Here we have the Comic-Con trailer for Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Season 2. Cad Bane is back, Obi-Wan has a love interest, and the Mandalorians have come to take down some Jedi.
This season looks to be the best yet.
Be sure to come back tomorrow for all the Clone Wars story secrets revealed across all of the Star Wars panels from Comic-Con.
Tomorrow will see the release of DC/WB’s latest foray into the direct-to-DVD animated movie market with Green Lantern: First Flight. In recent years DC has put out some pretty damn good animated movies including, Batman: Gotham Knight, Justice League: New Frontier, Superman: Doomsday, and Wonder Woman. All of these have been solid entries geared to a slightly more mature audience than cartoons airing on TV. So it’s no wonder that most people will probably pick up Green Lantern: First Flight when it hits DVD/Blu-ray tomorrow with some pretty high expectations.
Unfortunately though, I think Green Lantern is going to end up being the weakest link in the DCAU thus far. It was by no means a bad movie, it just wasn’t as good as what DC has put out in the very recent past. The biggest problem with this film is the lack of character development, in that there just isn’t much at all. Hal Jordan’s origin is blown through in the first 5 minutes (which, in all fairness, culminates in an absolutely awesome transformation into the Green Lantern) and then it’s off, without question, to battle intergalactic evil and unravel Sinestro’s treasonous plot. With a character like Hal Jordan who hasn’t seen a whole lot of screen time in regards to the DCAU, I thought it would be imperative to focus a little more on who Hal is as a human, not just show him as a 100% confident, doesn’t question his new power, super hero.
Though, it’s not all bad news for Green Lantern: First Flight, solid animation, good voice acting, and lots of good action take up most of the 75 min. run time for Hal’s first outing as a Green Lantern! You can check out Arse-bot’s full review over at Examiner to check out what I had to say about what was good about First Flight and what you can expect in regards to special features!
The battles are pretty brutal and mature; people get bones broken, aliens get impaled, it’s all quality action movie stuff. The tracking down of Kanjar Ro and Sinestro’s eventual turn to the “yellow side” take up most of the 75 minute runtime, and the action and drama throughout is fun as hell to watch -especially during Hal and Sinestro’s final showown.
Over the next week I’ll be posting up stories from my entire week at the Comic-Con, but I wanted to stop in with a few of the biggest because I have pages of notes and news that you’ll all be eager to hear.
Tonight was the big Star Wars Spectacular in Hall H and we saw a lot of things. And there were some other things we didn’t see.
I would like to go over the highlights briefly and then we’ll go more in depth as the week progresses.
First, there will be a Celebration V. It will be in 2010 during the summer. No exact date has been chosen and no specific city either.
Secondly, there was no news about the live action TV show. My guess is that we won’t hear anything about it until this time next year or even early 2011.
There is some big video game news that I will get more in depth in, but there is an Ultimate Sith Edition of the Force Unleashed coming out on all platforms (including the Mac and PC for the first time).
Most of the rest of the panel concerned the current Star Wars franchise The Clone Wars. There were hints and tastes of season 2 and a few big pieces of news from that. The first being this: Mandalores. We will see Mandalore, and they showed Mandalorians in the trailer. The other big piece of news? Boba Fett.
(To read more about Star Wars at Comic-Con, visit Swank over at The Examiner.)
I’m behind on my articles for Comic-Con and I’d like to apologize. Time for posting is much more limited than I would like. Today I covered Star Wars almost exclusively, so I’ll try to get at least the big news from that up tonight and the rest tomorrow or the day after.
As for Kick-Ass.
As some of you may know, we’re all great admirers of the Kick-Ass comic book around here. (In fact, a quote of mine managed to find its way printed on the back of issue 4…) We’ve put out extremely positive reviews of every issue because we really like it that much.
I was excited to see this panel but I was also worried. Would they tame it to fit in with mainstream audience? Would Hit Girl even be in the film, really? What if Matthew Vaughn somehow screwed it up?
I was doubting it, but when he came out, he looked like a man defeated. He seemed weary. And before he showed us any footage, he said pretty bluntly that if we didn’t like it, it probably wasn’t going to get a distributor. It sounds grim and dramatic, but the look on his face seemed to scream to me that he meant it.
After the first clip they ran, I was not only reasonably convinced that he’d nailed it, but stood and clapped the moment the scene was over. The first clip was the opening of the comic, with the Condor-man looking kid jumping off the top of the building set to a somber piece of John Williams’ Superman score and narrated by Dave Lizewski. We hear his voice long before we see him and the voice so perfectly matches what I had in my head reading the book that I was shocked. It doesn’t matter who they got to play the character, he WAS Dave Lizewski (the new Peter Parker, in my opinion). After that amazing moment at the bottom of the skyscraper, it cuts to Atomic Comics (www.atomiccomics.com) where Dave and his friends are discussing the question of superheroes and why no one has tried to be one in real life.
It captured the feel of the book perfectly.
Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. were brought out soon, as well as some of the cast, and then we were treated another clip. This time, we were able to see the first time Kick-Ass puts on the costume. Though it deviated from the book in a few small ways, I still very happy to see it. It’s bloody and shocking, though in different ways than in the book. And watching Dave get hit by that car was… just… wow. I mean, usually that sort of thing is overdone, getting hit by cars and all, but this was shocking, well-done, and hilarious in a brutal way.
