Tagged: Star Wars
Why Does the New ‘Mad Max’ Trailer Look So Awesome?!
I had to weigh in on this new Mad Max trailer and I have to admit I wasn’t the least bit excited about this whole thing. I haven’t seen much success by bringing back these classic movie franchises into the current world by way of rebooting or giving us the sequel we’ve “always dreamed of”. Let’s face it there have been a ton of less than impressive, totally forgettable films out there recently masquerading under the names of the movies we loved as kids. Most of them seriously, seriously suck. So to hear that a new Mad Max was on the way to me sounded like yet another weak ass attempt to yet again capitalize off of our nostalgia. But then the trailer dropped and it appears that Mad Max: Fury Road clearly ain’t fucking around!
So what gives? Why is this trailer so awesome?! Well for one it’s George Miller who’s directing, who also helmed the previous two Mad Max flicks of the 1980’s and it’s a continuation of his vision. Even if we don’t have Mel Gibson returning, who I think would have if he hadn’t turned into the world’s biggest douche bucket! Second he made it clear that he wasn’t focusing on modern CGI to bring this one to life, and the realism can clearly be seen in the trailer. He’s used 80% practical effects, with actual living human stuntmen, real car crashes and shot the film on location rather than putting everyone in front of a green the entire time.
By the look of the trailer you can see he’s using the prefect blend of CG and real world to make this one of the best looking, most exciting flicks(hopefully) of 2015. Let’s be honest here, I don’t think CG has much of a place in the action film genre, perhaps that’s why a great action flick is a dime a dozen these days. This is a breath of fresh air, and I’m starting to see a trend happening if even a little bit in Hollywood. Let’s hope this one has a great story to go along with it’s incredible visuals and action!
Comic Book Cover of the Week: Conan The Barbarian Hits the NYC Streets?!
What If was one of the coolest Marvel Comic books ever, it was kinda like a weird ass Twilight Zone episode starring your favorite characters! This cover here to What If #13 is a personal favorite and it wouldn’t be the last time Conan grazed the pages of this particular title. He’d go on to face off with the likes of Thor and Wolverine as well here. But this at the time was a trippy idea-what if Conan walked the Earth today? You just know that he’d get into some major shit as it clearly shows by the situation arising on the cover here. This was way back in 1978(notice the Star Wars poster in the background!) and this cover was beautifully drawn by John Buscema and Ernie Chan! A true classic!!
The Lucas Special Edition Teaser for Star Wars Episode VII-Best Thing Ever??!
So I haven’t weighed in on the new Star Wars “The Force Awakens” Teaser yet! I’ve gotta say when I first saw it I wasn’t particularly impressed. It didn’t look terrible and it honestly didn’t really give us a helluva lot to reeeeally get super pumped about. At first I thought it may have been too CG heavy, but perhaps what we are seeing isn’t actually all CG? Perhaps it’s utilizing the models and practical effects that it promised and it just looks damn good?! So my conclusion, thus far it seems like it’s on the right track and we won’t really be able to tell how good this could really be until the proper trailer drops. I just hope that droid rolling like ball isn’t a “Jar 2D2” type character!
But then today I saw the “Lucas Special Edition” version of the trailer, obviously a joke, but a damn funny one it is! The truth behind it is that the “Lucas” version really might have probably looked something like that if he had his hands on it for real! Seeing this actually make me appreciate the real teaser much more, because it reminds me to quit bitchin’ because if Lucas was directing it could be a heck of a LOT worse potentially! Check this shit out, it’s pretty amazing-I’ll be watching this Lucas version of the teaser more than the real thing!!
Also this totally blows my mind, that Lucas did have this shit planned since back in 1983 as you can see in this old interview clip from Hamill! Color me totally impressed George!!
Don’t Put Shatner in The Next Star Trek!
Can you believe it-I’m asking for William Shatner to NOT be in the next Star Trek flick?! It’s something I thought I’d never say, but after hearing recent news that the original Captain Kirk might now be appearing in the next installment of the big screen Trek adventures I came to the conclusion that sometimes you have to just leave nostalgia alone. After an excellent reboot of the Star Trek universe that didn’t diminish or erase the original series/the movies, but rather connected them together perfectly and adding Spock Nimoy Prime to the equation successfully, somehow we still got the god awful sequel “Into Darkness”. This was a movie that somehow dumbed down the Trek mythos into a cheap action flick while totally ruining the legacy of the series number one villain Khan. Pondering what would come next in the series as a Trek fan for the first time wasn’t something that I was particularly excited about.
