This year’s Oscar nominations were announced yesterday, and as per usual sci fi/fantasy films were mostly snubbed. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, which was well-received by critics, did get some love as it pulled multiple nominations (the most of any film sci fi or not), but very few other genre films garnered much attention beyond technical awards. Hugo‘s nominations included Best Picture, Directing, Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Art Direction, Cinematography, and several more in the technical categories. I don’t follow the Oscars too closely (in part because they have such a bias against sci fi), but I’m thinking Hugo‘s nominations may be a record for a genre film. Woody Allen’s genre-bending Midnight in Paris, which has some fantasy elements, also received some nods from the Oscars including Best Picture and Best Directing. Other than that, the genre was mostly ignored except in the technical categories like Best Visual Effects, Makeup, Sound Editing, etc. where films like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon received some notice. You can see all of the nominations at this link.

As if things weren’t already getting troublesome for Netflix, with their new pay structure and proposed name change, now Amazon.com is making its Prime service even more competitive with the long time video provider.  Starting this week, Amazon.com has been running the following on their front page:

Dear Customer,

I have big news for Amazon Prime members – we’ve just signed a deal with FOX to add a broad selection of movies and TV shows to our unlimited instant streaming service later this fall. The new additions from the FOX library include 24, Arrested Development, The X-Files, Ally McBeal, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and – available on digital video for the first time – The Wonder Years. We now have deals with CBS, NBCUniversal, Sony, and Warner Bros, and adding FOX will bring the total to more than 11,000 movies and TV shows available for unlimited instant streaming.

Since launching earlier this year, we have now doubled the number of titles available in Prime instant videos, and there’s still more to come. Prime membership remains $79 a year, and of course features our unlimited free two-day shipping on millions of products. Prime is one of the best values anywhere.

Just a short time back, Amazon announced the addition of shows like Star Trek to their streaming service, and now they will be adding more genre television options from this deal with FOX that includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and I assume Angel as well?) along with The X-Files.  Of course Netlix already has both Buffy and The X-Files as well as Star Trek (with the odd exception of DS9 which Amazon does have).  And Amazon still doesn’t have near the selection of television shows or device options that Netflix has.  Nor does it have as many movies included in its Amazon Prime package.  But then the Amazon service does offer some pretty good sci fi shows in addition to the ones mentioned like The Twilight Zone (original series), Farscape, Doctor Who (old and new up through David Tennant’s tenure), and they even have Monty Python’s Flying Circus (no, it’s not a genre show, but you should watch it anyway).  And the price works out to about $6.60 per month and it does include two day shipping on all orders with no minimum purchase.  So if you buy from Amazon a lot, that alone could make it worth it and then you have the instant streaming to boot.

Following is a (non-exhaustive) list of the science fiction and fantasy series that I found when browsing through the choices included with the Amazon Prime service (and this includes the HD versions where available). And below that are a few of the sci fi movies I noticed as well. You can find more at this link and you can read more about the Amazon Prime service at this link.

Television Series:
Star Trek: TOS
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise
Twilight Zone (Original Series)
Terminator the Sarah Connor Chronicles (Includes HD)
Doctor Who Original Series
Doctor Who New Series
Torchwood
Farscape (Excludes Peacekeeper Wars)
Primeval
The Highlander
Red Dwarf
Mission: Impossible
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Starhunter 2300
The Dresden Files

Movies
Soylent Green
They Live
A Clockwork Orange
Poltergeist
Time After Time
Repo Man
THX 1138
Videodrome
Nosferatu (1922)
The Brother from Another Planet
The Dark Crystal

Browse More Prime Eligible Science Fiction and Fantasy Movies and Television Shows at This Link

By John J. Joex

The upfronts, when the networks announce their schedules for the upcoming season, do not get started until Monday, but that has not stopped the announcements from coming fast and furious.  Following is a quick round up of what we have heard so far.  I’ll take more time to delve into this next week once everything has been finalized, but wanted to go ahead and summarize this week’s activity now.  And keep an eye on our Twitter Page and the Sci Fi Scroll for more breaking announcements.

Renewals:

Chuck – In a sneaky move, NBC renewed and cancelled Chuck in the same stroke.  They have greenlighted a thirteen episode fifth season but claim it will be the show’s last.  That let’s them extend the syndication package and get some more DVD sales while also softening the eventual to those diehard Chuck fans.

Nikita – I heard word that this one would get renewed for a second season, but unless I missed it, I did not see a confirmation.  So consider it most likely renewed.

Cancellations:

No big surprises here.  ABC cancelled V and No Ordinary Family, FOX cancelled Human Target, and NBC cancelled The Event.  There’s no official word on The Cape, but do you really think that one has any chance of coming back?

