Tobar

Star Wars Rebels: Meet Agent Kallus, Imperial Enforcer

Those were pretty cool. I ended up watching Rise yesterday and had completely forgotten about the virus subplot.

Fang Zei said:

You mentioned it was the only full-sized theater in your state. Out of curiosity, what state are you in? There's a list of all imax theaters (both film and digital) here:

http://www.lfexaminer.com/theaUSA.htm

 Arizona. The Arizona Mills has an 8-story screen while the Science Center is 5-stories and the Grand Canyon's is six.

It's interesting that that list still only lists the Mills as having 1570 when I know they also now do digital.

They call the AMC IMAX screens LieMAX because the screens are so small. I went into one once to see The Dark Knight and the screen was comparable to one you'd find in some people's homes. It was ludicrous.

The new digital projection we have at the 8-story tall IMAX near my house looks brilliant and is still capable of the full IMAX picture format. I think it was the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy that had some scenes in the full format size and it was breathtaking. It's so big the film engulfs you.

doubleofive said:

Pre-ordering Alien Isolation lets you play as the original crew. Holy crap.

 I think my brain melted when I watched the trailer.

Google is your friend. ;)

DrCrowTStarwars said:

he has never seemed fond of the character

 He was fond enough to actually get the character's tattoos done for real.

That's what we had for the longest time where I live. It's the only full sized IMAX in the state. It was bought out by the local theater chain and dropped playing IMAX exclusives films in favor of Hollywood productions.

For a couple years they were probably running at a loss because the studios were only producing 15/70 prints maybe twice a year at best. So they were stuck playing Elysium for most of the year until the last Hobbit was released.

Just a couple months ago they finally sprung the cash to renovate the theater and replace the film projectors with their new digital counterpart. Now they can switch out films any time they like.

So it turns out that first video was the truncated version of a more in depth look at the issue.

Here's the full length video.

Droid Design: Chopper from Star Wars Rebels Comes to Life

So this came out of nowhere. Here's a brief overview of the situation from Cartoon Brew:

Tech site Pando Daily has been providing amazing coverage of the Department of Justice antitrust invesigation and subsequent class action lawsuits over wage-fixing amongst Silicon Valley tech companies and animation studios. Described as the largest wage-fixing cartel in American history, it’s the story of how some of the most powerful figures in tech and entertainment, including Apple’s Steve Jobs, Lucasfilm’s George Lucas, Pixar’s Ed Catmull, and Google’s Eric Schmidt, conspired to illegally manipulate and suppress the wages of their employees.

The major point that Ames makes is that the illegal wage-fixing extended far beyond the primary players, Pixar and Lucasfilm. Through the deposition testimonies of George Lucas and Pixar president/co-founder Ed Catmull, there is evidence that other studios like Walt Disney Animation Studios and DreamWorks/PDI participated in the illegal activities to keep their employees’ wages unnaturally low. The Walt Disney Company has emerged as a central figure in the scandal, especially now that they own both Pixar and Lucasfilm, and it should come as no surprise that as they worked to pay their employees less, their stock prices and profits shot to all-time highs.

And here's the in depth article that gets into the nitty gritty details.

Their next article promises to go into detail about GL's involvement with all of this.

Thoughts?

First I'm surprised the thing with Mark came out so quickly, second that he survived the episode.

DuracellEnergizer said:

I haven't much to say beyond that this is the greatest worst TV series I've ever seen in my entire life

 It's one of my favorite shows of all time. =P

The Black Hole (1979)

Fantastic film and incredibly dark for a Disney picture. The ending though...I'm not sure if I hallucinated that or not. =P

There's a remake in the works and I hope that at least finally gets the film released on blu-ray.

All I know is this image will forever haunt my dreams:

Gotta say, I don't understand the hate for T4.

Maybe it's because I very recently revisited the eye and ear gouge inducing atrocity that was Transformers 2 and so anything after that would have to be a step up.

I also think the length was justified given everything it had to setup. Which I'll just dive into because most don't seem to care about the franchise enough to worry about spoilers.

Firstly, it had to establish this dire new world that has come to be in the 10 years since the last film. Along with a whole new cast of human characters to replace the old.

Second, it had to establish a return for the main villain. Not an easy task given his fate in the last film. I loved that this heralded the return of his original voice actor from the series.

Third, it had to setup the new galactic scope the franchise seems to be headed in. The revelation of that intergalactic bounty hunter and who he worked for sent the Transformers fans I know into a frenzy. I'm not sure why as I'm just barely getting into the franchise myself but it seems like a pretty big deal.

I'll give you that most of the human characters were garbage. The daughter and her boyfriend were just terrible. But Marky Mark and especially Frasier were great.

All of the Autobots depicted had varied and unoffensive personalities and there were no utter abominations like these two. Though Optimus Prime jumping around shouting, "I'LL KILL YOU!" was more than a little out of character and reminded me heavily of Axe Cop. =P

It's still a Michael Bay film and as such there was never any hope that it would be a smart film. But I would say it was a competent action packed popcorn flick.

unamochilla2 said:

Two additional cast members announced and production update: http://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-vii-production-update

At the end of last year Lucasfilm and Disney invited all young aspiring actors to attend an open casting call for roles in J.J Abrams’ Star Wars Episode VII. The casting calls spanned 11 cities across the US and UK and over 37,000 hopefuls attended, with a further 30,000 submitting applications online.

Having hunted high and low for young and undiscovered talent, the filmmakers are delighted to announce that two actors from the open call call have been cast.

Crystal Clarke is an American actress studying in Glasgow, UK, who has both stage and screen acting experience and is soon to be seen in her first feature, The Moon and the Sun (to be released in 2015). British actor Pip Andersen is a skilled practitioner of parkour, a discipline that involves propelling oneself through any given environment with incredible grace and agility. Pip recently demonstrated this remarkable skill in a Spider-Man ad for Sony.

“The Star Wars universe has always been about discovering and nurturing young talent and in casting Episode VII we wanted to remain absolutely faithful to this tradition. We are delighted that so many travelled to see us at the open casting calls and that we have been able to make Crystal and Pip a part of the film,” said producer and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.

Meanwhile, principal photography continues at Pinewood Studios in London after wrapping on location in Abu Dhabi in May.

In August, the team will take a brief two-week hiatus while adjustments to the current production schedule are made as actor Harrison Ford recovers from a leg injury. Harrison is doing well and is looking forward to returning to the set soon. Shooting remains on track to wrap in the fall with the film scheduled for release on December 18, 2015.

Here's Pip's showreel. Looks like there'll be some nice acrobatics in these new films.

Leaked footage from the set of Episode VII!

Oh wow, I had no idea Jackson did that as well. They were creepy too:

Here's the original Azog:

So the guys over at Amalgamated Dynamics made a video a few weeks ago discussing the state of practical effects in the industry and gave some examples of the kinds of things that go on these days.

Here's the video

The example with the cyclops made my blood boil. As did the comments section.

Thoughts?

I think you might physically vomit if you were to watch Transformers 2 again. I think most people have forgotten just how bad that one was. =|

Very rarely but yeah.

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This exhibit is AMAZING!

I'm still saddened by the fact that we'll never get another Sky Captain. =(

Looks like it's the battle of the movie reviews! =P

Here's one from Screen Rant that I'd recommend.

Snowpiercer (2013)

Released a year ago in South Korea and just now getting a U.S. theatrical release. A really interesting and entertaining film. The action and humor both are great and the film overall has a really quirky pace to it.