Top 10 Anticipated 2013 Movies

I have come back. At the turn of the tide. My top 10 movies for this year (2012)will be on it's way, but why don't we first sit down and enjoy a list of what's to come in the next year. I can safely say that while this year was a great year for movies; next year can be even better. Will it be better? Well, let's find out:

10.) The Wolverine

Taking a huge risk as I leave this last on my top ten list. Why? Well for one thing, the last Wolverine movie was completely underwhelming. A huge disappointment and it was even on my top ten anticipated list for that year. What can make this exciting is that Wolverine this time around heads to Japan and from what I heard about the comics, a lot of great stuff happens there. Including an appearance by the Silver Samurai. It would have been nice to see Darren Arronofsky's version, but infamously stepped off the project. Will we see a better movie from "Walk the Line's'” director: James Mangold? Only time will tell...

9.) Thor: The Dark World

Here's another movie we can also only speculate about. While I did like the first Thor movie, I honestly know very little about (Marvel's)Thor mythology. I know he does (and did) fight along the Avengers and occasionally fights along or does battle with the Hulk. But I never really knew about the villains he faced. While the first movie was an introduction for the god of thunder, this will continue his story in a way that may be more for the Marvel fans. In this outing Thor will face Malekith (Christoper Ecclesston Doctor Who fame). He is ruler of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim and will most likely cause some more mischief with Loki. The biggest thing about this movie I have to say that its helmed by one of the Game of Thrones directors. Will we see some buildup to The Avengers 2? More than likely.

8.) Oblivion

I've followed this movie quite a bit since it was announced. There has been quite a bit of concept art for this movie, like the one pictured above. I didn't know how soon this movie was to come out and in actuality, sooner than expected as a recent trailer was shown online. And it looks just as amazing as the concept art. We should expect no less from the director of Tron: Legacy. 

7.) Monsters University

No list is complete without a Pixar movie. Although, I have to say it’s a bit underwhelming this year. It’s the first Pixar prequel to a much loved Pixar movie. Yes, the Toy Story sequels were excellent and have a better story for sequels. Monsters Inc. on the other hand, perhaps. But a prequel? This time we are taken back in time to Mike Wazowski’s and Sulley’s College years. Sounds like it can be funny enough. Let’s just hope its nowhere similar to a Cars sequel.

6.) Elysium

The forthcoming movie from much acclaimed director of District 9. I enjoyed District 9 and I am very interested to see with what Neill Blomkamp can do with the Sci-fi genre. This is his first movie not based on any of shorts this time around. Starting from a fresh new script and with high list actors. All we’ve got to go on with this movie is the above picture of Matt Damon and whatever Comic-con had left us with.

Honorable Mentions:

• A Good Day to Die Hard (February 14) – Maybe too action packed, but John McClaine returns. Yippie Ki-Ya—yeah I won’t do it.
• Oz: The Great and Powerful (March 8) – Seems ok, but why Alice in Wonderland visuals?
• G.I. Joe Retaliation (March 29) – Wait, why is this here? Oh right the 3D conversion. Took a whole year for that…
• Evil Dead (April 12) – Always love Raimi’s movies, as for this one, well, its gorier and its Bruce Campbell approved, so maybe.
• After Earth (June 7) – Yes, it was advertised next to Oblivion which isn’t a good start. Seems interesting enough. Least they didn’t show M. Night Shyamalan was directing.
• Kick-Ass 2 (June 28)
• Despicable Me 2 (July 3)
• The Lone Ranger (July 3)
• Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (October 4)
• The World's End (October 25) – There’s a trend of apocalypse movies coming, but this seems like to be a better one since its directed by Edgar Wright.
• Ender's Game (November 1) – Based on the best selling Sci-fi book with Harrison Ford starring in the film. That’s literally all I know.
• Frozen (November 27) – A long in development Disney film finally see’s the light of day. Based on an adaptation of The Snow Queen.

5.) Iron Man 3

If I remember correctly, in my mind anyway, I called the next movie’s villain. The Mandarin is the only one I really know of that really crossed paths with Iron Man (besides M.O.D.O.K) and probably one of the most recognizable. I did feel that they couldn’t connect the 3rd movie with the first film by making a person linked to the Terrorist group, Ten Rings, and making the leader Mandarin. Or perhaps the movie will take that direction and I’m speaking about it too soon. Let’s just hope for another great outing. Have another look at the trailer perhaps.

