in the ring.” Shawn said, “That’s a brilliant idea. In that first scene, when you fall out of bed, you’ll have a paunch and it will immediately signal to people that you’re not Wolverine. I love it. It’s going to be perfect.”

I came in for the fitting a month before the film started and I was twenty pounds heavier than I ended up being in the movie. It’s not easy for me to be that way, but I was eating a lot and pushing a lot of weight. Low reps, heavy weights. I hadn’t told the costumer that I was coming in heavier, so it was literally like I was putting on my son’s clothing. I could barely put the jeans on. I remember Shawn saying, “This is just too much. Let’s pull back on the realism.”

Q:        Is there a difference in your approach to theater and film work?

A:         Not really. As an actor, you have many tools—your body, your voice, your emotions, your mentality. If you’re performing in front of twenty-five hundred people, you need to get to the person in the back. There’s a mental process to that. On film, you’re going to make everything quieter. Your eyes are very important because they communicate your thought process. In fact, in film, what you don’t say is more important than what you do say. That’s not so much the case onstage. I’m forever grateful that I did theater first. I think it’s much easier to distill the technique from theater than to say, “Oh, let’s just add water to film.” There are definitely muscles that you need on the stage that you don’t develop in film.

Having said that, if you haven’t done your work as an actor and you don’t know what’s going on internally for the character you’re playing onstage, particularly if it’s a musical, and there’s no real thought behind the song, no one will feel anything.

For six seasons, he played the traitorous Gaius Baltar on Battlestar Galactica.  This Friday, James Callis brings his acting talents to the international hit series MERLIN, playing the equally unscrupulous Julius Borden.

And in his first scene in this Friday’s episode, titled “Aithusa,” Callis comes face to face with the man who was once his mentor – fittingly, court physician Gaius.

Once the pupil of MERLIN’s Gaius, Borden left Camelot during the Great Purge, but in the darkness returns to Camelot looking for the third part of the Triskelion – an ancient object that promises to reveal the location of the last dragon egg.

Despite a stern warning from Gaius, Merlin offers to help Borden if it means he can fulfill his obligation as the Last Dragonlord to ensure the survival of the species.  But the task turns deadly when Merlin realizes exactly why Borden wants the egg.

Although the Great Dragon, Kilgharrah (voiced by John Hurt), figured prominently in the first season of MERLIN, in the last two seasons his primary function has been to give advice to Merlin and help him in times of greatest threat.  It was Kilgharrah, for instance, who cautioned Merlin that “your determination to see goodness in people will be your undoing.”

In “Aithusa,” however, the Great Dragon assumes a much more prominent role in the story.  In the last two seasons, MERLIN “has shown his separation, his independence from the Dragon,” says actor Colin Morgan, who plays Merlin. “At the beginning of Season One, the Dragon was a confidante, someone Merlin needed help from.  Slowly and slowly, they grew apart, and the Dragon’s motives became slightly unclear, so there has been a question of trust between them.”

And yet, Kilgharrah and Merlin are inextricably linked, Morgan says. “As Dragon Lord, Merlin can always command the Dragon, which is a great quality.  What’s going to be interesting to see is if Arthur ever meets the Dragon – what his reaction would be.”

While the Dragon doesn’t meet Arthur in “Aithusa,” he does meet a new character … though just who (or what) that is remains to be seen.  Viewers will discover the identity – and his or her role in Camelot – in “Aithusa,” the next episode of MERLIN, which airs Friday at 10 p.m. ET/PT (9 p.m. Central), only on Syfy.

Photo Credit: © Shine Ltd. & FremantleMedia Enterprises.

Shawn Levy, director of Real Steel, now out on home video, is one of the most commercially successful film directors of the past decade. To date, his films have grossed over $1.6 billion worldwide. His youthfully enthusiastic approach to filmmaking is evident in the storylines and characters he creates and reflects his joyful intensity for each project at hand.

In 2010, Levy released Date Night, a film he directed and produced. Levy’s production shingle 21 Laps also produced the hit comedy What Happens in Vegas, which went on to earn over $200 million worldwide.

Levy both produced and directed the blockbuster Night at the Museum franchise. To date, the global success of this franchise has netted more than $1 billion in worldwide box office.

Previously, Levy directed the 2006 comedy The Pink Panther. Levy also directed the smash hit Cheaper By the Dozen, which went on to gross more than $200 million worldwide.

In addition to his directing slate, Levy is producing the feature-film comedy Neighborhood Watch,” and his production company 21 Laps/Adelstein is producing the ABC sitcom Last Days of Man.

Levy graduated at the age of 20 from the Drama Department of Yale University. He later studied film in the Masters Film Production Program at USC, where he produced and directed the short film Broken Record. This film won the Gold Plaque at the Chicago Film Festival and was selected to screen at the Directors Guild of America.

Q:        How did you go about creating the world of 2020? 

