The Fantastic Four bombed at the box office this past weekend and even the director Josh Trank took a few shots at FOX for re-editing the film. Which makes it even more bizarre that FOX would release some of the b-roll footage which shows completely different scenes. You can see that there is some version of a flying car and you can also see that Johnny Storm looks to be severely injured during battle as Sue attends to him.
Hopefully FOX, in an attempt to recoup the $130 million invested in the film will release a directors cut so fans can see a true version of Trank’s vision.
The more inside news that comes out about the making of the 'Fantastic Four,' the more is sounds like Josh Trank's vision was never realized. In the b-roll clips you can see the Fantastic-Car and the apparent death of Johnny Storm. It looks like the final battle might have been bigger and better if Trank was able to finish his film.
An international trailer for Star Wars: the Force Awakens dropped on the internet last night. There are a few new scenes and the look and the feel are more in line with the original trilogy.
Lucasfilm and visionary director J.J. Abrams join forces to take you back again to a galaxy far, far away as “Star Wars” returns to the big screen with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Episode VII in the Star Wars Saga, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, opens in theaters December 18, 2015.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, directed by J.J. Abrams from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan & Abrams, features a cast including actors John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Crystal Clarke, Pip Andersen, Domhnall Gleeson, and Max von Sydow. They will join the original stars of the saga, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, and Kenny Baker.
The film is being produced by Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk, and John Williams returns as the composer.
The episode begins with a reminder that our intrepid heroes are busy being a bunch of idiots. Gee, I wonder who possibly could have manipulated a sword without entering the temple. I dunno, maybe it’s the one who is pretending to faint so people will forget she can beat the crap out of everything. You know. The one that can control blades. Honestly, how was Adelet going to fake his mark in a prison cell?
Then we have to watch Adelet not have a brain for a while even though last episode everyone was admonished for not suspecting Maura just because that she was well known. He gets his ideas shot down quickly, and all of the other Braves except for Nachetanya (and Maura, who says it is too early to judge) are pretty much ready to kill him. Nachetanya is such a good actor that I almost believed she wasn’t the culprit. Almost.
The Braves attack Adelet, and he knocks Flamie out with poison, threatening her with more if they try to kill him again. Of course, this just makes everyone more sure he is the fake Brave. He escapes the temple with Flamie as a hostage, but takes a dagger in the back as he does so. Unfortunately for Adelet, he passes out before he can remove the dagger. The others stop pursuing him after nightfall. They know Flamie is still alive because the crests haven’t changed. Nachetanya keeps up the drama and nobody questions her at all because I guess princesses are supposed to just trust people unconditionally. Tch. Yeah, right.
Meanwhile, we get some backstory from Adelet. He had a nice home life as a child and was more interested in cooking with his mama than fighting. Then the next scene is of him angry and emaciated, asking an old to train him to be the strongest in the world so he can get back what he lost. The old man kicks him a couple yards and orders him to smile if he wants to be strong, even if he wants to die. Adelet does so and is struck again and told to laugh at despair. My poor heartstrings! As a new mama myself, this part was a bit painful to watch.
Adelet wakes up from remembering his past and finds that Flamie has dressed his wounds. She still doesn’t trust him, but saved him in case she’s wrong and he is a genuine Brave. She starts a fire by ordering gunpowder to burn, which is pretty awesome. We get more confirmation that nobody else could have entered the temple before Adelet. Adelet decides there must be an eighth person who snuck into the temple and set off the seal, and the plot of these two enemies was to turn everyone against Adelet.
Well, Flamie thinks Adelet is full of crap (hasn’t Adelet ever heard of Occam’s Razor?) and says she won’t help him find the eighth “Brave”. We learn that Adelet is following the old man’s advice and is always smiling as a show of willpower. He says he will never give up. Flamie asks why he wanted to be one of the six Braves. The episode ends with Adelet being amazed that Flamie cared about someone other than herself.
Adelet in his “Space Ghost” pose.
