How They Won The War
Jan 19This is most likely bullshit, but it did get me thinking about the super-shocking end to Civil War.
Remember all that talk of Joss Whedon walking into the big Civil War planning meeting for like ten minutes and coming up with the PERFECT ending? Well, what if that ending…
Hollywood immortality is now iron-clad.
Jan 19For the longest time, if someone wanted a dead star to appear in a movie or commercial, you went with look-alikes, or you would use a body-double whose face you would never see, but a voice immitation would be heard. In the past ten years this took a big jump forward, as computer technology allowed filmmakers to insert an actor into old footage, or to isolate an actor from old footage and insert them into a new scene. Actually, the former was around before, using optical techniques, but it was pretty limited, and spotting “the blur” of the SFX usually gave it away. But with computers, these same effects got very sophisticated, allowing Tom Hanks for example, to appear in a lot of historical footage.
Computers now allow Hollywood to do a lot of things, but replicating humans has proven hard. At the very least, you can have Fred Astaire dancing with a dust-buster or the face of Gene Kelly mapped onto three different break-dancers (again, The Blur spoils the effect somewhat – admittedly, commercials don’t have the budget for perfect clean-up passes.) At best, you can take a digital, 2D scan of an actor, and put that 3D version to work.
But the holy grail that was always just out of reach was 3D models for dead actors – they, as mentioned, are dead. You can’t sit them down for a 3D scan. And some who are near death, look their age – 3D scanning them locks them into that age (plus or minus a decade, with a little tweaking.) There has been no perfect solution to resurrecting the dead, until now.
Superbama!
Jan 18At the risk of getting all political on yo’ collective asses…this gets me atwitter.
Linkypoops
Jan 17Just a few clicky things that make other things go. My neck hurts.
The great Dave Campbell shares some love for the great Drake Hogestyn, including a few priceless clips.
Tom Brevoort blogs, and the world is better for it. Seriously, some great reading there.
Hayden Panettiere and Kenny Baker are both coming to my town. I don’t know if I can stand it.
Nay nay, Cory! Nay nay!
Jan 16I’ve taken heat from a couple of friends before, regarding my dislike of Cory Doctorow. Partly it’s a misconception that I loathe him, because the only time I talk about Cory is when he’s really pissed me off. In fact, most of the time I have no opinion of Cory, and on occasion, judging by some of his posts on BoingBoing, I’m certain he and I could have a good conversation over a beer. But then, every once and awhile, he says something so utterly stupid. Mostly about comic books, which make me doubley mad, as Doctorow and cohorts are regarded as pop culture know-it-alls, and the go-to kids for all things kitch. And it is very apparent that they are not champions of comic culture, but rather making it hip by presenting it as something it’s not.
My, “Whoa, wait, what?” streak with Cory and Co. started with thier love of the term “underwear pervert” – suggesting that classic heroes are rooted in something perverted. Actually, that was the bulk of it – I don’t care if they don’t push superhero books, or the classics. If they don’t get it, they don’t get it. And all was quiet for months… until today, when Cory was talking about the new Hannibal Lecter book.
Hannibal Rising is the origin story of Hannibal Lecter, his childhood in war-torn Lithuania his life in a Soviet orphanage, his rescue to rural France, his move to Paris, and finally, his internship at Johns Hopkins in the USA. Hannibal is basically a superhero — possessed of superhuman strength and intellect — and so this is the equivalent of the radio-active spider bite and robbery-gone-bad that turns Peter Parker into Spiderman.
Yes. Yes, Hannibal Lecter is just like Spider-man… if Spider-man was a sociopathic cannibal. Seriously. I…
Dude, “super” yes. The guy is Moriarty and Michael Myers incarnate. He is more than the average man. But he is not a hero. At all. Monster works. Villian isn’t bad either. One might liken him to a Green Goblin maybe – super smart, super insane. But Spider-man?
For fuck’s sake. I hope someone in your circle of comic writing friends gives you shit for that post.
