Images from trekcore.com
I keep wanting to call this “The Evil Within,” but that’s something else entirely.
Anyway, in this episode, we get the first instance of the beloved transporter malfunction trope.
So, when I first heard about this, I thought that they were just doing a straight remake of The Ring. I did a little research before viewing the trailer, and everything I saw said that this was meant to be a direct sequel.
Then I watched the trailer. And it looks like they’re remaking The Ring.
OK, maybe that’s not fair. There does seem to be a bit that’s different, and there’s the fact that it has an R-rating while the original film (which itself is a remake of a Japanese movie) was PG-13. There are a couple of scenes, though (particularly the one where the girl coughs up the clump of hair) that seem to be lifted from the 2002 film.
Rings (directed by F Javier Gutierrez) follows Julia (Matilda Lutz), who has to save her boyfriend Holt (Alex Roe) from the video’s curse. Along the way, they make a rather disturbing discovery about said video.
Now, I liked The Ring. I thought that it was quite effective for a PG-13 horror movie (not that all horror movies need to be rated R). I thought its 2005 sequel was kind of stupid, but I liked the first one. And it looks like they’ve updated the technology in the film as well, going from the video cassette of the first one to an Internet video. Judging from the scene on the plane, it also looks like the stakes are quite a bit higher.
I still think that it looks somewhat derivative from the first one, but I might still check it out.
Rings hits theaters on February 3.
(First, some housekeeping: a shout out to Amanda for pledging $5 on my Patreon! You get to pick a topic for me to write about. If you would like to pick a topic as well, (or just feel like kicking some money my way), check out my Patreon page. Thanks!)
After my last post detailing the latest delay of Star Trek: Discovery, it’s good to have some good TV-related news to discuss.
So, Good Omens. Written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and originally published in 1990, it is quite possibly the funniest book about Armageddon that I’ve read. And it’s getting its own Amazon series.
It’s going to be a miniseries (only about 6 episodes long), but they have Neil Gaiman set to be the showrunner, as well as having adapted the novel. It’s going to be coming out next year, and is a joint production between Amazon and BBC UK, as well as Narrativa, the production company run by Pratchett’s daughter Rihanna Pratchett.
Good Omens centers around Crowley and Aziraphale, a demon and an angel respectively, who have been tapped by the powers that be to kickstart the apocalypse. However, neither of them are too keen on doing that, plus they’ve also lost the Antichrist. Hilarity ensues.
There have been other attempts to adapt the novel. Probably the most notable was an attempt made by Terry Gilliam (which would’ve starred Robin Williams and Johnny Depp, apparently), but that fell through. There was also a BBC-produced radio play starring Mark Heap and Peter Serafinowicz that came out in 2014 and is currently available on Audible.
There isn’t a current release date for the series, but according to the sources I’ve seen state that it should release sometime next year. After it’s debut on Amazon Prime, the BBC will also be broadcasting it in the UK.
Well, this is disappointing. According to EW, the premiere date for Star Trek: Discovery has been pushed from this upcoming May to…we don’t know when.
The series, which is set to take place a few years before the original series, recently cast The Walking Dead’s Sonequa Martin-Green for the lead role. It was supposed to have premiered next month, but was pushed back to this upcoming May last September. This, combined with the fact that Bryan Fuller stepped down as showrunner in October, doesn’t really fill one with confidence.
They did announce that they’ll start production next week, however. They also announced that Sarek (aka Spock’s dad) will be playing a major role in the series, and will be played by actor James Frain. This does provide some hope, since I don’t believe that they would be making casting announcements for a show that won’t see the light of day. According to a statement relased by CBS:
“Production on Star Trek: Discovery begins next week. We love the cast, the scripts and are excited about the world the producers have created. This is an ambitious project; we will be flexible on a launch date if it’s best for the show. We’ve said from the beginning it’s more important to do this right than to do it fast. There is also added flexibility presenting on CBS All Access, which isn’t beholden to seasonal premieres or launch windows.”
So it does look like we’ll be getting Discovery, just not as soon as we had hoped.
Still, the fact that they pushed it back again, without giving us a release date, doesn’t bode particularly well. On the other hand, it may actually turn out to be a good thing if it results in a better program.
Time will tell.
Earlier today, BioWare released information on their official website, finally giving us a release date for Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Yes, us lucky North Americans will be able to experience the next installment of the Mass Effect series on March 21, 2017, with the rest of the world getting it on March 23.
Mass Effect: Andromeda, which is set 600 years after the Mass Effect trilogy, will feature an entirely open world. Like with the previous games in the series, the player can choose to play a male or female character, Scott or Sara Ryder. Unlike in the previous games, however, the two characters are actually siblings and both will play a major role in the action.
I’m actually quite excited about this. As I’ve said before, Mass Effect is one of my favorite series, and the trailer that was released on November 7 looks absolutely fantastic.
(Content warning for body horror and gore. Of course, it’s an Alien movie, so it kind of goes without saying.)
I’m a pretty big fan of the Alien movies. I remember watching the first movie with my mom when I was about 15, and it was basically my introduction to the horror genre. It also gave us a badass heroine in the form of SIgourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley.
Needless to say, I’m pretty excited about an addition to the franchise.
Alien: Covenant (directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed Alien), apparently takes place sometime between Prometheus and Alien. It follows a colony ship who go to the planet where the ill-fated Prometheus expedition landed to find it’s one survivor: an android named David (Michael Fassbender). I actually haven’t seen Prometheus yet, though I do have it in my Netlix queue. From what I’ve seen, it was released to decent reviews, though a lot of people I know who are also fans of the series didn’t like it very much. Either way, it obviously did well enough at the box office.
