Nerd News Recap

This past week in nerd news...

Warner Brothers cancelled making Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 in 3D this week. They said that it would take more time than they have to make the effects worthwhile. The movie comes out November 19 and they had just started working on the 3D, a little over a month to the premiere. This is a good choice by Warner Brothers because now we can all watch it the way the movie was intended to be watched originally.

The New York Comic Con happened this week, October 8th to the 10th. No comment.

The Beatles

Some of the Glee cast

Glee broke what?!?! The cast of Glee has 75 entries to the Billboard's Hot 100, breaking The Beatles record of 71 hits. It took The Beatles 22 years to accumulate all those hits when Glee did that and more in a little over a year. Now, though some fans will protest, the Glee cast isn't a band and they only do covers of songs.  Now, I'm not saying their not good, but better than The Beatles? No way.
If the cast of Glee keeps up with the Hot 100 hit's accumulation they've been doing it may not be impossible to pass the artist with the most hits, Elvis Presley with an impressive 108 hits. Will the Kings and Queens of Musical Drama beat the King of Rock n' Roll? Only time will tell.

Vending machines are very good for grabbing something to snack on, but the English believe that they may also be useful for grabbing a good book on the run. In some airports and hotels in England one will find vending machines called A Novel Idea that sells books for ten dollars a piece. These vending machines hold titles of New York Times Bestsellers and children's books. These vending machines will soon be going to Asia and Australia. What about the U.S.? We need books too!

Best Vending Machine Ever!


Do you have an opinion? Well, share it in the comments!

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog 2 News

****Spoilers! If you have not watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: (1) Go watch it! and (2) Do not read this post. You have been warned!****

Dr. Horrible 2 is being written! Zack and Jed Whedon have recently announced that several songs and the script for the sequel to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog are being written. Now, this is both very exciting and very worrisome. It is really good that we may, one day, see Neil Patrick Harris back in those goggles ruling the world. Most of the cast has been said to be back on for the sequel and NPH mentioned in an interview with MTV that Felicia Day (Penny) is working on her online show, The Guild. Why did he mention her if her character has died? Day said in an interview that she hadn't received any news that she was coming back to be Penny but that she would be thrilled if it did happen. Many fans will be terribly annoyed if they somehow bring Penny back from the dead, because Dr. Horrible only had one love and it would be interesting to see the effect of losing her had on him to a greater extent than the last second of Dr. Horrible. Some fans say that the Dr. Horrible story ended wonderfully with that last shot of him sadly looking into the camera.

But wait, there's more! It's been said that not only will there be a sequel but it might not be available online because it might be a full feature film. It has not been announced officially or what type of feature film, but that is what NPH told MTV. This change to a movie completely takes away the reason Joss Whedon and the cast made the last one: to show Hollywood and the television networks that they didn't need a big budget or sets to make quality entertainment. This, for me, is in complete favor of the sets and big budget type things they fought against with the original Dr. Horrible. Now, much of this is not official for it has not been announced by Joss Whedon himself but it looks like if filming will be done it will be sometime after this season of How I Met Your Mother is over, and that means that we may not be too far away from an announcement and even a title for this sequel. There is a lot to be expected from Whedon and the cast if they do come back so I'm hoping they are taking the time to write the best sequel they can...

Share your opinions about the news in the comments!

Star Wars in 3-D... Really?

Think about it. The movie franchise that hit the world with old mythical stories set in space is now converting their movies into 3-D and re-releasing them. I am excited for the re-releasing but do they have to make it in 3-D? I've always wanted to be able to watch the Star Wars movies on the big screen because I wasn't there for the original ones and I'll finally get that wish granted in 2012 when The Phantom Menace comes out in theaters. I can not say I am completely against 3-D, but I am against 3-D in movies that were not made for it. A good example of this is Clash of the Titans, which wasn't good in 3-D or 2-D (but I'll save my complaints about it for some other day). I know that Lucas Films and Industrial Light & Magic are going to be hard at work to make the movie look good and feel natural but I'll believe it when I see it. It has not been released that they will be re-releasing all the movies but I'm pretty sure how much press they get for this movie and how many people come and see it will decide whether or not they will re-release the other movies. They are hoping for a gold mine in this re-release and I think they will find it if the 3-D looks natural. This will also introduce Star Wars to a new generation of fans-to-be.

