Showing posts with label star wars episode VII. Show all posts
Showing posts with label star wars episode VII. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The Star Wars Expanded Universe just collapsed...




For  the a long time, this may be weird to believe, but Star Wars was sort of scarce. There where no new movies on cinema. There were no new videogames every 13 months. For a long ass time, we didn't know what had happened before  Star Wars: A New Hope (Then just Star Wars) or After Return of the Jedi. There were 3 movies, some dubious  spinoffs and that's it.

Fans where chomping at the bit, and Lucas knew it. Therefore, he sub-licenced many products that dealt with such history.  This stories became known as the Expanded Universe.It existed for fans who wanted to know more about the Star Wars universe, but where never fully official, and always at risk of being contradicted by the movies.
IT'S MY PICTURE, I CAN PAINT WHOEVER I WANT!

This is where Dash Rendar and Mara Jade lived. This is where every random bug in the Cantina scene had a storied purpose. This is where Lightsaber Crystals where built and where  Darth Revan and Darth Malak fought. This is where Sam Witwer helped Darth Vader. ANd now, they don't.

You see, Disney's moving along with the Star Wars movies, and it doesn't feel like playing nice to stories whose canonicity was established by levels, like a hurricane. And therefore, the Expanded Universe just became "Star Wars Legends". Basically, they didn't happen.
Sadly, this didn't, either.

I for one welcome the move. The new Star Wars movies cannot be beholden to  whatever was written a bunch of years ago to  appease rabid fans.  These stories, as good or as stupid as they can be, can't be the base for a new multimillion dollar franchise. Disney is right to say "You want to know what really happened after Jedi? Here's what REALLY happened, in the media format the original movies had. ANd here's our merchandize, based on that."

Star Wars isn't like Gargoyles, where you just know it's never coming back in full, and you continue it in comics. We all knew it was innevitable they make more movies. We want those movies to be good. But we can't expect them to be the official avatars of 3 decades of comics and books.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

6 ways in which I would ruin your favorite franchises






 
Planet Zeist! Show em how it's done!
Believe me, I don’t yearn for the ruination of  pop culture icons. They definitively give me something to write about every once or twice, but in general, I’m not a fan of pissing off fandom. However, in these days the art of ruinage is a lost art.

Back in the late XX Century, It took a lot to really poison the well. Yes, I’m claiming ruining stuff was better in my day. Get the hell off of my lawn, you're not doing it right! We didn’t bat an eyelash when Batman went around killing people like we do now when Superman kills a very bad guy, no sir. We were too busy worrying about how Superman was having original enemies invented to him because God help us if they look at a comic.  Having been inspired by classics like Lost in Space and Inspector Gadget, here’s my, probably unrealized forever, plans to ruin your childhood forever.

Dr Doom is Anonymous
I don’t think the upcoming Fantastic 4 Reboot could really do Doom much worse than the last one, what with Doom having the lamest parts of other Supervillains under a Dr Doom shell.

Hell, Corman's was better. And they payed for the movie to not exist!


 Or at least I didn’t think so until they announced that they hadn’t exactly locked the main villain’s actual gender.
Now, I don’t think  A female Victor(ia?) Von Doom would be all that ruinous. Hell, Eva Green is my Femdoom of choice. But I was just thinking, why wouldn’t they have settled on something already? 

Then it hit me like a Vibranium ladle: maybe Dr Doom isn’t any one person.
In an attempt to be all relevant and what not, my Doom would be an obvious ripoff of Anonymous. 
Doom’s mask? Obvious analogue to those V for Vendetta masks. Doombots? That’s what the members of Anon-doom call themselves. Latveria? It’s about as real as Philosoraptor! 
Doom is not impressed by your DRM practices, Ubisoft...

Oh, I can hear the gnawing of teeth and the wailing! I can taste the nerd tears! YOU GUYS ARE LUCK I DON’T WORK AT FOX!

Sonic Adventure 3 starring EVERYONE YOU DON’T LIKE!
 
