Note from Tommy: I’d like to welcome James Abels to the team of Top Hat Sasquatch contributors.

In the massive shadow of the Batman vs. Superman announcement, speculation has crept out of every corner of the Internet. This is big news, for both DC comics, and fans. Though, to me, it feels a bit off, and I’m not referring to Affleck.

It is clear that DC is making strides toward building their movie universe, from the ground up, and it would seem as if The Man of Steel will be the foundation. Although, when I take a closer look, it was in no way seemingly crafted to serve this purpose. It is also evident that maybe the threat was a little too ambitious for a re-introduction to Superman as well. Before you start an online petition, let me explain.

I would consider Superman the quintessential DC character, even though Batman tends to clean up at the box office. What I mean is that Superman is essentially God. Aside from Kryptonite, there isn’t much you can threaten him with. This has always been an issue for DC to face, and translating the character to the big screen makes it even more complex. The stakes need to be high for Superman, and Man of Steel delivered that. Though, where do we go from here? How can the stakes be higher than saving the entire human race?
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So big news last night from Warner Bros. Ben Affleck is going to be the new version of Batman in 2014’s sequel to Man of Steel. My initial reaction was kind of a quiet Hmm, that’s interesting!, but the rest of the Internet’s was more like ZOMG DAREDEVIL SUCKS HE CAN’T BE BATMANNN!! and I don’t really understand the hate.

No, Ben Affleck isn’t my favorite actor, but he’s a good actor (and a great director, which could come in handy down the road for new solo Bat-films). He’s a big guy and I’m sure he’ll put on a lot of muscle for Batman, and he certainly has the chin for Batman. I think a lot of people have forgotten that there was a Batman before the Nolan movies, and that the character is wide open for interpretation.
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We all complain about the Star Wars prequels. While we all hate on Episodes I, II, and III on differing levels, practically no one offers a constructive plan to fix George Lucas’ mess. YouTuber Michael is our only hope.

Michael a.k.a. Belated Media previously revealed his plan to reconstruct Episode I to make it an enjoyable story. That video earned him over 1.4 million views and hearty praise from even the strictest haters. Now he’s back with a revised Episode II outline.

In the first video Michael concisely and accurately assesses the prequels’ major flaws. “George made the misstep of thinking familiarity meant characters,” he begins. “It also helps to have a main character. Episode I was very muddled in that regard. You aren’t really sure who to point to.” That pretty much nails it.
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Going on vacation during the biggest week for Geek news is kind of overwhelming. I came back from a fun-filled day at Disney World to an RSS Reader full of news stories. Since I don’t have the time to write about all of them in-depth, I’m going to be posting SDCC roundups a few times this week. Today’s edition is all about comic book movies, and there’s a lot of news.
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I’ll get right to the point; Monsters University is a good Pixar film. It’s not a near perfect film, like Toy Story 3, but it is definitely a step up from both Cars 2 and Brave (both of which were enjoyable, but not quite up to Pixar snuff).

The movie tells the tale of Monsters Inc. stars Mike Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal), and James P. Sullivan (John Goodman, in a role his voice was born to play), as they enter college and try to become the scarers that we all know and love from the first film. As is expected in a prequel, when Mike and Sulley first meet, they instantly despise each other, and later have to learn to work together to achieve a common goal (I don’t want to give too much away, for risk of spoiling anything). The film does a nice job introducing us to characters that we already know, but in a way that makes them seem almost like completely new characters (the best example of this is the villain from the 1st film, Randall Boggs, whom we meet in this film as a shy nerd, and we get to see grow into the character we know and love to hate.)

Monsters University thrives on its extensive cast of supporting players, ranging from wild man Art (voiced by Charlie Day) and the rest of the members of Oozma Kappa to Nathan Fillion’s stuck up jock Johnny (think of Stan Gable from Revenge of the Nerds). My personal favorite character was Don, a self described “mature student” who was recently downsized from his company, and has come back to school to “learn the computers”. Rounding out the cast is Dean Hardscrabble, voiced with frightening intensity by Helen Mirren, who acts as an adversary to our heroes.
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