Everyone knows that Roswell is the favorite vacation spot for aliens and monsters from all over the universe. So it was no surprise that the stars of DreamWorks’ Monsters vs Aliens stopped by to celebrate their DVD release this past weekend.

Gotta cultivate those new sci fi fans while they’re young and these kids look very alien friendly!

Monsters vs. Aliens, the DVD, will arrive on Earth September 29, 2009 and will include the world premiere of the brand new 3D adventure B.O.B.’s Big Break, starring everyone’s favorite gelatinous hero.

Photo Credits: Mark Wilson

We’ve got a new giveaway for five lucky SFUniverse readers, it’s the Nicolas Cage thriller “Knowing” on DVD.

In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school, a group of students is asked to draw pictures to be stored in a time capsule. But one of the students, a mysterious girl who seems to hear whispered voices, fills her sheet of paper with rows of apparently random numbers instead.

Fast forward 50 years to the present: A new generation of students examines the contents of the time capsule and the girl’s cryptic message ends up in the hands of young Caleb Myles. But it is Caleb’s father, professor Ted Myles (Nicolas Cage), who makes the startling discovery that the encoded message predicts with pinpoint accuracy the dates, death tolls and coordinates of every major disaster of the past 50 years. As Ted further unravels the document’s secrets, he realizes it foretells three additional events—the last of which hints at destruction on a global scale and seems to somehow involve Ted and his son.

When Ted’s attempts to alert the authorities fall on deaf ears, he takes it upon himself to try to prevent more destruction from taking place.

Would you like to win Knowing on DVD? All you have to do is leave a comment on this post with the name of one of your favorite thrillers, scifi or otherwise.

The contest ends on July 8 midnight PST. US entries only please. Five winners will be chosen at random and notified by email shortly after the closing date. Good luck.

Box art and giveaways courtesy of Summit Entertainment

Last night, luminaries from the world of sci fi and horror were honored at the 35th Annual Saturn Awards. The awards are given out by The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for work in film, TV and on DVD. This years winners will join an illustrious list of former honorees including Vincent Price, Rod Serling, Dan Curtis, Ray Bradbury, Gene Roddenberry, Robert Wise and Lon Chaney Jr. just to name a few.

The Dark Knight was the evening’s biggest winner, taking home five awards including Best Action Film, Best Writing, Music, Special Effects and Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger.

On the television side, it was Battlestar Galactica that took home the most awards winning Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series, Best Actor on Television: Edward James Olmos, and Best Actress on Television: Mary McDonnell. Lost received the Saturn Award for Best Network Series, beating out Supernatural, Fringe, Heroes, Life on Mars, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Battlestar was up against an odd mix of shows for Best Syndicated / Cable including The Closer, Dexter, Leverage and more predictable, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and True Blood.

Moonlight took the award for the best modern DVD with Invaders winning for retro DVD.

Several special awards were presented throughout the evening, Lance Henriksen took the Life Career Award, Jeffrey Katzenberg received the Visionary Award and Leonard Nimoy was handed the Lifetime Achievement Award.

You’ll find a full list of winners after the jump. You can find the list of nominees here at the Saturn Awards Website.

Photos by Newscom

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Are you a Star Wars fan who can’t make it to the San Diego Comic-Con? Then make plans to spend Saturday, July 25 in front of your TV as G4TV unveils their Star Wars Spectacular! Not only will they be doing their usual three hours of live coverage from the convention floor but they’ll be doing something that’s never been done before.

G4 will be airing an exclusive broadcast of the Lucasfilm panel. In addition, Attack of the Show hosts Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn will join Lucasfilm’s Steve Sansweet for an insider look at the Star Wars universe, with never-before-seen footage and a LIVE table read of an exclusive new Clone Wars script.

Lucasfilm will also use this years Comic-Con to launch their new Star Wars Stories Project. The project is designed to be an enormous archive of fan memories delivered as video testimonials. Fans at the convention will have a chance to record their stories at the Lucasfilm pavilion throughout the weekend. But if you can’t attend, you can upload your fan story at the new G4 Comic-Con website.

That’s 5 full hours of Comic-Con coverage on G4TV starting at 2:00 pm ET on July 25th.

