I forgot I had this account. I’ll still have my other blog for long form posts about comics, but this will be about everything else. Let’s see how long this lasts. 

Merry Christmas, everyone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Olpjl_IrE

So last week I was checking out Twitter when I saw Jon Faverau talking about the new posted Iron Man 2 trailer. like every other comic book fan who loved Iron Man, I jumped on the computer, downloaded the trailer in HD, sat back and enjoyed.

My initial reaction to this trailer was, not bad. It was oddly paced, and all over the place; funny, serious, “tense,” big, loud, but not in the right sequence. It didn’t get me really excited to see the movie, I was already excited to begin with, but there is a lot of small stuff to extract from this teaser.

the trailer opens up with one of the effects from Tony Stark’s admission to being Iron Man. The government is after Stark Iron Man armour, calling it a weapon, but Tony won’t give it to him. Tony looks to be under the impression that he is out of the weapons game and that the Iron Man armour isn’t a weapon. We are also introduced to Stark’s humour quite a bit in the the first few seconds. I’m wondering if they are going to rely on the humour too much in this movie, amping up what was in the first movie. More on this later. 

Next we get into the essence of what Iron Man is. We see Pepper and Tony in the back of a plane, Tony suited up as Iron Man, sans helmet. When Pepper playfully tosses Tony’s helmet off the back of the plane, he makes a witty comment and jumps off to retrieve his helmet all to the soundtrack of AC/DC’s Shoot to Thrill. we see Iron Man fly down towards a building, through a opening roof and onto a stage with girls dancing, and fireworks exploding. Tony has his suit taken off to revel him in a tux, and we see that he is at Stark Expo. What I call the essence here of Iron Man is the soundtrack used and what it’s used against. I love me some AC/DC. It’s good music to get you pumped up, and its good party music if you are looking for a good time. Faverau used Back in Black in the first movie, during the opening scene, and it makes sense to use it here. AC/DC doesn’t write great ballads of love, use impressive lyrics to make you think, or create music that’s political in nature, they just rock, and they rock hard. And that seems to be the purpose of Iron Man, to rock hard. But, I’d like to think these films can be a bit more than that, and that the AC/DC is used to set up the good time the audience is going to have. 

With Tony landing at Stark Expo, he seems to be bringing back an event his father attempted, also dubbed Stark Expo. This may be the 1994 version of Woodstock though. This scene then leads to a series of montages, set to more rock but something a bit sombre in tone, little more drawing out, that shows one of the films villains, Mickey Rourke’s Ivan Vanko, A.K.A. Whiplash, building a miniature arc just as tony did in the first film. This is dubbed over with Vanko’s monologue on the atrocities that the Stark family has caused. One of the themes or plots of the film is Tony looking into the past to find a secret of his fathers from the Stark Expo. Now maybe Faverau is trying to point this out in the trailer, but I doubt it. I don’t think you could make this connection without knowing this information ahead of time. This is one part of why I think this trailer is paced wrong. The trailer here is making a story, a quick plot synopsis if you will, and demonstrating to the viewers what this film will be about. This is good, but only for a bit. More on this in a second.

One neat image within this montage of Vanko creating and Tony looking worried and scared is a shot of Tony pulling his shirt aside so we, I presume he, can see what is happening to his body. What we see is a series of circuit like veins spreading out from the arc that is keeping him alive. I have heard a couple theories on this: his body is rejecting the arc technology, possibly making him sick, or the arc isn’t doing its job at keeping those nasty filaments out that almost killed him in the first film. There is a story line that Warren Ellis worked on entitled Extremist where Tony injects a techno-organic virus into his body, which then works with his nervous system. Read this wikipedia entry for more info on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Man#Powers under the power section. Maybe we see this here, though I don’t think Faverau and company would just up and give Stark a power. I think they would rather keep him as a guy in a suit.

We also get different shots of different characters who are going to appear throughout the film. There are some quick shots of Sam Rockwell’s Tony Stark like weapons creator Justin Hammer, Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury, the new Rhodey, Don Cheadle, who is standing over a new Iron Man armour, and a couple action shots with Stark’s new assistant and Russian spy/ SHIELD agent (you can see the SHIELD symbol on her shoulder as the guys at IGN pointed out) Natasha Rominov, A.K.A The Balck Widow.