So now we have a Abrams-less Star Trek film and now they’re planning on putting William Shatner back into the equation. Sure this sounds like a possibly entertaining trip down memory lane, something that true fans might totally dig. I say it sounds a bit like a bit of a mess. They got lucky once adding Nimoy and for the most part pulling it off quite well. However I’d much rather just have an intriguing compelling science fiction adventure without all the corny business. Stop with the Khan, Shatner, Nimoy nostalgia while you’re ahead and just give us a solid trek through the unknown regions of the galaxy with the crew that you so carefully set in place. We don’t need William Shatner in these movies or any other original series actors. Let’s for this next movie forget about the past.
I’d love to see some new threats to the crew, hell I don’t even want to see a damn Klingon yet in this series! The reason why Star trek was “reset” was so that we could boldly go where no one has gone before. Adding Shat to the mix would be a cheesy move at this point, we already did the whole time travel thing once. Twice might not be quite as charming. They mentioned that Shatner could appear as the old version of Chris Pine’s Kirk-but really Pine’s Kirk is quite different than Shatner’s. To jam him in the movie would be just so that Shatner could be in it because they can.
There’s really no other other reason and it’s a shame for them it’s not as graceful as putting Mark Hamill in episode 7. Shatner is the real Kirk and always will be but I don’t think he needs to be on the Enterprise this time around-what do you think?
The Inspiration Behind “Big Trouble in Little China”!
It’s pretty much common fact this day and age that ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ is one of the coolest movies ever made. Anyone wanna disagree with me here? It pretty much stands alone as one of the best, most original movies that John Carpenter has ever done and defies any real genre. Carpenter must be a genius right?!
Most likely that’s true, but even genius minds get inspired to create awesome things often from some other source. Sometimes though these brilliant minds can unintentionally take full credit for something great. So I wanted to take a quick minute to address just what movie was indeed the inspiration behind ‘Big Trouble’. Ever heard of “Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain“? I didn’t think so!
This rad Hong Kong flick from from 1983 was indeed the inspiration for Carpenter’s masterpiece! John Carpenter has gone on record several times citing this movie as his inspiration for his 1986 feature film. Yep this little known special effects driven flick was what got Carpenter’s mind reelin’ to eventually compose “Big Trouble in Little China”. This one is an unknown gem, at least here in the United States where it’s extremely hard to find. Director Tsui Hark, who was attempting to break out a s a superstar, attempted to mix the kind of mythological adventures that were popular at the time, with a more Hollywood approach and more western stylized special effects work.
Even more impressive was that he brought in the people behind Star Wars for technical special effects assistance. Add in my favorite chinese actor Sammo Hung and you’ve got quite a stellar movie! So go check it for yourself but keep in mind that there was a remake (which wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the original) and if you loved ‘Big Trouble’ eat your heart out with this one! Hong Kong cinema in the 1980’s was a ton of fun!
Here is the FULL movie uploaded to Youtube!!
Listen Up Abrams! The FOUR Golden Rules for Star Wars Have Arrived!
Here’s a great little video that hit the web today, simply titled “4 Rules to Make Star Wars Great Again”. Meaning what? That the prequels were BAD?! Yeah…well we don’t need to get into those pesky prequels again. What we have here is a simple guide line with some great animation for Abrams to roll around in his brain from Portland Oregon’s own Sincerely Truman.
Honestly though at this point in the game it certainly doesn’t appear that JJ Abrams is gonna screw anything up, everything I have seen and heard thus far points to the next installment being the opposite of what we got served from the prequels. In fact, so far I am so certain that he’s not only going to do it right but he’s going to exceed us Star Wars fans expectations! But then again, with Hollywood THESE days you just never know! So here are 4 rules along with their official website!
Are these four rules enough? What do you think? I’d say they nailed it but Star Wars was cute back in 1983 Return of the Jedi’s the Ewoks were about as cute as it gets!
Star Trek: Less Action Please!!
I’ve been thinking about for it for quite some time now and I’ve just GOT to say it: Current Star Trek has way too much damn action! After watching the most recent “Star Trek: Into Darkness” I realized that the franchise is going in the wrong direction. No, I won’t deny that JJ nailed it on the first Star Trek he directed, it was fun, action packed and nostalgic. However the lackluster sequel where he tried to recreate the whole Khan storyline was not necessary to us Trekkers! We had two previous installments (Space Seed and The Wrath of Khan) which simply cannot be touched. It was a loud mess of story with a decent villain but who unfortunately just wasn’t seen as the legendary Khan in the eyes of Star Trek fans. I felt it was such a disappointment that I am actually glad that Abrams is leaving the franchise.
