Hats off to writer Julian Jones, director Alice Troughton and lead cinematographer Dale McCready for bringing glimpses from major action-adventure and fantasy classics like Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings. They’ve brought Merlin back to what this show should be – a gorgeous, atmospheric and suspenseful action-adventure drama. When the right tone is hit, the payoff is HUGE.
This week, a lesser known part of Arthurian legend is tackled (at least it wasn’t known to me), we see the return of Gwaine (Eoin Macken), who helps bring a sense of camaraderie and humor to the episode, guest stars Warwick Davis (WILLOW! Sorry.) and Donald Sumpter, and features fantastic performances from Colin Morgan and Bradley James to make this one of the best, if not THE best episode of the series thus far.
As many people know by know, Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica spin-off prequel show, has been cancelled in the middle of it’s first season. Read the rest of this entry »
Survival Stories is an anthology from a large group of British writers and artists who found themselves without a publisher when Insomnia ceased trading earlier this year. A successful internet campaign to promote and generate funds for this project via Kickstarter allowed these creators an opportunity to see some of their work in print and raise money for the Comic Book Alliance, the public face of the industry in the UK.
As is often the case with anthologies, the style and quality of both the writing and the art varies greatly. The stories are unified by the book’s title, with each offering a survival story as interpreted by its creators. This title lends itself well to horror and war tales, which make up the majority of the book. Science fiction is also represented but in a much smaller quantity. As might be expected for a largely horror-based anthology, tales of the walking dead whether vampires or zombies are included but thankfully they do not dominate the book. It is refreshing to see some new ideas here which do not rely too heavily on the ubiquitous walking dead. Whether for artistic or financial reasons the book is presented in monochrome and this works well with the generally dark tone and the overriding themes of the book.
Amongst the most memorable pieces is the beautifully drawn The Fire of The Gods by Joe Coyle, a short, sad tale of a hapless robot told against a steampunk backdrop. It is again the impressive artwork which makes Yaguara another outstanding piece. The story of two young tribal boys is simply told and is drawn by Tony Suleri in a style which captures the movement of the piece to great effect. Two war tales bookend the anthology. These too are personal favourites and both highlight the horror and futility of war in their own different ways.
That this collective of creators was committed enough to see the project through to completion says a lot about their ambition and there is a lot of talent on display here. Most of these stories are worthy of a read for their own sake, but Survival Stories is also an admirable showcase for emerging British talent in the comics industry and for this reason alone it is worth investigating.
Barry and I were live and present at this years 28th annual Golden Joystick Awards ceremony held at the new and very nice Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel. The finest of the UK gaming industry were in attendance and this year and voting for the awards came in at 1,543,308 making the awards once again officially the most popular video gaming awards in the world voted for by gamers by Guinness World Records.
There were a couple of surprises this year with iPhone game Plant vs Zombies walking away with 2 awards and Jagex winning UK developer of the year for the second year in a row over Rocksteady my hotly tipped favourite. Assassins Creed II took the award for Adventure/Action game of the year beating out Uncharted 2, Batman Arkham Asylum and Red Dead Redemption.
Both Uncharted 2: Amongst Thieves and Batman: Arkham Asylum surprising won no awards at the event and other notable non winners included Heavy Rain, God of War 3, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and New Mario Bros: Wii
The full list of winners were as follows:
Ultimate Game of the Year: Mass Effect 2
RPG of the Year: Mass Effect 2
Strategy Game of the Year: Plants Vs. Zombies
Download Game of the Year: Plants Vs. Zombies
Action/Adventure Game of the Year: Assassin’s Creed II
Soundtrack of the Year: Final Fantasy XIII
Portable Game of the Year: Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver
Fighting Game of the Year: Street Fighter IV
Music Game of the Year: Guitar Hero 5
Online Game of the Year: League of Legends
Puzzle Game of the Year: World of Goo
Racing Game of the Year: Forza Motorsport 3
Shooter of the Year: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
This week, The Event finally begins to pick up steam. By the end of the episode we still don’t know what the aliens are doing on Earth, why they were willing to wait 60 years in a federal facility or what The Event actually is, but light begins to be shed on the secrets in the show.