Oh, you didn't think I remember?
There hasn’t been an universally agreed upon Sonic game since Sonic CD, if only because we all agreed not to stick consoles on top of other consoles anymore.  The children who should be it’s target audience and the manchildren who grew up with it may never really agree on it enough, whether it’s a complete return to the old days, or a sudden turn into unexpected designs.

One thing we can all agree on, though is that who the hell is Mighty the Armadillo.  That’s why I’d cover all the angles by making a sequel to Sonic Adventure and fill up the cast with character’s so divisive and obscure that they’ll beg for Big the Cat AND Princess Ellie to come back before long. I’m talking Bunnie Rabbot and Princess Sally(THE LEGAL HURDLES ARE NO MATTER TO ONE SUCH AS I), Ray the Squirrel, that polar Bear from Sonic the fighters…you can’t think it, I can put it there.

WHY IS A DUCK CALLED BEAN!

Naturally, they’d all have different gameplay types. In fact, only Sonic’s would involve running really fast around loops at all! Nyahahahahahahaha!

X-Men: Prof. Xavier is a Jerk
There exist 0 images of an angry Hellen Page.

Proffesor Xavier has always been an old, crazy asshole.  Thishas been documented. But I feel Patrick Stewart and James McCavoy haven’t fully tapped into the jerk-well. His key offenses so far have been being a bad flirt(which, having mind control powers, is...kind of noble of him, actually), failing to divulge his full knowledge of Wolverine’s past, perhaps to keep him “in the team” and mentally suppressing Jean’s superpowers. But I think we all mentally suppressed X3, amirite?

But what if he were even more of a jerk? What if he psionically attacked Magneto with Holocaust memories? What if he pretended to die, and was hiding in the basement all along? What if he wiped Batman’s memory of when they gave Dr Light mental retardation after he raped Sue Dibny?

Come on! THIS GUY? Really, Marvel?


And more importantly, when he does these things, he should not show regret but smug, smug satisfaction.

The Matrix is actually magic
I know about the suckage!

Earlier this week I was going to write my revamped sequel/prequel yearly predictions, and thought that this was the year The Matrix was coming back, when out of the blue Latino_Review shows up with some heresay. Ha. You don’t have to believe me, that’s the kicker: If I had only written it down as considered. Alas, Blue Swan kept me busy.
But basically with the Matrix, the problem is the story is done as done gets.  The hero dies, the war is over, messiah triumphs over death,  and everything is hunky dory. Everything, that is, except for a few questions. How come Neo could control things outside the program? Is the “real world” also a computer program? If so, is basically  everything achieved in this movies a waste of time?

Like all good questions, the answer is that a wizard did it. Imagine Neo waking up to a kindly bearded old man. He questions why he is alive, after so obviously having been dead.  Why he now has eyes again. The kindly wizard puts his hands on Keanu’s shoulder.

“All in due time, Neo…son of Merlin…”
 
Woa.

Yes, as it turns out, in the burned out husk that's left of earth there exists magic, which is also the source of The Matrix illusory powers? No more philosophizing about the nature of reality, no suh. Just find the magic Matrix Sword, Neo!


Alien: Bring on the Giga-Aliens!
The Alien franchise has transitioned from tension filled horror to action franchise to whatever the devil Prometheus is in 5 short films. It’s time we ramped it up…to the extreme!
New Aliens are invading earth, but this aren’t your father’s endoparasitic nightmare horrors, oh no! These are massive, T Rex sized aliens, basically grabbing ships form the sky and eating them. Enter Ricall, the daughter of Call(Winona Ryder) and Ripley the Clone(Sigourney Weaver), played by Michelle Rodriguez. Fuck you for questioning how an Xenomorph Human hybrid lady and a Gynoid can have babies. They cloned  Ripley out of molen lead and the clone came up half alien. I’m surprised she can’t  shoot molten lead, too. Fuck a logic Alien Franchise. 
 
This guy was pretty funny, though.

