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San Diego Comic Con: QUINT reports on Stan Winston, JP3, Time Machine, Big Trouble Little China toys and THE DUEL!!!
Hey folks, Harry here... I really hate Quint right now. This sucks... This back injury sucks, I want to go talk to Stan Winston. That would rule. I want to see that TIME MACHINE, it looks so much better than that bean bag chair Time Machine of Moriarty's. And it looks like there is no need for Jelly Beans. THANK GOD! And I want to see these damn Big Trouble figures... no... scratch that, I want them on my shelf right friggin now! ARGH!!!!!!! Also, how much do you wish that you could do what Winston did after shooting finalized on JP3? Oh you don't know? It's the coolest fucking thing in the world... Read and weep that you, me, us... that we don't get to do that. THAT WOULD RULE EVERYDAY OF THE YEAR FOR THE REST OF MY FRICKIN LIFE!!!!! AAAACK!!!!
Ahoy there Harry, squirts... ladies and gentlemen. 'Tis I, the exhausted yet still crusty seaman, Quint, here reporting in after a long and busy day at San Diego Comic Con. You've seen the pics of the Time Machine up at CHUD and also on this site. I've seen it in person... sucka!
I also saw one of the CHUD guys buy a one-sheet movie poster of... C.H.U.D., how cool is that? Not as cool as the Time Machine, granted, but you know... Anyway, upon entering the dealers room this morning, I almost immediately found myself peering into a glass case containing prototypes of a new toy line... A series of Big Trouble In Little China toys... Yes... that was my reaction, too. After cleaning myself, I took a closer look at the toys. They weren't McFarlane, but the detail was really good. They stood about 9 or 10 inches and included Jack Burton (in the classic poster image pose), Egg Shen, Wang, The Wild Man, that floating eyeball thingy, Lightning and Mr. David Lopan himself (the 12 foot tall "first you see him, then you don't" version). I'll try to nab you folks a couple of pics of those guys tomorrow. Also of note from that collection was a Steve McQueen figure from (I think) Bullit.
I then wandered over to a movie poster dealer who had... lots of stuff. I ended up walking away with a handful of movie posters. I then wandered into Dreamworks's Time Machine Booth and saw the extremely impressive full-sized Time Machine. After I picked up my jaw from the dealer room floor, I looked around at the smaller things. There were some pics from the film of the Morlocks. There are 3 different kinds: Warriors, Spies and the Uber Morlock. The pic that appeared in the Time Machine story a few hours ago of the morlocks was a warrior. The spies are much thinner and have softer features. The Uber Morlock is the ringleader, played by Jeremy Irons. He looks fantastic. White as a sheet like the rest, but much more human.
The booth also had a behind the scenes tape playing and it had a clip of Jeremy Irons interacting with Guy Pearce and it was damn cool with Irons being as creepy as ever... moreso with all that Stan Winston makeup on. Which brings me to Stan Winston. I had gotten a heads up that Winston was going to be at the booth to do a Q&A session. I, of course, wouldn't miss that for the world. I got there 10 minutes early, after grabbing a soda and checking out a few animation cells.
Winston showed up and no one seemed to notice. I jumped by his side, shook his hand and introduced myself. Then people started gathering. He asked for questions. I recorded most of the Q&A. Here are the highlights:
FAN BOY: HOW MUCH DID YOU DRAW UPON THE ORIGINAL FILM FOR INSPIRATION IN THE DESIGN OF THE MORLOCKS? OR DID YOU JUST SCRAP THAT AND DRAW INSPIRATION FROM THE BOOK?
STAN WINSTON: As far as the design of the Morlocks? It's fresh. It's very fresh. There are certain things that are based on the book and the original designs from the original film, which are also based on the book. There's the feeling of what, you know, the aspect of the fact that these creatures live underground. We just didn't quite as... I don't want to use the word cartoony because I'm a fan of the original.
But they're very pale because they don't spend a lot of time in the sun. We went in that direction, but we also tried to make them a little bit more organic and different. Something you hadn't seen before. We didn't want to come to you with a replication of what we've seen before.
FAN BOY: T3... ARE YOU ON BOARD WITH THAT?
STAN WINSTON: Well, there's not a completed script right now, but I have been approached by the producers and of course Arnold and I are close friends, so we talk about it occasionally, but it's not there. We'll keep our fingers crossed and if it happens I would plan on being on board.
