Peter Jackson

Started by Spike, May 03, 2003, 06:43:52 AM

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MacGuffin

Lord of fantasy: Jackson eyeing 'Temeraire'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Peter Jackson is eyeing his next fantasy series. The filmmaker has dipped into his discretionary fund to option "Temeraire," a historical fantasy series by first-time novelist Naomi Novik, as he puts the pieces together for his career post-"King Kong."

The "Temeraire" saga reimagines the world of the Napoleonic Wars with the addition of an air force of dragons and valiant aviators. It centers on British naval Capt. Will Laurence, who captures a French ship, where he discovers an unhatched dragon egg in the hold -- a gift from the Emperor of China intended for Napoleon. When the egg hatches, he is forced to give up his naval career to become captain of the dragon he names Temeraire.

" 'Temeraire' is a terrific meld of two genres that I particularly love -- fantasy and historical epic," Jackson said. "I can't wait to see Napoleonic battles fought with a squadron of dragons. That's what I go to the movies for."

Jackson also is looking to take the books into the realm of interactive entertainment.

Novik was a computer programmer who did design work on a video game titled "Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide." She wrote the first "Temeraire" book in 2004. When Del Rey saw it, the publisher asked for two more books. The series was launched in the spring.

Jackson got involved when producer Lucas Foster read galleys in January and sent them to Jackson's manger, Ken Kamins at Key Creatives. When Jackson read it, he was hooked.

"As I was reading these books, I could see them coming to life in my mind's eye," Jackson said. "These are beautifully written novels, not only fresh, original and fast-paced, but full of wonderful characters with real heart."

Foster and Kamins will serve as executive producers of the movie.

Novik learned that Jackson was one of the parties interested in her fledgling series in February but was skeptical anything would happen.

"I was warned that whatever happens in Hollywood, you should assume it's 10 degrees below reality," Novik said. "So if they say Peter Jackson has it, it really means Peter Jackson's assistant's personal trainer has it. I never took it seriously until (IPG's Justin Manask) called myself and (literary agent Cynthia Manson) and said, 'Peter wants the book.' There was lot of screaming in my household when I first got the call."

To Novik, who first read J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" at age 6, having her creation in the hands of the man who brought those books to the screen is immensely reassuring.

"Those movies meant so much to me," Novik said. Jackson has not yet decided whether he will make one movie or three or if the books can be introduced by other media first. He is using his own funds to option material before approaching any studios with his plans.

In that vein, Jackson has optioned Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" and is writing the adaptation with partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens on spec with the intent of speaking to distributors after the script is done. He plans to direct the movie in second-half 2007.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Jackson to Film `Lovely Bones' in U.S.

Peter Jackson recreated 1930s downtown New York on a back lot in New Zealand, but says northeast Pennsylvania is too distinctive to replicate for his new movie, "The Lovely Bones."

Jackson told the film Web site aintitcool.com that a visit to Norristown, near Philadelphia, where the book "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold is set, made him feel "very strongly" that some of the movie should be shot on location there.

"It's a very distinctive area," the 44-year-old filmmaker said.

"The Lovely Bones" is a story narrated by a 14-year-old girl who speaks from heaven about her rape and murder and tells of how her loved ones cope with the crime.

"I did think about doing a New Zealand shoot and faking that part of the world, but it's really very different than what we have in New Zealand and it's very distinctive and it is an integral part of the book," he said.

Jackson transformed a back lot near New Zealand's capital, Wellington, into 1930s New York for his remake of "King Kong" and New Zealand's countryside into Middle Earth for the trilogy "Lord of the Rings."

Studio shooting will be done in New Zealand, Jackson said.

He has yet to choose a lead actress but said that issue would not be considered until filming was much closer.

"There are some very good young actresses out there now and in some respects we haven't thought too much about it because we've been uncertain about exactly when we'd shoot," Jackson said.

