Bleeding Fool |
- Marvel & DC’s Rivalry May Be Over… but their Contempt for Fandom Isn’t
- John Cleese’s “Cancel Me’ Series will Confront‘ Woke Generation’
- Terminator Franchise Films Ranked: #1 Rise of the Machines (2003)
- Review: Candyman (2021) It’s Really Creative, but Not Very Scary
- Indie Toy Showcase: Alter Nation Action Figures – Phase 2
- Watch: Disney+ Teases New Spinoff Series of Pixar’s ‘Up’
| Marvel & DC’s Rivalry May Be Over… but their Contempt for Fandom Isn’t Posted: 30 Aug 2021 06:15 AM PDT
In this sugarcoated Newsarama op-ed, they babble about the onetime, unnecessary rivalries between Marvel and DC, which seem to have vanished in the past years without anybody noticing:
What difference does it make if rivalries are seemingly gone now? What remains from the past 2 decades, ever since Bill Jemas took it all to a whole new level with hostilities, is terrible writing, and art to match. Something these phony news sites, in all their apologia, usually won’t dwell on, if at all. Where’s the fun in that?
Well that’s actually the problem. In fact, what’s the point of this whole article if they won’t talk about story merit? The aforementioned Jemas led to a situation where for at least a decade, there were no more crossover publications between the two publishers, and again, it doesn’t constitute merit alone just to do a joint project together.
But, here’s an interesting point for something they lack these past few years:
Hmmm… I’m afraid they’re not entirely correct here, if Dan Slott’s recent boomerang back to harassing fans is any suggestion.
Related: It's Not Comicsgate Actively Harassing Comic Fans, It's Dan Slott
But apart from that, they’re getting someplace: neither C.B. Cebulski nor Marie Javins make many public announcements or appearances now, if at all. But if their identity politics pandering (turning Robin 3 bisexual and keeping Iceman homosexual, for example) says anything, they’re not really worried about backlash at all. Pandering to leftist ideologies, for them, is today considered safe territory. It’s certainly different from years before, where they actually were worried about losing family audiences for their merchandise prospects, even more so than for the comics themselves. Today, if the recent retcon of Tim Drake is any indication, they’re no longer concerned at all. Mainly because they did more than enough over the past 2 decades to drive away family audiences along with casual readers of their books, and the audience they pander to these days are leftist ideologues.
See Also: DC Queering Superman Next? Why All DC Comics Superheroes Are Gay
And maybe that’s precisely why the rivalries of the past, which were ill-advised as it was, have since disappeared: because ever since, they’ve found common ground in new causes: modern leftist identity politics, not to mention insulting the fanbases when they object to their steps. The company wide crossovers they remain stuck on are another letdown.
Originally published here. The post Marvel & DC’s Rivalry May Be Over… but their Contempt for Fandom Isn’t appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| John Cleese’s “Cancel Me’ Series will Confront‘ Woke Generation’ Posted: 30 Aug 2021 04:45 AM PDT
Best known for his roles in hit comedy classics like Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, John Cleese will investigate the phenomenon of 'cancelling' people or companies for their behavior. In John Cleese: Cancel Me, the 81-year-old actor will meet with the people who are doing the cancelling to uncover what is driving them, as well as some of the famous faces who have fallen victim to cancel culture.
According to the Guardian, John Cleese: Cancel Me will premiere later this year on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, where the comedian will interview “cancelled” subjects as well as campaigners who have led opposition to various public figures.
"I'm delighted to have a chance to find out, on camera, about all the aspects of so-called political correctness," Cleese explained. “There's so much I really don't understand, like: how the impeccable idea of 'Let's all be kind to people' has been developed in some cases ad absurdum," the comedian said of the bizarre new "cancel culture" trends that are plaguing the West lately. "I want to bring the various reasonings right out in the open so that people can be clearer in their minds what they agree with, what they don't agree with, and what they still can't make their mind up about," Cleese added.
Cleese personally experienced cancel culture in November 2020, when social justice warriors accused him of "transphobia" for supporting author J.K. Rowling. The comedic actor explained to Reuters, "Everything humorous is critical. If you have someone who is perfectly kind and intelligent and flexible and who always behaves appropriately, they're not funny. Cleese also said that the political correctness is forcing comedians "to set the bar according to what we are told by the most touchy, most emotionally unstable and fragile and least stoic people in the country."