A:         The key was to not to create the same futurism that we’ve seen in other movies.  If I had just wanted to make a robot-boxing spectacle, I would have gone deeper into the future. I wanted a future that felt within a relatable radius. I love Blade Runner or Minority Report as much as the next guy, but Real Steel was going to live or die on audiences connecting with the characters. For an audience to connect with the characters, they need to connect with the world. If the world feels vaguely familiar, I believe the characters will feel relatable.

Our catch phrase was “retro forward.” In other words, your cell phone looks different than it did five years ago, right? My laptop does. But a diner still looks like a diner and a landscape is still a landscape. The world isn’t changing in its core visuals. I wanted a timeless, iconic America rather than a temporarily specific America. We’ve seen that before.

Q:        What was the biggest challenge about working with robots in the film?

A:         Honestly, it all went pretty smoothly.  Obviously, the decision to build real robots was a bit unusual. In 2011, when everything can be done digitally, it was a throwback notion to build real remote-control robots.  But we felt that building them would give the movie a certain look and feel and give the performances a reality, so it was key. I’m very happy we did.

We had amazing remote control puppeteers. We only had a real problem once and that was when we were in the middle of a take with Ambush. He was standing on a lift gate with Hugh at the County Fair and his hydraulics went haywire. His chin crushed into his collarbone and the whole bottom half of his face got stuck in his chest plate.  That was very scary because it meant twenty-five minutes of standing around and waiting to see if Ambush could be saved. Fortunately, the folks at Legacy Effects were able to save him and we carried on.

I also have to say that at the time we started shooting it felt like a scary choice to make our hero robot, Atom, the only robot without a face. Not only was he our hero, he was our most human robot. We made the decision because I knew that what mattered more than Atom’s personality was his magic. Sometimes magic is created by ambiguity.

A lot of people have asked me if he’s alive. They swear they see him move and they think he’s a sentient being. Some people don’t think he is, but I felt like the questioning, the ambiguity, and the uncertainty would give Atom his soulful quality. In fact, when I was reviewing the robot designs with [executive producer] Robert Zemeckis, he said, “The mesh on Atom’s face is going to become the screen that people project their feelings onto.” The absence of features means that people, both in the movie and in the audience, are going to project their opinions and their feelings onto him. Sometimes he looks like he’s smiling, sometimes he looks like he’s proud and sometimes he looks sad and lonely. I find people’s reactions to Atom a really interesting litmus test of people’s reactions to him. The range of things that people read into a titanium mesh is fascinating.

I was also amazed at how well the puppeteers moved Atom and were able to humanize him. Based on the reaction we get from audiences, people love him as much as they love Hugh or Dakota.

Q:        Can you talk about the motion capture and Simul-Cam B process?

A:         Motion capture is when an actor does something physical in a data-sensing jumpsuit and the computer stores that movement and converts it into a fictional character. For instance, in Avatar, Sam Worthington became a Navi by wearing a motion capture suit and doing all of the movements in real life that his Navi character did on the planet Pandora in the film.  In our movie, every robot was a boxer or a Mixed Martial Artists fighter and we converted them instantly into their robot selves. Avatar took their captured performances and put them on Pandora, which was a created digital universe. We took ours to Detroit and put them in real fight venues and then added a Simul-Cam B.

What that means is that if I were doing a shot in an empty ring, I would look through my camera and see the robots fighting in it. If I decided that I didn’t like the shot and wanted to put one of the robots in a different corner, I could put my camera in a different place and the computer Simul-Cam B recalibrated the perspective that I was seeing the shot from. The shot actually matched that corner. It’s crazy. The reason that the fights in Real Steel feel so visceral is that I wasn’t in a situation where I was guessing or assuming what an animator would draw into the scene later. I was able to look at and shoot the fight from an infinite number of angles.

Do you remember the feeling you had, sitting in chemistry or physics class in high school, of being so lost that it made you giggle? We’ve all had that feeling and that’s normally when you talk to your friend who sits next to you or you doodle or think, “I’m dead.” That’s what it was like for the first few weeks on Real Steel. I would sit at the head of the table in these motion capture, Simul-Cam B meetings and say, “Mmhmm, Mmhmm,” and I was totally faking it.

Eventually, after a couple of weeks of being completely lost, I went to my team, which, thank God, is the same group of people who work with James Cameron. I said to Josh McLaglen, who is my executive producer and my assistant director, “Brother, I need a crash course. I’m going to open my mind and we’re not giving up until I understand it.” He taught me every day, just him and me, and I had no shame about saying, “No, no, go back.  What is that word you just used?  I don’t even know what that word means.”

It was great, because once we’re over twenty-five, how many of us learn something brand- new? On the one hand, it was no fun at first because I felt like a dummy and we build our lives so that we feel pretty good about ourselves. On the other hand, I put myself in a position where I felt lost and then gained some mastery, so that was great.

Q:        What decisions did you make to help Hugh play the retired boxer, Charlie Kenton?

