“Guys, I’m right behind you!”
Robotech II: The Sentinels book 3 #22
FINAL ISSUE (of book 3)
Academy Comics, Ltd. (October, 1995)
“A Clockwork Planet”
WRITER/ARTIST: Jason Waltrip
LETTERER: Mike DeLepine
Bounding Into Comics collects what info we have on the re-imagined take on Eiji Tsuburya’s giant hero, including a video from our pals at Monstrosities on YouTube. (Actually I’m just friends with Matt.)
Personally I don’t know why they went all CG. Is even Japan starting to hate the man-in-suit approach Tsuburya basically pioneered if not outright created for Godzilla? I don’t see the point in it. The only other listed change is the dropping of the color timer, which seems strange to do as it’s part of the iconography of Ultraman and the other Ultra Heroes of the franchise. At least the latest still looks better than the “Slenderman” design originally seen in promotion (though given what I’ve heard about Shin Godzilla I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s another form) but taking away the color timer is like taking away Superman’s trunks. You kind of notice it and it look like something’s missing.
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Rick And Morty is not a show I follow. I can appreciate the work that goes into it and I’ve watched many of MatPat’s Film Theory episodes about the show but the humor and darker themes just aren’t really something I want to watch on a personal level. There are only so many hours in the day so I choose my entertainment based on my tastes and preferences. Heck, my reviews rarely leave my wheelhouse.
However, one recent Film Theory episode examined the episode “Never Ricking Morty“, in which the title characters end up on the “Story Train”, a train that represents their show as meta narratives show up in episodes and even commercials they make for other products. MatPat makes the case that it’s a meta narrative for all the roadblocks in place for a TV series like theirs and it covers a lot of ground we’ve gone over here at the Spotlight about fan engagement, the creative process, serialized versus done-in-one episodes (that one doesn’t come up a lot granted), and a few things we haven’t discussed. So there’s more about this I’d like to say. I haven’t seen the episode but there’s still a lot to be learned from the theory.
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I wonder if they sell these at Spencer’s?
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #24
Malibu Comics (June, 1995)
“Secret Of The Lost Orb” part 2: “Acceptable Losses”
WRITER: Dan Mishkin
PENCILER: Leonard Kirk (fitting name for a Star Trek creator)
INKER: John Montgomery
COLORIST: Mike Hellman
LETTERER: Ronnie Cruz
ASSISTANT EDITOR: Clarissa Manasala
EDITOR: Mark Paniccia
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I take pop shots at the “death plague quarantine” but that’s about the reaction and in some cases overreaction to Covid. However, it was and still is a terrible thing to have, especially if you are someone who can easily get and die from it. We were hearing so much about death over the past few months that going over those influential or nostalgic among the passing away felt a bit weird to me as of late. However, Dennis O’Neil, the one really responsible for Batman and cast breaking out of the sillier tones of the Silver Age (and yet Tim Burton gets all the credit, which is not the least bit fair) and was a great writer and editor for the various Bat-Titles, Iron Man, and a few other comics. Professor Geek goes over what today’s writers can learn from him.
Catch more Professor Geek on his YouTube channel.
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I have a lot of books in my collection and going through them is a lengthy task. It’s made harder when I have to write two or three articles a day (well, choose to anyway), work on a comic strip, and find time to make videos and take part in other projects. So I started an article series called Chapter By Chapter. Easy setup really. I go over it in the intro for each installment:
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.
I don’t know if anybody actually reads along when I do these reviews as only one book got any comments well after the fact, but I do know people enjoy the article series based on the fact that it gets more likes than the other articles I post during the week more often than not. So I know you enjoy the series, which is why I want to ask for some help with it. For the sixteenth installment I’m torn between three different books I’d like to read next but I can’t nail just one. I’m not going to go into heavy detail of what the book is about. That’s what the reveal articles for the next book is for. Instead I’ll touch on it a bit and why I want to read it. From there I’ll have a poll where you can choose one book. The other two will still be reviewed in the future and maybe even in the order voted on but I want to know which book would garner the most interest. If you voted for all three it wouldn’t help me much. Thus here are the next three books I’d like to use for the next Chapter By Chapter.
BW Vs Comicbook: Disney Should NOT Remake Star Wars
Nobody, even the movie’s creator, thought Star Wars would be all that successful. George Lucas just wanted to make a movie following his vision, inspired by Japanese samurai movies, classic science fiction serials, and the traditional “hero’s journey”. He went through hoops to ensure the movie got made. Imagine everyone’s surprise, especially the studios that turned it down, when the movie sparked a revolution in storytelling, restoring the action option to science fiction, proving making something kid-friendly didn’t mean making a movie for kids, and pretty much creating the “blockbuster” movie. It’s now a huge part of our culture. Not just our pop culture but people usually know what you mean when you reference Darth Vader, Jedi, droids, lightsabers, and a host of other terminology, some of which has become part of science fiction or as the extended media coined it “science fantasy”, elements of both science fiction and fantasy.
However, it isn’t everyone’s favorite type of movie, and some of those not into it are part of what me at BW Media Spotlight refers to as the “everything for meeeeeeeeeeeeeee” crowd. They hate the fact that something so important doesn’t cater to their interests, tastes, and preferences, and work to fix that while thumbing their collective noses at the die hard fans while the casual fans don’t really notice. Unfortunately many of them are currently in the Star Wars writing room and the poor box office returns and poorer merchandise sales say it hasn’t worked for them.
Kofi Outlaw, writer for Comicbook.com, a site that is no longer about just comic books like other websites such as CBR (formerly Comic Book Resources), has an idea: just remake the original trilogy. In a recent opinion piece Outlaw details why he thinks the original trilogy needs to be remade for a modern audience. And here I come along to tell you why it shouldn’t, beyond the fact that movie goers are pretty much tired of endless remakes more than they are sequels.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on June 18, 2020 in Movie Spotlight and tagged commentary, remake, Star Wars.
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