Just because it is both silly, and very well done, here it is: the regeneration of the 11th Doctor into the 13th. The numbering assumes the War Doctor existed in the order his episode aired, not his progenitor and descendant Doctors proper order. Just to show you how well Blob Van Dam did at creating this Lego animation, I am also including the original regeneration scene from the official Doctor Who channel.
A couple of classic tunes put together in minimal time to tie them to an animation, created in iClone. The minimal time factor explains why the lip sync is so bad, and the crudeness of some of the other animation aspects. But while as a viewer I can critique these as not being as perfect as the music videos from world class productions like Frozen, as a creator I am in awe that a single person working from an extremely tight deadline managed to put out anything at all, let alone anything as tightly animated and choreographed as this. I mean, compare the budget, timeline, and production staff between the two projects and see if you don’t understand what I am referring to. Kudo’s to Jay for creating such amazing product under this kind of constraint. And he did it using a couple of my all time favorite tunes, always a bonus!
The folks at the British Film Institute has recently made available an interesting collection of the best global cinema on-demand, some on a pay-per-view basis, some for free, most of it amazing, and a few things you just won’t find anywhere else. Movies like Only Lovers Left Alive, Under The Skin, and most of the things presented at the most recent BFI London Film Festival. They even have a Days of Fear and Wonder science fiction collection. While I prefer most streaming services monthly fees, rather than the pricier per-viewing charges, I am going to have to sign up with them to at least see some movies I have heard of that have yet to be released here. Plus, the payments support the BFI, an organization as worthy of support as the AFI.
This is a Fan-made series about what happened when Robin left Batman and struck out on his own as the hero Nightwing. The first 4 episodes are posted online over at Ismahawk YouTube Channel, with a fresh episode each week. It is not authorized by DC or Warner, but hopefully they will let them continue to create the show.
A new animated Judge Dredd miniseries put together by Adi Shankar had it’s teaser posted online today, with the full trailer due out on Thursday, and the miniseries itself scheduled to come out on the 27th. Since he is the guy that did the 2012 reboot of the Dredd film, this could be quite tasty. I haven’t found a link to where you can watch the episodes, but it should be announced with the full trailer, hopefully. In the mean time the teaser is hosted at Machinima’s YouTube Channel, so that’s a place to start.
In movies we get The Signal, but the description just tells you about the setup, not the plot, and the trailer is just as vague. So the only thing I can really tell you about it is it includes Laurence Fishburne, and lot of reviewers thought it was a unique movie experience. From Australia, The Rover is the sequel to Animal Planet, and is another modern western done as a Mad Max wannabe. The one that sounds most amusing to me is Danger Dolls from Japan, about 4 assassins from one universe who need to impersonate 4 Pop Idols from another universe, so they can stop the evil cult that created the portal between their universes before both are taken over. Finally, if your in the mood for youthful rebellion and music without the genre aspects, the Swedish film We are the Best! is about 3 girls from Stockholm who form a punk band in the 1980s.
In TV, Defiance: Season Two continues the groundbreaking series which takes place as much in an MMORPG as it does on the small screen. Each episode has some references to things that happened that week in the game, as the various Alien races try to peacefully coexist in the wreckage of St. Louis. Why would I mention Reign: The Complete First Season, which appears to be a historical drama? Because it has Nostradamus handing out prophecies, which pushes it into the historical fantasy realm in my book. Plus it is on CW, which has really become a home for a lot of genre shows, and so deserves support.
In Anime, Attack on Titan: Part 2 continues the story of the defense of humanity from the giant killers (or perhaps killer giants would be more accurate) who’s only purpose seems to be to wipe us out. For those who found the ending of season 1, part 2 unsatisfying, fear not, because season 2 should hit the small screen in August of 2015. Ultimate Girl are three high school girls who morph to 20 times their normal size in order to battle giant monsters rampaging across Tokyo. But they can only sustain that size for 3 minutes, so they have to win their fights fast. Kampfer: Complete Collection can be a little confusing, what with the lady killer male protagonist being turned into a Kampfer, a lady who is supposed to enter mortal combat with other ladies and kill them. Since he is only female during the actual combat he rapidly becomes the center of a whole series of rumors, including the one where he is supposed to be dating himself. As lethal as the fighting is, he probably won’t live long enough to have to worry about the rumor mill.
While not genre, I should mention that K-ON!: Season 1 Complete Collection also comes out this week, for the moe music fans. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Complete Series is coming out in an Anime Classics edition, which means if you shop around you can pick the whole thing up for around $25 or so. Finally, the groundbreaking Ghost in the Shell: 25th Anniversary Special Edition will be available in Blu-Ray this Tuesday. I should mention that if you have the Blu-ay version of GitS 2.0, it included a Blu-Ray version of the original 1995 masterpiece as well as the cleaned-up video with the extra 3D modeling 2.0 version, and I don’t see a lot of extras with the new one. I tend to lean to recommending you grab GitS 2.0 Blu-Ray for $11 over the new one, but be careful not to confuse it with GitS 2: Innocence, which was the sequel to the original film.