Tagged: Sci-Fi

LICENSING SHOW Day 2: Plenty o’ Pix

LICENSING SHOW Day 2: Plenty o’ Pix

  • News
  • June 21, 2007

A pretty big outcome for the second day of the 2007 Licensing Show. Lots of movie pushes, of course with this being one of the biggest franchise summers in film history. Warner Bros was there in the same form as last year, showing off some of the new cars from their new flicks. We got the first peak at the The Dark Knight’s brand new BatPod (and no, you can’t play music on it, its just a cooler name than Bat-Cycle) also we got an up-close look at the new Mach 5 from next summer’s Speed Racer.

Also in the movie department, we got a bit of a tease over at Marvel’s booth for both The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man slated to come out next summer as well. Nothing too exciting over there, but the New Line booth was surprisingly pretty popular. To promote next year’s Golden Compass, there was a nine-foot armored bear, and despite popular belief, not only do I like girls, but I am also really looking forward to this film. Based of the series of His Dark Materials books by Phillip Pullman, this is the first of the series, and looks to be even better than last year’s underachiever in The Chronicles of Narnia.

They also were promoting a film that I have heard absolutely no buzz about up until today entitled Inkheart starring Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany, and Helen Mirren, based on the book by Carnelia Funke of the same title.

The BBC booth was also there promoting the hell out of Doctor Who, which I had absolutely no qualms with. This big push was due to the American release of series three to the Sci-Fi Network next month. Also coming to Sci-Fi in August, and came to me as a huge surprise was a remake of Flash Gordon. Now before I dusted off my Queen soundtrack and started to dance, I did a little bit of research, and the creative team consists of some of the minds that brought us Relic Hunter, Beastmaster, Young Blades, Andromeda, and oh, yes: Painkiller Jane. So before we all get excited and break out the champagne, I’d bet on this show being off the air before the bottle runs dry.

Finally, and by far my favorite part of today’s show was the news about Xip3, a new jacket company buying the rights to Transformers to release a “Transforming Jacket” that will be released with the DVD in November. I got to see first hand how this works, and it’s pretty cool. The jacket is black with silver accents, and can “transform” from a sports jacket to a backpack to a pillow in seconds. The unisex jackets will all be numbered and in sizes extra small to extra large. You can reserve your copy starting in July over at the Xip3 website.

Overall, a great show and I can’t wait to hear what wonderful things await for the ComicMix crew for day three!

RIC MEYERS: Fantastic Ghost Who?

RIC MEYERS: Fantastic Ghost Who?

  • News
  • June 17, 2007

Yes, yes, I know. This is the week both the extended versions of the original Fantastic 4 movie and Ghost Rider are in stores. Fine, great, more power to them. And, yes, I realize that this website is called ComicMix, so, by all rights, what follows should be an in-depth, all-inclusive examination of every extra, Easter egg, and digital particle on both these comic book inspired phantasmagoricals.

But I really don’t feel like it. First, because, even to be extremely kind, neither film rates the kind of slavish devotion that the Richard Donner Superman, Tim Burton Batman, or Sam Raimi Spider-Man elicits in me (this, of course, does not include the sequels, except the second Spidey [by no stretch of the imagination, the third!]).

Second, even these films’ most devoted proponents would have to accept that the extended versions of these adventures aren’’t what one could call revelatory. While rumors remain that the original FF film was disemboweled to create the anti-climatic one seen in theaters, there’’s no hint of that in the ultimately unnecessary extra scenes regrafted here.

I’ll admit, however, that there are hardly two films that benefit more from DVD performance. Both flix, in fact, are more enjoyable to watch on TV. There, according to film expert Chris Gore (and I agree), there aren’’t as many expectations as there are in the theater. What may have been annoying, even intolerable, on the big screen become humorously camp and acceptable on the small.

These two-disc DVD sets’ other extras — audio commentary, behind-the-scenes, making-of, and a nifty character history for Ghost Rider; three audio commentaries, scads of featurettes (including one on comic artist Jack Kirby), loads of concept art, and even more stuff like that there for FF  are squeaky clean and informative, but don’t make these pics resonate the way the two-disc Pan’s Labyrinth DVD did. To paraphrase Monty Python, these discs wouldn’t resonate if you put 5000 volts through them.

