Why I Cannot Help Rebelling Against the New Star Wars Show

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I'm a bit of a Star Wars junkie. Not in a real over-the-top, walls of collectibles and legally changing my name to Vader kind of way, but I do have multiple copies of all the video releases of the films and television shows, and can hold my own in a trivia battle if need be. I was/am a huge fan of the Clone Wars series and thought that some of the storytelling on that show reached some pretty great heights. In fact, I think some of the best storytelling in the galaxy far, far, away was presented over the course of the series' six seasons. I still go back and rewatch episodes when I want a quick Saga fix.

So, when that show was cancelled and its replacement, Star Wars: Rebels debuted, you would think that I would just pass my love and appreciation for the one show over to the other and continue basking in the weekly doses of Saga greatness. And that would be where you were wrong.

We are officially eleven episodes in on Rebels and I still cannot say that I am remotely sold on the show. Despite hearing how great it is to return to the original trilogy aesthetic from various friends to podcasters in the know, I, personally, have a lot of problems with it.

From a purely design standpoint, I think the show lacks much of the lushness and flat-out beauty of Clone Wars. I realise that the production crew are going for an understandably different look, but there is a weird, synthetic, kind of cartoony feel to most of the characters and environments on the show that really throws me. Plastic might be a word I would use to describe it.

I know that Clone Wars was supposed to look like puppets from a Gerry Anderson television show, so the argument might seem a little odd coming from someone who swears by the look and design of Clone Wars so much, but there was something slightly more tangible to me there in that more stylised version of this world. The painterly textures and elaborate environments always gave you something interesting to look at. And, to be fair, none of the tech looked like it was a Hasbro/Kenner toy. There was a strange verisimilitude to it all.

Another element of Rebels that I haven't enjoyed much is the colour scheme that they have chosen for the characters. It just drives me nuts! Made up of primarily orange and green I don't feel as there is enough in their palette to really distinguish between these characters visually (and that those particular hues are commonly the colour of sick). For one or two characters I think I could forgive it, but for six of them, a little too much for the ol' eye stalks to take in.

Everything else seems to be the same, standard, white and grey environments which are supposed to harken back to the OT but just come off looking bland. Clone Wars based a lot of their look on McQuarrie's artwork (as Rebels claims to) and it had a much more dynamic and interesting colour palette. Granted, OT era stuff is supposed to look less ornate and designy (building on the idea that everything is industrial and m,ass produced), but I think it really hurts the look of the show.

There are several other things that bother me about Rebels but I'm only going to mention one more in this post; the character movement. I don't know what happened between the production of the two shows but we went from characters that stood and moved pretty logically, if not naturally in Clone Wars, to characters that move constantly.

Incessantly.

A little weirdly.

Arms, legs, hair, eyebrows...you name it, it's probably moving around on any one of the show's characters as they interact with each other. Or just stand tjhere and do nothing. It really doesn't matter what they're doing, they kind of wiggle and sway regardless. It's like they're all jacked up on something and simply can't hold still. It's really pretty maddening for me to watch and distracts enormously from my ability to focus on the story and just enjoy the show. To be fair, that may be my problem but that's how I see it.

Anyways, since starting this post a couple of days ago the episode "Call to Action" aired with an interesting ramping up of drama and stakes as well as an appearance by Grand Moff Tarkin himself. After all my negative droning earlier I'm as surprised as anyone to say that I think it was a pretty fantastic episode overall. There were moments where I was completely enraptured by what was going on onscreen and Tarkin's presence injected the show with a mucvh needed sense of peril. This was sincerely close to some genuine Clone Wars level storytelling.



Everybody has been praising Rebels over the last few months saying that it has triumphantly made the Wars feel like the OT again. While I can comfortably say this is still not my official position, I have to admit that this episode really nailed it for a change. Hopefully they can keep it up. They just might convert me. This is the first time I'm genuinely anxious to see the next episode. Two weeks is too long this time.


m.

