Agents of SHIELD at San Diego Comic Con

Picture from @AgentsofSHIELD

We learned Monday that Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD has scored Bear McCreary of Battlestar Galactica to compose the music for the upcoming show but that doesn’t mean that they had nothing left to share during today’s panel at San Diego Comic Con.

Producer Jeph Loeb, Executive Producers and Writers Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tanchareon, and Jeffrey Bell, were all in attendance as were actors Elizabeth Henstridge, Iain De Caestecker, Brett Dalton, Ming-Na, and Clark Gregg, all led by, of course, Joss Whedon.

Marc Storm and Ryan Penagos liveblogged the entire panel which you can read here.  Highlights from the panel are beneath the cut in case of spoilers!

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Cosplay Monday: Visas Marr and Darth Nihilus

Welcome back to another edition of Cosplay Monday where we try and brighten the start of your week with some of the awesome costumes we’ve seen around the internet!  This week, we’re featuring another set of costumes from Knights of the Old Republic since today is it’s 10th Birthday.  Check out these cool Visas Marr and Darth Nihilus costumes from Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords by Sakara and her friend.  Not only does the National Space Centre in Leicester make a pretty perfect setting for a KOTOR shoot but the costumes look great!  Awesome job!

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Review: Pacific Rim

Pacific_Rim_FilmPosterIf you only see one film this summer, make sure it’s Pacific Rim.  It’s a rare film with a decently diverse cast that completely delivers with its high stakes mecha-alien battles while remaining fun all the while.  This is a film that’s not just about giant robot battles though: it’s about people.  I feel comfortable saying that Pacific Rim is the best film of the summer.

Mild Spoilers beneath the cut

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Review: Crucible

CrucibleCoverI went into Crucible slightly hopeful and also without very high expectations, hoping that this book would surprise me.  Unfortunately, it failed miserably.  Instead of moving forward and away from some of the less liked bits of the last ten years of the Expanded Universe, Crucible latches on to those bits and runs with them.  Readers who haven’t read Fate of the Jedi will be lost about a great many plot points, which makes it a failure as a standalone novel.  The best way that I can describe this book is that it takes the worst plotlines from Fate of the Jedi, adds in lot of arrogant Jedi superiority, and then a final dash of Crystal Star at the end.  Unfortunately, no Star Wars fan ever said “The Expanded Universe needs more plotlines like the Crystal Star!’ and for good reason.  If this is really going to be the last big adventure for Luke, Leia, and Han, then I am oh so sorry for all three of them.

Mild Spoilers Beneath The Cut

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Cosplay Monday: Hawkeye Merida

Welcome back to another edition of Cosplay Monday where we try and brighten the start of your work week with some of the awesome costumes we’ve seen around the internet.  This week, we’re keeping with the Hawkeye theme and spotlighting a mashup costume.  When The Avengers and Brave came out the same year and both featured archers, it was only a matter of time before someone (aka BriannaCherryGarcia) did an artistic mashup.  Check out how LisaMarieCosplay brought the costume to life and how awesome she looks!

Diversity In Star Wars

star-wars-episode-vii-logoCasting rumors have been flying around rampantly almost as long as we’ve known about the Sequel Trilogy and with the recently leaked Episode VII casting breakdown, it seemed like a good time to tackle an issue that’s been bothering me a lot lately: the lack of diversity in leading roles in the Star Wars galaxy when it comes to gender, race, and species.

The Star Wars galaxy is an incredibly diverse place.  There is an innumerous amount of different species in the galaxy far far away all living on hundreds upon hundreds of different planets.  So why is it the default in Star Wars films and literature to (almost) always make the protagonist a white male?

Think I’m exaggerating?  I recently completed a reread of 130 Expanded Universe books.  Out of those 130, only 15 of those books had a leading character who was not a straight white man, excluding books that you could potentially argue are led by Skywalker women.  Five of those books are the Republic/Imperial Command novels and I’m even including books like The Cestus Deception and The Approaching Storm which were co-led by aliens and (you guessed it) a straight white male.  15 out of 130. That’s about 12%.  In a galaxy where I couldn’t even name all of the alien species if I tried?  I haven’t sat down and looked at every single main book in the Expanded Universe but I reckon that number wouldn’t rise much above 15%.  That’s pretty bad and unfortunately, the films don’t do any better.