A:         In the early meetings with any actor, no matter how big a star they are, they always want to know how they’re going to look in the film. For instance, on Night at the Museum, the question Ben Stiller asked me was “Am going to be wearing a hat? Does a night guard wear a hat?” Actors just always get fixated on that stuff as they’re developing a character. When Hugh and I first met, I had two ideas for his role as Charlie.  I said, “First of all, let’s get rid of your hair.  I want a Tom Cruise in Minority Report buzz cut.” I’m very happy with how his hair looks in the movie, actually.

The second thing I said was, “Let’s buff things up a bit, man. You’re an ex-fighter, so let’s put a few pounds on you and go big up top, with big shoulders, a big chest and maybe even a little paunch.” He thought that would be great, that getting him that look would subvert expectation. Then, as we were halfway into pre-production and he was starting to work towards the paunch, I said, “You know what? Skip that. I think people want their Hugh Jackman looking good.”  So we scrapped the paunch.

Q:        What is it about Evangeline Lilly that elevated the role of Bailey?

A:         I auditioned a lot of women. Everyone told me to forget Evangeline because she had quit acting when she finished “Lost.” I have friends who offered her big roles in big movies, movies that are coming out in the next four months. She turned them all down because she just wanted to live in Hawaii. I sent her the script anyway and she showed up in L.A. a few days later. I said to her, “Everyone said you’re done acting” and she said, “This script made me cry and it’s going to make other people cry. I want to put stuff like this in the world. I want to be a part of it.”

Evangeline brought everything I hoped she would. She’s magnificent to look at, she’s soulful, and she’s sexy with Hugh. I needed someone who you believed had grown up in a man’s world. Bailey needed to have a strength and a toughness that was not at the expense of her being womanly. I also wanted the relationship between Charlie and Bailey to have a lot of subtext.  We don’t say very much about what went on between them and I like the elegance of not quite pinning it down. I wanted romance, not sex, and she brought all that.

Q:        What attributes were you looking for when you cast Dakota Goyo in the part of Max?

A:         I was looking for something other than acting talent. I needed that, of course, but I also needed a kid who could be interesting to watch when he wasn’t acting. In some ways, with Dakota, it was less about how he said the lines and more about what he exuded between the lines. In a movie like Real Steel, you need someone like Ricky Schroder in The Champ or Justin Henry in Kramer vs. Kramer. Steven Spielberg calls it authenticity and it’s something that makes you feel like you’re watching a real human being and a real kid. You root for that kid. If you feel that you’re watching a kid act, not only are not you rooting for him, you don’t even like him. He’s annoying.

I’d been looking all over the world for six weeks for an actor to play Max and I could not find him. I thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t make this movie, because even if we do everything right and the kid isn’t one-in-a-million excellent, the movie won’t be excellent.” And then we found Dakota.

Q:        What was it like working with Dakota?

A:  Even when I was a kid, I got along well with kids. To this day, if I go to a birthday party with one of my kids, I swear to you, I am so much happier hanging out with my kids and their friends than I am talking to the grownups. It’s become a thing in our family. My kids always end up saying, “Don’t you have to go talk to the grownups now?” and I say, “No way.  I’ll pretend you need my help or something.” I don’t know if it’s that my own childhood felt brief, that I grew up too fast, or that I was pushing myself too much at a young age, but I do feel like I’m clinging to a certain child-like quality in myself. I think it’s probably the result of a complicated childhood and the fact that I grew up fast by virtue of certain circumstances.

The other thing is that with kids, you have to change your modality day to day. There were some days with Dakota when I just stayed out of the way and he was awesome. There were other days we had to do ten takes to get something that was useable. And there other days when I could tell that he had said his lines too many times, so I would throw some improvisation at him just to make him say new words and hear them. Eventually, kids stop hearing the words.

Some of the lines in the movie were actually a result of that happening, like this one scene between Charlie and Dakota. Dakota says, “Charlie, we can go around and around on this all night long, but it’s not gonna happen.” That was me ad-libbing behind the camera. I said it, Dakota said it, I said it, Dakota said it, and then it was in the movie.

Ultimately, the craziest kind of technique I used, but the one that bore the most fruit, was for the climatic scene in the movie when Dakota and Evangeline are watching Hugh’s redemption moment. I didn’t let anyone talk to Dakota and I didn’t talk to Dakota. I didn’t tell him what to do. I said, “I’m going play some music. Just go with the music.  Whatever you feel is fine.”  The last thing you want to say is, “Now cry.”  If you tell an actor to cry, you’re dead, especially with a kid. It’s just too much and they tighten up.  But Dakota was great. I played a piece of music, he went with it and he brought that performance.  It was so beautiful.

Q:        Do you work with actors on the parts of their character that we don’t see, or do you leave that to them?

A:         It depends on the actor. Some actors don’t bother doing any work on their character and some actors do, but they don’t want to tell me. What people don’t get about directing is that every actor is different and that’s why the job is so interesting. Directing Steve Martin was a trip, but that’s Steve. It was 180 from directing Ben Stiller, Tina Fey or Hugh Jackman.

Some actors want to spend weeks talking about character background that no one will ever know but will inform their performance. In that case, you do it even if you don’t want to. Other actors show up and fake it. That’s legit, too, if it works. With Hugh, it was somewhere in between. We talked about what his character Charlie Kenton was like when he was a fighter and I talked a lot about the kind of credo this guy would have.

