Tag Archives: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

Pixel Scroll 5/26/25 Oh, I’ve Got A Brand New Pair Of Pixel Scrolls, You’ve Got To Godstalk Me

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(1) GERMAN TOWN’S STEAMPUNK CELEBRATION. Cora Buhlert lets us ride along in “Hanseatic Steampunk: Cora’s Adventures at the 2025 Aethercircus Festival in Buxtehude”. Lots of photos of what she saw at the con, her food, and everything along the way. A fascinating read.

… Of course, there were also plenty of Steampunks about, ranging from cosplayers in full Steampunk gear via historical costumers and goths (I spotted a Wednesday Addams) to people who borrowed grandpa’s old suit and regular folks who accessorised their outfits with a few Steampunk piece such as an elderly lady in regular street clothes with a Steampunk necklace. Naturally, the Aethercircus attracted cosplayers who wanted to show off their costumes, but it was also heartening to see how many regular non-fannish folks made an effort to fit in. So enjoy these photos of great costumes…

(2) MURDERBOT SOUNDTRACK. Amanda Jones’ musical compositions for the first season of Murderbot are available at many platforms, including Bandcamp: “Murderbot: Season 1 (Apple TV+ Original Series Soundtrack)”. Several of the tracks are free to sample, including the “Sanctuary Moon Main Title Theme”. How can you resist?

(3) LUCAS MUSEUM ISSUES. “As George Lucas’s ‘Starship’ Museum Nears Landing, He Takes the Controls” reports the New York Times. (Article is behind a paywall.)

…Even now — 15 years since Lucas first proposed a museum, and eight years after ground was broken in Los Angeles — many questions remain about an ambitious but somewhat amorphous project that is now slated to be completed next year.

There has also been turbulence as the museum nears its final approach. In recent weeks the museum has parted ways with its director and chief executive of the past five years and eliminated 15 full-time positions and seven part-time employees, including much of the education department. Lucas is now back in the director’s chair, installing himself as the head of “content direction” and naming Jim Gianopulos, a former movie studio executive and Lucas Museum trustee, as interim chief executive….

… The museum recently said it could not give figures for the size of its staff or its projected operating budget. “As the museum is now in the process of moving from completion of construction to implementation of exhibitions and opening to visitors,” the museum spokeswoman said in an email, “both the staffing and operating budget are currently in transition and can better be addressed as we conclude our pending budgeting process.”…

…What has not changed is the fact that the core of the institution’s collection would be items amassed by Lucas over the years. Beyond Hollywood memorabilia from his films and digital animation, his collection includes book and magazine illustrations assembled over 50 years, including those by R. Crumb and N.C. Wyeth; comic books; and Norman Rockwell’s paintings — such as the artist’s 1950 cover for the Saturday Evening Post, “Shuffleton’s Barbershop,” purchased from the Berkshire Museum in 2018….

… Some of those involved in the institution’s development say they believed that Jackson-Dumont came up against Lucas’ role as the ultimate decision maker with a long history of creative control as well as his bottom-line, where-the-buck-stops primacy as founder and underwriter of the 300,000-square-foot museum. The filmmaker has had a hand in every detail of the museum’s development, former staffers say, from architectural details to exhibition layout to wall text.

Robert Storr, an art historian, critic and former dean at the Yale School of Art, said it is important for major collectors to understand the need for curatorial expertise and experience to shape exhibitions and give them scholarly context.

“If he thinks he’s the single arbiter, then he’s just like all these megalomaniacal patrons who think they know more than anyone they can hire,” Storr said. “They don’t have any methodology for how they talk about the evolution or digestion of ideas. It’s a serious intellectual problem that’s at the heart of all this.”

Conscious of his age (he turned 81 on May 14) — and the escalating construction bill — Lucas is eager to get the museum finished and open, those interviewed said, seeing it as his legacy and a long-awaited chance to share his collection with the public….

(4) NOT A POTTER NOVEL. Camestros Felapton has favorable things to say about this finalist: “Hugo 2025 Novel: Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky”.

…Tchaikovsky writes a lot of books and I’ve enjoyed each one I’ve read but this is one of the strongest of his, although structurally one of the simplest. It has a relatively small cast of characters and it mainly (aside from one part) proceeds as a first person linear account by Arton Daghdev of his experiences as a prisoner on Kiln. I suspect, part of Tchaikovsky’s secret to his prolificness actually is mirrored by how life on Kiln works. Tchaikovsky’s books rework and remix a variety of recurring ideas in new settings and new combinations….

(5) COVERT FANAC. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] “The CIA Secretly Ran a Star Wars Fan Site” says 404 Media (article is behind a paywall). A screenshot of the site can be seen at the link. The headlined Star Wars fan page was only one of many such CIA communication sites.

“Like these games you will,” the quote next to a cartoon image of Yoda says on the website starwarsweb.net. Those games include Star Wars Battlefront 2 for Xbox; Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II for Xbox 360, and Star Wars the Clone Wars: Republic Heroes for Nintendo Wii. Next to that, are links to a Star Wars online store with the tagline “So you Wanna be a Jedi?” and an advert for a Lego Star Wars set.

The site looks like an ordinary Star Wars fan website from around 2010. But starwarsweb.net was actually a tool built by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to covertly communicate with its informants in other countries, according to an amateur security researcher. The site was part of a network of CIA sites that were first discovered by Iranian authorities more than ten years ago before leading to a wave of deaths of CIA sources in China in the early 2010s….

