The Week In Geek

This week on Geek-tastic, we learned the following:

 

• Robert Downey Jr. is an amazing Actor in Tropic Thunder


• Warner Brothers is rebooting the Superman franchise


• Even old-school Transformers can be lame


• Robert loves Ziro The Hutt


• More Riddick movies are on the way, despite the fact that no one cares


• Sadly, Preacher isn't coming to HBO


• Being greedy sometimes pays


• I'm as old as the Lego Guy


• Zombies!!! is a great game you all should own


• The characters from Street Fighter are all washed up


• Christians love to rock out too

Cool Geek Item Of The Week

 

This wonderful shirt comes to us from www.thinkgeek.com.  If you've never been to thinkgeek before, you really should spend some time there.  Aside from Geek-tastic's official store, this is pretty much our favorite place to go on the net to buy super-cool geeky items. 

 

Each Friday, Geek-tastic will present an awesome geek item that can be purchased online.  This week's selection earned it's spot as our first official choice for geek item of the week due to it's cool blending of two different geek genres.  It's a Star Wars shirt with text in the font used for the Rock Band video game.  You don't get much cooler, or geekier, than that.

20 Things You Didn't Know About Telescopes

We here at Geek-tastic are big fans of science.  Being geeks, we can't help but love science.  Without science, we wouldn't have awesome things like Tang and video games and internet porn. 

 

However, we are aware that science hasn't exactly been properly represented here at the site.  This is a problem that will be addressed going forward.  Along with entertaining geeky news bits from the world of movies and video games and whatnot we will also be trying to educate you a little bit with random science articles. 

 

In that effort, I offer you this list of 20 Things You Didn't Know About Telescopes. 

 

My personal favorite item was #18: Gamma ray telescopes can detect light from the most violent explosions in the universe, probably caused by stars collapsing into black holes. If a gamma ray burst occurred within 6,000 light-years of us, we’d all be fried.

 

If only life was more like comic books.  If a giant gamma ray blast went off near the earth in the comics, we'd all turn into the Incredible Hulk.  Imagine that, an entire planet of people turning large and green whenever they got angry.  I wonder how long society would hold together with that going on.

Who The Hell Is This Guy, And Why Is He Next To Voltron?

 

Just who in the hell is that guy?  His name is Max Makowski, and he's the new director for the Voltron live action movie.  Personally, I've never heard of the guy, but apparently he directed a critically acclaimed film about assassins called One Last Dance that was huge at the Sundance Film Festival and now he's been tapped to direct a big budget version of everyone's favorite colored lions.

 

I've never seen (nor heard) of One Last Dance either, but a quick search of youtube found the film's trailer.  The movie itself looks interesting, and it is beautifully shot, but goddamn if the narrator isn't as annoying as fuck.  It's like he's on purposely doing a bad impression of the guy who does every movie trailer narration. 

 

His film does look cool though.  It looks pretty.  So hopefully this guy will actually be able to make a good version of Voltron.  Although as is my cynical nature I will still continue to have my doubts until I see the film.  That's just what I do.

Hokey Religions and Ancient Weapons are No Match For Scissors

 

 



 

The above image comes to you courtesy of XKCD (and my friend Kiersten who pointed it out to me).  XKCD is a brilliant webcomic that features nothing but stick figures and regularly discusses all sorts of geeky topics.  You should go check them out. 

 

In this particular strip we see Harrison Ford's failed improvised lines from the Star Wars films.  Personally, I think my favorite one is the bottom middle panel.  Oh those wacky rebel commandos and their hard drinking ways.

A Double Dose of Halo to Start Your Day Off Right

Somehow I've been slacking in my reporting to you, and for that I apologize.  Previously, I've posted about the awesome Halo Movie Concept Art created by Karsa Farahani for a film that is most likely never going to happen.  I also promised you that I would keep an eye on Latinoreview.com, the wonderful site that was posting the images online, and I would update you whenever new art came out. 

 

Well, I suck apparently, a lot.  Two more pictures have made it online, and I have been very slow in getting them to you.  For that I apologize.  I pray for your forgiveness and hope that you do not decide to beat me like the poor excuse for a reporter that I am. 

 

Without further ado, here's the art, as promised.  It's better late than never, right?  Oh, and you can click on either of the pics to see a much better hi-res version of them.

 



 

This is the third piece that was posted online.  It depicts a bunch of Spartans having gotten their asses handed to them by what was most likely an entire army of Elites. 

 



 

This is the fourth piece, and it shows the Master Chief doing what he does best.  Whooping lots of asses all at one time.  He's most likely getting revenge for the deaths of his friends from the earlier piece.  Man, I would not want to be a grunt in this scene.  The Chief looks pretty pissed!

 

There should only be one piece of art left to come out.  I promise to do my best to get it to you the day it posts.  Which I think is next Monday.

Wanna Be In Spider-man 4?

 

Sony is currently hosting an ebay auction in which the winner will be given a walk-on roll in Spider-man 4. On top of that, the ebay listing claims the winner will get the following:

 

• A visit to the set of Spider-Man 4 (one shooting day. Location of visit will be determined by Sony Pictures based on scheduling of visit


• A meet and greet with the cast (1 hour)


• A walk-on/ extra role in the film for the auction winner only( role and length of screen time to be determined by Sony Pictures)


• Trip to the New York premiere (location of American premiere may be changed at Sony Pictures’ discretion)


• Designer outfits to wear to premiere for winner and guest from top designers (designers to be chosen by Sony Pictures)


• Winner and guest may keep the outfits


• Winner and Guest will walk the premiere’s red carpet

 

The current bid is up to $5,100.  And all you have to do is sell your soul to Sony.

 

Personally, I think that's a helluva lot to pay to get a tiny extras role in Spider-man. Sure, the proceeds of the sale will go to the Stand Up To Cancer charity, but still, just think of the emotional price the winner will have to pay. Sam Raimi will most likely force the winner to dress all emo to be emo Peter Parker's new emo friend to mope around and go to jazz bars with.

 

Think of the embarrasment you will have to endure once the film comes out and people realize how horrible it is.  You'll forever be known amongst your friends as "the douche who payed $5,000 to be in a shitty movie".

 

Although, now that I think about it, you do get to meet the cast.  So technically it's possible that you could befriend Kiersten Dunst and then score some blow from her.  That might be worth five grand.

 

(original link via IO9.com)

Be a Part of Buffy's Scooby Gang Through Twitter

 

 

Ok, so I've been twittering for a while now (my username is twilightjumper), thanks to my friend Michael introducing me to the Service.

 

If you haven't heard of the site before, Twitter is basically a mini-blog site.  You can create a username and then log in and give updates about what you are currently doing.  You are limited to 140 characters per post, so you can only send out a sentence or two at a time.  Some examples of good twitter messages would be something like, "Just finished dinner.  Now I'm going to the bar" or "I just woke up in a hotel room with a dead hooker next to me, I don't know how I got here. Help!"

 

Once your account is created, you can choose to start following other people so you can see what they're up to as well.  What makes Twitter really cool is that you can have these updates sent to your cell phone, so whenever someone updates their page, you are instantly given the message no matter where you are.

 

Well, some enterprising souls have taken it upon themselves to create accounts for fictional characters, and are twittering as if the characters themselves were the ones posting.  I was just catching up on the life of Buffy Summers, a young slayer who lives in Sunnydale.  She's been twittering about her problems with being the slayer, her problems with her boyfriend Angel, and the general problems that come with living on top of a hellmouth.

