Category Archives: Cartoons
Why Don’t They Just Use Darth Vader?
With yesterday being the Fourth of May, the fine folks at Star Wars released the first trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: Rebels cartoon. I was probably unnecessarily mean towards Rebels in a recent article, so why don’t we check out the trailer and decide for ourselves?
Eh, I’m not convinced. I’ve been catching up on Star Wars: Clone Wars recently, the show that was cancelled to make way for this one. Clone Wars is good, and stars popular characters. Whereas I keep feeling like Rebels is a made-by-committee Star Wars show. All of the characters are carefully crafted into perfect cliches. And they don’t even use Darth Vader as the villain! The show takes place in the time period where Darth Vader is active, arguably the greatest super-villain in the history of fiction, but they don’t want to use him? What sort of sense does that make?!
My 6 Favorite Episodes of The Simpsons
I can still remember watching the first episode of The Simpsons in 1989, the Mills family huddled around our living room for another night of quality prime time television. I don’t remember what I thought about the episode or the show. I don’t remember what prompted us to even watch it. But we were hooked from that very first episode, and I have been a lifelong fan of The Simpsons ever since.
Even if I haven’t seen a new episode in years…
Have you seen what they did with Lenny?
I will let historians and poets write a bigger, better recap of The Simpsons‘ cultural impact. I’m just a guy who loved a cartoon, alongside the rest of the entire world. What I can do – aside from playing Simpsons Tapped Out on my phone – is buy the DVDs and watch oodles upon oodles of old episodes. And one thing I’ve learned is that all of the episodes I devoured in syndication had amazing extra scenes and jokes cut out of them that are fully restored on the DVDs! It’s like finding new gems in the old classic episodes!
I hope The Simpsons never goes away. And in celebration, let us reminisce on our favorite episodes! Please share your own in the comments!
6 Gritty Reboots I Want to See
I’m a big fan of gritty reboots, and apparently so is Hollywood. They’re all the rage these days. And they’re the best way to keep a big time franchise alive. Want to find a way to make a whole new Spider-Man trilogy only a few years after the first one? Gritty reboot! Want to make Daniel Craig’s James Bond more appealing to modern movie audiences? Gritty reboot! Want to turn the silly, cartoony, 1980s Transformers into a modern, billion-dollar blockbuster franchise? Gritty reboot!
Gritty reboots are a Hollywood cure-all, and I think they can make for some really good stories.
Old Man Flanagan bought a lot of rubber zombie masks
The key to making a gritty reboot is to add realism to an otherwise preposterous story. Often these movies are more grim than their previous counterparts, but I don’t think ‘grim’ is a necessity. It’s all about realism. It’s the difference between the Avengers and the Ultimates. Between the campy, colorful madness of Batman and Robin and the dark, urban realism of Batman Begins.
This year, gritty reboots of Godzilla and the Ninja Turtles will be hitting the big screen. But there are still some properties out there that I think are ripe for a big, gritty, realistic return!
Join me after the jump for six franchises that could use a little more grit!
Double Dose of Batman Fun!
Who loves themselves some Batman? Apparently the world of animation does, because here we’ve got two – count’em, two! – separate Batman animated spectaculars! And seeing as how it’s the Monday after Easter, the second most Batman of all the major holidays, I figure now is as good a time as any to share.
First up is a short cartoon starring Batman Beyond, produced by Darwyn Cooke, one of the true greats.
It’s a neat little cartoon. Though I never knew Cooke was such a big Batman Beyond fan. As we learned a few weeks ago, I am not.
Though while we’re on the topic, isn’t it way past time for Batman Beyond to get a Robin Beyond? Just sayin’…
The second Batman offering today is the trailer for the next animated feature: Batman: Assault on Arkham! It’s set in the Arkham Asylum video game universe, which is pretty cool. And it stars the Suicide Squad alongside Batman, which is equally cool.
Trailer looks neat! Though I would like to point out that there’s no sign yet of a Robin cameo…
How Frozen Should Have Ended
I always love a good Iceman joke.
Though personally, I would have ended Frozen way differently. I liked the movie, sure, but what really bugged me was the romance angle. Obviously, that rich duke guy was evil; we knew it from the very first moment he appeared on screen. But for a little while, I kind of hoped he was going to be legit. His evil turn kind of comes out of nowhere. I thought for sure that Anna would end up with the rich duke and that the lumpy lumberjack guy would end up with Elsa.
But the moment the lumpy lumberjack started racing back to town with Anna, determined to get her to her ‘one true love’, the rest of the film was pretty obvious and painfully predictable. Alas, poor Frozen.
Also, what was up with the trailers having no idea what the movie was about?
