Recommended Posts

Burton rules Comic Con with 'Alice' and '9'

Once again, Tim Burton rules the Con with an iron fist.

As if legions of followers in black-and-white finger gloves and Jack-and Sally-T-shirts weren't enough, this year, Burton is poised to inspire a new generation of Hot Topic shoppers with "Alice and Wonderland" and "9."

Thursday's "Alice" preview met hearty approval and early orders for light blue pinafores and purple top hats. On Friday, Burton brought "9," a doomsday doll movie that he produced with "Wanted" director Timur Bekmambetov.

Directed by Shane Acker, "9" follows a group of rag dolls as they seek out the truth of their existence in an apocalyptic landscape filled with murderous villains, dark corners, lurking dangers and usual sharp objects expected in a Burton film. Based on a short film by Acker, Burton was impressed with the CGI pic's stop-motion look. Jennifer Connelly and Elijah Wood star.

"I saw Shawn's short and I was immediately connected to it. You don't see many personal films that are animated," said Burton.

"We don't explain much. We just throw it at you," said Acker. "It's a quest for the characters to find out who they are and to do that we need to find out what happened to humans."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111800646...=1&nid=2562

Burton and Bekmambetov came on board as producers, but left much of the filmmaking up to Acker. Said Burton, "Our goal was to let him make his movie... and to beat up anyone that got in his way."

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/713356-9/page/3/#findComment-591326196
Share on other sites

Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly on '9' Characters.

Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly offered up some fresh incite into their characters in the upcoming animated feature 9 ? a fantastic tale of a wasted Earth after the extinction of humans and the unique creations that remain in a struggle to survive. The film, produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, is based on a 2005 animated short by director Shane Acker, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Wood plays the title character, a curious outsider to the clan that soon becomes its most important member.

"He sort of becomes a leader," said Wood speaking to the press at the San Diego Comic-Con on Friday. "He's not initially a leader. He kind of wakes up late in the process of these creatures' existence and comes to find that there is already a hierarchy ? led by '1.' He sort of comes to this group asking questions that they have ceased to ask over the period of time that they've existed. So he starts to... assumes a leadership role toward the end."

The cast also includes John C. Reilly, Martin Landau, Christopher Plumber, Crispin Glover and Jennifer Connelly as the unwavering fighter of the clan, '7.'

"She's a brave, fiercely independent warrior type who refuses to hide in the sanctuary that '1' has the rest of the creatures holed up," Connelly explained. "She's engaged in the struggle for survival."

The nine sack-like beings were created in the waning days of humanity by a character referred to as The Scientist. His goal was to have life continue on Earth even after he and the rest of the human population were gone. Connelly added a bit of background on the film's storyline.

"The film takes place in the aftermath of great destruction that was the devastation caused by these machines that were created in the name of progress that ultimately caused the devastation of the human race, and self-destructed and left the world this sort of wasteland," she said. "The human spirit has been captured in these creatures and there are some remaining mechanized beasts. There is this talisman that is sort of interest. Half of it the human spirits have and half of it is with the machines and it needs to be brought together for there to be peace and restoration."

Wood added that the overall themes of the movie were familiar ones.

"It's technology turning on man," he said. "It's the lust for power. I think those are things we can see in our world today, but certainly not on this scale."

Both Wood and Connelly said the original short was a great springboard into the feature film and that having that allowed them to more easily identify with the post-apocalyptic world that was created and the creatures that inhabited it.

"I've watched it many, many times," said Connelly. "Both of my kids became obsessed with it. It's beautiful. I thought it was stunning and so creative ? such a beautiful, frightening world he created."

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/713356-9/page/3/#findComment-591326240
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Elijah Wood explains his character, the ragdoll known only as 9:

He comes into the world late. So 1 has already established a kind of rule over the other characters, largely due to fear, staying away from the machines, not getting any answers and living cloistered in a tower. I love the fact that 9 comes into that world sort of naively but sort of wisely, and sees that that's not necessarily the way for them to live, and they're actually putting themselves in greater harm. If they simply asked the greater questions to find out who they are and what they are, they can get at what's ultimately keeping them cloistered away.

