This trailer is amazing! It has cool light sabers, an X-Wing battle, and the Millennium Falcon! Oh man, I cannot wait for this movie!
Jurassic World Verus Pan!
Two major trailers came out yesterday, Universal’s Jurassic World and Warner Brothers’ Pan. While they may not have a lot in common, both studios hope that these will build to future franchises, and they are both trying to use existing material lure you in. Let’s start with Jurassic World shall we!
I have been skeptical of this movie since it was announced, but this trailer did a good job of getting me interested. I love the idea of exploring a working Jurassic theme park, also Star Lord, but I am less keen on having a giant velociraptor be the main threat. With that many people in the park it doesn’t seem like a super-smart predator is necessary. But like I said, I am interested in this film now, so job well done.
Let’s see what Warner Brothers brought us with Pan shall we?
Again I am more interested in this movie now than I was before, but I still have a lot of reservations. I am not sure that Peter Pan and Hook need an origin story, and this movie has the same problem that all prequels do, we already know where this movie ends up: One’s experiences make him a hero, the other a villain (I will let you figure out which is which). Oz The Great and Powerful suffered for the same reason. Though the special effects look amazing, so it may be worth the price of admission just to see cool stuff.
Two big movies banking on you wanting to see more based on well known material. Do you? I am still struggling to figure out if I do, but it is hard for my inner thirteen year old self to turn down dinosaurs on the big screen.
DC Comics TV/Movie News!
First up it looks like Constantine might be DC TV’s first casualty. According to Deadline, NBC has halted production after 13 episodes. Now for most shows this would be the end, but it looks like NBC is going to continue to evaluate how the rest of these episodes do. The ratings are getting better. Its per-episode reviews are going up, not that they were ever bad, and its online fan base continues to grow, so it has a better shot then a lot of shows to get picked up for another 13 episode run next year, maybe as a midseason replacement or something. Though once production is halted getting back on the air is always a long shot.
Now to the two DC TV shows that are no where near getting canceled, Arrow and The Flash, it looks like we will not be seeing Batman or Superman any time soon. In an interview with ComicBook.com the producer of those shows, Andrew Kreisberg, has said that the big two are completely off limits, as are their cities. It looks like Nightwing is still on the table though, so we may not get Batman, but we still may get his former ward. It is a shame Warner Brothers Movies and Warner Brothers TV can’t work together better. If we can have two Flashes, we can certainly have two Batmen. Heck it would make my Earth 2 theory work better anyway.
From TV to movies, Wonder Woman has a director! According to The Hollywood Reporter, Michelle MacLaren, who has directed some of The Walking Dead‘s best episodes, has signed on to direct this block-buster for Warner Brothers. It has been long rumored that DC/WB was looking for a woman to direct this movie, and it looks like they found her. She has been doing good work on TV for a long time now, so it is a great time for her to make the move to feature films.
I Wish ‘This Is 40’ Had A Story!
This is 40 had a lot of things going for it: It was written and directed by Judd Apatow. It was the spin-off of Knocked Up, and it was based on two of Knocked Up’s well liked characters. It featured a lot of great talent, but the problem is that none of it went anywhere. It was still funny in places, very funny in fact, but it just lacked cohesion.
This movie follows Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd) as they try to navigate turning 40. Their kids are getting older and harder to deal with, their parents drive them crazy, and their jobs are not going well. They are just having a hard time making it all work.
Now Mann and Rudd are very funny, so this premise sounds great, but the problem is that there is no real story. It is just them having a hard time getting older. The crappy parents thing could have been one story, or their jobs going south could have been another, but instead of picking something and exploring it, we get a bunch of little vignettes, so nothing really keeps us engaged.
Like I have said the cast is wonderful, and they almost make this movie work. Considering all of this movie’s flaws, I would still probably watch a sequel just to see all these people work together again. Because if they had gotten a script with any meat on it at all this would have been a good movie.
It has been awhile since Judd Apatow has given us a full fledged hit, and I think This is 40 could have been one, but instead of giving us one decent story, he gave us like four ‘meh’ stories. Still, these are all good actors in good roles. so maybe Apatow can bring it all together for This is 50.
The Paladin joins The Crew
I don’t remember signing up for the beta for Ivory Tower’s The Crew, an open-world racing game, being published by Ubisoft. I don’t do a lot of racing games, not since Mario Cart on the SNES, so I wasn’t sure what I was going to get out of the game. The Crew’s claims to fame are a world map that truncates the United States so you can drive across the highways and byways from one coast to the other in an hour instead of several days; additionally you are playing at the same time as other players who you can join up with to complete the missions.
The game is very pretty, driving through the digital United States is a lot of fun, but you’re doing 130mph everywhere so you’re not able to really take in the view. You start in Detroit, but you can drive anywhere you’d like. There are some small towns and sights that dot the landscape between the big cities, as well as hidden items you can collect to build a secret car or improve your current car. You’re guided wherever you want to go by a floating blue line that gives you enough information without being intrusive. I took the long trip to Seattle from Detroit, traveling across the Midwest and then into the hills, even unofficially racing another player as we both struggled to navigate the high speeds, logging trucks, and tight curves of the mountain passes. He eventually turned off for Salt Lake City, while I made the final push to the Emerald City. Sigh, I miss him. Along the route you pass through challenges that you can engage in to earn improvements for your car (although the challenges are locked to certain levels so the ones on the way to Seattle were closed off to me). These challenges range from Speed, Slalom, or Jump skill challenges that reward you at different levels (Bronze, Silver, and Gold… FYI, Gold is bestest).
The story missions I played offered some variety, most involving NPC racers for me to crash into and bounce off of to victory. These races happen in their own instance so you’re not in the world, tying up the streets with your illegal street racing. The story is a mix of revenge and Fast and Furious and could be interesting, although hard to say when I only played a handful of missions. Joining with other players, I think, improves your bonuses and rewards when you win. I of course wouldn’t know because I’m a lone wolf who rides alone.
Overall I enjoyed The Crew even though it’s not my preferred style of game. I’m sure someone has some actual critique driving mechanics (I chose the Nissan Z which let me drift around corners effortlessly, unlike the Dodge Charger that drifted like a bar of wet soap), but I never felt I was overly punished for not being a racer. The only other critique I might have is the depiction of the United States. The map has Seattle, with some changes like I-5 North loops back to the Alaska Way Viaduct southbound instead of traveling further northward; but it doesn’t have Spokane or Portland. Auburn is on the map for some reason, which was odd. Eastern Washington, also was also far too tree covered.
I could of course spend a long time picking the world map decisions apart, but the reality is we don’t have to power available (not to mention the privacy concerns) to truly create a map where I can park in front of my house (however awesome that would be). So, you have to cut Ivory Tower some slack there. The Crew, for me as a non-racer, was actually a lot of fun and I was bummed when the Beta ended. The racing games for me that have been the most fun are those where you do more than race, preferably crashing into my friends or shooting red turtle shells at them; The Crew looks like it hits those notes as well as the racer notes well enough to make all the gamers feel comfortable behind the wheel of their virtual car. The Crew is scheduled to release this December and you might want to see it under your Christmas Tree this year.