Caddickisms

Seriously, where else are you going to get a combination like that?

I’ve got three video clips for you today, and one of them is not fiction. See if you can figure out which one.

Firefly is back!

That’s right, Nathan Fillion has suited up one more time as Mal Reynolds. Unfortunately, it’s only a reference to his Firefly character on his new show, Castle, but it’s pretty cool, with a couple of good lines and music cues.

Singing Batman!

Okay, Batman doesn’t sing in this clip, but he does in this musical episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold. To get a segue from the above clip, though, Nathan Fillion had a role in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog with Neil Patrick Harris. See if you can guess which one of them is singing in this clip.

Yeah, okay, you probably read the opening credits and know it’s NPH singing. Love the always-underappreciated Aquaman and Green Arrow bit. Also very fun to see the music played out on the utility lines. Favorite line: “His utility belt holds everything… can’t get that at the mall!”

Cyborg Rats!

What do you do if you’re a scientist with unfettered access to rats and robots? You build a cyborg, of course!

This is actually pretty cool.

I did some further reading on this, and it turns out that they went through a lot of groups of rats for this. Each group was given a letter designation (A, B, C, etc.). On some of the rats they used a serum to enhance brain activity. This was the enhanced group (as opposed to the “normal” group). It took 28 groups before they got a rat brain that was successful in controlling the robot. However, they never tested the Enhanced group because the successful rat (from the AB-Normal group) saw an active bunson burner and went on a rampage, terrorizing the Enhanced group before escaping. It’s said that he was lured back by the sound of a violin before being put down. The lead scientist, Dr. Franklin Stein, was annoyed but promised to press on with further research.

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(Holy cow, was today Tuesday?! What happened to last week?)

The new animated Green Lantern movie, First Flight was released last week. Here are the first four minutes of the film…

I’m looking forward to seeing the whole thing.

Not as much as I’m looking forward to the live action movie, though. But my excitement is a little tempered by news of who landed the role of Hal Jordan: Ryan Reynolds. I like Ryan Reynolds in some roles. I think he could make a good Flash, for example (and in fact he was slated to play that role previously), but I don’t see him as Jordan. I think I see him as too comedic for the part.

Maybe I’m just still stuck on the idea of Nathan Fillion as Hal. I hope Reynolds pulls it off.

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I’ve posted before about the Green Lantern movie(s) in the works. No cast has been announced, no real information has come to my attention at all about the live action movie, other than it’s still on the books. However, some fan put together a pretty good trailer for what he’d like to see, using Nathan Fillion as the lead character, Hal Jordan. And you know what… it looks pretty good:

First of all, this took a lot of work to put together, so kudos to the guy that created it. I’m not usually a fan of fan-made trailers for movies, but this one is pretty nice.

Obviously it’s really a collection of clips from various sources, including movies (Superman Returns, the Matrix trilogy, Serenity, Star Trek, etc), TV shows (most notably, Justice League), and video games. But most have been modified with new graphics and lighting effects that fit the Green Lantern look, and it really looks good (usually). You have to forgive the differences in look between the video game clips and the others, but it comes off surprisingly well integrated, in my opinion.

The other thing this trailer does for me is begin to allay my fears that the effects in the actual upcoming movie might look stupid. That still could happen, obviously, but if somebody could make the effects in this trailer themselves, even building on others’ work, the professionals getting paid to put something top-notch out should be able to blow us away.

Another surprise in this for me is that I think Nathan Fillion could actually take the role of Hal Jordan and do it justice. He didn’t occur to me as a possible actor for this role, but in thinking about it, I kind of hope he gets it.

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Once again, I just have to say this is a genius idea.

All:
COMMENTARY
COMMENTARY
FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS – IT’S A COMMENTARY

EVERYONE LOVES THESE “MAKING-OF”S
THE STORY BEHIND THE SCENES
THE WAY THAT WE GOT THAT ONE COOL SHOT
AND WHAT IT ALL MEANS
WE’LL TALK ABOUT THE WRITING
WE’LL PROBABLY SAY “IT’S GREAT!”
AND THE ACTING — SO EXCITING
EXCEPT FOR NATE

Nathan:
I phoned it in

All:
COMMENTARY
COMMENTARY
SET COURSE FOR WONDER – IT’S A COMMENTARY

Sadly, I haven’t heard it yet. But I just looked through the lyrics. Funny stuff. I need to buy this DVD.

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I’ve talked about Dr. Horrible before. It really is a great little musical. Well, now it’s being released on DVD. I’ve started to shy away from buying DVDs, but I might go for this one. It’s almost too much of a draw on its own, but throw in the fact that the commentary is being performed as a musical as well, and I’m not sure I can let this one pass. That’s just too perfect of an idea.

Admit it. You like to laugh. You like music. You like a good story. So hop on over to my Amazon store and pre-order it. Looks like it officially releases on December 19th. In theory, that’s enough time to make it a Christmas present for someone.

And if you haven’t even seen it yet… do yourself a favor and take a look.

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One of the things that surprised me most about Dr. Horrible was the quality of the music. I knew Joss Whedon had written a musical episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer that got great fan reaction, but I’ve never seen it, so I didn’t know how good he and his brother were with music.

These two songs, the finale of act 1 and the start of act 2, are easily my favorites (though I love the first song of act 1 quite a bit as well).

I really think musically, “On the Rise” is probably the best song in the video. The interplay of the characters’ voices and lyrics is fantastic, plus it rapidly sets the tone for act two, which shows exactly what the song says – Dr. Horrible’s evil on the rise. This single video almost makes me believe a musical TV show could succeed (but then I remember “Cop Rock” – and I wonder if the general TV audience would be any more receptive now than in 1990).

Combine that quality music with the humor, and the quality story, and you have an explanation for the attention this internet-only little project has garnered (okay, it doesn’t hurt that Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris, and Joss Whedon all have rabid fan-bases).

The thing that might get me to actually buy the DVD when this comes out? Supposedly the commentary is going to be done purely in song. That is just too original of a concept to miss.

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