You know like the kid from Troll 2? Yeah, it's a stretch.
Anywhichways, HUGE fucking news involving my two favorite things, also Dinosaurs and Art, which is also nice.
1: That Rumor About Godzilla Was Actually True
So, um, in case you somehow missed this (which shouldn't be possible if you found this page), Godzilla #29 is coming in 2012.
I remember when I heard Tomiyama was shelving him until 2013 the first time, my first thought was "Pfft, bullshit, give it 'till 2009." While I was 3 years off, Tomiyama was only off by one. Well played, Clerks...
Well, the gist of it is Legendary Pictures (who made the Batman movie that Batman people like... and that's supposed to mean something to me) optioned doing the next Godzilla as a Japanese-American co-production sort of thing with Yoshimitsu Banno (from Godzilla vs. Hedorah, one of the best) as executive producer. Toho, we are now hearing, thinks this is a good idea.
Two things should be immediately cleared up. This is NOT another Zilla movie. Zilla is not touching this with a 10 foot pole. And while there is of course an underlying worry that, even then, somebody is going to screw up and make yet another, seperate G.I.N.O., I don't think it's something anyone should worry about.
Legendary has a good track record (apparently, I haven't seen these but I do know I like the Werewolves and junk) of getting fandoms right, and not pissing anyone off. This payed off for them in a big way with Batman, and now they got up the balls to try and do it with Big G.
That is BALLS, sir, Dean and Roland never did or will have balls. Or integrity. Plus, I'm pretty sure Legendary is run by a bunch of insufferable geeks anywhichways, so not getting the property right shouldn't be a problem.
Yes, even after Zilla, I'm willing to forgive, and I hope you are too.
Also, this is Yoshimitsu Banno we're talking about. Banno did Hedorah, remember that? That one got Tanaka all pissed off at him, despite the fact that it's easily one of the best movies... ever. He's most likely in this situation because some funding fell through on his "Godzilla 3D to the Max" fiasco and his next stop was Legendary. So, heck it might be 3D.
So bottom line is, you're probably going to see some crazy shit you never imagined you'd ever see in a Godzilla movie, but it's going to make Godzilla vs. Biollante look like yesterday's milk.
I have some really high hopes for this crazy-assed team, I really do. My one request is I want Eichi Asada back for the effects. I have never seen Mothra look better than in Tokyo S.O.S., straight up.
And I am keeping my fingers crossed for Bagan.
2: Ariel Pink is BACK BAY-BEE!!!
Whew, it's about time. I mean, I love Neon Indian and Washed Out and all that... whatever you would call that specific subgenre of hauntology, but I can only go so many years without new Ariel Pink. It was beginning to get ridiculous.
This is sort of making me look back at how hauntology, all of it, not just the music side, has made out over the last 15 years (yes, it is now goth-rock in the 90's). My conclusion? Not as well as I would have liked.
And I have no fucking idea why it hasn't taken over the world in a more overt way yet. I mean, yes, the problem is that the word itself is never used enough (and less used is the designation "haunter" or "ghost kid" that I came up with), but WHY isn't it used? Sometimes Ariel Pink is even left out, leaving article writers struggling for a way to describe him without the basic decency to call the fucking music what it is.
THERE IS A FUCKING PINK GHOST IN THE ALBUM COVER!!!
What the fuck!?
But I'm going off on a tangent (off on a comet... heheh), the news is all about Ariel Pink coming back to us.
So, it's on 4AD (you know, bauhaus's first album, Dead Can Dance, Xmal Deutschland, Clan of Xymox, Cocteau Twins, and Swans, right? Lots more, is my point), and it is... mildly well produced.
Well, I've always stressed that you do not need to be lo-fi in order be hauntology. I mean, would you argue that Broadcast or Telepathe aren't hauntology? And if so, are you stupid or something? So this is the ultimate test in my faith of that idea. And I gotta tell ya', from what I've heard, it does NOT matter at all. He's still got it, for sure.
