Pirates, Fountains, and Syfy

Today we will start with the Disney side of the world starting with Parks news and then we'll hit on Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. So grab some popcorn and lets set sail to White Cap Bay!

Star Tours - The Adventures Continue

Starting off our new tidbits at Disneyland and Disney Hollywood Studios (Florida) is the beginnings of what I'm sure will be a great attraction... Star Tours - The Adventures Continue. Disney has already made a commercial for the ride, and while a little cheesy, I think it will get guests to forget about Potterland at Universal's Islands of adventure park this summer and instead see them coming to Walt Disney World and Disneyland. Initial crowds are doing good at Disneyland, and coming soon, an R2-D2 popcorn bucket (I may just have to order one through a friend that works at the park).

In other recent Disney Parks news, the Disney Parks Blog has uploaded a sneak peak video for Star Tours. Star Tours opened yesterday at Disney Hollywood Studios park and officially opens June 3rd at Disneyland in California.

World of Color

Disney California Adventure has changed up World of Color in Paradise Bay again, this time the team has removed the Night on Bald Mountain/Hellfire sequence, and replaced it with a longer Pirates portion, why some of the foamers are mad about it, i actually think it was done well. They have also changed up both the "So Close" scene and added in Tangled in place of Tarzan, and they enhanced the finale. I hope i'll get to see it in person before it changes again, but in the meantime, here is a video with all the changed that were premiered last night.

The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure

On Thursday the walls around The Little Mermaid, Seaside Souvenirs, and Corn Dog Castle came down. The area looks amazing and I can't wait to actually see it for myself (why do I ave to live in Seattle?). Here are some picture of the area from Mint Crocodile's Magic Eye Blog.

Pirates of the Caribbean (ride)

Yesterday also marked the opening of a temporary change to the classic Pirates of the Caribbean attractions at both Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Blackbeard (Edward Teach) has taken the place of Davy Jones in the cavern. Take a look at this clip and judge for yourself.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

I'm going to start with my review of the soundtrack to the film which I picked up on Tuesday. I love the soundtrack but here are a few things i noticed about it. Mutiny (track 3) is very similar to ___ from the 1st movie. compare for yourself:







I loved the Mermaids track, but I wish they would have included the siren song "My jolly Sailor Bold" from the movie. I have had an issue with this ever since the Curse of the Black Pearl came out and they didn't include the track of Elizabeth singing Yo ho, yo ho, A Pirates Life For Me from the very beginning of the movie. Take a look at this clip from the movie to understand why they should have included "My Jolly Sailor Bold"

The Book

Even before I had the soundtrack I had the book and While I liked reading it, it was a huge let down because it ends right after this clip

This is with still at least half an hour left of the movie, if not more.

The Movie
I went to the midnight premier dressed up as the good captain himself and took pictures with kids from elementary school aged up through High School.

I have to say that this was by far my favorite sequel to the original, and the simple reason is that it didn't rely on any of the previous movies, nor did it leave you on a huge cliffhanger  (Dead Man's Chest and At World's End). There are a few ride references including the tavern fight, Ponce de Leon's ship, and the occasional lines thrown out. There are a lot of good little twists that I loved. I made sure to stay until after the credits and in traditional Pirates of the Caribbean fashion, there is a clip after the credits. I won't spoil by saying who is in the clip, but I will say that it was pure genius. I think my favorite quote from the movie might just be Jack's "If you had a sister and a dog, I'd choose the dog" when speaking to Angelica.

I have already seen the movie in both 3-D and IMAX 3-D, and tomorrow night I will be seeing it in regular 2-D, even against Harry Potter 7 part 2, I think this will be my favorite movie of the summer!

Plus Jerry Bruckheimer has said on his twitter account that in some foreign markets Pirates 4 is breaking records for opening weekend attendance. Not only is it outperforming the At World's End opening weekend, but the entire run has been beaten by the opening weekend for On Stranger Tides in those foreign markets.


From twitter: @BRUCKHEIMERJB #Pirates4 already passed the entire run of P3 in one weekend for Russia, China and India.


Syfy channel and Stargate

With so many fans getting fed up with Syfy channel to quote Daniel Jackson "The time to join this fight is now". It is time that the Science Fiction fans stand up against The Powers That Be at Syfy and MGM and prove how big a mistake it is to not go forward with more new Stargate projects.

