Movie Review - Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders

Well, DC and Warner Brothers have gifted us with yet another straight-to-DVD animated Batman movie.  As I've mentioned for a while, I've mostly grown bored with them and have been giving them a pass, but this one...this one I felt was worth picking up.

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders

Directed by Rick Morales

Starring the voices of Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, Jeff Bergman, William Salyers, Wally Wingert, Steven Weber, Thomas Lennon, and Lynne Marie Stewart.

Backstory

It's been fun watching the pendulum swing on the old Batman TV series from the 1960s.  When I was a kid, and Tim Burton's Batman came out, and Batman was all dark and gritty again, it was derided for what it did to the Batman mythology.  But in the past 10 years or so, it's been rediscovered and re-embraced as this wonderful addition to the Batman universe.  Things have really stepped up recently, as Warner Brothers finally cleared up the legal quagmire surrounding the show and is now able to merchandise the heck out of it.  And when Warner Brothers started pumping out these straight-to-DVD movies, it didn't take long for people to start thinking, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat if they did one that was just like the Batman show from the 1960s?  Bring back Adam West and Burt Ward to voice Batman and Robin for one last hurrah?"  And here we are, and they also brought along Julie Newmar for one last hurrah as Catwoman.

Plot

On a peaceful Gotham night, as billionaire Bruce Wayne and his youthful ward Dick Grayson kick back to watch their favourite variety show, they watch in horror as the show is taken over by their four most fearsome foes:  the Joke, Penguin, the Riddler, and Catwoman.  It's to the Batpoles, and they take to the streets as Batman and Robin to stop their evil plot.  Their plans involved a duplicator ray, a trip to outer space, and plans of global conquest!  But, Catwoman has a little something extra:  Batnip, a drug of her own design that will turn Batman to the dark side.  Will Batman and Robin stop these fiends?  Will Batman actually fall to the dark side?

What I Liked

SPOILER WARNING:  Yes, Batman falls to the dark side, and the entire mid-section of the movie is Catwoman and Robin teaming up to take down an evil Batman.  Making Batman the bad guy is the most hilarious twist they could do on the classic 1960s formula.  Especially as he first starts turning evil, and Batman goes through this phase where he starts acting like the more modern, angst-ridden, moody Batman.  Hearing Adam West's Batman start doing lines from The Dark Knight Returns as he puts on the Bat brass knuckles is gut-bustingly funny.  Or when he does the classic bit of mysteriously disappearing from Commissioner Gordon's office when Gordon turns his back mid-sentence:

Gordon:  He's gone!  Like a bat in the night!
Chief O'Hara:  Well, that's not very Batman-like.

And poor Robin is stuck there wondering how he's going to get home. 

And it's full of in-jokes and references to other facets of the Batman mythos.  My particular favourite is this dig at The Dark Knight Rises:

Catwoman:  I'll turn myself in, Batman, on one condition.  When I get out, run away with me to Europe, where we can sip tea in cafes and live happily ever after!
Robin:  Holy unsatisfying ending. 

The voice acting is great.  Yeah, Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar all show their age in their voices, but damn it, they're giving it their all.  And the voice actors they got to do Joker, Penguin, and Riddler to some damn fine impressions of the original actors.  The music is great as they capture the sounds of the 1960s show perfectly, if just a big bigger and more orchestral.  And the tone of the 1960s show is preserved, but the scope is greatly expanded. 

What I Didn't Like

Not much, man.  Not much. 

Final Verdict

One of the most entertaining straight-to-DVD Batman films they've pumped out in a long time.  Bring on the sequel! 

Oh, didn't you hear?  They already announced a sequel.  Finally, Two-Face comes to the 1960s Batman universe, voiced by William Shatner. 

4 Nibs

Bonus Features

Not much for bonus features on this one.  A couple of featurettes about the making of the film, some previews for the other Batman straight-to-DVD animated films, and that's it. 

Podfodder

Well, my podcast is still on its summer hiatus, but I've got a lot of musings about pop culture brewing inside me, and I feel like it's time to get them down on paper and share them with the world!  So share I will.

My heart is already turning to September...and fretting about how much it's going to cost me.  It's that time of year when all the summer blockbusters will start hitting Blu-Ray.  So, of course, as soon as they come out, I'll be picking up Godzilla and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Also coming out is the new 30th anniversary box set of Ghostbusters 1&2.  I'm actually looking forward to picking up that set just for Ghostbusters 2.  In addition to be remastered in hi-def, we're going to get a round-table discussion with co-writer Dan Aykroyd and director Ivan Reitman, plus some long-lost deleted scenes.  Ghosbusters 2 has grown to be so hated when compared to its predecessor, that it makes me more and more curious about its making. 

But the one that gives me the most pause is an boxed set called The Star Trek Compendium.  This is a new box set of the Star Trek reboot and its sequel, Into Darkness.  I already have both on Blu-Ray, why double-dip?

Well, when Star Trek Into Darkness hit Blu-Ray, it caused some controversy.  In the name of retail exclusives, all the bonus features were spread across multiple versions.  For example, if you wanted to see the deleted scenes, you had to buy it from Best Buy.  If you wanted to hear the director's running commentary, you had to buy the iTunes download.  If you wanted to see the "making-of" features, you had to buy it from Target, and for different "making-of" featurettes, you had to buy it from Wal-Mart.  It was nuts.  But, in this Star Trek Compendium boxed set, all of the bonus features will finally be in one set.

And that's not all.  Following the lead of films like The Dark Knight, Into Darkness had some of its major action sequences filmed in IMAX.  The Star Trek Compendium release will finally feature Into Darkness's IMAX sequences in their proper aspect ratio.

Plus, when I upgraded Star Trek to Blu-Ray, I got the "movie-only" version of the disc.  In this set, I'll finally get all of Star Trek's bonus features upgraded to hi-def.

Wow, it really sounds like I'm talking myself into it, aren't I?  We'll have to see what the price is when it comes out.

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So what's going on with the Spider-Man franchise?  Sony's really starting to beat that rented mule.

The original plan was Amazing Spider-Man 2 this year, Amazing Spider-Man 3 in 2016, Amazing Spider-Man 4 in 2018, and then a couple of spin-offs featuring Venom and the Sinister Six.  Even though Amazing Spider-Man 2 made $700 million at the box office, that makes it the lowest-grossing Spider-Man film, causing Sony to rethink their plans.

Now, we're going to be getting the Sinister Six spinoff in 2016, the Venom spinoff and a new spinoff about a TBA female character (rumoured to be either the Black Cat, Silver Sable, or Spider-Woman) both in 2017, and Amazing Spider-Man 3 in 2018.

I'd be on board with a lot of this if it looked like Sony had a plan.  But it doesn't.  Instead, it seems like Sony is just being reactionary to Marvel.

"So, you like big, shared continuity universes, eh?  Well, look at all these Spider-Man spinoffs we're planning!"

"So, based on all the money Avengers made, you like seeing massive team-ups.  BOOM!  Sinister Six, baby!"

The #1 question that Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige was being asked during the press for Guardians of the Galaxy was, "So...when's Marvel going to do one with a female lead?"  And Sony said, "Us!  We're doing it first!  See?  Spinoff with a female character!"

See?  It looks like Sony is just trying to do what Marvel's doing.  There's no overreaching plan, they're just emulating.

Add my voice to the chorus crying for Spider-Man to be returned to Marvel, so he can be in the Marvel cinematic universe.  But, Sony won't give him back until the films stop making money, so I don't think it'll be happening anytime soon.

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Had a dentist appointment the other day, and afterwards, I went to HMV to buy myself a treat.  Was finally able to upgrade to CD two classic film soundtracks from my youth:  Ghostbusters and Back to the Future.  Thanks to the resurgence of vinyl, HMV actually had Ghostbusters on vinyl, and I was tempted to get it, but no, went digital. 

When it comes to these soundtracks, Back to the Future was always my jam.  When I was a kid, my first paying job was as a paperboy, and I spent many an early morning, roaming the streets of Entwistle, delivering papers, and listening to The Power of Love on my Walkman.