Yep, I realized that this current “Star Trek” doesn’t really represent real spirit of Star Trek. It’s so jam packed with wild explosions, glitter and insane action sequences that it is missing what really made Trek so intriguing in the first place. A good solid story. Nope we didn’t get crazy effects heavy action, we got good sci-fi about traveling the universe looking for new alien civilizations, beaming down to unknown planets, exploration and strong bonds that slowly grew within the crew in the process. it wasn’t about being flashy, it was the perfect blend of action, story and adventure. I’d like to see the next movie be a more intelligent plot driven adventure of discovering new worlds and the the unknown threats or challenges that are waiting on the planet’s surface.You know like a star trek should be…
Let’s not try and modernize an old story or try to redesign an old villain with a “cool factor”. Give us a good story without all the pointless hyperactive action- this is Star Trek not The Fast and the Furious! “Into Darkness” really made me miss the spirit of the old shows and movies. I think Abrams did a great job of kick starting a franchise and making it “cool again” for the kids but as we continue this journey let’s remember that all that glitters is not necessarily gold, let’s remember what made Star Trek great in the first place. Star Trek was never broken, its crew just got old and eventually retired, let’s remember even in their younger days they were never concerned about being hip and cool for the kids, they were there to explore the final frontier! Give us some good ol’ fashioned science fiction dammit! You remember episodes like “City on the Edge of Forever”? “Mirror Mirror”? “Arena”? “The Naked Time”?! The Savage Curtain”? Well if not maybe all you Trek fans should go back and revisit the classics, the foundation of it all. Who do you think would be a good choice to helm the next movie?! Do you think Star Trek is on the right path?
The Turkish “Exorcist”: Demonically Terrible FX!!!
Turkey had a reputation of remaking American hit films back in the day and that’s a damn good thing because most often these movies were jam packed with some of the most ridiculous shit you’re likely to see on screen! We had movies like the Turkish Rambo, the Turkish E.T. and the Turkish Star Wars and upon viewing this little 4 min video from FX Hell about the Turkish “Exorcist” or otherwise titled “Seytan” released in 1974 a year after it’s American counterpart hit the screen, well I just couldn’t resist posting it here!!
Yeah that girl in the above photo is the “Linda Blair” character from this one-I gotta admit she’s damn pretty frightening! Check this shit out-this is some funny ass possession going here in this household! Maybe the demon in this case suffered from some brain damage?!
R2D2 in High Heels! Sexy Droids Gone Wild!
Hey ladies, you just have to check out this image of these custom made R2D2 heels! These are pretty much the coolest shoes ever, I mean looking at them make me wish I was a woman so I could properly do them justice by making myself a pair!
This is one of those “why didn’t I think of that moments” that happen to me so often. Well ladies if you are feeling crafty, men if you want to excite your nerd girl crush or hell nerd crossdressers go crazy! Check this here at Indestructables.com to get the directions to build your very own pair!
Older Movies With Bad CGI! I Call for a Special Effects Do Over!
Ever watch a movie a great movie with terrible CG? Of course you have! I’m not sure about you but they really tend to bother me. Movies that are so good but the CG skills just weren’t up to par and just leave you with an empty feeling inside. There’s tons of movies that fit into this category and as I recently rewatched “The Frighteners”, one of Peter Jackson’s best films, I had an idea. What if Weta were to redo the CG effects in that film? What if they released it as say the ‘Ultimate Edition” or whatever lame new name they could come up with. Imagine how much better that movie would hold up today if the CG was tweaked?
I think a LOT of movies in the 1990’s and even in to the 2000’s sufferered from a case of “not quite ready” CG. Some of those movies were pretty damn good too. Let’s take a movie like “The Mist” which is one of my faves, however the CG in the movie is laughable and when it hit’s the screen I cringe every time. But what if they had a few people touch it up? Or redo it all together? Imagine The Mist with better effects. Would there be an outcry from fans? Would people say “how dare they” like when Lucas added all of his extra bullshit to the original Star Wars trilogy? Or do people hold their terrible CG effects sacred like us old Horror buffs do with the practical old school effects of the 70’s and 80’s? An interesting question I’d like to know the answer to I think.
Hell Lucas could even do over the CG in episodes 1-3! I wouldn’t even make a peep! In fact since he likes adding shit constantly to his old films I say we start a campaign to get him to ad respectable CG to all of those films! Honestly that CG was some of the worst shit I have ever seen. So what do all of you think? Do you stand by the terrible computer generated effects of the earlier years? Do you hold them sacred? Close to your heart? Or would you like to see maybe just how they should have could look today? I mean nothing would have to be re-shot they could simply erase the old. I could be onto something? Or perhaps just crazy…
Universal Dork 