I'll leave you all with that for today, off to look for more Disney News.

Why I think Stargate Universe Wasn't as Popular as Atlantis and SG-1

I think there were a few factors that led to an overall smaller audience for SGU then Atlantis's audience. Craig Engler compared the Atlantis series premiere to the SGU series premiere in a recent letter to Stargate fans visible now at Gateworld. But personally I think he shouldn't have compared the 2 for a few reasons. A) Stargate Atlantis premiered in the Summer with a new season of Stargate SG-1. B) SGU was in the fall with heavy competition from the major networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, etc). C) SGU didn't air along side a new season of any previous Stargate show (SG-1 or Atlantis). D) Stargate fans felt hurt by the fact that MGM and Syfy canceled Atlantis one day and the very next day they announced that they had green-lit Stargate Universe.

Interestingly enough SGU was initially going to have a Summer premiere like its predecessors article also on Gateworld. In this article they cover the delay from Summer to fall.

Now that some more details about the initial cancellation of Atlantis and Green-lighting of Universe have come out, I am even more convinced that they should have done both a 6th season of Stargate Atlantis and the 1st season of Stargate Universe airing simultaneously. like they did a few years before with the premiere of Atlantis and SG-1.

Another fact to consider is that seasons 9 and 10 of Stargate SG-1 the show runners were getting pretty confident that the series would still be picked up for a season 11. So the producers were ready to do a 4th year of shooting 2 shows at once which I think most fans would have been perfectly fine with. I mean hell, SG-1 probably could have kept going for a couple more years (possibly 12-13 seasons). But at least when it was cancelled, Scifi kept its order of Atlantis.

According to Craig Engler (syfy pr), when it came time do decide about the futures of both Atlantis and Universe, they offered to buy 2 seasons of Stargate, in other words, they wanted to start Stargate Universe. The offer was for either a 6th season of Stargate Atlantis in conjunction with a 1st season of Stargate Universe, OR to have 2 a 2 season deal for Universe, where, as long as it got high enough ratings for the 1st ten episodes, season 2 would be green-lit no matter what happened later that season. As we all know, MGM and Syfy mutually agreed to end Stargate Atlantis at this point with a promise of future movies to tie up the story after the success the SG-1 movies. They also promised a 3rd SG-1 movie at this point. At this point the dvd market started to suffer and MGM was doing worse financially, so they kept postponing the movies.

I think that part of what made SGA do better in the numbers is the fact that SG1/SGC had been looking for Atlantis all over our galaxy during season 7 of SG1, and they did a few cross over episodes to keep you reminded that they were the same big Stargate program, episodes like: New Order (getting Weir ready to leave), Prometheus Unbound (rescue mission to pegasus stopped part way there), Mobius (the whole reason they went back in time was to make sure we got the ZPM to send it to Atlantis via Deadalus), The Pegasus Project (SG1 went to Atlantis)

Midway Space Station

Rising (they start on Earth and Daniel wanted to go with them), Home (they think they’ve come back to Earth), Letters From Pegasus (Atlantis send a help message to SGC), Seige Part 2 (a bunch of marines come to help defend Atlantis), Seige Part 3 (that ZPM from mobius is brought to Atlantis by Deadalus), The intruder (Atlantis team is on their way back from a big debrief at SGC), Grace Under Pressure (McKay hallucinates about Carter), the Real World (Weir is on Earth with Jack the entire episode), McKay and Mrs. Miller (SGC finds out how smart McKay’s sister is and gets her involved with Rodney and Sam), the Return (Jack and Woolsey are left to be liasons between Ancients and Earth), And then Season 4 has Sam taking command of Atlantis, the intergalactic Gate bridge (Midway space station), and so on. There is also an issue of promotion, Atlantis and SG-1 had a lot of cross promotional ads like the one below.

SG-1 and Atlantis promotional image

I think the best way they could have introduced SGU would have been through Atlantis's First Contact. When Daniel came to the city looking for something, he was just looking for a lab, I think he should have said something like "I think Jauns had a secret lab, and the evidence I have found points to this lab as holding the secret to unlocking the 9th Chevron on the Stargates" This would have introduced us to the fact that SGC has been trying to figure it out and given even more reason for Daniel to be there.

