[  Mood: Confused ]
The new Flash Gordon started on Friday, and God does it suck. It has the budget and acting of those Sorbo-Hercules knock-offs from the late 90’s. We have our big review here, but I wanted to post my few brief thoughts on it.

Ming might as well have been a cardboard cut-out. Dale was our generic "tough reporter gal." Flash has half the acting talent that Sorbo has (Sorbo can, at times, be charming), and he and Dale have the obligatory "will-they/won’t-they" relationship going. Flash and Dale both have minority sidekicks whom seem to be close friends, yet both are ditched quite swiftly and never mentioned again. And the guy doing Zarkov seems to have two facial expressions.

The Sci-Fi channel went with this, instead of the BSG spin-off Caprica. My guess is that there are two different sets of executives at Sci-Fi: the ones who green-lit buying Dr. Who, Farscape and BSG, and the ones who green-lit this, Ghost Hunters, Crossing Over and canceled Farscape. Somehow, we must find and eliminate the second group.

[  Currently: Reading What Else? ]
I have The Book. I shall be reading for the next few hours, and will post when I’m done.

I am so not built for standing in line for an hour anymore. Ow.

Thankfully, there were no bozos going by yelling spoilers, which happened for Half-Blood Prince. Which is good, because if they had, I’d have had to chase the idiots down and used unforgiveable curses on their asses with my wand, which is made from a tire iron. It would go something like:

"CRUCIO!"

crunch!

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

splat!

Anyway, I was hoping it was going to be a big book, and it’s 759 pages. Yea!

The cover’s still dull, the Brittish "Adult" cover is better. I mean, look for yourself:

See, it’s just . . . classier.

Reading!

At 06:55pm on Saturday the 21st, I completed The Book. Sleep claims me, to dreams of Hogwarts.

[  Mood: Cool ]
The first teaser website for a movie coming out next year is up. So far, all it has is a logo that will let you email the character that runs the site.

Never Compromise.

I’m hoping this movie doesn’t suck. So far, at least, they’ve got his look right:

If they don’t screw it up, this movie will blow people’s minds.

[  Mood: Cool ]
The first promo for the show about the King of the Impossible, Savior of the Universe, is now online. Sci-Fi’s Flash Gordon series which hopefully will be better than Painkiller Jane.

Flash! AHH AHHHH!

You have to sit through a commercial to see the ten second bit, but they’ve got a cool logo for the show, and wisely used the best part of the 1980 movie, the Queen soundtrack. If they could only get Brian Blessed and his booming voice again.

I’m just hoping that this time Flash’s hero-cred is something a little more than being a quarterback. And if Ming doesn’t have a Van Dyke, I’m going on strike. Nothing says sinsiter master villain like a Van Dyke.

Oh, and hot General lady in tight black leather, like Kala was last time, would be nice. That would counter-balance the lack of a Van Dyke.

[  Mood: Amused ]
[  Currently: Listening to My Chemical Romance – This is How I Dissapear ]
I was reading Fark the other day, and they had a link to yet another "why I hate Star Trek" list. And as we all know, everything is better in a simple bullet-point format.

Anyway, it was the usual slams that have been tossed at the show since Next Gen was at its height. In other words, nothing special, but it ignited the usual geek flame war.

But one of the points was the "no seat belts" trope. And, that actually got me to thinking. I know why we have yet to have flying cars, and aren’t zipping around the universe in our hyperspace craft. It has to do with seat belts, because they reminded me of a flaw in another galaxy far, far away: no handrails.

The Federation, or any of the other races in that milieu, does not have seat belts. In Star Wars, they have no handrails and their doors slam down at toe-removing speeds. It was thinking about this, and the correlation between these two points, that set off the light bulb in my head.

See in our "real" world, we’re too worried about little things like personal safety and negligence lawsuits, so instead of coming up with warp drives and Death Star’s, we’re making airbags and safety regulations. And really, what’s a few measly deaths compared to the coolness of the lightsaber? I mean, come on, you don’t think those babies are OSHA approved, do you?