(6) DI FILIPPO CELEBRATES NEW COLLECTION. “Sci-Fi Writer Paul Di Filippo Talks Hiveheads & Nine Hundred Grandmothers!” with Mark Barsotti.

An entertaining chinwag with a first-rate writer of the fantastic (and other genres), Paul Di Filippo. We discuss Paul’s latest short story collection, THE VISIONARY PAGEANT AND OTHER STORIES. He also reveals he’ll be doing a novel set in a John Vance universe! Recorded May 6, 2025.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

May 26, 1995 — Johnny Mnemonic

Ok, I’m assuming that most of you have read the Nebula-nominated story that the film Johnny Mnemonic was based off of? It was originally published in the May 1981 issue of Omni magazine but it has been reprinted quite a few times in the forty years since then. I could’ve sworn it got nominated for a Hugo but the Hugo Awards site tells me it wasn’t. 

Well the film had its premiere thirty years ago on this date. I for one did not see in theatre, indeed did not know it existed until maybe a decade later. My opinion of it will be noted below.

The screenplay was supposedly by William Gibson as it says as IMDb so we can’t fault the script here being crafted by others, can one? Well it was as you’ll see below. 

Was it at all good? Well, the critics were divided on that. Roger Ebert in his Chicago Sun-Times review said “Johnny Mnemonic is one of the great goofy gestures of recent cinema, a movie that doesn’t deserve one nanosecond of serious analysis but has a kind of idiotic grandeur that makes you almost forgive it.” 

Caryn James of the New York Times has the last word: “Though the film was written by the cyberpunk master William Gibson from his own story and was directed by the artist Robert Longo, ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ looks and feels like a shabby imitation of ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Total Recall.’ It is a disaster in every way. There is little tension in the story despite the ever-present threat of an exploding brain. The special effects that take us on a tour of the information superhighway — traveling inside the circuits of Johnny’s brain, or viewing his search for information while wearing virtual reality headgear — look no better than a CD-ROM. Visually, the rest of the film looks murky, as if the future were one big brown-toned mud puddle.”

Now let’s talk about numbers. It’s generally accepted that a film needs to make at least three times what it cost to produce to just break even in the Hollyworld accounting system. Johnny Mnemonic didn’t even come close to that. It cost at least thirty million to produce (the numbers are still are in dispute even to this day as the Studio stored them in a file cabinet in a basement guarded by very hungry accountants) and made just double that and that’s not even taking into account that the Studio got at best fifty percent of the ticket price. 

There were two versions of this film. The film had actually premiered in Japan earlier on April 15th, in a longer version, well six minutes longer, that was closer to the director’s cut that came out later (yes there was a director’s cut — there’s always a director’s cut, isn’t there?), featuring a score by Mychael Danna and different editing. I doubt any version makes it a better film.

I haven’t discussed the film or the cast, so NO SPOILERS here. It’s possible, just possible, that someone here hasn’t seen it yet. 

I have. Shudder. Just shudder. Bad acting, worse story and that SFX? The lead actor who I shall not name here was so wrong as being cast that role as to defy comprehension as to why he got cast for it.  Well this unfortunately was due to a common occurrence in Hollywood that the studio decided to make the casting calls so the person that I won’t mention was picked up by the studio, so we can blame them for him. Frell. 

Then there were the numerous script rewrites were forced upon them by the studio, so Gibson, the producer  and the writing staff who had a great script, at the beginning according to Longo, ended up with a piece of shit again according to him. Now that piece of shit was one that the studio loved. Idiots. Obviously not science fiction fans there, were they? Turning into what it became proved that.

A black-and-white edition of the film, titled Johnny Mnemonic: In Black and White was released three years ago. Robert Longo, the producer, says it is closer to what he and Gibson envisioned. It is available on Blu-Ray. 

Now y’all are free to give away as much as you want for spoilers. That’s on your heads. Or memory chips. 

Someday I’m hope for a better interpretation of a Gibson film.  I’ve hopes for the soon to be Neuromancer series on Amazon. Really I do. I’m even to once again going to break my long standing stance of not seeing anything made off a work I liked a lot. I did with Johnny Mnuemonic and I’m still regretting it. 

I didn’t see The Peripheral series on Sci-Fi as I don’t subscribe to that streaming service. Who watched it? Opinions please. 

It wasn’t at all liked by the audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes Neuromancer who gave it a rating of just thirty-one percent when I originally wrote the first version of this but there’s no pages for it there now. Interesting… 

The most excellent Burning Chrome collection which has this story is available in dead tree format from your favorite bookseller but not for purchase on Amazon though it available if you have Kindle Unlimited; iBooks also known as Apple Books has it available but not Kobo.  

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) A SUPER LATE NIGHT. ScreenRant is breathless: “I Can Barely Believe It, But Stephen Colbert Is Now Part of DC’s Official Canon All Because of Superman”.

Yes, it’s true, Stephen Colbert has just been officially canonized in DC Comics lore, thanks to his appearance on an upcoming variant cover, which features Superman sitting at the iconic late night host’s desk for an interview. Notably, Colbert’s introduction into DC lore follows suit with his long-time canon status within the rival Marvel Universe.

Colbert and DC Comics shared a clip from his show on Instagram, in which the host revealed artist Dan Mora’s special variant cover for Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #40, written by Mark Waid, with art by Adrián Gutiérrez, which features a broadly smiling Superman holding up a copy of his new self-help book, alongside a beaming Stephen Colbert.

