Mary Elizabeth Winstead lights it up in "The Thing."

By Jason Apuzzo. THE PITCH: Universal and director Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. bring The Thing back to life as a direct prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 cult favorite about a shape-shifting alien discovered by a research team in the Antarctic – both films being based on John W. Campbell, Jr.’s classic 1938 sci-fi short story, “Who Goes There?”

THE SKINNY: While the 2011 version of The Thing will not likely be remembered as fondly as Howard Hawks’ 1951 classic, this new adaptation serves as a crisp, gripping prelude to Carpenter’s film, driven by a stand-out performance from Mary Elizabeth Winstead and suspenseful direction from Matthijs van Heijningen.

WHAT WORKS: • Mary Elizabeth Winstead radiates warmth and intelligence as American paleonthologist Dr. Kate Lloyd, in the same kind of role that once made Sigourney Weaver a star (playing Ripley in Alien). A conventional scream queen in her earlier roles, Winstead graduates here to depicting a resourceful, sympathetic female scientist who keeps her wits about her while the rest of her colleagues fall to pieces – both literally and figuratively.

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje & Joel Edgerton as American helicopter pilots.

• Matthijs van Heijningen’s understated direction brings out the natural suspense of the story, allowing the isolated setting, mutual suspicions of the characters and the intrinsically frightening situation to do the heavy dramatic lifting.

• The cast feels credible as a hardy professional research crew, much more so actually than the (otherwise superb) cast in Carpenter’s film – and this has the effect of enhancing the suspense and paranoid vibe of the film. Indeed, Winstead’s heroism in the film consists precisely in her taking a more professional-scientific attitude toward the alien threat than that of her compatriots. (And on this point, the new version of The Thing is rarely played for laughs in the way that the Carpenter version sometimes seems to be.)

• One thing this 2011 Thing has over previous versions is that it exploits the alien’s saucer more than before, eventually even taking us inside it at the film’s climax to nice effect.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK: • This new version of The Thing is burdened by the need to present the same grotesque, Hieronymus Bosch-show of creature-transformations as were depicted in the Carpenter version of the film. With that said, the transformations in this new film are slightly less disgusting, and often take place in shadow.

• Both the 1951 and 1982 versions of The Thing have iconic musical scores, from Dimitri Tiomkin (with his groundbreaking use of the theramin) and Ennio Morricone/John Carpenter, respectively. Composer Marco Beltrami’s score here is too conventional; he should’ve tried something more unusual or distinctive for this new film to keep the tradition of musical innovation going.

• As I mentioned last week with respect to the film’s screenplay, this new version of The Thing lacks humor – a major component of both the 1951 and 1982 films. Also: the new film drops one of the great gags of Carpenter’s film, which is depicting several of the researchers as having such bizarre personalities (particularly Richard Masur as Clark) as to seem alien even before the creature shows up.

Opening Pandora's box.

• There’s room to ask here whether it was a good idea to bring back this story in the form of a prequel to Carpenter’s film. There is, ultimately, very little about this version that qualifies as being ‘original’ or imaginative, even if its execution is solid. The Hawks version is tighter, more sophisticated and features larger Cold War connotations; the Carpenter version has more colorful characters and satiric flourishes. Possibly what was needed here was a totally different interpretation in order to take the film to the next level.

THE BOTTOM LINE: What makes this new version of The Thing work – which it does, in my opinion – is that it has the basic sense to tell what is already a great story straight, without the embellishments that contemporary filmmakers sometimes add when they don’t trust their material. Director Matthijs van Heijningen and screenwriters Eric Heisserer and Ronald Moore obviously believed in Campbell’s/Carpenter’s basic story material here, and therefore didn’t clutter the film up with obnoxious revisionisms or distractions like the political propaganda found in the Day the Earth Stood Still remake from 2008, or the bizarre plot involutions of 2007’s The Invasion (a flaccid remake of Invasion of The Body Snatchers). This by-the-book approach doesn’t necessarily make this new version of The Thing a classic, but it does make it effective and streamlined as an exercise in sci-fi horror.

Certainly the easiest thing in the world to say about this new version of The Thing is that it doesn’t rise to the level of Howard Hawks’ 1951 version, nor of John Carpenter’s 1982 film. I’m not sure how much that says, however; Hawks’ film is easily one of the greatest sci-fi films ever, and Carpenter is one of the greatest sci-fi/horror directors of all time. Judged against such standards, a lot of contemporary films and filmmakers would pale in comparison.

A better point of comparison for this new version of The Thing might be the recent wave of alien invasion thrillers from this past year – and here I think The Thing stands out as a solid, suspenseful film that is better than a whole variety of over-hyped/under-performing competitors from 2011, including: Super 8, Cowboys & Aliens, and an entire season’s worth of Falling Skies. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer my aliens to be really terrifying, and of all the aliens I’ve seen from this past year – and I’ve seen a lot of them, with a few more still to come – the one I would least want to be caught in a room with (outside of Transformers’ Shockwave, who wouldn’t fit into a room to begin with) would be the omnivorous, protean, infinitely imitative and malevolent creature from The Thing. The creature in this new film still packs an unnerving, visceral punch, in much the same way that Carpenter’s did – even if the previous film’s spectacle of gore is slightly toned down here.

My advice if you are a fan of Carpenter’s film? Give this new one a shot, preferably late at night.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead projects authority and professionalism as Dr. Kate Lloyd.

One final point: films are star-driven, and there’s a special pleasure associated with watching a new star emerge in a film. I went into this film looking forward to seeing Joel Edgerton, whom I already knew to be a good young actor (and he’s good here, playing a rough-and-tumble American helicopter pilot), but the real discovery in this film was Mary Elizabeth Winstead. This is clearly going to be a break-out role for her, largely because of her ability to project intelligence and authority. And although she doesn’t yet have the screen presence that the young Sigourney Weaver showed back in the 1980s (she isn’t as lanky, sexy or vaguely odd as Sigourney), Winstead brings a conviction to this type of role that I haven’t seen since the Sigourney-heyday of the 1980s. And what’s nice here is that she doesn’t have to become a Kate Beckinsale-type action hero to do it; instead, like a classic female scientist from 50s sci-fi (think Faith Domergue from It Came from Beneath the Sea or This Island Earth) she uses her wits and innate professionalism to get herself out of jams – along with, of course, a handy flamethrower.

After all, no one ever said sci-fi women can’t heat things up.

Posted on October 14th, 2011 at 11:13pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. • I had the chance recently to read the screenplay for The Thing, which opens next Friday, Oct. 14th. To sum up my reaction in a nutshell: I liked it, given that the film’s basic requirement is to serve as a direct prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 thriller. I frankly would’ve preferred a totally new interpretation of the original story, instead of a prequelized version of Carpenter’s; be that as it may, my sense is that if you’re planning on seeing the film next Friday, and aren’t otherwise bothered by the new film’s lack of star-power – or the kind of intense, sci-fi gore associated with Carpenter’s original film – you’re likely to have a good time.

