Clone Wars Season 2 has been announced on Blu-ray and DVD and it can’t come too soon.  October 26th is the date given, which leads me to believe that we might not see Clone Wars season 3 on TV until after that.

It makes sense to want people able to catch up before the new season, doesn’t it?

In any case, here’s the press release from Lucasfilm:

The Force is back and better than ever – in Star Wars: The Clone Wars™ The Complete Season Two, coming to DVD and high-definition Blu-ray Disc October 26 from Lucasfilm Ltd. and Warner Home Video. Featuring cutting-edge animation and a host of special bonus materials, the comprehensive collection explores the farthest reaches of “a galaxy far, far away” with all-new adventures set against the spectacular backdrop of the Star Wars universe.

Relive all 22 Season Two episodes – featuring bounty hunters, space pirates, giant monsters, mind-controlling brain worms and the return of Boba Fett! – and then dig deeper with the ultimate look behind the scenes of the hit TV series. Bonus features include a look inside the Lucasfilm vaults, with featurette interviews along with Director and Artist commentaries on each disc. In addition, The Complete Season Two will include a 64-page production journal with concept designs, original sketches and notes from Supervising Director Dave Filoni. And exclusive to the Blu-ray disc, The Jedi Temple Archives provides in-depth access to an extensive database of creative materials.

“Everything’s improved since the first season – the stories, the animation, everything,” said Filoni. “It’s bigger and better, and it’s going to look great in high-definition. We’re all just so proud of the series, and I think it shows; we’re bursting to share our production secrets, so the features are just full of fun insights from behind the scenes. As a fan, this is what I’d want.”

Created and executive produced by George Lucas, the first-ever TV production from Lucasfilm Animation explores the tumultuous time between Episodes II and III, expanding the scope of Star Wars beyond anything seen in the feature films. With the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance, the heroes of the Republic – including the valiant Jedi Knights and their loyal clone troopers – fight bravely to repel the attacks of the evil Separatists and their droid army. With fierce battles, expanded storylines and ground-breaking animation, this is a Star Wars adventure that is bigger, bolder, and more intense than ever before!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars The Complete Season Two will be available October 26 for the suggested retail price of $44.98 for DVD and $59.99 for Blu-ray.

Hayley Atwell, who plays Peggy Carter in the upcoming Captain America: The First Avenger (July 22, 2011) film, broke the news to LeicesterSquareTV.

Unfortunately, what role he will play is still unknown. The most popular rumor floating around the interwebs right now is that he will step into the shoes of Gen. Chester Phillips. For those of you not familiar with the Captain American universe, General Phillips is the man who hand-picked Steve Rogers for the Super Soldier project and then trained him after it was a success.

Of course, as soon as what role he’s playing is confirmed we will let you know!

Via: SciFi Wire

Heat Vision Blog has the exclusive reporting that Marc Webb has been hard at work trying to cast his Peter Parker. Like we all assumed, the actors on the list are relatively “unknowns”. Below is an excerpt about one of the actors:

Josh Hutcherson: The youngest actor of the bunch — he turns 18 this year — is also the one with the most experience. The past six years alone have seen the Kentucky-born kid rack up credits with key roles in Jon Favreau’s “Zathura,” drama “Bridge to Terabithia” and the upcoming “Red Dawn” remake. He appears in the Sundance hit “The Kids Are All Right,” which insider buzz suggests could be an Oscar contender, and starred with Brendan Fraser in “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”

Hutcherson, repped by ICM and Beddingfield, just signed on to star in the “Journey” sequel, and that movie could prove a fly in the ointment if the actor’s schedule collides with “Spider-Man.” (Though you can bet every effort would be made to make it work.)

I’m very excited to hear more about this reboot. And speaking of Spider-Man reboots, has anyone read the treatment for James Cameron’s Spider-Man? Holy shit, how awful. The most notable part of the treatment is Spider-Man’s S and M scene with MJ on the Brooklyn Bridge. Seriously:

Spider Man moves his hand gracefully across her, and she sees the sheerest silk webbing glinting in the moonlight. First one wrist. Then the other. Hypnotic movement in the moonlight. Her arms are bound to the wall. Her breathing gets more rapid.

A foreign movie site called Oclumencia got some leaked spy photos of Daniel Radcliffe and Bonnie Wright in their aged epilogue make-up from the last part of the second installment of the 7th (8th technically?) Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. I had wondered if they would cast new actors to fill these jobs, but the make up department seems to have knocked this one out of the park.

The is Harry and Ginny Potter (nee Weasly) years later, after Voldemort has been destroyed. Oclumencia has dozens of photos in their gallery, so go and check them out.

I bet this movie will be pretty good, but none of them can top how great Alfonso Cuaron made the third film. My biggest disappointment in these last installments is that they haven’t brought the best, most competent director they had on the series back to finish it up.

How many of you are excited for the ending of this series?

Dreamworks has released the new trailer for their animated superhero film, Megamind. Personally, I am pleasantly surprised with this trailer… unlike the upcoming Shrek film, this actually looks quite funny. My only qualm is that the trailer doesn’t exactly communicate the supposed plot of the film from the synopsis, BUT, funny looking stuff none-the-less!

