What if Star Wars had been directed by Quentin Tarantino? It’s an imaginary exercise, as Tarantino was 14 years old when the first movie premiered. But this would be the trailer. YouTube commenters think it’s great, but I don’t quite get it. What makes this a “Tarantino” trailer? The music? The fact that Samuel L. Jackson is cast? Help me out here- I’ve seen only two Tarantino movies and enjoyed one of them. -via Digg
The creators of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headgear, and those making similar VR devices, are hoping to usher in the new age of fully immersive video games, and with full immersion comes funny looking rigs that help make the whole experience complete.
The custom built rig in this photo is called Birdly, and as the name spells out it simulates flying like a bird, complete with a fan and a scent machine to round out the experience.
Birdly was created by a team at Zurich University, and if Birdly is any indication of what’s to come the virtual reality future is going to be chock full of crazy contraptions!
-Via Endgadget
We often take the easy way out and just call Godzilla a monster movie, or kaiju in Japanese. But trying to classify it as either science fiction or horror forces an examination the specific elements that define the two genres. You add a level of difficulty if you lump in all the sequels. The staff at The Dissolve had a roundtable discussion on the question, and for simplicity’s sake, they mainly focused on the original 1954 version of Godzilla (although the sequels are discussed as well). And as is inevitable, Godzilla is compared to the 1933 movie King Kong, which also has its share of sequels. Tasha said,
On his own, King Kong is a tragic symbol of elemental nature, tamed, turned into a sideshow, and ultimately destroyed for rebelling against encroaching civilization. Godzilla is a more flexible symbol for whatever the age requires. But put them together and make them fight, and they stop being resonant, individualistic symbols, and start being kids’ toys being whanged against each other in a never-ending, not particularly weighty battle for supremacy. On his own, Godzilla is chilling; once Mothra, Rodan, Ghidorah, Gamera, and all the other goofiness comes into play, being a giant monster isn’t particularly special anymore.
The discussion ranges far and wide to settle the question, and in the end, makes me want to watch the 1954 film Gojira again before seeing the new Godzilla movie that will debut in theaters this coming Friday. -via Digg
(Zach Weinersmith/SMBC Comics)
Oh, sure, your geeky wedding is fun and cute. But you've got to realize that when you get married, you're locking yourself into a system. Say your wedding vows in Elfish, if you like. But be aware that may have to one day compose a divorce petition in that same language and go through the court system of a species that is ageless.
By the way: Zach Weinersmith's comics have a neat hidden feature. At the bottom of a comic, you'll see a bar that looks like this:
Clicking on the red button on the right reveals a hidden comic.
When you’re a clone trooper conformity is key, and your shiny white armor is not to be tampered with under penalty of Sith law, but if they were allowed to customize their casing they’d be a lot easier to tell apart!
If the Kaminoan armorsmiths that create clone trooper armor started reading Marvel comics they might design some suits that look like these superheroic illustrations by Jonathan Bolerjack, the ultimate standouts in a sea full of shiny plastoid.
Jonathan does a great job of making the mashup feel natural, even in the case of Hulk's massively oversized armor, and they're all so shiny that any clone trooper would be proud to take a blaster bolt to the chest while wearing on of these stylish suits.
-Via GeekTyrant
Being a delivery man in the future looks a little too easy, like they should have replaced you with a robot or remote control drone long ago level of easy, and while lazy deliveryman Johnny is busy dreaming his life away he inadvertently finds himself on a collision course with his destiny.
Okay, so maybe it's not as epic as all that, but JohnnyExpress by Kyungmin Woo for Alfred Image Works is one sharp looking animated short, a gem that could easily be expanded into a series of shorts, and Johnny is such a likably lazy fellow he could easily be played by Ron Swanson or a cat...or a cat that looks like Ron Swanson.
-Via Sploid
Two heads are not always better than one, particularly in pop culture superhero stories. When supervillains band together, their nefarious schemes become more like planning by committee. This is particularly true with the Sinister Six from the Spider-Man universe. Dorkly explains the math of how they got that way.
What is it about bootleg toys, those wonderfully wrong and totally funky knockoffs, that makes them so appealing?
Is it the bizarre mashup universes they live in? Is it the crazy names the ripoff artists coin to make their cheap toys appeal to kids looking for the real thing? Is it the fact that in the world of the knockoff it doesn't matter if ninja turtles ride horses or Sith lords act as galaxy cops?
Whatever the appeal bootleg toys are fun to look at, cheap to buy, and always full of hilariously strange elements worthy of a chuckle or two, like naming a toy robot "God Jesus" or the name Batman emblazoned across a package that clearly contains a Superman figure.
Check out these Super Legit Totally Not Bootlegged Toys, brought to you by The Soup.
1988 was a fun year to be alive and over five- great movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Young Guns and Big came out in theaters, musical acts like Morrissey and INXS released iconic albums, Garfield and Friends and Kevin Arnold's Wonder Years were on the small screen, and video games just kept getting better in terms of graphics quality and gameplay.
Nerd out on the year 1988 in this pop culture compilation video created by Simon Peterson called Remember 1988, the latest in a long string of Remember videos Simon has created that fill you in on the important stuff if you weren't alive or aware, and give you a healthy dose of nostalgia if you remember the 80s fondly.
