Posts Tagged ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’
5 items.
It’s a new year and, as you may have noticed, there is a new coat of paint on the old joint. Welcome to the all-new Theater Hopper!
People who know me are aware that I’ve been kicking around the idea for a redesign probably since last October. At least, that’s when I started working on it. I’ve probably have ideas or at least loose sketches lying about since early last year! But, of course, life gets in the way, you self-publish a couple of books and, well… where does the time go?
Part of the goal behind redesigning the site was purely cosmetic. As you can see, I’ve widened the content area of the site to a little over 900 pixels wide. My counter statistics were telling me that the majority of you were viewing the site at 1024 x 768. So many of you were, in fact that the two resolutions below it (800 x 600 and 640 x 420) COMBINED couldn’t compare. To me, that’s a lot of wasted real estate. Especially considering that those of you viewing the site at a resolution LARGER than 1024 x 768 outnumber those below that resolution by a margin of nearly 3 to 1.
That’s kind of technical. And I’m getting away from my point.
The other goal behind the redesign was to get the site to a point where it could kind of generate it’s own activity and help maintain traffic flow. As you may recall, Cami and I are having a baby in February. Clearly my resources will need to be dedicated to my family at that time. But I also didn’t want to abandon the site or come back to comics faced with the challenge of rebuilding what I had lost.
To that end, we have introduced several new features!
First is the Mailing List. Sign up and I’ll be sure to notify you every time the comic updates. This is a great little reminder in case you don’t check the site every day. Don’t worry, I’m not going to spam ya’. It’s just a little extra customer service on our end!
Second is the “Mail This Comic to a Friend” feature. This is so those of you who are already fans of the comic can help me spread the good word. It’s a very easy e-mail form that lets you include a message along with the link to the specific comic you’re referencing and a great way to tell people about that HILARIOUS Theater Hopper strip you read today without having to open your mail client!
Third is the excellent “Rate This Comic” feature. (I’m really thrilled about this one.) It’s simple – just navigate yourself to the comic you want to rank, click on the link and place your vote on a scale of 1 to 5. This is a great piece of instant feedback that I can use to figure out what you guys like to see in the comic! Eventually, once we’ve collected enough votes, we’re going to post a link to a Top 50 page so you can see the most popular Theater Hopper strips of all time!
Again, this will be a great advantage to bringing new readers to the site. Instead of seaching through the archives as a means to being introduced to the site, they can check out the Top 50 page and see if there is anything to their linking! Hopefully, with your feedback, we can hook ’em and bring new readers to the site!
Last, but not least, we are introducing a brand new Commenting feature in the blogs. Now you can leave INSTANT feedback for each of the comics and the individual blogs. This is a major coup for me. For a while now, I’ve been posting a lot over on my LiveJournal page. Mostly because I enjoy the feedback I get from the readers. I thought to myself “Why can’t I have something like this for Theater Hopper?” So, with a little help, we brought the feature to the site! My goal is to post more often to this space and really bring the blog back to the foreground again.
This feature will be great for people who want to leave feedback about the comics who might be a little intimidated by sending an e-mail or joining the THorum Of course, my hope is that if you’re posting, you have a strong enough investment in what’s being communicated to return to the site more often to see how others have responded to what you’ve left behind!
There are also some smaller touches we’ve added to the site including a the weekend box office office estimates for the Top Five films of the week, courtesy of Box Office Mojo as well as a few new pages that haven’t been added to the site yet – permanent homes for information about the history of the site, the cast, my contact information, press I’ve done and which conventions I’ll be appearing at. You’ll see announcements about these new areas as they are added!
Also be sure to check out the new store! All of your favorite goodies are there, but we’re streamlining the ordering process and also adding a permanent section that allows you to bundle different items together at a reduced cost! That’ll be the first part of the site besides the home page to be up on two feet in the very near future.
If you guys are feeling up to it, I would love for you to take advantage of the commenting feature to get your thoughts about the new site design. Test things out. Play with it a little bit. I’ll be making changes and additions to the site all month and I would love to get your opinion about what we can do better.
With all of that said, I need to take a special time out and call attention to all of the help I’ve been given by a wonderful guy – Dave Buist, creator of the online comic Taking the Bi-Pass.
Dave has been an invaluable resource to me over the past month. He’s the guy that actually wrote the code for all of these wonderful applications. He helped me out immensely by creating databases to manage everything and he did it with great enthusiasm and efficiency. Often times, Dave went above and beyond creating features for the site that I hadn’t even considered.
