Somehow missed out on God of War and God of War II, easily two of the greatest games from the last generation of consoles? Fret not over lost experiences, because Sony today announced the God of War Collection for PS3. It might have been smarter to wait!

This will be a Blu-ray disc compilation that will contain both games with revamped 720p HD, with anti-aliased graphics running at 60 frames a second. They’ve even included trophy support for both games! To make things even sweeter it’s only 40 bucks, the same price you’d pay picking up the PS2 originals.

This is an absolute must-buy if you’ve never played the games or somehow don’t own them. Plus, there’s no better way to brush up on your history before God of War III hits next March. Expect the God of War Collection to hit later this year.

Check the Playstation blog for the full press release.

Quite some time ago I made the greatest movie ever made ever. It was called The Titanic and it made you, your mother, your girlfriend, and even tough nuts like your dad and boyfriend bawl like a bunch of brand new orphans.

Most people blame the The Titanic’s success on the fact that it featured Leonardo Di Caprio before he got fat and Kate Winslet before she had her name legally changed to Skinemax. But in reality, The Titanic was only awesome because I directed it. You don’t know that but Hollywood suits do, and that’s all that really matters to me because they are the trees from which dough grows.

As a reward for making the most successful film since Star Wars, the Hollywood suits gave me Carte Blanch, which, for those of you morons who don’t read German, translates as, “Write your own ticket, Sam Strange!”

Many filmmakers get opportunities like this and immediately blow it on indulgent, boring, personal pieces of crap. But that’s just not how I roll. My answer to all that freedom is to make a movie that will replace The Titanic as the most expensive, most successful, most spectacular, most technologically advanced film of all time. It may have cost a billion dollars and thirteen years of my life, but with Avatar, I believe I’ve achieved that goal.

Or maybe not. Apparently the people who paid for the film are nervous now that they’ve seen footage. To test their fears, they offered people fifteen minutes for free, and no one showed up. So now they’re all pissed at me before the film’s even had a chance to fail. As a last ditch effort to drum up interest, they’ve asked me to come here, CHUD.com, to give away the entire movie.

So here’s the deal, this is the story of why Avatar is the greatest film you will ever see, this is why Avatar is going to be “a game changer”. If any of your friends tell you they think the movie looks like a goofball cartoon send them here and kick them in the A-hole on their way out.

I had an unlimited budget for Avatar. I wanted to do something very special with it, so I hooked up with NASA for some ideas. As it turned out, NASA secretly knew of a planet filled with blue cat people, but no one was willing to go because the trip takes six years both ways. I asked NASA if I looked like a pussy, NASA said no, and we were on our way.

A lot happened during those first six years. Crew members died, new crew members were born. Back on Earth, new movies came out all the time, each advancing CG technology further than the last. Sadly, I could not watch these films because I was stuck on a fucking space ship, which offered only a half eaten VHS copy of Dances with Wolves for entertainment. I totally have that movie memorized now, even the Indian language stuff. Tatanka!

It was a rough trip. By the time we got there my star, Channing Tatum, had suffered a major back injury and my 2nd billing, Sigourney Weaver, had aged twice as much as Michael Jackson predicted she would. This basically necessitated that my actors only appear in a small part of the film. My plot about two class-opposed lovers who voyage on an “unsinkable” Alien ship which Alien sinks after hitting an Alien iceberg had to go.

This huge problem resolved itself once we got to the planet. Everything about it was beautiful and exotic. Chunks of land floated in midair, plant life looked like a rainforest under black-light, huge unbelievable monsters roamed around for fresh meat. But most beautiful of all were the human-like Na’vy, with whom we found guides, protectors, and, after installing shock-collars, fairly decent actors.

The plot would now be about a wheelchair human who makes a Nav’y body to jump around in. He’d fall in love with an actual N’avy and end up protecting her race from stupid white humans led by Sigourney Weaver who also takes on a Na’v’y body, but not a N’av’y heart.

The film was easy to shoot. No CG was necessary because everything on the planet already looked fake as shit. People want to call Avatar photo-realistic and I guess that’s true in the sense that Cocoon is photo-realistic. It’s twenty-four real photos per second of stuff that shouldn’t exist. There’s a big difference, and it will totally change the game. Someday we’ll find a planet where the aliens look less fake and all movies will be made there and people will look to me as a pioneer.

Those of us who survived the planet were pretty jazzed to come back home again and show off our beautiful footage. Six years later, we entered a planet more foreign than the one we’d just returned from. There was now this thing called the Internet and Lord of the Rings and some asshole had made a 3rd Terminator film! My good friend Arnold had become President of California! People could talk on phones while walking around wherever they wanted! Tight-rolling your jeans was no longer cool! Celine Dion had turned into Wayne Newton!

So maybe I’ve lost touch with modern people. Maybe Avatar a little less great than the awesome it’s supposed to be. Look, I humbly apologize if that’s the case. Yet I still must ask for your ticket. Actually, I need you to buy three or four. If this film isn’t profitable, they’re going to murder me. Our trip cost Earth 30,000,000 barrels of high octane gasoline, and some want to blame us for the current economic crisis. Also, it is quite possible that an army of Navy’ are coming here right now to blow us up in retribution. I know how to fight them, but I won’t tell until you’ve all made this film the most profitable film of all time. Oh, stop whining. You never know, you might actually find it entertaining.

Maternity Leave (S2, ep. 15)

“Unlike him I had been unable to escape into the simple complexities of science. All he had to do was solve the mystery of the universe, which may be difficult but is not as difficult as living an ordinary life.” -Walter Percy, Lancelot

Ethan: “It’s a vaccine – we don’t want him to get sick.”

First: my apologies for taking so long to write this episode up. Real life intruded in a big, unpleasant way last week. Compound that with a desire to look into the potential meaning of one of Lost’s literary reference points and you have a recipe for delay.