See Also: Kevin Hart Tells the Cancel Culture Mob to 'Shut the F**K Up!'
Cleese is the second Monty Python icon to refuse to bow to political correctness and awakened identity politics. Terry Gilliam stated earlier this year that the culture unfairly vilifies white men, who are blamed for the world’s issues. "That’s wrong. "I’m don’t like mob mentality," the filmmaker stated.
In the past, the Cleese has been open about his thoughts on Political Correctness, having previously said there is no such thing as a 'woke joke' and creating a fuss when BBC-owned UKTV removed an episode of Fawlty Towers for its use of 'racial slurs'.
Related:PC or Die! David Spade Warns that "Wokeness" Is Killing Comedy
Most comedians are generally not big fans of cancel culture. David Spade says it’s killing comedy. Chris Rock warned that cancel culture leads to boring entertainment. Billy Crystal said canceling people over their words has made comedy a "minefield." Dave Chappelle reminded everyone that "no one can be woke enough." Comedian Jon Lovitz likened cancel culture to McCarthyism. Stand-up comedian Bill Burr joked that the outrage mob has run out of people to cancel and has resorted to canceling dead people. The post John Cleese's "Cancel Me' Series will Confront' Woke Generation' appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Terminator Franchise Films Ranked: #1 Rise of the Machines (2003) Posted: 29 Aug 2021 04:30 PM PDT
#1 in my ranking of the Terminator franchise.
Unpopular movie opinion: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is the best Terminator movie.
That's gonna give me shit right out of the gate, but whatever. I love the first two Terminator movies, but I find them both to have some issues that keep them from greatness. Terminator 3 also has some issues that keep it from greatness, but it has the best ending of all three by far and action on par with the rest. In a high quality but imperfect franchise, it stands atop the rest by a very small amount.
Before I get into the movie itself, I want to mention something about Terminator 2 that didn't feel that appropriate to bring up in a review of itself but feels appropriate here. Cameron has an incredibly pessimistic view of humanity as evidenced by the Terminator saying, "It's in your nature to destroy yourselves," to John at the movie's central turning point. It's then immediately followed by Sarah deciding that she's going to change the future and avoid Judgment Day by blowing up Cyberdyne. So, Cameron ends up wanting a hopeful ending, but the core of his belief system seems to be that we're screwed no matter what. I've never felt like the happy ending that became a deleted scene worked with the rest of the first two films, and I've always been glad that it was cut. The current ending of Terminator 2, which is hopeful but not definitive, feels like an appropriate middle ground. That being said, the third film's embrace of the underlying pessimism in Cameron's original vision always felt more like a natural extension of the story, much more so than the deleted happy ending of Terminator 2. That being said…
It's been about ten years since Terminator 2. John Conner has continued his life on the run, never quite confident that he and his mother fixed the future by blowing up Cyberdyne Industries, even after the fateful day, August 29, 1997, came and went without Skynet launching a nuclear attack on humanity. He's so off the grid that no one can find him, not even in the future.
Now, another small detour. The idea that the future changed due to the events in Terminator 2 makes the sending back of new Terminators less of a stretch here than in Terminator 2. In the previous film, we just learn in the opening voiceover that multiple got sent to different times at the same time, but the idea that the future changed means that the T-X and the T-101 that get sent back in this movie were actually sent back at a different time, several years in the franchise's future. Yes, this is a repeat of the franchise's conventions, but no more so than Terminator 2 was a repeat of The Terminator. If it was fine for the second film, then I think it's largely fine for the third.
Anyway, the future sends back two new Terminators. The one sent to kill John's lieutenants, since John can't be found, is the T-X, a new model with a tough endoskeleton and a liquid metal exterior like the T-1000. The other is, well, what else could it be but Arnold's T-800? Through a series of mild coincidences that lean on the idea of fate, John ends up, after a motorcycle crash, at the vet clinic where Kate Brewster works looking for meds in the middle of the night. When the T-X discovers that John is there through a blood sample that she samples by taste on her tongue, John becomes her primary target just in time for the T-800 to show up.