As a small token of my thanks, I have attached a permanent link in the footer of the site to give credit to Dave for his enormous contribution to the site. Without him, none of this would be possible. Please show your support for Dave’s hard work by visiting Taking the Bi-Pass, bookmarking it and adding it to your weekly reads! Thanks, Dave!
That about does it for now – although I’m sure more will come up later. Again, take a look around, rank your favorite comics (use the archive search function if you need to!), leave comments and let all of your friends know about the exciting changes happening to the site.
2007 is going to be better than ever!
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I can’t think of a good reason that Cami and Tom would ever interact with The Silver Surfer, but once I started mulling around in my head how a jaded city-dweller might react to a man coated head to toe in a reflective material, the jokes just started flowing. I mean, you’ve all seen those street performers who dress up in tin foil and then move like a robot when you drop a coin into their hat, right?
…
What this has to say specifically about Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer, I don’t know. I guess really all I was after was an excuse to draw The Silver Surfer. I think he turned out pretty well! Sometimes you just want to give into your baser geek instincts. Just be thankful that I didn’t make reference to the fact that The Silver Surfer does not wear pants.
Whoops! I guess I just did. He’s nakers!
Despite my better judgment, I’ll probably end up seeing the new Fantastic Four movie this weekend and most likely I’ll be seeing it alone. Cami has no interest, but gave me “permission” to see it by myself. She said it would count as an early Father’s Day present. I told her I still wanted an ugly tie. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out at what point I got hooked enough to see the movie without my number one partner in crime.
If you remember, the first movie was a dud among fans and critics alike, it still managed to rake in $155 million in box office. Okay, so that means a sequel was a foregone conclusion. Still, all the negative press and warnings from friends was enough to keep me away. So, although I was initially curious, I chose to stay away. So right there, that should tell you that I have no strong investment in the franchise. By Christmas, the movie magically ended up in my DVD collection, but it wasn’t like I was the first one in line to buy it.
So why now do I suddenly care about The Fantastic Four? Why do I want to see this movie on opening weekend and why am I willing to fly solo to do it?
Credit where credit is due: You gotta hand it to whomever cut that theatrical trailer. Go visit the movie’s web site and see for yourself if you don’t believe me.
This is an example of where marketing trumps content. The trailer is cut in such a way to deliver the maximum amount of foreboding, action, humor and interest. Who is The Silver Surfer? Why is he here? Why can’t we see the reflection of the camera in his reflective skin?
For someone who’s been reading comics for 22 years, the small snippet of action provided in the trailer demonstrates everything I ever wanted The Silver Surfer to do on screen plus some things I didn’t even know I wanted him to do! Phasing through buildings? Hanging upside down from his board? All great stuff! Plus, he chokes The Human Torch – and who can’t say that actor didn’t have it coming?
There are some warning signs, to be sure. Rumor is that The Surfer’s master – Galactus – doesn’t show up as a gigantic dude in a purple mini-skirt, but some kind of sentient cloud. Eh, okay. We’ll see. Also, the blue contacts, overly blonde hair and drastic amount of bronzer they’ve slapped on Jessica Alba makes her look like a tranny.
But these are issues I have my radar up for going in, so if I can ignore them or if there is enough action featuring The Surfer to satiate my demand, all will be right with the world.
I think the movie has the advantage of not having to cycle through exposition like ALL super-hero movies are forced to. It’s the reason why X-Men 2, Superman 2 and Spider-Man 2 are the superior films in their franchises. So now that they’ve worked the kinks out, there’s a lot more to be excited for.
What say you? Is there anyone else in the audience excited to see The Silver Surfer kick a little ass this weekend? Raise your hand if you’re a comic book nerd and holla back in the comments section! I want to hear your fears, superstitions and excitement (or lack thereof) about Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer!
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Check out this picture I took with my cell phone (man, I love technology).
It’s this giant display at my local theater for Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, mannequins? I’m just trying to figure out how they shipped the damn thing. Must have cost a pretty penny.
At any rate, I thought it was unique enough to share. Does your local theater have anything like this? Just curious.
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Jun18
REVIEW- FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER
June 18th, 2007 |
(5 votes, average: 6.80 out of 10)
“Well, it’s not as bad as the first one.”
That may sound like faint praise, but it’s literally the best compliment anyone can pay to Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Despite a strong box office performance, after the original Fantastic Four movie from 2005 left such a bad taste in the mouth of fans and critics alike, expectations were low for the sequel. Of course then they had to come out with an excellent trailer to get our hopes up and seeing The Silver Surfer in action got the geek nation whipped up in a frenzy.
Oh, how they toy with our emotions.