(10) SNAKE! IT HAD TO BE SNAKE! “Review and photos of Snake Plissken sixth scale action figure” by Captain Toy. Lots of photos at the link.

John Carpenter has been responsible for some of the greatest movies of the 70’s/80’s, including Halloween, the Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, They Live, Big Trouble in Little China, and of course – Escape from New York. This sci-fi action flick was a hit for Carpenter, and it made Kurt Russell an action star.

There have been a few attempts at recreating the protagonist Snake Plissken in action figure form, but the success has been questionable. I have the sixth scale version done by Sideshow, and it left a lot to be desired. Now Asmus is releasing a new, very high end version complete with ‘rooted’ hair and moving eyeball, all for the high end price of about $350. This is part of their Crown Collection, their top line series. 

There’s actually more than one version – there’s a version with sculpted hair that will run $280, one with rooted hair that runs around $350 at retailers, and an exclusive version (reviewed here) only available through the Asmus website, that includes a diorama base and costs $375…

This is the figure’s base:

(11) USE THE MEDICAL INSURANCE, LUKE. “This working Star Wars speeder bike seems too good to be true” says T3. 

Polish company Volonaut claims have to invented an “Airbike flying motorbike” that hovers and can fly at speeds up to 200kph. The compact flying machine takes us a step closer to the world imagined by Star Wars, where everyone seems to have some type of personal hovering transport.

While hover bikes are common across the Star Wars universe, the best known is the Aratech 74-Z, the speeder bikes used by the Empire’s scout troopers on the Endor during Return of the Jedi.

The person who sent File 770 the link is certainly skeptical: “First, 200 KPH on that thing? You’ve got to be kidding, right? There’s not even a windscreen. Second, there are no wheels on this sucker. Which might seem OK and I can see why they absolutely need to avoid the mostly parasitic weight and drag of those. But if you come in for a landing with a significant forward speed left and those skids catch on something, you’re gonna be eating a lot of dirt. Not from the dust being kicked up, but from your face slamming into the ground as you flip over the front of the bike. Third, there’s a long tube sticking out in front. This does sort of enhance the resemblance to the Star Wars Storm Trooper speeder bike. But I don’t think that’s the point. It looks to me like it could be a pitot tube, which makes it a piece of functioning equipment as it’s the way the bike will sense forward speed. That actually plays together with the previous point in that bending that tube could cause speed to be read incorrectly and a moderate tipping forward on landing could make the tube contact the ground or other obstacle. Depending on the overall flight control system, I’m not sure how much of a serious effect that would have. But, I could see trust vectoring having an issue balancing hover and propulsion if it got an incorrect speed reading. I’ve never been a motorcycle rider (heck, I don’t even ride bicycles) but I think even very experienced recreational motorcyclists might want to let somebody else try this out for a while first.” 

(12) YOU HAVE TO GO BACK. Saturday Night Live 50th season-ending episode includes this parody of a teen time travel adventure: “Will and Todd’s Radical Experience”. (And their phone both is not bigger on the inside.)

Two time-traveling students (Andrew Dismukes, Marcello Hernández) try to return historical figures (Quinta Brunson, Kenan Thompson, Mikey Day, Chloe Fineman, Emil Wakim) back to their own timeline.

(13) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George thinks we ought to hear what it would be like “If Red Carpet Interviews Were Honest”. What did we ever do to him?

[Thanks to Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 5/21/25 “I Don’t Want To Teach This Particular World To Sing,” Said Tom Dyspeptically

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(1) STURGEON AWARD NEWS. The 2025 finalists for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short science fiction story have been selected. File 770 has the list here: “Theodore A. Sturgeon Memorial Award 2025 Finalists”.

(2) LUCAS MUSEUM, DUE TO OPEN IN 2026, CUTS STAFF. “Lucas Museum lays off staff in Los Angeles one year before opening” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles — the $1 billion institution founded by “Star Wars” filmmaker George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson — has laid off 14% of its full-time staff, a year ahead of its scheduled opening in 2026. 

Fifteen full-time employees — many from the education and public programming departments — were let go last week, along with seven part-time, on-call workers. 

The museum said the cuts were part of a “necessary shift of the institution’s focus” to ensure its timely debut in Exposition Park.

“It is a tremendously difficult decision to reorganize roles and to eliminate staff, but the restructure will allow the museum’s teams to work more efficiently to bring the museum to life for the public,” the institution confirmed in a statement to the Chronicle. “ The museum will also continue hiring new roles in strategic operational areas in anticipation of the 2026 opening.”

Among those laid off was Bernardo Rondeau, curator of film programs, who was notified while attending the Cannes Film Festival. 

The move follows the February departure of director and CEO Sandra Jackson-Dumont, whose role was divided between Lucas, now overseeing content, and Jim Gianopulos, the former chairman of 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures, serving as interim CEO….

Artist’s rendering of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

(3) GRRM WILL PRODUCE NEW WALDROP ADAPTATION. George R. R. Martin has signed on with Lion Forge Entertainment to adapt Howard Waldrop’s A Dozen Tough Jobs into an adult animated feature film, The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively reveal.

The renowned author will produce the project, a reimagining of the Greek classic story of the 12 labors of Hercules. A Dozen Tough Jobs transports the mythic tale to 1920s Mississippi, where Hercules is re-envisioned as a former sharecropper fighting to regain his freedom…

… Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-Tep, Hap & Leonard) is writing the screenplay. French animation studio Blue Spirit, the Emmy-winning studio behind Netflix’s Blue Eye Samurai, will provide animation services for the film under Lion Forge Animation….

