Archive for the ‘Cartoons’ Category

IESB is claiming that they have learned exclusively that Lucasfilm is putting together a second animated cartoon series for Cartoon Network. This cartoon would be based on the incredibly cool Galactic Heroes toys.

A lot of people will almost instantly dismiss this as George Lucas going for a grab for more money or something, but take a look at the Marvel version of this show with The Super Hero Squad, it’s incredibly fun and successful, and there’s obviously a market for it.  That and they are adorable and we need a more kids oriented Star Wars cartoon.

And really, more Star Wars never killed anyone.

George Lucas has been known to call the Galactic Heroes line “Squishies” and that is (according to IESB) the working title for the show.  They’re also reporting that a director has apparently been brought on board.

I’ll be back to report more as it becomes available, but I’m terribly excited about this possibility.

We have here a clip from Friday’s episode “The Senate Murders”, which was mysteriously added to iTunes for a brief time and I was able to catch it and review it for you here.

From the official press release:

When Senator Onaconda Farr dies under suspicious circumstances, Padmé Amidala sets out to find the person responsible – working independently of the efforts of the bureaucratic local inspector. Following a trail of clues, she delves into a dangerous world of backstabbing, lies and corruption. The tangled web of intrigue reaches to the highest levels of the Republic political hierarchy in “Senate Murders,” an all-new episode of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS airing at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT Friday, March 19 on Cartoon Network.

“Many of Padmé’s episodes center around politics, for obvious reasons, and they’re sometimes a departure – to a degree – from the action-packed episodes,” says Catherine Taber, the voice of Padmé in the series. “We try to create a feeling of tension and suspense, but Dave [Filoni] and the writers always include a touch of comedy, as well. It’s an essential element of the classic detective genre that influenced ‘Senate Murders,’ but it’s also such a key ingredient of classic Star Wars. One of the nice things about The Clone Wars is that we hearken back to all of the classic elements that made Star Wars so great, including the political intrigue,” she continues.  “Diplomacy – or the lack thereof – is essential to The Clone Wars, and part of the foundation for the Star Wars Saga. Good and bad, the motivations are so important; these are the reasons people fight. I love the great battle sequences and I love watching things blow up, but it’s all so much better when we know about the quiet conflicts underneath.”

Through rarely in the series’ epic spaces battles or out on the front lines, Padmé’s behind-the-scenes role often serves to shine a light upon the character motivations, revealing the driving forces – and devious machinations – which propel the war itself. Additionally, her own investigations, ambitions and efforts tend to uncover aspects of the conflict altogether unseen by the swashbuckling, headlining heroes.

“In her own way, Padmé brings so much to the larger story. Of course, she’s the reason that Anakin eventually falls to the dark side, and she’s the mother of Luke and Leia – but what I think is really interesting is that she’s such an important foil to many of the characters. It is often through her that we see other central characters illuminated.”

Due to some form of clerical error, technical glitch, or unannounced surprise gift from Lucasfilm, next weeks episode of Clone Wars appeared in the iTunes store this morning for all to purchase and download.  (More info on that here.)  It didn’t really matter why the episode was available, what matters is that I’ve been dying for new Clone Wars during this extended break and this episode scratched that itch considerably.

This episode is a bit of a mixed bag in influences, characters, and animation, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it.  Hell, after a month of not having any Clone Wars at all, even a mediocre episode is a breath of fresh air.

This episode follows a murder in the senate and is equal parts Pink Panther, Scooby Doo, and Clue.  The new characters in the episode play like a long suspect list for the Closeau-like Detective Divo (voiced by Tom Kenney), but he has to deal with the fact that Padme and Bail Organa take the investigation into their own hands and are almost killed in a shadowy dock-yard.

The macguffin in the episode is an amendment to a war spending authorization bill and Padme and her cadre of Senators are leading the opposition to funding the war, they’re called unpatriotic for not supporting the troops, but believe cutting funding off from the Kaminoans for more troops is the only way to allow diplomacy to resume.  It’s thin, but it’s just a macguffin, so it didn’t bother me at all.  Though I do very much like the back and forth between Padme and Senator Mee Deechi, where he calls into question her patriotism for wanting to cut off funding.  She rightly tells him that the only thing she sees that’s unpatriotic is his constant war-mongering.  If nothing else from this episode sinks in with kids, I hope it’s that one exchange.