-Via Laughing Squid
Two of the most popular superheroes work in journalism. Peter Parker (Spider-Man), is a photojournalist with the Daily Bugle of New York City. Clark Kent (Superman) is a reporter for the Daily Planet of Metropolis. It's a good industry for superheroes to work in. Journalists often get access to information first. When there's a crisis, Peter Parker and Clark Kent often learn of it quickly because they work in that field.
But are they good journalists? That profession has certain ethical standards. When there's a conflict between their two occupations, Spider-Man and Superman often compromise their public jobs to advance their superhero work. That's the argument that Daniel J. Snyder, a writer for The Atlantic, makes:
Up until a few years ago, and for the majority of his 50-year existence, Peter Parker committed repeated acts of fraud against his employer, The Daily Bugle and its editor-in-chief, J. Jonah Jameson (who would later, as the mayor of New York, employ Parker as a photographer). He sold staged photos of himself as Spider-Man and used his position in the media to influence the public's perception of his actions. Meanwhile, Superman, as award-winning Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, has reported on himself and given privileged information to his girlfriend, Lois Lane, whose relationship with Superman remains undisclosed.
Hypocritically, Snyder does not disclose how his own secret identity compromises his objectivity on this story.
-via But Not Simpler | Images: Marvel, DC
Many women are up in arms about the lack of characters in the world of Star Wars, in other words they’re looking for geeky icons of their own and coming up short, which is a fair point.
This used to be explained away with sales, stating that it was simply a matter of marketing towards a target audience, but nowadays there’s really no excuse not to include female characters in sci-fi franchises like Star Wars.
The discussion has been re-kindled by the casting announcement for Star Wars Episode VII, which only included one female character, and that has caused people to revisit the strange Star Wars theory set out last Octoer by author Matthew Gladstone last October dubbed the Hive Theory.
Short explanation: There are no humans in Star Wars.
-Via Topless Robot
Screen Junkies selected some low-hanging fruit for their latest in the Honest Trailers series. I saw Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones only once, and the main thing I recall is how Anakin was so creepy even though Hayden Christensen couldn’t deliver a believable line. The paradox was too much. The plot escapes me now, but I’m pretty sure the whole thing was meant to explain where Stormtroopers came from and make sure Luke and Leia were conceived in wedlock. -via Viral Viral Videos
Once upon a time kids spent a hell of a lot of time, and money, filling their eyes with pixels and their ears with beeps and boops at local video arcades, which were like heaven on earth to diehard gamers like myself.
Kids who grew up in the 80s often found everything their little hearts desired in arcades, from friendships to snack bars to prizes, as savvy owners cashed in on the trend that gave kids around the world Pac-Man Fever.
A fun new Flickr pool called Growing Up In Arcades:1979-1989 is helping gamers relive those glory days with photos taken at arcades, theme restaurants like Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre and Showbiz Pizza Palace, and anywhere you could find "vintage games in the wild" back in the neon colored 1980s.
-Via Dangerous Minds
Jennifer Landa made a Star Wars rap video under the premise that it was a tribute made by her mother in 1977.
I was digging through a box of my mom's old home movies, when I came across this epic fan film she made about Star Wars in 1977! (Alright, so that didn't happen but just go with me on this one. I want to believe!) Who knew she could rap? Check it out!
No matter that it is set to the tune of "Rapper’s Delight," which didn’t come out until a couple of years afterward; we can forgive that as she plays every part herself and keeps the beat going strong. -Thanks, Jennifer!
(Image: Lucasfilm)
Dr. Nakia Gordon is a professor of psychology at Marquette University in Wisconsin. She’s a scholar on the human use of emotions. Science writer Kyle Hill asked her to reflect on the psychological utility of Jedi Master Yoda’s pearls of wisdom:
“Anger… fear… aggression. The dark side are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.”
“Anger, fear and aggression in the right circumstances are indeed easy to evoke. But they aid in survival. Without them, we die. So they are not useless. I think if Yoda had said revenge or other nuanced emotions that rely on complex cognitions, then perhaps his advice is warranted. Rumination is almost always unhealthy (contributing to the maintenance of both depression and PTSD) and it seems to me you need to ruminate in order to plot revenge. You would also need to ruminate to maintain any anger associated with the situation. But that anger would presumably aid you in the confrontation.”
[Is the Dark Side stronger?] “No… no… no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.”
“This one is interesting. Basic emotions of which anger and fear are a part of can be evoked readily. The question is whether there are easily evoked positive emotions too. People’s list of basic emotions usually includes at least one positive emotion. But that positive one is not as easily defined. Sometimes it is enjoyment, sometimes it is joy, sometimes happiness. In theory, any basic emotion should be quickly and easily evoked, but a basic positive one is elusive for researchers. Perhaps the negative emotions are as seductive to researchers as they are to Jedis.
Dr. Gordon also wrote about her general impressions of the Jedi approach to emotion:
Yoda often seems to be asking for the Jedi to be in the present. In the long-term, practicing something like “mindfulness meditation” does appear to have many beneficial health effects. Mindfulness would, in theory, keep Jedi from ruminating on anger.