The main issue I have with the above trailer is that it doesn’t really give any information about the actual plot. The above plot info came from the film’s Wikipedia page. It certainly does a good job of setting the tone, however. The lack of plot details is still somewhat troubling to me, though, especially since it came to light how badly the trailer for Passengers grossly misrepresented its plot. Then again, Covenant is a part of a well-known franchise that people generally know what to expect from, even if it’s had its ups and downs. (That said, I may be the only human being on the planet that actually liked Alien: Resurrection, despite its flaws).
Alien: Covenant is currently scheduled for a May 19 release date, after being pushed up from August 4. This is one that I will most likely be seeing when it comes out.
Does The Mummy really need to be rebooted again? And why does this reboot look so fucking joyless?
This version, directed by Alex Kurtzman and starring Tom Cruise, appears to take place in the modern day. The trailer begins on an aircraft that’s transporting an Egyptian sarcophagus for some unexplained reason, which apparently results in releasing the titular mummy (Sofia Boutella) upon an unsuspecting populace.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen any of the old Universal or Hammer Horror Mummy movies, but I did see the 1999 version in the theater and really enjoyed it. It was fun, actually quite colorful, and actually had a sense of humor.
I’m not really seeing any of this in this trailer. Between the dull color palette mostly consisting of grays, to the slow, solemn music of the trailer, there don’t seem like there’s going to be too many laughs here. There’s also the fact that it stars Tom Cruise. I’m sorry, I just don’t think he’s really that fantastic of an actor (plus Brendan Fraser is way more likable).
The trailer also doesn’t give us a whole lot of detail as to what the movie is about, other than a mummy. It’s interesting that the mummy is a woman this time, though she is still weirdly conventionally attractive. Although, in the 1999 movie, Imhotep isn’t too bad looking himself (when he’s Arnold Vosloo rather than a decaying CGI mummy), so I guess there’s some precedent for that.
And my question above still stands. Apparently, this movie marks the third time that this franchise has been rebooted. Meaning that this is the beginning of a fourth series of Mummy movies. Do we really need that many? Also, why did Universal decide they needed to pull a Marvel and have all of their monster movies in a shared universe?
The Mummy doesn’t have a specific release date, but should be hitting theaters sometime this summer.
And now we have another Trailer Park, where I will be looking at the teaser trailer for Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets.
Man, that title is a mouthful.
Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets (which I’m just going to shorten to Valerian from now on) is an upcoming film based upon a French comic book entitled Valerian and Laureline. It takes place in the 28th century and follows two operatives of the human government (the aforementioned Valerian and Lareline).
The two (played by Dane DeHaan and Cara DeLevigne respectively) are charged by their commander (Clive Owen) to go to the city of Alpha, an immense city that’s home to thousands of different species. Of course, while there, they uncover a conspiracy that places the human race in danger.
The trailer doesn’t really tell us a whole lot about the plot; most of the above information came from the Wikipedia article for the movie and the comic. Then again, this is also a teaser, which is generally a shorter trailer that announces the movie. I think it’s likely that there would be another trailer that gives more details about the plot.
I would like to say that it certainly looks pretty. Certain aspects of its look remind me of Mass Effect (though it’s more likely ME took it’s visual cues from Valerian, since the comic ran from 1967 to 2010). The film being pretty is a given, considering that it’s being directed (and was written) by Luc Besson, who is best known for directing The Fifth Element. Whatever your opinion is on that movie, you have to agree that it’s extremely visually striking.
Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is set to release worldwide on July 21, 2017 by EuropaCorp with Lionsgate handling distribution in the UK and Ireland.
There’s been some news floating around that actress Michelle Yeoh has been cast in the upcoming series Star Trek: Discovery.
According to an article on EW.com, one of the show’s producers Nicholas Meyer let the news slip during an interview; however CBS Television studios has declined to confirm the casting choice. Still, seeing who this news is coming from it seems like it’s pretty legit.
Meyer has stated that Michelle Yeoh will be playing a captain, but not the captain of the Discovery. Instead, she will be playing Captain Han Bo of the starship Shenzhou, but that she will “play a significant role in the show’s first season,” according to the EW article linked above.
Discovery was originally set to launch in January 2017, but due to issues finding the right cast as well as Bryan Fuller stepping down as showrunner, it was pushed back to May 2017. The series is set to follow a female lieutenant commander on board the eponymous vessel, about 10 years prior to the original series.
Personally, I’m very excited about this news. Michelle Yeoh is an actress that I quite like, and I count Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon among my favorite movies. Her casting also affirms Discovery’s commitment to having a diverse cast.
Plus, it’s also one of the first pieces of news that we’ve had about the first Star Trek series in over a decade since announcing the delay, which is definitely a sign to the positive.
(Just as an aside: It’s election day in the US! Are you a citizen and over 18? Vote! Seriously, get out there and vote, you motherfuckers.)
I quite enjoy Mass Effect. It’s definitely one of my favorite game series (though I still need to finish the third game. There are a lot of games that I have that I need to finish, actually.) So naturally I was very excited when Mass Effect: Andromeda was announced last year.
And for N7 Day this year, Bioware gave us a new cinematic trailer for the game:
First off, I’d like to stay that looks very pretty.
It also does a good job of showing what we’re in for with this game, which takes place about 600 years after the original trilogy. Basically the player chooses between two siblings as the playable character as they navigate the dangers of the Andromeda galaxy. It also looks like it’s going to be completely open world.
The game doesn’t have a set release date yet, other than the vague spring 2017. Still, I’ll be looking forward to it whenever it comes out.
Katethulu's Cave Of Mysteries 