The Content Creators Of Otaku No Culture

AMC’s IMAX Promo for Star Wars: The Force Awakens Four Image Collage Revealed!

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

AMC Theatres‘ Star Wars: The Force Awakens IMAX poster collage is complete! The fourth and final poster will be offered to viewers going to see this film this Sunday, Jan 9. In this print, Finn is looking ready to do battle with Kylo Ren. I hoped either character would be used, and artist Dan Mumford did one better by featuring both! Props has to go to this artist for done one better!

The blue tone really works in contrast to the red lightsaber. The blood coloured highlights only accents Ren’s inner rage, and as for those who have seen the movie, the seething anger successfully shows in the tone of this image.

Now the hope is that for fans around the world, not living in the USA, will have the ability to get reprints of this distribution. AMC holds the exclusive for distributing the prints on (presumedly) heavier card stock, but that will not stop a certain group of people taking more than they are allowed to cash in on the craze by selling the set online on eBay.

Continue reading “AMC’s IMAX Promo for Star Wars: The Force Awakens Four Image Collage Revealed!”

Why VR at CES 2016 Is Not Necessarily Going to Fly

True VR should allow the person to run around instead of sitting within a confined space.

dk2-product A few media watch reports are saying that the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show will help launch Virtual Reality (VR) as a ready item for market. That’s been said last year and the year before, but the wait has been slow. The Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are two high-profile devices that will finally arrive in retail outlets and the PlayStation VR is to follow. Already out is Samsung Gear VR and it can be ordered through Amazon. But when people are required to strap on a piece of headwear to feel the illusion of being immersed, not everyone will take to this idea right away. One issue that still remains is that does the user have to sit down to experience the environment or can that person walk around until a piece of real world collides, making a dent in the headset he or she is wearing?

Eyeglass wearers are most likely not going to be able to try this out unless the space inside the box is designed to accommodate various eyewear designs.

The big issue with any new technology release is if there’s enough unique software to go with it. The current pieces of simulated environment assumes the person is sitting down instead of moving around. Reality involves the person being able to interact with all the objects in that world, and not everything in the computerized realm is going to be real or handled with the hand, unless handled by a controller or force feedback gloves. Ultimately, the software that’s initially coming with the headwear is simply limited.

Continue reading “Why VR at CES 2016 Is Not Necessarily Going to Fly”

Ranking 2016’s Comic Book Films by Impact

Trying to translate every hero into a live-action story is dangerous, especially when some heroes just cannot translate well (Aquaman) as a comic book film.

Captain America: Civil War Movie Poster The past few years have been nothing but a bumper-crop of comic book films. There’s a few one-off’s which are kind of fun, and for the big two, Marvel and DC, just which one will I start to love more? This year will definite it! The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is going to hit a milestone with one of the comicdom’s pivotal moments getting a movie treatment, and the DC cinema realm will finally give rise to the Justice League.

Honestly, I prefer Bruce Timm and Paul Dini’s animated unification of the DC universe. Trying to translate every hero into a live-action story is dangerous, especially when some heroes just cannot translate well (Aquaman). So far, DC is lucking out and doing a better job in the television front. The films have been a mixed bag. Marvel is approaching the point of maybe doing too much. One-off’s are fine. I prefer those over any other item, but even I have to admit to see the Infinity War play on a big screen is going to be exciting.

Going from must see to not really caring, herein lies my choices for films:

Captain America: Civil War (May 5)

I really enjoy following this sub-series of the MCU films more than the rest of the others sagas because there is meat to the geo-political wranglings going on. The reason is not because this hero represents the Red, White and Blue. When I have a passion for the pulps, his origin story stood out more and there’s an aspect in the tales that I adore when observing a man out of time.

Yes, I’ll be rooting for the Captain in this installment and I really want to know how Bucky figures into this revised version of the civil war that’s to take place. It will not be necessarily following what was outlined in the comic books even though everyone will be getting to see a new Spider-Man for the first time. For me, it’s to see how this trilogy of films will affect the rest of the MCU in the future. Could that be why the Master of Mysticism is required to turn back time?

