Is it a cop-out to give the Benbot an On/Off switch? A little bit, yeah. But let’s be truthful: there’s no way I was going to turn this into a 15-strip story arc about a time-displaced Benbot and his dire warnings.
Also, when I stopped to consider the mystery of the Dustin Hoffman “fiasco,” the promise of that supposed tragedy was more entertaining to me.
That said, don’t expect a story line where we travel to 1982 and witness the incident first-hand.
In summation, move along now. Nothing to see here. Well, nothing to see except the incentive image I put together for you. Another illustration of the T-800 endoskeleton skull. Of the three I’ve drawn this week, I think it’s the best yet. To see it, vote for Theater Hopper at Top Web Comics.
Quick sidebar about the incentive sketches… Usually I draw something that is a continuation of the joke from that day’s comic. But lately, I’ve become more interested in drawing characters or scenes from the movies I’m referencing. I’m interesting in hearing what you guys like – a tacked on joke drawn in the usual Theater Hopper style, or a more detailed illustration like the last three I’ve drawn this week?
Because here’s the other thing: I’ve been drawing these cards on the 4 X 6 card stock I take with me to conventions and use to draw the sketches I sell and they actually look like the images you see over at Top Web Comics. They have the blue border, the logo in the corner and even a little synopsis on the back of what Theater Hopper is with the URL and a box where I add my signature.
The sketches I do at conventions are open-ended. They can be whatever the customer asks for. Looking over this last batch of drawings, I’m thinking that these are illustrations I could take with me to conventions and sell out of the box. (Either sell them at conventions or here on the site.) I’m thinking that I would have a better chance at selling a stand-alone image of a movie character than a continuation of a joke from a specific comic the customer may or may not have ever read.
So I guess the other question is, of the sketches I’m drawing as incentive images, do you think you would buy them if I sold them on the site or at a convention? They’d be cheap (probably no more than $5 or so) and they’d be unique. A custom illustration that will never be reprinted anywhere else – A fun bit of Theater Hopper you can own for yourself!
Let me know what you guys think, because I believe I might be onto something here.
Back to talking about movies… As you know Terminator Salvation comes out today and I am… excited? I say “excited” with trepidation because reviews have been lukewarm.
I’m trying to go into the movie with a clean slate, but Warner Bros. isn’t making that easy. Among the myriad of movie blogs I follow, there seems to be new clips from the movie being released daily. Whenever I see a studio release a stream of clips online, I immediately become cautious. From a marketing perspective, I understand what they’re doing. They’re seeding the internet the hope that interest will spring up from it. If a clip becomes viral, even better.
But what a lot of these movie blogs do is round up these clips and put them in one spot. Trailer Addict has 7 pages of Terminator Salvation clips. 7 pages of clips, TV spots, trailers and extended trailers. So, effectively, a potential ticket buyer could watch 10 to 20 minutes of the movie before they even set foot inside a theater.
And studios are worried about piracy? Gimme a break. They’re ruining movies for fans just as much as anyone else.
The last movie that did this was X-Men Origins: Wolverine – and we all know how that turned out. That, and you can’t force something to be viral. Believe me, I’ve tried.
I’m not seeing Terminator Salvation until Sunday night and usually by then the studios can estimate the film’s weekend box office. If the film is running cool, it will probably lower my expectations to see it. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I’ll walk out of it having been pleasantly surprised.
But this is a Terminator movie. Shouldn’t I be more excited to see it regardless of reviews and preview clips and tie-ins and promotions?
Let me know your thoughts about Terminator Salvation. Have you been doing a good job avoiding the clips online? Did you even know there was that much material out there? Do you find it excessive? Do you think movie studios are giving away the store or do you appreciate the extra content and their attempts to woo you into the theater?
Also be sure to let me know what you think about the direction of the incentive sketches: A one panel gag or a stand alone image of a famous movie character? Would you buy a 4 X 6 from the Theater Hopper store or at a convention for less than $5?
Let me know what you think and, if you’re in the US, have a safe Memorial Day weekend!
Jeeze, why does everything have to be such a production with you?
These things have an on/off switch?
ARE YOU SERIOUS?!
Yeah, Industrial Light and Magic made them regulation after the Dustin Hoffman fiasco of 1982
All this talk about baseball made me think of a movie I’ve probably seen two dozen times, but don’t own – Major League.
