I really love the fact that TRON Legacy is arriving to theaters by the end of the year. Not only do I like the TRON franchise (I liked the game, TRON 2.0 a lot!), the upcoming movie also features a soundtrack created by my favourite electronica duo, Daft Punk! Come this July 2010, the attendees of Comic-Con International 2010 are in a for a treat.

Returning for an unprecedented third year to the fans and Convention that “started it all,” Walt Disney Pictures is pleased to present a very special, insider look at its upcoming “TRON: Legacy” at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International Convention. At 11:15 a.m. on Thursday, July 22, 2010, the panel presentation will be held in Hall H of the San Diego Convention Center.

On the dais will be filmmakers and talent from the film, including director Joe Kosinski, producers Sean Bailey and Steven Lisberger as wells as cast members Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen and Bruce Boxleitner. The panel discussion, to be moderated by Patton Oswalt, is set to include exclusive glimpses of the film, as well as a Q & A involving all panel participants, along with special surprise guests.

It was at the 2008 Convention that the vision of a 21st century TRON was born. When VFX test footage was shown to a packed hall of incredibly surprised convention attendees, it was met with such an overwhelmingly positive response—becoming the “it” moment of the Convention—that the studio gave the film an enthusiastic green light. In 2009  “TRON: Legacy” returned to Comic-Con with an expanded presence and this year, the filmmakers and cast are back with never before seen visuals and “scoop” for the Convention fans  who have been such an instrumental part of the story of “TRON: Legacy.”

Director Joe Kosinski comments: “When we made the teaser, we envisioned it as a sneak peek at the potential of this project. We set out to stay true to the characters, the vehicles, and the world established in the first film—then show its evolution. When it took off with the fans, we knew we were in the right place. Because they’ve been key to getting this story told, we’re back to keep them involved, and excited to finally present actual footage from the film to the audience that made it all possible.”

To add to the excitement of this extraordinary event, Disney will showcase an interactive TRON booth on the convention floor (located on aisle #3712), giving fans a first look at the all new “TRON: Legacy” inspired merchandise launching this fall. Capturing the action, light, and cool aesthetic style of the film, the display will include toys, electronics, collectibles, apparel, accessories, publishing and the “TRON: Evolution” video game from Disney Interactive Studios. Comic-Con exclusive products will also be on sale. Disney will also reveal exciting new mobile content at the event.

It would seem that the Batman: Gotham Knight animated anthology spawned a spiritual successor in the form of Halo Legends. The similarities are hard to deny, a bunch of animated shorts done by the best in the business and the stories revolve around a central theme, and this time it’s the Master Chief and the Halo universe.

Halo Legends has 7 animated shorts, compared to 6 in Gotham Knight,  and my favourite one would be the Toei Studio creation (and Dragonball Z inspired)  Odd One Out. It’s a pretty crazy/funny mess, which fortunately unlike  the rest of the shorts, is non-canon.

My second favourite would be the last short “The Package”. Done fully in CGI by Casio Entertainment, it wouldn’t give Advent Children a run for its money, but it’s still a pretty sight with an all-action plot. The Japanese water colour inspired “The Duel” can be a pretty tedious affair to those not accustomed to animation being a higher medium of art.

The other stories are pretty good themselves. Halo  fans who  are interested in the Forerunner backstory would be delighted with the “Origins” short, while Homecoming is a recollection of a Spartan’s training program, her escape, and her subsequent return with the knowledge that the program IS home.

Overall, Halo Legends is a keeper, and it does for Halo what Gotham Knight did for the Dark Knight. I highly recommend this anthology. Halo Legends will be going on sale on Play-Asia on the 26th of February. Click here for the Blu-ray version, or here for the DVD version.

This month must be a pretty good month for direct-to-DVD movie lovers. First up is Marvel Comics’ Planet Hulk. One of my favourite comic book story arc, Planet Hulk showcases the Hulk in his full stomping, smashing, animated glory with plenty of blood to spare.

Last year, animated direct-to-DVD features such as Batman and Superman: Public Enemies and Wonder Woman showed that animated features are no longer the domain for kids, Planet Hulk is one that you probably wouldn’t want your young ones to watch.

However, for those who have read the Planet Hulk story arc in its comic book or excellent trade form, you’ll feel a little disappointed as the artwork was way better in the books. But for those who have not, it’s a fun ride watching the Hulk go crazy on a whole lot of alien creatures.

Second in the list would be the latest in one of my favourite B-movie franchises, Universal Soldier. Universal Soldier: Regeneration sees Jean-Claude Van Damme reprising his role as the former Unisol, Luc. The old guy manages to pull off a suprisingly emo potrayal of a resurrected soldier who has lost it all, trying to get back in at life and ending up doing the thing he knows best: kick ass.