This new version of The Thing, which is set back in 1982, sweeps you into the story quickly and efficiently, introducing a variety of new, relatively low-key characters – including, most importantly, young paleonthologist Dr. Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and helicopter pilot Sam Carter (Joel Edgerton) – who along with several others travel to the Norwegian ‘Thule’ research station in Antarctica, where a mysterious saucer … and an even more mysterious occupant of the saucer, frozen in ice … have been discovered by the Norwegian research team. If you’re familiar with the original Carpenter film, you already know what ends up happening to the Thule station, discovered by Kurt Russell in the original. If you don’t already know, I won’t spoil it for you – but suffice it to say that ‘things’ go badly, as it were.

This new, prequelized version of The Thing feels like it has a lot in common with Ridley Scott’s original Alien, in the sense that the story is built around a thoughtful young woman who keeps her wits about her while the rest of her team descends into hysteria, paranoia or is otherwise carved into pieces like so much whale blubber as the alien ‘thing’ slowly wreaks its havoc in the isolated station. Much as with Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Alien, Kate Lloyd here doesn’t really do very much or assert herself prominently until about halfway through the story – she simply keeps her eyes open, while others pursue their various agendas, largely blind to the danger in their midst. It should be a good role for Mary Elizabeth Winstead; I hope she makes the most of it. (Winstead talks about the parallels between her role and Weaver’s Alien role here.)

Truth be told, I’ve only recently become a fan of John Carpenter’s 1982 version of The Thing, which I went back and re-watched a short while back. Although the film is moody and atmospheric, with some nice performances from Kurt Russell and the supporting cast, I still strongly prefer Howard Hawks’ original – although it’s basically true that Carpenter’s film is more ‘faithful’ to the original conception of the morphing, imitative creature in John W. Campbell’s 1938 short story, “Who Goes There?” For my taste, Carpenter’s film gets a little lost in its gore and disgusting excess – losing its suspense every time we’re forced to watch the creature transform into some repulsive new hybrid of man and beast. Alas, expect more of this sort of thing in the new film – no doubt amped-up by digital technology.

What Carpenter’s film has going for it, however, is a genuine sense of terror and dread that has been lacking from a lot of sci-fi alien invasion films of late. So many of the current alien invasion projects (Battle: Los Angeles, the Transformers movies, Skyline, Falling Skies, Battleship, etc.) are basically sublimated war films of one kind or another. John W. Campbell’s original story, along with Carpenter’s telling of it, introduce the much more terrifying notion that an alien might be right beside you – a shape-shifter, ready to destroy and/or assimilate you on a moment’s notice. This new version of The Thing re-awakens the primal fear associated with not trusting someone, that creeping sense that the person next to you might not even be fully human - an eerie, paranoid notion that is actually what much of 1930s and 1950s sci-fi was based on.

Can she deliver? Mary Elizabeth Winstead in "The Thing."

So what should you expect, in terms of what will be different about this film in comparison to the original? Truth be told, relatively little – with just a few exceptions, as the new film’s screenplay really does fit Carpenter’s film like a glove. (Incidentally, it’s cool to read a screenplay that says: “Cue Morricone’s score.”) On the positive side, and without spoiling too much, something’s that’s been unexploited by the two previous versions of The Thing (1951 and 1982, respectively) has been the saucer by which the creature arrives. Expect to spend more time around and also inside the saucer in this new version; what happens there is intriguing and suspenseful. On the neutral side, the ‘test’ for determining whether someone is really human or not is clever – but doesn’t necessarily provide as suspenseful a moment as there was in the Carpenter version. On the negative side, I thought that this new Thing screenplay really lacked something that both the Carpenter and (superior) Howard Hawks versions had: crackling humor. This new Thing is a very sober, straight-forward, dour-‘Norwegian’ telling of the story – a telling that really needed the kind of humor you get from having a group of wise-cracking American characters around. Humor is a great way to relieve fear and tension, and I’m concerned that this new film will be lacking it.

We’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, there are some new clips out (see here, here and here) from the film, a red band trailer and new TV spot, Joel Edgerton talked about the film recently (noting the parallels between Cold War fears of communism and terrorist fears today), the film’s Russian poster looks pretty cool, and a new comic book series supporting the film’s launch is being released. And speaking of comic books and alien threats in the Antarctic, Lorenzo di Bonaventura – who seems to own the rights to every alien invasion property in existence – just picked up the rights to the Area 52 comic book from back in 2001.

Ridley Scott directing the original "Alien."

• Speaking of Alien and alien-related prequels, there’s been a lot of chatter recently about Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, although none of it as exciting as the leaking in August of images from the film’s Comic-Con showreel. I’ve seen those images, by the way, and would love to post them here – but I’m not eager to be contacted by Twentieth Century Fox lawyers about it, so you’ll just have to go someplace like here to see at least a few of them. In any case, what these images reveal are two things: 1) the film already is looking extraordinary in terms of its dark, retro-design, really pulling you back into the murky, claustrophobic world of the original film; 2) Prometheus is quite obviously an Alien-prequel, Sir Ridley’s coy assertions aside. This is really looking like a film not to miss next summer.

Screenwriter Damon Lindelof revealed a few details recently about Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron’s characters … SPOILER ALERT … Fassbender will be playing an android, no doubt of the intense/brooding variety, while Charlize will be playing a corporate suit (surprise, surprise!) … END OF SPOILERS … also: the film has a new ‘official’ synopsis, and Guy Pierce and new cast member Patrick Wilson are out talking about the film.

• In semi-related news, Ridley Scott announced recently that he will be directing the next Blade Runner film – in whatever form that will take – although Harrison Ford will not be involved.

• Entertainment Tonight recently did a cheerful little behind-the-scenes feature on Battleship, which you should make sure to see. Much as with the Hasbro-Michael Bay Transformers, it looks like director Peter Berg received a lot of assistance from the military on this film, and Berg otherwise talks about working on the film here. We also now have the first official photo of Rihanna appearing in the film, cast members Alexander Skarsgard and Hamish Linklater are out talking about Battleship … and, of course, most importantly, we finally have the first official photo of Brooklyn Decker in the film (see below). She’s looking a little frosty.

Brooklyn Decker glares at her fiancé in "Battleship."

Continue reading »

By Jason Apuzzo. THE PITCH: Timur Bekmambetov produces a $5 million found-footage sci-fi thriller about an ‘officially’ scrubbed Apollo 18 mission that we learn was secretly launched by the Defense Department in December 1974 in search of … a mysterious presence on the Moon.

THE SKINNY: The Weinstein-distributed Apollo 18 wastes a great premise and an effective re-creation of America’s pioneering Moon landings on a listless storyline, thin characters, lame thrills, and a gratuitous cheap shot at the U.S. military that confounds the film’s own plot. NASA was wise to steer clear of this film, and so should you.