 

Whoever is posting as Buffy appears to be posting from between Seasons two and three at the moment and it looks like they will be posting from her life in the chronological order of the show.  Reading her posts are kind of amusing as you get to hear some of her random thoughts such as:

 

"So, went to hell dimension where time runs faster. Killed a demon, saved some folks. Since time runs faster there, am I older than I was?"

 

Along with Buffy, Xander has a twitter account as well.  Buffy will message him occasionally to let him know that Willow is ok, or say she's bored and wants to hang out.  It's pretty amusing stuff

The Ultimate Gaming Table

Thanks go to my good friend Adam for pointing this out to me.

 

You're a gamer, you have a ton of disposable income and you want to find a way to improve your gaming experience, what do you do?  You go out and buy yourself the raddest gaming table ever. 

 

The Sultan is the name of the table in question.  I comes with everything you'll ever need for your gaming group to play in style and luxury.  The table looks amazing.  Just check out this list of features:

 

• Constructed from premium quality hard rock sugar maple and black walnut hardwoods


• 3 different playing surfaces including an interior white board surface that measures 4 feet by 7.5 feet


• Resting about that is a removable, reversible table topper.  One side is felt and your choice of copper or wood on the other


• 4 sturdy desks that elegantly fold out of the wood work.


• Gaming aid trays carved above the desks for your dice, pencils, counters, etc.


• 2 larger desks on either end


• 2 quick reference book holding stations that can easily accomodate four books


• 2 dice rolling trays, lined with your choice of velvet and capped with pointed rubber to ensure randomness of throws.


• 6 drink holders that pull out below the playing surface of the table


• A variety of drawers and shelves for storage

 

Wow, I can't even describe how much I'd love to own this table.  It has everything.  I don't know who designed this masterpiece of furniture design, but they should be given an award or something for their work.

 

Of course, the downside is that the table costs $9,650.  But hey, such luxury can't be expected to come cheap.  Just remember that if you buy it, you'll be the envy of every member of your gaming group, and you'll pretty much ensure everyone will want to come over to your house to play on gaming day.  So in the long run you'll save money on gas driving to other peoples houses.

Angry Fans Threaten To Boycott Fox Movies Over Watchmen Dispute

 

 



 

Fans are hopping mad over Fox's attempt to block the Watchmen movie from being released.  Outraged at the prospect that a film they're dying to see might not get released due to a legal dispute, fans are stepping in and telling Fox what they'll do if the film does indeed get blocked.

 

They're taking on Fox, threatening to boycott the studio's future movies and, more alarming to studio executives, pirate films. That includes one of Fox's biggest of 2009, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, scheduled for May 1.

 

"It's pure rage out there," says Rob Worley, host of Comics2Film.com and author of the graphic novel The Revenant. "Fans are mortified this movie won't come out, and they're threatening a studio at a level I've never seen before."

 

Fox isn't showing any signs of backing off, however.

 

While it's understandable that fans would react with passion, copyright infringement cannot be swept under the rug," the studio said in an e-mail.

 

So will Wolverine end up paying the price for Fox's move against the Watchmen?  Will the non-geek general public really care enough if the film gets blocked to actually boycott a popular film like Wolverine?  Only time will tell I suppose.

Disturbance at the Lars Homestead box set!

So here I am surfing through my daily Star wars sites, when I stumble on one of the simplest yet coolest Star Wars collections ever.  Based off of the Fan film Troops, which was featured here on Geek-tastic.com recently ,we have the Disturbance at the Lars Homestead box set!! Granted the Action figures included in this set are all repacks, and don't have anyone exciting, but what a great tribute to one of if not the best of all Star Wars fan films. Now I am hoping they gave the Sandtrooper a voice box so he can use his Minnesota accent and tell those Jawa scums, that if they move again "I'm gonna Shoot yea!"

Guitar Hero + God? But I Thought God Hated Rock Music

 

For those of you out there who long to play the addictive game Guitar Hero, but who think rock & roll is the devil's music, there is now a game for you. 

 

Guitar Praise!  That's right, it's a Guitar Hero clone that features nothing but the safe sounds of Christian rock! 

 

Grab the guitar and play along with top Christian bands! Shred those riffs or blast the bass…you add a unique sound to the solid Christian rock. But watch out: if you can't keep up, the artists will take a break and stop the music. Crank it up and try again - you'll soon be rockin' with the best while praising the Lord!

 

Halleluiah!!!  God be praised.  Now you can rock out without fear of being turned into a servant of Satan.  Let the heathens play their vile little game while you rock your way to salvation.  

 

Just never mind the fact that there are no Weezer or Radiohead or Metallica songs to play.  And as we all know, Weezer is the path to damnation.

 

(Original link via boingboing.net)

Street Fighter: The Later Years

 

 

Sorry about the lack of postings today.  It's a pretty slow day in geek news.  Never fear though, to keep you entertained I offer you this wonderful clip of a great webseries called Street Fighter: The later years.

 

The premise of the series is that after many years, the fighters from Street Fighter 2 are all washed up and working crappy jobs, but Zangief and Dhalsim decide to reorganize the tournament.  Watching the clip is worth it just to hear Dhalsim say that every now and then he turns on the game just to beat the shit out of himself to make him feel better.

 

Thanks go to my friend Gus for pointing this out to me.

The Art of Relaxing by Dr. Ronald Chevalier

 

 

Feeling stressed?  Is the work week getting to you?  Then take a gander at the above video and learn the Art of Relaxating from Dr. Ronald Chevalier, world famous Science Fiction author and lecturer.

 

If you happen to think the good Dr. looks familiar, that's because he is a character played by actor Jermaine Clement.  That's right, the same Jermaine from New Zealand's 3rd or 4th most popular novelty band Flight of the Conchords.

 

The video is part of a viral marketing campaign for Jermaine's upcoming movie Gentlemen Broncos.  In the film, Jermaine plays Dr. Chevalier who is a famous sci-fi writer who steals an idea for a story from a teenager who attends a fantasy convention.

 

If the above video is any indication of what the film will be like, we're going to be in for a treat.  Jermaine's portrayal of the Dr. borders on the hilarious and slightly creepy at the same time and the result is extremely funny.  I couldn't help but laugh when he started discussing the groinal axis and protecting your precious seed.  And the music used in the video is classic.

It's Back!!! and this time in Cooler decor...

The Arc-170 was one of the hottest toys from the prequel era of the Star Wars movies. With so many collectors and kids wanting this thing it quickly disappeared off shelves and sold out on internet sites all over the globe. Thanks to Lucasfilm and Hasbro and after much whining, griping, moaning, and yes bitching it's back and better than before. This time it is in "Clone Wars" decor and has a wampa painted on it's hull!!

 

Get it before this one too is gone forever and you are kicking yourself while paying double msrp on Ebay!!

The Geek-tastic Board Game Review of Zombies!!!

 

Welcome to what will hopefully become another regular feature you can find here at Geek-tastic, the weekly board game review.  We here at Geek-tastic are rather large gaming nerds, it really doesn't matter the format.  Video games, board games, card games, RPG's, you name it.  If it's a game, chances are we've either already played it or have heard about it and want to play it. 

 

Board games seem to have been making a comeback in popularity over the last few years, which I think is great.  People seem to be re-discovering the fun that can be had over a table with a group of friends and a good game.  In response to increasing sales, the game market has seen a large influx of new games on the store shelves.  Some of them are top quality games, some not so much.  The purpose of the board game review will be to suggest some of the gems that we love to play, while helping you avoid some of the games that aren't a lot of fun.  Some of the games we review will be new, some will be older, some may even be considered classics.  But enough with the introduction, let's get on to the review.

 

The Breakdown

 

Title: Zombies!!!

Maker:  Twilight Creations Inc.

