Caddickisms » trailer

Star Wars… they did it again!

Jeff — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 19:52:25 +0000

Well, the 15,000th version of Star Wars is coming out on Blu-ray soon.

I’ll give Lucas a lot of credit. The man is a genius at marketing. He must have a huge storehouse of stuff that he can release for each new version of the movies he puts out.

This time the thing that is getting me to consider buying the Blu-ray is this deleted scenes trailer:

I foolishly thought that the DVD releases from a few years back held all the deleted scenes that could be salvaged. I was wrong. That trailer shows scenes I’d never seen before.

It also shows a scene that I remember from the “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Storybook” that I had when I was a kid: the Wampa attack on the Rebel base on Hoth. As a kid I could never understand why that was in the storybook and not in the movie. I mean there were pictures and everything! How could they have pictures if it wasn’t in the movie?!

Ahh, youth…

I’d seen the recent teaser of the deleted “Luke building his new lightsaber” scene, which was kind of cool. But here’s the Wampa attack and a Tatooine sandstorm, and more on the attack on the Endor shield generator… it looks like good stuff!

I don’t know how many times I can keep buying the same movies in different formats, though. I’ve been a fan since 1978, but come on… stop milking me dry! I’ve learned my lesson. There is obviously more they’re holding back for a future new format (like, say, when they’re converted to 3D).

Still, I’m tempted. Deep breaths… deeeep breaths.

Star Wars: The Old Republic – cinematics

Jeff — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 02:35:12 +0000

This is the kind of stuff that keeps sucking me back into the world of Star Wars gaming. I LOVE this stuff.

I have no idea how the actual game experience will be for “The Old Republic” – all I know is that these cinematics look Awesome, with a capital “AWE”. There are three now, that I’m aware of. “Deceived”, “Hope”, and “Return”.

Here’s everything I know about the story these trailers introduce:

The Old Republic time period is at least 1000 years prior to the Star Wars movies. There are a lot of Sith and Jedi running around.
The Sith “homeworld” is Korriban – the retaking of Korriban by the Sith is shown in “Return”.
Darth Malgus is the pale bad guy who’s apparently running the show (at least by the end of “Return”).
The Sith, under Malgus, are making rather good headway against the Jedi and the Republic forces.
The woman Jedi seems pretty important. She’s got a lightsaber blocking skill I’ve never heard of before, shown in “Hope”.
Coruscant is the capital of the Republic, and the Jedi Temple is there as well. That’s where the “Deceived” trailer takes place.

Bioware makes a heck of a trailer. They do a great job of pulling from the movies to put enough familiarity in to draw in a fan of the films (most prominently in “Return”), throw some more subtle references in for the deeper fans, and then blow it out into a visual explosion of pure cool that reflects what a lot of fans wanted the movie prequels to provide. In the films we got a taste of it with the fight against Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, and these trailers take that tease and expand it into a satisfying feast of a battle.

Here they are in the order I think they should appear (based on the development of Malgus) – which is the opposite of the order in which they were released.

Feast your eyes….

Return

Hope

Deceived

I’m telling ya… these trailers make me want to run out and buy The Old Republic. They also annoy me for showing me what “Revenge of the Sith” could have been. But that’s a whole different post.

2011 Movies to Drool Over

Jeff — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:52:39 +0000

I’m a bit behind in putting up my movie list for this year.

Last year’s list was full of promise, but I only got to see 4 of the 21 listed films in the theater. I’ve since brought the total up to 11 with the help of DVDs. I hope to catch the 12th (Voyage of the Dawn Treader) on DVD next week. I’m still annoyed that I missed that one.

And once again this year I’ve already missed some that I wanted to see. Limitless and Source Code looked really good, for example. On the other hand, I’m perfectly comfortable having skipped The Green Hornet (but I still want to see it on DVD). I am Number 4 was on the fence for me, but I am looking forward to the DVD. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to The Adjustment Bureau; that one looked like a Twilight Zone episode. Super, Paul, and Battle: Los Angeles are all on the “if it comes up” list. I’m kinda interested in Atlas Shrugged and The Consipirator, too, but not enough to spend theater bucks.

But that’s all in the past. Looking forward from today, these are my “movies of interest”:

Thor - yeah. In the theater, please.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – probably DVD, but I wouldn’t mind catching it in the theater.

X-Men: First Class – on the fence, but I’m thinking it’ll be a theater movie.

Super 8 – totally want to see this in the theater. Really looking forward to it. Spielberg and Abrams working together, and apparently at the tops of their games? Oh, yeah.

