I don’t know about you but I would never expect to see body modification, body horror, or genetic experimentation in a ninja themed manga. It’s all in Masahi Kishimoto’s Naruto.
Disclaimer: THE CONTENT BELOW IS FILLED WITH SPOILERS! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN PERIL!
Madara Uchiha implanted his rival, Hashirama Senju’s DNA into his body and gained his botanical manipulation ninjutsu. A strange growth that resembled Hashirama appeared on his chest as a result.
Obito, descendant of the legendary Uchiha clan, was grievously injured in combat and would have perished without Madara’s intervention. Madara replaced damaged limbs with White Zetsu parts (a White Zetsu is essentially an artificial plant being derived from Hashirama Senju and possessing botanical manipulation and shape shifting abilities). Obito could sprout thorns and grow trees from his Zetsu parts.
Nagato, a descendant of the Uzumaki clan and recipient of Madara’s Rinnegans (a Rinnegan is an ocular mutation possessed by the creator of ninjutsu, the Sage of the Six Path). He was able to manifest black rods on his back which enabled him to animate cadavers, replicate the Rinnegan within them, and utilize the Sage ninjutsu through them. He is able to “operate” 6 proxies remotely, see through their eyes, and coordinate attacks.
Nagato:
Nagato’s Proxies:
Kabuto, the medical ninja and faithful apprentice of Orochimaru, build upon the genetic research of his master & experimented on himself. He integrated his master’s true form (Orochimaru’s true form is serpentine and composed of a mass of white snakes as a result of his experimentation) into himself and the genetic material of Orochimaru’s elite minions. Kabuto’s skin became scaly and white, his eyes became serpentine and he gained a body similar to a naga (with a chimera tail). When he entered Sage Mode, he regained humanoid legs, grew horns, and the “chimera tail” moved to his belly button. His “tail” could replicate the forms of the genetic donors & manifest their unique abilities.
Default Mode:
Sage Mode:
Shin Uchiha is a former test subject and experiment of Orochimaru. His unique body accepted all transplanted organs and genetic material. He was cloned in order to discover the secret of his unique physiology. He possesses a transplanted Sharingan eye in his right eye socket (a Sharingan is an ocular mutation unique to the Uchiha clan and consumes a massive amount of energy when transplanted in and used by non-Uchiha). He has numerous Sharingans all over his body. He can teleport with his fully evolved eye and control objects he marked telekinetically. He can see through a proxy Sharingan creature and utilize the teleportation ability.
Spy Creature:
Art Acknowledgements:
Original Art by Masashi Kishimoto and the animation cells are by Studio Pierrot
It’s still just a little over 3 months before we get the premiere of Guillermo Del Toro’s return to the big-screen. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost 5 years since he last made a film (Hellboy 2: The Golden Army). His time wandering the world of Middle-Earth for three years and the last two developing his upcoming film and we now just have 3 months to wait for what could either be one of the biggest films of 2013 or a colossal failure.
Pacific Rim looks to introduce the well-worn and popular concept of the giant robot vs. kaiju from Japan to the rest of the world. Fans of this very Japanese pop-culture phenomena have been excited over this film since it was first brought up by Del Toro a couple years ago and more since then. Some have nitpicked that the trailers and teasers have made the film look like an offspring of the Michael Bay Transformers series, but then again all we’ve seen so far have been the robots. There’s still the surprise of how the kaiju will end up looking.
One thing I’ve learned about Guillermo Del Toro’s films have been that whether one likes them or not they’re never lazy affairs. He gives everything to the project and makes sure that his overall vision never get compromised by studio interference (one reason why he seems to back out of doing his dream project At the Mountain of Madness).
So, below are some of the latest promotional posters that show the five giant robots from five Pacific Rim nations who have volunteered to help fight the kaiju.
I think Guillermo Del Toro’s upcoming giant robots vs giant monsters summer film will either fail to live up to the hype it’s been gathering since the very first teasers and images were released or the film will blow people’s minds away. This looks to be a film that will not brook any middle-of-the-road reaction. Some will either love it and some will absolutely hate it. Already there’s people who have been dismissing it as nothing but a jumped-up-Michael Bay rip (like that’s even possible) or dismissing it just because it’s a summer blockbuster, special-effects heavy film and not a barely-funded, arthouse, indie foreign film about the meaning of life, existence and the ennui that befalls all.
