Monday 8 September 2008

TV

The Children
Part 2 (of 3)

Fiction

Double or Die by Charlie Higson
Chapters 13 & 14

Articles

CBn Forum Member Suggestion Makes The Cut In By Royal Command by Matt Weston
(from CommanderBond.net)
Higson loves the fans. (On a similar note, By Royal Command includes a thanks to the webmaster of The Young Bond Dossier, the fansite so prolific they feed its news on the official Young Bond site.)

Inside Man 2 Is A Go, Says Spike Lee by Chris Hewitt
(from Empire Online)
I really enjoyed Inside Man, which came a little out of nowhere two-and-a-half years ago (has it really been so long?!) Hopefully this sequel can live up to the first film.

Troubled Movie Productions
(from Empire Online)
Inspired by the recent spat over Babylon A.D. ("I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be... The script wasn't respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible experience"), Empire takes a look at ten other famously tumultuous productions. Featuring American History X, Apocalypse Now, Brazil, Dune, Fitzcarraldo, The Invasion, Kingdom of Heaven, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, Three Kings, and Waterworld. (If you've never heard of the Don Quixote film, it's cos it was never finished. The documentary film Lost in La Mancha documents how spectacularly wrong things went.)

For more articles from today, see here and here; and don't miss the Serenity-centric post right next to this one.

Articles: Serenity comics

An Interview with Scott Allie
(from Stakes & Salvation)
Allie is the editor of Buffy Season Eight. Not a hugely interesting interview to be honest, especially as it's over a year old; unless you're really into exactly how Season Eight works behind the scenes.

Ron Glass announces A Shepherd’s Tale comic, reveals (some) secrets
(from SerenityStuff)
Slightly old news this (like, eight months) but I've only just come across it. As the prospect of a sequel to Serenity becomes increasingly unlikely, it seems the 'verse will be continuing in comic-form. Hopefully this third miniseries can improve on the first (I haven't read the second yet, though will when it hits tpb). It certainly looks set to be the best yet, potentially answering the largest remaining question(s) left hanging: who is Shepherd Book, and what is his history? I'm certifiably excited.

Whedon Can’t Get Enough Serenity by Wil Moss
(from Publishers Weekly)
Another article from 2007 (clearly no one's had anything to say in the last year), in which Joss discusses why Serenity would never work as an ongoing comic and why there aren't tie-in novels. The 'verse is still one great big missed opportunity, and it's a shame there's no suitable way for Joss to continue his larger story -- after all, a show that he was thinking would run for 150+ episodes has been reduced to 14, a movie, and three (standalone) comics. Hardly balanced, is it.

No Preacher either

Mark Steven Johnson: No Preacher on HBO
(from Comics Continuum)

No news for ages, then this.

"We were budgeting and everything and it was getting really close to going," Johnson said, "but the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial. Which, of course, is kind of the point!" And I was so looking forward to it too. Wankers.

The article mentions the prospect of movie(s) -- "I've heard someone is in the process of getting the rights to turn it into a feature film... I hope it happens as a series of movies as one movie couldn't do it justice" -- but the script that was knocking around a few years back (by the comic's writer, Garth Ennis) wasn't great and was very much a single-film thing. So while it was exciting, the prospect of a full, faithful TV series-y adaptation was a dream come true. Of course, it was ultimately too good to be true.

Buffy on(line), Firefly off

Immerse Yourself in a Virtual Buffyverse by Dave Golder
(from SFX)

"there’s a Buffy MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) on the way... The ground-breaking MMOG will offer a new experience for gamers, allowing them to play it either as a fully immersive 3D environment or as a Flash-based 2D game, where both types of players can interact."

Interesting idea. As much as I love Buffy, I wouldn't bother... though the easy-sounding 2D Flash version is kinda tempting, if it's free... Biggest question: will it follow the canon of the Season Eight comics?

Sadder news, however, is that "the previously-announced Firefly on-line game is now on hold." As dedicated as the Firefly fanbase is, I never believed it was large enough or gamery enough to support an MMOG, though maybe the sheer quality could have attracted non-fan gamers on the basis of it being a free-roaming space adventure? Who can say, as it'll probably (though kinda unsurprisingly) never see the light of day.

Shame, cos that one I would have played.