I, along with a great many people, never seem to be able to make it, for a whole host of reasons, to the greatest of all pop culture nirvanas, San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC), which by the time this post goes live, will be in full, crowded, technicolour swing.
But absence from the event no longer means missing out on many of the goodies shared over the 4 epic day event thanks to the wonders of the world wide web and the 24/7 reach of social media.
One of the alluring parts of SDCC are the huge variety of exclusive goodies, and artwork that is especially prepared for the event, some of which has been shared already via various blogs and Twitter feeds.
Three of the posters in particular caught my attention, all of which I present for your viewing pleasure …
Toy Story is, without a doubt, animation powerhouse Pixar’s crowning achievement.
That is saying something given how many brilliant, imaginative, emotionally-rich, visually striking feature films they have put out but despite my great love for Finding Nemo and UP to name but two other films, it is the Toy Story movies that I find myself returning to repeatedly.
Thankfully Pixar knows how much we all love this series and how much we need to spend time with Woody, Buzz and the gang, and so along with the feature films and the shorts, they have also begun to produce specials for the ABC network which is also by Disney (which also, of course, owns Pixar).
Last year we were treated to a Halloween special Toy Story of Terror which screened on October 16 in the USA and this year it is the turn of Toy Story That Time Forgot, which is scheduled to premiere sometime in December.
While we don’t have a trailer we can dissect in exhaustive detail just yet, we do have a poster released for SDCC and it’s a gorgeous piece of art, featuring Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, along with Kevin McKidd (Grey’s Anatomy) who will voice and give life to Reptillus Maximus, a potential troublemaker in the world of Toy Story.
While we’re all anxiously awaiting said trailer, this brilliantly-detailed poster will do quite nicely in the interim, getting us even more excited for what will undoubtedly be another fun action-filled adventure for everyone’s favourite toys.
SNAPSHOT
An action-packed, epic space adventure, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the cosmos, where brash adventurer Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) finds himself the object of an unrelenting bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan (Lee Pace), a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe. To evade the ever-persistent Ronan, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with a quartet of disparate misfits—Rocket, a gun-toting raccoon (Bradley Cooper), Groot, a tree-like humanoid (Vin Diesel), the deadly and enigmatic Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and the revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista). But when Quill discovers the true power of the orb and the menace it poses to the cosmos, he must do his best to rally his ragtag rivals for a last, desperate stand—with the galaxy’s fate in the balance. (synopsis via Coming Soon)
Guardians of the Galaxy is promising to be the sassy, crazy, idiosyncratic fun sibling of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Rip-roaring, swashbuckling galactic-spanning adventuring seems to be its hallmark if the clips below are any guide – note neither contains any major spoilers and deal mainly with how this motley crew come together and end up as the galaxy’s sole hope for avoiding an evil armageddon – which should make for a thoroughly enjoyable moviegoing experience.
It got that sense of playfulness and witty repartee apparently from director James Gunn, a man who Indiewire notes, was an unexpected choice, known as “a filmmaker who preferred to deconstruct genres rather than play into the usual tropes”, whose unorthodox approach, at least for Marvel movies which uniformly good all follow a set template, seems to have met with approval from Marvel and specifically its president Kevin Feige who had this to say to IGN about why they selected Gunn to helm the movie:
“There were scenes in his early draft…the scene that closed out the 17-minute [IMAX preview], when Peter Quill says ‘I have a plan…’ That scene was in an early draft. And that scene goes on. Just the five of them, sitting in the circle you see, for eight minutes just talking and bantering back-and-forth. And it’s awesome. It’s great. My recollection is that in one of the early drafts we said ‘This scene is awesome—the whole movie should feel like this scene.’ And he went ‘Oh great, I was nervous about that scene. Because that scene is the most me, and I was afraid that you guys would say ‘Ooh that’s too long. Too much talking’.’ And we said ‘No, that’s great. That’s the movie. These characters.’ And I think that hit him more than I appreciated at the time, as an endorsement of his instincts and style.”
The poster is something special too, giving the movie an arty quality that features the Star-Lord’s imposing silhouette with the other members of the group outlined within his profile and which only adds to the excitement of the upcoming release.
To get ready for Guardians of the Galaxy, which opens on 7 August 2014 in Australia, 1 August in the US and 31 July in the UK, you might like to check put this io9 post 12 Guardians Of the Galaxy Facts The Movie Won’t Tell You, which should get well and truly up to speed one of the best blockbusters of the year.
SNAPSHOT
According to the official synopsis of the film, the story will be much closer to the Battle of the Five Armies scene in the original book. Thorin Oakenshield, obsessed with his family’s treasures, risks everything in order to protect it, not paying attention to Bilbo’s attempts to make him see reason. This, in turn, forces Bilbo to make a difficult and important choice in order to gain peace between the dwarves and the people of Lake-town. However, dark forces approach as the allies of Sauron merge and wage the terrible Battle of the Five Armies, in which the balance of Middle Earth itself hangs in the balance. Amidst it all, Bilbo finds himself fighting for Middle Earth and those he cares about. (synopsis via Movie News Guide)
For a small book full of grand “Hobbitses” adventures, The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien has already spawned two gigantically epic and thoroughly engaging movies An Unexpected Journey (2012) and The Desolation of Smaug (2013), with the final entry in the trilogy The Battle of the Five Armies due out this 17 December 2014 in the US and 26 December in Australia.
Previously titled There and Back Again, which was a reasonably anodyne title for the final chapter in this gripping series, The Battle of the Five Armies will feature the mother of all battles as once again the fate of Middle Earth is fought over by the forces of good and evil.
If it is anything like its two predecessors, both of which put paid to the idea that you couldn’t expand such a small book into a workable trilogy – Peter Jackson who both wrote the screenplays (with Fran Walsh, Philippa Doyens and Guillermo del Toro) and directed the entire The Hobbit series, along with of course The Lord of the Rings series drew on a number of Tolkien’s supplementary texts to flesh out the story – The Battle of the Five Armies will be a fitting conclusion to this beautifully made franchise.
In keeping with Jackson’s attention to detail and vision for The Hobbit, the preliminary poster is a work of art in itself which shows “Smaug terrorizing Lake-town, with Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans) standing in defiance of the red-scaled dragon.” (IGN)
Fans at SDCC will also be treated to the first screening of any footage from Battle of the Five Armies at a Saturday morning panel in Hall H at which Jackson and possibly some cast members will be present.
It’s all enough to make you wish it was December already!