My Whiny Fanboy Rant About the Green Lantern Trailer

I've been putting off writing this for a few weeks, so let's finally sit down and do it.

With the onslaught of Marvel Comics films in theatres right now, DC has been struggling, trying play catch-up.  I'm glad to see that they finally realized they have other heroes besides Batman and Superman, and they`re trying to explore the possibility of giving these other heroes their own franchises.

So I`m glad to see that, next summer, we`re getting Green Lantern.  Was never an avid reader of the Green Lantern comics, but I`ve always had a soft spot for him.  As I explained to a friend of mine, Green Lantern, if done properly, could be a sci-fi epic whose scope would only be rivaled by Star Wars.

Green Lantern hits theatres on June 17, and here`s our first trailer.







Ryan Reynolds plays our hero, cocky young test pilot Hal Jordan, who is gifted with the Power Ring of the Green Lantern Corp, and made the Green Lantern of sector 2814.  The Green Lantern Corp are an intergalactic police force, and sector 2814 is the sector that Earth falls into. 

Blake Lively plays Carol Ferris, the aircraft magnate who is also Hal Jordan's love interest.  Ferris is destined to become the villainess Star Sapphire, but they already tell us they're saving that for sequels. 

Peter Sarsgaard plays the Green Lantern B-list villain Hector Hammond, and very powerful telepath.  Mark Strong, whom you may remember as the evil Lord Blackwood in Shrelock Holmes, plays Jordan's mentor-turned-arch-enemy Sinsestro.  I like that it looks like they're going the Batman Begins/Dark Knight route...use some B-list villains for the first movie, and save the arch-enemy for the sequel. 

The director is Martin Campbell, who did the two Antonio Banderas Zorro films, and the James Bond films GoldenEye and Casino Royale. 

All in all, it's looking sharp.  I'm still not too crazy about the Green Lantern suit, though.  See, how it worked was, Reynolds wore a motion capture suit for most of the time, and the suit was entirely computer generated.  That way, they could do the fancy stuff like that final shot where he snaps his fingers and the suit instantly appears.  It looks a little too CGI for me.

Other than, I'm somewhat excited for this one. 

Latest Targ's Up!

Another busy week, but I had to get my stuff together and throw together an episode of U62: The Targ!

This week, I give you Episode 4.11: The Gift of Sound. In this one, I develop a classification system for the show, I continue my whiny fanboy rant about the Transformers 3 trailer, and I give a quick recap of the news...that's important to me.

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My Whiny Fanboy Rant About the Transformers 3 Trailer

Before we get to my rant about the Transformers: Dark of the Moon trailer, I should take a moment to clarify my thoughts on the previous two films.

I like the first film.  It's good, but not great.  I remember reading one time that Hasbro's current marketing strategy with Transformers is to reboot it every couple of years or so, so it always remains fresh.  Once you convince yourself that the first movie is the latest reboot and not the Transformers you grew up with, it's pretty good.  And great gobs of childhood nostalgia allowed me to overlook some of the film's other flaws.

The second film, Revenge of the Fallen, was the first film I ever saw in the theatre that was so bad, it made me want to throw things at the screen.  Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is just stupid.  I understand the need for comedic relief, but so much of the humor was of the moronic variety.  There's hardly any plot, it's just big loud action scenes strung together.  Characters just stand around and do nothing.  The Autobots are treated as little more than hardware...it's just bad.  The film's defenders -- and there are a surprisingly large amount of them -- always defend it with, "It was based on a toy line.  What were you expecing?"  I'll tell you what I was expecting:  A GOOD MOVIE.  If you want to successfully defend Revenge of the Fallen to me, tell me how the plot was serviced by having John Turturro strut around in a thong. 

And now, that brings us to our first glimpse of the third film, Dark of the Moon, coming out next July




What can I say?  There's not much in the trailer to get whiny about.  It shows us so little of the plot of the film.  It sets up a nice mystery -- a downed Transformer spacecraft discovered by Apollo astronauts, and apparently it's been covered up for the past 40 years.  Can't deny, though, that the trailer looks spectacular.  I'm just talking about the visuals.  Great special effects showing the Apollo spacecraft in flight.  The moon's surface looks amazing, too.

