Courtesy of Comics Alliance is the teaser for Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, which some extra notation. Meanwhile I still haven’t seen the first one because life hates me and wants me to be miserable.
Let me start off by negating “but it’s not out yet, how can you judge it” comments by saying that no, I can’t judge the final product for quality when I haven’t seen it. I’m not judging the quality of the film. Visually it looks pretty good and the costumes, while looking like they were based on the Green Lantern movie design…
…just a little less organic, they’re not bad. Not what I would have gone with, the original movie suits…
…were better, but that matches the tone their going with. Now THAT I can judge. Guess what I’m a gonna do! Now this is a teaser trailer, not a full trailer, but I’m hoping some of my concerns are addressed in the full trailer, like where are the DinoZords and can Brian Cranston actually pull off Zordon? Still, teasers are another way for marketing to pretend they’re trying to promote the movie properly, but this one is giving me a few concerns. I hope I didn’t just use up all my good images for this article.
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Now that I’ve finally seen trailers (or at least teasers) for the new Mighty Morphin Power Rangers reboot I…underwhelmed and a bit disappointed, and it’s not like I was expecting much since, even thought the Power Rangers series continues on (even if Boom Studios chooses to ignore that) this still feels like a not-stalgia movie. The promotion department, however, really needs to do their homework since an intended joke on the Yellow Ranger’s promotional poster made a huge mistake. That mistake being a joke about Trini (the new version, granted) reading “Driver’s Ed not required” kind of pissed off fans. The original Trini, Thuy Trang, was killed in an automobile accident. It wasn’t intentional, but it helps prove the point that nobody has done any homework when it comes to the original series. I’ll comment more tonight.
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I’m still trying to get back into a work schedule. I don’t adjust easy, being a creature of habit and all, and all of these medical issues have really messed with my habits. So I bring you a music video that made me tear up, “This Time” by former Kansas (the group, not the state) frontman John Elefante, dedicated to his daughter since this is her story. Or maybe her mother’s.
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Magical Pokémon Journey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Here’s a fun one for Pokemon fans who don’t take the game too seriously that they can’t see how the Pokemon world messes up your view of the real world. From Cracked.com comes a few bad messages from the popular Game Boy/DS games and their mobile phone counterpart.
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Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
As one child of Anakin Skywalker leaves a prison, another is walking right into the lion’s den, although this “lion” is more of a chameleon in more ways than one (we’ll get to that in a later chapter I think). Luke is back with his friends but Leia is in the heart of her enemies, with only Chewbacca to protect her. Then again, Luke has a few enemies to dodge himself…daddy’s here to pick his son up.
Vader’s one scene is short, as he interrogates one of the bounty hunters. This scene is only to make sure he learns that Black Sun is trying to kill Luke. What he can do with this information we have yet to see, but Vader is rather cunning in these stories. And for the plot he had to find out eventually. The way he does makes good sense, as Black Sun’s goal (and thus Xizor’s) is only a rumor.
Luke and Lando’s scenes with the droids are a bit longer. As our heroes try to get out of Dodge, the hyperdrive malfunctions. What else is new for the Millennium Falcon? They work to repair it, and the droids have a funny little reunion. It’s a good part of the story.
The big part, however, is Leia and Chewie meeting with Xizor. Or rather Leia and Chewie getting to Xizor. Surprising nobody the path to Black Sun HQ is not easy to get to. Guards aside, you take a car to another car and then take an elevator and whole lot of twists and turns, part of which is in the dark but their guide (whom the narrator calls “Baldy” because he’s bald…maybe that’s what Leia was calling him in her head?) can find his way in the dark, and then finally they meet with Xizor. That must be hard for new guys to get to work on time. Although I’m betting Guri took a shortcut, which was probably just next door. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the travel and twists just looped back around.
At the end of the chapter, Leia sees Xizor and immediately thinks he’s gorgeous. I remind you Xizor looks like this:
The big green guy in the left corner, right under “Shadows”.
Maybe Leia has a more open view of men or something but that ain’t too attractive to me. And in case you’re thinking “that’s because you’re straight, Tronix”, here’s the female of the species.
Still doing nothing for me.
Overall, this was a good chapter. Switching between scenes helps denote time changes between the two. This actually feels like events are happening at the same time, with spaces to see what the other group is doing. Even Vader’s one scene at the beginning of the chapter feels better chronologically than the previous Vader scenes that just established “Vader doesn’t trust Xizor, and he’s after Luke”. There’s plot in there and he’s interrogating the bounty hunter while our heroes try to escape, and establishes they’re at least too far away for Vader to sense Luke with the Force. This was a great chapter, with better pacing than most of this book has had…and it only took 20+ chapters since if I recall correctly it started out okay, then lost the pacing before in this chapter finally finding it again. Hopefully this becomes a trend with our next chapter.
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I think the internal war between DC Comics and Marvel is a mixed bag. Since they aren’t crossing over with each other anymore we’ve seen some odd team-ups, including a few with Star Trek for some reason as both the X-Men and Green Lantern Corps, as well as the Legion Of Super-Heroes, have popped up on the Enterprise in the past. Now the heroes of the DC Universe are playing with the Japanese superhero concept through their American adaptation. DC Comics and current Power Rangers rights holders, Boom Studios, have announced a crossover between the Justice League and the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, because Boom doesn’t do the current series for some silly reason. No mention as to what version of the DC Universe we’re going to get, but considering the current version isn’t kid friendly (granted, I don’t know if Boom’s Power Rangers are because I haven’t been able to pick up an issue) I’d be disappointed if it was.