Eko advised us earlier in Season 2 not to mistake coincidence for fate, and I’m heeding his advice. Otherwise, the confluence of the week’s events and this medically-saturated episode might have seemed eerie. As it is, I’m just grateful that Lost had such an intriguing and entertaining episode ready for me to re-watch. Hell, I’m grateful to be writing this at all. Life is short, folks – get living.

Thoughts:

• This episode centers firmly around the questions of sickness, infection, and quarantine. Many questions are raised which have not, as yet, been fully addressed. Given what we’ll later discover as the seasons roll on, it would seem as though ‘the sickness’ isn’t a single mysterious virus, but rather an inclusive term for (a) the infertility and baby-hating aspects of the Island, (b) the sinister personality changes associated with the Temple, the Monster, and Rousseau’s crew, (c) the fear brought about by all the ‘quarantine’ signs, which may not refer to disease at all.

• The word ‘Quarantine’ has several definitions, and like ‘good,’ Lost may not be referencing the most common/likely definition when it utilizes the word.
Quarantine can refer to:

1. A period of time during which a vehicle, person, or material suspected of carrying a contagious disease is detained at a port of entry under enforced isolation to prevent disease from entering a country.

2. A place for such detention.

3. Enforced isolation or restriction of free movement imposed to prevent the spread of contagious disease.

All of these definitions focus on diseases and carriers. But there are two others, both potentially applicable to Lost:

4. A condition of enforced isolation. (See: The Swan Station)

5. A period of 40 days.

Note that 40 days is explicitly referenced as the period of time that Eko is silent for after murdering two Others his first night on the Island. By refusing to talk, Eko undergoes a period of enforced isolation. By landing on the Island every castaway experiences their own form of enforced isolation from the larger world.

• Rousseau conflates Aaron’s sickness with the ‘infection’ that changed her crew into ‘hostiles.’ Yet, we’ve since seen no evidence that the two are related at all. I’m going to suggest that Rousseau is essentially behaving superstitiously when she does this, and not without some justification.

• “Maternity Leave” shows us that Kate’s protectiveness of Aaron and Claire goes back a lot further than I’d remembered. She’s there for both of them throughout this episode, and it illuminates her later actions really well.

• We get a brief glimpse of Hurley and Libby hanging out on the beach catching fish. Awwwww.

Ben: “Dostoyevsky….You don’t have any Stephen King?”

Locke and Ben meet face-to-face for what is really the first time in this episode. Locke gives him ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ to read. Ben’s response is funny on its face, and it’s clever on rewatch, since we know now that Ben and the Others were discussing Stephen King’s Carrie in their book club just before 815 shatters above the Island.

The Brothers Karamazov is an interesting book to include at this juncture, given that the novel’s concerns include the existence of God, questions of existentialism, and a mirrored inversion of the Russian Philosopher Nikolai Fyodorovich’s idea of a Christianity in which sons redeem the sins of their fathers (sound familiar?) in order to bring about human unity through a universal brotherhood (Everything That Rises Must Converge, anyone?).

• Jack really is a prick here. It’s hard to think of him as a hero, or root for his POV, when he’s an unmitigated jackass to Locke so much of the time. This constant dismissive contempt really grounds Locke’s end-of-episode actions, and it gives new weight to Locke’s plaintive suicide note in Season 5: ‘I wish you had believed me.’ The note might as well have read ‘I wish you had believed in me.’

Claire: So, you’re a shrink, right?
Libby: I’m a clinical psychologist, but “shrink” works, too.

• Libby yoganotizes (hypnosis through apparent yoga?) Claire on the beach in order to help her access the blocked memories of her kidnapped time with the Others. This whole plot thread really propels the episode along, and the lack of weepy, woe-is-me flashbacks is a real relief, to be honest.

• We get our first glimpse of Alex in “Maternity Leave.” I’d forgotten that she appeared this early on in the show. I like the character, and her demise is maybe the gutsiest character death on the show so far in my estimation.

• Ethan is shown here in an entirely different light than before. Gone is the psychotic jungle-ninja that strung Charlie up like a stuck pig (and he’ll lie to Claire here about him, telling her that he let Charlie go back to their camp). It would appear as though Juliet, the fertility doctor who we’ll see bringing Ethan into the world in S5, has inspired him to a similar line of work. He’s unfailingly calm and polite around Claire, and we get the sense throughout this episode that Ethan is sweet on her. He’ll break unspoken rules twice in this episode, just to see her smile.

“What if you could show me a sin? A purely evil deed, an intolerable deed for which there is no explanation? Now there’s a mystery. People would sit up and take notice. I would be impressed. You could almost make a believer out of me…..The mark of this age is that people are either crazy, miserable, or wonderful, so where does the ‘evil’ come in?”

Walker Percy, “Lancelot”

Sawyer’s latest beachside reading is “Lancelot” by Walker Percy, and as Ned Ryerson would say, it’s a doozy. The novel concerns the title character’s theological/philosophical quest for “The Unholy Grail” – i.e. true sin, true evil. Its main character has been jailed for murdering his wife and three others, and the near-entirety of the novel is a diatribe from his perspective. “Lancelot” operates as a dark mirror to the title of the book we see Jacob reading in the Season 5 finale – Flannery O’Connor’s “Everything That Rises Must Converge.” This is not an accident.

O’Connor and Percy have been compared and contrasted more than a few times, both of them ‘Southern Gothic’ authors fascinated by themes of sin and redemption. In the book “Peculiar Crossroads,” author Farrell O’Gorman examines the two authors and discusses their continued influence (considerable), their similarities (also considerable) and what O’Gorman considers to be their essential ‘Christian Existentialist’ outlook.