Kudos To Red Hood

I gotta give credit where credit is due here, and the bulk of the success of Batman: Under the Red Hood lies in Judd Winick's screenplay which he adapted from his own work on the Batman comic books (I think it was in Batman but it could have been Detective, I don't know). I mean, sure, the show looks good, and has some good action sequences, and decent art direction, and great sound design, and pretty good music, and the cast is not bad, but I honestly think it's the pacing and structure of the story that really makes this thing work better than most of the D2DVD Warner/DC animations to date. Everything from Superman: Doomsday to Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths suffer in one way or another and never truly feel like a fully fleshed out and complete story. Every one of them, with the exception of Green Lantern: First Flight and Batman: Gotham Knight because of its anthological nature (is that even a word), feel compressed, rushed, and squeezed into their limited running times.

Despite my previous misgivings, I have to concede that Under the Red Hood was an entertaining experience and had many good moments in it. The only weak points it really has stem from some lame CGI and my own lukewarm reaction to the Red Hood storyline when I first read it a while ago.

Anyway, disjointed and rushed though they may be, those are my thoughts on the movie and I'm moving on to work on some other stuff. I just wanted to sound off while this was fresh in my mind.

Take care!

mike

Send In the Clones

So, a little while ago I bought the first season of the Clone Wars animated series on Blu-Ray and apart from being just amazed with the overall quality of the presentation, I have kind of been rediscovering these early episodes and seeing them in a slightly new light.

Stories that seemed a little 'meh' on first viewing stand a little taller when watching them in a clump on this set. I've started to really appreciate the writing more, especially in light of where things have gone with the next season. I also think I've started appreciating their time and dollar budgets a little more and have been cutting them some slack for any early missteps. Again, when you see how far they've taken things in season two, you start to see these things from a certain point of view.

One of my favourite things that has really stood out have been the textures on the show. Everything from the characters skin to the sides of buildings and the clone armour have been textured in such a way that they have a very painterly feel to them. And when I made the connection between the crews love of early Star Wars production artwork and the look of Ralph Mcquarrie's artwork, it was like a lightning bolt to the head. Everything on the show is, essentially, a three dimensional, walking and talking Mcquarrie painting. It's great.

And there are so many other tiny details and minutia that make this show a truly underrated effort. I know it is popular, but it doesn't get talked about much outside of Star Wars fandom and the playground. I would actually love to see someone who has lost their Star Wars mojo post-prequels try this show out and see what they think of it, to be honest. I think they might be surprised.

Anyway, that's my Lucas-related post for the month.

As always, more later.

mike

'Porky's Shell Game'

Here's some more Pogo goodness courtesy of YouTube:



I wish I could find the full-length feature this was clipped from. Hell, I wish I could find most any Pogo merch without having to embark on a major expedition but such is not the case. I covet the two Pogo treasuries I have and what little scraps I can dig up.

Enjoy!

mike

How Cool Is This?

Need I say more?

mike

Clone Wars Season 2 - Not Disappointing

I've been posting a lot of negative thoughts on the ol' blog of late, which may be bad juju since I'm trying to do the whole 'Hey, I'm back and blogging regularly' thing, so I'm going to change gears briefly and throw out some positive thoughts regarding the second season of The Clone Wars.

If you saw season one, you probably were very aware of the various limitations of the show. Not a lot of characters, not a lot of settings/environments, characters whose models were a little stiff and whose faces did not move quite right, and the usual first season stumbling around and finding your rhythm kind of thing. With season two a lot of that has changed. Subtle bits of acting are not uncommon, better mouth movements to match the voice actors, humongous improvements to details, textures, editing and story. Most of all the stories.

Before there were a lot of two or three part arcs that were generally interesting, but there was a rhythm to the storytelling that felt off. Whether that was due to budget and time restrictions, I'm not sure. But lately I've just been feeling that I am, indeed, watching Star Wars, or a logical extension of it. Plus, watching the relationships develop is nice because it gives some context that was missing from Revenge of the Sith and, at the end of the day, may just make the prequel series a little bit better than it was a couple of years ago.


I'll leave you with the trailer for season two. There's some nice teaser stuff in there if you've yet to see any episodes, and other than that, it's just fun to watch.



