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Thanks to ComingSoon.net, glorious news has reached my ears that the newest Planet of the Apes movie, entitled Rise of the Apes, will be released even sooner than realized. Instead of the Thanksgiving release that was last announced, the rampaging apes will be flooding the screens this summer on August 5th.
Why such glorious news you might ask? Well, if you’re a classic Planet of the Apes film fan (Remember the ones with Roddy McDowall?) then you’ll feel as cheated and disgusted as I was with Tim Burton’s horrendous reboot of the beloved franchise. It had a great cast, costumes, sets, and budget to match, yet failed in its execution. Especially the ending with our friend Ape Lincoln. I would almost compare the cast of Planet of the Apes to that of the Phantom Menace, both movies had everything necessary to not suck and they inevitably did.
Rise of the Apes is a new origin story, chronicling how the primates war against the humans came into being, the result of genetic experimentation. Even though there has not been a trailer yet, I think it’s safe to assume that James Franco will be able to hold his own as the scientist performing genetic experiments in the movie, and we all know that Andy Serkis can handle playing a primate after King Kong.
The movie will also feature veteran actor Brian Cox and relative newcomer Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire). Also, still relatively fresh off of the 4th season of Dexter, the Trinity Killer himself – John Lithgow.
More on Rise of the Apes as it develops. UPDATE!!! – TRAILER RELEASED – CLICK THE LINK!
VIDEO GAME
We got all sorts of stuff here. Let’s start with the game. The other day I did a write up on the upcoming Arkham City game. In said article I mentioned how the Riddler’s clues were now gonna be more…involved. Well it seems like the man himself will be more involved as well. Unlike the first game it seem like Riddler will actually appear in this one, not just his voice.
Rocksteady Marketing Game Manager Dax Ginn: The Riddler experience is not part of the main story, but you can see how much work we put into it. It seems to do them a disservice to call them ‘side missions,’ because we take them really, really seriously.
Continue reading Gratuitous Batman Updates: Arkham City, Dark Knight Rises, & the Comics…
The other night I saw the new Simon Pegg movie Paul. Wasn’t sure what to expect from this one, but Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (both Simon Pegg movies) were both good enough to make me give this a chance. Not that I normally need such a track record to see a Sci-Fi movie…
This is the story of a little green man, and his escape from our Government. All he want’s to do is go home, you know, like another little spaceman we met in the 1980’s. During his escape he happens upon a couple of sci-fi geeks from England whom he convinces to give him a lift, and obviously ends up bonding with.
The premise is simple, it’s basically a ‘road trip’ movie for the Science Fiction genre, and that’s a movie with a very specific target audience. But one that has the potential to appeal to a much broader set. Sure, it geeks it up. It was full of references to comic books and other movies, but for the most part, they are references everyone will get. You’ve seen E.T. right?
The thing that really surprised me though, was for a comedy, how good the visuals really were. The character of Paul himself was excellent. Like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, but more natural looking, more fluid. I suppose they’ve improved on the technology since 2003, but I was honestly impressed, and special effects are not so easy to impress me with anymore. I think it comes back to expectations, when you see a Battle LA or something like Tron: Legacy, you know the effects are going to be great, so the only way they can ‘wow’ you, is in a bad way. If you notice them because they suck. But for a comedy? These far exceeded expectations, to the point you almost forget Paul isn’t really there with the actors, but instead its Joe Lo Truglio on his knees, covered in motion capture sensors.
Speaking of the cast, it was outstanding. In addition to my main motivations for wanting to see this: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the movie also features multiple alum from Arrested Development – Jeffery Tambor plays ‘Adam Shadowchild’, a famous Sci-Fi writer, and Jason Bateman is the lead G-Man that’s chasing our protagonists.
Then borrowed from the current SNL cast, we get Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader. Wiig plays the one-eyed love interest for Pegg, and Hader, along with the aforementioned Joe Lo Truglio, play Bateman’s underlings. Then, the behind the scenes antagonist, whose voice should be immediately identifiable to Sci-Fi fans, is played by Ellen Ripley herself – Sigourney Weaver.
Now I’ve already mentioned that Joe Lo Turglio actually played Paul, this is because the heavily advertised star handling Paul’s voice – Seth Rogen, was busy filming The Green Hornet. He later added the voice work. Now, I’ve talked to a few people lately that said they were just burnt out on Seth Rogen, and for that reason they didn’t really want to see this, but I have to tell you, I thought he did an excellent job. The voice, for me at least, came off a natural and I really enjoyed it.
