I’ve got a little bit of Monday morning fun here for you. The first teaser trailer for The Force Awakens hasn’t been out that long, but we’ve already got some alternate fan and/or hate cuts going on that I’d like to share with you.

First up, it appears George Lucas has already gotten his grubby hands on the new film and plans to release the George Lucas Special Edition replete with banthas, a whole lot more storm troopers on Tatooine, Jango Fett clones, Jaba the Hut, force ghost Hayden Christensen Anakin force ghost, crazy amounts of Tie Fighters ganging up on the Falcon, and of course,…

This is completely cheesy and corny, and I completely loved it… except for the end maybe. I’m not convinced that was the correct outcome, and it seemed a little too easy.

I’m also not sure what the point was, and I’m also not sure I care. The production quality is actually pretty incredible. And Jon-Charles Cordery did a pretty impressive Darth Vader voice.

Here it is guys, the Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser trailer we’ve been waiting all week for. I had a little bit of a fit when I first thought it would only show in NINE THEATERS across the U.S. and nowhere else. Then they opened up the kimono a little and revealed it would be in quite a few more theaters than that, including a theater I generally like to go to in Franklin (though I probably would have driven 50 or 60 miles to some theaters somewhere in or around Nashville to see this teaser). But I had nothing to fear because it’s on iTunes Trailers, and on YouTube.

I’ll have some…

Hollywood, CA–At a press conference today outside his estate in Beverly Hills, acclaimed director Peter Jackson announced his plans to make a 72-film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. “It was the next logical step after doing Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit,” Jackson said. “In Lord of the Rings, we took over a thousand pages of novel and adapted it to the big screen in three extremely long films. Then in The Hobbit, we took a children’s book a fraction the length of Lord of the Rings, and also made it into three extremely long films.”

Jackson then unfolded his plan for…

James Gunn took to Facebook recently. He did not have kind words for the direction many studios have been headed with their universes. But I didn’t feel that he was overly crtical. And I share his conerns. This is a really short read and worth your time.

CARTS BEFORE HORSES & HOLLYWOOD’S NEW LOVE OF SHARED UNIVERSES

Listen, I love big ass shared universes in movies, as well as huge franchises. But I’m a little worried about the numerous shared universes being planned by the studios, without having a strong base film to grow from - or in some cases, NO base film to grow from. Star Wars had…

UPDATE: More theater chains other than Regal have announced plans to screen the trailer this weekend, though have not specified which theaters. Check below for a list of chains, including AMC Theatres, that have announced their involvement in the theater roll out.

Yes! My theater in Franklin, TN is on this list (the Carmike, Thoroughbred 20)! I’m excited. Guess I’ll be making the drive into Franklin for my film this weekend though I haven’t been driving that far lately. Here’s the list:

Phoenix, Arizona–Harkins, Tempe Marketplace
Los Angeles, California–AMC, Century City
Los Angeles,…

We take a look at the impressively large-scale sci-fi adventure of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. While well-documented as Nolan’s “most ambitious” project to date, it does remind us a lot of things he has done before. Interstellar, although technically brilliant, didn’t blow us away from a storytelling point of view, but it does force us to wrestle with questions about human potential, limitations, society, anti-intellectualism, “our place in the sky”, and “our place in the dirt.” Due to the incredible scope of the film, we increased the scope of the panel– so we are flush with…

Read The Rest

The first trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be debuting in a small number of theaters across the US on Friday. Regal Cinemas announced that the trailer will play before all movies showing at nine of its locations starting this Friday and continuing through the weekend:

CA Irvine — Edwards Irvine Spectrum 22 & IMAX

CA San Diego — Edwards Mira Mesa Stadium 18 IMAX & RPX

GA Atlanta — Regal Atlantic Station Stadium 18 IMAX & RPX

IL Chicago — Regal City North Stadium 14 IMAX & RPX

NY New York — Regal Union Square Stadium 14

PA Warrington — Regal Warrington Crossing Stadium 22 &…

This is the point at which I realize I never got around to writing my written review of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and realize that I have not seen it recently enough to do so. That’s sort of frustrating. Make no mistake, it is always my intention to write a review of every film I see. I am not always able to get around to doing it.

Luckily, I did write a review of the first Hunger Games film. It was very early in the days of MovieByte when these films first began making their appearance. Joe and I also talked about it on episode 7 of The MovieByte Podcast. The first installment was…