Mongo Nation

Why watch the Watchmen when you can play them instead?

By Jeremy Azevedo

Pics from the new Watchmen game are beginning to leak on the internet, along with more detailed info as to what kind of game it’s even going to be.

Surprisingly, it’s being developed for Warner Bros Interactive by Danish developer “Deadline Games”, a relatively unproven studio that up until now has specialized in making action games about shooting Mexicans (Total Overdose, Chili Con Carnage… yeah I haven’t really heard of those either). Even more surprisingly, it’s being released as digitally downloadable only, episodic content, a first for the industry when it comes to high profile movie tie-ins. Not at all surprisingly (again, it is a movie tie-in after all) Watchmen appears to be primarily a beat-em-up rather than the story-driven, detective adventure game one might expect from this particular franchise. We’ll reserve judgment until we see the final product for ourselves, but until then, check out these new pics:

Nite Owl getting his ass beat by a gang of Top-Knots Read the rest of this entry →

Except for, like, most of them actually were…

By Jeremy Azevedo

It took me ages to get around to finishing this book, which has physically been through hell in a remarkable parallel to the stories contained within…

…This book has been lost, found, forgotten (due to the recent purchase of an Xbox 360), dropped into a toilet at a cabin in Big Bear, left outside to dry, been run over, gone camping, been sexually harassed by an older book on MySpace, and found out that it was adopted. Nevertheless, I proudly soldiered on so that I could pass along my opinion to the three or four of you out there that actually still read books. So without further ado, please enjoy the long awaited review of “The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies never Made”!

Originally published in 2002, David Hughes’ recently revised book, “The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made” is an exhaustively researched and immensely fascinating look into just how inept the studio system really is. Even when handed over an incredible story that really require very little embellishment, every single one of these films quickly spirals out of control, with numerous screenwriters pushing the story further and further out of context, budgets spiraling out of control, and a revolving door of star directors and actors collecting paychecks to talk about what could have been in interviews. The title of the book is a little misleading because most of these movies actually have been made by now. But it’s more about what the movies could have been than it is about incomplete projects.

A page from Kevin Smith’s lost Superman script (lovingly rendered in crayon), in which Superman saves NASCAR from a diabolical monkey and says the word “feltch” a lot.

What’s truly fascinating about some of these stories, each of which plays out like it’s own individual little spy novel, is how some of the scripts that fail have their carcasses stripped and re-purposed for other films. “Men in Black” was essentially all the best parts of “The Tourist”, minus the dark drama elements. Spielberg’s horror picture “Night Skies” became “E.T.”, of all things. “EL Topo” director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Dune” became David Lynch’s “Dune”. It becomes apparent to the reader how important and universal some of the themes in science fiction really are (as well as how difficult it can be to protect one’s intellectual property). Read the rest of this entry →