As we reported last Friday, MTV talked to Sam Raimi about the upcoming Spider-Man 4, which is hopefully going to begin shooting in March 2010. MTV promised that Raimi had more to say and they would release that in the days to come. True to their word, they have released more of their conversation with the Director, this time with regards to the villain for the fourth film. While he (obviously) didn’t reveal for sure who it would be, he did say this:

“I love the Lizard,” said Raimi. “There’s a great story there in the Marvel comic books about Dr. Connors. I’m less familiar with Carnage.”

And of course, what I think is the usual spill for Raimi when it comes to choosing the Spidey villain:

“What we’re trying to do right now is really understand the journey Peter is going to go on this time and have the villain maybe be a counter to that growth, something that he has to overcome,” Raimi said. “Or maybe he has to grow in a way to overcome the villain, because there always seem to be stories of coming of age, of a young man growing up and learning things about life, so once we are identifying the exact movement that Peter has to grow to, I think the villain-and we’re trying this right now; we’re trying to choose a villain based on who would be the proper counter to that growth, so we really have dramatic conflict.”

Kind of seems like the same song Raimi sang when it came to making the previous two sequels. Carefully choosing a villain that helps Peter progress as a character and grow as a hero (and yet we still ended up with Venom in the third film?). While this is great and all, I would really like to see Peter be the hero finally. It’s been three films now and it still seems like he is learning and not accepting this whole hero thing. I know he’s still got a long way to go, but I would like to see Spidey have more confidence in this next film and be a little more of a wise-cracking kick-ass superhero. It’s time to let Peter start figuring it out.

You can check out the rest of the story over at MTV!

It took long enough, but at long last we have a feature length trailer for the highly anticipated Toy Story 3 which hits theaters on June 18, 2010! I know people get nervous when sequels are made to great movies, but with Pixar at the helm, is anyone that concerned? Check out the trailer in full HD over at Apple!

Woody and Buzz had accepted that their owner Andy would grow up someday, but what happens when that day arrives? In the third installment, Andy is preparing to depart for college, leaving his loyal toys troubled about their uncertain future. Lee Unkrich (co-director of “Toy Story 2” and “Finding Nemo”) directs this highly anticipated film, and Michael Arndt, the Academy Award®-winning screenwriter of “Little Miss Sunshine,” brings his unique talents and comedic sensibilities to the proceedings. TOY STORY 3 will be presented in Disney Digital 3D^TM in select theaters.

Death Troopers, which hits shelves everywhere tomorrow (and you can order for half-price on Amazon right now), was written by novelist Joe Schreiber and is the first horror novel set in the Star Wars universe.

Like so many things nowadays, this is a tale of the undead rising to bedevil the days of the living.  The story is very paint-by-numbers survival horror.  The setup is great: The prison barge Purge is transporting a boatload of inmates to a permanent prison facility, but their engines die in the middle of deep space.  They find a derelict Star Destroyer and board it in hopes of salvaging parts so they can be on their way.  Like so many zombie-stories, there’s a virus on board that kills people and turns them into the living dead and only 6 people aboard the cruiser were immune.  Two of those survivors?  Han Solo and his Wookiee first mate, Chewbacca.

The book plays out like standard survival horror fare from there.  That’s not to say that it’s a bad thing.  The book was an incredibly quick and entertaining read.  I found myself wondering what would happen next and not be able to put the book down.  It’s certainly a book you need to read under a dim light (or even a flashlight) and alone in the dark.  Also, you should put the Emperor’s Throne Room music from Return of the Jedi on the ‘ol mp3 player of choice and throw it on repeat.

The thing that impressed me the most about the book were some of the gut-wrenching visuals that Schreiber was able to implant into my brain.  Some of the imagery was so viscerally impacting and surreal that it’s still sticking with me.

I’ve read that there was a lot of fan disgust by the idea that Han and Chewie would be battling undead Imperials in this book, and there’s something to be said about the fact that we know already that they get away and live to fight another day because this happens before the Battle of Yavin.  But at the end of the day, I enjoyed them in the book.  I like Han and Chewie and watching Chewie eviscerate undead Stormtroopers was fun to read about.  So what if I knew they’d live?  And so what if they screw around with the continuity a little to place these guys on the prison barge?  As a self-contained piece of entertainment, Death Troopers was enjoyable and successful.

So, this is a great tradition for Lucas Books to start.  A Star Wars horror novel or two during the Halloween season?  It seems like a great idea.  And if they run out of ideas?  I’ve got a few.

Click the link to order the book on Amazon: Death Troopers.

Be sure to follow all of Swank’s Star Wars news on The Examiner.

During Dragon*Con, I was able to sit down with Mike Mignola and talk about many, many things.