The car chase that follows is great overall, but there's a moment that highlights some of the movie's problems with tone in microcosm. The chase moves through a commercial part of LA to a residential one where John take the vet truck off the road and through some yards. He hits an inflatable toy, and it makes a cartoonish noise as it bounces around. In the middle of a tense, well-filmed car chase that includes a lot of destruction as several large vehicles slam into each other, there's this cartoonish sound design choice that just feels off. Most of the movie's comedy ends up feeling like this including the Terminator's arrival at a girl's night striptease: out of place.
However, outside of that, this movie is surprisingly focused and well built. The activation of Skynet along with the virus affecting the civilian Internet is built in early and given a direct connection to the main characters by having Kate's father be the military figure in charge of Skynet's development and eventual deployment. The Terminator's mission to protect John and Kate, considering Kate's future importance as John's future wife and mother to his children, is only about getting them South out of the impending blast radius because Judgment Day is happening that very day. Another side note: It's called Judgment Day, not "The Day the Robots Decided to Attack Humanity for no Reason". You don't call the end of humanity Judgment Day in a story unless there's some moral aspect being visited upon humanity with an implicit embrace of the idea that humanity deserves it a bit.
Anyway, that goes back to one of the main reasons I really love this film: the ending. The embrace of Judgment Day as delayed but inevitable feels much more in line with the actual action and underlying pessimistic philosophy of the first two films. As I wrote already, I always felt like the hopeful ending of Terminator 2 was a bit at odds with Cameron's obvious view of humanity, and the fact that John and Kate simply cannot stop Judgment Day in this film feels like a natural direction for the franchise.
John and Kate order the T-800 to go to the military base where her father is about to activate Skynet in an attempt to prevent the implementation. They are too late, and as they arrive (getting inside gets skipped over, but I can assume it's a combination of distraction from the wild events, Kate's status as General Brewster's daughter, and the T-800's ability to impel through fear, but this shouldn't have been skipped) the machines begin their revolution. The T-X helps them along by taking control of the first generation of Terminators (a bulky, menacing design I love that includes two miniguns as arms), and the dying General Brewster tells Kate and John to head to Crystal Peak, a recommendation that the T-800 immediately backs up. The implication is that Skynet's system core is there, and the actual twist that follows is one of my favorites.
 
Why would the general and the Terminator have sent John and Kate to the center of such a dangerous area if it even existed? Of course they wouldn't, but because the movie is told from John's point of view we carry along with that belief until the reveal that Crystal Peak is a fall out shelter for VIPs. The sudden need to embrace the inevitable, that Judgment Day was always coming, is a great moment as Kate, overcome with the heavy reality of the loss of her father and all of civilization, suggests that they just let their explosives go off and end their future right then. That pessimism combined with the guarded hope of John as he makes his first step towards embracing his role as leader of the resistance by answering a CB radio call is the better version of Terminator 2's ending, in my opinion.
That this movie gets maligned for being a repeat of the franchise when Terminator 2 is just as guilty confounds me. That the ending gets dismissed because it's not in line with the stated hopefulness of the "no fate" credo feels like an incomplete reading of Cameron's work that even he seems to have shared. The notes against the out of place comedy, though, I agree with, but the moments in question fall away by about the halfway point, and they're one of my only main sources of complaint (the trio's arrival inside the military base going unexplained is another). No, this is not a perfect movie, but neither are the first two. I do think this one ends up making most of the central ideas, though while matching on action elements.
Jonathan Mostow may be a journeyman director without a strong distinctive voice, but he handled this film well.
Rating: 3.5/4
Originally published here. The post Terminator Franchise Films Ranked: #1 Rise of the Machines (2003) appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Review: Candyman (2021) It’s Really Creative, but Not Very Scary Posted: 29 Aug 2021 02:30 PM PDT
Candyman, which debuted in horror-starved early 1990s, was a breath of fresh air for the ailing genre. Based on Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden,” the story was relocated to the United States and adapted by writer/director Bernard Rose. As a result, the film was original, lyrical, and one-of-a-kind, with Tony Todd as the title villain delivering a remarkable, nuanced performance. The original film was followed by two lackluster sequels.