[TALKING ABOUT JURASSIC PARK 3]
STAN WINSTON: We wanted to go on a real good dinosaur ride with Jurassic Park 3. People had thought they had seen everything they could with dinosaurs. What you see with dinosaurs in Jurassic Park 3 is so far beyond anything we did in either of the two movies. The combination of technologies... there are animatronic dinosaurs and CG dinosaurs in the same shot and you cannot tell them apart. I think it's amazing footage. I'm very happy with the film.
UBER FAN BOY (ME, IN THIS CASE...): WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW? WHAT'S COMING UP?
STAN WINSTON: The main thing I'm working on right now is a toy line that's coming out at the end of September. It's an action figure toyline called Stan Winston's Creatures coming out at the end of September, first part of October. What we've been doing for the film for the last 30 years, which is creating characters and creatures people hadn't seen before we're now doing for the action figure world with stuff nobody's ever seen before. Not necessarily attached to movies, but brand new characters.
FAN BOY (NOT ME): WILL ANY OF THE TOYS BE BASED ON YOUR FILMS... PUMPKINHEAD, MAYBE?
STAN WINSTON: No, actually Todd McFarlane's done a really good job with Pumpkinhead and Todd's done a great job of licensing characters we've created in the studio. What we want to do with our action figure line is create brand new stuff. They'll be slightly larger than McFarlane figures and along with the action figures, in the first line, there's a CD-ROM that will go with each toy. Then, in every line after that, there'll be a password because these toys, these action figures, are designed and sculpted and created by the same artists who are the original artists who did The Terminator, who did the Jurassic Park dinosaurs, who did The Predator, so the toy is actually sculpted by the original artists. So, you're getting the real Picasso rather than the copy, which I think will make them immediately collector's items because they are actually sculpted and designed by the original artists for the most iconic characters in film history.
FAN BOY (ME AGAIN): THEN WE'LL SEE MOVIES BASED ON THOSE.
STAN WINSTON: Then you'll see movies based on those, yeah. The idea is to introduce these characters into the toy world, then create films from them. Now, the first five characters are actually coming out based on a series of movies I produced for HBO called Creature Features. So, the first five characters are Creature Feature characters and every one after that is brand new. Our second or third line is a line of Cat Gods and it's called The Realm of the Claw and they're really wonderful Cat God creatures.
FAN BOY (NOT ME): HOW HAS THE SPECIAL EFFECTS PROCESS CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?
STAN WINSTON: It hasn't changed at all, actually. If you stop to think about it... 1930s with King Kong, which was very inspirational to me, from the first time we started doing fantastic characters for film, you would do what you could live and what you couldn't you'd do animated. With King Kong, the only thing you could do live with a character like that was a big hand that Fay Wray was in and a huge head outside of a window and everything else was animated. It was stop motion animation then.
Today, we do everything we can live and what you can't do live, we do animated. But today in the animatronic and robot world, in the puppet world, we have much more ability to do more organic things full size and live action because we also design on computers, we control through computers, so our robots are much more organic and alive and what we can't do live we do with animation. Today the animation is computer generated animation. It's still the same concept. What you can do live, you do live, what you can't do live, you do in animation.
FAN BOY (NOT ME): IN JP3, HOW MUCH OF YOUR WORK WAS IN THE FIGHT SCENE BETWEEN THE T-REX AND THE SPINOSAUR?
STAN WINSTON: Uh, the battle that you see in the movie is virtually all CG with the exception of one shot where the Spino takes the T-Rex down and snaps its neck. The T-Rex is a real T-Rex, full size, and the Spino's CG. That's the kind of stuff we did in that movie that nobody's ever scene.
BUT we did say to Joe Johnston, "You know... what the hell? Once we got everything in the can, when you got everything you need of the Spinosaur, when you got everything you need of the T-Rex, at the end of the shoot we'll put these two guys together and let these two machines go at it." And we did. We put it on film. And literally this dinosaur ripped the T-Rex's head off. It was that powerful. Literally, it took one swat at him and the T-Rex's head was layin' there, with oil spurtin' outta his neck. So, in fact, the truth is: The Spinosaur killed the T-Rex.
Winston went on to talk about his interest in doing a Dark Crystal-esque movie using all animatronic and puppet creatures that were enabled with the same technology he invented for Teddy in A.I., which he said was the most sophisticated robot built... with something like 48 points of motion. Not bad, eh? Internet movie website sidenote: I saw noneother than Mr. Garth Franklin in the crowd listening to Mr. Winston and wanted to go up and say hi, but, alas, he disappeared before I got the chance. I'll run into him somewhere sometime in the next few days, I'm sure.
