Hello, everyone! It’s One Of Us’ weekly article series, “The Weekly Wrap-Up.” Covering everything from film announcements to comic books, “The Weekly Wrap-Up” ensures that the biggest stories of the week are analyzed and discussed by our team of writers. This week we talk about the trailer for Batman: Bad Blood, Prometheus 2’s most recent new title and the return of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Batman: Bad Blood Trailer
The official trailer has been released for Batman: Bad Blood, the latest DC animated movie set in the New-52 animated universe. Like its most recent predecessors, Bad Blood is an amalgamation of several Batman stories from the last few years.
Taking place sometime after Batman vs. Robin, Gotham City is in a state of chaos. With the mysterious disappearance of Batman (Jason O’Mara), coupled with the emergence of powerful and malevolent new villains, Nightwing (Sean Maher) and Robin/Damian Wayne (Stuart Allan) attempt to fill the void of their missing mentor. While simultaneously searching for Batman, they soon learn that they’re not alone in their crusade. New super heroes Batwoman (Yvonne Strahovski) and Batwing (Gaius Charles), each armed with their own crime-fighting philosophies, physical abilities and high-tech gadgets, arrive to assist in the cause. As this new Bat-family strives to find its own dynamic, clues lead the group to suspect the Dark Knight himself may have been responsible for the creation of a dangerous new threat plaguing Gotham.
With the exception of Justice League: Flashpoint and Bruce Timm’s Justice League: Gods and Monsters, I’ve been rather disappointed by DC’s most recent crop of animated films. In addition to the hyper-violence and morbidly-dark tone, probably the most off-putting thing about the last few animated films has been the writing and the choice to depict certain superheroes like Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman as overly-aggressive brutes. Though I’m hopeful Bad Blood can make the proper course corrections, I’m worried that the film is biting off more than it can chew. The movie is clearly an adaptation of several stories, most notably Grant Morrison’s Batman: Battle for the Cowl, Batman and Robin, and Batman Incorporated. Given the complicated and often incoherent nature of Morrison’s storytelling, it’s hard for me to be excited for Bad Blood.
Along with the film itself, the Blu-ray will also feature several extras, including a preview of Justice League vs. Teen Titans and episodes from Batman: The Animated Series and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Batman: Bad Blood will be released January 19, 2016.
Prometheus Sequel Changes Title… Again.
Looks like the Alien franchise is continuing its religious track. After recent announcements that the title for the second Prometheus film would be Alien: Paradise Lost and that Neill Blomkamp’s stab at the franchise would be “delayed indefinitely“, Ridley Scott announced via the AFI Film Festival that the film would now be called Alien: Covenant. He also emphasized that he wanted to take full reign of the rebooted franchise, which plans to have several sequels before wrapping around back to the original Alien films.
All of this news honestly sounds so perplexing. Of the many things the initial Prometheus did wrong, one of the principle ones was this vague religious connection that went so far as to imply Jesus Christ himself was a specific motivation for the Engineers. Doubling down on that religious symbolism seems like a recipe for disaster and would likely lead to more disappointment for fan of the franchise. Plus, having multiple sequels to Prometheus tie into Alien implies even further attempts at tying elements together and explaining things, which I personally would never want to see. Alien worked because it didn’t explain so much about its universe, only showing off the bare minimum needed to give a sense of scope before the action started. By doing this, we’re likely to see all that mystery unravel, which just removes part of the fun. So, pray to whichever God you worship that this continues Scott’s hot streak following The Martian.
Joel Hodgson Wants to Bring Back MST3K And You Can Help!
The not-too-distant-future has arrived. Joel Hodgson, creator and original host of the beloved movie riffing television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 has announced that he’ll be bringing the series back via Kickstarter. As of this writing, the campaign is very close to its initial goal of $2 million to produce three new episodes, but Hodgson has set several stretch goals that could give the series up to 12 new examples of Crow T. Robot, Tom Servo and some sort of host making fun of a whole new mess of films. Unfortunately, none of the original actors or writers have been confirmed, with Joel emphasizing that he’d like to pass the torch for hosting duties to someone new while still participating as a writer.
So… this is exciting. While a bit too young to enjoy MST3K in their initial spurt on Comedy Central, I became aware of the show at a very young age during it’s run on the Sci-Fi channel. It introduced me to the concept of not just making fun of a movie, but more being able to enjoy a terrible film for the potential comedic value and even what made a film enjoyably bad vs. annoyingly bad. Now, Hodgson is giving a new generation the chance to see a revamped version of the show, a most worthy cause indeed. Still, it’s a shame that none of the other cast members or writers are confirmed, as a foot in the old and foot in the new would be welcome even for an experiment like this. A new host or new mad wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, but having a new voice for Tom Servo after Kevin Murphy did it for 90% of the show’s run seems off to me. If anything, it would be nice to see everyone from the original cast at the very least finally compensated for their work after the rather nasty rights issues came to play in the years following the show’s last end. Whatever the case, MST3K is a beast that can easily be morphed into something new. I just hope it retains that goofy charm. Push the Button, Frank!