The new updated Candyman (2021), is directed by Nia DaCosta and written by Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld and DaCosta, and stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as artist Anthony McCoy, who draws inspiration from the remnants of Chicago's now-gentrified Cabrini-Green neighborhood and subsequently gets sucked into the lore of Candyman. In industry news, the film posted $1.9 million on Thursday from 2750 theaters off shows that began at 7 p.m. The pic, in a recent rare feat for horror pics, has also scored an 86% certified fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes.
I will not be adding to that number. I loved the original, but I can’t help but think this update resurrected a question I left the theater struggling with. Why would the vengeful spirit of a Black man, the son of a slave, who fell in love with a white woman, was then beaten and tortured, in the future home of the Cabrini–Green projects — choose to terrorize Black people?
Nia DaCosta’s repetitious, superficial fourth installment in the horror franchise, is now set in Chicago, the same place where Bernard Rose’s original 1992 version of Candyman launched the saga by investigating the link between mythology, urban legends, and anti-Black violence. Those themes haven’t subsided since Rose’s film hit theaters; in fact, they’ve become more intense. However, this movie muddles them with shallow social criticism and even flatter horror thrills.
Protests for Black Lives Matter and the emergence of videos depicting Black deaths at the hands of police have solidified Rose’s picture as a magical folkloric nightmare, a visceral tale of Black reality situated on a forsaken side of town. DaCosta is the recipient of those themes, and she is in charge of transforming them into a story that matches the current race climate. Her Candyman, on the other hand, is a jumbled, overloaded web of shallowly presented concepts, including critiques of gentrification and the white critical perspective, as well as a call for Black emancipation. The message of racial reckoning conveyed by the screenwriters constant and pounded home over and over throughout the story.
This is supposed to be a horror movie, I never once get a fright or felt uneasy while watching. Sure there’s creativity on display, but it’s just not as compelling as a horror flick should be. That’s especially disappointing given how terrifying the original film was.
The best thing that can be said about Candyman is that it has a good heart. All the good intentions in the world, however, cannot compensate for a mediocre storyline, uninspiring direction, and what appears to be considerable studio manipulation. There are so many wonderful ideas floating about in this picture that it’s a shame none of them are developed to any satisfactory degree.
Overall, this reboot that has some interesting ideas, but not enough to warrant a return of this iconic horror character. Candyman deserved so much better. The post Review: Candyman (2021) It’s Really Creative, but Not Very Scary appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Indie Toy Showcase: Alter Nation Action Figures – Phase 2 Posted: 29 Aug 2021 12:30 PM PDT
Toy enthusiasts pay attention! We’re back with the latest installment of Indie Toy Showcase. And once again we’re back with Ryan Magnon of Pandamony Toy Brands as his recently launched crowdfund campaign for the second phase of their Alter Nation Action Figures. We covered their awesome toys last year, you can check the article out here.
Phase one of these figures was super well made. From the packaging to the design of the toys, everything is really colorful and instantly draws you in. The toys have a number of points of articulation allowing you to display them in a multitude of poses. In each of the packages you not only get the figures, but also a series of accessories and a mini comic. The figures also have some really fun action features, some even have a color changing feature. They not only standout on their own, but also fit well with some of the more classic toy lines, like Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles. They also look great when paired with the Marvel Legends Figures. The line hit Amazon and was very well received. The figures have garnered tons of positive reviews. The line was even nominated for toy of the year and both kids and collectors seem to love the toys. So let’s get into it and catch up with Ryan as he is in the final hours of their campaign.
John: Ryan hey, welcome back to Indie Toy Showcase, we are super glad to have you with us once again. Before we get started I was hoping you can catch us up. From what I understand the company and you have had a number of ups and downs since the world went coo coo for cocoa puffs.
Ryan: That's true! Everything is terrible now, but cheer up! It should all be back to normal in two weeks! Let's see, ups and downs, ey? Well, we pushed hard to get the toys out just before Christmas 2019. We made it in by the skin of our teeth, but I think we missed out on a longer Christmas lead time because we were slightly behind schedule. There is an instant message conversation somewhere between my business partner and me basically saying this was okay because "I think 2020 is going to be our year." We planned a live-event tour focusing on Comic Cons and mobile kiosks at places like Little League Games. Well, that all went down the crapper. I was stuck paying rent on an office I wasn't allowed to have employees at, and warehousing on merchandising intended for stores and conventions that were closed. With those setbacks, we opted to do a Kickstarter instead of take loans or stimulus to keep the brand going. It's been a learning experience and we'll probably do it again, knowing what we know now, in order to launch more brands.