Star Wars is an epic universe that is ripe with opportunity for diversity.  This is science fiction we’re talking about here.  To quote writer Jane Espenson, And if we can’t write diversity into sci-fi, then what’s the point? You don’t create new worlds to give them all the same limits of the old ones.”  If the vast majority of the named cast is white and mostly male, then the creators are failing at truly embracing the core tenants of what science fiction should be about.  What really makes all of this jarring is when you watch the films (especially the Prequel Trilogy) and see the wide variety of species and races in the background.  It’s not that the writers and the character designers and the special effects artists are lacking in imagination because clearly those characters and those ideas are there.  So why haven’t we been seeing more Star Wars stories with more diversity in the forefront?

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Cosplay Monday: Hawkblocked

Welcome back to another edition of Cosplay Monday where we find some cool looking costumes and share them with you to help brighten the start of your week.  This week, we’re turning to a costume from a little comic book that’s popular around here called Hawkeye.  Occasionally, when you’re a superhero, you end up having to fight in… shall we say less than your usual costume?  Actually, if you read the comic, you already know what’s coming behind the cut but you don’t, allow us to offer you this reference.  We salute you, Ryan, for your dedication to the Hawkguy lifestyle.

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Review: Star Wars: Legacy #4

Somehow, Ania Solo’s week just keeps taking her further and further away from being a junk dealer and into a much larger universe.  Out today is Legacy: Prisoner of the Floating World #4 by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman and trouble is definitely the name of the game here for our heroes.

This review contains mild spoilers for the issue.

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10 Spinoff Film Ideas

Star_Wars_logoWith news of new Star Wars films comes rumors about just about everything to do with them.  While most of the rumblings have been related to the Sequel Trilogy, the spinoff films haven’t exactly been forgetting in the rumor mill.  We’ve already heard rumors about the spinoff films starring Han Solo, Boba Fett, or even Yoda.  But hey!  It’s a big galaxy out there spanning thousands of years and even more characters.  Why should those three get all of the fun?

Here are ten different spinoff film ideas that I think have some potential to play out well on the big screen.

1. Count Dooku
With the right actor, this could be brilliant!  There’s a lot that we really don’t know about the Jedi Master turned Count of Serenno.  It would give viewers the chance to see an action film staring a Jedi and to also get a closer look inside the head of what makes a Jedi leave the Order and become a Sith.  Top it off with a cameo/small role at the end from Christopher Lee and you are set!  If you doubt that they could find a younger actor who can do justice to a Christopher Lee role, check out how perfectly cast Xavier and Magneto were in X-men First Class.  It could be either an origins film or perhaps just one of his adventures but either way, it has potential.  Personally, I’d prefer to see an origins films that goes through his fall to the Dark Side but I’ll happily watch either.

2. Shatterpoint
Wait hear me out before you shake your head because it could actually work.  While I think that the vast majority of Expanded Universe books are either ill-suited or completely unlikely to get the big screen treatment, this one has potential.  It’s a self-contained story set during a time frame that viewers are already familiar with and it would star Samuel L. Freaking Jackson.  It would definitely have to get an R-rating given the amount of warfare and horrific violence that goes on during the story and it would also definitely be darker than any Star Wars film we’ve seen before.  Regardless, it’s a fantastic tale that isn’t tied to tons of backstory.  Everything the audience needs to know could easily be worked into the dialogue.  Not only that but Shatterpoint would feature a leading cast of actors of color which would definitely be awesome.  Who wouldn’t want to see a wisecracking Nick Rostu on the big screen?  And Kar Vastor?  He would be imposing to say the least.  Plus, SLJ swinging a lightsaber on the big screen again and getting to kick some serious butt is always a plus.  I’d love to see how the director would handle how Mace sees shatterpoints because that has potential to look amazing.

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X-Wing: Mercy Kill Out In Paperback Today!

Mercy Kill CoverAaron Allston’s X-Wing: Mercy Kill is out now in paperback!  If you have yet to pick yourself up a copy, now would be an excellent time to do so.  Even if you’ve already purchased the book in hardcover or ebook format, you could pick yourself up another copy and either use it to help solve the dilemma of ‘do I place Mercy Kill after Fate of the Jedi or with the other X-Wing books?’ by having them in both spots on your bookshelf or by giving it to someone as a gift and getting them hooked on the Wraiths.

If you’re still not convinced of how great this book is, you can check out all three of our reviews.