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Top 10 reasons Battlefield Earth is better than Star Wars

10. John Travolta vs. Harrison Ford

Clearly John Travolta is the superior actor, just look at their movie careers. Sure Harrison Ford was in Bladerunner, Indiana Jones, Patriot Games, Presumed Innocent, and American Graffiti... but John Travolta was in Face Off, Michael, Phenomenon and The Punisher.

9. No Jar Jar Binks in Battlefield Earth

'Nuff said.

8. The Scroll

Both have scrolling text before the movie starts, but Star wars text is at an angle making it difficult to read, and Star wars text is yellow while Battlefield’s earth is green. Everyone knows green is 27.3% better than yellow.

7. Uniqueness

Get in on the ground floor now. Start your own fan club, become this movie’s number one fan. Dress up as Trel at the conventions and you’ll be the only one. Dress up as Darth Vader and you’ll end up standing in the six hour line for C3PO’s autograph with three other people in the same costume.

6. Great Scene Transitions

Does Star Wars have great scene transitions… no. But Battlefield Earth does. It says so right on the DVD cover.

5. Time Management

There are six star wars movies, not even counting the star wars Christmas special, and now there is an ongoing cartoon series. That’s a huge time sync. As a Battlefield Earth fan you’ll never have to worry about any of that. Not only that but the 2 hours of Battlefield Earth feels like 10 so if you only have 2 hours before work this is the perfect movie.

4. The Bar Scene
Obi-wan cutting off someone’s hand has nothing on watching John Travolta lovingly hug three tubes filled with green alcohol.

3. Rivalry
There are no rivalries between Battlefield earth fans and any other fans. Say you’re a Star Wars fan to a trekkie and you’re in for an argument, say you’re a Battlefield Earth fan and no one will ever argue with you. Heck, they’ll be so embarrassed they’ll probably never even talk to you again.

2. Trivia
Have you ever tried to match trivia knowledge with a real star wars fan? No need now... become an expert on Battlefield Earth and you can corner the market. I’ll get you started: did you know that Battlefield earth won 7 Razzies? Yes, this is an award winning film.

1. Movie Appreciation
After watching Battlefield Earth Every movie you watch will seem better. You can’t say that about Star Wars.

Watchmen Cartoon

With the apparent success of The Watchmen the Saturday morning cartoon is already under works. Here is the first look at it.

Watmen Reviews:

Watchmen Reviews are coming in. The good news is no one seems to think it's bad. The bad news is that many of them don't think it's great. I haven't seen it yet but I still fear that it may suffer from cuts required to make theater owners happy or (and I know I may be in danger saying this) remaining to close to the source material. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that major changes should have been made, but if you're going to change the ending perhaps there is room for a few other alterations. I like comic books, but the best aren't meant to be storyboards.

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Watchman: As I Remember It

It's been a while since I've read Watchmen, but with the movie coming out soon I wanted to write down what I remember before the revisionist history completely erases all memory of the original graphic novel.

I sometimes find it odd that this graphic novel clearly intended for children has been listed on several lists of the best novels and is on almost every list of the best graphic novels. Yet this story of clowns and robots has become the most famous graphic novel in history.

One of the major changes appears to be the elimination of three characters. I have no proof of this but it appears that only the more popular characters of, Night Owl, Dr. Manhattan, Silk Specter, Ozymandias, Rorschach and The Comedian. This completely ignores the characters of Bullet, Monsoon and Murk.

This not only eliminates Murk, my favorite character but one of the ethnic characters Monsoon. It also eliminates one of the major scenes where Monsoon stops a giant mutant turtle from destroying New York with his water powers, but I should start at the beginning.

The first of the six books focuses on the true hero of the story. Due to a misunderstanding The Comedian had been put into a cryogenic prison for fifty years bringing him into the year 2015 where the majority of the story takes place. Here he is made a Judge and given the power to arrest, convict and punish criminals. This organization is called the Watchmen and nearly all of the main characters are part of it.

