Item! The Terminator (1984) has been added to the US Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. The registry preserves movies that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Ray Harryhausen's work will also be protected thanks to The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) getting on the list this year too. Thanks Total Film .
Item! SF writer Ray Bradbury wrote the foreword to the recent special space-themed edition of National Geographic magazine. He writes about the Viking 1 lander getting pictures from Mars. There's a great excerpt over at Boing Boing where Bradbury responds to a journalist who drolly asks where all the Martians have got to: "'Don't be a fool,' I said. 'WE are the Martians! We're going to be here for the next million years. At long last, WE ARE MARTIANS!'"
Item! There will be a public memorial service for the late Majel Barrett Roddenberry, "First Lady of Star Trek", in Los Angeles on Sunday 4 January 4 at 10am.
Item! Terry Pratchett has been made a Knight in the New Year Honours list, for services to literature ("This means that fans, while not calling me Sir, must now refrain from throwing things...").
Item! SCI FI Wire has six featurettes from the new Coraline animated film . Originally Coraline was a 2002 novella by Neil Gaiman - it's being adapted into a stop-motion horror movie directed by Henry Selick for release in February. The featurettes include behind-the-scenes glimpses at the character animation.
Have fun this evening, folks. Don't forget the leap second ! A very happy New Year from all at SFX - see you in 2009.
