As many of you now well know, Warner Bros. has put a halt to the production of their comic book superhero movie Shazam: The Legend of Billy Batson. After Wonder Woman, this is now their second superhero movie that the Warner Bros. execs have cancelled which I was looking forward to immensely. Hot off the heels of the (overrated in my opinion) Dark Knight, Warner Bros. execs have decided to take their whole super hero line in a new direction and make them more dark and dreary like last summer’s box office smash. Never mind that The Dark Knight mainly worked for audiences because the character was supposed to be dark and dreary. Since it made the big money, everything else they make must now be exactly like it. Stop me if you can already see the major problem I have with this line of thinking.

Yes, it seems that a group of spineless morons plague the executive offices that inhabit the studio at the Warner Bros. lot. They see the major success of The Dark Knight and learn the exact wrong thing about it that they should have. They think that because the movie was darker, more realistic, and more gritty, they think that that is now what the mainstream movie going audiences are interested in seeing today. So by their thinking, they must now quickly cash in on it’s success and make their other super hero movies in development just as dark, just as realistic, and just as gritty. How in the hell could they get it so wrong?!

First off, the only reason why dark, realistic, and gritty worked for Batman was because that was how the character should have been portrayed. The movie stayed true to the source material, the feeling that a Batman movie should give off, and the characters motivations, and that was what the audience responded to. What WB should have done was take all of their developing super hero movies, and then make them just as true to the source material and characters as possible. From what I read of the development of the Captain Marvel movie, the people involved with making the movie were doing exactly just that! They even got the fanboys involved in letting them help pick who should be cast as the villain, Black Adam, in the movie. That was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson by the way. A perfect choice in my opinion. But now, it appears as though I’ll never get to see the former wrestler wearing spandex again because the studio all of a sudden wants to make everything more like Batman. “We want everything to be more like the majorly successful Batman! We want more Batman! BATMAN! BATMAN!! BATMAN!!!”

God, I’m so sick of that superhero noob!

Needless to say, I’ve never been that much of a Batman fan. Or should I say, Batman-Worshipping Fanboy? I mean I like the character, but there are so many more worthy characters that the DC Universe holds that I would kill to see them realized on the big screen. In the modern era of movies, Batman has been done six times. SIX!!! And as for characters such as Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern, The Flash, Zatanna (my favorite), and the aforementioned Captain Marvel; Their total comes to zero. That’s a big fat 0! Say what you want about the quality of the Marvel superhero movies, but at least they got them made! It’s seems that DC can’t make a superhero movie unless it has the name Batman or Superman in the title. And since they screwed up with the last Superman movie by not making it a full on reboot from the previous films, it seems as though as the only thing we’ll be getting from DC out of the next few years or more is just more Batman.

I only really loved the Burton films anyway. Now those were real comic book films come to life!

It seems as though there might be some hope for WB’s superheroes in the future though. Watchmen will be coming out in a little more than a month, and the ill-fated Justice League movie got that mercy killing in development that it deserved. I can only hope that the failure to get the Joss Whedon’s written and directed Wonder Woman off the ground doesn’t put that movie on hold for too long at the studio. It still amazes me that the final member of the DC Big Three hasn’t had a real movie yet. Unbelievable. Me thinks that Warner Bros. must be run by Bizarro or something because everything they do seems to be ass backwards.

At least we still have the DCAU created by Bruce Timm. If not for that, then it would be a hard thing for anyone to stay a fan of DC superheroes without any form of entertainment outside of just the comics themselves. We can only hope and pray that the WB execs get the message and make their superhero movies right, and make them memorable.

SpikeBad – Ravings of a Big Bad Geek!!!

The next glaring problem that rears it’s ugly head in with this movie is the problem of color. Now this can just be chalked up to fanboy pickyness, but how would you feel if they decided to make a Superman movie without the blue suit and red S shield!? My point exactly! For example, Bulma’s hair is not all blue. Now there is no greater way to infuriate a bunch of Dragonball fans then by not making Bulma’s hair all blue. That just pisses us off so much!!! Also, in the early screenshots and photos we were given of the movie, it appeared that Piccolo was not going to be all green but a little yellowish…and then a million fanboys screamed out in displeasure like Darth Vader at the end of Episode III. I swear, that’s even worse than Bulma not having blue hair. That’s like making the Hulk red… oh, I forgot, they did that!!! However, in the most recent trailer, the shots of Piccolo appear to have him in his all green skin tone glory like he should be. So, bullet dodge there… but with about a million more coming, I don’t think even Neo can dodge them all!

