TV Talk - Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Season 1

Well, it took a while, but it’s finally time to look at a somewhat fond TV show from my childhood: Lois and Clark – The New Adventures of Superman. The show came out when I was in 2^nd grade. If I had to pinpoint where my fandom began with Superman, it would have to be around this time. I think I had seen a couple of the Christopher Reeve movies by now and read some of the comics, so I already knew about Superman. The show aired on Sunday nights after America’s Funniest Home Videos. I think I watched all of the first season. I know I saw the pilot in full and I vividly remember only seeing some of the Season 1 finale. I think we had a long service at church or something.

Since I vaguely remember this show changing throughout the four seasons, I’m looking at this show by season instead of the whole series. Don’t worry, Amy, I’m not stealing your format. It’s just that I got the first two seasons for really cheap a while back and I’ve been going through them. I’m currently watching Season 2 and I may get to it this month.

The overall premise of the show is that it would mostly focus on Lois, Clark, and the Daily Planet staff instead of showing Superman constantly fighting that never-ending battle. The show borrowed a lot of stuff from the Byrne reboot. Clark Kent is a fully-realized character instead of a disguise and Superman is essentially the job and nothing else. The Kents are also still alive and Clark doesn’t really learn of his origins until this season. There are plenty of villains for the first season but only one of them is from the comics: Lex Luthor. Luthor is really the only recurring villain for the first season.

Music Retrospective - Michael Jackson: Blood on the Dance Floor - History in the Mix

So, it’s Another Michael Jackson album in the same month. It must be the water or it could be the fact that a certain Man of Steel will be the subject of next month. Today’s album is Blood on the Dance Floor: History in the Mix. It was released in 1997 and it released three singles. Jackson only worked on five songs from the album. The rest of the songs, which are remixes of songs from HIStory, were worked on by other artists. It sold well but not at the levels of the other albums.

This is one album I don’t physically own. My sister owns it and I was able to download it from her copy. I wondered if I should skip this album because it’s essentially a remix album. Still, there are five “new” songs on here, so I should at least talk about them. I won’t talk about the remixes much since there’s really not much to say about them. With all of that said, let’s get a mop and clean this mess up!

Blood on the Dance Floor: History In The Mix

Planet of the Apes: Book/Movie Comparisons

This moment actually made it into the movie. Cool, I guess.

So, I’m back with a post that hopefully won’t be too long. When I went into reading the book for the first time, I was kind of amazed at how much the movie stuck to the overall story. I also saw snippets of the later movies in the book. For example, Escape from the Planet of the Apes shares similarities to the original book. The biggest examples are the tests the main characters are put through and the speeches they give to the public. Some of the things about what happened to humanity on Soror kind of match up with things that happened in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

The overall story of the book matches up with the movie. Planet of the Apes is essentially about a group of astronauts who land on a planet inhabited by talking apes and animal-like humans. The astronauts get their equipment destroyed by the humans. One astronaut dies in the gorillas’ hunt while the other astronaut loses his speech and reason. The main character is caged and paired with a mate named Nova. Zaius is more or less the antagonist of the story. Cornelius and Zira are two chimps who help the main character and Nova escape from Ape City. They also come across a archeological site that houses artifacts from a long-dead human civilization. Finally, the stories also end on some dark/weird twist ending that leaves the main character befuddled.

Other than those major things, changes were made to some things. Even though I like the novel, there’s a part of me that thinks that some changes needed to be made for the movie. While I could talk about all of the changes, I’ll center on five things: the technology, Zaius, Ulysse/Taylor, the themes, and the ending.

Book Review - Planet of the Apes

1968’s Planet of the Apes is one of my favorite movies. I’ve already gushed about how good it is. The POTA franchise was one of the first movie franchises I talked about here.  I’ve also seen the rest of the original movies, the lackluster reboot from 2001, and the pretty good prequel/reboot/remake from 2011. What I haven’t done till now is actually read the original novel from 1963. I was pretty interested in reading it, but I couldn’t really find it anywhere. Eventually, I just decided to find it on Amazon.