Pickups:

NBC picked up Grimm and Awake.  An early announcement suggested they would pick up David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman, but they changed their mind and backed away from that one.

ABC picked up Once Upon a Time (apparently to compete with NBC’s Grimm).

CBS picked up the J.J. Abrams produced Persons of Interest which will star Lost‘s Michael Emerson (not certain yet if this show has any genre elements, though).

FOX picked up the J.J. Abrams produced Alcatraz that will star Lost‘s Jorge Garcia (do I detect some nepotism here?).

The CW will likely pickup the Kevin Williams series Secret Circle and still has Heavenly on their radar.

We will fill in more details on the new series next week, but in the meantime you check out what Cybermage has to say about them at this link.

The schedule for the upfronts is below:

May 16, 2011 NBC Morning
May 16, 2011 FOX Afternoon
May 17, 2011 ABC Afternoon
May 18, 2011 CBS Afternoon
May 19, 2011 The CW Morning

More from Axiom’s Edge:

Sci Fi Movie Preview: The Blockbuster season is upon us and Hollywood has quite a number of eye-popping genre films to unleash this Summer. Check out our preview to see what is on the schedule for the coming months.

Sci Fi TV Preview: The regular season is just about over, but there are several Science Fiction and Fantasy shows on the schedule for the Summer months. See what’s coming at our Preview Page.

Condensing the Latest News, Updates, Announcements, Releases, Trailers, Box Office Activity, and More into One Action-Packed Page

The Latest Scoop: Fringe beats the odds and gets renewed!!!

More News: Futurama and The Venture Bros. both get renewed for two more seasons plus some recent casting news:

Box Office Results: Sucker Punch opens at the Number 2 slot.

New Trailers: Captain America: The First Avenger, True Blood Season 4 and more.

Plus: A slightly different interpretation of the “first” visit R2-D2 and C-3P0 make to Tatooine.

All of this and more this week at The Sci Fi Hit List

By Sam Christopher

WARNING!!!  THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS ON THE UPCOMING DEATH OF A FANTASTIC FOUR MEMBER IN COMICS!!!

I just read the “scoop” that Johnny Storm is the member of the FF to be killed off in the current “Three” storyline. For myself, I am a little surprised. As I stated a few weeks ago I never expected it to be the Torch. I just didn’t think it would be him because I didn’t think anyone would care. And I still don’t. Think anyone will really care anyway. Remember a few years ago when they had The Human Torch comic? In the ‘70s he had his own book but it was all just reprints from the old Strange Tales Torch series (which you can now get as a Marvel Essentials volume). In the late ‘90s (I think), he had his own series again but this time it was all new stories and set while he was in high school. Each ish had the coolest cover… they were done by a Japanese artist, I believe, and they were fantastic (no pun intended… well, maybe a little intention there). But I eventually gave up on the book because the stories were kind of stupid and then there was the description in Previews of an upcoming ish where the “uncertain sexuality” of Johnny would be explored. Uncertain? Really? Well, I guess if you can make the Rawhide Kid retroactively gay you can do almost anything.

As for this current storyline, I don’t believe it for a minute. Oh, I have no doubt they’ll kill the Human Torch off, maybe it’ll even be the “real” HT, maybe he’ll even be actually, “really”, truly dead. But I think he’s actually about as dead as Bruce Wayne, or Captain America… or Jason TODD! Or BUCKY FREAKIN’ BARNES!!!! And I have to say that when I read nonsense like Joe Quesada saying that he can’t tell us if or when Johnny will come back… oh, GIVE IT A REST!!! I don’t know when precisely they’ll bring the Matchstick back, or what lame excuse they’ll use (maybe they’ll have Dr. Doom wake up and find Johnny in the shower; there’s that “uncertain sexuality” again) but we all know he’ll be back. And this’ll all be seen as yet another lame attempt to get us all to buy more stuff.

Because that’s all this is, that and another reminder that the House of Ideas has run out of them.

From TFAW.com:

The Sci Fi Scroll is our Reddit.com page where we post links to News, Updates, Reviews, Commentaries, Blog Posts, etc. or interest to genre fans.  Join up at Reddit.com (it’s free) to upvote the links you like and to post your own as well.  Following are some highlights from this past week at the Scroll:

Walking Dead TV Series Season 2 Not Quite Official Yet

19 upcoming superhero movies you need to know about

M. Night making Unbreakable 2, but as a Night Chronicles film

Peter Wingfield answers 11 of your deepest Highlander questions!

