The Fourth Professor Layton

Well, E3 has rolled into town again, bringing all the big game news and announcements with it. One of those being something I've been waiting for for a long time.

That's right! The next Professor Layton title has been unveiled! The fourth game in the series, Professor Layton and the Last Specter is the first in a new prequel trilogy. Taking place three years before Curious Village, this game will show how the Professor and his apprentice Luke met. You can watch the new trailer below.



While it is exciting to see more confirmation of Western localization for this title (there was some speculation that this game was going to be skipped over because of the fifth game, which is for the 3DS), I was a bit disappointed by the trailer. Basically, all it is is a bunch of scenes that we've seen before with background music; no voice acting at all. If you compare it to the trailers for the other games, you can really tell the difference. So really the only new things we've seen about this game are the logo and some of the puzzles.

Usually, these games get one trailer per installment. I seriously hope that won't be the case here.

Final Thoughts About Hoodwinked 2

I need something else to blog about. Several weeks after I see Hoodwinked 2 and not a single post. Something's wrong here.

Even though I need to "get a life"* according to Wolf, I'd like to make one more post about this movie.

I saw it again this Saturday with some other friends and I have to say, it's better when you don't have high expectations. I take back what I said about some scenes having little to no meaning; they all worked together pretty well to get the characters where they needed to go, altough I wish they connected them together more.

However, this doesn't mean there aren't things out of place. The song "I Can Do it Alone" that plays when Red is in the city is really random and awkward, especially considering the fact that there are no other songs in the movie. It's not that I don't like the song, I think it's great and shows an interesting bit of Red's personality, but I don't like how it was put in the movie.

One thing that hasn't changed, though, is my dislike for the Boingo scene. I still don't know what he had to do with anything and he looks really weird. I mean, seriously weird. Does being in an asylym put on pounds, cause he looks bigger and his mouth has grown to a strange extent. Not to mention that his fur doesn't look realistic at all. It looks like it was painted on him, for crying out loud!

So yeah, if you're going to see this movie in its final week (according to its Facebook page), don't come with expectations and you'll more than likely be happier than I was the first time I saw it.

By the way, not to confirm anything, but after coming back from Hoodwinked 2 my friends came up with an idea for something we might write. There's nothing yet, but I'll talk more about this after we start to work on it. :)

*:  (From HW2) Flippers- "[The Giant] is known for. . . [blogging] about animated films?" Wolf- "He should get a life."

Not All Fairytales Go by the Book

I've never been so anxious to see a movie before. Ever.

Sure, I was really excited for Tangled, but I kind of knew what to expect from it. I knew that she was going to go outside her tower to go to the kingdom with a thief named Flynn Rider. While that wasn't the entire plotline, I had a bit of an idea of where the movie was going. With Hoodwinked 2, I didn't.

In some ways, I was pleasantly surprised. And in others, a little let down. But I'll get to that later.

Hoodwinked 2 (or Too, as the posters say) takes place sometime after the Red and the gang join the HEA in the original Hoodwinked. Red has gone away for some "secret training" at an undisclosed location, leaving the team in a bit of disaray. Meanwhile, Wolf and Granny have been called out on a mission to help save two kidnapped children, Hansel and Gretel. Seeing that "Red Riding Rogue" didn't show up again, Wolf takes matters into his own hands... er, paws. And everything goes horribly wrong.

Cut to Red, who is far far far far far far far away out in the mountains, finishing her training with a covert group called The Sisters of the Hood. But it's interrupted when she gets an urgent call from Nicky Flippers, the head of the HEA. Her granny has been kidnapped, and he teams up Red and Wolf together for the rescue mission. But more is on the line than it seems.

The story was well done, although some things were kinda a stretch for me, and I was engaged almost the whole time. It was especially cool to see how all the characters worked together. When Red and Wolf are partnered up, they both have their own way of doing things. They really rub up against each other before the conflict is resolved, and some interesting character development is introduced. There are some pretty nice plot twists as well, and most of the jokes were hilarious.

Now to the downside of the story. While the majority of it is good, some parts of it seem to have little or no meaning. While this may have been done on purpose (to direct the main characters about where to go next), I found it a little disappointing. Especially when Boingo shows up, a la Cats and Dogs 2.

One thing that gets me is that this movie was originally delayed because of "glitches in the animation" or something like that. And it seems that even with a year of extra time to fix it, it survived. Although how obvious it is probably depends on the person, there are some problems lip-syncing the animation to the voice acting. I think it's mostly just at the beginning, though.

