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Speaking as someone living in a small town where many things are farmed out to companies by our council, this would explain why our roads are better than ever and no-one ever complains.

I rest my case...

Thankfully, TB, our wonderfully sectarian Assembly would sooner eat glass than adopt any policies of the South, which makes me more or less certain that they'll just find some kind of system which is even more stupid, unfair, and rewards the private sector with public cash and adopt that instead.  Strange but true: six counties full of alcoholics, boy racers and wife beaters don't need any A&E departments, but it does need a 10 percent salary hike for Assembly members.  Yay government.

Yeah, from one northerner to another, Professah dude ('bout ye), you tell 'em, so ya will, we have a wonderful Assembly that pretty much disposes of every fundamental rule of democracy, replacing it instead with a system that locks sectarian division in stone rather than moving away from Unionist/Nationalist designations, which I fear will continue until both sides grow up and realise that not only are our best interests not served in a united Ireland (ninety years on and they still are genetically incapable of running themselves), but neither are they served in a United Kingdom that treats us like dirt and imposes a political arrangement on us that not only would they would NEVER accept themselves, they wouldn't even dare suggest such a thing to the Scots or the Welsh, we would be better off leaving the Union and become a completely autonomous Crown territory (whether a Dependency, Overseas, or a Dominion) with national status, a democratically elected bicameral Parliament, a proper and normalised left/right-driven parliamentary democracy, and a written Constitution, alas though, I think there's probably more chance of Ian Paisley joining Sinn Fein than what I suggested actually ever happening...

I hope it's nothing like the 3rd installment

Third one ?  That means there was also a second one... when did this happen, as the Highlander tagline goes, "there can be only one", and that includes Starship Troopers movie adaptations, that trailer does look nice though...!?

You know what bugs me?
All the veiled chatter of 'Oh, no it's not an Alien movie' when clearly it is. (HOW much more clear evidence do the doubters need?  ) And has anything been said definitely about the way this impacts canonicity of the other Alien movies?
That stuff needs to be cleared up ASAP, so that we - the fan base, the guys who are paying to see this movie, and the guys whose nerdy interests and sensibilities are impacted by these decisions - have soem definite answers.
I'm already pretty much predisposed to loving the crap out of this movie. But if it throws the events of Aliens out of the back door, I'll not be a happy man.

I agree on all points, if it's an Alien prequel then be upfront about it, if it ain't, let it stand by itself (either way, I hope it doesn't retcon and alter the existing mythology of the Alien trilogy), the trouble with prequels is that you're going over ground already covered, and unless you have something genuinely fresh and new to say, then just don't bother, two opposing and recent cases in point being;

X-Men: First Class - a genuinely fresh spin on the mythology, and the first X-Men movie since the 2000 original that did something different and worthy, the sequels were just retreads of the original, but with bigger budgets (and the less said about ...Origins... the better).

The Star Wars prequels - a perfect example of telling a story not only completely wrongly, but also of a story that didn't need to be told in the first place, you already knew the basic backstory details and the eventual outcome from the Trilogy, actually seeing it happen neither deepened your understanding of Anakin Skywalker's choices, thereby changing how you viewed Darth Vader in the Trilogy, nor did it expand and provide the Trilogy with a necessary level of information that you needed in order to understand the overall narrative.  I guess it COULD have been done well if done differently (and Lord knows just about EVERYONE has an opinion on How The Prequels Should Have Been Done), but that wouldn't change the underlying truth that it simply didn't need to be told to begin with...

Selling off our roads? *sigh*
It seems that the same greedy, murdering scumbags are behind this attack. According to The Guardian:
"The bankers NM Rothschild suggested in a report in 2010 that privatising the road network could raise £100bn. Government sources said the scheme proposed by Cameron would raise far less because he plans to lease out trunk roads and motorways, rather than embarking on a full-scale sell-off, as NM Rothschild suggested."
Oh, those pesky Rothschilds (Rothschildren?) - isn't it enough that they already own our money supply and vast swathes of our other utilities? Feudalism, anyone? One day soon, if we are not careful, we will awake one morning to find that we are mere serfs in the countries our forefathers worked and fought and died for to make free.
Okay, instead of going on about the evils foisted on us by these banksters I'd like to take a different tack and ask a simple question:
What is Government for?
Answers on a postcard to: David Cameron, 10 Downing Street, London - because I don't think he knows.

In all fairness, private companies would more than likely do a better job in the upkeep of roads if they had to compete for the contract to do it, free market competition, boys and girls, it DOES work you know...

And in answer to the (rhetorical) question of what is government for, well, to put it in a concise little soundbite; building roads, and protecting the populace from violence, fraud, and plague, and that's pretty much it, everything else can be dealt with by the free market, yes'm.

Well I'm so poor I couldn't even give you the time of the day, or pay attention.

The DAY OF THE DEAD remake. Much earlier in this thread, i referred to it as "a whole bucketful of shit". My considered reappraisal is that you may in fact need two buckets.

The truly WORST thing about that movie is it was a genuinely wasted opportunity to film George Romero's original script for Day... (all 160-odd pages of it), considering the greater cost-effective affordability of practical and visual effects in 2008 compared to 1985, it would have been doable for a relatively modest sum, plus with DVD and Blu ray, you could have had both a (inevitable) tight R-rated theatrical cut as well as an extended and unrated (meaning full-on Savini gore galore) version, alas...

I presume the planet they land on in Prometheus is LV-426 from Alien/Aliens...

http://youtu.be/HHcHYisZFLU

... WOW!

