(YouTube Link)

Eric Power, who previously brought us a papercraft version of The Legend of Zelda, is an Austin-based animator. He made this video of Mortal Combat fatalities.

Link via Kotaku

It's about time that someone took some legal action. Vader was taken into custody by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They always get their man.

Yes, this is real, not a photoshop.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/07/19/14760471.html via reddit

(YouTube Link)

Remember the dog that was trained to say "Batman"? That video was remixed with the opening music to the 1960s Batman.

via Geekstir

Olly Moss made a pair of commemorative posters for the classic Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles". They depict Spock and Uhura getting buried in tribbles. Note that the bottom of the posters inaccurately represents the respective heights of the characters.

By the way: David Gerrold, the author of that episode, wrote the awesomest ever time travel novel.

Link | Artist's Website

Previously on Neatorama:
Olly Moss Pwns Shepard Fairey's Obey Giant
Know Your Enemies' Weaknesses

deviantART user Nina Matusmoto correctly labels the Transformerized Bender as a Decepticon:

I was watching the original Transformers cartoon, and I decided the only robot who could be more of a jerk to Megatron than Starscream is Bender.

Link via Great White Snark

What would Tetris be like if blocks fell like normal objects, instead of the clean lines and patterns of the classic game? Facepunch user Maurice created a frustrating version of the game called "Not Tetris" that does precisely that.

Link via Albotas

(YouTube Link)

Kate Mulgrew, who played Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager, was not the first pick for that role. In fact, Mulgrew only got it after another actress quit midway through the filming of the first episode. Here's a scene from that episode with that actress, Genevieve Bujold.

Do you think that she would have made a good Janeway?

I found this video at list of fourteen facts about Star Trek that you might not know, which you can view at the link.

http://blog.koldcast.tv/2010/koldcast-news/14-things-you-didnt-know-about-star-trek/ via blastr

LikeMe has a list of ten science fiction movies that perhaps don't get as much respect as they should. I certainly agree with one of the selections -- Gattaca (1997). It was a well-written, well-acted, and well-directed dystopia. Sadly, it earned back only a third of its budget at the box office.

Which science fiction movie do you think is under-appreciated?

Link via Digg | Photo: Columbia Pictures

Over at Neatorama, we've previously mentioned the great Star Wars-themed artwork of Jacksonville-based artist James Hance. This Saturday, he's exhibiting his newest works, such as the above Cookie Monster. My advice: let the Wookie eat the cookie. He's been known to rip the arms off of people who take his cookies.

Link (Facebook) via Popped Culture

In speculation about time travel, the grandfather paradox is the notion that you could go back in time and kill your own grandfather. This would result in you not being born. But if you weren't born, how could you kill your grandfather? Physicist Seth Lloyd of MIT performed experiments with protons attempting to somewhat simulate these conditions and found that the paradoxical problems failed to occur:

By going back and outlawing any events that would later prove paradoxical in the future, this theory gets rid of the uncomfortable idea that a time traveler could prevent his own existence. “In our version of time travel, paradoxical situations are censored,” Lloyd says.

But this dictum against paradoxical events causes possible but unlikely events to happen more frequently. “If you make a slight change in the initial conditions, the paradoxical situation won’t happen. That looks like a good thing, but what it means is that if you’re very near the paradoxical condition, then slight differences will be extremely amplified,” says Charles Bennett of IBM’s Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York.

For instance, a bullet-maker would be inordinately more likely to produce a defective bullet if that very bullet was going to be used later to kill a time traveler’s grandfather, or the gun would misfire, or “some little quantum fluctuation has to whisk the bullet away at the last moment,” Lloyd says. In this version of time travel, the grandfather, he says, is “a tough guy to kill.”

Link | Photo: Paramount

The New Zealand advertising firm Colesno BBDO placed dyed water in specially-marked watercoolers around Auckland to promote the TV show The Vampire Diaries.

At least, I assume that it's just dyed water. Or fruit punch. I mean, it could be blood. So I can't say for sure that it's not actual human blood.

Link via Super Punch | Photo: Colesno BBDO

(YouTube Link)

The above video is a trailer for what Kotaku reports is an anime about kids who build Gundam models. It's called Mokei Senshi Gunpla Builders Beginning G. Question: will the company responsible sell models of the kids building models?

Link

Good actors can play courageous heroes -- sometimes because they have that spark of greatness within them. Here's a look at five science fiction actors who played imaginary heroes on screen, but were also real heroes on the battlefield.