(4) JIM BUTCHER Q&A. “14 Million Books Later, Jim Butcher Thinks His Wizard Detective Needs a Hug” says the New York Times. (Interview is behind a paywall.)

… Depression, which he had struggled with for much of his life, was deadening his days. His marriage was fraying. The charming raconteur, telling jokes to hundreds of fans on the science fiction and fantasy convention circuit, belied a man in crisis. So, he made a decision to end things.

As the deadline for his next book loomed, Butcher took two bottles of pills that he’d been using to treat chronic migraines and braced for the worst. He recalled feeling terribly sick for 36 hours. But he survived.

“I am really lucky to be here,” Butcher said quietly, as his 7-year-old pit bull, Brutus — named for an earth spirit in one of his books — dozed next to him on the couch.

Afterward, he thought about what his death might have done to his two sons, James (a novelist himself) and Dylan. He felt he needed to “own up to the consequences of my choice, and what could have happened if I hadn’t just been very fortunate.”

The result was the next installment in the series, “Ghost Story.” The book followed Harry Dresden’s ghost as he tried to solve his own murder, observing the ripple effects of his death “It’s a Wonderful Life”-style. It was the first in the series that Butcher didn’t plan out chapter by chapter ahead of time.

Butcher hasn’t opened up publicly about his mental health difficulties until recently, and he’s still reluctant to discuss them. He has been divorced twice, separations that have taken a toll (though he is newly engaged). Sowards said that there was a period where she wasn’t sure when she was going to get another book from him.

“We were able to be patient, and we supported him,” she said.

For lunch, Butcher sears me a steak on the stovetop, not unlike the typical meal that McAnally, the taciturn bartender from his books, would serve up. As Butcher carefully glazes the meat with a heart-healthy balsamic, I suggest that talking to a reporter is probably not great for his blood pressure.

“I mean, I debated whether or not to do this interview,” Butcher said, after adding garlic powder.

Stepping outside into the brisk, pine-scented air, he tells me that talking about his mental health was motivated, in part, by an interaction he had with a fan. At a book signing, he met a young man carrying a printout of writing advice Butcher had published on his LiveJournal. He autographed it and offered the fan encouragement about his own writing.

Butcher thought little of it at the time. But afterward, he said, the fan got in touch to tell Butcher that he had been prepared to kill himself, and that the writer’s words of support helped him decide to keep going. Since then, the two have struck up a friendship.

“I’ve talked to other young men who’ve had the same issues,” Butcher said. “I say, ‘You’re feeling overwhelmed. You need to make your world a bit smaller for a while. Set out some reasonable goals for yourself, get up in the morning, get the bed made, get the kitchen cleaned up, make sure your house looks nice.’”…

(5) IMAGINARY PAPERS. Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination has published the latest issue of Imaginary Papers, their quarterly newsletter on science fiction worldbuilding, futures thinking, and imagination.

 In this issue, Anna Maria Grzybowska writes about Endling: Extinction is Forever, a 2022 video game exploring environmental crisis and nonhuman agency; Fitz Madrid explores psychedelic tendencies in speculative fiction, with particular attention to Philip K. Dick’s 1969 novel Ubik; and Ari Brin reports on an anthology of rediscovered stories by nineteenth-century science fiction pioneer Robert Duncan Milne.

 (6) TODAY’S DAY.

(7) DISCWORLD REREAD. Christopher Lockett continues his series with “Discworld Reread #2: Equal Rites”.

…In Equal Rites (1987), we meet the character who is, to my mind, Sir Terry’s greatest achievement. I suppose everybody has their favourites, and there are definitely a good number of characters crowding the top tier. But for me, Esmerelda “Granny” Weatherwax is the apex.

Much like The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites is set in a Discworld that is still under construction—the shape of it identifiable in the unformed clay, which will eventually take more precise form with each sculpting session. One such refinement we already see at work is the way in which this novel’s satire is more substantive: not just taking the piss of fantasy’s tired and formulaic conventions, but pointing to the ways in which some of those conventions are reflective of broader social considerations.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Equal Rites is very much a feminist novel. As the title’s pun might suggest … and as the opening paragraphs make clear, in case you weren’t paying attention:

“This is a story about magic and where it goes and perhaps more importantly where it comes from and why, although it doesn’t pretend to answer all or any of these questions.

“It may, however, help to explain why Gandalf never got married and why Merlin was a man. Because this is also a story about sex, although probably not in the athletic, tumbling, count-the-legs-and-divide-by-two sense unless the characters get totally beyond the author’s control. They might.

“However, it is primarily a story about a world. Here it comes now. Watch closely, the special effects are quite expensive.” (11)

A novel about magic. And sex, though probably not in the rumpy-bumpy sense of the term—which means sex in the sense of gender, which further means that, should it come under the scrutiny of the current U.S. regime, it might find itself disappeared, because D.E.I….

(8) MAKING A COUNT. “WHAT THE HELL ARE PEOPLE DOING?” asks Max Comperatore, a software developer/prompt engineer based in Argentina. His site delivers “live-ish” estimates of what the human race is doing right now, from sleeping to warfare, restroom use, and intimacy. (It doesn’t deal with really small numbers, like how many are reading File 770…)

The Changelog includes – “Fixed ‘Intimacy’ count to always be an even number.”

(9) LIPSYNCH BY AI. “What if Making Cartoons Becomes 90% Cheaper?” asks the New York Times (behind a paywall).