I take everything I said about the Prometheus trailer being "meh" back - and then some - I thought the trailer released early Saturday morning was  the trailer, I didn't know it was just the IMAX trailer and that the REAL trailer was to debut later in the day... and I just came across it, so forgive my backtracking and consumption of ample quantities of humble pie, but that trailer was AWESOME, no, make that AWESOME, what a difference to the IMAX one, and I concur with dweezil, I firmly believe this truly could be something very, very special indeed, in Ridley we trust!!!

Spock is better than Data but Picard is better than Kirk. Then again Scotty is better than Geordie, Dax is better than Chakotay, Archer is better than Janeway and Tuvok is better than Checkov but Paris is inferior to Sulu.

Bloody hell, Shark dude, that post made my head hurt...

I'm not saying there isn't war in the ST universe, I'm saying that depicting it doesn't fit well with the style of the TV show, which is largely optimistic.

I agree, Star Trek should be a largely cerebral and optimistic sci-fi saga, leave the epic intergalactic war saga on telly to Babylon 5, which (despite a ropey first season) went on to be one of the greatest pieces of television drama in the entire 1990's, if it had been an historical show and not a sci-fi one, it would have been hailed as a work of genius, snobbery as usual...

Can someone start a "Babylon 5 Is A Load Of Shit" thread?

That's it, outside, NOW... "we live for the One, we die for the One" (been waiting years to use that quote)...

Just one answer; wow.
So those you think it's one trick pony from the director who didn't got good films last few years or what thrilling about this story; check this trailer!

The film is probably the business, Goaty dude, that new trailer just didn't get the ol' pulse racing (best and most drop-dead awesome trailer yet made is still the Episode I teaser, 13 years on and still not bettered), and I've actually defended Ridley's recent work on this forum; Gladiator , Black Hawk Down , Kingdom of Heaven  (the infinitely superior Director's Cut, needless to say), American Gangster , all classics in my opinion, and I'm sure Prometheus will be alongside those films upon release...

Which category do you think you belong to, just out of interest?

Probably lower middle-income, never really gave it much thought to be honest, fonky dude...

Of course, if the government would start creating its own money instead of buying privately created money, then everybody's tax would be cut to less than 2%. In fact, income tax, inheritance tax and possibly even VAT could be done away with altogether.
But, they'd rather buy privately created money and screw you for the interest.

Or permanently dissolve the Bank of England as a national central bank, Thomas Jefferson warned about the dangers of a central bank in managing national finances back in the late 18th/early 19th century, and God bless 'im, he was right...

They can still release teaser trailers for 'not yet rated' films.

Like the just-released Prometheus trailer, great big 'Not Yet Rated' at the end, gives some hope for a Dredd one very soon...

It's probably completely inappropriate to judge a movie by the trailer, but my first impression is meh , looks visually gorgeous, but then again, so did that 1995-movie-that-shall-not-be-named, but don't listen to me, I happen to be in the minority that thinks Alien 3 was/is a criminally underrated masterpiece (the 145-minute extended 'assembly cut' in particular - even though it still didn't explain how the facehuggers got on board the Sulaco), and that we simply didn't/don't need to know where the alien and the space jockey came from... some things are best left to the imagination (see also: the Star Wars backstory)...

George Osborne is poised to slash the top rate of income tax from 50p to 40p in next week's budget in a dramatic move that will delight business and the Tory right, but risks reinforcing the Conservatives' reputation as protectors of the super-rich.

Baloney, they should be dropping it to 20% at most!  You should have a flat tax code in the U.K. (just like in the Irish Republic), with everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - who receives earned income having to pay tax on it; no exceptions, no excuses, no exemptions, period!  The lowest earners would pay a flat rate of 5%, the middle income earners would pay 10%, and the highest earners would pay the aforementioned 20% flat rate, with the corporation tax dropped to 10%, and the elimination of the capital gains/dividends tax and the horrendously socialistic inheritance tax, plus ALL benefits means-tested, those who wish to opt out of paying national insurance contributions and purchase their own private healthcare premiums can do so, drop VAT to 5% across the board, and on top of all that, you drastically reduce overall government spending to pre-1997 levels... you do all that, the U.K. economy would take off like a rocket and the deficit would be paid off within a decade!!!

a dramatic move that will delight business and the Tory right, but risks reinforcing the Conservatives' reputation as protectors of the super-rich.

You mean the people who actually open and expand businesses, create thousands of jobs, sign the paycheques, and generally keep the entire economy afloat, you mean those people...?

Anyway, I wouldn't say it was exaggeratedly stupid. Have you seen the original Dawn of the Dead recently, and that's an ace film.
I was wondering whether they would condense it down into a shorter or feature length version like they did with the Das Boot mini-series.

Just finished watching it on SyFy as it happens, now THERE'S a zombie saga done right, never gets old that movie, Romero just knocked it out of the park!  It's a pity he didn't get to do Day of the Dead the way he wanted (read his script for that version, all 166 pages of it, it's online for anyone to read), it certainly would have been considerably more interesting than how that movie ended up... and would have provided a definite and fitting end to the 'Zombie' saga!

Are you talking about condensing Dawn... down to a shorter version?  There is a shorter version, in fact, there's no less than three versions; the original 139-minute 'director's cut' (the version shown on SyFy, and the one I think is the definitive cut) edited by Romero and initially screened at the Cannes festival for potential distributors in 1978, the 126-minute theatrical version (Romero's preferred cut), and the 119-minute European version edited by Dario Argento (much too tight, too much cut out).  All three versions are available in the Dawn... 'Ultimate Edition' DVD set, hope that helps, Dog dude.