French animation designer Andry imagined comic book superheroes in the act of walking their sidekicks to school. Aren't they adorable? Link -via The Mary Sue

When we last saw master bladesmith Tony Swatton, he made a fully functional axe modeled after Gimli's from The Lord of the Rings. Most recently, he created a battle-ready version of the bat'leth, a sword from Star Trek. Qapla'! His tempered steel sword is ready to sever Jem'Hadar heads.

At the link, you can watch a video of Mr. Swatton making the sword. Be sure to watch until the end, which shows his assistants attacking targets with the bat'leth.

Link -via Technabob

No, Doctor, I'm not going to lecture you on where to park your TARDIS. You can disregard my advice. But let's make sure that we lock the door when we leave.

-via Nerd Approved

(Photo: unknown)

If you could arrange a race between famous science fiction spaceships, who would win? Would it be the Milliennium Falcon, the Jupiter 2, Serenity, the Enterprise, or some other ship? Find out in an online race to destinations light years away at Slate. They also explain the results, according to the canon of each science fiction universe as we know it. Link -via mental_floss

To help new writers on the TV series Star Trek, a 31-page guide was typed up to lay out the rules of the series and ensure continuity of style. It addressed each character's personality, the basic mission of the Enterprise, and the type of stories that work, among other things. Slate has three pages of the guide; the rest are at Harvard’s Houghton Library. Link

The artist Han Jan presents Rainbow Dash as Thor, Spike as the Hulk, Fluttershy as War Machine, Pinkie Pie as Iron Man, Applejack as Captain America, Rarity as Black Widow and Twilight Sparkle as Nick Fury. The last pairing is particularly apt because the black outfit and eye patch match Twilight Sparkle's appearance in the time travel episode "It's about Time."

Does Han Jan's style look familiar? We've previously featured his array of Gundam ponies.

Link

When 30-year-old Stephen got married, he wanted a wedding cake based on old school games. Australian cake maker Nicole stepped up to the console and delivered! Check it out: Link - via Technabob

Redditor mystery_smelly_feet spent $2,000 and 2 months of work building this magnificent arcade cabinet that looks like a classic Nintendo Entertainment System. It has a PC inside with emulators that permit him to play the old games.

Link -via Technabob

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It's not enough to just spoon in their cereal. The stars of Star Wars have to stay in character while eating. Here's a funny video by Teddie Films, maker of Star Wars parodies of Rebecca Black's "Friday" and Gotye's "The Star Wars I Used to Know."

-via Foodiggity

Storm Neon Candy Trooper by DarkChoocoolat

w00t! We'd like to welcome a new T-shirt artist to the NeatoShop. Check out the nifty Tees by French designer Florent Rousseau AKA DarkChoocoolat (why, my favorite kind of snack!), visit his Facebook page, then head on over to the NeatoShop to get the t-shirts: Link

Storm Candy Trooper	Octosushi	Keep Calm Dharma	Banana Trap

View more T-shirt designs by DarkChoocoolat | Funny T-shirts

P.S. Are you a T-shirt designer? Get your tees listed on the NeatoShop and get featured here - we've got a great profit sharing program for professional artists and illustrators. Email us to find out how!

All three of Patrick Connan's movie posters that use chess pieces to tell Tolkien's story are excellent, but I especially like the arrangement for Fellowship. Who would have thought that a mere pawn would bear the One Ring and ensure its destruction?

Link -via Geek Art

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Yes, there is a problem in the Falcon's presentation in this mod. Don't call attention to it, but don't look like you're trying to avoid attention.

Aaraarrrgh?

I don't know. Fly casual.

Link -via Kotaku

Jaime Calderón redesigned Facebook's iconic Like icon for popular superheroes. You can see more at the link. My favorite--and I think the cleverest--is the one for The Flash.

Link -via Technabob

Why did Caleb Kraft build a massive version of the predatory plant from the Super Mario Bros. franchise? Because he could. A better question: why aren't we all building our own?

Kraft's plant has both indoor and outdoor variants. The outdoor version uses compressed air to shoot powdered creamer 6-10 feet into the air, then ignites the creamer. Obviously he wouldn't want to do that indoors. That's why he also has an indoor version that uses butane to shoot flames about 2-3 feet into the air.

You can watch a video of it in action at the link.

Link

Inspired by the classic Little Golden Book we've all read as little kids, Los Angeles-based illustrator Joebot decided to create his own version of videogame-based Little Golden Books: Link - via Geek Art

Prints are available at Joebot's Etsy store: Link

No, the Star Trek actor is not clowning around with cotton candy. He's enhancing it by letting it be photographed with him.

Link

Bonus photo: Patrick Stewart sculpting his own likeness into a mound of cotton candy.

"He was twitching because he's got my axe embedded in his nervous system!" But if you have only a mass-produced reproduction of Gimli's axe, you probably won't have as high a kill count as the dwarven hero.

Tony Swatton, fortunately, is a master blacksmith and armorer. He forged a detailed, functional replica of Gimli's axe out of 148 layers of steel. Watch how he did it at the link.