First of all, Sean manages to get an FBI agent on his side after he saves her life and finds some information that sheds some light on his story. Meanwhile the CIA find out his connection to the missing plane and try – unsuccessfully – to stop him from talking. We also find out that ‘Vicky’ is still holding Leila hostage, but they why is not yet clear.
Meanwhile the President is trying to find out who killed the plane passengers and why, and the Vice President wants to know who will investigate the investigators, suggesting that he knows the conspiracy goes almost to the top.
Finally, an alien still held in the federal facility offers to tell the government everything that he knows in exchange for his – and his girlfriend Maya’s – freedom. His plan doesn’t get very far – as soon as Maya meets him in the real world she kills him.
The twist of the episode is revealed literally at the last second – the plane crash victims are not dead, and in the closing moments of the episode they begin to reanimate.
Finally The Event is beginning to live up to it’s hype – albeit very slowly. There are several moments that jarred with the audience, not least the President investigating the crash site in person. The mystery of what happened to the survivors is literally the only thing that spiced up the episode, the rest was interesting, but hardly gripping. It appears as though The Event is trying to be all things to be all people and is struggling to fulfil this promise. The show has not yet decided whether it is a political thriller or a sci-fi show, but if next week’s episode follows on from the ending of this week’s, some mysteries may finally be solved.
Writer: Chris Claremont Artist: Milo Manara Letterers: Andrea Accardi
Milo Manara is a bit of a god when it comes to the smutty books. His highly rendered pencils have blessed the pages of many European erotic comics, in my limited *cough* experience his work ranges from the titillating to the downright filthy. Given that he’s such a “name” and what his name is known for I was frankly surprised when I heard that he was working on a book featuring the female X-Men characters and that it was with Marvel’s full consent. In some way it’s like a pornstar being cast in a Marvel movie…it’s not impossible but frankly you don’t expect it to happen. That he’s done this book with legendary* X-Men writer Chris Claremont is yet another surprise.
This Panini version costs £11.99 and has about 54 pages of content, so it’s not particularly large but it’s oversized HC in a hybrid between the UK annual and European formats. The foreword’s by Joe Q and there’s an interview and supplemental material…I didn’t feel cheated having picked it up slightly below RRP.
The books opens with a ready reckoner of the characters involved (Marvel Girl, Psylocke, White Queen, Rogue, Shadowcat and Storm all get the opportunity to showcase the sexy) which uses artwork from the likes of Cassaday, Paquette and J Scott Campbell.
The plot has a member of the team kidnapped and the other members going on the rescue mission. We’re thrown into the action only to see that the kidnapper has handily given Marvel Girl a slutty makeover, let’s be honest it’s not unexpected. Manara’s art is solid but at times I feel he’s out of his depth with the fight scenes, it very much feels like he’s on unfamiliar territory and the posing of the characters is artificial in a way that they aren’t when he’s drawing them embracing (which happens a lot). A convenient plot element takes the superpowers out of the fight and grounds the characters which plays to Manara’s strengths.
Obviously this is out of continuity which helps as the characterisation is a bit loose…Storm “cutting loose” with a karaoke rendition of a Tina Turner song and even the more restrained characters like Kitty are “in heat”. As some who has read Click (and reviewed on an episode of WFTT) I had to suppress a smirk when a male character points a handheld device at Rachel which makes a clicking sound and then she starts to writhe in pain/pleasure.
The adoption/capture of the girls by cargo cultists gives us an almost fetishistic montage sequence with bikini clad X-Women carrying out a variety of duties.
We get the needed confrontation between the femme fatale protagonist and the team but in all honesty the plot is pretty nonsensical with the cargo cultists section in particular seeming tacked on. I expected better of Claremont even though he’s not at the height of his prowess. It smacks a little of someone trying to write “wacky and European”.
Ultimate though you’re probably not buying this for the story and Manara delivers what you’d expect…54 pages of X-Women looking like they’re in the middle of having a “happy moment”. Job done.
Rating:
*and that’s a term I don’t use often. Reviewer: Dave Williams
Given the mental problems that dogged his later years the Bluverse seems an appropriate place for a heavily Philip K Dick influenced episode which somehow manages to rope in particularly celebrated tropes of PKD but also hint at them in the main espionage/adventure plot too. It’s a beautiful piece of television delivering the efficient plot delivery we have come to expect with something deeper. All of which is enriched by a sound score that plays all the right notes in exactly the right order and (Murray Gold) take note knows when being quiet is the most effective thing to do. Often I ignore the score but in this episode it wasn’t a case of me forgetting it was there with the efficiency it did it’s job but it here it was a thing of beauty.