Detective Divo bumbles passively through the episode like a mix between Inspector Closeau and Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express, but he looks decidedly like Peter Lorre.  He brings new exposition to light, but his voice was just too…normal?  I wanted to see some actual character in there, if they were going for Peter Lorre or Hercule Poirot, I would have liked to see them go in that direction with the character.  But we have what we have and this character isn’t going to go down as being incredibly memorable.

My other question mark about the episode was the Kaminoan Senator.  She was an aging wretch of a Kaminoan and my first question was, “Why do the Kaminoans, whom no one in the galaxy knew about before the war, have a full representative standing in the Senate now?” But that question was quickly answered by a throwaway line of dialogue.  Apparently, they leveraged for a seat because of their status as the makers of the clone army.  Having a planet in Republic space didn’t seem to be justification enough.  But what was odd is that she seemed out of character for what we’ve seen of the Kaminoans.  Taun We and Lama Su were incredibly gracious and polite and Senator Bertoni was anything but.  I shouldn’t profile an entire race of people based on their representation in the films, but it was a good lead to follow.

And then I had to roll my eyes a little bit when Padme and Bail Organa decided they wanted to play Fred and Daphne and investigate things on their own.  Jinkies!  They were getting shot at!

But that brings me to the last thing I wanted to bring up.  The animation in this episode was a little uneven, particularly when it came to Bail Organa.  He was very stiff and looked almost…rubbery.  And having Phil Lamarr voice him was fine, but he didn’t sound much like Bail Organa.  Though Detective Divo and Senator Deechi, I thought, were very well animated.  And I really like how they’ve decided to do the eyes of the Rodians.  So, as far as the animation in this episode, like everything else, was a bit of a mixed bag.

There were a lot of good things in this episode, and a lot of things I think needed a little bit more time in the oven.

Having said that, though, any episode of Clone Wars after this long break is a welcome respite and I’m glad for it.  Be sure not to miss it on TV (if nothing else for the preview of the next episode) when it airs on March 19, 2010 on Cartoon Network.

Disney XD (A Disney Channel aimed towards the slightly older children) announced their 2010-2011 programming lineup yesterday, and in the mix is a new Avengers cartoon that will be making its debut this fall! Here’s the official description:

“The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” — Further aligning the strength of Marvel’s hugely popular characters and stories with the burgeoning Disney XD brand and global reach, an all-new animated series, “The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes,” will debut in fall 2010 on Disney XD and DisneyXD.com. Beginning with the “Iron Man” and “Incredible Hulk” movies in 2008, the release of “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” follows Marvel’s overall “Avengers Assemble” strategy introducing the greatest heroes in the Marvel Universe through various content platforms, including the upcoming feature films “Iron Man 2″ in May of 2010, “Thor” in May of 2011 and “Captain America” in July of 2011, all building up to the Avengers theatrical film in 2012. Produced by Marvel Animation, the animated series features 52 episodes targeted at kids 9-14, starring Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, Giant Man and Wasp — who form the Avengers, a team assembled when no single hero’s powers can save the world. A 20-part “micro-series” that focuses on each hero’s backstory will roll out in fall 2010 on Disney XD, immediately followed by the series premiere on Disney XD in the U.S. and, shortly thereafter, around the world. Disney XD, the single largest distributor of Marvel content around the world, currently showcases approximately 20 hours of Marvel series (including “The Spectacular Spider-Man,” “Fantastic Four” and “Iron Man”) each week.

And you all thought Disney obtaining Marvel would be a bad thing…

Warner Bros. has been doing a pretty good job on their DC original movies, bringing to life stories from the comics that wouldn’t fit into a regular series or with the standard continuity of anything else that has come before it.

Sometimes, they score a hit, like Superman: Doomsday, sometimes they catch a piece of the ball and knock it to the back of the park but in foul territory, like Batman/Superman: Public Enemies, and sometimes they knock it out of the park, like with Crisis on Two Earths.

After watching the preview of this film on the Public Enemies DVD, I’ll admit that I was skeptical. I’ve always been of the opinion that most of DCs “Crisis” story lines were too convoluted for me to follow and too dense with characters I couldn’t remember for me to care, but Crisis on Two Earths, despite its awkward title, really boiled down a Crisis story to its essence and nailed it.

It made me excited over Crisis stories and wish that this is how they were told in the DC Universe, proper. This film opens up with Earth-2’s Lex Luthor and Jester (a pretty generic Joker ripoff) stealing some manner of technology and escaping from the Crime Syndicate, which consists of a Superman riff called Ultraman, a Batman riff called Owlman, a Wonder Woman riff called Superwoman and so on. These guys are evil and on their Earth they’ve completely subverted the people into making them rich gangsters.