As you know, Mignola is the creator of Hellboy and has had a rich body of work for all the comic book companies.  We spoke about his start in comics, early freelancing, his work on films and even how George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped influence the creation of Hellboy.

We also talked about his work on The Hobbit.  Here’s an excerpt of that portion of the interview:

Big Shiny Robot!: And now, and I don’t know if this is overstated as well, but I’ve read everywhere that you’ll be working on The Hobbit with [Guillermo Del Toro].

Mike Mignola: I did.  I worked on it for about a week.  It took longer to go to and come back from New Zealand…  I was more time in the plane, I think, than I was on the ground in New Zealand, but there really wasn’t much for me to do.  That world is so clearly established in Lord of the Rings, I just thought, “What is there for me to do?” And he had a few things he wanted me to take a crack at.  It was really intimidating because John Howe, one of the main designers on Lord of the Rings flew out with me, so we were in New Zealand together.  And Alan Lee was coming in the next couple of days and I’m like, “What the hell am I doing with these guys?”  I suspect that what I did in the week I was there as soon as I left he handed that stuff over to John or Alan and said, “Here’s what the kid did.  If you can use any of it, fine, if not, just throw it away.”  I think he just wanted me to be there.

BSR!: Can you talk at all about what you did while you were there?

MM: Probably not.  Not at this point.

BSR!: Lots of pictures of Ron Perlman as Beorn?

MM: No, I did not.  It’s so funny, because there’s so much speculation about what I did and it goes from someone saying, “I hope he did this,” to someone saying, “I hear he did this.”  Those stories, especially anything involving Hollywood, you put that shit on the internet and it grows like a weed.

He was perhaps one of the most self-deprecating and humble artists I’ve ever had the pleasure to interview.

To listen to the complete audio, click the link here.

To order any of Mike Mignola’s books on Amazon, click this link.

Here we are with the first regular episode of Season 2, and I must say that I couldn’t be more pleased. Surely, I think there were a few missed opportunities this episode, but I thought it was an incredible piece of televised animated cinema.

“Children of the Force” picks up where the season premiere left off. Cad Bane, now in possession of the Jedi Holocron that has the names and locations of the most Force sensitive children in the Republic, is off to do Darth Sidious’ bidding in helping him create a generation of Force endowed spies to do his dark bidding. This is particularly interesting to me, as it gives the impression that Sidious was trying everything he could to accomplish his goals and not putting his eggs all into the “Vader” basket. As prescient as he was, he had no idea how long it would take him to accomplish his goals. It seems to me that this episode mines the roots of what would eventually become “The Emperor’s Hands”… Could Lumiya and Mara Jade have been abducted much in this fashion for their work as Palpatine’s assassin’s and spies?

In any case, the Jedi use their Force abilities to ascertain the locations of the children that Palpatine is having Bane abduct and race to save them. Obi-wan is too late to save a Rodian baby from Bane’s vile clutches (and I must say, Rodia was beautifully rendered), but Anakin and Ahsoka apprehend him after foiling his attempt at kidnapping a Force adept Gungan baby on Naboo. I think these two action sequences were part of the missed opportunities of the episode, they could have been much more detailed and in depth and been quite exciting.

Despite that, though, this sets up what was perhaps my favorite moment in an episode ever. Having Bane in custody and needing the location of the children and the holocron, Mace Windu, Obi-wan Kenobi, and Anakin decide that they need to use their Jedi mind powers to coerce Bane. Obi-wan notes that Bane is too strong willed for that to work, but Anakin and Mace Windu agree that being much more forceful is the only option they have left, even though that level of aggressive coercion via the Force could leave Bane with brain damage. But like I said, they have no choice. They take the Jedi Mind Trick to a level that could only be described as Jedi Mind Rape.

Bane eventually offers to take them to the Holocron. Masters Windu and Kenobi are sent with Bane to the Holocron and Anakin and Ahsoka are tasked with finding the children. Predictably, Bane has led them into a trap which enables him to escape, but they recover the crystal and Holocron. Anakin and Ahsoka find the children on Mustafar, where Sidious is outlining his plot for a regiment of “Emperor’s Hands” and save the babies before the facility is engulfed in lava.

Overall, this episode had quite a bit to offer and I’m constantly reminded by the care and attention for the source material and original movies from the writers and the artists. There is so much dialogue that is lifted straight out of the movies in exactly the right situations that make it feel just right. And the visuals in the show are so distinct, but reverent to the source material, that they’re simply beautiful to look at.

At the end of day, I’m pretty in love with this show and I hope you’re all giving it a chance. This show is Star Wars and I’m happy that this cartoon is around to live up to the legacy.