I, for one, am hyping this film up to beyond what’s safe to hype a film up for (yeah that doesn’t make sense but still deal with it). I’ve been a fan of Del Toro since I first caught his imaginative and inventive take on the vampire myth with Cronos. While he’s earned geek cred for his genre projects he is also once of the few filmmakers who have also gained the respect of the arthouse indie crowd with such films as The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth.
Enough gushing over the man. It’s all about the new trailer which premiered at this year’s CES over in Las Vegas. One wouldn’t think of CES as a place to premiere new footage about a summe rblockbuster, but as one can spy in this newest trailer it looks like Qualcomm paid some cash to get itself named in the film even if it’s just in the background. Also, just to show just how awesome this film will be there are also the design blueprints of five of the giant Jaegers that we’ve caught glimpses of in the trailer.
Every year always has a couple of big genre films that seem to continually fly under the radar. This is surprising since people tend to think that films with huge budgets and a cast headlined by one of the biggest names in Hollywood tend to be overhyped before they even reached the big-screen. While I’ve heard of the upcoming scifi and post-apocalyptic film Oblivion for almost two years now it’s still a film that doesn’t generate much talk.
We know several things about Oblivion that came out before the release of the film’s first trailer: 1. it stars Tom Cruise and 2. it’s the follow-up film for Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski. The second part may be one thing that has kept this film from being one of the biggest anticipated films of 2013. Kosinski’s underwhelming sequel to Tron didn’t make many genre fans excited as to what he might come up with next.
The trailer looks to erase some of those doubts as we get to see Oblivion as a very beautifully-shot film. We get see some great looking art direction for the film if the trailer show’s us anything about Oblivion. Plus, it has Morgan Freeman all decked out like one of David Lynch’s Fremen from Dune.
Oblivion is set for an April 12, 2013 release date.
Lisa Marie mentioned a particular film trailer that she sawfor a film coming out soon that reminded her of a classic John Carpenter scifi film. This film was Brandedand from looking at it’s official trailer one does see some major similarities between this Russian/American scifi production with the Carpenter subversive scifi film.
The premise looks and sounds interesting but I must admit that the CG aliens/monsters/overlords look to be very subpar in comparison to most CG-effects work nowadays. Another note of interest is that it stars Leelee Sobieski who was once seen by Hollywood as a rising superstar when she first hit the scene over a decade ago. I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything of note until this trailer came along.
Now I won’t say that this film is a straight rip-off of Carpenter’s They Livebut if it includes an extended scene between two men fighting it out in an alley then I shall declare shenanigans.
Brandedis set for a September 7, 2012 release date.
We get what could be the definitive trailer for Ridley Scott’s prequel to his Alien film.
This latest trailer is the international launch trailer and runs just a shade under 3 minutes. We definitely get a sense of what the film is about but not so much that it spoils the film’s entire story. Some have been anticipating this film since it was first announced and with each release of production stills and teasers the hype just continues to build. Then there are those who hate this film without even seeing it because they see it as either a cash grab or an attempt by a filmmaker to break a string of sub-par films.
I stand pretty much between these two camps. While I’ve always enjoyed Ridley Scott’s work even those he whiffs badly on I’m also hesitant to fully embrace this prequel as a can’t-miss without having seen it. So much about the Alienfranchise has been ruined by badly made sequels and mash-ups that it’s going to take something momentous to have me put unquestioned faith back into the franchise.
Maybe Scott returning to something he’s familiar with and having had learned more about filmmaking since the first film means he’ll bring something new to the franchise and help bring it back from the brink of mediocrity. Here’s to hoping that is the case. One thing I’m sure of is that he’s got an all-star cast to work with.
Quarantine 2: Terminalis the 2011 horror sequel to 2008’s Quarantinewhich was a remake of the much better Spanish horror film [Rec]. This sequel goes off on it’s own different path instead of just remaking the sequel which followed the Spanish film. As directed by John Pogue this sequel dumps the “found footage” style of the first film and instead just goes for a traditional film style. The film also goes it’s own way in explaining how it ties into the previous film.