May the force be with you.

Mike

Clone Wars Decommissioned?

So, I'm on a bit of a Star Wars kick as a result of the tenth anniversary of the release of Episode I and I've been trying to get a look at the new Clone Wars: Decoded episodes and I've discovered that the show has disappeared from the airwaves. I'm not sure how long ago this happened, but neither CTV (who are supposed to have the broadcast rights) or our local Sci-Fi channel, Space: The Imagination Station, are showing it. I've searched the guide and there are plenty of Stargates, Star Treks and Starship Troopers, but, sadly, I must go without the Wars. In a desperate act, I even checked the more unconventional methods of acquiring shows that we do not get here, and it's not available in that format either.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to wait for the DVD release on this one.

Later.

mike

Munro

For lack of something better and mine, here's something brilliant and someone else's.



Cheers!

mike

Clone Wars Review With Dave Filoni

While surfing the Star Wars site I ran across this interview with director, Dave Filoni. I've read a number of interviews regarding the show, and seen a few featurettes on the DVD and online, but this was one of the more informative pieces on season 1 I've seen in a while.

Now, if only someone could get an answer as to why Ahmed Best is no longer voicing Jar Jar, I would be a happy Clone Wars fan.

Cheers!

mike

This Post Is Mostly Filler

There's a bunch going on right now so I'm kind of lackluster in the posting department, but I didn't want to lag too far behind so I figured I would post this video I found after I finished reading Cerebus a little while ago. Once I closed the final page on #300 (which I intended to post about but, as usual, have yet to do so) I immediately went scouring around for commentary and extras online. I also dug up my Following Cerebus issues and started reading those through for the first time (I was holding off until I completed Dave's magnum opus).

Anyway, these guys have put together (or are in the process of putting together) an animated Cerebus film or short and it's mildly interesting to watch. A little strange, though, since the Cerebus depicted is from the earlier issues in the run.



Hopefully I'll have something more significant for next time.

Cheers!

mike

"They're Apes! They can speak!"

I was just reading the second issue of Jonny Quest Classics released by Comico about 20 years ago, and in the back was an interview with Doug Wildey where mention was made to the Return to the Planet of the Apes animated series that he worked on. As a big fan of JQ and Doug Wildey, and a so-so fan of the PotA film series, I figured I would explore a little further and see how RttPotA compared to the incomparable Jonny Quest series from the '60s.

Well, there are some shows that are made with no money, and then there are shows made with no money. Return is one of the latter. The limited animation here is one of the more striking elements of the show. Not an entirely uncommon thing for the time, but the repetitive uses of scenes and camera movement to simulate action and drama really stand out and bring attention to the lack of any real budget for the series. Design-wise, the show does all right. It does have some interesting deviations from the film series - such as the classical architecture the apes are using as opposed to the more natural structures from the movies - and Wildey's influence is definitely felt throughout. The human characters have a definite Hanna-Barbara look to them and many of the backgrounds look like they could have been painted for a post-apocalyptic Quest episode. Still, it is slow moving (at least in the first episode) and doesn't grab the attention too firmly. I'll keep slogging through for another episode or two, but I'm not holding out hope for any real improvement.

It is kind of disappointing to see the show does not hold up too well, but then Wildey also worked on the animated Mr. T series in the '80s, so I don't always expect greatness from the guy.

Anyway, here's a YouTube version of the pilot episode (Part 1 of 3):



Later!

mike

Saturday Morning Watchmen

While you're waiting for Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder's Watchmen movie to open, you can enjoy the Saturday morning antics of your favourite costumed heroes from an alternate 1985 here:



Cheers!

mike

Zombies that Ate the World Animated Short

Last time over on The Comic Haul I mentioned The Zombies that Ate the World #1 released by Humanoids Publishing and Devil's Due Publishing. Well, I managed to stumble across an animated short featuring the characters with an English language track and French subtitles. It lacks the unrefined line of Guy Davis' work, but I gotta say, it does look good.



I've heard that the property is also in talks right now for a feature film, so I'm calling out fingers crossed on that one.

