STAN WINSTON: 1946-2008

The sad news has just been released that Stan Winston, special effects and make-up legend (as the article puts it appropriately) has died. He was 62. He was battling with multiple myeloma for the past 7 years.

He had won the Oscars for his works on Aliens, Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and Batman Returns.

If you have seen a movie from the 1980's with special effects in it, Winston was probably there. He provided a lot of monster effects, in particular, for movies such as Aliens, Predator, The Terminator, The Thing, and Pumpkinhead. After the 1980's, his works include films such as Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands, From Dusk Til Dawn, Congo, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and many more.

Recently, he created the Iron Man armor in the new Iron Man film, and reportedly was working on James Cameron's upcoming Avatar.

He will be duly missed, very much, but his legacy will continue through his admirers in the world of film. I have no doubt he has inspired a generation of film makers to follow their dreams and goals in the medium.

His works have probably frightened most of us at some point, as well as wowed us. I always love seeing the Aliens on screen that he created, and those Jurassic Park dinosaurs will always be awesome. He definitely struck the world with those. And we can always go back and watch the movies he worked on, and be amazed again and again, and remember the first times we witnessed all of those monsters and tremendous effects.

Goodbye, Stan. Thank you for all of the great, great work you have given we, the audience in the cinema, and for helping us love movies. And for inspiring others to make movies. You were a part of movie history, and you always will be.

Source: Breitbart

COMING NEVER- Prepare for Dinner!

Auy...

Sorry for no comics for the past couple of weeks...Some things have been going on. I was out of town one week, and another week, there was just too much really going on....I should be back on track now...Although Shin has disappeared to Parts Unknown, as he often does... ¬ ¬ 

I know this is a pretty stupid comic. But it was just a cheap gag I thought of. It was also fun to draw Leonidas. I love 300; the movie and the original funnybook by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. Great stuff. The movie was really well done. especially in following along with the comic; just like Sin City did. although that one was not made by the same people.

Also, color! :O There's a bit of color in this one! That's my homage to Frank Miller there. Although, the book was fully in color, by Lynn Varley...

Some people complained that 300 was not a 'realistic' movie, and point out all the historical flaws. Well, did it ever occur to anyone that this was done on purpose? That's done in movies all the time. Hell, look at anything Oliver Stone has done; he deliberately ignores history and the facts all the time. This is where you know that there are people who don't know some backstory about this movie, and the comics. Frank Miller loves the ancient Greeks and has studied them a lot. He KNOWS what he did, and why there were inaccuracies. Yes, he did it on purpose. You think that he doesn't know that the Spartans...wore...uh, armor? Of course he does. Also, there weren't ONLY 300 Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae; there were other warriors there, as well. Altogether, I think there was about 800 or so warriors. Miller was really focusing on the legend of the 300 warriors, and glorifying them greatly. Why is that so hard to understand or accept?

It's a movie, so you have to take it with a grain of salt anyway, and if you do try to take it too literally, well, then you won't enjoy it. But if you've already decided you want to see an EXACT re-creation, you're not going to enjoy it anyway. So I say, take it for what it is, and enjoy it.

Or not. It's up to you. I love the movie, and the book.

TRANSFORMERS 2 FULL TITLE REVEALED

Although Michael Bay has already issued the statement, or warning rather, that he was going to see to it that lies would be spread about the upcoming Transformers 2, it seems this news is no lie.

Hasbro has issued the report that the official title of the next movie is--



Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.




Oh Lord. I didn't like the first movie as it is, and this one is already off to a bad start....Which doesn't surprise me.


Now, it should be noted that there may be some significance to this title that fans may know. The former company DreamWave Productions once published Transformers funnybooks. In one of those series, they created a character simply referred to as 'the Fallen', and was tied to the very beginning of Cybertron, and the Transformers, in DW's TF universe. There is no word at this time if 'the Fallen' in the title refers to this character, or if it refers to...well, someone else.

I would guess it's probably not the Fallen from the DW funnybooks. Michael Bay seems pretty adamant he wants to do absolutely everything his own way, and doesn't really want to look to other TF sources for ideas or stories.

Maybe it refers to, for example....Starscream, maybe? Or Jazz? Yeah, maybe Jazz returns to get revenge. No, probably not....Or most likely it refers to Megatron.

But stay tuned. I recommend that you don't believe anything else about this movie that comes out. Treat everything as a rumor or just a lie, as that's what Bay wants to do; unless some news is officially confirmed by Hasbro or DreamWorks.

Sources: Hasbro.com
Wikipedia: The Fallen