For the most part, the film lives up to the hype. Finally able to set aside the clumsy exposition requirements of the first film, director Tim Story drops us square into the middle of the everyday life of our heroes. Each of them have settled into the roles of super-powered protectors, but not as media figures. As Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Gruffudd) and The Invisible Woman (Jessica Alba) prepare to walk down the aisle for the fourth time, the media instrusion makes it easy to see why there have been so many postponements.
This time, however, the interruption occurs at a more… cosmic scale – The Silver Surfer.
While most of the good moments with the Surfer were used up in that trailer that cause all of our attention, his exciting chase with The Human Torch (Chris Evans) sets the rest of the movie into motion. The Surfer is flying all over the world, causing weather disruptions and undertaking massive terraforming to prepare Earth for the consumption of his “master” – the devourer of worlds, Galactus. It then becomes the peroggitive of The Fantastic Four and a particularly abrasive Army General (Andre Braugher) to catch up to The Surfer and neutralize him.
Everything The Surfer does is poetry in motion and a joy to watch on screen. Credit there can be given to Peter Jackson’s WETA Workshop in New Zealand and motion-capture performer Doug Jones. You don’t know Doug Jones, but you’re probably familiar with his work as the amphibian Abe Sapien in 2004’s Hellboy and most recently as the gruesome Pale Man and the titular Faun in last year’s Pan’s Labyrinth. His stoic, elegant performance as The Surfer speaks volumes although Jones himself does not. Laurence Fishburne provides his voice.
It’s when the Surfer is not on the screen that the movie begins to lose focus. Much of the movie is spent on The Invisible’s Woman insecurities surrounding her marriage and the ability to lead a normal life. The Human Torch is also the center of a sub-plot where he attempts to grow out of his showboating ways and become more of a team player. Meanwhile, Michael Chiklis as The Thing is almost completely left out. Useful only, it would seem, for crashing through walls or lifting heavy things.
While it probably isn’t easy to give equal time to each of the characters problems or focus on their fantastic powers, what does make it into the movie feels less like actual character development and more like details screenwriters Don Payne and Mark Frost tossed in to keep the movie from being a string of globe-trotting action pieces. But if they wanted to add something significant to the movie, they could have completely dumped Julian McMahon returning as Dr. Doom and shown us more of The Surfer and the sacrifice he made before becoming the herald of Galactus. As it is in the movie, his origin is delt with in a few line exchanges and they show us nothing. Doom’s presence in the movie felt like tacked on just to keep continuity with the first movie. They could have had him sit this one this one out and been totally fine.
A lot of movies this summer have been tagged for being too long. Rise of the SIlver Surfer is actually a movie that probably could have benefitted from another 20 minutes. Briskly burning through it’s 90 minute running time, I sometimes felt that I was watching the movie on fast forward. Or, perhaps, like I was just being shown storyboards brought to life. Director Tim Story’s history as a commercial and music video director is transparent on screen. His style lends itself well to our sound-bite culture. The action sequences are punctuated well with visuals that would work great for a trailer as a promotional photo, but rarely does it add up to anything substantial.
Equally medicore are the performances. While Jones does well with The Surfer and Evans captures the hubris of The Human Torch, both Andre Braugher and Jessica Alba are entirely over the top, Ioan Gruffudd far to flat and the film’s greatest acting resource – Michael Chiklis – is completely wasted.
What the movie does right, it does spectacularly. But it’s faults are equally spectacular. This makes the movie more balanced than it’s predecessor and more enjoyable, but, ultimately, not as satisfying a ride as it could have been.
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I just wanted to remind everyone to check out The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe.
Last week, we took the night off. Gordon has been busy looking for an apartment and Cami and I went to the Ben Folds / John Mayer concert. Since Joe was all by his lonesome, we decided to scrap it.
This week we’re back and ready to kick ass. Topics of discussion will include Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 1408 and Evan Almighty. Be there and toss in your two cents by either participating in the live chat room or calling in and speaking to the three of us in real-time!
Another reason to tune in to tonight’s broadcast is because we’re running in conjunction with the release of the film Evening on June 29. If you haven’t heard of it, the cast is insane – Claire Danes, Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close all star in it.
As part of the contest, we’ll be giving away a make up bag, a cook book and two posters. If you’re interested, just listen to tonight’s broadcast for the first half of a two-part phrase. Come back to Theater Hopper on Wednesday for the second half of the phrase. When you have the complete phrase, e-mail it along with your name, age and mailing address to theaterhopper@hotmail.com. The winner will be chosen at random!
For a synopsis of the film along with links to the trailer and video clips, please click here And don’t forget to listen to The Triple Feature tonight at 9:00 PM CST at TalkShoe.com!
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