The montage scene ends with Vanko using his newly built arc, which powers some fancy looking whips that slice through anything, on Tony’s Formula One car, causing it to crash. We get a shot of Tony beaten and bleeding on the track as Vanko approaches him whipping and slashing his lightsaber-esque whis around. This is where the trailer bothers me. This is a perfect spot to roll the Iron Man 2 logo and date, and the trailer would work and be good, but what we get is something else. We see some action shots of Iron Man, being chased by a bunch of robots, or theory states, guys in other Iron Man suits. The credits then Roll with Sabbath’s Iron Man opening. But don’t worry, there’s more here. After the credits we have a shot of Don Cheadle and Tony Stark, both suited up in armour, Cheadle’s is gray and he cares a bevy of weapons from machine guns and a mounted gatlin gun, and he goes by the name War Machine in the comics, as the both flip their masks down and then get down to business taking on the robots, or other Iron Men that are surrounding them. A couple things to note here. the War Machine armour and the other Iron Men could be created by other film baddie Justin Hammer. Hammer could be working with the government to create the weapons that could help win war. If that’s the case, I’m going to go with the Iron Men being AI instead of soldiers, and there AI goes crazy. This whole scene, well awesome, doesn’t fit well with the trailer, and it looks like they added this and the chase scene some more action to the trailer, action that was said to be missing from the first, which i didn’t think was missing at all.

The other thing I want to point out here is Stark is wearing new armour. Gone is the circular blue light of the arc from the previous armour and now appears a blue upside down triangle. In the comics, that light source was actually shaped very similar to Superman’s logo, just with no S. I heard that they didn’t use it either because they wanted to distance him from Supes, or they didn’t want to get into trouble using a similar logo for a superhero. Why is this upside down triangle used now? could be Superman’s legal woes, or fan service. Also, Iron Man’s legs are more gold than before. It looks very similar to his older costume with the gold legs and red boots. it will be interesting to see how these changes come about.

That’s it for the trailer. Tell me what you thought of the it and what you think is going to happen in the film, or hey, just let me know what I missed. 

Like many theatre goers this weekend, I went and saw Avatar, James Cameron’s first film since Titanic. The question everyone had before this movie was released this weekend was whether it could live up to all its hype. Word going into my screening Saturday was very high; I think Rotten Tomatoes had it at 84% or so; not bad.

My reaction throughout the movie was senses of wow and wonder at what I was seeing on the screen. Many people are saying, in conversations, water cooler and other, and in reviews in papers, TV, and blogs like this, that James Cameron has created a fantasy world like any other; one that is believable, beautiful, and groundbreaking. Walking out of the theatre, I was still processing what I just saw. This was my first adventure into 3D at the theatre, and it took me, like most, about 10 minutes to get used to that, and once Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), the hero of the film, steps into his Navi body, the indigenous people who inhabit Pandora, and into this new and exotic world, it was as if I had travelled the world my self. Cameron’s four year journey into creating this world has become a significant breakthrough for cinema.

Some questions that I had today, after thinking of the film for awhile, was if this movie could have had more groundbreaking elements to it. For example, with a relatively easy story to follow, could it have been more complex? James Cameron does action very well, but could he have experimented with new ways to shoot action? For the first question I’d say no. I think if the story telling got to complex there wold be way to much going on with this new jaw dropping word and keeping up with the story. the technology here really assists in telling this story, making it believable. It doesn’t overpower the story, but really brings it to life. The answer to the second question; I think that one breakthrough technology and effects is enough for one movie. This film will no doubt be a game changer; so what comes next? 

I want to Look at Green Lantern Corp first this week for a couple reasons. Blackest Night is half over at this point and there have been some seemingly significant changes occurring or about to occur. For those of you who haven’t read Green Lantern Corp #42 go to the next paragraph. With the death of Kyle Rayner ending the last issue, there was a sense of shock that one of the 4 big Green Lantern’s was dead and gone and not coming back. This issue, which the cover of GL Corp #43 gives away, is Guy Gardner becoming a Red Lantern and the fall out that would presumably come from this. We open up with Guy and Natu Racing off to the Body of Kyle, who’s ring is now off to the Green Lantern Mogo (a giant planet), and where all the rings of deceased Green Lanterns go to wait further instructions. Guy doesn’t want Kyle’s ring to leave, which would mean he is really gone, and i’ll come back to this point in a sec. Also in this issue, Sinestro Corp member Kryb and Star Sapphire Miri are also on Oa in search of Kryb’s “babies.”