In other Star Wars news, several sites have found what might be proof that Chewie and the other Wookies aren't from George Lucas' imagination but from the minds of George R.R. Martin and his illustrator John Shoenherr. Martin wrote a story called And Seven Times Never Kills Man! that was published with illustrations of aliens depicted in the story in a magazine during July 1975. Less than a year later Lucas comes to his conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie with the same illustrations, claiming they were from the 1930's. There was not much changed from the drawings and creatures and I doubt anything will be filed against Lucas now. They have already had a long enough period of time to get a trial against Lucas, but you never know. Something might just happen...

This is a comparison of Shoenherr's drawings with McQuarrie's.

Death Ray! Where?!?

Hotel Of Doom!

As I was looking at the news I suddenly noticed the words "death ray" in one of the titles. I clicked the link before I noticed it had something to do with a hotel. At first I thought some genius Dr. Horrible-type person had finally created a death ray for daily living. An example is your having a bit of an argument with your boss. What do you do? You both pull out your handy-dandy death rays and battle, last one standing is right.

Your Handy-Dandy Death Ray

Sadly, as I read the article it slowly became less and less about death rays and more and more about solar reflection. It ended up being about the Vdara hotel in Las Vegas that has a concaved glass front and when the hot Nevada sun shines on it the light is reflected unto the ground. Sometimes this concentration of light and heat is pointed at the pool, where several people have complained of getting bad burns, burning hair, and melting plastic bags. This spot is said to be up to 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) more than the surrounding areas, which is a significant change in temperature if the surrounding areas are 80-90 degrees.

Now, I don't think this was a design flaw. The Vdara architects must have been told to do this, for my idea is that the Vdara hotel is on a huge Lazy Susan so when the time comes to rule over Las Vegas the hotel can spin around and melt peoples things, homes, and other hotels to make them have to stay at the Vdara. If this wasn't true then why did the architects look over this huge flaw? The hotel staff is saying that they are going to get better umbrellas for the pool area until they cover the glass windows with some special film that will spread the light instead of acting like a huge magnifying glass. This is all just talk to calm the people staying at the hotel until Mission: Vegas Domination begins. So I warn you, be careful with choosing hotel because you end up the burning ant on the anthill.

How to Get the Worst Suntan Ever!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Trailer!

On September 22, 2010 the trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 finally was released. With less than one hundred days to the release of the movie (November 19, 2010) the Harry Potter fans of the world get a bone thrown to them. There is a great mix of never seen scenes with those that we have been watching all Summer with the Part 1 and 2 trailers. We even get a sneak peek at the final scene of the first movie where Voldemort visits Dumbledore's grave. This trailer is going to make the next few weeks more bearable, waiting for the first part of the last movie of a franchise that started a little over ten years ago. If you have not seen the trailer yet you can watch the video down below. Also, if you are more interested in a shot by shot look at the trailer, check out Mugglecast. In their latest episode, this Harry Potter podcast takes a look at the trailer second by second and the many clues that we are getting of what to expect of this movie. For anymore Harry Potter news in the future come back to this blog or visit Mugglenet.com.

In order from left to right: Real Harry, Fred and George Weasley, Mundungus Fletcher, Fleur Delacour, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger.

My thoughts about the trailer:

Best trailer to come from the Harry Potter movie franchise! This trailer shows that the first part of the movie is going to be a lot more action packed than I thought before. My favorite part about the trailer was the Seven Potters scene. It looks beautifully done and acted! The only disappointment in this trailer is Dumbledore's tomb. I find it to be a bit too abstract of a tomb for such a powerful wizard. It looks horribly out of place. Anyways, I now really can't wait for the next Harry Potter movie!