Simian Farmer

What could possibly go wrong?

This summer's next big offering.

Johnny Knoxville as Luke Duke.

Sean William Scott as Bo Duke.

Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke.

Willie Nelson as Uncle Jessie.

and

Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg.

Whatever you do, don't take it seriously.  It could be a fun flick.  It was one of the staples of Friday night television that I grew up on...

Now if only they'd do Airwolf!!

More than meets the eye

Via slashdot, news that there is a live action Transformers movie in the works, slated for a November 2006 release.  I would love to go and see something like that.  If for no other reason than to finally find out where the heck Optimus Prime's trailer goes every time he transforms.

Don't tease me

I'm not too sure whether I ought to be a little excited or perturbed at the fact that Lucasfilm is advertising for an advertisement.  There was a recent tv spot announcing the new episode of 'The O.C.'  next Thursday (the 10th), wherein was a brief snippet about the new RotS trailer being premiered sometime during that broadcast.  That spot can be seen on the official site.

That brings to mind the time in 1999 when it came out that the first trailer for 'Phantom Menace' was going to be run in front of the then new movie, 'Meet Joe Black', with Brad Pitt and Sir Anthony Hopkins.  Thousands of theatres were disturbed when Star Wars fans, who had paid ten bucks or so to get in, got up and left after the trailer ended.

I'll probably not make much of any effort to see the trailer next week, if for no other reason than sitting through The O.C. seems more of a waste of my time than it is worth.  (I've never seen a single episode and want to keep that streak alive.)

But I will see the trailer when it gets put up on the official site.  The brief clip that I linked above has a Wookiee in it, and that's pretty cool.

Bring on the Vogons!

In honour of the soon-to-be-released movie version of Douglas Adams' trilogy in five parts, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, here are a number of methods that have been postulated if you really wanted to go ahead and blow up the Earth.  They're really quite humourous and, I guess, sort of possible, if not exactly entirely plausible.

(This whole Earth blowing up thing happens in the first chapter of the book and the whole rest of the story rather hinges on this event happening, so don't get all huffy if you've never read it and might be thinking that I just ruined something important for you since, you know, the Earth blowing up is a rather significant event.  In the grand scheme of things, it really isn't.  Get over yourself.)

How to Destroy the Earth

Infinite Improbability

Just found the newest trailer on line for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Over there at Amazon.  Damn.  Looks good.  They've obviously fiddled a bit with Zaphod Beeblebrox and his two heads, but the short segment leaves a wonderful aftertaste and an insatiable craving for more.  This is gonna be a great film.  It's no Sith, but it'll still warrant multiple viewings.

And, while broadcasting movie news, it is purported that the aforementioned Sith (Revenge of the) will be sporting a trailer for Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as its vanguard.  This one is due out in December this year and it pleases me immensely that WETA has been responsible for creature and prop creation; they did such an incredibly impressive job on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Check out the trailer detailing WETA's involvement.

I have a bad feeling about this

For Star Wars fans (via The Force dot Net), The Times Online (UK) has a great feature on the upcoming Revenge of the Sith.

Rick McCallum reveals that the FINAL DUEL is set at 12 minutes in length and that he was told by George, before production began on Episode I in 1999, that, "We're going to get killed on this."  Apparently Lucas knew that the first two movies were going to be viewed as containing too much exposition that, from his point of view, was necessary to set up this culmination.

Also nice to see that 'light sabre' is spelled correctly in the various interviews.  Here's a snippet from the Hayden Christensen interview if you don't want to check out the full article:

The set piece the fans are most looking forward to is Anakin's long-awaited light sabre duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor).

There was an immense pressure to meet certain expectations, because there was such importance placed on that fight. It's an intricately choreographed fight that surpasses the longest duration of any other fight committed to film, in time and geography.

How much preparation did you do?

It was such an involved fight sequence that I was out in Australia for three months prior, trying to learn it. You want to get to a point where it becomes like muscle memory. It's so quick when you're doing it - adrenalin's rushing through your veins - that there isn't a cognitive sense of what you're doing.