I have to admit I really don’t want there to be two enemies. If there are two enemies there’s no reason for the seventh to be Nachetanya, because she wouldn’t be needed to manipulate the sword and dias. I was suspecting her for a while because it seemed in the beginning that she hadn’t considered becoming a Brave before Adelet said he’d like to travel with her. Perhaps she’s a fake but it’s just to come along and not to be an enemy, and someone else is taking advantage of the turmoil? That seems a lot less likely. In any event, I hope she stops that damsel in distress crying crap soon. She is supposed to be a butt-kicking princess, and I’m sick of her whiny whiner act. I’ll be really disappointed if she turns out not to be an enemy and really is just another wuss-princess.
Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers airs on Crunchyroll and updates Saturdays at 3:30pm.
Well we got everyone back at base safe and sound with little to no trouble. One thing that I noticed last week was that even though the situation seemed dangerous, while they were on the plane, everyone in 1st unit is just so bad ass that nothing really feels like a threat. So just like the activities in this episode, I didn’t really feel any danger when the Aragami were around. Which is definitely bad. A show should never make a monster adversary lose its threat to the audience and the world. But God Eater has basically turned Aragami into crops you can farm for. Which is ironic because they actually harvest some Aragami this episode.
It seems that as of late the only things that are keeping me interested in God Eater is the awesome animation and Alisa’s hot bod. And honestly that’s not enough to keep me engaged in a show. If anything I feel like I could just go google searching Alisa and get the same satisfaction I do from watching these episodes. Because at the rate its going, God Eater is shaping up to be a major disappointment.
Like I said earlier, with everyone back at base things are starting to feel safe again. And now with 1st unit getting three new members in Kota, Alisa and, Lenka, they seem like they’ll be nearly unstoppable now. Kota is a pretty good addition to the group. I really didn’t expect to see him around again since that first episode but I guess he’s been training in the day or two that Lenka’s been in trouble. But he’s a nice addition to the team even if he doesn’t seem to pull his weight as much as the others. He brings a dynamic of not being another stoic bad ass, like the other five members of 1st unit. Theres also an interesting situation going on with his mother, who seemed actually mortified to hear that Kota passed his training to be a God Eater. Other than that though, he seems pretty bland so far. So he sort of fits right in with the rest of 1st.
Alisa is hinted at having some sort of medical problem and she also is so stupid that she can’t figure out how to work with others. I mean what is the Russian training to be a God Eater like? I highly doubt they would let someone who is this inept at teamwork be a God Eater, let alone just throw them into a unit and commence field missions. She either needs to get knocked down a peg by an Aragami or someone needs to slap her up, preferably Tsubaki.
One good point is that we’re getting to see the final goal of this endeavor, and just by the description it sounds really flawed. The plan is to get all of mankind and put them in an island where they will be safe from Aragami. But that’s only land Aragami, no idea what they’re going to do about the rest. I mean we already know that there are aerial Aragami, so I’m willing to bet there are aquatic Aragami too. But I guess this logic sounds good enough to Lenka because he is just too amazed at how big the island is to think about this plan called the “Aegis” project.
And the “Aegis” project is the reason our heroes are venturing out and farming Aragami this episode. And these scenes where they are hunting are super boring. It’s almost equivalent to watching someone farm for xp in an MMORPG. And to top it off the characters are so bland that they can’t make even make it interesting with dialogue between them, so there is literally nothing to keep you interested or invested in these scenes. The only time I actually cared was when Tsubaki confronts Alisa for being a stuck up bitch. And that is even played of like, meh. I swear, if these farming scenes keep up, I’ll be thoroughly disappointed.
Oh wait, when I said the characters were bland, I guess I misspoke. Because there is one thing redeemable trait they all have, but we already know what it was and so didn’t need the reminder. Their compassion for humanity. They find a group of survivors on the way back from farming and decide to bring them to their fortress. And immediately I knew this wasn’t going to work out for these people. The show was obviously setting it up for tragedy and nothing else. We already knew all our characters are selfless bland characters, so we didn’t really need to see it again. But the kicker is that they have nothing to do with the people being rejected from entering the fortress. Nope, it’s not our heroes fault, it’s the guards who won’t let potential God Eaters into town.
