New Avatar! The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra Trailer

I’m still kicking myself for missing yesterday’s Comic-Con panel for The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra, but at least we can all now feast in the trailer that premiered there. As a huge fan of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender, I’m happy to report that Korra looks like a gorgeous and mature follow-up.

The trailer opens up with some epic imagery, including a giant statue of a grown-up Aang (the original series’ main character), and a flying bison (no clue if it’s Appa). We see Korra, the new Avatar, leaving her home in the Southern Water Tribe and making her way to the United Republic. That city was founded by Aang and Zuko (the tortured “evil” prince from the first series) as a place meant for members of all tribes to live, our friends over atUGO reported from the panel.

We also see several action beats in the trailer, and it looks like the choreography will be even more intricate this time around. The animation also appears to be improved over the original Airbender series — it seems more on the level of a big-budget anime TV series like Full Metal Alchemist now.

Unlike Aang, Korra seems to be a thorough badass with an attitude — a nice shift that hints things will be more mature in this series. Her main animal pal is a polar bear dog (yup) named Naga, and the creators say flying lemurs will also make an appearance at some point.

The villains of the series are an anti-bending group, “The Equalists”, who are led by a mysterious masked man named Oman (seen at the end of the trailer). His henchman use Chi Blocking techniques (similar to Ty Lee from the original series), according to The Last Airbender online.

Toph, the Earthbender from the original series who discovered the Metalbending technique, is now traveling the world creating an elite Metalbending SWAT team. Toph’s daughter is the chief of police in the city, where she manages a team of Metalbending cops.

The panel also revealed that Aang and Katara had three kids, though Tenzin (voiced by J.K. Simmons) is the only Airbender. He has three kids of his own who are all Airbenders (plus another on the way). Music in the series will once again be handled by The Track Team, and they say the music will sound as if New Orleans-style Jazz was invented in China during the 1920s.

Unfortunately, there’s still no premiere date for Legend of Korra. To tide you over until then, check out the screenshots I grabbed from the trailer below.

Looks more adult and more anime to me, brilliant!

Jaume Collet-Serra in Talks For WB’s Rebudgeted Live-Action ‘Akira’

Is the live-action Akira dead, or is it not? That status has been a big question markmore than once in the past couple years as directors and screenwriters have tried to develop a new Americanized live-action version of the classic manga and anime byKatsuhiro Otomo.

Now we know that the new version is very much alive, as WB is looking to Jaume Collet-Serra, the director of Orphan and the Liam Neeson action thriller Unknown, to direct Akira.

Variety has the report, saying that the budget for the film has been pulled back to about $90m — that’s down considerably from what was looking like a $150m movie in its most recent incarnation when Albert Hughes was going to direct.

It sounds as if the latest script, by Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves, is still in play. (Book of Eli writer Gary Whitta wrote an early draft, and Albert Torres and Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby also wrote drafts.) The film will still be set in New Manhattan, with Variety describing the story only as following “the leader of a biker gang who saves his friend from a medical experiment.” So that’s all info that hasn’t changed in the past month or two.

And still we have zip for casting info. That will still be one of the big points of concern and curiosity for many. Based on what we know, be prepared for actors who are (a) white and (b) older than the characters in either previous incarnation of the story. If you’re not ready to accept both of those points, best to just ignore this one altogether, at least until there is some footage to demonstrate how it all turned out.

Can we predict how it might turn out based on this directorial choice? Jaume Collet-Serra’s star is certainly rising, assisted by the fact that Orphan and Unknown both performed well, with the latter turning up $130 globally on a $30m budget. That sort of frugal performer makes studios happy, and if Jaume Collet-Serra can keep that profit proportion while tripling his Unknown budget for Akira, WB will do OK.

But will the story be in good hands? I like the idea of Steve Kloves scripting as he’s proved several times that he can really condense material well. But Collet-Serra didn’t quite manage the deeply silly aspects of Unknown. Enough of Akira has the potential to also look ridiculous on screen that the wisdom of this choice will have to be proven as the project moves forward.

Thanks Slashfilm

BioShock Infinite: 15 Minutes of Gameplay Footage

Here's a new 15 minutes piece of gameplay footage from this years E3 for the upcoming Bioshock Infinite. It looks absolutely amazing and if you haven't already pre-ordered this bad boy than what are you doing still reading this blog! Go to Amazon or JBhifi now damnit!

China looking to buy a chunk of Facebook...

News surfaced yesterday that a sovereign wealth fund representing the Chinese government wants to buy a substantial amount of Facebook stock. According to anonymous sources to Business Insider, China wants to own enough of Facebook "to matter."

What does that mean? It is important to note that a sovereign wealth fund may represent a government but is not the actual government, as Business Insider reporter Nicholas Carlson points out. Is China's interest in Facebook a simply a government-sponsored group of venture capitalists looking to get a piece of the upcoming Facebook IPO or is there something more complicated at work behind the scenes?

Full article from Read Write Web...

Article from Forbes

The Map Of Human Impact On Planet Earth

This visualisation of Earth – made by anthropologist Félix Pharand – shows urban areas, shipping routes, global roads and air networks. It gives a very good idea on how big our species’ physical impact on the planet really is.

So big, in fact, that scientists are thinking about starting a new geological era: The Anthropocene.

The new era’s name (anthropo- means human and -cene means new) refers to the effect of humans on Earth ecosystems, including the transformation of terrain and life all around us. I find it a bit too cocky – since Earth could probably wipe out any evidence of our existence in a couple thousand years and not even blink – but I guess it works given the current circumstances.