Where the original trailer came off as cheesy, predictable, and hinted at the possibility of a badly animated super(skinny)suit, this trailer looks… epic.
It’s funny (his attempt at an oath actually made me laugh) and yet properly dramatic (the actual oath sounded almost inspirational).
It has snippets of exciting action scenes (explosions and fights and spaceships) and looks beautiful (aliens and settings that actually look cool).
Watching this trailer actually makes me want to go see this movie!
(I mean, I would have watched it anyway because it is a superhero and there’s no way I could say no to anything involving superheros, but now I’m way more likely to go see it in theatres)
I wasn’t too excited about this show at the start because, from the trailers I’d seen, it looked like a cheesier, live-action version of The Incredibles. However, now that I’m watching it, it’s not as bad as I was expecting.
Although it’s fairly predictable, it feels kinda like the later seasons of Heroes: the premise makes it interesting enough to watch… although that could just be because I’ll watch anything with superheroes.
I like that each of their superpowers arguably corresponds to an issue they had, rather than just being randomly assigned. It reminds me of Misfits, which, as everyone knows, is awesome and anything that harkens back to it gains some redeeming value.
Jim, the husband, gets super strength, after it’s mentioned that he’s getting old and threw out his back earlier. Steph’s the career-oriented wife who’s always too busy for everything, so she gets super speed. Daphne, the teenage girl who’s worried about what the world thinks about her, gets to be a mind reader. JJ, the son who was about to be put in remedial classes, gets to be a genius.
Interesting factoid to notice: the kids’ powers keep evolving and developing, almost as though the powers grow because they’re still growing, while the parents’ powers have stayed fairly stable.
Why I continue to watch: The kids totally have supervillain powers (Ex: Daphne can now control people’s minds as well as read them). It would be AMAZING if the show chose to delve into their fall into the dark side. Probably not going to happen because it is an ABC(Family) show, but still…one can hope.
I enjoy the sidekicks (who actually think of themselves as sidekicks!) on this show a lot more than I like the main characters though. The wife’s comic-book-geek lab tech friend, Katie, is by far my favourite. Her romance with evil-guy-turned-good-because-he-loves-her is cheesy, but if there was a Katie-the-Sidekick show, I’d watch it. Her hair falls in perfect bouncy curls ALL THE TIME. That would be her superpower.
I especially love that, when first testing the wife’s superspeed, Katie asks all the questions comic book geeks have always wanted to know about how it actually works. (“How does your body cut through the wind shear? Why doesn’t the Coulumb friction singe your clothes? Are you generating some kind of charged plasma field from the kinetic energy? Is that why incoming debris isn’t sandblasting off your corneas?”)
The show’s trying to deal with the ramifications of being a superhero, and almost succeeds. It’s still fun to watch it try.
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Examples of times this show has been amusing:
Steph: “Say them. Say my three favourite words.”
Jim: “You were right.”
~
Jim: “So that’s it? I’ve got to lie, everyday, for the rest of my life?”
George: “I’m a lawyer. Trust me, you get used to it.”
There are a ridiculous amount of geeky movies coming out this year.
With superheroes, fairy tales, robots, gods, aliens, vampires, gnomes, zombies, genetically engineered apes, smurfs, pirates, spies, witches, wizards, pandas…the movie selection this year is a smörgåsbord of geek topics.
Starring Rainn Wilson as The Crimson Bolt, a powerless superhero who wields a wrench, it looks like it’s going to be Kick Ass level of good.
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Source Code: April 1st
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Your Highness: April 8th
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Thor: May 6th
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Priest: May 13th
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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: May 20th
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Kung Fu Panda 2: May 27th
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X-Men First Class: June 3rd
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Green Lantern: Emerald Knights: June 7th
Straight to DVD animated movie about Kyle Rayner and a time-travelling Hal Jordan as they team up with the JLA and Green Arrow to fight Sinestro and Parallax.
