Anime Jungle has pre-orders for 2007 calendars up and I stumbled upon one for the new Animal Crossing movie that’s set to be released in Japan on December 12th. Powet.tv last reported on this movie in July when a few characters had been revealed through their official site.

A look at this better but still low res picture of the cover courtesy of Yes Asia reveals some new characters:

Among some already introduced characters we see the inclusion of K.K., Mr. Resetti, a Penguin who appears to be Hopper, and some kind of otter fisherman character who I believe is new to the movie. A look at other items available on both Yes Asia and Amazon Japan show that there is a plushie for this weird fishing character, named Rakosuke, due out in the next month.

Not much seems to have been going on at the official site but there is an unupdated blog which tells us nothing we don’t already know that you can check out if you really want to see something.

Stay tuned to Powet to get every tiny detail we can find out about this movie as it becomes available.

Somehow, the news slipped under our radars here at Powet.tv, but the ever-classic Nightmare Before Christmas is being re-released in theaters on October 20th, 2006 – almost exactly 13 years after its original release date.

For those of you who haven’t seen the film yet, you need to get out more. Starting on October 20th! For those of you that have, then you already know what kind of wonder you’re in store for, and you’ll only regret it if you miss this the chance to see this gem in theaters again. (Or, for the first time, depending on what you were doing in 1993.)

In related news, Disney rounded up an eclectic assortment of talent to cover songs from the original soundtrack for a two-disc “special edition” re-release. Contributors include Fall Out Boy on “What’s This?”, Panic! at the Disco on “This is Halloween”, Marilyn Manson also (?) doing “This is Halloween”, She Wants Revenge on “Kidnap the Sandy Claws”, and Fiona Apple on “Sally’s Song”. Disc One will indeed be the original soundtrack untouched, but the second disc isn’t ALL covers of songs that seem questionably fit to be covered – It also includes Elfman’s demo versions of “Making Christmas” and “Oogie Boogie’s Song”. All in all, it’s still a lot of music in one package, even if the premise is somewhat dubious.

So, whatever it is you make of the soundtrack re-release, by all means, do NOT forget the movie. Remember – October 20th. In 3-D. BE THERE.

There’s a lot of sites out there with transcripts (or approximations thereof) of the DC Nation panel, and the vast majority of it seems to be rehashing old knowledge and witty banter.  That said, there were at least a couple nuggets of knowledge worth gnawing on:

• New (?) Terra shows up in Supergirl #12 (issue to be drawn by Amanda Conner), and this will be the Terra on the Titans East team coming up in Teen Titans, which will be led by Deathstroke.
• A Terra miniseries is still coming, but after that Supergirl appearance
• Cassandra Cain (the recent Batgirl) will also be on Teen Titans East
• A General Zod more like the one from Superman II will be showing up somewhere, sometime
• Brave & The Bold will be a team-up book, with issue #1 starring Batman & Green Lantern, #2 with Supergirl, Green Lantern, Batman, & Blue Beetle, #3 will have all of them, plus a backup with Lobo & Adam Strange
• All 3 heroes in space in 52 will not be returning… so based on the previous bit, it seems that Adam Strange will probably still (unsurprisingly) remain in space
• The upcoming 5 issue extension of Manhunter will lead into an upcoming Wonder Woman story
• Diana Prince will show up in 52, somewhere, sometime
• Ambush Bug will be in issue #24 of 52, as will Checkmate, Suicide Squad, and Martian Manhunter
• There will be a Nightwing annual in early ’07
• Is Roy Harper becoming the Red Arrow, a la Kingdom Come?  “Not really.”
• Seven Soldiers will be coming out next month, they tell us yet again
• Meltzer is writing 14 issues of JLA total, including issue #0
• Despite the fact that we’re getting an All-Star Batgirl, and despite the fact that there’s nowhere to get Barry Allen stories, there are no plans for an All-Star Flash book

Sources: ComicBookResources, Comic News International, Newsarama

Captain America scribe Ed Brubaker joins artist Billy Tan on Uncanny X-men for the 12-part series, “Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire“. Basically, Vulcan (the other Summers brother) resurfaced, left Earth, and is hell-bent on seeking revenge on the Shi’ar for killing his mother and making him a slave. Of course, the X-men must stop him.

I was not familiar with Billy Tan before this arc, but I must say I quickly became a fan. He and inker Danny Miki have put together a book that is crisp and vibrant. His characters convey real emotion and his action scenes are fluid. For anyone unfamiliar with Ed Brubaker (and shame on you), he’s the current writer of Captain America and Daredevil and recently finished a six-issue mini, Books of Doom. He is currently one of the best writers in the field and Shi’ar is no exception. He’s put together a great and dynamix X-team: Professor Xavier, Marvel Girl, Havoc, Polaris, Nightcrawler, Warpath, and a mutant I was unaware of, Darwin. The team dynamic is excellent and has many moments of pure, unadulterated baddassitude. With most of the Marvel universe preoccupied with the evnts of Civil War, it’s nice to have a story that is seperate from that. This series gets my highest recommendation.

Parts 1-4 (of 12) already in stores.

Traveller’s Tales, developers of the great pick-up-and-play platformers LEGO Star Wars have revealed their newest game to CVG.

LEGO Batman will taked DC’s famed Caped Crusader to new block shaped heights no doubt. I certainly hope we get all the body and character swapping fun from LSW, and the option to build and modify Bat vehicles. No solid details are known, but given how well the first game in the series handled, one can only hope. Whats next? LEGO has a lot of licenses, and also a lot of original properties. I’d go for any LEGO Pirate or Space game, personally.

On a semi-related note, a couple years ago the The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School project was to create a Batman short film called “Batman: New Times” featuring CG models based on Art Asylum’s Batman Minimates, which is a hardy derivitive of the LEGO style. Adam West reprises his role as Batman/Bruce Wayne, and Mark Hammill is the Joker. Its a nifty film, and worth a watch if you’ve never seen it before.

To check out the LEGO Batman toys, here’s the official site.

A powet.tv exclusive! A review of advanced copies of the new Star Wars DVDs planned to be released on next Tuesday September 12th 2006.

Special thanks to Dave for giving me the heads up that the Zellers at Place d’Orleans in Ottawa was selling these DVDs a week early and to Janine my loving and patient camerawoman/stunt double/lover.

Update – September 9th

Compare the video quality between the new updated versions (left) and original vesions (right) images have been scaled to a common size and correct aspect ratio for easier comparison

Wow! I thought Grand Theft Auto 4 wasn’t supposed to be released until next fall! Nevertheless, I’m always ready to do some more random carjacking and pedestrian killing! But what’s with the name change though? And where is the Rockstar logo? All kidding aside, Saint’s Row certainly isn’t gonna win any awards for originality. However, we should be thankful that someone decided to copy GTA instead of something like ‘True Crime’ or ’25 to Life’ for once.
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