I don’t think I can sum it up any better than this imdb.com reviewer:

“So I can everybody advice to see the film.”

Oh yes, my Russian friend. Oh, yes…

Link [quicktime.com] to the trailer.

Lots of info coming in from Star Wars Celebration III, and I’m going to recap it.

- Clone Wars Cartoon series; 30 minutes long, on Cartoon Network. Some indication that it might be CGI or 3D or something. Not sure how I feel about that.

- Live-action TV show; takes place between Ep3 and Ep4; characters from the original trilogy will appear in the show (like who? Darth Vader?) 2 years away, at least; writing all of the scripts at once; looking at hopefully 100 episodes; chances of more shows taking place at different times. Sounds fantastic, if you ask me.

- rumblings of a Willow TV series, as well. If it’s starring Val Kilmer, I might think about watching it.

The mood of Star Wars geeks right now is one of intense excitement mitigated by trepidation. Nobody is going to get their hopes up too high for Revenge of the Sith, if nothing else than to avoid the disappointment of Episode 1. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the psychology of the geek.

Link to the article from which I gleaned the above.

Personally, I think he looks kind of lame, and more like Nic Cage than I had expected.

This is a couple weeks old, but I’m posting it anyway:

With 12-14 sitcom pilots in production for fall 2005, NBC is betting high on comedy’s resurgence. To that end, it’s upping the ante on its poker-set sitcom All In, having cast Janeane Garofalo in the lead role. In it, Garofalo plays a single mom who also is a Vegas poker player. The series is executive produced by Friends star Lisa Kudrow and her producing partner Dan Bucatinsky.

Link to original article.

So, Funcom is making a Conan the Barbarian Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game and Single Player Experience, possibly the first entry in what promises to be a new genre of gimmicks and half-baked ideas: The MMORPGSPE.

As far as I know, the only MMORPG to get very close to what I would call a fun experience is, apparently, World of Warcraft, which I have yet to play. I’ve only actually played 2 MMORPGs for any length of time.

Ultima Online was the first game of its kind that I played, where one could use one’s hard-earned pick and shovel to dig for ore in seemingly random areas of vaguely rocky-looking terrain, and then use that ore to — well, I never actually got very far after that.

The second was Star Wars Galaxies, which I played for about 45 minutes. I spent the first 40 minutes making my character, and then 5 minutes being killed by a handful of very small crustaceons.

Needless to say, I’m not incredibly excited about this whole Conan thing.

Here’s some text from an article on some website I saw:

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures will be a PC “online action-RPG” which will be a mix of “story-driven single-player experience and a massive and brutal multiplayer end-game.” According to Funcom Game Director Gaute Godager, it will begin as a single-player RPG adventure, and, when that portion’s story is complete, will allow players to bring their characters into an MMORPG universe.

I can make a few assumptions about this game, without having seen anything about it:

1) The single-player portion will suck. It will be linear, railroaded and very short. When you play your character all the way through, you will share the exact same adventures will every other character in the MMORPG, except with some vague, cosmetic differences. The single-player campaign will be considered by its players to be a nuisance, as one will have to go through the whole thing every time one wants to make a character, at least until they patch it 6 months later to take out that requirement and essentially render their entire single player campaign meaningless.

2) The Multiplayer aspect will be a mishmash of buggy features from every other MMORPG and innovate, perhaps, in one or two ways that don’t actually work as well as expected or as well as promised. The game designers will have a few new ideas intended to change the way people think about the genre, but they will turn out to be universally reviled and will be phased out or marginalized with the aforementioned patch.

Conan the Barbarian deserves a good game. It deserves a great game. But until these MMORPGs stop feeling like a job (and paying for the game twice: full price for the game, plus a monthly fee), I think I’ll pass.

Here are some screenshots [gamespot.com]. They probably have as much to do with the actual game as this picture of my fiancee’s ass:

Again, that bastion of fatness (literal, not the ph- kind) brings us media to devour:

Link to Aint it Cool News’s Article.

Commentary: Not much new in these three spots, except a cool glimpse of Greivous and his unique method of fighting (I guess I’ll be spoiler free — for now). And Ewan has nailed the Alec Guiness impression so thoroughly that the progession from Revenge of the Sith to A New Hope will be rather smooth, at least visually.