I ended up putting his credo in the script—two or three key lines that I wrote because they were what I kept telling Hugh: “Win or lose, the fight ain’t over until someone’s on the mat. We may get our asses kicked, but we’re going down swinging.” Maybe it’s because I’m Canadian but I always embrace the underdog. Real Steel is also about having a good work ethic—that very specific, American work ethic. The rest of the world often lives very differently.  They embrace different core principles but that work ethic is at the core of Charlie Kenton. He was a slugger and sometimes to his own detriment he just kept coming at his opponent in the ring. He just kept pushing his luck. Hugh and I talked about that aspect of his character a lot.

Q:        Give us a little insight into your philosophy of directing.

A:         My job is to get my actors to where they need to go and figure out a way to get them there.  I may get to use one of the techniques I’ve used on other movies, or I may have to come up with something on the fly. Whatever it takes, the job of the director is to be the leader and get your actors where they need to go.

Also, my philosophy is that I’m not going to get what I need by saying, “Now it’s time to cry.” I’ve heard of directors who do that, but it wouldn’t work for me. I try to create a partnership with the actors. The more I become bonded with the actors and get to know them, the more I know what modalities are going to work in our process together. For instance, when I work with a really intellectual actor, I use music a lot because it short-circuits their intellect and bypasses their rational dissection of the scene.

My other philosophy is that I’m trying to put work out into the world that creates the feeling I want to get when I go to the movies. I’m never going to make a movie that’s nihilistic, gratuitous, cynical or undermined by it’s own ironic cleverness. That’s just not how I live my life and it’s not how I want to do my work. It’s not what I want my work to say.

Q:        Your sets have a reputation for being fun. How do you make that happen?

A:         Nobody wants to go to work and be miserable. I don’t want to and I don’t want the people who work for me to, either. When you’re directing, you’ve got a hundred and twenty people giving their talents to you knowing that there’s only one person who’s going to get all the glory. Two, if you count the movie star. I have craftsmen and artists giving their art and their talents in the service of my story and my vision and they deserve to be treated really respectfully.  I believe in that.

Pandemonium
Written by Chris Wooding, Art by Cassandra Diaz
Scholastic Graphix, 160 pages, 12.99 (softcover)/$22.99 (hardcover)

Chris Wooding is a successful young adult writer who has been carefully dipping his toe into the graphic novel world. In 2009, he blended words with illustrations in the largely successful Malice and is back this month with his first full-fledged graphic novel, Pandemonium. Clearly the first in a series of stories, the book creates an all-too-familiar fantasy world, populates it with stereotypes and tries to have some fun along the way. Instead, it all feels creaky and done better before.

First of all, the premise is straight out of The Prince & The Pauper but has done far better as the movie Dave. Here, teenage Seifer Tombchewer is plucked from his backwoods village and summarily brought to the castle so he could impersonate the missing Prince Talon and keep the kingdom of the Darkling Realm safe until he has been returned. Of course, in their royal arrogance, they never bothered to explain his absence to the worried family, nor did they take the time to properly instruct Seifer before his first public appearance. While intended for comic relief, it just shows how poorly thought through much of the story has been.

It’s hard to take the story and characters seriously when they have absurd names like Lumbago or Snaggleface, from the land of Fang. Really.

Seifer has to play Talon and in so doing, proves to one and all how his simple village ways make him a better ruler and heir to the throne than the prince himself. Ho hum. Where the story really gets interesting is the relationship he forges with Talon’s younger sisters, especially when they learn the truth. Additionally, he falls for Carcassa, daughter of gambling addict Baron Canasta Malefica, come to court to beg for help and gets it with interest. Meantime, the prince’s fiancée is due back soon which will only complicate things but first he has to survive the machinations of those who kidnapped the prince and scheme to bring down the government.

Wooding makes things somewhat interesting by giving the people bat-wings and some have the natural born ability to conjure magika. But he then goes and spoils it with anachronisms so Seifer worries about being a “wuss” and Cassie sends a letter “economy”.

He is not well served by Cassandra Diaz, making her professional debut. Her Manga-inspired art is stiff and simplistic with no real style of her own coming through. Like the story itself, we’ve seen this art before and done better. The advance reading copy from Scholastic only has the first 16 pages in color and she uses a nice subdued palette which helps differentiate the characters far better than her line art does.

While some may like the humor and tongue-in-cheek approach, I merely wish that the 8-12 year olds this is aimed at actually were given better material.

Real Steel is an interesting blend of the underdog sports movie and science fiction, and from the first frame, you know exactly what will happen by the time the end credits roll. There’s nothing wrong with that since we knew exactly what was coming in Rocky or Remember the Titans and both were strong, entertaining films. The challenge for the director and cast is to make arriving at the inevitable conclusion as entertaining as possible and in this case, the film exceeded expectations.