It was around this time that I got pulled into Mattel's booth. I was walking away from the Time Machine booth and saw He-Man was playing on a screen at the Mattel booth. I paused a second, wondering why there was a huge line and crowd of people surrounding this particular booth when I was grabbed by a guy in a He-Man shirt. He informed me there were unveiling the new He-Man design for the new toy and ushered me into a little press area. The wonders of having a little green ribbon that says "PRESS" on your badge.
What can I say? I grew up on He-Man. It was great to watch a couple episodes while they were counting down to the first public unveiling of the new design for He-Man. I was told that next year He-Man celebrates his 20th anniversary and they're re-releasing a He-Man toy line, with classic figures and this brand new He-Man on top of it all. When they finally showed us the new He-Man... well, I dug it, but it's not all that different. He just had a bigger sword and a bigger shield. I took some pics, but that was with a still camera, so you folks'll have to wait for the Quint San Diego Comic Con Photo Essay, coming shortly.
I then wandered into the autograph area and met Ken "Do you know how fucking cool I am" Foree (black dude from Dawn of the Dead) and David "Beware the Moon" Naughton from An American Werewolf In London. I chatted with Reggie Bannister and his fiancé Gigi Porter for a little while about Bubba Ho-tep (Yes, he's in it in a very small role) and various musings on Phantasm 5.
I left to grab a bite to eat before attending the US Premiere of Storm Rider director Andrew Lau's The Duel, a kung fu flick with a helluva lot of swordplay and some really awesome characters. One character in particular, he's called Four Eyebrows in the film, is hilarious. The film is weird. Four Eyebrows wears sunglasses in certain scenes, although the film is set in 1800s China... weird, but fun.
The film's basically about a match (the duel of the title) between two absolute gods of swordplay. This event is holy and can only go down in the King's temple. The King allows it, thinking it'll be great fun. At the same time there's a lot of people getting killed and Four Eyebrows is running around trying to figure the mystery out.
Overall this movie was a lot of fun. I have a few small problems with it... like it's about 15 minutes too long and the ending duel is a bit of letdown, not due to poor choreography, but its short length. Don't get me wrong, this movie kicked a lot of ass when it was moving and the characters were funny and interesting most of the time. It's well worth a view, especially if you're into the mystical kung-fu shit, like I am.
Well, there squirts. I'm gonna head to bed. Gotta rest up. Big day of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, trailers, clips, featurettes and even a DVD panel to be had tomorrow. Farewell and adieu.
-Quint
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A Jack Burton of my own, to sit next to ash on my desk. How damn cool is that
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I can always just get a Snake Plisskin and turn the eyepatch side away...I want the Storms, Egg Shen, and Lo Pan first. Woo hoo! And I REALLLLLY hope they put that T-Rex vs. Spinosaur "Robot War" (that's what it was, right?) on the JP3 DVD.
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Jul 20, 2001 4:22:58 AM CDT
Hey Harry, how about a spoiler warning? Winston gives away the
by lance rock
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That Teddy in AI was fuckin' REAL?!?! Can't wait to see the Cinefex article. Amazing... BTW, you might want to say that there are JP3 spoilers in this article, but it's not going to hurt my enjoyment of the film. Me wants dino action... :)
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Some of my earliest memories of being a child are sitting down on saturday mornings and watching HeMan and the Transformers, I remember when I saw the movie of HeMan how excited I was, sure now its a bloody awful movie, but still at the time it captured the imagination of a young boy hell bent on getting his Masters of the Universe fix! Now with the news theyre re releasing HeMan, to quote that Aussie Icon 'Big Kev' 'IM EXCITED!'
I hope its not as tragically bad as that HeMan in space crappola they released a few years back, and when they do the classic figures, Im rebuying EVERY SINGLE ONE to relive a magical moment of my childhood where I could play with my friends and believe I was a superhero fighting the evil forces of Skeletor! Sure some of you guys out there probably wouldnt understand, growing up with the Power Rangers and stuff, but to many, and I mean MANY people my age and up (early 20's and up, Im 23) HeMan isnt just a hero, hes an Icon, a boyhood fantasy that every kid wanted to be! All I suppose I can hope for is a new movie of HeMan or a cartoon series that stays true to the original idea, maybe lose the bobcut hairdo and replace it with a more modern style, but HeMan will always be one of the defining fictitious characters in my childhood life. Thanks for bringing this news to my attention Quint and Harry, indeed its made my day reading this! And to you people thinking thats a pathetic comment? If you had of grown up with HeMan and the Masters of the Universe, you'd understand where I'm coming from... and if you didn't? Go cut rank at your folks for not having you earlier :) Cause you missed something special indeed.... -
It was said by Skeletor, in that goofy-ass voice of his: "My power is beyond your understanding!" I've used it more than a few times in real life when I don't feel like suffering fools.
