Video – Harrison Ford And Benedict Cumberbatch On Star Wars Sequel Casting

Normally, I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch BBCA’s The Graham Norton Show. However, the season premiere is going to include an interview with Harrison Ford and Benedict Cumberbatch, in which their potential involvement with the Star Wars sequels is going to be discussed. Harrison Ford is…noncommittal. Hillariously noncommittal.

The Graham Norton Show season premiere will air on BBCA on October 19. Star Wars Episode VII will drop some time in 2015, precisely, as Boston comedian Rich Gustus would say, “the second Saturday after I get my shit together.”

Brain Bleach – Pectoral Implants a la Khan Noonian Singh

Say it with me: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

Ever want the massive, gleaming chest sported by Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II – The Wrath Of Khan, but can’t commit to diet, exercise, or silicone prosthetics? Well, pine because of your puny, flat physique no more. The fine people at SuperHeroStuff have just the t-shirt for you. For just under 40 American dollars, you too can achieve the look of a man who has been placed on ice for a lengthy stretch of his wretched life and then spent 15 years in exile with nothing to do but hate Kirk, plot revenge, and push ups.

So, don’t put down that can of Pringles, my friend. Throw this shirt on, pop your Star Trek II DVD in the player, and eat up. And know that when Shatner yells that immortal line, he’s really yelling for you.

Via Fashionably Geek.

Story Optional: Wonder Woman Fan Film / Demo Reel

This is actually kinda cool, if it is just, for all intents and purposes, a fan film by some folks with a particular amount of skill with the Adobe film suite.

Rainfall Films, a production company that’s done a bunch of advertising and music video work, has put together a two-minute fan trailer for Wonder Woman, directed by Sam Balcomb and starring Rileah Vanderbilt (who’s been in the Hatchet films). And when I say “fan trailer,” I mean more that it is a special effects showcase; there’s no story here, just Wonder Woman fighting some goons with guns on the streets of some city, alternating with Wonder Woman fighting with some giant monster on the island of Themyscira with some other Amazons.

But still: it’s pretty cool to look at, with a version of the Wonder Woman costume that is close enough to classic as to keep the underwear perverts who get their shorts in a twist every time someone comes up with a design that’s a little off-kilter from the original, and some pretty cool action and special effects for what amounts to a demo reel for a production company.

If nothing else, it goes to show that there are ways to shoot a Wonder Woman movie that doesn’t make it some cheesy, campy disaster, or worse: a David E. Kelley workplace dramady. And you can check it out after the jump.

Making Star Wars For Dummies

Everyone knows that J. J. Abrams is working on Star Wars: Episode VII, and most people consider this to be good news. This is partially because J. J. Abrams is not George Lucas, or at least we can’t conclusively prove that they are the same person, despite some significant evidence based on the Star Wars-ification of Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness.

However, there is a certain amount of trepidation over the idea of a new Star Wars by Abrams, by which I mean I have some trepidation. As much fun as I had with Abrams’s Star Trek movies, they are not exactly what you’d call Star Wars material. Sure, they’ve got the action, but the bridge of the Enterprise looks like an Apple Store, for Christ’s sake. And the closest thing we have to a selfless Jedi Knight is Mr. Scott’s little mutant / alien buddy, and the “we’re boning” subtext of that relationship means that I will require sedation and talking therapy if someone refers to it and “The Force” in the same sentence.

However, a dude named Prescott Harvey, in conjunction with agency Sincerely, Truman, has put together an open letter to Abrams in an animated video, that hits four points that any Star Wars fan will agree wholeheartedly with. But allow me to add my own fifth: let’s keep the human / alien homoerotic subtext out of the Han / Chewie relationship, shall we?

Anyway, you can check the video after the jump.

Look, Up On That Float: Video Of The First Appearance of Superman In 1940

We have no comic news for you today, just a video of something truly remarkable: people openly smoking cigarettes around children without a single look of scorn from some health nut passer-by.

Just kidding (although that totally happens and it makes me sad that I live in the 21st Century); this is actually a home movie from the very first public appearance of Superman. Not the real Superman, because that video would be shown on media other than independent comic book Web sites on a hung over Saturday afternoon.

Instead, this is the first appearance of an actor pretending to be Superman, at the 1940 World’s Fair, a little more than two years after the character debuted in Action Comics #1. And watching it, a few things struck me, the first being how surprising it was that so many kids managed to get their hands on Superman t-shirts despite the lack of a Graphitti Designs or (in 1940) a remotely functioning economy. The second thing was: whatever happened to the Superman dress for Young Misses? Had such a thing existed when I was a Young Mister, I could have saved a lot of time knowing which girls I could have spoken to in order to avoid as many scrotal injuries.

But the biggest thing that struck me was that clearly, 1940 was a simpler time for kids. Because there they were, seeing literally the first physical embodiment of Superman – hell, any comic book hero… and not a single one of them was complaining that the trunks rode too high, or that his spitcurl was wrong, or that you could totally see the safety wire holding him up. If this occured in 2013, there would be drunken malcontents shrieking about these things on the Internet. Drunken malcontents like me, because all of those things were totall wrong.

But still: it’s actually kinda cool to see the first real crossover of comic superheroes into some kind of multimedia. And it’s doubly impressive, because in 1940, the world was only about ten years out from “multimedia” being just “medium.” And you can check it out for yourself after the jump.

All About The Brown: A New Dark Knight Fan Film

I started out this evening writing a review of Marvel’s new title The Mighty Avengers – and I will finish that up and post it tomorrow –  but I got distracted by, of all things, a fanfic film. And it wasn’t even a slashfic film, which is a thing that would normally distract me because that is something that many people would call porn.