The movie, ended up actually being more touching and heartfelt than expected too, but not in an overly cheesy manner. Director Greg Mottola (whose resume totally explains how he was able to land this cast) flew under the radar a bit here. He wont get the attention or credit he deserves because of the subject of the movie, but this turned out better than I expected, and I certainly enjoyed it more than his most acclaimed film – Adventureland.
I’m gonna give this movie a very strong 3.5 Bears. Not the funniest comedy I’ve ever seen, and it starts off a little slow, but it is definitely worth a watch.
There has been plenty of comic news coming out of C2E2, the Chicago Comic Convention, over the weekend. And even though the following snippet via IGN is not big news, it’s something that we’ve all come to anticipate from a comic book death; a comic book resurrection! The character in question is Nightcrawler who died at the hands of Bastion saving Hope during the Second Coming story arc.
The panel’s response to if he would return was a bit muddled:
“We’ve talked about it within the X-Men office,” noted X-Editor Daniel Ketchum. “It’s always a card on the table. I guess I’ll leave it up to you to figure out, ‘Well, are we going to play to type or go against the grain?'”
I would imagine that means they are conflicted about whether they should bring him back like every other character, or actually try to keep him dead. As we all know, no comic character ever stays dead, but I think their death and inevitable return means more the longer they are gone. So as much as I wish that Nightcrawler would grace us with a return it would be the same old crap with him returning after only a year of being gone.
Below is a small list of X-men who have died and the circumstances of both their deaths and returns. Some of the reasoning behind their resurrections are quite amusing if not completely ridiculous.
– Death: Injected himself with the cure to the mutant killing legacy Virus with the full knowledge that in order to spread antibodies the cure would kill the first user. Ballsy.
– Return: Turns out he didn’t die, and an alien named Ord switched bodies with a duplicate. Rrrrright.
– Death: Killed in combat by the loser villain Vargas.
– Return: Her brother Jamie Braddock reached back in time to stop her spirit from reaching the afterlife. Wow.
– Death: Merges with the spirit of Apocalypse to save his son.
– Return: Jean and Cable track down CyPocalypse and separate their two spirits. Sounds like a cheap rip off of The Exorcist.
– Death: Accidentally killed by his son when he went back in time to kill Magneto.
– Return: Death is undone when Bishop travels back in time and stops Legion. Time travel is super nifty.
– Death(s): Committed suicide to stop the Dark Phoenix and was also killed by John Sublime…posing as Magneto…posing as Xorn. That’s a crapload of retcons there.
– Return(s): Retcon with the Phoenix Force being a copy of Jean, while the real Jean is in a healing cocoon. Yes… a healing cocoon. Brought back to life by the Phoenix Force after the Sublime kill, now living on a higher plane of existence.
And the list goes on – Cannonball, Havok, Storm, Warpath, Archangel, Rachel Summers, Emma Frost, and of couse, Wolverine. This isn’t even all of them either…
With very few exceptions, Comic Book Deaths are a very fickle thing…
After months and months of lawsuits, broke ass studios, a Guillermo del Toro bailout, boycotts, and ulcers, the Hobbit will finally begin filming according to Yahoo! Movies!
After writing several articles about the upcoming duology on BamKapow, all talk of it seemed to cease after it was announced that Peter Jackson would be the one to direct it. Aside from the minor casting calls of people we obviously know will be starring in it there was no announcement worthy of a hobbit feet picture… until now.
It’s about time Jackson and company got a move on because the first movie is set for a December 2012 release.
Returning stars to the world of Tolkien include Ian McKellen (obviously) as Gandalf the Grey, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, Andy Serkis as Gollum, and Elijah as Frodo.
I’m a bit puzzled as to how Frodo would be in the movie since he wasn’t even born at the time The Hobbit events take place. I’m assuming it will be an introduction with Frodo looking over notes of Bilbo’s old travels.
Bilbo himself will be played by Martin Freeman who is well-known to those in the U.K., but a relatively unknown actor to us here in the States. I particularly enjoyed his small role at the beginning and end of Hot Fuzz.
Now, for those of you who do not know what The Hobbit is, the two films take place approximately 55 years before the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The one ring is in the possession of Gollum in the Misty Mountains at this time, and you don’t even realize that it is indeed the ‘one ring’, it’s simply a magical ring that helps Bilbo disappear. In The Hobbit, Gandalf and Bilbo are just meeting for the first time, in which the wizard puts Bilbo in the midst of an adventure he never asked for. Throughout the story we are treated to trolls, goblins, the dragon Smaug, and much more to keep any avid watcher or reader of fantasy entertained. So mark your calendars and hope the world doesn’t end in 2012 because the Hobbit draws near!