The 50th Anniversary was in November, but there are still a lot of fun things being released for it. One of those things is the from Silva Screen, in three different assortments. The important one to be aware of is the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary presentation, which includes 129 different musical pieces.
I usually hit movies first, but Day Of The Doctor gets the number one spot this time around. This is after all the 50th Anniversary Doctor Who Special, and definitely had more Doctors than any other episode. While we are on the topic of TV, I should mention Futurama: Volume 8 and Futurama: The Complete Series will both be hitting the shelves this week.
Another break from my normal structure; I usually do live action movies first, but Despicable Me 2 has to start out the movie presentations this week. It was way too much fun, and you just can’t have too many minions. The other movies worth mentioning have either Cantonese or Mandarin as their primary sound track, including Man of Tai Chi. Note that that is the second Asian-centric film Keanu Reeves has starred in this year, and the first one he has directed. Saving General Yang takes place in 986 AD, and involves the famous Yang Family Generals. For something different, The Rooftop seems to be a Taiwan gangland musical with lots of singing, dancing, and fighting. It looks like a fun film to check out.
In Anime, Bleach: Season 19 brings us up to episode 279. To put that in perspective, they are up to episode 366 streaming from Japan, so the DVDs are finally starting to catch up with the streaming sources. Another returning favorite is Fairy Tail: Part 7, bringing episodes 73 through 84, and they are also releasing Fairy Tale: The Movie this week, so you get a double dose.
Btooom!: The Complete Series is about a combat game which suddenly changed when the 7 best players in the world were kidnapped, and woke up on an island with a bag of bombs each and holes in their memories; now they have to kill each other off and be the last one standing to escape, or so they are lead to believe. Finally, in the main series, a bunch of friends had their bodies repeatedly swapped so they never knew who they were going to be next, had their ages change at random, and had their desires overwhelm them and take control, all being done to them by an outside force. Now, in Kokoro Connect: OVA Collection, their inner emotional state is suddenly being projected into one of their friends, including phobias and suppressed desires, sometimes with near lethal results.
If you like gaming, check out Did You Know Gaming, they have a lot more than just this history of Doctor Who references in games. Their other site (sister site? friends doing similar stuff?) is Video Game Facts, which also has a ton of cool stuff. And yes, I will get over all the Doctor Who posts in a while, but it is still the 50th anniversary and I am still a bit stoked.
More coverage, this time with a glimpse of the crowd in the rather cattle-car waiting area they kept us standing in for a couple of hours. They could have just opened the doors and let us sit down, but that didn’t happen. That was just about the only part of the event I found less than entertaining, everything else about the event was excellent.
Doctor Who: Legacy is a free mobile RPG/Puzzle game app from BBC Worldwide and Tiny Rebel Games, yet another celebration of 50 years of the Tardis. It starts off with the most recent Doctor, Companions, and Villeins from the latest two seasons, but the plan is to expand it to cover everyone from the entire 50 year history of the series. They have versions for Apple and Android, and I should probably mention that the game supports micro-purchases, meaning you can acquire objects and characters by spending real money. Personally I went into settings and turned that function off, but every day in December they plan to have new stuff for free including K-9 and Sarah Jane Smith, and in early 2014 they will have everyone from Series 5 also available for free. The screen shot is the first point in the game where the Doctor speaks to you and invites you to become a companion; the music and artwork for this game are quite tasty.
A picture of Bessie from the event, Pertwee’s car from when the Doctor was stranded on Earth, and a cute video from Katrina Hossenlopp. She obviously had way too much fun trying to make sure she never used the same text effect twice.
