Showbits

In the eight months before the release of TRON Legacy, fans are whetting their need for new media by reinterpreting the franchise's origin. TRON, now 28 years old, reflects the era in which it was crafted: crude CGI and evil supercomputers aren't as much en vogue now as they were when both fields were nascent. What if it had been made thirty years later … or earlier?

Trailers have also changed a great deal over the decades, having once been more verbose, lackluster, and narrated, as evidenced by this 1982 preview for TRON:

Now let's take that same source material and recut it into something a bit more exciting:

A drastic improvement, no? The new trailer even runs the same length as the original, showing how much more effectively one can use an equal amount of time. But imagine how disappointed it would be to have been enticed into the theater by such a stunning an action-packed film, only to witness these opening credits:

These credits are designed in the style of Saul Bass, the graphic designer and filmmaker whose credits include North by Northwest, West Side Story, and Love in the Afternoon. As stylistic as TRON itself was, I don't find it's one that meshes well with this colorful intro.

How much of these design aspects can we expect to see in TRON Legacy? Will it be a successor in aesthetic as well as plot? Its first trailer bodes well; it's not long until we'll know conclusively.

(Hat tip to 8 Bit Weapon)

When I was young, documentaries were the droll presentations that grade school students were subjected to. Usually making no pretense about their supposed educational value, these films rarely made any effort to be engaging or even entertaining. But in the last decade or two, the genre has matured (or maybe I have). The likes of An Inconvenient Truth, March of the Penguins, Welcome to Macintosh, and King of Kong have invigorated the medium to the point of making theatrical releases viable. It doesn't hurt that their topics have grown beyond their scientific and historical roots to encompass popular culture topics.

One recent example is BBS: The Documentary, which tells the stories of telecommunications' early adopters who ran dial-up bulletin boards, some of the first consumer-accessible pre-Internet networks. As a participant of that era, I was fascinated by the film's people and personalities and how vibrant their memories of that unique period was. The documentary was almost exclusively the product of one man: Jason Scott, digital archivist extraordinaire. As I wrote in my review in retrocomputing publication Juiced.GS (Volume 11, Issue 1), his inspired editing turned hundreds of hours of raw footage into several elegant and thematic chapters of computer history.

Since that film's release, Mr. Scott has been slowly chipping away at his next project: GET LAMP, a history of text adventures, or interactive fiction. As described on the film's Web site: "[using] limited sound, simple graphics, and tiny amounts of computing power, the first games on home computers … [gave birth to] an entire industry [that] rose over the telling of tales, the solving of intricate puzzles and the art of writing. Like living books, these games described fantastic worlds to their readers, and then invited them to live within them." Here's some early footage of the interviews that preserve that early entertainment art form and its responsible parties:

Mr. Scott recently gave himself a deadline for GET LAMP's publication; as a result, it is being fast-tracked for release at PAX East, a video gaming expo held March 26–28, 2010, in Boston. As the date approaches, more details about the two-disc set are being revealed. Besides ten hours of interviews, the documentary will sport several unique features:

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When Hollywood adapts a television series to film, it's easy to view the maneuver as an uncreative and desperate attempt to cash in on a well-known brand without any respect for the original property and its fans. From Car 54 and Mod Squad to G.I. Joe and The Transformers, there are myriad examples of stories that were best left to the small screen.

But to paint all such adaptations so negatively is to overlook the overwhelming success, both critically and financially, of film such as Serenity and Star Trek. Such home runs give us reason for optimism, even if their lackluster counterparts temper that optimism with caution.

I'm therefore ambivalent toward the feature film reboot of The A-Team. The original series, which ran for 98 episodes from 1983 to 1987, had a colorful and recognizable cast that included George Peppard (Breakfast at Tiffany's), Dirk Benedict (Battlestar Galactica), Dwight Schultz (Star Trek: The Next Generation), and Mr. T (who will not appear in the reboot). It doesn't seem feasible that any modern studio could recapture that magic.