[Sci Fi Wire via TrekMovie]

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/713356-9/page/3/#findComment-591520240
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Gotta say, I was really disappointed with this movie. I saw it in the theater this past Saturday.

Visually it is stunning. I LOVE the art direction and how can you not like the characters themselves. It also has a great apocalyptic feel to it as well, really conveying the damage done.

So where did it go wrong? The script and story. It obviously has it's underlying theme of technology is bad, man destroyed itself, etc., but the rest of it after that just made no real sense, and I was scratching my head (hard when you are bald) trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I was definitely looking more into it, because truth be told there was not much on the surface at all so I felt I had to try and figure out what else was meant. The dialog between characters itself was short and brief, I cannot imagine the script being any longer than 10-15 pages.

The movie is only 79 minutes, and it felt long, not a good sign for such a short movie. Just really expected more on the story front, and got something that only scratched the surface and could have gotten way, way deeper with things.

So not even sure what to rate it. I loved the visuals, and I am glad I saw it in the theater for them, so I do not totally regret seeing it, but I do feel they really missed the opportunity to deliver on a great story as well.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/713356-9/page/3/#findComment-591575304
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Microsoft released Windows 11 KB5094149 / KB5095971 / KB5094156 Setup, Recovery updates by Sayan Sen Earlier this week Microsoft released its newest Patch Tuesday updates (KB5094126 / KB5093998 on Windows 11 and KB5094127 on Windows 10). Alongside those, Microsoft also released new dynamic updates. These Dynamic Update packages are meant to be applied to existing Windows images prior to their deployment. Dynamic Updates also help preserve Language Pack (LP) and Features on Demand (FODs) content during the upgrade process. VBScript, for example, is currently an FOD on Windows 11 24H2. This time both recovery and setup updates were released for Windows 11 as well as Windows 10. The company writes: "KB5095185: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 26H1: June 9, 2026 This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.28000.2269. KB5094149: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 11, versions 24H2 and 25H2: June 9, 2026 This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.26100.8655 KB5095971: Setup Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 23H2: June 9, 2026 This update makes improvements to Windows setup binaries or any files that setup uses for feature updates in Windows 11, version 23H2. KB5094156: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 11, version 23H2: June 9, 2026 This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.22621.7219 KB5098815: Windows Recovery Environment update for Windows 10, version 21H2 and 22H2: June 9, 2026 This update automatically applies Safe OS Dynamic Update (KB5094154) to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) on a running PC. The update installs improvements to Windows recovery features. KB5094154: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 10, versions 21H2 and 22H2: June 9, 2026 This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.19041.7417. KB5094153: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 10, version 1809 and Windows Server 2019: June 9, 2026 This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.17763.8880. KB5094152: Safe OS Dynamic Update for Windows 10, version 1607 and Windows Server 2016: June 9, 2026 This update makes improvements to the Windows recovery environment (WinRE). After installing this update, the WinRE version installed on the device should be 10.0.14393.9234." Microsoft notes that both the Recovery and Setup updates will be downloaded and installed automatically via the Windows Update channel.
    • Quantum Error Correction Validated in Nature: Microsoft and Quantinuum Log 800-Fold Improvement Two years after the original press-release announcement, independently peer-reviewed results published in Nature on June 10, 2026, have confirmed that Microsoft and Quantinuum achieved an 800-fold reduction in quantum error rates on real trapped-ion hardware — the largest gap between physical and logical error rates ever independently validated.    What Quantum Error Correction Actually Does — and Why Breaking Even Is Hard https://www.techtimes.com/articles/318329/20260613/quantum-error-correction-validated-nature-microsoft-quantinuum-log-800-fold-improvement.htm   Quantum Computing Wiring Bottleneck Cracked by HKU Silicon Carbide Chip at Qubit Temperature Engineers at the University of Hong Kong have built the first cryogenic control chip that operates at the same temperature as superconducting qubits — 10 millikelvin, or just one-hundredth of a degree above absolute zero — without generating the heat that has forced every competing approach to park its electronics hundreds of meters of cable away. https://www.techtimes.com/articles/318325/20260613/quantum-computing-wiring-bottleneck-cracked-hku-silicon-carbide-chip-qubit-temperature.htm  
