Nerd Rant: To See or Not To See The Phantom Menace in 3D

I sense a three dimensional disturbance in The Force.

I love 3D movies, I love Star Wars, and I love the special effects work done by George Lucas-backed companies such as Industrial Light and Magic. However, I have no desire to see the re-release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in 3D. The reason is simple: Based on several reviews I've read, the converted Phantom Menace movie doesn't take full advantage of the new dimension it is supposed to have. It ranked fourth during its first weekend at the box office but I doubt that's enough to justify the cost of converting just one film to 3D, let alone six. Furthermore, if Phantom Menace falls off the top ten list this upcoming weekend, then the future of a complete Star Wars saga in 3D is more doomed than Alderaan.

What gives? This is George Lucas we're talking about here. If there's anyone in Hollywood who has easy and ready access to the latest special effects technology, it's him--and yet Phantom Menace didn't get a decent conversion to 3D? Really?

Naturally, I'm severely disappointed that the Star Wars 3D movie experience that was supposed to be probably won't happen at all. Yet the real reason why I am posting this rant is that deep, deep down inside of my little geeky heart, I'm hoping that someone will give the high-definition 3D treatment to one or more of the older anaglyph 3D classics, classics such as House of Wax and Dial M for Murder. Thus, I'm sure that the box office performance of re-released, 3D-converted titles such as Phantom Menace will have an impact on whether or not that happens. After carefully considering what has happened so far, I think that this could very well be the first time that Lucas' technological savvy has been trumped ... by Disney. Click below to learn about how the House of Mouse has beaten The Flanneled One to the 3D punch.

The Many Faces of Mego at Toy Fair 2012 (UPDATED)

The Mego Corporation may be dead but its influence on the world of toy hobbyists and collectors lives on, courtesy of companies such as Bif Bang Pow!, Diamond Select, and EMCE Toys.

As I've noted before (see here and here), Mego's design of its 8-inch action figure was a work of pure genius in the amount of flexibility it could bring to any toy license. All the figure needed was a customized head sculpt and cloth suit, and it could be used as a soldier, or a superhero, or a monster, and so on. The design also allowed for hobbyists to make their own customized figures using affordable materials that can be purchased at a variety of stores. If the toys that are currently on display at Toy Fair 2012 in New York are any indication, Mego's spirit of adaptability is alive and well. Read on....

The Thing 2011 Prequel: Body Horror from Another World

When I first heard about Universal's production of a prequel to John Carpenter's classic The Thing (1982), I wasn't sure what to think. I loved Carpenter's movie, and I kept up with many of its unofficial sequels, such as the three Dark Horse Comics miniseries and the 2002 video game by VU Games. In fact, if you love horror/sci-fi stuff like I do, it's impossible not to notice the lasting influence of The Thing--both in terms of Carpenter's direction and Rob Bottin's innovative creature effects work--in other movies (Isolation, Splinter), TV shows (Something is Out There, Threshold) and video games (Resident Evil, Dead Space). With so many pseudo-Things scurrying around out there, I was disappointed that we Thing fans never got a big-screen return trip to the freezing Antarctic to see more of what cinema's most terrifying shape-shifter could do. Yet with Hollywood's recent tendency to remake and reboot all sorts of horror and sci-fi titles and franchises, I couldn't help but approach news of the prequel with some trepidation, that a new version of the inherently messy and bleak Thing would be dumbed-down and sanitized for a new audience.

Fortunately, the 2011 prequel to The Thing proved to be much better than what I had imagined it could be. Sure, it doesn't reach the same level of intense fatalism as Carpenter's movie (very few movies do), but it still works as a fitting prologue to the grim fate that later befalls the crew of Outpost 31. Considering the amount of studio interference that plagued this film, which features explicit displays of gloriously grotesque body horror, such an accomplishment is worthy of appreciation. Read on for my complete review and a few thoughts as to why both Thing movies are among the most feral and ferocious body horror films ever to hit the silver screen--which may be why they both flopped in the first place.

The Brief History of 50s Horror Comics Exposed in The Horror! The Horror!: Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You to Read!

When I think of horror and sci-fi stuff from the 1950s, three things immediately come to mind: the rise of the "atomic mutant" subgenre of horror/sci-fi movies, the popularity of alien invasion stories, and Hammer Studio's early ventures into horror cinema. On the other hand, I never thought much about horror comics from that era. I knew that there were Senate hearings about the content of comic books in 1954, and that these hearings were prompted by the publication of Seduction of the Innocent, a book by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham. In his book, Wertham accused comic books of inciting juvenile delinquency on an epidemic level. By the end of the hearings, the comic book industry implemented a self-regulating Comics Code Authority (CCA) just so it could stay in business.

Fans of superhero comics (myself included) are well-versed in how the CCA Code sanitized the content of DC's superhero universe, and how also it set the stage for Marvel to introduce a new generation of innovative-yet-CCA-compliant superheroes. Yet in comparison to other genres, horror comics vanished from newsstands overnight because of the CCA. In his book The Horror! The Horror!: Comic Books the Government Didn't Want You to Read!, author Jim Trombetta recounts the hysteria surrounding horror comics during the mid-50s and the people who were involved--the critics, the publishers, and the artists. He also reprints many examples of artwork from these controversial comics, which he uses to critically analyze the comics' recurring imagery and themes. Click below to read my complete book review, and why Trombetta's work is a great addition to the short lists of books that chronicle the most successful act of government-sponsored censorship in the US.

