Archive for 2013

MARVEL: Disney’s Marvel and Netflix Join Forces to Develop Historic Four Series Epic plus a Mini-Series Event

Posted in News and Editorials on November 7, 2013| 2 Comments »

Marvel logoDisney’s Marvel and Netflix Join Forces to Develop Historic Four Series Epic plus a Mini-Series Event Based on Renowned Marvel Characters

Landmark Deal Brings Marvel’s Flawed Heroes of Hell’s Kitchen, led by “Daredevil,” to the World’s Leading Internet TV Network in 2015
 

Burbank, Calif. – Nov 7, 2013—The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) and Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) today announced an unprecedented deal for Marvel TV to bring multiple original series of live-action adventures of four of Marvel’s most popular characters exclusively to the world’s leading Internet TV Network beginning in 2015. This pioneering agreement calls for Marvel to develop four serialized programs leading to a mini-series programming event.

Led by a series focused on “Daredevil,” followed by “Jessica Jones,” “Iron Fist” and “Luke Cage,” the epic will unfold over multiple years of original programming, taking Netflix members deep into the gritty world of heroes and villains of Hell’s Kitchen, New York.  Netflix has committed to a minimum of four, thirteen episodes series and a culminating Marvel’s “The Defenders” mini-series event that reimagines a dream team of self-sacrificing, heroic characters.

Produced by Marvel Television in association with ABC Television Studios, this groundbreaking deal is Marvel’s most ambitious foray yet into live-action TV storytelling.

“This deal is unparalleled in its scope and size, and reinforces our commitment to deliver Marvel’s brand, content and characters across all platforms of storytelling. Netflix offers an incredible platform for the kind of rich storytelling that is Marvel’s specialty,” said Alan Fine, President of Marvel Entertainment. “This serialized epic expands the narrative possibilities of on-demand television and gives fans the flexibility to immerse themselves how and when they want in what’s sure to be a thrilling and engaging adventure.”
“Marvel’s movies, such as ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Marvel’s The Avengers,’ are huge favorites on our service around the world. Like Disney, Marvel is a known and loved brand that travels,” said Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. “With ‘House of Cards’ and our other original series, we have pioneered new approaches to storytelling and to global distribution and we’re thrilled to be working with Disney and Marvel to take our brand of television to new levels with a creative project of this magnitude.”

This new original TV deal follows last year’s landmark movie distribution deal through which, beginning with 2016 theatrically released feature films, Netflix will be the exclusive U.S. subscription television service for first-run, live-action and animated movies from the Walt Disney Studios, including titles from Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Disneynature and Lucasfilm.  Netflix members can currently enjoy a wide range of Disney, ABC TV and Disney Channel films and shows across the 41 countries where Netflix operates.

About The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international entertainment and media enterprise with five business segments: media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, consumer products and interactive media. Disney is a Dow 30 company and had annual revenues of $42.3 billion in its Fiscal Year 2012.

About Netflix

Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 40 million members in more than 40 countries enjoying more than one billion hours of TV shows and movies per month, including original series. For one low monthly price, Netflix members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.

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Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E06 “FZZT”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , , on November 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Fitz SimmonsWith this latest episode, AOS takes great strides towards getting there.

One of the banes of the last five episodes is that they where pretty much about Skye and we got no character development from the rest of the group. In FZZT we get some much needed time with Fitz and Simmons, the resident geeks. We learn more about their back story and their strange relationship. There is a lot of love there, and you almost want to ship them as a couple, but they play very well as siblings. I’m honestly not sure if ‘sibling’ was supposed to be the vibe or if they are just that clueless about each other. They definitely have more chemistry than Ward and Skye.

There were some problems with the episode and a lot of that had to do with the speechifying. Ward is especially bad at just stating his emotions/thoughts rather than showing us. Also, as powerful as the scene was with Coulson comforting the dying man, I felt that there was too much inaction. Usually in shows/comics like this, there is more “we have to do something” and less “so yeah, let’s just stand out of the blast zone”. It’s like no one cared that this man was going to die other than “we should comfort him” when they should have been “hey, maybe we should try to save him”.

Then there was the jarring  cut scene between Ward’s rescue and Coulson’s rant. On a technical spectrum, it wasn’t the best put together episode and I have a feeling a lot was cut.

