Every time I post a TIC diary on Wednesday night, some sort of news breaks the next day that I want to write about. Hopefully this might be a little bit of a distraction from the flame-wars around here, if only for a little bit. There was a little bit of news that might effect the ongoing Writers Guild Of America (WGA) strike, new images from the X-Files movie, more Tom Cruise Scientology tape, and finally (or would it be first?) the Enterprise......
[Star Trek]
Below is an image from the teaser trailer of JJ Abrams' Star Trek, set for a December release. It depicts welders & construction crews building the USS Enterprise here on Earth (with some rumors saying it's supposed to be the San Francisco Naval Shipyard at Hunters Point).
The teaser will debut in front of Cloverfield.
Ever since it was announced that J.J. Abrams would be directing a brand new take on the Star Trek franchise, folks have been itching to see what he's come up with. Starring Zachary Quinto (as a young Spock), Chris Pine (as a young Kirk), Karl Urban (as Bones), Simon Pegg (as Scotty), John Cho (as Sulu), Anton Yelchin (as Checkov) and Zoe Saldana (as Uhuru), this latest Star Trek installment apparently follows the original crew during their early days at Starfleet Academy up through their first mission together. Eric Bana will be playing a villain named Nero, while Bruce Greenwood will also make an appearance as the original Captain, Christopher Pike. And for those longing for some old school Trek, you'll be happy to know that Leonard Nimoy will also be showing up as his old Spock self.
[Hollywood On Strike]
The Directors Guild Of America (DGA) has made a tentative three-year agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (the trade association representing the studios, networks & producers). Many are now speculating whether the terms of the DGA's agreement will be used as a framework for a WGA agreement. And the reaction around Hollywood seems to be positive on all sides.
The DGA's deal.....
- Establishes DGA jurisdiction over programs produced for distribution on the Internet.
- Boosts the residuals formula for paid Internet downloads (electronic sell-through) by double the current rate.
- And establishes residual rates for ad-supported streaming and use of clips on the Internet.
"This was a very difficult negotiation that required real give and take on both sides," said DGA president Michael Apted said in a statement. "Nonetheless, we managed to produce an agreement that enshrines the two fundamental principles we regard as absolutely crucial to any employment and compensation agreement in this digital age: First, jurisdiction is essential. Without secure jurisdiction over new-media production -- both derivative and original -- compensation formulas are meaningless. Second, the Internet is not free. We must receive fair compensation for the use and reuse of our work on the Internet, whether it was originally created for other media platforms or expressly for online distribution."
The issues above have been at the core of the studios & networks disagreement with the WGA over "new" media. The AMPTP seems to want to take advantage of the situation by "inviting" the WGA to begin new talks.
We hope that this agreement with DGA will signal the beginning of the end of this extremely difficult period for our industry. Today, we invite the Writers Guild of America to engage with us in a series of informal discussions similar to the productive process that led us to a deal with the DGA to determine whether there is a reasonable basis for returning to formal bargaining. We look forward to these discussions, and to the day when our entire industry gets back to work.
Peter Chernin, Chairman and CEO, the Fox Group
Brad Grey, Chairman & CEO, Paramount Pictures Corp.
Robert A. Iger, President & CEO, The Walt Disney Company
Michael Lynton, Chairman & CEO, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Barry M. Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros.
Leslie Moonves, President & CEO, CBS Corp.
Harry Sloan, Chairman & CEO, MGM
Jeff Zucker, President & CEO, NBC Universal
And some of the "Showrunners" (WGA Writers/Producers) are hoping this is the path to a deal.
It's a long way from the DGA deal to the Writers Guild/AMPTP negotiating table, but there's a strong sense among several showrunners that scribe leaders such as WGA West prexy Patric Verrone and chief negotiator David Young will feel the pressure to use the Directors Guild of America template as a means of getting talks restarted. Insisting on conversations about issues such as reality or animation would be, as one showrunner put it, "a disaster."
Another scribe said if the early consensus holds that the DGA made a decent deal, WGA leadership may have to go ahead and give up side issues such as reality and focus on modifying the DGA deal.
"If they get sidetracked onto other issues, both Patric and David know they would be chased out of town with pitchforks, not just by the WGA but by the town as a whole," said one top scribe-producer who's been a regular presence on the picket lines. To help sway showrunners, it's believed several CEOs and other top execs have been busy working the phones in the past 24 hours. They've been briefing their talent on the details of the deal and trying to persuade them that real progress had been made and the studios want to get the strike behind them.
[Mulder & Scully Return]
The image below is from the Untitled X-Files Sequel. Not much is known about it except it will NOT be about the Alien/Conspiracy storyline that arched all the way through the series.
The film will dump the long-running "mythology" plotline — that aliens live among us and are part of a colonizing effort. "We spent a lot of time on (the mythology) and wrapped up a lot of threads" when the show went off the air in 2002, Chris Carter, creator of the series and director of the new movie, told USA Today "We want a stand-alone movie, not a mythology conspiracy one."
You can see more images from the film by clicking here.
[Xenu - Part Deux]
I went over some of this last night, but a tape of some kind of Scientology event leaked out onto the net over the past couple of days. The Church of Scientology has been sending out Copyright Infringement Notices to YouTube & other sites hosting the video. Over at Gawker, they've refused to comply.
The video I posted last night is still up at YouTube. What I didn't know last night was that there was more video out there. And in some of them you see a Bush Administration official talking about Tom Cruise, Scientology and how impressed he was with L. Ron Hubbard's theories on education. Because if we're going to let the Creationists run NASA & block global-warming policy, why not let the people who think a Galactic Overlord named Xenu brought billions of people to Earth to drop in Volcanoes 75 million years ago from spaceships that looked like DC-8s have a crack at the education system?
The video below shows one David Miscaviges. The man generally believed to be the "Head" of the Church of Scientology.
The second video is interesting in that it shows Tom Cruise's work at Ground Zero & in the area education. It also implies that Scientology knows how to treat 9-11 workers who've experienced health problems. But most interesting to me is that it shows the Chief of Staff for the Bush Administration's Former Secretary of Education talking about how he was impressed by "Study Tech", a methodology for learning developed by L. Ron Hubbard.
Because the guy who wrote Battlefield Earth would know.....
And last but not least, let's not forget the arch-nemesis of all Scientologists: Psychiatrists. For example, I didn't know Psychiatry caused the Holocaust. And I also didn't know Psychiatric drugs were at "the core of all education failures", including school violence.