It is highly derivative, though.  It's like the opening scenes in Alien, or hell, even the first trailer for the first film, which featured a Mars probe catching a glimpse of a Transformer strutting around on Mars.  As nice as it looks, there's a whole, "Been there, done that" feeling over the film. 

For the talent working on this film, Michael Bay is back as director.  The script this time out was written by Ehren Kruger, who co-wrote the second film and wrote the American remake of The Ring.  For returning cast members, Shia LeBeouf is back as token human Sam Witwicky, Josh Duhamel is back as soldier boy Major Lennox, and John Turturro is back as Sector 7 Agent Simmons.

For new cast members, the biggest news was that Michael Bay and Megan Fox never got along, so Megan Fox was fired from #3.  Sam's new girlfriend Carly will be played by Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.  Patrick Demspey plays Carly's sleazy boss.  John Malkovich plays Sam's sleazy boss.  Alan Tudyk (whom my fellow nerds will remember was Wash from Firefly/Serenity) plays Simmon's old Sector 7 partner.  And Francis McDormand plays NSA Director Marissa Faireborn. 

Fun trivia fact:  Carly was the name of Spike's girlfriend on the original 1984 cartoon.

Fun trivia fact #2:  Marissa Faireborn is also a character created in the original 1984 cartoon.  She was a spacefaring soldier dedicated to protecting the Earth from alien threats...and she was the daughter of Flint and Lady Jaye from G.I. Joe! 

Transformers: Dark of the Moon hits theatres July 1. 

All the Times I've Bought Star Wars: Episode V -- Cutting Edge in 1993

Welcome back to All the Times I've Bought Star Wars.  For those just joining us, I've penned an epic series of blog entries recounting all times I've bought Star Wars, and trying to figure out why I've bought it so many times.  We continue with Episode V: Cutting Edge in 1993.

Freedom of choice.  That’s all it really boils down to.  The home theatre enthusiasts want a choice.

When DVD first started going mainstream, there was a startling trend.  A lot of the DVDs that came out contained a “director’s cut, with footage you weren’t allowed to see in theatres!”  There were quite a lot of people who were upset about this trend.  Leonard Maltin summed it up best in one of the forewords to his legendary movie guides:  “If the director’s cut is on DVD, what are we paying to see in the theatre?  The rough draft?”  

Latest Targ's Up!

Sorry I was gone last week. Got busy and all that, but I'm here again with a new episode of U62: The Targ!

I return with Episode 4.10: Rumblies in my Tumblies. I sit down and remember some classic video games, I tell you all about the latest acquisitions in my Star Wars action figure collection, and the countdown continues to Tron Legacy!

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All the Times I've Bought Star Wars: Episode IV -- New Formats, New Frontiers

For those just joining us, welcome back to All the Times I've Bought Star Wars, my epic series of blog entries chronicling all the times I've bought Star Wars.  Along the way, I try to figure out exactly why I've bought it so many times.  We continue with Episode IV: New Formats, New Frontiers

Quick history lesson, kiddos.  The year was Y2K.  This DVD thing was starting to catch on, and most entertainment websites started running watch lists.  These lists consisted of great, classic films that were NOT yet available on DVD.  And always, always, always, at the top of the list, was the Star Wars trilogy.  

The people would ask George Lucas, “Why George?  Why are you not releasing this on DVD?”  And ol’ Mr. Lucas, he gave us an answer.  He told us that he was hard at work on the prequels, and he was not going to release Star Wars on DVD until he was done making the prequels.  That way, he could just focus on the DVDs, create one super-ultimate-mega-special edition, and never have to re-release it again and again when new advancements came along.  Besides, by the time Episode III came out, he figured that DVD technology would finally have reached its pinnacle, and he could take full advantage of all the bells and whistles of the format.  It seemed fair enough.  And the geeks were happy...for a while.