 After season 5 ended with Atlantis in San Fransisco Bay, they should have gone with 1 season of Atlantis and 1 of Universe. I think it would have been interesting to have all of the key players from Universe first go to Icarus via the gate in Atlantis, have them mention that they started the game online in hopes they'll find someone, but tie the 2 stories together. The next episode of Atlantis would have them leaving Earth with however many personnel they need. But at the same time Sam would have been bringing Daniel, Jack, Rush, Eli, the Senator, and Chloe to Icarus aboard the Hammond.

 
I’m not saying that SGU was bad, I just think they could have introduced us to the 9th chevron project in Atlantis season 5 because that would have been similar to how they introduced us to “The Lost City of the Ancients” in SG1 season 6. Does you agree that if some of these elements and characters were introduced before hand it would have felt less odd (keep in mind we’d been introduced to McKay and Weir prior to the Atlantis premiere).

All Stargate fans should be in remorse right now, because this is the first time in 14 years that there are no new Stargate episodes coming out.

I now leave you with some of the old promo ads that Scifi did for Stargate, this style of advertising needs to come back!

Mermaids, C-3PO, and Syfy antics

This will be a fairly short post because there hasn't been too much new tidbits announced yet. So lets take a look at the Disney side of things first today shall we.

Mermaids are everywhere now what with their siren like presence in the new Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and the new Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure soon opening at Disney California Adventure park. The Disney Pirates website has added a new section for the Mermaids. Now Pirates fans can learn all about the mermaids role in the story. On top of that, Disney World guests will be able to get made up to be a mermaid starting on May 20th, details on this are available at the Disney Parks Blog. And the soundtrack to the new movie is available tomorrow, but for some of us who pre-ordered it, it is available today in stores to listen to the soundtrack for free go to pirates4soundtrack.com. On the Ariel side, there is a video of the original Little Mermaid animators getting a sneak peak of the new park attraction.

Also, the Disney Parks Blog has released new teasers for the Blue Sky Cellar in California Adventure. Soon posters for Little Mermaid, Goofy;s Sky School, and Grizzly River Run will be replacing the ones currently on display: Silly Symphony Swings, Mickey's Fun Wheel, and California Screamin'. Here is a sneak peak of what is coming in.

         The Little Mermaid                                           Goof'y's Sky School

 

And Grizzly River Run

Will all be replacing:

       Silly Symphony Swings                                                 Mickey's Fun Wheel

  

                                                              and California Screamin'

Star Tours 2.0 is also gearing up for its new trips to multiple destinations. You're new pilot is C-3PO, so we already know your flight won't go according to plan. Here are 2 clips to get you amoed up for the new attraction. May the Force be With You on your new adventures.

Teaser Trailer

Disneyland Marquee Lighting (filmed by Mintcrocodile)

I've just recieved my copy of the Steve Tyrell Disney cd and will have a review up about it soon.



On the other side of the wormhole.....

Joe Mallozzi has been really busy with his blog lately, he not only revealed the base plots for SGU future possibilities and the SG1 movie, but he also has now pointed out some of the many flaws in Craig Engler's letter to Stargate fans posted to Gateworld last week. You can read Joe's thoughts on his blog and at Gateworld.

Gateworld also released their podcast for episode 218 of SGU - Epilogue which is quite a good listen, my props to Darren and David for their great podcasts.

Several Stargate fans have been making really good videos on youtube, so I leave you all with a few of them to end this blog post.

Now this clip is from SGU itself, but I think the funniest moment of the series.

And this clip from SG1's 200th episode

My First Post

For my first post to the blog I would like to bring you some of the most recent Disney and Stargate News, Rumors, and my commentary. To start off I would like to say that I will likely switch around which company is reported on first in each post, or after this first post I may set up a 2 post/week system with one being Disney, and one being Stargate.

How about we star of with some good old Stargate news eh? As I'm sure most of you know by now, not only was Stargate Universe (SGU) cancelled last December by the Syfy channel, but last month at the Vancouver Stargate convention Brad Wright announced to the fans that all projects would be shelve indefinitely. This means no SG-1 movie (named Stargate: Revolution) that was originally going to have been filmed back in 2010, No Stargate Atlantis movie (with the working title Stargate: Extinction) that Syfy was going to help find in order to give the Stargate Atlantis fans closure to the shows finale, and no real answers to Stargate Univere's finale. What's worse is that MGM had it written in their new takeover deal that James Bond and Stargate were the 2 most important franchises they owned. So what happened to that.

