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2002 San Diego Comic Con, Part 1
Hollyfeld, here, and here we are, again, back from the San Diego Comic Con, the largest convention of its kind in the world. I sadly did not partake in as fascinating a selection of activities this year as I did last, but fun was had, and I think I have a more or less complete collection now of the all-region DVDs from John Woo's pre-American glory days. So yay for me. Yay for you as well, since I picked up quite few interesting entertainment tidbits whilst I was there, and most of them bode quite well indeed for all of us.
Because they don't really belong in any kind of order, I present some entertainment news from the convention, in an organized, itemized fashion:
ROBOTECH
Another writer on this site is obsessed with the eighties cartoon series The Transformers, but I myself was always more a fan of that other transforming machinery cartoon, Robotech. For its hardcore fans, Robotech represented something special in their youth - a cartoon series which like many others told the story of science fiction warfare, but in which characters would and could die with surprising abandon. Though somewhat dated today, the three Robotech series were a high-point in American cartoon storytelling (or more accurately, cartoon storytelling that was released in America), and so I am pleased to report that, finally...
... Robotech is coming back. The series is being prepped now, and will be a continuation of the Robotech saga, in continuity with but unrelated to the ill-fated Sentinels, and is slated to be released in 2004. The details were sketchy, but the makers are in talks with a major television network, which means that if they meant their words of encouragement, promising high quality Japanese-styled animation and similar storytelling, new generations are in for a particular Robotech treat. Older fans will also have undisclosed cameos to sit back and appreciate.
On the DVD angle of Robotech, no frills editions of the original series will be available shortly, and box sets of the original Japanese series Southern Cross and Mospeada (from which the later two Robotech series, Southern Cross and The New Generation were derived) will likewise soon be available in their original language. The original version of The Macross Saga (not to be confused with Macross Plus) is currently available in Japan, and online.
On the videogame front, the current Robotech masters have finally fulfilled their promise of a high quality videogame, coming between September 25 and October 10 for the X-Box. You may remember that a game was original slated to be one of the first games for the Nintendo 64 system, but fate had other plans. The good news is that the gameplay for Robotech: Battlecry is excellent indeed, and features some of the original voices from The Macross Saga, including Lisa Hayes and Roy Fokker. There was a slightly annoying tendency of the games main character to pipe in with such clever sayings as, "Oh, you want some too," "Time to take this guys to school," and "Come back with you have some skillz," but hopefully this won't prove too annoying as the game rolls on, or even better, maybe these audio files can be turned off. (Crossing fingers right about... now.)
DIE ANOTHER DAY
A small preview of the 20th film in the James Bond franchise, Die Another Day, was shown during the Trailer Park panel at the Con, and while it didn't yield too much in the way of fascinating surprises, two interesting elements of the production were revealed. First, and most interestingly, is that the film will feature a room which supposedly will contain all of the gadgets from the 19 previous bond films, from From Russia with Love's suitcase to, well, a buttload of other stuff. I'm not the hugest Bond fan in the world, so I confess that I only recognized that damn suitcase. The people sitting around me seemed impressed though.
The second small revelation came the film's promo video, which was largely a loving tribute to Q. Desmond Llewelyn's last performance as Q, and indeed his very last film, showed him training his replacement, R (John Cleese). In the upcoming film, however, R has officially taken his place both as the resident gadget man, and as Q ("R," apparently, being rather hard to pronounce). I'm not sure why I, but I have a little bit of a problem with this. It's probably because, in spite of my lack of extreme enthusiasm for the James Bond series, Llewelyn will always be Q to me.
BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER
Two trailers were shown for the new action flick starring Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas as assassins out to kill each other. Both gave the impression of a straight-to-video shoot-'em-up with a much bigger budget. Perhaps when actually watched, the movie will have more personality than the gray things we saw at the Con. The second trailer did have one particularly impressive shot, which amazingly was done practically (that is, without the aid of CG): a cop falling from a sky scraper onto an automobile, done in a single one-shot, from the fall to the landing. It's a breathtaking image, and reminded me of David Fincher's daring first-person fall in The Game.
