How the Father of Claymation Lost His Company
I’ve been a huge fan of stop-motion/claymation since I was a very little kid, and Will Vinton has always been one of my favorites. I was vagely aware of what happened when his studio was taken over by Phil Knight of Nike fame, but I didn’t know the whole story. It’s pretty incredible what happened to him, but it has to be said, would films like Coraline and ParaNorman have been made if the change didn’t happen? I think Laika has a bright future but it sucks that Vinton got booted from his own company.

Watch Stop-Motion ‘Usagi Yojimbo’ Short Film
This short is rough, but it was just used as a proof-of-concept for the filmmakers to get the rights to Usagi Yojimbo to make a stop-motion animated feature. I love stop-motion and I love Usagi Yojimbo (through his TMNT connection of course) so this is pretty awesome.

How Laika Pushed 3D Printing to New Heights with ‘The Boxtrolls’
I love that 3D printing is helping keep stop-motion animation alive. Laika’s movies are great and I can’t wait to see the Boxtrolls.

See the Ghostbusters Ride That Was Never Built
This would have been a really fun ride.

Inside the Wild UI Design of Guardians of the Galaxy
I love when a sci-fi movie has a great UI design, and Guardians certainly did. Beyond the screens and holograms that we’re used to seeing, it had some amazingly weird “UI” in Ronan’s ships. Just another thing that this movie did right.

Things have been quiet around here again. Sorry about that! I’ve been busy launching a new business and the only thing I’ve had the energy or time for resembling blogging lately has been maintaining the THS Instagram account, but hopefully that’s changing soon. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been watching geeky movies, playing video games, etc, I just haven’t had the energy to blog about it.

That said, it’s been a pretty eventful few weeks for us geeks. I’m sure you all are wondering if I’ve seen the new TMNT movie, but I haven’t. I’m really divided on seeing it (at the least I could write a bad review) but being so busy and also having so many awesome things I’m excited about has made me strangely at peace with the idea that there’s a new Turtle movie out there that I haven’t seen. The opinions I’ve read from the people I trust basically let me know that the movie is terrible, and honestly all the people I’ve had telling me it’s good have had to preface their recommendations with things like “If you don’t think about it…” or “It’s just the Turtles…” which is bullshit to me. I’ve gotten called out on Instagram and Reddit (ugh, don’t go to the TMNT sub) for being whiny for wanting a good TMNT movie, and I’m kind of over the whole thing. I’ll torrent it when it comes out on video to make sure I don’t contribute any money to Bay’s production company, and maybe write a late review.

Anyway…

Meanwhile, I’ve seen ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ twice

And it’s amazing.
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Have you seen the awesome new trailer for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy? If not, take a moment and watch it below. Wasn’t that great? We know that Star Lord (Chris Pratt) is a half-human/half-alien who was taken from Earth in the early 80s. It looks like his nostalgia for Earth and the 80s in general will extend further than the Walkman he carries around in the film. Check out this still from the trailer. ALF trading cards and puffy stickers? A Troll Doll? Scratch-and-Sniff stickers? Awesome.

If Star Lord had been taken from Earth in the early 90s instead, there would totally be a He’s back, in POG form! joke in there somewhere.
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First impressions? One, between this and Jurassic World, Chris Pratt is going to explode in the next year or two. Second, this movie looks awesome and I need to see it ASAP.

I hope we get a second trailer with some talking Rocket Raccoon sometime soon though. I like the vibe in this trailer and that it doesn’t spoil anything, but I’m afraid the marketing will start spoiling everything closer to summer because Marvel will be worried about making sure people know what this is all about.

What do you guys think?

I don’t post movie news/rumors as much as I used to around here, and I’m glad, because all the rumors of who was in the lead for Star Lord/Peter Quill in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy turned out wrong. I’ve got a Character Guide coming very soon for Guardians and I’ve been familiarizing myself with the characters more lately, and I think Chris Pratt was a great choice.

From what I’ve heard, Guardians is going to be a more funny and unique Marvel movie, and Pratt can do funny and serious very well. I saw him in Moneyball before I even started watching Parks and Recreation and since then he’s been in a ton of stuff, including the awesome Zero Dark Thirty.

I think the rest of the casting news for this movie will be pretty interesting too. Not many people in the general movie-going world have heard of Guardians and they’re going to have to try a little harder to bring people in. Having Iron Man cameo would help, and I’m sure having Jim Carrey and/or Adam Sandler would help bring people in too.

This makes me want Aziz Ansari as the voice of Rocket Raccoon.

How much do you want to bet we’ll see Peter Quill pop up in a short post-credits teaser in one of the movies coming soon?

Via SlashFilm