"This is no fantasy!"

What? The BSG 2 soundtrack isn't on iTunes this morning? Well that's just SUPER! But wait! Look! Up in the sky! John Ottman Returns! A week early! Whooooooo! (And I'll still be making a Best Buy run after work for BSG. Sometimes you have to roll the hard six.)

On a first run through? Well it's su- it's terrific. Ottman does a great job of making it his own while neatly weaving Williams' score through his stuff. I have to say in that regard it's the best job I've ever heard of using another composer's insanely well known material (David Arnold comes close with Tomorrow Never Dies). Heck, Williams himself didn't even do that well with SW Eps 1-3. (He tried a bit in 1, Lucas butchered his score, after that he just didn't care.) (Hey, I go whole days without Lucas bashing, thank you.) It rarely feels like Ottman goes "write, write, write, press the WILLIAMS button, write, write". (See Potter, Harry. Or Superman II for that matter- only without the "write" bits.) And when he does just push the Williams button, you can tell that it'll be the "get the whole cinema on it's feet to cheer" moment. So, like I said, I'm so excited about Superman Returns I can hardly see straight. But I can hear just fine.

Meanwhile, in the "bring out yer dead!" department. Um - wow. This is from Rythm and Hughes, the gang who did The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, not to mention bringing us the Geico Gecko.

Between this and the "20 years earlier" bit in X3, maybe Harrison Ford isn't getting too old for Indiana Jones - we can just set the Wayback Machine for 1981 and Indy's ready to go! And who cares that Denholm "Marcus" Elliot died years ago. On your feet, Dr. Brody! Maybe when they start to do Star Trek again, they'll just get the whole original gang back together. Including DeForest Kelley and James Doohan! (Shatner's hairpiece never looked so good!)

You know, back in the day (What day? Oh, let's say 1982 was "the day") I never watched cutting edge movie technology thinking "and in a few years I'll have that on my laptop!" It's not so much that some durn fool of a studio is going to decide to make Casablanca 2: A Beautiful Friendship Ain't Worth a Hill of Beans or Citizen Kane 4: Rosebud's Return (ROSEBUD IS A SLED! *cough*). It'll be movie fans and film students. Anyone who hated Lord of the Rings, but realized that it LOOKED gorgeous? Just do your own "The Way Tolkien Wanted It" cut. Coming soon to a web-cast near you. Spider-man: The "Gwen Stacy Must Die" edit. Grab your camcorder, set your Actor's Studio 2010 (tm) software for "Wayne, John - 1945" and you're ready to make "Evil Dead 5: Boomsticks over Normandy". It'll be like The Sims on steroids.

With great power comes great responsibility. But it'll be fun!