Yes! The Japanese Spiderman. This series aired in 1978 around the same time as the American Spiderman TV series if I remember correctly. Not exactly a work of art, the show was infinitely more entertaining than it's U.S. counterpart, and I say this only having seen two episodes; the first and one that appeared to be the last. I'd seen a bunch of the version that aired on CBS and that was pure crap. The Japanese Spiderman at least looked like the comicbook character, though that's where the similarities ended. This show neither resembled the original comics nor the ones produced in Japan by Ryuichi Ikegami (better known for Crying Freeman and Sanctuary) for a short while.
The show gives him an origin that seems to based on The Mighty Thor (another Marvel comic from the early 60's), more than Spiderman. There are aliens from space, he finds some weird object in a cave and soon finds he has the ability to become Spiderman. From there it's all Power Ranger stuff. He fights a bunch of goons (all dressed the same), a guy comes out in a ridiculous rubber monster suit and when he has trouble with Spidey, the monster grows to about 50-60 feet. Spiderman knows it's time to bring out the big guns and summons his SpiderMachine, a Nascar type race car, which flies him to his Tranformer robot. From inside the robot, Spidey whips out this huge sword and kills the monster. With some variation, this is what happens with all these types of shows, except most Japanese superhero shows are team (Sentai) shows. There may be a little more to the plot, but I don't speak enough Japanese to know any better. Still, it's cooler than it sounds cuz it's Spiderman. I found this story via
Anime News Service.
Click here and scroll to the bottom for a Realplayer interview with Stan Lee about his impressions about the show... He seems to be reading from notes, towards the end.
Labels: Awesome, comics, DVD, fun, japanese
I don't frequent Trek discussion forums, so I don't know how original these ideas are, but I think they're worth trying.
1) Re-animate the Star Trek
filmation cartoon series from the early 70's with
CGI, but keep the voices of the original cast. It's been a long while since I've watched any of those, but I seem to recall some decent stories told in the cartoon. The problem with the cartoon is that
Filmation animation gags on dick. Acceptable for
Scooby-
Doo and Josie and The Pussycats, not for Star Trek. I think the cartoon is on DVD, so anyone who wants to keep the show as it was can still have it. You wanna get some extra viewers like me, who won't watch the old cartoon as it is, you gotta re-animate it. A lot of
Trekkies/Trekkers are
completists anyway. Add a few extra scenes that don't require the participation of dead voice talent, and they'll have to buy this set too.
2) This one's a little
weird; Bring back Capt. Pike and have him played by Ray
Liotta. Some people think Capt. Kirk was
badass. Okay, he kinda was, but he wasn't a bad
muthafucka like Pike was. When Kirk took a alien hostage, you knew he was
bluffin', but when Pike pointed his laser at one of them ass-headed bastards in the pilot, you knew he might shoot a
nigga if shit didn't go down the way it was supposed to.
The pilot was re-edited into some bullshit two part episode of the main series. I don't know if Jeffrey Hunter had already died (he passed in 1969), but they had some dude with his head sticking outta a box play him in the present day, while the footage represented stuff that happened years earlier.
I'm not sure if
Liotta is young enough to play him in his prime, but some creative writing could get Pike out of that box and on to something interesting. The image above was stolen from
Brian's Drive-In Theatre, where you can learn more about
Jeffrey Hunter and other stuff.
Labels: Capt Pike was a bad MuthaFucka, nostalgia, tv
Alan Moore wants his name taken off all published material he doesn't own. This in addition to the distance he's placed between himself and all movies based on his work or characters (the upcoming V For Vendetta for example).
Read this great interview... (found via
bad librarianship)
Labels: comics, Heroes, movies
The story starts here and ends with
Sony-BMG backing down somewhat, but as far as I know the crap they've already infected is still in the market place. The EFF.org article identifies some albums, and tells you how to keep your computer safe (aside from not buying crappy Sony CDs). The second link, from the Financial Times (found via
JamesHudnall.com) contains this lovely bit of info hinted at in the first:
On Friday, Sony BMG, which faces a number of lawsuits in the US related to the use of the software, acknowledged for the first time that it could render PC users vulnerable to attack.
“We are aware that a computer virus is circulating that may affect computers with XCP content protection software,” the company said, adding that the software has been included on a limited number of Sony BMG titles, but emphasising, “This potential problem has no effect on the use of these discs in conventional, non-computer-based, CD and DVD players.”
Pricks.
Labels: bullshit, civil rights, Fucking Idiots, music business, ripoffs