WHAT WORKS: • If you ever wanted to experience what a Moon landing might feel like from the first-person perspective of the astronauts, Apollo 18 captures that in 1970s period detail – although the film spends too much time in the claustrophobic confines of the lunar lander, and never fully stretches its legs on the Moon.

• The found-footage motif is worked nicely into the storyline, introducing (courtesy of Apple’s Final Cut Pro) a mixture of handheld Super-8mm footage and distressed analog video that gives the film visual interest and an authentic, period feel.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK: • Actors Lloyd Owen and Warren Christie aren’t able to capture the stoic, tight-lipped heroism of actual astronauts. Their acting performances here are much too histrionic to be believable given the circumstances of the mission and the time period.

• ***SPOILER ALERT*** The plot hinges on the idea that the Defense Department would send U.S. astronauts to the Moon without briefing them on the basic nature of their mission, and would even leave them to die – even when rescue is possible. The film’s cynicism is ugly, and undermines the storyline’s basic believability. ***END OF SPOILERS***

• The film’s amateur attempt at ‘suspense,’ such as it is, never really achieves much of a payoff. The ‘threat’ the astronauts eventually uncover on the Moon would barely pass muster in a Roger Corman movie.

• The film lacks humor or laughs, giving it no place to go once the shock-moments wear off. As a result the movie is dull – like listening to Muzak for 90 minutes inside a 1970s photo booth.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Trying to quickly cash-in on the alien invasion and found-footage genres, Apollo 18 has the extreme misfortune of being out at the same time that a newly remastered, 3D IMAX version of Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon just arrived in theaters this past week. Since Apollo 18 is so utterly forgettable, and even contemptible in its cynicism toward the American military, my strong advice is to spend your money this weekend watching the first 10 minutes of Dark of the Moon, instead. Even if you only stay for those first few minutes, you’ll enjoy a much better experience than Apollo 18 can muster.

Misfire: from "Apollo 18."

If you haven’t seen it yet this summer, Dark of the Moon (see my review here) opens with a heroic sequence that re-creates the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing, as astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin step onto the surface of the Moon and – unbeknownst to the world – secretly explore a gigantic, mysterious (and seemingly moribund) alien spacecraft. This breathtaking opening flourish, presented in 3D IMAX, is truly one of the inspired moments in the entire Transformers trilogy, and at its conclusion when I saw the film again earlier this week actually touched off a round of applause in the audience – and I will confess to having had some watery eyes, myself.

Like other such moments in Michael Bay’s films – particularly Armageddon and Pearl Harbor – the sequence summons elegiac emotions of pride in America’s bold, pioneering spirit, our legacy of achievement in pushing the boundaries of outer space, of opening new horizons through courage and innovation. That’s what America’s efforts in outer space mean, not the junk the Weinsteins are currently peddling with Apollo 18, a film destined for the bargain bin at your local gas station – tucked somewhere between other Weinstein classics like Mimic 3 and Children of the Corn 5.

If we ever get back to the Moon, or push ahead further to Mars, it certainly won’t be because films like this are inspiring us with a sense of wonder about getting there.

Posted on September 2nd, 2011 at 6:11pm.

By Jason Apuzzo. Cowboys & Aliens is one of those movies that probably looked great on paper – like a development executive’s dream. Take a popular graphic novel that combines two of America’s most durable genres (the Western and sci-fi), cast Indiana Jones and the current James Bond, add the Iron Man director and current It-girl from Tron, plus Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard as producers – and you’ve got a sure-fire hit, right?

Right?

Alas, we all know that movies don’t work exactly that way. There’s actually something rather mysterious about what makes one film work – and a different film made by the same people, even on the same subject, fall flat. It’s a matter of what we usually call ‘chemistry’ or ‘inspiration.’

Cowboys & Aliens is not a bad film. It’s entertaining at times and works reasonably well as light summer entertainment – but it’s the cinematic equivalent of the ’superteam’ Miami Heat, or the Lakers back when they had a roster that included Kobe, Shaq, Karl Malone and Gary Payton … and lost the title. It’s a film that doesn’t know what it wants to be, so it ends up being almost nothing. Unsatisfying as a Western, and clichéd as sci-fi – insufficient as a star vehicle, and thin as an action film – Cowboys & Aliens is a genre mash-up that never really settles on being any one thing, and left me bored and disinterested as a result.

Reluctant allies, covered in dust.

Although Cowboys boasts two big leads, it’s mostly carried by Daniel Craig as Jake Lonergan – a man who, as the film opens, awakens in the desert in Jason Bourne-like fashion, having lost his memory but not his ability to kick peoples’ teeth in. Although he fights like a UFC mixed martial artist and shoots like Wyatt Earp, Jake can’t remember who he is, or why he has a strangely cauterized wound on his side, or why a bizarre slab of metal is wrapped around his wrist – like some sort of Stone Age Casio watch.

This is where the film makes its first mistake, in the casting of Daniel Craig. It’s time we acknowledge what has become obvious: which is that Craig, for what limited ability he’s shown in playing James Bond – limited, that is, to fight scenes – has neither the charisma, nor the warmth, nor the subtlety of person to really make a compelling, big-time movie star. It’s simply not there. Daniel Craig looks and acts like a rugby player, or maybe a bouncer – the sort of person who isn’t called upon on a regular basis to show vulnerability, or a sense of humor. (Qualities, incidentally, that his co-star Harrison Ford has specialized in over the past 35 years.) Think back to what Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson were like in their prime  - and you’ll realize how dull Craig’s performances are these days. He’s Cowboys’ first and biggest problem.

Eventually Craig heads into the town of ‘Absolution’ (which is probably the sister city of ‘Obvious Metaphor’), one of those typical Western-movie towns in which everyone speaks in parables, and nobody seems to have bathed during the past year. (Was the West really like that? I doubt it.) After a series of brief fistfights and shoot-outs, none of which are especially electrifying, we learn that the town is basically run by cattle baron and former Confederate Army Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (get it? he sells cattle!), played by Harrison Ford at his most grizzled. Ford seems to be channelling John Wayne’s character Thom Dunson from Red River here, as in vengeful fits he rides roughshod over the local sheriff, his men, and most particularly his worthless son. And of everyone involved in this film – and that includes the director, and the film’s eight writers – Ford is the only one who seems at home in this material, like he’s been itching to cut loose in a Western for decades. He’s ornery and authoritative, but always with a cracked smile and a twinkle in his eye. He’s trail boss, father figure and old coot all in one – and he’s good. You’ll be wishing this wasn’t his first Western since the bizarre The Frisco Kid (with Gene Wilder?!) back in 1979. Continue reading »

From "Cowboys & Aliens."