Green Lantern – Theater, easily. If I miss it there I gotta wait until it’s on DVD and watch it at Mike’s house on his mammoth screen. My TV won’t do it justice.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon – despite my dislike of the entire Transformers movie series, I’m still tempted to see this on the big screen. I feel like such a hypocrite.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 – Theater. No doubt. It just looks fantastic.

Captain America – Again, theater is a must. This is working out to be a really expensive summer.

Cowboys and Aliens – Theater if I can, DVD if I have to.

Smurfs - I’ll be smurfed if I step foot into the theater for this smurfing movie, or use my money to rent a DVD. The only way I’ll see it is if it’s on TV when I walk by.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Hmmm… tough call on this one. Leaning towards theater, but if I’m being realistic it’ll probably be DVD – but only because there are so many others that must be in the theater.

Conan the Barbarian – DVD only. Mostly intrigued because Arnie’s replacement is “Ronan” from Stargate: Atlantis (Jason Momoa).

The Three Musketeers – intrigued, but it looks a little darker than I expected. On the other hand, I love me a good sword-play flick. It’ll be tough to pass this one up in the theater.

Contagion - so far all I know is who’s in it (Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne), but it’s one to look into.

Puss in Boots – probably DVD, if that, despite what I said in the podcast.

The Muppets – I hope this is good. We need another good Muppets movie. And I’d love to be able to take my kids to a film this year.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows – I forgot they were making this! I liked the first one. I’ll see a sequel. Preferably in the theater, but this one may end up grudgingly on DVD.

(Some of these I’ve talked about with Lee Sargent on the most recent edition of my podcast. Take a listen… if you dare.)

So… 10 that I’ll catch in the theater if at all possible, 5 of which will upset me if I have to wait for DVD. And most of them are packed into just a couple of months. This does not bode well for the odds of me catching them all.

Those are probably most of the major players in the theater this year. Which ones are you looking forward to? Which ones did I miss?

TIDBABSH 2: Part 2: Return of The Australian

Jeff — Tue, 03 May 2011 17:37:41 +0000

If you thought he was gone, you weren’t paying attention.

He’s back! He’s opinionated! He’s Australian! He’s spent more time thinking about pop culture than is probably healthy!

And that last bit actually pays off in this, the second half of our conversation, as Lee Sargent and I concentrate on pop culture and movie/TV news and rumors, including a run down of why Wonder Woman’s shorts are annoying, which Pixar films shouldn’t get sequels (but are), and two super-hero showdowns! (listen to part 1 for the beginning of the exciting discussion).

To be specific, we get into these items (and of course, ramble about other related things):

Costner in Superman: Man of Steel
Superman will be a ‘wild ride’
Is Justice League film coming?
Superhero fight gets nasty
Pixar Prequels (Monsters Inc)
Bill and Ted 3
Wonder Woman wears short-shorts
Warner Bros. apologizes for original Green Lantern trailer
Trailers:

You might want to take a look at any of those trailers you haven’t seen yet for some context before you listen. There’s some good stuff there!

Done yet? No? That’s okay, we’ll wait.

…

No, seriously… take your time.

…

Alright then, just click play. You know you want to! Leave your thoughts in the comments! And don’t forget to visit Lee at Quit Your Day Job and Lee and Dan’s Midnight Movie Club podcast.

Seeing Green… Lanterns

Jeff — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 04:11:36 +0000

How many major “cons” are there in a year (that’s “conference” for the un-geeked)? New footage is spilling out like water from WonderCon, held recently, and Green Lantern is pouring out 4 minutes of mostly new scenes.

Thankfully, it almost all looks better than the first official trailer, which I basically panned.

It’s still a little too obviously computer-generated for my tastes, but still better than the first trailer. Apparently I’m not the only one who didn’t like that trailer. According to statements made at CinemaCon:

…Warner Brothers worldwide marketing president, Sue Kroll is admitting the first trailer may not have been all it could or should have been.

“Part of the reason the response to the first trailer was lukewarm was that the big-scale sequences weren’t ready to show, and we suffered for it. … We can’t afford to do that again,” Kroll said at CinemaCon this week.

Warner Brothers underestimated the amount of time it’d take to complete the elaborate 3-D sequences for the film. Now they’ve got it all sorted and, according to their president of motion pictures, Jeff Robinov, their marketing plan is in place: “We won’t be in this position again.”

This is a good first step. I hope they don’t go too far, though, and show basically the whole movie in previews and clips now.

What do you think? That’s an awful lot of aliens to pull off, and I’m not sure they’re doing it convincingly. I think they just bit off more than they can chew with the scope of this one, visually. It’s still a bit video gamey/cartoony, though. Hopefully I can drop my expectations a bit and enjoy it. It does, as I said, look better than the original trailer.