John: Yikes. Glad 2020 is behind us. I know you’ve been promoting Phase Two since the first one, tell our readers about some of the main attractions in the P2 line. Ryan: Phase 2 is finally going to give our heroes more villains to fight in a backyard battle. Alpha and Bomber are the first evil human-animal hybrids in the line. Alpha has huge, articulated wings that help hold up his massive frame. He also has a snake-jaw that looks like something out of predator and opens with a spring-loaded switch. Some of his paint glows in the dark or changes color too! Then we've got Bomber who'll come with one of those sticky, gel-filled balls that splats and reforms. He'll be able to launch it from his scorpion tail. We would also like to debut our Alter Nation collectibles line, M.U.T.T.S. The Multigenic Utility and Tactical Test Species are high-quality, blind-box animal-hybrid figurines that can connect to an Alter Nation action figure or its accessories.
John: Cool! How does Phase two further expand on the Alternation universe? Ryan: Our stories so far have primarily focused on our cyborg villain, Sabotage, the primalist anarchists, VYRUS, or had our heroes investigating paranormal phenomena like Shadow People. With the release of the toy for Alpha and Bomber, we're going to give more insights to what Alpha is up to and why Bomber would possibly betray the only family he's ever known to join Bomber.
John: What are some things that you ‘ve been wanting to do with this line, but haven’t been able to do so far? Ryan: Make money! We're finally starting to recover from 2020 after cracking the online-sales stratagem and downsizing, but it came too late to fund production of Alpha and Bomber. We launched this Kickstarter as a way to speed up that process now that we're on a little bit of stable ground.
John: I hear you. One would think playsets and vehicles might be in that category. Have you done any designs for them? Ryan: Heck yeah! We recently premiered a video on our YouTube channel and on the Kickstarter that shows not only concepts for new characters, but some vehicle concepts, like the USS Allen Dulles. It's an aircraft carrier that transforms into a cruise ship disguise so that the heroes can travel around the world without drawing suspicion. We're a 1:12 scale brand, and the limitations with that has always been size. Being the creative hacks that we are, we have some ideas to deal with that.
John: Have you seen those giant $600.00 Super 7 Masters of The Universe Snake Mountain? How does the make you feel about not only other toy lines and things that they could get, but your own toy line as well? Ryan: I figure Super 7 knows their audience and did their research to see if a $600 playset could be profitable. I collect TMNT, Batman Beyond, and Back to the Future stuff. Back to the Future and Batman Beyond weren't that big with the merchandising, so I am glad to get some toys for those as an adult. Conversely, I don't collect Playmobil. I always saw them as preschooler toys, and so I never got those BTTF even though the features and details are really impressive. Ninja Turtles has so much merchandising, now I'm only buying 1987 Playmates. I'd make an exception for new stuff if it's really special like a huge Technodrome display case or something (hint hint). Otherwise, I'd stick to the original Technodrome playset. So, I say all that because I presume other people feel like me in that there's just too much licensing going on and the new items need to be special to get my cash. There's just way too many companies slapping a nostalgic license on their product, and I suspect consumers are going to have a moment of realization where they limit their habit like I had to. For me, the magic feelz of those brands remains in the past. That's why with Alter Nation, we never set out to compete for that nostalgia audience, at least not in the same way. Our goal was always to offer kids something new. We lucked out in that we also found an audience with the kids-at-heart. We always wanted to offer cool characters that kids liked and that had a lot of value for their buck. We also made the Alter Nation Agent Auxiliary, a fan club to be able to reach out to fans, kids, and parents directly without the burden of COPPA laws that disproportionately impede small businesses like mine. Kids like it, and adult collectors recognize that we're taking inspiration from what those evergreen brands in the first place instead of a lame reboot.