Lucy Liu, Ray Park, and Kaos (the film's director) were present and a Q & A took place. Not much in the realm of interesting material, although Lucy Liu did reveal that she was in the running for both Elektra and Catwoman, but was left out of the roles because she was Asian. (Shame, too, because she would have made a really good Catwoman, at least.) She also mentioned that her character was originally written as a man, and that she only has "about 15 lines in the whole movie."
She was also questioned about the Charlie's Angels/Billy Murray fiasco, and she said, in true Hollywood star form, that "the press blew (it) way out of proportion." Liu noted that the problems stemmed from her character, which was written for a different kind of actress, and Bill Murray trying work on that element of the script (which I gather was what put him at odds with Liu). "If I had punched him," she noted pointedly, "I would have remembered."
IRON FIST
The on-again, off-again nature of the Iron Fist movie adaptation has been noted for some time, but Ray Park said at the Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever panel that, "My next role after this will be Iron Fist, playing Danny Rand." Of course, we all know what can happen before cameras actually role, so we'll see, but this was an answer straight from the horses mouth (far be it from me, of course, to call Ray Park a horse).
CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE
The hip-hop, martial arts remake of Fritz Lang's M (something I will never get used to saying) had a few minutes of footage shown at the con as well - no actual scenes, just snippets of action sequences edited together to popular music. Like Ecks Vs. Sever, it distinctly failed to impress, looking too much like Exit Wounds for Jet Li's own good. Jet Li is a renowned action superstar, but like legendary director Tsui Hark, he just can't seem to get anything good to do in America. If he doesn't find a quality project, and fast, he's going to become Steven Seagal, and fast. And believe me, no one wants that less than I.
BULLETPROOF MONK
The new action film from director Paul Hunter, and starring Chow Yun-Fat, Seann William Scott and Jamie (formerly James) King had a trailer and a personable, entertaining panel as well. The trailer told the story of a street rat (Scott) who is trained in the martial arts by Chow Yun-Fat, and for some reason has to fight hottie Jamie King. It reminded me of Remo Williams, except for the whole assassin thing. Bulletproof Monk looked like an entertaining and harmless action film, and the fight scenes were surprisingly impressive on the part of King and Scott, who noted that "unless it's believable, we've failed miserably."
SERIOUSLY, DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?
Seann William Scott, co-star of Dude, Where's My Car? (a guilty pleasure of many), mentioned that he heard about the sequel the same way we all did, through the internet. "I gotta check out this internet thing," he said. We've got a nice little site right here, Seann...
OLD SCHOOL
Seann William Scott also informed the audience in attendance that Old School, the upcoming Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn comedy, will feature a cameo by Scott, on-screen doing what his fans love best... kissing other guys.
THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD
By far the biggest surprise of the San Diego Comic Con was the panel on the upcoming film adaptation of House of the Dead. The writers of the film were on hand to show the first extended clips from the movie, and a prolonged slide-show with commentary on the production. Now granted, I am biased towards horror films in general, but I must nonetheless report that what the makers of House of the Dead have done is extraordinary. They've taken a ground breaking, multi-million dollar videogame, and made a tiny, splatterhouse horror film. They're still negotiating with distributors, but the plans now are to release the film theatrically with an R-rating, then release an un-rated cut to DVD.
The story, like a certain other zombie videogame movie (hiss!), seems to be a prequel of sorts, where a private island rave (so shouldn't it be called Island of the Dead?) is interrupted by a horde of flesh-eating zombies. Then, more people arrive on the island. Then, more people arrive on the island. A lot of these people have guns. These guns have a lot of bullets... about a thousand of which seem to have been fired during the footage shown. Lots of heads exploding, lots of scantily clad women running in slow-mo (and the promise of actual nudity in the final product) - a big budget videogame turned into a low-budget exploitation flick with absolutely no subtext whatsoever. I can't imagine a cooler videogame project in development right now. This is a production which planned to have one of the main female characters wearing nothing but body paint throughout the bulk of the film, and only put her in a skintight jumpsuit when they realize how cold the outdoor shoot was going to be to the actress. Damn.
