The New Star Wars Sequel: Adventure Has a New Name...

StarWars.com slipped a huge nugget of cold hard fact through the interweb pipeline this morning when it announced via its Twitter, Instagram and the official site that the name of J.J. Abrams' forthcoming Episode VII will be Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Interestingly all of the graphics and announcements have dropped the cumbersome "Star Wars - Episode VII" nonsense that started back with The Phantom Menace in '99, which I find as a welcome nomenclature change. Nobody called Empire or Jedi "Episode V" or "Episode VI" and it's nice to have a title that rolls off the tongue like Awakens. (Though some have already snarked that they can see themselves slipping and calling it Awakenings, which yes - is a completely different film.

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The Force also tells me that this will be a lot of peoples' computer wallpaper in 3... 2... 

While fanboys are currently in the process of doing what they do best on the internet lately, complaining like there is no tomorrow, I'm pretty pleased with the title. It instantly tells you what the themes of the film will explore. It instantly gets the imagination going. And, as some have already pointed out, it's a little bit meta because it could also refer to the magic of Star Wars having been dormant for so long finally coming back into the spotlight.

I'm a little surprised with what little fanfare the title was released with however. Having been there at Comic-Con when Revenge of the Sith was announced and the huge hub-bub that surrounded that title reveal (even so much as creating a video that heralded it in the context of the other five films). So I'm wondering if something more is on the near-horizon, like an official photo, or a featurette, or something else to feed the marketing frenzy. There have also been rumors that a teaser trailer is in the near-distant future, though I would expect something like that closer to the end of the year at the soonest. 

One thing is for sure, this certainly is a whole lot of fun. The conversations that I've been having with my friend Jason are excited moments of pure joy that I haven't had since around 1998. Before the dark times... Star Wars: The Force Awakens is in theaters December 18, 2015.

Ghostbusters Reunite for the 30th Anniversary

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An unexpected surprise was waiting this morning as Entertainment Weekly revealed their latest cover featuring a reunion of the Boys in Grey in celebration of Ghostbusters' 30th Anniversary.

The cover image features Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Sigourney Weaver but curiously a video created in tandem for the Today Show features Bill Murray, Annie Potts, Ernie Hudson and Ivan Reitman.

Maybe Dan had some vodka to go and sell during the video or something, it's strange that he was around for the cover photo but not the interview (and that Annie and Ivan weren't on the cover). I'm wondering if maybe the reunion wasn't exactly a reunion and the cover was cobbled together from multiple shoots?

Regardless of those curiosities, the video is fun if brief. I had no idea that Al Roker was such a Ghostbusters fan and never picked up on any of his various references throughout the years. The article inside the issue will most likely go more in-depth and feature more photos of the cast reunion, and hopefully a longer interview with more Al Roker conversation exists and will be released somewhere down the line.

UPDATE: Apparently the whole gang was together for the photo shoot portion of the reunion if this photo released by Entertainment Weekly is to be believed:

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Bits & Bobs - 6th Edition

Bits & Bobs collects some of the cool things around the interwebs that I think are noteworthy and worth your time but don't necessarily fill up a full blog post or news item. On with the show...

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BASS (JUST LIKE THE 90'S)

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Nerdist has a parody video up today of the catchy "All About That Bass" featuring the ladies of Team Unicorn. While the song may not be your cup of tea (it's definitely not mine), the lyrics are pretty damn clever and get a good guffaw or two. Plus the costume changes and production value, including dancing astromech droids and backup Royal Imperial Guard dancers make it worth a view. And you know, it's the Team Unicorn ladies so... it's worth a view for obvious reasons. For those interested, the Team Unicorn Saturday Morning Cartoon inspired show should be hitting Adult Swim soon.

AGENT CARTER, I PRESUME?

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Last night, during its 75th Anniversary documentary special, Marvel released a new trailer for the upcoming Agent Carter series which highlights a fantastic moment between Carter herself and father of a future Iron Man Howard Stark. The clip also introduces us to the original Jarvis, who presumably will be the inspiration of the artificial intelligence J.A.R.V.I.S. utilized by Tony later in the films. I'm really loving the tone of the series, it has that amazing Rocketeer feel (which is the major reason I'm such a fan of the first Cap movie as well) and can't wait to see what the rest of this series brings.

Bits & Bobs - 5th Edition

Bits & Bobs collects some of the cool things around the interwebs that I think are noteworthy and worth your time but don't necessarily fill up a full blog post or news item. On with the show...

BACK TO THE PILOT TRAINING GROUND

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Quick, get in close enough to take a picture of it for the recon mission -- without crashing into it. It's like landing a plane on the aircraft carrier in the NES Top Gun.

Remember the countless hours spent in a DOS environment trying to get X-Wing up and running on your Dad's work PC? I do, I must have spent hours upon hours trying to get all seven of those discs to install only to find that the sound card he had wasn't compatible and I'd have to play without sound. Regardless, so many days and nights were spent behind the controls of an X-Wing fighter in LucasArts' X-Wing simulator. Later on, they released a CD-ROM version for the Mac that I ate up with a spoon, but unfortunately it hasn't worked on any of my computers (along with the fantastic Rebel Assault games) for years. Enter GOG.com who swiped up the rights to X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Sam & Max Hit the Road, and The Secret of Monkey Island and are offering them through their DRM-free download service. Good news right? Bad news is that it's Windows only for X-Wing and TIE Fighter for the time being. Check it out here!

GET READY FOR PHASE THREE FEATURING...

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Unless you somehow completely managed to avoid the internet all day yesterday (or any of your friends that are vaguely enthusiasts of popular culture), you probably already know that Marvel held a big Apple-like event at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood, CA yesterday to announce their movie plans through the year 2019. The biggest surprises of the announcement were the revelations that a Captain Marvel film (based on the most recent and awesome Carol Danvers version of the character) is on the way, and also that the next Avengers film will be a big two-parter revolving around Thanos and his killer hand modeling. And the whole thing is going to kick off with a new Cap movie loosely inspired by the Civil War event. So who wants to update that intense info-graphic of the tentpole movie slate for the next ten years?

TERMINATOR: PARENTHOOD

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This week's Entertainment Weekly has a cover story on the upcoming Terminator reboot/reimagining, Terminator: Genisys (which I still can't spell the subtitle of correctly without looking up). In it, they reveal how this new film fits into the continuity and how a new incarnation of Sarah Connor has been raised by... a Cyberdyne model 101? According to the article: "Sarah Connor isn’t the innocent she was when Linda Hamilton first sported feathered hair and acid-washed jeans in the role. Nor is she Hamilton’s steely zero body-fat warrior in 1991’s T2. Rather, the mother of humanity’s messiah was orphaned by a Terminator at age 9. Since then, she’s been raised by (brace yourself) Schwarzenegger’s Terminator—an older T-800 she calls “Pops”—who is programmed to guard rather than to kill. As a result, Sarah is a highly trained antisocial recluse who’s great with a sniper rifle but not so skilled at the nuances of human emotion." Interesting. Apparently it has James Cameron's seal of approval, but we'll see how it all shakes out next July.