Lex Luthor is the leader of this Earth’s iteration of the Justice League and develops a way to get to our Earth, wherein he asks the Justice League for help. The entire league, sans Batman, agree to go back to Earth-2 to help Lex Luthor. Batman stays behind, insisting that The Justice League is tasked with saving only their own Earth from criminals and intergalactic threats and the like, but his attitude soon changes when the Crime Syndicate hatch a plan to blow up Earth-Prime, which would cause a chain reaction that would destroy every Earth in the multiverse.

I really liked this movie, the voice acting was good even though Kevin Conroy wasn’t Batman. I mean, seriously, Kevin Conroy should ALWAYS be Batman. James Woods was excellent as the creepy and psychopathic Owlman and Mark Harmon filled Superman’s shoes quite capably. The animation was top-notch and the action sequences had an incredible kinetic energy to them. They were exciting and fit in with the story to the point where each and every one of them meant something. They were all very, very cool to watch.

On a side note, I can see the Italian American community upset about Ultraman. He’s a greezy goomba and, though it worked for me, they seem to get upset about any iteration of Italian American as a mobster, and that’s pretty much all Ultraman is.

Having said how much I liked this movie, there is a major problem I had with the film and I need to preface this with a MAJOR Spoiler warning.

There, you’ve been warned.

At the end of the film, and Owlman has set the QED device to blow up and destroy Earth prime, Batman changes the coordinates of the bomb, batarangs Owlman to it, and then leaves him to explode. It seems incredibly out of character for Batman to specifically tie a villain to a bomb and send him off to who knows where for him to die. It was very un-Batman. I understand the stakes were high, and this guy would probably try it again, etc, but that’s Batman’s one unwavering rule: The Bat does NOT kill.

So, that was my biggest gripe.

Aside from that, they decoded the film version of a Crisis story perfectly.

As for the Spectre short… Wow… On the disc there is an 11 minute short film that was written by Steve Niles featuring the Spectre. It had the look and feel of a 70s exploitational cop procedural on 16mm and though it was incredibly short, the first rate animation and story concentrated into such a tight time frame worked so well that I’d almost like to see more of these instead of more feature length films. A disc of these would be to die for. I must have watched this five times and shown it to twice as many people, I couldn’t believe how excellent it was.

The last thing on the disc I’d like to mention is the preview for the next DCU Animated film, “Under the Red Hood.” The good news is that we’ll be seeing portions of my favorite Batman story, A Death in the Family, animated. The bad news is that they are basing this off of Judd Winicks lackluster run, taking Jason Todd out of the grave and under the hood. We’ll see how it plays out, but this was my least favorite Batman arc in the last 20 years.

Overall, this disc was worth the price of admission and it has hours of bonus content that will occupy your time for…well…hours…

To order it on Amazon, simply click the link.

The Simpsons have been on the the air for 20 seasons and yet Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie haven’t aged a day. To say The Simpsons is a legacy of creator Matt Groening’s at this point would be an understatement -  not only has the show been on for 20 seasons, but for all 20 of those seasons it has pushed the boundaries of what’s acceptable to air on television and remained culturally relevant.

As the years have gone by and The Simpsons has evolved some might say that the show has “lost its way” or “isn’t the same” – but I ask, who are you to say how The Simpsons should or shouldn’t be? For 20 seasons I have watched every single episode and I think the show has never been anything else except for just unapologetically The Simpsons. Sure, we have seen some characters come and go and the show is a perpetual shark jumper, but in my eyes this series has always maintained the perfect balance of slapstick and satirical comedy – which is probably why it has been around for so long and maintained consistent wild popularity through most of them.

Though, The Simpsons is not infallible; the creators and writers have experienced the occasional criticism, controversy, and misses just like any critically-acclaimed television show. The difference with this series though is that they keep pressing on and keep making a quality prime-time show. Perhaps one issue with a series like The Simpsons that runs for so many seasons is that they all kind of begin to blend together. Of course, you have the early years that stand out as the “golden years” (seasons 1-9) and then after that we have the kind of adolescent years (seasons 10-16) and now we are getting into the “later” years of The Simpsons (seasons 17-current). I do feel that the series experienced a bit of a slump in some of those middle years, perhaps I was burnt out, maybe the appearance of more “edgy” cartoons like Family Guy drew my attention away, in either case I am quite enjoying these later years of The Simpsons as they experience somewhat of a resurgence.