“Fear not! For I shall lead ye to riches beyond your wildest dreams!”

Inside a tiny recording booth in downtown Los Angeles, John Peck waited for a verdict from the voice-over engineer: Did the line sound pirate-y enough?

Try again, the engineer suggested, perhaps with more throaty emphasis on “wildest.” It might make the animated character Mr. Peck was voicing — a buccaneer with a peg leg — a tiny bit funnier.

Mr. Peck, 33, cleared his throat and gave it a whirl, prompting chuckles from the production team. A couple of clicks on a laptop later, and an artificial intelligence tool synced Mr. Peck’s voice with a cartoon pirate’s mouth movements. The character was destined for an episode of “StEvEn & Parker,” a YouTube series about rapscallion brothers that attracts 30 million unique viewers weekly.

Just a few years ago, lip-syncing a minute of animation could take up to four hours. An animator would listen to an audio track and laboriously adjust character mouths frame by frame. But Mr. Peck’s one-minute scene took 15 minutes for the A.I. tool to sync, including time spent by an artist to refine a few spots by hand.

Toonstar, the start-up behind “StEvEn & Parker,” uses A.I. throughout the production process — from honing story lines to generating imagery to dubbing dialogue for overseas audiences. “By leaning into the technology, we can make full episodes 80 percent faster and 90 percent cheaper than industry norms,” said John Attanasio, a Toonstar founder.

“This is how you build the next generation of hot intellectual property,” Mr. Attanasio added excitedly…

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) TURING PAPERS TO AUCTION. [Item by Steven French.] The Guardian reports“Alan Turing papers saved from shredder could fetch £150,000”. However, although the thesis is signed, the other papers are just off prints and if Filers would rather not pay £40-60,000, Turing’s foundational paper “On Computable Numbers” can be downloaded here (for free).

Widely considered the father of theoretical computer science, Alan Turing’s influence on modern life continues to be felt in the age of artificial intelligence. But despite this legacy, a cache of his most important papers was nearly shredded – only to be saved at the last minute when their significance was recognised at a family event.

At auction next month, the papers are expected to sell for as much as £150,000 in 13 separate lots.

Among the collection is the wartime codebreaker’s personal signed copy of his 1938 PhD dissertation, Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals, valued at between £40,000 to £60,000.

Also featured is his paper On Computable Numbers, also known as Turing’s proof, which introduced the world to the idea of a universal computing machine in 1936. It has been described as the first programming manual of the computer age and also has a guide price of £40,000 to £60,000….

(12) DONE WITH NO PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT. “Google Decided Against Offering Publishers Options in AI Search” reports Livemint.

While using web site data to build a Google Search topped with artificial intelligence-generated answers, an Alphabet Inc. executive acknowledged in an internal document that there was an alternative way to do things: They could ask web publishers for permission, or let them directly opt out of being included.

But giving publishers a choice would make training AI models in search too complicated, the company concludes in the document, which was unearthed in the company’s search antitrust trial. It said Google had a “hard red line” and would require all publishers who wanted their content to show up in the search page to also be used to feed AI features. Instead of giving options, Google decided to “silently update,” with “no public announcement” about how they were using publishers’ data, according to the document, written by Chetna Bindra, a product management executive at Google Search. “Do what we say, say what we do, but carefully.”

Site owners that rely on traffic can’t afford to skip listing on Google, which still holds more than 90% of the search market, making it a gateway to the modern web. Many have reluctantly let Google use their content to power search AI features, like AI Overviews, which provides AI-generated responses for some queries — despite the fact that the feature often eats into their traffic. By answering questions directly, AI Overviews obviates the need for users to click on links, depriving sites of opportunities to make money by showing ads and selling products….

(13) CRITIQUE OF THE AI INDUSTRY. [Item by Steven French.] Karen Hao, author of a new book in the development of AI is sceptical about a possible AI apocalypse but nevertheless argues that it could undermine democracy and has already distorted the research landscape: “’Every person that clashed with him has left’: the rise, fall and spectacular comeback of Sam Altman” in the Guardian.

The apocalyptic visions of a superintelligent AI turning against humanity have been a distraction, she thinks. “Ultimately, what’s going to cause catastrophe is people, not rogue AI, and we need to watch what the people are doing.” However, she has met people who genuinely believe AI will destroy humanity. “I spoke to people whose voices were literally quivering in fear, that is the degree to which they believe, and if you truly believe that, that’s terrifying.” Then there are those who use the idea of how AI could become so powerful as “a rhetorical tool to continue saying: ‘That’s why we good people need to continue controlling the technology and not have it be in the hands of bad people.’” But as far as Hao can see, “we’ve not gotten more democratic technologies, but more authoritarian ones.”

Neither does Hao have much sympathy for the argument that the development of AI requires huge investment. “I don’t think it needs the level of investment these companies say it needs,” she says. “They have already spent hundreds of billions of dollars on developing a technology that has yet to achieve what they said it’s going to achieve,” says Hao. “And now you expect us to spend trillions? At what point do we decide that actually they’ve just failed?

“When I was covering AI pre-ChatGPT and the wide range of research that was happening, there were such exciting ideas … ChatGPT erased people’s imaginations for what else could be possible.” Generative AI has taken over – not just OpenAI, but at other tech companies including Google’s DeepMind – and this, says Hao, “has distorted the landscape of research, because talent goes where the money goes.”