Among the demo stuff shown included a wide variety of zombies in various states of decay, including the rather shocking sight of zombies running their asses off. Any zombie movie fan will tell you that, normally, zombies are some pretty slow bastards. But writers David Parker and Mark A. Altman justified this genre bending with simple logic, not often present in the splatterhouse genre: the muscles of the recently dead wouldn't atrophy right away, so the newer zombies can run, jump, and swim. Jurgen Prochnow (In the Mouth of Madness) plays Captain Kirk - rimshot - an arms smuggler who in the footage shown appears to blow away quite a few of the more aquatic bastards.
Also notable is what appears to be (get this) a sword fighting zombie. The three-way duel pictured also made the first truly creative use of bullet-time since its inception into cinema - roving cameras around all the characters in the middle of an action sequence, cutting from one bullet-time to the next. Also promised were lots of bullet-time (or is it zombie-time?) gore, including a mid-air shotgun blast to a zombie chest: fun for all.
In regards to what was left out of the film, sadly, there will be no zombie monkeys in The House of the Dead (I can feel your disappointment through the very essence of the internet, I promise you). Though written into script, they just proved too impractical to make on HOTD's limited budget, but the screenwriters did promise that undead primates would be the first thing written into any possible sequel. Also, Rogan and G, the main characters of the game, are not in the bulk of the film adaptation, and will likewise be left as sequel-fodder.
Yay. Most promising horror film to come down the pipe in a while, actually.
FREDDY VS. JASON
Not much, but a production tidbit was mentioned at the House of the Dead panel: WCT Productions, who created the make-up for HOTD, Final Destination 2 and the upcoming remake of Willard, are slated to be the make-up effects house for the upcoming Freddy Vs. Jason movie.
VAMPIRELLA
Mindfire Productions, which brought us Free Enterprise, The Specials and the upcoming House of the Dead also announced at the Comic Con that a big-budget film adaptation of Vampirella was finally on the way. No casting decisions made (although I rather vocally suggested Asia Argento to the producers), but one thing is for sure - that the poorly conceived Talisa Soto/Roger Daltrey movie is being completely disavowed. The producer hasn't even seen it, and doesn't want to. Fans of the costume may have a problem with the production, however, since the producer did note that the traditional, skimpy red piece of string that Vampirella wears in the comic book would be completely impractical in the film. They said that they would try to work it in somehow, but that the main character probably wouldn't be running around in it too much.
TOOTH FAIRY
MORE HORROR. The upcoming horror film Tooth Fairy (which was still being advertised as such, even though IMDB now has its name listed as Don't Peek), which was described by the director as having a suspenseful, "M. Night Shyamalan first half" and an action-oriented, "James Cameron second half," had a few minutes of footage presented at the San Diego Comic Con. The film, which began two years ago at the Comic Con when someone had the idea to make the Tooth Fairy evil, is currently about a Blair Witch-esque local legend that preys on children. One child claims to have seen "The Tooth Fairy," and during the first half of the film appears to be treated for some kind of psychosis as a result. But the second half has the child proved frighteningly sane. The design of The Tooth Fairy itself was absent from the preview, as it is currently being designed by creature-master Stan Winston.
Not much actual news to report, except this reporter's opinion that the project looks quite nice indeed.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Although I was unable to attend Joss Whedon's panel at the Comic Con this year, I was able to learn from Emma Caulfield (who was fielding questions at the Tooth Fairy panel) that her character will be singing again this season in episode 5, in what would appear to be a flashback to last season's brilliant episode, Once More with Feeling. When an audience member mentioned to Caulfield that Whedon had referred to her as the "surprise of the musical episode," she noted that her first reaction was to say, "Oh, I guess all those blowjobs paid off," but that she thought better of it. Or, I guess not.
