Raiders of the Lost Ark begins with a memorable scene in which Indiana Jones invades an ancient temple to steal a golden idol and then has to escape a series of booby traps. Caleb Watson recreated that scene in LEGO, but not in a stop-motion video as you'd expect. This is a completely built LEGO diorama with working motors to animate the action! The structure shows the path our hero takes in and out of the temple, with moving action in each section. Watson showed it off at BrickCon 2018. The first five minutes shows us the entire setup, followed a tour of the inner workings. -via Laughing Squid

This is a composite image of a 50-mile-wide crater on the surface of Mars. The five photographs used to make it were taken by the ESA's Mars Express Probe, which has been orbiting the red planet since 2003. It's called the Korolev crater, and it's filled with ice that's a mile thick in places. In just a few short years, we've gone from speculating about the possibility of water on Mars to a picture of a reservoir. Read more about the Korolev crater at the Guardian. -via TYWKIWDBI 

(Image credit: Björn Schreiner/FU Berlin/DLR/ESA)

The costume makes the permanent difference between the actor and the character. The most memorable characters have dress that we recognize even without someone wearing it. In this video, costume designers reveal the complicated process by which they produce costume designs that we remember forever. This video is full of movie clips you'll be glad to see again. It's only eight minutes long, the rest is an ad. -via Digg

Malls, department stores, and organizations that have a Santa Claus for the public around Christmas often employ a elf to usher kids in and out and to look out for Santa's best interests -meaning, he or she takes the heat for any disruptions, to preserve Santa's magic reputation. Christmas elves have other duties depending on the job. Zach is an elf who also takes pictures of Santa with each child.  

You’ve got to like kids in this job. Honestly, it’s cool to see them get excited or nervous to see Santa. A lot of them really do cry, especially the little ones! I take the pictures as well, and you’ve got to be good at taking the picture at the exact moment — that’s when you get the least-bad picture if a kid just won’t stop crying. Sometimes if they’re on the verge of crying, if you just shoot quickly and distract them, you can get a surprisingly good shot.

Most of the parents are actually pretty nice, although the Santa I work with told me that parents will get more irritable as it gets closer to Christmas. A few of them are super controlling with their kids, but most parents just think it’s cute to see their kid sitting on Santa’s lap — you can tell it’s sometimes a bigger deal for the parents.

It's a niche job, but very public. Read about the experiences of three seasonal elves at Mel magazine. -via Digg

It's about time someone made a film exploring a very interesting point in the Star Wars timeline. This one is set not long after the Emperor saved Anakin from having all his limbs cut off. Padme is dead, the only surviving Jedi are in exile, and Vader is still working through his trauma, with his rage directed at the Emperor. There will be more episodes of this story from Star Wars Theory. -via io9

 

Gargoyles are sculptures that serve as downspouts for rain. Grotesques are sculptures that do not have downspouts, but both architectural features have been used to convey traditional stories, religious concepts, or political views. Even after their original meanings were obscured by time, people are fascinated by gargoyles.

Gothic architecture was later revived in the 18th and 19th century in England and the United States. Naturally, gargoyles became one of the stylish signatures of this new Neo Gothic architectural type. But centuries of capricious weather and a lack of care had disfigured the legions of statues that were still silently guarding the old gothic monuments. A large amount of stunning chimeras were actually falling to the ground like a plague rainfall. In order to remedy to this situation, conservation programs were started for some of them, and 20th and 21st century stone carvers were asked to replace as many destroyed gargoyles as possible. If some of them copied meticulously the medieval form of the past, others had another vision of what gargoyles could be.

Modern artists who sign on to recreate missing or damaged gargoyles sometimes use modern iconography to convey old-style symbolism. There are now gargoyles on restored cathedrals that resemble astronauts, movie characters, aliens, robots, and other recognizable pop culture icons. Read about them at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Colin)

The subtitle of this animated short is "The day we enabled the sleepwalking protocol." There is something wrong in the body. The brain is not paying attention, so the heart goes on a tour of the body to see the shape of things, and does not like what he sees. There are lots of problems, the most recent being a hangover and a bad case of constipation. The latter brings up some imagery that may be disturbing for sensitive souls, but you will probably be okay. -via Laughing Squid 

The stormtroopers of Star Wars are somewhat of a paradox. They're the "bad guys" as soldiers of the Galactic Empire and then the First Order, but fans love them. They were named after the German shock troops of two world wars, and their look is designed to be uniform, mysterious, and menacing, yet fans pass up no opportunity to portray them (and dance or do good deeds, like in the 501st Legion).

Much of the stormtroopers’ appeal lies in their mystique. “It’s almost a paradox,” says Laverty. “The suit is inherently cool because it allows us, perhaps forces us, to project. All we have to go on is a reflective visor and the raspy, disembodied voice of the wearer.” That visor makes them easy to dehumanize, which has a handy side-effect for Star Wars’ role as a children’s movie. Since they’re portrayed as a disposable force of anonymous goons, we don’t have to feel bad when the good guys kill a stormtrooper.