"I think we're going to wait a little bit longer until we have a definitive start date because it is an age where people are growing up very fast," he told the Web site. "We are dealing with that 14-year-old age group."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Action Jackson
The ''Lord of the Rings'' impresario talks about his many upcoming projects... including ''The Hobbit''?

Just as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg morphed into moguls in the late 1970s, New Zealand native Peter Jackson is following the same career path. He's acting as a guiding light on multiple movies he won't actually direct, in hopes of expanding his Wellington-based movie studio into a Down Under powerhouse. Entertainment Weekly has already reported on the news that Jackson might helm a new version of The Hobbit; here's an extended Q&A that fills out the details on everything he's currently up to.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You and your life partner, Fran Walsh, who's also one of your chief collaborators (along with screenwriter Philippa Boyens), disappeared for a while after King Kong opened.
PETER JACKSON: We came out of Kong having finished close to 10 years of a relatively stressful lifestyle. Any film is stressful, but Lord of the Rings and Kong were especially big, difficult movies. We wanted to wind things down a little bit.

Are you and Fran capable of vacationing?
We're compulsive filmmakers in the sense that once you start doing it, the next idea comes along and you get excited and can't stop yourself. But that's one of the reasons we're producing a number of things now rather than directing. Producing is fun and it's not as all-consuming. It allows us to enjoy the projects without getting beaten up by them quite so badly.

Did you get to travel or unwind at all after Kong?
Back in May, we did a sort of location trip for The Dam Busters [a new version of the 1954 film about English pilots destroying key German targets in WWII]. The story has been an interest of mine ever since I saw the movie as a kid. We flew to England and visited some Royal Air Force bases and spoke to some of the old pilots. Then we went to Germany and visited the dams they attacked, which are still there. They're repaired now, obviously. We also went to Pennsylvania to have a look around the potential area that The Lovely Bones would take place in, around Norristown. It's great to work on [the script of] a movie and then go visit places the movie takes place in, because you feel like you're stepping into the film, to some degree.

You said a few years back that you had no idea how anyone could make a film out of Lovely Bones, and that's what made you want to tackle it as a director. What solutions have you, Fran, and Philippa come up with in terms of your approach to the script?
It's still happening. We've just finished what you could describe as a draft, although it's taken us all year to write. We've banged at the doors of the book, and some doors have opened and some doors haven't. We've circled around it, doing outlines and treatments for various bits. For a while, we didn't have it all joined together. It's been a great process, and a process that's only been possible because we've had the luxury of time.

Is that a conscious strategy, to slow things down a bit in your life?
We're not imposing any deadlines on ourselves with all these projects. They'll take as long as they need to until we're happy with them.

You dealt very seriously with two young girls involved in a murder in Heavenly Creatures, and handled the afterlife comedically in The Frighteners. What will the tone be like in Lovely Bones, which involves a 14-year-old girl being murdered, then looking down from heaven?
The act of brutality in the book is shocking, but it's brief and momentary. It's obviously not something we're going to dwell on or make explicit. That's just the catalyst. What's great about the book is that so much of it is the reaction, the aftermath. Susie, the victim, doesn't have self-pity. It certainly wouldn't make for an entertaining movie if she felt sorry for herself. This girl has been murdered, but she looks back on it with a degree of irony.

So will some of it actually be funny?
I don't think that because you die and move on to somewhere else that you lose your sense of humor. I'm sure humor continues, and that's part of the spirit of the book. It's not a comedy or a black comedy, but it certainly has ironic, humorous observations about death.

Is Dakota Fanning an actress you'd consider to play Susie?
We're fans of hers, but we haven't given a great deal of thought to casting. Partly that's because we have to wait until we know the exact [shooting] schedule of the movie. When you're dealing with that age group — kids who are 12, 13, 14 — they grow up so quickly. Dakota is terrific — boy, she can act.

