The Ziggurat of Doom

Pretty much everyone at this point, iwht the possible exception of George Lucas, admits that the Star Wars prequels were crap. This guy, Mike from Milwaukee, illustrates exactly why. And when I say exactly, I mean 7 10-minute videos each illustrating a point.

Devastating: he asks people to describe the characters from the original series, without describing looks, just characterization, to people who have never seen star wars. They do it. He asks them to describe characters from the new series…. they just laugh. They can’t do it.

Dollhoose is officially canned, and no surprise. It was a show that had some great moments, but also had some serious flaws.

However, the CW is taking a second crack at Warren Ellis’s Global Frequency (confirmed by Ellis here), which is pretty cool. The first pilot, made back in 2005, was fantastic. There will be a new pilot by a new writer, so we’ll see how it goes.

Let “Stargate Universe” henceforth be forever known as “Battlestar Sliderstrekscape”, to stand alongside the original Sliderstrekscape and its spin-off, Sliderstrekscape: DSV.

Seriously. They weren’t trying hard before, but now they’re just giving up. Even the camera work and soundtrack seem suspiciously familiar.

(Yes, I’ve been watching a lot of the other two series lately as well. I plead boredom.)

What Has Gone Before

Star Trek: Imperfect, but compellingly watchable. I continue my daily prayers that one day, some paleo-cinematographer will rediscover the ancient, lost technique of Steadycam. As with The Fool, I put all credit for this movie at the feet of the casting and acting, since I can’t stand J. J. Abrams. Worth watching.

Wolverine: Low-end of the “meh, popcorn” scale. I wouldn’t recommend paying movie theater price for it, but you won’t wake up at night screaming, caught in a flashback of a movie that won’t end and a pain that won’t go away if you happen to accidentally walk into a room where this is playing and it inadvertently enters your eyeballs. Which is more than I can say for Ultraviolet.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Officially dead and buried. I blame you. YES YOU. Solid show that deserved better, but at least last season went out on a high note. Godspeed, John Henry. See you at the crossroads.

GI Joe: Resolute: 11 five-minute episodes, written by Warren Ellis. It’s on the internet. It rocks.

What Is Yet To Come

Terminator: Salvation: Let me see if I get this straight: Yet another movie? Fine. The best show on television? Can it. I fucking hate showbiz logic. Whatever, the trailers look interesting and I’ll go see it, if I can get over my screaming bitterness vis a vis SCC.

9: A Tim Burton-produced CGI film based on a short that won a bunch of awards. I love me some post-apocalyptica, so may as well check it out.

Dollhouse: Hang on. I have to confirm this yet again. Yes. Yes, FOX has renewed a Joss Whedon series (reportedly, after he agreed to quit spending so much damn money every episode). But they still passed on SCC. The network giveth, and the network taketh away. Started weak, but got pretty solid after episode 6, so I’m willing to see where it goes.

Supernatural: Picked up for its fifth and reportedly final season. Good show. Worth watching.

GI Joe: The Movie: Ha ha ha ha. We’ll see.

Transformers: Something Something Giant Robots: (May not be the actual subtitle.) From the trailer, appears to have more giant fighting robots, something the first movie was depressingly short on. There’s a lesson here in giving the viewers what they want: fewer whining humans, more robot-on-robot violence.

So, my crappy Time Warner-provided DVR broke on Monday, and I missed maybe five to ten minutes of the Heroes premier. I don’t think I care. I don’t have high hopes for this season. I’ve seen mentions in a few places that major writing talent left near the end of last season, which explains a lot. More detail, and spoilers, below the cut.

(Oh, and I added The Extratextuals to the links section, because it looks like a cool new blog. TV/pop-culture stuff.)
Read the rest of this entry »

Your Mom’s Basement: WWC: 10-Odd Questions- CREATORS QUIZ FANDOM

9. Tim Seeley, creator and writer of Hack/Slash: Why do you like such shitty comics?

Hey! I liked Watchmen! Sure, I skipped all the pirate stuff, and the book stuff, and kind of just skimmed the ending… But I liked it! So, I don’t think you should be insulting Mr. Alan More like that! I also enjoyed his Batman: Year One miniseries. So there.

I should mention, Hack/Slash is pretty shitty, but this made me chuckle.

Comic by Comic has two rather troubling posts about the future of Veronica Mars. Why is such a good show having so much trouble? The mind boggles.
Troubling Post 1
Slightly Less Troubling Post 2

In a move that I would be much more excited about if the entire genre hadn’t quite thoroughly jaded me, THQ is working on a Warhammer 40,000 MMORPG.

