July 2008 – Page 2 – StuffWeLike

Keanu Reeves as Spike in Cowboy Bebop movie? Woah.

A live-action adaptation of the extraordinary anime series Cowboy Bebop is bad enough, but then it gets worse. Rumour has it that Keanu Reeves almost certainly has the role of lead protagonist Spike Spiegel. Now, Spike doesn’t really talk much, which is a good thing, but I still have every belief that Reeves will screw this up.

The movie is supposedly under development at Fox, but they haven’t announced anything officially yet. A source close to FirstShowing here says that the movie is still there, and will be headed for a 2010 release. No clear director yet, but Keanu has been attached to Spike Spiegel for some 8 months now. Disturbing.

I’m against a live-action adaptation of Cowboy Bebop, because it is best damn anime I’ve ever seen and one of my most favourite franchises. Now a CG movie or something, I can appreciate that. But why does Hollywood have to take it live action?

The awesome characters from the series will now be replaced by some crappy people like Keanu Reeves and what-not. I also doubt it the series will capture the original theme of the series, its mature Western feel, the importance of the soundtrack and its synchronization with the fight scenes. Instead, we’ll probably just be treated to some fancy special effects.

With the disaster that was Speed Racer, you must understand that it’s difficult to get your hopes up for this. I’m not saying that the anime was much better than what the Wachowkis made of it, but still.

Marvin the Martian Movie; no really

That’s right, a feature-length movie on Marvin the Martian. Yes, that little Martian thing. Warner Brothers must be out of their minds, because I don’t see any way to profit from a movie on goddamned Marvin the Martian. It’s probably one of the most random pieces of news I’ve heard all month!

The movie will be a blend of live action and CG, which is even more confusing, because I can’t really picture Marvin in a live-action setting. Hell, I can’t Marvin well anyways. From whatever I’ve seen of him, he’s a side-character, a less important villain and mildly amusing. He would be the last person from the Looney Tunes roster I’d set a full film on. Even Taz would be a better choice! Or maybe not. No.

The plot will go something along the lines of Marvin wanting to destroy Christmas, and getting trapped in some gift box. With a plot like that, I can’t help but not get excited. I mean seriously, is that the best WB can come up with? I know this one’s for the kids, but seriously? Please, Warner: we want more superhero movies, especially like The Dark Knight and not some retarded movies on Marvin the Martian.

Wallace & Gromit the Episodic Game series!

Wallace & Gromit, two of my most favourite animated characters, will be converted into video game form by Telltale Games, the guys behind the great Sam & Max line of episodic adventure games. The series will be titled “Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures” which sounds like a pretty decent, yet generic title.

The game will work along the lines of Sam & Max, but knowing Wallace & Gromit, it should be an easy adaptation. It will also most likely involve a lot of building and zany contraptions. We still have no clear details on this game, but I’d expect it to be an adventure game. I mean seriously, you thought it would be a first person shooter?

Telltale will be really working on this one to give it the clay look. Hell, I didn’t think the screenshot you see above was CG! It’d be really nice to interact with Wallace & Gromit in their native medium! Interestingly, while the claymation in Wallace & Gromit is pretty simple, Telltale is still working hard on it:

“Clay presents a challenge if you really get into the detail of it. For example, adding fingerprints in a medium where there aren’t any is one of the discussions of how far we should go with the game’s detail.”

No idea on the whens and whats of this game, but a good guess would be that the game wouldn’t come around anywhere this year.

DC Comics get some Motion

[Update 3/7/09: Click here for our review on WATCHMEN: THE COMPLETE MOTION COMIC]

“Warner Premiere’s Motion Comics” are short-form digital content pieces based on DC Comics. They bring movements, voice-overs, music scores, and comic book artwork to life.

DC Comics is giving away an episode of Watchmen for free for the next two weeks at www.ew.com/watchmen. Beginning August 2, Watchmen Motion Comic will be available on the iTunes Store www.itunes.com for purchase and download for $1.99.

More titles will be unveiled after Comic Con!

Watchmen – Motion Comic
Watchmen takes viewers through the critically acclaimed DC Comics and Hugo award-winning graphic novel by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Set in 1985 at the height of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, costumed avengers have been banned with the exception of two – The Comedian and Rorschach. During this time the mysterious murder of a United States government official named Edward Blake occurs in New York, possibly by Soviet Communists. It is later confirmed that Blake is actually a costumed avenger – The Comedian. The news of the murder is discovered by his fellow costumed avenger, Rorschach who sets out to discover the murderer.