Let's switch gears to The Hobbit. If you signed on to direct it, you'd be working with New Line again, as well as MGM, yet you're still in the process of suing New Line over profit issues on Lord of the Rings. Doesn't that affect your relationship with New Line overall?
No no no, I'd love to make another film for New Line. And certainly The Hobbit isn't involved in the lawsuit. Bilbo Baggins doesn't work for the accounting department of New Line, and I certainly don't hold him to blame for any of our disputes.

Did you actually do any preproduction for a potential Hobbit film during LOTR, or would you have to start nearly from scratch?
There would be a reasonable amount [still] to do. There are a couple of locations in The Hobbit that are shared with Lord of the Rings. Hobbiton and Bilbo Baggins' house obviously appear, and Rivendell, where the elves were in Fellowship of the Ring, also plays a part. We've still kept the miniatures of Rivendell in storage, and the set of Bag End, Bilbo Baggins' house, has also been saved.

The larger version of the Bag End set — the one big enough to make Elijah Wood look hobbit-size — is on your own property now, isn't it?
Oh yeah, it's great. It's the guest house. I guess if we needed it for the movie, we could just go and film in it and it'd be fine.

Are your wheels turning about how you might approach adapting The Hobbit even though the prospect has only just come up?
Reading about it on the Net, what interested me is the fact that [MGM is] talking about doing two Hobbit movies, which I thought was a much smarter idea than one. Not just for obvious financial reasons for the studios, but from a storytelling point of view, because one of the drawbacks of The Hobbit is it's relatively lightweight compared to LOTR. I mean, LOTR has this epic, rather complex quality to it, and The Hobbit, which was written some 10 or 12 years earlier by Tolkien as a children's book, is much more juvenile and simplistic. If they're seriously thinking about doing two, it makes it more interesting, because it allows you to expand The Hobbit. There's a lot of sections in which a character like Gandalf disappears for a while. From memory — I mean, I haven't read it for a while now — but I think he references going off to meet with the White Council, who are actually characters like Galadriel and Saruman and people that we see in Lord of the Rings. He mysteriously vanishes for a while and then comes back, but we don't really know what goes on. There's clearly lots of interesting politics happening concurrently with [Bilbo's] story, and doing two movies would allow you to explore a lot of those dark areas. You could make it feel more epic and more politically complicated.

Given how many other projects you've got cooking, how realistic is it for MGM to say they'd love to have you on board — especially since they haven't even actually asked you yet?
Dunno. That's what's kind of weird. Nobody's ever spoken to us about The Hobbit, so we've gotten on with things. We've made Kong. We've been buying the rights to different books. And we've been buying the rights with our own money. We haven't had a studio buy them for us, so we've obviously got an investment in that. Plus the fact that, artistically, they're all projects that really interest us. I don't know, it's weird. I mean, the longer [MGM and New Line] leave talking to us, the harder it's going to get to figure out how to do it. We'd obviously try to figure out a way, I guess, but, y'know, there's not much you can do with the sound of silence. The thing with being a filmmaker is that you have to get excited and fall in love with the projects you're working on. Otherwise, you shouldn't be doing them. So we've spent the last three years becoming very invested in the projects that we have on our slate now. We're not invested in The Hobbit in that way because we haven't been given the opportunity. So I don't know, really.

You're in talks to have Weta, your effects company, work on James Cameron's Avatar, a sci-fi epic about an estranged veteran set on another planet. Is it a 3-D movie?
As I understand it, it'll be 3-D. Jim is a huge 3-D fan, as am I. I think the new digital 3-D is superb. The depth of field is really nice. And I'm a strong believer in the future of 3-D, in a way that goes way beyond what we've seen today.