Film.com’s Top Five Winners and Losers of the Summer

Kick-Ass 2 has been greenlit, according to Mark Millar

7 John Carpenter Films That Actually Merit Sequels and/or Prequels

Doctor Who producer promises ‘game-changing cliffhanger’

BBC Announces Dirk Gently, TV Pilot

Hodges Gives Real Reason Why There Was Never A Flash Gordon 2

The web series Pioneer One has reached its target of $20k in donations in just one week and will now begin work on the next three episodes.  The first episode is available for free download through BitTorrent and the producers have asked that viewers donate if they liked it so that they can complete the planned first season of seven episodes.  The $20k they have received so far will cover episodes 2 – 4 and they still have donations flowing in which will hopefully carry the series through its first full season.  The producers also have and additional four seasons mapped which would follow sometime after the completion of Season 1.  You can read Johnny Jay’s review of the first episode at this link then be sure to go to the show’s website to download the first episode and see it yourself.

The fans of two of the Science Fiction and Fantasy series that received the axe this past season are working hard to win a continuation of their shows.  The fans of FlashForward, which ABC cancelled due to low ratings though it has a large international following, plan on staging their own “backouts” in front of the offices of several ABC affiliates around the country.  Here is the info on that from their Facebook page:

“Help SAVE FLASHFORWARD!

www.preventtheblackout.com

All over the world, people are getting together to “Blackout” for 2 minutes and 17 seconds in front of the various ABC Network stations, in hopes of catching the attention of the Producers, and Stephen McPherson.

Basically for the June 10th demonstrations, gather as many friends, family members as you can and Go to your local Abc station, or as close as you can, and hold up signs saying ‘Save Flashforward“, tshirts of Flashforward, any merchandise of Flashforward. The protest could even be a 2:17 second fan blackout. This will get the media’s attention!”

You can get more information at their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128601070491603&ref=nf

Legend of the Seeker received notice a few months ago that its syndicator would not pick it up for a third season.  Fans have already raised nearly $10 thousand for adds in several major entertainment publications pleading for a continuation of the show.  Now they have started a donation drive to raise money to buy the DVDs of the show to donate to libraries.  Following is the latest from the SaveOurSeeker site:

“Legend of the Seeker is a fantasy TV show, based on author Terry Goodkind’s “Sword of Truth” book series. Produced by Disney-ABC, the show currently airs in syndication. With little to no promotion, and an erratic airing schedule, the show has averaged 2.5 million viewers weekly, plus boasts a rapidly growing international fanbase. For more information on the show, please visit the official website.

Though no official statement has been made, as of April 26th, Ausiello reported that the show would be cancelled, since Tribune/WGN America had not purchased distribution for season 3.

The “Save Our Seeker” campaign aims to promote the show by demonstrating the unity and strength of its fanbase. In its first week, the campaign has raised nearly $10,000, proving how passionate and active all of us fans can be in an effort to keep this refreshing show on the air. And we won’t be stopping here – our next project is already in gear: a massive donation of “Legend of the Seeker” DVDs to public libraries.”

You can find out more at their main site: www.saveourseeker.com

And you can see Johnny Jay’s thoughts on all of this past season’s cancelled shows at this link.

The Sci Fi Scroll is our Reddit.com page where we post links to news, updates, commentaries, reviews, etc. from around the web covering the worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror.  Click on over to see to see what you are missing and also submit some of your own links or join up in the conversation.  Following is a sampling of some of our latest posts:

What if… Jaws was made Today?

5 reasons why FlashForward deserved to fail

Top 8 Most Ridiculous Moments in Science Fiction and Fantasy Film in the 21st Century

William Gibson’s list of favorite Science Fiction novels

Canceled TV Shows That Could Have Been Saved by Zombies

Jonathan Frakes wants to do a ‘Star Trek: Titan’ miniseries

Guillermo del Toro exits The Hobbit due to MGM’s uncertain future

Don’t hold your breath for “the next Lost” on television

The part time network announced their schedule today which contained no major surprises as we already knew that Supernatural, Smallville, and Vampire Diaries were coming back and the announcement of their pickup for Nikita came earlier this week.  Perhaps the only surprise came with their decision to move Supernatural to 9 PM CST Fridays, pairing it once again with Smallville (Nikita will take over Supernatural‘s current Thursday 9 PM EST timeslot).   The superhero show has actually done pretty good on Fridays this season, by CW standards at least, and I assume they expect similar performance from Supernatural next season.  There was also word that next season will officially be Smallville‘s last, but then we have heard that before.  With the addition of Nikita, 40% of the CW’s programming now has a genre angle, though with a fairly young target audience.  That network had also eyed to other properties with genre elements, Nomads and Betwixt, but they did not make it to the Fall schedule.  No word at this point on whether they are waiting in the wings as potential mid-season replacements.

NBC announced their Fall schedule on Sunday, followed by FOX on Monday, ABC on Tuesday, and CBS yesterday.  Stay tuned as we will compile together the full schedule of Science Fiction and Fantasy shows for next season and give our initial thoughts on what to expect.