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Super 8: June 10th
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Rise of the Apes: June 24th
Planet of the Apes prequel which shows how the apes came to rule to world, starring James Franco.
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Green Lantern: June 17th
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Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon: July 1st
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: July 15th
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Captain America: The First Avenger: July 22nd
If you don’t know what this is going to be about, shame on you.
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Cowboys and Aliens: July 29th
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The Smurfs: August 3rd
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Conan the Barbarian: August 19th
Conan”s adventures on his quest to avenge the death of his father and the slaughter of his village.
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Fright Night: August 19th
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Johnny English Reborn: September 16th
Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) tries to stop a band of assassins from killing the Chinese Premier
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Now: September 30th
A society where aging stops at 25 and the rich are immortal while the rest struggle to survive. Starring Justin Timberlake, who’s falsely accused of murder, on the run with his hostage Amanda Seyfried.
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Real Steel: October 7th
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The Thing: October 14th
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Puss in Boots: November 4th
Origins of the swashbuckling cat from the Shrek movies.
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Immortals: November 11th
3D movie where Theseus (Henry Cavill) must fight to save his people and the Greek gods from the mad King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke).
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Arthur Christmas: November 23rd
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Sherlock Holmes 2: December 16th
After how awesome the first one was, we all knew the sequel was inevitable.
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The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn: December 28th
3D motion-capture film based on the comics: Tintin’s first encounter with Captain Haddock and their adventures trying to find his ancestor’s hidden treasure.
I love DC’s animated universe. If it existed in corporeal form, I’d marry it (regardless of its gender and the law involved with that… although I suspect it’d probably be male just because there aren’t that many major superheroines in DC canon…)
Think about it though; DC has definitely had the best run of superhero animated TV shows:
the old noir-ish Batman, which is the earliest animated Batman I remember watching, and its setting is definitely one of the first images my mind turns to when I picture Batman
Batman-Superman Adventures, where Lois had that ridiculous/cute pink and white convertible and Bruce Wayne looked devilishly handsome
Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, which was dramatically mature enough that you didn’t have to be a kid to enjoy it
Batman Beyond, which was awesome on it’s own merits because it told a great story of an alternate DC future, but also tied into the Justice League universe with that amazing time-travel episode
Teen Titans, with its mix of Japanese anime expressions and American animation that somehow worked to make a quirky, kid-friendly TV show
Batman the Brave and the Bold (oh my god, that show is so much fun) which is the campy, sunny-side up version of Batman, reminiscent of the old Adam West TV show but with a self-awareness of its campy nature
The Batman, where the animation was beautiful, even if all his gadgets glowed blue and were not at all conducive to stealth
Even Static Shock, which was about a side character that was still better than most of the other kids’ TV shows it was aired alongside
The Zeta Project! Almost forgot about that one. Only two seasons, but such a great story.
Now, I’m looking forward to Cartoon Network’s new Young Justice cartoon.
Its animation looks beautiful and high-quality. The few clips I’ve seen make it look like a quick-witted and action-packed adventure that is both age appropriate and yet entertaining for older geeks to watch.
My only teeny tiny qualm is that it seems to mix superhero ‘generations’. Robin is Dick Grayson and KidFlash is Wally West, which match…except for the fact that they were never a part of Young Justice, they were in the Teen titans. Plus the costumes that they’re wearing are closer to the ones usually worn by Tim Drake and Bart fromthefutureIcan’trememberhissurname, who actually were in Young Justice. Plus, Superboy’s a member of the team, and he’s supposed to be the same ‘generation’ as Tim, not Dick. (For anyone who actually knows the DC multiverse, the show’s supposedly set on Earth 16. I don’t know, but it might match the team members of YJ in that ‘verse.)
But, I can easily sweep those incongruities aside if the show turns out to actually be as awesome as it looks like it’s going to be.