But what FZZT did right, it did exceptionally well. Once I got past the ‘why isn’t anyone doing anything’ when Coulson spoke to the dying man, it was a fairly powerful moment. Coulson died, he knows something isn’t right about that, and it’s slowly eating at him. The show is seriously trolling us, but so far it hasn’t reached LOST level trolling. It’s still the delicious level of trolling. Then we have Coulson’s discussion with May at the end… there is a lot of pain there, and you can feel it.

Also, in contrast to what I said earlier, I loved the level of inaction in this episode when it came to the team dynamics. Most often in these situations, the non-scientist gets sick and the scientist has to save them, this way everyone is doing something. The non-scientist is ‘being sick’ while the scientist goes around solving the problem. But here, the scientist is the one who is sick and is trying to find the cure. All anyone else can do is literally stand around. It’s a painful situation to be in (and Ward got a little speechy about that) but it was extremely accurate. You can identify with the team moreso here than at any other time I would wager.

And the moment Coulson realizes that Simmons is infected, your heart literally sinks.

This is the kind of emotional jockeying that we’ve been expecting and it paid out in spades here. Let’s hope that Skye’s plot line has been shelves for now and move on to some of these more juicier bits.

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Hiatus – November

Posted in Press Releases, tagged , , , , on November 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

It’s very typical of television shows to take a week or two off, usually because either of a holiday or special event preempted them. Well, this weekend I will be at a steampunk convention and next weekend is Thor: The Dark World… not to mention NaNoWriMo starts today! So I thought this would be a good time to take off for a bit, let people catch up, and give me some time to work on future episodes.

I won’t leave you with nothing though, here is a sneak peak at the upcoming episode 1X06 – The Trask at Hand…

“Call up your X-Men friends,” Val gave him a conspiratorial smile, “odds are they’re going to stick their noses into this anyway, Sentinel is too dangerous to them not to get involved.”

“They gave Nimrod back,” Fred pointed out.

“After they broke it,” she returned wryly.

“To keep Magneto from getting it,” he frowned.

“So they say,” she wasn’t entirely convinced, “but regardless, I want them where I can see them,” she crossed her arms and left no room to debate, “if they want to ‘be the better person’, then they can prove it.”

Fred considered her for a second, then he gave her a scoffing laugh, “And it’s a move the Acolytes won’t see coming, us actually working together.”

“Got it in one,” she grinned, then gestured to his phone that was lying out on the desk. “Trask wants the Council’s help in moving Sentinel. We move it in two days, Thursday to be exact,” she almost laughed, “I know it’s a school day but they better be ready.”

“They’re not stupid,” he wanted to shake his head at her, “even if I don’t tell them, they’ll know there’s nothing altruistic about this, that you’re using them.”

“I’m not trying to hide it,” she shrugged, then sighed, “I know, they claim to be the good guys, but they’re just as much capable as the Brotherhood of doing untold damage if left unchecked. Now, I’ve seen our government give weapons to the ‘good guys’ to fight other ‘bad guys’,” she exaggerated the words, “then only a decade or so down the line find those weapons turned back on us. I’m not making that mistake here, especially since mutants are weapons.”

“They’re not weapons,” Fred said sternly, sitting up straight in his chair to look her dead in the eye, “they’re people.”

“So is a suicide bomber,” she replied coldly, leaning forward, “only when a mutant blows up, odds are it can walk away and do it again.”

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Review: Arrow S02E04 “Crucible”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , on October 31, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Arrow - Season 2aka the “how many tropes can we cross off our list” episode…

Laurel, whose father is a recovering alcoholic, is turning into one herself over the death of her boyfriend and of course won’t listen to anyone.

Surprise, Sarah is alive but won’t tell her family cause ‘things’ and she is having something of the same existential crisis as Oliver did so of course he has to mentor her.

Felicity isn’t even dating Oliver but seems to feel the need to be jealous at everything because her character is being reduced to a love interest.

Oliver saves the life of the man he’s at odds at making them friendly.

Said man being the good guy who wants to help the people but, surprise, is actually the bad guy, go figure.

Oliver does surgery on himself to remove a bullet and despite having no medical training manages not to cause massive internal bleeding or rupture a vital organ.

But hey, “the Mayor” having his “city hall” in the strip club… now that is classy.

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DOFP: Trailer #1 Rundown

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , on October 29, 2013| 4 Comments »

On the heels of the release of fellow comic book movie, Thor: The Dark World, FOX has released its first trailer for X-Men: Days of Future Past… or as it’s already been called, Wolverine III… though technically it would be Wolverine VI.