If we spent less time worried about a few accidental plummetings to the bottom of 1,000 foot shafts, we’d be moisture farming on Mars by now. Instead, we’re developing Handrail technology.

And that’s why we’re stuck here, and aren’t out battling Stormtroopers while firing photon torpedoes.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Listening to Maybe by The Inkspots ]
Okay, first we get the teaser movie for the new Starcraft game. I can handle that. I loved Starcraft, but I wasn’t a rabid Blizzard fanboy like a lot of people.

But this…oh, sweet merciful Lord…this made my geek center explode with joy: Fallout 3 is coming, and here’s the teaser trailer.

I lived and breathed for Fallout. I read the message boards. I downloaded one of the game designer’s world "bibles". I have the music from the first two games as MP3s. I completed the first and second games, multiple times. I still play them both on a semi-annual basis.

I even ran one table-top RPG in this setting, and would willingly run another.

There is no other computer game I love more. The only one that even comes close is X-Com, and I can’t get it to run anymore.

But I’m getting off track. This teaser is great. First off, it has the song by The Inkspots that the game studio wanted to use for the first Fallout, but they couldn’t get the rights.

It is supposedly done with the in-game engine, and it looks sweet. But really, that’s a given these days.

The trailer also has the feel of the first game’s opening movie, which also pulled back to show a post-nuke apocalypse city. The power armor on the guy at the end of the teaser looks a lot like the armor from the first game as well. So I’m wondering if they’re just going to do a "reboot" of the first game, a la Doom 3. While I wouldn’t be adverse to that, if they managed to get all the original voice cast back, but I’d much rather have new adventures in the post-nuke wasteland.

But no matter what the storyline is, I’ll be one of the first in line for Fallout 3. I just need to get a new PC before then.

Oh, and one last thing…2008? MOTHERFILKER! Why is everything giving us such long teaser lead times these days?!

First there was Darth Tater. Then there was the Spud Trooper. But now, he’s branching out into other shows.

I present OPTIMASH PRIME!

It’s his coming with a little mustache that weirds me out about it.

"We will deal with Megatron, right after I shave. And I brought my angry eyes!"

[  Mood: Cool ]
Do you know where your towel is? Celebrate the life of Douglas Adams, honor his birthday, and mark his memory by carrying a towel with you today.

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it..
– Douglas Adams

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
Well, the guy who did that last batch of Mac/PC parody ads (which I showed everyone here ) with Spider-Man and Superman has a new batch of vids. They’re even funnier than the last set, and this time Marvel takes a few shots as well.

Watch and enjoy.

You Two Must Have a lot in Common
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azGhHh9mV_Q

They Used to Love Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q_taep3ElI

You Just Had to Bring Up the Krytonite Mountain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohZB8ef0nVg

You’re Friends With That Clown?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuSI9akJ9_s

Villain Edition!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnHHDzQ4Axw

These vids show that everything is better with Batman.

[  Mood: Amused ]
It looks like Warner is going to really push their viral net presence for The Dark Knight.

First off, go here and get a look at Harvey Dent.

Then go here, and get your first look at the Joker. Wait about five or ten seconds for the dissolve.

If you decide to put in your email address, you get an email directly from Mr. J that gives you one more pixel to remove from the pic. It’s mostly clear now, but who wouldn’t want a letter from the Joker?

For more fun, reply to that email and see what happens then.

Now, personally, I’m not a fan of the Joker having a mangled face that gives him a permanent smile. He really doesn’t need it, and when written right, he’s scary enough. If they follow The Killing Joke, the stress of his "really bad day" along with the chemical bath that gave him his chalk white skin and green hair would be enough to dive him batty…as it were.

Hell, look at the way they did Joker in the Dead End fanfilm. He had no scared mouth, and they nailed his look, as well as his and Bat’s relationship.

But, Burton gave Nicholson the scared up face, and it looks like Joker’s getting it now in the comics as well, thanks to Morrison, so what can you do?

Between this cool bit of internet attention, and how much I enjoyed Begins, I’m still looking forward to the new movie, despite my misgivings on Puddin’s looks.