By Jason Apuzzo. • We’ve been through Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Super 8, Green Lantern and Falling Skies thus far this summer, and our next scheduled alien invasion comes this Friday in the form of Cowboys & Aliens. Although initially skeptical about this project, I’m now looking forward to it – largely because it looks to be more of a Western, truth be told, than a sci-fi project – and I’ve been eager to see Harrison Ford in a Western for decades. In a summer in which we’ve seen aliens demolish the downtowns of several major American cities  – usually in 3D – Cowboys & Aliens looks to offer a more modest type of spectacle, one that’s based on old-fashioned star power and earth-bound heroics rather than visual effects.

Does this mean I’m going to like Cowboys more than Transformers (easily my favorite film of the summer)? Not at all – in fact, I’d say that’s highly unlikely at this point. But I miss the Western genre – its style, values and vision of the American frontier and the people who conquered it – and if it takes an alien menace to re-animate the genre for younger audiences, I’m all for it.

This is all to say that Cowboys & Aliens is currently looking like a film that is only nominally attached to the sci-fi genre, and is leaning heavily on the romance of the Old West for its appeal – and, ironically, this is probably why the film currently isn’t tracking very well, or is at least tracking more like a Western than a major sci-fi tentpole. The film’s director, Jon Favreau, has been taking a decidedly old-school approach to promoting the film, sitting down recently for some very enjoyable conversations with Harrison Ford, and also with the film’s producers Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Favreau almost comes across like an associate professor in cinema studies during these conversations rather than a hot director with a major film to launch. I’m liking his low-key approach, though, and I hope the film turns out to be good. You’ll get my full report on that Friday!

In the meantime, take a moment to check out this major career retrospective on Cowboys & Aliens’ producer, Steven Spielberg, held at the DGA recently and featuring James Cameron and J.J. Abrams. It’s 90 minutes of Spielberg at his most engaging, talking about his career from its humble beginnings all the way to today.

• The Battleship trailer finally set sail this morning … and I loved it. Imagine a cross between Top Gun and Battle: Los Angeles, with Liam Neeson and Brooklyn Decker thrown in, and you’ve basically got the vibe of this film.

Some of the big guns on display in "Battleship."

Battleship stars Taylor Kitsch (who for obscure reasons has been tapped to carry both this film and Disney’s John Carter next year) as some kind of ‘rebellious’/Maverick-style hot shot Naval officer assigned to serve under Liam Neeson on board a battleship, while conveniently enough being engaged to Neeson’s daughter, Brooklyn Decker, who plays “a physical therapist.” I’ll bet! After a few glamor shots of Ms. Decker providing ‘physical therapy’ to her fiancé on a beach in Hawaii (is this covered under Obamacare?), we then get some beauty passes of Naval ships, etc., then head out to sea where some kind of massive alien flotilla has arrived. We get a pretty good look at the alien ships in this trailer, and the whole thing ends with Neeson ordering all guns to fire on the alien attackers.

The whole thing looks pretty entertaining, very much in the Michael Bay style – romanticizing the military lifestyle and its flashy hardware – and also like it may have something the otherwise commendable Battle: Los Angeles didn’t really have: humor. One thing I wasn’t crazy about, though: Taylor Kitsch looks completely dull in this trailer, as he does in the John Carter trailer (see below). The studios have really got to find some better young male leads these days. (I’m still stewing, btw, over how godawful Garrett Hedlund was in Tron: Legacy.) My suggestion? Outsource. Hire Brits and Aussies exclusively.

Footnote: if you look carefully, the film depicts Neeson leading what appears to be an international naval flotilla – led by America but with the Japanese featured prominently. I like that. I think it’s nice to remember who our actual allies are these days, as opposed to those who are simply our ‘trading partners.’ Hint, hint.

Battleship hits theaters in May of 2012, and I will be there. Here’s the trailer below.

Continue reading »

By Jason Apuzzo. The Transformers series is basically a high-speed, whipsaw collision of three things: 1) the venerable, 1950’s-based alien invasion genre, with its subtext of American freedom-fighting in the face of overwhelming technological threats from abroad; 2) a Hasbro toy line; 3) the retro-80s/MTV sensibilities of director Michael Bay.

This unusual and unexpected combination of elements have proven extremely successful at the box office over the past four years, but like any successful franchise, the Transformers movies are also more than the sum of their parts. The movies are fun, epic in scale, earthy in their humor, cheekily conspiratorial in their politics, playfully fetishistic in their focus on cars and girls, and keenly attuned to the sensibilities of the moment – what’s cool and what isn’t – in the same way the Bond films were in their heyday.

But the films offer a bit more than that, actually.  Like Michael Bay’s best work – Pearl Harbor comes to mind – the films are unbending in their affection for the things that make America special: our independent streak, our fighting spirit, our passion for technological innovation. The films also radiate middle class values: the value of hard work and sacrifice, of remaining loyal to friends, and the importance of family – even when your family drives you insane.

The high-class, professional girlfriend.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon doesn’t necessarily add anything new to this formula that wasn’t there in the first two films. The familiar elements are all there in the first half of Dark of the Moon, but what Bay adds in the film’s second half are action sequences so gigantic and complex in scale – and amplified by astonishingly detailed 3D imagery – that one can only really compare them to Avatar or to certain moments in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. And the sum of all this ultimately is quite arresting and entertaining … but sometimes a bit overwhelming.

So let me just blurt it out here and say that as much as I liked the film, it also felt a bit excessive. The first two Transformers movies I first saw on DVD, on a portable player, in a situation in which the action in my field of vision was tightly contained, and the audio channels compressed down to classic L-R stereo. Watching Dark of the Moon in 3D on a big screen in 7.1 sound – with the film’s rapid fire dialogue, multi-layered conspiracy plotlines, and mind-shattering action sequences – left me feeling liked I’d just spent 2 1/2+ hours behind a jet engine … while reading Stephen Ambrose. It was a lot to take in.

Michael Bay’s directing style might best be described as palimpsestic, like something out 17th century Baroque painting or drama: dense, tightly packed plotlines are unfolding as comic one-liners shoot at you rapid-fire, while imagery of complex machines hurtle through space in balletic, gravity-defying maneuvers … right as Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is turning a corner in an outfit that makes her look curvier than Jessica Rabbit.

And you have about .3 seconds to take all that in before the next shot.

Not a millimeter of the frame nor a single audio frequency is wasted in Dark of the Moon. Every moment is packed to the gills with detail – and frequently with references to other films. It’s a unique style that I’ve come to like from Bay – the style of a muralist, rather than a portraitist – and a style that assumes the audience is capable of absorbing an ocean of detail. But sometimes, as when you’re looking at a huge mural in a museum, it can be a bit overwhelming.