Regeneration also sees the return of Dolph Lundgren, reprising his role as Andrew (well, a clone of) from the first Universal Soldier. The big guy looks old  and moves just as sluggish at first but the fight between his character and old rival Luc was really hardcore.

The movie also continues the trend in the franchise to hire sports entertainment stars as actors. MMA fighters Andrei Arlovski and Mike Pyle are pretty impressive in their  respective roles as a Unisol and a US Army captain.

I pretty much enjoyed myself watching these two movies over the weekend. Even you haven’t watched them already, both are worth your time.

Kudos to James Cameron for winning two Golden Globes for his movie Avatar. I watched it the other day, and while I found it to be an outstanding film from a technical standpoint, the story felt like a rehash of other films put together.

You can practically see shades of Dances with Wolves (guy gone native with Native Americans), The Last Samurai (guy gone native with Japanese samurai), Pocahontas (guy gone native with Native Americans), Starship Troopers (mechs, weird alien creatures) and Tropic Thunder (for the explosions).

Hmm, with this crazy guy-gone-native-with-blue-walking-talking-oversized-lemurs thing going on, do you know what I want to watch most so early into 2010?

It’s none other than Denzel Washington’s The Book of Eli. The man can do badass, just watch Man on Fire. And he can do stoic, just watch Crimson Tide. Badass stoic heroes in apocalyptic wasteland settings are my cup of tea these days, so I can’t wait for this to come to Malaysian shores.

I booked and paid for 2 tickets to Avatar via GSC’s website on Saturday morning for the 6.20 p.m. show (same day) at GSC Pavillion’s Hall 9. The seats that I selected were at the back row, A4 and A5 respectively.

Upon entering the hall, I found that the seat A5 was faulty, the seat cushion was sagging too much to the front, providing inadequate support unlike other seats, such as A4. I alerted one of the staff who then proceeded to check and confirm the problem, he even got a second staff to confirm it.

In addition to this, the seat was already marked (!) with an X on the upholstery indicating that there was something wrong even before I came along!

Since it was a full house, he cannot offer equivalent seats and the only available replacement seats were that on the middle row. Hall 9 is a small cinema hall but at the same time  considerably wide with a really big screen. Seeing that sitting in the middle row would be inviting neck cramps to not only myself but also my girlfriend, I declined the offer.

He also suggested alternatively he could do a refund. I declined this as well, knowing the trouble I went to get the tickets in the first place.

After going through the 2 hours + movie, I went downstairs again to complain about the seat. This time, another guy checked the seat and I made it clear in no uncertain terms on my disappointment with GSC. The staff brought the manager who was apologetic about the whole matter and offered me complimentary tickets for any future movie but the thing is, I would have to call him for the tickets.

The question to GSC would be what are the protocols or guidelines that your staff have to follow in the event where customer is complaining about the seat. I don’t think customers would be happy just settling for a refund, especially when the movie in question is a highly anticipated one like Avatar and tickets are simply scarce. Also, the off-hand nature of the compensation was rather off-putting.

Also, how soon do seats under maintenance get reported to the people in charge of the online booking system? I can tell that the problem with the seat wasn’t recent (it was already marked!), and the manager’s explanation on how sometimes the seating arrangement for the cinema is updated locally and before taking time to be reflected on the online booking system was simply, unacceptable.

I finally got to watch Gamer, the Gerard Butler movie that I wanted to watch earlier this year, but didn’t manage to find the time. Gamer’s premise is set in the near future, where the Internet is pretty much prevalent and gives rise to the use of real humans as controllable avatars in a Playstation Home lookalike called Society.

On the other hand of the scale, there’s the popular team deathmatch game called Slayers, which features death row convicts as player characters, along with plenty of explosions and gibs. Gerard Butler’s character, Kable, is just several victories away from winning his freedom, but the creator of the game wants him dead, not only to generate publicity but also to hide incriminating evidence against him.

From here, the movie slides from trying to do some social commentary (and stereotyping) to “Hero-shooting-up-everything” mode. I can’t help but feel that the movie is built around explosions and ludicrous scenes with a total lack of common sense and Rambo 4, starring a geriatric Sylvester Stallone is much better than this.

I managed to catch Surrogates on the big screen last Saturday, and having read the graphic novel (titled The Surrogates) beforehand, there were plenty of surprises as the movie took a lot of liberties with the source material.

The end result was something pretty tepid, but I guess that is what happens when you try to throw a few curve balls but all of them turned out to be duds. I wouldn’t mind if the movie turned out to be Die Hard 5 with Robots, but if the end result doesn’t even match up to the source material, which was a pretty smart and edgy sci-fi book in its own right.