And what's up with Temeraire? What's the appeal of that series of books to you?
Dragons are fun! I also think fantasy always works better if you can put a lot of reality into it. Even through LOTR, that's what we tried to do. We tried to make that world feel as historical as possible. This project is great, because it's set during the Napoleonic wars. So we can mine all the great possibilities, the politics and the characters and the visuals of that period. The fantasy is just the icing on the cake. I love doing something that's historical, but you kick it 10 degrees sideways and add a fanastical element. It's a sort of alternate-historical story: What would the Napoleonic wars have been like if there was an air force of dragons? Great stuff. There was an actual British army and navy, but here you've also got the Royal Flying Corps, who fly the dragons. The books are full of strong characters, and there's great conflict because the aviators, the guys that ride on the dragons and control them, are looked down upon. There's this whole class system that goes on. If you're the son of a gent, you go in the navy, but it's much lower-class people that end up being in aviation. The characters in Temeraire have much more to think about than just battles and dragons. All that dressing, that emotional stuff, is what I really like in these stories.

Plus it'd be a great warm-up to figuring out how to do Smaug, the dragon in The Hobbit. Do you think MGM or New Line will now actually call you with a concrete plan or offer?
I don't know. I'm not that concerned about it, because if they couldn't wait for us and somebody else was going to make The Hobbit, I'd still queue up and see it. Obviously, once a studio decides to make a movie, they're not necessarily going to wait around for a particular director to become free. So I guess I'm either going to get involved making it or I get to go and enjoy the film when it's released. We'll see.

What if you just signed on as an executive producer?
Well, that's a possibility. That actually hadn't occurred to me. See, you're thinking of things I haven't even thought of.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Ravi

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5381654.stm

Director Jackson signs Xbox deal
By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website, Barcelona

King Kong director Peter Jackson has agreed a deal with Microsoft to create what he describes as a "new form of interactive entertainment".

The Oscar-winning film-maker said he would be creating a series based on the Halo video game franchise.

"Technology is at a point where we can blend a lot of film storytelling with interactive entertainment," he said.

The series will appear on the Xbox 360 games console and Xbox Live, the machine's online service.

Mr Jackson, who is also producing a movie based on Halo, said the series would not be for hard core gamers.

The surprise announcement was made at the X06 event in Barcelona, at which Microsoft unveiled its line-up of games for the coming 12 months.

Xbox boss Peter Moore also unveiled a HD-DVD, high definition player, for the console, which will be released in Europe in mid November, costing 199 euros (£129).

"We are right on the threshold of a new way of telling stories," said Mr Jackson.

But he admitted his team was at the start of the process and still had to "work out how to do it".

Mr Jackson, who also directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, will set up an interactive arm of his firm, Wingnut, and will work with Halo creators Bungie Studios to develop the series.

Microsoft also unveiled a further Halo spin-off, called Halo Wars, a real time strategy game based on the popular franchise to be made by Ensemble Studios.

MacGuffin



Peter Jackson's mini masterpiece
Source: NZ Herald

For years speculation has raged that director Peter Jackson was making a World War I movie.

Then secretly, in April this year, he did.

The film, Crossing the Line, features biplane dogfights, bayonet charges and 30 cast and crew. It was filmed in Jackson's second home-town of Masterton - home to his palatial mansion and estate - and has had rave reviews at audience screenings.

It's length? Fifteen minutes. Time taken to shoot? Just a few days.

But for those who've seen Crossing the Line - including Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg - it's yet another Jackson masterpiece.

"Did Peter really shoot this in two days?" Spielberg reportedly asked after viewing the film at a US National Association of Broadcasters' conference in April, just weeks after it was shot.

While clips from the film are now available online, Crossing the Line was created to show off a prototype film camera which is set to revolutionise film-making.

The Red One cameras - the brainchild of United States inventor Jim Jannard - are now in production and expected to go on sale next month. They boast an advanced sensor chip, for around $25,000 each, called Mysterium which is said to produce quality that is "better than film".

Jackson had offered to field-test the cameras after seeing early tests in Los Angeles. Jannard, needing a project to showcase the chips, took him up on the offer.

What followed was a film-making session which has astonished industry greats. Jannard flew to Wellington at the same time Jackson began thinking about what to shoot. By the time the inventor touched down, Jackson and partner Fran Walsh had put together a storyline - and a World War I battlefield, troops, weapons and biplanes.