(14) SUPERMAN II AND SUPERMAN TOO. Youtuber Russkafin analyzes two directors’ input to the Superman sequel. Watch it at the link: “CUT CUT: Superman II – Lester vs Donner”.

Did you know there are two very different versions of Superman II? You’ve probably heard of “The Donner Cut” and “The Lester Cut,” but maybe you didn’t know what that meant or what the difference was. In this video we go into great detail about how and why there are two different cuts, what the differences are, and weigh in on which version ultimately holds up better.

(15) TRAILER PARK. “Disney’s ‘Zootopia 2’ Lets the Fur Fly in New Teaser” – Animation Magazine sets the frame:

…Judy and Nick find themselves on the twisting trail of a great mystery when Gary De’Snake arrives in Zootopia and turns the animal metropolis upside down. To crack the case, they must go undercover to unexpected new parts of town, where their growing partnership is tested like never before….

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Galen Charlton, Joey Eschrich, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 3/5/24 But The Pixels We Climbed Were Just Shoggoths Out Of Time

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(1) COMING IN FOR A LANDING. Los Angeles Magazine tells why “George Lucas’ Billion Dollar Museum Is About Way More Than ‘Star Wars’”. A year ago this design looked unique. But today? I bet you can guess what building it reminds me of now.

We’re still maybe a year out from the grand opening of the new museum created by film director George Lucas and his wife, executive Melody Hobson. But anyone visiting the Coliseum, Natural History Museum, USC, or riding the Expo Line has seen the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art rising above Exposition Park. The absolutely massive structure by Beijing-based architect Ma Yansong encloses some 300,000 square feet over a building ranging from three and five floors set atop an underground parking garage (with 600 more spaces than the surface lot the building replaced) all nestled in a green garden….

Artist’s rendering of Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

(2) A SHORE THING. A trailer has dropped for The Wild Robot. Arrives in theaters on September 20.

The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot—ROZZUM unit 7134, “Roz” for short — that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.

(3) LEARNEDLEAGUE SFF QUESTION. [Item by David Goldfarb.] It’s the hundredth season of LearnedLeague. The first question of match day 15 asked us:

“What name is the last word uttered in the final installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy from 2019, as well as the last word of the film’s title?”

Way to nerf the question with that last clause, eh? Although even with that, the question had a 67% get rate, with 12% giving the most common wrong answer of “Jedi”. (Presumably thinking of the second movie in the trilogy.)

My opponent quite rightly assigned me 0 points for this one, as did I for him.

(4) HANDS (OR LEGS) UP FOR “YES”? NO? [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Is the giant spider in Netflix’s Spaceman real or just a figment of the title character’s imagination? The main creatives each have an answer but it may not be your answer. Beware — spoilers ahead.

There’s an obvious question at the heart of Spaceman, Netflix’s science fiction movie where Adam Sandler’s forlorn astronaut character spends half the story talking to a tennis ball communing with a giant alien spider that he names Hanuš. But even without watching the movie, viewers may wonder: Is Hanuš actually real?

Normally, when a movie revolves around this kind of question, the director and stars hedge when asked for their opinions. For instance, No One Will Save You writer-director Brian Duffield has been clear that he wants viewers to interpret that film’s startling ending in whatever way they think fits best, without his input. Andrew Haigh has been careful about weighing in on the controversial ending of All of Us Strangers. And that’s entirely reasonable — often filmmakers want to keep viewers guessing, thinking, debating, and interpreting.

But not always. Polygon couldn’t resist asking Spaceman director Johan Renck and stars Adam Sandler and Paul Dano what they think about the movie’s central debate point — and we were surprised at how definitive their answers were. We’ll get into the details after a spoiler break….

(5) MPSE GOLDEN REEL AWARDS. The Motion Picture Sound Editors presented their Golden Reel Awards on March 3. Here are the winners of genre interest:

EFFECTS & FOLEY

  • Oppenheimer

DIALOGUE & ADR

  • Oppenheimer

ANIMATION

  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

(6) IN THE YEAR 2024. “Plane commutes, world peace and 100-year-old predictions about 2024” at USA Today.

Well, we’re finally here. Is this the future that you envisioned?

Nearly 100 years ago, a group of visionaries dared to imagine what life would be like in 2024. Some of their prophecies fell woefully short while others proved to be strangely accurate. 

Join us now as we gaze into that crystal ball from 1924….

A growing problem

Arthur Dean, whose parental advice column appeared in newspapers across the country, expressed concerns about American dietary habits.

“I sometimes wonder what our stomachs will look like and be like 100 years from now,” he wrote. “Will we have any teeth at all? Will there be any color on our face except paint? Will the men have any height to speak of or will they be all girth? Will people have mostly an east and west appearance – all latitude and lassitude and no longitude?”

(7) SFWA ESTATES LEGACY PROGRAM. The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association has informed members that Mishell Baker is stepping down from her lead position on the Estates Project but will remain available for consultation. Going forward, the remaining Estates Project volunteers will cover her duties as needed.

Mishell is a winner of the Kevin J. O’Donnell Service to SFWA Award, and she served as the primary contact for SFWA’s Estate Project since 2016. She liaised with publishers interested in reprinting works by science fiction and fantasy authors who are no longer with us and acted as an intermediary for individual heirs who wished to keep their contact information confidential. Mishell gained a well-deserved reputation for handling these communications with consistency and sensitivity, providing help in sometimes difficult and confusing situations.  