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Purchased DUEL on DVD from a trip to Hong Kong last year with the hopes that it might be good. Man was i wrong...
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Jul 20, 2001 5:09:06 AM CDT
Next time I go to a convention I will report on the whole thing.
by sith witch
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After rewatching the first two its clear that LW was far more entertaining than the first. Listening to guys talk about rebooting computers, chaos theory, and making jokes about blind dinosaurs and their dogs does not a story make.
Lost World was far from perfect, but a far more satisfying experience(ad the dinosaurs werent just eyecandy--they were an active part of the story).
JP3 allowed Sam Neill to do more than just babysit children. The ending was weak(to say the least) but wasnt as silly as a T-rex appearing literally from nowhere and saving the day.
Its just too bad the fx scenes were cut so short. This was also true of the Lost World in parts.
The battle between the T-rex and Spinosaurus was a joke. Way too short. It should have been moved to the last reel, and maybe expanded by having other t-rexes show up--something to make it more dramatic.
Still, I found it more fun than 1, which has got to be the msot overrated Spielberg movie of all time--even he himself said it wasnt a favorite. -
Jul 20, 2001 7:52:18 AM CDT
He-man Masters Of the Universe live action show at Universal...
by uncapie
....now that was an experience! Skeletor rules!
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Stan Winston could do far, far worse than to create a movie along the same lines as The Dark Crystal. That was a totally enjoyable movie.
Other than to plug the merits of the Dark Crystal, my post serves no purpose. -
That's what's gonna happen when his bragging no-good ass gets back to Austin, I guaran-damn-tee you. Well... maybe... we'll see. And He-Man? HAH! She-Ra kicks He-Man's ass any day. I want THOSE figures back. I miss my She-Ra playsets I used to have when I was 6 years old. By the honor of Greyskull, muthafucka.
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The limited 20th Anniversary Figures are already out--at least on the East Coast. I saw them a few weeks back at a KayBee or similar store and it surprised the hell out of me because I didn't know they were even doing it--right now there's a series of eight or so. They're exactly the same as the old ones, only with slightly different color shading. All the prinicipals. I am JackMercy.
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Jul 20, 2001 9:56:54 AM CDT
How can you like THE DUEL? I have two copies here and urgh..
by daehkcid
It's old. You americans are late on these films. They're old and stupid. Sorry but DUEL is nothing compared to STORM RIDERS.
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"Aside from their breed specific differences, the updated version of the
Morlocks differ from their predecessors in terms of diet as well. If you
remember, the H.G. Wells versions of the creatures were cannibals that fed
off the planet's aboveground human inhabitants. However, Winston paints a
picture of a kinder, more vegetarian-kind of Morlock."
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Jul 20, 2001 11:57:51 AM CDT
Filmation president Lou Scheimer and the return of MOTU
by declan_swartz
www.louscheimerproductions.com
www.he-man.org -
If you're a child of the 80's like me and loved those wacky heman figures, drag your geek ass to heman.org. They have photos of the re-designs that mattel is showing at the convention. WOW!!!!! I dropped many a load, these things are sick!! Totally Mcfarlane-ized versions of those old figures. Faithfull to the originals + awesome enhancements=
give me them all, right now! For some reaosn these chartacters/figures stuck in my head from when I was little . I'm a professional illustrator and every 5 years I feel compelled to draw new versions. I don't collect figures anymore and I can't wait for these figures! -
Well, all right! I've been waiting a long time for this, Jack!
The closest I saw to a Big Trouble figure was a plasticine sculpture done for a Big Trouble Art contest on my Wingkong Exchange site (www.wingkong.net). Check out
http://www.wingkong.net/art/lopan_sculpt.jpg
Personally, I would LOVE to see a David Lo Pan figure as the "Little ol' basket case on wheels." Still, I'll be one of the first to buy these figures when they become available! -
C'mon, people! Orko is the greatest, most heroic magician from another dimension in all of Eternia! He deserves a new figure!