So, if you’’re wondering whether to get the single disc or double disc editions of either of these fine, though hardly spectacularly great, films, take to your heart the DVD Xtra Rules of Purchase: Always Widescreen, Always Subtitled, Always, Always, ALWAYS the Special Platinum Collectors Extended Ultimate Edition. If you’’re going to buy, buy the best. Otherwise, Netflix.

So what shall we talk about now? Well, the Rider and FF bring to mind a particularly beloved aspect of DVD collecting and/or watching. That which does not start out great can become great with a judicious use of extras (as evidenced by last column’’s Frankenstein Conquers the World). That which was shaky in production becomes illuminating in retrospect. Nowhere is this more true than in the next new release under scrutiny: the Dr. Who New Beginnings box set.

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Deborah Pratt’s New Quest

Deborah Pratt’s New Quest

Cadet Kai reporting in from Splicer Facility on Atlantia in the Vision Quest World.  My main trait is camouflage and have an aura for passion.

That sounds a wee bit like a personal ad, but it’s my character on Deborah Pratt’s (of Quantum Leap fame) newest endeavor TheVisionQuest.com.  The Emmy-nominated writer and voice of Ziggy for the hit sci-fi series Quantum Leap, Pratt has created a major new multi-platform science fiction series. An actress with starring roles in popular TV series such as Airwolf and Magnum PI, Pratt brought a new creation to life: The Vision Quest – Book One: The Age of Light. The book will be released on August 1st.

The first book in a trilogy, The Vision Quest tells of an Earth set 130 years into the future as experienced through the adventures of hero Cole "Lazer" Lazerman and his friends.  I could tell you more about this fantastic journey, but you would be missing out the experiencing it yourself, so log onto TheVisionQuest.com, read the book and look for other formats of Deborah’s new world that will covered in multiple platforms including games for Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox, on-line webisodes, short animated features and a the complete trilogy in feature films. 

You can see a picture of Deborah and hear the first of Mike Raub’s three-part interview withher on the Big ComicMix Broadcast. In addition to discussing Vision Quest, Pratt "reveals" what’s next for Quantum Leap.

Omega Flight’s Oeming, Detective’s Faucher, & Quantum Leap’s Pratt

Omega Flight’s Oeming, Detective’s Faucher, & Quantum Leap’s Pratt

It’s the start of a new week and The Big ComicMix Broadcast is more than loaded up with Pop Culture goodness!  We start our week-long visit with Quantum Leap actress & head writer, Deborah Pratt, on the verge of a major new sci-fi venture, and we cover buckets o’ news, this week’s latest comics & DVDs, chat with Omega Flight’s Mike Oeming & Wayne Faucher from Detective Comics, and then take a minute for a song that EPSN just loves!!!

Take a leap. PRESS THE BUTTON!

JOHN OSTRANDER: Star Wars C4LA

I just got back from Star Wars Celebration IV in Los Angeles and, boy, are my X-wing tired. (Bada-bump)

What follows are my impressions and meandering thoughts of the event and of Star Wars as well as the thirtieth anniversary of the first movie (now, perversely, Episode IV – A New Hope) is, well, celebrated. I came out as a guest of Dark Horse comics because my artist (and partner in crime) Jan Duursema and I have just completed the first 12 issues of our new SW comic, Legacy. Jan and I have worked other SW projects for DH for maybe seven years now and have managed to attract our own following.

The thing is – as I’ve written/said elsewhere and, if you’ve heard this before, feel free to skip this paragraph – I was a SW fan from before the first movie came out. I’d seen the novelization on the counter at my local comic book shop and decided to pick it up. It was a good, fast paced, fun read and I thought if they could get maybe half of what was on the page up on the screen, it would be a fun movie. For those of you under 30, this was back when the height of sci-fi special effects was 2001 or Dr. Who. Yeah, the stone age.

George Lucas, of course, got 200% of what was on the page up on the screen and melted my widdle mind. He changed not only sci-fi films and special effects, he changed summer releases, he changed the technology in the making of the films and invented modern movie merchandising. I mean, the studio gave those to him because they saw very little use to them. Today, the merchandising of the film rakes in more bucks than the film itself.