4.) Man of Steel

Its finally here. A modern telling of one of the greatest superheroes to ever grace the comic book world. While I still prefer Batman; Superman is probably the most iconic and most recognizable of all comic book idols. He stands for truth, justice and the American way. In this modern telling though, he seems to be going the realistic route which is also similar to the new comic book carnation which started a little more than a year ago. Judging by the trailer, we certainly will get one action packed ride with Zack Snyder in the directors chair.

3.) Star Trek Into Darkness

The first movie set a new tone for the Star Trek Universe. A different timeline with new possibilities. What will our Starship crew see in this timeline? Well Sherlock for one thing as a new space baddie looking to see the end of the crew for some reason. Motives are unknown as well as Paramount giving him a new name: John Harrison. While not as theatrical as the last movie’s; Nero, Harrison’s role is much bigger. And what of Peter Weller? Robocop is also attached to this movie. I believe once we know his role, we may have the identity of the villain or possibly a bigger mystery. Either way, looks incredible.

2.) Pacific Rim

Guillermo del Toro. Giant Monsters. Giant Robots. Idris Elba. And Portal's GLaDOS. What more can you ask for in a movie?

1.) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Without a doubt, besides The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit by a smidgen takes the cake for being my favorite movie of the year. Why the critics seem to dislike the movie, I haven’t without a clue. I’ve heard nothing but critical praise from friends, family, and everyone around the web for the movie. The music, the visuals, everything was very memorable of this movie. In part 2 of Watso Bilbo’s story, we see him finally meet face to face with Sher I mean Smaug the dragon.

E3 Day 2–Nintendo

Well, that was…another shallow one. Which is surprising. I mean, new console and you would think they would announce a lot of good games and show us what the Wii U can do. This would be the place to do that. Sadly, we got almost nothing. We did get 6 new game announcements which is still scarce. Well, not including ZombiU which was announced at Ubisoft earlier. We didn’t get a whole bunch of gameplay which would show us how it would push the system. Isn’t this the conference were you show that? They had one more conference to show us this as well, but they decided to show off more of their NintendoLand they seem really obsessed about. Unfortunately to witness the hardware and capabilities of the system, one will have to try it in person. This conference could have gone way better, but it became a huge disappoint overall.

Let’s just get to the best announcement overall:

 

Its been 8 years too long, but we are finally getting a new Pikmin game. Holy crap was this awesome to hear. We are starting this conference right. This was the first announcement of the morning and it had everyone excited. Right after Reggie comes out to say they had 23 new games to show us today. It felt like we would be going for a fun ride….well that feeling didn’t last. They did announce the New Super Mario Bros. U but its more of the same thing. Only with a couple of new things. Seems like a relatively safe Wii U title:

 

Squirrel suit is new and so are more yoshis. Well, its not really challenging the hardware though. Well lets see what else is coming…oh right the Batman Arkham City game with the extra subtitle: Armored Edition

 

Interesting introduction by Harley, but it went on a little too long. So Batman and Catwoman get new armored suits (ruins Catwoman's previous costume in my opinion). What I don’t understand so far, if its still the same game. I mean it seems like it from the footage, but we also get new stuff. They seem to have managed to make the game more confusing than it originally was. I probably won’t get it. I don’t know. Huge opportunity for Aliens: Colonial Marines to show what its all about on Wii U, but opportunity lost.

Eh, lets go to Scribblenauts Unlimited:

 

Never played Scribblenauts on DS and totally planned to, but never got to it. I heard the first was better than the second so I have to try it one day. This seems interesting I guess. Not all of us have huge imaginations as they seem to think we do though.

Next up was ZombiU. Ubisoft chose to not show any bit of gameplay at their conference, but here at Nintendo’s conference they did show us something. And honestly; it was impressive:

 

Very nice. But this is a trailer, I’m sure you want to see it played real time. Well, here you go:

 

Now that looks quite amazing. Even if it may be a launch title, the graphics look stunning. Very unique gameplay for the Wii U as well. Too bad they didn’t show off this game more than Batman. Reggie had fun with a unique feature onstage:

 

Now lets take a look at a Lego game, which I won’t bother explaining because its better with a visual:

 

See. Well its good at least. Next was a montage of other Third Party games we won’t really care about. Although Mass Effect 3 is an interesting one to point out. Haven’t bought it myself, but I think this means they will be getting some EA support. Which is good news of course. Also coming is Darksiders II, Ninja Gaiden 3, and Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 was also announced for the 3DS and not much else. Tomorrow will be more on the 3DS stuff hopefully and perhaps better announcements. Although Super Paper Mario was given a new subtitle Sticker Star. Luigi’s Mansion (getting some high praise, I’m so happy for this game and the fans its gotten throughout the years) also got one; Dark Moon.

