Relax fanboys…

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Disney, entertainment, George Lucas, hollywood, Jar Jar Binks, Kathleen Kennedy, LucasFilm, new star wars trilogy, Star Wars, Walt Disney Company, walt disney studios

“When I said there would be no more Star Wars movies what I meant was…uh…that I wouldn’t make any more. I never said NOBODY would make any more.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is kind of old news, but I don’t get to write as often as I once did so I’m just getting to this now.  Disney bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas for $4 billion.  They announced that they will be releasing a new Star Wars trilogy with the first movie expected in 2015 (take THAT Mayans…).

Wow.  I did not see that coming.

At first I was torn about this news.  What would Disney do to Star Wars?  Would it be watchable?  Would they ruin it?  Then I realized a few things:

1. Pirates of the Caribbean kicks ass…and Disney made it.
2. Chronicles of Narnia is pretty damned good, too.  And Disney made the first two movies.
3. Disney couldn’t do any more damage to Star Wars than George Lucas did in the past 15 years (Greedo shooting first and Jar Jar Binks come readily to mind).
4. Disney bought Marvel and the first movie released afterward was The Avengers, which is easily the best comic book movie made to date in my opinion.

This is the kind of idiocy that has emerged with the news that Disney now owns Lucasfilm. (Photo credit: Gilderic Photography)

Despite these things, fanboys and Star Wars fans are afraid of what Disney is going to do to the franchise.  However, the more I hear about it, the less worried I am.  Disney is not replacing anyone who works for Lucasfilm.  Lucasfilm will continue to operate as it always has except that it is now owned by Disney instead of George Lucas.  Per a Yahoo article:

Kathleen Kennedy, the current co-chairman of Lucasfilm, will become the division’s president at Disney and report to Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn. She will serve as executive producer for the new movies.

Control of the franchise will remain with people who have been involved with the franchise, so I ‘m not quite sure why people are freaking out about Disney “ruining” the franchise.  I’ve wanted more movies for years and Disney will give them to us.  Let’s, as fans, be thankful for that.

Disney Star Wars : The Strange Marriage? Sure it is, but Disney knows how to make good movies. (Photo credit: Gilderic Photography)

Lucas said he has given Kennedy all of his storylines and other ideas.  I think it’s great, and long overdue, that he’s passed the torch.  I’m sure George still has some great ideas but at least someone else has the ability now to say, “George, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard and it will never make into any movie I make.”  That’s the best part of all of this.

Michael Arndt has been chosen to write Episode VII.  Admittedly, I had to look this dude up because I’d never heard of him.  Arndt currently only has two screenplays under his belt, but both have been nominated for Academy Awards and one of them has won.  So us fanboys have that going for us, too.

Even Disney knows better than to put Justin Bieber in a Star Wars movie. Unless the plan for him to be killed gruesomely at some point in the movie.

More silver lining can be found in the fact that Disney now owns the rights to Indiana Jones, as well.  This hopefully translates into more Indiana Jones movies without stupid things like people surviving nuclear explosions by climbing into a refrigerator or Mutt Williams swinging from vine to vine like Tarzan.

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Movie Review: The Avengers

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Avenger, blog, blogging, Captain America, chris hemsworth, entertainment, film, hollywood, Hulk, Iron Man, Ironman, Loki, Mark Ruffalo, Movies, Nick Fury, reviews, Robert Downy Jr, scarlett johansson, The Avengers, The Hulk, Tom Hiddleston

Image via Wikipedia

Me and the wifey went to see The Avengers on Sunday.  I was expecting to see a blockbuster movie chock full of action and fancy special effects, and in that way it delivered.  What I wasn’t expecting were several laugh-out-loud moments, one of which I was laughing so hard I became dizzy and damn near passed out.

I have a feeling true hard-core Marvel fans would likely be upset with the addition of humor to the movie, but I found that the humor was well done and enhanced the movie.

The plot isn’t very complex, which I expected.  Basically, Loki has teamed up with the Other to conquer Earth, which his brother Thor has vowed to protect.  Loki has promised the Other the Tesseract, an energy source of unimaginable power, in exchange for a Chitauri army with which to invade the earth.

Loki somehow opens a portal directly to the Tesseract and is able to subjugate a handful of SHIELD operates to assist him with stealing the Tesseract.  Nick Fury then rounds up the members of the scuttled Avengers Initiative, including Tony Stark (Iron Man), Bruce Banner (The Hulk), and Steve Rogers (Captain America).

The team is initially skeptical of each other, and divided on how to attack Loki.  They also become skeptical of SHIELD’s intentions.  However, they eventually begin to work as a team and the heroes win in the end.

The Good

As I said, the plot isn’t very complex or intellectually stimulating, but humor, good acting, and kick-ass special effects more than make up for it.  Robert Downy Jr. once again reprises his role as Iron Man and does a fantastic job with it.  Chris Evans does a serviceable job as Captain America, as does Chris Hemsworth as Thor.  Scarlett Johansson does a pretty good job as the Black Widow and has a few punch lines in the movie. Tom Hiddleston does an excellent job, I think, of playing Loki, a deluded alien with godlike powers hell-bent on ruling the Earth.  I think there’s nothing better in a movie such as this than a good villain and Hiddleston nailed it.  Samuel L Jackson does an adequate job as Nick Fury, and Cobie Smulders (of How I Met Your Mother fame) was surprisingly good in her action scenes.