The Estates-Legacy Project wishes to thank Mishell for her many years of exceptional service on behalf of writers, their heirs, and the readers now enjoying the work of past masters as a result of her efforts.

(8) RICHARD BOWES (1944-2023). In “Richard Bowes—A Remembrance” at Uncanny Magazine, Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, Christopher Barzak, Matthew Cheney, Sam J. Miller, and Matthew Kressel share their memories and feelings about Bowes, who died December 24. Here is an excerpt fro Kressel’s segment:

I’m fairly certain I met Rick Bowes at a Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading on November 15, 2006. That night, Lucius Shepard and Catherynne Valente were reading. This may seem awfully specific, but I have proof. Ellen Datlow captured this moment in a photo that resides on her Flickr stream. For a Halloween party I’d bleached my hair and dressed up as Roy Batty from Blade Runner. In the photo, Rick leans in, hands pressed like a sage, telling me something with authority, while I, with my Billy-Idol-blonde hair, listen rapt. (In the background, Rajan Khanna, whom in this moment I have yet to befriend, stares at the camera.) And this is how I will remember Rick. Telling stories. His depth of knowledge always astounded me. Right away, I knew I was in the presence of a sharp mind….

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 5, 1951 — Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden, 73. Let’s talk about Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden who writes under the pen names of Megan Lindholm and Robin Hobb. Thirty-six years ago at the age of thirty, as Megan Lindholm, her second novel, a fantasy set in Seattle was published. That was the extraordinarily excellent Wizard of the Pigeons, a novel that bring a smile to the face of even the Suck Fairy. 

In a sense, it is a direct evolution from her fiction as children’s writer which published in magazines as Jack and Jill, Highlights for Children and Humpty Dumpty as she notes. Her Robin Hobb persona, she claims is a little more gentle than her Meghan Lindholm persona which, as she told a Bookseller interviewer, is “a little more snarky, a little more sarcastic, a little less optimistic, less emotional”.

So let’s stay with her writing under the Lindholm name. Her first writing as that persona was short fiction was in 1979, “Bones for Dulath”, followed in 1980 by “The Small One” and in 1981 by “Faunsdown Cottage”. She’s written (and coauthored) twenty-six stories exclusively as Lindholm. That includes five works in Emma Bull and Will Shetterly’s Laivek franchise, some co-written with Stephen Brust or Gregory Frost. 

Lindholm’s first novel, Harpy’s Flight, was published forty-one years as ago, and was the first in her Windsingers series about the characters Ki and Vandien, and, yes, I like these novels a lot. 

Now remember these Birthdays are, if I choose, are what I’ve read by a given writer and this is what I’m doing here as I’ve read enough her to be reasonably knowledgeable about her.

The final novel by her that I’ve read is the one she did with Stephen Brust, The Gypsy. It’s based on Romany folklore, and it’s more or less a mystery. It got its own soundtrack courtesy of Boiled in Lead, vocals by Adam Stemple, son of Jane Yolen. Superbly crafted work. 

So now her other persona, Robin Hobb, and may I now say that I like both of the creators that she choose to be? Really I do.

Her first work as Hobb was the Farseer trilogy, narrated in first person, my favorite way to experience this sort of fiction, involves  FitzChivalry Farseer, illegitimate son of a prince. Great character, ever better series.  The first volume of the trilogy, Assassin’s Apprentice, sets up them well.

Ok, I’ll admit I’ve read much of the Realm of the Elderlings franchise, though by no means all, that talking about it coherently isn’t possible. What I will say is nothing by her is anything by really, really good.  I will say, despite Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden saying Hobb is the gentler of the two, that trigger warnings for brutality and even rape are necessary here. Really they are.

Both personas in the end aren’t, despite her claims, really that different. The only novel that is decidedly different I can say as a reader is The Gypsy but that was co-written with Brust as were the four Laivek works. Co-written works are such that one never knows how much that the one has influenced it and how much the other has.

(10) A NEW MEANING FOR WC. “What Is WcDonald’s, McDonald’s Anime Counterpart?” at Food Network. One of these comics was on my bag today!

… This month, McDonald’s is embracing what has become a common … homage, shall we say, to its golden arches in anime films and series: WcDonald’s.Swapping in a “W” — or, rather, an upside-down “M” — has become a cheeky way for animators and illustrators to let their characters dine at or otherwise interact with what the audience can immediately identify as a McDonald’s without licensing the actual name of (or getting sued by) McDonald’s itself. Starting next week, however, McDonald’s is embracing its cartoon counterpart at its real-life restaurants in the U.S. and beyond…. A New McNugget Sauce: To pair with “WcNuggets,” a new, limited-edition Savory Chili WcDonald’s Sauce is coming to the menu, described as a “unique combination of ginger, garlic and soy with a slight heat from chili flakes.” Manga-Inspired Packaging: Japanese illustrator Acky Bright designed original artwork of WcDonald’s crew members for the McDonald’s/WcDonald’s items. Packaging will also feature a QR code with access to digital WcDonald’s manga content weekly featuring Bright’s cast of WcDonald’s characters (yes, one is a mecha).

The promotional website WcDonald’s has a lot of content. Here are some of the newest characters.

(11) LAST DARKNESS FALL — PERMANENTLY. “Solar eclipse glasses: Why you need them, and why you should buy them right now” – advice from Slate. “The eclipse is happening on April 8—and last time, the glasses sold out many places.”