Jackson told OnFilm magazine: "I was bringing my partner Fran Walsh up to speed with the plans, telling her about how cool this battle scene would be, with 30 extras, three aircraft, two field guns and a tank. She looked me in the eye and said, 'Haven't you forgotten the most important thing?' I kind of blinked with confusion, and she said, 'A script'."

Jackson cobbled a storyline together and when Jannard arrived, he told OnFilm: "In the time it takes to fly from Orange County to Wellington, Peter built a story in his head and pulled together his small army and was ready to shoot a mini-movie."

A spokesman for Jackson told the Herald on Sunday that professional actors and a crew from Wellington spent a few days in Masterton working on Crossing the Line, with studio work in Wellington the week.

"Peter is a World War I enthusiast. It was an opportunity to put that into play."

Crossing The Line has created a huge industry buzz around the Red One cameras, which will sell for less than the standard cameras used for Hollywood-quality movies.

The appeal of the project to Jackson harks back to his independent film-making roots. He told OnFilm: "If the cost of these films can be reduced in any way it will, hopefully, allow the studios to relax a little and let some more creative risk-taking sneak back into the genre."


"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Pubrick

he's a genius really. but more than that, he's not lazy. i am. something takes over and i sit here doing nothing for hours.

dude made a fucking 15min revolution in the time it takes me to write a useless essay about the dynamics of language shift. he did more in a weekend than most ppl do in their whole lives. i think future historians, after they're done looking through ono's post history, will look at these extraordinary people as evolutionary precursors to themselves.. a new species that gets things done.

i am not worthy to share a hemisphere with one of them. ............ eh, the camera will be outdated in two years anyway.
under the paving stones.

MacGuffin

Peter Jackson gears up for 'District'
Blomkamp makes feature directing debut
Source: Variety

While their plan to team on "Halo" remains on hold, Peter Jackson and director Neill Blomkamp are going forward this spring on "District 9," a live-action sci-fier that will mark Blomkamp's feature directing debut.

Jackson will produce through his WingNut Films production banner. Blomkamp wrote the script with partner Terri Tatchell.

QED Intl. has committed to fully finance the film through its credit facility with Comerica Bank and Aramid Entertainment Fund, and it will handle worldwide sales. QED Intl. production begins this spring in South Africa, and Jackson's WETA Workshop facility is standing by to provide the visual effects.

CEO Bill Block said that some of the plot particulars will be unveiled for distributors today at AFM.

"We jumped at the opportunity to greenlight this movie with our facility, and we hope to engage selected distributors to be our partners on this," said Block.

Ken Kamins of Key Creatives will exec produce with Block.

Aside from offshore distributors, the surprise project will likely draw interest from studios looking to fill out release schedules with event films beyond the homegrown projects they readied before an expected writers strike.

Neither Block nor Kamins would comment on the budget, but Jackson's sci-fi projects are generally ambitious.

The project grew out of a kinship that developed between Jackson and Blomkamp in New Zealand as they prepped a movie adaptation of the Microsoft game "Halo." Even though that process halted when co-financiers Universal and Fox balked at going forward (Daily Variety, Oct. 20, 2006), Blomkamp never left. Rather, he and Jackson continued to bat around ideas until they agreed on "District 9."

"For the last year, my team and I have had the pleasure of working very closely with Neill," Jackson said. "He has a passion and a command of the language of cinema that will result in 'District 9' fascinating people all over the world."

Blomkamp is best known for directing commercials and short films, and Microsoft recently engaged him to shoot three commercials for the product launch of "Halo 3." Though he grew up in Vancouver, Blomkamp was born in South Africa and will be returning to his homeland to shoot "District 9."