Where the Spanish sequel had it’s events set at the same place this time around we find our new cast of characters on-board a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Nashville that soon gets diverted to Las Vegas when one of the passengers suddenly becomes violently ill. Once they land the film mirrors the first film in that the surviving passengers, crew and a lone airport maintenance crewmember get locked in the terminal they’re at. The very bio-weapon that was unwittingly unleashed in the apartment complex in the first film has made it onto the flight and one by one the cast succumbs to it’s “rage zombie”-like symptoms.
Quarantine 2is not an awful as some would like to tell people, but it is also not a good film. It’s pretty average with little to no tension or scary surprises. It’s a horror film almost done by check-list. We also don’t get fully realized individuals to root for so that when one becomes infected there’s no sense of loss. In fact, there’s not even a character to root against. That’s how bland the characters ended being in this film. The story itself has built on the details presented about the virus in the first film and it’s an interesting premise that deserved a better film. Maybe a couple years from now the series will get rebooted and remade Bollywood-style and get some energy into it.
Moving onto a much better film that also share’s the above film’s fast-moving “zombie”-like infected is 2010’s Devil’s Playgroundby British horror filmmaker Mark McQueen. It is set in present-day London where it begins in medias res a hard-looking man all bloodied going by the name of Cole (played by Craig Fairbass) who uses a computer’s webcam to record the events which has transpired to bring him to his current state.
We soon go back to the beginning of the crisis which starts from the human-testing of a new drug by the pharmaceutical company N-Gen. Of the 30,000 test-subjects only one doesn’t succumb to the deadly side-effects of the drug which causes those injected to transform into ravening, cannibalistic killers who also happen to have had their agility amplified that they’re able to parkour their way towards the uninfected.
Yes, you heard right, parkour zombies. That gimmick alone attached to the current trend of fast-moving zombies gives this film an edge over most fast-running zombie films.
Devil’s Playgrounddoesn’t just try to make things interesting with a new brand of zombie-infected killers, but manages to create a story around the usual “man on a mission” plot. Cole has to find the only test subject who didn’t succumb to the experimental drug’s side-effects in hopes that this person carries the means to help end the spread of the virus. The cast itself helps in making this horror film rise above the usual dreck that gets released on video. While I’ve never been a fan of British “tough guy” actor Danny Dyer he wasn’t as annoying in this film as he is in others and it’s due to the performance by Craig Fairbass as the hardened mercenary Cole which makes Dyer’s dishonored cop Joe from chewing everything in the scene he appears in.
Director Mark McQueen does a good job in keeping the story moving forward even as he juggles subplot involving a couple of London river cops trying to find a safe haven in a city that’s going through a deadly crisis of apocalyptic proportion. Even the free-running zombies don’t come across as laughable and at times even come across as quite horrifying when Cole and his small band of survivors try to move from haven to haven in the hopes of getting the one who may be the key to solving the crisis to the right people.
Devil’s Playgroundmay not join the ranks of the classic zombie films since Romero’s Night of the Living Deadchanged the world of horror in 1968, but it manages to be both entertaining and scary despite the parkour zombies.
The best of this triple-bill of horror comes courtesy of one of 2011’s festival darlings. Attack the Blockby writer-director Joe Cornish was able mash together scifi, horror and comedy and do so seemlessly. It’s a genre-busting film that doesn’t lean too heavily on either three but allows the great script written by Cornish to dictate when the horror begins and when it transitions to some sharp comedic scenes and dialogue.
This is a film that could’ve sunk under the weight of it’s cast of British teen and child actors, but instead gains much of it’s appeal from these fresh, young faces. Even for those across the Atlantic in the US the British slang used by the kids in the film doesn’t confuse as much as it could. The writing and performances by these kids (especially by John Boyega as the teen gang leader Moses) don’t come across as forced, but flow naturally from scene to scene. Their reactions to finding and killing what turns out to be an alien looks and sound exactly how any group of young hoodlums and ragamuffins would have. In fact, some of the film’s funnier scenes was due to how each of them arm themselves in their attempt to protect the block of apartments they all live in.
It wouldn’t be an alien invasion film of any quality if we didn’t get some memorable aliens. Fortunately we do get aliens that come across not just menacing, but also not fake looking. Nothing takes an audience away from suspending their disbelief and enjoying a film than a badly pulled off visual effect. Cornish and his effects crew use a combination of practical and CG effects to bring to life a horde of alien invaders who look like a cross between apes and the ball of fur and teeth from the 80’s cheesetastic scifi-horror film series Critters.