After three months of repetition, you go on set, they call action, you do the fight sequence and your light sabre is swirling all around you. You're not really sure what the next move is, but somehow you seem to find it.

Did you and Ewan get competitive?

Oh yeah. But it was a shared competitiveness - we were each trying to get one up on the other, seeing how fast we could go. It was just so much fun. We had a real laugh with it.

How will it differ from previous light sabre battles?

We're taking it to another level in so many ways. It's longer for a start, the geography that we cover is so diverse: we're fighting in different environments that affect the way we fight. The fighting styles evolve throughout the fight, depending on where we are. It's also a bit of a throwback to the original trilogy, with some of the more epée-influenced fighting styles from the original Obi-Wan/Darth Vader fight in Star Wars.

There's a lot of one handed light sabre fighting. It's just a more fierce, emotional fight. I don't think, in any Star Wars film, you've seen two comrades having a fight to the death. It's all fuelled by really raw emotion, which makes everything that much more exciting. It was really thrilling for me, one of the more exciting aspects of getting to do the film.

clonecloneclonecloneclone

March 22nd will mark the release date for the Star Wars: Clone Wars DVD.  Or at least the first compilation, Episodes 1 thru 20.  I'm quite excited about this since I have been too cheap to shell out the 20 bucks annual fee to sign on for a Star Wars dot com Hyperspace membership, whose members get exclusive access to various carrots dangled in front of the fanatical masses.

I'm more content to sit by idly and stew about what's exactly going to happen on May 19th.  The experience will be that much more wonderful for having gone through the anguish now.  After release to Hyperspace members, the short cartoons were broadcast on The Cartoon Network in the US and then later on Teletoon in Canada.  I only ever caught one episode by accident and never really went out of my way to see them.  So this March release will be a nice appetizer for Sith.

Mark your calendars.  Less than four months until Revenge...

Star Wars minutia

It seems appropriate to post about this topic today since, as of course you're well aware, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith opens in theatres exactly 4 months from today.

There are as many different rumours flying about the internet on the future status of the Star Wars franchise as there are opinions on Jar Jar Binks.  I stumbled across an interview with George wherein he lays to rest some of those and, of course, adds fuel to the fire of others.

It seems rather serendipitous that I found it since the website hosting the interview is one I typically avoid like the plague due to its spoilerific content.  (They have the entire plot summary linked there.)  But, not unlike a five day old scab, sometimes you just can't help but pick, hoping that nothing untoward comes as a result.

In this interview, George reveals info about such things such as:

• A future live-action TV show
  His own life after Star Wars
  The drool-worthy Yoda versus Sidious confrontation
  Plans for an original trilogy Ultimate Edition
  Who really is the BEST with the light saber?
  Vader's voice in Sith
  The possibility of Episodes 7-9
  And some small bits on Indiana Jones 4

Feel free to trip on over and read it for yourself; but with the following caveat:
The interview itself contains some minor spoilers, although nothing really that an ardent fan who grew up watching the movies, has the dialogue memorized, owns three copies of the same films and would be willing to convert to the Jedi Religion if such an option were available would not be able to suss out for him- or herself.

Who knows?  The Shadow knows.

NB: If you find yourself looking around the rest of Supershadow's website, don't say I didn't warn you about spoilers.

How far to the nearest Sarlacc?

For the mere pittance of twenty thousand US dollars, you too can be seen hovering around the countryside in your very own version of Jabba's Sail Barge.  Or better yet, buy one in order to see ME flitting about at 40 mph, 64 km/h in Canadian parlance.

This link at Amazon seems to think it's really some sort of Badonkadonk, but you and I know what it really is.  11 months ought to be enough for you to save up for next Christmas.  Right?

Forty - Two

Next to Revenge of the Sith and Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong, the most anticipated film of 2005, for yours truly, is going to be the film version of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  The trilogy of books - in five parts - was such an entertaining read that, if done well, the film will hopefully knock my socks off and be more enjoyable than a Perfectly Normal Beast sandwich.

Courtesy of Ain't it Cool News, I saw the following picture this morning to whet my appetite:  (That's Marvin the Paranoid Android, in case you didn't know...)