Michael Giacchino (Star Trek XI) will compose the music for John Carter of Mars, the new Andrew Stanton (Wall-E, Finding Nemo) film based on the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Fresh off his Oscar win for Pixar’s Up, Giacchino will score John Carter of Mars, which takes place on the “Red Planet” where Civil War veteran John Carter, imprisoned by twelve-foot tall green creatures, escapes and encounters the Princess of Helium.

John Carter of Mars, featuring Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights) as John Carter, is due out in 2012.

Fans looking forward to the third installment of the Harold and Kumar series, with John Cho as Harold Lee, will be pleased to hear that the film may release this holiday season.

Plan calls for filming on A Very Harold & Kumar to begin in June. A director is still needed, and it is not known if Kal Penn (Kumar Patel) will be returning. Penn is currently in Washington, D.C., working for the Obama administration.

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Leonard Nimoy, best-known to Star Trek fans as the original Spock, will attend ten different conventions this year, but then will retire from the convention circuit.

“I think this is the last year I will do this,” he said. “It’s exciting, but I think I’ve done enough of it. I’m looking forward to concentrating on my personal life.”

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Fans of both Star Trek and zombies will be happy with the news that Quirk Books,  publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has acquired the rights to publish Night of the Living Trekkies.

Written by Kevin David Anderson, Night of the Living Trekkies is what happens when “Galaxy Quest meets Dawn of the Dead and all hell breaks loose.”

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Now that Star Trek: Online is out, it’s time for the developers to use the feedback from the players to improve the game, as well as looking towards future additions.

Star Trek: Online‘s Executive Producer, Craig Zinkievich, described the mood of the development team, now that the game has been launched. “Everyone’s relieved that the game has finally made it to shelves, and we’re getting some real, live feedback from people across the globe,” he said.

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Fans who haven’t yet picked up their copy of Star Trek: Online, now’s the time to head to Amazon.com, where the MMORPG is the “deal of the day.”

Amazon is offering the standard game for $27.99, which is 46% less than the normal price. The Collector’s Edition is also on sale, for $47.99 instead of the usual $79.99.

The links for the sale can be found here and here.

Family and friends gathered together Saturday to celebrate the life of Andrew Koenig, son of Walter (Chekov) and Judy Koenig.

Approximately one hundred loved ones joined the Koenig family at the Inn of the Seventh Ray in Topanga Canyon, California, for the private ceremony.

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William Shatner is the spokesperson for a new Sci-Fi social network called MyOuterSpace.

MyOuterSpace seeks creative people with a passion for the arts, who are Sci-Fi, Horror or Fantasy fans, or who are looking for a career in those fields.

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For the first time ever, Star Trek has won an Academy Award.

In one of four categories for which it was nominated, Star Trek XI won an Academy Award.

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The three-person makeup crew for Star Trek XI were nominated for an Oscar for their work, but are quick to point out that it took more than just the three of them to create the species, old and new, which appeared in Star Trek XI.

During a Saturday afternoon symposium featuring the Oscar-nominated hair and makeup artists for 2010, one of the three Star Trek XI makeup artists, Mindy Hall, makeup department head, spoke for the group. “We’re thrilled there were forty-plus makeup artists, twelve of which are out here today, who stood beside us. They weren’t behind us. They were beside us, taking the designs and bringing them to life.”

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Star Trek: Online, the new MMORPG released last month, has added a new Federation ship to its game.

The Trident, the latest science vessel, is well-equipped to chart distant star systems and to explore far from starbases.

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Tomorrow, the 82nd Annual Academy Awards will be held and Star Trek fans wait to see if one of the four nominations for the J.J. Abrams film will strike Oscar gold.

While most Oscar fans will be waiting to see whether Avatar or The Hurt Locker will walk away with Best Picture honors, Trek fans are hoping that at the end of the night Star Trek will have laid claim to its first Oscar.

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Mission: Impossible IV will be a jet-setting movie, says J.J. Abrams.

Abrams and Tom Cruise plan to set the newest Mission: Impossible movie all over the world, Abrams revealed while speaking at the Oscar Wilde: Honoring the Irish In Film pre-Academy Awards party in Los Angeles last night.

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Rachel Nichols, Star Trek XI‘s Orion Gaila, will be joining Marcus Nispel‘s Conan.

Nichols, who played Scarlett in last year’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, joins fellow G.I. Joe actor Leo Howard, who played Young Snake Eyes. Howard has been cast as Young Conan.

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Jeri Ryan, best known to Star Trek fans as Star Trek: Voyager‘s Seven of Nine, has been cast in ABC’s Body of Evidence.

Body of Evidence features a “brilliant, tenacious” medical examiner, whose background as a neurosurgeon gives her a “unique and refreshing” crime-solving perspective, but puts her at odds with most of her colleagues. The main role has not been cast yet, but talks with Dana Delany (China Beach, Desperate Housewives) are ongoing.

Ryan, who has a recurring role on TNT’s Leverage, will play the city’s chief medical examiner, who is the boss of the main character of the show.