Posts Tagged: Movies

Feature Article

“Broader Fantasy Foundations — Part One: A Journey from the West” by Max Gladstone

By Max Gladstone February 11th, 2013
A Journey From the West by Max Gladstone

Fantasy should be the broadest genre in existence. Fantasy writers get to create and transform to our hearts’ content. Not even the laws of thermodynamics bind us. Our imaginations are our only limits.

The problem is, the imagination’s limits are often harder than physical law. Writers are formed by experience, and interpret that experience into story using instincts developed reading, and hearing, stories, from early childhood. So, when a lot of Western folks turn to writing fantasy, Arthurian and Greek and Norse myths are the seeds they use to people and structure their imaginative worlds.

Which is fine! Each generation needs to remake the myths received from the previous generation. But sometimes writers and readers feel the limits of their traditions, and wonder, what else is out there, other than kings and earls?

In this three-part series I’m going to be writing about stories I think all fantasy writers and fans should know, other than the standard Celtic, Greek, and Norse sources. If you know these stories already, then good! I hope there’ll be something cool for you here anyway. If these stories are new to you, maybe these few posts will expose you to some amazing worlds. Read More »

News

Disney buys Lucasfilm, announces Star Wars: Episode 7

By Aidan Moher October 30th, 2012
Star Wars, art by RadoJavor

Art by RadoJavor

So, Disney bought Lucasfilm today, for $4bn. Crazy, right? And then there’s the announcement, midway through the press release: a seventh Star Wars film, with a working title of Episode 7, presumably taking place after the close of Return of the Jedi.

Kathleen Kennedy, current Co-Chairman of Lucasfilm, will become President of Lucasfilm, reporting to Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn. Additionally she will serve as the brand manager for Star Wars, working directly with Disney’s global lines of business to build, further integrate, and maximize the value of this global franchise. Ms. Kennedy will serve as executive producer on new Star Wars feature films, with George Lucas serving as creative consultant. Star Wars Episode 7 is targeted for release in 2015, with more feature films expected to continue the Star Wars saga and grow the franchise well into the future.

Uh, wow.

The full press release can be read on The Walt Disney Company’s press site.

News

He’s Back. Arnold Schwarzenegger returning to theatres as Conan the Barbarian

By Aidan Moher October 25th, 2012
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Conan The Barbarian

Best news of the day? It comes from Deadline:

EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures has made a deal for The Legend Of Conan, an action film that will star Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his signature roles, as Robert E. Howard’s mythic barbarian. The deal brings Conan and Schwarzenegger back with Universal, which released the first film that launched Schwarzenegger’s movie career back in 1982. Universal has world rights on the film.

The film will be produced by Fredrik Malmberg and Chris Morgan. Malmberg is CEO of Paradox Entertainment, which holds the rights to Conan. Morgan is the Universal-based writer and producer whose credits include the last four Fast and the Furious films, along with Wanted and 47 Ronin. Morgan has hatched the story and might write the script. The caveat is that the studio wants The Legend of Conan for summer 2014, and Morgan might not be finished writing the seventh Fast and Furious installment by then. If that happens he will be a very active producer, because this is Morgan’s dream project.

Arnie may be a senior citizen now (seriously, he’s 65 years old), but this is just music to my ears. Can’t wait to see how this turns out. Also, please excuse my pun-tastic title. I couldn’t resist.

News

Ian McKellan almost turned down the role of Gandalf in The Hobbit

By Aidan Moher October 25th, 2012

Ian McKellan is GandalfThe Hobbit has has an interesting road to theatres, fraught with obstacles that, at times, appeared seemingly insurmontable. Now, we are only a few weeks away from the release of the first film in the Hobbit trilogy, and things are looking (mostly) peachy, but though the road might go ever on, Ian McKellan recently reminded fans that it can often be a bumpy ride. On his blog, the actor recently revealed some of his early doubts about returning to the world of Middle Earth and donning the grey wizard’s iconic hat:

Now I’ve returned to Gandalf, I can’t quite believe that there was ever any doubt in my mind – but there was! There always is, with any job offer.

In making up my mind, I usually write down the pros and the cons and see which list is the longer or weightier. Thus:

PRO: Working with Peter Jackson is always stimulating and fun: we make each other laugh and he doesn’t let me get away with anything too theatrical on film. I admire his world-class colleagues like Andrew Lesnie (cinematographer), John Howe and Alan Lee (designers of Middle-earth) and so many more who returned for The Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings trilogy has become a cinematic classic and the same could well be true of The Hobbit. I enjoy living in New Zealand and exploring the amazingly beautiful countryside.

CON: A two-year commitment to The Hobbit would keep me from other work and keep me away from home and friends in London. I like new challenges and I’ve already played Gandalf the Grey.