When the credits began to roll, I began to wonder if the filmmakers were trying to send the audience a message with the song they played at the end. "You got Hoodwinked Too, but you got hoodwinked, too. We got you good. Yeah, you know it!"

I don't know, maybe I'm being too nitpicky. Maybe I'm such a fangirl of the original that the flaws of the sequel stand out more. Or perhaps my expectations were higher than they should've been. It just feels that this movie has the potential to be more than what showed up on the big screen. :/

So I'll end by saying that it wasn't the best sequel I've ever seen, but it has its good moments and is worth a watch. If you want to introduce someone to the Hoodwinked franchise, though, show them the original.

The OTHER Soundtrack

So it turns out that the Murray Gold score wasn't the only thing that came out yesterday. An album of eleven songs with lyrics was also released on iTunes. If you have iTunes on your computer, you can preview the songs here. It's nothing special, really. It's worth a listen to, but it's not as good as the score. There are a few songs that I like a lot, and one in particular that I find very interesting, but I'll talk about that some other time.

In other news, another clip has been released on MovieTickets. I'd put a link up, but I decided last night that I wouldn't look up anything more about Hoodwinked 2 until after I saw the movie, so I haven't even clicked the link. So visit the Hoodwinked 2 page on MovieTickets or click the link on their Twitter to watch it. Just don't tell me what it's about. The reason I'm not watching it is because I've already spoiled too much for myself.

Music Video

EDIT: Here's the Youtube video:

Yep, I got more Hoodwinked news. Earlier today I found a music video on the movie's IMDb page. The song is catchy, but the choreography was terrible and it also contains a few interesting clips. And by "a few" I mean "a LOT". There are extended versions of clips we've already seen, as well as glimpses at new places and characters. Most of these clips have been sped up to some degree, though, so they go by in a flash.

Fun fact: Chief Grizzly, P-Biggie, and the Lizard Director can be seen in some of the clips if you pause at the right moment.

 

Three days left! I'm looking forward to it! :D

HW2 Soundtrack

Well, I just started searching around for more news on the Hoodwinked 2 soundtrack and here it is: it turns out that the digital soundtrack is coming out April 26th, and it will be released on CD format May 17th. To add to that, Amazon now has all the names of the songs up, as well as thirty second or so previews of them. The names are as follows:

1. Happily Ever Before
2. Operation Free The Children
3. Out Of Reach
4. Red
5. Sister Hoods
6. HEA
7. Hoodwinked Hop
8. A Hasty Exit
9. A Long Standing Feud
10. The Amazing Granny Puckett
11. How It All Started
12. On The Trail Of Evil
13. An Unwelcome Disturbance
14. Three Pigs
15. A Pitiful Fight
16. The Song Of Kirk
17. The Unstoppable Hoods
18. A Dastardly Growth Spurt
19. Red Down
20. Legs
21. Go Red!
22. A Gigantic Problem
23. In Training
24. All In The Balance
25. Swaggering Through The City
26. Fight The Fight, Fighters
27. Until Next Time
28. Hoodwinked Logo

I'm fairly relieved that the song names don't really spoil anything (I spoiled part of Tangled by looking at the soundtrack names once). They tell you just a little bit, but are vague enough to keep you guessing. The weirdest one, though, is "Legs". While I have a slight idea of what it means, I don't get why they called it that. :/

The previews are pretty interesting as well. The whole soundtrack seems to have a bit of a jazzy feel to it. I'm partially glad that they only give you part of the songs, because I caught what I think is the cue for something happening in the movie and it cuts off almost right after that. You can find the previews here.

Ugh, it's SO close! Less then four days! I think I'm gonna go insane from waiting! x_x

New Countdown Timer

Just stopping in to say that I finally found a countdown generator. This is great because even if I don't post, the countdown is here and it's more accurate. So... yeah. I don't have much time to type, so I'll put another post up later sometime. :)

A Few Corrections

Countdown to Hoodwinked Too: 1 week, 2 days.

Okay, I meant to say this earlier, but I never got the chance to. First of all, I'd like to make some corrections about what I updated about in the webcast. The "two or three new trailers" are actually commercials. Looks like I was too excited (and exasperated, at seeing a spoiler) to see new footage that I forgot to check how long they were. Oops.