Later!

mike

The Quest Continues

I'll come back and speak more on this later, but I just wanted to put it out there that Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures Season 1 Volume 1 was released on DVD this week and, while not the strongest Jonny Quest material out there, I still kind of like the show for what it is and it doesn't really diminish the old series one bit, so what's the harm?



Later!

mike

Freak-a-Me, Freak-a-You

Although it didn't last long on network TV, one of my favourite cartoons as a young lad was Freakazoid!, a zany super-hero anthology show from the same gang of yahoos what brung you Animaniacs and Tiny Toons. Along with the regular adventures of the titular hero, there were parody ads, other characters like The Huntsman, and one of my personal faves, a Jonny Quest spoof called Toby Danger.

"Aiiieeee!"

If you've seen the show, you get the gag.

Lately I've been introducing my kids to the show through YouTube and the DVDs for season 1, and I'm pleasantly surprised by their reaction. Normally when I recommend a show they might watch an episode or two, never ask for it again because it's not their thing, and then I discover years later that they watch it all the time on TeleToon when they're at their grandparents' house. I can't tell you how many times this has happened. They should just listen to their old man, right? I know a quality animated show when I see it.

Anyway, Freakazoid! is such a strange show I figured it would be a total hit or miss situation and this time it was right out of the park. I mean, it's only been a few days and a couple of episodes but they're already at the begging for more stage anytime we have some free viewing time. Jen is getting a kick out of seeing them repeating and acting out lines and bits from the show. The two clips below are really good examples:





And this last clip is possibly the funniest of them all (but not embeddable, sorry) and went a long way, I think, to selling my oldest daughter on the show. I rarely use the word random anymore because of its popular use, but this gag is the very definition of the word.

Freak Out!

mike

Number 9...Number 9....Number 9...

This amazing short film by Shane Acker will soon be a major motion picture produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov.



This is the official trailer for the film:



September 9th also happens to be my birthday. So I get 9 and Whiteout in the same week. Sweet!

mike

Iron Man Stuff

It's a little funny because I wasn't consciously winding up for the Iron Man premiere, but in the last few weeks I've read the "Extremis" storyline written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Adi Granov that launched the new monthly a while back. This week, I've been reading Iron Man: The Inevitable, by Joe Casey and Frazer Irving, and tonight, I showed the animated The Invincible Iron Man movie to my kids.

Then I find out that the live-action movie was sneak previewing tonight and I'm thinking synchronicity city, here. That, or I've been at this kind of thing for so long that I can't even tell any more when I'm ramping up for something. I just go into automatic pilot, or something.

Personally, I think it was because I started picking up and reading the "Enter the Mandarin" mini-series for Eric Canete's art, but I'm not going to argue the point.

Anyway, I just wanted to pop on and say that I enjoyed theanimated version a lot more this time than when I first watched it. There are still a lot of things that irk me about these Marvel D2DVD movies (voice casting is a BIIIIIIG one) but, overall, TIIM was entertaining, did a decent job of giving an updated take on the ol' origin story, showed a couple of versions of the armour, and managed to add a little depth by doing the east vs. west/technology vs. mysticism bit.

Looks like we'll be trying to hit a matinee with the kids for the live-action on Sunday so I may have more to say regarding Tony Stark in the very near future. The movie is getting rave reviews (yay, Jon Favreau) so expectations are high, now. Let's hope it's not a stinker.

mike

Finally Found the New Frontier

Picking up the kids yesterday and made a detour to the mall to check for The New Frontier, again. I managed to strike gold at Wal-Mart this time, apparently missing the two-disc edition when I was there two days ago. Maybe I was in a bit of a rush and missed it since I scooted over there on my coffee brake from work, but the important thing is I now have it, I have watched it, am listening to the audio commentary as I write this and I have the day off so I'm going to explore the discs and maybe watch one of the movies my friend Dale lent me that I have yet to get to.

But I digress.

