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007. Gearing up for The Flash Season 2

Hi all,

The Flash. Need I say more. I grew up on this fella, way back then since John Wesley Shipp became the scarlet speedster.

I prefer this costume though, oh well...

Anyways, move over Mr Shipps, and welcome Grant Gustin!. I think he did a great job, considering, I wasn't too enthusiastic when it was first announced that the Flash would have a new modern season back then. And, the costume for the new Flash, well, I wasn't too enthusiastic.

This is the first Flash new season 1 picture, that I saw from the promo...mehhh

Well, well well, after watching the show, well, I'm hooked.

After all, Heath ledger blew me away as the Joker(and I was one of those sceptics, when he was announced as Joker, back then, not too long ago).

I really like the modern take, this new flash has taken on. No more coincidental lightning bolt on "that fateful night", whereby the original Flash series took it's direction. No. This new Flash had reasons behind everything. The one I really like is how the lightning bolts on both his ears are actually sound mufflers to protect Barry's eardrums from potential sonic booms when he's going at high speed.(Well done I say)

There are certain things which threw me off initially. Like how Iris, is well, an African American(She's hot though, Candice Patton)...not what I lived with, from the comic version. But they added a more humanistic touch to Iris this time, by showing her selfish side. (Yes, I do find her annoying at times.)

Also, Oliver Queen and Barry Allen...I don't think they're best buds. Based on the comics, they barely talk to each other, only when they need to. The Barry I knew from the comics, was friends with Hal Jordan, and spent time having intelligent conversations with Bruce Wayne. Oh well, I guess I'm asking for too much.

Warning: This ain't like the comic books. But still..

The thing that blew me away was how, this modern series paid tribute to the original ones, by inviting John Wesley Shipps on the show, as Barry's Father.(You can imagine my reaction at first!).

Did I meantioned, Tina, from the original Star Labs making a cameo?

Also, I thought the Reverse Flash was pretty haunting, like how I felt when I read about 'im in the comics. So...Kudos.

Anyways, Back to season 2. There's a few treats, waiting for us, Like Jay Garrick, more meetings with the Arrow and his team and more. If you haven't catched the trailer, here's the video below:

More on Jay Garrick:

As far as we know, Jay will be played by Teddy Sears. Jay comes into season 2 from a parallel universe to warn Barry and his team of an impending doom. Hmm... What could it be?

We could also see from the trailer, the return of Captain Cold. Not forgetting, he lets loose the villains on the final episodes of season 1 could mean, we could see a new rogue set up here. I can't wait!

Keiynan Lonsdale(according to what I heard), will be Kid flash(not Bart Allen though), but Wally West in season 2. Oh my gosh, this keeps getting better, don't it?

Also, There's still a reverse flash in this series, so don't fret.

Oh, oh! and Cisco Ramone has powers.. Is this true? What will he be? I liked him a lot in season 1. The lines he's given, well...loved it.

Oh, and Barry discovering how his speed can make him travel into alternate dimensions, will it mean there'll be more parallel universe's in this season. I really do think so.

Okok...I'm trying not to give away spoilers here. I'll wait till the first episode of season 2 comes around before we splurge more, alright?

Meanwhile, there, I placed the Comic Con trailer here so that, we can see more juicy bites.

The Flash Season 2 will premiere on CW on the 6th of October 2015. Don't miss it!

Credits to the Flash Promo Team for such a wonderful Poster! Can't wait.

2015©Confaderal

006. People you didn't (but most probably do) know were involved with Batman!

#BatmanDay is upon us.

Tell me, do you read?

This is the time of the year where fans across the world will pay tribute to the dark knight, and his villains. You will see fans litter conventions with costumes of the caped crusader. His cowl, his utility belt, his mask, everything. In relation to this wonderful upcoming event, let's recap back the people involved with our childhood hero!

1. One of the inspirations for Batman was Zorro

Ben Affleck In the 1940s, DC's success with Superman prompted them to scramble to create more heroes. That was the time when Bob Kane first created a hero called "The Batman", with inspirations coming from Zorro. Bill Finger got on the project later on as a writer and the rest is as they say 'history'.

2. Did you know that among the names who've stand in for batman include, Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson, Jean Paul Valley, Terry McGinnis?

Yes, among the few were his son and the original robin to act as a stand-in when the caped crusader was out injured or had some other errands to attend to.

Oh, and did we mentioned, a few other common people had their attempts to dress up as him?

3. Speaking of which, Bill Murray was once picked to be casted as Batman?

Thank God it didn't work out. Can you imagine?

