{"id":1348,"date":"2007-01-18T16:31:33","date_gmt":"2007-01-18T16:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/?p=1348"},"modified":"2007-01-18T16:31:33","modified_gmt":"2007-01-18T16:31:33","slug":"one-sharp-sword","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/archives\/1348","title":{"rendered":"One sharp Sword."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"swordofstorms.jpg\"<\/div>\n

Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms<\/i><\/a> is the first of two animated films based on Mike Mignola\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hellboy. While these films opt for a more traditional animation style instead of a direct lift of Mignola\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trademark dark colors and ragged lines (as seen in the shorter animated The Amazing Screw-On Head,<\/i><\/a> which shares Sword of Storms’<\/i> DVD release date), they feature the same voice talent as Guillermo Del Toro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hellboy<\/i><\/a> feature film. Ron Perlman<\/a> returns as the titular heroic hellspawn, Selma Blair<\/a> is once again the cute pyrokinetic Liz Sherman (although she seems to be somewhat younger in this edition) and, in an interesting twist, Doug Jones<\/a> plays Abe Sapien. This is interesting because Jones was the physical actor playing Abe Sapien in del Toro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s film, but had his voie redubbed by Frasier\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s David Hyde Pierce – however, rumor has it that Jones will be providing both the voice and body work in the upcoming feature sequel, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.<\/i><\/a>
\nSword of Storms<\/i> is a nice addition to the Hellboy mythos, although \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcaddition\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 might be pushing the term a little. Mignola\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s general \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcopen sandbox\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 policy to his work enables the continuity for each media type to be different – so the animated films establish a canon of their own, which is allowed to diverge from the canon of the regular films, which is different from the canon of the comics, which is different from the canon of the paperback novels. As a result, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sometimes difficult to tell if Hellboy and Sherman have a romantic involvement, if Hellboy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father figure Professor Bloom is alive or dead\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 A unified timeline across the different media types could have gone a long way towards turning Hellboy<\/i> into a full transmedia property, increasing the drive for fans of one media type to explore the franchise\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s installments in the others. Instead, there is a scene here which was lifted directly out of an earlier Hellboy<\/i> comic, which is interesting to see animated, but otherwise feels like a rerun.
\nStill, Sword of Storms<\/i> has moments of beautiful, if simplistic, animation – for example, a flashback scene depicting a battle in ancient Japanese mythology is done with touches similar to calligraphic brushstrokes. There are also moments of clever humor, such as a scene where the otherwise human Liz Sherman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remarks on how her pyrokinetic powers make her a monster send the monstrous-looking Hellboy and Abe Sapien into stitches. Another chuckle comes when a new agent at the BPRD (presumably installed here to serve as a device to bring new audience members up to speed) blanches at some stories of previous adventures, which leads Abe Sapien to cry, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You made the newbie face!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Childish, perhaps, but still funny.
\nIn short, Sword of Storms<\/i> is fun and instilled with the same blend of wry, dark humor and classic mythology that makes the Hellboy<\/i> franchise so entertaining. Definitely a worthwhile addition to any Mignola fan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s collection.
\nHellboy: Sword of Storms and The Amazing Screw-On Head will both be released on DVD on February 6, 2007.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms is the first of two animated films based on Mike Mignola\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hellboy. While these films opt for a more traditional animation style instead of a direct lift of Mignola\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trademark dark colors and ragged lines (as seen in the shorter animated The Amazing Screw-On Head, which shares Sword of Storms’ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4e5QR-lK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.geoffreylong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}