Posted by Michael Sacco on Jan 16, 2011 in Pulp Fiction
If you’re like me, while strolling through your local Ikea, you’ve thought to yourself “this black leather chair is nice, but if only it had an enormous octopus built into it…” Maximo Riera clearly feels the same way, as he’s designed this downright Cthulhuesque…Cthulhoid…Cthonic…Cthulhu-lookin’ chair. Perfect for not being dead, but lounging eternally. Alternatively, reading the writings of the mad Arab Abdul Al-Hazred and summoning horrors from beyond space and time. Really, the world is your oyster with this thing. Or at least the chair is your octopus. Read more…
Entertainment Weekly recently publicized this high-res map of the entire Star Wars galaxy, which the writer notes “may not be new to some of the real die-hards reading this, but it was new to me.” I’ve never seen it either, though it was apparently published in 2009’s Star Wars: The Essential Atlas. It even maps major routes of travel through the galaxy, as well as marking each segment from Deep Core to Outer Rim. Finally, I can figure out whether or not Andara is a Core or Colony world. Just kidding. I’ve never actually had occasion to wonder that. But now, thanks to this map, I’ll never need to, either. Read more…
A few months ago, director Kevin Tancharoen released a short film that was intended as a pitch to Warner Bros. for a grittier, more realistic Mortal Kombat film. It was definitely a hit with the fans, but it didn’t succeed in getting picked up as a full-length feature. Bloody Disgusting reports that Tancharoen and the short’s star, Michael Jai White, got a deal almost as good, though: a ten-episode Mortal Kombat web series! Several of the usual suspects are slated to make an appearance in the series as well, including Shang Tsung, Liu Kang, Sub Zero, Durak, Kabal, Kitana, Mileena and Scorpion. There’s no release date for the series yet, but production will begin in Vancouver in February. Read more…
So that’s pretty much that. Ridley Scott announced today that his planned Alien prequel is dead, but he’s making a new film with ideas from the abandoned project. The new film, titled Prometheus, is being penned by Scott and Damon Lindelof, and Scott extolls its “unique, large and provocative” ideas. According to Scott, the film has “Alien DNA,” though he means in terms of concept and scope, not that actual xenomorph DNA will figure into the plot somehow. Fox, to their credit, has backed Scott’s plan and given the film a March 9th, 2012 release date.
Tron Costume Guy and I certainly liked Tron Legacy, even if my boss Mr. Pinto didn’t. So did lots of moviegoers. Disney, for its part, put a lot of time and money into promoting the film, banking on it being successful, and according to Ain’t It Cool News, the film’s profits have just about “hit the tipping point.” AICN reports that Disney is almost ready to announce a third Tron movie, a direct sequel to Tron Legacy. Obviously, nothing is confirmed yet, but Disney’s already working on a cartoon series to make sure the franchise continues to have legs, so it makes sense that another movie would be in the works. Just do me a favor, Disney: more Daft Punk, yeah? Read more…
I was pretty iffy on Sony’s upcoming Spider-Man reboot, but recent photos from the set have started to thaw my frigid heart. Emma Stone is Gwen Stacy incarnate, and Andrew Garfield looks quite good as Peter Parker. But as Spider-Man? We had no idea until today, when Sony sent out a promotional still of Garfield in his battle-scarred Spidey getup. And hey, it looks pretty good. Some tantalizing tidbits: are those mechanical web-shooters I see on his wrists? Do those claw marks on the chest scream “Lizard” to anyone else? And how did they convince the Harlem Globetrotters to give them enough blue and red basketballs to construct the costume? Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Jan 9, 2011 in Television
A Game of Thrones, the first book in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels, is getting its crack at breaking into another media type: television, courtesy of HBO. Sean Bean is even in it, proving that there’s no fantasy series that he can’t improve. And if you want to catch it, you’d better tune your DVR for Sunday, April 17th, because that’s when the series will premiere, according to Entertainment Weekly. Martin himself seems pretty excited about the series, though he notes that fans shouldn’t have unrealistic expectations of the series’ quality: “We don’t have Peter Jackson’s budget!,” he says. Even with that in mind, though, the show looks like it’ll be pretty fancy for a TV fantasy show. Maybe the fanciest ever.Read more…
Yeah, he looks as surprised as we do up there, but Elijah Wood’s reps have confirmed that he’ll be making a return as Frodo Baggins in the upcoming Hobbit films. Now, bear in mind here that Frodo isn’t actually in The Hobbit (the book) in any capacity; it’s been indicated that he’ll be used as a kind of framing device to introduce Bilbo’s story in the film. If it all pans out, we’ll probably see Frodo and Sam hearing Bilbo’s account from Bilbo himself. I was a little leery about the announcement at first, but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of seeing the band back together, you know? Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Jan 8, 2011 in Star Wars