Now that I have these two soundtracks, it's time for my grand plan.  Because I've discovered those record labels where I can get obscure film scores, I also own the complete, uncut scores for Back to the Future and Ghostbusters.  So the goal now, with each of those films, is to create a playlist that plays each and every note of music in the exact order it appears in the film.

Doing that with Ghostbusters will be interesting, as the complete uncut score features a lot of music that was ultimately unused, as they producers replaced it with the pop songs you find on the soundtrack.  With Back to the Future, it could be complicated.  How exacting do I want to be?  There are songs used in the film that don't appear on the soundtrack album...do I buy those odd songs on iTunes in the name of completeness?

Or do I go as hardcore as my friend?  He did this exercise with The Transformers: The Movie, only he edited the songs so they are the exact length and sound exactly as they do in the movie.

But in the short term, at least I've got a lot of great, nostalgia-inducing music.

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I'm not much of a gamer, but this announcement came down the other day and it caught my eye.

Activision announced that they're relaunching the Sierra label, and even bringing back one of Sierra's most famous franchises, King's Quest.

Sierra pretty much invented the 3D, puzzle-solving-based, adventure game back in the 1980s, and it was a genre they dominated until the mid-1990s.  With the tech boom and the dot-com bubble, they were bought out, and traded hands many times over the past few years, becoming a shell of their former self.  Activision acquired the brand in the early 2000s, and quietly shut it down in 2008.

But with the recent announcement, sounds like Activision is planning to bring them back in a big way.  As one pundit put it, it sounds like Activision wants to make Sierra their label for indie and mid-budget games.  And as part of their first offerings, Sierra has contracted game studio The Odd Gentlemen to give us the first King's Quest since 1998.  It sounds like this new King's Quest will even be in continuity with the original games, with our hero, King Graham, now a grandfather, and his granddaughter Gwendolyn being the main character.

I am kind of excited about this.  Being a computer geek born in the 1980s, Sierra was THE name in PC games back then.  The first PC games I remember owning was a 3-pack of Mixed Up Mother Goose, King's Quest II, and Space Quest.  And then of course, junior high came along, and it was all immature giggling at Leisure Suit Larry.

I hope this new Sierra does the name proud.

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And just so I have a picture when I post this to the social networks, here's that awesome Ant-Man poster from the San Diego Comic Con.

Based on all the rumours floating around, it looks like Marvel's Phase III is going to give us:

• Ant-Man
• Captain America 3
• Dr. Strange
• The Inhumans

Son of Batman Review

Well, it's that time again.  DC and Warner Brothers have given us the latest in their series of straight-to-video animated films about some of those great DC characters!  (And by "great DC characters," I mean Batman and/or Superman, because the suits determined those are the only ones that sell well and hence the only animated films we're going to get.)  It arrived on Friday, and watched it over the weekend, so let's crack the shrink wrap and take a look at...

Son of Batman

Directed by Ethan Spaulding

Starring the voices of Jason O'Mara, Stuart Allan, Morena Baccarin, Thomas Gibson, Giancarlo Esposito, Xander Berkeley, David McCallum, and and Sean Maher.

Backstory:  So, a few years ago in the Batman comics, they figured it was time to shake things up and add a new Robin.  The latest to take upon the mantle:  Damien Wayne, the long lost son of Bruce Wayne and Talia, the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul.  Conceived during one of their romantic dalliances, young Damien was being trained from birth to be the world's greatest assassin, and eventually take leadership of Ra's Al Ghul's organization, the League of Assassins.  People weren't sure what to make of Damien at first:  brutal, violent, sadistic, and spoiled from a life of privileged, but under the guidance of his father, he did become a great hero and worthy successor to the role of Robin.  Of course, it was time to bring him to life in animation.  The latest animated offering, Son of Batman, is loosely based on Batman & Son, the storyline that originally introduced Damien. 

Plot:  Deathstroke mounts an assault on the headquarters of the League of Assassins, with the goal of taking leadership of the organization of Ra's Al Ghul.  With Ra's Al Ghul dead and the League of Assassins now at war with Deathstroke's legions, Talia knows there's only one man who can keep young Damien safe while she leads the war against Deathstroke.  It's time for Damien to meet his father:  Batman.  At first, Batman isn't sure what to make of his young son.  Spoiled, vain, arrogant, and thirsty to avenge his grandfather's death.  But, Batman realizes the young man has potential, and they soon launch their own investigation into Deathstroke's plan, which brings Batman back to his old nemesis, Dr. Kirk Langstrom, aka the Man-Bat. What is Deathstroke's ultimate plan?  Can Batman stop his son from heading down a path of vengeance? 

What I Liked:  The most pleasant surprise was Sean Maher (Simon from Firefly) popping up to do the voice of Nightwing.  He's a really good Nightwing, and I like how Nightwing and Damien instantly adopt a sibling rivalry.  There's some good fight scenes.  Jason O'Mara has the great gravelly qualities of Batman's voice perfect.  Oh, and Talia's cleavage. 

What I Didn't Like:  OK, I've seen and/or read the story of Robin's origin story many times now to know that this is pretty by-the-numbers.  Thomas Gibson is woefully miscast as Deathstroke, being unable to bring the qualities of gravelly menace to the voice that the role requires.  I'm sorry, I hear that voice, and he'll always be Greg from Dharma and Greg.  But perhaps the biggest missed opportunity is in the Bruce Wayne/Damien Wayne relationship.  There's no father/son dynamic at play.  There's no struggles on Batman's part as he deals with fatherhood.  It's all, "Oh, yes, here's another fine orphan with qualities to make him a fine Robin."  Couldn't we have had Batman struggle just a little bit with the knowledge that he's FATHERED A CHILD and attempt to be a father? 

Final Verdict:  So formulaic.  Really offered up nothing new, or anything that made Damien such a notable character in the comics.

2 Nibs

Bonus Materials:  Goodies on the Blu-Ray include a featurette on the League of Assassins, a featurette on Damien's brief history in the comics, a featurette on the character design, 4 bonus cartoons from the various Batman animated series, and a sneak peak at the next animated film, Batman:  Assault on Arkham.  Which is going to be based on the best-selling Arkham video games. 

Superman Unbound Review

Well, for the past few weeks, I've been watching every Star Trek movie as part of my own personal preperation for Into Darkness coming out this Friday.  Given it takes me about 5 months for things to move from my notes to this blog, look for my epic 11-part series on every Star Trek movie in Fishing in the Discount Bin some time this fall.   But, now that that's done, I can start working my way through all the other new DVDs I've acquired over the past few weeks, such as Warner Bros. latest straight-to-DVD DC Comics movie...

Superman Unbound

Directed by James Tucker

Starring the voices of Matt Bomer, Stana Katic, John Noble, Molly Quinn, Diedrich Bader, Frances Conroy, Alexander Gould, and Stephen Root.

  

Backstory:  While I generally enjoy these DC films, I am starting to grow weary of them being about nothing but Batman and Superman.  But still, Superman seems to be a little bit tricky for most, and these films seem to be the best way to explore other facets of the Superman mythology, other than just the Batman vs. Lex Luthor or General Zod that we only seem to get at the movies.  So this latest one is based on the storyline Brainiac from a few years ago, which gave us a gritty reboot for Superman's  nemesis Braniac, and re-introduced many beloved aspects of the Superman universe, such as the bottled city of Kandor.  And it's nice when the spotlight is shone on other members of Superman's rogues gallery.  So let's see how this one fares.

Plot:  A mysterious probe falls out of space and lands in Arizona.  Superman goes to investigate and does battle with this alien android.  When he takes the wreckage back to the Fortress of Solitude for analysis, Supergirl is quickly able to identify it as one of the robot drones of Brainiac...a ruthless alien cyborg who travels the universe, collecting information on whole planets, capturing their cities to be archived, and then destroying the planet and moving on.  Supergirl knows all this because she was there when Brainiac came to Krypton and took their capital city of Kandor.  Hearing all this information, Superman heads into deep space to take the battle to Brainiac before he reaches Earth.  It's a journey that will put Superman back in touch with his heritage, Supergirl face-to-face with her demons, and the fate of Metropolis in the balance. 