When super villain Megamind (Ferrell) defeats his archrival Metro Man (Pitt), the world should be his oyster. But instead, Megamind falls into total despair. It turns out that life without a rival is life without a point for him. So, he creates a new superhero rival, Titan (Hill). Unfortunately, the new hero wants to be a super villain, too. Caught in the middle, star reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Fey) asks the tough questions: Who can we turn to? Who has what it takes to stand up to this menace? Who will defend the innocent? Megamind! That’s who.

We’re coming to a close on the rebuttal of the 7 part Phantom Menace “review” from Red Letter Media, but after this we still have one part left.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been asked by a mass of fans of the prequels to rebut the Red Letter Media Review which, though humorous and tongue in cheek, has been a rallying cry for prequel bashers, even though most of the arguments in the video are pretty thin.   I’ve been asked repeatedly to come up with logical responses to it and have been doing so on a semi-regular basis.  Click the links to read Part One, Part Two,  Part Three, Part Four, and Part Five of my rebuttal.  To watch the original review,” target=”_blank”> click here.

Part Six

Part Six deals a lot with the ending, and Plinkett starts right off with saying, “The Jedi go back to Naboo for no reason, and they bring Anakin to a war zone for no reason.”  I can only assume that Plinkett fell asleep during every single scene that takes place in the Jedi Council chamber, because the reasons they went AND took Anakin were pretty clear.

As far as why they went, they basically have no clue who or what Darth Maul is or what he’s after.  Qui-Gon’s best guess (which was accurate) was that he was out to kill the Queen.  With the Queen heading back to Naboo to widen the conflict, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are tasked with continuing their protection of her in hopes that they may draw out this mysterious warrior.  That’s a pretty solid reason and it was in the movie, despite anyone’s attempts to tell you otherwise.

As for why they brought Anakin, the council forbade his training.  He’s essentially an orphan and Qui-Gon has taken it upon himself to take care of the boy.  Somehow, I doubt that he could have just left him in a day care.

The next issue is that there doesn’t seem to be a blockade on Naboo when the Jedi and the Queen come back, but why would you need to blockade a planet that you’ve entirely subjugated?  It seems ridiculous that the Trade Federation would waste all of those resources maintaining a blockade of a planet they have control of.

The Queen’s Plan

Plinkett does a really good job of belittling the Queen’s plan without actually thinking things through here.  His big problem is that they could have skipped the Gungan battle and the capturing of the Viceroy if they had focused their efforts on destroying the droid control ship.  What he fails to mention and realize is that they don’t have any ships.  They need to draw the droids out of Theed with the Gungan army to sneak the pilots in so they can actually accomplish that task.  Then, they need to capture the Viceroy, not so the droids will be lost and confused, but the Trade Federation, and those controlling the droids.  It’s really clear in the film that if they don’t capture the Viceroy and he escapes, he’ll be able to return with more droids and the problem will start all over.  The plan makes perfect sense and fits the story here, I really don’t see how it can be argued with.

There also seems to be an issue with the fact that the Trade Federation (who has zero military experience) would send their army to meet the Gungans, but they say in the film they don’t want the battle to take place in or near the city.  Nute Gunray is a coward and wants the fighting to take place as far away from himself as possible.  And how it will work to Palpatine’s advantage is that the Queen and the Jedi can be killed in the name of the conflict and no one would think twice into investigating it.

As far as the problems the reviewer has with Anakin accidentally starting up the ship to help the Queen escape the hangar bay, he doesn’t really have an argument against it other than he doesn’t like it.  I happen to think it’s great fun and I like it quite a bit.  I think this one is a personal taste issue.  And I don’t need to get into all the metaphysical force, and midi-chlorians and “Nothing happens by accident” debate.

“If the Sith have been extinct for a millenium, and only Jedi carry lightsabers why are they so good at sword fighting?” Aside from the fact that they’re guided by the force?  Well, because they train.  They have lots and lots of training to do that.  I’m sure they spar with their masters.  But we never see Luke train to sword fight his either, but no one ever questions why he can do it so well…

Plinket then goes on to complain about how the Jedi can run really fast at the beginning of the film, but can’t by the end.  And I hate to use a video game analogy here, but have you ever played a Star Wars game with force powers?  There’s a point where you can get winded and need to lay off the force powers for a minute until you can use them again.  Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are in a heated battle for a long time and Obi-Wan actually just used the force to brace his fall from 5 stories high, and then used the force to leap back up and race back into the battle.  Maybe he’s winded…  But the larger point is that it was visually and dramatically interesting to separate each of the combatants up by the energy shields and it worked for the story, too.

“If the order is to wipe them all out, why are the droids taking prisoners?”  I think we can assume based on the context of that conversation that Palpatine meant the royal retinue and the Jedi, not the Gungans.

I can’t even believe that the next argument brought up in this video is that the lightsaber battle at the end of Phantom Menace is too good.  Here we have well trained and seasoned Jedi and Sith fighting on screen for the first time after only seeing half-machines and boys playing Jedi fight, and the only argument you hear is “it looks too good”?  It makes perfect sense why the fighting in this era would be much more graceful and athletic than in any spot in Return of the Jedi.

