Comicon Day One and other bits

Wow, I’ve been ODing on amazing news today. It’s been one thing after another. And Day One of Comicon isn’t even over yet! Click below for a quite ridiculous amount of exciting info.

The full Blade Runner specs are here, and they’re almost identical to the dreamy list prematurely unveiled by EzyDVD a couple of months ago. Here’s the cream of the crop:

- Five cuts of the film: the 1982 theatrical cut, the more violent international cut, the 1992 Director’s Cut, Ridley Scott’s new Final Cut, and the infamous workprint whose unearthing led to the creation of the DC.

- Three commentary tracks on the Final Cut with Ridley Scott, the screenwriters, and design personnel. No actors, sadly.

- A 3 and a half hour Charles de Lauzirika documentary on the film, Dangerous Days, featuring interviews with the entire cast, including Harrison Ford.

- 47 minutes of newly discovered deleted scenes (holy shit!!!)

- Featurettes on Philip K Dick

- And loads more.

The set will be available in three versions: a 2-disc set containing the Final Cut, the commentaries, and Dangerous Days; a 4-disc set that adds a disc of three other cuts and a disc of miscellaneous wondrousness; and a 5-disc briefcase set adding the workprint and a doco on the various cuts.

The only downside of these releases is that the workprint is only available in an edition that costs twice as much as the 4-disc one, for which you get a spinner model and other collectible crud in a Deckard briefcase/toybox. Collector photos and miniatures and all that rubbish bore me silly. It’s a shame that fans have to spend so much to get the whole lot, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I can live without the workprint anyway. Also, the acclaimed Channel 4 doco On the Edge of Blade Runner was going to be included, but now isn’t, sadly. But since we’re getting the massive Dangerous Days, it would be spoiled to complain. I was going to say that it’s on Youtube anyway, but I just checked and found that Warner Bros have requested its removal. Maybe it’ll be snuck on to the DVD after all.

Against all expectations, de Lauzirika revealed that his Twin Peaks: The Complete Series box set will include deleted scenes from both seasons of the show!!! AND a feature-length documentary called Secrets from Another Place: Creating Twin Peaks!!! I’ve longed for a doco on the making of this seminal show but never thought a studio would bother, yet they have! And it’s a de Lauzirika production too. Sweet merciful Zeus, I’m happy.

The set will also include:

- a roundtable discussion with David Lynch, Kyle MacLachlan, Madchen Amick, and a mystery person not yet revealed.

- Richard Beymer’s glorious photographs from the final day of shooting.

- Both the TV and European versions of the pilot, fully remastered.

- Interviews with even more cast and crew as yet unfeatured on the DVDs, including Joan Chen, Lynch, Angelo Badalamenti, and perhaps more, and more footage of the interviewees already showcased.

- And other extras yet to be announced. A full spec list has not yet been seen, but de Lauzirika said “we got away with murder” in terms of what they were able to squeeze on. Oh, at last!

In other very surprising Peaks news, illustrator Matt Haley revealed in an interview that he mounted a project to tell the third season of Twin Peaks in comic book form! He had Mark Frost on board, Fire Walk with Me co-writer Robert Engels set to write, the studio in agreement, a publisher interested, and the promise of packaging the story with the upcoming DVD box set. But then Lynch put a stop to it! Who knows how it would have it turned out, but I hope you knew what you were doing, David, because this could have been awesome!

Take a look at this delicious piece of art by Haley before the project was shut down. The image of Cooper and his other work, as seen in the above interview, show how superb he is at capturing likenesses. Dugpa confirmed the project as legit, and that he was asked not to mention it and chose not to when it fell through. Wow, what could have been….

Harold Perrineau appeared in person at Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse’s Lost panel – no wonder they wanted to reveal his return there – and confirmed that Michael is back as a regular cast member! Great news. He’s got quite an uphill battle with the other castaways. I won’t mention their comments about the game-changing season finale, knowing that some readers haven’t seen the whole third season yet. Suffice to say, it was good news. Cool stuff unrelated to that is that Libby’s story will be tackled in season four, and Rousseau will be getting a flashback and perhaps playing a bigger role in the story.

Zachary Quinto is officially Spock in the new Star Trek movie, although Leonard Nimoy will play him too! Although he’s been retired from acting for years and hasn’t played Spock since 1991, Nimoy has returned – presumably for framing scenes – based on JJ Abrams being at the helm and the strength of the script, which has been garnering raves. Kirk has not yet been cast, and Shatner will be included if a suitable way can be found to do so.

Someone I spoke to today made the good point that Spock’s scenes could be set post-Next Generation, since Spock is still alive in that time and it would account for Nimoy’s aging. Since Kirk died in Generations, he could logically not be included in Nimoy’s scenes. Interesting…

Oh, and a new poster was displayed. Nothing special, but that familiar font confirms along with Nimoy’s participation that this will have greater ties to the original incarnation of the franchise than previously assumed.

Another viral marketing site for The Dark Knight has gone live, featuring a rather cool recruitment poster by the Joker and a countdown from ten hours, as of this writing, that allegedly coincides with Warner Bros. Comicon panel, although Dark Knight has put off showing its wares until next month’s Wizard World Chicago con. Is it the debut of the trailer, or is something unexpected happening at the panel? Or will the site itself reveal something?

The poster’s statement ends with the following: “Bring your sense of humour, but don’t worry – we’ll supply the smile.” In light of the Ledger photo released a while back, that’s wonderfully creepy.

As rumoured, Karen Allen is returning as Marion Ravenwood for Indiana Jones 4. A picture of her and Spielberg on set has been released, and she looks terrific, like only a few years have passed since Raiders. Coming full circle does seem to be the order of the day.

There’s been surprisingly little interesting comics news actually. This is the first year where I’ve been following Comicon coverage for the TV and film side rather than the comics. That event’s metamorphosing more and more every year.

Check back over the weekend for more goss, and get keen for the Dark Knight teaser! A crappy copy has already been leaked to YouTube, but don’t lower yourself to that shite. A nice Quicktime version should be out on Saturday, Australian time, I predict.