A couple of recent posts on my other blog that might appeal to this audience:
Thoughts on Heroes Volume 3: Villains. I’ve really liked the storyline with Hiro, Ando, Daphne and Matt (and got a kick out of the speedster saying, “Back in a flash!”), but other parts of the show have just bugged me lately.
San Diego Weekend, mainly for the bit in the middle about the Omni Hotel and the San Diego Convention Center.
I recently decided to try out Netflix’s instant streaming service by watching Stan Lee’s Lightspeed, the made-for-TV movie about a government agent turned super-speedster. It’s been on my queue for a while, and I figured I’d free up the slot for something else.
Ultimately, I was really impressed — with the service. The image and sound were very clear, even with the window playing fullscreen. I’m annoyed that it’s Windows– and Internet Explorer–only. Aside from that, the only thing I really missed was fine control over fast-forward and rewind.
The movie itself? Cheesy. And what’s worse, dull. I took a break halfway through and wasn’t sure I really cared about coming back to finish it. Heatstroke was better — and I mean that.
The structure’s fine. It starts with the villain, a man with snake-like skin called Python, and a firefight between the villain’s gang, the people in a building, and a SWAT-team–like group called the Ghost Squad. Then it flashes back to the villain’s origin, then jumps forward to the aftermath of the battle and weaves the hero’s origin into the tale of Python’s master scheme. Like many classic stories, the hero’s and villain’s origins are linked.
The effects are decent, if no more exciting than those that appeared on The Flash a decade and a half earlier. Though they do spend more time in daylight. The suit is goofy, but they at least hang a lampshade on its goofiness: he picks it up at a sporting goods store to help protect himself from windburn.
But the movie just isn’t compelling at all.
I started taking notes during the film, but they quickly turned into snarky commentary. So rather than writing a full review, I’m attaching them below the cut. There could be spoilers, so beware.
Fellow Flash blog Crimson Lightning has returned to a regular update schedule, including the latest in its series reviewing each episode of the 1990 Flash TV Series: “Fast Forward.”
Newsarama’s Grumpy Old Fan contemplates what “the most definitive” version of a character means.
More Mortal Kombat vs DCU trailers, including video of Flash vs. Scorpion. Something must be funky about the player CBR uses, because this is the second time they’ve posted video clips on MKvDC that I couldn’t get to play. YMMV.
This Week in Geek interviews Brea Grant (via @breagrant)
And speeking of geeks, check out the 56 Geeks Project (via Once Upon a Geek)
Access Hollywood writes about “rising star” Brea Grant, who plays speedster Daphne Millbrook on Heroes. While it had previously been reported that she prepared for her role by reading a box of Flash comics, it turns out it wasn’t just research: she’s a self-professed geek.
Brea is so much of a fan, that she attended this summer’s San Diego Comic-Con as a regular fan of the genre and caused quite a stir on the convention floor when other fans who were treated to a sneak peak of the new season of “Heroes” recognized the actress — something Brea got a kick out of.
They also ask the fluff question of which super-hero she’d want to date (No one asks the guys this kind of question, do they? Do reporters ask Milo Ventimiglia, “Which superheroine would you date?”), and the Flash does make her list, even though “he wasn’t always a good boyfriend.” Judging by Wally West’s track record, it’s pretty clear which Flash she’s talking about.
One interesting surprise buried in The Flash Companion is the fact that during the development for the 1990 Flash TV Series, CBS wanted to cast Jack Coleman as Barry Allen. Yes, Heroes‘ very own Noah Bennet, the man with the horn-rimmed glasses.
From the interview with Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo:
BILSON: You know what? The network offered the role to Jack Coleman, who used to be on Dynasty, and he wouldn’t do it because he wouldn’t wear the suit. That’s what I remember.
So what might Coleman have been like as Barry?
Here’s Barry Allen from his first appearance in Showcase #4, alongside a picture of Jack Coleman from Dynasty a couple of years before The Flash went on the air, and another picture of him as today’s audience would recognize him.
Well, he certainly would have looked the part!
Also, John Wesley Shipp was Bilson & De Meo’s second choice for the role. Their first was Richard Burgi, who went on to lead the duo’s later show, The Sentinel. CBS went with Shipp because, in the network head’s words (according to De Meo), “I can see that guy on a lunchbox.”
Image sources: Barry Allen scanned from The Greatest Flash Stories Ever Told, art by Carmine Infantino and Joe Kubert. Dynasty photo via Heroes The Series. Heroes photo via BuddyTV.
ABC has bought the TV rights to Robert J. Sawyer’s novel, Flashforward, based on a script by David S. Goyer (Batman Begins and the Flash movie that never happened) and Brannon Braga (Star Trek, 24). The network wants to turn it into a series, and thinks it could become a companion piece to Lost.
As described by Pop Critics (where I learned about the deal):
During [a scientific] experiment, as the button is pressed, the unexpected occurs: everyone in the world goes to sleep for a few moments while everyone’s consciousness is catapulted more than twenty years into the future. At the end of those moments, when the world reawakens, all human life is transformed by foreknowledge.
Why am I mentioning it here? Because I really like Robert J. Sawyer’s novels, and the word Flash is in the title. I discovered him through his Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, and since then I’ve read Calculating God, Mindscan, and Rollback. I haven’t gotten to Flashforward yet, but it’s on my to-read list.
Sawyer tends to write social science-fiction: if X technological advance occurs, or Y scientific principle is discovered, what impact will that have on society? How would we react to discovering an alternate reality in which Neanderthals developed civilization instead of us? Or if aliens landed and claimed they had scientific proof that God exists and created the universe 14 billion years ago? What are the legal implications of being able to copy your personality into a virtually immortal, lifelike robot?
Regarding the title: In Sawyer’s blog, he mentions that the actual title is Flashforward, but because it was split into two words on the cover, it tends to get referred to as “Flash Forward.”