Long ago when it was announced that Hugh Jackman would be joining an all-star cast of mutants, old and young, I said that this meant he would be the time traveler. Partly because it didn’t make sense to send Kitty since she wasn’t even born yet (unless they did a physical time travel) but mostly because Singer has the man crush on Wolverine and all movies except First Class have been “Woverine… And These Other Guys”. I was right, Logan, as confirmed in the trailer (though it was sorta confirmed earlier), will be the time traveler… and this trailer wants to make sure you know that.

Half of the trailer is basically telling everyone what’s going down. The future is pretty crappy and we’re going to send someone back in time to try to stop a war before it happens. Since Logan is the traveler it makes sense that he would have a pretty big roll in showing that in the trailer… only underscoring the fact that this movie is likely going to have a healthy dose of Wolvie. That’s pretty much all the plot we get although we can read between the frames for other stuff.

The rest of the trailer is bits and pieces of the film cut in a generic non-linear fashion to try to give us the sweeping scope of the film. Here is what I see, and warning, speculative spoilers ahead:

  • The temple looks Mediterranean due to the papyrus motif on the pillars. Could this have something to do with En Sabah Nur aka Apocalypse? Possibly, it was first speculated he might be involved when Blink, a descendant of Apocalypse, was revealed to be in the movie. However, Storm seems to be standing on a high cliff with snow capped mountains in the not-so-distance, so I’m not sure where exactly they’re supposed to be.
  • We get a scene of Kitty and Iceman just staring at each other in what looks to be the Amazing Technicolor Backdrop. Seriously, pause the trailer and look at the background, it looks like the 70’s threw up in the ancient temple. Anyway, this scene likely takes place right before Kitty sends Logan back. So this is probably a “I may never see you again cause I might die” stare-down.

    dofp_kitty_iceman_rogue

    click for gif

  • Immediately we go into a flash of Rogue which tells us nothing about what’s going on with her, even the background is blank, though it’s possible she’s looking down on the above mentioned Kitty/Iceman stuff because of the common orange hue (but it’s kinda a requirement that post-apocalyptic stuff has to have an orange hue so she could be anywhere). Just the fact that they chose to cut these scenes together means we’ll be subjected to more of this tiresome love triangle. (All I want is for Rogue to be found in New Orleans, I can fill in the blanks.)
  • Then there’s some flashes of the school and Xavier before we get a shot of Magneto and Iceman standing in a blue-lit grimy hallway. These are usual a maintenance hallway of some sort. It’s not Cerebro’s hallway as one of the walls is just brick plus there is too much stuff hanging from the ceiling. It’s also not the temple because of the new stuff. I’m guessing Magneto is getting something and Bobby is babysitting. Rogue could be there with them, see comment below, or she could be who they are after.
  • Now we get the obligatory line-up showing us all the new mutants. Bishop is first, no qualms there, but we don’t get to see anything more than him just standing there looking like a bad-a. I’m not sure who the second guy is, Colossus maybe? Warpath is up next and I’m not digging the outfit (it’s the shoulder pads, why are they back in style?). Then Blink who I don’t know a lot about but she looks cool.
    dofp_temple

    click for gif

  • We get better looks at this temple which seems to be a plethora of motifs just threw up on each other. It’s a little Asian, Indian (as in India), as well as Middle Eastern. Are they in the Himalayas? I’m so confused… esp as there seems to be a lot of blocky colored glass insets which is probably what is creating the technicolor backdrop mentioned above. Non of this makes sense from an architectural standpoint. Nobody built like this! But obviously this is where the magic of time travel will happen so… yeah… can we use “it was the 70s” as an excuse since that is when they are time travelling to?
  • Notice how they put from “the Director of The Unusual Suspects and X-Men” in that order? Like… what are you trying to say here?
  • Now we get to the past and see glimpses of Xavier and Erik as they talk about how they were different back then, trying to be existential in the moment. They both basically admit that they were kinda douches when they were young… hey, who wasn’t?
  • Mystique is seen crying, over what, we don’t know (Kurt maybe? Nah, the filmmakers aren’t that awesome). She also later doesn’t seem to be all that interested in Magneto saving her as she looks to be struggling against him when he’s dragging her towards him. Trouble in paradise… which totally doesn’t track with the X-Men movies but who knows…
  • Quick shots of Kitty (presumably from the rings on her hands) doing the mind bend on Logan to travel him back. The temple is attacked, stuff blowing up. There is havok at the Paris Peace Accords, thanks to Magneto.
  • The President is being hidden in a bunker, I guess they think something major is going to go down. Trask is with him, so likely going to see some Sentinel bashing. This could be promising.
  • Logan is being shot by some red shirts, just some guys who thought they could kill him for either money, revenge, what have you. By the non-streak in his hair, I wonder if this is when Logan pops back into his old body. Talk about a wake-up call.
  • Xavier breaks Cerebro, could this be why he needs Erik’s help?
  • Beast is not looking Beastly, so I’m guessing he developed the image inducer, or some kind of “i’m always angry” Hulk way to keep his beast side at bay?
  • A white room with a glass ceiling breaks over someone, I believe Magneto since stills show him in a prison jumpsuit of the same color later on. Who exactly breaks him out, and why? Was he caught at the Paris Peace Accords but now the X-Men have to break him out so he can help them? A least we know it’s not Quicksilver, cause hey silvered up his hair according to Evan Peters and this guy was definitely a brunette.