What I Liked:  Lots of great outer-space action.  A great subplot for Supergirl, as she is truly traumatized at having witness Kandor's destruction and the threat of Brainiac's return.  Great voice acting all around.  Matt Bomer makes a great Superman.  Stana Katic is perhaps the sassiest Lois Lane we've seen so far in these films, and it's a great laugh seeing her give Brainiac the finger.  And it's nice to see that the big screen superhero movie trend of the post-credit sequence has made its way to these animated films.

What I Didn't Like:  Just can't shake the feeling that I've seen this all before.  For example, it seems like Clark Kent and Lois Lane's domestic squabbles are always the subplot in these Superman films, and it's just starting to get so repetitive.

Final Verdict:  Just a solid Superman adventure

3 Nibs

 Bonus Materials:  On this Blu-Ray, we get a running commentary with the director and several DC bigwigs, a featurette on the history of Brainiac, a featurette on the history of Kandor, 4 bonus episodes of Superman: The Animated Series, a digital comic excerpt from the original Brainiac storyline, and a preview of the next straight-to-DVD film, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. 

I'm kind of looking forward to the next one.  As I said, I'm growing tired of the Superman/Batman dynamic, but Flashpoint, despite having Justice League up front, is very much a Flash story, so it's nice to see the Flash taking centre stage.

And hey, DC, since you've come to adding digital comics as a bonus feature, how about making it an actual digital comic, that you download to your digital comic app?  And not just projecting the pages of the comic on your TV?  Just a thought. 

The Power of the Fandom

Just taking a minute to catch up on the various pop-culture tidbits that came across my desk last week.  I was kind of busy enjoying cable TV!  In a new town, got my cable hooked up, and experimenting with my new PVR and such.  Actually, it's kind of neat.  Because I now get my Internet from my cable company, and my cable modem is now part of my entertainment centre, I'm now able to plug my Blu-Ray player straight into the modem.  It's an older model, though, so it doesn't have any apps for streaming video services, and sadly, it looks like most studios are starting to abandon BD-Live.

For those who don't care, BD-Live was one of the big selling points of Blu-Ray when it first hit the market about 6 or 7 years ago.  You plug your Blu-Ray player into the Internet, and then with your BD-Live enabled disc, you're able to download and/or stream new bonus features.  About the only studio that still does BD-Live content is Universal, and they've got the right idea.  So you're not seeing trailers for movies from 5 years ago, what most Universal BD-Live discs do is stream new trailers from the Internet when you fire up your disc.

Nope, the current trend when it comes to Blu-Ray bonus features is second screen apps.  You load the app on your tablet, it syncs to the disc through your wireless home network, and the bonus features stream to your tablet while you watch the movie.  So I guess it's time to get a tablet.

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It looks like Kickstarter is giving new life to short-lived TV series.

Last week, Rob Thomas, creator of the cult classic TV series Veronica Mars, took to Kickstarter, and revealed that he'd made a deal with Warner Brothers...the studio that owns Veronica Mars.  If Thomas could raise $2 million on Kickstarter for a Veronica Mars movie, Warner Brothers would greenlight it.

Thomas got his $2 million in 10 hours...Kickstarter has branded it their most successful campaign ever.

This got some folks thinking, and they asked the creators of some other "brilliant-but-canceled" TV series about using Kickstarter to back a movie version.

Bryan Fuller, creator of two cult-classic TV shows, Wonderdfalls and Pushing Daisies, was asked about using Kickstarter to fund movie versions of his two shows.  Fuller said he'd love to, but because of how visual-effects-intensive Pushing Daisies was, he'd probably need to raise at least $10 million.

And, Joss Whedon was asked about using Kickstarter to resurrect the king of all short-lived cult classic TV series, Firefly.  Whedon said he'd love to, but between him being busy with The Avengers 2 and Nathan Fillion being busy with Castle, it won't happen any time soon.

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The first trailer for Kick-Ass 2 went online last week.

I once asked a friend of mine when we might get our true cinematic version of Watchmen.  When Watchmen came along in the 1980s, it was critically praised for deconstructing the superhero genre.  So my question was when the same might happen for all the superhero movies we've been getting lately.

One that had a good shot was Kick-Ass.  Based on the creator-owned comic by Mark Millar, it was a minor hit in 2010, and attempted a deconstruction as it pondered what superheroes might be like in the real world.  While I did love the film, I felt that, as the end drew near, it did kind of fall back into the typical superhero movie mold.  Director Matthew Vaughn had to make the first one independently, because most studios thought the film had too much objectionable content -- specifically the character of Hit Girl, a 12-year old girl vigilante who gleefully disembowels evildoers and curses like a sailor.  That being said, though, when the first film was a big hit, Universal Studios promptly swooped in and picked up the movie rights for any and all sequels.

Hence, Kick-Ass 2, coming this summer.  Based on Millar's two sequel comics, Kick-Ass 2 and the Hit Girl mini-series.  We find Mindy/Hit Girl is having a tough time in junior high, as the average street punk is no match for the typical junior high mean girl.  Dave has hung up his Kick-Ass mask, and gone back to being a normal teenager.  But, when Chris D'Amico, Red Mist in the first film and the son of the drug dealer who was slain at the end of the first film, swears vengeance, he decides to become the Mother Fucker, the world's first super-villain.  Also, the work of Kick-Ass has inspired a new batch of self-made superheroes, and a super-team known as Justice Forever now patrols the streets.  Before long, Kick-Ass and Hit Girl are lured out of retirement, and join Justice Forever to take down the Mother Fucker!

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is back as Dave/Kick-Ass, Chole Grace Moretz returns as Mindy/Hit Girl, and Christopher "McLovin'" Mintz-Plasse is back as Chris/Mother Fucker.  And joining them this time out is Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars n Stripes, the leader of Justice Forever.

It hits theatres this August.


   

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And just because I'll need a thumbnail when I post this to the various social networks, I have the heavily-hyped Star Trek Into Darkness app on my iPhone, as I count down to the new Star Trek movie this summer.  Here's what the app gifted me with on St. Patrick's Day.

It's Hockey Night Tonight

Well, here I am, all settled in in Westlock.  It's kind of nice to be back at a radio station the broadcasts the Oilers games.  See, whenever a radio station broadcasts a live event, there has to be some poor guy stuck back at the station pushing the buttons, manning the controls, and making sure the event is broadcast live to the world.  That person is the operator.  And at a station that broadcasts Oilers games, I frequently have to operate the Oilers games.  And I don't mind doing it one bit, because it's about the only part of my job where I get paid overtime.  In days gone by, when the Oilers were on in Athabasca, I'd pass the time by writing long, rambling blog entries.  So it looks to be time for that tradition to continue!

While the overtime is nice, such evenings usually result in me spending that overtime pay, because I eventually find myself browsing online shops and buying things I don't need.  Well, I've already started, actually.  Just got the latest e-mail that my latest shipment from Amazon.ca has shipped.  I'm kind of disappointed.  A few years ago, during the postal strike, Amazon.ca switched from Canada Post to Puralator as their courier of choice.  So, when I placed this order a few days ago, here I was making all the necessary preperations for the package to be delivered to a place where I can sign for it and all that.  And now, as I read the fine print on the notice that my order has shipped, I see they've gone back to using Canada Post.

Maybe all this is a sign that I should sign up for Amazon Prime.  It was with some hype back in January that Amazon announced they were finally introducing this program to Amazon.ca.  Essentially, for the flat rate of $79 per year, you get unlimited 2-day shipping.  It's just one of those things where I wonder if I'd get my money's worth for that $79 per year.

Anyway, what did I buy in this particular shipment?  Well, I bought Disney's latest animated epic Wreck-It Ralph.  As I said in my original review when I went to see it in theatres back in November, I was pleasantly surprised with this movie.  I went in expecting Video Game Nostalgia: The Movie, but instead got a very sweet tale about a guy trying to rediscover his spark for what he does.  And I also got the James Bond movie From Russia With Love, still considered by many to be the greatest Bond film ever made.  I don't know if you've noticed, but with the release and hype of Skyfall, James Bond Blu-Rays are dirt cheap right now.

