Hasta La Gadget!

Following the big international roll out of iTunes movies in the Cloud, it looks like Apple and Twentieth Century Fox have finally made films available for U.S. users via iTunes in the Cloud after months of waiting around for it. iTunes movies in the Cloud was initially launched back in March, but Fox and Universal had agreements in place with HBO that restricted films from being included. It had been said that the studios were in negotiations to work something out.

Since then, Universal’s films moved to iTunes movies in the Cloud in April, and now users from the U.S. should see Fox movies available for re-download as well. Any Fox films that were paid for previously should now appear in the purchased section on your iTunes account.

Users should also notice the warning that said “This movie is not available for iCloud downloading” is now gone from Fox movie listings. Any digital copy codes redeemed from Blu-ray products will also be included under purchases.

[via Verge]

Fox films now available through iTunes in the Cloud is written by Elise Moreau & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The people behind the next James Bond film, Skyfall, have announced that Bond’s classic Aston Martin DB5 will be featured in the film. Any fan of the series knows that it has a long-running history with Aston Martin in general and the DB5 specifically, which made its first appearance in Goldfinger way back in 1964. Other DB5s have appeared in James Bond flicks since then, but the one appearing in Skyfall has the original BMT 216A registration that the cars found in Goldfinger and Thunderball had.

The return of the BMT 216A DB5 was announced in the latest Skyfall production video (which you can see below), and in it, director Sam Mendez hints that the return of the DB5 may signal a deeper connection between Skyfall and the Bond films of the ’60s. “I felt like it was a thematic thing,” he says. “It is about the old and the new, and there’s something about last part of the movie which is deliberately – very consciously could have taken place in 1962.”

Interesting, Mr. Mendez. What he means by that is anyone’s guess – we’ll have to wait until the movie releases later this year to find out – but perhaps he’s hinting at an incoming remake of Goldfinger or another Bond film from the ’60s? Remember that 2006′s Casino Royale served as a reboot for the series, so really any direction is possible. As stated above, we’re being left waiting for all of the details, but Mendez sure did get our ears to perk up with the announcement of the DB5′s return.

James Bond’s classic Aston Martin DB5 returns in Skyfall is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Now, I’m mad. At first, it was funny. I definitely didn’t stay to the very end of the movie when I saw “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” in the theaters, but when I saw the movie at home, I saw the bonus scene at the end. The “stinger,” as it’s sometimes called. Roger Ebert called this the “Monk’s Reward,” because you need to have the patience of a monk to sit through the final credits for the payoff. But if you managed to make it through the scroll of names at the end of Ferris Bueller, Matthew Broderick appears on screen and tells the audience to go home. The movie’s over. Go home.

[Image credit: Lindsey Turner]

It’s time to stop creating these post-credit scenes. The joke is not only played out, it’s actually starting to hurt the movies. I recently wrote a column on spoilers here at SlashGear, and I focused on the horrible ending to the movie “The Grey.” A commenter pointed out something I hadn’t realized before. The movie ends abruptly, just before a fight that I would have expected to be the climactic moment. Imagine if Rocky had ended before the first punch was thrown against Apollo Creed. That’s how it felt.

So, one thrust of my column was that some endings are so bad, it’s almost better knowing about them in advance before you see the movie. But then a commenter on that column pointed out that there is a stinger scene after the credits that completely reverses my interpretation of how the film ended. Or at least it adds significant details.

This is just wrong. It’s time to stop the stinger scene. From now on, the movie needs to end when the credits start to roll.

It’s easy to see why movie makers would add this sort of scene. There are really two reasons. The first is that the credits are important… to the people credited. It’s actually a perk of the job. Whether you are listed, and how high you appear in the list, is a badge of honor for folks working in the movie business. This is why credits are getting longer and longer. This is also why there are four or five producer credits before the movie even opens. These listings are negotiated in advance, and they are part of the job.

“Hollywood needs to get over itself”

Hollywood needs to get over itself. I know, that’s probably the most redundant line I’ve ever typed. But I think, for the credits, it’s a real necessity, now that it’s causing problems.

Can you imagine if everything had credits? In my day job, I work for Samsung Mobile. Can you imagine if you turned off your phone and then had to sit through a list of all the names of everyone who worked on a phone? There are hundreds, if not thousands of people involved.

