Ahoy, squirts! Quint here on the morning of my birth, now a quarter century in the past. I have a couple news items to run before the festivities begin. First up is the news that hit Hollywood Reporter that Christian Gossett's comic book series, THE RED STAR, is being prepped by Universal Pictures with noneother than current geek it director Timur Bekmambetov (director of the NIGHT WATCH film series) attached to helm the production.
I'm one of the few AICNers that holds a less than shining opinion of NIGHT WATCH. Harry's up to his eyeballs in love with the film, which is undeniably well made and extremely pretty... I felt it lacked in execution took many lazy and obvious turns. I wanted the film to grab me and I just could never go with it.
As far as Bekmambetov helming this project, I have no immediate feelings one way or the other. I'm curious about his two follow-ups to NIGHT WATCH. Maybe the series will take another film to really grab me.
I remember seeing Gossett's RED STAR books on the comic shelves a few years ago, but I never heard much about them. A cursory look at the reviews on Amazon has me intrigued about the story, which seems to have a bit of the political charge of something like V FOR VENDETTA.
The story (and the film, one would imagine) seems to integrate modern warfare with sorcery. I'm a sucker for genre-busters, and mixing a war story with a fantasy tale always has my interest.
I've recently been getting into THE WALKING DEAD trade paper backs (love 'em so far) and am currently deep into TORSO. If I get some recommendations below I'll add these RED STAR books into the queue.
Harry here... posted the below story as a separate story... somehow I missed Quint's story. D'oh! Here, I've pasted it and erased the other story!
Hey folks, Harry here... NIGHT WATCH, which is about to finally come out in the U.S. has been a long time coming to theaters here stateside. The sequel, DAY WATCH has hit in Russia, and the director... Timur Bekmambetov, who got his start with Roger Corman (like all the best directors) - is set to make his first big U.S. STUDIO film... It's set around Christian Gossett's comic book... THE RED STAR
What is THE RED STAR?
Here... let me quote Christian Gossett's own foreword to the trade paperback you see above:
What you are about to read is the beginning of an allegory, the prologue to a fairy-tale inspired by the history of Russia. It was inspired by the writings and works of the most vital group of artists of the twentieth century, those of the Soviet Avant-Garde. These courageous souls worked in an all too brief period that emerged in the early 1900's, proudly declaring that their goal was nothing less than to transform the world into a Utopia of their own design. By 1932, their dreams were shattered under the terrible will of Joseph Stalin's regime.
It would be impossible to describe the incredible depth of their influence upon our world today, even though reality proved unable to support a more complete form of their vision.
It would be unjust to list only a few names of their most famous members, for as any of them would surely say, there can be no fame other than that which is constructed by the effort of countless anonymous participants. Since it is impossible to mention each individual, I will honor them here as they might have wished; in nameless unity.
It would be a very different world today, and a very different Russia, if the future they had envisioned, a future of equality and peace and world brotherhood; had not been crushed by the power hunger of Lenin, the brutality of Stalin, or the greed of industrialists the world over.
This fantasy is a tribute to a world that might have been.
That's what THE RED STAR is about... in theme and in ambition, but story wise, from the back of the Trade Paperback is this concise description:
THE RED STAR is an epic mythology of the Soviet Union that combines science fiction and sorcery with brotherhood and valor. This unapologetic romantic saga utilizes the same computer 3-D modeling technology as today's best selling video games and animated features while heralding the dawn of a new era in comic books and visual storytelling.
