PIXAR’s Toy Story of Terror. Is It Scary Enough?

The new ABC Special, Toy Story of Terror is a fun filled homage to the horror classics by keeping the ideas PG-13.

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

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The new ABC Special, Toy Story of Terror is a fun filled homage to the horror classics by keeping the ideas PG-13. There are a few moments that the well-versed fan of horror will pick out, but for the young ones, there’s nothing absolutely scary about it to make one go hiding under the sheets. Well, maybe the screams, but they are well earned. The humour is right on par with PIXAR’s feature film products,

Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack), Rex (Wallace Shawn) and Mr. Potato-head (Don Rickles) all return for a nightmare filled romp. The tale seems to continue from where the third Toy Story left off. But when the build ups are wonderfully marginalized by Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton), to see his observations come true is just wonderfully hilarious. His understanding of what the horror genre of yesteryear is about is spot on. Writers John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton did a great job at penning this screenplay.

These days, horror does not have to be about visceral terror or in-your-face shocks. Everything done here in Toy Story of Terror is old school—the frights are implied. The question of what true horror is from a toy’s perspective is nicely done. Jessie shows that even she has fears too. Most of it centers deals with how neglected she was back when she was abandoned in Toy Story 2. Her character development defines much of this story’s plot, and if more episodes spotlighting each character are made, the potential for more Toy Story related tales may well be in store in the years to come.

To say too much more about this new product would just spoil the fun that ensues. Hopefully ABC will see to repeating this funhouse filled romp every year. Despite the fact that PIXAR shut down their Vancouver, British Columbia office, which was set to produce more Toy Story shorts, the fate of the franchise seems uncertain. At least the Emeryville headquarters will continue on strong.

Evaluating The Yoda Chronicles Trilogy, DVD Review & More

lego-star-wars-yoda-chronicles-dvdWhen news of Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles (TYC) was first announced, some fans of this licensed property were particularly excited. Details were scant about whether or not this will become a TV series or a series of original video animations. After the release of “The Phantom Clone,” its direction has become all too clear. Only a handful of episodes will get made.

Sadly, after the airing of “Menace of the Sith,” the studios dispassionately released the DVDYoda Chronicles on October 15 and did not take into account when the final episode would get aired. Only two of the three videos are included and that can leave fans disappointed, hoping for a compilation release. The third episode, “Attack of the Jedi” aired on October 7th on Cartoon Network. Hopefully the next video release will include “The Padawan Menace” (TPM) and “The Empire Strikes Out” (TESO) to restore fans’ faith in the Force (i.e. studio planning). These shorts were far more brilliant and witty than TYC. Even the cut scenes from TT Games products had a beautiful tongue in cheek attitude that more or less started this craze.

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Transformers Prime: Predacons Rising Review & Final Thoughts

The number of days between Deadlock Predacons Rising left ambiguous, and what we get here takes place a few days after.

TransformersPrimeWhen there are many loose story threads to tie up in the Transformers Prime Beast Hunters series, not every detail is going to get covered in the epilogue, Predacons Rising.

Curiously, the question of whether or not any Cybertronian has gone deep underground (as suggested by IDW’s comic books) is never considered. In what does is an interesting biblical take in the final struggle between the Autobots and Decepticon’s quest to awaken their home planet.

There is a resurrection at hand. As the title implies, someone is going to experience a rebirth. With no surprise, and with no thanks to Hasbro’s marketing department, everyone knows Megatron will return. As for how he manages to do so, only a god is able to bring him back to life—or a devil. Unicron finally makes a proper appearance to go destroy Primus once and for all. But there is more than meets the eye for this particular aspect of the tale to take shape. More than one figure will “rise.”

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Coppelion: Scifi with School Uniforms

By James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

coppelionProduction Company: GoHands

Series Directors: Hiromitsu Kanazawa and Susumu Kudo

Based on the manga written and illustrated by Tomonori Inoue, Coppelion looks 20 years into Tokyo’s future after a 2016 accident at the local Odaiba nuclear power plant causes the once great city to become uninhabitable. Fast forward to 2036 and the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force dispatches a group of three genetically modified girls called Coppelion (pronounced Kopperion) after receiving an SOS signal from the heart of Tokyo.

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Akihabara: Playground and Home to Geeks

By James Shaw and Ed Sum

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J: The documentary Akihabara Geeks follow the lives of a few of the inhabitants of Akihabara or as it’s been nicknamed “Electric Town.”

And as I like to call the inhabitants “damn lucky,” oh what I would not do to live there, where many geeks congregate. It would be like a large convention every day. The documentary is not hard-hitting by any means. In fact it could almost act as a holiday advertisement for Akihabara. We get to know some of the occupants and they seem to be like anyone else with their own dreams and their own little quirks, except for one resident who is painted as downright odd.

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A Dragon Fan’s Commentary: Breaking down the “Iron Gronckle”

The question of whether this Gronckle Iron, as its called, is the Berk equivalent to Mithril, will never get answered. But the idea that this How to Train Your Dragon series is starting to make references to familiar pop culture products is becoming very evident.

Fishlegs and two RocksThe age of scientific discovery is very evident in the second episode, “The Iron Gronckle,” of Dragons: Defenders of Berk. What that means for the astute is in how perfectly other products developed for this series is starting to tie in. The School of Dragons is an online educational game product that focuses on teaching its players scientific method, and if this episode is any indication, maybe it will pave way for more marvels to come.

But so far, nobody has noticed that Alvin and Mildew left a few dragon eggs in the caves underneath the town of Berk. When one of them happens to be a Whispering Death, what that means may not get revealed perhaps till mid-season.

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