And yet, the following trailer has me positively giddy:

As Dayton Ward said, "Does Liam Neeson look like a dead ringer for George Peppard, or what?" And it goes beyond just superb casting — the opening dialogue, the music, the one-liners, and the action all seem lifted right from the original series:

Maybe this studio knows what they're doing, after all. We'll find out on June 11, 2010.

(Hat tip to ComingSoon.net)

Iron Man was one of the most realistic and enjoyable superhero films of the last decade (Oughts? Noughts?). It captured both the struggle and the enthusiasm that we imagine anyone bequeathed superpowers would experience. (And it made for a dang funny RiffTrax.)

Though Iron Man may not be one of Marvel's most recognizable superheroes, being overshadowed by the likes of Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Incredible Hulk, his theatrical debut paid off and quickly warranted itself a sequel. Last summer's purchase of Marvel by Disney hasn't slowed down the fast track our tin-can hero is on. The summer blockbuster season kicks off on May 7, 2010, with Iron Man 2:

The trailer shows Iron Man joined in combat by Rhodey as War Machine, as foreshadowed in the first film. The Mandarin was also a hinted villain in Iron Man, but I didn't recognize the enemy above; I had to consult IMDb to determine that it is Mickey Rourke as "Whiplash". Whoever that is (I don't follow the comic book), it's better than rumors that Stark's villain would be alcoholism, as seen in the 1979 comic book storyline "Demon in a Bottle" — that plot was already handled by 2008's Hancock.

What are your thoughts for Iron Man 2? High hopes, or low expectations?

It's not a new phenomenon for video games to be adapted to film, though it is rare that it's done well. Mortal Kombat is my favorite such effort, and even it was a fun popcorn movie of little substance. Yet such translations continue unabated.

The latest attempt to carry a game's success to the silver screen is the storied Prince of Persia, which dates back to an Apple II program originally released in 1989. The game enjoyed many ports and sequels, then lay dormant for some years. In 2003, the franchise was revived for a new generation of consoles with a trilogy of 3D action-adventure games, many of which bestowed the protagonist with power over the timestream. It's those elements that are behind the subtitle the star-studded film The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, and Alfred Moina star in this film, opening May 28, 2010. Here's the trailer:

After watching the trailer, I have a similar opinion of the film as I do with the majority of today's video games: it's not all about the graphics. The above trailer is absolutely gorgeous, and the action sequences look quite intricate — but, in a way, they also seem rather standard. Okay, so we have people running and jumping and climbing and fighting, and a princess and a street rat making snide yet flirty remarks at each other. Is this Aladdin? That film's "gimmick" was the genie, and PoPSoT's should be the titular sands of time. It's apparently a sparingly used plot device, as the trailer overlooks the consequences of this mystic artifact in favor of action that could be found in any number of other frenetic films.

I love Jordan Mechner's original Prince of Persia (also available via Xbox Live Arcade) and admire him for keeping the franchise alive across so many decades and media, and I appreciate that even this trailer acknowledges this property as his creation. As he said in Game Informer magazine:

With Prince of Persia, I've had the opportunity and the challenge of recreating the character and story anew, not just once but several times, since the first Apple II version 20 years ago… Each of these projects gave me the chance to work with a great creative team in a new medium — a triple opportunity that in my Apple II days I could have only dreamed of.

Mr. Mechner recently engaged in a more in-depth interview with ComingSoon.net:

I did the best I could on a side-scrolling Apple II to try to capture that kind of excitement, and running and jumping and really the first 10 minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 was the immediate inspiration for the first "Prince of Persia" game. But I think the movie, as you've seen, goes very far beyond that. There's Parkour, there's sword fighting. It's pretty extreme.

I hope the latest adaptation of Mr. Mechner's prince is something he and his fans can all be proud of.

(Hat tip to Juiced.GS!)

