Tag Archives: Jon Favreau

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Season 5 Trailer

The Clone Wars ended on a bit of a high note last season. Darth Maul is back, apparently stronger than ever, shirtless and sporting a nice robotic torso and matching legs. Our hero Obi-Wan Kenobi couldn’t stand up to him and even had to resort to teaming up with bald broad Assaj Ventress to survive. And at the end of this ordeal? Maul is still on the loose along with his equally dangerous brother Savage Oppress. This team up gave a bit to think about as in who will be in Maul’s path when he inevitably begins cutting a swath of mayhem throughout the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Now, from the first trailer from the upcoming season 5 we know a little more.

It was fully expected that Maul will continue to pursue Kenobi. I mean, I would totally be after someone for separating me from the favorite half of my body. Then of course there is the question of Sidious. Would he have known that Maul still lived or would he have just left the poor bastard for dead either way? It appears that Maul will be focusing that part of his rage against Count Dooku, whom he proclaims to be a Sith pretender. So not only will there be a big emphasis on the Maul brothers in season 5, but the Death Watch seem to be returning in a big way. The last time we saw them it was a brief skirmish with Ahsoka that showed us how merciless the Death Watch can be. Jon Favreau returns to voice the slimy Pre Viszla and looks to be leading the Death Watch into persuading the Mandalorians to re-don their warrior ways.

I really can’t agree with this more and truly hope that the show clears up the whole Mandalorian pacifists angle by maybe….killing Satine and her Mandalorians? I know that sounds harsh but in all of the other expanded universe material the Mandalorians were always warriors and bounty hunters with the Death Watch being the worst of them. It doesn’t mean all Mandalorians were murdering scum, but there definitely weren’t pacifists amongst them. Something that would really be welcome is a team up between Darth Maul, Savage Oppress and the Death Watch as is possibly hinted at by Darth Maul’s dialogue in the trailer. It would seem they all have mutual beef not only with the Jedi and the Republic but with Dooku and his Separatists as well. One of the most interesting parts of the Clone Wars may now be a third faction joining the war in the form of the Sith and Death Watch. I wonder if Sidious foresaw that whole thing. Then again this is all up for speculation and I’m sure we’ll find out more after Star Wars Celebration and the summer comic conventions.

Also of note in the trailer is the healthy amount of beloved bounty hunter Embo… and his hat. The hat still shows itself to be useful as a shield and now as a snowboard too! Pirate Hondo Ohnaka appears to be back in action as well, helping Ahsoka out on the planet Onderon. Onderon as you may or may not know plays an integral part in the Tales of the Jedi stories from way back, taking place thousands of years before the Clone Wars and even years before the Old Republic MMORPG. It will be interesting to see if they touch on the stories of ancient Jedi and Sith Lords Ulic Qel-Droma and Exar Kun.

It looks as if the Clone Wars will continue to get better as each season goes on and I can’t wait for fall to start! If you’re interested there is a leaked clip of Embo doing his snowboarding thing below. The quality is so so, but excellent nonetheless.

Hero Express: Iron Man 3 Casting, Thor 2 Finds a Villain, & The Dark Knight Returns First Images!

Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the top five stories in comic based Film & TV news!

Continue reading Hero Express: Iron Man 3 Casting, Thor 2 Finds a Villain, & The Dark Knight Returns First Images!

Hero Express – ‘The Avengers’ Banners, ‘Man of Steel 2’. and ‘TDKR’ Wraps?

Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the news filled world of superhero’s in Film, TV, Video Games and whatever else floats your boat.

Continue reading Hero Express – ‘The Avengers’ Banners, ‘Man of Steel 2’. and ‘TDKR’ Wraps?

Grizzly Review: ‘Cowboys and Aliens’

I wanted to like this movie so much more than I did, but it just wasn’t happening. Not to say I hated it, but it definitely could have used some work. That being said, let’s get to the premise of the whole tale.

Basically this fella wakes up with no memory of…. anything really. This movie probably set the record for the most times that the phrase “I don’t know” was used. One of the things he doesn’t remember is the metal bracelet on his wrist. This bracelet, as we know from the trailers, has the awesome ability to deal out seemingly endless ass whoopings to both aliens and humans alike.

He makes his way to the town of Absolution, a little place run by the Cattle Boss Woodrow Dolarhyde and his imbecile son Percy. Percy doesn’t really run anything, he’s just a downright turd who bullies everyone in the town because of who his father is. Our mystery man as it turns out is really Jake Lonergan, a wanted man for numerous crimes. After he is taken captive by the local law enforcement is when the real fun begins, because that’s when the aliens arrive. Their attack results in Dolarhyde’s dumb ass son, and many other townspeople being taken captive by the invaders, with Jake’s bracelet activating in proximity to their ships. He manages to shoot one down and the wounded pilot is their ticket to finding the captives that were taken.

