Messages

1

General / Re: Judge Sweeney

« on: 28 May, 2008, 08:54:40 PM »

I thought this was going to be John Thaw appreciation.

Slags!

The Swee-neeeeee,
The Swee-neeeeeeeee,
Du-du-dudu-duu-du-du-du


lalala

2

Books & Comics / Re: Spiderman (or Spider Man) Ques...

« on: 06 February, 2008, 04:11:49 PM »

SpiderHyphenMan, damn your eyes.

SpiderHyphenManColonReign is mince of the worst kind - you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a bad joke until you remembered you paid for the damn thing.

There's only one good 'Spidey In Dystopian Future' comic, and Marvel fucked that over good and proper like they did the rest of the 2099 titles:

Link: SpiderHyphenMan 2099

3

Books & Comics / Re: Y the Last Man : The last issu...

« on: 06 February, 2008, 01:25:40 PM »

"Another TPB person here. Frankly, I'm none too hopeful for a decent ending, but I do want to see what happens. It's another example of a comic that started really well but drifted into... meh"

A common problem with Vaughn's writing, unfortunately.  His early runs on any given title are worth checking out - he usually comes on board with a whole bag of ideas and throws them at you in rapid succession.  It's only when he stops doing that you might start analysing the characters and plot and start unintentionally picking holes.

Regardless, I'm hoping for a good ending to Y - it'd be a shame for a creator-owned series with so high a profile to fall at the last hurdle, as it sends the wrong message to industry people.

4

Film & TV / Re: The Thing 2 (prequal)............

« on: 31 January, 2008, 02:35:22 PM »

Shapeshifting alien invaders is a bit... 'lazy' as a storytelling device these days, surely?

All the same, since no-one expects thing 2 to be a patch on the original, it might stand a chance of being enjoyed in isolation as some sort of homage to the original - if you can avoid all the preening pre-publicity cast interviews where they tell you it's the greatest experience of their lives and all that other shit they come out with when they've got a movie to whore.

5

Film & TV / Re: Smallville heroes

« on: 30 January, 2008, 03:46:38 PM »

Black Canary is in one of the newer episodes.  The costume looks a bit naff in the leaked pics from the set.

Aquaman even got his own series pilot.  The show was actually a little bit better than Smallville in some places, such as not having any well-known elements of the character mythology in popular culture to make wince-inducing references to, and it looked like a promising series.  It was never picked up, unfortunately.

6

Off Topic / Re: Fundamentalists say the funnie...

« on: 28 January, 2008, 01:10:12 PM »

I find the idea of a fundamentalist lacking in awareness to be a bit of a stretch.

7

General / Re: Dredd in Gamesmaster

« on: 28 January, 2008, 03:29:09 PM »

Vaguely related: the PS1 Dredd game (a lightgun thingy - although you can play it without one) is on sale on the PS3 store for three quid.  Once you download it, you can play it on either your PS3 or PSP.

I can't speak for the quality of the conversion (although the Syphon Filter and G Police conversions were spot-on) as I already have a copy for PS1, but the original is enjoyable enough without being groundbreaking.  It does feature the best movie Dredd you'll see - not saying much, but there you go.

8

Help! / Re: Art refs needed

« on: 24 January, 2008, 09:59:02 PM »

Kinda low-res trailer for the film, but I suppose it's something to work with if you just need a general starting point.

Link: http://www.stage6.com/Personal-Stash/video/1355991/Superbad-trailer-01

9

General / Re: 7 Reasons the 21st Century is ...

« on: 23 January, 2008, 03:52:53 PM »

Interesting amalgam of theories about various strains of modern urban angst, but the whole thing reads more like a student paper that the writer has cobbled together from the interwebs, but has at least taken the effort to rewrite.  It oversimplifies the case for the rise in self-harm a little, as it's just as likely the idea of it has become more widespread and entered the consciousness of those likely to indulge - although Munchausen's Syndrome has been around a lot longer than teen drama portrayals of cutting has.

I can't argue with "Holy shit - I built that!" though.  Not so sure about "I made these pants"

10

Books & Comics / Re: Spiderman on Channel 4 News......