Pages: 1234567

The Vintage Tempest’s Top Animated Picks of 2016

There’s plenty of animated films to look at in the new year. Some are more interesting than others and herein, I make my Top Animated Picks of 2016 to look forward to.

There’s plenty of animated films to look at in the new year. Some are more interesting than others and herein, I make my Top Animated Picks of 2016 to look forward to. Instead of glancing at the films coming out of North America, I’m looking world-wide and the movies I see offered get diverse.

But before I get to the list, the following are my honourable mentions: Just because Finding Dory is PIXAR and I loved Finding Nemo, that does not mean this movie will be excellent. Thirteen years have passed (an unlucky number for the superstitious) since Nemo went home. In another film, I’m thinking the cat featured in Secret Life of Pets is the next Garfield. For the story featured in Henchman, I’m figuring this film can easily fit in the world of Mastermind although this movie is developed over at BRON Studios.

Animal Crackers Movie Poster

Animal Crackers (TBD)

Not to be confused with the Marx Brothers film of the same name, this animated fare looks at a life of the Huntington family who finds a magical box of said crackers who can change the eater into the animal they have pulled out from the box. This film has promise when there is an all-star cast assembled to provide the voices.

What’s especially lovable is the fact that it’s tough not to love a cartoon that Patrick Warburton is featured in; ever since Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, he does a great job at voicing one of my favourite characters from Toy Story. Not to be forgotten, the other stars include: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Ian McKellen, Danny DeVito, Sylvester Stallone, Wallace Shawn and Raven-Symoné.

Continue reading “The Vintage Tempest’s Top Animated Picks of 2016”

Pages: 12345

Remembering 2015’s Best Animated Works

The best animated works came from Netflix’s streaming service. And DreamWorks offered a lot which Loved.

Disney Pixar Inside Out Movie Poster — PIXAR’s film is a strong contender come Oscar season!

2015 was very good for many fans of the animation genre. The best animated works came from Netflix‘s streaming service. And DreamWorks offered a lot which Loved. Turbo FAST’s serialized offering was okay, but in what I loved was All Hail King Julian! Other programs like Dragons: Race to the Edge, Dawn of the Croods and Adventures of Puss in Boots shows that at least the studio is dedicated.

But what does that mean for other studios? Curiously, DreamWorks has not continued 2014’s Penguins of Madagascar movie. Has Nickelodeon said no to the studio making more or has Tom McGrath, the voice of Skipper, decided to move on? Currently, he’s working on Boss Baby, slated for release in 2017.

Disney/Pixar was busy with two releases, Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur, and while I favour the prehistoric adventure more than a look at what goes on inside a little girl’s head, I do see the former being a contender come Oscar season. I do have to wonder how long Minion-mania will last. It arrived in full force because of the movie and it showed no signs of slowing down over the holidays with merchandise being deeply discounted and the film put onto home video super early!

Continue reading “Remembering 2015’s Best Animated Works”

Problems with Audio Mixing; How to Experience Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Is watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens (TFA) three if not four times within opening week enough? When the film is a thrill ride from beginning to end, the answer is a resounding yes! Mind you, each viewing was done slightly differently to savour the cinema enhancing technology of RealD (3D), IMAX sized screens (a cinema slimmed version versus the 8 story sized proper screens), D-Box Motion Simulation (a flight simulator) and UltraAVX (3D sound with a large screen sized the same as IMAX’s).

Seeing it the way as J.J. Abrams intended will simply mean going to a regular showing with no thrills attached. When no 3D cameras were used during filming, there’s a difference that can be felt in the presentation. But heading to a proper IMAX cinema for that one sequence, presumably when Finn and Rey are running around on Jakku, what this director filmed is worth heading to the right theatre to.

Continue reading “Problems with Audio Mixing; How to Experience Star Wars: The Force Awakens”