Number of Players:  2 to 6

Length of average game: Can vary from 30 minutes to 3 hours (depending on how many players there are, and how much you decide to screw each other over)

 

Box Contents

 

100 Plastic Zombies

50 Card Event/Item Deck 

30 Map Tiles

6 Human Figures

Lots of Bullet and Life Tokens

 

The Premise

You and the other players are survivors of a zombie invasion.  You start the game in the center of town and must fight your way through the zombie hoards to the helicopter somewhere on the outskirts of town so you can fly to safety.

 

Gameplay 

The zombies game doesn't have your standard game board.  The board will be made up of 30 map tile pieces that connect together as players turn them over andplace them during their turns.  At the beginning of the game, only the town square is in play.  The rest of the deck of map tiles are shuffled and placed face down.  Every character starts the game with three life points and three bullets. 

 

On each players turn you flip over a map tile and place it on the board somewhere.  The tiles show the city from a top-down view with streets and buildings clearly seen.  You must connect all of the roads so that the board makes sense, but other than that the board is yours to create as you will.  Here's an example of what two connected map tiles looks like:

 



 

After placing the map tile, you place the correct number of zombies that tile is supposed to have on it (explained in the rules) as well as any bullet or life tokens that go there as well.  Then you roll for movement.  You roll D6 (a six sided dice) and get to move as many spaces as you rolled.  If you step onto a space with a zombie, you must fight it.  Combat is resolved by rolling another D6.  If you roll a 4, 5 or 6, the zombie is killed.  If you roll a 3 or less the zombie wins and you can either choose to lose a life point, or you can use a bullet to add a +1 to your roll.  So for example, if you rolled a two, you could use 2 bullets to change your roll to a four.  If you're out of bullets though, you're screwed and you lose a life point.  Once you're out of life points you die and go back to town square to re-start the game.

 

After all combat is resolved, you roll one more D6.  The number you roll is the number of zombies you get to move on the board.  Zombies are slow (of course) and can only move one space at a time.  If you roll a 3, then you get to move any 3 zombies one space.  Play continues like this, with each player placing a map tile, moving, fighting and then moving zombies until the last map tile (the helipad) is placed on the board.

 

Cards 

At the start of the game, each player is dealt three cards.  The cards do many things, but they boil down to either events or weapons.  Event cards do all sorts of things like making other players lose turns or drop objects they're carrying, prevent people from going into buildings, temporarily stop the zombies from trying to eat you, etc.  Weapons cards are items you can carry that will add bonuses to your combat abilities.  In the deck you'll find wonderful zombie repelling items such as shotguns, grenades, molotov coctails, fire axes and of course...a chainsaw.  Weapons can provide either a temporary or permanent bonus to your combat roles, and can come in very handy.  Weapons are good, you want to find them as soon as you can.  Especially the fire ax.

Here's an example of what some of the cards look like:

 



 

Victory Conditions 

There are two ways to win Zombies.  Either be the first person to the center of the Helipad, or be the first person to kill 25 zombies.  The killing of 25 zombies is harder than it sounds really, as when you die you lose half of your zombie kill count.  Generally it's easier to get to the helipad, but if you get some good weapons and your dice rolling skills are hot, it's possible to kill that many zombies.

 

The Review 

Likes:

There's a lot to like with this game.  First off, it's zombies, and zombies are always cool.  You get to wade through tons (and I mean tons) of them as you try to make your way across town.  You're always low on bullets and life.  The game does a great job of capturing the survival horror aspect of zombie movies.  There's also a vicious "survival of the fittest" thing that I love in games.  You're out to save yourself, screw the other players.  Maybe it's just the evil bastard in me, but I love games like that.

 

The game pieces too are something to really like.  The map tiles, once all layed out, create a full city to explore.  The art on the cards shows a city that has been overrun with the undead.  Trucks and cars have been overturned, windows are broken, you can even see the lights from street lamps as the game is supposed to be taking place at night.  The deck of cards too offers some really great horror art.  Each card has a wonderful picture to accompany that captures a specific aspect of zombie film lore such as hiding out to bandage yourself up to chopping a zombie in the head with an ax.  The artwork is deliciously bloody.

 

I also really like any game where the board is different every time you play it.  By using a shuffled deck of map tiles instead of a standard board, you are assured that no two cities will come out with the exact same layout.  This adds a lot to the replayability of the game. 

 

Expandability.  Much like all good zombie movies, there are always sequels.  The folks over at Twilight Creations have released a number of expansion for the game already.  And following the canon of George Romero's movies, the expansions add such things as a shopping mall and a military base into the mix.  There's even a full standalone expansion that is a board game version of the Evil Dead movies. 

 

Dislikes:

Certain weapon cards can only be played after you've gone into a specific shop in town.  While this makes logical sense, it can be annoying when you finally draw a cool item like the skateboard, but the skate shop is all the way on the other end of town.  You end up having to discard some really good things sometimes.

With six players, the game can go a little long.  Which can be fine if you're having a good game, but sometimes you want a game that goes only an hour or so, but if you have 5 or 6 people playing, that's just not gonna happen.

 

FInal Opinion

 If you're a fan of zombie films in any way, this is a must have.  It's a great board game version of a classic zombie movie.  Even if you're not the biggest zombie fan, the game is a fun survival/race game where you are trying to beat the other players to the objective.  This game is definitely worth the money.

Holy Crap! I'm As Old As The Lego Guy

 

I can't even believe this.  I was wondering the web today, as I tend to do, and I found an article on Wired.com titled The Lego Minifig Turns 30.

 

30?  Seriously?  The little Lego guy just turned 30?  Wow, I could have sworn that he was older than that.  I thought he came out in the '60's or something.  But apparently I was wrong.  The Lego Man first came out on August 25th, 1978.

 

What weirds me out about this story is that I just turned 30 back in March.  So the Lego Guy and I are the same age.  I'm not quite sure how I feel about this bit of knowledge to be honest.  At first it made me feel really old.  The Lego guy has been with me my whole life.  He's always seemed like one of those eternal things, one of those toys that has been around for forever like G.I. Joe or Barbie.  If you had asked me yesterday, I would have sworn to you kids in the 50's had played with the Lego guy.  But I would have been wrong.

 

Having thought about this for a bit, I'm more and more coming to see this as a cool thing.  The Lego guy is like a little brother to me.  He and I went through school together, we're both children of the grunge/alternative age of music.  We both turned 21 at the same time and started drinking together.

 

The wired article has a bunch of fun facts about the Lego guy:

 

• Over four billion minifigs have been manufactured, or nearly four figures are sold every second, for an average of 122 million per year.


• The very first minifig was a police officer, and he has appeared in 41 different versions in 104 sets.


• The first minifigs had yellow skin and fixed, pleasant expressions. It was not until 1989 that this changed, with a pirates set debuting figures with eye patches, hook hands and peg legs.


• 1997 saw the minifig's official entry into the digital realm, starring in the videogame Panic on Lego Island.


• It was not until 1998 that minifigs with realistic skin tones were released, in conjunction with a new line of sports figures.


• As of 2004, all licensed products featured minifigs with natural coloration.

 

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the little yellow Lego guy, lego has launched an official website that is hosting a video contest and is selling some cool t-shirts.  You should go check it out at gominimango.com.

Greed is Good

Back in High School, I was having dinner with my good friend Matt Jeffrey. His mom and her boyfriend, Tom, whipped something yummy up in the kitchen and invited me to stay for some grub. Over dinner, Tom went on to ask us if we had any ideas on practical jokes for his twin brother. Since they were kids, they had a contest: the first one to say "gobble gobble gotcha" to the other during the season between Halloween and Thanksgiving would win. Over the years, it got more interesting. One year, Tom snuck into his brother's bed (with the wife in bed already) and waited for him to come back. Needless to say, he won that year. Another time, he spray painted it on the garage door so that when his brother pulled out, that was the first thing he saw.