 

Mario has gotten some weird love for coins in this sequel. Its strange. He is turned into Wario in a twisted way. Hm, seems the 3DS part may have had the best announcements of all. Besides the announcement of Pikmin 3 of course. Well that may be it for Nintendo. And tomorrow we well get….ah crap almost forgot about NintendoLand.

I don’t want to hate this. I mean it actually sounds really fun. But Nintendo seemed to want to constantly talk about this game. Its really just a place where you can play a bunch of mini-games. They do look very cool really, when Nintendo stops talking about it. What games we got to play with last year, will be integrated into this Nintendo Themed video game. If you remember Chase Mii, it is now part of this area.

 

Yeah, I’m sorry the presentation was incredibly long, but at least it details the games. Looks like the 3DS won’t be the only one getting some Luigi’s Mansion love, even if it doesn’t include Luigi really. There’s more games to be played here. Here’s Donkey Kong Crash Course sampled by an interesting person:

 

I’d show more, but the trailers are mostly embarrassing and there isn’t much from the show floor yet. But hey there’s an F-Zero mini-game!

 

I noticed from forums chanting a need for a Zelda game. If I remember correctly we got one not many months ago and its same one I got for Christmas. Yeah too soon gaming world.

Oh, some small quips I forgot to mention: The Wii U will be able to use two gamepad tablets, with the unfortunate side effect of each cutting the framerate by half. The regular framerate is 60fps which is actually great. 30fps isn’t nothing to cry about honestly. It will look great either way. And I doubt another one will be needed anyway. And plus that’s a whole lot of power from the system already if you think about it. Bringing an extended experience to another screen is punishment enough for a system.

Another bit of news not announced during the conferences was that the Gamepad will only have about a 3-5 hour battery life. Ouch. Hopefully they can find a fix for that soon since gaming in actuality takes a lot longer than 3-5 hours. Trust me I’ve done a whole day of gaming before.

And now I present the games that weren’t shown at the Nintendo conferences at all, but probably should have:

 

This looks a hell of a lot more fun than NintendoLand. I mean seriously. This is what a Nintendo game should look like. Was it because it was a Platinum Game title Nintendo was afraid to present it? That was really fun, that would have gotten a lot fans back at a conference.

 

Oh ho ho! I remember this! This is an arcade game! I had lots of fun playing this. And it looks just as fun as a Wii title. Again why wasn’t it shown at the presentation? You confuse me Nintendo. This looks tons of fun. You could have at least shown it in your line up. What gives? Why did it seem like Nintendo was afraid to show these at all?

There is even a Wario Ware like game that exists at the Nintendo booth, I mean come on how can anyone not like this? Yeah they are more mini-games, but they can be 10 times more fun for their ridiculousness.

(Here’s also a Raving Rabbids trailer for good measure. They can always make people smile)

Well Nintendo, hopefully you have a better 3DS lineup for tomorrow, than the presentation you gave us today. I mean I made a better conference and all I did was post a ton of videos showcasing your games.

To end on a better note Nintendo did say there was a way to transfer our Wii Virtual Console games from the Wii to the Wii U and we will be able to play classic games on the Gamepad tablet screen. Well, I’m sold.

E3 Day 1–Part 3: Sony's Emptiness

Thank god its over. It started strong, strained badly in the middle, but ended very strong once again. Sony debuted exactly two good games that I will look forward to. My god what happened? That felt emptier than any conference I’ve ever seen of Sony’s. Only two new games were announced were the only ones I cared for after the 4 somewhat announced. God of War: Ascension gameplay was shown, but it was already announced a while back and I’ve never been a fan of the series. To kick off the highlights, lets go into the new game announced:

 

Yep, stars Ellen Page and is created by the team behind Heavy Rain. Looks promising, even if the story seems like its done before. Looks beautiful anyway. Next was Playstation All-Stars. I look to boycott this thing, its an obvious Smash Bros. rip-off right down to the Vita cross-play. Nintendo announced and plan to do this last year asking for a developers help. Instead of helping, Sony stole the idea and making it their own first. I find it interesting that Nintendo is coming up with the better ideas than what Microsoft and Sony were doing. I mean they have all along but all Microsoft and Sony want to do is take the idea and create their own. Nintendo’s are always solid and I’m glad they are finally making the system the Wii was always supposed to be with the Wii U. But I digress, the Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale demo:

All the show I was waiting for Kingdom Hearts 3 or for a Last Guardian announcement. Instead for 10 whole minutes we sat through more apps that didn’t need announcing for the PS Vita. We did get previews for Assassins Creed: Liberation and a Call of Duty Vita game, but not enough to get me to buy one. Now onto probably the most aggravating announcements was Wonderbook. A sort of collaboration with JK Rowling and Pottermore. I’m not sure why it needed 20 minutes to show off the thing. It wasn’t really all that impressive. Its good for kids I guess. Here’s a trailer since I doubt anyone would like to sit through the long presentation again:

 

Unfortunately the Sony presentation was only an hour this year so it would feel a bit shallow naturally, but I didn’t expect it to be this much. The show picked up some speed after they showed a bit of gameplay for God of War: Ascension. I haven’t played a whole lot of God of War. This looked ok though. Nothing really new:

 

No Last Guardian or Kingdom Hearts 3 this year sadly. We were treated to another look at The Last of Us. I’m really looking forward to this game since it was announced last year. I was kinda hoping for Last Guardian a little more since it was announced years ago. Where the hell is this thing? They must be having more problems than we realized. Then again, its quite a tough game to tackle. Well back to The Last of Us:

 

Not many titles, but it did have a solid start and finish at least. Later on today will be Nintendo’s conference so we should expect many things from them. And on a final note here is some gameplay footage from the new Star Wars 1313 game. And yes, that is real actual footage from the game. Similar to Beyond and The Last of Us above. Well enjoy it:

E3 Day 1 – Part 2: EA and Ubisoft

Now on to the developer conferences. Lets start with EA. Time to start strong with one of EA’s highly underpraised franchise: Dead Space. Just having beat the second game and beat the first a while ago I have to say; keep the horror a strong element in the game. Do not stray far from it like Resident Evil has. The second game was amazing having both horror and a little more action than the last, but keep the horror. Let’s watch what they have for us this time in the 3rd entry in the series:

 

 

It looks…different. And because of that I don’t know how to feel about it. The co-op is fine but the drill bit area was strange. And the necromorphs look very different too. I think I need to see more to give an opinion. Even the character designs seem radically different. I don’t know about that one….

What was next…well EA kinda had mostly sequels in their line up and nothing really new to show us. Sports games were again showing up, some updates for Star Wars:TOR and Battlefield 3 DLC. What I did like was how SimCity was shaping up:

 

Another awesome PC game. And also SimCity Social was announced which not many will play. The next Medal of Honor game was shown off as well which was also nothing new. Last game of the conference was Crysis 3 which looked quite beautiful.

 

Now on to Ubisoft’s conference. Now there was something special going on here. Usually we get weird, but well actually there's plenty of that too. Not enough to ruin the conference at least. Well, actually we did start with a dancing routine and another concert which is never a good idea to start a conference. It was obviously for another dancing game. Well, now that’s over we get…oh wow something very different:

 

Soft-core porn! *ahem* A trailer for FarCry 3. Isn’t there like kids watching this? No idea how they got away with that. But never been a fan of the FarCry series. Just thought you would take a look at the strange transitions Ubisoft conferences can have. Now next I believe we got to see some actual footage of a major game for the Wii U. This was quite a treat:

 

Our first look into a Wii U game and it looks great! Looks very fun too. Very creative use of the tablet and the new Wii U controller. A taste of things to come from Nintendo’s presentation for tomorrow and Wednesday. Now on to a bigger title Assassins Creed 3:

 

The cinematic, yeah its…improbable? They could have done something else with it. Oh well. At least the gameplay was pretty cool":

 

Very cool. Its like Red Dead Redemption mixed with Assassins Creed. Avengers: Battle for Earth was announced, but was disappointed when the motion controls only quip came up. My interest was up and was gone by the end of the trailer. An exclusive Zombie game was announced for the Wii U which looks kinda good:

 

Not bad. The trailer made it look interesting. And now for the game that stole the show. This isn’t a sequel or a reboot either. Its something new? Unheard of! But alas Ubisoft has brought of one of the best games of all. I give you: Watch Dogs