    dofp_rogue_iceman_magneto

    click for gif

  • Back to that blue hallway from before, definitely some kind of maintenance shaft, and now Iceman is dragging along a hurt Rogue. She’s not wearing a uniform like everyone else, so is she no longer part of the X-Men? What is the story here? And will it fix Rogue’s horrible mis-characterization in X3? Probably not…
  • More random shots of violence at the Paris Peace Accords. Beast takes on Magneto and tries to drown him. Makes me think this is how Magneto is imprisoned. It would be fun if it’s a “we caught Magneto, finally! oh wait, now we have to break him out, doh!”
  • young!Xavier shouting “I don’t want your suffering. I don’t’ want your future.” He does realize he’s in an X-Men movie, right?

What I don’t see…

  • Quicksilver, not even a hint at him existing let alone what kind of part he will play in the movie. However, it does look like they haven’t really shown us anything past the opening gambit of the film so there is plenty left he could be doing. Could this be why they need Erik, not cause of Cerebro but to get his son to help?
  • The Misty Knight look-alike, was that really Misty?
  • What exactly has happened to make the future so crappy. And what exactly do they have to do to fix it? There is little mission statement here other than “fix the future”… which is cool, I mean, we don’t want to be too spoiled… but still… maybe spoiled a little?

Overall, it’s a very neutral trailer. There isn’t a lot here we haven’t really already seen or guessed. There isn’t anything here that’s a game changer for the good or bad.

They could still do something really great with this… or really really really bad… and we now have seven months to think about that…

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Review: Arrow S02E03 “Broken Dolls”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , on October 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Arrow - Season 2Have the writers ever even read a detective novel? Or even watched an episode of Law & Order?

There are almost a dozen victims and two… TWO… use the same hand cream. “That can’t be a coincidence!” Really? That’s how you going to have him break the case, with a huge freaking leap in logic instead of actual detective work which may lead to discovering several of the women to have purchased said hand cream. Why do the writers continue to ignore basic logistics? Because yes, it can totally be a coincidence, especially when you haven’t looked at anything else yet and just pluck that out of the air.

And OMG Laurel, it’s not all about you, you freaking whiny diva. Your father nearly lost you cause of that crazy serial killer, he has this wonderful emotional moment, then Arrow comes in and saves the day, and all you can think about is yourself and your bloody guilt for being the biggest idiot by deciding that exiting a burning building was more of a guideline than a legitimate strategy. I guess they were trying to go with a ‘near death life changing experience’ for her but it played out horribly.

Though, that said, this is one of the better episodes because, amazingly enough, Oliver didn’t have the lead in it. It was mostly about Dresden and the serial killer, and also Harper and Black Canary (or whoever that is).

I amend my earlier statement, can this show be about Diggle, Fecility, and Dresden (Officer Lance, whoever, he will always be Dresden to me).

Seriously, there was more emotion and real gravitas in this episode with Dresden than seen all through last season with Olivier. Paul Blackthorne is an under-appreciated actor and really sold this episode. When he was there thinking he was going to watch his daughter die, the man freaking brought it and you felt for him… moreso than any of the blank-slate or overly whiny/angsty stuff seen by the rest of the cast.

Then whiny Laurel had to ruin it.

But hey, Doc Fraiser, always good to see her.