According to this new trailer for Stargate Universe, this is a darker, sexier Stargate but is that something anyone ever asked for? Usually, I’m on board with dark and sexy, but I’m not ready to give up the lighthearted banter of Atlantis. Listening to Beckett and Sheppard verbally battle was the highlight of my Friday night.

The trailer also says it’s a story of hope. In my experience, that means that the majority of the story will be devoted to death and destruction. I don’t want hope, I want triumph. I want the good guys to win.

And can we talk about Lou Diamond Philips hanging in the jungle with Spencer and Heidi on the I’m a Celebrity. . Get Me Out of Here? Sorry, but his credibility as an actor is dropping faster than Sacha Baron Cohen in angel wings.

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Turner Classic Movies has posted a list of the 15 Most Overlooked Classic Directors in movie history. Incredibly, only one, Jack Arnold, worked in the sci fi genre, but I will admit, he’s a good pick.

Jack Arnold is the man who made Creature From the Black Lagoon the classic that it is today. Atmospheric and creepy, Arnold delivered a story that made you believe that a gill man could fall in love.

Arnold also directed Tarantula, one of the best of the giant bug films, as well as The Incredible Shrinking Man. Later in his career, Arnold became a well-respected TV director on shows such as It Takes a Thief, Alias Smith and Jones and Brady Bunch, and he was one of the guiding forces behind Gilligan’s Island.

Jack Arnold, we salute you!

Now it’s your turn. Who do you think belongs on the list of Most Overlooked Classic Directors?

Photo: Amazon

From motion capture to computerized camera moves to the construction of a real live “fake” crime scene - science and technology play a huge part in all of our favorite TV shows and movies. Want in on how it all works? The Science Channel has just the show for you. It’s called Science of the Movies and it premieres this Tuesday, May 26th.

The series is hosted by Nar Williams, the Geek-in-Chief at AchieveNerdvana.com. He’s going to take you behind the scenes and give you a close up look at all how individual scenes were actually made. You’ll get to see the latest visual effects equipment and listen in on interviews with artists, stuntmen and directors on everything from Star Wars to Dexter.

In the first episode, Williams interviews Academy Award-winning special effects pioneer John Dykstra who invented the Dykstraflex – a motion control rig used to blow up the Death Star in “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.” Williams then gets up close, and maybe a little too personal, with the most used modern motion control system in the business today: Milo. Milo captures precise shots so that two or more scenes can be composited together to create one fluid moment, and is most famous for creating the “spidysense” scene in the first “Spider-Man” film.

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Terminator Salvation, the newest installment of the blockbuster franchise, hit theaters this weekend and it already has 13 million dollars in the war chest. According to Variety, Salvation is expected to top 60 million putting it a few notches above the last movie in the series.

Certainly darker than the earlier flicks, Terminator Salvation takes us into another world.

“I didn’t want to shoot actors against green screens; I wanted them reacting to physical Terminators,” says director, McG. “I wanted the desolate American West–an expanse that suggests a world of hardship, so you could taste it and feel it. Because the bombs have gone off and damaged the ozone, the sky’s a bit of a different color. Earth has a different quality, and you immediately realize something is wrong.”

Wrong, doesn’t begin to cover it.

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NASA astronaut Michael Barratt didn’t have to stand in line to see the new Star Trek movie when it premiered but he also didn’t get to snack on delicious movie popcorn either since he and his two cremates watched the movie while on board the International Space Station floating high above the earth.

Paramount Pictures transferred Star Trek to NASA’s Mission Control in Houston, which then uplinked the film to the space station on Thursday, May 14. Barratt planed to watch the film on a laptop computer inside the Unity module.

“I remember watching the original ‘Star Trek’ series and, like many of my NASA coworkers, was inspired by the idea of people from all nations coming together to explore space,” said Barratt. “‘Star Trek’ blended adventure, discovery, intelligence and story telling that assumes a positive future for humanity. The International Space Station is a real step in that direction, with many nations sharing in an adventure the world can be proud of.”

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This past weekend in Hollywood, several of our old favorite sci fi actors turned up at Mickey Sinardi’s ShowstopperStars Spectacular. Can you place these familiar faces?

These guys were on a mission to find a planet known as Earth.

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