Warcraft looks like the winner this weekend, with some amazingly well done CGI and Fx work, and hopefully a story and plot that is just as good. When the portal between universes opens, one race faces destruction, the other extinction, unless they can learn to work together. The MMORPG the movie is based on has a huge number of devoted players, if they were true enough to the source material they can’t help but have a hit on their hands; if they weren’t, then the deserve the crash and burn that same fanbase will put them through. Most games turned into movies have been real turkeys, but there have been a few exceptions; I hope this is one of them. If you are not interested in this one, other options this weekend include Therapy for a Vampire, in which Sigmund Freud has to help a vampire deal with his undying relationship with his wife, and Now You See Me 2, which only has to be half as good as the original to be a total winner.
The genre films this week are animations, with Zootopia being set in an alternate universe filled with anthropomorphic sentient creatures from all animal species. They created some wonderful characters and a great story line, if you missed it when it was in the theaters you should really try to catch it now. The darkly comedic fantasy Anomalisa also hits the shelves, after having been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Film. Not genre but sufficiently strange to merit a mention here, Hail, Caesar! comes to disc this week.
In Anime Mamoru Hosoda’s multiple award winning film The Boy and The Beast is ready to become part of your permanent collection. Yona of the Dawn: Part 1 begins the story when Yona sees her childhood sweetheart murder her father and usurp the throne. Now she is on the run, gathering allies and preparing for the war that will retake the country and make her its rightful new ruler once again. In Gonna be the Twin-Tail!! Complete Collection Soji is a normal high school boy who suddenly has to battle monsters while wearing pigtails. Fairy Tail – Part 20 brings episodes 227 through 239 of the magical combat comedy home, with all the collateral damage its fans could wish for. Medaka Box: Complete Collection puts season 1 and 2 into the same package for the first time. When Medaka became Class President and put out her suggestion box, she was expecting to be faced with simple issues. Instead she finds herself neck deep in a years old mystery and coverup centered on her school. Likewise Berserk: The Golden Age Arc – Movie Collection allows you to get all three of the films in the arc in a single boxed set.
There are a few re-releases worth mentioning this time around. This time, when you pick up Mamoru Hosoda’s award winning The Girl Who Leapt Through Time you can get it in both Blue Ray and Ultraviolet HD streaming formats, neither of which were available previously. Also Lupin the 3rd: Alcatraz Connection, After War Gundam X, and Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ all become available again for the first time in years.
I love Filk, and a lot of it is coming from the Star Wars universe these days. The first track is Hello (From The Dark Side), the second is Leia’s Call Me Maybe, and the 3rd is Jedi and I Know It. Yes, these are all very silly, but that is a big chunk of the fun for this kind of fan creation.
Monster Trucks will be hitting the theaters this January, and it looks like silly family fun for all! I don’t know (or care, really) whether it has a serious story at its core to impart a range of morality tales for our edification. But I have every intention of being in the theater to enjoy it on the big screen once they release it.
NASA has assembled the surface of Mars as a Mixed-Reality environment (VR and RL) Called OnSight for scientists all over the world. They are using it not only to explore the Red Planet, but also to design the next set of landers (and other spacecraft) to visit it. Not content to stop there, they will be making it public this summer at the “Destination: Mars” exhibit, which will open at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. I feel an expedition coming on! For a little more insight into OnSight, check out this story at the Upload VR site, and watch their video. Thanks to VR Scout for the original heads up!
New from Studio Ghibli, The Red Turtle looks to be another amazing animation, full of heart. For once it isn’t a total Studio Ghibli project, but includes the work of the Wild Bunch and a few other production houses. Thanks to Japan Today for the heads up on this one.