I was kind of hoping Disney would pick Joss Whedon to direct the next Star Wars movie just to watch fans’ heads explode. But going with the guy who rebooted Star Trek? That’s what I call a close second.
J.J. Abrams Will Reportedly Direct the Next Star Wars Movie
Originally posted on Google+
Caught the last episode of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog last night. It didn’t quite deliver on the promise of the first two episodes, though there were some great bits in it, and the resolutions for Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer were fitting. There was a twist that Katie had predicted that I thought would have been really cool, but it turned out to be wrong.
I think I liked the middle act best.
Anyway, I checked the site again right after midnight, when the free streams were supposed to come down, and they’d already gone to iTunes at $1.99 an episode. (Personally I think that’s a bit high, when they add up to the same length as an “hourlong” i.e. ~40-minute TV show, which you can usually get for $1.99 total)
For those who hadn’t already heard about it: Written by Joss Whedon, his brothers, and his future sister-in-law. Starring Neil Patrick Harris as the mad scientist villain Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion (Firefly) as his nemesis Captain Hammer, and Felicia Day as the girl at the laundromat on whom Dr. Horrible has a crush. Campy take on the super-hero genre, from the point of view of a D-list villain trying to make it to the big leagues. Structured partly as a video blog and partly as narrative. The songs remind me of a cross between the Buffy musical (naturally) and Moulin Rouge. (Stylistically, I mean.)
OK, so we know Serenity didn’t do that well at the box office (despite being an excellent movie), but the DVD sales seem to be doing great. Last Thursday, just two days after release, Best Buy not only had it on its Best Seller shelf, they were actually sold out of the widescreen version. And Amazon.com’s DVD rankings show Serenity at #2 and Firefly at #3. Considering that the Firefly DVDs have been out for something like two years, and everything else on the 25-item list is either a new release or a new special edition, the obvious conclusion is that Amazon’s “Buy this DVD with Firefly” ploy is working—or that people are (again) watching the movie and then coming back for more.
Is Fox TV eligible for the “Turning down the Beatles” award yet?
Yesterday our copy of Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Chosen Collection—all seven seasons—arrived. (It’s supposedly a limited edition, but I don’t see anything to that effect on our box.) Since we’d been listening to the soundtrack of “Once More With Feeling” on the drive home last night, we immediately put on the episode.
I’ve been slowly working my way through the Comic Cavalcade Archives. I’m determined to read the whole thing, but I have to take it in small doses. Partly the target audience is much younger than me, partly the storytelling (and art) I’m used to is much different, and of course partly it’s a very different time. It was the middle of World War II, and half the stories involved fighting Nazi spies or, in some cases, wreaking havoc in Germany itself. (The Ghost Patrol should have been able to take Hitler out on their own, but they seemed more interested in sabotage and practical jokes.) The original setup for Wonder Woman was that she left Paradise Island to help America defeat the Axis!
The Golden-Age Flash hunt continues. I’m now up to three issues of All-Flash with an issue of Flash Comics on its way. So far I’ve discovered that the Turtle didn’t have a costume the first time he appeared. He was just a guy in a green suit who used slowness against a guy who was used to moving fast. Next up: the original Thorn. I’ve bid on a lot of eBay auctions, expecting to win only a fraction of them. Everywhere else I look online, people are selling collector-grade books at much higher prices. I just want to read the original stories, write down who appears, and scan the occasional panel that I’m going to clean up anyway.
Amazon has finally put a discount on the Golden Age Flash Archives vol.2, so I’ve pre-ordered it. While there I looked around on my wish list and noticed that the Mirrormask DVD page (which still shows the wrong date) is recommending, “Buy this DVD with Serenity (Widescreen Edition) DVD ~ Joss Whedon today!” That seems like an appropriate pairing!