Second of all, if you missed the webcast, it's been recorded on the player on the post below. Just wait for the trailer to end, and it'll show up. Just be aware that at the end, the host gives away the same spoiler that was in the commercial I saw, so if you don't want to know it, turn the video off when she starts reading the cast list.

And, yes, that is a countdown at the top of the post. I might make a graphic for it, but I seriously doubt I have time to, so I'll just keep it like I have here for now. :/

HW2 Red Carpet Premiere LIVE Broadcast

Today is a big day. The Hoodwinked 2 premiere is just about to start! For those of you who don't live in California, which includes me, you can watch the LIVE broadcast below.

Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

The channel is switching between the trailer and some short footage of what's going on at the theater right now. It said at 9:35 PST that the broadcast would start in 25 minutes, so it'll probably keep the loop going until 10:00 PST. I can't wait! :D :D :D

Stay tuned for further updates.

UPDATE: Two or three new trailers commercials have just been shown. One, unfortunately, contained a spoiler. Sigh. -_-
UPDATE 2: The broadcast has officially started! :D :D :D

Don't Go Too Far or You'll Miss It

Hey howdy ho! I meant to put up a post a few days earlier than this, but oh well. There are just a few HW2 updates today.

-The soundtrack comes out April 26th, according to Amazon.
-Commercials are now on the air. Not sure how many, but the one I saw looked like a shorted version of the trailer (audio sounds that aren't in the movie and all). :/
-A new movie still has been released!



Granny's head looks a bit too big, but that's just me.

This picture is especially interesting, because it's the first to show all the main characters together in the actual movie. 

And the biggest news so far, (that I actually found out while writing this post) THERE'S A CLIP! It shows the first part of the fight between Red and the Bridge Troll. When's April 29th gonna get here?! I want more!

And for those of you who have not seen the Cars 2 promo Pixar put up April 1st, I'd suggest that you do. It's HILARIOUS. Plus, there's something... interesting at the end of the video.

Long Time No Post

Wow, I really need to work on updating regularly. My last post was, what, March 7th? So... I've gotten my computer back with everything except my Favorites still intact. I was kind of upset about that, but I needed to clean up the list anyway.

The Hoodwinked 2 people made another update a few weeks ago by putting up recipes on both their Facebook and official site. And by "recipes", I mean "recipes that are probably no different from any others and that have nothing to do with the movie".

I mean, I can see why they'd put up recipes, with the Sisters of the Hood being that cooking group or whatever, but it's kind of weird to see a company promoting with recipes that don't have anything the film they go with besides decorating it with characters and backgrounds from it. (I'd like to rewrite that sentence, but I don't know how to word it differently. :/)

Anyhow, at least we got to see a new picture of Kirk/the Woodsman that isn't a Woodsman Because He's a Yodeler.

I'm thinking about writing some reviews sometime, but I'm not sure about what at the moment. Right now, the top choices are Chrono Trigger DS, the new VeggieTales 'Twas the Night Before Easter, or some other movie/game that I want to put down my opinions about.

Originally, I was going to end this post with a video of a song that talked about things not being related to a movie. But there are no videos of it up on YouTube, so instead, here's another video of a song that's from the same series. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with this blog post (except for the fact that it has nothing to do with it), so I think it's a good replacement. Enjoy!

Computer Problems

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, I've found two new posters for Hoodwinked 2!

Well, technically, I found them yesterday, but I didn't get the chance to post them. Which brings me to the bad news. My computer has been having a problem with the blue screen of death for a while now. Basically, every time we restart the computer, it comes up, unless we're really lucky and it allows us to bypass. Well, yesterday we had to turn off the computer because we thought the power was gonna go out. And when we turned it on again, guess what came up?


I'll give you one guess.

  I was fed up with this, so my dad and I called the computer repair guy we go to. We described the situation to him and he thinks that the hard drive is corrupt. We're taking the computer over to his place tomorrow to get it fixed.

Basically, I won't be able to go on much until we get it back. We do have another computer and laptop, but the computer is my dad's and the mouse pad on the laptop always makes the page scroll instead of moving the mouse. So, I'll see about updating you guys once I get it back.

Hoodwinked 2 Site Updated

Yes, that's right; the teaser site has just received a MAJOR content update. There are four more areas on the site: About the Film, Video (which is just the trailer at the moment), Gallery, and Downloads. Each part is based off a different character and shows clips of them before giving you the page. The only exception to this is Twicthy, but he pops up all over the website and says some of his lines from the movie. It gets annoying after a while, though, and I ended up using the mute button at the top right hand corner.