Ghostbuster, not so much a crimebuster...Thank you very much!

4. This wasn't the first time Christian Bale "participated" in a batman movie.

Mr Bale once auditioned for the role of Robin in 'Batman Forever' starring Val Kilmer. In the end, the choice of Robin went to Chris O Donnell. Looking at how Bale conducts his acting, we think, the direction of batman forever wouldn't have suited him. And, thank heavens he didn't take any part in Batman & Robin!(right?no?).

Batman-ception! If Bale got the role as robin in Batman Forever, and he plays The Dark Knight in Nolan's Trilogy, it'd be like point #1, Dick Grayson being Batman!!

5. Christian Bale(again) advises Ben Affleck on the role of Batman

Ben Affleck apparently revealed that he was given an important piece of advice by Bale, when he was doing promotion at this years' Comic Con in San Diego. Affleck told fans how they both bumped into each other in a Los Angeles costume shop to buy batman costumes for their kids when Affleck was greeted by Bale.

An awestruck Affleck asked;"Do you have any tips?"(on playing batman). And Bale' reply was; "Make sure you can piss in that suit.".

Imagine that. Here's the trailer for Superman v Batman in case you missed it. (Catch the Comic-Con trailer too)

Catch Superman V Batman:Dawn of Justice in 2016. Also visit our ebay store for the kotobukiya New 52 Batman statue!

2015©Confaderal

005.Dear Readers, You're my only hope...

Disclaimer: All media and materials listed here do not belong to me. It is for educational purposes for the sake of discussion.

Warning: This article might contain spoilers, as we try to piece together what we can of the current information given to us about the movie.

Warm Greetings,

They say, a picture paints a thousand words. Films run at 24 pictures per seconds, that's 24000 words per second. Multiply that by 60 to get the amount of pictures in a minute. Further multiply that by the movie duration.How many words is that? Jeezusss! Let's not go there. No, today, I'm going to cut and dissect a trailer we've all been anticipating, and still are anticipating. Enter~

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

(insert light saber buzzing in the background)

Ok,I'm no expert critic here, I can only try to copy ebert and siskel, even then, that's not the point of this article. This IS the movie we've all been waiting for. Disney has kept everything nicely underwraps. We're all inevitably entering mass hysteria. But, what does it all mean? Could any one, either in this universe, or the next, help us?

Here's the objective of this article; To shed light on what we can expect in the movie(without revealing the big spoilers).

The trailer is shown below, in case, you haven't had time to catch it yet.

As best as I can, Let's start with this trailer right here. I'll collect as much as I can from the trailers to form something tangible ok? The opener starts with the voice of Kylo ren.

"There has been an awakening...have you felt it?"

And we see, in the middle of the dessert, Flinn in his stormtrooper suit. Panting. You could hear radio comms in the background as Flinn looks to the distance(slightly off Camera), to his right side. He's about to make a run.

The second "scene" shows BB-8 rolling in the sand. It seems to be in a desert area as you could see the pods at the back, but also, the fence with more pods.

The third scene shows First Order stormtroopers getting their weapon ready for a conflict as the door of the ship opens for them.

We see Rey, now. Starting the engine of her race pod desperately looking back to check if she's in the clear...and she speeds off. Either she's heading to the small town up ahead, or go even further than that.

We see rebel fighter,Poe Dameron piloting his x-wings', in battle formation with a few other resistance fighters. They're flying close to the surface of the ocean.

Then, Kylo Ren appears(is he limping?) , stands in the middle of the snowy woods(is this hoth?) and readying his light saber."The dark side..."

"...and the light"

Screen fades into~ The millennium falcon doing a donut manuever and evading two TIE starfighters attacks.

Screen fades to black, into the Star wars Logo. "December 2015". Cut to black. Sound of lightsaber prep.

-End of Trailer-

What it probably means: From the clues taken from this trailer, we establish that after the events of ep VI, Return of the jedi, We have new characters, Flinn, who is in a stormtrooper suit, I could only guess, he's either been ambushed, or he was betrayed or he hits a certain sort of realization he's in danger. From the radio comms that's present in that scene, we can only conclude, he's on the run. From who, we do not know. What we do know, is that he's our main hero.

The next shot shows BB-8, the new lovable droid, running away, or hurrying away towards something. (it seems, all our heroes are running away from something don't it?). Take note, the backdrop seems familiar. It will be much clearer after we analyse the next trailer.
, hopefully.