After reading this issue the first thing that came into my mind was cop out. Spoiler warning here, so jump ahead. Kyle doesn’t stay dead. I like Kyle, he’s a great and relatable character, very much Nightwing to Hal’s Batman, but I thought this was a great move for Blackest Night, the death of one of the core Lantern’s, and maybe we’ll see it later, but not right now. Kyle’s rebirth, so to speak looks to act like a plot device, as well as a way to bring together a lot of the story threads that are going on, on Oa. this issue then, for me, is a progression issue, helps get to the next stage of the story. By killing Kyle, Tomasi seems to be keeping in with the Blackest Night theme of resurrection, but a different kind then we have been seeing. I’m not sure if anyone else has been brought back to life since this event began, haven’t been following some of the other BN series, but it may be the only case. That being said, there is a lot going on in this issue and it doesn’t seem like it.

First thing we should look at is Guy Gardner, Red Lantern, plot device. What I forgot to remember from last issue was Guy and Kyle’s plan to unleash Red Lantern Vice and have him reek havoc all over the Black Lanterns. With so many on Oa after the power battery of will, there is going to have to be something that can get rid of them, and Vice might help. Nope, not happening because Lantern Chaselon, that law abiding Alpha Lantern decides that Vice should be dead, and he does so. So now Vice’s red ring of rage is looking for a new bearer; enter Guy Gardner. With Kyle’s death, Guy is sent over the edge, trying to do what he can to keep Kyle’s ring from flying off, his rage increases until Vice’s ring finds Guy, who then becomes the blood spurting member of the Green/Red Lantern corp. I say Green/Red because Guy still has his ring of will, and as we know, green and any other colour light can destroy a Black Lantern. So Guy goes off and starts his destruction of the Black Lantern Army; a creative and emotional way of clearing these pests.

the second thing to look at here is the resurrection of Kyle Rayner. With Sinestro Corp Kryb and Star Sapphire Miri off to look for Kryb’s babies, only to find them dead and Black Lanternized, Natu’s love for the now deceased Kyle cries out to Miri who sets out to help, leaving Kryb alone. While Natu tries to save Kyle with the will of her own ring, a black ring tries to find its way onto Kyle’s finger, only to be shattered by Indigo 2, who begins to ward off other black rings after Kyle. He is soon joined by Kilowog and other Green Lanterns. With Miri then coming onto the scene, she, through the joining of Kyle and Natu’s hearts, allows Kyle to be reborn and for him and Natu to be the love of each others life. So what do we have here? One of the core Green Lanterns is back, he’s in love, and we now have a group of lanterns to save Oa, and Guy. Go team!

Lastly, the issue ends with the biggest, and by biggest, I mean size, Green Lantern; Mogo is circling over Oa, and looks to bringing the heat. Oa looks to be on the up and up now with all its new fire power, but some issues are still present. What will happen with Guy? Will they save him? Will he be the core casualty? My money right now is on him staying red and losing the green, even if its just the rest of the series. People with rage don’t stop being angry when what causes them rage is no longer apparent. Guy will see Kyle, but he’ll still be angry at something else, maybe even Kyle for just dying. And what about Kyle dying? he has now joined the ranks of heroes who have died and come back to life. Are we going to see Kyle become like Superman and gang, influenced by the ring, or is he too far out of Nekron’s reach? Or does the lack of that tether that Kyle would have with “Bruce Wayne” mean that this wouldn’t occur, especially since “Bruce Wayne” was sent away. We’ll have to wait and see. 

I did end up liking this issue. Have read it a couple times and have been impressed by the way Tomasi has started tying the story together to John’s main event. Gleason’s art is better this issue than lasts, at least the beginning of last issue. With so many Black Lanterns present, I can imagine it would be tedious to constantly draw a lot of gross looking characters. After this issue though, the Black Lanterns will be thinning out, so I hope Gleason’s panels won’t be as crowded. What did you think about this issue? have any theories or takes of your own you’d wish to share?

It’s a snow day for me today. Couldn’t make it into work because of how shitty the roads were (and still are, have you seen it outside?!). I tried to get in, but my little car, Chip didn’t like it so much.  as nice as it is to have this day, it sucks cause I have lots of work to get done before Friday at 4pm, and today is comic book day, so I won’t be getting comics until tomorrow, so no mini reviews until then. in the mean time, I’ve been getting my online life updated; it’s like a spring cleaning, but on a snow day, so snow cleaning? Anyways, I’m updating my online life.  Follow me on Twitter, WeaklyRoll, Xbox Live gamertag Weakly Roll, and of course here. Stay tuned folks!