And speaking of browsing online shops, I was starting to fret that I may not have a chance to buy these.  As you know, I collect Star Wars action figures.  And, a few years ago, they created some exclusive Star Wars action figures of the Star Tours characters, and you could only get them at Disneyland.  I had a cousin go to Disneyland, and humbly requested that he bring me back a couple for my collection...and here they are!

Well, a couple years ago, Disney decided it was time to update Star Tours, and along with that came new characters for Star Tours.  And, about a month ago, Disney announced that there's a new batch of Disneyland exclusive Star Tours figures, starting to show up at Disneyland and Walt Disney World gift shops right now.  I was wondering if it would be cheaper to buy them on eBay, or go to Disneyland and buy them in person.  (My mother was all for me going to Disneyland...until I decided to hit up my folks for the money for such a trip.)

But then, I was perusing one of my Star Wars action figure databases, and they revealed that they are now available at the online Disney Store!  I was all eager to see this, but after I went there, and calculated the shipping, and converted it to Canadian money, it came up to $75.  That's the kind of price that always makes me think twice.  When I started this hobby of collecting action figures all those  years ago, I swore I would never spend more than $20 on a figure.  But, you know, this is a 5-pack of figures, and $75 / 5 = $15.  That's within my principles....

But let's take a break from online shopping, shall we?  It's been almost a week, and I haven't sat down to blog about the new Iron Man 3 trailer yet.



They keep assuring us that it's not, but this sequel sure looks darker and grittier than the first two.  After very subtly referencing him in the first two films, we finally get a look at Iron Man's arch-enemy, the Mandarin, as played by Ben Kingsley.  And right now, I'm totally digging that final shot in the trailer of all the different Iron Man armors.  Dude...is that a Hulkbuster?  I swear I saw a Hulkbuster.  All I know is I will be there on opening day,  May 3. 

And it appears that I'm about all rambled out on this Tuesday night.  It's back to the game, and the Oilers are currently leading 2-0.  Go Oil. 

Down Time

I know, between prepping to move to Westlock and the stresses of starting a new job, I really shouldn't be going off on flights of fancy, but I'm fond of quoting my mother:  "Sometimes, you just have to treat yourself."  I'm also fond of quoting Captain Kirk:  "The greater the intelligence, the greater the need for the simplicity of play."

And that's how I'm justifying going into Edmonton yesterday.

I still had some money left on a Christmas gift card, and I had it earmarked for getting Skyfall on Blu-Ray.  The latest James Bond movie, and, in my opinion, the best of the Daniel Craig ones to date.  Had to get that for my collection.

Plus, also, more James Bond movies!  As I've already blogged, I'm not in much of a rush to upgrade my DVDs to Blu-Ray, because I don't have a HDTV yet to fully enjoy them.  But I don't know if you've noticed, but the James Bond Blu-Rays are dirt cheap right now.  So while they are priced so low, I've been upgrading them while I can.  Back in the fall, I got The Spy Who Loved Me, because, damn it, my DVD just won't play any more, and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the lone George Lazenby Bond film, because it was the toughest one for me to find on DVD, so I figured I should snap up the Blu-Ray while I could.  A couple of months ago, I upgraded Tomorrow Never Dies and The Living Daylights, so the last of mine to upgrade was Goldfinger.  And there it was, in HMV's 2 for $20 section.  But, what other one to get for $20?  I decided to go with my second favourite of the Roger Moore Bonds, Moonraker.  So, I guess, rather than just my favourites, I'm now getting my second-favourites as well. 

Well, I haven't upgraded everything yet.  I still have to get Casino Royale on Blu-Ray, but darn it, most places still want full price for that one.  But I see, to tie-in with Skyfall, it's just been released in a nice little 2-pack with Quantum of Solace, so that just might be worth getting.  

but yeah...that was pretty much it.  Not a very eventful city trip.  Got in, got my movies, got out. 

But I did get some work done on the moving-front.  Before I left for the city, raided Athabasca's grocery stores to get more boxes.  And it gave me time to watch some Saturday morning cartoons.  Justice League Unlimited is now on in re-runs, and it's still a great adaptation of the DC Universe.  This one featured a character I wished they explored a little more, Galatea. 

The mytharc of Justice League Unlimited concerned Project Cadmus, a secret government agency tasked with creating super-weapons should the Justice League ever fall to the dark side and this army of superheroes try to take over the world.  Their chief assassin and super-soldier:  Galatea, an evil clone of Supergirl.  Whereas Supergirl is always a teenager of 16 or so, Galatea was artificially aged to her physical prime...age 30, I believe they said in her first appearance.  However, a fluke in cloning process has given her an empathic link with Supergirl, which resulted in the side effect of Galatea being cursed with a conscience. 

This particular episode happens when things with Cadmus and the JLA come to a head, and Galatea is dispatched to lead an assault on the Watchtower...the Justice League's space station headquarters.  Professor Emil Hamilton, the scientist who created her, is doing all that super-soldier monitoring stuff, making sure she's ready for battle, outfitting her with her latest gear...it's all very business like, with Hamilton having an air of detachment about it all.  He's just doing his job.  When the job is done, when Galatea gets up to leave, she pauses at the door for a moment, turns around, and comes back to Hamilton and gives him a great big hug...like how any soldier would say good-bye to their loved ones before going off to war.  She whispers in his ear, "Good-bye, Dad," and then heads off to slay the Justice League.

And the lock of surprise and horror on Hamilton's face, as he realizes that this living weapon he's created has come to regard him as its father, is priceless.  Their relationship  is definitely something worth exploring.  But sadly, that was Galatea's second and final appearance in the show.  Hopefully, the comic writers will pick it up some day. 

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns part 1 Review

Well, as is tradition, whenever I get my hands on a direct-to-DVD animated film, I sit down and review it on the ol' blog when I'm done watching it.  And even though it's been out for almost a month now, I finally got my hands on the latest offering from DC Comics and Warner Brothers....

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1

Directed by Jay Olivia

Starring the voices of Peter Weller, Ariel Winter, David Selby, Michael McKean, Gary Anthony Williams, Wade Williams, and Michael Jackson.

Backstory:  I still think it's folly to attempt to adapt The Dark Knight Returns.  Alongside Watchmen, it's regarded as one of the comics that rejuvenated the comic book medium in the late-1980s.  That, and I really wasn't too impressed with their adaptation of another Frank Miller Batman classic, Year One.  And, based on some of the trailers I saw online, it looked like The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 was going to have some of the same problems.  While everyone was geeking out over the casting of Peter "RoboCop" Weller as the aged Batman, in the trailers and clips online, I was seeing the flat, emotionless line reads that I thought were Year One's biggest problem.  But, it's been out for a few weeks, and a lot of the reviews online were very positive, so I figured I'd still give it a chance.

Plot:  In the not-too-distant future as envisioned in the 1980s.  Bruce Wayne is now in his mid-50s, and has been retired from the mantle of Batman for about 10 years.  Commissioner Gordon is nearing retirement.  Gotham City is once again plagued by crime, as a new, terroristic street gang called the Mutants haunts the shadows.  Harvey Dent, proclaimed cured and released from Arkham Asylym, has mysteriously disappeared and Two Face is again terrorizing the city.  In the wake of all this, Bruce Wayne cannot resist his inner demons any longer, and once again dons the cape and cowl and takes to the streets once again as Batman.  The return of Batman inspires a pre-teen runaway to take up the mantle of Robin.  And soon, the fates of all intertwine as they set out to take down the Mutants and their vicious leader once and for all. 

What I Liked:  The good thing about splitting the graphic novel into two parts for film is they can be very faithful.  There's whole scenes that are the comic book panels verbatim, and that did my geek heart good.  The score is very good.  Linking back to its 1980s origins, it's very synthesizer-based and matches the material very nicely.  And it was great to hear so many recognizable voice actors filling out the supporting roles.  But....

