Future Stories

“I kill me!” Image: Shout Factory Cult-beloved ‘80s sitcom ALF , about a sarcastic alien who crash-lands on Earth and finds refuge in a middle-class suburb, is ( finally ) set to come back to screens in a big way. According to Deadline , Shout Factory will leverage its own multi-platform streaming service, Shout Factory TV, to bring ALF out of the archives again. The company now has rights to all 102 live-action episodes as well as all episodes of animated spin-offs  ALF: The Animated Series and ALF Tales , as well as the movie Project: ALF . Shout Factory’s acquisition, which was done in partnership with Alien Productions, also includes home entertainment and digital distribution in North America—and the companies also plan to develop new ALF content in what Deadline describes as “an ‘aggressive rollout’ of pop-culture content related to ALF later this year.” Since its ‘80s heyday, ALF —short for “alien life form”—has spawned a cult following across the globe....

Tesla plans to start work on a new plant in Shanghai as soon as next month as part of a plan to more than double production capacity in China to meet growing demand for its cars in the country and export markets, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Tesla’s produced 68,117 cars in ... Read more

Look who’s back... Image: Sophie Campbell/IDW IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic series has taken the titular heroes and their half-shells on some wild adventures, playing with established TMNT canon in some fascinating ways . Now, their current story is going to include a major shock to the system: the return of a controversial, major figure from the team’s TV past. io9 can exclusively reveal that the TMNT comic’s current arc—from writer Sophie Campbell, artist Pablo Tunica, colorist Ronda Pattison, and letterer Shawn Lee—will culminate with the return of Venus, the first female member of the team introduced in the 1997 series Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation . The Fox Kids series, which ran for just a single season of 26 episodes, was set in the same universe as the live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies from the ‘90s, as Raph, Leo, Donnie, and Mikey went up against new foes in the form of the mysterious Dragonlord and his draconic hordes, the Rank. To fight...

Russia’s military is not that well trained and most of the Soviet-era gear is nearly useless and in rusting in storage. Russia has ground combat troops of amost 500,000. Russia has 600-1000 good and modern planes. Russia is about 25% one year conscripts versus US soldiers with an average of 4-8 years of service. About ... Read more

Image: Marcos del Mazo (Getty Images) As Texas makes significant moves toward preventing and criminalizing gender and life-affirming medical care for transgender children (flying in the face of major studies from noted studies and releases from the American Medical Association , the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association ), many transgender people and their allies have stepped up to the plate to help support trans kids and parents of trans kids in Texas. One of those people is creator Rue Dickey , who has begun to organize a bundle of tabletop role playing games (TTRPGs) which will be sold for $5 on digital games marketplace itch.io . What this means is that a huge amount of games —at this point, Dickey estimates that they will be able to offer around 250 games at the current rate of submission—including PDFs and .TXT documents of core books, supplements, lyric games, and small single-player games, will be made available at a massively discounte...

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) said the fall in oil prices from 2014-2018 hurt Russia’s economy three times more than the sanctions. Russia’s economy is 60% oil and gas exports. 2.3 million barrels per day is exported from Russia to Europe. The IMF estimated in August 2019 that sanctions led growth to fall short of ... Read more

Photo: Andrew H. Walker (Getty Images) The Oscar broadcast has cut eight awards presentations from its live line-up—including craft categories like Production Design, Film Editing, and Sound that have often been where science fiction and fantasy films have found their most success. This news comes from The Hollywood Reporter , which quotes Academy president David Rubin as saying the move is meant “to increase viewer engagement and keep the show vital, kinetic, and relevant .” The eight categories that won’t make the broadcast are: Documentary (Short Subject), Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Music (Original Score), Production Design, Short Film (Animated), Short Film (Live Action), and Sound . (Rubin’s statement, which notes the ceremony will begin an hour earlier than the televised show so that these awards can be given out ahead of time, also includes the assurance that “all the nominees in ALL awards categories will be identified on air and ALL winners’ acceptance speeches...

Image: Paramount+ The Fairly OddParents is back—but not exactly how you remember it. Paramount+’s new series The Fairly Oddparents: Fairly Odder picks up years after the original animated series ended and reboots the beloved characters ... into our world. Yep, you read that right. A suddenly live-action Timmy Turner gives his niece Viv Turner his fairy godparents in the hopes they’ll help her adjust to life with a new stepmom and stepbrother named Roy. Apparently, when the transference of power is witnessed by both kids, it grants them shared control and invites more hijinks. Wanda and Cosmo are unleashed in their classic cartoon forms to transform Viv and Roy’s life in the real world. All 13 episodes of the hybrid series are set to drop exclusively on Paramount+ , according to a press release from the streamer, with original voice cast member Susanne Blakeslee and Daran Norris picking up their wands to reprise their Fairly OddParents roles as Wanda and Cosmo. This time they...

Morty and Rick having a serious discussion. Screenshot: Adult Swim Production workers on Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites —both popular animated series co-created by Justin Roiland —are unionizing; they’ve filed to join the Animation Guild , also known as IATSE Local 839. Neither Adult Swim nor Hulu’s parent company, 20th Century Fox, have voluntarily recognized the unit. Deadline reports that the workers in the unit include “production managers, production supervisors, design assistants, casting assistants, storyboard coordinators and office production coordinators, and assistants.” In a guild statement provided to the trade, Solar Opposites production manager Kallan Zimmerman pointed out that “Production workers are the heart of the animation industry and have been underappreciated and undercompensated for far too long. It’s time for us to have a seat at the table alongside our artist colleagues.” Unfortunately, neither studio involved is currently on board with the organi...

Screenshot: Paramount+ As Star Trek: Discovery ’s fourth season builds up to its endgame pitching the Federation into a dangerous first contact with a mysterious, extra-galactic threat, at the heart of it all has been a mysterious, planet-wrecking anomaly known as the DMA. But as we’ve learned more about the anomaly, it’s revealed a surprising connection to Star Trek: Voyager —and a threat that could have major ramifications for the Star Trek universe. What Is Star Trek: Discovery ’s Dark Matter Anomaly? In the past few weeks since Discovery returned from its mid-season hiatus , we and the crew of the the titular vessel have come to learn more and more about what the “Dark Matter Anomaly” actually is. Early in the season, we discovered that the anomaly isn’t actually anomalous at all , and instead a manufactured tool being used by a mysterious species from beyond the galactic barrier, currently only known to the Federation by the designation “10-C.” It turns out that the anom...