The special effects were obviously exquisite, as the movie cost over $200 million to make and has been in production for years.  There are no complaints about that here.

The humor in this movie makes it stand out from all of the movies leading up to The Avengers.  Thor, The Incredible Hulk, and Captain America (which I haven’t seen yet) were good in their own right, but were devoid of humor for the most part.  The Iron Man movies embraced humor and that’s what made them so much better than the other movies previously mentioned.

The Bad

I have little criticism of this movie.  The only thing I would have changed about this movie is the casting of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner.  That’s not to say that Ruffalo did a bad job, but Edward Norton did better.  Marvel did attempt to bring Norton on for this movie, but negotiations between the two failed so the part went to Ruffalo.

Other than that, I have no criticism of this movie.

Overall

I loved this movie and plan to take the twins to see it on Wednesday, which goes to show how much I love this movie.  The only other movie I’ve seen more than once in a theater is Revenge of the Sith.  If you enjoy comic book movies or action movies, this movie is for you.

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Things I Should Not Be Subjected To: That movie that butchers the book

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entertainment, Gerard Butler, hollywood, Lethal Weapon, Michael Crichton, Movies, Paul Walker, ramblings and rantings, Ranting, Richard Donner, Stupidity, Things I Should Not Be Subjected To, Timeline

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Have you ever read a book so epic that when it’s announced that a movie based on the book is coming out that your excitement rivals that of a child on Christmas Eve?

Timeline by Michael Crichton was that book for me. I read that book probably three times in a row when it was first released. When the movie was announced about 10 years ago, I couldn’t wait to see this masterpiece on the big screen.

I’ve never been so disappointed in my life.

When I asked the twins what movie they’d like to watch the other day, this is the movie they choose.  I acquiesced and consequently seethed the entire time I was watching the movie due to how much the movie just totally ignored the book.  And it irritated me badly enough to warrant writing this irate post.

Richard Donner directed the movie and has made such hits as the Lethal Weapon series, Scrooged, Superman I and II, Conspiracy Theory, and The Goonies.  So you would assume that a director with such a pedigree combined with a novel written by Michael Crichton would be sure-thing, right?  Wrong.  Richard Donner butchered this story, which is surprising to me.

The book is about a company, ITC, that inadvertently discovers “time travel” which allows them to travel through a wormhole in the multiverse to the year 1357 using quantum technology.

The beginning of the book centers on an archaeological dig in medieval towns of Castelgard and La Roque in France. ITC is funding the dig. The professor leading the dig, Edward Johnston, becomes suspicious about the information ITC has been providing, which is far too accurate for the towns they are just no unearthing. He travels to ITC headquarters in New Mexico where he finds about the ability to “time travel.” He coerces ITC into sending him back to 1357 and becomes separated from the team and gets lost in the past.

The rest of the team finds out that Johnston is trapped in the past while excavating a newly found room in a monastery which has been buried and deserted for over 600 years. The team initially fears that their professor has played a practical joke on them, but after three carbon-dating tests, they confirm that the parchment and ink are both 600 years old. They confront ITC when they cannot get a hold of the professor and ITC sends a plane to bring them to ITC’s New Mexico headquarters. There the professor’s fate is revealed to them and ITC’s CEO, Robert Doniger recruits the team to go back to 1357 to find the professor.

The movie flies through the beginning so fast that by the time the archeology team goes back in time you have no idea what is going on. Then, in the biggest omission from the book, the movie does not use the ear pieces that were a centerpiece in Crichton’s novel.  In the book, the team is sent back with biodegradable ear pieces so they can communicate with each other.  They use the ear pieces to find each other when separated. In the movie they find each other through blind luck. There is also an ex-ITC employee in the past who uses the ear pieces to capture the team. In the movie, it’s a mere coincidence that he captures them.

The casting is horrible in this movie. Gerard Butler, who I think is a terrific actor, is cast as Andre Marek. In the book, Andre Marek is described as dark-skinned. In the movie he’s very white and Scottish. And Andre Marek is not a very Scottish name. Professor Johnston is not described as Scottish, but he is in the movie. Paul Walker is cast as Chris, Professor Johnston’s son (in the book, this character’s name is Chris Hughes and is not the professor’s son). Paul Walker is a horrible actor so he has a straight American accent because that’s all he can do. So, in the movie we’re supposed to believe some Scottish Guy has a son that doesn’t sound Scottish. Right.

There are many other discrepancies between the book and the movie. In the book there was a pretty epic fight on a watermill that ended up getting blown up but that is completely omitted from the movie. The tunnel to La Roque is found in some house at the base of a waterfall, not in the monastery like it was in the movie. Also, everyone sent to the past was given a “marker,” which is a device you use to go back to the future (1.21 jiggawatts!!!). In the book the markers are good for three days. In the movie they’re only good for six hours.

Ugh. I could probably go on and on (and on and on), but I just don’t understand why Hollywood feels the need to change the stories of books when adapting them into movies. The book is obviously great the way it is otherwise you wouldn’t be making it in to a movie. So leave the damn story alone and just make the movie, will you people?

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