Month: April 2009

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Video: Supernatural mocks fans, themselves

So it seems that on last week’s Supernatural episode ‘The Monster at the End of This Book,’ the main characters, Dean and that guy played Dean on Gilmore Girls Sam, discover fandom. And slash. Incest slash, of course, since the main focus of both the show and the psuedo-fandom within the show are the two brothers. Naturally, some in the fandom are less than amused…

I gotta say, I tend to eat this kind of thing up with a spoon. (See Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, Avatar’s ‘The Ember Island Players,’ and I’m sure some of you know the names of the X-Files episodes I’m thinking of…) But what’s your take? Is it okay for the canon to take a mocking stance on not only itself but the fans?

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Update on Aaron Allston

As you have probably already heard, a good friend of Club Jade, Aaron Allston, recently underwent bypass surgery. He’s currently in intensive care, but stable.  Our thoughts and prayers are with him.

For those in the Dallas area, a blood donation sponsorship has been set up by his family.

UPDATE: There are several other donation centers in the Carter Blood Care system where you can donate blood.  They’ll give you a coupon that you can then mail to the DelRey address to go towards Aaron’s bill.

As you’re no doubt aware, expenses for this kind of event can get astronomical pretty quickly.  Please stay tuned as we work with Aaron’s family to see how else his fans can help.

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The Clone Wars as a season, why little boys like Star Wars and more…

The Clone Wars: Storm Over Ryloth

Several reviewers have summed up their opinions after seeing a whole season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. IGN gives it a 7.7 out of 10, saying “it has a ton of great action and adventure, is increasingly great to look at, and has had some surprisingly effective character moments.”, calling out ‘Rookies’, ‘Cloak of Darkness’ and ‘Trespass’ among their favorite episodes. Ki-Aaaron-Mundi blogs about the impressive first season on his sw.com blog, pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly. Lazypadawan highlights the sophistication of the writing, and the great new characters.

Reviews are also coming in for the Star Wars: The Clone Wars DVD – A Galaxy Divided (containing 4 episodes containing 4 episodes: the Yoda-centric ‘Ambush’ and the Malevolence three-parter). IGN also panned it for weak episodes and no extras – good for kids, but adults should wait for the full season 1 release. SWCloneWarsReviews sums it up: the reviewer bought the DVD so you don’t have to.

Meanwhile, SW.com takes a look at the latest issue of the UK’s The Clone Wars comic/magazine. EUCantina reported on briefly seeing “The Force Unleashed – Special Edition” on Gamefly, releasing at the end of September.

And the Washington Post’s Parenting blog looks at Star Wars and other kid obsessions, keying off of a Slate article by Emily Bazelon on why Star Wars resonates with little boys.

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Gate Geek – Jack’s Back!

This week is the biggest Stargate convention of the year:  Creation’s Stargate con in Vancouver.  So it stands to reason we’ll be getting lots of fun tidbits via GateWorld.

Best of all is the news from producer Brad Wright that Jack (Richard Dean Anderson) will be appearing in Stargate Universe!

Gary Jones has also confirmed that everyone’s favorite Chevron-counter, Walter, will be appearing. 

And rumors (totally con-based rumors…and you know how those get) are swirling that Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson) and Amanda Tapping (Sam Carter) are also appearing because they suddenly had to push back their appearance at the con for filming.  (Probably have to nix at least Amanda on that one.  Sanctuary is currently in production.  And Michael is doing a pilot.  But I’ll take it, if it’s true!)

Either way, you can catch all of these folks tonight (Friday) on Sci-Fi SyFy as Stargate takes over this Friday with airings of The Ark of Truth and Continuum.  (If you haven’t seen Continuum, watch.  It’s a really good one!)

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Marvel tries for ‘female product,’ kinda fails

Yes. They're in a band, apparently.This would actually be kind of hilarious if it wasn’t rather sad… Marvel has apparently decided that the trick to getting girls to buy their merchandise are… Chibis and cosmetics. And yes, they actually use the term ‘female product.’ Seriously!

“Since our core customer has always been guys, we need to be very careful when we introduce female product so that we don’t alienate our core,” said Paul Gitter, president of consumer products, North America, for Marvel Entertainment Inc. “What we have found through testing is that we haven’t alienated them, which gives us the OK to move forward with female product.”

Yes, god forbid they alienate the menfolk.

Points for trying, I guess, but isn’t there some kind of middle road here? Do they really have to go over to the hearts-and-pink-things side – or define ‘female’ as ‘preteen’ – to get women to buy merchandise? (Via Maggiesox, who has her rant on.)