Every few years, a Star Wars Celebration takes place and they switch locales around the country doing it. This year the place was LA (appropriate perhaps considering the 30th anniversary) and the venue was the LA Convention Center. The place is huge but C4 bid fair to fill it. I was only out there two days so I can’t claim to have caught more than a sliver of it. I was doing several signings and a panel and the news I learned is closer to what I was involved in. End of caveats.

The Con was organized to a fare-thee-well. The staff knew what they were doing and, while friendly enough, stayed firmly in charge. Despite all that, there was a bomb scare during the opening ceremonies on Friday night. Oddly enough, the corridor in which people were standing to get into the ceremony space was evacuated but not the room itself. Of course, it turned out to be nothing but you almost can’t have an event like this without having something like that these days, can you?

The Con itself was the almost the size and density of the San Diego con and yet, at the same time, more intimate. I chalk that up to the fact that Celebration has a single theme/topic – Star Wars – and everyone is there because they love SW. They’d better; C4 admission wasn’t cheap and there was plenty of things inside on which to spend more money. Some of the media coverage was, predictably, condescending (along the lines of “Get a life!”) but within the Con was safe harbor. You could dress up and become an instant celebrity; if your costume was good, people would stop and want your photograph or to have their photograph taken with you. It was a large family.

There were some costumes that I saw or heard about that had a sly sense of humor. There was a Wookie about five foot tall, wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt and a cap, taking pictures everywhere as he went – Tourist Wookie. There was a stormtrooper who wore all the armor except the helmet. Instead, he had on a big plastic Burger King head like they use in those commercials of which I’m so fond. There was Stormtrooper Elvis – again, no helmet and the white spangled half cape Elvis wore along with the pompadour, shades, and sideburns from the 80s.

There was a lovely young lady in Slave Leia get-up who I saw in the lobby with a baby stroller. No, I don’t think the stroller was part of the look she was going for, but it was an interesting look nonetheless.

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Heroes: Origins coming to NBC

Heroes: Origins coming to NBC

To stretch the normal 22-episode season of Heroes, which faltered after its long hiatus this year, NBC is adding Heroes: Origins to the summer break. The spinoff will introduce a new character each week, and viewers will select which one stays for the following season. The two series will have 30 new episodes for a year combined.

A brilliant move. Combine the storytelling of a scripted show with the "must watch in real time" necessity of a reality show, as those "must watch in real time" shows are the only ones that are getting quantifiable ratings (no time-shifting from DVRs, etc.). I have to hand it to them, this is a unique way of trying to solve the problem, and could very well work.

Now let’s see the real corporate synergy in action– combine it with sister network’s Sci-Fi Channel’s Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

RIC MEYERS: The Thai’s have it

RIC MEYERS: The Thai’s have it

As a contributor (audio commentaries, on-camera interviews, liner notes, and packaging copy) to more than three hundred DVDs in America and Asia, I’’ve always wanted a source for what ComicMix is now allowing me to do — review DVDs specifically on the quality of their extras (audio commentaries, makings-of, et al). When deciding upon which DVDs to buy and which to rent, that’’s often the deciding factor.

All too often in DVD reviews, the extras are simply listed, which is misleading at best, since I’’ve suffered through dry, taciturn, frustrating commentaries from a star-studded roster (the pre-ultimate edition The Spy Who Loved Me), but also reveled in funny, enlightening, seemingly drunken revelries (Conan the Barbarian). And even in the most prestigious publications, the critics get bogged down in their opinions of the films in question, leaving precious little copy for the quality of the extras accompanying them on the disc.

But enough raison d’’etre. Now it’s time for shameful confessions. Naturally, I wanted to fill this first edition with insightful analysis of the most famous, anticipated DVDs on the market, but find myself presently concerned with quirky titles many of you might not have even heard of.

So, what to do, what to do: detail the flowing bounty of extras to be found on the consistently entertaining but hardly hilarious Night at the Museum or well-made but uninvolving Dreamgirls, or tell you about the demented delights of Thai cinema?