So basically Ricall  decides to rid the earth of these Aliens once and for all, so she arms up and starts blasting all the Giant Aliens, until  it is revealed Lance Henrikksen’s character of Bishop is reincarnated into the King of the Xenomorphs, and so must Ricall fly to planet Aliens and kick some ass!  Get me Michael Bay on the phone!
Star Wars finally comes home.
I’m sure we’ll be discussing the choices made in the new Star Wars OMNIOLOGY (It’s a movie each year, ya guys. It won’t end until Disney owns all the money.) for years. All I can say is I’d be glad they stop fleecing the past.  The future is filled with possibilities.
 
But I will eat all my headwear if at least some of it isn't damn stupid.
If you really want to wreck Star Wars at this point, now that the Force is Germs and Darth Vader became Darth Vader because he was a whiny jerk that really liked a girl, andbuilt C3P0, what’s left. Well, the world. Imagine, three movies (not counting spinoffs. Nobody care about no Bobba Fett movie!) of adventures, the heroes arrive at a peace of sorts. One of them, whichever is the Han Solo, continues to explore the universe with his wifey. He finds a planet, but not like the others we’ve seen. No Womp Rats here, only regular rats.  She says the planet is uncharted, and he says he’ll get to name it. He bends down and picks up a fistful of dirt.

We’ll call it…Earth….

WHATCHUSAYWHATCHUSAYWHATCHUSAYWHA! (Guitar riff) WAAAAAAKEEE UUUUUUUUUP! WAAAAKEEEEE UUUUUUUUP!

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Ridiculous Star Wars dreamcasting: Bounty hunters


One day people will say "I've done Star Wars" like they now say "I've done Shakespeare"

Episode VII mania is running wild! Everyone is getting asked if they'd participate! And we're several years away from it! J.J. Abrahams is totally directing it!  This obviously calls for some high level wishfull thinking, and obviously I'm the nerfherder for the job.   The problem is, well, we don't even know what characters are gonna be, and they'll probably be mostly new. What I will do is split my suggestions in character types according to Traditional SW lore.

Today we're gonna be looking at bounty hunters. As an inheritance from the  western side of star wars, bounty hunters have become a staple of the franchise, despite  a score of 0 victories. Whether they end up evil or not depends on the writer, but if there must be hired blasters, consider...

Michelle Rodriguez
 
This is a personal prefference for sure, but I kinda like Michelle Rodriguez. Don't know if I've ever let that on. But beside that, you know she'd be a shoe in for a tough Mandalorian that dies.

Ron Pearlman

Ron Pearlman has an awesome voice, and sort of looks a little ape-ish. I'd put im in ep7 in a heartbeat. Remember, with this characters your not going with Oscar wothy performances. Nice voice, vaguely threatening looks, , done deal.

Dolph Lundgren
 
Lundgren is always best as a support character. He's got the voice and the physic. Let im on!

Clancy Brown
 
Clancy Brown's   pretty good as a voice actor. If you must have a masked Bounty hunter whose face no one sees, and he's super smooth, Clancy Brown it is.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Ridiculous Star Wars VII dreamcasting: Young Stars

Face it...that's how it's gonna be

  Episode VII mania is running wild! Everyone is getting asked if they'd participate! And we're several years away from it!  This obviously calls for some high level wishfull thinking, and obviously I'm the nerfherder for the job.   The problem is, well, we don't even know what characters are gonna be, and they'll probably be mostly new. What I will do is split my suggestions in character types according to Traditional SW lore.

Today we're gonna be looking at young leads. Let's face it: our dream of a SW movie starring Jean Claude Van Damme is dead. But if I had to guess I'd say the movie will star an comer or two, probably as archetypes such as "Jedi" and "Princess". If they only where...

Alexa Vega





The Spy Kids star din't magically grow into an adult a few weeks ago because we saw her in a metal bikini: she also starred in the cult favorite Repo the Genetic Opera.

There Alexa did play well the role of a naive young character just struggling to undertand a hard situation. It's basically what this character would do.

