TRAILER: Pacific Rim Uprising first trailer is here!

• Official site 
• IMDB listing

THE APOCALYPSE COMES MARCH 2018!

TRAILER: All star cast for KONG: SKULL ISLAND!

More than 12 years after his last appearance in theaters, KING KONG will return to the silver screen in KONG: Skull Island in 2017!

I'm actually a fan of the 2005 Peter Jackson film, set in the 1920s (like the original it pays homage to). It has some exciting sequences with all manner of monsters. And the battle atop the Empire State Building takes the original concept to an unprecedented level. But it's also slow as shit, especially in the beginning.

KONG: Skull Island, from the producers of the latest Godzilla effort, looks AH-MA-ZING, by comparison with it's Apocalypse Now-meets-monster-movie approach to the story.

Set during the Vietnam war, a group of soldiers is tasked with mapping an uncharted and mysterious island in the South Pacific (the eponymous scrap of land from the title). The best way to do this? Drop bombs on it! I love movies that just lean in to their ridiculous premises. :-)

Kong, of course, is not happy about that:

But the best part? An all star cast--many of them from the Marvel family of films:

• Brie Larson - Captain Marvel
• Tom Hiddleston - Loki (Thor, Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok)
• Sam Jackson - Nick Fury (Like, so many Marvel movies!)
• John C. Reilly - Nova Corpsman Rhomann Dey (Guardians of the Galaxy)

Yep, it has Steve Brule in it! And by the looks of it, he's the island "expert" laying down, uh..."rules" for survival, if you will excuse the reference.

The only one not from the Marvel movie-verse is John Goodman, who plays the seedy, money man who gets the group into trouble in the first place.

Rumor has it Kong will meet up with his frenemy Godzilla on the big screen sometime in the next few years. I. AM. THERE.

What's Gameable?

In short: ALL OF IT. Looks like plenty of fodder for an Isle of Dread type of adventure or maybe a prelude to Apes Victorious? Either way--the trailer alone has enough game inspiration for an adventure hook, as it is. I'm sure the full film is chocked full of more monster mayhem than you can throw a helicopter at!

So if you're doing a mini-campaign set mid-century (read: 60s-70s) I think you've got a bunch of options:

• Wartime mapping/recon mission (soldier heavy party with lots of incendiaries/explosives)
• Big game hunt turned disastrous (non-professionals,no explosives, but armed with stun guns, gas grenades, tranq darts, nets, cages, etc.) 
• Petroleum excavation crew (Heavy on science and exploration, few weapons) 
• National Geographic documentary crew  (cameras and machetes only!)
• Or a mix of any of the above

And you've got a great set up for NPCs and possibly foes:

• Lost tribe of humans who worship/fear the island fauna
• Stranded "guide" looking to get off the island
• Greedy entrepreneur looking to make a buck
• Mercs/henchmen, looking out for their boss
• Foolhardy scientist/journalist who gets too close
• Skeptical/grizzled colonel who's trying to keep his troops alive

IF your party escapes, you can a second leg where the kaiju bring the fight back to mankind on his home turf, a la one of my absolute favorites in recent years: Godzilla Half Century War.

That's a full-on military campaign, but it's MUCH more hard-scrabble for the humans than any of Godzilla's movies. We're talkin' street-level skirmishes against a kaiju--lots of fun! Oh and definitely check that comic out, the art is incredibly detailed and inspirational!

UPDATE: Eric over at Swords & Stitchery did a full write-up on running a Skull Island adventure!

• IMDB listing
• Official site

TRAILER: Latest Godzilla gives HUGE plot point!

HOLY F@#$! The new trailer for Godzilla reveals a previously unreleased plot detail. A BIG ONE. Monster movie fans will immediately get what's going--and it changes the big G's role in the film.

This feels like a spoiler to me, so fair warning to you--though, this just makes me want to see it even MORE!



If you watch it and comment below, spoilers be damned!

TRAILER 2: Bryan Cranston is not a fan of Godzilla

The new trailer for Godzilla drops some dramatic plot hints--quite a unique take actually. I appreciate the nod to the original 1954 film. Still no word on whether we'll see a kaiju showdown, but there's enough intrigue injected into this promo that it almost looks unnecessary. When Walter White and Kick Ass take on the Big G come May 16, count me in!

TRAILERS! Jupiter Ascending! Godzilla! Spider-Man!

JUPITER ASCENDING (Film)

Here's a heapin' helpin' of the latest sci-fi trailers to hit the web. First up is a new space opera by Matrix-makers, the Wachowski's!



Jupiter Ascending opens on July 25, 2014.

NO MAN'S SKY (Video Game)

Next is another space-opera-y trailer for an immersive video game called No Man's Sky from Hello Games. Not only do the graphics look gorgeous--they're all in-game shots.


Apparently NMS was made by only four developers and no one had even heard of it until it's trailer debuted at VGX (formerly known as Spike TV's Video Game Awards) a few days ago. Can't seem to track down a release date yet, but it's being developed for PC, XBox, and PS4.

The AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 (Film)

Here's the one for Spider-Man 2 (the re-boot). The visuals are pretty incredible. Hopefully the story is better than the first one.