The title of O’Connor’s novel is a reference to the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit Priest/Philosopher/Paleontologist/Geologist (!!!) credited with inventing the term “Omega Point” to describe “a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which the universe appears to be evolving.” This is, in the view of O’Connor and Teilhard, a moral, spiritual, and intellectual rising up toward a kind of universal consciousness (another Lost reference to the idea of a universal mind, Philip K. Dick’s “VALIS,” will be popping up later on down the line). You can read up on a ‘secular’ version of Teilhard’s Omega Point by taking a look at Raymond Kurzweil’s “The Singularity Is Near.”

From the (very very) brief encounters the audience has had with Jacob, it would seem that the Island’s resident Christ/Ra-figure is attempting to achieve this convergence in some as-yet-unexplained way. As he tells the Man In Black, “It only ends once. Everything that happens before that is just progress.”

By contrast, the title character of “Lancelot” could stand in for the Man In Black and his argument that “it always ends the same.” Lancelot believes that the Omega Point that the universe is evolving toward is not a higher level of consciousness, and is not the cooperative model envisioned by Teilhard, but is instead a state of primal selfishness. These two opposing viewpoints set up another mirror between the seasons.

“We should not mistake Lance’s proposal of a new ethical absolute as Percy’s own. It serves, if anything, to confirm Lance’s damnation. All his talk about stern morality and knightly intolerance is nihilistic to the core. For it is based on the graceless conclusion that only such moral supermen as himself can put an end to the universal buggery. Anyone finding themselves encouraged by this courtly righteousness should remember that as Lance slits the throat of his wife’s lover he feels nothing except his neck itching.” – Author Ralph Wood, in a 1977 review of “Lancelot”

This kind of moral certainty is shared by Jack and Locke – two self-defined ‘supermen’ in their own minds who come to believe that only they have what it takes to save a person’s life or to lead the Island despite deep personal flaws and failings that render them just as human as the rest of the castaways.

Whew. That was a lot to digest. Here’s a quick palette-cleanser:

JACKFACE!

• Ethan seems to be giving Claire the same type of injection that Desmond was giving himself at the beginning of Season Two. The vials in the ‘Caduceus Station’ (named after the medical Caduceus Staff featured in the Dharma logo for the Station) also have The Numbers marked on the label.

• The sight of a pregnant woman getting a needle in the belly makes me queasy. No more belly-needles, okay, Lost?

• I love the look of this Station and the way that its rooms neatly straddle the line between ‘creepy-like-a-Saw-movie’ and ‘welcoming.’ The contrast between the empty, florescent-lit, water-stained halls and the soothing warmth of the child nursery is jarring and I like it.

• If you take a look at the mobile over Aaron’s Other crib you’ll see a number of Oceanic airplanes. Who the hell knows what this is/was supposed to mean or suggest. Even weirder: the mobile plays the song “Catch a Falling Star” – the same tune that Kate will sing to Aaron in Season 5. Another echo.

Tom Friendly: What the hell happened? You were supposed to make the list and then bring her in. Was I unclear?
Ethan: It’s not my fault. They knew I wasn’t on the plane. They had a manifest.

• Tom Friendly shows up again, mostly off-screen, but we see that he’s clean-shaven here as opposed to the Halloween II-style hillbilly beard he was sporting in The Hunting Party. We find out through him that Ethan never made his list of the beachfront castaways, explaining why none of them were snatched the way the Tailies were.

• The sound accompanying Claire’s sudden memory flashes is FREAKY.

Ethan: I’m going to miss you. I wish — I wish you didn’t have to go.
Claire: Maybe I don’t have to go?
Ethan: We’ve been through this, Claire. There’s not enough vaccine for you and the baby.
Claire: Well, I’m not, I’m not sick.
Ethan: Thank God. And once you’ve delivered you can go back to your friends and hopefully you’ll stay that way.

It’s implied that whatever Ethan gives Claire to drink from his canteen is yet more medicine. But it’s unclear what purpose this has, if any. I suspect that it’s how he keeps her happily druggy. It’s also heavily implied again that Ethan has a thing for Claire.

Another question raised by this scene: Why is it that Claire can’t stay with the Others/Aaron? If the ‘sickness’ is something real, independent of the apparent mind-control Rousseau encountered among her crew, then it’ll need to be conclusively addressed. I get the feeling, though, that Ethan’s playing her here – that only the baby needs to worry about vaccination. That is, unless the vaccination has something to do with residual poison in the air as a result of the Purge.

• We find out that the Caduceus Station also functions as the Others’ Dressing Room. We see torn and ragged clothing neatly hung in Dharma lockers, fake beards and spirit gum. This was a neat reveal when the episode first aired. On rewatch it gains significance, further underlining the thematic current of cons and misdirection, of people pretending to be what they aren’t.

Claire: “She wasn’t like the others (Others). She was good.”

The Rousseau/Alex story thread gets stronger here, as Claire tells her about a teenaged girl that helped her to escape the Caduceus Station. More than ever, this episode makes it clear just how little Rousseau cares about dying. She’s succumbed to the literal and figurative isolation that the Island can create without the healing qualities of community but despite this, she saves Claire from whatever fate the Others had planned. It’s interesting again how the concept of “Othering” is being explored again here – how Claire draws a distinction between Alex and the other Others (ugh) based solely on the fact that Alex kelps her escape. Were Ethan and his crew really going to cut Claire open and kill her? We won’t know until the final season. Is it January?

…how about now? January yet?

• Jack’s apparently come around on the necessity of keeping Ben a prisoner. Why?

Eko: The first night I spent on this island I was dragged into the jungle by 2 men. They never spoke a word to me, nor I to them. I killed these men — smashed in their head with a stone, felt their blood on my arms. I need you to know how sorry I am for this. I need you to know that I am back on the righteous path now. And that I regret my actions. I ask you for your forgiveness.