All the Times I've Bought Star Wars: Episode III -- Greedo Shoots First

For those just joining us, welcome back to All the Times I've Bought Star Wars, my epic series of blog entries in which I recount all the times I've bought Star Wars.  I'm also trying to figure out why I've bought it so many times.  We continues with Episode III: Greedo Shoots First

The year was 1997 and OH MY GOD STAR WARS WAS COMING BACK TO THEATRES.  

The trailers and the TV spots for the Special Editions got it right.  A whole generation had grown up watching it on TV.  They’d never seen it in theatres.  I was a member of that generation.  In my second year at college, all of my friends were in that generation.  All of my friends at college were fellow nerds, and needless to say, this was a huge freakin’ deal to us.  Yeah, Camrose (my college town) had its quaint, old-school movie house, the Bailey Theatre, but screw that noise.  We were organizing road trips into Edmonton to see it in the latest multiplexes the weekend it came out.  Well, most of my friends were.  For some reason, they weren’t inviting me along.  Oh, well.  So, I had to go home for a weekend, and borrow Mom and Dad’s car to run into Edmonton to see it.  And I saw it on the big screen...as it was meant to be seen. 

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It's the dawn of a brand-new week, so that means it's time to bust out a new episode of U62: The Targ!

This week is Episode 4.09: The Chill of Winter! It's a fairly routine episode as I geek out over the Green Lantern trailer, marvel at the raw sexuality they managed to sneak into an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and offer up some thoughts on Megamind.

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Megamind Review is Up

 

So, umm, yeah, I saw Megamind about a week ago, and my review is up over at my main website!

Head over there to read it!

All the Times I've Bought Star Wars: Episode II -- One Last Time....

For those just joining us, welcome to All the Times I've Bought Star Wars, my epic series of blog entries recounting all the times I've bought Star Wars.  I also try to figure out why the heck I've bought it so many times.  And now, our story continues with Episode II: One Last Time....

The year was 1995.  I finished high school.  I remember graduation being strangely anticlimactic.  The first 18 years of my life gone...for a piece of paper.  As soon as that was done, I was onto a very difficult summer job.  Word of advice to all the youngsters out there:  never get a summer job at your favourite summertime hangout.  Because once summer is done, you will want to burn it to the ground.  With that all done, I was taking a few months off just to figure out where to go next in life.  

So there I was.  Spending my days doing a whole lot of nothing and just trying to get my head together.  I was watching a lot of TV.  Unhealthy amounts of TV.  It was right around this time that YTV started showing Sailor Moon and I became 100% obsessed with it.  As the holiday season started rolling around, and all kinds of TV commercials for potential Christmas presents started being shown, I started seeing the commercials for...it.  The Star Wars Trilogy.  Being re-released on video!  But, what’s this that the commercials are saying?  It’s going to be released on video...just one last time?  After this, it’s not going to be on video anymore? 

Who else remembers the Lucasfilm hype machine for the 1995 video releases?  That was the tag line, wasn’t it?  Each and every commercial was quick to point out that this would be the absolute last time that The Star Wars Trilogy was going to be released on home video.  After this...gone.  No more.  It was something that really didn’t surprise me.  I mean, Disney had already introduced their “Disney vault” concept for their home video releases.  It just made sense that other studios would follow suit.  And here it was.  Star Wars.  My last chance to own it.  

New Cars 2 Trailer

New Cars 2 trailer.  Really don't have anything more to say ever since I ranted about the first trailer about a month ago.  Come on, Pixar.  This really looks like your sellout film. 

But at least we know one of the new celebrity voices.  That's quite obviously Michael Caine as secret agent car Finn McMissile.

Share my pain, and through the sharing, gain strength.

 

Winnie the Pooh Trailer

Well, Walt Disney Pictures is working at keeping the traditionally animated film alive, and they're doing it in the summer of 2011 by bringing back one of their most beloved franchises, Winnie the Pooh. And the next Pooh film is called, appropriately, Winnie the Pooh.