During his search viewers discover whether Rorschach is really insane or if he’s uncovered a plot to murder super-heroes and, even worse, millions of innocent civilians. On the run from the law, Rorschach reunites with his former teammates in a desperate attempt to save the world and their lives. But what they uncover will shock them to their very core and change the face of the planet. Following two generations of masked superheroes from the close of World War II to the icy shadow of the Cold War comes this groundbreaking comic story — the story of The Watchmen.

Batman: Mad Love Batman:
Mad Love is taken directly from the pages of the Eisner Award-winning single issue graphic novel by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. The story revolves around The Joker’s sidekick Harley Quinn who is madly in love with him. She uses crime to demonstrate her love for her “Puddin'” and sets out to commit the ultimate act of love – killing Batman.

The Batman: Mad LoveMotion Comic will be available to purchase from Xbox Live and viewing on mobile phones enabled for Verizon Wireless’ V CAST Video service starting July 22. “Batman: Mad Love” episodes will also be available from other distribution partners in the coming months.

Two downloadable Watchmen games confirmed

Movie video game tie-ins aren’t news, but what Warner Bros. is trying to go with them is. Warner has announced that they will be experimenting with downloadable tie-in games for Watchmen and two are already in the works!

The first will be around the release of the movie (i.e. March 2009), while the second will arrive shortly after the DVD release. What’s more, if these two games end up successful, Warner will go ahead with further episodes.

Seeing the sorry fate of movie-based video games was probably what spurred Warner into action. The downloadable format means that the game will be shorter and more appealing to the fans. According to Warner, this model will end up better at pleasing fans and critics, which is definitely going to be a tough task.

Interestingly, the source article at Variety also says that if the series ends up successfull, there might even be future pics tie-ins with the games. We’re not sure if a downloadable series can get that successful, so we’re just gonna go with a “Yeah, right” for now.

Right now we know that the first game will be released for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. It will be developed by Danish developer Deadline Games. I checked out their Wikipedia entry and I don’t see any titles ringing any bells. The game will feature Rorshach and Nite Owl battling crime.

This would mean that the game is something of a prequel to Watchmen, where a close friendship between Rorshach and Nite Owl as crimefighting buddies is hinted at. Would be great to see this in the form of a video game, but again, we’re totally not sure if this is gonna work.

id’s Quake Live

It’s nice to see that the major PC developers are taking some steps to actually evolve the PC Gaming scene rather than bitch about piracy and low sales. While Valve has announced their revolutionary Steam Cloud and experimented with episodic gaming, id will be doing some experiments of their own.

At last year’s QuakeCon, id announced Quake Zero: a concept wherein they will take their excellent Quake III: Arena, make it ad-supported and completely free, and then make it browser-based. And you thought the only thing you can play on your Firefox was that silly Flash game.

Quake Zero has become Quake Live and gone into Beta testing, but we haven’t had much headway other than that. Sure, it may not sound as exciting as id’s other projects, Rage and Doom 4, but it is still an interesting idea that could encourage dozens more.

The promise of free gameplay means that pretty much anyone can play, and without piracy, too, so the developers won’t be affected. And since it’s browser-based, it brings relief to our lazy asses that would rather mull over whatever’s on Firefox rather than start the game. Hmm, or maybe it’s just me.

Regardless, if id ends up successful, we could see a completely new form of gaming, with MMORPGs diving for it (and hopefully ending those monthly subscription fees). Imagine if you will, competition and tournament games like Quake Live: racing games, sport games, it’ll be phenomenal!

I’d like to see Epic do something similar with their Unreal Tournament series. Epic and id have been fierce rivals since Quake III and Unreal Tournament came out almost simultaneously. But their paths somewhat diverged. With Epic’s Unreal Tournament III ending up bombing at the charts, they have no option but to blame piracy for a game that didn’t have much in it anyways. Will Epic (or some other developer) try a competitor to Quake Live?

QuakeCon 2008 starts at the end of this month and there’s still a good week to go before it, but let’s just expect something to happen then. You can also ogle over the recently released trailer that shows some footage, especially the community and score charts on the big website. Also notice the billboards splashed over the maps.

No idea on when Quake Live will be coming out, but we’d expect early next year at the latest, and a month after QuakeCon at the earliest! 😉