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Behind the Scenes: Posting on FF

Posted in Behind the Scenes, tagged , , , on October 27, 2013| 2 Comments »

On my latest post on FanFiction.net, I got asked this question:

When you transfer it from your blog to here, do you do any kind of editting or is it just copy and paste?

That’s a good question.

The way I write the series is that season one has a folder for every episode, and inside that folder is six word docs as I write each act in its own document. I do this because it’s easier for me to visualize each act as its own separate section with ‘commercial breaks’ in-between.  It’s also easier to move sections around if I decide to put a particular scene earlier or later in the story.

Then when I go to make the pages here on my blog, I copy/paste everything after I have done one last edit. Then I create a new word file and that becomes the world doc for use on FF.net. I copy everything over to the one document and upload that to FF.net to be posted as the next chapter/episode.

Long story short, no, I don’t do any editing between them, at least nothing significant. If I do catch the odd misspelled word (cause I know I don’t catch them all as hard as I try) then I will go back and edit it on the blog, but nothing of significance is changed. If I did decide to change something significant, I would edit on both sites and post on my blog to that effect. So far though, I haven’t had to do that.

Anyway, this was probably more than you wanted to know, but I wanted to share.

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On Air: 1X05 Second Star to the Right

Posted in Season 1, tagged , , , , , on October 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

1X05 – Second Star to the Right
Air Date: 10/25/2013
Jeanne-Marie’s mental stability grows worse and Jean-Paul is at a lost how to help her before she spirals out of control. The Acolytes fly to South America and face a moral dilemma.
Rated TV-14 for language.

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Captain America 2 – Trailer #1

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , on October 24, 2013| 2 Comments »

We finally get our first trailer for Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier courtesy of Apple, but in case you don’t do QuickTime, here it is on YouTube.

captain america 2 teaser posterAt first blush, the tone is very different from the first film, which makes a lot of sense seeing as it’s set 80 years later and the world has very much changed. Winter Soldier looks to have the popular ‘dark and gritty’ feel but does so by bordering on a political thriller style reminiscent of Tom Clancy. It’s good to see that the Cap movies are doing their own thing and not trying to skate on the Avengers popularity by mimicking the style. Considering that Rogers is a soldier in an major peacekeeping/military body and the general tone of modern politics, you only really have two choices: Campy or Clancy… and I’m so glad they chose Clancy. It’s a natural fit and looks stunning.

Between the Shakespeare of Thor 2 and the Tom Clancy of Captain America 2… I think I’m more interested in Cap as a movie… but yes, I’m more interested in Loki as a character.

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Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S01E05 “Girl in the Flower Dress”

Posted in Reviews, tagged , , , on October 22, 2013| 4 Comments »

Marvel's Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.And now we discover how AOS will be getting around the no-mutant legal gag that has been put on the MCU… and I kinda like it.

Step One, find a new name. Chan is a pyrokinetic and they couldn’t use Pyro, Match, Human Torch, or any of the already taken names. So they call him Scorch… which works, all thing considered.

Step Two, don’t explain why he’s a pyro, at least not completely. They make an off comment that could explain why he’s a pyro (he lived next to a nuclear plant that went kablooey) but they don’t really make it concrete. In fact, later on, one of them states they really aren’t sure how he’s a pryo.

Step Three, just run with it.

I have a feeling we’re going to see a lot more of these base-set powered ‘gifted’ humans. PK, TK, TP, etc, these are all powers that can’t be copyrighted so they will use them, hopefully, in the same manner above. This means that we can explore some of the plot lines seen in the comics (just with out known mutant characters) and if the fates love us then if we get a merge of Marvel and Fox (or even more unlikely, Marvel gets the license back) then they can slot in mutants as if they were always there.

Yes, this is me wishful thinking… what?

As for the story itself, I’m really getting tired of Skye. Finally got my ‘twist’ and it’s just another big trope. I still want to know more about the rest of the team, especially this interesting relationship between Coulson and May. And just Coulson in general… something is wrong with him but what?!?! And they get rid of one evil doctor and bring in another shadowy bad guy? They are really keeping us in the dark on this, I hope they don’t try to go too LOST on us.

I think the best part though is I do like the little moments, there are a lot of them and they are pretty fun. When Coulson and May hear that Scorch has a moniker now… the look on their faces are priceless. There is a fun factor here that really makes the show an enjoyable watch.

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