Now while I do sort of like the concept that the only allowed inhabitants are potential God Eaters and their families, the whole group being rejected that way feels cheap to me. It was clearly there to keep showing how much 1st unit cares about other people and are selfless, but still needs to throw tragedy in, just because. This way we can have the heroic characters that are admirable but aren’t to blame for the bad things that happen, because its out of their control, yawn. I think it would have been better if they found out the little girl had potential for being a God Eater and dragged her away form her family to begin her training. But to just turn them away was just meh. And ultimately thats what this whole show is starting to feel like, one big pile of meh. Come on God Eater, get back to me when you have characters worth caring about and a plot that makes me want to see how it ends up. Because currently you seem to have neither.
Don’t get me wrong, Daisuki has potential. Specifically, I appreciate their iOS player, and the ability to scrub the video forward and stop where I want easily. However, their web player quality is pretty lackluster. I want to see beautiful, HD God Eater. And yes, I know it’s on Hulu, but if I can watch it without ads, I will. Crunchyroll hasn’t specified a release date yet.
As an aside, God Eater has skipped a second week of broadcast time. I hope it doesn’t end up like Blood Blockade Battlefront, with the last episode never airing. Talk about embarrassing. I keep imagining a Shirobako “Jiggly Jiggly Heaven” situation.
It always surprises me to see poll results for anticipated Summer 2015 shows from Japan differing so much from what American fans seem to be talking about. It isn’t the fact that School-Live! is at the top so much as the fact that Gangsta is so near the bottom of the list. Also, it’s a travesty that Castle Town Dandelion is not at the very bottom, because that show is bad and it should feel bad. Oh well. At least Pillow Boys didn’t make it.
School-Live!
Prison School
Durarara!!×2 Ten
Charlotte
WORKING!!!
Snow White with the Red Hair
Non Non Biyori Repeat
The IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls
Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace
Himōto! Umaru-chan
GATE
SHIMONETA: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist
Aoharu x Machinegun
Junjō Romantica 3
GANGSTA.
Castle Town Dandelion
To Love Ru: Darkness
Ushio & Tora
Overlord
Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers
How do you think the polls will come out for English-speaking fans? Take the poll on Anime News Network and help them get an accurate count! In case you’re curious, I voted for SHIMONETA.
I’m excited for this P.A. Works adaptation of HaruChika for a few reasons, not just because I generally enjoy what P.A. Works puts out (such as Angel Beats!, Charlotte and Shirobako). Being a former wind ensemble member myself, I find myself drawn to musically based anime series (including Sound! Euphonium, Your Lie in April, and Nodame Cantabile). Although it’s about a club in danger of dissolving, which definitely makes my “spider sense” tingle, the fact that this series is also a mystery show is intriguing. If they can manage to make it more about mystery and music and less about finding club members, I’m sold.
Although I don’t know much about Red Ash Magicicadia, what I do know is this: anime being successfully crowd-funded is awesome. I love that directors who feel too restricted by conservative anime production companies have this option to get potentially amazing works out to fans who genuinely want to view it. Red Ash Magicicadia follows in the footsteps of Under the Dogand Little Witch Academia 2.
Welcome back to another episode of director Josh Trank vs. 20th Century Fox. Previously on this drama, Fantastic Four is pummeled down by critics and moviegoers alike, and Josh Trank fires a tweet defending himself against the film studio.
Now, we start learning more and more about the situation, with insider quotes that lead us to believe that the final and terrible result of this anticipated movie ultimately might have been the studio’s fault. Alleged sources close to the situation tell Collider that, amongst other things, what was agreed between Josh Trank and Fox – mainly three major action scenes – were cut from the movie only days before production.
I was also told [that] the ending of the film was not even Josh Trank’s. At some point they hijacked the editing bay from him. To the point that the editing of the film was done without him.
To this, add Chronicle‘s writer Max Landis’ statements from his twitter account:
A movie like Fantastic Four, an assignment with a lot riding on it, was always going to have a tremendous amount of cooks in the kitchen.
This is what might explain best this fight. In my article about female directors, back in June, I mentioned how little power directors have where big film studios are concerned, and I believe this is what Josh Trank has encountered. He maybe signed on to do Fantastic Four thinking that he’d be in control of the movie and Fox overstepped in his creative process. In addition to that, there’s Trank’s reaction to Fox, not only on social media, but even on set during production. Rumors about him being difficult to work with cost him the job of directing the first Star Wars spin-off, with Disney… or it might have been also true that he stepped out when he thought he couldn’t handle yet another big studio production which he’d have little control over.