Another round of applause and then we were treated to a third clip.
This clip was the clincher for me. It had both Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit Girl in it. I’m always wary of Cage, but he knocked this out of the park. The clip they rolled? A piece of the Secret Origin of Big Daddy and Hit Girl. The part where Big Daddy shoots his little baby doll in the chest with a glock. This scene was both funny and harsh, both tender and brutal. And the wide shot of him blasting his little girl and she flies and down comes out of her jacket is the piece de resistance.
And then they brought this sweet little girl, Chloe Moretz (Hit Girl), and then proceeded to play the clip of her first appearance in the movie. You know? The one where she’s chopping guys up and calling guys “c*nts” and “c*cks”? Yeah, they showed that and it was exactly the spirit of the comic. As I watched this clip, I really did start to tear up. And I was watching with Marcus and there was a moment where we both just looked at each other as if to say, “Did she just…? Did that…? Holy shit…”
The scene was rendered in that same amazing tongue-in-cheek sort of fashion that the book is and it suited it well.
As though that weren’t enough, we were treated to a trailer that gave us a glimpse into the future of both the movie and the book.
Spoiler: It appears as though Dave manages to tell the girl that he’s not gay and they get to make out. And it almost looks like Hit Girl is the star of the show. She has some scenes of gunplay that would rival any of your favorite gun movies and she explodes peoples heads at point blank range. If this footage is any indication, this film is going to be fantastic. Perhaps one of the best of 2010 (Vaughn did say that it will come out in early 2010).
The reaction was excellent. Standing Ovations. But the question is this: Was it enough, will we ever see it?
Vaughn still didn’t seem convinced.
We were all wondering what little bit we could do to help the film out and get it distributed and the best answer we could think of would be to write the distribution companies and to tell them that not only should they pick up Kick-Ass, but they shouldn’t touch a frame of it. Let Vaughn retain final cut and release it with a NR. (Because I can’t imagine them getting less than an NC-17 if they submitted to the MPAA… Seriously.)
The consensus opinion is that we’d all like to see this film handled by the Weinstein Company, so I think we should focus attention on them and urge them to buy it. For a lot of money.
Because this film truly deserves every bit of support we can throw its way.
Although I missed the footage thanks to the Twilight fans (I’ll elaborate later), I was able to make it into Hall H in time to see James Cameron announce that on AUGUST 21, 2009 in as many IMAX and IMAX 3D screens as possible, they will be showing 15 minutes of Avatar to audiences for free.
This is good news.
I gotta go. Terry Gilliam is about to come out for a panel about The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus and then Kick-Ass!
Dr. Cyborg and I will be back later with pictures.
Variety is reporting that director, Sam Raimi has signed on to direct the live-action movie adaptation of Warcraft (more specifically, World of Warcraft… though, a movie of an eagle eye view of a forrest with people chopping trees, mining gold, and building barracks’ would be sahweet!):
Legendary Pictures and vidgame publisher Blizzard Entertainment are mounting the film, and Warner Bros. will co-finance and distribute. The team boasts an impressive pedigree: In addition to the director of “Spider-Man,” the partners have added “The Dark Knight” producer Charles Roven to the creative mix.
The plan is for Raimi to supervise development of “Warcraft” and shoot the picture after he completes work on “Spider-Man 4,” which gets under way early next year for Columbia Pictures.
You can check out the full article over at Variety.
Through a new trailer,and online posting EA has announced a total of 25 tracks for the legendary rock groups new game.
And they are…..
“Back in the U.S.S.R.”
“Can’t Buy Me Love”
“Day Tripper”
“Eight Days a Week”
“Get Back”
“Here Comes the Sun”
“I Am the Walrus”
“I Feel Fine”
“I Saw Her Standing There”
“I Want to Hold Your Hand”
“Octopus’s Garden”
“Paperback Writer”
“Revolution”
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”
“Taxman”
“Twist and Shout”
“Within You Without You”
“Yellow Submarine”
“With A Little Help From My Friends”
“Birthday”
“I Got a Feeling”
“Dig a Pony”
“Do You Want To Know A Secret”
“I Wanna Be Your Man”
“And Your Bird Can Sing”
This tip comes to us from www.bloody-disgusting.com and you can read the full article here. Check out their full article to see why this should be kept in your “badass if it happens” file. This looks like it could be pretty damn awesome. De Niro is De Niro so seeing him in something like this could be pretty damn entertaining.
Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis are teaming up to begin filming Machete on July 29th. They are co-directors.
–DANNY TREJO is returning (obviously) as “Machete”, the madman bent on revenge.
–MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ (“Lost”, Fast & Furious, Avatar) is said to be playing “Luz”.
–JONAH HILL, the comedian who has starred in such films as Superbad and the forthcoming Adam Sandler comedy Funny People, will play “Julio”.
-Lastly, a legend of our time, ROBERT DE NIRO, will take on the role of “Senator McLaughlin”.
Over at the Examiner, I’ve been collecting all the info about Star Wars at Comic-Con and am happy to present it all here to you for your perusal.
Here’s all of your Star Wars con information needs:
Star Wars Swag and Exclusives.
And don’t forget the news about the release of Clone Wars Season 1 on DVD and Blu-ray.