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| image by Gage Skidmore |
As of right now, Sunday, there is still one more day to Comic-Con, but most of the major announcements have been made.
So what are the big pieces of news?
GOOD NEWS
Top Gun: Maverick Trailer.
Over thirty years have passed since the original Top Gun, a movie that, in my opinion, is remembered with greater nostalgia and affection than it deserves. However, this trailer was a great blend of nostalgia and innovation. The iconic music, costumes, and sets evoke the feelings that people remember about the movie. But the fantastically dynamic visuals are unlike most things I have seen in movies. I have a gigantic appreciation for Cruise's desire to use as little CGI as possible and give the audience as close the real experience as possible. I was mildly interested in this film before. But now I am actually excited to see it. And that is the whole point of doing things at comic-con.
Superman Returns
It was announced that in the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover that Brandon Routh would be reprising his role as Superman. As sub-par as the movie Superman Returns was, I thought Routh did the best he could with the material at hand. He is a very likeable actor who is the best thing about Legends of Tomorrow. I have pretty much given up on all the CW DC shows, except for the still-great Flash. But I will watch this entire crossover if only to see Routh don the cape again. Also, Burt Ward will be making an appearance.
IT: Chapter 2 Trailer
IT is the highest grossing horror film of all time. So Warner Brothers is banking heavily on the follow up being as big of a hit. The trailer was not as effective as the original teaser that played out a good portion of the Beverly scene with the old lady. This trailer was again short on plot, but long on tone. I think they are working hard to keep the novel's twists out of the trailer, even though I would imagine that most people who read the book or seen the mini series know them. However, the trailer did its job and the movie looks very good.
Picard Trailer
Star Trek: Discovery has been very controversial. The same producers are bringing back Jean-Luc Picard with this sequel series. What is incredibly intriguing is that we will be getting our first look into the post-Star Trek: Nemesis universe. The plot details are sketchy, but I have to say three things impressed me: 1) The cinematography looks like movie quality, not TV quality. 2) The plot has me very interested. 3) The Voyager cast member makes me think this show will be more expansive than I thought. This might be the one to deliver what Trek fans have been waiting for.
Walking Dead Movie
There was a trailer for Season 10, which looked fine, but nothing too terribly exciting. However, there was a very short teaser that told us that we would see Rick Grimes again, but not on TV. They are going to try a Star Trek and attempt the from TV to movies. I am incredibly curious as to where this is all going to go. If they go theatrical they have to up their game in a major way.
Blade
Mahersala Ali was announced as the new Blade and this is fantastic. He is a great actor and this is a franchise that has a lot of good will (despite its mediocrity). With the MCU touch, this could be another major hit.
X-Factor action figures.
They are going to be releasing Havok and Polaris from the Peter David X-Factor. If this is a success, I hope they release the rest of the team: Multiple Man, Quicksliver, Wolfsbane, and Strong Guy.
GENERAL NEWS
Westworld Season 3 Trailer
I have found this series to be more interesting than entertaining. But I think I will check it out to see where the story goes. It seems really misanthropic on the surface, but it shows moments of real depth fo humanity.
Dark Crystal Trailer
The show looks to be very much in keeping with the original movie as I remember it. I will give it a chance.
The Witcher Trailer
I know basically nothing about the source material, but the trailer has me at least curious.
Halloween Trilogy.
The Halloween reboot last year will now be the first part of a trilogy. I have not seen it, but I have heard from fans of the genre that it was one of the better entries into the franchise.
BAD NEWS
Super Hero Media Bubble Is About to Pop
For years, people have been predicting that people are going to get sick of the super hero genre. And for years they have been constantly wrong, as proven by Avengers: Endgame now becoming the highest grossing movie ever made. But that is about the change.
Star Wars was the most beloved movie franchise ever. The film makers decided to take that good will and insert a strange world view into their movies. Before The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson was going to do another trilogy, they were getting ready to do a Kenobi and Boba Fett movie as well. But with the bad fan reaction from The Last Jedi and Solo bombing, things have been stalled. Even Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge is underperforming (probably because it de-emphasizes the original trilogy).