This isn’t a complaint or a criticism, so much as an observation: Michael Bay seems to be inaugurating a different kind of filmmaking in the Transformers series, a type of complex, information-rich filmmaking style that assumes his audience can go back endlessly on DVD/Blu-ray after seeing the film and actually figure out what the hell happened, and savor all the details (and there are plenty to savor; especially if you like Osprey helicopters, or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s legs). Because I liked Dark of the Moon, I recommend you do that – because on first viewing it’s quite a lot to take in. Continue reading »

By Jason Apuzzo. Last week was extremely busy for me on non-Libertas fronts, and as a secondary matter I also happened to bust up one of my shoulders (no worries; it’s on the mend), making it a little difficult to write – so LFM was quiet for most of last week.

I wanted readers to know, however, that I was not completely AWOL while Earth was being invaded.

I’m referring here, of course to the alien invasions depicted in Green Lantern, Super 8 and the premiere of TNT’s Falling Skies – all of which I made sure to see. And although it would take a prohibitive amount of time and effort at this point to write full reviews of each project, I wanted to at least provide some brief reactions:

• The Steven Spielberg/Robert Rodat alien invasion series Falling Skies had a very big cable debut on TNT Sunday night, pulling in an estimated 5.9 million viewers. To put that figure in perspective, there’s not a single show on Fox News that comes even close to that sort of audience size.

The question is whether Falling Skies will keep that large audience – because although I generally liked what I saw of Falling Skies, and would’ve loved it if I was still back in high school (with the show’s Aliens-meets-Red Dawn vibe) … in 2011 I wasn’t deeply impressed with it. Indeed, I would say the show seemed inferior in many respects to ABC’s similarly-themed V series that just got cancelled after its second season.

Until the second half of Sunday’s Falling Skies premiere, I was generally finding the show dreary, humorless, and lacking in either pizazz, strong characters or imagination. Everything about the show was seeming like a re-hash of other, stronger projects – like Spielberg’s own War of the Worlds, or Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters. Noah Wyle was seeming wimpy, and I wasn’t enjoying Will Patton’s turn as the megalomaniacal Desert Storm vet.

Things picked up in the second half of the show, however, with the introduction of some colorful characters – specifically Colin Cunningham playing the post-apocalyptic renegade-outlaw-dude-with-stringy-hair John Pope, and Sarah Carter playing the bad-ass killer blonde Margaret. Finally the show started to click, gain an edge, and I was interested. Suddenly I was finding Noah Wyle engaging and sympathetic. Suddenly I noticed that Will Patton’s character, although unsympathetic and a caricature, was consistently being proven right in how he dealt with the alien menace. I was also liking the fact that the great Dale Dye was in the show. And suddenly I was digging the murky, close-quarters combat with the aliens, and the show’s implicit, Battle: Los Angeles-style endorsement of martial virtues.

I also think Spielberg & Co. are shrewd to not tip their hand early as to the aliens’ intentions. V occasionally seemed convoluted and over-plotted, while Falling Skies seems much simpler – though perhaps not as fun. In any case, I will continue to follow the series and see how it develops … Continue reading »

Concept art for "Dominion: Dinosaurs Versus Aliens."

By Jason Apuzzo. • There’s a lot of news on the Alien Invasion Front, but probably the most interesting thing that’s happened recently is that two joint video interviews were released – one featuring Michael Bay talking with James Cameron, the other featuring J.J. Abrams talking with Steven Spielberg. The two films they’re discussing, obviously, are the two big alien invasion thrillers coming down the pike: Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and the Abrams/Spielberg Super 8. The interviews are both roughly 15 minutes long, but are otherwise studies in contrast.

The Bay-Cameron interview is very much tech-talk – good tech-talk mind you, intelligent discussion of a subject that many people are familiar with but rarely understand on a sophisticated level: moving stereoscopic (i.e., 3D) imagery. Bay and Cameron deliver one of the more thoughtful discussions I’ve heard on this subject – examining how 3D impacts editing, and how 3D is ‘dynamic’ (i.e., it can be dialed back, when necessary).

You really get a feel in this interview for how smart these guys really are when they’re discussing their own profession, or in pushing the technological envelope in big, mainstream filmmaking. I may disagree with Cameron about a great many things, but I would not want to tangle with him on the subject of stereo-optics, or on the subject of cinema montage in general. He’s certainly impressive, as is Bay. Both understand how the cinema really needs to push forward innovations like 3D in order to give audiences new reasons to go out to the movies, rather than to stay home and watch downloads. I fear for what YouTube and the internet in general are doing to the cinema, but these guys are obviously aware of the problem and developing creative solutions to address it. I found their discussion inspiring, and interesting … but probably best recommended for the more technically inclined readers out there.

Watching Abrams and Spielberg go at it is a completely different ball of wax, altogether! Although I admire Cameron (minus his politics) and Bay, Abrams and Spielberg seem more personable, fun, and you really get a sense of what a sentimental exercise filmmaking is for them. Super 8 is quite obviously intended as a journey back to their childhood, to what inspired their young imaginations and pushed them to become storytellers in the first place.

Both men also have what is clearly an advanced understanding of what generates excitement in audiences, and in how to create an air of mystery and suspense about what they’re doing. You really get a sense of what a personal matter filmmaking is to these guys, how non-technical it is, how filmmaking is something tied up with their everyday lives and emotions – even in their emotional reactions to other peoples’ films.

Anyway, I enjoyed both discussions and found them inspiring for different reasons – and I’m very much looking forward to both films. We’ll be getting Super 8 very shortly …

• On the Transformers: Dark of the Moon front, the film will have its world premiere June 23rd as the opening-night film of the Moscow International Film Festival (probably because the film has a neo-Cold War angle involving the Russians), and the U.S. debut has been bumped up to June 29th. Capone over at Aint It Cool News has already seen the film, and given it a rave review – praising it “not just in terms of its scope, but also in its pacing, performances, and ideas. This one dares to go dark from time to time, and that helped me find the often-lacking component of many Bay films: emotion.” Also: the film’s 3D IMAX trailer is now available on-line (I’ve seen it in a theater; it’s phenomenal); new ads and clips are out; and there’s already an ILM featurette out about the film’s VFX (in particular, it’s old-school use of miniatures).

Yes.

Better still, the best image yet of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in Transformers has been released (see above), an image suggesting how deeply Michael Bay understands the male imagination (Victoria’s Secret supermodel + Mercedes concept car = automatic ticket purchase). The image also got me thinking: somebody should give Michael Bay the Bond franchise. Can you imagine how great that would be? In any case, you can also watch a clip of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in the film … and Rosie talks to The HuffPo about her life as a farm girl. According to HuffPo:

She was pretty frank when discussing her shooting of livestock on her parents’ farm. “I know where my food comes from. I don’t get sad ’cause you don’t build relationships with those animals,” Huntington-Whiteley said. “I’m a farm girl; there’s the pigs, that’s the dog that I play with and love, but it’s the pig that’s gonna be in the freezer next month.”

