January 3, 2025

Finally Watched…Wonder Woman (2009)

Banking a bunch of Finally Watched reviews was helpful before, so why not do a few more? This time I have the advantage of access to free streaming sites with a large on demand library. I can put up with a few commercials.

When you think of a Wonder Woman movie, you probably go to the Snyderverse adjacent ones because Diana has had so few appearances outside of Justice League related shows. There was her excellent 1970s series with Linda Carter, Super Friends, the various Justice League and DC Super Hero Girls cartoons, a failed pilot or two, and that time she time traveled with the Brady Kids. Yes, that was an actual episode of the Brady Bunch animated spin-off. She’s also the only DC hero to show up on the Ruby-Spears Superman outside of the Man Of Steel himself. (Who also showed up on The Brady Kids…as did The Lone Ranger and Tonto–it was a weird show).

And yet we’re told that she’s too important to screw up in adapting to a live-action movie…before giving us Wonder Woman 1984 and totally screwing it up. The first movie, a previous Finally Watched, had to be set in World War I rather than World War II in order to avoid comparisons with Captain America: The First Avenger (which I don’t seem to have a review for but I know I saw it) because apparently nobody can tell the casual viewer about comic history or the first season of Linda Carter’s series…where she fought Nazis in World War II.

Back when DC Entertainment made animated movies based on the comics and not some director’s fever dreams, There were two Wonder Woman solo films, and as I write this I just finished the first of those. It’s been a long time coming, but was it worth doing?

RELEASE DATE: 2009
RELEASED BY: Warner Brothers Animation and DC Entertainment
RUNTIME: 1 hour 14 minutes
RATING: PG-13
VIEWING SOURCE FOR THIS REVIEW: Tubi
STARRING: Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Alfred Molina, and and Vickie Lewis
SCREENWRITERS: Gail Simone and Michael Jelenic, with a creator credit to William Moulton Marson
DIRECTOR: Lauren Montgomery
BOX OFFICE: inapplicable as this was a direct-to-video movie
ESTIMATED BUDGET: $3,500,000 according to IMDB

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Posted by on January 3, 2025 in Animation Spotlight, DC Spotlight, Finally Watched and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

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January 3, 2025

“Yesterday’s” Comic> Smash Comics #3

“C’mon, boys. >hic< Let’s find a different bar.”

Smash Comics #3

Everett M. Arnold (October 1939)

A yearly subscription for this comic, including shipping, is less than any comic currently on shelves. That just makes me sad. Then I remember that my subscription to The Transformers wasn’t $1.50 for a year either.

So, last issue seemed decent enough, let’s see what this issue brings us. I have a lot to read and very little time to do it, so let’s get started.

[Read along with me here]

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Posted by on January 3, 2025 in Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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January 3, 2025

BW’s Daily Video> What Happened To Mega Man Before Mega Man X?

Catch more from Rockman HQ on YouTube

Posted by on January 3, 2025 in Video Game Spotlight and tagged , , , , .

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January 2, 2025

Did Losing Cel Animation Ruin Anime?

Let me note at the start that this is not a Versus article. It’s a difference of opinion, not necessarily a disagreement on facts, save for one detail that leads to our difference of opinion. I’m mostly using this article by author and commentator Brian Niemeier on his Kairos blog as a discussion point, not calling him out. There’s a difference in approaches, and while I’ve used his commentaries in the past as Saturday Article Link fodder I have done a Versus on people I usually agree with before. That’s just not the case here.

For those of you who didn’t go to read the article, Niemeier–who I’m just going to go by his first name so I don’t have to keep double-checking the spelling of his last name–tries to make the point that switching from animation cels to drawing on the computer, which is still 2D art, has been a bad move for Japanese animation studios to do, hurting the visual side of the product. Now today’s Daily Video makes more sense. While that video was from an American animation studio, the process is the same. It’s also long, tedious, and costs more. Animating on the computer, even with drawing every image, takes less time though I don’t know if it takes less people. Does the animator have time to also be the colorist? My guess is no. They’ll also still need the in-betweener, the ones who do frames between the important ones to keep the process going. It rarely takes less than two people animating even a TV show.

So what’s Brian’s case for going back to cel animation, “cel” being short for celluloid, and why don’t I think that’s the problem? Let’s start seeing his case so I can make mine.

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Posted by on January 2, 2025 in Animation Spotlight and tagged , , .

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January 2, 2025

“Yesterday’s Comic> Chronology Xero #1

“Three fingers means I really hate you.”

Chronology Xero #1

UMC Ediciones (January, 2019)

“The Awakening”

WRITER: Jonh Curcio

ARTIST: Nicolás Giacondino

COLORIST/COVER ART/ASSISTANT EDITOR: Max Cereijido

EDITOR: Jonh Curcio & Luis Sanchez

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Posted by on January 2, 2025 in Yesterday's Comics and tagged , , .

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January 2, 2025

BW’s Daily Video> How Cels Are Animated

Catch more from the Fleischer Studios YouTube channel

This will be important tonight.

Posted by on January 2, 2025 in Animation Spotlight and tagged .

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January 1, 2025

Star Trek: Pitch & Guide> Guide part 9–Terminology part 5

It’s a good thing I didn’t try to be funny and call the “terminology” section “technobabble” like I did at this point in the TNG guide. While some of the fake science terms have come up in this section of the guide, not all of it is what we traditionally refer to as technobabble. This is technobabble:

What we’ve actually seen is mostly terms with a hint of technobabble when needed. Technobabble’s job is to make it seem futuristic, learning new science and technology we didn’t have until we went to space, met aliens, and learned how to break the time barrier with a few crystals and explosive materials that could end the universe. As you do. Terminology here has mostly been “we named a thing”. Transporters aren’t real science but they are real in a science fiction universe.

Today we finally finish this section of the guide, but there’s still one more to go before we’re entirely done with this guide and I can give my overall thoughts on all this. So let’s take advantage of the schedule hole and finish the glossary for the original Star Trek.

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Posted by on January 1, 2025 in Star Trek: Pitch & Guide (TOS) and tagged , , , .

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