Can you imagine if you finished a Big Mac, then had to sit through the credits of everyone who helped make the burger? Even in the art world, there are almost no parallels. Video games are the only exception I can think of. When you see a painting, you don’t see a list of everyone involved. The person who stretched the canvas. The artist’s assistant. Sometimes you don’t even see the name of the subject. You just see the artist’s name. Are movies really claiming that every boom operator, every second assistant, is an artist? Feh.

The second reason is more legitimate for the viewing audience, but no less annoying. Those extra scenes make us feel like we are “in the know.” We’re the cognoscenti because we were tipped to sit through a movie to the very last flicker of light.

Now, however, that is not enough. How many of you saw the secret ending for The Avengers? No, not THAT secret ending, the secret ending AFTER the secret ending.

For all of the movies that led up to The Avengers, there was a stinger scene hinting at the upcoming ensemble film. At the end of The Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, there was an appearance by Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury, or Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson. There were whispers of an “Avenger’s Initiative,” so that comic fans would get hints of what was coming. Okay, I can accept that. The writers didn’t want to interrupt the main story line with hints about the big blockbuster to come, so fans get the secret ending. After the first one showed up at the end of The Hulk, fans knew to stay in their seats to the end.

“The Avengers screwed with the fans”

Then, The Avengers screwed with the fans. Sit through the credits and you get a scene with Thanos, a villain who appears to be the arch-enemy in possible sequel films. Then, the credits keep rolling. If you stayed even longer, you get a quiet little scene featuring the heroes eating shawarma. Seriously. They’re eating sandwiches. It’s a reference to a toss-off joke from the movie. It’s kind of funny, but I completely missed it when I saw the movie in the theater, and I was peeved.

I consider that Avenger’s scene to be the final flip-off for stinger scenes. It created striations of fandom. I was enough of a fan to know that something else would be coming, but not fan enough to stay even longer. Fine. Leave me out of the joke.

It has gotten to the point where I expect a stinger whenever I see a somewhat unsatisfying movie. I wonder if there will be a better resolution at the end of the credits. I wonder if the characters will be revived for a sequel that might deliver on the promise that the current film could not fulfill. Stinger scenes now act in the opposite way that they were supposed to act.

It used to be so much fun. It was Ferris telling us the movie was over. It was Animal from the Muppets telling us to go home. It was Darth Vader’s heavy breathing at the end of The Phantom Menace, reminding us that we have better Star Wars movies at home on DVD.

Now, it’s about exclusion. It’s about poor writing and directing. It’s about forcing us to pay attention to the people behind the scenes. I’m done. I just finished 44 ounces of Coke and I’ve been sitting for 2 hours. I’m tired of supporting this trend. When the credits start rolling, the movie is finished, and that’s the only chance you get to tell me the story.

The Movie Is Over When The Credits Roll is written by Philip Berne & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

At the end of the movie “The Grey,” everyone dies. Liam Neeson dies. That totally awesome moment in the trailer where he breaks some mini-bar bottles and tapes them to his fists, ready to do battle with the Alpha wolf? Two seconds later the credits roll, and the implication is clearly that he went down fighting. Oh, wait. SPOILER ALERT. Sorry, I should have said that at the very beginning.

CNN recently posted a story begging readers not to post spoilers online. The writer wants you to give fair warning, and asks you not to post even hints that there is something to spoil.

I understand this, especially the hints. It is a very stupid person who says “this movie has a twist at the end” and thinks other people won’t be able to guess. I remember when I went to see The Sixth Sense, the schmuck tearing tickets said to every single customer “It has a surprise ending, you’ll want to see it again.” Rip. “It has a surprise ending . . .” Rip. He clearly felt it was his job to ruin the movie for everyone. And you know what? I knew exactly what that surprise was going to be less than halfway through the movie. I tried to deny it to myself, and to forget what I had heard, but of course the movie keeps reinforcing the idea and playing with it in creative ways. The same reason the movie is worth seeing twice is also the reason the surprise was completely ruined on the first go round.

I used to review movies, and I tried to be sensitive to this. But here’s the problem. You cannot properly evaluate a movie without judging its ending. You can’t discuss any story properly without also discussing the climax and the resolution. After all, everything is leading up to this climax.

