Photo: Gentle Giant Studios

The Star Wars cantina bookend set is currently out of stock, and at a cost of over $150.00 it’s definitely for those with money to burn.  Neatorama sells cool bookends for far less.  However, this and other examples including Lord of the Rings, Batman vs. Superman, Harry Potter and more can be ogled at Uphaa.

Photo: Lucasfilm/Disney

There’s a bunch of new print ads out for Disney’s Star Wars Weekends, and they’re pretty funny.  See Darth Vader wait in line, Ewoks get denied, TIE fighters at airport gates and more at The Chive.

31 years ago today, on Nov 17, 1978, CBS broadcast what has become one of the most maligned TV programs of all time, The Star Wars Holiday Special.  It was so bad Lucas disowned it and famously said he’d want to smash every bootleg copy with a sledgehammer.  This article takes a look back at the Holiday Special and the special brand of retarded it brought into Star Wars fans’ lives.

Is the Special really that bad? Yes it is. The format is similar to variety specials that were popular in the ’70s. The main story involves Chewie and Han as they are racing back to Chewie’s homeworld for Life Day, a generic Star Wars version of Thanksgiving. The story goes back and forth following Chewie and Han and then following Chewie’s family (wife, son and father). Little to no action happens when the camera is with Chewie’s family.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by pholley.

Randall Munroe of xkcd has posted intricate movie graphs that help explain the sequence of characters for those who have trouble figuring out what went on over a long narrative. The most helpful is the largest graph, which deals with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Grouping of lines shows which characters are together over time. There are also graphs for the original Star Wars trilogy, Jurassic Park, 12 Angry Men, and Primer. Only a small portion of the LOTR graph is shown here. Link -via reddit

UCLA’s Leonard Kleinrock remembers sending the first message over the Internet 40 years ago this week; the first word sent host-to-host was supposed to be “login,” but the receiving computer crashed after the first two letters.  So the Internet’s first word was “Lo!”  Soon came the first denial of service, and the first spammer.

In honor of the occasion, Asylum’s Tommy Christopher compiled the Top Ten Signs the Internet Has Turned 40.

10. Hangs around at clubs using cheesy, outdated pickup lines like, “All your base are belong to me, baby!”

9. Starts referring to YouTube videos as “talkies.”

8. Still uses MySpace, and thinks of Heather_69 as a “friend.”

7. Stays in the left lane of the information superhighway with its blinker on.

6. Google mysteriously changes its name to “Google, She Wrote.” 

5. Star Wars Kid now on his second divorce after nailing his secretary.

4. Starts believing that Al Gore invented it.

3. Inexplicably purchases a Chrysler Sebring convertible.

2. Swears it goes to Pornhub.com for the articles.

1. Has to call its kids for tips on how to use itself.

I’ll add a bonus one:  Uses the file menu to shut itself down…all seven open windows of itself.  Any more ideas out there?

According to The Empire Strikes Back, there’s no smell in the galaxy as bad as the inside of a dead Taun Taun. When Chris and Julia Trevas got married, they hired Food Network baker Courtney Clark to make the cakes. The groom’s cake was in the shape of a dead Taun Taun, complete with Luke Skywalker inside! I would guess the authentic smell was not included. Link -via Boing Boing

(image credit: mod4)

Photo: flickr user Ang & Nick

Botropolis (a robot-themed blog) has pictures of 10 Jack-O-Lanterns modeled to look like robots. Pictured above is Punk-O-Tron, a work by flickr user Ang & Nick. Others are inspired by Transformers, Star Wars, and Short Circuit.

Link via Gizmodo

The guys over at Walyou have put together an impressive collection of “130 Halloween Pumpkin Carvings for Your Inspiration”. Here you will find gaming theme pumpkin art, Star Wars characters pumpkin faces and much more.

Link

What is it about one-take video clips that capture our imaginations? Perhaps it's because we've become so cynical about video editings that the pure, raw form of a single, uninterrupted shot truly stands out.