It will start to air regularly in January 2011, but there’s a one-hour pilot premiere TODAY, November 26th, on Cartoon Network at 7/6 central. (I’m definitely going to be watching…and practically buzzing with anticipation until then and probably squealing with excitement during the actual show whenever they make any comic book references I understand. Watch it or watch me; either will be entertaining. )
Zoë Washburne (Firefly): Of all Joss Whedon’s supposedly strong female characters, Zoë’s the only one I actually like. Strong and practically Amazonian, she still manages to stay feminine while being totally bad-ass. So many similar characters give up their girliness in order to be taken seriously; Zoe doesn’t ask for her position, she doesn’t try to prove herself worthy of it…she just is and there is no room to challenge that. She’s happily married (Serenity never happened; I’m in denial; shush) to a charming man who makes her laugh and loves her just as madly as she loves him. Oh, and she’s got mad gun skillz, great hair, and makes leather vests look even cooler than they already do.
Mary Poppins (Mary Poppins): In case the rest of this list didn’t display it, I really admire competence… and there is no one more ‘practically perfect’ than Mary. She’s good with difficult kids and can easily handle cantankerous adults. She can sing and dance and fly (with the aid of an umbrella or smoke and clouds or just for tea). She is magical and mysterious and can even talk to animals (both real and animated and artificial/attached to said umbrella’s handle). And she’s gorgeous and British and exists in book, movie and musical form because her awesomeness cannot be contained in just one medium.
Ororo Munroe/Storm (X-Men): Her back story is more like a fairy tale than a comic book heroine’s. She’s descended from a long line of African witch-princesses (yeah, you read that correctly: witch-princesses). She’s orphaned in Cairo and becomes a master-thief, is briefly worshipped as a goddess and then recruited to the X-men. In the 80’s, she temporarily sported a mowhawk and wore all leather…and actually managed to pull it off. I’ve always been impressed by her personality: serene, subtly bad-ass, elegant, and always impressive. Her ability to control the weather makes her one of the most powerful mutants, and I love the way she also uses it in unexpected ways (Ex: breathe underwater through electrolysis, see the universe in terms of energy patterns, flash freeze people, fly, sense the world’s weather patterns, etc). She speaks three languages fluently, once picked a lock with her teeth while having the mental state of an infant, and carries an ancestral ruby that allows for interdimensional transportation when combined with her lightning.
Olivia Joules (Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination): She’s the only chick-lit heroine I’ve ever been able to relate to; I guess it’s just because we’re already alike and I want to be more like her. Instinctively, both of us tend towards ridiculous explanations for everyday things, and then have to talk ourselves back to more rational/less imaginative possibilities. She’s a British reporter (yay, accent!) who then becomes a spy for MI-6; she speaks several languages and has natural spy skills rather than acquiring them through years of special training. She’s also got this homemade emergency kit that she carries around with her but hasn’t had a chance to use much, which I totally admire (Nooo, of course I don’t have a similar ‘In Case of Apocalypse’ bag in my car. That would be silly…I haven’t finished packing it yet.) When the book becomes a movie, I want her to be played by Rachel McAdams.
Diana Palmer-Walker (The Phantom): Although she’s just the wife of a superhero, she’s not just a traditional damsel in distress. For one, they knew each other as kids, before he was officially working as the Phantom, and fell in love with him for him rather than his secret identity. And, yes, as the love interest, she has been kidnapped, like, a billion times (most of which were by cheesy villains who wanted to marry her) but she’s not wimpy while waiting for rescue. She’s got black belts in various martial arts, amazing blue-black hair, an Olympic medal in diving, speaks multiple languages, fences semi-professionally, had twins in skull cave in the jungle without pain-reducing drugs, was a nurse and is now the Deputy Director of the UN.
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Runner-ups:Alanna of Trebond (Song of the Lioness Quartet), Juniper Lee (The Life and Times of Juniper Lee), Polgara the Sorceress (The Belgariad), Lt. Colonel Sarah Mackenzie (JAG), Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies)
THE GEEK SPOT (the g-spot) 