Well, given that this site is called ComicMix, and I’’m best known for Jackie Chan comics and my annual three-hour San Diego Comic-Con Superhero Kung-Fu Extravaganza, I’’m going for the stuff that’s as exhilarating and under-reported as comic books. Staggering into video shops this week are some DVDs that will either have you trawling for Thai flicks forever or keep you from seeing another ever again.

More accessible and superheroic is Born to Fight (Dragon Dynasty [The Weinstein Co.] Two-Disc Ultimate Edition), which is flailing feverishly to get out of the shadow of Thailand’s most famous and popular action export (Thai Warrior, aka Ong-Bak). The same fearless stunt crew worked on both films, but the latter starred Muy Thai boxing great Tony Jaa, who’s attitude and strength mirror Bruce Lee while his acrobatics and films crib from Jackie Chan’’s homework.

In order to differentiate itself from Tony, the Born to Fight crew decided to create even sicker, and more bone-breaking stunts, while catering to Thai patriotism, in a plot that has a village overrun by nuke-carrying terrorists on the same day it’s being visited by the Thai Olympic team. The disc’s main extra — an hour-long behind-the-scenes documentary – lays it all out in loving, if repetitive, detail, with many interviews and glimpses at the set-ups for the insane stunts.

It’’s hard not to marvel at the filmmakers’ passion, love for Thai tradition, and the crew’s willingness to risk their lives to gain America and Asia’s respect. The result is a flick that balances goofy and great (featuring one stomach-turning moment of near-suicide as a stuntman nearly gets ground up under a tractor-trailer’s wheels).

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Bionic Woman Returns

Bionic Woman Returns

NBC has picked up David Eick’s remake of The Bionic Woman for the 2007 -2008 season.

Eick was best known for his work as executive producer of the remake of Battlestar Galactica, running on NBC’s Sci-Fi Network. Now he’s best known as teevee’s go-to guy for science ficiton teevee revivals.

The revisioned series stars British actress Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers. Eick has said that they only used the title of the series as their starting point and that the show will go in its own direction. So we know Ryan will have a chip on her shoulder – as well as everyplace else – and, well, that she’s a woman.

Galactica‘s Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck) co-stars in the pilot as the mandatory evil bionic woman. Whereas she worked on this during her brief time-off from Galactica, since Eick wrote the pilot we shouldn’t be astonished if we see her come back – certainly, after Galactica wraps its next and final season.

No word on any reappearance of The Six Million Dollar Man. Today, six mill wouldn’t buy you a used Dalek.

 

Sci-Fi starts anime Mondays

Sci-Fi starts anime Mondays

According to Broadcasting & Cable magazine, the Sci Fi Channel will be launching a two-hour anime block on Monday nights starting on June 11 from 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM. Yep, that’s right up mear-daily against Adult Swim’s manga block.

The cable channel owned by NBC Universal will be turning to Starz Media’s Manga Entertainment. The schedule has yet to be set in stone, but they’ll be kicking off with Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society, and airing Noein, Tokko, and Macross Plus for at least the following two weeks.

Unless they change their minds.

Sci-Fi Summer Schedule

Sci-Fi Summer Schedule

As regular series on the major networks wind up this month, ComicMix fans can start programming their DVRs for the summer series over at the Sci-Fi Channel.

New programming kicks off on June 6 with the return of Ghost Hunters at 9, followed by the new show, Destination Truth.  The six-episode series followers Josh Gates, an adventurer visiting weird places and investigation the supernatural.

Doctor Who’s third season returns on July 6 in the 9 p.m. slot.  It begins with the Christmas special, something to make you forget the summer heat.

On July 10, Eureka returns for its second season.

The second season of Stan Lee’s Who Wants to be a Superhero? arrives on July 25 at 9 p.m.  And if that isn’t enough to make you Face Front, True Believers, then be astounded at 10 p.m. when the untitled Derren Brown show debuts.  Brown is a British mentalist – imagine the Amazing Kreskin with an accent.

The thoroughly reimagined Flash Gordon series starring Smallville‘s Eric Johnson takes viewers from Earth to Mongo beginning August 10.

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