John: Are there any improvements, upgrades, or alterations that you hope to make to any of the figures in future iterations? Ryan: Why? They're so perfect as they are! In all seriousness, we take a lot of pride in the figures we make. There is honestly something I'd like to improve and that is to oversee production in the United States. It's frustrating to have to go oversees and rely on third parties for production. Our designers and the factories don't see eye to eye sometimes, and we basically have to put our faith in outside vendors, who are no doubt experts, but who repeatedly expect us to put our faith in their analysis that an idea we may have for a design improvement won't work. There have been plenty of times, after having been told that, that I've pushed back only for the factory to find a way to make it work. It doesn't always happen, but it's happened enough for me to compromise that faith. Overseas production also makes things like limited-runs cost prohibitive. I'd love to be able to produce an order for say 500, get feedback from consumers, then go into mass production or do another iteration. Instead, we have to produce thousands at a time just to make a toy profitable. Technologically speaking, we have a lot of cool stuff planned for future characters like swimming and flying action figures. I go over that in some of our Kickstarter videos.
John: I’ve seen some larger scale figures that do really well with younger kids. Parents buy them because they are larger and look more durable, but they don’t seem to have much in the way of articulation. Is it because of the size? Ryan: Good question on articulation and size. We targeted the same amount of articulation as the 2012 TMNT and WWE figures. We thought we’d be able to match their price point and appeal to the same audience. If we were doing more Alter Nation, I’d just keep it all 1:12. Less articulation might make them more durable though. It’s a good thought. I feel bad when kids break the toys. John: I’ve watched a lot of your interviews and a lot of the review videos for the Alter Nation figures, one of the main things the reviewers wished some of the figures had was some sort of articulation in the abdominal region. As the toy line evolves, do you think that is something you would be able to do down the line? Ryan: Absolutely! We put extra articulation in the waist for Albert VII because he was supposed to be our most agile character. We’re always open to whatever the consumer wants. There’s a balance with articulation we have to carry. Each point adds more assembly which adds more cost. There’s also the issue of durability in that the more articulation there is, the more disconnection risk rises. We really want kids to be able to play with this first and foremost. We love that some fans want to see them look cool on the shelf, so I hope they don’t take exception to this. Our mission from day one has always been to offer kids something since they’ve only been getting reboots.
John: Ryan, when you were working on the designs, did you encounter any issues with toy construction patents that you had to avoid? Ryan: We didn’t run into any issues with design patents, no. Most articulation engineering is pretty common, and probably not patentable. With the mechanisms, it’s basically the same issue. You can’t really patent the gear-switch that moves Sham’s tongue or a spring-loaded motion feature like Sabotage and Daart have. Where we did run into intellectual property issues were with the original name. Alter Nation’s working title was originally “GM Delta.” The GM was for Genetically Modified as well as being an allusion to MK Ultra / MK Delta, the CIA’s mind-control experiments.
Our lawyer notified us that General Motors had some technology concept for, I think, and engine and they called it Delta. So, GM Delta was out. We submitted alternate names and started referring to the team in our story as GK Delta. I think it worked out better as a team name. As for “Alter Nation” being chosen, we submitted to our lawyer a list of our top 10 alternate names, and I Alter Nation was the highest ranked one that wasn’t rejected for trademark concerns. I liked it because of the double-entendre anyway. The story deals with how technology is altering soldiers, who in turn, alter the nation as well as the nation, represented by the military, altering the genetic code.
John: While doing market research, did you find there was there anything you wanted to do that just wasn’t meshing with the kids? Ryan: We had some characters that kids really didn’t like. Birch was the most prominent. I can’t blame them. The concept was weird. We reworked it, and I think she looks cool now. I think bird anthropomorphic heroes are hard to pull off. Something about a beak and feathers is silly. I can’t really think of a popular one off hand. Ace Duck didn’t really get much love and I don’t think were other TMNT bird characters after that except Pigeon Pete, who was an idiot. I was annoyingly adamant that the team test their assumptions. I didn’t like relying on anecdotes or old trends. We did market research to test the assumption that kid action figure buyers were boys. Based on our research, I didn’t see a lot of evidence to refute this. When we then tested boys, they expressed preference for the male characters. Some adults didn’t like to hear that because we’re in the middle of a culture war. I tend to be agnostic on this stuff and I’m happy to provide whatever kids want. We’re here to serve them, not push them into a side. As the market changes, we’ll follow kids and their parents’ lead. I will say though, as we found an adult audience, those people expressed a desire for female characters and we will be producing those too assuming there’s demand for more Alter Nation overall.