The second changes pace from the action of the first book and focuses almost entirely on the relationship of the Silk Specter and Bullet. This relationship lasts through the entire length of the entire series but is most emphasised here, beginning when the Silk Specter as a young girl uses her invisibility to save him from the alien which has come to earth to hunt humans with his advanced technology and stealth abilities and ends only when the Bullet dies when a giant spear is thrust through his chest when he is attempting to land their ship, though there is some ambiguity about if it is an accident or not and is one of the reasons that many people conjecture that the original plan was to make Watchmen an ongoing series.

The third book introduces the character of Rorschach the shape shifting mutant and his twelve year old Asian sidekick Monsoon who travel the world fighting the Lacoom, an invasion fleet which is ultimately defeated when Rorchach discovers a way to infect their mother ship with a computer virus, but just as they are about to claim final victory the aliens launch their final weapon. It is at the end of this story that Monsoon saves new york when Monsoon fights the giant mutant turtle in one of the best fight scenes of the books shot entirely from the point of view of a single camera in the hands of a drunken partier unable to stop his hands from constantly shaking.

Next was a book that focused on Dr. Manhattan, a 15 foot tall, nuclear powered, robot created by the evil Dr. Nimbus but who turned good thanks to a programming glitch. The motives of this character were never completely clear and became even more muddled in the strange time traveling scenes at the end of the sixth and final book, but this book was one of the stronger parts of the Watchmen as he infiltrated the virtual reality created by the other robots. It was in this VR that he traveled to the center of the galaxy where he fought Dr. Nimbus who was pretending to be god.

The fifth book focuses on a team of heroes, Night Owl, one of the weaker of the watchmen with only night vision and the ability to fly, Ozymandias, a character similar in some ways to Iron man, though his suit was was given to him by a interdimentional crime fighting organization called Sliders, and Murk, who had the ability to turn into a shadow and even control darkness.
I believe it was in this book that Alan Moore began to recognise that the 6 issues he was being given would not be enough to easily tie up all the plot lines and he began to drop hints of a time machine. These hints include Dr. Manhattan speaking several times of the future and Ozymandias buying a delorian, but the true action of this comic book centered around Mick Monro a billionaire who infiltrates the groups secret lair at the north pole and demands to be made ruler of Australia or he will reveal their secret, but at the last moment Murk is able to shoot a bolt of shadows down the heating vent of Mick Monro's moving castle and killing the army of ape men who were preparing to replace humanity.

In the sixth and final book of the Watchman series the entire cast of heroes uses Ozymandia's time machine to return to 1776 where they help to write the constitution of the newly forming United States government, subtly installing ideas which will create a future world where mutants and humans will be able to live in peace, but their plans are nearly ruined when British Major Nobby Cleaver attacks the continental congress with a giant mechanical spider.
Many of the major characters are killed in this epic battle but in the end The Comedian is able to slip into the heart of the spider and use his memory erasing pen to stop the enemy. They then return to the future to find that thanks to their meddling in history Hitler won World War II, though in a hastily drawn conclusion Dr. Manhattan is able to stop this new history by convincing The Comedian not to save a young magician from drowning in a failed magic trick.

In conclusion I would like to remind everyone that it has been quite some time since I read the watchmen and some of my memories may be slightly off but these marginal inconsistencies in my memory do not alleviate my concerns that in a vein attempt to mimic the cash cow Batman and Robin they will make all of the characters into normal people with no powers and turn this into a dark story which deconstructs the entire concept of superheroes, focusing far more on their personal struggles than on the fantastic fight scenes against massive robot armies and alien invasions.

Leonardo DiCaprio to star in Christopher Nolan's next movie

After the success of "The Dark Knight" everyone's eyes are on Christopher Nolan's next work which is said to be a science fiction movie set in the present day and using "the architecture of the mind" and Leonardo DiCaprio is in final negotiations to play the lead role.
This star power seems unnecessary for Christopher Nolan now which makes me hopeful that this is casting because DiCaprio is actually the person they think is best for the role and while he isn't my favorite actor I've never hated him in anything and I believe that Nolan should be able to get a really interesting performance out of him.