Well, can’t really chalk this one up as a surprise — after all, the movies have been released on pretty much every type of film media ever made — but both Star Wars trilogies are officially on their way to Blu-Ray this September. On top of their presentation in the current-best audio and video formats, the six films will also be packaged with over thirty hours of special features, deleted scenes, and alternate endings, some of which we’ve apparently never seen before. Each trilogy retails for $64.99, or you can get the complete collection for $139.99. If that’s a little rich for your blood, then there’s good news: Amazon has special pre-order pricing, and you can get the whole shebang for $89.99. Search your feelings. You know you want it. Read more…
There was news from Comic-Con that Legendary Pictures, the studio behind films like 300 and The Dark Knight, had secured the rights to make a new Godzilla film. They even released a totally awesome piece of concept art for the Big G’s new look, shown above. We haven’t heard any new news since then, though — at least, until now! Variety reports that Gareth Edwards, who directed the successful indie monster flick Monsters, is slated to direct the lizard’s latest outing. Hey, it can’t be any worse than the 90s Godzilla movie we got in the US. Right? Read more…
I Am Legend teased it. Fringe teased it. Once upon a time, it seemed like Warner Bros. really wanted to make it. But if you were looking forward to a Batman/Superman team-up movie, you’re in for a disappointment. WB producer Charles Roven stated in an interview recently that there are currently no plans to move forward with a Marvel-style shared film universe for DC Comics properties. With Chris Nolan’s Batman trilogy ending with The Dark Knight Rises and the Harry Potter franchise ending this year, though, the money has to come from somewhere, so it’s possible that the possibility will be reexamined at some point. Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Jan 2, 2011 in Videogames
This StarCraft 2 cake is pretty detailed! You’ve got your Nexus, your Probes harvesting minerals, vespene gas nodes, terrain height differences … the only thing that could make it more accurate is an adjoining cake that shows the Zerg six-pooling you. Though I suppose it’s hard to make “scrub” out of fondant. A valiant and ostensibly delicious effort nonetheless. Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Jan 2, 2011 in Videogames
It should come as no surprise that Japan is bonkers about games involving hunting, collecting, and/or fighting monsters. But as it turns out, the country is so in love with monster-wranglin’ genre that even the flagging PSP can sell like hotcakes if the games are there! In fact, the PSP was the best-selling system of 2010 in Japan, due in large part to Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, which sold over 3 million copies in its first two weeks of release. But even Monster Hunter’s sales were eclipsed by Pokemon Black/White, which helped the Nintendo DS into its spot as Japan’s #2 best-selling system. Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Jan 1, 2011 in Star Trek
Star Trek Insurrection might not have been a great film, but it certainly had some intriguing behind-the-scenes development stories. In his book Fade In: The Making of Star Trek Insurrection, screenwriter Michael Piller details the original concepts for the film, one involving a fountain-of-youth story and Picard going through a Heart of Darkness-style “journey up the river” to take down an old Academy friend. The only problem? Rick Berman hated the initial concept, saying that Patrick Stewart would never go for a movie that “made him look old.” Its second revision was promptly shot down by Stewart himself, who said that it seemed like an overlong episode of TNG. Proving he was just as much a Trekkie as the fans, he directly cited several episodes that matched the script’s format. Brent Spiner even gave a laundry list of completely logical questions about the alien race featured in Piller’s original treatment that looks like a fan forum argument thread. Nice to know that the franchise was well-loved by its actors even if bad decisions were inevitably made (Nemesis, anyone?). Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Dec 31, 2010 in Videogames
It’s always neat to see prototypes or early versions of video games and looking at how they differ from the final release. Shadow of the Colossus had a bunch of colossi cut from the game before release, for example. But it’s not just recent games; Lost Levels got their hands on a prototype for the original NES Legend of Zelda, and they discovered that the game was actually made more difficult for its retail release. In the prototype, it was easier to acquire rupees, dungeons had less enemies clustered together, and the enemies come in less-threatening combinations. I guess it isn’t just confirmation bias that makes me think that NES games are just flat-out harder than other games. They did it on purpose! Read more…
Marvel’s been dropping cameos of their lesser-known heroes into their movies ever since they took charge of their film universe. Anyone who saw Iron Man or its sequel caught glimpses of heroes like Nick Fury or gear belonging to Thor or Captain America; it’s all part of an effort to unify the film universe and make it easy to introduce new characters. It appears that 2011’s Thor will be no exception to this rule — rumor has it that one of the stars of the upcoming Avengers movie will be making a cameo. And that Avenger is none other than Hawkeye! It’s just a rumor, for now, but it makes a heck of a lot more sense than the other recent rumor that Demi Lovato snagged an Avengers role. Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Dec 26, 2010 in Television