Massachusetts has become home to a booming film industry, hosting such movies as Mall Cop, Fever Pitch, The Game Plan, The Proposal, and Pink Panther 2. Okay, so that's not exactly a winning track record — but I have to support the home team, right?

One film that came to my neighborhood was The Maiden Heist, shot primarily in Boston but partly at the Worcester Art Museum, just a block from my house. But after a one-night screening at the local performance hall, the final product never saw a wider release, with its planned May 29th theatrical debut being cancelled after the bankruptcy of its distributor. As NPR detailed, the film's home video rights had already been purchased, so the window for a silver screen release was not indefinite, as is often the case with films that sit on shelves for years. It's unfortunate that a comedy starring movie starring Morgan Freeman, William H. Macy, and Christopher Walken should not realize its potential, as these are some of my favorite actors.

On the other hand, the trailer for The Maiden Heist has to be one of the least funny previews I've ever seen. I don't know if it's the jokes that fall flat, or the presentation — could they have chosen and spliced different scenes together and gotten a better effect? — but this has to be one of the few comedic trailers that failed to elicit from me a guffaw, chuckle, or even a smirk:

Can talent of this caliber go wrong? Critics would say that's what happened with The Bucket List, which paired Morgan Freeman with Jack Nicholson. The film has only a 41% rating on Rotten Tomatoes — yet I liked it. Does liking a film others hated mean I have bad taste, or low standards? If so, perhaps I can redeem myself by not being in the minority who find little redeeming value in The Maiden Heist. I hope the DVD, releasing on October 27th, does well… but if it doesn't, then its cancelled theatrical run may've been a blessing in disguise.

Some movie titles are short and descriptive, like Alien or Terminator. Others tell you little about the film, like TRON or Ponyo. Then there are those that are memorable for being nearly complete sentences without telling the uninitiated hardly anything about the film — think To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar.

When I first heard the title The Men Who Stare At Goats, I first thought it was a documentary about bestiality fetishes — so naturally, I watched the trailer. I found the truth to be much stranger than I expected:

Based on the 2002 book of the same name, The Men Who Stare At Goats is a dark comedy "inspired by a true story" that describes the United States' research into creating psychic soldiers akin to what the USSR attempted during the Cold War. Perhaps "research" is too strong a word, as these recruits seem to have a license to operate without any evidence of their abilities.

I like stories of people with extraordinary talents, especially when they're subtle, as in Mystery Men and The Specials. These ruminant-staring ruffians seem to maintain that lighthearted mood with inept-but-well-intentioned characters reminiscent of Fanboys, played by an all-star cast I can get behind: Ewan MacGregor (Star Wars Episodes I-III), Kevin Spacey (Superman Returns), Jeff Bridges (TRON), J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man), Robert Patrick (Terminator 2), and Stephen Root (Office Space). (Yes, I'm purposely overlooking Batman with nipples)

Watch for this film in theaters on November 6.

While I was hanging with geeks in Kansas City, other geeks were congregating at Comic-Con, a veritable explosion of all things sci-fi. Many exciting announcements and previews came out of the event, not the least of which is a trailer for TRON Legacy, heretofore known as TR2N:

Although this trailer contains original footage, its script is almost identical with that of the proof of concept video released this past fall. In fact, Apple brands this new trailer as a VFX concept test. I've never known a studio to stick so closely to the same demo. Whereas the film was previously scheduled for a 2011 release, we're now looking at December 2010 — so shouldn't we be seeing new scenes, not rehashing old ones?

Regardless of its originality, the above trailer is beautiful and worth watching several times. Accompanying it was the launch of several promotional sites, such as Flynn Lives and Home of TRON. These are just two of many outlets to tide you over until the 1982 film gets the sequel it deserves. Play the game. Read the interview. Watch the RiffTrax.

Whatever your choice, I suspect that in a year, we'll learn that it's not so easy on the other side of the screen.