E3 Day 1 - Part 1: Microsoft Bombs

Well, in a surprising turn of events, looks like Ubisoft has the most interesting line up of games, compared to both Microsoft and EA. It was literally the worst conference I have ever seen of Microsoft which focuses more on small dashboard updates, Kinect games, few confusing Arcade games, and Sports. I think Microsoft is very lost right now. The only promising things we got from the conference was Halo 4, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Tomb Raider and surprisingly a South Park game. I don't watch South Park a lot, but watching Matt Stone and Trey Parker come out and telling it like it is was the biggest highlight of the whole show. I mean listen to this amazing line:




This was seriously the conference in a nutshell. Plus dancing and Usher for some reason. Well to avoid the rest of the hell the made conference boring and hard to watch, here's the trailer and Gameplay for Halo 4:




Great beginning. I'm so sorry the rest of the show wasn't like this. At least you get to skip to the good parts here. Now for gameplay:




Not bad. Interesting looking villains. Looks like a true sequel. Will launch later this year and I look forward to it as a Halo fan. You can look at Splinter Cell: Blacklist footage here. Its not a bad game. It just doesn't seem important. Kinect stuff can be cool at times though. I'm sure it will be good. Now after a bunch of other stuff that wasn't entirely important like tablet configuration and other apps no one will really care about; its unto Tomb Raider:




I thought this looked really cool. Even if it was compared to Uncharted constantly. Which I'm tired of. Its not exactly, but people like to throw the "clone" thing around if it looks too much like another game they seem to love. I think Tomb Raider looks fantastic either way. They are really taking it to Lara Croft this time too.

Now lets look at some Resident Evil 6 footage shall we?:




Oh, boy. This game. I really thought Capcom had returned to better ways with Resident Evil: Revelations. But there's more action in this game than the last game, just by this trailer alone. Yes we have zombies again, but they really make it a cliche with this game. It was very underwhelming, unless you think otherwise. This was only a small piece though, hopefully we see better things in future footage.

Now that the conference was over Game Trailers was able to show us some really nice Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance footage. This might be my favorite game at the show now:

Get More: GameTrailers.com, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - E3 2012: Action Controls Walkthrough (Stream) HD, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

Eh, why not. Here's the South Park: The Stick of Truth:




Part 2 of the highlights of EA and Ubisoft will come a little later. As well as Part 3 of Sony's conference.

The New Wii U Classic Pro Controller

 

 

Brace Yourselves; E3 is Coming

Hey, I'm already making Game of Thrones references and I haven't even started watching it yet. Welcome to the week (Well, couple of days now) before E3. There's been interesting rumors going on and even some announcements already. Sometimes either the industry can't wait, have something bigger things up their sleeve or they really have nothing else to present at the conferences next week. Lets just hope for bigger things. Nintendo has been quiet this year. In the past things have either been leaked, but this time they have been air tight. Well, almost. All we know so far is that they may be announcing a new Mario game and their new console will debut later this year. Let's also hope for a new 3DS design.

• One of the more interesting rumors which is now officially an announcement, was a proposed new Star Wars game. Everyone was hoping for a new Battlefront. I know I was. Instead we got something a little different. Well, way different. What was announced recently was a new Mature Star Wars game. Which could be interesting? I mean I know I've come up in a conversation before were what if Star Wars had more mature themes? We kinda got our answer in form of a book in which Stormtroopers are tortured, which came with mixed results. The game sounds interesting though, which I think stars Boba Fett. Hopefully it will be better than what Force Unleashed was supposed to be.

• Not really interested in this next game. I mean it looks nice. What this game is essentially is Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe without Mortal Kombat. Well I mean it could be good, but when you see Batman punch Solomon Grundy through a roof, I think something may be off. I mean I just played a game playing as Batman trying to fight Solomon Grundy. And I had few problems just trying to get near him. Unless they explain Batman has super powers somehow, this game probably shouldn't be taken seriously. Also some of the costume designs are strange.