Hey! What starlets slaughter pigs these days? Continue reading »

Meet your master: "Shockwave," the new villain from "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

By Jason Apuzzo. • It’s been a long time since our last Invasion Alert!, but I wanted to wait until the new Transformers: Dark of the Moon trailer was out before doing another installment … and that’s where we’ll start today, with Michael Bay’s spectacular trailer to what will likely be the summer’s biggest hit. I haven’t given Michael Bay enough credit in previous Invasion Alerts! for crafting what has obviously become a highly entertaining, epic-in-scale and surprisingly emotional series in the Transformers films – the cream of the recent ‘alien invasion’ genre. How much do I like Bay’s stuff? I’ll say what most critics won’t admit to but probably are thinking – which is that the Transformers movies are likely going to be remembered as among the best ‘alien invasion’ flicks since the 1950s … whether they have their innocuous origins in Hasbro toys or not.

The great thing about the Transformers films, in my opinion, is that they’re not only enormous in scale, but they get all the human touches right – with their warm, earthy characters, realistic family dynamics, and lively sense of humor. You’ve got to be a major stick-in-the-mud to not find these movies a lot of fun. The films also have a pro-American, pro-military, middle class vibe to them – and it’s hard not to like all the campy fetishism associated with the cars, motorcycles, gadgets, military hardware, hot chicks, etc. These films indulge every high school male fantasy imaginable, but do so with stye and humor.

The other aspect of these films that stands out, of course, is their War on Terror subtext – and there is a quite palpable 9/11-quality to the new Transformers trailer, with alien invaders arriving in downtown Chicago and toppling a gigantic building, with major characters scrambling to get out of it. Am I the only one who was thinking of the World Trade Center watching that sequence?

I like that Bay isn’t flinching in depicting this type of thing on-screen. We’re almost ten years past the original attacks, and I sense that people have forgotten what a horrific day that was – and what its larger implications were for our culture. This is exactly what sci-fi does at its best: in the midst of indulging our fantasies, it reminds us of the real world we’re living in and all of its challenges.

And speaking of indulging our fantasies … what are we thinking of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley? She’s looking a little plain-vanilla/girl-next-door to me in comparison to the edgier, minx-like Megan Fox.  I also preferred Ms. Fox’s blasé, cheeky attitude toward the robot mayhem; Rosie seems a little too scared in the clips I’ve seen. Just a thought.

In any case, I’m very much looking forward to Dark of the Moon - especially this cool-looking new villain (see the top of this post), ‘Shockwave,’ who reminds me of Gort. I don’t think this new Dark of the Moon trailer was quite as strong as the initial teaser trailer, and I would’ve preferred more emphasis on story than on CGI chaos, but I know the movie will be good – and probably jaw-dropping in 3D. Looking forward to it. On the news front, here’s the plot synopsis to Transformers: Dark of the Moon, here Rosie Huntington-Whiteley talks about Michael Bay’s work ethic, here she talks about wanting a wedding scene in the next film, and Bay himself talks to MTV about the film here and here.

American military studs fight alien invaders in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

• All of a sudden Tron: Legacy director Joe Kosinski is becoming Hollywood’s go-to alien invasion guy. His new project Oblivion – about a soldier in a post-apocalyptic future who battles savage alien life forms – just picked up Tom Cruise as its star, and Kosinski’s project  Archangel (about “a secret unit of the military that tracks and hunts down aliens among us”) just picked up a screenwriter. Plus, Kosinski is apparently shepherding Disney’s reboot of The Black Hole, not to mention the Tron sequels (see here and here). Continue reading »

From Steven Spielberg's "Falling Skies."

By Jason Apuzzo. • There’s been an ocean of ‘alien invasion’ news since our last Invasion Alert! – so much so that I’ll barely be able to cover it all. So let’s jump right in, focusing on recent developments …

• Trailers and promotional art have begun to appear for Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies TV series for TNT. If ever we’ve seen a classic alien invasion scenario, this would seem to be it. The excellent new promo trailer for this series makes it look like a cross between V and War of the Worlds – although, interestingly, some of the promotional art seems to suggest that this series may also be headed down the path of Robert Heinlein’s Puppet Masters, with alien creatures riding on the backs of humans and ‘controlling’ their thoughts and actions. That’s just a hunch, but check out this promotional poster here (scroll below to the second poster) and perhaps you’ll see what I mean.

I’m not too crazy about Noah Wyle in the lead – he plays a Boston history professor who has to “use his military knowledge to aid the resistance movement known as the 2nd Mass” (sounding a bit like V here?) – although that may be because I keep thinking of him playing Steve Jobs in Pirates of Silicon Valley, which didn’t quite work for me.

In any case, the show’s trailer features a lot of gratuitous flag-waving and patriotic imagery, once more suggesting that this genre is heading back down its traditionally pro-American, pro-freedom path, a la the recent Battle: Los Angeles. With that said, I strongly suspect that this series will likely also have multiple layers to it in the way V has had over its first two seasons.

As far as alien invasion projects, Spielberg’s Falling Skies will be headed into some crowded skies when it premieres in June, right after the J.J. Abrams/Steven Spielberg Super 8, and with the Michael Bay/Steven Spielberg Transformers: Dark of the Moon and the Jon Favreau/Steven Spielberg Cowboys & Aliens opening in July. By the way, anybody notice a recurring name here?

• So Battle: Los Angeles worked out well, yes? You can read my glowing review of Battle: LA here, which got some attention when most everyone else in the critical community was trashing the film. Battle: LA is currently the top-grossing movie worldwide, so far having taken in over $153 million. Possibly the rest of the world simply likes seeing Los Angeles being destroyed? Putting a more positive spin on things, I suspect the film’s done well because it depicts a more old-fashioned, hard-nosed, patriotic side of America – the America that the rest of the world misses, even when they claim they don’t.

Brooklyn Decker: "Battleship" has "a lot of yelling."

At the same time, I think Battle: LA probably could’ve done even a lot better at the box office had the film been a bit more original in conception. Battle: LA takes such a straight-no-chaser approach to alien invasion that it’s hard to distinguish the film from many similar projects that have come before it – and will soon be coming after it. In any case, I’m already looking forward to the DVD …

• Brooklyn Decker spoke recently about Battleship, giving us some crucial new insights into next year’s alien invasion war thriller. In the UK promoting Just Go With It, Ms. Decker revealed that “I worked on [Battleship] for a good four months and I think it’s going to surprise a lot of people … There was weapons training, stunts with cars, it’s more of an intense film with a lot of fights and a lot of yelling.”

It’s true that when aliens invade, there’s usually a lot of yelling.

• Since our last Invasion Alert!, Guillermo del Toro very publicly had to set aside one alien invasion thriller, At the Mountains of Madness (from the H.P. Lovecraft novel), in favor of directing another alien invasion epic called Pacific Rim. At the Mountains of Madness was to star Tom Cruise, be shot in 3D, and would’ve had James Cameron on board as a producer. Universal, however, balked about the project’s reported $150 million price tag and potential R-rating, so del Toro has switched to directing Pacific Rim for Legendary – which is looking like an old-fashioned, Toho-style thriller about “a future Earth defending itself from attacking creatures.”