Well, whatever the reason, one-take video clips sure take the Interweb by storm. Here is Neatorama's list of the 7 Most Amazing One-Take Video Clips:

1. I Gotta Feeling Lip Dub

[YouTube Clip]

Let's start with one that's making the rounds on the Internet: a lip dub by the students of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). In this video clip, co-directed by Luc-Olivier Cloutier and Marie-Eve Hebert, 172 communications students lib-synched the song I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas. The whole thing was shot in a little more than 2 hours.

In an interview with Canada AM, Cloutier gave a little background:

Cloutier says it was difficult to coordinate 172 students in one take. "The problem was we didn't know before how many people should be there for the dub so we cannot plan," he said.

Cloutier said the video was eventually shot in two takes. Despite some minor glitches, the pair is proud of the final product. "We decided to keep this take because (of) the vibe," said Cloutier.

2. Flagpole Sitta Lip Dub

[Vimeo Clip]

If you like that, here's a clip done after work one day by the people of Connected Ventures (they're the bunch of geniuses behind College Humor, Busted Tees and Vimeo). Looks like a fun place to work! Oh, the song is Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger.

3. Nyle's Let The Beat Build

[Vimeo Clip]

A lot of these one-take videos are music videos - and for good reason: one-take videos are hard to shoot, so those synchronized with music has got to be made by people with mad skillz.

This music video Let The Beat Build by rapper Nyle, directed by Chadd Harbold and produced by Last Pictures and 194 Recordings, even did one better: they recorded the audio simultaneously with the film. Mind = blown.

4. Daft Hands - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

[YouTube Clip]

Austin Hall of Frecklestudios probably has the most watched hands ever. Since its debut two years ago, his YouTube clip Daft Hands has been watched over 33 million times!

In that video, Hall played Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger entirely with his two hands. Maybe it's easier for you to watch the clip above than for me to explain in words how he did t. (Previously on Neatorama here)

Since then, the song has spawned countless imitations, including Daft Bodies and the Daft Parodies (Erhm, the last one is kind of rude. You've been warned).

5. Forrest Gump in One Minute, in One Take

[CollegeHumor Video Clip]

Let's take a break from music video clips. Last February, Joe Burgess, Rocco Sulkin and Will Tribble from the University Of York Filmmaking Society got friends to act out Forrest Gump in one minute, filming the whole thing in one take. (Previously on Neatorama here.)

From an interview with NewTeeVee Station:

The one-take angle would make you assume that there was a lot of rehearsal and coordination involved, but that wasn’t the case — according to Tribble, most of it was ab-libbed. “I didn’t know until the last minute that I was going to be in [Gump],” Tribble said, “but then they said, ‘OK, you’re Lieutenant Dan’ and there I was.”

Since then, the trio have sweded other films including Kill Bill, Star Wars, and their latest, 28 Days Later.

6. Here It Goes Again by OK Go

[CollegeHumor Video]

What's even better than a one-take music video? How about a one-take music video with treadmills! Here's the astounding clip Here It Goes Again from Ok Go, directed by Trish Sie of BigBadTrish.

7. Cog

[YouTube Video]

Last on the list is the grand-daddy of all one-take videos. Titled Cog, the two-minute long Rube Goldbergian commercial for Honda Accord was produced by the London office of Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency and directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet of Partizan back in 2003. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this may just be the best commercial of all time.

To the horrors of Honda engineers, Bardou-Jacquet took apart the seventh-generation Honda Accord, of which there were only 5 hand-assembled models in the world (at that time), and made an astonishing commercial out of its parts.

It took 606 takes to shoot Cog and when it was completed, the video clip was shown to the bigwigs at Honda who remarked that it was a very nice computer generated imagery. When they were told everything was real, they were floored - and if you see it, you would be, too.

More about Cog at Wikipedia

This floppy disk drive has been altered to play the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars. I have no idea how, but here’s an explanation floating around the blogosphere:

I can’t find any documentation for this, nor can I help posting it. I assume it’s a hardware hack that manually controls the floppy drive’s stepper motor, but it’d make my day if this was done in software using standard I/O requests. Either way, the 3.5 inch FDD finally serves an important function again.

Link via Have You Seen This?