When asked what it was like to make-out with James Marsters, she replied with a cute, girlish giggle, "He's very good." James Marsters is a lucky bastard.
STAR WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES DVD
I caught the tail-end of the "Making of Episode 2" panel, and did catch a few tidbits about the upcoming DVD release of the film. First and foremost, the DVD will contain eight deleted scenes (and not re-integrated into the film, as with The Phantom Menace), with explanations as to why they were cut. These scenes will have completed CG just for the DVD, and will include one scene shown at the Con, featuring Obi-Wan Kenobi asking the Droids on Coruscant about the origin of Jango Fett's dart. The Droids have no knowledge of the darts origin, and postulate that it has no cultural origin, and was made by an individual hunter. The ingenious last line of the scene was Obi-Wan's, as he shook the dart up and down, "I know who can identify this... "
It is also well known that two distinct versions of the film appeared in theaters, the digital release having 70(!) differences to the primary release. The digital release, however, will be the only one released on DVD.
STAR WARS: EPISODE III
In a very, very small bit of news, the somewhat unexplained inclusion of Qui-Gonn's voice was mentioned by sources close to Lucas as something that will be explained in Episode 3.
THE CORE
Co-star Hilary Swank and writer Jon Rogers were on hand to answer questions regarding the upcoming release of The Core, the trailer for which was shown at the Con. The film, which is about the devastating ecological effects of an event which causes the Earth's core to cease spinning (yeah), involves a group of scientists and astronauts who must drill into the Earth's core and set off a nuclear bomb in order to jumpstart its rotation.
Yeah. Armageddon, just not in space. Our TNMC script-critic Dr. Strangelove didn't think too highly of it, himself.
Anyway, Swank and Rogers did their best to allay my fears for the production: Swank is a talented, charismatic actor and Jon Rogers is a smart, funny person, so maybe it has a chance. Jon Amiel couldn't be present at the Con because he was busy, "blowing up Rome for the movie." Let's just hope terrorists don't strike Italy and they'll have to digitally erase Rome from that sequence, hmm? (Sorry, I'm still bitter.)
STAR TREK: NEMESIS
Yes, the script's online, but I've got news anyway. Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi) was on hand to guide us through some slides from the production. Her introduction being as follows: "We're going to do something I've never done before... not that, there's very little in that area I haven't done before, as you can see by my shirt. Seriously, how see-through is this shirt? I'm giving Jeri Ryan a run for her money. And that new Jolene chick."
Her nipular area was quite clear, yes.
Images from Troy's wedding to Riker in the film included a shot of her in a pink wedding dress, which apparently was her idea. "Because, really, white?" This is apparently unbefitting a character referred to as "spacewhore." Data sings at the reception, "what a surprise... like we can ever shut him up." The song in question is "Blue Skies," and Sirtis made a very pointed remark in noting that, apparently, neither the Beatles nor Bon Jovi are still popular in the future. But Cole Porter? He's the man.
Those scenes in the trailer with Data looking at... himself? Well, Next Generation fans, that ain't Lore, or at least, there's no indication that it is. That's another version of himself that Data finds in the desert, who Sirtis notes "has been a bad boy."
Wil Wheaton is in it, he makes an appearance at Troy and Riker's wedding.
In the end: "A lot of us go our separate ways... Ryker gets his own command, and because we're married I have to go with him."
And as for all that stuff in the trailers about this being "a generation's final journey?" "Pay no attention to that... (if it's popular) we'll make another one."
DREAMCATCHER
The new Stephen King adaptation, written by William (All the President's Men) Goldman and directed by Lawrence (The Big Chill) Kasdan is about bleeding flatulence? Apparently, but then I'm not a Stephen King fan. I guess I'll just leave this to the words of panelists Timothy Olyphant and Jason Lee, who were asked how close the film is to the book.
