Just when you thought the town of Bedrock was ancient history...
Seth McFarlane, comedic genius or formulaic hack (those seem to be the majority views) has been tapped by Fox to reboot The Flintstones. Seth is to family-cast comedies what any of his shows is to Family Guy: That is, mostly the same. I do think McFarlane can be funny. I've watched many a Family Guy clip on YouTube and thought them clever. I found his Star Wars send-up, "Blue Harvest" to be pretty good overall. What they both had in common was this: They had nothing to do with the plot or characters of his programs, for the most part. The clips I've enjoyed are divorced from the structure of his show, and his "Star Wars" works use the movies as the basis for alternate versions of the movie cast to tell jokes about the franchise. "The Flintstones" is an ancient ancestor of McFarlane's formula which he jokingly acknowledges. However, that doesn't change the fact that it's the same formula, yet again, though I bet there'll be more of the original show's signature jokes revolving around dinosaur-powered devices, except now they'll be computers, iPhones, and (assuming the 'evil genius' isn't the Great Gazoo) whatever the Stewie analogue uses for ray guns. So will it flop? Probably not. As stated about his take on Star Wars, Seth is funnier when something else is providing the framework for the show, and The Flintstones is about as established as you can get. The problem I had with the show, even as a kid, was that if you took away all the caveman gags, you just had a so-so version of "The Honeymooners," which is what it was designed to be. Children have since been treated to more re-imaginings of Fred and his stone-age world than one would have thought possible. So this is what it's come to: We get a repurposed version of an already worn-thin property to be re-imagined by a guy who produces animated fare that has roughly the same template to begin with. I think all that's actually up for debate will be whether or not Dino will talk.
Speaking of dinosaurs, here's a longer look at some footage from Terra Nova, where colonists from an overpopulated and polluted future are sent back to the time of the dinosaurs to give humanity a second chance. The think that intrigues me most about the idea is where the time paradox (if any; in theory, you could have done this and left no evidence for future generations if you got wiped out or your stuff wasn't fortunate enough to get fossilized) and/or the goal of the colonists is explained. I figure that the idea is to either have the colonists go back to when there's loads of time and resources to figure out how to fix the planet in the future, or they're in the past where there's loads of time and resources plus the future know-how they bring along so humanity can (it's Speilberg, so this makes sense) build a spaceship or something and get humanity out to the stars. But at heart, it's going to bring in viewers by being a more sci-fi version of "Cadillacs & Dinosaurs." It already looks more interesting than "Primeval," but that's only judging from these few scraps so far.
A trailer for the Tintin movie was released. You don't get much of a look at the characters, which could be a good thing. Tintin looks like a really odd amalgam of his cartoony self and a real person. Maybe it'll grow on me with subsequent viewing. If you'll look at the bottom of the one-sheets released for the film, you'll notice Doctor Who writer/producer Steven Moffat's name as one of those who worked on the screenplay. When I saw the posters for Tintin, I had to think that Moffat's writing plus the image of a young man in a trenchcoat with his faithful canine companion nearby reminded me of something. Ah, yes, that's it. :)
The good news: Keanu Reeves has passed on 'Akria,' and the people working on the adaptation have been let go. The bad news: It's still being worked on. The project was never greenlit, and so it's still in the preliminary development phase. I'm not sure what they're planning on doing differently for the next go-round, but I can't see fans enjoying it. Given that those who are die-hard Akira-heads will point out every way that the eventual script is not Akira, were I the studio, I'd go ahead as planned and then just change the title. We'd get a decently-budgeted popcorn movie with motorcycles in it, the differences would already be documented to deflect any lawsuits, and we wouldn't have another version of the famous "Kenadaaaaa!" scream to groan over. :)
Touching on "A Game of Thrones" for a moment (both the books and the TV series), I think I've found something that sets it apart from other stories of similar depth apart from the usual things that go into a successful yarn (writing, characterization, plot, etc.): The persistence of lies. Without getting into spoilers, "A Game of Thrones" not only has falsehoods generated for various schemes and goals, those lies are quite often allowed to persist indefinitely, even after their purpose has been served. In many other stories, a character overcomes the lie or reveals the truth and the liar is shamed or punished, but not so (often) here. Lies become crucial plot movers, and in a medieval world filled with the gossipers of the city square, they often take on lives of their own. In a similar fashion, as news doesn't travel particularly quickly, the reader/viewer sees actions based on whatever the last thing they heard was, and we're left to watch them soldier on until it smacks them in the face. It's kind of refreshing, in a way, until it gets someone you like hurt or worse.
And I think the internet gods have smiled upon my locale, as Google high-speed fiber is coming to the Kansas City I live in (the Missouri one). I have no idea what the pricing structure will be, but I'm looking forward to either switching to it, or (hopefully) watching it keep my current ISP, Time-Warner, from hiking its rates or imposing data caps. If Google just provides a nice, big pipeline to the 'net, it'll be, hopefully, an ISP that doesn't have competing interests in Cable TV, phone service, or other industries that are being supplanted by just having a big ol' internet connection. If I do get it, I'll be sure to pass on a review of the experience. It'll also allow me to more quickly find things like:
- From the 'several years too late' files comes Napoleon Dynamite: The Animated Series.
- From the 'that's still on the air?' files, we've got 'America's Most Wanted' getting a downgrade to a quarterly show. I guess after Bin Laden was found, interest dipped.
- Someone needs to hire George Takaei to be a correspondent for the Daily Show or something, because he's pretty durn funny.
- A watermelon crop in China was accidentally sprayed with a 'growth accelerator,' causing one of the most predictable results in sci-fi movies whenever you see a lab with some kind of giant fruit or vegetable in it.
- Here's a moment with a Mentos-n-Diet Coke rocket as it turns on humanity.
- Finally, some good X-news, I think. Or at least, some wishful thinking about an X-Men concept I wouldn't mind actually watching in a theater.
- Those one-button games (where you pretty much just jump or something similar) now have an MMO: Edmus is a game where you try to hop over every obstacle by pressing one key (I used spacebar) in an attempt to get the farthest among all other online players.
- Since I mention one-button games, it took this, the third installment of the Nyan Cat series to put it here. I'd meant to look into what that rainbow-trailed poptart-bodied cat was about eventually...
- Adding to my ever-growing toy list, I'd like to request my own flying super-dude remote-control kite.
- San Diego Comic Con might have a bit of competition for its attendees' attention in the form of Trickster, a less-expensive alternative gathering to meet creators and hear about how they do what they do.
- Clips from the 'Fables'-esque TV shows 'Grimm' and 'Once Upon A Time' can be viewed and digested. Cop shows and 'Lost' get the fairy tale treatment. And I'm not sure if the evil witch's 'glide walk' (as seen from above) was done on purpose or was an FX goof.
- Forget finding comic books in the attic, you should hope a relative has one of these vehicular beauties tucked away in a barn somewhere.
- Good news everyone! We may have found another habitable world! Now we just need a ship and crew willing to travel for 300,000 years to confirm it.
- We end with one of those angle/power/shoot games, Trunk-n-Duck. You appear to be a bazooka-wielding elephant/duck hybrid who is saving the world from monsters by blowing them up (like you do).