What do I think of this? It comes down to the question of whether you’d prefer seeing an important novel filmed and botched – or not filmed, at all. For various reasons I was having doubts about del Toro’s vision of Madness, although I’ll confess to having looked forward to seeing what he, Cruise and Cameron would come up with. Ultimately I suspect that same team will probably still make the film, only with another studio; as for Pacific Rim, we know little about it at this point other than that it feels a bit like Godzilla, which happens to be in the midst of a re-boot from Legendary.

This may end up being del Toro’s put-up-or-shut-up moment; either Pacific Rim is a huge hit, or he may have a lot of trouble helming another big-budget sci-fi feature in the future. Tron: Legacy’s Joseph Kosinkski is finding that out right now, as his huge sci-fi project Horizons just got dropped by Disney.

From "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

• Some new pics came out today of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, plus word that Leonard Nimoy will be doing the voice of Sentinel Prime, who’s glimpsed briefly on the Moon in the film’s teaser trailer. Also: some spoilerific details about the film are apparently available in the Dark of the Moon novelization.

I’m really looking forward to what Michael Bay’s cooked-up here, especially now that he’s taken the plunge into 3D. I thought the first two Transformers films were a lot of fun, and also warm-hearted – unlike a lot of contemporary sci-fi.

• Men in Black 3D seems on the road to becoming one of those spectacular behind-the-scenes disasters that comes along every few years to bankrupt studios, end careers, etc.

The film, which has been in development for years, went into production with only a third of the screenplay written in order to take advantage of expiring tax incentives; the latest story now is that nobody even knows who one of the screenwriters is working on the film’s rewrites! Ouch. Also: Alec Baldwin has dropped out of the film (hooray!), and tensions are developing between director Barry Sonnenfeld and producer Walter Parkes. It will be interesting to see how – or whether – they pull this one out of the fire …

• In other Alien Invasion/Sci-Fi News: Ridley Scott’s Prometheus is shooting right now in Toronto, and Noomi Rapace talks about the project here; a new trailer for The Thing should be coming soon; there’s breaking news about The Darkest Hour; J.J. Abrams has been talking about Super 8 recently, and 20 minutes of the film was recently shown to exhibitors; incidentally, Abrams still apparently wants to do Cloverfield 2 (see here and here); another J.J. Abrams project, Star Trek 2, has apparently bumped the Jack Ryan reboot from Chris Pine’s calendar for the time being; a description of the first two reels of Cowboys & Aliens has leaked; the release date for Apollo 18 has been switched to January 6, 2012 (not a good sign); indie alien invasion thriller Attack the Block apparently rocked the SXSW film festival in Austin (see new clips of the film here); the indie sci-fi pic Another Earth (read the LFM Sundance review here) will be released July 22nd; Paramount just put Dune into turnaround, probably because they can’t find anyone with half a brain to do it; Tron: Legacy and the original Tron hit DVD/Blu-ray on April 5th (see my Tron: Legacy review here); will there be a third Tron? my guess is yes, with a new director and new writers; Steven Spielberg’s massive new Terra Nova series has been delayed again; a new trailer for Mass Effect 2 is out; there’s casting news on the Total Recall remake (see here and here); and there’s been a huge new wave of sci-fi deals all over Hollywood (see here and here), including movement on such projects as: The Runner, Voltron, Agent OX (about a human spy infiltrating an alien planet) and something by McG.

Sarah Carter of TNT's "Falling Skies."

• Speaking of Pacific Rim and Godzilla, on the Creature Invasion front the forthcoming Piranha 3DD now has: 1) the greatest title in the history of the cinema; 2) a new script; 3) Tara Reid in the cast; 4) a rumored setting of a water park; 5) and a Thanksgiving release date of November 23rd. I’m there. No questions asked.

• James Cameron and George Lucas recently sat down to discuss 3D, digital technology and the future of the cinema. Lucas’ Phantom Menace is currently being retrofitted into 3D, and the entire Star Wars saga is now coming to Blu-ray on September 16th. Very much looking forward to both.

Cameron has been in the news a lot lately, as usual. He recently said that that he’s considering bringing the cast of the Avatar sequels to the Amazon so they can get in touch with nature and with the lifestyle of indigenous tribes – this, no doubt, to the chagrin of the former Fox executive who wanted him to cut the “New Age, tree-hugging, hippy crap” out of Avatar. Also: the Japan earthquakes are probably going to lead Cameron to call off his planned dives to the Marianas Trench to capture footage for the Avatar sequels. Cameron also wants to shoot the Avatar sequels at  48 or 60 frames/second to reduce 3D strobing, which sounds great except for the fact that every theater in America would need to be retrofit for that. (Incidentally, is Fox paying for all this?)

You get the feeling that pre-production on these Avatar sequels could total around $1 billion. Why am I thinking these films may take another 12 years for him to complete?

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … let’s take a look above at Sarah Carter of TNT’s forthcoming alien invasion series Falling Skies. She plays the only surviving member of an “outlaw motorcycle gang” who’s now on the run after a massive force of extraterrestrials arrive on Earth and begin wreaking havoc. Do women in outlaw motorcycle gangs really look like this these days?

And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion Front!

Posted on March 31st, 2011 at 6:44pm.

Aaron Eckhart as Marine Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz.

By Jason Apuzzo. While watching Battle: Los Angeles, which is an intense, stirring and highly patriotic ode to America’s fighting men and women – and in particular to the Marines – I was reminded of that great line from Casablanca, in which café owner Humphrey Bogart drily informs Nazi Conrad Veidt: “There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.”

As a long time resident of Los Angeles, I can similarly assert with conviction that there are certain areas of Los Angeles that I wouldn’t advise any foreign power to invade – not even aliens – especially if those areas happen to be held by Marines. Battle: Los Angeles explains why.

Those of you who read Libertas regularly, or who are familiar with our regular Invasion Alerts! here, know that we’ve been following this massive new wave of ‘alien invasion’ movie projects for some time now. There was even some major news on the ‘alien invasion’ front today, because the first full trailer for J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 was just released (it’s great) – and that trailer is apparently running in front of Battle: Los Angeles in theaters. Continue reading »

By Jason Apuzzo. • The most striking news on the Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion front recently was without doubt the announcement from Warner Brothers/Alcon that they’re going to reboot Blade Runner as a franchise of prequels and/or sequels. As electrifying as the news was, I was not altogether surprised to hear it given the current sci-fi craze and mania toward rebooting older franchises.

The big question, of course, is what precisely ‘is’ a Blade Runner franchise without the involvement of Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford or Philip K. Dick – none of whom are currently attached to any of these future ‘Blade Runner’ projects? (Dick being, of course, long deceased and not having furnished any ‘franchisable’ sequels to his original story). The answer, I’m afraid, is that such a ‘franchise’ is worth very little.