Coming out tomorrow for home video from Touchstone Home Entertainment, the Shawn Levy-directed film looks terrific and has rock solid sound so you hear the gears grinding and Danny Elfman’s score soar with fidelity.

The story is set in 2027, a time when human boxers have been replaced by oversized robotic creations that are basically Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots controlled by a video game interface. Atop the heap is the most advanced bit of Artificial Intelligence in the hulking Zeus, built and controlled by the film’s sort of bad guys, the too cool to be true Tak Mashido (Karl Yune) and Farra Lemcova (Olga Fonda). Way down the food chain is former boxer and failed robot boxing controller Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman). He owes money, his life sucks, and he’s so focused on finding the next fight to earn some cash that he is merely existing, not living. That changes when his old flame Caroline dies and he’s summoned to court to sign away all parental rights to his son Max (Dakota Goyo), a smart and smart-mouthed 11 year old. In need of a cash infusion, Charlie agrees to take Max for the summer so his Aunt and her husband can take an unencumbered Italian vacation in exchange for $100,000.

The rest of the film details the budding relationship between the two as they bicker, argue, and learn to love. Along the way, Charlie loses another robot while Max finds a sparring robot named Atom and basically adopts him. The scrappy mechanism is merely a distraction at first until he starts winning and with it comes confidence and prosperity.

The winning performances by Jackman and Goyo cement the film and keep it watchable but Levy does not do much with the rest of the characters. All the people Charlie encounters are two-dimensional at best keeping the film flat at times. Then there’s Bailey Tallet (Evangeline Lilly), daughter of the man who fostered and trained Charlie, who has always had feelings for him. Her entire relationship with Charlie remains off to the side, conveniently touched on as needed but never made to feel fully integrated into the over story.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Levy also does a haphazard job with his world-building. Clearly, technology has allowed the robots to exist and prosper but fashion, automobiles, and most technology hasn’t budged from today (although Bailey had a cool looking radio in one scene) and it’s a shame since it needed to feel a little more futuristic. At least Max refers to comic books so we know they survive.

He and screenwriters John Gatins and Sheldon Turner (from a screen story by Dan Gilroy and Jeremy Leven, based on the stronger “Steel” by Richard Matheson) do pace things well enough that you’re caught up in the climactic battle between Zeus and Atom and are cheering even though you know exactly what’s going to happen.

The film is accompanied on the Blu-ray disc with Second Screen: Ringside with director Shawn Levy, who is engaging and fun to hear recount how the film came together. He also introduces the 17 minutes of deleted/extended scenes, explaining why changes were made. Most make sense but it’s nice to have them here.

There’s Countdown to the Fight: The Charlie Kenton Story, a 14 minute pseudo-ESPN piece that fills in many of the questions the film itself left hanging about how Charlie got to the point where we first met him. It’s a nicely done piece and almost mandatory watching. Also worth your attention is Sugar Ray Leonard: Cornerman’s Champ, a 6 minute piece showing the boxing champ working with Jackman so he looked like an authentic palooka.

Making of Metal Valley is a lengthy look at how this set was constructed and how they shot Max’s mudslide and while interesting, is more for filmmakers. Building the Bots is another nice piece on how real fighting bots were constructed to elicit better performances from the humans interacting with them. It also shows how they transition from real to CGI and it’s interesting to note how seamless it all appears.

And yes, there are bloopers which were pretty standard.

All in all, if you like underdogs, robots, science fiction, sports or Jackman, then this is most definitely worth a look.

For a limited time, Dreamworks is offering $5 OFF the purchase of the Real Steel 3-disc Combo Pack. Those interested should visit http://www.steelgetsreal.com/, and click on the offer in the upper right corner of the page. Offer ends 1/29/12.

(January 23, 2012 – New York, NY)  DC Entertainment, home of the world’s greatest super heroes, today unveiled an unprecedented giving campaign to fight the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa.  This multi-million-dollar commitment over the next two years will be supported across all Warner Bros. Entertainment’s and Time Warner’s businesses and feature DC Entertainment’s iconic Justice League characters, including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg, issuing the call to action, “We Can Be Heroes.”  The announcements were made at a press conference today in New York by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros.; Jeff Robinov, President, Warner Bros. Pictures Group; and Diane Nelson, President, DC Entertainment.

We Can Be Heroes will be supported via promotional exposure across all of Time Warner’s divisional advertising platforms (Warner Bros., Turner Broadcasting, Time Inc., HBO), generating millions of consumer impressions and creating crucially needed awareness of this crisis worldwide.  Save the Children, International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps will equally share a corporate donation of at least $2 million over the next two years comprised of cash donations, employee matching funds and consumer matching funds.

If you missed seeing the return of The Muppets in, well, The Muppets, then you get another chance when the movie is released on video this March.

Director James Bobin revealed all the Easter Egg inspirations found throughout the delightful film in an interview and it’s worth a look.