And a lot of stormtroopers are invariably killed by their own ineptitude. There are a lot of factors that go into the way we see stormtroopers, which you can read about at The Daily Dot. The article includes a history of stormtroopers. 

Luna Lee plays all the parts to AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" on the traditional Korean gayageum, which works astonishingly well. She uses several gayageums, ranging from 12 to 25 strings. -via Metafilter

In 1981, visual effects genius Douglas Trumbull directed a film about a disturbingly advanced form of virtual reality, called Brainstorm. It starred Christopher Walkin, Louise Fletcher, Cliff Robertson, and Natalie Wood. Trumbull selected the story to highlight an advanced technique he had developed in film, but it was not to be. For Natalie Wood, the movie was to be her comeback project after raising her children in the 1970s. That was not be, either.

By Thanksgiving 1981, filming was wrapping up. There were only a few scenes left to shoot, and then Trumbull would have staked his claim in the wild expanse of high-concept science fiction, would have shown the world the very beginning of what he could do with film.

Then Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, and Christopher Walken went out on a boat for the weekend.

Natalie Wood drowned during that excursion, under mysterious circumstances that are still not understood. The movie project was thrown into chaos, as the studio wanted to call the project un-finishable and collect on insurance, while Trumbull insisted he could easily complete Brainstorm. When editing resumed, a couple of scenes about drowning had to be scrapped. Brainstorm was finally released in 1983, but today hardly anyone remembers the movie, despite its eerily accurate look into the future of technology. Read the complicated story of Brainstorm at Popular Mechanics.

Tim Cook and Craig Federighi launch a few new Apple products with one of their infamous stage presentations, but this is not what we've become used to. This one is actually interesting! You can thank the team at Bad Lip Reading. -via Boing Boing

More people than you might think have spent the past month indulging in Hallmark Christmas movies. They are comforting, nostalgic, non-threatening, and always have a happy ending. A typical plot involves a woman who returns to her hometown for the holidays, meets a wonderful down-to-earth man, and finds that real happiness is found in the simple things. Add snow and cookies, and you have a Hallmark Christmas movie! The network offers 37 new Christmas movies this year, so you may have wondered who writes all those. Entertainment Weekly talked to two anonymous people who have written such TV movies about the process. There are rules, and the first one is that everything in the movie must involve Christmas.

Right, there cannot be a single scene that does not acknowledge the theme. Well, maybe a scene, but you can’t have a single act that doesn’t acknowledge it and there are nine of them, so there’s lots of opportunities for Christmas. They have a really rigid nine-act structure that makes writing them a lot of fun because it’s almost like an exercise. You know where you have to get to: People have to be kissing for the first time, probably in some sort of a Christmas setting, probably with snow falling from the sky, probably with a small crowd watching. You have to start with two people who, for whatever reason, don’t like each other and you’re just maneuvering through those nine acts to get them to that kiss in the snow.

Once you think you can tackle the job, check out Hallmark's submission guidelines. Good luck! -via Metafilter

While you're trying to have a wonderful Christmas season, AsapSCIENCE is here to ruin it for you, with a report on all the ways winter holidays can be bad for you. Science has something depressing to say about spending, weight gain, drinking, and disappointment. And they don't go into specifics on how to avoid those dangers. I think a little attitude adjustment is in order. Don't do more than you feel comfortable doing. Don't try to compete with others. Take time to enjoy the small things. And don't be afraid of missing out- if you calm dawn and make it through the holidays, there will be other Christmases to do it all over again.

When you declare that one place is the world's first motel, you have to think of all the hotels that preceded it. What makes a "motel" different from a hotel? Motels cater to people traveling by car, but that seems strange, since both types of accommodations must accommodate drivers today. However, in the early 20th century, when traveling long distance by car was new, folks had to camp out because there was no place to park at a hotel. And then we pinpoint the first place that used the word "motel."  

In December of 1925, the Spanish-revival doors of the Milestone Mo-Tel Inn swung open to motorists mid-way between Los Angeles and San Francisco, offering a luxurious overnight stay by any standards. In conceiving a name for his first hotel, untrained architect Arthur Heineman of Chicago,  abbreviated “motor hotel” to “mo-tel” after realising he couldn’t fit all 19 letters of “Milestone Motor Hotel” on his rooftop sign.

That's how we got the word. An article at Messy Nessy Chic gives us a delightful look at how the concept of motels flourished across America, with plenty of pictures.

In this Glove and Boots skit, Mario and Fafa try to be nice, but what they are really doing is competing with each other. It's only to impress Santa Claus, who is no stranger to virtue-signaling. Their competition soon turns nasty, or at least naughty. As it turns out, no one can be nice all year long- even Santa Claus! -via Laughing Squid