All Shall Love Me and Despair

Took LJ Maintenance long enough to sort out whatever was the problem... *hrmph*

Anyway... saw Star Trek Into Darkness last night at the IMAX and it was great! Even better than the first one from 2009, so we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Benedict was fantastic, as expected, and oh it was nice listening to his voice in that growly low register he used... *fans self* From the regulars, I particularly liked Zachary Quinto's performance. It was also nice to see Noel Clark (Mickey from Doctor Who) again, though his role was small.

Now I had heard about who John Harrison was... ( Spoilers - serious ones, so consider yourselves warned! )

Not sure if we'll get around to see Iron Man 3 at the cinema... we'd certainly like to, but we'll have to see.

Jeremy Jahns, who did a review of the Star Trek Into Darkness teaser trailer (see my earlier post about it), now did another review of the Superbowl trailer. He's still a total Benedict Cumberbatch fanboy and admits that "it's almost mancrush-ish at this point", hee.

( Superbowl trailer )

( JJ's review )

Also, thanks to caias installing the official STID app on his Android phone (since I don't have a smartphone), we got tickets for one of the preview screenings on May 15th (i.e. two days before the official cinema opening date) of the film! Can't wait! *bounce*

*needs to make a John Harrison icon*

So as mentioned previously, we went to the midnight screening of The Hobbit last night - the IMAX HFR 3D version, to be precise. We arrived at the cinema shortly after 9:30pm already, to make sure we could still get decent seats, and a good thing too - there was already a queue. We got our copies of the lovely posters that were being handed out - for some reason you had to go to the Services counter to get them - and didn't have to stand in line long before they let us into the theater. We got some decent seats and settled in for the long wait, mostly reading to pass the time.

We were lucky in that our IMAX was one of those showing the 9-minute preview of Star Trek Into Darkness, which looked pretty damn good. There's a synposys here, if you're interested. Only a short glimpse of Benedict Cumberbatch, but the whole thing was fun, and it was received well by the audience, from what I could tell.

And then it was time for The Hobbit. We both loved it. I've seen some reviews mentioning that the pacing was a bit too slow at the start, but I didn't think so at all - it certainly wasn't slower than Fellowship, and it needed that amount of setup. The acting was superb throughout, starting with Martin Freeman, of course, who makes a wonderful young Bilbo! I also liked this younger version of Gandalf - he's less self-assured here than in LotR. The dwarves were thankfully not just comic relief, though some hardly got a line of dialogue. I hope we'll get to know them all better over films 2 and 3. Radagast was just on the right side of silly, and I love his rabbit-drawn sled. It was wonderful to see some familiar faces - Elrond, Galadriel, Saruman, Lindir (a.k.a. Figwit) - and of course Gollum, who looks even better and more realistic than the did in LotR!

( Favourite scenes: )

As for the 48 fps, it didn't take me any time at all to get used to it, and I loved how crystal clear everything looked. I didn't notice it making some of the CGI creatures look fake, like some reviewers did. I also felt the pacing was appropriate and nothing dragged, so the almost 3 hours went by quickly. I was totally immersed in the world of The Hobbit - the only thing that took me out of it momentarily a few times was the lovely New Zealand scenery. :)

But yes, I utterly loved the whole experience (as did hubbie), and I'm so happy we went to the midnight screening. Now to wait a year until the next one... when will the theatrical DVD come out, I wonder?! ;D

comicbook.com has posted Five Reasons It's Gary Mitchell and Five Reasons It's Khan Noonien Singh, regarding the identity of Benedict Cumberbatch's villain in the new Star Trek film. I wonder how long the filmmakers will leave us to speculate? :)

There's not only the first teaser poster featuring Benedict Cumberbatch's still-unnamed villain, but also a first "announcement" teaser trailer - including a version shown at a recent Japanese press promotion attended by J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk (producer), Chris Pine and Benedict Cumberbatch, which is the same but has a teensy bit more tacked on at the end:



It's worth watching again and again just for the sheer voice porn that is Benedict's voiceover! If he speaks in that register during the whole movie, I may not be able to concentrate on the plot at all! *fans self* Karl Urban also shows up briefly.

There will be a new teaser trailer available on December 17 (which I understand will show from December 14 in IMAX cinemas that do not show the first 9 minutes of the film). If you are in the US or Canada and want to know if you can see this extended preview before The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at your IMAX, the official STID website has a list of participating IMAX cinemas.

Peter Jackson responds to critics of ‘Hobbit’ footage


Bilbo and Smaug in ‘Sherlock’ season 2 starting Sunday - Americans, watch it on PBS if you can! It will again be edited down slightly to fit into the timeslot despite commercials, but I hope it will still be great!


Benedict Cumberbatch: I've been fighting doing Dracula - OMG PLEASE DON'T RESIST!!! I would kill to see him as a vampire! *drools* And I know I'm not the only one by far! I'd prefer if it was something other than Dracula, though.


Sadly I was unable to get any of the tickets that PBS were having a drawing for (apparently they had 10000 people write in for the 300 tickets they had!), but thankfully they did a livestream of the event that is mentioned in the following article, so I got to enjoy it vicariously. I was thrilled to see that one of the mods and organizers of SherlockNYC got to ask a question! *bounce* Anyway, here's the brief Radio Times article - Benedict is his usual gracious and wonderful self: Benedict Cumberbatch: "There's room enough for two Sherlocks, so why not three?". Includes a video clip at the end which jumps into the middle, to aforementioned SherlockNYC mod's question, but do jump back to the very beginning, as it was a very interesting Q&A. :)

PS: You can watch the full thing on Youtube, in four parts: One / Two / Three / Four


Role to Role, From Sherlock to ‘Star Trek’


Major Star Trek Sequel Spoilers - the second of three has to do with the role Benedict plays, which has so far not officially been announced. It's pretty much what has been speculated a lot (though reportedly it's not a rehash). There's one other casting spoiler and also info about a race that will be appearing, so if it's only plot spoilers you're worried about, you're safe to read this article.

Cumberbatch to play villain in 'Star Trek 2'
'Tinker Tailor' thesp cast in J.J. Abrams-helmed sci-fier

This is AWESOME!!! So happy for Benedict - I can't wait to see him play a big baddie role! I hope we'll soon hear who the villain is. There was talk about Khan, but I don't think that has actually been confirmed?

Oh boy, if Benedict and Karl Urban were to appear on screen at the same time, I may spontaneously combust from hotness overload...