• Eko uses his knowledge of Ben’s presence in the Swan to get in to see him, essentially blackmailing Jack to do so. What follows is an affecting scene in which Eko confesses his sin of murder to Ben and asks for forgiveness. I love this character. Short-lived as he may have been he left an indelible impression on the show and his outlook continues to seem the most healthy of anyone’s to me, and it reinforces the possibility that Eko is killed precisely because he is so (comparatively) well-adjusted in his outlook.

The episode ends with Ben Linus exerting his powerful manipulative abilities overtly for the first time, effectively driving an emotional splinter into Locke’s mind. Locke will come to embrace “Lancelot”’s wrong-headed notion of a nihilistic superman as he heads down the road to self-annihilation.

Missed a column? Catch up here:

• One of Them (S2 ep. 14)
• The Long Con (S2 ep. 13)
• Fire + Water (S2 ep. 12)
• The Hunting Party (S2 ep 11)
• The 23rd Psalm (S2, ep. 10)
• What Kate Did (S2, ep. 9)
• Collision (S2, ep. 8)
• The Other 48 Days (S2, ep. 7)

The news that Disney is acquiring Marvel Entertainment hit geekdom like
an atom bomb this morning. There’s been lots of speculation, excitement
and fear. But one thing stood out amidst the huge infodump of news:

John Lasseter has met with Marvel folks, and everybody got very excited.

This sounds like Pixar could be making a Marvel movie. But what Marvel
movie could they make? Most of the major characters are probably headed
for live action treatment, and Pixar’s already made a semi-definitive
Marvelesque movie with The Incredibles. I don’t think they’d want to tread the same ground, so that leaves out properties like Power Pack.
But the Marvel library is deep, and there are many, many titles and
characters that would make great Pixar films. Here are ten that are perhaps more obscure.

Ka-Zar – I have to be honest here: I don’t know if Ka-Zar is an X-Men character. While there was a Ka-Zar who appeared in Marvel Comics #1 from Timely Comics (the precursor to Marvel), the modern Ka-Zar first appeared in The X-Men #10. But let’s assume he’s not in Fox’s clutches – Ka-Zar is an amazing property for Pixar. He’s Tarzan living amongst dinosaurs!

Born Lord Kevin Plunder, Ka-Zar’s father discovered the Savage Land, a
prehistoric paradise hidden in a crater in Antarctica. When his parents
were killed Ka-Zar was found and raised by a sabre-tooth tiger, Zabu.
Master of the Savage Land, Ka-Zar battles dinosaurs and Man-Apes, as
well as the usual Marvel Comics assortment of monsters and aliens.

Imagine Pixar doing a pulpy dinosaur movie! This one seems like a complete win on every possible level imaginable.

Quasar
– Wendell Vaughn was just a regular SHIELD agent until he became the
owner of the Quantum Bands, cosmic weapons of unbelievable power. With
the Quantum Bands forever attached to his wrists, Vaughn discovers he’s
been chosen to be the Protector of the Universe, a big calling for a
square from Wisconsin. His mentor is Eon, a huge green boulder with a
face and a huge eye and tentacles (so fucking weird looking), and
Quasar battles cosmic threats on Earth as well as in the deepest
reaches of space.

Quasar’s particularly great for Pixar because the character is a normal
guy thrown into such bizarre situations, most of which would be fairly
silly in live action. Eon alone would just be far too weird to take
seriously in a live action film. And the kinds of threats that Quasar
battles – like Oblivion, the personification of non-existence – and the
scale on which he battles them would make any live action film mostly a
cartoon anyway. I just love the way that Vaughn’s Midwestern pluck and
politeness serves him in encounters with the trippiest cosmic beings
imaginable, and I think Pixar would have a blast with that.

Sleepwalker – This is a character almost no one knows,
and for him to work on film he’d have to be reimagined slightly, but
the basic concept offers a lot of fun possibilities. Sleepwalker is a
resident of the Mindscape, a dimension that abuts the unconscious of
all intelligent beings. In the Mindscape he’s a member of a group that
guards the dimension, acting as a sort of dream police. But
Sleepwalker’s archnemesis Cobweb tricks him and has him trapped inside
the mind of a normal Earth film student. The two have to learn how to
cohabitate in the same brain, while Sleepwalker uses his weird dream
powers to fight crime and injustice on this plane and the Mindscape.

The comic focused way too much on what was happening in the waking world; a good Sleepwalker movie
would definitely have to spend more time in the Mindscape. And the
world of dreams is a place where Pixar could run wild. Perhaps the
waking world could be represented by very mocapped, very realistic
looking characters, with the Mindscape being a just totally off the
charts blast from the animator’s imagination. And since nobody really
likes Sleepwalker, Pixar could have a very free hand in reimagining
him; hell, they could probably turn him into an actually viable
character.

Guardians of the Galaxy – Modern day astronaut Major
Vance Astro ends up in the 31st century. There he falls in with the
Guardians of the Galaxy, a team made up of aliens who are the last
remaining members of their individual species. Together they’re
battling the Badoon, an alien race that has been conquering system
after system and who are now trying to take Earth. The members of the
team are Martinex, a guy from Pluto whose body is made of crystal;
Charlie-27, a block-headed powerhouse genetically engineered to live in
Jupiter’s gravity; the blue-skinned, red-mohawked sort of Na’vi-like
Yondu from Alpha Centauri; Starkhawk, an Arcturian who has been granted
extraordinary powers by an ancient Hawk God, and the Mercurian Nikki,
who can withstand incredible heat, has flames coming out of her head,
and is a sharp-shooter.

Think Star Wars if everybody was an alien. The Guardians
fight big space opera battles against the Badoon, trying to free worlds
and shut down the aliens’ evil plans. Even cooler is the possibility to
tie it all into the Marvel Universe – in the Guardians of the Galaxy comic
in the 80s the team found Captain America’s shield, which Vance Astro
would go on to wield. Many of the members have ties to Marvel heroes
(Starhawk is Quasar’s kid!). Big space adventure with a weird cast of
characters who could never be done live action? Perfect for Pixar.