We also had some play features kids didn’t really like. One was a “sonar” feature that would’ve been on Quillroy. There’d be a sensor that would detect how far away a solid object was and a bat “chirp” sound would’ve played more or less frequently the closer or farther the object was from the sensor. One kid said it sounded annoying. We also had them rank all the animal features we had to help us determine what to keep or prioritize.
One kid in testing explicitly said he didn’t like gimmicks at all. Most seemed excited about it, and it didn’t seem like we’d stand out enough without something to set us apart. I made the call to keep them. After our launch, a lot of adults said they don’t like gimmicks either. Some that collect more kid-friendly stuff were super-excited about it. I don’t think even in the adult market we’d stand out much without gimmicks since there’s a lot of toy companies making great, original designs of their own.
John: Have you seen the custom painted Sabotage figure that Little Big Robots had on his channel? It looks like something out of Halo or Gears of War even. I think it shows that with a bit of creativity and know how, that just about anything can be done with these toys, which also shows how great the designs are. Ryan: I did! I really liked the copper color he did on the arm. It made it look like a coil on the inside of a transformer (the electrical device, not the toy).
John: Well, I think the figures look amazing, I want to buy a set to do some toy photography with them in the near future. I really hope that phase two gets funded and all of the downs turn into ups and frowns turn upside down. Ryan: Great to hear! Please send me a copy! Thank you for the kind sentiments as well.
John: Where can people find you on social media? Ryan: @PandaMonyToys covers all of our company announcements. @AlterNationToys we do exclusively Alter Nation announcements and a lot of fun stuff that ties in with our altered reality game. The full ARG is at www.GKDelta.navy
John: What are your hopes for phase two and beyond? Ryan: We're hoping Phase 2 getting funded validates the brand a bit. Our fans are the best, and they've been so kind with letting us know they appreciate what we're trying to bring the world. It's been tough to spread the word and our hope is that the Kickstarter goes viral at the last minute. Maybe with your readers!
John: Is there anything else you would like to share with us before we sign off? Ryan: I should probably share the link to the Kickstarter, right? AlterNationKickstarter.com will take you right to it!
John: Ryan, thank you once again for joining us at Indie Toy Showcase. We wish you all the best with phase two and all future projects? Ryan: Thanks for having me!
Check out the Alter Nation Phase 2 indie toys campaign here
The post Indie Toy Showcase: Alter Nation Action Figures – Phase 2 appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
| Watch: Disney+ Teases New Spinoff Series of Pixar’s ‘Up’ Posted: 29 Aug 2021 10:00 AM PDT
While the first ten minutes of Pixar's 2009 animated film Up might have left most of us a blubbering mess, the rest of the film left many folks simply wanting more. Now, 12 years later, Pixar and Disney are teaming up to deliver just that in the new Disney+ spinoff series Dug Days.
Set to launch this fall, the upcoming series consists of a collection of shorts following "the humorous misadventures of Dug, the lovable dog from Disney and Pixar's Up." According to the trailer's accompanying description, each short features Dug, Carl, and Russell — an unlikely but endearing family — getting caught up in "everyday events that occur in and around Dug's backyard."
Of course, all of these stories will be told through the "exciting (and delightfully distorted) eyes of our favorite talking dog."
Emmy award-winning Pixar veteran and Up writer/co-director Bob Peterson is back on board as the project's writer and director, while long-time Pixar producer Kim Collins is set to produce. In addition, Edward Asner (Elf, American Dad) is also returning to the series to reprise his role as the crotchety-but-sweet Carl Fredrickson. However, Russell's original voice actor, Jordan Nagai, will not be returning to voice his character. As of right now, it has not been confirmed who will be taking over as the role of Russell.
via Uproxx The post Watch: Disney+ Teases New Spinoff Series of Pixar's 'Up' appeared first on Bleeding Fool.  |
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