Tagged: Indiana Jones

Star Trek Readies to Leave Drydock

Star Trek Readies to Leave Drydock

With its 41st anniversary just a week past, the saying “Star Trek Lives!” has never been more true.  The franchise has spent the year retooling and gearing up for a major relaunch in late 2008.

The details, though, get murky as people mix rumor with fact.  We here at ComicMix are happy to help divide wheat from chaff so we may all live long and prosper.

The eleventh feature film is entitled simply Star Trek and will be released on December 25, 2008. The story, early drafts of which have already leaked out, was written by the new hit team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.  Producing will be the Lost duo J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof with Abrams directing.  Abrams’ frequent collaborator, Michael Giacchino, has already signed to write the score.

Now comes the tricky part – the casting.

As of today, only three parts are official: Spock to be played by the inimitable Leonard Nimoy and Heroes antagonist Zachary Quinto and Chekov, to be played by newcomer Anton Yelchin (pictured above).

That’s it.

Many actors have expressed an interest in a variety of roles.  Such is Abrams’ relationship with his cast that many veterans have said they’d happily board the newly designed U.S.S. Enterprise if Abrams but asked.  As a result, gossip mongers have already cast Tom Cruise as Captain Christopher Pike (James T. Kirk’s predecessor).  Greg Grunberg, who has been in every Abrams production is expected to have a role, be it large or small, human or alien.  Today’s media dump includes word that Jennifer Garner owes Abrams so much she would don Vulcan ears if he wanted.

Beyond that, for the last month, word has been circulating, reaching a deafening crescendo this week that Russell Crowe is Paramount Pictures’ choice for the bad guy (whoever or whatever that may be).  Promoting 3:10 to Yuma, co-star Christian Bale told the press Crowe would be perfect for the film.  Today’s New York Post continues to speculate Crowe is a signature away from beaming aboard the film.

Beyond that, the roles of Kirk, Leonard McCoy, Montgomery Scott, Hikaru Sulu and Uhura remain uncast.  Sure, William Shatner has been publicly campaigning to return from the dead but as of now, nothing formal has been announced.

Production begins in November and will include two weeks shooting in Iceland. There will be eleven buildings on the Paramount lot dedicated to sets for the expansive, eighty-five day shoot.  Along with the studios’ Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, these make for two of next year’s most eagerly awaited movies (let alone topping the must see sequel lists).

ANDREW’S LINKS: Defending Freedom

ANDREW’S LINKS: Defending Freedom

Comics Links

The ACLU has a new online comic to explain its mission: Defenders of Freedom. (I would have used a panel from one of their stories to illustrate this post but – irony of ironies – it’s left-click disabled, locked down tight by proprietary software. So, instead, you get the very first Google image for the search “defender of freedom,” because Andrew Wheeler is all about the random fun. It’s from this page, by the way.)

Mike Carey talks to Comic Book Resources.

CBR also interviews Action Philosophers! creator Fred Van Lente.

Wizard chats with Jim Shooter, once and future writer of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Occasional Superheroine, at the Baltimore Comic-Con, found the crowd incredibly conservative and unwilling to look at any materials outside the usual Punchy McSuper-Dude “mainstream.”

Kevin Jones of Culture Magazine has an essay on Craig Thompson’s graphic novel Blankets.

Comix Talk interviews Krishna Sadasivam, creator of the webcomic PC Weenies.

Bookslut interviews Journalista!’s Dirk Deppey.

Comic World News interviews Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide.

Comics Reviews

Augie De Blieck, Jr. (of Comic Book Resources) reviews Asterix in Spain.

Comic Book Bin reviews Jaime Hernandez’s Maggie the Mechanic.

Comics and More reviews two manga collections: MPD Psycho, Vol. 1 and To Terra, Vol. 2.

Newsarama lists its picks for the week.

(more…)

Indiana Jones and the Legend of the Greasers?

Indiana Jones and the Legend of the Greasers?

Here’s a new picture of Harrison Ford and his on-screen son Shia Labeouf from next May’s unnamed fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise (working title: Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods). From the looks of it, the story seems to take place in the late 50s/early 60s and gives us an old and very gray Dr. Henry Jones Jr.

From what I’ve seen of this movie, and it hasn’t been much, I am looking less and less forward to its release next May. Thanks to our friends over at Splash News for the picture.

Sidenote: Could Shia look anymore like Seth Green? Do I smell a Robot Chicken crossover??

For a truly young Indiana Jones, May will also see box sets of completely remastered versions of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series plus major documentaries about the various historical figures who appear in the series. 15 episodes, each 90 minutes, with one featuring Harrison Ford in character.

DENNIS O’NEIL:Continued stories continued some more…

DENNIS O’NEIL:Continued stories continued some more…

Now, where were we…?

Oh yeah. We were discussing continued stories and I was telling you that continued characters have been around a long time, since the classic Greek dramatists at least, but continued stories were a pretty recent phenomena. You might recall my claim that Julie Schwartz and Stan Lee introduced them to comics, but they already existed in radio drama. One form I didn’t mention, but am pleased to do so now, were the “chapter plays” in movie theaters, which I suspect had some influence on the early comics guys. You can probably rent some examples of these at your local video store, but in case you don’t want to bother…

They were continued movies, these chapter plays, also called just plain serials, with a plot that played out over between ten and fifteen installments. Each segment ended with the hero or another sympathetic character in dire trouble, about to plunge over a cliff or be impaled on spears at the bottom of a pit or like that. (Check out the Indiana Jones films, which were partly inspired by the serials, to get an idea of the kinds of scrapes these folks got themselves into.) Then, the segment would end with the suggestion that you come back the following week to learn what happens. The idea was, you, the breathless kid in the front row, would just have to return to witness the good guy’s miraculous escape or, if you were a bit twisted, you hoped you’d watch him get offed.