It may seem a little odd that Fox decided to jump from releasing The Simpsons: Season 12 on DVD to releasing Season 20 but they obviously wanted to commemorate this monumental event. The Simpsons: Season 20 includes all 21 episodes from the 2008-2009 season that include guest appearances by the likes of Denis Leary, Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway, Jodie Foster and Ellen Page. Season 20 had some memorable episodes in it like, “Mypods and Boomsticks” in which Homer becomes suspicious of Bart’s new friends being terrorists based on their religion and Lisa gets addicted to downloading music to her “MyPod”. Also in this season is the relevant “No Loan Again, Naturally” in which the housing market is harpooned, and the great season finale with “Welcome to Homerica” where Springfield citizens play border patrol against the Ogdevillians who are swarming to Springfield after their economy collapses. The Simpsons has always been great at political satire and this season has some really great examples of this – somehow getting us all to laugh at serious subjects that were/are plaguing our society.

There isn’t much in the way of special features in this 2 Blu-ray/4 DVD set. In fact, the only one included in the set is “The Twentieth Anniversary Special Sneak Peak by Morgan Spurlock” which is a bit of a let down because I fail to see why they couldn’t just include the twentieth anniversary special in its entirety with the twentieth season. The video transfer of this season is of course far superior to seasons past; starting with episode 10 of this season The Simpsons started being broadcast in 720p High Definition (a decision that also justified a new opening sequence!).

For any Simpsons fans out there, this is obviously a “must have” to add to your collection. The Simpsons: Season 20 is available now on DVD and Blu-ray!

Blu-Ray Disc Content
Disc One:
o Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes
o Lost Verizon
o Double, Double, Boy in Trouble
o Treehouse of Horror XIX
o Dangerous Curves
o Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words
o Mypods and Boomsticks
o The Burns and the Bees
o Lisa the Drama Queen
o Additional Bonus Features Include:
• “The Twentieth Anniversary Special Sneak Peak by Morgan Spurlock”

Disc Two:
o Take My Life, Please
o How The Test Was Won
o No Loan Again, Naturally
o Gone Maggie Gone
o In The Name of the Grandfather
o Wedding for Disaster
o Eeny Teeny Maya Moe
o The Good, The Sad and The Drugly
o Father Knows Worst
o Waverly Hills
o Four Great Women and a Manicure
o Coming to Homerica

DVD Content
Disc One:
o Sex, Pies and Idiot Scrapes
o Lost Verizon
o Double, Double, Boy in Trouble
o Treehouse of Horror XIX
o Dangerous Curves
o Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words

Disc Two:
o Mypods and Boomsticks
o The Burns and the Bees
o Lisa the Drama Queen
o Take My Life, Please
o How The Test Was Won

Disc Three:
o No Loan Again, Naturally
o Gone Maggie Gone
o In The Name of the Grandfather
o Wedding for Disaster
o Eeny Teeny Maya Moe

Disc Four:
o The Good, The Sad and The Drugly
o Father Knows Worst
o Waverly Hills
o Four Great Women and a Manicure
o Coming to Homerica
o Additional Bonus Features Include:
• “The Twentieth Anniversary Special Sneak Peak by Morgan Spurlock”

About THE SIMPSONS
The longest-running comedy in television history, The Simpsons exploded into a cultural phenomenon in 1990 and has remained one of the most groundbreaking and innovative entertainment franchises, recognizable throughout the world. Matt Groening created the infamous Simpson family: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpsons – all now identifiable by their silhouettes alone. Currently celebrating their 20th Anniverary, The Simpsons will air their 450th episode in January 2010. The show has received a Star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame, enjoyed the successful release of their first feature film, The Simpsons Movie, opened The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida and Hollywood, CA. and been honored with five U.S. postal stamps personally designed by Matt Groening.

The Simpsons is a Gracie Films Production in association with 20th Century Fox Television. James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, and Al Jean are the executive producers. The Gracie Films Worldwide Brand Division develops and produces the DVD collections for the series. Film Roman, a Starz Media company, is the animation house.

You can find The Simpsons: Season 20 at Amazon.com.

After years of rotting in development hell, Brian Michael Bendis’ superhero detective yarn is joining the FX Network with the ranks of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Damages and Rescue Me.

Short of the adaption hitting a premium cable network like Showtime or HBO, FX is a prime spot for Powers. The network is known for pushing the envelope; so at least the book will be able to maintain it’s noir edge and grittiness.