I mention efficiency a lot in relation to Fringe. That can sound,cold, mechanical and unengaging. That’s not what I mean. I mean it in the way that an efficient heart transplant is far superior than a passionate but inefficient one. It delivers drama effective and reliably week after week.
In the melody of this review there may be the odd spoiler note or semi-quaver.
Mentioning the efficient performance of the show does not mean that there is no levity. In fact we see John Noble relaxing with Walter moments of narco-lunacy that must have been a pleasure after the stern face of Walternate. But the standout performance is Anna Torv. Oh Anna, I’m sorry I said you were cold and Olivia was dull and you just come into season 3 and beat me around the head and neck with a performance which just shouts WRONG! WRONG! WRONG ! oH And oh how wrong I was! But enough gushing about the regulars on to the plot.
Now when I review stuff I don’t really like to recent the plot in detail After all if I’m positive I’d hope you would enjoy it for yourself. So trying to stay true to that ethos let’s just say the plot here admirably explores the PK Dick notion of what if machines start to think like us, almost think they are us – then are they not in a real sense us? It delivers this with a series of plot developments that leaves Redlivia struggles to orchestrate matters to betray the blue team while acting like a girl scout and head girl. Teh plot ebbs and flows with very real threats to characters concerned though the actually casualties aren’t who you expect. Feed in Redlivia’s own fight against the mission need to bed Peter and her feelings for the boy (or is it boys?) she left behind and it is a very heady mix. When she commits one way other developments have left her, very, very alone.
All in all a tour de force of an episode. We have to be due a dullard soon surely?
This could well be the last episode of Caprica ever to be aired. Earlier this week Syfy announced that the show had been cancelled, just as Caprica finally took an interesting turn.
Daniel Graystone is having nightmares about killing Vergis, and in an effort to find some calm and stability in his life he decides to create an avatar version of his wife, Amanda. However, Daniel does not have access to Zoe’s code anymore and the copy does not turn out as he had hoped. Meanwhile the real Amanda is accepted into Clarice’s unusual family, after some initial teething problems.
The real revelation in this episode of Caprica, however, is Sam Adama’s discovery and use of a Cylon. Now that the Tauron Mafia is involved in Graystone Industries, so are the Adama brothers and this is how Sam stumbles across the Cylon. Sam is caught running guns to Tauron to fuel the rebellion, and it falls to him to clean up his own mess. This is where the Cylon comes in.
Other than that, there is not a lot going on in this episode. Zoe, Lacy and Clarice are literally nowhere to be seen, which is frustrating in a way, because isn’t Caprica supposed to be about Zoe’s transformation from human to robot?
Also missing this week are the long winded lectures about religion and terrorism, which makes a refreshing change. It seems that Caprica had finally realised what was wrong with the show and had taken steps to fix it, but it was obviously too little too late.
It’s a shame to say goodbye to Caprica, it had it’s flaws, but it was headed in an interesting direction. We shall just have to see what comes of the new Battlestar Galactica prequel: Blood and Chrome – which will be aired in 2001 and will focus on the first 10 years of the Cylon war.
Goodbye Caprica. It was fracking fun while it lasted.
Exciting news for fans of Merlin in the United States (or anyone with a Region 1 DVD player really…), Merlin – The Complete 2nd Season will be released on DVD on January 18th! The 5-disc set from BBC America and Warner Home Video will contain all 13 episodes, and cost $49.98. Bonus features and the packaging is below!
Last night I got to see a 23 minutes of this long awaited sequel in 3D. The truth is I came late to TRON, somehow missing it when I was a mere youngster but when I did see it I thought it was a phenomenal, fun and obviously influential film. This is to say I was a little worried about whether this film could live up to hype but I was approaching it with the full weight of sentimentality behind it that others might.
