Haibane.info

Category: Movies and Television

  • how I discovered anime

    Video of Steven den Beste showing me the light.

  • BSG4 preview

    We’re going the wrong way!

  • Galactica season 5… sort of

    Buried in a story about how the dreary “Caprica” spinoff series is not as thankfully DOA as it should be, comes the astounding news that Galactica season 4 might get chopped into two mini-seasons:

    SciFi is contemplating holding back “Galactica’s” final ten episodes until 2009 – a move that would apparently please NBC Universal’s accountants, even as it infuriates the show’s rabid fan base. TV Week’s source says SciFi will decide in January.

    Under this plan, two hours of the series’ final 20 hours would arrive in November as the “Razor” TV-movie, eight would begin unspooling in January 2008 and the final ten would reach their audience in 2009.

    Take that, Mr. Moore and your whole “end the series at the peak of our creative energy and storyline integrity” !

    the TV Week story that is quoted by AICN above also has this to say:

    With “Battlestar” fans already waiting about a year for the return of the series — not counting the two-hour “Razor” stand-alone movie coming this fall — returning with only 10 episodes could spark a revolt.

    Moore’s storyline also could make fans demand rapid closure, one person close to the project says, since “when people see the ending of the 10th episode, they’re gonna freak out.”

    maybe, but not like we’ll freak if they force us to wait an extra year to see episode 11.

  • Star Trek nerdery

    Suppose you are on the Starship Enterprise. Which technology do you trust more? The transporter, or the holodeck? Take the poll and then tell why in comments.

    {democracy:3}

  • live-action Robotech movie

    Khyron’s ghost! there’s a live action Robotech movie in the works??

    sdf-1

    Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire will produce and may star in a film based on the classic SF anime Robotech, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

    Warner Brothers Pictures picked up the rights to Robotech, which features giant robots known as mechas. Maguire is producing through his Maguire Entertainment banner and is eyeing the lead role in what the studio plans as an SF franchise a la Paramount’s hit Transformers.
    […]
    Robotech takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off three successive waves of alien invasions. The first invasion concerns a battle with a race of giant warriors who seek to retrieve their flagship’s energy source, known as “protoculture,” and the planet’s survival ends up in the hands of two young pilots.

    There was a debate in the Otakusphere recently about why mecha anime suck/don’t suck, so this is timely news. Robotech was always defined by its mecha, but the mecha are as much characters as anyone else. That goes as much Rick’s jet (formerly Roy’s) in Skull Squadron as it does for the grande dame, the SDF-1 herself. And at the same time, they also blended into the background – the drama that made Robotech such a soap opera was always heavily centered on the characters, from the original Bridge Bunnies to Captain Gloval to the ultimate love triangle of Rick-Minmei-Lisa.

    It obviously goes without saying that if you’re looking for a good mecha anime, I’d recommend Robotech highly.

  • I’d watch

    Today’s XKCD is for all the browncoats out there.

  • before there was Spaaarta!!!

    there was Khaaaan!

    I’ve zero interest in watching 300, by all accounts a piece of fiction that has as tenous a connection to the actual events at Thermopylae as Jack and the Spartans.

    Anyway, Conan wipes the floor with puny Spartans any day:

  • Pitch Black

    I missed out on the whole Chronicles of Riddick thing, so I decided to start from the beginning and netflixed Pitch Black, the first movie in the Riddick trilogy. This was a really underrated film with a simple, yet solid plot, and with some great iconic visuals:

    vlcsnap-1700241.png

    A few minorly spoilerish observations below the fold. (more…)

  • joining the browncoats

    “Take my love, take my land\
    Take me where I cannot stand\
    I don’t care, I’m still free\
    You can’t take the sky from me”
    – Ballad of Serenity

    I mentioned a while back that I downloaded the complete Firefly, a science-fiction/western hybrid with a strongly libertarian bent by Buffy-creator Joss Whedon. I started viewing it a few weeks ago and got hooked, and am now going to go through the series again to savor it. I’ll likely post some screencaps again like I did with Shingu. In a nutshell, though – this series was even better than Galactica, and for those who know me, that’s no small endorsement on my part. The show lasted only one season before being cancelled, but its fan base is as energetic as Star Trek’s, in a way no other fanbase has ever attained (no, not even Buffy or Galactica). There was enough fan support to actually justify a full-length feature film (“Serenity“), which I will also review here. Let me make my position plain: if there’s a single science fiction show I recommend, out of all of the ones I have ever seen, it’s Firefly. I hope to show you readers why.

    “I am to misbehave.” – Malcolm Reynolds

  • Battlestar Galactica series recap

    entirely in claymation! cool. (via Chizumatic)