Mark Hamill Archives | Otaku No Culture

Which Stars Shine Bright in The Last Jedi?

The trailers and opening scroll in The Last Jedi reveal the Resistance will have to start running for their lives as the bad guys are hot on their heels.

Spoiler Alert

After the events from The Force Awakens, both sides are in disarray. The First Order lost their planet destroyer (technically a new Death Star). The trailers and opening scroll in The Last Jedi reveal the Resistance will have to start running for their lives as the bad guys are hot on their heels.

As mentioned in my review of the previous film J.J. Abrams crafted a love letter to the fans. He offered plenty of nostalgia to enjoy and made sure the digital technology got exercised to its fullest to make those moments count. Watch it too much, and everyone will agree it’s basically A New Hope.

There’s no denying that Star Wars, in all its other iterations in the animated front, comic books and novels, are built on a lot of tropes George Lucas created and improved upon from Episode IV to VI. They range from classic one-liners and visual moments we always get excited by. From exhilarating trench sequences, varied variations of a ‘speeder bike’ chase to crazy aerial dog fights, is it even possible to add anything new? Writer/Director Rian Johnson offers a bit of the same old thing with a great new look and injects some fantastic narrative spins not everyone saw coming.

In what I loved after a second viewing (I bought tickets for Thurs and Friday) is with how actor Benicio Del Toro chewed up the scenery. To say more and to read ahead contains major spoilers.

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Diving into Howard Lovecraft & The Undersea Kingdom

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Based on the graphic novel of the same name, Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom is the second chapter of a three-part saga. Here, the child version of this seminal writer (voiced by Kiefer O’Reilly) has to deal with untold dangers from more than one dark world. Youths can be introduced to H.P. Lovecraft before he became the recluse and derisive adult.

This film is humourous at times. It’s also a safe product to teach young viewers the importance of never forgetting their elders, even when the world shuns them. When considering what the real-life figure was like, perhaps all he needed was more familial love.

After the events of the first film, he has to keep the three books from being put together to form the Necronomicon. He does not know of this tome’s secrets, but in what he learns — how to use magic — he has to use it to fight the minions mad Abdul (Jeffrey Combs) is sending after him! Although his father is committed to a sanitarium and his mother is possessed (and eventually kidnapped), this lad is proving to be able to take on the challenges from the mysterious city of R’yleh and other strange worlds which lays in this maddening multiverse.

This film is adapted from Bruce Brown’s work (original creator) which is published by Arcana Comics. The print edition (available on Amazon) is much more violent when compared to this cinematic version. The changes required to make this product accessible for youths does not distract. Even as I’m thumbing through my hardcover copy of the complete story while watching this film to find what writer and director Sean Patrick O’Reilly changed, general aspects of all three issues (when it was released as individual comics) are retained. He brings much-needed character development to Winfield Scott Lovecraft, the father. While none of this is true to the real life counterpart, to understand this individual offers to fans a hint at what could have influenced the boy to become the man with unsettling dreams.

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Changes are in Store for Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom

Revisions are in store in Arcana Studios next film, Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom.

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Revisions are in store in Arcana Studios next film, Howard Lovecraft and the Undersea Kingdom. The original comic book story had two companions helping the boy travel to this new world to rescue his family. With only his mother and aunts, life may seem easy. But after the events from Frozen Kingdom, he better look out! His father broke out of his asylum prison so both he and Constable Smith (who finds the boy without a home) can help. The gun-touting action and violence in this edition works, but in a product targeting a general audience to enjoy, it has to be changed.

“The guns and grenades being used in Undersea Kingdom were an immediate offside from numerous distributors,” revealed Sean O’Reilly, co-founder of Arcana Studios. “Losing that character [of Smith], and replacing him with a character that H.P. Lovecraft created in Dr. Henry Armitage, put us in a direction towards Miskatonic University. This then leads to building out the world that the author created.”

Both this studio and Shout! Factory announced the voice cast a few days ago, indicating that progress is on track for a Q4 direct-to-video release. Mark Hamill will be playing the role of the prestigious doctor. Best known as The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, this talent can do more than swing a light saber in Star Wars. Also set to play a bigger role is Jeffrey Combs as King Abdul, the primary antagonist for this second film. When he kidnaps his mother and aunts, the young lad has to get Spot to help him travel to the Undersea Kingdom to rescue them. But he can not do it alone, and to see what O’Reilly has to alter in series creator, Bruce Brown’s work, will have followers curious.

Using the original graphic novel as reference, the monsters we will get to see include Shoggoths and Deep Ones. With luck, maybe a Mi-Go or two will help out.

Returning talents include Christopher Plummer and Doug Bradley as Dr. Herbert West and Nyarlathotep.

Star Wars The Force Awakens, A Fan Commentary and Review

The Force Awakens is a masterpiece of technical filmmaking and that’s about all it has going for it under this new Disney management.

To witness Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the same fervour as this franchise got exciting in the later parts of the original trilogy, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, is exhilarating. The subtitle says more about the potential of where this latest instalment is going sounds like a return to form — in keeping the mystique that surrounds The Force — and from there I was sold! I wondered what can transpire in a property that is now managed by Disney. Are they doing it because the property is a cash cow or because Lucas is out of ideas? In what the new writing team developed brings a new hope to a franchise that’s now 38 years old.

As the narrative in the trailers have indicated, there’s something in those “eyes” of the old and new heroes who find themselves in this war. In traditional story-telling fashion, they are often regarded as a window to an individual’s soul. Quite often, writers use that angle to show how people can recognize family lines of individuals they have not met. Take, for example, the Harry Potter films where the hero is often told, “You have your mother’s eyes.”

Just who is Finn (John Boyega), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Rey (Daisy Ridley), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)? They make up the cast in this latest film which is emphasizing the fact that a few of them may be related to one another, or to an individual from the past.
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Mark Hamill Walks Hollywood Blvd for ‘Force for Change’

By James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)

In the latest Force for Change video Star Wars: The Force Awakens actor Mark Hamill walks one of Holywood’s favourite tourist attractions, Hollywood Boulevard. Disguised as a Stormtrooper Hamill was able to interact with residents, tourists and even Luke Skywalker’s father (Whose voice is not as deep as one remembers).

Part of the fun of this video comes from the humour that Hamill creates on the spur of the moment. I won’t go into details on every little joke, you the reader will just have to watch.

There is still time to donate to Force for Change. You can have a chance to be one of two grand prize winners to win four tickets to the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in London, England or Los Angeles, California where you’ll walk the red carpet and meet the cast. Winners and their guests will enjoy free flights and a stay at a 4-star hotel.

Go to Omaze.com’s Force for Change to donate.

Source(s): Star Wars Official YouTube Channel, Statue Collectors, Statue Collectors, and Magne Lie.