Extras! Amazon to deliver packages via drone, The Millennium Falcon is scaled, Smaug takes flight, Robocop is uncomfortable, and HULK SMASH AVENGERS SCRIPT! Plus much more!

Welcome to The Extras! A daily dose of all the smaller movie related news, clips and just plain cool stuff that you might have missed!

This next clip is not really movie related, but I swear it looks like scenes out of something that belongs on the big screen. And yet, this is just something that happens in America every year, as the chaos of Black Friday – the first Friday after Thanksgiving, when major retailers like Walmart, slash prices on their in-store goods for one day – keeps getting worse. This year people got stabbed to death and trampled.

Humanity, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

That scene above could have been diffused much quicker had a certain robotic law enforcement officer was on scene to dispense justice. Well, he would start dispensing as soon as he stopped chafing. According to Robocop actor Joel Kinnaman, it’s not very comfortable being a cyborg policeman.

“It was very uncomfortable. I”m not wearing much under the suit… you feel naked. Also, when the cameras weren’t rolling, I [felt] awkward and embarrassed. It was hard to move my head and everything was making my back ache. I used that awkwardness because that’s what Murphy would’ve felt, times a thousand.

Usually when big movie directors reveal they have a child nobody knew about, it’s a small deal, buried on page 4 or 5 of the tabloids. Usually these big directors don’t live in overpopulated China though, where they have a strict 1-child policy. Zhang Yimou, director of such martial arts epics as Hero and House of Flying Daggers, has seemingly gone into hiding after authorities suspected that he may have fathered as much as 7 children with his wife, a crime that could see him fined up to 160 million Yuan (that’s about R260 million!).

Unable to track down Yimou, authorities got hold of his agent, through which Yimou has issued a formal statement, admitting to breaking the 1-child policy and offering his apologies.

“Zhang Yimou and his wife Chen Ting confirm that they have two sons and a daughter. ‘For the negative consequences of my actions, I would like to express to the public my heart-felt apologies.'”

There has been enough TV spots and teaser trailers and promo images released for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug to fill up Mount Doom, but though all of that the folks at New Line have made certain that we only ever see snatches of the titular dragon. But now can finally get a proper look at Smaug – as he is about to take flight, no less -but just not in the way we expected. New Zealand Air, the national airline of the country where all the Lord of the Rings films are shot, has unveiled their latest Smaug emblazoned planes, ready to take to the skies and offer up some more promotion for the film.

People are still saddened by the news of actor Paul Walker’s untimely passing away this weekend. And over at Badass Digest, they’ve decided to revisit all the Fast & Furious films in his honour.

Just in case you somehow still thought that Avengers: Age of Ultron was some kind of geeky pipe-dream, we can now offer concrete proof that is indeed happening Proof in the the form of Mark Ruffalo, who plays Bruce Banner and jade jowled alter ego The Hulk, who has just officially received his own script for the Avengers sequel.

Okay. Just got the New Avengers Script. And I am going to read it now. I hope Banner/Hulk are represented. @Marvel @josswhedon. Fingers X’d.

— Mark Ruffalo (@Mruff221) November 25, 2013

See all that Black Friday chaos above? That could all have been avoided if we lived in the future. The future that Amazon is trying to bring about with Prime Air, a new, still experimental service, where the online shopping giant will be delivering packages straight from their warehouses to people’s doorstep using remote controlled drones in just 30 minutes. Yep, no more collectors edition Blu Ray boxsets ruined by a postal service that uses your expensive purchase as a rugby ball.

“We’re excited to share Prime Air — something the team has been working on in our next generation R&D lab.

The goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers’ hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles.

Putting Prime Air into commercial use will take some number of years as we advance the technology and wait for the necessary FAA rules and regulations.

Check out this footage from a recent test flight.”

I can’t wait for this to become a reality. Mainly though, so that it can usher in the inevitable age of sky pirates!

And here are a couple more names to add to that ever increasing list of rumoured Star Wars actors – these three latest additions coming courtesy of Jedi News who apparently have a source called Jedi Master SQL. And since he is clearly a whizz with both lightsaber and database, I think we should trust him.

“Just this past two weeks I have heard the names of Emmanuelle Chriqui, Alexis Dziena, and Taissa Farmiga all linked with roles. All exceptionally talented actresses. Whether any of them are cast is still unknown.”

“Every week I hear more amazing actors linked with the roles, and I feel that we will have an incredible cast when all is said and done.”

Here’s a Star Wars rumour that has a bit more weight to it. Specifically, about as much weight as a full-sized Millennium Falcon would weigh. There have been rumblings for a while now that director JJ Abrams has commissioned a full sized replica of Han Solo’s famed spaceship – one of the most widely recognized and popular spaceships in all of science-fiction – to be built for Episode VII. And according to Yahoo’s man on the inside, that replica has now been completed. Cue all the fanboys losing their minds.

“A full-scale 1:1 Millennium Falcon has been built as well as the interiors of the ship for filming. The Falcon is done – inside and out. The sets were built off-site, ready to move when Lucasfilm/Bad Robot were ready to move into Pinewood.”

While just the joy of living in a world where a real life Millennium Falcon exists could be reason enough, you need to ask why Disney\Lucasfilm would go this route when a few simple mockups and some CGI would suffice? Well, this leads me to believe that not only will the Falcon play a significant role in the upcoming movies, but there’s probably also a fairly good chance that the actual ship will factor into Disney’s oft-rumoured plans for a Star Wars theme park.

Speaking of Han Solo, the folks over at MovieHunger have created this infographic pitting the Corellian smuggler up against actor Harrison Ford’s other most famous character, whip-cracking archeologist Indiana Jones, to determine who’s better.

Click to enlarge.

If you’re a fan of Doctor Who, then there’s fairly high statistical probability that when soon to be new Time Lord Peter Capaldi’s eyes and forehead popped up on screen for just a few seconds during the 50th Anniversary Special, you promptly voided your bowels. Once you regained some self-composure, you may have also noticed that said eyes and forehead looked a bit mean. There’s a very good reason for that though, as showrunner Steven Moffat explained to Flicks and the City (via Doctor Who TV).

“He’s a genius. He is a genius actor. That’s not even controversial to say. He’s got a great love of the part. The moment you think of Peter Capaldi and that face in the TARDIS, that works and everybody gets that.

“He’s going to give us a whole new kind of Doctor. We’ve got used to two brilliant iterations of the younger, more popular Doctor and they have both been superlative, but now it’s time for the old beast to snarl at you for a bit!”

Han Solo may have beaten out Indiana Jones in that earlier infographic, but when it comes to movies, I firmly believe that Indy’s first appearance, Raiders of the Lost Ark, trumps everything that Solo ever appeared in. And yes, this is coming from one of the biggest Star Wars fans you’re ever going to meet. Raiders is about as perfect an adventure movie as there has ever been made, and now we can finally get one of the earliest behind the scenes looks at it, as this original 1981 PBS special which takes a very candid look at The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark has finally been released online.

The whole thing runs for about an hour, but if you can’t make time for this, then we should really rethink our friendship.

If you have anything you would like to contribute to Extras, whether it be interesting stories, funny videos, or artistic photos of yourself in morally questionable poses, feel free to drop a mail to kervyn@themovies.co.za.

Last Updated: December 2, 2013