Another problem I have, and one that the new trailer showed, is the origin of the dragon balls. How the hell can you give us a story about Dragonball where Kami wasn’t the one who created them!!! That is a big fraking problem if you asked me. A Namekian has to be the one who created the dragon balls, otherwise you’re gonna have some serious story problems by the time you get to the Freiza saga; If the movies even make it that far anyway. Being a Namekian is pretty much one the of the few reasons why Lord Piccolo even knows about the dragon balls in the first place! It just stikes me as borderline retarded to even mess with that much of the origin story in the first place. The writers really dropped the dragon ball on that one there. Stupid pun intended.

And as for the most recent problem I have with the development of this movie: the subtitle. Why in the name of all that is holey do we need to have a subtitle for the first damn movie in the series!? And not even a cool one, but a bland and generic one such as “Evolution!” The only thing the subtitle will do is just make people think that it’s a sequel, which is most certainly isn’t. I’d like to know what the hell was wrong with it just being called Dragonball in the first place. Did the studio heads think they needed to add more to it to make it sound cool? Fraking dumb!

Now, for the things they got right. Even though I know people will disagree with me on this, I believe that this movie was casted pretty damn well. Having Spike himself, James Marsters, play the evil Lord Piccolo is a stroke of genius in my opinion. Yellow skin not withstanding, but still the man looks great in the part. Having Chow Yun Fat play the wise Master Roshi is pretty good as well, though I would have preferred Jackie Chan in the role. The rest of the cast is a good mix of Asian and Caucasian actors to appease the fans from both America and Japan, even though if you visit the IMDB message board for the film, both sides are still bitching about it. And Goku is rightfully a white guy since he is technically an alien, which those stupidheads might wind up screwing up in this movie somehow, but I believe they wont seeing how I’ve read that Goku will be going Oozaru in the film. I just hope they get the look of that right or the geeks will cry for bloody murder even more. So overall, the casting is pretty decent with James Marsters being the gem among the group.

Now, since I have yet to see the film, I cannot properly judge just how much the film is going to be a true adaptation of the manga or anime. We already know the things they fraked up, but there are other things as well that look like they got right. Hopefully they’ll being adding Krillin in the sequel for the Saiyan Saga if they decide to make it. Otherwise they’ll totally be fraked! However, Final judgment cannot be had until I see the very end of the credits from the last reel of film. This will either wind up being a good adaptation that remains mostly faithful to the series and keep the spirit alive(Lord of the Rings), or it will wind up being an overblown clusterf@#k of an adaptation which will make fan boys weep in their mama’s arms(Transformers). Until April rolls around, all we can do is wait.

UPDATE: This is just far too amusing for me not to post. Describes my feelings perfectly.

Hitler Learns of the Dragonball Live Action Movie

SpikeBad – Ravings of a Big Bad Geek!!!

SpikeBad

Ravings of a Big Bad Geek!!!

Friends, Geeks, Trekkies, lend me your ears, for I come to bury Hollywood, not to praise it. Yes, after being still and silent for so long in the geek entertainment world, I have decided to throw my hat into the ring and bring to you all, out of my very own mind, my rants and ravings about hollywood and the geek world. I feel that after seeing what has become of my beloved Hollywood in the past decade, that this is my sworth duty and sacred oath.

You may not believe this, but I was once a child myself. After bursting out of the chest of my mother, my little alien self quickly consumed all the wonderful geektainment that was providing me during my childhood in the 90’s. We’re talking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Beast Wars, the DCAU, Goosebumps, and even Hercules and Xena with Buffy taking me over as I hit puberty and started having growth on my body. But that was just what was on the boobtube. The big screen had some of the best times of it’s life creatively with the Disney renaissance of animated musicals and the rise of Pixar, and Spielberg was just starting to hit his stride.

But my, oh my, how the times have changed with the turn of the Millennium. A monkey took the oath of office, Saturday morning and after school programming went the way of the dodo, Spielberg has hit a cinematic slumped filled with big screen mediocrity, 2D animation has become all but extinct, and Hollywood has since become plagued with remake after remake. And during all of this, Tom Cruise also seems to have become batshit crazy! Well let me to you all something…I’M MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

Aside from the rise of the comic book movie, and the Lord of The Rings, Hollywood has been dead to me for most of the decade. It has become a vast wasteland of japanese horror, remakes, and Paris Hilton!!! The only thing keeping me going is the hope of tomorrow and those little lights I’m starting to see at the end of the tunnel with Disney returning next year with a 2D musical(and I don’t give a frak how racist it may look!), and with the movie musical in general starting to see a return recently. And when Warner Bros. finally get’s it’s head out of it ass and start developing the rest of it’s DC comic book properties, then that’ll really be something to look forward to.

While the future of Hollywood may be uncertain, what is certain is that I will be here to guide the rest of you on the way there with my sagely advice, and often blistering critique of the industry itself. So listen closely my loyal minions to what I will be having to say about the geek news that comes out of the swinging pendulum of doom that is known as Hollywood. It may just end up saving you from wasting 10 bucks and two hours of your life somewhere down the line.

SpikeBad