And then Zarban simul-posts about The Gold Rush and The General.    Awesome.   We should hang out.

To avatar you listen.

And the same applies to Avatar (the movie, not the Dif poster).

Pandorum went into production months after we shot Ark, but was released long before Ark finally made it to Hulu.

When I was offered Ark, I was reluctant partly because "giant sleeper ship where something goes wrong" was already a fairly tired trope (and that was before I'd even heard of Pandorum).  I asked if we could at least change the title, since part of the trope is that the ship is almost always called "the Ark", but obviously I didn't win that battle.

But at least in the "what happens next?" series bible that I wrote, in case we ever get to continue the story, I made two things clear:  the ship is not called "the Ark", and - for the most part - nothing has gone wrong.   The problem is that the characters don't know what's going on, and will have to figure it out.

True enough - and those are three movies that I'm (cautiously) looking forward to.  However, it's worth noting that they're all also installments of established money-making franchises.  <sigh>   

That may be the true tragedy of the summer of '12 - sequels (and reboots - Hello again, Spiderman) will likely do well as usual, while attempts to do something at least new are setting new records for failure.   Hunger Games is the only one to buck that trend so far, I think.

I'm listening...

Meanwhile, the ice giants are nowhere to be found.

Well, the deck was stacked pretty heavily against him, there are only three female characters of any note in the entire movie, and not many opportunities for them to meet.    But two of them aren't somebody's girlfriend - and although Pepper does meet that description, she's a solid character in her own right -  she's Tony's equal and much more than just his g.f.   She's actually been that way without Joss's help, ever since the first Iron Man.     

Come to think of it, Pepper and Flying Vinyl already passed the Bechdel test in Iron Man 2.   

So Avengers may not specifically pass the Bechdel test, but it doesn't fail it either.    And I wouldn't be surprised if there are deleted scenes that would have passed the test, and were cut for time.

I hope somewhere right now, a bunch of nerds are pinning a young Mitt Romney to the ground and quoting Firefly at him.

The next destroy-New-York movie should have a moment where the heroes walk down the street, looking at the sky in concern... and all the storekeepers start closing shop and pulling the metal shutters closed.  "Aw crap, here we go..."

Of all the episodes I wasn't part of, that's the only one I regret.

It made more (domestically) on Friday alone than John Carter did in its entire run.     Ouch.