The film itself was pretty good. It sticks incredibly close to the graphic novel by Darwyn Cooke with very few points where they left the source material totally behind. Design-wise, the art direction is incredible with the period of the 1950s in the United States being represented beautifully, both in background sets and clothing. The script, as I mentioned before, stayed as close to the book as possible and had Darwyn's stamp of approval with some bits actually written by the man himself.

In particular, there's a scene with Lois and Superman shortly after Superman has his discussion with Diana in Indo-China, and they're sitting on the Daily Planet globe talking about the state of America and McCarthyism. It was added to throw some exposition in that would help round out the period, helped justify expanding Lois' role in the film and, like I said, was added by the original creator himself so it carries a litlle added extra weight.

The voice cast was incredible with David Boreanaz doing a wonderful turn as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Lucy Lawless is just the painfully obvious choice for Wonder Woman, Brooke Shields and Kyra Sedgewick do a surprisingly good Carol Ferris and Lois Lane, respectively, and Neil Patrick Harris is a surprising but inspired choice as Barry Allen/The Flash. And that's not the whole cast, by a long shot. I suppose Miguel Ferrer should get some props for his Martian Manhunter and while Darwyn loves Jeremy Sisto as Batman, I'm still wrapping my head around it, so I'm just going to leave it at that.

One of the things that really stood out for me on the picture was the animation used on The Flash and how he was written. I've never been happy with how the character is portrayed while running in TV or animation prior to this, but the guys who put this movie together got it absolutely right. The guy is the fastest man alive, he can circle the world 7 times in the space of a blink, you shouldn't see his arms and legs moving while he runs, not unless he's running a little slower, anyway. He should just be a blur and be able to do things you can't even see on-screen, and that's how he was here. When Captain Cold asks why his cold gun doesn't work and Barry says, "I rewired it on the way down," I was thrilled that someone finally got it right.

I'm not sure why Warners holds these movies to a 75 minute running time because New Frontier would have been so much better with another 5, 10 or 15 minutes of story added in. Seeing young Hal Jordan, The Losers on Dinosaur Island and, while I understand how the John Wilson story does little to advance the plot, it would have been nice to see it play out as more than a news bite in the middle of the film. Or even leaving some of that stuff out and just fleshing out some of the details at the end. The climactic ending, to me, did feel a bit rushed and was not as satisfying as the finale in the book. There are a lot of dialogue-less moments in the movie, and probably just as many slow cuts as quick ones, but I'm the kind of guy who likes to linger on characters and events to let them soak in a bit.

Still, these are minor nitpicks since a person could always go back to the source material if they really wanted to get some of that extra texture, and as a living, moving representation of the graphic novel goes, The New Frontier hits so many of the right notes that it is hard to complain about too much of it. My wish is that, because of the book it was based on, they would have done this movie a la Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and gave it a longer running time and a theatrical release, but you gotta take what you can get, where you can get it, right? And, really, I'm still viewing it as money well spent and that's before I've had a chance to scour through the special features and documentaries, so that should speak volumes to anyone who knows me.

All this Darwyn chatter is making me want to resurrect an old interview that I conducted with the man but never saw print in its full form. A segment of it was published as an article in my University newspaper which I've since posted on my website, if you care to check it out.

I remember calling Darwyn afterwards and wanting to do another interview that I would blend with the old one since it never saw print and I always felt bad about that. After making the request, though, he said, "What do you mean, I read the article already?" Somehow, he managed to get a copy of The Sheaf (through a friend, I think) checked out the piece and liked it, so I felt a little better about that, but I still always wished that I got the whole interview in print.

I'm going to see if I can dig it up, find out how much of it was transcribed and how much work it might be to post it on the blog.

Anyway, the second commentary track is almost done so I'm going to sign off here for the time being, grab some breakfast, take it easy.

Oh, and if you haven't been inspired to go out and check out The New Frontier yet, go do it. I urge you to do so.

Later!

mike

Season 4 Is Almost Here

Hey, I genuinely enjoy the show and the rest of the young'uns like it too, so no wise-cracks. I've just got my hands on Season 1 (making that two complete seasons I have) and I've also been playing the PS2 game today so I'm kind of in the zone for the ol' KP today.

Looking forward to this premiere.

mike