Jackson is now in Pennsylvania, where he just began production on an adaptation of "The Lovely Bones," but Kamins said Jackson will be very active as a producer on Blomkamp's film.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Pubrick

full length trailer for Crossing the Line:



links to high quality download of same trailer (300MB) available in the info section.

still best short of the year (so far), chevaliwho?
under the paving stones.

ElPandaRoyal

Quote from: Pubrick on November 02, 2007, 09:44:39 AM
full length trailer for Crossing the Line:



links to high quality download of same trailer (300MB) available in the info section.

still best short of the year (so far), chevaliwho?

Didn't know a thing about this. Where did it come from???
Si

Pubrick

Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on November 02, 2007, 07:54:31 PM
Didn't know a thing about this. Where did it come from???

refer to 4 posts above your own.
under the paving stones.

MacGuffin

Peter Jackson to adapt sci-fi series
Source: The Dominion Post

Relevant offers Peter Jackson is secretly working to adapt the Mortal Engines fantasy novels for the screen.

The hush-hush project is understood to be in early development, with work on the first of the four books under way, industry sources say.

Weta Workshops is also believed to be working on designs for the science fiction series, which features giant mobile cities.

A spokesman for Jackson did not deny the project was on the books yesterday, but said "any comment should come from Peter".

Jackson, who is understood to have had the rights to the books for some time, was unavailable for comment.

The books, by Philip Reeve, are set in a post-apocalyptic world where cities have become giant vehicles and must consume each other to survive. Mortal Engines is the first book in the series, and has won a Nestle Smarties Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2002 Whitbread Award.

The fantasy books are the latest in a series of adaptation projects Jackson has taken on.

His film adaptation of The Lovely Bones premiered in Wellington last week, and he is producing The Hobbit – the prequel to his highly successful Lord of the Rings trilogy – and Steven Spielberg's version of the Belgian comic The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

Jackson has also optioned the rights to the historic-fantasy Temeraire novels, which tell an alternative version of the Napoleonic Wars where tame dragons are used for aerial attacks.

World War II film Dambusters, which he produced and Kiwi film-maker Christian Rivers directed, is due for release next year.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Peter Jackson made a knight — for real

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - "Lord of the Rings" filmmaker Peter Jackson has been made a knight — a real one — accepting the honor Wednesday in his native New Zealand on behalf of the thousands of people who helped make his movies.

"I feel incredibly humbled," Jackson said at an investiture ceremony in the capital, Wellington, where New Zealand's head of state, Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand, did the honors in lieu of Queen Elizabeth II. His knighthood was for services to the arts in New Zealand.

"The truth is, making movies is not a solo effort — it involves hundreds of people, thousands of people — so I feel as though I'm accepting it on behalf of the industry," he said.

Jackson has risen from a maker of small-budget schlock-horror films to the heights of Hollywood. His crowning achievement remains the three-movie adaptation of "Lord of the Rings," which transformed the rugged landscape of New Zealand into the Middle Earth of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic — spurring a real-life tourism industry along the way.

The final movie in the trilogy won 11 Academy Awards. Jackson has gone on to remake "King Kong," and his latest film is "The Lovely Bones."

In 2003 he opened Park Road Post Production movie center in Wellington. It includes special effects and animation companies Weta Digital and Weta Workshop.

The facilities have established New Zealand as a major film production location. Much of James Cameron's blockbuster "Avatar" was filmed and produced there.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Sleepless

Spielberg confirms Jackson will direct sequel to Tintin - he's set to go straight into 21-31 days of motion capture as soon as principal photography on the Hobbit is complete. Spielberg made a point of declining to state which book would form the basis for the second movie. Presumably this means that although the end of the first movie strongly implied the follow-up would be based on Red Rackham's Treasure, this means that that book is only going to be part of the story? The shark submarine would look cool. BUT WE GOTTA GO TO THE FUCKING MOON FOR THE THIRD ONE.

Article on this here.
He held on. The dolphin and all the rest of its pod turned and swam out to sea, and still he held on. This is it, he thought. Then he remembered that they were air-breathers too. It was going to be all right.