For those who don’t know, La Planete Des Singes aka Monkey Planet aka Planet of the Apes was written by Pierre Boulle. Boulle was a French writer and he wrote a ton of books including The Bridge Over The River Kwai which was also adapted into a movie. POTA was later translated to English by Xan Fielding. One of the things I’ve heard about the book was how different it was from the movie. I know that the 1968 movie script was reworked a few times by its writers. One of them was Rod Sterling, the man behind The Twilight Zone. I also knew about some of the original novel including the ending (thanks Wikipedia). So, I went into this little read with some trepidation.

Planet of the Apes

Author: Pierre Boulle

BRIEF BLURB: A group of astronauts land on a planet that is inhabited by talking, civilized apes. 

Favorites - Top 12 Sidekicks

Unlike henchmen, sidekicks are another story all-together. Simply, they are there to help and support the protagonist. They usually get more room to shine than the usual henchmen. Sometimes, they are on par with the main hero. There are even some that can outshine the main hero. Other times, they’re the ones that need help. Just look at Robin back in some of those old stories I did last month. That guy got captured a lot! So, here are my Top 12 Sidekicks in fiction. I chose twelve because it’s a magic number.

12. Kato from The Green Hornet

It’s Bruce Lee for a sidekick. That’s all I need to say there. Kato was the sidekick to the Green Hornet. Together, they stopped crime under the guise of being criminals. It’s a pretty weird situation overall. I’ve only seen some Green Hornet episodes and the pretty lackluster movie with Seth Rogen. When Kato isn’t Britt Reid’s driver, he’s the butt-kicking sidekick. In fact, he kicks more butt than that green insect. Overall, it’s Bruce freakin’ Lee and the guy knows martial arts! I rest my case.

11. Chewbacca from The Star Wars Trilogy

He’s the alien who not the best at losing weird games. Chewbacca is Han’s assistant on the Millennium Falcon. He’s also the muscle for our heroes in the trilogy. He’s the guy who’ll be at your side through thick and thin even if you don’t know what he’s saying. Simply put, Chewie’s pretty cool.

10. Chloe Sullivan from Smallville 

Chloe was Clark’s friend, confidant, and helper on the TV show, Smallville. She basically started out as a copy of Lois Lane. She was the news girl who wanted the truth. Over the seasons, she developed into a hero of her own. She learned Clark’s secret and basically became Smallville’s version of Oracle (Barbara Gordon). She even tried to keep Clark on his mission when even he wasn’t ready to do it. She was smart, kind, brave, a little dim-witted (middle of Season 8, ya’ll), and really cute. Chloe is definitely one you want to have at your side. I know I would.

9. April O’Neill and Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Yeah, I listed both for this part since they are really the only humans that the Turtles really interact with. While April is usually known as the damsel in distress in some incarnations, she has been known to be an effective part of the team. Just see the 2003 animated series and IDW’s current comic series. Casey is always the sport-equipment-wielding vigilante and he helps the Turtles out from time to time. He’s got a great rapport with Raphael and he’s just cool in my book. April and Casey also make for a great couple and they’re pretty rad in my book.

8. Wang from Big Trouble in Little China 

Wang was Jack Burton’s sidekick in Big Trouble from Little China. In some ways, he’s the main character of the movie. Yes, Kurt Russell the main star, but he is really ineffective at times.  Wang is the guy who has the most at stake in the movie. All Jack loses is his truck. Wang loses a whole girl to David Lo Pan. He can also kick a lot of butt which is something that Jack didn’t excel at that. He does all he can to get his green-eyed woman back and Jack is essentially along for the ride. By the way, Big Trouble in Little China is an awesome movie, just saying.

7. Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings 

Sam was a friend to Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. When Frodo decided to split off from the Fellowship, Sam tagged on along even if Frodo didn’t want him to. That worked out great especially since Frodo really needed it. Sam fought Gollum and saved Frodo from Orcs and that that spider. When Frodo was down, Samwise was there to pick him up and end the journey. All in all, Sam’s a cool Hobbit to have as a friend.