May 2003 Archives

Today's oneword takes a hard look at communication skills.

Or something like that.

Adam Baldwin still stops in regularly on the Fox Firefly message boards. He's currently in Vancouver filming an SG-1 episode and dropped in from a cybercafe to give an update of sorts: a call from Joss yesterday with good news.

Excerpts:

"I've heard an inkling of storyline for feature [film]... You're all gonna love it!"

"It's BIG! Real BIG!"

"... but when I got the call from the boss... I was literally dancing down Robson Street! Hollering too!"

and Joss says "Tell them we'll fly again."

Good stuff. In other news, Joss is writing and directing the Season Five opener of Angel.

Don't know what's going on in this scene. Sounds interesting, though.

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Neil Gaiman's doing a miniseries for DC Marvel (?!?) called 1602. No one really knows what it's about. (Gaiman's reply to this question is "about 140 pages".)

Also, he's got a new Sandman thing coming out -- seven stories, each with a different artist -- called Endless Nights.

Joss Interview -- I believe it's spoiler-free, for those living in DVD-time.

THR: What happened to the plans for the animated series?
Whedon: We just couldn't find a home for (it). We had a great animation director, great visuals, six or seven hilarious scripts from our own staff -- and nobody wanted it. I was completely baffled. I felt like I was sitting there with bags of money and nobody would take them from me. It was a question of people either not wanting it or not being able to put up the money because it was not a cheap show.
One thing I was very hard-line about was, I didn't want people to see it if it looked like crap. I wanted it to be on a level with "Animaniacs" or "Batman: The Animated Series." And that's a little pricier. But I just don't think it's worth doing unless it's beautiful to look at as well as fun.

144 episodes. Whew.

From Sci Fi Wire

Meanwhile, Fillion (who played Capt. Mal Reynolds) said that he is completing audio commentaries for the complete DVD set of the Fox series' 15 produced episodes, including three that never aired. "I just finished commentary with Alan Tudyk [Wash] on 'War Stories,' an episode where he and I got tortured... and then, Monday, I go in to do audio commentary with Joss Whedon for 'Serenity,' the two-hour pilot."
The DVD will also include on-camera interviews and maybe even some of Fillion's own behind-the-scenes home video and photos.

He also mentions stuff about a Firefly movie directed and written by Joss, and some of the stuff that's on the DVD.

--

Related Whedonesque news: Buffy Season 4 DVD is out June 10th.

I'm going to call that seven years well-spent.

Damn. Great ending. Great beginning.

Oh, and a Strongbad reference in the very short spoiler section:

So this weekend marked something of a milestone.

Well, not really, it just felt like it.

[geeky gamer stuff lies ahead]

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But before I go, one word.

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One beef: the sounds for the fights weren't as good as the first movie, or the theatre I was in isn't as good as listening to the DVD on my headphones. Seems like in the first movie you heard each punch; in this one it's a lot more muted.

Then again, there's a LOT more punches to put in sound effects for in the sequel -- that's my impression anyway.

Oh, and related, mean-spirited, non-matrix thing:

Gina Torres (married to Lawrence F. in RL) must be a hell of a good cook. Damn.

The guy bitching on aintitcoolnews about this movie was...

Well, really wrong. Wrong enough that I almost wonder if he wasn't being wrong on purpose to throw people off. The only other explanation is that he just didn't get it.

This is a fun movie, it's got some great ideas in it, and it really... well, it's not afraid to change the rules. Good stuff. I entirely enjoyed it.

There was one silly comment of his that stuck with me though, and it colored one of the scenes in the movie in a funny way.

The following is not a spoiler in any plot sense, but if you don't want to know ANYTHING AT ALL about ANY scene that hasn't been in a trailer, don't read on.

Some guy in Hawaii got to see an X2 blooper reel and lists all the stuff on it here. The list contains spoilers so be warned, but some of it is damn funny.

22. During the scene where Bobby cools Logan's soda... he starts slowly licking the rim of the bottle, gazing at Logan. Logan starts rubbing the top of the bottle with his pinky.

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A pome, as De likes to say.

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Just in case folks had missed the HUGE anime inspiration in the original Matrix (you should see the original movie's storyboards -- they look like a manga), I got another dose of it last night watching the Matrix preview that came before X2.

No spoilers, but...

Good episode Tuesday. Sounds like next week is a two-hour finale? Only two episodes left, certainly.

I remember loving the original Buffy movie when I was in college. It was funny. I remember thinking after the fifth or sixth time I watched it (we didn't own a lot of tapes in college, that was one of them) that it almost seemed like the writer was trying to say something 'deep'. I pretty much assumed I was just reading too much into it.

Then the show came out, and I started to realize that I'd been right -- the only reason it had been unclear was because the movie making process had muddied the whole thing.

I saw the ads for the show in 1997 -- I was out here in Denver and got Jackie to watch the first couple shows with me (well, she worked on her computer and looked over every now and again). Mostly I was curious to see what they could do with it. I mean... how can you have her traveling around, hunting vampi--

Oh, Hellmouth -- evil comes to her. Clever.

That wouldn't be the last time I'd use that word.

By the sixth episode, we were making sure to be off the computers and ready to pay attention when the show came on. We started taping the show the first time Spike showed up (Season two, Episode three: "School Hard").

I was thinking about it yesterday; there have been some ups and downs... some bad episodes and a few story arcs that really didn't need to be told, but the simple fact is, the show has vision and it stuck to it throughout, even when the Life Event that the story meant to reflect was a painful one that made people uncomfortable -- sometimes for a whole season. Gotta respect that.

I love this show. It's come full circle this year ("Have you got any Tab?") and when it's all said and done it will have irrevocably changed the face of the genre and altered the landscape of pop culture.

And it's gonna surprise you before it's done. It's gonna do something we didn't see coming.

The last episode is written/directed by Joss Whedon, that's how I know.

I'm going to miss this show.

Maybe not as much as this guy, but still.

(Thanks to ***Dave for sending the pic.)

The Palm Tungsten C.

My response: eh. I had one of those thumb-pad keypads for my Palm for awhile.

Okay, for about 2 hours. I hated it. I'm not sure that even with all the bells and whistles I would be interested in something that makes it harder to get to my beloved grafitti screen.

Also, I run hot and cold on Wi-Fi. On the one hand, cool. On the other, I really like the stuff I read on Bluetooth.

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So after the soccer game on Sunday we went to see X2.

Good stuff. Lots of plot, and a definite improvement in some respects from X-men. I get the distinct feeling that the third movie (and there will obviously be one) will finally bring the whole concept together -- the franchise is benefiting from the assumption that they'd always have at least a couple more movies to tell the story -- it makes the franchise itself more interesting and lets them tell stronger stories in the time available, since they use the next movie to expand on a Hint from the previous one.

Good stuff. We'll be going again.

(There's enough going on in the movie that Justin was losing track of who was allied to to whom as things progressed -- we sat around talking about it this morning, lost track of time and pretty soon the bus was pulling up and he didn't have his socks on yet. I took him to school (the least I could do), but I guess this goes down as his first "I was late for class because I was a geek." incident.)

Man... Alias was good tonight.

Today's one word.