The only fact is that Fantastic Four is a failure and Trank as much as Fox have to deal with the repercussions. Should have the studio trusted Josh Trank’s vision more? Yes. Should he have fought harder for what he thought was better for the movie? Yes. Instead, he became “erratic and at times very isolated” and Fox took over.
I find that the positive side of this is the experience the director has gained about how the industry works. Good luck in the future, Josh.
According to Deadline Hollywood, Mission:Impossible-Rouge Nation has jettisoned past Fantastic Four into 1st place overall for this weekends box-office.The audience seems to have more faith in Tom Cruise and the sequel is now predicted to bring an estimated three-day total of $29 Million dollars. Fantastic Four, which was once predicted to bring in $40/50 million dollars is destined to bring in anywhere between $26/27 million dollars. It seems Fantastic Four’sprecipitous fall in the box-office can be directly tied to the horrendous reviews and toxic word of mouth surrounding the reboot.
Be warned. You are about to witness one of the coolest developments in technology I’ve seen this year…
“Slide” by Lexus (2015)
If you grew up with the Back to the Future trilogy, at some point in your adolescence you probably dreamed of the day you could ride a hoverboard like Marty McFly. That day has finally arrived. Now you too can ride a hoverboard, just like Marty!
Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly rides a hoverboard in Back to the Future 2 (1989).
The new Lexus hoverboard “Slide” is made up of bamboo, and holds up to 50 ounces of liquid nitrogen The entire board weighs just over 25 pounds. Slide’s clever design is certainly enough to make any Back to the Future fan fall in love at first sight.
Promotional videos featuring Slide in action have recently been released by Lexus to demonstrate it’s functionality in action…
Think of all the possibilities with consumer hoverboards. I challenge you to think of a cooler way to navigate a metropolitan area.
Watch out segway boards…Lexus just “one-upped” you. Clever design coupled with memories of Marty McFly in Back to the Future 2 make Slide a rather exciting advancement in technology, and perhaps a new pastime for traditional skateboarders.
You want to really impress us Lexus? Develop a hover-vehicle…
Back to the future 2 (1989)
Technology is taking cues from Back to the Future 2 continually. Oh, and hover-cars already exist of course, just not for consumers.
Will you give the Lexus hoverboard a try? Leave your thoughts in the comments below…
It’s over people! Its time to say goodbye to those feelings you have nurtured these last five episodes. Because those feelings belong to you, no more. Those feelings belong completely to Charlotte now. And believe me when I say that, Charlotte is going to do whatever it wants with those feelings. So hold close to those memories you’ve made with these characters these last five episode, because now is where shit gets real.
Starting off from last episode Ayumi is still sick and staying home from school. And guess what, they’ve detected an ability user in her apartment complex. So odds are, it’s most likely her. Right off the bat this begins to worry Yu more than ever. Sure it came to his mind a few times before but now with increasing evidence of an ability manifesting, the thoughts are starting to make him even moe worried.
So seeing that Ayumi is now a possible ability user, Nao, Yusa, and Yu all go over to their house after school. Nao and Yusa suggest they eat dinner together but Yu objects and asks why they can’t just eat at home. But of course he doesn’t know that Yusa and Nao live alone and always eat dinner alone. After realizing this Yu reiterates on how Nao can’t trust anyone anymore since the scientists and her mothers betrayal. And once he sees how alone Nao and Yusa are, he reflects on the wonderful fact that he still has his little sister. So feeling bad about this, he agrees that they can stay for dinner.
Before Nao and Yusa enter though, Yu goes in first to make sure Ayumi is feeling well enough for company. And to see if she is going to be able to handle meeting her idol. It turns out she is, because three people are already there. A few of her classmates are sitting in her bedroom talking with her. One of which is the boy who she refused to go out with. Another is a preppy girl who is the class rep. And lastly a solemn girl who doesn’t really say anything or even acknowledge Yu when he walks in. Given this scene and a scene before where she scowls at the mere mention of Ayumi’s name while looking at the boy she dumped I knew where this was going. Her classmates begin to leave right after Yu enters and introduces himself, and as the solemn girl leaves she gives Ayumi a really sinister glare. There is something severely wrong with this girl.