Having read several interviews with the Alcon people (see here and here), three points emerge: 1) they haven’t even contacted Ridley Scott yet; 2) they’d apparently like to work with Christopher Nolan (with whom they have a prior relationship), whose work on the Batman franchise represents the “template” they’re working from (i.e., it made a lot of money), and; 3) they apparently have no idea where precisely they want to take the story.

I’m groaning at all of this. It’s looking like the usual sort of thing: an ambitious group of producers grabs a lucrative ‘property’ they like, without a clue of what to do with it. They flail around looking for a ‘visionary’ (i.e., trendy) director to come in and do the actual work of figuring out what to do, because they never bothered to figure that out for themselves. Years get spent in ‘development,’ nothing happens – or worse, something like the 2010 Clash of the Titans remake happens. And memories of something precious get spoiled.

I have my doubts about this project, in other words. Indeed, I have doubts about whether it’s even going to happen. The likelihood is that neither Ridley Scott nor Christopher Nolan will be interested in doing it, and so who are the producers going to go to? Zack Snyder? Bryan Singer? God help us – I’d rather not learn what those guys think ‘The Tannhauser Gate’ really looks like. [Sigh.]

• Speaking of rebooted 80’s franchises, George Miller is assuring everyone that Mad Max: Fury Road will be back up shooting in January 2012, albeit apparently now without I Am Number Four’s Teresa Palmer. Bummer! I’m otherwise looking forward to that film, which will be photographed in some new Miller-designed form of 3D. Also: a trailer has just been released for Tron: Uprising, an animated series that’s part of Disney’s ongoing Tron reboot. The trailer for this series actually looks better than Tron: Legacy, itself – but that may just be because there’s no Garrett Hedlund in it.

"Star Blazers" concept art.

• Some other big news of late on the Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion front was that Space Battleship Yamato (or Star Blazers, in its American incarnation), the classic Japanese TV series from the 1970’s and an old favorite of mine, is going to be adapted with Christopher McQuarrie writing the screenplay and David Ellison (True Grit; son of Larry Ellison) producing. This is another project, incidentally, that can be filed away as an alien invasion project – as alien invaders are an important part of the storyline. (Btw, Ellison and McQuarrie are currently the main guys behind the potential Top Gun sequel.)

I like the sound of this project – although admittedly it’s seeming a bit like Battleship in outer space – and on an even bigger budget. Here’s the key thing to understand about Battleship Yamato, though: it’s almost a kind of anti-Avatar, featuring blue-skinned aliens (the “Gamilons”) out to destroy human life on Earth (by way of radioactive meteorite bombs) so that they can repopulate the planet themselves. Earth’s forces have to rally around an enormous space cruiser, built out of the hulking wreckage of the original WWII Japanese battleship Yamato – although at this point, they might want to instead use something like Larry Ellison’s yacht. Anyway, my only requests here would be to re-name the “Gamilons” the  “Na’vi,” cast Brooklyn Decker or Megan Fox, and otherwise we’re good to go.

• Check out this new trailer for Attack the Block, a cheeky indie alien invasion project from the UK that’s about to unspool at the SXSW Film Festival. The trailer features one of the better taglines in recent memory: “Inner City Versus Outer Space.” Also on the indie alien invasion front: a new film called Invasion of the Alien Bikini recently won the Grand Prix at the 21st Yubari Fantastic Film Festival, in Japan. Now that film I’d like to see … anybody know if it’s in 3D?

• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace will be coming to theaters in 3D on February 10th, 2012. Killjoys of the world now have something more to complain about; I personally, however, am very much looking forward to seeing Darth Maul, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon go at it in 3D.

From "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace."

I thought I would take the opportunity here to share with Libertas readers what I thought about The Phantom Menace: which is that I loved it. Not every aspect of it, perhaps, but on balance it holds up as being a very satisfying epic adventure in the Errol Flynn-swashbuckler mode, with an intriguing storyline that’s like something out of The Fall of the Roman Empire. It also happens to be one of the most visually sumptuous films ever made – sweeping you along from Italy’s Caserta Palace, to the deserts of Tunisia, to the beautiful (digital) cityscapes of Coruscant. The costumes on Natalie Portman are gorgeous, Liam Neeson is really the epitome of what a Jedi Knight should be, John Williams’ score is one of his best … and then, of course, there’s Ray Park’s Darth Maul – easily one of the greatest movie villains of all time, a rival to the best villains ever played by Basil Rathbone in swashbuckler films of this kind.

So with all that, who cares about Jar-Jar Binks, thin dialogue, or a little too much cutesy-pie time with young Anakin? The movie’s a blast – a huge box office hit (adjusted for inflation, it would’ve made about $680 million domestically in 2011) – and you’re all going to be there next February, anyway. So stop whining.

• More to the present, Battle: Los Angeles is coming next week – and I’ll be saying a lot about that in coming days. In the meantime, many new clips of the film have been released on-line (see here), as well as some behind-the-scenes pics (see here), images of the aliens (see here), the film also has a new poster out, and we’re also learning that the film was not, for the most part, shot in Los Angeles – but instead in Louisiana. So I suppose the title Battle: LA has a double meaning. (This reminds me: why do movie aliens always look like seafood these days?)

Jennifer Lawrence, looking hungry.

• In other Alien Invasion/Sci-Fi News & Notes: Michelle Rodriguez says that Avatar 2 will be set for the most part underwater; Apollo 18 has a new trailer out (see my opinion about it here) and a new Russian poster; David Koepp (Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones 4) will be doing a rewrite on the already-in-production Men in Black 3D; J.J. Abrams talks Super 8 and Star Trek; many new rumors are trailing Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (see here, here, here and here) and there’s more casting news on that film (see here and here); more Transformers 3 trailers are coming; Steven Spielberg’s Falling Skies alien invasion TV series has new promos out; the Total Recall remake featuring Colin Farrell now has a release date of August 3rd, 2012; the SyFy channel recently featured an Area 51-related movie; and Louis Leterrier, who is responsible for the wretched Clash of the Titans remake, will soon be doing something called G – which is apparently about “a father who has to search for his lost child as the world stops spinning and Earth begins to lose its gravity.” Let me tell you, Louis: if the Earth stops spinning, you probably won’t have much time to search for family members. Trust me on that one.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … the pretty and slightly strange Jennifer Lawrence is apparently the leading candidate to star in The Hunger Games, which, for brevity’s sake, you can imagine as something like The Running Man for teens – i.e., a sci-fi future dystopia featuring televised gladiatorial-style games. Since the story takes place in a world plagued with food shortages, it seems like perfect Obama-era sci-fi – doesn’t it?

And that’s what’s happening today on the Alien Invasion front!

Posted on March 4th, 2011 at 6:45pm.