The Week In Geek: Avatar 2 & 3, Star Trek 2 Villain, Chris Evans as Cap
Lots of geeky news and rumors this week, but lets get started with the King of the friggin’ World himself…
Avatar Gets Back To Back Sequels
So this week, James Cameron announced that his follow up to his second movie to claim the title “most successful movie of all time”, namely Avatar, would be…….. Avatar 2 and Avatar 3, which would be filmed back to back for a 2014 and 2015 release. While this probably comes as no surprise to most, there had been rumors recently that Cameron was going to direct a new version of Cleopatra starring Angelina Jolie. Then, according to another rumor, Twentieth Century Fox made a colossal donation to Cameron’s favorite environmental cause of choice, and thus now well bribed, Cameron chose to commit to follow ups to Avatar instead. That movie ended pretty conclusively to me, and my gut instinct is that this will go the way of most back to back made sequels, like those for The Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Back to the Future; financially motivated movies that feel more like cash ins than natural continuations of any real story. I may be the only nerd who is disappointed we are getting these instead of the Angelina Jolie starring Cleopatra flick. What can I say? Sometimes gay trumps geek.
Villains for JJ Abrams’ Star Trek Follow Up Movie Rumors Start Gaining Steam
Rumors of the direction of the sequel to JJ Abrams’ 2009 reboot of Star Trek are starting to finally come out, and although many fans assumed the villain would be Khan (although I’m not sure why, it isn’t like JJ Abrams’ movie was a remake of the original film, why should Star Trek II.0 be a remake of that movie?) it looks like the writers are going in a different direction. However, it still looks that the producers are looking to the classic series for inspiration. Five characters have been tipped off by insiders as being candidates for Trek 2. Harry Mudd, the bumbling pirate who appeared in two classic series episodes (“Mudd’s Women” and “I, Mudd”) The Horta ( a silicon based life form from the episode “The Devil in the Dark”) Trelane (a spoiled all powerful being, much like Q on The Next Generation) The Talosians (the big brained aliens from the original pilot “The Cage”) and finally, the antagonist from the second pilot for Star Trek “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, Lt. Gary Mitchell. Mitchell was originally played by 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Gary Lockwood.
I believe the most likely candidate from these choices is Gary Mitchell. In the original series, he was Captain Kirk’s best friend from the academy who gains God like abilities out is space on an Enterprise mission, loses his humanity and has to fight his old friend Jim Kirk to the death. Of all the old episodes, this one has the personal drama that a large scale big screen adventure needs, and while Mitchell’s “God like” abilities where pretty low tech for the original series, imagine what a movie could do with that now? Also, unlike the mustache twirling bad guy that Eric Bana played in the first movie, Mitchell is more a good man corrupted by powerful forces he cannot control. If I had to bet money on which original series character from those choices is the bad guy in part two, my money is on Gary Mitchell.
New Bat Flick Has Name, No Riddler
So the next Batman movie has a title: The Dark Knight Rises. While I am excited as hell for the movie, the title seems a bit…lazy. A bit too much the studio wanting the words Dark Knight in the title, since that movie made a billion dollars. The only other thing that Chris Nolan revealed this week was the the villain is for sure NOT the Riddler. Let the guessing games commence….Black Mask anyone??
Our First Real Look At Cap
Over on the Marvel Side of things, our first pics of Chris Evans as Captain America have surfaced over at Entertainment Weekly. I think these pics have calmed any fears anyone had over Evans as Steve Rogers. From the 40’s style hair to the Super Soldier ripped body, everything looks just right. They are even using the original triangle shield in addition the more well known round one…what comic geek can complain? Here is hoping the actual movie is just as good.