Damage Control – In a world where superheroes regularly
brawl their way through buildings and landmarks, somebody has to clean
it up. That somebody is Damage Control. Operating out of New York
City’s famous Flatiron Building, Damage Control is the construction
company that shows up and makes sure the city in shape for the next
issue of a Marvel comic. Imagined as a sitcom, Damage Control is weird
workplace comedy in the Mighty Marvel Manner; not only are there the
usual office workers involved, but the Search and Rescue arm of the
organization hires many superbeings, and occasionally famous ones show
up as part of court-ordered community service. Greek god Hercules
worked with the team in that capacity, for example. And since Damage
Control is partially owned by Tony Stark, Iron Man is no stranger to
their adventures.

While Damage Control could conceptually be a live action
movie, I think it would work particularly well in CGI. For one thing,
the inherent scope of the material – huge swaths of destruction must be
cut in order to make Damage Control useful – would make a live action
comedy movie cost-prohibitive. For another, making Damage Control a
cartoon allows you to use some of the stranger heavy hitters in the
Marvel Universe. Imagine an opening scene with Fin Fang Foom, the giant
Chinese dragon, making a mess of Lower Manhattan. But what makes Damage Control a
Pixar movie, and not a Dreamworks movie, is the human interaction among
the staff. All of the humor comes from the characters, not from making
fun of the situations.

Project Pegasus – Hidden in the Adirondack Mountains is a
secret government research project known as Project PEGASUS (Potential
Energy Group/Alternate Sources/United States). Originally tasked to
find alternate energy sources, Project PEGASUS over time evolved to
become a facility where superpowered beings were studied and sometimes
imprisoned. There’s a normal staff of scientists, bureaucrats and
security personnel, but also a bunch more exotic types. The subjects at
PEGASUS ranged from Jack of Hearts, a half-human half-alien who could
fly and shoot blasts from his hands, to Wundarr the Aquarian (a sort of
Space Jesus), to Nitro, a villain whose power was exploding.

While the mission of PEGASUS in the comics was ever-changing – was it a
research facility, was it a prison, was it a halfway house for weird
characters who had nowhere else to go? – a Pixar version would likely
focus on the halfway house aspect. A dysfunctional family of
superbeings with an authority group of humans – there are a lot of
interesting dynamic to explore here. And with the Marvel Universe open
to them, Pixar could pick and choose some of the weirder, more unusual
super characters to feature. Think of it as Toy Story meets The Incredibles.

Squadron Supreme – In an alternate reality there are
alternate superheroes, all of whom are very reminiscent of DC’s Justice
League. There’s the superman Hyperion, the dark vigilante Nighthawk,
the speedster Whizzer, the toug gal Power Princess, the hotshot with a
power ring Dr. Spectrum, the undersea guy the Amphibian, and the
Skrullian Spymaster, a shape-chaning green alien. And that’s just the
original guys – they added other characters, like Tom Thumb, a genius
midget, Nuke, a radioactive man, and Arcanna, a magician. In Mark
Gruenwald’s amazing 12-part miniseries, which came out a year before Watchmen,
they decided to use their power to take over the world and make it a
utopia. Things didn’t work out the way they planned. It was a
hard-edged look at what might really happen if superpowered people
lived among us.

If Pixar ever wanted to go PG-13, this is the property with which to do
it. A smart and dark examination of the dangers of well-meaning fascism
(which is exactly what’s behind superheroes), Squadron Supreme is like Watchmen if
everybody had powers and there was less nudity and swearing. The Mark
Gruenwald miniseries is a huge, sweeping epic that would cost 250
million if done live action. Animated and stylized it would be cheaper
and more accessible to the masses – superhero deconstruction your 13
year old nephew could watch. Of course it seems unlikely that Pixar
will be going PG-13 any time soon, but if they did…

The Eternals – At the dawn of man the mysterious giant
armored beings The Celestials arrived on Earth. They experimented on
the nascent human race, creating two offshoots. One was the Deviants, a
monstrous subhuman race. The other was the Eternals, who had the
genetic possibility to be long-lived and super-powered. The Celestials
left, intending to one day return to Earth to judge humanity. The
Eternals split into two factions – one lead by Kronos, the other by the
warlike Uranos. Uranos and his people left Earth while Kronos
experimented with cosmic radiation that activated the Eternal’s dormant
genes. The experiment scattered Kronos’ particles across the universe,
while his sons Zuras and Alars, led the Eternals in a new golden age,
which included building a city called Olympus in Greece. You see where
this is going? Over the years the Eternals have stayed aloof from
humanity, but every now and again they get involved in our affairs, and
when the Celestials returned to judge the Earth they had to take part
to save themselves.

A science fiction take on the Greek gods. This seems like something
Pixar could sink their teeth into. Created by Jack Kirby after he left
DC and The New Gods, The Eternals is
thematically similar, and has all of that big idea Jack Kirby stuff
that influenced generations. Maybe Pixar can’t get their hands on The New Gods (and
you bet everyone who counts Kirby as an influence wants to try their
hands at that), but this is the next best thing. And because Kirby, as
usual, never finished his story, there are a lot of places to go with
the concept of scifi Greek Gods. You could set the whole thing in the
past, or you could set it during the return of the Celestials. Giant
armored beings fighting analogues of the Greek Gods over modern New
York? Yes please!

Thunderbolts– When the Avengers were thought dead, a new
superteam stepped into the void created by their loss. Called the
Thunderbolts, these mysterious newcomers included the patriotic Citizen
V, the armored MACH-1, the gadget guy Techno, the growing man Atlas,
the super screamer Songbird, the mega-powered Meteorite and the young
girl Jolt. But it turned out that, except for Jolt, all the members of
the Thunderbolts were actually supervillains. Led by Baron Zemo, son of
a Nazi supervillain, the members of the Masters of Evil used the ruse
as a way to gain public trust and get access to all of the information
the Avengers had. The plan was to take over the country from the
inside. But some of the team members had a change of heart, and they
took on Baron Zemo, using the Thunderbolts as a way to go straight.