Here’s the press release:

BURBANK, Calif., January 20, 2012 –– One of the year’s best-loved family comedies and among the best reviewed films of 2011, Disney’s The Muppets, starring Jason Segel, Academy Award®-nominee Amy Adams, and favorite celebrity couple Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy — debuts March 20 on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, DVD, Digital Download and On-Demand formats. A must-own movie the entire family can enjoy, Disney’s The Muppets in-home release includes the DVD and music soundtrack packaged together and also offered as the ultimate Muppets experience, a ‘Wocka-Wocka Value Pack,’ which contains the movie on Blu-ray high definition, DVD and Digital Copy (three discs), plus a download card which allows fans to own all the songs from the film’s hugely popular soundtrack.

Disney’s The Muppets Blu-ray Combo Pack, with its flawless picture and pitch perfect sound, comes with a fantastic slate of bonus content including the laugh out loud “The Longest Blooper Reel Ever Made (In Muppet History––We Think).” The exciting release also includes the hilarious featurette “A Little Screen Test on the Way to the Read Through,” which follows Jason Segel, Kermit, The Great Gonzo, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy and others as they get ready for the first day of production, and much more fun.

“Blu-ray is a great way to bring the Muppets into your home without having to worry about cleaning up after us,” said Kermit the Frog, commenting on the announcement. “And the behind-the-scenes extras are a revealing tell-all look at what it took to bring our movie to the big screen. It’s a must-see for fans of bloopers, flubs and slip-ups – which pretty much describes our act.”

Miss Piggy is equally thrilled at the movie’s Blu-ray release, “Now you can watch moi whenever you want! Ooh! Lucky vous!”

Additional fun-filled features on Disney’s The Muppets Blu-ray include a groundbreaking industry first — ‘Disney Intermission,’ a hilarious all-new feature that allows viewers to press Pause on their remote control and watch as the Muppets take over the screen and entertain until the movie resumes playing. The release also includes “Explaining Evil: The Full Tex Richman Song,” an extended version of the rollicking rap song by villain Tex Richman (Academy Award® winner Chris Cooper) who provides the hilarious backstory of why he hates the Muppets. Audio commentaries with screenwriter and star Jason Segel, director James Bobin and screenwriter Nicholas Stoller are also included.

With the Muppet’s signature irreverent comedy, songs and dancing, Muppet fans of all ages will cheer as the gang reunites to put on a benefit show to save the crumbling Muppet Studios from being razed by nefarious oil baron Tex Richman. New fans and long-time devotees will find the rainbow connection when they bring Disney’s “The Muppets” into their very own homes.

Release Formats & Suggested Retail Pricing:

3-Disc Blu-ray with Soundtrack (‘Wocka-Wocka Value Pack’) = $49.99 U.S./$56.99 Canada
2-Disc Blu-ray = $39.99 U.S./$46.99 Canada
1-Disc DVD with Soundtrack = $34.99/$41.99 Canada
1-Disc DVD = $29.99 U.S./$35.99 Canada
High Definition Digital = $39.99 U.S./$44.99 Canada
Standard Definition Digital = $29.99 U.S./$35.99 Canada
On-Demand = check with your television provider or favorite digital retailer for pricing

And, according to Bleeding Cool, the deleted scenes are hidden throughout the disc as Easter Eggs as noted below:

00:15:14:11 SCRATCHING THE SURFACE – A HASTY EXAMINATION OF THE MAKING OF THE MUPPETS (DVD EXTRA)
00:09:35:05 (THE MUPPETS – BONUS MATERIAL: DELETED SCENES 1-8 WITH SLATES) (DVD EXTRA)
00:02:29:19 (THE MUPPETS – BONUS MATERIAL: EXPLAINING EVIL: THE FULL RICH TEXMAN SONG) (DVD EXTRA)
00:03:08:23 (THE MUPPETS – BONUS MATERIAL: A LITTLE SCREEN TEST ON THE WAY TO THE READ THROUGH) (DVD EXTRA)
00:01:20:05 (THE MUPPETS – BONUS MATERIAL: EASTER EGG – EXTENDED “FORGET YOU”) (DVD EXTRA)
00:00:57:01 (THE MUPPETS – BONUS MATERIAL: EASTER EGG – EXTENDED SCENE: PUNCH TEACHER) (DVD EXTRA)
00:02:10:02 (THE MUPPETS – BONUS MATERIAL: EASTER EGG – JG & MUPPET JAMES BOBIN LOOK AT THE SET) (DVD EXTRA)
00:00:42:04 (THE MUPPETS – BONUS MATERIAL: EASTER EGG – JG TALKS ABOUT PERMITS) (DVD EXTRA)
00:01:13:18 MISS POOGY: THE OINKERVIEW (DVD EXTRA)

Since the color editions of Bone began appearing nearly a decade ago, Jeff Smith’s delightful series has become synonymous with Scholastic’s Graphix imprint. In 2009, Scholastic concluded a deal that allows them to publish expansion material set in the Bone universe such as the Tall Tales collection that came out a while back.

Last year, a new series, Quest for the Spark, began but what made this unique was that these books would be illustrated prose works. Tom Sniegoski, who collaborated on Tall Tales, has been penning the stories while Smith (with colorist Steve Hamaker) has provided the covers and spot illustrations. Volume two is due out momentarily with volume three coming this summer.