So the 12 track album that drops on June 8th features a bulk of remakes. This doesn't bother me that much, but I am quite starved for something actually new, so it does sting a little. So far, I know he has re-recorded Hold On/Frontman (Round and Round, but you already knew that), Beverly Kills (YES!!!), and L'Estat (or the Widow's Estate, from Odds & Sods + either Holy Shit! or Worn Copy)... but NOT Before Today - Dazed in Dreams, which is odd considering that the album is named after that song.
Whatever.
This is what I KNOW he's doing over, not a comprehensive list. Some of the tracks from his last EP are on here, and if you've ever seen a video floating around youtube called "Ariel Pink - NEW SONG" of a live preformance playing a new song the name of which nobody seemed to know... it's on there too. It's called Fright Night (Nevermore) and it is one the best songs I've ever heard in my life.
Wait, one of? Shit, it's better than 0:00 by John Cage. Oh wait, it's the same thing. Nevermind.
3: The End?
So... all this has just got me thinking about how dissproportionate the amount of influence the hauntology style has in this (so far) and the last decade is to it's popular knowledge of being a style and not just "retro" or whatever. Maybe I'll do a rant about that.
Oh, and there was a problem with my blog not showing up on google, but that has been fixed.
And um... that really all there is to know about these things so far.
Oh, hold on (i'm calling, calling back to the ball, and we'll dazzle them all, hold on), I forgot something:
4... DOOM 4!!!
So, as a disclaimer, I can't really vouch for the authenticity of this image being actually DOOM 4 material or not, but I CAN say that it looks decidedly non-DOOM like.
So id tech 5 just got interesting. DOOM 4 in itself is old hat, as is the new engine, and the news of RAGE, an new "series" id is doing about a post-apocalyptic world where the planet (man, way to fuck up everything you stupid assed scientists) Apophis actually does collide with Earth in the late 2030's. It's got mutants, one giant mutant, and battle car racing. Whatever.
But there is a new DOOM on the way, and it will get it's official unvieling in august of this year at QuakeCon. I wanted to go (and why not, they're in Dallas, that's like 4 hours away), but unfortunately missed the "signup" period, which was earlier this month. Quite a line I suppose.
But that's not all folks. Carmack has also assured us that there will in fact be a Quake for id tech 5, which I guess is okay to call Quake 5. He also said that he wanted to do a sequel to Quake III, the plot of which was merely a Smash Bros.-esque framing story excuse to get player models for a multiplayer-only game, so that idea actually sounds really fucking cool to me.
Remember what they did with the story in Smash Bros. Brawl? Whose to say id can't do that with Quake III? I'd like to beat the shit out of a Vadrigar, myself.
More big news that may or may not have anything to do with id tech 5: a sequel to the best 3rd party id-based franchises since Heretic/HeXen, both Prey 2 AND Alice 2!
It's true, American is really set on getting Alice 2 out the door by 2011! Hooray!
Thing is though, he's working with these asians now, and the last game he did was developed with those programmers from scratch. So... I don't see why in the hell he wouldn't use id 5 for the new Alice, but it IS possible that he doesn't. That would irritate me, but at the same time I'm happy to hear it's still actually going to happen.
I'm a little less happy about having Alice Liddel shoved down my throat again. Say what you will about Tim Burton (and do it often, because the guy is a real asshole), but Alice Kingsly rocked my world in a way I didn't think an Alice could. Certainly showed up Johnny D... I mean the character he said he was playing.
Prey 2 is also a go, and I'm a little more certain that this is going to be on an id tech 5 engine. Then again, there has been no word, so it could go either way. The plot, as far as is known, involves something about Tommy coming back to Earth and being shunned by... someone, and then more aliens show up.
Or something. As long as I get to walk on walls, jump through portals and listen to Art Bell as I'm doing it, I don't ask too many questions.
Ok so that really IS all I was going to say.
Pick up the phone, 'cause I want to go home NOW!