My point is that the producers thought that audiences would pay for anything that said Star Wars. And so they thought they could change it in any way possible and see no change in their audience.
They were wrong.
And now Marvel is doing the same thing.
Black Widow will be a hit because she is a beloved character. But they are introducing some more obscure IP's like Eternals and Shang-Chi. They can make them great like the did with the then-obscure Guardians of the Galaxy. But it feels like this is the time when Marvel is going to do some Star Wars style experimentation. We can see this especially with the new Thor movie which will be more explicit in its positive views of same-sex relationships. Speaking of Thor, the title of the new movie, Thor: Love and Thunder is the most awful Marvel title I have heard. Doctor Strange is taking a turn towards horror with this sequel. I thought this was a bad idea for The New Mutants and I think the same thing about this.
Also, we see the move by Marvel to transition to new legacy heroes with Black Widow, Hawkeye, Thor, and the like. This seems to be a strong turn towards the incredibly unpopular current roster of comic book heroes and away from the classics. I don't think this is a good idea. Now that the MCU has the Fox properties, they should focus on the following properties, old and new:
-Spider-Man
-Fantastic Four
-X-Men
-Doctor Strange
-Blade
-Guardians of the Galaxy
Other properties that they should take advantage of:
-Nova
-Silver Surfer
-Sub-Mariner
-She-Hulk
I take solace in that the plans that were announced were only for the next two years. If this is the experimental time, they still have time to do a course correction later.
On television, things seem to be petering out as well. After the CW's Crisis on Infinite Earths, I can see most all of the DC shows fading away, except for Flash. I think Batwoman is DOA. It will open big for curiosity, but it feels more like a lecture than a super hero show.
The Marvel Netflix shows have gone away as well as Agents of SHIELD. Marvel is going big by putting their movie stars into streaming series onto Disney+. It makes sense that they are making such a bold investment here, because they want people to see the new service as something wroth their money. But even here, the focus on legacy characters. The one I am looking forward to the least is the Hawkeye one, because Kate Cain is a terrible character who is always emasculating Clint Barton in the comics. Hopefully, Marvel will do what they did with Miles Morales in Into the Spider-verse: take a sub-par legacy character and make them great while not denigrating the original.
Watchmen Trailer
This show looks terrible.
The producers have decided to use this show as a political allegory. The original Watchmen was political, but it was not an allegory. In this new Watchmen, the cult of Rorschach are now right-wing Christians who kill cops. This makes no sense at all. Rorschach was an existentialist who was not religious. Also, he didn't target cops. He did fight them when cornered, but he focused on criminals.
Also, the cops are now masked like Antifa. This also makes no sense. This imagery was one of the things that I think sunk the Robin Hood movie last year. I don't know why Hollywood keeps trying to frame them as the good guys when they are despised by the majority of Americans. Also, Antifa tends to be anti-law enforcement. It would make more sense for the Rorscachs to be more like Antifa and the cops to be more like Rorschach. But that doesn't fit the political allegory they have brewing.
This lack of understanding of the source material and the shoe-horning of political allegory tells me that this is going to be terrible.
Cats Trailer
While this isn't specifically tied to Comic-Con, its release was clearly done to jump on the hype band wagon.
A lot has been said about this, but they made a gigantic mistake in its design. They are either going to have to a major CGI overhaul or just go all-in on their characters who came out of the wrong side of the uncanny valley.
His Dark Materials Trailer.
Hollywood is taking another stab at the anti-Narnia book series. While the producers are claiming that the story is not anti-religious, color me dubious. A story whose central premise is about a hero taking a journey to find God and kill Him... I don't know. That's like saying a movie that portrays Hitler in a positive light is not anti-semetic.
Harley Quinn Cartoon.
I don't mind mature animation, but the style is very much in keeping with children's cartoons and the ultra-violence and vulgarity is unsettling. You wouldn't find this level of mature content in the average comic book, so I find it off-putting.
Thoughts?
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