If you have ever suffered through one of my comics writing classes, or were lucky enough to take a Robert McKee film writing course, you know that some professional wordsmiths set a lot of store by structure, and that the most reliable structure is called the three act structure. (For more, and better, on this, see the recommended reading below.) I’m not about to presume to teach a class here, but most briefly – the three-act structure: 1, Something happens to cause the hero to act. 2. The problem gets complicated. 3. The hero resolves the problem.

Obviously, this narrative strategy won’t work for a story that’s stretched out over a whole lot of chapters, with a lot of climaxes, so the serial guys evolved what I call the “one-damn-thing-after-another” structure. Which is: the good guy and the bad guy(s) have a lot of clashes, which end inconclusively until one of them doesn’t. The good guy wins, virtue triumphs, everyone lives happily ever after.

A story doesn’t necessarily need to be multi-chaptered to be one-damn-thing-after-another; you could probably use the construction for a 10-pager. And it’s not necessarily a bad structure; a storyteller with sufficient ingenuity might make it work, though I usually advise students not to try this at home. What, structurally, it has going for it is this: it ain’t dull. Something big and, presumably, exciting, happens at least once per chapter and that keeps things moving.

We’ll get back to this topic next week.

RECOMMENDED READING: Story, by Robert McKee

Dennis O’Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.

Indiana Jones Cast Announced

Indiana Jones Cast Announced

Jim Broadbent will be joining is joining Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf, John Hurt, Ray Winstone and some guy named Harrison Ford in the fourth Indiana Jones movie, according to an announcement on Lucasfilm Ltd.‘s Indiana Jones website.

The movie, which is currently in production, is scheduled for release May 22, 2008. Sean Connery will not be coming out of retirement to play Indy’s father.

Broadbent won a supporting-actor Oscar for 2001’s Iris. His many other films include Iris (for which he won an Oscar), Moulin Rouge, Time Bandits, Brazil, The Crying Game, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Gangs of New York, and Hot Fuzz. He also joined Jonathan Pryce, Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Grant, and Joanna Lumley in the classic Doctor Who special, The Curse of Fatal Death.

Artwork copyright Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

More retro films, sequels on the way

More retro films, sequels on the way

Yeah okay, y’all are still talking about Barbarella, aren’t you?  Sorry, the original had some cute ideas but gah, was it sexist!  Talk to me when she’s properly dressed and Simon LeBon’s cast as Duran Duran.

Now here’s what I’m craving — a bit of the ol’ Get Smart.  USA today has a blurb about the in-production movie (set to open in late June) based on the old TV show created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.  Andy Dick is nowhere in sight, thank goodness, but I love the casting they do mention — Steve Carell should make an ideal Maxwell Smart, Anne Hathaway has the potential to succeed Barbara Feldon as a smart and funny Agent 99, and Alan Arkin as The Chief is just too perfect.  Some of the other cast members sound like they’d fit right in as well.  I know I’m pretty psyched for Masi Oka’s big-screen debut!  (Did you know Steve Ditko drew Dell’s Get Smart comic book?)  Let’s hope the indicated trouble in paradise is just a rumor.

Meanwhile, all is not well with the casting of Mummy 3 — The Inevitable, as our esteemed Mike Gold refers to it.  Seems Brandon Fraser is in, but Rachel Weisz is out, leading to speculation that she’s definitely doing Sin City 2 — This Time It’s Even More Personal (my subtitle).  I haven’t seen the Mummy flicks in awhile, but how integral was Weisz’s character in them?  I seem to recall as she was pretty much "love interest/accessory" rather than, you know, an Agent 99 type.

And Harry Knowles is swearing up and down that Shia LeBeouf has been cast in the fourth Indiana Jones movie as Indy’s son, which only interests me insofar as he has one of the more fun names to say and type.  And elsewhere on Ain’t It Cool News, Quint reports that Christina Ricci has been cast as Trixie in the upcoming Speed Racer movie. With John Goodman and Susan Sarandon all set to play Speed’s parents, which amazingly means that Speed’s mom is bound to get actual screen time.

Actor from Batman and Beowulf to appear in Indiana Jones IV

Actor from Batman and Beowulf to appear in Indiana Jones IV

You can’t make a pop-culture classic without Ray Winstone. At least, that’s what the BBC is reporting.  Veteran character actor Ray Winstone is rumored to be the newest addition to next year’s Indiana Jones film.

Winstone has appeared in Batman Begins and The Chronicles of Nania, in addition to The Departed, Sexy Beast, Cold Mountain, Quadrophenia and many more films.  He was Will Scarlett in the British television production of Robin Hood.  This fall, movie audiences will be able to see him in Robert Zemekis’ Beowulf, with a screenplay by Roger Avery and somebody named Neil Gaiman.

The ComicMix podcast is in the air!

The ComicMix podcast is in the air!

The first ComicMix podcast is now available for your listening pleasure!

A three-times weekly feature here at ComicMix, broadcaster Mike Raub has produced our initial 12 minute program featuring news, features and interviews. A new podcast will be available every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday — today’s podcast includes a look at new comics that are available at your friendly neighborhood comics shop, and this will be a feature of every Tuesday program. Thursday’s programs will feature reviews and Saturday’s will include full-length interviews.

Also featured in today’s podcast are salient mutterings from Peter David, The Beatles, and ComicMix’s editor-in-chief, and a nostalgic look at comics and popular culture that people were enjoying this week, back in 1963 and 1971.  All this plus updates on Indiana Jones and The Flash.

We encourage you all to participate in our fun and games. Contact us with any questions or comments and when we’ve got our ComicMix message boards up and running, join Mike and the ComicMix crew in our online dialog!