This week on The Collision, we tried a little something different.  Rather than talk about a few news stories, Dave Trumbore (@DrClawMD) and I (@MattGoldberg) decided to use the sad passing of Ray Bradbury and the release of Prometheus to talk about science-fiction.  Specifically, we discussed what qualifies as sci-fi, and then we moved on to review Prometheus, which helped me realize the film was far more flawed than I originally thought.

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for last week’s episode, and click here to add the podcast to your RSS.  Be sure to follow The Collision on Twitter for updates, and while we missed having Adam (@AdamChitwood) this week, he should be joining us next week.  Hit the jump to check out the trailers for this week’s recommendations.

Ray Bradbury, the highly-influential author of such literary classics as Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, has passed away at the age of 91.  Bradbury was one of the giants of the science-fiction genre by using his grand imagination to not only paint vivid worlds filled with interesting characters, but to explore deeper questions about society and ourselves.  I had to read loads of crappy fiction through my time in middle school, but Fahrenheit 451 had me enraptured throughout.  Bradbury’s massive bibliography of novels, novellas, and short stories have been adapted into motion pictures since 1953′s It Came from Outer Space, and his stories also found their way to the stage, television, comics, and miniseries.

Hit the jump for a statement from Bradbury’s grandson Danny Karapetian.  Our deepest condolences go out to Mr. Bradbury’s family and friends.

While older novels get adapted into feature films all the time, it’s not every day that the book’s author gets to do the adapting. THR reports that Mike Medavoy (Black Swan) is producing a film version of Ray Bradbury’s 1957 semi-autobiographical novel Dandelion Wine, and Bradbury himself will be writing the screenplay. The author turns 91 on Monday and called the news the “best birthday gift I could ask for,” adding that Dandelion Wine is his most deeply personal work. The novel centers on a 12-year-old boy experiencing small-town summer life in 1928. Bradbury actually seems to be quite active in the film adaptations of his books, as an adaptation of the author’s sci-fi tome The Martian Chronicles is currently in the works, and when Matt spoke with producer John Davis back in June, Davis said he had gotten Bradbury’s input on the film. Hit the jump to read a full synopsis.

John Davis is no stranger to the sci-fi genre having producer all of the Predator films as well as I, Robot and Paycheck.  His biggest challenge when it comes to sci-fi lies ahead with a planned adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.  Bradbury said of his celebrated work that it was “a book of stories pretending to be a novel.”  Those individual stories relate to the human colonization of Mars and the conflict between the colonists and the natives.

Steve recently spoke with Davis about the film.  Davis says he’s met with Bradbury (who is now 94) and gotten his input on the adaptation.  Davis adds that he envisions the movie (which is set up at Paramount) as a summer blockbuster but “one with a weighty intellectual background.”  Hit the jump for the full exchange with Davis.  Click here for what Davis had to say about the Predator franchise and click here for what he said about Steven Soderbergh’s adaptation of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Since the success of Avatar, studios are willing to offer escapist fare that has humans escaping our planet.  24 Frames reports that producer John Davis (Alien vs. Predator and I, Robot) has optioned the film rights to author Ray Bradbury’s classic collection of science fiction short-stories The Martian Chronicles.  The 1950 book is an interlinking series of adventures that takes place after humans have escaped a devastated Earth and landed on an already-populated Mars.  Bradbury was optimistic about our chances of reaching the red planet since he set the book in the year 2000 and 2005.  He was also optimistic that humans would continue pursuing space exploration and not fall victim to our short attention spans.

It will be interesting to see if Davis will push this into production or if he’ll wait to see if audiences are still interested in life on Mars after seeing Andrew Stanton’s John Carter of Mars in 2012.