•  Dead Space 3 seems to have been officially announced. And apparently with co-op. Issac Clarke looks to be in it. I think. Because of his everyman face, it could be anyone. It's most likely him though, just with some new facial hair. Looks like Ellie is out of the picture too giving us a new male protagonist. They probably want to make it less similar to Resident Evil 5 anyway. Lets just hope the co-op is better than Resident Evil 5. I expect it to be more interesting and creepy on Xbox Live. Now the concept going on in my head sounds awesome. Oh, yeah and this one will take place on an ice planet. Similar to Hoth. And environments similar to The Thing. here are a few pictures of the co-op play: http://www.allgamesbeta.com/2012/05/dead-space-3.html

•  Another assassin is making its way to the 360 and PS3. Its been a while, but another Hitman game is coming. While it looks beautiful the story is, well, weird. Like if its straight out of a Kill Bill movie. Has it always been like this? No, idea. It's looking really good though. And supposedly we will be getting huge crowds of people to hide in the game. More than any other game. I find it funny that the trailer takes a jab at Assassins Creed.

• It may not be the game we wanted, but if anyone loved Bayonetta, you will love this:

• Lets see, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron will be on PC, a new Gears of War was announced, and PS Vita will get a female assassin for the Assassins Creed series, just to get that news out of the way. Now onto Blu-ray news.  Looks like we will be getting a better ET cover. With a steelbook for some reason. Not sure what warrants a steelbook these days (Jaws is getting one too, for which I like the artwork more honestly): 

•  Not only has the Avengers Blu-ray been announced, but a huge Ultimate set is coming as well. It comes with Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and finally The Avengers. The packaging will most likely be revealed at Comic-Con or a little before then. It looks like it will be packaged in the Tesseract briefcase though. Note the announcement picture:

Blade of Thrones

Well, looks like schools over for me for the summer. I look forward to a good amount of things this summer as well. Got three movies on my watch list that I cannot wait to see. I also saw Avengers, I didn't get to talk about that a lot and you probably won't see me do that here. Ok, I lied; Avengers was fantastic. And that's it. I think we have heard enough of The Avengers already. I saw it twice, second time was ok. Unfortunately the IMAX 3D hurt my eyes for a while and gave me a migraine. Not fun. Not to say the movie wasn't though. Just never do converted 3D, even if it is for a movie like that.

• As a shout-out to a comrade, Happy two days belated Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones day! I don't exactly remember what I thought of the film when I first saw it. I remember I liked Jango Fett, start of the Clone Wars on Geonosis, Yoda doing his CGI thing (kinda), and a bunch of other foreshadowing moments. I don't know about the Anakin and Padme thing though. It probably always creeped me out. One thing I do remember was the rumors about the movie title. I speculated with my cousin on potential movie titles. All probably being more terrible than Attack of the Clones. The Clone Wars should have just been the definitive title. Instead we got a TV show doing everything awesome the movie didn't do. I think we also speculated on the First movie's title probably thinking of titles way better than The Phantom Menace. But with Revenge of the Sith it was a nice homage to Return of the Jedi, which was almost Revenge of the Jedi to you non-Star Wars geeks out there (A time before Lucas' mind lapsed). We didn't find anything wrong with that one.

•  Blade Runner has officially gotten a sequel. How I feel about this; well, no idea. Ridley Scott is back as well as the original writer. I guess there's nothing really to worry about then. Prometheus is looking pretty promising, even if I know most of the plot by now. You have to hate the internet sometimes. While we are on that note: Please avoid the international trailer. Even in those circumstances, I am really glad its gotten an R rating like it was fully intended. If this movie lives up to Ridley's Sci-fi legacy we have been waiting to see return on screen for years, then I'm sure the Blade Runner sequel will be an equally welcoming return. I just hope Ridley can make some new things after this. I'm sure Ridley was more movies on mind related that he has been wanting to try for years. Also on a related note: Bring back Vangelis.

•  I've recently gotten hold of the first season of  the Game of Thrones. Which are video files, but still in HD and completely legal this time. Well, mostly. Anyway, no idea where this will go. Haven't really seen a premium cable show since Dexter and only seen the first season. Which will be my only season. There's reasons. Back to Game of Thrones. I saw about maybe 10 minutes and it looked pretty good. I plan to see it all during summer along with a ton of other shows. 

• E3 is around the corner, while I didn't get my ticket I still plan to cover most of the important things that come out of the conferences. I think probably the thing I don't want to be announced are Next-gen consoles. We don't really need them. It was pretty expensive to get the consoles we have now. Although, Nintendo desperately needs a new console now. I really don't blame them. I barely touch mine and I am kinda embarrassed to admit so. I actually want to play games on a Nintendo console more than an Xbox or PlayStation. I miss the Nintendo experience. I also plan to get myself a 3DS soon as I miss playing portable Nintendo games as well. I never look forward to anything PlayStation has to offer anyways. I always watch each year in anticipation for a new Kingdom Hearts game, a sequel this time, or news on the next Team ICO game. I especially don't want to watch for that stupid Smash Bros. clone. It may be just Xbox and Nintendo this year. Here's hoping to some good surprises and just a good E3 overall.