Now, I know, you might be groaning in disgust because the last batch of Winnie the Pooh films (that would be The Tigger Movie, Piglet's Big Movie, and Pooh's Hefalump Movie) weren't of the best quality. Well, for this, they've gone all the way back to the well...this one is based on five, never-before-adapted, A.A. Milne stories. This one is also being made by Walt Disney Feature Animation, so it counts in the official Disney Animated Film canon. The other three were made by Disney MovieToon Studios, which focuses on their straight-to-video sequels.

And I'm also a little disappointed that they replaced the voice of Eeyore. For at least the past 20 years, Disney's official voice of Eeyore has been Peter Cullen, who's most famous voice is still Optimus Prime. But, for some reason, for this film, Cullen was let go and replaced with veteran animator Bud Luckey. However, Pooh's official voice for the past 20 years, Jim Cummings, is back as Pooh and Tigger. Another veteran voice actor, Tom Kenny, is voicing Rabbit, and voice actor Craig Ferguson is voicing Owl. I'm glad to see they're going with so many veteran voice actors instead of cramming in celebrities for the sake of cramming in celebrities. But they still got one celebrity in there...John Cleese is the narrator.

The film is being co-directed by Stephen Anderson and Don Hall. Winnie the Pooh hits theatres on July 15.

Movie Review -- Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam

Alright, I do so love to review the direct-to-DVD movies I purchase here on the blog, so let's get going with my latest aquisition!  Let's take a look at....

DC Showcase:  Superman/Shazam -- The Return of Black Adam

Directed by Joaquim dos Santos

Starring the voices of George Newburn, Jerry O'Connell, Arnold Vosloo, James Garner, Zach Callison, and Kevin Michael Richardson.

Backstory:  So, all this year, DC Comics and Warner Brothers have been running a little side project with their straight-to-DVD animated films:  DC Showcase, a series of animated short films that focus one some of DC's better-known B- and C-list heroes.  With the holiday shopping season right around the corner, DC has taken all of the DC Showcase shorts and compiled them on their own DVD.  And, in order to entice you to buy them again, added an all-new short, featuring the team-up of Superman and Captain Marvel.  So let's take a look at the latest DC Showcase short.

Plot:  Young Billy Batson is only 10 years old, and has already had a rough life.  His parents were killed...he's bounced from foster home to foster home...and now finds himself living on the streets.  But he's always retained his good heart.  But then, his life is turned upside down when a villain from beyond the stars, Black Adam, returns and vows to destroy young Billy.  Superman shows up to save young Billy, and this gives Billy enough time to meet the wizard Shazam and be bestowed with superpowers, becoming Captain Marvel.  Will the combined power of Earth's Mightiest Mortal and the Man of Steel be enough to defeat Black Adam?

What I Liked:  Like a lot of the other DC Showcase shorts, it quickly turns into a gigantic superhero slugfest, as Superman, Captain Marvel, and Black Adam come up with new and creative ways to pound the snot out of each other.  The animation is sharp.  The music is top notch.  And it's good to hear George Newburn back voicing Superman.  He did the voice of Superman on the Justice League cartoon, and it's good to see him back in action.  And James Garner is good, too, voicing the wizard Shazam and once again proving that he's all kinds of awesome. 

What I Didn't Like:  Again, this kind of showcases my frustration with how DC Comics is dropping the ball with their animated films.  Captain Marvel could easily carry his own film, but instead, he's given a short film where he's second banana to Superman.  Just plain too short, is what I'm saying.

Final Verdict:  A very enjoyable superhero battle.  Lots of fun, but too darn short.

3 Nibs

Bonus Materials:  This is a compilation of the DC Showcase shorts, so you get the other 3 that have been produced to date:  The Spectre, Green Arrow, and Jonah Hex.  Each of these shorts is presented as a "director's cut," with an extra 2-minutes or so of footage they had to cut out the first time.  Each short has a running commentary with its writer, and you get a selection of DC Universe cartoons focusing on the characters featured in the shorts. 

