Superman Returns
Your feelings about this movie will depend entirely on your feelings for the original Donner film. Case in point, on the bus yesterday, I was sitting across the aisle from a teenage girl yapping on her cell phone. She was talking about Superman, and told her unseen friend on the other side of the call that she found it cheesy and thought X-Men 3 was better.

That's when I realized that Superman really is skewing to an audience my age, the ones who experienced the magic of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies firsthand. This new movie truly is a love letter to those first two movies, and it captures that magic perfectly.

Brandon Routh is great. The thing about Supes is that he's a lot like Spidey to me, in that the character is really about the non-superhuman identity, and the superhuman identity is more of a cipher. As such, Routh's performance really comes alive when he's Clark Kent, and when he's the man of steel, the costume takes over. His Kent is pitch-perfect, and seeing him capture Reeve's awkwardness really made all those years melt away, and it felt like I was nine years old, watching what Superman 3 should have been.

Special tip of the hat to my old compatriots north of the border, Frantic Films. They were my old bosses prior to my current Lucasgig, and they're quickly becoming one of the hottest effects houses. They're credited with "special crystal management software" or somesuch, so you can just imagine the kind of workload they had to deal with given just how much crystal was in that movie.

Another fun thing about Superman was recognizing just how many Sydney locations I could spot. I lived there for four months during the production of Episode III and got to know the city well. The fountain where Superman stops Kitty's car from crashing is the same fountain where Morpheus warns Neo about the dangers of Agents and not to be distracted by the woman in the red dress in the first Matrix.

Oh, and my deep-seated love for Parker Posey continues to grow unabated.

Transformers: Scooped by Youtube
As a web content guy, I can imagine just how steamed I would be in their shoes. Imagine I was in charge of a movie website (okay, not a stretch) whose sole purpose was to countdown to the July 4th release of a movie trailer. And then imagine that that trailer ended up on youtube on June 29th. I would be rather steamed.

That's what happened with Transformers. Someone at Dreamworks or Paramount got the trailer yanked in time, but with their hands forced, they put the trailer up last night, jumping their countdown by five days.

The verdict? Well, it's just a teaser. And given that my little birds tell me not a single post-production shot has started, we can count on none of that footage actually ending up in the film. (I swear, the Mars footage is from a recent IMAX film about the Mars Rover, and given that Digital Domain - a company now owned by Michael Bay - did those effects, that seems plausible). But it works as a tease, and I got a real rush seeing the logo transform into the release date and then into the autobot symbol.

I'll admit to being a hardcore Transformer fan, but I am mellow enough to get my underpants in a bunch about story changes necessary to deliver a film. I just want my big honking robots, damn it.

The Prescience of Brian Daley
For reasons bewildering, I am diving back into the old glory days of the EU, when there was only one Star Wars movie to base things off of. I found a rather amusing passage in my absolute favorite SW novel of all time, 1979's Han Solo at Stars' End. At the start of chapter six, as Han confronts Torm.

Rekkon interposed himself between Han and Chewbacca and the door. "Kindly put your weapons up, Captain. That is Torm, one of my group. Even if it weren't, would it not have been wiser to find out what was happening before preparing to shoot?"

Han made a sour face. "I happen to like to shoot first, Rekkon. As opposed to shooting second." ...

For a Good Cause
On July 16, I will be walking to raise money to benefit the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Please click the link below, and make a donation if are able to. Any amount is greatly appreciated.

http://aidswalksanfrancisco2006.kintera.org/infinata

starwars.com Inside Jokes Revealed
This story announced our new partnership with Yahoo! to have them power the search engine built into the site. It's pretty cool, and offers some functionality that the site has been lacking for quite a while. At Ghent's suggestion, I offered up some possible searches, including outing a number of our more common inside jokes that we litter the site with, like pet phrases such as "'Splosions!" and "Lovely Beverage"... and that's only the tip of the iceberg, folks. Maybe someday, we'll reveal them all.

Rookies Starts Again
I'm back at the drawing table these days, putting Raal, Kestrel, Sammie and Smiley through adventure and hijinks. This first week of strips doesn't include them, but picks up the action from the end of Rendezvous.

As a quick set of annotations...

Monday, Strip 1 - That is the same tower we saw Barezz land on in the first Rookies, so this is Ord Mantell. That's the Old Timer that was going to help Kestrel get off-planet. If you recall, Skorr found him at the end of the series.

Tuesday, Strip 2 - Barezz's fervor is consistent with the ISB creed of loyalty to the state above all.

Wednesday, Strip 3 - Barezz is holding the datapad that Tiree gave to Kestrel, which she unwittingly left aboard the Old Timer's freighter when she was forced to take cover inside Raal's ship in the last story.

Thursday, Strip 4 - Imperial prison blocks are modular enough to crib the design from A New Hope.

Friday, Strip 5 - It's great to include Darth Vader when you can, and makes for a memorable first week.

Happy Long Weekend
Starwars.com will not be updating until next Wednesday, as Lucasfilm and Lucas Online is enjoying the holiday weekend. This Saturday is the Lucasfilm company picnic, so wish us luck on the egg-toss and the tug o' war. We'll see you back on Wednesday.

ph