Lupin III: Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna Premiere Review

Not a bad opening to the new Lupin III series. Its taken quite a more serious tone this time. The show is very stylized which make the characters seem more serious. Lupin is still the same thief he has always been. This isn’t Castle of Cagliostro, so no worries there. While were on the Castle of Cagliostro comparison; this anime is far from that. Taking on some more adult themes (Fujiko is naked throughout the intro as well as topless throughout most of the first episode) Lupin is not only looking good, but more mature as well. Maybe not the title character so much, but just the look of the series can tell you that.

There were some concerns about the show from the beginning that Lupin won’t be the main focus of the show, but will be about when Lupin and Fujiko Mine first met and how it would be centered around her. I also heard rumors how the show would have gratuitous nudity and may be either harem or ecchi. I’m not a fan of either and do know some people share that same quality. I can tell you right now though, there's a lot of nudity. Well, Fujiko is topless throughout most of the first episode. It's supposed to show her strong personality. Although, not everyone will see it the same way.

While the show has slight ecchi it shouldn’t be a major problem. Fujiko is depicted in a very strong female role and you don’t see that very often. She’s shown as manipulative, sexy, and cunning; all of which make her a perfect rival and sometimes perfect match for Lupin. To be honest, I’m not sure where the show is going. Either way I am glad to see Lupin back in action.

By the way, here's a trailer for the show with a bit of split second NSFW:

 

Ugly....Ugly Things Are Amdist

Especially the way how I make new blog posts. Too simple and looks a lot like Word. Stay classy Google.

• Well lets get to some news. I usually don't go into theme park news, but I feel this should be brought up. Especially when things become as horrid when a theme park doesn't know how to entertain their guests anymore. It's especially troubling when Disney doesn't know how to.

Disney wanted to bring something Tron related to their park when they become nostalgic and they put out a sequel to their almost 30 year (wow 30 years!) film. So they created a light show to perform at night called ElecTRONica and created a replica of Flynn's Arcade in California Adventure's Hollywood Pictures Backlot (Or now Hollywood Land. Not joking). I found it impressive and I really would have liked to have visited it one day. I also would have liked Daft Punk to perform there one day, but that probably wouldn't have happened. Could have, but didn't. It looks like Disney had a great show to keep there since I heard many great things and brings the right audience. So to completely avoid the 30th anniversary what does Disney do? Take it out and design a new Alice in Wonderland show which looks like everyone belongs in a gang or some stupid club.

                                                  And apparently look like Wildman.

Its not gone yet, but soon will be in mid-April. But really, what a missed opportunity. You had an adequate light show Disney, until you thought of this crap. Not only a missed opportunity, but you skewered the image of Alice in Wonderland even more. Just think about it Disney before you make the absolute decision of removing ElecTRONica. Stay classy Disney...

 ...I need to kill stuff...

At least Cars Land is looking pretty swell (yeah, not proud of it either). They should have used the CGI Pixar money from Cars 2 to help out with more Cars Land stuff. I mean how much did that movie make?

• Now we go on to Six Flags which has been bugging me lately with all the changes they have been doing. I haven't been to the park lately, but I do know when you turn dark world of Gotham City Backlot into the very much colorful and flamboyant DC Universe Land (its just DC Universe, but you get the gist). I don't know if I would have enjoyed this when I was a kid, since I know this is aimed towards kids and probably teens (to some capacity, no idea what they like honestly its weird, don't ask. Just look whats on Cartoon Network or Nick lately). But its just too colorful and they really try to stuff every popular member of the Justice League into this place.

I mean here we have the infamous quick change Superman phone booth with the new colored building in the backround. Also this will probably be removed to coincide with the new 52 mythos.

Speaking of New 52 they probably will change this a lot to coincide with that. I still don't like the new 52. Too many things have changed and its just wrong. Guh, nothing is going to get me to like the new theme change nothing.

Haha, clever, but your not gonna get me with a Plastic Man trash can.

 ...bastards.