Few natural phenomena bring sci-fi-esque buzz like a solar eclipse. Some people talk about this astronomical event as if it comes straight out of a Ray Bradbury story. And those people are right! Solar eclipses are, without hyperbole, awesome. And just in case you haven’t heard, there’s one happening on April 8.

Of course, a cardinal rule of day-to-day life still applies to eclipses: You must absolutely not look at the sun directly—even if it’s partially obscured by the moon. It can cause permanent retinal damage.

Photoreceptors in the eyes register and convert light to electrical signals detected in your brain. The powerfully incandescent sun overwhelms those photoreceptors, bombarding them with far more light than they can convert. Any light your photoreceptors don’t absorb filters through to the back of your eye, producing heat. Although the moon partially blots out the sun, that doesn’t make the rays that are visible any less potent. Look at a partial eclipse long enough and you can burn the sun into your retinas, which can result in a permanent hole in your vision called a scotoma. Since your retinas lack pain receptors, you won’t know that the damage has been done until it’s too late. Looking through conventional binoculars or telescopes doesn’t mitigate this risk….

(12) ROLL THE CREDITS. “Superman movie to film in Ohio, hire more than 3,000 locals” at NBC4i. The state will reward this decision with a big tax credit.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! A new movie on the comic book hero is filming in Ohio this year and has been awarded about $11 million in tax credits, with plans to hire more than 3,000 locals.

The DC Studios movie titled simply “Superman” is filming in Cincinnati and Cleveland this spring and summer and will receive $11,091,686 in tax credits, according to an Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit application filed under the project’s code name, “Genesis.” The film is expected to hire 3,254 Ohio residents to take part in the production.

DC’s Ohio-related expenses are projected to exceed $36 million, which makes up about 10% of the movie’s total budget of more than $363 million….

(13) TECH BROS. “’Musk needs to be adored … Zuckerberg is out of his depth’: Kara Swisher on the toxic giants of Big Tech” in the Guardian.

…In the book, Swisher says Zuckerberg is “the most damaging man in tech”. Elon Musk, by contrast, is maligned as the “most disappointing”, which reflects Swisher’s long period of thinking of the founder of Tesla and SpaceX as one of the tech industry’s most promising sons. In 2016, she contacted him ahead of the big meeting with Trump, warning that the president-elect would “screw” him; two years later, Musk told her she had been right. All told, she seemed to believe that he operated on a higher level than most of his peers.

“Here’s someone who actually was doing serious things,” she says. “There’s a lot of people in Silicon Valley who are always doing a dry cleaning app. He was thinking of everything from cars to space to solar. Even the silly stuff like [his imagined high-speed transport system] Hyperloop: what a great idea. What an interesting idea.” She also mentions Neuralink, the venture working on computer interfaces that can be implanted in people’s brains. “How could we upgrade our intelligence? That’s a big, fascinating problem.”…

(14) SFWA INSTAGRAM PROGRAM. The SFWA Instagram Program gives users a peek at members’ daily creative lives, pets, and works. In the past year and a half, SFWA has processed nearly 200 requests and created over 600 graphics that have been shared through its Instagram account. Here’s an example:

(15) A FINE IDEA. This month (only) “A Massachusetts Library System Will Let You Pay Fines With Cat Pictures” according to Mental Floss.

It’s not often that cat photos are accepted as currency. But for the month of March, public libraries in Worcester, Massachusetts, will wipe certain fines from your account if you submit any picture of a cat.

Branches in the Worcester Public Library (WPL) system don’t charge fees for overdue books, but they do charge for lost or damaged ones. The call for cat pictures is a way to keep those bills from preventing patrons from using the library. “We at the Worcester Public Library are always looking for ways to reduce barriers,” Worcester Public Library executive library director Jason Homer told WBUR. “We know that a lot of people, unfortunately, through being displaced in housing, or life getting in the way in the global pandemic, lost a lot of materials.” 

“Felines for Fee Forgiveness” is part of March Meowness, a month of cat-centric programming that includes a screening of the 2019 movie Cats, a cat-eye makeup tutorial, a “de-stressing” hour of playing with shelter cats, DIY crafts, and more events.

Before you show up to a WPL branch with a cat image at the ready, there are a few rules to know. For one, a book needs to have been lost for at least two months in order for its fee to be waived…. 

(16) PROTOPLANETARY SYSTEM. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Last week’s issue of Science looks at the formation of other planetary systems.

This JWST infrared image shows the Orion Bar, which separates parts of the Orion Nebula containing cool molecular gas (lower left) from those containing hot plasma (upper right). The latter are ionized by ultraviolet radiation from massive stars (located beyond the image). The strong ultraviolet radiation field heats protoplanetary disks around young stars in this region, dispersing the gas needed for planet formation<

Primary research paper’s abstract here.

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. GamesRadar+ reports “Star Wars fans rocked by resurfaced beer adverts stitched directly into the original trilogy – including a bizarre replacement for Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber”. One video is embedded below, there are more at the link.

We all remember that iconic Star Wars moment where Obi-Wan Kenobi goes to give Luke Skywalker his father’s old, ice cold beer, right? 

Well, if you watched a specific version of the movie shown in Chile, you might remember things that way. The old ads are going viral once again thanks to the fact that the beer marketing is spliced directly into some of the original trilogy’s most famous moments – unintentionally creating the most hilarious advertising campaign ever. While these videos might seem like fakes, they are very much real: according to The Guardian, the campaign even won an award for its ingenuity…. 

[Thanks to Steven French, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, N., Jeffrey Smith, JJ, David Goldfarb, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, and SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jeff Jones.]