Photo: Cho Woong

I’ve always been impressed with some people’s ability to collect things – stamps, soda cans, comic books, what have you. My amazement over Cho Woong’s extensive collection of Star Wars figures is compounded by his ability to keep everything … so organized and neat! I betcha there’s a good amount of OCD (I’m kidding!) involved in this: Link [in Korean] – via Cribcandy

Image: Worth 1000 user Sylver

Charlie Jane Anders of the science fiction blog io9 has assembled a gallery of some of the best photoshop pieces that blend Star Wars and Western religious art. Among Anders’ sources are the photoshop contests of Worth 1000 and Something Awful. The image above is derivative of Leonardo da Vinci’s Litta Madonna.

Link

Hello everybody! I'm happy to be back blogging on Neatorama after being mostly absent last month (why? Here's the very cute reason). Anyway, it's good to be back! I'd like to update you on a number of going ons at the blog:

Neatorama Update
We've done some work under the hood (so to speak). The idea is that regular readers don't see any changes, though some things may be broken. If you've subscribed to the No Upcoming Queue RSS feed, you'll know what I'm talking about (the feed is now ironically only posts from the UQ!). We'll try to get that fixed soon, I promise.

In the meantime, please give the full RSS feed a chance - there's a lot of gems coming from promoted posts from the Upcoming Queue.

If you see anything broken, please email me (alex at this here blog dot com). I appreciate the help!

New Features

If you look at the right-hand side navigation bar, you'll see a number of new neat features:

• Browse by Date
  We've gotten a lot of requests from people who like to read all of Neatorama by going back posts after posts in the archives. This "browse by date" feature should help them keep track of where they're at.
• Browse by Tags
  I'm kind of late to the whole tagging thing (I started tagging my posts in November 2008 but have since seen the light!) It's revealing to see that we write more about Star Wars than Star Trek, as denoted by the size of the tag (reflecting the frequency the particular tag is used).

At the very bottom of the navigation bar, you can see the 5 most recent comments made on the blog - so comment frequently, mmkay?

New Ad Units

We're still playing around adding new ad units (showing products from the Neatorama Shop) in the front page and in the single post pages and deleting some in the navigation bar.

We're trying to reach a balance between controlling the number of ad spots and types of ads (for example, the rotating product ads are static images and not Flash) while maximizing revenue to pay the blog's operational cost (dem darned bills).

Neatorama Upcoming Queue: Top Submitters of August 2009

We promised to reward the top 5 submitters to the Upcoming Queue for the month of August ... and here they are (thanks guys!)

Congratulations to coconutnut who got the grand prize (an iPod Nano) - the rest of the people listed above will win something neat from the Neatorama Shop.

We'll continue to reward the Top Submitters, so if you haven't tried the Upcoming Queue, what are you waiting for? Here's the FAQ and Formatting Tips to maximize your chances of getting your submissions promoted.

I can’t find out much information about this bed — just some pictures listed on a real estate site. Yup, it’s for sale at $364,900. Comes with a house in Visalia, CA and a guarantee of perpetual virginity, like the AT-AT bed.

Link via Topless Robot

More awesome than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? I don’t know yet, but the novel Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber looks promising. Here’s a synopsis:

When the Imperial prison barge Purge–temporary home to five hundred of the galaxy’s most ruthless killers, rebels, scoundrels, and thieves–breaks down in a distant, uninhabited part of space, its only hope appears to lie with a Star Destroyer found drifting, derelict, and seemingly abandoned. But when a boarding party from the Purge is sent to scavenge for parts, only half of them come back–bringing with them a horrific disease so lethal that within hours nearly all aboard the Purge die in ways too hideous to imagine.

And death is only the beginning.

The Purge’s half-dozen survivors–two teenage brothers, a sadistic captain of the guards, a couple of rogue smugglers, and the chief medical officer, the lone woman on board–will do whatever it takes to stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting aboard the Star Destroyer amid its vast creaking emptiness that isn’t really empty at all. For the dead are rising: soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.

Schreiber has a blog, where you can find pictures of his zombified Storm Troopers staggering around ComicCon, promoting his book.

