What is Sweet Heck? I came up with this strip during my last quarter in Savannah. The comic ran up until I graduated and then fell between the cracks as most things I have worked on tend to do. I recently got access to a backup drive that had these very comics. I will post this once or twice a week to try and build up momentum to start where I left off.

Enjoy!

Enjoy!

“In brightest day, in blackest night,
no evil shall escape my sight!
Let those who worship evil’s might,
beware my movie.. Green Lantern sucked!”

Okay, so that last line wasn’t really part of the Green Lantern mantra. Let me start this review by saying that there is no spoiler alert because you already saw everything in the trailer. This is more of a rant on how film makers can destroy a idea that fans have in their head about a comic turned movie character.

The Characters:
-Ryan Reynolds did a great job as Van Wilder and did it again in Green Lantern… playing Van Wilder, not doing a great job… but something was lacking.
-Blake Lively was good as well, not too bad to look at and was given a character that was really explored enough… but something was lacking.
-Peter Sarsgaard could have a good pre villain, had you actually had the time to feel that he was obsessed with Lively, hated Jordan and was angry with his father. The director pretty much told you that in one line so he could move on to something else… something was lacking.
-Mark Strong as Sinestro might have been the best part of this film. He played a character that I would have pictured in my head… but something was lacking.

The rest of the cast was very flat and not memorable at all. Tim Robbins and Angela Bassett are both good actors, but I can’t quote anything that they had said and really remember what their purpose was in this film… Wait… uh, when Bogs says “I can be a friend to you”… shit, wrong movie.

The Special Effects:
-Green suit that is built on energy, that makes sense and it looks good knowing that. Tell me this… how does energy tear when he is in a fight? Right, it shouldn’t, but it does in this mess.
-Hals eyes weren’t white long enough to look cool.
-The fighter drones at the beginning were right out of Stargate.

vs.
I can’t find the Saber Drone image at this time. but it looks like the F-302 with an arrowhead shape.
It’s sad that I saw something and immediately connected it to Stargate, I didn’t think that was going to happen a second time in this movie…
- The Lab: The lab was the remains of the Stargate set, it had to be! Maybe while the series was closing down, the GL production team moved in and said “While you’re hear, can we film a few scenes?”

vs.

The Rant:
When you, the filmmaker are compelled to make a movie version of a comic book, think real hard about the territory you are entering. There is something known as comic book canon, while is the more or less the gospel of geek. Bill Finger wrote Green Lantern in the 1940′s and there have been plenty of stories that have only giving this creation justice. Knowing that, why hire a team of ADD screen writers? Why not use the story that was written as the screenplay? Sure the dialog doesn’t work, but shitty dialog worked for George Lucas for 34 years. The fact of the matter is, the story has been written and the scenes were already envisioned. Go with that! You’ll make friends of fans and they will love you for not thinking of them as being retarded. Or is it the ADD director? The story was all over the place or even miss cut, I don’t know and I don’t want to spend that much time giving it any more thought.

As GL fans know, the mantra is spoken when all else has failed. The use of the mantra in the film was about 30 minutes before he really could have used it. He might as well have used it to open a beer.

“Hey babe, you want me to open that for you?”
“Sure”
“In brightest day, in blackest night…”
[SCENE]

You were introduced to characters, but you were never emotionally involved with them. The viewer is raped of a $9 ticket and forced to watch the video taken of that rape. Too harsh?

How about this one:
Parallax didn’t give Green Lantern half the beating the critics have.

My rating? 1 of 5 Tators, save it for TV

As most Disney fans know: When a new ride opens up, keep clear for about a year. That would normally have stood true for me, but since my layoff I am able to do things earlier that I used to. That being said, I went to Disneyland yesterday in order to catch this new Star Tours ride. For those of you that don’t know, the original Star Tours opened in 1987 and was worse for wear by the time it was closed in late 2010. The video quality had suffered and the animatronics were looking pretty bad.

George Lucas and Disney decided to revamp it and add better effects as well as give you more than one destination. The plan at the beginning was to able to travel to different planets, but for some reason that never happened. Now you are able to travel to a random planet by way of a random location. The idea behind this is keep this ride fresh each time you ride it. I am told that there are about 50 combinations that you can experience and maybe room for more.

I showed up at 8:30am, a half hour before opening. Main Street was open for all of the people wanting to spend early. I bought a coffee as I do (free refills all day) and waited until the rope dropped. As soon as the park opened, everyone pretty much took a step and they were in line for Star Tours. The park hadn’t been open 5 minutes before they announced that there would be an hour wait. It was really about 45 minutes, but I was determined this time to do it and that was the only reason i was there. That and the coffee (free refills all day).

I tend to find things predictable, so when my Star Speeder ended up in the Pod Race scene from Star Wars Episode 1 and the space battle scene from Episode 3 I can honestly say I was disappointed. Not with the overall effects and visual, but because I didn’t enjoy those movies (Episode 3 was better than the other 2). I also remembered that the simulator ride always made me feel sick and break out in a cold sweat. I think this may have something to do with poor air movement and a room full of people breathing heavy at the same time.

Did I mention it is now in 3D? It’s okay, but it doesn’t add to any “realism” since everything is CG and the lighting feels closer to a video game than anything cinema quality.

I was more impressed with the queue than the ride, but that’s the designer in me. They did a great job updating the droids as well as paying homage to the previous Star Tour ride. The twin droids that talked to you while you were line are still there, now updated and cleaned up. I gotta say, I loved their animation before, but now they are amazing. I spoke with some employees after the ride and they asked if I caught all of the hidden stuff in the queue. I hadn’t, but that makes me want to see more.

Should you wait the 225 minutes or get a fast pass with a return time of an hour before the park closes? Hell no. It’s not THAT good. You could be the biggest Star Wars fan and maybe wait 90 minutes, but the 225 minutes I have seen posted is horrible. Wait until after the summer and all the kids are back in school.

(Reposted from My other site)

AP has become a little stagnant over the years and my goal is to freshen things up a bit over the next few weeks. I will be updating links and adding a few new bells and whistles.

I tweeted a few weeks saying that Assimilated Podcast will be returning. I have not been untruthful, just a bit delayed on time. New shows will be back shortly.

In the meantime, please let me know what you would like to see that has been forgotten or left out over the past few years.

-Hatter

I hope to have things under control in the next few weeks and we can get this site moving a bit quicker. In the meantime, drop us a phone call by clicking the link to the left. Also be sure to listen to some of the classic podcasts that we’ve recorded over the last two years.

Not sure where Hawkeye’s strip has gone, he said he wouldn’t have a problem uploading new strips. We’ll see.

Post in the forum, reply to this post, follow me on Twitter at TheAPShow or email me. I want to hear from you guys. What do you want to see? What do you think of the show?