They did do an excellent job with WH40K: Dawn of War, though. So there’s hope yet.

EDIT: I should clarify, they haven’t announced an MMORPG. They’ve announced an MMOto-be-determined.

THE BEAT » Blog Archive » How low can you go

Basically, a “promoter” set up an anime con, promising the extra profits would go to breast cancer research, and the whole thing was a scam. The “promoter” cancelled the event and made off with all the money.

Barrowman’s big penis worries gay sci-fi fan | Headlines | News | Gay.com UK. I’m really only linking to this because of the headline. The story isn’t terribly interesting, I don’t think.

The Geek’s Guide to Appropriate Online Interactions

Hypocrisy. Contradiction. Redundancy. Double standards. These are hurtful words. Never acknowledge them. Unless of course you are using them against somebody else (see Dealing With Online Conflict for more.) The word to keep in mind is doublethink. Taken from Orwell’s 1984 (which you need not have read, just claim you saw a reference in the Invisibles or something similar) the meaning of the word is essentially “to think one thing while acknowledging another.” And that is what you must do to offer your own special brand of Geek commentary.

While tis may not be of much use to The Fool, the rest of us can surely learn something from this site.

YouTube - “THERE ARE KLINGONS IN THE WHITE HOUSE” CONGRESSMAN DAVID WU You can’t make this shit up.

Firefly MMO in the works.

And I thought the rumors a few months ago of a B5 MMO were the strangest ones I’d hear for a while…

Say it with me now: “Please don’t suck. Please don’t suck.”

EDIT: Okay, “in the works” is overstating it. Company with MMO engine and interest in making a Firefly MMO is shopping the idea around.

Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin, exposing the stupid side of comic culture, part 1.

Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin, exposing the stupid side of comic culture, part 2.

Veronica Mars executive producer Diane Ruggiero intends to create a superhero action-comedy described as “Sex and the City meets Batman“.

Now that I’ve told you this, you should begin forgetting it right now. Before you have to sleep.

Donner is finally revisiting Superman, this time as a comic book. Entertainment Weekly is hosting a preview. Donner is working with Geoff Johns and Adam Kubert, two big creative names in the comic world.
This is a nice turn of events, considering it was DC’s parent company, WB, who kicked him off Superman II. While double checking that it was indeed WB, through the Salkinds, who gave Donner the boot, I found this at wikipedia (wiki subject to change, as always)

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unlike many “special edition” and “director’s cut” movies released over the years, Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut will essentially be a completely new film. As much as half of the film will contain never-before seen material filmed by Donner, including 15 minutes of restored Marlon Brando scenes as Superman’s father Jor-El as well as new Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder scenes and newly shot CGI footage. Richard Donner will now be credited as director of the film instead of Richard Lester - the original credited director of Superman II. The film utlizes footage originally shot by Richard Donner during original principal photography from 1977-1978, using footage by Richard Lester to fill in spaces that were not shot by Donner due to the halt on production for II.

This isn’t just news. This is fantastic news. Wikipedia claims the dvd will be released on November 28 of this year. IESB has a review, but I didn’t read it, for I hate spoilers, and if this movie is as different as the wikipedia article indicates, I don’t want to know anything about it. The circle of promotion is complete.
(Found via The Beat)

If this works, The Hutch is up for a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Samuel “The L is for Badass” Jackson wants to do a Snakes on a Plane sequel.

I maintain that Snakes was a unique occurance that necessitates no further attempts. But Hollywood rarely listens to what I tell them, or there’d be a hell of a lot more Babylon 5, let me tell you.

(”The L is for Badass” shamelessly stolen from a friend’s blog post somewhere where I don’t remember where it was.)

The Hierophant and I, on more than one occasion, have mocked all the AMV’s out there that use the same old Linkin Park, evanescence, and System of a Down songs. Well, he doesn’t say anything about SoaD or evanescence, but Tuffy from Fandumb breaks down exactly why Linkin Park is such an obvious fit. Just for reference, I’ve always wanted to be a Green Lantern.

Stargate SG-1, affectionately (or not so much) referred to by most of the Zigguratti as SlidersTrekScape, is finally ending after its tenth season.

I never got into it. I gave it an honest chance, and it didn’t click with me. But it has many fans, and I imagine there is a considerable amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Executive Producer Robert Cooper intends to fight the good fight and continue the story in some form. Though from what I’ve heard, it’s probably better that it end now, rather than go completely to shit, yea, unto eternity.

Stargate: Atlantis (aka, SlidersTrekScape DSV) will continue.