Written PostNews Around the Net!

News Around the Net!

Holy cow, this sneak peek (first shown at Wondercon) of Guillermo del Toro’s new film Pacific Rim is spectacular:

AAAARGH — Futurama has been cancelled AGAIN??  Sad news.  I definitely consider myself blessed that Matt Groening’s show has risen from cancellation not once but twice already, but that’s not stopping me from hoping that the still-fantastic sci-fi comedy will somehow resurrect itself yet again.

I was also bummed by the news that Star Wars: The Clone Wars has been cancelled.  Not a shocker that the show was a casualty of Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm, but still a disappointment.  I haven’t been a die-hard fan of the show, but I have watched quite a few episodes, particularly of the later seasons.  The show came a LONG way from the embarrassingly terrible animated film released a few years back.  The animation has become quite spectacular — the action scenes are out of this world amazing, and even the character animation has become really quite good.  I have enjoyed the show’s explorations of the sci-fi universe, and it’s been a pretty adult, action-packed show.  Not GREAT Star Wars, but very very good Star Wars.  I can understand Disney’s wanting to start fresh, but it seems like a huge wasted opportunity to not allow the show to finish its run and wrap up its stories.  After five seasons, it really felt to me that The Clone Wars was building to something — and that the series was cut off mid-stream, with story-lines and character arcs unresolved, means that the show won’t have much of a future life.  Who’d want to start watching the show’s hundred-some odd episodes, now, knowing that the show ends unfinished?  It seems crazy to me that Disney didn’t allow the show to have at least one more season to complete its story.  It’s a shame and a waste, both creatively (because the story is left incomplete) and financially (because wouldn’t Disney be able to make a lot more money off of the show in future years, through syndication, DVD/blu-ray sales, etc., if it had been completed??).

This is a fantastic, well-reasoned article comparing Marvel’s currently-running big crossover series, Age of Ultron, very favorably with what is happening these days with DC’s “New 52.”  I agree wholeheartedly.

I also agree wholeheartedly with this piece by Devin Faraci, arguing how wrong-headed the depiction of James T. Kirk’s taking of the Kobayashi Maru test was in 2009’s Star Trek.  That film showed Kirk brazenly cheating on the test, which Devin argues is a complete misunderstanding of what was suggested in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  I think Devin is 100% correct, and that Kobayashi Maru scene is one of the thinks that most rubs me the wrong way about J.J. Abram’s Star Trek film.

I am outraged — outraged I say!! — at the apparent continuity error in Pixar’s upcoming Monsters University.  Oh, wait, I’m not.

Comic book nerds: check out this great web-site that addresses famous comic book continuity errors and dropped story-lines.  I wasted a lot of time last week reading through some of the posts on this blog…

Speaking of comic books, I am a big fan of John Siuntres’ comic book conversation podcast, Wordballoon, and I am thrilled that he is back with his latest edition of “The Bendis Tapes,” his multi-hour funny, fascinating, rambling Q & A sessions with comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis.  Really great stuff.

With the premiere of Iron Man 3 this weekend, I’m pleased that Marvel already has fans anticipating the next big Marvel film with this very confident first trailer for Thor: The Dark World.  This is a terrific trailer, and looks to promise a more large-scale film than the first Thor.  Looking forward to this one at lot.