« on: 23 January, 2008, 04:05:24 PM »

I'm interested to see how the book is affected in the long term - Marvel are telling us they're making it more accessible to teens, but they've spent the last five years telling us that teens don't read comics anymore because they're too busy texting their mates videos of themselves happy-slapping someone while they racially abuse complete strangers on Xbox Live to take five whole minutes to read a comic, so the logic of the exercise escapes me.
The actual post-event books are perfectly fine comics, it just seems questionable to make the big Spidey event one that drives away the readership that's most likely to hang in with the title once the hype-fuelled sales peak goes away in a few months.  Presumably once that happens, they'll just schedule another big event for the title.

11

Film & TV / Re: The new Trek......

« on: 27 January, 2008, 11:05:06 PM »

"Bit unfair there, Bico."

Yes, you've got me there - Galaxy Quest was actually entertaining.

12

Film & TV / Re: The new Trek......

« on: 27 January, 2008, 05:43:53 PM »

"sorry Bico but I am a Star Trek fan. And I watched Enterprise happily. SOME fans didn't like it. This is true but, as I have said before a lot of "fans" Bitched about Voyager in the first two years. And it didn't stop me watching it and loving it all the way through. :) It was a very good attempt at giving a look at the spirit of the early Start Fleet even before the Federation really existed."

I'm a Trek fan, too, but Enterprise was where I drew the line - there's only so much retreading of other people's material on other Trek shows I can take before I have to say that the producers aren't emulating better material, they're just pilfering it and dumbing it down to hammer it into their own show (see Enterprise's E2 and DS9's Children of Time - identical stories in every way).
Fair enough that you enjoyed it, all opinions (yes, even mine) are subjective by their nature, but the majority - not the minority - of Trek fans abandoned Enterprise as it got stuck in an endless cycle of Captain Plank doing everything Kirk, Sisko and Picard did, except because the show was set in the past, Plank was technically doing it *first*.  Enterprise recycled the same old crap without an iota of shame - it was supposedly set before the Federation and the attendant technology, but humans were still the focus of change in every major event in the galaxy, there were transporters in use from the very first episode, the ship's armor worked exactly like the shields did in every other Trek show, and the crew was comprised of a template lifted without an ounce of irony from Galaxy Quest (without the producers ever once noticing that GQ was supposed to be making fun of lowest-common denominator sci-fi tv).  Even Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda - being based wholesale on the Trek universe from day one - managed to take a stab at the odd new idea here and there, and that was written by an actual human corpse.
Hoshi looked nice, though, so I suppose that makes it all right.  A pity they never explained why a Korean woman had a Japanese name - or how Harry Kim from Voyager was Chinese, but had a Korean name.

13

Film & TV / Re: The new Trek......

« on: 25 January, 2008, 11:42:30 PM »

Bashir:  "Was it some sort of viral outbreak?  A genetic mutation?"
Worf:  "We do not discuss it with outsiders!"

There was an interview with the DS9 producers about the making of 'Trials and Tribble-ations', which is the DS9 episode mentioned above, and they said that they deliberately didn't give any explanations as to why Klingons looked different between old Trek and DS9 because "any explanation we could come up with would have been ridiculous."  Enterprise, with the complete lack of wit and imagination that typified it, took the two suggestions meant as a throwaway gag and mashed them together to become a canon explanation of the disparity between the budgetary potential of a production-line 1960s sci-fi action-adventure series and a multi-million-dollar 1978 movie.
If you enjoyed it, fair enough, but I'm having a bitch about it:

I can offer no more damning comment on Enterprise than this - in the end, even Star Trek fans wouldn't watch it.

14

Film & TV / Re: The new Trek......

« on: 22 January, 2008, 03:59:53 PM »

I suppose that plot for the Abrahms movie now explains why the fan-financed and fan-made Of Gods And Men is over a year late - the plots are identical, but OGOM has been several years in the making.
The first part's online to be viewed via streaming video (though bittorrent might be a better idea), and it's clearly no-budget, but entertaining enough in a straightforward manner.  Lots of cameos from main cast members across all the Trek series, too - barring Enterprise (even Trek fans won't watch it - that's gotta sting).

Link: Cheapo fan effort

15

Film & TV / Re: The new Trek......

« on: 19 January, 2008, 06:10:24 PM »

"As a former Trekkie (clean these past five years, guv)"

Yeah, Enterprise did that for pretty much everyone.
I think Kirk's just out of the academy in this, and I don't think they give freshly-built starships to the first ham actor passing at the time (insert your own Scott Bakula joke here).  Most likely he's working his way up during the movie, maybe serving under Pike as a nod to the original series.