Instead, this is a seven minute film called The Dark Knight Legacy, directed by Brett Register and written by Woody Tondorf and Chris Landa, set a year after The Dark Knight Rises, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character John Blake as Nightwing (and Daniel Vincent Gordh, the guy they have playing Blake, does a pretty damn serviceable Joseph Gordon-Levitt impression), investigating the murders of a bunch of well-known rogues like Scarface and Penguin, at the hands of The Red Hood.

Make no mistake: this is not a special effects extravaganza. The people who made it are trying to raise $30,000 on IndieGoGo make another episode, so you can probably take a guess what this one cost. But even on a short budget, these guys put together some pretty decent makeup effects, well put-together costumes, and a couple of nice shots to the face… which makes it sound like a slashfic film, but trust me: it’s actually pretty well done.

Oh yeah: and it features Stephanie Brown, which should make many fanboys and fangirls squeal with joy, and will be the most likely reason for Dan DiDio to blow an embolism and start screeching for a cease and desist order.

Either way, you can check out the film after the jump.

Iron Man Spoof Reimagines Tony Stark As A Kid From Southie

Inspired by the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman in the upcoming Superman vs. Batman, Dave Ebert puts on his best Mark Wahlberg impression for this Iron Man spoof. Importantly, it asks the question we all wonder about: “Is it better to be feared or respected? Why can’t I be both? …Larry Bird is both. I’m fucking Iron Man.”

And, as someone who recently installed a widget on my phone specifically to give me updates on Sox games, I can’t fault him for his use of Jarvis at 1:29 in.

Via Topless Robot.

Your Move, Creep: Robocop Statue In Detroit

The Crisis On Infinite Midlives main staff has a prior commitment today, and as such can’t spend as much time as we would like today producing the fine content enjoyed by all three of our regular readers, plus the untold thousands who find us via such scintillating Google searches as “Wonder Woman boob grope,” “Joker fucking Harley Quinn,” and “midlevel comic book Web site featuring more than the average number of dick jokes.”

However, we don’t want to leave you emptyhanded on this opening day of Labor Day weekend, so take a look that this account of Detroit’s greatest hope in the face of impending bankruptcy and the shame of being the hometown of Eminem: its own statue of hometown hero Robocop.

An idea that started as a sarcastic tweet in reply to the mayor’s request for ideas to beautify the city, two years and a Kickstarter campaign have conspired to create a giant brass statue of Robocop, which is now in Detroit and just awaiting a site to be finally placed.

So check it out, thanks for your patience, and we should return to our regularly-scheduled programming tomorrow.

Unspeakable Horror, Now In Color!: H. P. Lovecraft’s Drawings of The Elder Things

Ever wonder what the Elder Things from H. P. Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness really looked like? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

The Elder Things looked kinda like giant pteridophytes: about six feet tall, barrel-shaped, with a main body that was leathery and dark-grey, with four-foot long tentacles ending in greenish eight-inch fins on the posterior side, with a yellowish mouth / breathing apparatus at the anterior end, surrounded by more reddish tentacles. And when those tentacles aren’t reaching out for your sanity, they’re folded down to its body.

And I know what you’re thinking: “Rob,” you’re thinking, “How do you have such an accurate knowledge of what these horrible creatures looked like? It’s almost like you have a picture!” Well, funny story: I do. Straight from the man himself.

Lovecraft made at least seven pages of notes in preparation for the writing of At The Mountains of Madness, including one scribbled on the back of an envelope (the only thing more appropriate would be if it was scrawled on a cocktail napkin) that included Lovescraft’s original drawing of an Elder Thing, with a bunch of descriptive notes about the beast. And those notes don’t just include dimensions, but the effects that seeing the thing would have on normal Earthlings, like: “Utter mystery + horror,” “DOGS DISTURBED… DOGS FRANTIC,” and the particularly cryptic (and creepy) isolated note: “mouths & eyes.”

All these pages are currently on public display at an exhibit named The Shadow Over College Street: H. P. Lovecraft in Providence at the Providence Athenaeum in Lovecraft’s home town of Providence, Rhode Island until September 22nd, and what with Providence being less than an hour from the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, we might be taking this exhibit in sometime this month.

But if you’re not local to New England, there’s no need to book a flight to get a look at Lovecraft’s official visual version of the Elder Things; you can check it out for yourself right after the jump.

Just crate your dogs before you click the link.

Internal Nerd Rage: Joss Whedon Speaks Ill Of The Empire Strikes Back

Not a lot of time here today at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, but this little tidbit caught my eye: Joss Whedon just did an extended interview with Entertainment Weekly, which is in this week’s issue. But the magazine released a couple of quotes to tease readers into picking up the issue, and only one of those quotes was enough to send half of geek fandom into a seething frenzy of hatred!

Specifically, Whedon discusses his feelings about The Empire Strikes Back, the Star Wars movie widely held to be the best of six movies and variety of television specials to date (although I have a special place in my heart for The Star Wars Holiday Special. Because the last time I saw it was in college, on grainy VHS, while I was hammered).

And amazingly, coming from the man who clearly loved Han Solo enough to basically create a television series and major motion picture based on a suspiciously similar character, those feelings are somewhat negative.

Empire committed the cardinal sin of not actually ending… which at the time I was appalled by and I still think it was a terrible idea.

Yeah, I hate it when movie franchises don’t have an ending. That’s why I’m so glad that they ended the Alien franchise after James Cameron’s Aliens! Yup, just the two movies. That’s how I remember it. There certainly was no attempt to lure fans back to the theaters with some twisted tale about cloning Ripley!

…yeah, sorry. Lot of caffeine today. What’re you driving at, Joss?