Link [YouTube] -via Nerd Approved

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Like many people, I watched Star Trek: TNG for years and never noticed how Riker sits down. And stands up. Jonathan Frakes is a tall guy with long legs, and was compelled to wear a jumpsuit uniform, so this might have been the easiest way he found to deal with chairs. Or it could be totally for style. But why did it take so long for anyone to notice? -via Metafilter

To celebrate Star Wars Weekends at Disney's Hollywood Studios this year, Etckt made a periodic table featuring the characters from Star Wars! Of course, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are the most elemental characters, with Grand Moff Tarkin up there, too, for some reason. You can recognize some characters by their initials and standing, or see the full-size version at the link to read them.

The allegiances of the characters are categorized, and their order of appearance and movies are numbered in each cell, although in the Arabesh language. Read more about how the chart is put together at Etckt. Link -Thanks, Matthew!

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Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto appear together in an Audi ad. There are plenty of Star Trek references, of course, and even a bit of "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" thrown in for good measure. Oh yeah, and there's a car, too.  -via @JohnFarrier

For a long time, I've suspected that much of the footage of the Battle of Hoth was digitally altered. Now physicist Rhett Allain gives me reason to have those doubts. He's crunched the numbers and determined that the AT-AT that Luke Skywalker allegedly destroyed was actually a model. How can Prof. Allain be sure? Because a real AT-AT would have taken longer to fall over:

According to this, how tall would the center of mass have to be in order to just take 3.5 seconds to fall over? It would just be about 9 meters tall. So, here are my options.

• The gravitational field on Hoth is not like Earth. I crunched the numbers (re-ran the calculation) and you would need g to be about twice the value of Earth’s in order to get a tip over time of 3.5 seconds (starting from 5 degrees). However, this would not agree with the falling Luke.
• The center of mass of the AT-AT is not where you think it is. This could be the case if the legs were super massive. Why would they be so massive? Who knows? (well, maybe George Lucas would know)
• The AT-AT is not 22.5 meters tall but instead like half that height. Of course, this wouldn’t agree with Luke’s fall time.
• The AT-AT didn’t actually tip over. Instead, it was an inside sabotage job by some disgruntled Storm Troopers. Wait, this wouldn’t explain the fall time.

So, you see there are some problems with this scene. I guess the only reasonable thing to do is to make a new version of The Empire Strikes Back. In this new version, the AT-AT would take another second to fall over. Sure, this might be a lot of work to redo the whole movie for just one scene – but think of all the new Star Wars Blu-ray sales.

The secrets are emerging.

Link

(Images: Lucasfilm, Rhett Allain)

The 1:1 scale shuttlecraft prop from the original Star Trek somehow survived the decades that passed since the end of the show. Last year, it sold at auction. The new owners, Adam Schneider and Alec Peters, took the prop to professional boat restorers and asked them to make the old girl spaceworthy again. Space.com interviewed them about their efforts. Mr. Schneider wrote:

It's probably taken 2,000 man hours of work. It's a world-class restoration at a world-class shop. This is not me because I have no skills as an amateur doing work. This is a fabulous facility [Master Shipwrights in New Jersey].

Not only is it going to be cosmetically good, but from a structural point of view, from a quality of finish point of view, from a quality of wood point of view, and from an ability to move it safely without damaging it. It has never been in better shape.

Link -via Ace of Spades HQ

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Here we have a compilation of late night infomercials from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Just dip it in carbonite! Only $19.95 (plus shipping and handling). Produced by Milynn Sarley, also known as The Gamer Chick. -via Viral Viral Videos

It's called the AT-AT-WV. Mark Stafford's Hoth-bound battle machine is reminiscent of the old Volkswagen vans, complete with a pop-up roof for overnight stays in the field.

Link -via Nerdcore

Don't underestimate the power of good champagne. In the hands of a skilled craftsman like sjroth, an ordinary champagne cork can become a terrifying Sith. The helmet is made of sculpey and the lightsaber is powered by a 3 mm red LED.

Link -via Technabob

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Did you watch Iron Man 3 last night? Judging from the crowd in the theater parking lot, a ton of people did. Even if you didn't, you'll enjoy this remix from Mike Relm with clips from the films rhythmically mixed with the song. He used only widely available clips from Iron Man 3, so there are no spoilers.  -via Viral Viral Videos

You may remember Matt Ferguson's World War Z movie posters. His most recent illustration project provides posters for the original six Star Trek movies. You can view them all at the link. These two, showing the loss of two fine ships in action, are my favorites.

Link -via Ian Brooks

There's a definite problem with a religion cooked up by one guy trying to sell movie tickets. Imagine you've converted to the Jedi religion on the faith inherent in the Star Wars original trilogy, just to have that faith yanked out from under you in the prequels. The cognitive dissonance is real test of faith -or something like that. May the fourth be with you. Link  -via Tastefully Offensive

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Stuntbear's Australian version of Star Wars, we can safely assume, is a completely accurate depiction of the culture of that nation. Here is Episode IV: A New Bloke--a tale of courage, cricket and pubs. I hope that Episode VII features koalas in place of Ewoks.

-via Daily of the Day

I've always found the Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant, as a bit owlish. And apparently so did deviantArtist EatToast, who created this adorable Doctor Whoo sculpture: Link

Doctor Who items are on sale over at the NeatoShop. Hurry, while supplies last!