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Jul 20, 2001 8:57:55 PM CDT
Since Brian Mark Bendis Writes All Marvel Comics, We Figured Joe
by buzz maverik
Eriglione thought we could just snatch him off the convention floor, but Eriglione is not known for his subtlty. Instead, we paid this call girl who'd just sexually transmitted a disease to Eriglione to go up to Bendis and tell him that Frank Miller was in the laundry room working on THE DARK KNIGHT GOES HAWAIIAN and needed some help. We threw a laundry bag over the guy's head and took him up to the suite. He kept insisting that he wasn't Bendis, that his name was Duane and he works in comic shop in Tarzana and that nobody'd pay to get him back. Liar. I was cutting and pasting a ransom note out of some Rob Liefeld comics that a guy had paid me to take when Eriglione offered to let this "Duane" fight him for his freedom. By then, Eriglione was pretty wasted. Some of the people we'd let into the room (hotel staff, comic pros, hookers, cops) wanted to see the fight, but by then Duane/Bendis had helped himself to some lobster and Stoli and was watching the porno flick (ERIN COCKAVITCH) we'd dialed up, so he didn't want to leave. Besides, Eriglione is a pretty scary guy.
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http://www.he-man.org/forums/boards/showthread.php?s=e0b816ae06ef825e74715d1eeac75831&threadid=947
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I saw The Duel at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago last March so I don't see how ComicCon could have been the US premiere.
I think some of you lot are being excessively hard on it. It isn't a sequel to StormRiders. If anything, it is a sequel to Forbidden City Cop.
It's good fun with an actual story. I like it and it's my husbancd's favorite movie after Kelly's Heroes. -
He didn't give any spoilers with saying the Spino wins, because it is on the JP3 logo. If he didn't win then the Rex would have been.
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Jul 23, 2001 12:16:11 AM CDT
eeh. Well, the DUEL isn't HORRIBLE, but see FORBIDDEN CITY COP i
by twindaggerturkey
I think maybe they wanted to get Stephen Chow for DUEL but he was unavailable, so they got crappy Nick Cheung instead. And then they couldn't figure out whether they wanted a serious movie or a funny one. The best 2 things about the movie are Andy Lau and the opening credit sequence. Both are gorgeous. All in all, I'm not sure why they chose to release this, instead of some other, better movie.
As for Wong Jing- I usually like his stuff, but I can see how someone might not ;p (In fact, I think John Simon should be strapped to a chair and made to watch Wong Jing's entire ouvre. He he.) -
Jul 23, 2001 12:17:52 AM CDT
Oh, and.... You were not brought upon this world to GET IT!!
by twindaggerturkey
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Good Lord, is there anyone out there who really thought the Spinosaurus was going to lose that fight?
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Jim Henson's Dark Crystal was an awesome movie, much better than his next, Labyrinth. Some of the animatronic look dated now but it's still one of the few Fantasy flicks that work, the music is beautiful, the script is not too childish and the creature and set design is awesome.
This would look amazing in CGI
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Another He Man movie? That sounds real homosexual. Even in this age of state of the art technology and
technical wizadry could they devolop a decent He Man flick. I say they give the script to Lloyd Kaufman and they make a Troma version of He Man. How bout putting Martin Short in a blonde wig and casting him as Adam and maybe cast say, Stone Cold Steve Austin as He Man. That rough Texas accent can give He Man sort of an edge. It might work with the right blonde King Lear type wig. Gary Coleman could play Orko and Angelie Jolie would play Shiela.
Hell Yah!
What next a She Ra movie? That might be Interesting, Oh and at that end of the movie the audience has to find where that lil annoying furry guy with the squeaky voice was hiding in each scene. -
hahaha...i actually find it all rather endearing...With Harry and his New Yawk Kitten, and now Quint, it's like a brand new day in geeksville...I guess it hits some folks a bit later than others, but it's nice to see when it does....love is grand, and to see these guy's in the first few months of bliss is funnier than hell, and charming all at the same time....anywho...what's your folks take on the dark crystal vibe?...to me that stands out as a high point in movies...it was a celebration of pure fantasy and imagination....i also enjoyed Laberynth to a somewhat lesser degree (bowie rocked tho)...but to hear that stan is going to follow in hensons footsteps as it were, and craft a whole movie using his animatronic puppet robot thingees...it's almost too good to be true...if he can come up with a decent story, with all the magic and myth of Crystal, then I'll be first in line...as for the toys...sounds groovy...i wish some of this stuff came out when i was a kid....i was hooked on old monster movies and things of that nature, and probably would have gone crazy over these things, as it is now, the toys don't do much for me (although i realize that for a lot of other fan boys they'll definitley be collectors items for sure...well...it's all good news, and i can't wait to read on these pages the news to come about the dark crystal inspired work.................if mork is god..does that make exador jesus?
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