Then we see FO stormtroopers getting their weapons ready for a battle. The door of the ship opens. What we didn't see here, is that Kylo Ren will appear coming out from this ship with the First Order Stormtroopers(Refer to SDCC showreel). He is part of the knights of Ren, who I think work closely with the first order.

Now, just as soon as that scene ends, we see Rey starting up her engine and drives off on her pod in the middle of the dessert. Note that the desert backdrop seems the same as the one BB-8 was in earlier.Why is she running away? again, all our heroes seem to be running away.

Here, we see Kylo readying his light saber, in the dark woods. "the dark side". So, why isn't Kylo a darth? He could be fighting as a neutral, I can't be sure. Abrams DID mention that Kylo is not a sith, didn't he?

The last scene shows, the millennium falcon in action, our beloved ship outmanuevering the TIE fighters. This I felt, was just added in, to get audiences hyped that one of the original star wars characters is going to be premiered in the movie.

Now, let's analyse trailer #2

Personally, I love this trailer.

Ok. First off, we are introduced to the sand dunes. There's a race pod making it's way from left of screen to right of screen. Doesn't that look familiar? I could've sworn that's the scavenger Rey's pod we saw from trailer #1. In the foreground, we see a crashed X-wing, and in the background, The imperial star destroyer. This could be wreckage that happened in the battle of endor from Ep VI.

Rey's pod races down the sandy road, where there lies wreckage of the
x-wing fighter and the imperial star destroyer.

We hear Luke's voice in the next scene. "The force is strong in my family..." Juxtapose on Darth vaders' crushed helmet, accentuated by his iconic breathing. "My father has it..."

The next shot shows Luke's robotic hand. "I have it". The place appears to be in the night of a desert filled with yellow rocks etc. Luke seems to be making a campfire, with r2 by his side.

Luke's hand.Right?

Next shot shows a maiden handing General Leia Organa a lightsaber."My sister has it".

A moment later. Black Screen. "You have that power too".

Then we see X-wing fighters in battle formation flying low across the ocean.

Poe Dameron in his cockpit

Kylo Ren striking a foe with his lightsaber

Rey, BB8 and Flinn running away from tie fighters shooting at them. Rey seems to be carrying a staff(is that darth plagueis' staff?)

TIE fighter to the left of screen

Kylo Ren using the force amidst a fire laden place, or could it be in the midst of a battle?. Look at all the stormtroopers behind.

Stormtrooper behind sems to be rallying up refugees or something

Stormtroopers assembling at what seems to be at hoth. Is this where the final battle is going to be?

From left to right: FO's TIE fighters,Is that snoke in the middle? Also we see a glimpse of the new ATAT(To the right of screen).

Tie fighters entering a ship and shooting at it's inhabitants(FO stormtrooper).

But here we see TIE fighters shooting at FO stormtrooper. Could it be Flinn, making his escape?

One of the stormtroopers takes off his mask to reveal...Flinn..It looks like he just had a revelation. Perhaps he was ambushed? Perhaps he brought down a tie fighter and flew out into space to avoid the first order being ambushed? which is why he ended up in a sand desert area.

What happened?

We see ships returning to the imperial star destroyer, next shot juxtapose captain phasma with a gun. what is she up to? is she the one behind the ambush?

BB8 peeping out from behind a wall. the interior looks like the millennium falcon.

Rey looking offscreen into...

Flinn..they both meet for the first time I guess. she offers him her hand up.He accepts

Next, tie fighter in a duel with millennium falcon. entering a ship's wreckage in the sandy desert. could it be the imperial destroyer? where's the neck?

Insert shot of the tie fighter shooting, but misses millennium falcon

The next shot shows Han and Chewie. Han saying "Chewie, we're home"

"Chewie, we're home..." -Han Solo

What it probably means: From this trailer, we know that Flinn has the power of the force, just like how luke, Leia and Vader has it. Again, we see the resistance fighting, but, is it against the First Order this time? The FO seems to be in war, against the Seperatist. What role does Rey and Flinn play a part of? Both of them seem like fugitives caught in the middle of a galactic battle. In the SDCC show reel, There is a tie fighter that crashed into the sandy dunes, Could it be the one that Flinn is piloting to get to safety from the ambush of the FO by the seperatists? If Kylo is not a bad guy Sith lord, then what is he? WE know that he works under Snoke, who has an affiliation with the dark side of the force though. Could anyone shed light on this?

Oh, by the way, Here's the SDCC showreel, Perhaps it could show more clues.