In the end, though, I think it’s going to come down to the actor, Ryan Reynolds, to pull this movie off. I wish I had more confidence in him. I’m trying to keep an open mind, though. And from a scene or two here it seems possible.

By the way… as lead up to the movie, WB is releasing another animated movie to DVD, following the same pattern as Animatrix and Batman: Gotham Knight – multiple stories each telling part of a larger story. In this case, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights will showcase Nathan Fillion as the voice of Hal Jordan (funny how that worked out). From the press release:

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights weaves six legendary stories of the Green Lantern Corps’ rich mythology around preparations for an attack by an ancient enemy. As the battle approaches, Hal Jordan mentors new recruit Arisia in the history of the Green Lantern Corps, telling tales of Avra (the first Green Lantern) and several of Hal’s comrades – including Abin Sur, Kilowog, Laira and Mogo. In the end, Arisia must rise to the occasion to help Hal, Sinestro and the entire Green Lantern Corps save the universe from the destructive forces of Krona.

Sounds like I’ll enjoy that film. Hopefully the live action film is worth all this effort!

Two lines, and I’m sold

Jeff — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 01:25:56 +0000

The full trailer for Doctor Who’s sixth season is out. Watch it:

This bit did it for me:

Off-screen, scary sounding alien: Fear me. I’ve killed hundreds of Time Lords.

The Doctor (not impressed): Fear me. I’ve killed them all.

Game; set; match. I’m in. Everything else is gravy. And there’s some marvelous gravy…

River: “This is the day he finds out who I am.” Presumably in the episode entitled “The Doctor’s Wife” written by Neil Gaiman.
Something huge is going on in the TARDIS 38 seconds into that trailer.
The Doctor: “I’ve been running my whole life. Now it’s time for me to stop.”

This is some game-changing stuff. I fully expect my brain to explode when we hit the mid-season break at episode 6 or 7 (I still don’t get what justifies a mid-series break for a 13 episode series…).

I say it again… CAN’T WAIT!

Doctor, Doctor, gimme the news…

Jeff — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 03:35:03 +0000

We’re heading back toward another season of Doctor Who! Matt Smith will reprise his role as The Doctor starting on Easter weekend (April 23rd). Also returning are companions (and newlyweds) Rory and Amy. And of course, River Song will show up at some point as well.

I talked about how excited I was about this season in my review of last season, so instead of repeating myself I’ll just say… “can’t wait!”

Here’s the incredibly short teaser trailer for the new season:

(Check this out for an analysis of the alternate trailer with an extra character. Or here is a side-by-side comparison.)

The Silence is coming! What does that mean?! Here’s a quick refresher of hints in last season.

Here’s the full trailer from back in December:

While you’re waiting for your Doctor Who fix in April, take this quick hit to tide you over. Taken together, these two ‘mini-sodes’ create an approximately 8 minute episode created for the British charity event Red Nose Day (which is apparently like the Comic Relief events). The humor is slightly more adult than the show usually is, but I guess they were pushing to a different audience for the charity event.

Part 1: Space

Part 2: Time

Apparently there will be a “prequel minisode” released on Friday, too.

So… only one more month of anticipation! Can’t wait!

Review: The Last Airbender

Jeff — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 05:41:33 +0000

The Last Airbender‘s current ranking on RottenTomatoes.com? 6%

Six percent. In other words, atrocious. Worse than 94% of all movies rated. Horrible. A steaming pile of excrement. Your mother would slap you and make extra appointments with her psychiatrist if she heard you watched this movie.

I watched it anyway.

You know what? It’s not that bad.

Now, don’t get me wrong… it’s not good, either. That script needed some serious work. This is one of those scripts that treats the audience like morons, taking a plot point and tying it to an anvil, then swinging it around and slapping you with it until they finally drop it on your head, and you smile, because you know you’ll never be subjected to it again.

There are serious deficiencies with the acting and the editing as well, but I’m gonna lay everything right at the feet of M. Night Shyamalan. There’s no way that the failure of this movie is not the fault of his failure as a director. Unlike most people, it bothers me to say that, because I’ve liked all of the other movies he’s done that I’ve seen (no, I haven’t seen The Happening or Lady in the Water yet). Still, there’s no denying it. There’s too much wrong here for it not to be his fault as the one pulling the strings.

However, despite it’s failings, you can see the potential in the story. And this is the point where I and the majority of the world, apparently, differ. A lot of people who rated this movie are comparing it to its source material, the Nickelodeon cartoon “Avatar: The Last Airbender” – which I have to imagine is superior to this movie in just about every way – and recoiling in horror at how distant the quality of execution of this movie’s story is from the story in the cartoon. I haven’t seen the cartoon (aside from an episode or two) so I can’t make that comparison. Here’s how I put it in perspective:

Despite the execution, the story could be followed and was compelling.
It wasn’t Transformers 2.