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We're rolling along with another episode of U62: The Targ!

This week is Episode 4.08: 4-Day Weekend! I went old-school for this episode, for reasons that'll be clear when you give it a listen. And in it, we take a look at Toy Story 3, the Shrek Halloween special, and discuss a disturbing trend in movie promotion.

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All the Times I've Bought Star Wars: Episode I -- The Saga Begins

I am a home theatre enthusiast.  That means I’ve got my Blu-Ray player, my DVD player, an old VCR that’s still in functioning order, and I think one of the best things in the world is to just kick back and watch a movie.  And to the home theatre enthusiast, there is no greater crime than that of the double dip.  

For those who are only familiar with the term from the Seinfeld episode, here’s how “double-dipping” applies to home theatre.  Your favourite movie comes out on DVD.  Naturally, you buy it because you love it so much.  But then, six months later, it comes out on DVD again, in all-new special-edition, with all new bonus features, thus compelling you to buy it again.  That is the double-dip.

Even before the term became mainstream – heck, even before there was a term to describe it – I knew to be wary of the double-dip.  When I bought my first DVD player, I swore that I would only buy a DVD when I already owned it on VHS if it met one of my two criteria:  1)  it had enough bonus features to warrant buying it again.  2)  I just loved the movie so darn much that it would break my little heart if I didn’t buy it again.  Following that criteria, to this very day, I still own about a dozen movies or so on VHS that I have yet to upgrade to DVD.  

However, there is one movie, or rather, movie franchise, where whenever a new edition is announced, I drop everything, start saving my pennies, and start counting down the days until I can buy it again.  There is one film franchise that always meets those two criteria in spades, and thus I am doomed to repeat a never-ending cycle of always buying it again, and again, and again.  

That film franchise is Star Wars.

Of course, we’re talking about the core six movies.  The original trilogy and the prequel trilogy.  I know we’re supposed to regard the thing as one massive six film epic, but I’ll always be dividing it into the two trilogies.  One I grew up with, the other ushered in my adulthood.  One ushered in a new era of moviemaking, the other was seen as a bloated series of mistakes by its creator that we all love anyway because of nostalgia for the first.  Either way, whenever a new edition is announced, I start drooling in anticipation.  

Going through my library, I see that I’ve bought the original trilogy no less than four times.  The prequels twice.  And countless ancillary titles that I purchased mainly because of their relation to Star Wars.  Why?  What is it about this series that keeps me coming back for more?  

So, in this epic series of blog entries, I’m going to recount all the times I bought Star Wars.  Now, I’m not going to detail all the special edition changes and new footage that was inserted into the films each time it was re-released.  That’s been recounted hundreds of times in excruciating detail at far better websites.  Instead, I’m going to focus on what I was thinking, and what was going through my mind where I figured it warranted another purchase.  I’ll also touch upon some of the bonus features that were added, and maybe get into some of the technical details of each release.  

This is a series of blog entries I’ve been considering writing for a while now.  And now, with the recent announcement that it’ll be released on Blu-Ray in the fall of 2011, and as I start to make room for the fifth time I’ll buy it, it feels like this is the right moment to just sit down and ask, “Why am I buying it a fifth time?  Why did I buy it four times prior?”  Hopefully, by doing this, I’ll be able to figure it out.

So, let’s get started with the first time I bought Star Wars.  I remember buying it for the first time because I was convinced it would be the last time.

Next Week:  Episode II -- One Last Time

Kung Fu Panda 2 Trailer

As I was saying in the blog not too long ago, I've grown to loathe everything Dreamworks does.  That's why, when I finally sat down and rented Kung Fu Panda about a year ago, I was pleasantly surprised that it's a fairly decent action comedy.  Yeah, I liked it!  If I ever see it in a discount bin, I just might pick it up.

But, as we all know, Dreamworks likes to take a good concept and run it into the ground, hence, Kung Fu Panda 2, coming next summer.  First trailer!