 

That year, he was trying to wrangle 20 live turkeys to deposit on his brother's doorstep. Local animal codes, however, weren't in his favor. Asking aloud if we had any ideas, I immediately blurted out: "Pay someone to dress as a Turkey and tackle him!"

 

He immediately responded: "I'll pay you $300 bucks to do it on Thanksgiving."

 

Fast forward to Thanksgiving, I'm in Santa Clarita dressed in a Turkey outfit and I tackled the man while yelling "gobble gobble gotcha." Easiest, and most fun, $300 bucks I ever made.

 

Back in 1997, it would have been challenging to find someone to do this. With the internet in such infancy, websites catering to finding the right person had yet to really pick up. Well, rest assured, today life has been made easier with the advent of:

 

www.GreedyPeople.com

 

Create an account and post whatever you need done. One guy is offering $25 if someone would buy maxi-pads that he could give to his girlfriend (so he could prove that he's comfortable with it); another guy will pay you $500 on top of expenses to fly to New York and cuss out his boss (and capture it on video). Okay, I only mention that last one because I can't do it. It doesn't involve Turkey outfits.

Preacher is Too "Controversial" for HBO?

 

Apparently so.  I don't know how I missed this, but HBO was in talks to make a TV series based on Garth Ennis' groundbreaking comic series Preacher.  I say "was in talks" because those talks have ended and HBO has passed on making the series.  Mark Steven Johnson, who had been working on the project with HBO, had the following to say about the now defunct prokect:

 

"We were budgeting and everything and it was getting really close to going," Johnson told The Continuum. "But the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial. Which, of course, is kind of the point!"

 

"It was a very faithful adaptation of the first few books, nearly word for word. They offered me the chance to redevelop it but I refused. I've learned my lesson on that front and I won't do it again. So I'm afraid it's dead at HBO

 

"I've heard someone is in the process of getting the rights to turn it into a feature film. I hope that happens. But I hope it happens as a series of movies as one movie couldn't do it justice. I really love that story and I dedicated a lot of my time to honor Garth's work. But it wasn't meant to be.

 

Too dark and controversial?  For HBO?  Seriously!?!?  I thought they thrived on shows like this.

 

This news makes me sad.  Preacher is an incredible comic series.  Sure it also happens to be one of the most fucked up things I've ever read, but the story is absolutely epic.  Now it looks like we'll never get to see the Saint of All Killers face down the US Army in the middle of the desert.

More Riddick Than You Can Shake a Stick At

 

It appears that there are more Riddick movies on the way.  In an interview with MTV, Vin Diesel discussed the continuation of his Sci-fi character's story.

 

“David Twowy right now is writing the scripts. The only question is whether we take a page from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ guys and try to shoot the two chapters at the same time. There are two more in mind,” he said of Riddick, the Furyan warrior first introduced in the 2000 film “Pitch Black.” “‘The Chronicles of Riddick’ was presented as a three part trilogy that would answer ‘Pitch Black’ in the same way that ‘Lord of the Rings’ answered ‘The Hobbit.’”

 

Those are lofty goals indeed for a movie that was very poorly received when it opened in 2004, and had a mediocre performance at the domestic box-office (where it made just $57 million). Diesel, though, is undaunted, insisting that the long space between sequels has nothing to do with convincing others to get on board, and everything to do with wanting to get it right. (To be fair, “Riddick” performed well overseas, and also spawned a best-selling video game which many considered to be better than the movie.)

 

“Everyone knows I love the Riddick character and I’m always working on it,” Diesel asserted. “It just takes five years to make another one because David Twohy and I are so precious about it.”

 

So precious about it, eh?  Then why was the last film not very good? 

 

Don't get me wrong, I loved Pitch Black.  I thought that one was a great piece of Sci-fi Horror.  But the Chronicles of Riddick was lackluster at best.  It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either.  Does it really deserve two more films?  I dunno.

Great Geek T-Shirt

 

From astrobasego.com, the guys who make amazing Venture Brother's cartoon, comes this sad, but awesome t-shirt.

In memorial of Henchmen Number 24, he was taken from us too soon.  Oh #24, how we will miss you.

The Force Unleashed Demo Footage

The other day, the fine folks over at Penny Arcade posted up the following comic in reference to the upcoming game The Force Unleashed.  It's so good I had to share.

 



 

If you'd like to see some video of the demo that was just recently released for the game, check it out below.

 

 

 

I can't even tell you how much I'm waiting for this game to come out.  If my xbox hasn't been fixed and returned to my by September 16th, I may just have to hunt Bill Gates down and beat him with my Mace Windu lightsaber.

Speaking of the Heroes DVD set

 

If you're really jonesing for some Heroes DVD special features, and you can't wait to get off of work to go buy it, you can check out some short clips from some of the special features here.

New Geek DVD Day

 

The Good:  Heroes Season Two. 

 

Why It's Good:  Well, good is a relative term here I suppose.  Season Two of Heroes wasn't as good as Season One was, and the season was cut short due to the writer's strike.  But season Three looks like it may be better.  That, and the fact that it's a prime time show about superheroes, earns this box set a spot on the list this week.

 

 

 



 

The Badass:  The Adventures of Robin Hood (on Blu-ray)

 

Why it's Badass:  It's Errol Flynn.  That itself means it's awesome.  Add to that the fact that that this is the definitive Robin Hood film.  Many others have tried to top this film, none have succeeded.  This is a classic swashbuckling adventure.  Captain Jack Sparrow can't hold a candle to this Robin Hood.

 

 

 



 

The Ugly: The Best of Penis Massage

 

Why It's Ugly:  Um...wow.  Yeah, I don't even really know what to say about this one.  I can't say that I've seen it, and I can't say that I care to.  I suppose that this could be a good DVD if you get it for your girlfriend to help her with her technique, or if you're really into your personal happy time.  One of you will have to watch it and let me know if it's any good.

 

Happy viewing my fellow geeks!

"Not So Average Guy" Review of The Clone Wars

Don’t let Pat fool you. He’s no “Average Guy.” When you go around with a nickname like 9 Ball, how do you expect to be “average?” For those of you who don’t know…well, we’ll be accepting applications for our friend fan club soon enough and then you’ll get the thick of it. So…yeah, I argue that he’s not really “average.” He approaches movies with some bias and knowledge, whether he argues it or not. If he really wants to be average, then he needs something to compare it by. He needs an “average yardstick,” so to speak.

 

Thus, I introduce myself officially to the world of Geek-Tastic: I am Robert. Hear my awesomeness. I know a hefty amount about film—the production, the history, the theory, the random (I’ve been known to change 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon to 6 Degrees of Kevin Smith because I needed a better challenge)—and I approach any movie on this site with an abundance of time spent in dark rooms watching images flicker across a wall. I’ve been known to sacrifice sleep, employment, even food in the name of cinema (never sex, though, I do have standards). I even have a degree from a prestigious university saying I know a lot about film; it looks really nice on my wall.

 

I know how to pick a film apart. More importantly, I know how to just sit and enjoy one, too. If it captures me, I’ll go along with it and have fun. I have a pretty low tolerance. Many have called me a film whore. I don’t deny it. But if it has problems, then I’ll pick it apart and tell you why.

