Giant Freakin Robot

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a lot of fan support for short-lived TV series finding new life. There was the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign to fund a feature film, the upcoming return of Arrested Development on Netflix, and the rumored return of Heroes on MSN. It’s no wonder that it’s all sparked new buzz of whether Joss Whedon’s beloved Firefly could possibly return in some fashion. If you were holding out hopes for Firefly to rise from its ashes on Netflix, prepare to be disappointed.

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Netflix Chief Content officer Ted Sarandos explains why he thinks a potential Firefly return wouldn’t be as successful as Arrested Development‘s. Please keep in mind: Sarandos is trying to promote the return of Arrested Development on May 26th, so take this with a grain of salt. Here’s Sarandos’ rationale:

Let me give you one broad statement about these recovery shows. In almost every case the cult around the show gets more intense and smaller as time goes by. Arrested Development was the rarest of birds in that the audience of the show grew larger than the original broadcast audience because people came to discover it years after it was cancelled.

The Firefly fan is still the Firefly fan from when it was on TV and there’s fewer of them and they’re more passionate every year. Whereas with Arrested Development we’re going to be serving a multiple of the original audience. Any of the other shows we could bring back would be a fraction of the original audience.

In a few short weeks, audiences across the country will finally get to watch Star Trek Into Darkness. The release of the film will usher in a new era, not only for Star Trek, but for Star Wars too. After the Star Trek sequel comes out, J.J. Abrams will embark on a new journey to bring Star Wars: Episode VII to life. The video above features Abrams having a discussion with Star Trek Into Darkness star Simon Pegg on the impact Star Wars had on their lives, and the big differences between Star Trek and Star Wars.

I grew up with the Star Wars franchise already in place in pop culture. There was never a time in my life when Star Wars was not a giant force (no pun intended). It’s always interesting to hear reactions to Star Wars from people from an older generation, like J.J. Abrams and Simon Pegg. When they were growing up in the ’70s, Star Wars was a surprising pop culture phenomenon like no one had ever seen before its release.

So many science fiction movies centered on an alien in our midst make the threat far too widespread. If the entire world is at stake, it’s harder to develop a personal connection with any of the characters. I won’t even mention 2012 examples of the kind of movie I’m talking about. An indie film will usually do the opposite, focusing more on character than special effects. Eduardo Sanchez’ 2006 thriller Altered doesn’t really do either of those things, but still manages to fill its 88-minute runtime with enough basic storytelling skills to keep a viewer interested. At least, a viewer that isn’t immediately nauseated by unsympathetic rednecks yelling a lot.

“I keep a shotgun in my mullet, and a .45 in my mullet’s mullet.”

At this point, Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim has produced just about every kind of poster you can possibly imagine. There have been traditional one-sheets, banner ads, and a slew of viral offerings. You may ask yourself, are the folks in the marketing department at Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures going to keep churning out more of the same, or will they up their game accordingly? Well, it looks like they’ve topped themselves once again, with something called a “super banner.”

What is a super banner? That’s a natural question. It’s exactly what it sounds like. This is a banner that is so big it won’t fit on your computer. The whole thing clocks in at more than 14,000 pixels in width (to put that in perspective, the images on GFR are 578 pixels wide). The purpose of this behemoth is to be displayed in movie theaters, which makes sense, because where else would you be able to display this bad mother? There isn’t enough room in my house for this, but I want one.

Click HERE to to get glimpse at the whole thing, but it’s also been broken into pieces below for your viewing convenience.