Personally, I’m pretty excited for the new Terminator movie. Me and the wife are going to try and see it this weekend if we have the extra cash. I think it’ll be pretty good, I havent seen a Christian Bale movie that I haven’t liked yet. I had no idea there was that much footage out there of the movie in previews and clips and extended trailers on the internet. Just seems excessive to me. I don’t go searching for it on the net it all either though. I just leave it to TV advertising to coerece me into seeing a movie, also the person playing the lead role usually draws me in as well.
I think the sketch idea is really cool, maybe you could offer 2 different kinds of sketches. You could sell the ones with running gags from the comics through the site, and the character sketches at conventions. You could probably even sell the running gags at conventions as well if you reference which comic it came from, so then you draw (pardon the pun) them into your site and generate yourself some more traffic.
Not to pimp myself on your website, but I got into an advanced screening of the flick and reviewed it back on Tuesday. I found it a fun and interesting take on a tried and true formula. Certainly better than T3, but not as good as T2. The plot suffers from the pacing issues and some very strange moments where it doesn’t seem like they knew where to go, but there are some fun fan shout-out moments and some pretty good action throughout.
As I mentioned in the last thread, I’ve been excited about this movie since the beginning. I love the Terminator mythology, but more importantly I love sci-fi films. And the negative reviews only give me hope that I’ll like the movie even more (heck, the critics hacked-and-slashed The Chronicles of Riddick, and that’s one of my favorite sci-fi flicks of all time).
As far as movie clips go, I ALWAYS avoid them. The trailers give too much away as it is. Even with movies I’m super-psyched with, like Star Trek, I refuse to watch them. If the clip is good enough, I’d rather see it up on the big screen anyway, not on my computer screen with advertisements surrounding it.
My point about the clips, though, is that the Terminator Salvation clips seem unavoidable. At least the Star Trek clips were a little more few and far between.
Star Trek didn’t have to be omnipresent to bring people to the theater. They knew they had a quality product. A film that gives up so much of it’s content to the internet has problems.
I saw Salvation yesterday afternoon. It was pretty entertaining. There’s a couple plot events you can see coming a mile away, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a fun ride throughout. It’s got cool action and decent enough characters to be enjoyable.
On the clip subject, I do somewhat agree with you. But although Star Trek was a better movie, I don’t think the oversaturation of Salvation clips is about that. I think it’s mostly a difference in studio. And to be fair, you’re exagerating somewhat. I’d only seen commercials and theater previews for Salvation before I went in yesterday and I spend plenty of time online. Those sort of things are there for the movie fans who search it out. I think part of the difference there is that die hard Trek fans are usually more interested about back story and surrounding information than seeing clips in advance, whereas Terminator has always been purely a movie franchise and thus those kind of film fans are the people they see as the core audience. (If that made sense to anyone but me)
Minor spoiler: (Probably not worth mentioning but just to be extra super catious for those who care)
On a point some people were mentioning a few days ago about the movie. There is some insinuation of the war changing because of the various time-travel events from the past movie. Even in one of the trailers you can hear John Conner mentioning the machines are advancing faster than the timelime he was told about. They don’t actually mention anything directly but the assumption would be that the changes are because the TX in T3 hooked ‘herself’ up to Skynet and probably told it about the failures they originally had and how John Conner beat them. If we give credit to the director, we could assume he’s trusting the audience to be smart enough to figure that out for ourselves, or you could assume they forgot to explain it.
I loved Terminator Salvation. Thought it was a great action movie and I enjoyed immensely.
Just got back from seeing it. Still reeling with giddiness. No, it wasn’t Star Trek, but it was a darn good movie for the money.
That being said, I’m not even going to try to argue with the people who didn’t like it. It seems that people who have decided not to like are going to be hardcore about it. Somebody actually booed the screen at the end of the flick (which, while I respect people’s rights to their opinions, is pretty friggin’ rude).
I really like the idea of incentive sketches, I would totally buy them. I’m more interested in the one pannel gag. It seems more like having a piece of the comic. DO you have any more conventions coming up that you’ll be doing them for?
The only other convention I have planned this year is Chicago in August. I can’t afford to go to most of them. Seattle was an experiment that worked out, but I can’t fly most places because of the cost.
I think “Jared! Stop this crazy thing!” would have been a good one too.