This is probably the least CGI-specific concept on this list. It’s also
potentially the toughest, as many of the characters would have to be
changed, since some of them come from the rogues galleries of Marvel
characters whose film rights are owned by other studios. But what I
like about Thunderbolts for Pixar is the theme: redemption. Pixar’s been tackling more and more mature themes lately, with Up‘s
meditation on loss being the most grown-up yet. So why not redemption?
These villains find that when they play the hero they become the hero.
They like the role. They like being good better than being bad, and
they have to figure out how to make up for what they had done in their
previous lives – if they can ever make up for it. It’s a dilemma we all
face, because in our own ways we screw things up and have to make them
better. The idea that you can atone for what you’ve done is a very
adult one, but also really identifiable for kids.

And I think Pixar could have a good time with a bunch of bad guys.

Prime/The Ultraverse – Marvel doesn’t just have the
Marvel Universe. There are a number of other properties that fit under
the Marvel Entertainment umbrella (like the New Universe, for one. They
have a super powered football team!), but the one that I think has the
most possibility is the Ultraverse. Originally published by Malibu
Comics when everybody and their dog were starting new cohesive
superhero universes, the Ultraverse was a wild and fun place that died
when Marvel bought it up. Now the many characters, including Prime, a
kid who turns into a big, beefy superman (not original, but the
execution made it work), sit gathering dust.

Prime is really a 13 year old boy who is able to create an adult,
superpowered protoplasmic body around himself (it’s messy and gooey
when he turns back into a boy). It’s essentially Shazam!, but what made
Prime really unique is the fact that the Prime body was
itself an extension of the kid’s subconcious. The way it looke was
impacted by who and what he held in high esteem at any given moment –
the original body was cartoonish in musculature and had a face that
looked like the kid’s dad. Later, when Prime met grim n’ gritty
superheroes he turned into Rogue Prime – tattoos, spiked armor, facial
scars, all the bullshit from 90s comics. The series didn’t last long
enough to really explore this, but the idea of the kid literally
becoming his role models is too good to pass up. And the cartoony
nature of the Prime body makes a stylized Pixar take perfect.

Of course Prime isn’t the only Ultraverse character out there. I’d love
for John Lasseter to have gotten excited not about any of the Marvel
Universe characters but about having access to this unused library. A
boy can dream. Which is what Prime’s all about, after all.

NOTE: I’ll be updating this as needed during a currently ongoing conference call.

This morning Disney announced its plan to buy Marvel Entertainment for 4 billion dollars.

Yes, Disney is buying Marvel.

What does this mean? Fuck if I know. It probably means that Marvel’s movie financing plan just got bigger. A bunch bigger. I assume that the current distribution deal that Marvel has with Paramount stays intact, but once that’s over, Marvel movies will likely be distributed by Disney. That’s gotta sting Paramount – first they lost Dreamworks to Disney and now Marvel.

Disney’s making big moves lately, the aforementioned Dreamworks deal being just one aspect. The company has restructured their animation division and Pixar is more of an important element. This looks like the beginning of a period of Disney domination in the geek arts.

Will Marvel be impacted? I doubt Disney is going to stick their fingers in the Marvel Comics Universe. The company has been interested in entertainment that reaches wider, all-ages audiences, so I also doubt they’ll try to make all Marvel movies PG or something.

UPDATE 7:25: All current Marvel deals should stay in place – ie, Fantastic Four remain at Fox, Spider-Man lives at Sony.

UPDATE 7:30: No shock, but Disney expects to bring the characters home when the deals are done, as the third party deals are not as sweet in this new paradigm.

UPDATE 7:35: Disney expects to be able to exploit Marvel characters more broadly and more deeply, but they think that the people at Marvel are already doing a great job with that and are the experts on how to make that work. Read that as: Disney isn’t going to be telling Marvel to get cracking on a Power Pack movie.

UPDATE 7:38: Expect more Marvel stuff on Disney XD Channel.

UPDATE 7:40: Disney may keep some Marvel video game licenses at other companies, depending on what works best.

UPDATE 7:40: More 3D in Marvel films? It’s up to the creative types.

UPDATE 7:40: Disney would like over time to become the sole distributor of Marvel films, but they must keep in the Paramount deal, legally.

UPDATE 7:42: Marvel and Pixar? John Lasseter and Marvel honchos recently met and got so excited the suits had to tell them to calm down, the deal wasn’t done yet. There is DEFINITELY Marvel/Pixar stuff brewing right now.

UPDATE 7:44: Who will call the shots on unproduced, upcoming Marvel films? ‘No one knows the Marvel characters and stories better than the folks at Marvel.’

UPDATE 7:45: ‘If ain’t broke…’ says Bob Iger.

UPDATE 7:49: Paramount deal has about five more pictures.

UPDATE 7:51: Disney doesn’t see a reason to move Marvel Studios from Manhattan Beach.

UPDATE 7:55: Paraphrase: The goal here isn’t to remake Marvel in the image of Disney, but to shine a brighter light on Marvel.

UPDATE 8:02: My thoughts on it all.

This is good for Marvel, hands down. Well, Marvel as a business entity. This is a bonanza for ancillary products and tie-ins; the Marvel characters are about to become almost as ubiquitous as the Disney characters. Lots of money will be made.

As I said earlier, I doubt this impacts Marvel Comics. As long as they turn enough of a profit (or avoid accruing huge losses) to justify their existence as a property generator, they will exist unmolested. It’s like DC and Time Warner – it’s rare that Time Warner pays any attention to what’s happening in the DC Comics Universe.