 

And with that long introduction (did I mention verbose anywhere in there?) I bring to you my review for Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

 

 

I really enjoyed it. I had a great time and I find it very hard to be critical of anything in the movie. Or do I call it show? Technically, this is the first three episodes of the show, combined for theatrical release. I’ve read a few reviews and remember the prequels very well, thus I was ready for bad dialogue and cheesy story lines. What I got was something more enjoyable. I think that the negative press it’s received has fault more on the reviewers than the film: it’s meant as a kids TV show, thus some format things are going to be a bit different.

 

True, it doesn’t start with the typical 20^th Century Fox fanfare that then explodes into John William’s score. That was cool. Unlike Pat, I didn’t have a problem with the narrator. Sure, the scroll would have been nice and tied it into the series more, but so many kids can’t really read that. And the narrator sounded like the old 1940s serial narrators from Captain Marvel or Buck Rogers. It was a quick, concise piece of background that immediately threw us into the middle of the action.

 

And I think it’s the action of this film/show that really satisfies me. We get to see the individual battles between the Droid Armies and the Clone Troopers. The action is intense, quickly paced and very satisfying. We get blaster battles that singe and we get Jedi’s wielding lightsabers with ultimate precision. Drawn immediately into the fray, I was getting excited and started to feel like that 8 year old who wanted to pick up a toy blaster and play with my friends. So far, these sequences are top notch and really set apart this series from the previous animated series and from the movies.

 

Perhaps it’s because the show is fully digital that the action was far improved over the prequels. Without worrying about blending CG with reality, the entire piece feels fluid and comfortable with its established pallet. I never felt like objects were not part of the environment on-screen. And maybe it’s because the characters showed little emotion through their wooden style that I appreciated the film more. I wasn’t expected depth or range from an animation; I expected it from the voice actors.

 

Hearing some of the talent from the films was a pleasant surprise. Typically, it’s challenging to get actors to lend their voices to the cartoon spin-offs. That is unless you have Samuel L. Jackson involved…he loves that stuff. So, it’s no surprise that he reprises Mace Windu. But Christopher Lee making a return was a very pleasant surprise. I could have sworn that Ewan MacGregor was doing Obi-Wan, but it’s James Arnold Taylor, and he does a fine job. Everyone else is perfect and I would even argue that I enjoyed this version of Anakin better than Hayden Christiansen’s version.

 

As for the relationship between Anakin and Ahsoka, I thought it worked well. They start bickering pretty quickly, but that’s a sign that they work well together. She’s just as impetous as he is, thus he’s less able to tolerate her actions. He has to face part of himself in training her. People can and do often slip into a quick banter like that upon meeting and I was happy that we didn’t have to wait for it to happen. Sure, she calls R2-D2 “Artooey” and Anakin “Sky Guy” but it didn’t grate on my skin. I was still so excited by the awesome stunt pieces and action sequences.

 

Now, a lot of people have had issue with Ziro the Hutt. I really don’t. So he’s a very effeminate Hutt, but doesn’t that make sense at some point? They asexually reproduce, so there’s go to be a Tennesee Williams version out there somewhere. It was nice to see some variation of the culture. And I disagree with Pat in terms of a useless plot line; what if this is re-visited in a future storyline? If not, then it made sense that someone on the inside would betray Jabba. It works.

 

Overall, I found myself halfway through the film saying to myself: “Wow. This is the way wanted to feel during Episode I!” I felt moved by the action, absorbed in the world; I felt like it flowed very well and was an interesting addition to the Star Wars universe. At no point did I feel like I needed to justify or reach to accept what was presented to me. It was a fun serial and made me want to pick up a lightsaber again. That's all I really wanted from the prequels and at times, it was difficult to feel that.

The 12 Most Ridiculous Transformers of All Time

 

Wired.com has a great article up about the 12 Most Ridiculous Transformers of all time.  You might be suprised who made the list.  Suprisingly, the entire list isn't made up of Beast Wars characters, which I totally thought it would be.

These...are...SPARTANS!!!!!!

 

Microsoft has just released the cover art for the upcoming video game Halo Wars.  And it looks pretty freakin' sweet!

Halo Wars is a real-time strategy game that takes place in the Halo universe.  Players will get to command entire armies of UNSC marines or Covenent soldiers as they wage interstellar war on each other.  The game will be coming out on the X-Box 360, although Microsoft has yet to announce an actual date the game will be coming out.  My guess would be sometime next year.  I highly doubt we'll see it in stores before Christmas.

 

Anyways, at least the box art looks cool.  Hopefully the game will be good.

Superman Begins

 

I doubt that's what it'll be called, but I wouldn't be suprised if it was.  Warner Brothers has announced that will be rebooting the Man of Steel's movie franchise with a darker and grittier film than 2006's Superman Returns.  Warner Brothers Pictures President Jeff Robinov had the following to say of the reboot:

 

Superman didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," Robinov said of Singer's movie, which made just $215 million domestically. "It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned," he continued. "Had 'Superman' worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009, but now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman. We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the character allows it."

 

Have they failed to see the one big glaring error here?  Superman isn't a dark character.  Making a "dark" Superman character makes no sense whatsoever.  I'm sorry Warner Brothers.  I know you're riding high on the over $500 million grossing Dark Knight, but just because a darker Batman movie worked doesn't mean that suddenly turning every comic character dark is going to gross you a half a billion dollars.  Batman is dark, that's why Dark Knight works so well.  Superman, however, is a boyscout.  His character is supposed to embody hope and a brighter future and all that stuff.  Trying to make a "dark" Superman is going to turn out lame.  If they're not careful he'll end up looking like the Emo Peter Parker from Spider-man 3 who was trying so hard to be bad, but he can't be bad because he's Spider-man, and Spider-man isn't a dark and brooding character.

 

Also announced by Warner Brothers last week was their next few years lineup of films which pretty much boils down to them looking at Marvel's plans for the next few years and saying, "Oh, you wanna do that?  Well we can do that too!"

 

In addition to a "Batman 3" and a new "Superman," Warner Bros. also plans to release two other comic book movies (not including "Watchmen") by 2012. Among the likely candidates for the big-screen treatment are the Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and, of course, the Green Arrow, whose film, "Super Max" takes place in a high-security prison for meta-humans.

 

Like rival Marvel Studios — who this year released the mega-successful "Iron Man" as well as "The Incredible Hulk" — Warner Bros. plans to release standalone films for all of its heroes with the ultimate goal of creating a super team-up, Robinov told the Journal. "The Avengers," a superhero consortium of Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Ant-Man and Thor, will get a release in 2011.

 

DC's analogue, "Justice League of America," which had been slated to open next year, will instead wait until after the next four films. 

 

Basically, Warner Brothers listened to Marvel's press releases from back in June, then they watched the amazing success of Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk and realized they were going to be getting the pants beaten off of them for the next few years.  So they decided to try to one up Marvel by doing pretty much the exact same thing.  They're going to make a bunch of individual hero movies and will then bring all of the heroes together in one big Justice League movie.

 

On the plus side, us Geeks will have the next few years to glory in a slew of high budget superhero movies.  On the downside, not every film can be as great as the Dark Knight and Iron Man, so we're bound to have to sit through some serious crap along the way (I'm looking at you Ant-Man and Wonder Woman).

 

But this giant struggle will be interesting.  Who will win in the end?  The Justice League or the Avengers?  Personally, my money is on the Avengers, but that's just me.

 

Also, what I'm really waiting for is about 10 years from now, when comic movies have run their course, and the general public moves on to other genres.  As ticket sales start plummeting for superhero films, would Marvel and DC ever get so desperate as to allow a film crossover?  Just imagine the awesomeness of a live action Superman and Batman hanging out with Spider-Man and Captain America.  Sure, the film would probably be campy as hell, but it'd be fun to watch.