When Peter first told me he had committed to The Hobbit, I immediately cleared my diary and stood by for the call. It was a long time coming, because Peter withdrew from the project and was replaced by Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo and I got on well, with a couple of meetings discussing his approach. Then he too withdrew. So it was back with Peter and then more delays, through illness and disagreements with the New Zealand actors’ union. I began to think The Hobbit was jinxed – another reason con.

What clinched it and made up my mind was the advice of a wise friend: “Ian, all those fans of the LOTR aren’t going to understand or care about your doubts. They just want to see you back as Gandalf.” And then I realised what I’d known all along, that I couldn’t bear to think of another actor donning the pointy hat and grey robes.

And that was that. Thank goodness!

Thank goodness, indeed. In the decade since their first release, the film version have become as integral to the mythos of Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s world as the books themselves, at least to this blogger. To love the face of one of the film’s most iconic and powerful performances would be a tragedy. Good to have you back on board, Ian.

News

The Jurassic Park 4 that almost happened.

By Aidan Moher October 9th, 2012

Jurassic Park 4
This is bizzare, and sorta fascinating. Ain’t It Cool News has a ‘review’ of the Jurrasic Park 4 script that has been floating around Hollywood for a few years. It’s the rumoured ‘Raptors with Guns’ script, and, well… just read it for yourself:

I’m pleased to report that this second Sayles draft of JURASSIC PARK 4 sees him working in full exploitation mode. I’ve talked to a number of people about this draft, and it seems to radically divide them in terms of reaction. Some people adore the premise and get excited as soon as they hear it. Some people (including the person who gave it to me) are convinced it’s the worst thing they’ve ever read and a signpost on the road to Hollywood Hell. Personally, I think it’s well-written and certainly inventive, but I also think it just might be the single most bugfuck crazy franchise sequel I’ve ever read, and I’m not sure we’re ever going to see this thing onscreen. It just doesn’t seem possible that Universal would make something this vigorously whacked out.

[…]

The script starts at a Little League game somewhere in America, an idyllic scene that quickly goes bad when pterosaurs attack the kids and their parents. It’s a cool scene, and I couldn’t help but immediately anticipate what might lay ahead. Dinosaurs in America. All-out warfare on home soil. This should be fun. In a series of television clips, we learn that this is the first attack on North American ground following months of this sort of thing in Central America and Mexico […] Hammond’s got a big idea: breed some new dinosaurs that can’t reproduce and introduce them into the wild population. A Judas strain that will kill off the dinosaurs within one generation. Easy enough, except the UN has outlawed any breeding of new dinosaurs by anyone and they’ve prohibited the sale, mining, or possession of amber worldwide. Hammond’s got scientists ready and waiting to go, but he needs genetic material to work with. As soon as Hammond mentions where that material might come from, I thought for sure that I was ahead of the script again. Oh, of course! The shaving cream can that Nedry stole. He’s going to hire this guy to put together a team of mercenaries, and they’re going to spend the whole film on Isla Nublar getting picked off one-by-one while trying to find the samples.

[…]

It certainly didn’t feel like it was just another rehash of the same formula. When Nick wakes up, he’s in the tower of a medieval castle in the Alps. […] There’s the eight-year-old-boy side of me that thinks that a DIRTY DOZEN-style mercenary team of hyper-smart dinosaurs in body armor killing drug dealers and rescuing kidnapped children will be impossible to resist. And then there’s the side of me that says… WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! Nick is put in charge of training these five dinosaurs, X1 through X5, and the first thing he does is name them. “Any soldier worth his pay has a name to answer to, not a number,” he says. So we are introduced to Achilles, Hector, Perseus, Orestes, and Spartacus, each of them a specially created deinonychus, which is sort of like a miniature T-rex. They have super-sensitive smell and hearing, incredible strength and speed and pack-hunting instincts, and they have modified forelegs, lengthened and topped with more dextrous fingers, as well as dog DNA for increased obedience and human DNA so they can solve problems well. All of this is topped off with a drug-regulating implant that can dose them with adrenaline or serotonin as the situation demands.

I don’t know if it’s the infectious enthusiasm of Moriarty, the author of the ‘review,’ detailing the events of the script, and a natural storytelling in his own writing, or the script itself… but, I’m sort of sorry we never saw this. Yeah, it’s off-the-wall weird, and a total bastardization of Crichton’s original novels, but, well, they were sort of campy to begin with and, as Moriarty points out, at least it’s not just another rehash of the same ol’ script used in the previous two sequels. And just look at that art! In the hands of the right directory, with a firm grip on the necessary balance between horror, comedy, action and campy sci-fi, like, say, Joss Whedon, I think there could be something there that could succeed entirely on its bizarre relationship to the original Jurassic Park. Am I wrong in thinking this?