Quark's

This new listing of premiere dates through summer 2026 has a number of interesting confirmations and announcements for SciFi television fans:

• June 3:\ The Legend of Vox Machina (Prime Video, Season 4)

• July 13:\ Silo([Apple TV]

• July 23:\ Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+, Season 5; final season)

• July 29:\ The Ark (Syfy, Season 3)

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/39235955

Who knew that franchise-branded electric guitar peripherals were becoming a thing?

A Godzilla pedalboard would have been fantastic for garage bands back when GenXers were young…

EDIT: Found the wikipedia page for more info if anyone is curious.

Paramount subscribers suing over the WBDiscovery merger?

Are there Star Trek fans left subscribing who are doing this?

I can’t see the Yellowstone Sheridanverse base being concerned…

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/38662450

An interesting choice of story to cover in ‘interesting times.’

From the article:

Like many of the other promoters at CinemaCon last week, The Anklercolumnist Richard Rushfield was handing out free swag. It was nothing fancy, just a pin that read “Block The Merger,” referring to the monumental unification of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery that is coming up for a vote this Thursday. But Paramount didn’t appreciate the gesture, and instead of ignoring it, pulled its advertising from The Ankler and told talent not to speak to their reporters. All that for a pin.

If this is the entertainment industry’s canary in the coal mine moment, that bird might already be on the floor of its cage. Paramount acting so quickly to punish a journalist that disagreed with the powers that be is a warning of the kind of management style that would control more than a third of the industry if the merger goes through.

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/38527959

Last Thursday, the Tokyo District Court ruled that 39-year-old Wataru Takeuchi was guilty of violating Japanese law that prohibits the creation of “a new work by making creative modifications to the original while preserving its essential characteristics.” Takeuchi worked as administrator of a website that published lengthy, spoiler-heavy descriptions from popular movies and series. And two of Takeuchi’s “articles” — one about Godzilla Minus One and another focused on the Overlord anime adaptation — prompted Toho (owner of the Godzilla) and Kadokawa Shoten (the publisher behind Overlord) to file joint lawsuits through the Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA).

After the saga this film has been through, part of me thinks everyone should go see it out of principle.

Also, it looks great.

The story is more complex than originally thought by the person who posted two short clips and had claimed to have received an anonymous email with the full movie.

Paramount has conducted an investigation into the incident. As part of the ongoing probe, the company eliminated the possibility that the leak was caused by a vulnerability in its systems, sources familiar with the situation tell The Hollywood Reporter. Clips of the movie on X are still being taken down through its copyright takedown process.

The leak has also resurfaced criticism of Paramount’s decision not to go ahead with a theatre release as an animated cinematic feature.

“Anyone watching the leak wouldn’t even be watching it on Paramount+ in the first place,” posted an account on 4Chan. “It literally makes no difference.”

Another praised the animation and said the movie “deserved to be in theaters.” They added of Paramount, “You fund animation like this, and you throw it on a dead platform without any fucking advertising? The leak is deserved.”

More background on the letter and who has signed it in this AP wire story running on CBC, among others.

A coalition of advocacy groups organized the letter, including the Committee for the First Amendment — a free speech group led by Jane Fonda — as well as the Democracy Defenders Fund and the Future Film Coalition. Other signatories include: Ben Stiller, Don Cheadle, Javier Bardem, Lily Gladstone, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tiffany Haddish and Ted Danson.

Per the company, “Paramount will oversee direct development, creation and production of the Paramount Global Publishing books, with sales and distribution into the retail market to be handled by a yet-to-be-named partner.”

Paramount says it will continue its existing licensing strategy with publishers and distributors.

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/37879457

Likely a good signal towards an announcement of a third season of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters in addition to the new Lee Shaw focused 1980s Cold War spinoff going into production this June.

Interestingly, the show does well in Apple’s own rankings everywhere globally other than English speaking Commonwealth countries and Ireland.

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/37818381

The Artemis NASA

mission has a mascot named Rise — a stuffy that acts as a zero-G indicator.

At a certain angle, it’s face looks a lot like a favourite bone-drinking horror called Moopsy.

Meanwhile, on Paramount’s news side, this is the Ellison vision — and some discussion from the Guardian about its viability.

One of the shorter presentations at FediCon, but definitely interesting, especially since lemmy instances are very much driven by the user base (whereas Linux doesn't really change based on how many users there are). Also interesting since the speaker, Janet Vertesi, is one of the people working on the "Europa Clipper" project (the one where we're flying a satellite through Europa's geysers to get water samples, since landing and drilling under the ice is impractical. This has nothing to do with the presentation, I'm just excited about it).

Video Highlights:

2:00 - The current dominance of a few social media companies was predicted. Although there are lots of neat tools for opting out of Microsoft/Google/etc., but it's the community of these tools that matters

7:30 - Difficulties with how entangled folks are with mainstream tools (maps, calendars, clubs, etc.) - and how to overcome these obstacles. Interesting bit about how all the privacy toggles on Facebook, etc. give a false sense of security and discourage users from making bigger, more effective change. Additionally, behavior change happens at the group level, not the individual level.

12:00 - Building a network of "Tech Reclaimers" to help others make the change. Teaching social and technical skills (e.g., moderation - people are used to the technology doing everything for them on "traditional" social media), taking small steps, etc.

17:30 - Ongoing events