• Oh and forgot to mention this...well...Six Flags. You are now going to Hell:

Now...for some damned reason, Six Flags has to, for some reason, promote the Three Stooges movie. So what have they wrought? Damnation. Utter Chaos. A Blood Bath. Just...no other words can describe this insanity. I can't look at it anymore...

My god...wait a minute...isn't Six Flags owned by Warner Bros.? Why is Warner Bros. doing a promotion for FOX? Perhaps that is the greatest mystery of all...

...no it isn't. Its just bloody idiotic. Seriously though, what the hell is going on here? Who's in charge here?

• Lets end on a lighter note shall we? Here's a look at the villains for The Avengers in the new TV spot. Apparently we still don't know what they are from that though...

E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial 30th Anniversary Blu-ray

With Jaws on its way, its only fair that Spielberg release a little something extra for us this year as well. We'll get more Spielbergian movies, but Jaws and E.T. are great titles to enjoy at the beginning of the new year.

Now we come to the not so great part. Spielberg may have decided to go back and edit out his previous changes, but he decided to change the box art. Oh, boy. What a bad idea. Very little thought was put into it. The photoshop may not be as bad as my banner, but well check it out:



As you can see, a little too much is going on here with different color hues going on. Where's our famous fly across the moon image? It may serve as a back cover image, but it looks like its gone. I'm pretty anal about my DVD covers. There are some pretty fantastic (with a hint of bizarre)covers (I'm a fan of simplicity), to the just plain awful (I should have chosen a well known movie, but Val Kilmer's stretched head will suffice for now). E.T.'s cover is an an example of just being bad. Its not awful, but it isn't good either.

I can't imagine Mr. Spielberg would change it to the out of print DVD cover, which is pretty fantastic since the Disc represents the moon. Or the single disc cheap Special Edition cover, which is a mix of two classic E.T. posters. I guess he just wanted to go with something new. Its not amazing, but I guess I can live with it. At least you can't go wrong with Jaws.

So It Begins…

- An internet battle was fought today as the FBI had shut down the infamous site “Megaupload” amid the SOPA blackouts yesterday to protest the bill. (Read here to learn about SOPA to keep in the loop) The internet was shocked and horrified as this took place. Employees were arrested and all of their assets confiscated. Yes, Megaupload was a huge site for online Piracy, but it was also a place once used just to easily move huge files from one place to another. Hell, most of us have used Megaupload in the past, its no secret. So it’s a huge blow to all of us. This was all done without SOPA or PIPA passed as well.  (Actually there are rumors that it has been passed, but hasn’t been put into effect yet) This will be the start of bigger things to come. Especially since…

Update: Is this the reason why?

- The Internet Hackers, Anonymous, launched a massive counter-attack against the websites of: MPAA, RIAA, DoJ, and even the FBI adding fuel to the fire. This all just taking place 15 minutes after the shutdown of Megaupload. All websites were down for a good while and sure pissed MPAA off. It took FBI out for a good hour and proved Anonymous can take down just about anyone. But can they really do it for good? Or are these just empty threats by the elite group of Hackers? What does this all mean today? Nothing is certain for now. All this proves that the internet is a very powerful and dangerous place.

- Next I think we should get back to normal news. Here’s an ad for Sony:

 

-Now here’s an actual trailer for the next chapter of Resident Evil:

- Today DC comics revealed their new logo. Didn’t they just touch up on their old logo recently? I guess it wasn’t enough for them so they decided to make it completely different and to correspond with every major superhero they have licensed.

I don’t really know what to say. I guess it looks like it has DC somewhere in the logo. I honestly don’t see a “D” though. All I see is the peel effect they tried to do. Its really bothering me as I look at it. I really don’t mind the execution, its just designed pretty awful. I sorta like the Watchmen logo, but to an extent. Its just bloody awful, I’ll leave it at that.

More on that here.

- Now I leave you with a sound heard around the world and is so strange that all this will probably destroy us sometime this year. Goodnight everybody!

Some Evangelion Movie News

Been waiting to hear the official title of the new Evangelion 3.0 movie? Just so I won’t delay it, the new title is: You Can (Not) Redo. And now a very important image:

Looks like the plug suits now get helmets with cat ears. Teaser images for sure as we have no word on plot yet but expect to see the movie in the fall of 2012. The beginning of the end really and seems fitting. The 4th movie doesn’t have a title yet, but there is a website for it with a question mark next to Japanese characters I can’t or haven’t seen a translation for. Can not wait for the final two movies.