I have to get me a wider blog template so I can post wider videos. 

Latest Targ's Up!

We're rolling along with another episode of U62: The Targ!

This week is Episode 4.07: I'll Have the Usual, and "usual" is the name of the game in this one. I rant about the latest episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, we long for the days of styrofoam containers at McDonald's, and I check out the tech specs of the Toy Story 3 DVD.

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It's that time of the week again! And I've got an ooky, spooky Halloween episode of U62: The Targ!

When deciding what I could do for a Halloween episode, a friend of mine suggested I should share some of the tales of what my childhood Halloweens were like. It was nothing too spectacular, but I decided to do it anyway. And here's the final product, Episode 4.06: Ghosts of Halloween Past.

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Scared Shrekless

Over on my Facebook page, I was recently taken to task over my recent blog post where I cry woe over Cars 2, Pixar's recent discovery of sequels, and how DreamWorks started the whole thing by taking each and every film of theirs with a modicum of success and beating it to death with an endless stream of sequels.  Apparently, some 3 year olds read that blog post and were heartbroken.  After I stopped patting myself on the back for having some 3 year old fans, I started being amazed that 3 year olds can read blogs.  They grow up so fast these days....

Anyway, I can't be too mad at DreamWorks Animation for beating each and every dead horse they unleash on the screen.  They actually have a sound business strategy for it.  DreamWorks has said that the whole point of their endless streams of sequels is that they're trying to build a stable of beloved animated characters.  You know, Warner Brothers has Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the whole Looney Tunes gang.  Disney has Mickey, Donald, Goofy et al, and DreamWorks is hoping to make a universe out of Shrek, Po the Kung Fu Panda, and Ben Stiller the talking lion.  And the only way DreamWorks is going to do that is through constantly exposing us to these characters. 

And as part of their constant exposure is a new line of holiday specials featuring the DreamWorks characters.  It all started in 2007 with the Shrek Christmas special.  It continued last year with the Monsters vs. Aliens Halloween special and the Madagascar Christmas special.  And it kept going last night with Scared Shrekless, the Shrek Halloween special.  I thought I'd check it out of curiosity, mainly because brand new animated holiday specials don't come around that often anymore.

So, as the special begins, as you can imagine, ogres love Halloween.  Shrek, Fiona, and their triplets are having a grand old time scaring the pants off of trick-or-treaters.  Donkey, Puss in Boots, and some of your other favourite supporting characters unsuccessfully try to scare Shrek, only to have Fiona remind them that they're ogres:  "We do the scaring.  We don't get scared."  Disbelieving this statement, Donkey and Puss in Boots propose a contest.  They'll spend the night telling spooky stories.  And whoever tells the scariest story will be proclaimed King of Halloween!  Shrek gets the bright idea to raise the stakes by taking their contest down to Castle Duloc, which you may remember as Lord Farquaad's fortress way back in the first movie.  Apparently, it's lain in ruins since the end of the first film, and is now reportedly haunted by Lord Farquaad's ghost.

OK, here's where I've got to give the special kudos for being clever.  I still kind of like the first film -- you know, before they ran the premise into the ground -- and in their journey back to Duloc there were lots of wonderful callbacks to the first film as we saw everything in a new, spooky light. 

They settle into the ruins of Farquaad's throne room and being telling their spooky stories.  The whole thing then devolves into a ripoff of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror as we're treated to some parodies of horror stories featuring Shrek characters.  We've got:

The Bride of Gingy - Gingy the Gingerbread Man implores the Muffin Man to make him a Gingerbread Lady.  However, Gingy throws too much sugar into the mix, turning his bride into an obsessive, stalkerish, crazy lady.  Gingy thinks he disposes of her by tossing her back into some mixing batter, but this only turns her into a horde of zombie brides. 

Boots Motel - This tale is told by Donkey and Puss in Boots.  What starts off as a simple Psycho spoof soon turns into pure slapstick as Donkey and Puss in Boots come up with more and more outlandish ways to off each other. 