I would also like to point out that based on the previews for the next episode, it looks basically like a Star Wars take on Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious.  Since that’s easily one of my favorite non-Star Wars movies, this will be a treat and a half next week.  Sadly, I won’t be able to see that episode on time either, as I have tickets for Star Wars in Concert.  Grrr….

To catch up on Season 1, you can preorder The Clone Wars: The Complete Season One at Amazon by clicking the link.

For other Clone Wars news and reviews of previous episodes, click this link.

In an exclusive conversaion with Spider-Man franchise director, Sam Raimi, MTV was told that he hopes to start filming the fourth installment in the first week of March, 2010:

“We’re hoping that it’s the first week in March,” said Raimi.

At the moment, pre-production is in full swing, even as screenwriter Gary Ross (“great director and a very fine writer,” said Raimi) continues to work on the script.

“He’s working on a draft,” he continued. “I just gave him some notes and he’s doing a rewrite right now.”

On other fronts, “Spider-Man 4” continues to chug along. “The production is starting to come together,” Raimi told us. “I’ve got a production designer who is starting to design the sets and the environments that the picture will take place in. We just brought aboard Scott Stokdyk as one of the two visual effects supervisors, and I worked with him on all three ‘Spider-man’ pictures.”

So far, the only major people to sign back on for a fourth movie are Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire, so Raimi is still charged with the task of filling the rest of the rolls for the movie.

According to MTV, there was more revealed regarding the direction of Spider-Man 4 including conversations about the direction of the character, which villains might make the cut, and more. While I doubt there will be any major reveals with any of this, we will keep our eyes peeled for any more news coming from MTV’s “exclusive conversation” with the man behind Spider-Man!

To begin, I’ll openly say I was impressed, I played the demo of this a year ago when it was in the hands of Brash Entertainment, and within a year Konami turned it from broken garbage into a serviceable survival horror.

mmmmmmm headgear

This game is great for a few types of people: those who love survival-horror games, those who are into the Saw series (namely the first movie), or achievement whores. The game doesn’t have the best character models ever or the best graphics in the world, but in a way it’s part of the delivery, the grittiness doesn’t take anything away from the atmosphere or the story. You play as Detective Tapp, and like the movies Jigsaw has set you into one of his traps, only this isn’t totally about you as you are set to save those who’s lives you’ve directly or indirectly destroyed in the process of chasing down the madman. The game does the quick cut scenes at times to show you the layout of a trap or an area very much like the movies do, and gives you a glimpse into a classic survival-horror, as you are always switching out or digging for new weapons due to lack of ammo, or breaking bats. Being what it is, Saw is more focused on the puzzles than the combat aspect. Even the combat encourages you to avoid direct confrontation by laying or re-arming traps, electrifying someone in a puddle of water if possible, or simply bolting a door shut to avoid a fight for a bit. The puzzles are entertaining and challenging at times as well, sometimes it’s just seeing things from a certain point of view, other times it’s logic or even trial and error. The achievements are easy to get if you pay attention to them, some are story based, the ones that aren’t are not head-scatchers at all. If you beat the game 1000 points shouldn’t be too hard to obtain.

• graphics 7
• Audio – 8
• Gameplay – 7
• Replay – 7
• Overall – 7.25 / 10 (7.75 if you are into the things I mentioned in the review)

To order SAW on Amazon, just click the link.

To say that the season premiere of Clone Wars raises the stakes on this show would be an understatement. It raises the stakes, the bar, and anything else you can think of being raised.

I’ll try to be as spoiler free in this review as possible, but small things may slip out. You are hereby forewarned.

No doubt, you’ve all seen the teases for this episode, all of the clips and trailers and you know the set up. Darth Sidious needs a holocron and its accompanying data crystal. The crystal contains all of the names and whereabouts of every force sensitive child in the galaxy that the Jedi Council is aware of. In the context of us knowing what happens to the Jedi and what Sidious’ plans are, it’s a pretty logical bit of information he’ll want, especially since those individuals could still grow up to be formidable force users, with or without Jedi training.

He goes to the one man in the galaxy who has no compunctions about doing whatever needs to be done in order to complete the job at hand: Cad Bane. Mark my words, Bane’s popularity is going to skyrocket. He is cold and calculated and he’s both fun and horrifying to watch. He has no qualms with sacrificing allies, torturing prisoners, or killing innocents. In fact, he does all three in this premiere and it’s exactly the sort of direction the series needed to go to continue winning over the jaded fanboy contingent.

Boba Fett is no longer the baddest Bounty Hunter in the Star Wars mythos. It’s Cad Bane, and he’s here to stay. (In fact, I would guess that he would rival Fett’s popularity if he found his way on the live action show.)

This pair of episodes had everything I loved about season 1 turned up to 11. The action was intense. There are a number of action set pieces, starting with a battle on Felucia and it doesn’t let up. There are lightsaber battles, ship-to-ship combat, shootouts, etc. and it’s all breathtakingly rendered.