First off, let’s deal with the question of whether this film should be in 3D or not. I’m not a 3D hater but there are definitely a load of films that are slated for £d releases that really truly don’t need the treatment. This is not one of them. This movie is visually glorious in 3D and the producers are at pains to point out that this is made using post Avatar 3D technology, and a few other innovations, the most impressive of which I can’t mention in order to respect those of you who like me have been keeping away from spoilers.
Continuing the visual exploration, everything looks cool, the recognisers look cool, the light cycles look cool, everything looks cool. The big thing for me here is that none of these things look new, they look like they have evolved and that’s good news. The costumes also manage to evoke the ambience of the old film while grounding its look in a very 2010 sensibilities and O my sweet lord could the women in this film be any hotter. Sorry, just had to get that out the way.
In terms of the soundtrack, this movie see’s the return of French electronic duo Daft Punk, back to the studio for the first time in many years. Let me tell you Daft Punk are perfect for this movie; the music could not have been more fitting. You can see their music video below
In terms of the acting I like the look of our new heroes Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) and Quorra (Olivia Wilde) and it is so good to see Jeff Bridges doing his thing as only he can.
It seems to me that all the individual components are in place, the questions remaining to be asked are these
Will the plot make sense?
Will the dialogue be good?
Will the movie exploit the computer landscape of the day as well as the original did?
While I can’t answer these questions on the strength of 23 minutes of footage, I left the cinema with a childlike excitement filling my soul.
If I wasn’t impatient before for the release, I blooming well am now
Low ratings has killed Caprica and it will be removed from immeadiately leaving us to wait till 2011 to see the final 5 episodes.
“We appreciate all the support that fans have shown for ‘Caprica’ and are very proud of the producers, cast, writers and the rest of the amazing team that has been committed to this fine series,” Mark Stern, executive vice president of original programming and co-head of content for Universal Cable Productions, said in a statement from the network. “Unfortunately, despite its obvious quality, ‘Caprica’ has not been able to build the audience necessary to justify a second season.”
I’m sure the dissection of what caused the demise of this intelligent sci-fi show has already started, but among them has to be Syfy‘s strange scheduling and Caprica’s tendency to overindulge the religious storylie in favour of that of Cylon genesis.
Syfy have offered a silver lining though with it’s announcement last friday that it has greenlit a ‘Battlestar’ spinoff about William Adama’s early days as a viper pilot. The two-hour ‘Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome‘ pilot is expected to air either late next year or in early 2012, and could lead to a full young Adama series….which is a still a long time without the BSG universe.
While comic audiences eagerly await the first episodes of horror comic The Walking dead, to hit their screens anytime now, another horor comic has been greenlit for TV by FOX.
I have as yet only read the first mini seires but it was excellent. However as with all these things, the excellency of the comic is not in question but rather how well it adapts to the screen.
Locke & Key tells the story of Nina Locke and her three children, Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode, who survive an unspeakable horror and attempt to rebuild their lives at Keyhouse, their family home in Lovecraft, Massachusetts. It is a mysterious New England mansion, with fantastic and transformative keys hidden inside its walls that are also being sought by a hate-filled and relentless creature with ties to the Locke family’s past who will stop at nothing to accomplish his sinister goals
I can’t really think of too many ongoing horror based tv seriesthat have done well, as the public seems to prefer soppy vampires and quirky police/spy procedurals to anything else at the moment but I’m hopng that the Walking Dead will stoke the horror appetites of the public as this really deserves to do well.
Lets hope FOX don’t get up to their usual tricks. What do you think of Locke & Key’s chances of getting a full season?
Writer – Richmond Clements
Artist – Alex Moore
Letters and Production – Jim Campbell
Short Synopsis – One of three identical battle robots goes AWOL during a training exercise and tracks down and abducts a seemingly random young girl
I’m glad I had both issues of this comic to review as I’ll be honest after reading the first I was a little underwhelmed. Yeah, the story was tight and the art was the good type of cartoon-y, but it felt like I was reading the comic version of Iron Giant. Not that I’ve actually seen Iron Giant, but how I imagined the story was from seeing trailers etc. A giant military robot escapes. It nabs a child who seemed to be fine with the idea a little too quickly and see’s it as a friend, not a killing machine. Bad agency men are in persuit. There’s the bad scientist who treats the robots as weapons and the good scientist who cares about their feelings. All very cartoon network movie.