My favorite new addition are the clips.  They're really short, but they look awesome, especially the Red action ones. Not only that, but now we have actually been supplied with Gretel's voice! She sounds simular to Hansel, which kind of makes sense, since they're siblings and all.

One thing I find weird, though, is that on one of the labels at the top of the page uses a picture of Red from the first film and not the second.

You'd think they'd have enough pictures of Red to use from the movie they're advertising. Especially considering there's one on the page the button links to.

 There's some other stuff too, but you can find those out for yourself. As for me, I'm gonna watch those mini clips over and over to absorb how awesome this movie is gonna be.

Did I Call it or What?



Yep, they released a poster for Wolf! It's kinda strange that they didn't do this one like they did the last two, but I'm not complaining. I personally think it looks better. And, hey, Twitchy's on it too!

Plus, I found the plot outline on the movie's Facebook page. While it's simular to the one on the official site, this is a bit longer and contains more detail. Take a look:

"From the team that brought you HOODWINKED, the comedic portrayal of the fairy tale Red Riding Hood, comes the all-new animated family comedy HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD VS. EVIL in 3D. The sequel finds our heroine, Red (Hayden Panettiere), training with a mysterious covert group called the Sisters of the Hood. But Red is forced to cut her training short when she gets an urgent call from Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers), who returns as head of the super-secret Happily Ever After Agency, aka the HEA. A wicked witch (Joan Cusack) has abducted two innocent children, Hansel (Bill Hader) and Gretel (Amy Poehler), and Nicky needs Red for the search-and-rescue mission. Of course, what is a sequel without guest stars from the original? Thankfully, Granny (Glenn Close) and the rest of the HOODWINKED gang—including the ever-clueless Wolf (Patrick Warburton) and his over-caffeinated little partner, Twitchy (Cory Edwards), join Red to solve the forest’s latest caper. Fracturing fairy tales and pop culture with good-natured glee, HOODWINKED TOO! HOOD vs. EVIL in 3D takes viewers on a rollicking rollercoaster ride combining edge-of-the-seat adventure with classic, zany cartoon antics."

Hoodwinked 2 Posters

Well, I was just surfing the web for random images from Hoodwinked 2 and I came across these. I'm not really into the design and all, but at least this is one more assurance that this new release date is real. Personally, I like Red's the best because it looks better and the pun on Granny's is just... ugh. If anymore are put online (I expect there to be one for Wolf somewhat soon), I'll make sure to put them up here.

Hoodwinked 2 Finally Given a Release Date

So, it's been over a year since the delay of Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs Evil. Almost exactly a year after the toys came out in Burger King. A bit over half a year since I took down my profile theme for it on Toontask. It's even been months past September 5th, the date it was rumored to come out. Since then, no information had been revealed, and fans were left to ponder if they would ever get their sequel.

But then news broke. Really big news.

On February 10th, the Weinstein Company surprised everybody by putting up an official release date and a TRAILER. This is a big deal, since they had previously not made one (or even plan to make one) before it was supposed to come out originally.When I heard the news from Cory Edwards' twitter (follow him here or read his blog), my inner fangirl awakened once again. I was bouncing off the walls the rest of the night.

There's one problem, though.

Below are trailers for both the original and the sequel. Watch and compare.

Okay, so there are some obvious differences, right? The animation, character designs, voice actors, the tone, among other things. While some of these are for the better (Red's new design is definitely an improvement), it's the tone that's the problem for me. From what the trailer shows, it makes it seem like Hoodwinked 2 is just like any other movie coming out these days, full of crude and adult-like humor. Sure, it's not that bad (some things, like the fart sound in Granny's scene and the comment about Twitchy not wearing pants, are actually not in the movie), but when you compare it to the original with its clean humor, it's a bit strange to see.

That, and the new effect on Twitchy's voice.

Course, just because the trailer's bad doesn't mean the movie is. Examples of this, for me at least, are Monsters vs Aliens, Despicable Me, and (possibly) Gnomeo and Juliet, although I'm still yet to see the latter. As it's said in the very beginning of Hoodwinked, "You know what they say, you can't judge a book by its cover. If you want to know the truth, you've got to flip through the pages."

So whether the Weinstein Company releases better trailers or whatnot for it, I'll still be at the movie theater the opening weekend of April 29th. Hopefully it'll be worth the wait.

And, oh yeah, it's in 3D, too.