Anyways, if you have not watched the movie, but intend to do so, you can pretty much skip the following, but if you want to read about the changes done when the story was transferred from print to celluloid, feel free to continue:

• In the graphic novel, the protagonist is a police lieutenant named Harvey Greer, this was changed to Tom Greer, an FBI agent, in the movie, and was potrayed by Bruce Willis.
• Harvey’s police partner in the graphic novel, Sergeant Pete Ford is replaced by a female FBI agent, Jennifer Peters in the movie.
• The graphic novel’s antagonist was Lionel Canter, the original creator of the surrogates (surries) who used a single surrie nicknamed Steeplejack. This surrogate was equipped with the ability to discharge electricity at lightning bolt strengths and was used to destroy several surrogates, including Greer’s.
• The movie’s antagonist is the same person, but goes about his business the conventional way, using multiple surrogates units. The motives of both print and celluloid characters however are just about the same.
• The human body count in the graphic novel is virtually nil, save for the death of The Prophet at the hands of Steeplejack (Lionel  Canter). The movie changes this with surrogate deaths due to the use of a special weapon resulted in the death of their operators as well. The Prophet turns out to be another of Lionel Canter’s surries.
• In the movie, the Army invades the Dread reservation looking for the surrie (and operator) killing weapon. In the graphic novel, the Dreads take to the streets and destroy VSI’s building after the mass surrie deactivation.
• Greer’s wife commits suicide at the end of the graphic novel, after, like many other operators, lost their surries to an attack perpetrated by Lionel Canter. In the movie, Greer deactivates the surries and his wife does not commit suicide, resulting in a somewhat happily ever after ending in a post-surrie world

There are plenty more differences, and if you are still curious, check out  both the book and the movie.

I finally got to watch The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.  It’s a pretty interesting documentary on one man’s quest to beat the world record high score on Donkey Kong. Steve Wiebe here is the overall nice guy going through some tough times in his life. Laid off from work, he takes to playing Donkey Kong Jr. with the aim of beating Billy Mitchell’s high score.

While retro games are understandably an obsession and players can be really competitive, I’m rather surprised at how obnoxious and childish some of these “world record high score” holders are.

It’s quite an eye opening experience to learn how Brian Kuh (who, unfortunately, behaves like Billy Mitchell’s lap dog) entered Steve Wiebe’s garage without permission and proceeded to disassemble his Donkey Kong Jr. for “verification” purposes.

And oh the sheer hypocrisy of it all. While Steve Wiebe’s Donkey Kong score is rejected due to the fact it was video taped and not done in front of a live audience, Walter Day, the guy responsible for keeping track of all these scores, accepts Billy Mitchell’s world record score recorded on a video tape!

The King of Kong is a pretty interesting movie (Steve Wiebe does win in the end), and while some people will have a problem believing that such obsessive-types exist, it’s a fun romp through the retro gaming scenes.

Why can’t all comic book movies (with the exception of The Dark Knight and the first Spiderman movie) be like Superman/Batman: Public Enemies? Despite being a straight to DVD (or Blu-ray, whichever rocks your boat), it’s really good.

In the movie, Lex Luthor becomes the president of the United States and recruits superheroes to his cause. Superman gets framed with a bounty on his head after rejecting Luthor’s overtures and faces a heck lot of resistance (but not without help from Batman). All this with a gigantic meteorite heading towards Earth.

Satire features well in this movie, everything from the economic crisis, to what Americans think about their former presidents, national service and xenophobia having their share of the spotlight.

And unlike other animated movies (with the exception of the recent Wonder Woman movie), Superman/Batman features a LOT of fighting and plenty of blood. So fans of Superman/Batman who are waiting to watch their heroes go on a slugfest against a plethora of DC villains (and some heroes).

I like both the artwork and the voicework in the movie. Kevin Conroy is in here voicing Batman and that is ALWAYS a good thing. Characterization wise and banter between the two heroes are great, and pretty much pay homage to the comic books. Just goes to show that if you are a fan, you need this in your DVD shelf.

What an odd-ball evening on satellite TV yesterday. I watched, for the first time, an episode of Batman: The Brave and The Bold. It’s probably the campiest Batman on the TV screen since Adam West’s rendition of the superhero.

Pretty much everyone in the cartoon show (even his sensei) was commenting on how silly Batman looked in his get-up. Anyways, The Brave and The Bold is pretty fun to watch and good for a few laughs.

Next up on the list of campy stuff was Army of Darkness, which I caught mid-way after watching Batman. Sam Raini should continue making campy horror movies like this. Who would emerge tops from a “Bruce Campbell versus the undead” grudge match? Bruce Campbell of course! No contest!