Spidey returns to screens May 2, 2014.

GODZILLA (Film)

And for the grand finale, Warner Bros has FINALLY released a trailer after the one that was leaked, then pulled offline a few months back, for the Big G himself: GODZILLA!


Gozilla is set to stomp theaters May 16, 2014.

Enjoy!

THE BIG G IS BACK!

May 16th, 2014, cannot come soon enough!

Via io9

UPDATE: Sorry folks, looks like Warners has yanked the Godzilla clip. Once an official one pops up, I'll revise this post. Until then, here's a little something to tide you over:

This is your chance to KILL ALL MONSTERS!

Imagine the Earth is ripped asunder by giant monsters and mankind has gone into hiding. They've conquered us...but in time, we fight back using giant robots! You may be thinking this sounds like that awesome looking movie trailer for Pacific Rim--but I'm actually talking about KILL ALL MONSTERS! A web comic by my pal Michael May (writer) and Jason Copeland (illustrator). KAM has been around a while (I've written about KAM previously). Now Michael and Jason are wrapping up a Kickstarter campaign to bring the (first volume) electronic version into your hands via dead tree!

Here's a synopsis:

Kill All Monsters is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which the giant monsters have already won. Civilization has largely been destroyed and humanity has been driven underground to survive as best they can. Rising from the ashes of this defeat however is a trio of giant robots, piloted by a diverse group of soldiers dedicated to killing the monsters. ALL of them.

In Volume 1: Ruins of Paris, the Kill Team travels to Europe for the first time to investigate rumors of another group of monster fighters. What they find are more giants than they've ever faced before and a devastating secret that will affect the entire war.

It couldn't be better timed now that we've all got rock'em sock'em kaiju action on our minds. There's less than a day left, so I wouldn't wait if you want to get your hands on a copy of the book or some awesome swag. $5 gets you a PDF, $20 and you'll also get the print edition. The first episode has the good guys destroying defending Paris!

Kickstart KILL ALL MONSTERS!

GIANT ROBOTS FIGHTING GIANT MONSTERS!

 TAKE MY MONEY!!!

Webcomic: KILL ALL MONSTERS!

What if Godzilla's family came over for dinner and never left? What would happen to humanity if they'd won the planet and we took runner-up in the food chain? Why we'd build giant robots to take the planet back! This is the premise of KILL ALL MONSTERS! a recently launched web comic set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, after the kaiju have divided and conquered us puny humans.

The creative team is made up of Twin Cities comic writer Michael May (who I've had the pleasure of meeting several times) and Jason Copland (art) and Ed Brisson (lettering).

From May's blog:

In Kill All Monsters! the giants have already won. It's a post-apocalyptic setting in which the world has been completely overrun by giant monsters. Pockets of humanity are hiding and surviving as best they can, but no one's found an effective way to defeat the beasts...until now. Operating out of a hidden temple deep in the jungle, the African Defense Force has created a small until of giant mechs, operated by an international team of the best pilots humanity has to offer. The story begins with the unit's first trip out of their home continent as they try to assess some of the damage done to Europe. What they learn there is even more terrifying than they imagined.

In keeping with the post-apoc genre, KAM is more than just big baddies trading punches. May also promises "...mutant animal-people, barbarians, and secret societies of mad scientists...". As a lover of massive collateral carnage and content in the gamma strain, this is right up my alley--especially since I've been on a Gamma World tear for a while now. It's exactly the kind of stuff that gets my Megathrusters going!

While it's got plenty of panel-breaking action, the base storyline about the human characters is solid and well plotted. It's great to see a really fun idea well executed. The online version publishes a page-at-a-time format employed by many web series, but printed copies aren't far behind. This is pure inspiration for a game, but I can't help but think it'd make for an even more spectacular MOVIE! I particularly love the way the landscape is used as more than just a backdrop...

I can dream can't I?

Linkage

• KILL ALL MONSTERS! web comic
• KAM blog 

New Godzilla in 2012!

It's true--Godzilla is back in 2012. And, no, Roland Emmerich will not have anything to do with the big guy's return. I refer you to the estimable Monster Island News on the matter, which sounds like a news program on Monster Island. Oh, how I wish it were!

MIN has also posted the official press release.

Hail to the King Baby!

King Ghidorah that is. By popular insistence I give you a giant three-headed rockstar bedazzled in glorious gold.

 

 

 

Here's a few artistic interpretations. First is one of my favorites from a Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics module. I need to get my hands on one of these and convert it to a space adventure:

Next are a few selections from Deviant Art by Artists hypergojira and KaijuSamurai (respectively)

 

  

And then we have--hold on...what's that? There's a Ghidorah with one of the heads replaced by a robot?!!That's just crazy talk.

Know your enemy folks:

...and then make him your plaything:

That's if for now. I've decided that portions of this weekend's program will be dedicated to GINORMOUS FOES! So get ready. Then we're back to your regularly scheduled sci-fi posts and gearing up Exonauts to take on these baddies.

Intersteller Inspiration: Ginormous Foes!

Click on images to enlarge