James Doohan (1920-2005) played Montgomery “Scotty” Scott on Star Trek (1966-1969). Born in Vancouver, Canada, he joined the Canadian Army at the age of 19. He served in the Royal Canadian Artillery, rising to the rank of captain. Doohan was the first man off his landing craft on Juno Beach during the 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy. He was shot by a German machine-gunner six times, four rounds in one leg, one in the chest, and one in the hand. The bullet aimed at his chest was stopped by a metal cigarette case. Doohan lost the middle finger of his right hand -- a fact that the directors of Star Trek tried to hide from the cameras. When directors needed to show Scotty’s hands, a stand-in was used in Doohan’s place.

Don Matheson (1929- ) played Mark Wilson on Land of the Giants (1968-1970). He enlisted in the US Marine Corps at 16 and completed his high school education in that service. After ten boring months of civilian life, Matheson decided to become a paratrooper. He enlisted in the Army and completed twenty jumps before being transferred to the Criminal Investigation Division in Korea during the Korean War. He suffered abdominal wounds, either by an enemy mortar or grenade, and was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. When he recovered, Matheson was tasked with investigating heroin trafficking among US forces in Korea. He was so successful that he was recalled stateside to brief senior officers on illicit drug use by American soldiers. Matheson’s skills later served him well as an undercover narcotics officer with the Detroit Police Department.

Patrick Troughton (1920-1987) played the Second Doctor (1966-1969) on Doctor Who (1963- ). He was on Long Island, New York when World War II broke out. His father arranged for him to return to Britain on a Belgian (then a neutral) ship. The ship hit a mine and sank, but Troughton escaped in a lifeboat until a Greek ship picked up survivors. He enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1940, was trained at Loch Ewin, and commissioned as an officer. Troughton participated in daring raids against German shipping off the Dutch coast. He later received his own command and guarded convoys and rescued downed airmen in the North Sea.

Rod Serling (1924-1975) was the producer and writer responsible for bringing The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) to television. In 1943, the day after he graduated from high school, Serling enlisted in the US Army. While still stateside, he became an accomplished Army boxer, but saw more dangerous combat when he was deployed to the Philippines as part of the 11th Airborne Division. During the liberation of that country, he was badly wounded by shrapnel and received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.

Serling was haunted by the war and suffered nightmares for the rest of his life. Much of his writing was in response to his wartime experiences, such as the third season episode "A Quality of Mercy", which takes place in the Philippines during the closing days of the war.

Alec Guinness (1914-2000) played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. During World War II, he was an officer in the Royal Navy Reserve. He was trained on the HMS Raleigh, a “stone frigate” or naval base in 1941, and then at a similar establishment in Hampshire, before completing his training on Loch Fyne. After getting practical experience on the HMS Quebec, Guinness sailed to Boston in January 1943 to pick up his first command, a landing craft designated LCI(L) #124. He took his ship through strafing runs by German aircraft to North Africa, where he prepared for the Allied invasion of Sicily. On 9 July, he landed 200 men on Cape Passero.

Due to a communications breakdown, he did not receive a message that the landings had been delayed an hour, and consequently, his ship arrived at the Sicilian beach alone. Further miscommunication led a Royal Navy commander on the scene to accuse Sub-Lt. Guinness of not being early, but being late, and insinuated that the young officer’s acting career had not adequately prepared him for his military duties. Guinness responded:

And you will allow me to point out, sir, as an actor, that in the West End of London, if the curtain is advertised as going up at 8:00 PM, it goes up at 8:00 PM, and not an hour later, something that the Royal Navy might learn from.

Photos: Paramount Pictures, ABC, BBC, CBS, and Lucasfilm, respectively.

The 501st Legion TK Project is an ongoing project that invites artists to take a life-sized stormtrooper helmet and modify it in creative ways. deviantART user Melita Curphy turned her helmet into a demon:

The horns/teeth, etc are hand sculpted from epoxy clay. The helmet was painted with acrylic with several layers of wet/dry applications...no airbrushing. The forehead eye has been painted with flourescent orange and will glow in certain light. The mohawk is made from high quality National Fiber Technology hair that i hand dyed.

Link | 501st Legion TK Project | Previously: Avatar Stormtrooper Helmet

(YouTube Link)

Chein of Eastern Geek took LEDs and camera parts and turned them into a hand gadget that looks a lot like Iron Man's repulsor beam emitters. They don't actually work, but they do flash in a way similar to the movies. At the link, you can find detailed instructions so that you can build your own.

Link via CrunchGear | Previously: DIY Iron Man Arc Reactor Costume