Empire Magazine has been revealing a new character photo every hour from their X-Men: Days Of Future Past exclusive cover set. Nerds everywhere are frothing at the mouth over the photographs, sometimes in a good way…sometimes not. A lot of the characters that we are familiar with haven’t changed a bit, but there are a lot of new faces for us to argue over. Honestly, I do believe director Bryan Singer is trying to do his best to bring audiences something they will love, but whether he makes it happen is going to be up to the ever fickle public opinion.

Check out the set here below of covers revealed by Empire today; we’ll be updating the photo gallery as new cover images are released. There will be 25 characters on 25 covers in all.

The Lord Of The Rings – The Return Of The King: Extended Edition
Blu-ray
Directed by Peter Jackson
Starring Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, and Sean Astin
New Line Home Video
Release Date: August 28, 2012

You can read Dr. Geek, Ph.D’s review of The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy Extended Edition from July 2011 here.

“The battle of Helm’s Deep is over; the battle for Middle-Earth is about to begin.”

In Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 film Pierrot le Fou the late filmmaking giant Samuel Fuller, a legendary purveyor of uncompromising dramas and adventures that were not afraid of journeying into the darkest realms of the human soul, said, “Film is like a battleground. Love. Hate. Action. Violence. In one word…emotion.” Though he was making a cameo in a movie instead of granting an interview that brief speech perfectly summed up Fuller’s philosophy of cinema, a philosophy that is alive and well in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the third and final installment in one of the most thrilling epic trilogies in motion picture history.

Happy New Year geeks around the world!

By now you should know that X-Men co-stars Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen are the best of friends, and they enjoy sharing that friendship with the world.

In celebration of the the just-rung-in new year, McKellen and Stewart were again together, and documented the party. You can see the image of their 2014 celebration above, and find out where to check out a short but very worth it video below!

The Lord Of The Rings – The Two Towers: Extended Edition
Blu-ray
Directed by Peter Jackson
Written by Peter Jackson, Phillipa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair, and Fran Walsh; based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
Starring Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, and Sean Astin
New Line Home Video
Release Date: August 28, 2012

You can read Dr. Geek, Ph.D’s review of The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy Extended Edition from July 2011 here.

When you take a look back at some of the greatest second chapters in motion picture trilogies of all time like The Empire Strikes Back, The Godfather Part II, and (my personal favorite) Evil Dead II it is easy to understand why so many turn out vastly superior to their originals. Since most trilogies use their first story to act as set-up for almost everything that happens next the second is where things really start to take off. In successful film franchises it is also in the second installment where events begin to take darker turns, characters are forced to traverse a metaphorical – and sometimes literal – Hell to reach their personal Heaven, and the endings are very rarely happy or even conclusive.

Because the creators of the series – from the screenwriters to the studio executives with control over the green light to the bravura director and producer(s) who must assemble a crack team of actors and technicians to bring their mutual vision roaring to life – believe that the audiences who made the first movie a smashing success are invested in the ongoing narrative to the point where they will follow it wherever the filmmakers desire. Thus they are granted license to put their beloved characters through a series of traumatizing physical and psychological journeys where the only optimistic outcome is to survive to fight another day, nothing more.

If you were looking forward to seeing True Blood star Anna Paquin reprise her role as Rogue in the upcoming X-Men: First Class sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past, there’s a bit of bad news.

As it turns out, Paquin only shot one scene for the movie—a rescue sequence featuring Rogue, Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), and best buddies Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Professor X (Patrick Stewart). In the end, director Bryan Singer simply had too much good content (never a bad thing), and had to sacrifice the scene.