Link via Double Plus Undead

If Star Wars Was Real is a photoshop gallery of images which imagine a synthesis of human history (particularly in the 20th Century) and Star Wars. Well, I think that it’s photoshopped. The hosts are a bit more ambitious:

Our mission is to compile any evidence we can find to prove that Star Wars is real. So far, we have several contacts around the globe studying photographs and artifacts for any shred of evidence they can find. However, since most of the evidence seems to be hidden away by some sort of worldwide government consipracy, we need your help to find the truth!

Link via io9

GadgetHER has pictures of 25 unusual Russian Matryoshka nesting dolls, including crocheted robots, Super Mario Bros., and Left 4 Dead video game characters. The picture above is of a set that illustrates the evolution of the cell phone over time.

Link via Crunch Gear

Previously on Neatorama:
Russian Matryoshka Dolls
Geeky Matryoshka Dolls
Star Wars Matryoshka Dolls

If you missed Comic Con, you missed more than just the costumes of course. You also missed the array of personality types that seem to pop up at these large-scale geekfests.You may think you know about the attendees, based on the stereotypes, but really, there’s a lot more too it than you thought.

The Stereo-typical Geek

These are the kids that smell like they haven’t bathed in a week and still get giddy over the concept of seeing a girl “IRL.” While revolting to everyone around them, they still think they’re total studs and try to chat up the illustrious booth girls somehow hoping their Jedi mind tricks will actually help convince the girl they are cool. Even if you don’t see many of these geeks, you most certainly will smell them, as this sign helps demonstrate.

The Twilight Fans

These are the newest breed at the convention and their presence actually worried organizers. There was even talk of organizing things so the panels and booths these tweens were expected to visit would be super far away from the things the geeks were expected to be interested in. Fortunately, these fans actually blended in just fine and were largely the same as the Harry Potter fans that have become a fixture at the convention. While it’s impossible to say how long these fans will stay in the scene, it will most certainly not be a problem having the around.

The Booth Babe

These are professional hotties who actually have no interest in anything geekish, particularly comic books, video games and even shows like “Heroes” or “Chuck.” While they would normally never be willing to be seen with the average people visiting these conventions, they’re happy to chat with them and pose for photos as long as there is a nice check of at least $200 a day in it for them. In more recent years, the standard booth babes have been reduced, thanks in part to Suicide Girls, who tend to have far more of an interest in these type of activities. In fact Suicide Girls even had a pre-Comic Con collection of Cosplay shots just to emphasize the girls’ natural geekiness.

The Cross-Over Costumer

Like Star Wars and Sherlock Holmes? Why not be Jedi Sherlock? What about cooking and Star Wars? Chef Darth Vader of course. One of the most famous crossover fans is Elvis Storm Trooper (to the left), who not only has his own website, but also travels to as many conventions as possible every year. Of course, he always makes it to the San Diego Comic Con every year.

The Star Wars Fans

Comic Con has always been a huge supporter of Star Wars, and not only because it’s a scifi classic. You see, George Lucas actually gave a preview of the movie to fans in 1977 before the movie was released and before the convention was even a big deal. The cult following was inevitable.
Of course, modern day Star Wars fans at the convention tend to be extreme. There are fans who make up their own characters as part of their own fan fiction and there are people dressed as characters who were only shown for a matter of seconds in the film.

The Trekkies

Image Via Stately English Manor

Despite the stereotypes of comic conventions loaded with Klingons, the Trekkies were actually a dying breed for the last ten or so years. But not this year. Since the newest movies are always a major inspiration for costumes (last year The Dark Knight was huge), Star Trek fans were everywhere this year. Interestingly, it was easy to spot the old-school Trekkies, who had only put their gear on the shelf for a few years, and the new-school Trekkies.

The Guy Way Too Into His Character

These guys can be more than a little scary. While a lot of people get into character and enjoy acting their roles, there always seems to be at least a few costumed villains that seem to be living out their character’s lives. Unfortunately, there’s no psychological test given to people dressed up as villains prior to entry.

So far no one’s been severely injured, but it’s only a matter of time.

The Weirdo Hippie Guy

This guy’s a rare breed, but there always seems to be at least one of them at the Convention. They all seem to have taken a few too many acid hits. No one, particularly these guys themselves, actually understands why they are so interested in showing up at the convention every year, but the overall accepting attitude of the attendees makes it a welcome place for these “unique” individuals.