Darren Sumner from Gateworld.net recently wrote an impressive article about how the mere presence of WWE Smackdown on Syfy is hurting the Science Fiction Genre. Look here for a great read.

Let's also take a look at this letter that Syfy's Craig Engler wrote to Stargate fans on gateworld.net
An Open Letter to Stargate Fans from Syfy

Many of the Stargate fans are reading right through Craig and syfy's web of lies in the letter. And it is quite clear that the letter would never have been written in the first place if they weren't so worried about their future now, as many Stargate fans will no longer be watching ANYTHING on the Syfy channel.

Also, recently, Joseph Mallozzi revealed on his blog that the ending we saw for Stargate universe season 2 wasn't the original version that the writers were toying with. not only that, but he also shows us some of the possible ways either a 3rd season or a movie would have opened. If it were a movie they would have had Col. Carter (Amanda Tapping), Dr. McKay (David Hewlett), Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks), and many other guest stars from the previous shows come mount a resue op to bring all the Destiny's crew home to Earth.

Most recently, Joe Mallozzi revealed on his blog that in the 3rd SG-1 movie with the potential title of Stargate: Revolution, the Stargate program would have been made public, and it would have mostly featured Richard Dean Anderson as Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill, and would have been mostly off world and in ships, and not so much in the SGC (Stargate Command).

A recent Stargate rumor is that Paramount pictures is looking in to buying the rights to the Stargate Franchise from MGM. I have yet to find any official articles on this, but will keep you posted if anything come of this rumor.

Now for the Disney news.

On the Disney Parks Blog they have recently announced a live webcast for the DHS opening of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, let;s hope they also do this when it open at the Disneyland Resort. Later in the same day they released a new Disney California Adventure park expansion update video. And be sure to watch the season finales of AFV and Extreme Makeover tonight to see some Disney Parks and Cruise Line features!

On May 25th Tangaroa Terrace – Casual Island Dining and Trader Sam’s – Enchanted Tiki Bar will open with a new menus. I for one can't wait until I'm 21 and able to go to the Tiki Bar.

The new Mickey's Soundsational Parade will debut at Disneyland on May 27th. the 2 floats that I have seen have a lot of little gems for musicians. the Princess and the Frog float is made of a tambourine paddle wheel, flute (or possibly clarinet) smoke stacks Treble and Bass clef railings, trombones on the sides, and those are the most obvious parts too!!!! Whats more, this year, Disneyland is moving away from the the Summer Nighttastic they have had for a few years now, and instead are going with the title Soundsational Summer

On June 3rd Disneyland Resort Guests will be able to start experiencing Star Tours The Adventures Continue in Tomorrowland, and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventures in the Paradise Pier section of California Adventure.

On July 1st (unless there are more delays), Guests to Disney California Adventure will be able to take a flying lesson at Goofy's Sky School (formerly Mulholland Madness). They will also be able to get new eats at Paradise Garden Grill (formerly Burger Invasion) and Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta (formerly Pizza Oom Mow Mow).

In Studio news, Last weekend was the world premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides at the Disneyland Resort. Kermit the Frog was at the event and did some interviews, and here is what the Muppet Studios has published.

The soundtrack to Pirates 4 will be available on Tuesday May 17th in stores and for digital download. go to pirates4soundtrack.com to preview the tracks. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides comes out May 20th in the US, I plan to go to the Midnight showing of this dressed as Captain Jack, and will post the picture from the line next week.

And, for my last bit of news, the new Disney Store at Bellevue Square (Bellevue, Wa) opened last Wednesday to guests. I have plenty of pictures for you of the store, and more will come after my next trip to the store.

Well, That'll do it for this post as it is now 5:53 am, and I truly need to go to sleep, 3 hours ago lol.

If you have any official Disney or Stargate News please email it to wraithkelso@hotmail.com and put either "Stargate News" or "Disney News" in the subject line. For rumors to report, please put "Stargate Rumor" or "Disney Rumor" in the subject line. I will make sure to mention anyone that reports news in the blog updates.