AC13: Best of 2012: Anniversaries

So as the year has gone on, a lot of companies and franchises have celebrated what could be their most biggest year yet. There have been 100th anniversaries and numerous others as well, so let's take a look at some of them:

Universal Pictures (100 Years)

So among most film and TV distributors, Universal celebrates it's 100th anniversary by giving us some more films which have been a bit of a mixed bag among critics, as well as re-releasing some of Universal's best films on Blu-Ray and DVD. This year, we've seen Seth MacFarlane attempt to do a live action film, and from what I hear, he succeeded. We've also seen the American Pie gang reunite after a very long wait, a much darker and Twilight(ish) take on the fairytale, Snow White. And we've even seen another Bourne film with a different protagonist and a take on another Hasbro film (which fails in all levels, except for the digital effects). Its been a pretty good year for the company and let's hope that the next 100 years are even better.

Paramount Pictures (100 Years)

This year, Paramount also celebrate 100 years in television broadcasting and film. We got a chance to see Titanic in 3D (celebrating the 100th anniversary of the real Titanic's end), The animals of Dreamworks Animation's Madagascar take on the circus, Sasha Baron Cohen taking the lead role once again but this time as "The Dictator", Paranormal Activity with Kinect (literately) and Santa Claus as you've never seen him before. Like with Universal, it's been a bit of a mixed bag in terms of films, but it's otherwise decent and celebrating the 100th anniversary in style.

The Queen of England's time as monarch (60 Years)

This year has been a great year for the UK (and it's not just because of the Olympics and Paralympics) as Queen Elizabeth II has now been the Queen for a good 60 years. There have been many celebrations across the world to honour this occasion such as gigs, parties, special episodes of our favourite television shows (such as Come Dine With Me for example) and more. She even jumped of a helicopter with James Bond during the opening ceremony of the Olympics (although apparently ABC thought that was real when clearly it isn't). But all in all, she's had a good year and we still love her to this day.

Spider-Man (50 Years)

Now believe it or not, I actually found out about this only moments ago and it didn't really occur to me that a super hero of some sort, would be celebrating a big anniversary this year. Spider-Man has been one of the most well known and recognisable characters in the Marvel universe, and has been one of Stan Lee's favourite superheroes since the beginning. The hero himself has had a film released this year which could be the start of another trilogy (although I would think that after that, Disney will own Spider-Man seeing as they now own Marvel). While his anniversary hasn't been celebrated that much, it's still good to know that the superhero is still around and hasn't gotten old and outdated.

James Bond 007 (50 Years)

James Bond is back and for his 50th anniversary, he jumped off a helicopter with The Queen at the opening ceremony of the Olympics and also got another film known as Skyfall. Its become very apparent that James Bond is an iconic British franchise that everyone loves, regardless of how you see it. You get all your agent like stuff and while the spy genre has been running on thin ice for quite some time, Skyfall continues to keep the genre alive and it's significantly better than the 40th anniversary film Die Another Day. It's still great even to this day, and we love it.

The Snowman (30 Years)

Now I know a lot of you won't know a lot about this, so in addition to the film above (which I suspect will be taken off YouTube at some point so be quick about it), I'll give you a quick summary of the film. The Snowman is a film that's based off the award winning children's book of the same name by English author, Raymond Briggs and the book itself was released in 1979. It wasn't until 1982 where Universal Pictures and Channel 4 (Columbia TriStar in the USA) decided to adapt the book into a 26 minute long film that since it's original launch, has been part of  the annual event of Christmas. The story is basically a boy who decides to create a snowman (as anyone would when there's snow about). When it reaches midnight, the snowman comes to life and tries to get to grips with things before holding the boy's hand and flies into the sky with him (and the rest is self explanatory). The film is mostly famous due to the music played in it which has since become recognised as potentially a Christmas carol. To honour the event of it's 30th anniversary, Channel 4 will be broadcasting the film's sequel "The Snowman and The Snowdog" on Christmas Eve this year and I'm actually looking forward to it as we can see how it looks in HD (which I think will be great).

Kirby (20 Years)

So Mario and Zelda have made it to just over 25 years and now Kriby celebrates his anniversary, the only difference here is that it's only 5(ish) years younger than the latter 2. Despite that, Kriby has had a good year with having exactly 20 games in the franchise and this year to commemorate the event, Nintendo have released an anthology game for the now out of date Wii, which contains a few games from Kirby's history with some additional challenges and some history behind the character, which is always good. So what's Nintendo's next franchise to celebrate an anniversary? We'll have to find out, next year.

So that's just some of the many anniversaries that were celebrated this year and we can look forward to more in 2013.