Is there anything more Christmasy than gingerbread spaceships? Probably. But for geeks? No way! This confectionary replica of Firefly’s signature starship, Serenity, is sure to put a smile on the face of any self-respecting sci-fi geek, and you have Kristoffer Gressil to thank for it. Check out more of his photos of the festive freighter on Kristoffer’s Facebook. Read more…
Venture Bros. is probably one of the best shows on television, animated or not, and I felt a little sad when its fourth-season finale aired. It felt like a series finale! And showrunners Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer have stated several times that creating seasons of the hit show is incredibly taxing, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume as much. But there’s good news! Publick announced on Christmas Eve via LiveJournal that the show would indeed be coming back, with more details forthcoming. Go Team Venture! Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Dec 25, 2010 in Star Trek
Ah, Christmas. If you watched TV in the 90s, you probably remember Hallmark’s relentless commercials for new commemorative ornaments around this time of year. They had one for everything! I had a little light-up space shuttle ornament with opening loading bays, even. What space shuttles have to do with Christmas, I have no idea. Speaking of shuttles, though, check out this Christmas miracle — a video of Leonard Nimoy appearing in a 1992 Hallmark ad for a Star Trek shuttlecraft ornament. If you thought his trademark Vulcan greeting meant “live long and prosper,” well, you might learn a little something today. Read more…
Back when David Lynch released his film version of Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi classic Dune, Marvel Comics adapted it in comic form. It was penned by Ralph Macchio (no, not that Ralph Macchio) and illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz. And it was pretty cool! You can see for yourself by checking out Joe Bloke’s scanned edition of the whole darn thing, sprawling Arrakian vistas and gaping sandworm maws included. At least until it inevitably gets taken down, anyway. Read more…
2008 was a rough year for releasing a game based on an original IP — sorry, Mirror’s Edge — but EA took a big gamble on the excellent sci-fi horror excursion Dead Space. And it paid off! Dead Space sold pretty well for a new IP, and nowadays you can snag it for $20 as part of the Xbox 360 Platinum Hits collection, or get the spinoff Dead Space: Extraction for the Wii. Now, if you’re already familiar with how awesome the original was, you’ll probably be very interested to know that a playable demo of Dead Space 2 has just hit Xbox Live and PSN, letting you unleash Isaac’s mighty boot once again. So go get it! And if you haven’t played the original yet, go do that too! Read more…
Posted by Michael Sacco on Dec 19, 2010 in Comic Books
Just in time for the holidays, Noir Jewelry has released a line of accessories based on DC Comics properties. A lot of it is what you’d expect, like gleefully gaudy Wonder Woman and Supergirl stuff, but there are a few genuinely cool items in there, like the Gotham City ring, shown above. And all I’m saying is that there is an uncomfortably high number of Catwoman claws in that collection. Grievous bodily harm: the gift that keeps on giving. Read more…
So, the last entry into the Terminator film franchise wasn’t so great. And neither was the one before it. In fact, the only good entry into the series since 1991’s Terminator 2 was the woefully short-lived TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Is there anything that can revive the franchise, or is it deader than most of humanity after Judgement Day? Maybe all hope isn’t lost. We can still get the gal that helped start the franchise to give it a shot in the arm! Gale Ann Hurd, who co-wrote and produced the original Terminator film, told Entertainment Weekly that she’d love to make another. Of course, right now she’s occupied with her gig as executive producer of the smash hit AMC series The Walking Dead, but we can hope that the powers that be (and the hedge fund group that currently owns the rights to the Terminator franchise) are listening. Read more…
Okay, so maybe Fanboy head honcho Michael Pinto didn’t particularly like Tron Legacy, but I did! And, at the very least, it’s captured the heart and mind of possibly the world’s biggest Tron fan. That’s right — Tron Costume Guy, who might himself qualify as a digital entity due to his status as a living meme, liked the heck out of Tron Legacy. He even got to review the film for Wired. He compliments the sequel’s logical extension of the plot from the first film, the great soundtrack and, of course, the visual effects. Now, before you say “Well of course he liked it! He’s Tron Costume Guy!”, remember that diehard fans are usually the hardest to please, not the easiest. At least that’s what I’m telling myself when reading a review of a movie from a guy dressed like the guy in the movie he’s reviewing. Read more…