Nine Horror Titles that Have Many Film Adaptations but Remain Sequel-Less

The Woman in Black, a ghost story that takes place during the Victorian era in England, made its debut in theaters across the US this weekend. While it's the first horror film from Hammer Films in decades, it's hardly a new tale. The Woman in Black started as a 1983 novel by Susan Hill, and it was later adapted for the theater, radio, and television.

With that in mind, I've assembled a list of nine horror stories that have three or more film adaptations under their belts. What these stories all have in common is that they started out on the printed page, either as books, novellas or play scripts. Yet unlike Dracula or Frankenstein--two of the most adapted horror novels in film history--none of the stories on this list ever got around to spawning a single film sequel or spinoff.

Click below to see these nine terror tales, which I've arranged according to the number of film adaptations that have been made for each title. Please note that some totals are estimated, because the more popular titles have been adapted so many times with varying degrees of faithfulness to the source material that it's difficult to determine which adaptations qualify as such. For example, the unpublished short story entitled "The Wax Works" by Charles Spencer Belden was adapted twice, once in 1933 and then in 3D in 1953. A third film in 2005 bears the same title as the 1953 version, House of Wax, but it is not based on the same source. Read on....

Star Wars’ IG-88 Arrives at Sideshow Collectibles

For a long time, one of the great mysteries for me about the Star Wars universe was the bounty hunter droid IG-88. Sure, he looks cool, he stood among Darth Vader’s lineup of ruthless bounty hunters in Empire Strikes Back, and the subsequent novels and comic books portrayed IG-88 and other IG series droids as the Terminators of the Star Wars franchise. Yet when I got the IG-88 action figure shortly after Empire hit the theaters in 1980, I couldn’t imagine this droid being very tough. He only had dainty little claws to hold his weapons, claws that were smaller than Ewok hands--hardly intimidating. He also lacked any visible knee joints; how could he walk, run or even climb stairs, let alone hunt anything for bounty?

Thankfully, Sideshow Collectibles has brought IG-88 into the world of multi-jointed scale replicas to clarify any misconceptions about what this droid is capable of doing. This new one-sixth scale IG-88 figure features over 20 points of articulation, battery-powered lights in the head, an assortment of weapons, and a deluxe illuminated display base. Judging from the pictures below, Sideshow Collectibles has really gone out of its way to add a new level of detail (as well as knees) to one of the lesser-known characters of the Star Wars universe. Click here to learn more about this fantastic figure and how you can add it to your Star Wars collection.

Build Your Favorite Classic Monsters with Lego

Even though the annual Toy Fair will arrive in New York in a few days, the recently held London Toy Fair generated quite a lot of buzz about what we'll be seeing when the so-to-be-release toys come across the Atlantic. Among the most exciting news comes from Lego. Not only will they release new toys under the licenses for DC, Marvel and the Lord of the Rings franchise, but they are also releasing a new line of toys called "Monster Fighters". This line of play sets, vehicles and minifigs will revolve around classic movie monster types such as vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, mummies and fish men, and it will feature the classic horror characters of Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster.

The relationship between classic monsters and toys goes way back. I remember when Remco, a subsidiary of Azrak Hamway International (AHI), released its own six figure set of Universal Monster figures during the early 80s. It had figures of Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the Creature from The Black Lagoon, and the Phantom of the Opera. Sadly, Remco's line was very limited. It had the same six characters in two different sizes (9 inches and 3 3/4 inch "Mini-Monsters") and in two different versions for the Mini-Monsters (non-glow and glow-in-the-dark versions). There also were only two accessories: a lab table-like "Monsterizer" for both figure sizes, and a cardboard and plastic castle play set/carrying case for the Mini-Monsters.

Remco's Mini-Monster Action Figures.

Even though the Remco toy line was skimpy in its selection, AHI's original line of monster figures that was released a few years prior to Remco's was even skimpier--that line only had five action figures in one size and no accessories at all. Diamond Select has recently released its own small line of classic Universal Monster figures but between their pricing and intricate features, they are much better suited for display than play.

I'm thrilled to see Lego introducing classic movie monsters to kids through toys with which they can play, and Lego's approach is much more fun and creative than most of their monster toy predecessors. Not only will the monsters have vehicles and play sets, but there will also be steampunk-looking monster hunter minifigs with whom they can fight. Earlier monster toys rarely had monster hunters or victims to go with the monsters, which sort of defeated the purpose of having monster toys in the first place. (Aurora tried to add a victim kit to their popular line of classic monster model kits back in 1971, but that didn't go over too well.) All I can hope for now is that kids will love the Monster Hunter line so much that we can finally get a classic monster-themed Lego video game.

A Lego-based zombie survival video game would be AWESOME!