The Steampunks

Steampunk inventions and costumes have been featured many times on Neatorama, but the number of posts is nowhere near the number of steampunks at Comic Con. These guys have always been at the convention, but this last year they’ve really stepped up their numbers. If you’re interested in learning more about the steampunks at Comic Con this year, there is a great article over at KPBS.

The Lolitas

I have to admit, these are some of my favorite Comic Con fans because I just can’t get enough of the outfits. Just like the steampunks, lolitas have always been around at Comic Con, but their numbers really shot up this year. While many people associate the lolitas with gothic culture, the ones at the convention are more of the Japanophile sort and frequently flock to Giant Robot and other Japanese toy booths to see the newest and hottest imports from their country of choice.

If you missed out on the San Diego Comic Con this year, you weren’t alone -tickets sold out months in advance, leaving a whole lot of people locked out. If you were one of the many who wanted to go and couldn’t, or if you just are interested in the event, now’s your chance to see one of the best parts of the con -the costumes. These pictures include my top 20 favorite costumes, but there are a whole lot more out there. If you’re interested in seeing more convention pictures, be sure to use the links at the bottom of the article.

There’s always a lot of cross-over costumes at Comic Con and for some reason, they tend to mostly involve Star Wars. These guys were seventies Darth and Boba Fett. I missed out on the opportunity of getting a picture of another one along these lines, the storm troopper with a gold, disco-ball tiled helmet.

More Great Costumes Behind The Jump

Hasbro could greatly expand its market if it made My Little Ponies like these two based upon the violent video game Gears of War. And it would probably capture the true meaning of what it means to be a My Little Pony.

Link (where there are also Legend of Zelda and Iron Man-themed My Little Ponies)

Previously on Neatorama: Star Wars-Themed My Little Ponies

Every year, Atom Films hosts a contest for Star Wars-themed fan films.  There are several categories and this film, Star Sports Theatrical Trailer, won the Best Parody category.  It imagines the Star Wars story as a series of high school sports, such as the Battle of Hoth as a game of dodgeball (I think). You can view all of the winners at the link.

Link

It’s been ten years (ten years!) since Jake Lloyd played Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode One – The Phantom Menace. He spoke with SCI FI PI – The SCI FI Channel Australia Blog, backstage at Supanova Sydney. He has obviously had a tough time at school, but has a wry attitude on what’s been – and what’s ahead. 

– via scifitv

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by BR260454.

NASA has created a map of Aldrin and Armstrong’s journeys on the surface of the moon to the scale of a baseball diamond. It helps put their activities at the landing site in perspective. Also, we know “Who’s on first?” It was Buzz Aldrin.

Link via Popular Science

What do you do with all those drink holders you’ve accumulated from Starbucks? (You didn’t throw ‘em away, did you?)

Well, Wired contributing photographer Dan Winters make something out of his: a Star Wars TIE Fighter made out of 50 Starbucks cups, 216 stirrers and over 60 drink holders.

Link – via Like Cool

You may have seen the photos of Star Wars chipmunk floating on the Web – it turns out that the guy who made them is Canadian graphic designer Chris McVeigh.

Nick Prueher of Asylum blog has the interview with Chris about his photos, and why he never works with squirrels:

Why chipmunks?

McVeigh: For somebody looking at pictures, they’re quite cute and, in terms of toys, they match up quite nicely. What makes them ideal subjects is that they’re incredibly focused and predictable. If they know you have almonds and know where you store them, they’ll come back to get them over and over. You can’t get that with a squirrel. They’re erratic. If you present them with food, they eat it right away or run. Squirrels, by comparison, have ADD.

Link – Thanks Alex!

Star Wars Uncut is a web project where 472 fans each remake 15 seconds of Star Wars: A New Hope, and then the clips are assembled into one big, weird remake. The project is currently seeking participants… So you’d better get busy sewing that Chewbacca suit!

Link – via monstersandrockets

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by gregs.

Never before has Jabba looked so sensitive with his deep brown eyes and sweet little stuffed bunny. He’s part of the Star Wars Exhibit previously mentioned on Neatorama.

Link Via CraftZine