Undead Backbrain

Seen one Chosen One, seen ‘em all? I don’t think so. Have a look at this one!

The Chosen One (US-2008; animation; dir. Chris Lackey)

Here are two trailers:

The Story:

Lou Hanske’s having a hell of a day … he’s lost his job, totaled his car, and been attacked by a bear. Just when it seems like life can’t get any worse, Lou is informed by the eccentric Church of Frank that he’s “The Chosen One” — the savior from prophecy who must travel to Kansas, speak to God and deliver the world into a new age. Together with his elderly roommate Zeb (Chris Sarandon), his best friend Donna (Danielle Fishel) and Lucifer himself (Tim Curry), Lou (Chad Fifer) must master his budding super-powers to overcome Ninjas, Thugs, Femme Fatales (Traci Lords), Religious Zealots (Lance Henriksen), his obsession with his SciFi star ex-girlfriend (Laura Prepon), Giant Monsters and a Posse of Kung Fu Robots in order to fulfill his destiny!

Hmm, not a bad cast for an independent animated feature film that includes, among other things, zombie robots (what’s a zombie robot?) and a giant monster…

And for good luck, here is Tim Curry discussing the film and his role as Lucifer:

The film is now available on DVD.

• Official website

Rumour has it the Too Many Monkeys Production Company made this fake trailer for the Sci-Fi London 2003 film festival fake trailer competition.

It’s for a [non-existent] film called Attack of the Giant Radioactive Robot Women from Venus (2003), which is “a grim film noir homage that brilliantly questions accepted gender roles and male superiority in a pre-feminist age”.

Another rumour has it that a remake of this trailer has gone into production for release in 2010, directed by Michael Bay [no relation].

• Source: Too Many Monkeys website via Avery

In lieu of more substantial writings (the Backbrain has been busy of late), here’s the trailer to the iMax doco-drama Sea Monsters, featuring some very impressive CGI critters:

• Original article
• Source: Avery

Here is a brief clip from a Disney short called Glago’s Guest. Apparently the full thing will be in front of the Disney feature film Bolt, when it premiers on 26th November.

Rather intriguing. What’s in the egg, I wonder?

• Source: AWNtv.com via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery

This is too cool not to put up for all to see. It’s another stop-motion zombie flick. But be warned. It’s very very gory!!

• Source: Quiet Earth via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery

Todd Tennant has created an imaginary trailer for his graphic novel version of the US Godzilla film that never was — you know, the one scripted by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio that Jan De Bont was set to make before the studio sunk it, later to hand the project to Roland Emmerich … different script, different perspective, different Godzilla…

Just follow this link and click on “Start Slideshow” to view it.

There is a killer frame at the end I was dying to include here … but I thought it would be better for you to see it for yourself in context.

So go view what might have been for yourself — and then read Todd’s graphic novel if you haven’t already done so. It’s an ongoing work, but there’s 63 pages there so far — and it’s free!

The latest images from Franz Vorenkamp’s fan-based film project, Godzilla Zero Hour, reveal a level of spectacle and understanding of the mythos of the Big G that has been lacking in mainstream Hollywood productions (okay, there has only ever been one US Godzilla movie, plus a few animated cartoon series).

These images are of the Big G’s enemy Gigan. Having seen snatches of a fully animated test scene featuring this particular kaiju, I can assure you that when Vorenkamp’s first 45-odd-minute Godzilla Zero Hour film is premiered on 5 July at this year’s G-Fest, everyone is likely to be thrilled and excited about the project and will clamber for more.

There is a wealth of information about the film, and continual updates on its progress, on the Godzilla Zero Hour website and related forum.

For a long time now, a project called Tuatara has been cooking away somewhere in an alternative universe known as Oregon. Kaiju Search-Robot Avery spotted it and the Backbrain wondered what it was and if the project still has life in it or not.

Avery commented: “Tuatara is an ambitious stop-motion / claymation kaiju film from a company named Space Monster Pictures. The company has been around since 2004 and the project itself has apparently been around in some form or other for the past 15 years. Now though it may be starting to see the light of day.”

“Apparently the design of the kaiju Tuatara is based on a real-life prehistoric lizard of the same name — one that is still alive today in New Zealand.”

• The real Tuatara!

The film, with its intricate street-scapes and other paraphenalia, also features a giant robot called Gunzai and a giant man-like critter called Manster.

Tuatara faces the latest iteration of Gunzai
(the one above is a prototype):

Manster!

This could be a very interesting project indeed — and hopefully the publicity it’s getting will bring the creators out into the open to take credit for the work so far and to tell us all the state-of-play in regards to the film!

• MySpace site
• Lots of pictures

Via Kaiju Search-Robot Avery

The following brief scene was deleted from Gojira tai Biollante [aka Godzilla vs. Biollante] (1989; dir. Kazuki Omori) as it was considered that the stop-motion SFX did not gell with the rest of the film’s suitmation.

It’s interesting to see what Godzilla might have looked like if Ray Harryhausen had been involved.

Note: some stop-motion SFX were used in the original Gojira (1954).

Addition: here is another deleted (or unused) scene from the same film — an anime sequence in which Biollante absorbs Godzilla’s “evil” and makes him more amenable, in a Showa-era way:

It’s the new Futurama movie, complete with sexual innuendo, smartarse robot and endless canny scifi humour.

It’s out on DVD in June, along with a rumoured three-part division for TV broadcast.

Here’s the plot:

The Planet Express crew must work to fix rips between their universe and another inhabited by a planet-sized, tentacle alien which soon takes over the Earth and uses it’s ability to control Fry to command an entire religion which takes over and convinces the inhabitants of Earth to abandon the Earth to live in a pseudo-heaven, leaving the robots of the world to inherit the planet.

Via Quiet Earth (and Avery)