But movies? This is where I get worried. And not for content. I think Disney will let Marvel Studios make their movies their way. But the big problem for DC characters at Warner Bros is that the studio will only distribute so many DC movies a year. The way that Marvel was set up before the deal, they could strike distribution deals with different studios, ensuring a large stream of film content. Will Disney be happy to put out three or more Marvel movies a year? Kevin Feige is definitely thinking about releasing a Marvel movie a quarter in the near future – and maybe even more than that – but will Disney get behind that? This is my biggest question.

So Paramount has them for five more films – Iron Man 2, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America, The Avengers and maybe Ant-Man. After that it’s all Disney, except for Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men and related characters and Daredevil. Don’t hold your breath for those properties to come home anytime soon – now that Disney owns Marvel the studios would ask huge amounts to sell them back, and the deals will not be expiring in the near future.

Where now? It’s going to be an interesting couple of months. I’m sure Marvel Studios will be flooded with press calls – I hope a statement gets issued from Feige soon.

There’s a conference call about this deal in a couple of minutes; I’ll be listening in and will return with any new details. In the meantime, here’s some language from the press release:

“This transaction combines Marvel’s strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters including Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, Captain America, Fantastic Four and Thor with
Disney’s creative skills, unparalleled global portfolio of
entertainment properties, and a business structure that maximizes the
value of creative properties across multiple platforms and
territories,” said Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive
Officer of The Walt Disney Company. “Ike Perlmutter and his team have
done an impressive job of nurturing these properties and have created
significant value. We are pleased to bring this talent and these great
assets to Disney.”

“We believe that adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of
brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and
value creation,” Iger said.

“Disney is the perfect home for Marvel’s fantastic library of
characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and
licensing businesses,” said Ike Perlmutter, Marvel’s Chief Executive
Officer. “This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon
its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney’s
tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world.”

Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Marvel including
its more than 5,000 Marvel characters. Mr. Perlmutter will oversee the
Marvel properties, and will work directly with Disney’s global lines of
business to build and further integrate Marvel’s properties.

Notice how I avoided the easy “hairplugs coming at you in 3D” joke?

Nicolas Cage has just signed on to star in Drive Angry, a revenge flick that will be directed by Patrick Lussier, perhaps best known as the director of the mediocre My Bloody Valentine 3D remake.

Cage will star as an angry man whose daughter was killed and whose granddaughter was kidnapped by some very bad men, sending him streaking down the highway to get her back and seek bloody revenge on those responsible. It’s actually refreshing to see him act his own age in a film for once, since he’s usually given an inexplicably young wife that’s never really explained. Besides, it makes sense if you’re going to go the vigilante Death Wish route. Due to the title the film will no doubt have some crazy action set pieces set on a highway with lots of tires and engines (and hopefully babies) flying towards the screen. You can expect lots of blood from Lussier as well, but we’ll see how crazy they can get with the former star.
 
Production starts next April in Nu Image/Millennium’s fancy new studio in Louisiana.
 
Via The Hollywood Reporter

BUY IT FROM XBLA: RIGHT HERE!
PLATFORM: Xbox Live Arcade
PRICE: 1200 Points ($15)
ESRB RATING: T
DEVELOPER: RedLynx
PUBLISHER: Microsoft Game Studios
 
The Trials series has been a big hit on PCs. What started out as a simple online flash game about motorcycles led to the release of Trials 2: Second Edition last year to great acclaim via Steam (download the demo here.)  Now a revamped and much prettier installment has hit the Xbox 360 with the simple name of Trials HD.

Are you ready for some punishing and oh so satisfying gameplay?

THE PITCH
 
There’s no story or anything to get in the way of your fun. You’re on a motorcycle for no apparent reason and you’re trying to get to the finish line as fast and with as few crashes as possible. You get medals and can unlock more tracks and bikes depending on your performance.
   
THE PLAY

This is a true throwback. Most people will be reminded of Excitebike when they start this up, and it’s a fair comparison. You’ll spend most of your time trying to straighten out your bike for jumps, after all, and you’re just traveling from left to right on a 2D plane. Excitebike never had ragdoll physics and fire hazards, though.

CHUDTIP- Keep your speed up if you catch on fire, otherwise it’ll consume you.

The game is incredible simple. Right trigger is gas, left is brake, and you shift your weight forward or backward with the left analog stick. That’s really all there is to it. But the amount of control you have over your bike is staggering, and you’ll need to learn how tiny little changes will affect your movements. The courses have all sorts of obstacles and get increasingly insane, with the later ones requiring a helluva lot of practice to get through. You’ll need to learn how to shift your weight from back to front to make your bike jump farther over gaps, lean forward and hit the throttle to go up steep ramps, hit the brake to make sure your bike doesn’t flip up and crash. It requires a lot of practice and trial and error.

CHUDTIP- Looks simple enough, right? Just you wait. Keep in mind how expensive controllers are and try not to break too many of yours.

It can get downright frustrating when you’re hopelessly crashing and watching your mangled body bounce off the ground as you’re just trying to get up one stupid hill or hit a big jump, jamming on the B button to restart instantly and have another go at it. Thankfully there’s a ton of checkpoints set up right before any tricky jumps or maneuvers, so you can hone your skills at that one particular trick until you get it right (or just get lucky).

The game also wisely keeps track of all your friend’s scores and compares you to them, giving you a little bit more of a kick in the ass to compete and go for the Gold and Platinum medals. The score-based competition is what made you keep coming back to Geometry Wars 2 and the same applies here- you’ll see your friends inching up your list and want to go back to knock them back down a few pegs.

THE PRESENTATION

Those who’ve played Trials 2 will be amazed at how much this has been revamped. The character models and lighting effects are pretty fantastic and add to the experience, and a steady 60 fps framerate keeps things smooth.