Villains Spotlight #4: The Boss Man

One of Spider Man's most dangerous foes the Boss Man is a tactical genius with loyal minions and only a bit of bad luck that allowed Spiderman to once again narrowly escape death.
This highly ranked criminal overload of New York was able to capture Spiderman using nothing but his wit and a Super-steel Spider net.
After capturing Spiderman he locked him in a room with now windows. This room would almost certainly have held the wall crawler forever but for the Boss Man's single miscalculation. Leaving only a single guard to watch the door he did not count on Spider Man having a Hostess Fruit Pie which he was able to bribe the guard with.
This ingenious method of escape proved the single weakness in The Boss Man's organization. While his minions were highly paid and skilled enough to capture the super strongSpiderman they were not giving long enough lunch breaks. This along with the nearly irresistible lure of Hostess Fruit Pies created an inevitable crisis for The Boss Man.
Ironically a short time later A known associate of The Boss Man, Larcenous Lil captured Spiderman with a similar net. Sadly the Boss Man had not been able to come out of hiding long enough to warn the woman that though the net worked perfectly Spiderman was known to carry Hostess Fruit Pies. He once again offered the gun wielding thug a Hostess Fruit Pie and the man freed him from the net.

Check out the previous Villain Spotlights
Villain Spotlight #3 The Lepus
Villain Spotlight #2 Cycle Nurses
Villain Spotlight #1 Rainbow Raider

The Mercury Men, web series

I try to keep up on as many Web Series as I can. I am excited at the prospect that the creativity which Hollywood often seems to be lacking can be expressed on the Internet. With special effects becoming less cost prohibitive every day the only ingredient which is is truly required to make a great product is talent.
Picking out talent from stills, storyboards and the like is difficult, but there is certainly enough in the Mercury Men Stills and storyboards to make me want to see it. The stills on it's website appear to imply that the show will be black and white and with considerable talent involved.
The show itself appears to be about a man who is trapped in his office building when a group of aliens capture it and begin to prepare to destroy the world.
The idea, it appears, is to go back to the roots of science fiction, the old serials, not as a camp reenactment but as a serious attempt to use a form of cinema which was once very popular in the world of new media. I wish them the best and will continue to watch their website for more details.

Samuel Jackson 9 movie deal

After his cameo in Iron Man there was little doubt that he would be in more marvel studio movies, but this is more than I expected. According to Scifi Surplus he will be in Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, any other sequels and perhaps a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie.
Perhaps they got a bulk deal with 9 movies but it's still good to see that Marvel Studios is going to be able to connect their franchises. I have been saying for years that I want to see more continuity between the marvel superhero movies, even when it wasn't possible and now that it is I'm looking forward to it, though I kinda wish they could have afforded to have David Hasselehoff reprise his role of Nick Furry.

Heroes: Exposed

First off, if Micha isn't rebel, or at least connected with rebel, they better have an excellent explanation, such as someone in the hunters organization who is helping them, or at least another character with a very similar ability because people really don't break into top secret government computers and turn off the power because they are hackers.
Clairs part of the episode wasn't great, but it was fun to see her mom showing some backbone and that she is far more aware of what is going on than she has let on in the past and so long as aquaman leaves soon I don't really care that they felt they needed to have A romance.
Then there is Sylar and his father. He appeared to have Telekenetics like Sylar, except that telekenetics isn't Sylar's ability, his ability is understanding things, but this might explain why he kept TK when he lost the other abilities from the first season. Perhaps even though it's not his natural ability he has a genetic tendency towards it, or perhaps he has a connection.
Finnally there is Matt and Peter, I loved this part. These two were taking control of something and enjoying it. Matt nodding at the camera was fantastic.
And finally we have the return of Eric Doyell, the pupetmaster. This actor has done a great job with this character and he's going to be fun to see again. Also interested in seeing if Peter may end up borrowing his power. He's hurt so it might be smart for him to visit Clair and since he's there.