Just Another Muppet Monday

 

Good Morning everyone.  Yeah, it's monday, and unfortunately we are all headed back to work.  To cheer you up I give you more muppet greatness.

 

Finishing off the theme of the last few weeks of Beaker singing classical music, I give you this little gem.  Instead of classical, we've moved on to modern pop rock with Beaker doing his best impression of Chris Martin from Coldplay.

 

Generally, I'm not the biggest fan of fan-made youtube mashup clips.  However, this one was done so well I had to share.  Enjoy.

Patrick's "Regular Guy" Movie Review of Tropic Thunder

 

Let me start this off by saying I'm not exactly the biggest Ben Stiller fan.  At least, not anymore.  I was a fan of his work back when he did stuff with Janeane Garofalo in the late 90's, and  I still think Mystery Men is one of the great forgotten Superhero movies.  But after his huge succes with Meet The Parents, it seemed that all he made were really bad comedies for people going on dates.  Dublex, Along Came Polly, Meet The Fockers, Night at the Museum, you name it and they've pretty much all been bad. 

 

Sure there have been some exceptions through the years.  Keeping the Faith is a great movie, as is Dodgeball.  Even his cameo in Anchorman as the host of the Mexican news team was really funny.  I guess I've just always thought he was his best when part of an ensemble cast.  As a leading man he's just never done it for me.  However, I have to admit the one time that he wrote, directed and starred in his own movie, I absolutely loved the film.  Zoolander is to me one of the funniest movies ever.  I don't know why, and I know not everyone likes it, but I loved that film for some strange stupid reason.

 

I feel that way about Tropic Thunder too.  This was easily the best comedy I've seen yet this year.  The casting of the characters was brilliant and and Stiller did a stellar job as Writer and Directer.  Tropic Thunder is a film about the making of a film.  The characters in the film are all actors that are on the set of their latest project, a large big budget Vietnam war movie.  However, along the way they get dropped into the Jungle and find themselves in a real life war-like situation and they find themselves forced to really become the soldiers they are pretending to be.

 

Stiller himself plays the large hollywood action hero Tugg Speedman.  Think of him like Sylvester Stallone.  He's a big star whose career is on a downhill slide after a failed attempt at playing a serious role, that of a mentally retarded person.  Robert Downey Jr. plays Kirk Lazarus, a multi-time oscar winning actor who has put himself through plastic surgery to play the roll of a black Sargeant in the film.  Jack Black plays a coked out comedian named Jeff Portnoy who is famous for making films that are eerily close to Eddie Murphy's Nutty Professor films.  Brandon T. Jackson plays Alpa Chino, a rap star and media mogul who hawks his own energy drink Booty Sweat and his power bar Bust A Nut.  And lastly, Jay Baruchel plays the newbie actor Kevin Sandusky who is starring in his first big film.

 

The movie starts off with one of the most creative intros I've ever seen.  Before the movie actually starts, we see a series of previews for upcoming films starring the characters from the movie.  We see a commercial for Booty Sweat starring Alpa Chino, and then we see trailers for a movie about gay priests starring Kirk Lazarus and the Tobey Maguire,  Jeff Portnoy's latest farting comedy film and Tugg Speedman's latest action sequel Scorcher VI.  Having these at the start of the movie was a great idea because it instantly introduced the audience to the main cast without lengthy dialog scenes.  So by the time the actual "film" begins, we are already up to speed.

 

Once Tropic Thunder gets rolling, it really is a pitch perfect Action Comedy.  Robert Downey Jr.'s black sargeant steals just about every scene he is in, whether he's arguing with Ben Stiller over how to properly emote during a scene, or dispensing sage-like advice to Alpa Chino.  He's so perfect in the role that I couldn't imagine another actor playing it.  Hell, I couldn't even imagine an actual black actor playing the role better.  If you loved him as Tony Stark in Iron Man, you're going to love him even more here.

 

Where the film really does excel though is as a witty lampoon of hollywood and the big blockbuster movie business.  All of the characters are exaggerations or references to real life people.  Much like Stiller's Stallone or Jack Black's Eddie Murphey, the entire film is a clever rip on hollywood itself, complete with agents, assistants, first time directors and contract disputes over Tivo.  The film is also full of random cameos with such people as Matthew McConaughey, Jason Bateman, Alicia Silverstone, Lance Bass, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jon Voight making guest appearances. 

 

Hands down though, the best guest star appearance goes to Tom Cruise, who plays high powered movie executive Les Grossman.  Regardless of what you think of Cruise, what with him being a crazy ass Scientology guy, he's seriously damned funny in Tropic Thunder.  He's a fat, bald, hairy movie executive who is all powerful and expects the world to do exactly as he says.  His scene on the phone with the terrorists is comic gold and I'm glad Tom took this role, because it goes a small way to redeeming him in the minds of the general public.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed Tropic Thunder.  It has a good amount of high action, likeable characters, an amusing plotline and intelligent humor.  Plus Robert Downey Jr. in black-face.  You really don't get much better than that.  If you're looking for a good laugh, go check this one out.

 

Final Verdict: 4.5 Stars out of 5

Claymation + Zombies = Pure Awesomeness

 

I don't know who made this animated short or why, but I don't care. It is absolute claymation zombie perfection. The plot is simple enough, zombies attack a maid and the family she works for, she gets a chainsaw and defends them, thus the title of the film Chainsaw Maid.

 

Whoever made this is a genius though. And they must have had access to a helluva lot of red clay, because man is this thing brutal. This is hands down the most violent, most gory claymation film I've ever seen. But that is what makes it so great.

 

If you're a fan of zombie films at all, your going to love this.

Merchandising, Merchandising, Merchandising

 

The official Geek-tastic store is now open for business.  For the time being the store will be run through cafepress.com, since I have no idea how to actually build a store from scratch.  A permanent link has also been added to the top of the sidebar on the right of this page that will take you directly to the store.

 

Right now, the store has some shirts, buttons, stickers and mugs with our Geek-tastic logo character on them.  Keep an eye on the store though as we will be adding more products as time goes by.  As we speak, Geek-tastic's official artist extraordinaire Gustavo Ayon is hard at work designing a new character that will soon be appearing here on the site.  She will be the female counterpart to our existing character, and from what I've seen of the design sketches, she's going to be badass.

 

So stay tuned, and keep reading the site every day for great geek news from all walks of geek life.

Riddle Me This Dr. Who

 

How god damned cool is the above poster?  Sadly, of course, the poster isn't real.  It's just an awesome idea for a casting choice for the Riddler in the next Batman Film.  David Tennant.  I can't believe I've never thought of it before.  He's a perfect choice for the riddler.  He already perfectly plays the role of a super intelligent yet incredibly eccentric character as Dr. Who.  All he'd have to do to play the riddler is morph that eccentricity more towards the insane and he'd have the character down pat.  He even looks like a good Riddler, what with the suit and the glasses and his tall wiry frame. 

 

Of course, the chances of him being cast as the Riddler are about slim to none.  Riding off of the high of Dark Knight, the next Batman movie will only be featuring super A class hollywood talent.  And unfortunately for Mr. Tennant, aside from us Dr. Who fans, no one in the US has ever really heard of him.

 

The poster itself is the work of artist Josh McMahon.  You can see a larger version of the poster over at IO9.com along with posters for Kristen Bell as Harleyquinn and Marrion Cotillard as Catwoman.

 

I'm not too partial to the Catwoman poster to be honest.  The mask on it reminds me way too much of Halley Berry's crappy ass Catwoman costume, although the rest of the outfit isn't too bad.  Harleyquinn looks pretty damn sweet though.  But I really hope they don't go with three villains in the next film.  There is such a thing as too much.  Just look at Batman and Robin and Spider Man 3.  Too many villains dilutes a film too much.