I can’t argue with the fact that there was much more at stake during the lightsaber duels during the classic trilogy than Phantom Menace, but Phantom Menace is a careful building block that shades and enhances those moments later on in the saga.  Phantom Menace also provides an excellent contrast in the galaxy, how good and rich things were and how run down and hopeless they had become under the thumb of the Empire.  If Phantom Menace hadn’t been so bright and relatively cheery, the entire saga would seem monotone, we needed the levity of this film to offset the others and show us what was truly being lost in the Galaxy.

The better the good times, by contrast, the worse the bad.  Phantom Menace illustrates this point to a tee in the Star Wars saga, and it’s a little disheartening how so few people seem to recognize that.

I’ll be back soon with Part 7, but be sure to come back tomorrow, May 19th, on Prequel Appreciation Day.  It’s the 11th anniversary of Phantom Menace and we’ll be giving away a 2gb Obi-Wan Kenobi Mimo-Bot Flash Drive.

Empire Online is reporting that Ewan McGregor has replaced Johnny Depp in the relaunch of his film “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.”  He’s set to appear opposite Robert Duvall, who’s playing everyone’s favorite denizen of La Mancha.  McGregor is set to play Sancho Panza, but he’s actually a 21st century ad executive thrust into the past.  Or that’s what the script was about.  Who knows how it might have changed?

I’m inclined to like this casting a lot more.  Not just because Ewan McGregor was Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, but because I think he’s actually a great actor and Johnny Depp has gotten just a bit boring in the last 5 years.  He dropped out of this to work on a fourth Pirates film, which is kind of disappointing.

Some of you may remember this doomed project from the excellent documentary Lost in La Mancha, when Gilliam tried to get a Don Quioxte story off the ground a decade ago.  Some say that Don Quixote is forever cursed from gracing the big screen.  Orson Welles’ own attempt was met with a spectacular failure as well.

I have much higher hopes for this incarnation and I hope we see it with a much wider release than Gilliam’s last few films.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is set to start filming in September.

From the man who brought us Alien Vs. Predator, shitty Resident Evil movies,  and a forthcoming Castlevania project with nary a whip to be seen, Paul W.S. Anderson is probably my most loathed filmmaker of all time.  Every time I read news about him and his projects, he’s doing things that should be no-brainers and actually turning them into horrible ideas.

Now, he’s set his sights on ruining The Three Musketeers for a generation.  Though there is one bright spot in the pitch (and that’s Christopher Waltz playing the heavy, Cardinal Richelieu), everything else about it sounds terrible.

From the Heatvision Blog’s report on the story:

Paul W.S. Anderson is culling actors from rising stars to Oscar winners for his 3D version of the classic tale “The Three Musketeers.” The project is slated to begin shooting in September.

Logan Lerman, who recently played the title character in “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” is in negotiations to play D’Artagnan

Why does it need to be 3D?!  And Logan Lerman as D’Artagnan?!

Anderson’s real-life wife, Milla Jovovich, has been cast as Milady de Winter, a former love of Athos who is described as “17th century Bond girl.”

An offer is out to Orlando Bloom to play nemesis the Duke of Buckingham.

What?!  A “17th Century Bond Girl”?!  That doesn’t even make sense.  And Orlando Bloom?!  How is that guy still getting work?!

But here comes the next, worst part:

Anderson is going for a contemporary feel with his movie.

What is the point of a bad-ass period piece with a “contemporary feel”?

Everything about this sounds like bad news.  And with our luck, it’ll make a whole bunch of money off of a whole bunch of people who don’t know better and Anderson will keep getting work.  Hey, Paul W.S. Anderson, why don’t you leave all the directing to Paul Anderson’s with Thomas as their middle name!

The good news, though, is that there is a competing Three Musketeers project set up at Warners with Doug Liman attached to direct.  My guess is that it will be a whole lot better than this.

Ugh.

We know that Edgar Wright has been in talks for ages on an Ant-Man project, and we know that there has been more speculation of it recently.

To date, no one has really mentioned a cast, though knowing Edgar Wright’s relationship, I think we all sort of settled into the idea that Simon Pegg could play him and we’d all be happy with that.  But Marvelous News and Bleeding Cool are reporting from inside sources that sci-fi bad-ass Nathan Fillion has clenched the part and there should be an announcement soon, probably at Comic-Con.

“Nathan Fillion is pretty much locked to be Henry Pym, and should be announced before any other new additions to the cast (think around Comic Con)”

This little gem was buried in a larger article about a fellow named Kevin Pennington that I’ve never heard of.  Apparently, he’s inked a three picture deal with Marvel Studios to play some character of some sort that doesn’t involve covering his face with a mask.  That pretty much leaves out any major character, since Marvel’s modus operandi has been to ink their stars to 9 picture deals and most of the characters wear masks.

So…

That’s the word on the street.  I have no inside info on this (though I’m doing some checking and waiting for reports to come back), so I thought I’d report what was out there and let you guys talk about it.