Attack the Blockdoesn’t skimp on the death and destruction. The film doesn’t treat the young characters with kid’s gloves either as they’re not exempt from the mortal danger posed by the aliens who have invaded their Block. The fact that each character (both young and old) were written to be rounded characters with distinct personalities that we feel each death no matter how minor the role. It’s a rare horror film that actually made great use of character development in-between scenes of action and terror. Even during those particular scenes each character on the screen adds a new layer of complexity to the role. This is a testament to director Joe Cornish who also wrote the excellent screenplay. The fact that this was his feature film debut as a director also makes Attack the Blocksuch a surprise wonder.
So, our tally for today when it comes to the three films mentioned above would come down to….
Quarantine 2: Terminal– Pass (watch on Netflix Instant if there’s nothing else to watch)
Devil’s Playground– Definite Watch (can be seen through Netflix Instant)
Attack the Block– Must-See (buy the blu-ray to add to your collection or rent if you’re not into that)
It’s the Day of Days for gamers worldwide as one of the most-anticipated games of this generation finally comes out.
Mass Effect 3completes the sci-fi rpg trilogy from BioWare and with each game’s release the need from gamers just continued to increase. At the stroke of midnight on March 6, 2012 EA and BioWare held official release events at four different locations around the United States as hundreds, if not thousands, of gamers braved cold nights to be the first to get their hands on the final leg of Cmdr. Shepard’s journey to save the galaxy from the extragalactic mechanical race intent on harvesting all living organisms from the galaxy as they’ve done every 50,000 years.
The last couple of weeks have seen several trailers and tv spots marketing and hyping up the game as it led to today. BioWare ends the wait by releasing one last trailer and it’s simply called the “Launch Trailer” and to say that it is epic would be just the tip of the iceberg.
The video above was released today by 20th Century Fox as part of their marketing machine to help create buzz for their upcoming summer blockbuster scifi film Prometheus.
It’s a clip of a fictional keynote speech by one Peter Weyland at the TED 2023 conference. Guy Pearce plays the role of Peter Weyland and talks about how technology’s influence in human history from the beginning with fire (he mentions the Greek myth of Prometheus stealing the technology of fire from the gods and giving it to man) all the way to artificial intelligence and realistic cybernetic constructs.
Anyone who has been a fan of the Alien franchise will recognize the name Weyland. It’s the fictional transnational corporation which has become a major part of the films in the franchise and, to a degree, even to the Predatorfranchise. They’re the corporation which sends Ripley and the crew of the ore mining hauler Nostromo to the desolate planet of LV-426 where they encounter the very lifeform that would become one of film’s iconic monsters. It is also the corporation which 70+ years later would send a terraforming colony to the very same planet which would become a major part of the plot for Aliens. Even the David Fincherdirected third film, Alien3, would use the corporation as the monolithic badguy behind-the-scenes.
Weyland is just part of the corporation’s name as through the years it would combine with another corporation to become Weyland-Yutani. While the aliens in the franchise have been the immediate threat in all the films in the franchise it would be Weyland-Yutani who became the face of the corporate evil that continues to try to get samples of the very alien the franchise is known for.
It’s going to be interesting how this viral video ties into the upcoming Ridley Scott “prequel” to Alienand whether Weyland-Yutani will play a major role in the film’s plot. One thing I’m sure is that Pearce definitely plays a convincing corporate visionary with a God-complex that’s part Steve Jobs and part Richard Branson (if both iconic businessmen channeled their inner-darkside).
Last week we saw the cinematic “Take Earth Back” trailer for the upcoming Mass Effect 3rpg title from BioWare and EA. During tonight’s latest episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead we got to see another trailer for this upcoming game. This time around we get a live-action trailer about Earth being visited upon by the main antagonists of the series and that’s the giant, extragalactic biomechanical alien race who call themselves “The Reapers”.
For a live-action trailer this one does a great job at emphasizing the fact that Earth is royally screwed and that the player in the guise of Cmdr. Shepard must lead an army to take it back from the brink of destruction. I like how even in this future Earth once the proverbial crap hits the fan everyone will begin to riot instead of actually trying to band together to fight the invaders.
Mass Effect 3is set for a March 6, 2012 North American release date.
Through the Shattered Lens 