Happy New Year!

Thanks to all visitors and followers of All That I Love Blog for the half million hits to this Blog!

Have a happy new year. I’ll see you in 2013!

Happy B-Day, Stan Lee

Stan Lee is completing 90! Happy B-Day, Stan!

Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber, December 28, 1922), is an American comic book writer, editor, publisher, media producer, and former president and chairman of Marvel Comics. In collaboration with several artists, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, and many other fictional characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. In addition, he headed the first major successful challenge to the industry’s censorship organization, the Comics Code Authority, and forced it to reform its policies. Lee subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.

Source: Wikipedia. Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Lee

STAN IN ACTION

Stan Lee has had cameo appearances in many films based on Marvel characters that he created or co-created. But where’s Stan in the Marvel movies? Don’t worry, we found him. Click on the image to enlarge.

1) The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (1989)
In the TV-movie The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, Lee’s first appearance in a Marvel movie or TV project is as a jury foreman in the trial of Dr. David Banner.
2) Iron Man (2008)
In Iron Man, Lee (credited as “Himself”) appears at a gala cavorting with three blonds, where Tony Stark mistakes him for Hugh Hefner. In the theatrical release of the film, Stark simply greets Lee as “Hef” and moves on; another version of the scene was filmed where Stark realizes his mistake, but Lee graciously responds, “That’s okay, I get this all the time.”
3) Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Lee appears as himself at Reed Richards’ and Susan Storm’s first wedding, being turned away by a security guard for not being on the guest list. (In Fantastic Four Annual No.3 (1965), in which the couple married, Lee and Jack Kirby are similarly turned away.)
4) The Avengers (2012)
In The Avengers, Lee makes a cameo appearance as a random citizen in the park asked about the heroes saving Manhattan. Lee’s character responds, “Superheroes in New York? Give me a break”, and then returns to his game of chess.
5) Iron Man 2 (2010)
In Iron Man 2, during the Stark Expo, Lee, wearing suspenders and a red shirt and black and purple tie, is greeted by Tony Stark as “Larry King”.
6) Mallrats (1995)
Mallrats is not a Marvel movie, but Kevin Smith made a tribute to Stan gave to him a role in his movie, as himself. Lee has an extensive cameo in the 1995 Kevin Smith film Mallrats. He plays himself, this time visiting the mall to sign books at a comic store. Later, he takes on the role of a sage-like character, giving Jason Lee’s character, Brodie Bruce (a longtime fan of Stan’s), advice on his love life. He also recorded interviews with Smith for the non-fiction video Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters, and Marvels (2002).
7) The Big Bang Theory (2010)
Lee appeared as himself in “The Excelsior Acquisition”, a third season episode of The Big Bang Theory, in March 2010. He appears at the front door of his house wearing Fantastic Four pajamas, ultimately calling back into the house, “Joanie, call the police!” to get rid of Sheldon, who showed up after missing a comic book signing at the local store.
8) X-Men (2000)
In X-Men, Lee appears as a hotdog stand vendor on the beach when Senator Kelly emerges naked onshore after escaping from Magneto.
9) Hulk (2003)
In Hulk, he appears walking alongside former TV-series Hulk Lou Ferrigno in an early scene, both as security guards at Bruce Banner’s lab. It was his first speaking role in a film based on one of his characters.
10) Fantastic Four (2005)
In Fantastic Four, Lee appears for the first time as a character that he created for the comics, Willie Lumpkin, the mail carrier who greets the Fantastic Four as they enter the Baxter Building.
11) Spider-Man (2002)
In Spider-Man, he appeared during Spider-Man’s first battle with the Green Goblin, pulling a little girl away from falling debris. In the DVD’s deleted scenes, Lee plays a street vendor who tries to sell Peter Parker a pair of sunglasses “just like the X-Men wear.”
12) Daredevil (2003)
In Daredevil, as a child, Matt Murdock stops Lee from crossing the street and getting hit by a bus.
13) Spider-Man 2 (2004)
In Spider-Man 2, Lee pulls an innocent person away from danger during Spider-Man’s first battle with Doctor Octopus. In a deleted scene that appears as an extra on the film’s DVD release, Lee has another cameo, saying, “Look, Spider-Man stole that child’s sneakers.”
14) Spider-Man 3 (2007)
In Spider-Man 3, Lee appears in a credited role as “Man in Times Square”. He stands next to Peter Parker, both of them reading a news bulletin about Spider-Man, and commenting to Peter that, “You know, I guess one person can make a difference”. He then says his catch phrase, “‘Nuff said.”
15) The Incredible Hulk (2008)
In The Incredible Hulk, Lee appears as a hapless citizen who accidentally ingests a soft drink mixed with Bruce Banner’s blood, leading to the discovery of Dr. Banner’s location in a bottling plant in Brazil.
16) The Avengers (deleted scene)
He also appears in a deleted scene: when a waitress flirts with Steve Rogers, he says to him, “Ask for her number, you moron!”
17) Capitain America: The First Avenger (2011)
In Captain America: The First Avenger, Lee is again used as comic relief, this time portraying a general in World War II, who mistakes another man for Captain America/Steve Rogers, commenting, “I thought he’d be taller.”
18) Thor (2011)
In Thor, Lee appears among many people at the site where Thor’s hammer Mjolnir lands on earth. He tears the back off his pickup truck in an attempt to pull Mjolnir out of the ground with a chain and causes everyone to laugh by asking, “Did it work?”
19) Heroes (2007)
He plays a bus driver in the 16th episode of the first season of Heroes.
20) The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
In The Amazing Spider-Man, Lee makes a cameo as a librarian at Midtown Science High School, oblivious to the fight between Spider-Man and the Lizard happening behind him.
21) X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
In X-Men: The Last Stand, Lee and Chris Claremont appear as two of Jean Grey’s neighbors in the opening scenes set 20 years ago. Lee, credited as “Waterhose man,” is watering the lawn when Jean telekinetically redirects the water from the hose into the air.