Wether it’s gonna be animated like Adam Reed’s FX’s animation, Archer is unknown, but if Bendis helms it as a producer and/or writer it’s no doubt going to be good.

On February 23, 2010 DC and Warner Home Video will be releasing their next direct-to-DVD feature, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Included on this DVD you will find the premier of the all-new DC Showcase of animated shorts!

The DC Showcase will feature animated shorts featuring favorite, but lesser-known characters from the DC Universe in their own animated adventures. From what I can gather from the press release I believe they will start including one of these DC Showcase shorts with each of their direct-to-DVD releases going forward – which is usually two or three a year if they keep the pace of years past. The first DC Showcase included with Crisis on Two Earths is “The Spectre”, and according to the press release, the next short will feature Jonah Hex, which will be penned by Joe Landsale

Warner Bros. was kind enough to provide the first official images from the first ever DC Showcase, “The Spectre”. Check out the slide show and press release below!

And of course, you can pre-order Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths over at Amazon now!

From the creative forces behind the DC Universe animated original PG-13 movies, DC Showcase puts the spotlight on favorite characters from throughout the annals of DC Comics in fascinating, short-form
tales sure to entertain longtime and new fans alike.

The Spectre focuses on a detective story with an ethereal twist, featuring the otherworldly character originally introduced by DC Comics in 1940. The short is written by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and directed by Joaquim Dos Santos (G.I Joe: Resolute). The voice cast is led by Gary Cole (Entourage) as the title character and Alyssa Milano (Charmed) as Aimee Brenner.

The Spectre will be distributed February 23 by Warner Home Video as part of the Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths Blu-ray/DVD.

DC Showcase is a co-production from Warner Premiere, Warner Bros. Animation, Warner Home Video and DC Comics. Bruce Timm is Executive Producer. Future DC Showcase titles include Jonah Hex (written by Joe Lansdale).

Avatar, James Cameron’s brand new movie designed to blow you away. Well I watched it, and I’ll tell you one thing. I was not blown away. Especially when the story can be so concisely  wrapped up as, “The Last Samurai on Mars.”

The first hour of the movie was regrettably the most awesome. Establishing the world that we are going to be viewing for the next hour and a half. But even then, I can’t say really just how rich the story was, sure the Aliens were original enough (if you don’t count Native Americans), but most the concepts in this movie have been seen before. (Anyone remember Fern Gully?)

That said, it wasn’t anything resembling a waste of my time. The movie was pretty good, I wish everyone thought about their movies as much as James Cameron did. Although I think he is horrible at writing dialog. Referring mostly to Colonel Miles Quaritch, but not stopping there. A great example would be when James Cameron pays homage to himself, having one of his marines say, “Get some!” Much like when Michael Bay paid homage to his own film, Bad Boys II, in the midst of Transformers II.

I’ve heard a lot of people talking about the soundtrack being similar to other soundtracks, but as a barely capable listener, I didn’t think the soundtrack stood out as good or bad. The person sitting next to me had to elbow me and say, “There’s music playing.” because I was none the wiser, I said, “Ah.” which they confused with appreciation for the visuals.

Which brings me to my next point, the visuals. Eh!…Breathtaking? I guess so, sometimes…Was it worth 300 million? Nope…Was it worth watching in 3-D?…Not really. Honestly I thought the Dark Knight felt more visually stimulating, not to mention Pan’s Labyrinth. Some of the creatures were really cool, but honestly some of them didn’t make sense to me. The marines were the biggest let down though. Personally for action and cool technology, I would have to give the award to district 9 over Avatar, and for $30 Million dollars.

The last thing I want to get off my chest, is the dangerous forest. I hate that they made it as “Dangerous” as they did, with all the creatures they showed in the first hour. Then as soon as they establish how dangerous it is, it’s no longer dangerous ever again. It bugged me a little when the same thing happened after the first season of Lost, but I think it really stood out as annoying in this movie.

Also I would like to bring light of the fact, that the six creatures of Pandora, awesome as they were, didn’t feel like the inhabitants of an entire world. They should have designed tons more creatures. They were so shamelessly stealing characteristics from Earth animals anyway, why not transmute a few more? A six legged anything else. And maybe some water.

To wrap the whole thing up into a pretty bag. This movie is better than most the movies that you see in the theatre, but far from perfect. The story isn’t spectacular, the science is nothing special, the characters barely function, and the dialog is dumb. Bring your kids, it’s James Cameron’s second best film! Definitely worth watching once. I’m giving it a whopping 7/10!