by Shane “Galaxy Far Away” Hnetka

HnetflixIt’s the Fourth Quarter Winter Solstice Mass Consumer Buying Season ( Christmas), and there have been a bunch of treats (trailers, casting announcements, etc.) lately from Hollywood just in time for the holidays.

The Force Awakens, Maybe

It’s still over a year away, but Disney has released a teaser trailer for the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. There has been much discussion over the mere one minute, 26 seconds worth of footage and I’m sure there will be much more before the next trailer is released.

The teaser featured a mere seven clips (seventh film, seven clips, hmm) and I’ve heard lots of discussion about them. John Boyega in a stormtrooper suit (although only Internet racists have anything negative to say about that), the lame-looking rolling droid, the evil-looking stormtroopers getting ready for a fight, Daisy Ridley riding a clunky looking, um, refrigerator?, X-wings skimming a planet’s surface, some dude in black with a wacky looking lightsaber and finally the Millennium Falcon fighting some tie-fighters. Nothing gets fans talking like the smallest of tastes of what’s to come.

Even More Announcements and Teasers

As I write this, Warner Bros. has announced the cast for their upcoming super-villain movie Suicide Squad. It’s sort of like the Dirty Bunch, but with super-villains. Warner seems to be throwing in the big gun characters: even the Joker (Jared Leto) is on this team of villains looking for redemption and working off their prison sentences. In comics (and in movies!), the Joker isn’t known for his redemption skills, but whatever. Rounding out the cast is Tom Hardy as Rick Flagg, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Will Smith as Deadshot, Cara Delevingne as Enchantress (not the Marvel Thor villain, a different villain with the same name) and Jai Courtney as Boomerang. Writer/director David Ayer just had a big hit with Fury so this might be pretty good. Hell, it already looks more promising than Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

It hadn’t been announced by the time I had to write this, but the name and cast for the new James Bond movie is coming soon and the first teaser trailer for the new Terminator movie, Terminator: Genisys will have been released. Ahh, nerd movie heaven.

Shane Hnetka is a Regina film and comic book nerd. He also writes Dog Blog’s weekly “Sunday Matinee” column at prairiedogmag.com.

2014-12-11