That second point is really the more illustrative.

In Transformers 2, the effects were about the same quality as Airbender – which is to say very good. Transformers 2 had better acting and better writing, but a horrible story.

Given the news that they were making a sequel to Airbender or Transformers, I’d be much less likely to kill myself to hear that they’re making an Airbender sequel. There’s somewhere to go with that story. I want to learn more.

I’ve seen movies that made me want to gouge my eyes out. This was not one of them. Was it good? No. I can’t in good conscience make that argument. But it was far better than 6% puts it.

So should you see it? If you’ve seen the cartoon, no, I wouldn’t. If you haven’t? Eh. As I say, I’ve seen worse, but I wouldn’t press you into seeing it. It’s a fair enough diversion, and it looks nice.

I’m disappointed that we will, in all likelihood, never see the sequels because of the pounding this film has taken. But I’m glad to know the cartoon is out there, and I do intend to watch that when I get the chance.

Green Lantern – first trailer

Jeff — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 04:56:15 +0000

I’ve been excited and worried about this one for a long time. Green Lantern is an exceptionally hard character to pull off in live-action. More than most other super-heroes, the effects are front and center, and extremely important to get right, but extremely susceptible to looking cartoony. They have to look realistic, and yet they have no connection to reality. The ring effects in particular should have substance, and yet not. Go too far one way or the other and you’ve lost suspension of disbelief. And then you’ve lost the movie. On the other hand, if you hit the visual balance right, you’re in the running, but you’ve still got to get the story right. And if they get that right? Total, full-on, awesomeness.

We’ve seen images of the upcoming film in dribs and drabs, but now we’ve finally got a full trailer to review. See it below in all it’s green-ness.

So did they hit the balance? Does this get me past the first hurdle and into the theater?

Maybe. Honestly, I’m not as impressed as I’d hoped I’d be. In fact, I might go so far as to say disappointed. In many parts it’s pretty obviously computer generated. I get that that’s how it has to be made, but it’s not supposed to look that way. But then they have a problem the other way, too – that scene where he flies in and kicks someone? I can vividly picture the wires and the track they hung from. I haven’t had that sensation in a big budget movie for a long time.

Then there’s the casting. Ryan Reynolds would not have been my choice for this role, and this trailer doesn’t do anything to change my mind on that. He just doesn’t have the gravity to pull this off, in my opinion.

It really pains me to be so negative on this. I very much want this film to be good. I hope as we see more down the road it becomes obvious that the failing is in the trailer, and not the film. I doubt it, but I live in hope.

Holiday trailers – Tron: Legacy, Narnia 3, and HP:TDH

Jeff — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 04:35:08 +0000

The time is shortly upon us.

The wait is nearly over.

Let the glorious holiday IMAX season BEGIN!!!

Wait… let me get my oxygen…

Okay. I feel better now. Got a little giddy there for a second.

There are three movies left in 2010 that I really want to see in theaters. Back in March I reviewed the trailers for a bunch of 2010 films and picked a list of about 12 movies I was shooting to see in the theater. So far I got to see 2 of them in the cinema, and 2 more on DVD. Not a great track record – but in hindsight I think I was overly optimistic for some of those picks, and I’m glad I didn’t spend the money to get out to see them.

But the three that are yet to be released all look very good.

The first on the docket is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt 1.

The theater near me is building an IMAX right now, and the first movie to play there will be Harry Potter. I was a bit disappointed in the last HP offering, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that this is going to be one I see in the theater. Whether I see it in IMAX is up in the air, but I’m definitely seeing it.

The second to be released is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Yep, I’m in for this one, too. Definitely not in IMAX, but definitely going. Just need to figure out the babysitting. December 10th is a tough time of year for that, both in cost and availability.

And then, finally, is the movie I’ve waited 25 years to see – Tron: Legacy.

The closer we get to the release of this movie, the more nervous I am that it won’t be good. I really, really want this to be mind-blowingly good. I’ve purposely tried to avoid the marketing for this one lately, to attempt to keep my expectations in check. Still, I will be seeing it of course. In IMAX, and in all likelihood in 3D. The timing of the release on December 17th is even more of a problem for me logistically than Narnia. I’m not sure I’ll be able to see it until the last week of the year, but I’m going to really try to get it in earlier. The only good thing is that I might be busy enough that I won’t catch the critics’ reviews.

So, are you in or out? IMAX or no-IMAX? 3D or 2D? What other movies are on your must see list for the rest of this year?