@RemusShepherd: Agreed on the creative change. The only part the new team understood was "kill off characters," without understanding how to make people care about them.
Brilliant first 2 years.
Brilliant first 2 years.
@AngeloD: I hope you're not worried about spoilers. The main characters all have a maximum lifespan of 1 year. That should lead you to expect them to drop like flies.
@nnumber6: Yeah, that's how you do a montage — of things that didn't actually happen, but are STILL going to screw the bad guys :)
Okay, how come I never heard about this show until my wife ran across it by accident on Showcase?
[www.showcase.ca]
"'Misfits' follows five outsiders on community service who get struck by a flash storm and lumbered with special powers"
We've caught the first two episodes so far, and it's great, R-rated black comedy. A wonderfully twisted "Heroes" for grown-ups.
So, io9 crew, how about a heads-up next time? :)
#observationdeck
…and then Blackstar came on CBS, and I immediately (at the age of 13) started disparaging it as a sucky Thundarr rip-off.
@zerofritz: I think the line in the article is more correct. Try to imagine most heroes (especially the women) actually moving in their costume without it falling off or getting in the way.
Easy to draw—hard to wear.
@stolen_pillow: Second-string as in "how many people who don't read Marvel or DC comics recognize him?"
By that metric (the one Hollywood uses), if you're not Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and (maybe) the Hulk or Wolverine, you're second-string.
@phor11: Prior to the movie, Iron Man wasn't any more mainstream than Thor. Iron Man did well because it was a great action movie with Robert Downey Jr. charming the pants off of everyone.
Favreau shot it as a sci-fi action movie—if Branagh films his as a fantasy epic action movie (ie, Clash of the Titans, Beowulf) he has as good a chance of pushing Thor mainstream as Favs did IM.
@agentgray: What kind of sales figures did Ulysses have?
Saw the original once, in the theatre. It was perfect for the first half-hour. Then it sucked by trying to give Dredd an arc. He has no arc—he is THE LAW. Let the other Judges have arcs while they try to keep up to Dredd.
Statham, maybe? Would he keep the helmet on? Hugo Weaving would, but he doesn't quite have the chin :)
Saw the Shadow in a $2 theatre the year it came out. I may have been disappointed if I'd paid more, but for $2 it was a hoot. I loved that they used the Shadow's network of operatives, and the pneumatic tube network running through New York.
I'm all for a Raimi Shadow — have him make it a pulp movie and we'll be good to go.
Bozz Chronicles was great fun. I wouldn't move it to the States, though. Part of the appeal was the parallel to Sherlock Holmes, and the setting is a major component.
@Dr Emilio Lizardo: Almost. It's always a "special" guy (natural talent, secret training, whatever) who's never been in the tournament before. And the reason is to win the tournament. You keep wanting to add in plot points, which is the danger in making a movie like this. That's why I had to sit through an hour of crap about orphans and boozy old Roger Moore trying to steal some shit just to watch JCVD choreograph some killer fights in "The Quest."
@ShadowStaarr: Exactly! That's why attempts to make movies from fighting games have historically sucked. They always want to take "Street Fighter" and turn it into an action film, when all they need to do is take the characters and moves from the game and put them on screen. Chun Li doesn't need to go on an adventure—she just needs to beat the bejeezuz out of enemies of increasing skill, with a cheering crowd betting on them.
"What's the plot?"
The lesson that no-one seems to have learned from Bloodsport is that "fighting tournament" IS a plot category. Really, all you need is a ladder that features your protagonists against 5 or 6 fighters with crazy, exotic styles. Add a bit of shallow characterization and back-story, a friend and fellow-fighter who gets maimed by the current champion, and a barely-there love interest and you're off to the races.
Remember, the objective is NOT to tell a story based on the video game. The objective is to show a wicked fantasy tournament where everyone gets to show off the wildest moves they have (unlike real mixed tournaments, which generally devolve into what Penny-Arcade calls "sweaty dick-punching").
Great film? No. Helluva good time? Yes.
@disatess: To be fair, the Vatican Radio and newspaper reviews called the movie "bland," "sappy" and "rather harmless," but that its worth lies in its "extraordinary visual impact." They don't like the nature-worshipping, but it's not like the Church is organizing boycotts or anything.
[www.washingtonpost.com]
@mordicai: A noble attribute :)
@mordicai: Libraries are useful for such things—I think I read 2 as hardcovers and 1 as paperback, all from my local library.
@Bill-Lee: Try Sawyer's trilogy (Hominds, Humans, Hybrids). One of his protagonists is a Neanderthal computer geek who accidentally opens a gate to our earth with a quantum computing research project, ending up in Sudbury, Ontario. A nice exploration of both Neanderthal and Canadian culture :)