Donald Glover
 
Hey, people are saying Donald should play Spider-Man for no reason, but for my money It'd be better if he's getting a role to make his own in a well known franchise. Can't be Anthony Mackie: He's locked up with the Marvel movies.

Anna Popplewell

On of the stars of the Narnia franchise, Anna would be my choice to star in the movie version of Fighting Hero of the Galaxy. But since we've still to lockdown a director/get a movie deal/ship a gajillion copies, I'll let her star in this instead.

James Deehan
 
If  this year's sleeper hit Chronicle had a breakout star it was James Deehan as the tortured soul/asshole with superpowers. I'm not just saying it because he pushed stuff with his mind: He's somewhat not too freshed-faced to not be tortured and not so beat up that he's too old for it.

Some Newguy

My top choice so far, Some Newguy is probably more obscure than all of this...yet more likely to star.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Star Wars Episode VII wish list

Am I late to the Star Wars Episode VII  speculation madness? Maybe. I'll just have to deduct this last 7 days from the next 3 years, huh?

It's crazy that it's been less than a month and we've already got 2 rumored directors, Mathew Vaughn and Some Other Guy. At this point Ep 7 is a formless mass in the future, and we feel we could shape it somehow by projecting our ideas into the web vacuum, even though it's  unlikely. Still, I am not immune, so here's a grab bag of my random wishes. So please...

Let Neil Blomkamp direct
And if he WAS racist, that's just perfect for Star Wars anyway.

Every fanboy out there is trying to rope up the bigger names in nerd franchises, because they think JJ Abraham's is about to drop out of Star Trek just for this and Christopher Nolan is willing to direct every single genre movie. Personally, I would much rather get District 9 director Neil Blomkamp. Watch Alive at Jorburg and tell me otherwise.

Blomkamp's visual style is what Star Wars was missing with the prequels\s ubberclean greenscreen rooms. Sure, D9 wasn't exactly the most original story ever, but if that's what you expect from Ep 7, then you need to ground your expectations a little.



Let Michelle Rodriguez have a part in it
She's not scared! She just wanted to know what it felt like!

Michelle Rodrguez is awesome. I don't think I should elaborate more on that. And if there's a part for a rough character woman in ther, Michelle should have it. Boy, did you just search your feelings? You know this shit be true!

Again, you're not shooting  some fancy Oscar bait film, here.  Michelle Rodriguez as a bounty hunter.

Let there be some kind of new Jedi type weapons
No, it's not a Swastika...I think.


The creation of new iconography is as important as the usage of the old one.  The Prequels found some  early success in this are with Darth Maul, and never did top it.

As iconic as the Lightsabres are, they are merely placeholders for actual swords. In this sense, other types of weapons should be given the same general treatmen. Dai-Katana, Halberds, lances, shields. Do not limit yourselves to what already exists. Since Star Wars is essentially Samurai and Cowboys in space, let's put some Kung Fu into that, huh?

Let there be less lightabre duels...but let those be meaningfull
Whoa! CG Yoda vs CG Cristpher Lee!

Again, Lightsabers are sort of important to Star Wars. But their usage should be tempered.

Each character should have a style of their own, according to their personality. They shouldn't just be whacking away at each other. Darth Maul, again, created a space for himself in the lore, but there isn't much to like him besides the aesthetics. Then again...Bobba Fett.


Let the story NOT follow Skywalker's kids.
Let's do this quick, boys. I left my shift at the construction site and my boss is a dick..

Dear Disney: If you can't do better than the Expanded Universe, then don't do nothing. Or do so anyway, make money, and have me pay for it. Either way I don't want to see the next generation of Lukes and Leias. Follow a new group of leads. They don't have to spiritually be sequels to Luke and Leia anyway.

If Original Trilogy  characters or their spawn must be in, let them be support for the new characters.

Let it not be overhyped...too late!

The problem with Star War is everyone feels they know it, and it's grown into more than what it originally was...some adventure movies. The new movies can't reach the beholden status of those. If you shoot for that, you will never reach it.

Well, see you guys in 2015. I'm sure It's the last time I'll be talking about this subject.