What I Didn't Like:  Yeah, kind of what I feared from Year One, a lot of the celebrity voices where kind of flat and emotionless.  And I really did miss Batman's inner monologues from the books...surely they could have worked that in as a narration or something.

Final Assessment:  It was good, but bring on Part II, which is where the real meat of the story is!

3 Nibs

Bonus Material:  Bonus features on the Blu-Ray include a couple of bonus episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, a featurette on Carrie Kelly and how a female Robin shook things up, a featurette on Batman's creator Bob Kane, and a preview of the next DC/Warner Brothers animated film, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part II.

And speaking of The Dark Knight Returns Part II, at the recent New York Comic Con, DC announced what their three films for 2013 are going to be.

Spring:  The Dark Knight Returns Part II

Summer:  Superman Unbound, based on the Braniac storyarc from a few years ago that gave us a gritty reboot for Brainiac

Fall:  Justice League:  Flashpoint, based on the Flashpoint event that kicked off the whole New 52 reboot.

Sunday Afternoon Odds and Ends

As I blogged a few days ago, I got my complete, uncut version of the Star Trek: The Motion Picture soundtrack.  However, I just finished listening to disc 2.  Disc 2 is the digitally-remastered version of a little piece of Star Trek kitsch called Inside Star Trek.  This album was originally released in 1976.  It consists of recordings of Gene Roddenberry's sci-fi convention appearances in the mid-1970s, along with Roddenberry's thoughts and musings on making Star Trek.  Roddenberry also interviews Issac Asimov about sci-fi, William Shatner about playing Captain Kirk, DeForrest Kelly about playing Dr. McCoy, and a very awkward piece where Roddenberry interviews Mark Lenard, in character as Sarek, Spock's father, about Spock.

The fact that Leonard Nimoy wasn't interviewed about Spock shines a very interesting light on Star Trek lore.  I love hearing Leonard Nimoy's stories about Gene Roddenberry.  Nimoy's stories tend to take the piss out of everything.  See, most everyone associated with Star Trek will tell you about Gene Roddenberry:  the visionary science-fiction author with an optimistic view of humanity.  Nimoy, however, tends to tell stories about Gene Roddenberry:  the Hollywood producer who only had one big hit and set out to milk it for all it was worth.  Everything I've ever read about Star Trek says there was a lot of friction between Nimoy and Roddenberry, especially when it became the cult item it did throughout the 1970s.  Some say it came down to money...others say it came down to Nimoy simply wanting recognition for what he brought to the character of Spock.

My favourite story, though, about Roddenberry, the producer in it for the money, doesn't involve Nimoy.  It involves Alexander Courage, who wrote the classic Star Trek theme we all knew and love.  Well, what Roddenberry did, was he went behind Courage's back, and he wrote lyrics to the Star Trek theme.  That way, Roddenberry could claim 50% writer's credit on the Star Trek theme, and forever be entitled to the royalties.  Courage confronted Roddenberry about this, and Roddenberry reportedly said, "Oh, come on.  Let me have this, cuz I sure as hell ain't gonna make any money off this show."

But the tales of Roddenberry only being in it for the money...well, they humanize Roddenberry to me.  As I've learned in my short life, everybody has a different story about certain things.  Some folks will tell you that a certain person is the nicest person in the world...others will say that person is the devil incarnate.  Some folks will say that a certain vacation destination is the greatest place in the world...some will say it's a hellhole.

Some where, in between those two extremes, lies the truth.

---

The Baily Theatre is an icon of the City of Camrose.  It has stood for...I don't know how long.  My father tells me tales of my grandparents going to movies at the Baily when they were dating.  When I was going to college, it was the only movie theatre in Camrose at the time, so it's where I spent many an evening catching a movie instead of studying.

I was enraptured with the Baily as a movie theatre because it was the first movie theatre I'd ever been to in my life that had a balcony.  I was starting to think that balconies in movie theatres were a thing of the past, something that I would never see, but here was one.  Whenever me and my friends would go see a movie, I'd implore them that we sit up in the balcony, but most times, I'd be out-voted.

The Baily's days came to a close during my time at Augustana.  It was Christmas of 1997 when Camrose got its nice, shiny new 5-screen cineplex.  I dabbled a little bit in writing for the school paper, and my best friend was the editor of the paper, so shortly after the new cineplex opened, we did a news story on the new cineplex and what it might mean for the Baily.  As my best friend and I chatted, we knew that this probably meant the end for the Baily.  I still remember the last movie I saw in the Baily...spring of 1998.  On the last day of classes, me and my best friend went to see Lost in Space.  I came back in the fall of '98 to begin my final year, and the Baily was closed.

 But the Baily has been undergoing a transformation over the past few years.  New owners have acquired it, and they've been working to restore the Baily to its 1940s, art deco appearance.  They've turned it back into the multipurpose theatre it originally was, capable of all manner of live entertainment and movies.  I discovered this a few months ago, when an old college friend that I follow on Twitter tweeted that he was off the the Baily to see the legendary classic Citizen Kane.  I tweeted back, "If they ever do the original King Kong, I'm there."

I just found out they're showing the original King Kong TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!  Gosh darn it, I'm going to miss it.

I finally found the Baily's website and I see that, a couple of weeks ago, I missed the Beatles classic A Hard Day's Night.  Aw, man, that's another one I'd love to see on the big screen!

I've now got the Baily's website bookmarked.  I'll be keeping an eye on it...a road trip might be in my future.

Here's the Baily's website.

Be a fan on Facebook.

Follow them on Twitter.

I keep thinking that if I ever win the lottery, I might buy an old movie theatre and turn it into a revival house.  For those who don't know the lingo, a "revival house" is a movie theatre that specializes in showing older and classic movies.  There are many older films that I would love to see on the big screen.  Say what you will about home theatres and such today, but I still think there's something about the theatrical experience that can't be replicated at home.  And I'm not talking about 3D and vibrating seats.

"When you go see a movie, you're sitting in the dark for two hours with a bunch of strangers."  I had a co-worker who used that phrase to describe movies as being a lesser form of entertainment.  I read an interview with a director in which he used that phrase to describe movies as being a magical experience.  I'll let you decide what it describes.  

---

2012 is going to be a good year for Spielberg fans, as many of his classic films are coming to Blu-Ray this year.  It's been previously announced that the entire Indiana Jones films are coming to Blu-Ray this fall.  As part of their 100th anniversary celebrations, Universal announced a few months back that Jaws is finally hitting Blu-Ray this August.  And it was announced a week or two ago that E.T. will be hitting Blu-Ray this October. 

Of course, the first question everyone had was, "Will E.T. be the original theatrical version or the 2002 special edition?"  Well, we can rest assured that it will be the original theatrical edition.  It's kind of weird...in many interviews, Spielberg seems almost embarrassed that he made the special edition of E.T.  When asked about which version of the film is his "definitive" version of E.T., he's always quick to say the original theatrical version.  I do kind of hope the Blu-Ray includes the 2002 special edition...for historical completeness and all. 

I might wind up picking up Jaws, too, when it comes out.  I don't think I've ever seen Jaws from beginning to end...I always come in in the middle when its on basic cable.  But I do understand its historical significance.  It really was the first summer blockbuster.  The production model, the distribution model, every big event picture that we have today took its model from Jaws. 

It's also notable in that the Jaws Blu-Ray is also going to include the documentary The Shark is Still Working.  This documentary has become a legend in its own right.  A documentary about the making of Jaws, made and funded by die-hard fans, and they managed to interview absolutely everyone who was even remotely connected to the making of Jaws.  They say it's one of the most comprehensive documentaries about a film ever made. 

That's one thing I don't understand about Jaws.  It has a massive fandom.  It doesn't seem like the kind of movie that would have a fandom.  It doesn't have spaceships, it doesn't have dragons, it doesn't have the massive, developed internal universe that films with massive fandoms typically have.  But, there it is.  

