In 1989, comic book writers Randy Stradley and Chris Warner pondered the “What If?” question that ultimately led to the Alien Vs. Predator comics, video games, and movies. Now writer Scott Sigler is posing a somewhat similar question in Aliens: Phalanx (paperback, Kindle), a new novel in which our favorite visitors tangle with some people with pointy sticks.
When No Time To Die is released on April 10th, it will not only mark the fifth and final time Daniel Craig plays the British gentleman spy, but also the twenty-fifth time James Bond saves the world. Twenty-seventh if you count the Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again and the 1967 screwball comedy version of Casino Royale. For those looking for insight into how this movie franchise came together, and keeps going, there’s the new book Nobody Does It Better: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History Of James Bond (hardcover, Kindle), an exhaustive tome by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross. In the following email interview, Altman (who was my boss when I wrote for Geek magazine) discusses how this book came together, and why he and Gross prefer oral histories and a lack of authorization.
Long before the Avengers movies got heroes from multiple movies to join forces, Kevin Smith pulled it off, and almost as well, with 2001’s Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, in which the titular two-some were joined by characters from such previous Smith films as Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Mallrats. And now he’s doing it again with the indirect sequel Jay And Silent Bob Reboot. But while it’s good to see the guys again, it’s hard not to wish both the film and the Blu-ray and DVD collections for it were a little better.
While I may not believe that time travel is scientifically possible, part of me hopes that it is…if only so I can one day go back in time to make sure the Blu-ray/DVD/Digital combo pack, 4K Ultra HD/ Blu-ray/Digital combo pack, and DVD versions of the action-packed sci-movie Terminator: Dark Fate are as good as the movie itself. Because as it stands now, all three come up short, especially the last one.
Forty-two years after the image of a Star Destroyer flying overhead blew my nine-year-old mind, the Star Wars saga is finally coming to an end. Again. But not really. But while Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker may not feel like the end of a space fantasy saga four decades in the making, and it’s surely not the last time we’ll visit that galaxy far, far away, it is an epic and exceptionally exciting sci-fi space opera.
Like with Star Trek, Star Wars, and Halo, the Alien / Aliens universe has expanded a lot lately thanks to all the new novels, comics, and video games. All of which is coming together in the new Alien novel, Alien: Prototype (paperback, Kindle). In the following email interview, writer Tim Waggoner talks about how this story came to be, and how it connects to other Aliens running around the universe.
Like its predecessor, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame feature an almost overwhelming number of characters familiar to fans of both the Marvel movies and the comics that inspired them. And while it’s a bit of a bummer the same can’t be said for the extras on Avengers: Endgame 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray/Digital combo pack, the Blu-ray/Digital combo pack, and, especially, the DVD, they are still a good way to watch this rather spectacular end to this epic saga.
While the most important part of any movie collection is the movie itself, that doesn’t mean movie fans don’t care a lot about the extras. Which is why it’s always a bummer when they’re incomplete, or one version doesn’t have all of the available extras. Such is the sad state of affairs with the 3D 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD versions of cyberpunk sci-fi movie Alita: Battle Angel. Not only is the latter edition missing most of the available extras, but the former two also come up short when compared to the digital version.
When Captain Marvel came out earlier this year, people applauded Marvel for finally giving a female superhero her own movie, while pointing out that it shouldn’t have taken nearly two-dozen films. So it’s a little odd that the home versions of Captain Marvel — a Blu-ray/Digital combo pack, and 4K/Blu-ray/Digital combo pack, and DVD — would themselves be unfair towards people who don’t have HD TVs, and even then for people who’d rather buy this movie digitally.