The Legend of Neil - Episode 5

  

 

The fifth installment of the Legend of Neil came out yesterday.  If you'll recall, the Legend of Neil is an incredibly funny Legend of Zelda spoof starring a guy named Neil who got stuck in the game of Zelda one night after playing the game drunk and masturbating to the fairy in the game and asphyxiating himself with a controller.

 

In this episode, Neil is still in Level one, he finds the map and gets the boomerang and bow (but he doesn't have any arrows) and he finds the brother of Old Man.  We also find out why Gannon always leaves a map in every level. 

 

To see the other episodes, you can go to the Legend of Neil's home page, or you can check them out at atomfilms.com.

 

And remember, fog = power.

Atlantis Sinks.....Again

 

According to the Sci-fi channel's official website, Stargate Atlantis has been cancelled.  The show, which has been running for five seasons, has not been picked up for a sixth.  However, Sci-fi has announced that there will be a two hour movie for Atlantis that will air sometime in 2009 to close the show.

 

Not all news in the Stargate world is bad though.  Along with the cancellation notice, it was announced that a new Stargate series will be premiering early next year.  It will be called Stargate Universe.

 

The new show will involve more space-based action than either of the predecessor series, the trade paper reported.

 

Universe introduces a new team of explorers who find an ancient unmanned ship called the Destiny. Unable to return to Earth, the crew must fend for themselves aboard the ship, which has a pre-programmed mission taking them to the far reaches of the universe.

 

Appearances by former cast members from SG-1 and Atlantis are very possible.

 

So one sci-fi show  goes down, another one comes up to take its place, and the balance of the universe is kept in peace. 

 

Personally though, I'm just going to sit here and wonder how Stargate has gotten three TV show spinoffs while Firefly couldn't even get a second season.  Sometimes life just doesn't seem fair, does it?

Good Geek Music To Dance To

 

Ever heard of Chiptunes?  If not then I highly suggest checking out this awesome documentary about it over at pitchfork.tv.  Pitchfork is only hosting the video for this week only though, so you should check it out as soon as you can.  The documentary is about the creation and the history of the chiptunes scene in New York City, and it has interviews with a number of the artists involved in the scene.

 

Basically, chiptunes are electronic songs that are made using the sound chips from old video game consoles.  More often than not the songs are made using a hacked original Game Boy.  The songs have a great 8 bit feel to them.  They sound like dance versions of the old NES games we played as kids.  Remember how catchy and happy the Super Mario theme song is?  Well imagine something that catchy plus a dance beat and you have an idea what the songs sound like.

 

To learn more about chiptunes, check out the page about it on Wikipedia.

The 25 Best Pieces of Sci-fi Since 1982

 

Entertainment weekly has posted up a really good list of the 25 best Sci-fi properties to come out since 1982.

 

While I don't necessarily agree with their #1 choice, I do think that the film they chose does deserve a spot in the top 5 at least.  This is better than my view of the Top 50 hot sci-fi women list I posted earlier, where their #1 choice didn't even deserve to be in the top 10.

 

I do have some complaints on this list though.  Dr. Who should have been way higher than it was.  And how the hell was Back To The Future not in the top five?  Also, where the hell is Event Horizon?  How did that not even make the list?

 

Overall though, I think the list is very strong, and I agree with most of its choices.  Do you feel that something was left off of the list?  If so, let me know about it in the comments.

Kyle Piccolo - Comic Book Therapist

 

I just became aware of an amusing new web series called Kyle Piccolo - Comic Book Therapist.  The show is about Kyle Piccolo, a comic book store employee that dispenses advice and sage-like words of wisdom to the patrons of his shop who find themselves in need.

 

He's a problem solver, and he uses his vast knowledge of comics to aid others in their times of need.  A couple of episodes of the show have already aired.

Quite possibly the most disturbing thing you'll see today

 

The user Spippo over at DeviantART.com has put up a series of photos showcasing their series of modified My Little Pony figures.  Above, obviously, is the joker.  Also in the set you'll find the likes of Edward Scissorhands, Darth Vader, Predator, Cthulhu and many more.  You should go check it out.

 

The figures reminded me of a great Robot Chicken sketch about the My Little Pony: Apocalypse Ponies.  I heart the Death Pony.

 

The Mouser's are mad as hell, and they're not gonna take it anymore

 



 

We all know that the Mushroom Kingdom is a messed up place, what with it's strange geology and turtles flying in clouds and whatnot.  But it never occured to me that some of the strangeness in the land wasn't actually natural.  Some of the rules that govern the land were put in place by the man in power.

 

That's right, Bowser himself dictated to his minions how they could and could not act when fighting Mario.  These rules however have stifled the minions of Bowser for far too long.  Eventually the pressure became too much, and something had to give.

 

The result is revolution.

The Dark Knight is bigger than Star Wars

 

No, I'm not referring to last weekend's box office figures and that fact that the Dark Knight, in its fifth week of release, still managed to beat Star Wars: Clone Wars for the number two spot on its opening weekend.  Aside from that being funny to me, it holds no major significance.

 

What I'm talking about is the fact that in only five weeks time, the Dark Knight has now officially overtaken the original Star Wars as the second highest grossing domestic film of all time.

 

According to boxofficemojo.com, as of today the Dark Knight has taken in $475,343,000.  This drops Star Wars down to third place with it's total of $460,998,007. 

 

Of course, these figures don't account for inflation, in which case the highest grossing film of all time is Gone With The Wind and none of this really matters, but that's not the point.  The point is that there is now only one film standing between Dark Knight and the coveted #1 spot for highest grossing film ever.  Titanic.

 

Wel all know Titanic. We all hate Titanic.  We all want to see Titanic get it's sinking-ship ass handed to it by Batman, am I right?  Ok then people, let's make a pact right here, and right now.  Repeat after me:

 

I (state your name), do solemnly swear to go out and see the Dark Knight again. 

I will buy more tickets to see the film, I will get friends to go with me. 

I will continue to do this every weekend until such time as Titanic is no longer the #1 grossing film of all time. 

If I fail in this task, I willfully allow my fellow geeks to beat me to death with my own shoes.

Why isn't the future ever as cool as people think it will be?

 

 

Thanks go to Boingboing.net for posting this video so I could enjoy its inherent awesomeness.

 

The video is a commercial that looks to be from the late 50's or early 60's, it's got a totally rad look at the future, it stars Ray Bradbury, and its about Prunes.  I know that doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's why the commercial is so cool. 

 

However, It does make me sad whenever I see this sort of stuff though because the future as seen in TV and films from the 60's is always way cooler than how life actually turned out.  Sure you could argue that the prediction of wall to wall TV's came true to a degree, but where the hell are my Pneumatic People Tubes?  I would totally travel around by tube if it was available.  Hey, it worked in Futurama.  And the "Fwhoomp" sound the tube makes as the girl gets out is just too cool to be described.

 

Also, check out the interior decorating of the house and the outfits the women are wearing.  Nothing today looks that cool or that hip.  And how come commercials never have a really cool narrator anymore like this video does?  I miss big voiced narrators that spoke only in mechanical tones. 

 

"Sigh"...the fake future is aways cooler than the real future.

More Battlestar webisodes are on the way

 

In an interview with Newsarama, Battlestar Galactica's executive producer David Eick revealed a little bit of info about some additions to the final episodes of the show that will air early next year.  One great thing that was learned is that there will be another Resistence style webisode series that will be broadcast through scifi's website.