The Shreksorcist - Shrek's tale is a spoof of The Exorcist, as Shrek is called upon to be babysiter for a possessed and demented Pinocchio.  The usual round of head-turning-around and projectile-vomit-pea-soup jokes are in full force.  However, the punchline, concering the revelation of the voice in Pinocchio's head, is priceless. 

Fiona and the triplets show up, masquerading as Farquaad's ghost, and it's enough to scare off the rest of the supporting characters and for Shrek to win the contest.  Shrek, Fiona, and the triplets then cap off Halloween by egging the Seven Dwarfs.  "I am not Happy!" exclaims one of the dwarfs, thus ensuring DreamWorks won't get sued by Disney. 

And that was Scared Shrekless.  A few clever jokes couldn't salvage it from being more than an endless stream of repetitve slapstick gags.  I was really glad that they got back to what made the first film so great:  slamming Disney and the typical fairy tale conventions.  But yeah.  It just got too silly and too stupid after a while. 

If you'd like to see it for yourself, it's going to be on again on Saturday night.  And they advertised quite heavily that A Kung Fu Panda Christmas is coming in one months time.  You go, DreamWorks.  You work to make Donkey as beloved as Chip n Dale.

And for any three year olds whose hearts I may have broken with my comments, come on.  Come here.  Sit down with me on the couch.  I first saw this movie when I was about your age and I still love it to this day.  Let's watch it together, and you'll see it's a much better movie.  It's called Star Wars.   

Reflecting on Back to the Future

Back to the Future is one of those films where I never tire of hearing stories about it.  With all my DVDs and everything I have access to on the Internet, the one "making-of" tale that I keep revisiting is Back to the Future.  I have no idea what makes the making of that movie so compelling to me.  Probably because it's one of the few films where, no matter how many times I've seen it, I always discover something new the next time I watch it. 

I think it all stems from the first time I spotted something new.  When I was about 12 years old and watching it for the 100th time, my brain finally picked up on something.  At the end of the film, when Marty returns to 1985 and heads off to the mall to save Doc Brown, the mall is now called the "Lone Pine Mall."  But in the beginning, it was called the "Twin Pines Mall."  What happened?  Then I remembered.  When Marty first arrived in 1985, he ran over one of the twin pines and destroyed it.  And the timeline was altered.  It's little things like that that has made Back to the Future a textbook case in film schools the whole world over on how to set up a gag and have it pay off later in the film.

The big 25th Anniversary Blu-Ray of Back to the Future went on sale this week, and the Internet is a flood with new stories about the film.  Like this one which came across my desk the other day.  In the opening credits of the film, as the camera pans through Doc Brown's workshop, the camera lingers on a framed newspaper clipping, saying that the mansion that Doc Brown lived in in 1955 was destroyed in a fire.  In a recent interview, what producer/co-writer Bob Gale said was, what they had hoped to imply with that newspaper -- imply, not say -- was that Doc Brown burnt down his own house in an insurance scam to raise the money to build the time machine.  Wow.  That puts Doc Brown in a whole new light. 

Another story I recently came across.  The well-known story is that Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly.  Stoltz was dismissed from the production several weeks into filming when the producers and the director found his work to be unsuitable.  But did you ever wonder what Stoltz was doing that was so unsuitable?  Lea Thompson said what Stoltz was doing in an interview a few years back.  Apparently, Stoltz took a look at the whole gag where Lorraine falls in love with Marty and thought, "A mother falling love with her own son?  Why, this must be a sci-fi re-imagining of Oedipus Rex.  I will play the whole thing like it's a Greek tragedy."  And no matter how many times director Robert Zemeckis explained to Stoltz that the whole thing was a comedy, Stoltz kept playing the material like it was a tragedy and Marty McFly was this epic, tragic character.  And if you've ever seen that video on Cracked.com that explains how Back to the Future is secretly horrifying, Stoltz may have been on to something. 

But yeah.  So many great stories about Back to the Future.  And I'm always learning more.