How can you properly evaluate a story without considering the ending? Sure, you could write an entire movie review without spoilers, and there are plenty of outlets that offer such a review. But I often read reviews of movies after I have seen them, to see if I agree with what the critics have to say. Any proper criticism of a film, or any story at all, needs to explicitly take into account the ending. Even though most critiques try to spare readers from an early reveal of the ending, this very idea might become outdated.

A friend recently told me she heard her daughter utter the words “Samantha, I am your father,” in the ghostly drone that passes for a child’s impersonation of Darth Vader. The little girl had never seen Star Wars. So how did this, perhaps the ultimate movie spoiler, creep into her vocabulary? Best guess is that she saw it in parodies. In cartoons, on sitcoms, and popping up over and over again, until it took on its own meaning for her.

I haven’t shown my 3 year old son Star Wars yet. I’m waiting until he’ll be able to sit through the entire first movie without much squirming. But I’m not shielding him from learning these important plot twists in advance. I don’t think it’s so important.

I remember when I saw that fateful scene at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. I wasn’t really shocked. In fact, I was more incredulous. Really? Why would the writer come up with this twist? After all, Darth Vader hardly seemed to notice or care about Luke Skywalker through the first and much of the second movie. Why isn’t he more interested in reconnecting with his long lost child? We never see anybody tell Darth Vader that Luke is his son, so we must infer that he either knows through some power of The Force, or he sees a family resemblance. But if The Force tells him it’s true, why didn’t he find the kid earlier? And why wait until after you’ve cut off his hand to tell him the truth, if he believed the truth would be such a convincing argument to turn the newfound Jedi?

“You don’t need to be surprised by the twist to appreciate its power”

The plot twist exists on its own not as a shocking surprise moment, but as an interesting turn of events. You don’t need to be surprised by the twist to appreciate its power. The spoiled events in a movie rewrite the story from the beginning. In the movie The Grey, when you know that everyone dies, the story changes from a tale of survival to a tale of desperation. You might like the movie more knowing that nobody survives. When I saw the film, without knowing its ending, I was seriously disappointed.

Certainly knowing the plot twists in Star Wars don’t hurt repeat viewings. The only real problem is that Darth Vader seems so aloof and unimpressed by his son running around the Death Star killing Stormtroopers that we have to wonder if the writers had imagined the twist before the first movie was finished.

Even in movies where you walk in with a historical knowledge of the ending, the lack of surprise does nothing to hurt the film. In fact, it may add to the tension. In the movie “127 Hours,” for instance (one of the better movies that you certainly did NOT see in 2010), I walked in knowing the main character was going to cut his arm off at the end in order to survive. The guy lives. The arm dies. Still a good movie.

In “Titanic,” of course we all know the ending. That the ending is so well known was the punchline to thousands of lousy late night comedian jokes. But waiting for the ship to hit the iceberg, and watching its inevitable demise, added to the enjoyment. It certainly got me through the sappy scenes in the middle.

I recently started watching the second season of Game of Thrones. I had originally planned to wait until I had finished the second book, but I haven’t been able to quickly finish the first book in the series, let alone the second. Recently, bits and pieces started popping up online. Plot details were revealed. Deaths documented. I knew that if I didn’t start watching soon, I’d know the whole story before I started watching the first episode.

So, I started watching, because I wanted the plot to unfold for the first time before my eyes. I didn’t whine about it, I understood. People have a right to talk about the key plot elements, as a way of criticizing and evaluating the show. It’s part and parcel of what makes the Internet such a great tool, the constant stream of information and feedback. Spoilers are a necessary evil. There’s no reason to be like Ned Stark and lose your head over it.

Oh, I forgot to add: SPOILER ALERT.

Spoiler Alert! is written by Philip Berne & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Marvel unveiled Tony Stark’s new signature armor for the upcoming movie Iron Man 3 at the San Diego Comic-Con, and it has more gold – caramel? – than crimson. It looks like he’s molting into a golden butterfly. An alcoholic genius billionaire butterfly with jet boots.

Here’s more of the images. I hear they were taken by a new villain, Off-Center Photography Man.

Wired also shot a small clip of the armor on their site. In other news, Marvel held an Iron Man costume contest for kids at the Comic-Con. The winner? Iron Man.

[via Marvel]