When this was first announced, Smith noted on his website, “I was a bit unsure about this project when Tom first suggested it, but when I read the first book I laughed so hard, I agreed to do it. Scholastic was so blown away by it, that they decided to make it available in hardcover and wanted the illustrations, of which I think I’m going to do about twenty, full bleed and in color.”

The reality is the second book as 12 full page pieces along with spot art but it’s all nicely spaced out. So, what are the books about? Well, first of all, these are considered Bone: Legacy even though you the reader will call them Quest for the Spark. They include characters from the original series including the Two Stupid Rat Creatures and Roderick the Raccoon, Master of the Eastern Border, Thorn Harvestar, and Rose (Gran’ma Ben) Harvestar.  While mentioned, the Bone cousins will not be seen nor are active participants.

The hero of the story is Tom Elm, your basically turnip farmer who lives in the Valley. But, when the village is overwhelmed with nightmares, caused by an evil called The Nacht, he feels this is his chance to fulfill his destiny for greatness. He gathers an assortment of allies and sallies forth to protect The Spark – found in the core of The Nacht. Basically, The Nacht has been sending nightmares through the Dreaming to the Waking World and desires for all living beings to succumb but Tom stands in his way. Already asleep by the end of Book One are Queen Thorn and Gran’ma Ben so Tom, Roderick the raccoon, Lorimar, who can shapeshift, a Veni Yan warrior; and two stupid rat creatures have to save the day.

Of course, the fun is the getting there and Sniegoski successfully captures Smith’s sense of adventurous whimsy. Book one pits them against a trio of bears with plans of their own which leads them to a dangerous beehive. Book two reveals there’s a traitor in the bunch so complications get compounded as happens in any good yarn.

It’s interesting to note how Smith himself views the trilogy, “While not an official sequel to my comic, it will be fun to see some the characters again, like the stupid rat creatures, and Roderick the raccoon. “

Since Scholastic obtained the license, they have sold over 4.5 million Bone books, propelling the series to most recommended graphic novels for students lists. The 1500-page original story was named by Time as one of the top ten graphic novels of all time.

The trilogy is available in hardcover and softcover.

The best animated spinoff we‘ve seen in year, Puss in Boots, is coming to DVD on February 24. DreamWorks Animation will be releasing this as a double DVD and a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.

According to the press release, “Puss in Boots continues the legacy of Shrek, the #1 animated franchise of all time, with the uproarious and irresitable origin story of the notorious fighter, lover and outlaw Puss in Boots.  Filled with hilarious action and adventure, the true tail—er, tale—of how Puss became a hero long before he met Shrek delighted audiences of all ages with its non-stop laughs, daring deeds and original story.   Boasting an all-star cast of voice talent including Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris, Puss in Boots is a must-own family film with serious cat-itude.”

The DVD, Double Pack DVD, 2-Disc Blu-ray & 3-Disc BD will offer the following contents:

•         Widescreen Format
•         English 5.1 Surround, English 2.0 Surround, French 5.1 Surround, Spanish 5.1 Surround& English Audio Description
•         English, French & Spanish Subtitles
•         Special Features:  (Available on DVD, Double Pack DVD, 2-Disc Blu-ray & 3-Disc BD)

o    Purr-fect Pairings: The Voices Behind The Legends
o    Deleted Scenes: Humpty Plots With Jack & Jill, Humpty Repays His Accomplices & Puss In Boots Fights The Giant
o    Puss in Boots: The Three Diablo’s
o    The Cat’s Meow: Kitten to Cat, Glitter Box Dance Off!, Klepto  Kitty, Kitty Keyboard, Fairytale Pop-Up, Kitty Strikes Again

HOLLYWOOD CA – Paramount Home Media Distribution (PHMD) announced today that it will launch a monthly sweepstakes beginning in January 2012 in honor of the studio’s centennial celebration.  Sponsored by Delta Vacations, the sweepstakes will give consumers the chance to win roundtrip airfare and hotel accommodations for three nights in any of the 48 contiguous United States*.

Destinations may include cities inspired by some of Paramount’s classic films such as New York City where Francis Ford Coppola’s epic masterpiece The Godfather and the beloved classic Breakfast At Tiffany’s were filmed; Chicago, IL where Ferris Bueller had the best day off ever; San Antonio, TX, where the breathtaking drama Wings was filmed with a cast of thousands; or Hollywood, CA, setting and subject of Sunset Boulevard and home to countless film productions.  Visitors to Paramount’s Facebook page can enter every month throughout the year.

Each month, PHMD will release a classic film from the studio’s renowned library for the first time ever on Blu-ray™ under a monthly theme that celebrates Paramount’s rich cinematic history.  The year-long program will begin with “Best Picture Winners” in January, led by the winner of the very first Academy Award^® for Best Picture, the 1927 World War I drama Wings, debuting on January 24^th.  February’s theme will be “Love Stories” appropriately headlined by the unforgettable 1970 classic Love Story, which will make its Blu-ray debut on February 7^th.