The music is comprised of repetitive heavy metal riffs and techno music that somehow never gets irritating, but perhaps that’s because you’ll be so sucked into it that you won’t even be paying attention to anything else. It’s that kind of game.
 
THE REPLAY

The biggest problem with Trials HD is that there isn’t nearly enough levels. 35 might sound like a lot but they go by very quickly, with most easily beaten in a minute or two. Sure, some of those Expert levels might be downright impossible, but it would have been nice to have more of the easier ones to fool around with. Trials 2 had over 50, after all. There are also Tournaments which are simply collections of levels that you’ll have to complete one after the other.

CHUDTIP- Always be aware of how your rider is sitting on his bike, so you know which way to shift his weight next.

There are also a few Skill Games which have you doing everything from riding on top of (or in!) a giant metal ball, riding as far as you can on fire, riding around a giant pinball machine, and other fun stuff. These are quick and amusing but don’t offer a whole lot of replay value.

Thankfully a level editor is included so you can create your own levels, if you’re into that kind of thing. I personally don’t really have the patience for it and neither do any of my friends apparently, which is a bummer because you can only share tracks between people you know. This game screams for a way to download the top rated tracks from all players.

CHUDTIP – If you’ve made some good tracks do me a favor and add me as a friend! I need more.

DLC is on the way, though.
 

THE VERDICT

Only the hardcore need apply. Trials HD is tons of fun but the level of difficulty will really put off most gamers, especially at the price point of 15 bucks. But put the time into it and you’ll find a worthy, addictive game.
 

Have you been following the Baader-Meinhof Complex trading card game on CHUD? It’s drawing to a close! All nine cards are now on the site (and I recommend you pay close attention to this page as well).

If you haven’t been following, it’s not too late. Here’s the deal:

Now open in select cities and getting wider every weekend (go
to the bottom of this page to see when it’s opening near you), The Baader-Meinhof Complex
is the thrilling true story of the Red Army Faction, a violent German
terrorist group. Nominated for both an Oscar and a Golden Globe, The Baader-Meinhof Complex is finally in America.

To
celebrate we’re running a cool contest. Over the past week I’ve
hiding fugitive trading cards on the CHUD site – some were in
articles, some were in reviews and one was even be on the message
board. One person who finds all the cards will win a pretty awesome
prize pack for the movie, including tickets to see it at their nearest
theater.

What will you win? Check it!

Grand prize:

Run
of engagement tickets to see the film or to attend a sneak preview in
markets where the film will open. See the list at the bottom of the
page.

The non-fiction book upon which the film is based.

Baader
Meinhof T-Shirt with Studio Number One Artwork (Black, 100% cotton,
American Apparel t-shirt in choice of sizes 2XL, XL, L (Mens) and
Ladies Large).

A sticker.

Digital download of Soundtrack on Milan Records.

Baader Meinhof Fine Art Print of Studio Number One limited edition movie poster.

 
THREE runners up will get:

Baader
Meinhof T-Shirt with Studio Number One Artwork (Black, 100% cotton,
American Apparel t-shirt in choice of sizes 2XL, XL, L (Mens) and
Ladies Large).

A sticker.

Digital download of Soundtrack on Milan Records.

Baader Meinhof Fine Art Print of Studio Number One limited edition movie poster.

Not bad!

So here is how this works:

I’ve hidden NINE trading cards on the site. All are in articles or reviews I HAVE WRITTEN and one is in a thread I STARTED.

 Find these cards and download them to your computer!

Become friends with The Baader-Meinhof Complex Facebook page. Create a special photo album on your Facebook and upload the trading cards to that album.

When all NINE cards are found, contact The Baader-Meinhof Complex Facebook page and tell them you’ve caught them all!

(If you don’t have a Facebook account, simply send me a list of all the pages where you found the cards. URLs, please!)

And here it ends. This is the final fugitive. At midnight August 31st the game is over! Either get in touch with the Baader-Meinhof Complex Facebook page or email me the URLs by midnight tonight!

Green Hornet has had one of the more tempestuous pre-production processes. At least public processes – plenty of pictures go through pre-production shake-ups, but out of the prying eyes of the people.

The latest change-up for the film – its release date. Sony has moved the picture out of the summer slot and pushed it back until December 2010. Lest you think this spells disaster (and there have been a lot of people peddling the ‘Green Hornet is in trouble and will be shitcanned’ pitch over the previous few months), Seth Rogen assures you all is peachy. Perfect, possibly. Via HitFix:

It gives more time for post, which would have been
immensely rushed if we were to come out in the summer.  It also affords
us more time to promote the film, (now we can go to Comic-Con with more
than a car!) and ultimately is a great vote of confidence from the
studio.

Well, if Rogen’s pleased, we probably should be as well.

Finally, the news many of us have been waiting for: the green light for Rambo 5! Last I heard it was under the working title of John Rambo (again), but all that could change. What hopefully won’t change is that it will be as awesomely splattery as the last film, Rambo. I’m worried about Sylvester Stallone’s spotty track record – he can’t seem to make three good films in a row – but I’m hoping that The Expendables meets the guy’s shit quota for this cycle.

The film will be coming from Millenium/Nu-Image, just like the last film, which turned an okay profit (especially overseas, believe it or not. Triple the US, almost). This movie will see John Rambo back in North America, battling through drug lords and human traffickers on the American/Mexican border in order to rescue a little girl. I had heard the script being described as Stallone’s take on a western, and that plot sort of sounds like it could be influenced by The Searchers.

The movie will shoot in the spring, which is a long way away. Maybe Stallone needs the time to gather enough bloody squibs. Realistically, he needs the time to finish and promote The Expendables, but I’m sticking with bloody squibs.

via Variety

What’s this? It’s a fugitive from The Baader-Meinhof Complex. You can win amazing prizes for catching them all. Click here to find out how to win this CHUD exclusive contest!