And then there's Indy...not so sure yet about picking up the Indiana Jones Blu-Rays.  As I've blogged before, I'm not in a big rush to upgrade a lot of my favourite movies to Blu-Ray because I don't have the HDTV yet to fully enjoy them in hi-def.  But if you want to kick a few bucks my way to help my fund, I won't say no. 

Simples Rewards

Not too long ago, I was blogging about those great mail-away offers from my youth.  I'm talking about the things like flag points on the back of G.I. Joe toys, where you'd collect the points, send them off with a cheque for $3.99 shipping and handling, and you get an exclusive action figure.  In that blog entry, I was lamenting that there doesn't seem to be anything similar these days for grown-ups.  But then, I kind of realized that there is something similar out there, in the form of all those corporate rewards programs. 

If you listen to my podcast, then you'll know that in the past few episodes, I've been fondly reminiscing about the near-forgotten early-80s Disney superhero film Condorman.  It all came about because Condorman made a very surprising cameo in the Pixar short film Small Fry.  As my mind goes back to this classic from my childhood, we eventually come to a conundrum.  I want to get it on DVD.

Turns out that's quite a problem.  Back in the late-1990s, when DVD was new and exciting, Disney actually farmed out some of their late-70s/early-80s films to a DVD company called Anchor Bay.  However, when it turned out that DVD was going to become a thing and became the fastest-growing home media format ever, Disney reclaimed a lot of their titles.  So, the Anchor Bay edition of Condorman has been out-of-print for around 10 years and goes for big money on eBay.  I'd like to see the film, but I don't want to pay big money.  So, I started googling to find my other options.

In my search, I discovered that Disney has a movie club, much like Columbia House of old.  You can buy all kinds of Disney DVDs direct from the company.  Now, what really sweetened the pot was that the Disney Movie Club has a whole bunch of exclusives...DVDs that they only sell through their movie club.  Perusing their movie club exclusives, I found several titles where I was amazed that they would limit their distribution like this.  I found films like:

• DuckTales: The Movie -- Treasure of the Lost Lamp
• Their Emmy-winning remake of Pollyanna starring that little girl from the Cosby Show
• The Castaway Cowboy, which for some reason I saw on video a lot when I was a kid

And...Condorman

Now, as tempting as it was to sign up for the Disney Movie Club, get my 6 DVDs for 99¢ and finally have Condorman, the truth was I went through a Columbia House phase in my teens and I'm wary to go back.  I still remember how their whole "negative billing" thing works, and before you know it, I forget to send back the little card, and now I'm stuck with several dozen Good Luck Charlie DVDs.  So Disney Movie Club is out.

As I continued my online search, I eventually found that Disney has a rewards program in place, Disney Movie Rewards.  I had been familiar with this for a while.  Every Disney DVD and Blu-Ray comes with a code.  You punch in the code at the website, you get points, and you then redeem the points for merch.  Fairly basic rewards program.  So I started taking a look at all the various knick-knacks you can redeem your points for.  They've have the usual stuff, and they have DVDs...and they have a few Disney Movie Club exclusive DVDs available.

Including Condorman.  Bing!

I could get Condorman for free!  So, I grabbed all my Disney DVDs off the shelves, started punching in all that Disney Movie Rewards codes I could find, and lo and behold, I had enough for Condorman.  So my order has been placed and Condorman should be arriving in 6 to 8 weeks.

And there you have it.  Turns out all those great mail-away exclusives of my childhood still exist, they've just grown up and gotten themselves a fancy name like a rewards program.  I can still redeem my flag points and get my exclusives, just like I did when I was 8.  I don't have to grow up at all!

But maybe a little growing up wouldn't hurt.  I also learned from this that I probably have more Disney DVDs than a single guy approaching middle age should probably have.   

The Next Next Generation

Yesterday marked the official 24th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and to commemerate, Paramount made a big announcement.

TNG is coming to Blu-Ray!





Actually, reading about the show coming to Blu-Ray, I'm learning quite a few things about the show.  Apparently, re-mastering TNG into high-definition has turned out to be quite a time-consuming process, because TNG was filmed in a very unique way, and highly experimental for its time.

TNG was shot on film, and then all the footage was transferred to videotape.  And then, all of the editing and adding in of special effects and pretty much all the post-production work was done on video.  So all of the old masters for all the TNG episodes are on videotape.

The problem with that is videotape doesn't transfer to high-definition very well.  However, Paramount still has all of the original footage on film kicking around in their archives.  And film transfers to hi-def very well. 

So, to get TNG in high-definition, what Paramount is doing is transferring all of the original film footage to high-definition, and then re-editing each and every episode to match as closely with the original episodes as possible.  They're even "re-compositing" the special effects where they need to.  And the whole process is being supervised by Michael and Denise Okuda who, after penning The Star Trek Encyclopedia all those years ago, have kind of become the official Star Trek archivists.

Our first sampling of Star Trek: The Next Generation in high-definition is a special compilation Blu-Ray called The Next Level: A Taste of TNG in High Definition.  This compilation will include the classic episodes Encounter at Farpoint, Sins of the Father, and The Inner Light.  Fanboys are already complaining about these selections.  (Me, personally?  I would have dumped Farpoint and put on Best of Both Worlds.) It drops on January 31, 2012.

And then, they're going to start rolling out complete season sets in September 2012, just in time for TNG's 25th anniversary.

Holy moly, TNG is almost 25.  When did I get so old? 

Reflections on ReBoot

I've been watching an awful lot of ReBoot lately.  Shout! Factory, the folks who did those impressive complete series boxed sets of The Transformers  and G.I. Joe, gave the same treatment to ReBoot this year.  Seasons 1 & 2 came out back in the spring, and Seasons 3 & 4 came out just a month ago, and you can get the whole thing together in a big boxed set called The Definitive Mainframe Collection.  I bought the two separate sets because they were good and cheap.

For those who don`t remember, ReBoot was the world's first computer animated half-hour television program.  And it's Canadian, too, made by Vancouver-based Mainframe Entertainment!  It premiered in the fall of 1994 -- beating Toy Story by one year -- on YTV in Canada and on ABC in the USA.  The show was created by Mainframe's founders, Gavin Blair and Ian Pearson.  Blair and Pearson were already widely known in animation circles for doing the computer animation in the legendary Dire Straights video Money for Nothing.

The series was set inside a computer system known as Mainframe.  It followed the adventures of Bob (a Guardian...aka anti-virus software) who sought to defend Mainframe from the evil computer viruses Megabyte (who sought to conquer all of Mainframe) and Hexadecimal (who was just psychotic and near-omnipotent).  Bob was assisted in his mission by Dot, who I think was Mainframe's OS, which made a business mogul who pretty much owned all of Mainframe, and her kid brother Enzo, who idolized Bob and hoped to grow up to be a Guardian like Bob someday.

Batman: Year One DVD Details

As I've blogged before, I'm enjoying the DC Comics/Warner Brothers direct-to-DVD animated films, but I'm starting to grow frustrated with them.  Apparently, Warner Brothers has decreed that they will only make movies about Batman and Superman, as those are the two characters whose DVDs have sold the most.  That sucks, because this would be a fantastic showcase for some of the better-known B-list, bordering on A-list heroes, like The Flash and Captain Marvel.  But no, we just keep getting more and more Batman and Superman.

Hence their next one, Batman: Year One, coming out on October 18.  It's based on Frank Miller's legendary re-telling of Batman's origin.  Again, this choice deeply frustrates me, mainly because a lot of the good elements of Batman: Year One wound up in Batman Begins, so the whole thing is going to be deja vu all over again.









For the celebrity voices, former star of The O.C. Ben McKenzie does the voice of young Batman/Bruce Wayne; Bryan Cranston, who played the witless dad on Malcolm in the Middle and is currently winning awards for his portrayal of a desperate high school chem teacher/meth manufacturer in Breaking Bad, does the voice of young Commisoner Gordon; Eliza Dushku, still best remembered as Faith on Buffy, will be voicing young Catwoman; Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar: Galactica voices Det. Sarah Essen; and veteran character actor Alex Rocco voices crime lord Carmine "The Roman" Falcone.