Additional titles scheduled to debut on Blu-ray include Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller To Catch A Thief on March 6^th; the seminal neo-noir classic Chinatown on April 3^rd; the hilarious comedy Clueless on May 1^st; John Wayne’s gritty western Hondo on June 5^th; the daring, futuristic adventure Barbarella on July 3^rd; and the all-star comedy-mystery Clue on August 7^th.

It is “The Wicked Day,” indeed, for Merlin, Arthur – and all of Camelot.

It begins with a festive birthday celebration for Prince Arthur … but ends as the destinies of Arthur and the warlock Merlin come clear.  This one enormously fateful day is the backdrop for an all-new episode MERLIN, titled “The Wicked Day,” which premieres Friday, January 20 at 10 p.m. ET/PT only on Syfy.

Written by Howard Overman, creator of the popular British sci-fi series Misfits, and directed by Alice Troughton, “The Wicked Day” is a pivotal episode in the saga of Camelot – and begins with the arrival of a sinister-looking visitor named The Gleeman.

Played by BAFTA award nominee Phil Davis (Vera Drake, Sherlock), The Gleeman appears to be part of a traveling carnival troupe, and there certainly is an extra spirit of merriment in the air, as King Uther makes his first public appearance since the betrayal and disappearance of Morgana more than a year earlier.

But when the festive day turns impossibly tragic, Arthur and Merlin must venture outside the walls of Camelot to find the one person who can possibly come to the rescue: a mysterious warlock named … Emrys.

In his Emrys disguise, Merlin offers Arthur a stunning proposition, one that actor Colin Morgan says has been a long time coming for the young warlock, who has become more worldly and more mature as the series has progressed.

“I think this episode really shows just how far Merlin has come,” Morgan says. “He knows there’s a risk in this bold decision – but his need to prove to Arthur that magic an be used for good makes him believe the opportunity outweighs the risk.”

Much rests on the offer made in “The Wicked Day” – and whether it is accepted.  Morgan says its complex morality was a thrill to play. “It’s selfish reasoning on Merlin’s part,” he explains. “He wants to live in a land where magic is accepted and those who use it can be free.  And, he knows if he can prove the value of magic, it will change Arthur’s opinion forever.

“That’s also a recurring theme in this entire season,” Morgan says of the fourth season of MERLIN, which attracted its biggest-ever Syfy premiere audience when it debuted on Jan. 6, and saw its audience increase further for its second episode. “All the stakes have been raised.”

“The Wicked Day,” an all-new episode of MERLIN, airs Friday, January 20 at 10 p.m. ET/PT only on Syfy.  All three seasons of MERLIN are now available on DVD and on iTunes.  Be sure to follow the latest news on MERLIN at the Official Merlin page on Facebook.

Just in time for the 25th anniversary, Star Trek: The Next Generation is being transferred to high definition for the first time ever and released on Blu-ray. All 178 episodes from seven seasons will be transferred to true high-definition 1080p for release on Blu-ray and eventual runs on television and digital platforms both domestically and internationally.

While the first full season won’t be available until later in 2012, CBS Home Entertainment is releasing Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Next Level, a single Blu-ray disc to give fans a taste of the series in HD, on January 31, 2012. The disc will include the feature-length pilot – “Encounter at Farpoint” – as well as two more “fan favorite” episodes, “The Inner Light” (Season 5) and “Sins of the Father” (Season 3).

Here’s a preview of the remastered “Encounter at Farpoint”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Fans have been clamoring for a high-definition release of Star Trek: The Next Generation for years,” said Ken Ross, Executive Vice President and General Manager of CBS Home Entertainment. “Transferring the series to high-definition presented difficult technical challenges, but our team has come up with a process to create true 1080p HD masters with true HD visual effects. We can’t wait to show fans how pristine the series looks and sounds with our upcoming Blu-ray releases.”

Transferring Star Trek: The Next Generation to high-definition presented numerous challenges – The series was originally shot on film and then transferred to videotape, which was used to edit episodes together. In order to create true HD masters, CBS is going back to the original uncut film negative – all 25,000 plus film reels of it – and cutting the episodes together exactly the way they originally aired. The visual effects were all shot on film and will be painstakingly recompositioned, not upconverted from videotape. The newly cut film will then be transferred to true high-definition with 7.1 DTS Master Audio. Denise and Mike Okuda are consulting on the project.

One of the most popular series in the STAR TREK franchise, Star Trek: The Next Generation celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2012. It premiered in first-run syndication during the week of September 28, 1987 and ran through 1994. It won numerous accolades, including 18 Emmy® awards, and was the first – and only – syndicated television show to be nominated for the Emmy® for Outstanding Drama Series for its seventh season. It was also ranked #46 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time list in 2002.

Set in the 24th century on the Starship Enterprise, about 100 years after the original STAR TREK series took place, the series starred Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker, LeVar Burton as Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge, Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi, Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data, Michael Dorn as Lieutenant Worf, Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher and Wil Wheaton as her son Wesley Crusher.