So we get some good gags with Ayumi meeting Yusa for the first time, and boy can Ayumi make some cute faces. I feels like its rare to get a little sibling where they aren’t completely insufferable, but Ayumi is really likable, even if she has some weird quirks. She is not as one dimensional as other characters in her position and makes the time she’s on-screen more meaningful because of that. We also get some more relationship situations with Yu and Nao both doing the dishes together. And with Ayumi being sharper than she looks, comments multiple times talking about if they were dating and how good for one another they are. But sadly both Nao and Yu rub it off as teasing and don’t even seem to consider the fact. Every episode their chemistry becomes more and more apparent. I just hope there is some realization here sooner than later. But of course that will need to come after Nao gets over her trust issues and Yu gets over his solitary issues.
Lastly Ayumi talks about a nightmare she had where she was falling into cracks in the earth that would spread around her. Yu and Nao both take it as some sort of sign that her powers will manifest and that they could be extremely dangerous. Seeing that the ability is called “collapse” and the fact that Ayumi is becoming more and more likely to be the ability user starts to scare Yu even more now. And being overly cautious he, with Nao’s affirmation, makes Ayumi stay home one more day after her fever subsides.
But Ayumi hates being still more than anything, so she sneaks out of the building after Yu leaves and goes to school. But it’s not kept a secret for long because Nao is informed by the school that she showed up halfway through the day. Being worried that her power may manifest and cause massive damage, the student council rushes over to her school to get her out of there.
Meanwhile at school the boy that likes Ayumi keeps making advances at her to the point where the class rep has to step in. Clearly this kid is not getting the message that she doesn’t like him that way. And the fact that he acts so desperate really makes him seem sad in a way. But whatever hang ups he has is nothing compared to that solemn girl. Because she straight up chases Ayumi around with a file knife after confessing that she liked that boy. And that ever since Ayumi showed up things have been going wrong. There is literally no reasoning with this girl or the crazy look in her eye as she corners Ayumi at the top of some stairs. This is where, after finally being backed into a corner Ayumi’s power manifests and proceeds to collapse a huge part of the building with her falling into the thick of the debris.
The student council arrive too late along with some other girl who we haven’t met yet. From the looks of her uniform it doesn’t seem like she goes to the same school as the other. But somehow she knew that this was going to happen. Maybe she is part of another group going around and saving kids with abilities too. Either way she is bound to clash with our student council eventually, so we’ll find out then.
As for the collapse, it’s a big mess and Ayumi is nowhere to be found. Yu runs screaming her name not giving head to Nao’s warning. Frantically he sorts through the rubble, lifting big pieces of building up and tossing them aside as he digs for his sister, all the while screaming her name. But he should have listened to Nao’s words of warning because a piece of the building above him begins to crack, and falls towards him.
So I think its safe to say this episode of Charlotte delivered everything I was hoping for. The show is clearly transitioning into something heavier and is doing its shift change very well. Like I said before, everything that happens beyond this point will be so much more impactful since I’ve got to know these characters so well. Just the fact of not knowing what is going to happen with Ayumi is killing me right now. And that’s what a show like this needs to do. If the audience isn’t feeling for characters, then the story that is yet to come won’t be as impactful as it needs to be to get its point across. But Charlotte expertly set up its pins and is so far expertly knocking them down. And it also knows better than to show its whole hand and to still keep secrets from us. Like the mysterious girl who shows up at the end of the episode.
I really couldn’t find any flaws with this episode or things that I didn’t like. This episode reaffirms exactly what I thought this show was going to be like and I’m not disappointed in the slightest. And with us only six episodes in I only hope that my heart can hold itself together until the end.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Freddy Krueger will be haunting your movie nightmares once again. New Line Cinema is in the early stages of development of a new Nightmare on Elm Street film. David Lee Johnson has been hired to pen an update version to the landmark horror franchise. This was attempted once before in 2010 with Jackie Earle Haley in the iconic role of Freddy Krueger. New Line has not reached a point where they are ready to make any casting announcements.