I have to say that I’m looking forward to this one. I proclaim to all who listen that it will be a good movie.

I say this without exposing that little kernel of trepidation I have. It’s not too late to make it ok for us to like the new Star Wars movies, George!

It’s not too late!

You are not nearly as hardcore as these guys [news.yahoo.com].

Get on that, ok? We need more police actions. To give us legitimacy.

Signed,
the undersigned

The GeekSphere is going nuts over the first pics of the new guy [imdb.com] as Clark Kent, during filming for Bryan Singer’s Superman in Aussieland.

Link to pics at Superhero Hype.
Link to story from Ain’t it Cool News.

Commentary: I think he looks absolutely perfect. I can’t help but compare him to Christopher Reeve, as I’m sure many others are; Reeve always looked, to me, like a strapping statue with a suit kind of awkwardly wrapped around him, just as an ubermensch should. Routh just kind of looks like a regular dude wearing a regular suit.

That’s such a little quibble. I’m a nerd, I can’t help it.

It’s so easy to simply make fun of them [boingboing.net]. They’re the biggest target, maybe even almost as big a target as the Trekkies are.

Do you like how I refer to Star Wars nerds in the third person, as if I’m not one of them? Yeah, I thought you would.

I submit that we pick a new class of geek to be the whipping boys and girls: the LARPers [wikipedia.org].

Nobody likes those people. I bet they don’t even like each other. Or themselves.

One of my very favorite podcasts, Geekson [geekson.com] (review forthcoming) has a new feature, begun in their most recent show, in which they engage in the geek-favorite Match-Up, pitting two fictional characters, often of disparate origins, in mortal combat. Since I listen to the show every week, and since they’ll probably keep doing it, I decided to answer some of their conclusions with some of my own.

Batman vs. Spider-Man

The conceit of these age-old geek debates relies on the pure physicality of the combat in question. The issue here is only whether Combatant A can defeat Combatant B. Any indication of preparation or planning must be ignored.

Having said that, Spider-Man could totally kick Batman’s ass. Batman is, at best, the peak of human ability. Spider-Man has super strength, super dexterity and super reflexes. A single successful blow from Spider-Man would snap Batman’s neck like a chicken’s. Batman could conceivably kill with a single blow as well, but the likelihood of him doing so before Spidey does is exceedingly small.

Decision: Spider-Man in one round.

Sub-Mariner vs. Aquaman

Again, the pure physicality of the combat lies in SubMariner’s favor. Aquaman has none of Submariner’s superhuman abilities. By the time a bunch of sharks get tot he battle, Aquaman on would be choking on bits of his own face.

Decision: Sub-Mariner in one round.

X-Men vs JLA

Because of Professor X, the battle is most definitely on the side of the X-Men. As long as Superman is neutralized, then the JLA is easily mopped up the X-Men. If Professor X is disabled in short order (very short order), then the X-Men are in much greater danger. Sure, a handful of the mutants could probably take him, but they would lose a bunch of their own in the process. As a general rule, however, the diversity of the X-Men would give them an upper hand. They have so many strange, useful powers that the JLA, crippled by its reliance on Superman, would be overwhelmed. Also, the X-Men fight dirty, way dirtier than the JLA, and that counts for a lot.

Decision: X-Men, with reservations.

The GeeksOn podcast also mentioned the Wonder Twins, but I’m not much of a fan of the crap-tastic abortion known as Hanna Barbera’s Super Friends; I refrain from comment. Well, from further comment.

Also, the GeeksOn fellows mentioned two other subjects that I will also answer.

Lamest Super Hero

It’s easy to pick a villain for this category, because villains tend to be lamer than the heroes, if only because they exist purely for heroes to defeat. If villains are permitted, I would pick Paste Pot Pete [samruby.com] (or, as he is now known, the slightly less lame name, The Trapster)

If I were to pick a hero, I would go with Angel [wikipedia.org], whose only power exists purely as a side-effect of a rather disgusting deformity: giant, feathered wings. That’s his only power, folks. He can fly. Cause he has wings.

Coolest Superhero Who is Underrated

Quasar [wikipedia.org]. He’s basically nothing more than Marvel’s version of Green Lantern, but much, much cooler.