TO: "I didn't read the book.
JL: "Didn't get to it either."
TO: "It's a huge book."
Well, at least they could talk about Morgan Freeman's name change in film?
TO: "Nope, it's still Morgan Freeman."
Speaking of Morgan Freeman, his eyebrows in this movie fucking terrify me. They look like they're reaching out to escape his head. That's just not natural.
Lots of funny stuff at the panel, but not a lot of information, which I guess is to be expected when Jason Lee is available. Most of the questions were directed to him, asking if he would do lines from the various Kevin Smith movies he's been in. He played along for a while, but it was clear that it got grating after a while. "(Lucy Liu is up here, and you ask) all this stuff about overcoming obstacles and getting jobs, and we get, 'call him a fat fuck?'... What am I, a fucking monkey?"
But it was all good natured, I think. Timothy Olyphant seemed distressed that Lee was getting all the questions, but mentioned that, "I knew what I was getting into when I got up here."
The last straw, however, was probably when someone finally asked Olyphant a question:
Audience Member: Timothy, I have a question for you...
Timothy Olyphant does his victory dance.
Audience Member: What's it like working with Jason Lee?
TO: Aww...
Audience Member: What movies HAVE you done?
Ouch. Just ouch.
THE ANIMATRIX
To be released later next year, after the release of the two Matrix sequels, is the Animatrix, which looks badass. That's about all I have to say about that.
DOC SAMSON
Arnold Schwarzenegger showed up (yup - it was pretty cool, too), and he answered some questions, one of which was about the long awaited Doc Samson movie to which he was attached. His response? "Beats me," followed by an honest answer about how much money the thing would have cost (over 200 million).
BATTLE ANGEL ALITA
James Cameron showed up (yup - it was pretty cool, too), and he answered some questions. He was ostensibly there for Solaris, but when asked about his next project, he mentioned that one of the films on his short list to direct was an American remake of Battle Angel Alita. Not being a big fan of the original, I was unenthused, but hey, James Cameron back directing action? I'm there either way.
THE HULK
Ang Lee was in attendance and guided the audience through some slides from the set of The Hulk. Sadly, still no sign of the great Green one, though Lee did describe him as, "Green, not intelligent, he'll look like he's mad, he's agile." The rumors that either She-Hulk or Absorbing Man were flatly denied, but they were noticeably silent in regards to the notorious "hulk dog" speculation. But a few other production tidbits did leak through.
The accident which transforms Bruce Banner into the Hulk will take place in a lab, and not at a desert testing site like the comic. Also, instead of the traditional "Gamma Bomb," the accident now seems to occur as a result of a "Gamma Sphere." And instead of hippie Rick Jones, Banner will apparently now save a kid from whatever malfunction causes the inevitable.
The Hulk will apparently "Hulk Out" (as Ang Lee called it) maybe five times during the movie. Afterwards it seems he will have to eat like mad because of the temporarily accelerated metabolism (which makes sense). Lee noted that it will seem like Banner doesn't remember what happens whilst he is become Hulk, but also noted that "that's a secret to the movie." As for the classic pants, Lee mentioned that the Hulk will appear in various states of dress and undress in his incarnations, but that it will remain PG-13, obviously.
The most interesting shot in the slide show depicted Josh (A Beautiful Mind) Lucas, with some decidedly Hulky patches of make-up on parts of his face. Pure speculation of course... but could we actually see some Abomination in this movie?
Oh yes, and the movie is officially over-budget, but as was said at the panel, "I think for the audience, over-budget is a good thing."
Let's hope so...
Soon on The Hollyfeld Reporter, I bring you detailed coverage of the X2, T3, Solaris and Hellboy panels from the San Diego Comic Con. And keep checking for an upcoming Untitled Deadpool Column which will feature my review of Don Coscarelli's Bubba Ho-Tep.
