Geek Tyrant came up with a gallery of alternate movie posters, mostly from the superhero and horror genres, with a retro feel and different actors. I don't know which artist to attribute, but s/he's a genius! Featuring Clint Eastwood as Wolverine and Boris Karloff as Skeletor.
Artist Cody Frisbee took six monsters and creatures from Dungeons & Dragons and imagined them as sports team mascots. I'd love to root for the Gelatinous Cubes, who would, of course, hail from Cleveland.
Geeks Are Sexy (SFW content, despite the URL) has a roundup of all six mascots.
Tony Chavira of Master Planning examined the livability of five futuristic cities depicted in science fiction franchises: The Jetsons, Futurama, Blade Runner, and Star Wars (Coruscant and Tatooine). Here's what he has to say about the disadvantages of Luke Skywalker's home planet:
Tatooine has very few natural resources aside from sand and water. The indigenous “sand people” are violent and roam around in packs with weapons with few in authority to stop them, which makes it dangerous to be outside at night (or during the day in some cases). On top of that, there is really no centralized authority on the planet aside from an area that is deliberately sectioned off for an international mafia family. Similar to the way “thug life” is structured, the Hutts give back to the community it exploits, and runs the planet like a fiefdom. Because of this, and as there is little possibility for economic growth deriving from the planet’s natural resources, it is a very difficult and harsh environment to live day-to-day.
http://fourstory.org/features/story/sci-fi-density-and-social-justice/ via reddit
deviantART user Tara Reich made this outfit that looks like a TARDIS. The Fourth Doctor scarf from Limebarb adds to the groovy 70s look. Reich does some amazing work and her cosplay gallery is worth a click.
Yesterday, I posted a video of a live performance battle between Tekken and Street Fighter characters at a con in Germany. What I didn't know was that it featured the directors of those games, Katsuhiro Harada and Yoshinori Ono, respectively. Apparently, they've spent the past week getting in mock battles with each other and playing pranks at the hotel. Kotaku has a roundup of pictures and tweets from this clash.
Not many men look good in a Chun-Li outfit. Including this one.
These Whovians are getting quite data-focused. I've previously posted about a spreadsheet detailing every villain or foe in Doctor Who. Now The Guardian created a similar workbook in Google Docs showing each time that the Doctor has traveled in time. You can download it so that you can run your own custom calculations.
At a recent convention in Cologne,Germany, Namco had martial artists/actors put on a live performance of a battle between Street Fighter and Tekken characters. It's about sixteen minutes long and hilariously weird. It resembles the drama of professional wrestling more than anything else.
Every year, Atom Films hosts an online competition for Star Wars fan films. The film above, entitled "The Unconscious Sith" is a well-directed depiction of a young boy entering a comic book and moving from panel to panel, gradually becoming a Sith. It won the George Lucas Selects Award.
I'm not sure if that'll make you more or less likely to watch it.
One emerging Internet meme is to take Justin Bieber songs and slow the tempo by 800%. soundcloud user charliejane2 did something similar with eleven theme songs, including those to Doctor Who, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica.
Psychologist Sharon Lamb conducted a study on the influence of superhero role models on young boys, and thinks that the current crop have a generally bad influence on children:
"There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday," said psychologist Sharon Lamb,
PhD, distinguished professor of mental health at University of Massachusetts-Boston. "Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity. When not in superhero costume, these men, like Ironman, exploit women, flaunt bling and convey their manhood with high-powered guns."
The comic book heroes of the past did fight criminals, she said, "but these were heroes boys could look up to and learn from because outside of their costumes, they were real people with real problems and many vulnerabilities," she said.
Susana Polo of Geekosystem wrote a lengthy response to Lamb, noting the psychologist wrongly assumes that superhero narratives are primarily aimed at children:
While the superhero genre has well established tropes and rules, any genre can accommodate tonal shifts. No one would imply that Animal Farm represents a corruption of the talking animal genre of children’s literature. Fantasy doesn’t get called out for telling morally ambiguous stories.
There are comic book superheroes for kids, yes. Captain Marvel has had a kid oriented series lately, and then there’s Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and others. But the majority of comic book superheroes haven’t been written for small children for twenty years now.
Precisely. It's improper to assume that while the tone has shifted, the the intended audience has remained static. Parents should shield their children from superhero comics and movies that would do them emotional harm.
A few weeks ago, I extolled the greatness of the movie Kick-Ass, and a Facebook friend asked me if she should take her kids. I told her absolutely not. It's about kids being heroes, but it's not for kids at all.
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/08/macho-stereotype-unhealthy.aspx via Geekosystem | Image: kamillyonsia
The team that brought you the knock-off The Incredible HALKa now rips off/parodies Spider-Man.
College student Cheater Parker is a college student and enthusiast of photography and footography (that means that he likes to take pictures of feet). Parker is bitten by a spider and transformed into MakraMan!
Star Wars Uncut is a crowd-sourced project which divided Episode IV into fifteen second segments and then invited people to recreate and film them. All segments have been completed and compiled, and developer Casey Pugh is working on the legal issues that are delaying its release. Anyway, many clips are available at the link, which is the project page.
Link (self-starting sound) via blastr | Screenshot: Star Wars Uncut