Is the End of the World as we know it (and I feel fine)

NASA scientists explain why the world will not end tomorrow:

Question: Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
Answer: The world will not end in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.

Question: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012?
Answer: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012 and linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 — hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.

Question: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?
Answer: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then — just as your calendar begins again on January 1 — another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

Question: Is NASA predicting a “total blackout” of Earth on Dec. 23 to Dec. 25?
Answer: Absolutely not. Neither NASA nor any other scientific organization is predicting such a blackout. The false reports on this issue claim that some sort of “alignment of the Universe” will cause a blackout. There is no such alignment (see next question). Some versions of this rumor cite an emergency preparedness message from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. This is simply a message encouraging people to be prepared for emergencies, recorded as part of a wider government preparedness campaign. It never mentions a blackout.

Question: Could planets align in a way that impacts Earth?
Answer: There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. One major alignment occurred in 1962, for example, and two others happened during 1982 and 2000. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.

Queston: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?
Answer: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.

Question: What is the polar shift theory? Is it true that the Earth’s crust does a 180-degree rotation around the core in a matter of days if not hours?
Answer: A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-switch to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. Scientists believe a magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia.

Question: Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012?
Answer: The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA Near-Earth Object Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.

Question: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of the world ending in 2012?
Answer: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.

Question: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
Answer: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html#end

If tomorrow the world will end, I already chose my soundtrack.

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT (AND I FEEL FINE)
R.E.M.

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
That’s great!
It starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes
An aeroplane
Lenny Bruce is not afraid

Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
World serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs
Feed it off an aux speak, grunt, no, strength, no
Ladder start to clatter with fear fight down height
Wire in a fire, representing seven games
A government for hire and a combat site
Left of west and coming in a hurry
With the furies breathing down your neck
Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped
Look at that low plane! Fine, then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common group, but it’ll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself
World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed
Dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right, right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched!

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

Six o’clock – TV hour. Don’t get caught in foreign towers.
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn.
Locking in, uniforming, book burning, blood letting.
Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate.
Light a candle, light a votive. Step down, step down.
Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means no fear, cavalier.
Renegade steer clear! A tournament, tournament, a tournament of lies.
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

The other night I dreamt a nice continental drift divide, mounts sit in a line
Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom!
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam, book, neck…

Right?
Right!

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine

(It’s time I had some time alone)

SEE ON YOUTUBE:

Blade Runner Comic Book – Part 2

“AND IF THE MACHINE DOESN’T WORK?”

To see the Part 1 of this post, please click here.

Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner is the comic book adaptation of the film “Blade Runner”, published by Marvel Comics in 1982. It was written by Archie Goodwin with art by Al Williamson, Carlos Garzon with Dan Green and Ralph Reese.

Enjoy.

Part 2.

DOWNLOAD THE BLADE RUNNER SCRIPTS:
CLICK ON THE LINKS TO DOWNLOAD THE RESPECTIVE SCRIPTS IN A WORD OFFICE DOCUMENT:

Hampton Fancher worked for years to get his screenplay taken on. However, even after it was funded and Ridley Scott had accepted the role of Director, the process of rewriting the Blade Runner script still continued for a year. There are two earlier versions of Blade Runner scripts commonly available:

1. HAMPTON FANCHER ORIGINAL SCRIPT – 1980:

Screenplay_by_HAMPTON_FANCHER_July_24_1980

2. HAMPTON FANCHER & DAVID PEOPLES SCRIPT – 1981:

Screenplay_by_HAMPTON_FANCHER_and_DAVID_PEOPLES_February_23_1981

Elements of various versions of the scripts were finally combined to create the final shooting script and of course, during filming, they diverged from even that. Therefore the film itself differs considerably from earlier scripts.

3. FINAL MULTI-SCRIPT – 1982:

Blade_Runner_Multi_Script_by_Netrunner

Blade Runner Comic Book – Part 1

“MORE HUMAN THAN A HUMAN”

“Blade Runner”, one of my favorite movies of all time, is celebrating 30 years. You can see the post for its 30th Anniversary clicking here.

Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner is the comic book adaptation of the film “Blade Runner”, published by Marvel Comics in 1982. It was written by Archie Goodwin with art by Al Williamson, Carlos Garzon with Dan Green and Ralph Reese.

The Jim Steranko cover leads into a 45-page adaptation which includes one possible explanation of the title’s significance in story context: the narrative line, “Blade runner. You’re always movin’ on the edge.”

The Blade Runner comic is very interesting for its interpretation of the movie. Quite obviously, they can’t possibly do the same in a comic as in a 2 hour movie, so one expects that some dialogue will be trimmed or even slightly changed and details in the action will be curtailed or perhaps adjusted. One of the things I find most interesting is that some of those differences from the original movie version are referencing the shooting script! So, while there is some interpretation and a particular perspective present, it is in some ways almost like a different cut of the film.

Enjoy.

Part 1.

Click here to see the Part 2.