A Questionnaire for Joss Whedon

After Tuesday's tantalizing news break, I became more interested in Joss Whedon's involvement with the auction of the Terminator Franchise.

I figured I'd try to reach him with a few questions regarding the subject. Even if this message never crosses his sight, it's always fun to speculate how he would answer! So here we go:

1. Assume that you bought Terminator for $10,000. Would you put the extra $59,990,000 the auction estimates to sell the franchise for to good use in production of more Terminator films? Or would you save the extra dough?

2. Let's say you didn't spend the $59,990,000 on Terminator. How would you spend it? I'd live like Bruce Wayne (even though if Bruce Wayne woke up one day and found he only had $60 million left he'd probably kill himself and every criminal in Gotham.)

3. Would you go television series or film first? Or were you thinking of any other alternative mediums? A Terminator table-top game would be bad ass.

4. Would you try to get Arnold involved again? Who do you think would make awesome replacements? Gerard Butler for T-600 or bust!

5. You said you'd also take the Batman franchise for $10,000 as well. What do you do if you got your hands on that hot ticket?

6. You can buy any series for $10,000. Which would you buy? Which wouldn't you touch with a ten foot pole?

7.Not related, but certainly important, if you had a robot that transformed into anything, what would it be? I'd want  a  robot polar bear, because when you're face to face with a polar bear you know you're boned. If it transforms into a crazy fighting robot in front of you, you know you're double boned.

I think these questions are appropriate! I'm hoping for the best.

Joss Whedon Makes a Serious Bid for Terminator Franchise

And his serious bid was $10,000. No joke.

Even though Joss Whedon, creator of the Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse series, isn't offering a substantial amount of dough, (the auction, according to CNN, is supposed to accumulate around $60 million) Whedon promised that his direction would rejuvenate the series.

In his bid he hinted at some changes he'd like to make based off of his opinion of the Terminator Salvation film, "Christian Bale's John Connor will get a throat lozenge. This will also help his Batwork (ten grand for that franchise too, btw.)"

My take on this jab at the Terminator franchise auction?

1) Whedon needs to back the hell up from the fragile beauty that is the new Batman films. If Bale's contract is terminated (harhar) then what stops director Chris Nolan from up and leaving (besides millions of dollars)? There is the slight possibility that we'd have to deal with Joel Schumacher again. Dear lord, no.

2) Even though his auction was in jest, I think Whedon has some real interest in acquiring the Terminator franchise. Sure he probably won't put up sixty big ones to outright own it, but that ain't stopping him from directing a couple of films, or more interestingly a television series?

Now let's assume that Whedon was able to buy Terminator for $10,000. Do you think he'd do the franchise justice? My bet is that there would be some real sexual tension between the T-600 football jock and the 25-year-old going on 18-year-old high school bombshell. It's time to buy me a TiVo!

Sometimes Robots Can Be Scary: A Link Round-Up!

The title says it all after I saw this in my regular Robot News. A robot which controls a robot army to explore new worlds? What kind of implications can be made about robots that command other robots? Soon they will be self-sufficient, I'll bet you on that.

And that is the day when we'll be completely boned. Speaking of robot-boning, this year was the Matrix's 10th Anniversary. I was unaware of this because the sequels ruined the franchise for me, but I caught the first film halfway through yesterday on G4's Movies That Don't Suck feature. It was good to see how well that movie withstood time, and comparatively how awful the other two movies still remain. 

G4's other feature, Attack of the Show, also announced a remake of Short Circuit, which isn't scary in the sense of robots wanting to rip you into pieces and use you as a battery (spoiler for the Matrix, even though it's been ten years since the movie came out, get with the times) but it is scary because movie producers nowadays love to destroy their precious intellectual properties in order to make a quick buck.

One last scary thing: this one doesn't have to deal with robots specifically, but instead technology. The late Chris Farley was used in a commercial for DirecTV. By having supporting actor David Spade break the fourth wall, this blog post asks whether is resurrects the late comedian into something macabre.

My vote? Creepy but fascinating. I think Chris Farley's passing was one of the most tragic of celebrity deaths, right up there with Bernie Mac.

Also, Happy Halloween (soon). Expect a post of some Halloween shenanigans (and the Max Brooks footage once I can edit the film).