 

The group to go after the alien and their people consists primarily of Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), Jake (Daniel Craig) and Ella (Olivia Wilde) who is a rather mysterious woman with a very keen interest in Jake’s past and missing memory. The tag-along company includes a Bartender named Doc who’s wife was taken, one of Dolarhyde’s cattle hands, and a preacher. Doc is played by an always excellent Sam Rockwell, and serves as a bit of comic relief as the man not accustomed to gun play or combat. Meacham the preacher is played by veteran of the screen Clancy Brown, who is a favorite actor of mine. Aside from Pet Semetary 2, Shawshank Redemption and the HBO series Carnivàle, this was the first extended role he’s had in a movie in a very long time, and it was good to see him in it.

I won’t explain anymore about the plot of the movie, so as to not give away any spoilers. The movie suffered from the many amnesia flashback scenes that Daniel Craig had. To me, the whole amnesia aspect only served the purpose of finding an excuse to put the wrist blaster onto Daniel Craig. If you look at it from a standpoint of trying to add depth to Daniel Craig’s character Jake it failed miserably. I like Daniel Craig and think he did a great job in the movie, but his character was just a shell that I really could have cared less about.

“No my name is not Indiana F–king Jones! It’s a different hat!”

Even though Dolarhyde’s son was a complete nincompoop, I still felt more sympathetic towards him because of his past as a soldier and depth of care for his son’s well being. That being said, Harrison Ford did a great job in the role of Woodrow Dolarhyde playing his usual gruff and stern self, but this time with a twinge of crazy to it. As the movie went on I liked him more and more, especially towards the end when he starts to take charge. There was a particularly touching scene with him and a dying somebody. (You’ll know what I’m talking about when it happens in the movie.)

Hell, Even Ella’s background was far more interesting than Jake’s once you find out what it is, but like I said I won’t spoil it for you guys. Needless to say Olivia Wilde was a great actress once more, while also managing to be one of the hottest women on the planet.

Kudos to her!

The aliens themselves were kind of one dimensional, but I did enjoy them. They were definitely scary enough and kind of reminded me of the Independence Day invaders the way their set of little arms emerged from inside of their large outer body. Some people though (Doc Kronner) only thought of our little disgusting friend Kuato from Total Recall.

GO KUATO! IT’S YOUR BERFDAY!

One thing that I did not enjoy about the aliens was their main reason for being on Earth. Most people would be fine with it I guess, but I just cringed when I found out. I was actually hoping that the aliens were going to have a translator of some sort so as to have some sort of communication with the humans, but they still worked fine as the more primal type of aliens who just like to kick primitive human ass.

“Come on 007. Haven’t you ever shot a wrist blaster? It’s like this!”

I wish Jon Favreau all the luck in the world, but I’m starting to think he may have just got lucky with Iron Man. Iron Man 2 wasn’t that great of a movie, and Cowboys and Aliens was just a step above that. His movies – though shot beautifully – are suffering from something I can’t quite pinpoint. Perhaps the writers (Orci and Kurtzman) were still a bit rusty from writing the piece of shit we call a movie Revenge of the Fallen. So maybe it’s really their fault.

Either way I give the movie a 2 out of 5 bears. Great presentation and cast, but it fell flat on story and utilization of the material. It could have been so much more, because it took out all of the bad from the graphic novel aesthetically, but the story from the graphic novel would have better suited the movie.

Comic-Con International ’11 – More of Everything! Spider-Man, True Blood, & Doctor Who!

Still a lot of news from Comic-Con to cover, so I’m going to be moving pretty quickly through all of it. This will be more Grizzly Links than an in-depth look at everything as I am going to see Captain America: The First Avenger in a couple of hours so speed is of the essence.

I’ll be kind of throwing things in randomly, so keep up. Let’s get to it!

Continue reading Comic-Con International ’11 – More of Everything! Spider-Man, True Blood, & Doctor Who!

Star Wars: Clone Wars Season 4 – Actress Katee Sackhoff as a Mandalorian!

katee sackhoff

Battlestar Galactica alum Katee Sackhoff was reported to be in the fourth season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network, but it left a lot of us wondering exactly who she would be portraying. Turns out, it’s to be the show’s first female Mandalorian!

Of course this is nothing new to expanded universe readers, but it’s great that the female Mando’s are getting some due on the show. And she appears to be a member of the ‘Death Watch’ no less!

Interesting… I suppose that means we’ll probably be graced with the Jon Favreau voiced Pre Viszla as well. Check out the trailer below:

So yup, everyone’s favorite little Separatist Lux is back and it would seem he’s got a batch of ‘Death Watch’ Mando’s with him. Wonder how this will complicate his and Ahsoka’s relationship. The Clone Wars Season 4 is still a ways off into the Fall, but hopefully they keep coming out with little tidbits at Comic Con for us to chew over. All I can say is Ackbar is back!