    • RevPDF 4.5.0 by Razvan Serea RevPDF is a free, fully offline PDF editor for Windows, macOS, and Linux that lets you edit text and images directly inside PDF files — no internet connection, no account, and no cloud uploads required. Unlike bloated alternatives that demand subscriptions and constant connectivity, RevPDF fits in under 60MB on desktop while delivering a complete editing toolkit: annotate, redact, sign, compress, split, merge, convert, and reorganize pages, all processed locally on your device. Smart font matching ensures edited text blends seamlessly with the original, and multi-language support includes RTL scripts such as Arabic and Hebrew. Where most PDF editors force you to choose between features and simplicity, RevPDF manages both. You can build interactive forms from scratch with text fields, checkboxes, and dropdowns, permanently redact sensitive data before sharing, draw freehand on contracts and diagrams, and add custom watermarks — all without a single file leaving your machine. Edit Text and Images Directly Inside PDFs RevPDF supports true inline PDF editing — not just annotation layers on top of a document, but actual modification of existing text and images within the file. A smart font-matching engine identifies the font used in the original document and applies it automatically when you make edits, so changes blend naturally with the surrounding content. You can reposition elements, resize images, and update text across single pages or entire documents. RevPDF 4.5.0 release notes: This is one of the biggest updates to RevPDF yet. A lot of things people have been asking for are finally here. New Features Auto Redaction Permanently redact sensitive text and areas from your PDFs before sharing. Clean, irreversible, and fully offline. Comments, Links & Bookmarks Add comments for review, insert clickable links, and create bookmarks to jump around long documents without scrolling forever. Find & Replace Search across the whole document and replace text in one go. Long overdue. Split Pages Vertically or Horizontally Split any page down the middle, vertically or horizontally. Perfect for scanned books or double-page spreads. New Drawing Tools More tools for freehand drawing and markup, better for annotations, sketches, and detailed notes. Continuous Scrolling in Editor The editor now scrolls continuously through pages instead of jumping between them. Working through long documents is a lot smoother now. PDF Metadata Editor View and edit the metadata stored inside your PDFs, including title, author, subject, and keywords. Better Font Matching Text edits now blend in more naturally by doing a better job of matching the original font. Tabbed PDF Viewer Open multiple PDFs at once in tabs and switch between them without going back to the home screen. Add Links Insert hyperlinks anywhere in your PDF, to external URLs or to other pages within the document. Share & Print Shortcuts Share or print directly from the editing screen, home screen, and viewer. No extra steps. Minor Updates Paste images directly from clipboard into your PDF New image editing tools for more control over images inside documents Bug Fixes Fixed file saving issues on Windows and Linux Everything still works fully offline. No login, no cloud, no account. Your files stay on your device. Download: RevPDF 4.5.0 | 58.0 MB (Open Source) Links: RevPDF Home Page | Github | Screenshots 1 | 2 Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Interesting. I'm not using a VPN with my phone. I tried though my home internet (Rogers) and my cellular internet (Telus) using their respective DNS servers and both trigger the dialog above.
    • Three days after Anthropic launched Claude Fable 5 as the most capable AI model it had ever released to the public, the United States government ordered it switched off — and now the company is refunding customers who paid to use a product that vanished almost overnight https://www.techtimes.com/articles/318342/20260613/us-government-pulls-anthropics-fable-5-offline-now-come-refunds-vanished-ai.htm  
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      agatameier earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      agatameier earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      ssd21345 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Contributor
      MarkHughes4096 went up a rank
      Contributor
    • Dedicated
      jordanspringer earned a badge
      Dedicated
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      507
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      175
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      139
    4. 4
      ATLien_0
      90
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      76
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!