The animation was truly amazing and really has taken a leap forward. The characters were incredibly more expressive, the environments were richer, and the motion, camera work and lighting were a cut above season 1.

The signature Star Wars comedy was in place, starting with one of my favorite new additions to the Star Wars mythos, Todo-360. Todo, voiced brilliantly by Seth Green, is Bane’s “Techno-service Droid” and is every bit as effeminate as C-3P0 but is every bit as charming and funny as R2-D2. I truly wish he could have been in more episodes.

The writing was top notch. Paul Dini wrote the first half, George Krstic wrote the second half, and it gelled into an incredibly excited, satisfying story arc. In fact, I think Warner Brothers would have much greater success releasing the animated film if it was this pair of episodes expanded into a feature that they put in theatres. The reason Duel of the Droids was one of my favorite episodes last season was that it really illustrated Anakin’s faults through Ahsoka and her training, these two episodes give us an exploded view of that relationship and it has moved up on the scale, both in good ways and bad.

I’m very grateful that Dave Filoni and his team care as much about the Star Wars mythos as I do.  They’ve injected a level of detail and care that I could only hope people are willing to pay attention to and it has not gone unnoticed.  This episode was the icing on the cake.  Well played, sirs.  Well played.

Clone Wars kicks off officially tonight on Cartoon Network with the premiere of Season 2.

To catch up on Season 1, buy the full set on DVD at Amazon.

Peter and Max is the brand new novel written by Bill Willingham, the writer and creator of the entire Fables series, that takes place in that very same universe and continuity. Put out by Vertigo comics, a division of DC, whom I think put out some of the best titles in comics.

Anyway, now for the review, in which Doctor Cyborg tells you what he thinks about the book.

I have to say my initial thoughts about a Fables novel, written by Bill Willingham himself, was excitement. In fact, I began reading it the first hour it was handed to me as I am a huge fan of the series. Which brings me to the first question I think should be on most peoples minds:  Could I read this book not knowing anything about the series?

Yes.

Although I feel that I would prefer having read the series first, you could enjoy this without having done so. The first chapter consisted mostly of set-up for the world that it takes place, which was a little tedious if you already know everything, but other than the first chapter it stops rubbing your face in it and tells you what you need to know with a bit more subtlety.

It also tells a story that is very fitting to the series. It’s basically just another story set in the Homelands, telling the tale of how a fable (Peter Piper) escaped from his old home when the Adversary came, and came to live in Fabletown. Although this one goes way beyond the escape from the homelands, and residing in Fabletown. Telling a story about sibling rivalry that spans many centuries, told brilliantly from various points of interaction throughout the time line, all simultaneously.

Personally I think that Bill Willingham is a better comic book writer than a novelist. I don’t know if this is because he’s better at visual comedy and storytelling, or if it’s that he’s just too descriptive in literary detail and it comes through a lot simpler in the form of a picture. In either case he’s good, but I think he shows more talent with the comics he’s done. (Although I have to admit I wasn’t a fan of the Great Fables Crossover.)

I felt that maybe this story wasn’t as gritty as some of the Fables comic books, not that it wasn’t for mature readers, but I remember while reading some of the series I was shocked now and again about how far it went. I will stress the fact that this book is in no way made for kids and is in fact really brutal at times. What it lacks in shock, it makes up for in well built story that is wrapped up quite nicely while defying expectation. At the same time as working in actual fable mythology, which is the the main charm of the Fables series to begin with. It’s a nice easy read, and is just the right length for a book to be.

Despite the fact that it’s a novel, it contains illustrations by Steve Leialoha, who normally does Mark Buckingham’s inks. I enjoyed the drawings that were thrown in, but I think he is a better inker than penciler. It also contains a mini-comic that blends the characters from the book a little bit more deeply into the comic book story.

So in retrospect, this is a great story, and very entertaining. I’m not one to read a book for the sake of entertainment often, but this one was quite enjoyable, and I could see myself reading it again while re-reading the graphic novels. If you are reading Fables I would certainly pick this up, or even if you are just a fan of adult fantasy novels. You can buy this on amazon here!

Lucasfilm has been kind enough to give us three clips from this Friday’s season premiere of Clone Wars to sate our thirst for the full episode.

This first clip is Palpatine making Cad Bane an offer he can’t refuse:

This second clip is of Cad Bane plotting to steal a Jedi Holocron with a Clawdite colleague:

This third clip is of Jocasta Nu showing Ahsoka around the Jedi Archives:

I have to admit that I’m even more excited for this show than I have been all summer.  Check back tomorrow for some interviews with some voice talent, series director Dave Filoni, and a look at Season 2’s improved animation quality.