They announced the bonus features for this one, and as they always do, it's loaded to bear.  On the DVD, you'll find the bonus features:

• The featurette Heart of Vengeance: Returning Batman to His Roots, which analyzes the original comic mini-series and Frank Miller's take on Batman.
• The featurette Conversations with DC Comics, in which many of the current writers and artists on the Batman comics talk about Year One and Frank Miller's influence. 
• Running commentary with producer Alan Burnett, co-director Sam Liu, voice director Andrea Romano, and Mike Carlin, whose role on the crew I'm not sure of.  
• Batman: Year One; Issue 1 in digital comic form
• A preview of the next direct-to-video animated film, Justice League:  Doom, which is apparently based on the Tower of Babel storyline.  
• Two bonus episodes of Batman: The Animated Series

However, the crown jewel of bonus features is that they've decided to resurrect their DC Showcase series of animated short films, in which a well-known DC Comics B-list hero gets their own solo short film.  The DC Showcase film on this one?  Catwoman.  Eliza Dushku will be voicing Catwoman in this short as well, and it was written by legendary Batman: The Animated Series writer Paul Dini.

So, yeah.  Like a sucker, I'll buy this.  For Catwoman.

Stuff for Tuesday!

So, there's a few things that crossed my mind yesterday that I felt I should, nay, needed to share with the world.

First up, you may remember, back on Thursday, I was geeking out about the all the new information released on Pixar's epic for 2012, Brave.  Well, as expected, when Cars 2 hit theatres on Friday, the first teaser was in front.  And here it is!







As previously mentioned, it hits theatres next June.

Next up, there was a Blu-Ray announcement yesterday that had me geeking out.  Coming out on October 25, just in time for Christmas, for the first time on Blu-Ray, The Jurassic Park Trilogy.

The big boxed set contains all three films (Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Jurassic Park III).  You get ALL of the bonus features from the previous DVDs, and brand new to this set is the all new, 6-part documentary Return to Jurassic Park, which features brand new interviews with the cast and crew, including director Steven Spielberg.  The Blu-Ray set will be available in two versions:  regular, and "box full of swag," which has a little statue of the T-Rex bursting through those legendary "Jurassic Park" front gates.

The only film I have of the trilogy on DVD is Jurassic Park, and I've been thinking about succumbing to the double-dip for quite some time.  When the DVD was first released, it was released in two versions:  the regular Dolby Sound edition, and the DTS edition.  On the DTS edition, in order to make room for the DTS soundtrack, they wound up removing pretty much all of the bonus features.  And then, they discovered an error in the DTS soundtrack, and issued a recall on the disc.

I have the DTS edition, and I didn't notice I had the pre-recall version until it was too late to get my free replacement.

So, yeah.  I think this is one worth the upgrade to Blu.

Man o man, The Lord of the Rings: Extended Editions hit Blu-Ray today, The Superman Anthology came out a month ago, The Star Wars Saga comes out this September, and now this...2011 is turning into one damn expensive year.

And speaking of Star Wars, I caught a little bit of The Phantom Menace on TV last night.  And it got me to thinking about the upcoming Blu-Ray...I wonder if the Blu-Ray will have the "digital Yoda" version of The Phantom Menace?

For those who don't care, when Lucas was making The Phantom Menace, he felt that the computer animation technology wasn't quite there yet to do a fully computer animated Yoda, so most of Yoda's scenes were done the old fashioned way:  with a puppet.  Yeah, they attempted a computer animated Yoda in some long shots, but it's pretty much all puppet Yoda in The Phantom Menace.

When production started on Attack of the Clones, making Yoda completely computer animated was a top priority.  To test out their new animation software, and to get the animators all warmed up for animating Yoda, the computer animators went back into The Phantom Menace, digitally removed puppet Yoda, and replaced it with a completely computer animated digital Yoda.

Obviously, the "digital Yoda" version of The Phantom Menace is George Lucas's preferred version, as whenever someone wants a clip of The Phantom Menace for some Star Wars retrospective, Lucas sends them a clip featuring digital Yoda.  But the entire digital Yoda version of The Phantom Menace has yet to be released.

I exchanged a few text messages with some of the more hardcore Star Wars fans I know, and it's pretty much agreed that when The Phantom Menace hits Blu-Ray, it will most likely be the digital Yoda version.

It makes me wonder what other new "Special Edition" tweaks Lucas will be making for the Blu-Rays....

Ghosts of Saturday Mornings Past

So, I'm spending another evening torturing myself by browsing through the Warner Archive Collection.  I think I've blogged about this in the past...it's a really neat concept.  Warner Brothers went through their archives and found a bunch of their classic films.  While they know there's a market to release these films on DVD, they know it's an incredibly small market, and really not worth it to produce the DVDs in mass quantities.  So, what they did was they converted these movies to digital files, and they make the DVDs to order.  That's right, they burn them on demand!

Granted, these DVDs have no bonus features, and they've done little to nothing in the way of digital restoration...just burned them to DVD straight from the highest quality source they could find.  But that's OK.  These are for cinephiles who wants these just because they never thought they'd see the light of DVD.

I have only one problem with the Warner Archive Collection:  THEY DON'T SHIP TO CANADA.  There's a few titles in there I'd love to get, but when it asks me for my address, it says, "Cannot ship to your location."  There's warnings all over that they only ship in the USA.  It's a very frustrating case of "look, but don't touch."  

And now, they're starting to dig through their animation archives, and starting to dig up some classic Hanna Barbera Saturday morning cartoons.

Man o man, this one was announced a few months ago, and I'd sure love to get it.  The definition of cheesy cartoon crossovers, The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones.  Thanks to Elroy Jetson's time machine gone awry, the Jetsons find themselves thrown back to prehistoric times, where they meet the Flintstones.  The Flintstones help the Jetsons adjust to the days of the caveman, and then the Flintstones are flung into the far future, where they quickly become the new mascots for Spacely's Sprockets.





It was made in the late-80s as part of this huge series of TV movies that Hanna-Barbera made, starring a bunch of their classic cartoon characters.  CBC showed them on Saturday mornings when I was a kid.  I'd watch them occasionally, as they nicely filled the void between CFRN's early morning of Masters of the Universe and The Smurfs, and ITV's afternoon of The Transformers, G.I. Joe, MASK, Visionaries, Jem, and everything else that made the 80s FREAKING AWESOME.  But yeah.  Among those movies, The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones is truly the best and most famous.

And then I start browsing some more, and I see they released The Dukes: The Complete Series.  Holy crap, they released The Dukes on DVD, better known as The Dukes of Hazzard cartoon.

At the height of The Dukes of Hazzard popularity in the early-80s, it actually spawned a Saturday morning animated spin-off known simply as The Dukes.  In grand Saturday morning cartoon style, Boss Hogg decides to end his long-standing feud with the Dukes once and for all by challenging the Dukes to a race around the world.  So Bo, Luke, and Daisy (and Coy and Vance in the early episodes, as this was made during the Coy and Vance era) hop in the General Lee and head off for Paris, London, Tokyo, and other exotic locales, with Boss Hogg and Roscoe in hot pursuit, cheating along the way to win the race.





I didn't get this cartoon on TV when I was a kid, but my grandparents did.  I have very fuzzy memories of watching it one Saturday morning when visiting my grandparents.  And I remember thinking it was incredibly cool.  I would get this purely on that fuzzy memory.

So, yeah.  Some of the things I'd be disposing my disposable income on if the Warner Archives shipped to Canada.  Those two...and Steel.  Come on!  Everyone should see the classic Shaq superhero epic!  Just to see what a train wreck it is.  

Movie Review -- Green Lantern: Emerald Knights

So, DC Comics and Warner Brothers Animation has unleashed the latest in their series of direct-to-video animated films upon the world.  And, as is my way, I ran out and bought it and am spending the weekend watching it.  It's time to take a look at....

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights

Directed by Chris Berkeley, Lauren Montgomery, and Jay Olivia

Starring the voices of Nathan Fillion, Jason Isaacs, Elisabeth Moss, Kelly Hu, Arnold Vosloo, Henry Rollins, and Roddy Piper.  

