Stuff I'm looking forward to in 2012
Yes, even a grumpy old man like me can look forward to things! Sadly, most are sequels or known properties. I'd like to be looking forward to stuff I've never seen before, but I don't know about it yet. Oh well!
* Avatar: The Legend of Korra -- The sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender, set 70 years in the future. Avatar was outstanding, so I have high hopes for this one. It looks like they're kind of taking a steam punk route with this one.
* Season 2 of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes -- Man, this is way delayed. I still haven't seen a lot of the original series. This is a great superhero cartoon, so I hope it does well. The overall villain is supposed to be Doctor Doom, and we're supposed to get Vision, Ms. Marvel, and I can't remember who else. Huzzah! No Quicksilver or Scarlet Witch, though, since I expect they're tied up with the rights to X-Men, silly though that may be.
* Season 2 of A Game of Thrones -- As good an adaption as I've seen. I haven't read the books in ages, so I don't remember what all goes on in them. Should be good. Lots of boobies. You can't go wrong with that!
* Avengers -- Well, we'll finally see if they can make all this anticipation pay off. Unfortunately, the trailer didn't excite me much, with unidentifiable adversaries an uninspiring Hawkeye and the weird inclusion of the Hulk on the team, once more. Still, not one to miss.
* Prometheus -- The semi-prequel to Alien by Ridley Scott. Well, it's not supposed to tie in very directly to Alien, but they sure are advertising it that way. I haven't honestly liked a Ridley Scott movie since, the mid-80's, but this looks promising.
* The Hobbit -- I'm so bummed that Guillermo del Toro didn't direct this, but it looks pretty good. I have misgivings over certain aspects, like the dwarves having a bit of a Warhammer look with all the braids and weird weapons, but it generally looks pretty good. They even have the dwarves singing! Ha! My biggest misgiving is that it sounds like they're trying to reduce it to a prequel of The Lord of the Rings, and that they will be exaggerating sub-plots that will likely distract from the main plot. I think we can expect lots of lame cameos, too.
* Whatever the next Batman movie is called -- I have been enjoying these movies, and I like the progression of the character and ideas. They are some of the most intelligent superhero movies out there, so I expect more of the same. Too bad Heath Ledger is dead, since they were starting to get enough people for an Arkham Asylum scene.
* Spider-Man or whatever it's called -- I like some things about this and I dislike some things. The Lizard is the most obvious villain to use, since Peter has a stake in his life, which lends itself to movie storytelling, and he's fairly cool. I love the mechanical web shooters, which fixes one of my big gripes with the previous movies. I really dislike that they are apparently making Captain Stacey an adversary for Spider-Man, as he was one of the few characters who was always on Spider-Man's side in the comics. If they really wanted to go old-school they could have made Spidey's love interest Betty Brant!
* Brave -- Pixar rarely misses, and their misses are better than most moviemakers' hits. This look like it has the potential to be my favorite out of all of their movies! I'm definitely looking forward to this one. Nuts to the people who think it's just Mulan or whatever else. They're no better than the people who thought Avatar (the movie, not the cartoon!) was a copy of Dances with Wolves. Bah!
* Avatar: The Legend of Korra -- The sequel to Avatar: The Last Airbender, set 70 years in the future. Avatar was outstanding, so I have high hopes for this one. It looks like they're kind of taking a steam punk route with this one.
* Season 2 of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes -- Man, this is way delayed. I still haven't seen a lot of the original series. This is a great superhero cartoon, so I hope it does well. The overall villain is supposed to be Doctor Doom, and we're supposed to get Vision, Ms. Marvel, and I can't remember who else. Huzzah! No Quicksilver or Scarlet Witch, though, since I expect they're tied up with the rights to X-Men, silly though that may be.
* Season 2 of A Game of Thrones -- As good an adaption as I've seen. I haven't read the books in ages, so I don't remember what all goes on in them. Should be good. Lots of boobies. You can't go wrong with that!
* Avengers -- Well, we'll finally see if they can make all this anticipation pay off. Unfortunately, the trailer didn't excite me much, with unidentifiable adversaries an uninspiring Hawkeye and the weird inclusion of the Hulk on the team, once more. Still, not one to miss.
* Prometheus -- The semi-prequel to Alien by Ridley Scott. Well, it's not supposed to tie in very directly to Alien, but they sure are advertising it that way. I haven't honestly liked a Ridley Scott movie since, the mid-80's, but this looks promising.
* The Hobbit -- I'm so bummed that Guillermo del Toro didn't direct this, but it looks pretty good. I have misgivings over certain aspects, like the dwarves having a bit of a Warhammer look with all the braids and weird weapons, but it generally looks pretty good. They even have the dwarves singing! Ha! My biggest misgiving is that it sounds like they're trying to reduce it to a prequel of The Lord of the Rings, and that they will be exaggerating sub-plots that will likely distract from the main plot. I think we can expect lots of lame cameos, too.
* Whatever the next Batman movie is called -- I have been enjoying these movies, and I like the progression of the character and ideas. They are some of the most intelligent superhero movies out there, so I expect more of the same. Too bad Heath Ledger is dead, since they were starting to get enough people for an Arkham Asylum scene.
* Spider-Man or whatever it's called -- I like some things about this and I dislike some things. The Lizard is the most obvious villain to use, since Peter has a stake in his life, which lends itself to movie storytelling, and he's fairly cool. I love the mechanical web shooters, which fixes one of my big gripes with the previous movies. I really dislike that they are apparently making Captain Stacey an adversary for Spider-Man, as he was one of the few characters who was always on Spider-Man's side in the comics. If they really wanted to go old-school they could have made Spidey's love interest Betty Brant!
* Brave -- Pixar rarely misses, and their misses are better than most moviemakers' hits. This look like it has the potential to be my favorite out of all of their movies! I'm definitely looking forward to this one. Nuts to the people who think it's just Mulan or whatever else. They're no better than the people who thought Avatar (the movie, not the cartoon!) was a copy of Dances with Wolves. Bah!