Backstory:  So, Warner Brothers made the decision that, since only the Batman and Superman animated films sold huge numbers, they'd only make movies about Batman and Superman.  But hey!  There's a Green Lantern movie hitting theatres in another week!  So, they got the go ahead to make a Green Lantern animated film as part of the merchandise tie-in.  They decided to go the route of the similarly titled Batman: Gotham Knight and tell a series of short stories focusing on the wide array of heroes that populate the Green Lantern Corp.  Is this little more than another piece of merchandise, or does it rise above and become it's own film?

Plot:  The villain Krona is preparing to launch an onslaught on the Green Lantern's home planet of Oa.  The rookie Green Lantern Arisia is nervous on the eve of her first battle, so Hal Jordan calms her nerves and inspires her with tales of some of the other Green Lanterns.  The tales are:

• The First Lantern - The saga of Avra, a lowly scribe chosen to be the first Green Lantern, and how he unlocked the true power of the power rings.
• Killowog - The tale of the Green Lantern's drill sergeant Killowog, and how he became the hard-ass DI he's known for.
• Laira - The warrior Lantern Laira, and her first solo mission, where she's sent to reign in an evil despot who's conquered her own planet.  And the despot turns out to be...her father.
• Mogo Doesn't Socialize - Based on the classic Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons tale, the warrior Bolphunga the Unrelenting goes off to battle Mogo, the greatest Green Lantern of them all.  But when Bolphunga does find Mogo, it's a bit more than he bargained for.  
• Abin Sur - One of the adventures of Abin Sur, the Lantern before Hal Jordan, as he engages in philosophical debates with Sinestro and learns the ultimate fate of the Green Lantern Corp.  

The final tale, Emerald Knights, catches up with Arisia, as she enters the battle against Krona.  Will she be able to defeat this enemy and write her own chapter in Green Lantern history?

What I Liked:  There's some great outer space action set pieces in this.  As with most of the DC/WB productions, the voice acting is top-notch.  Bolphunga is voiced by wrestling legend Roddy Piper, and the challenges he issues are pure wrestling bluster.  It was great. 

What I Didn't Like:  Well, they used all the same character designs as the other Green Lantern film, First Flight, so I don't know why they just didn't go all the way and make this an official sequel, but they didn't so there ya go. 

Final Verdict:  It's tough to put my finger on.  I wanted to like this one more, but I'm just kind of walking from it going, "Meh."  It doesn't feel like they put a lot of effort into this one.

2.5 Nibs

Bonus Features:  On the Blu-Ray, you get an interview with comic book writer Geoff Johns about how awesome Green Lantern is, a featurette on the history of the Green Lantern Corp, a running commentary with Johns and DC's editor Dan DiDio, a virtual comic, two character profiles on Abin Sur and Laira, 2 Green Lantern-centric episodes of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and a preview of the next animated film, Batman: Year One. 

Star Wars Blu-Ray Specs!

Well, today is Star Wars Day.  For those who aren't in the loop, May 4th is Star Wars Day because Star Wars fans the world over will be tweeting "May the Fourth be with you." 

I don't know, dude.  When it comes to being a Star Wars fan, I'm just burnt out.  I really can't care any more.  I blame the Clone Wars movie.  God, that movie was so bad....  I've been told the series has gotten a lot better, but the movie sucked so much, I've never bothered to tune in. 

That being said, though, I did pre-order my set of set of Star Wars Blu-Rays as soon as Lucasfilm announced it back in January.  The specs --  the listing of all the bonus features -- wasn't announced at the time, saying that they would be announced at a later date.  Well, Lucasfilm chose Star Wars Day to be that later date.  Here's what you're going to get on the 9-disc "Infinite Saga" set of the Star Wars films. 

Disc 1: The Phantom Menace - The original running commentary from the DVD, and a new running commentary made of archival interviews with the cast and crew.

Disc 2: Attack of the Clones - The original running commentary from the DVD, and a new running commentary made of archival interviews with the cast and crew.

Disc 3: Revenge of the Sith - The original running commentary from the DVD, and a new running commentary made of archival interviews with the cast and crew.

Disc 4: A New Hope - The original running commentary from the DVD, and a new running commentary made of archival interviews with the cast and crew.

Disc 5: The Empire Strikes Back - The original running commentary from the DVD, and a new running commentary made of archival interviews with the cast and crew.

Disc 6: Return of the Jedi - The original running commentary from the DVD, and a new running commentary made of archival interviews with the cast and crew.

Disc 7: Star Wars Archives: Episodes I - III -- Deleted scenes, concept art, interviews with the cast and crew, featurettes on the making of the prequels...everything to do with the prequels is on this disc.

Disc 8: Star Wars Archives: Episodes IV - VI -- Same thing as Disc 7, only all pertaining to the original trilogy.

Disc 9: Star Wars Documentaries: A collection of documentaries about the saga, including new ones made for the Blu-Ray, and old ones getting re-released for the first time. The documentaries include:

• Star Warriors - This 90 minute documentary chronicles the 501st Legion Star Wars fanclub/service organization
• A Conversation With the Masters: The Empire Strikes Back 30 Years Later - This half-hour is a round table discussion with George Lucas, ESB co-writer Lawrence Kasdan, ESB director Irvin Kirshner, and composer John Williams, as they reminisce about ESB. Filmed last year, before Kirshner's death.
• Star Wars Spoofs - A 90 minute compilation of all the Star Wars spoofs out there, including clips from the Simpsons, Family Guy, and yes, even Weird Al's complete music video for The Saga Begins.
• The Making of Star Wars - The original TV special from 1977
• Empire Strikes Back: SPFX - The original "making of" TV special from 1980
• Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi - The original "making of" TV special from 1983
• Anatomy of a Dewback - A chronicle of the making of the new effects for the Special Editions. Originally released on StarWars.com when the Special Editions hit theatres.
• Star Wars Tech - A special from 2007, analyzing the technology of the films and how close it is to reality.

When the Blu-Rays were originally announced back in January, we were given the vague release date of "September 2011."  Well, we now have a specific release date:  September 16.  It'll be released in three different boxed sets:  the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, and the "Infinite Saga," which is the nine-disc monstrosity outlined above.

Oh, and the original theatrical editions are NOT on the discs, so, make the usual protests. 

Life's Little Disappointments

So, for a Friday night movie, I thought I'd fire up The Spy Who Loved Me...generally regarded to be Roger Moore's finest hour as James Bond.

But my DVD wouldn't play in my player.  Any of my players.  I'd never run into this problem before, and couldn't figure out why.  The only thing I could think of was that old problem known as disc rot.

So it seems I'm in need of a new The Spy Who Loved Me DVD...and, wouldn't you know it, it's currently out of print.  Looks like I've got to wait for the new James Bond movie to be released before it gets reissued.

So I find myself online, catching up on movie trailers.  And sadly, I find myself coming face-to-face with several of my expected disappointments for 2011.

First up, as you know, I'm a huge Pixar fanboy, and always look forward to their latest films.  However, I'm just sighing and shrugging my shoulders at the latest trailer for Pixar's offering in 2011, Cars 2.

It's been widely reported why Cars -- generally considered Pixar's lesser effort -- is getting a sequel.  It's because, in terms of merchandise sales, it's Pixar's #1 film.  And while a Pixar trailer generally leaves me tingling in anticipation...there's just nothing here giving me a tingle.








Another movie that I've been mildly looking forward to, is the live-action movie version of The Smurfs.  When I was a kid, The Smurfs was what always kicked off Saturday morning.  And I still maintain that, if a Smurfs movie were completely animated and they stuck to its medieval setting, it would be a pretty good adventures film.

But it's a live-action affair, with the Smurfs being thrust into the real world.  It looks to be on the same level of the live-action Alvin and the Chipmunk movies.  I still think that Hank Azaria as Gargamel is inspired casting, though.







Apparently that Scottish smurf is Hefty.  Why did they make Hefty Scottish?  That seems like such a random choice to make.

So, yeah.  Nothing but disappointment on this here Friday night.