 

When asked about the Webisodes, Eick responded:

 

Yes, we are doing webisodes but when they are premiering I am not positive. Like the webisodes we have done before, they will continue on the story threads that don’t make the cut. I don’t want to give too much away but they are going to follow the same paradigm as we’ve done before.

 

Also of note in the interview is the mention of another stand-alone Battlestar movie, much like Battlestar Galactica: Razor that came out last year.  About the movie, Eick says:

 

It is going to take place from the perspective of the Cylons and explore a story the fans will be familiar with.

 

Even though Battlestar Galactica is coming to an end and this saddens me, at least it's good to know that the shows creators aren't going to be cheap with the last bits of a show loved by millions.  They're giving fans as much as they can with additional content like this.  It's a good thing to see, and it's a trend I hope more shows pick up on.

The awesomeness of Troops

 

 

This is by no means a new video.  Troops originally came out way back in 1997, so I'm sure every geek has either seen or heard of this film at some point.  It really is THE first great Star Wars fan film.  It set the bar for everything else that followed.  This came out before the days of youtube and bit torrent sites. 

 

I remember hearing about this film through message boards back in the day, and then being super stoked when I found a bootleg copy of the film at Comic Con...on VHS.  I bought it and then took great pleasure sharing the film with all of my friends.  You kids today with your fancy youtubes and internets don't know how lucky you have it.

 

Anyways, what made me decide to post this video this morning was an article over at Scifi.com about nine great Star Wars spoofs.  Troops obviously made the list.  Seeing it on the list reminded me of it's greatness (I hadin't thought of the film in forever) and it made me think of the Clone Wars film out in theaters now.  It's pretty sad when a bunch of fans with a zero dollar budget and using a decade old software to make special effects can create a more entertaining and more likeable Star Wars film than Lucasfilm can with a multi-million dollar budget and the latest in high end computer graphics software.

 

For the two or three of you out there who may have never seen the film before, Troops is a mash up of Star Wars and the reality show Cops.  The film follows a group of Stormtroopers on Tattooine as they answer calls about stolen droids and a domestic disturbance call.  It's a spot-on perfect spoof of cops, and the Stormtroopers actually come out as likeable guys.

 

Fun things to look out for while watching the video:

• One of the Stormtroopers referring to Tattooine as the "ass end of space"


• One of the droids the Jawas are stealing is Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000.


• We find out what really happened to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru


• Watch as a Jawa's head catches on fire after being shot.

Patrick's XBox 360 12/26/2006 - 08/18/2008

 

Last night, after less than two years of faithful service, my poor Xbox 360 finally succumed to the dreaded Red Ring of Death.  In mouring for the loss of my good friend, I have written the following to remember him by.

 

An Ode to a Lost Friend

 

It was upon a cold winter morning when we met.

Having received you as a christmas gift the day before, I had to wait until I returned home to open you.

But on the glorious day that I first activated you, a friendship deep and profound was formed.

How heady those early days were, saving the universe together from evil geometric shapes.

Soon followed Oblivion. 

Many were the hours we spent together exploring the forests and keeps of Tamriel. 

I still hear the music from those times, floating in my memory like the mists of the Great Forest.

Numerous were the adventures we had together. 

We ruled over hordes of minions with an iron fist.

We fought off waves of Locusts from deep below the surface.

We layed the smacketh down upon many a jabroni.

 

And we finished the fight.

 

Together, nothing could stop us.

Not even the might of the Covenent armada nor the massed police forces of Liberty City.

Without you now, all feels lost. 

Our preparations to Unleash The Force next month now seem as if they'll never happen. 

It is with great sadness that I must now return you to where you came from. 

They tell me they can fix you, make you stronger than you were before.

I will keep an eye to the horizion, looking for a sign of you.

I will count the days until your return.

The gates of Skywalker Ranch

 

As promised, I did manage to make a drive up to Skywalker Ranch this weekend during my trip to San Francisco.  I took some photos of the two front gates and have added the pics to Geek-tastic's flickr account.

 

They're not the most exciting pics, to be sure.  I'm not much of a photographer, and I didn't really have the balls to buzz at the gate and try to get in.  For all I know, George Lucas has his own private ninja force who will drop down from the trees and assassinate anyone who buzzes at the gate and mocks him for things like Jar Jar and Ziro the Hutt.

 

I figured it would be better to play it safe.  The Pics really don't do the area justice though.  I do have to admit Lucas has good taste in geography.  The area is beautiful.  Just north of San Rafael you get off at Lucas Valley road and travel west for about 8 miles to get to the farther gate (the one pictured above).  The other gate is only about 5 miles west of the 101.  The road to the gates is secluded and twisted and takes you past cows and homes and absolutely gorgeous trees and hills.

 

It was actually fun driving out there, I can see why Lucas chose that spot to build his Evil Empire home.  I do wish one day to get beyond those gates (legally of course).  Perhaps if I get lucky and this site becomes even vaguely popular I can someday be granted press access to the grounds so I can interview people there and ask them why no one tells George ideas like Ziro the Hutt are so horribly bad. 

 

Hey, it could happen.

Writers for The Hobbit have been found

 

After eight months of searching, Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro have finally decided upon the writers who will be penning the scripts for the two Hobbit movies...themselves.

 

Del Toro, who is directing the movies, will team with the "Lord of the Rings" filmmaker and "Hobbit" executive producer Jackson to adapt the J.R.R. Tolkien book and write its follow-up. Also joining them in the writers room are Frank Walsh and Philippa Boyens, both of whom collaborated with Jackson on the "Rings" trilogy.

 

The news caps off an eight-month search for a scribe to tackle the coveted task of bringing the literary classic to the big screen. When Jackson and New Line resolved their differences over profit participation in the "Rings" films, Jackson said he would not be writing the "Hobbit" movies because of other commitments, though he does have approval over creative elements in his role as exec producer.

 

So Jackson and Del Toro decided that they don't really trust anyone else to write the hobbit scripts?  I'm cool with that.  Both men are brilliant filmmakers.  And unless Peter Jackson has gone all George Lucas on us, then he won't go ruining a franchise he worked so hard to create.  This news is good news.  The films come out in 2011, I can't wait to see them

Tony Stark's real super power = The Ultimate Chick Magnet

 

 

Earlier this week, Access Hollywood revealed one of the deleted scenes that will be included with the Iron Man DVD when it comes out on September 30th.  I decided to show you someones youtube clip of the video instead of the original Access Hollywood because the audio here is better and there's no annoying ad at the beginning of the clip.

 

The clip itself is pretty dark, and is a little slow to start, but it's pretty damn funny.  It shows Tony Stark ordering Pepper Potts to get his house in Dubai ready for a party, which we then see him attending.  The highlight of the clip comes at about the 2 minute 30 second mark though, when Tony Stark reveals his greatest super power of them all.  Just watch for yourself and see true believers!

Awesome geek toy - Donkey Kong Jenga

 

How cool is the above image?  Seriously, you don't get much better than that. 

 

Two great games that I never would have ever thought of putting together as one, but now that I see it I can't imagine life without it.  Unfortunately, Amazon.com is sold of out it right now, but the moment it goes on sale, I'm picking this thing up as quickly as possible.

Is Captain Kirk in your Top 8?

 

If not, he could be.  The new Star trek movie has started up it's own myspace page.  You can check it out at www.myspace.com/startrek

 

Ladies, a bit of advice though.  Don't go putting James T. Kirk above your boyfriend/husband on your Top 8.  We all know Captain Kirk, and we know what he's like.  Having him be higher on your Top 8 is just bound to lead to uncomfortable conversations about whether or not you've ever slept with him when you met him on an away mission once. 

 

He does that sort of stuff all the time.  It makes us nervous.

20th Century Fox doesn't want you (or anyone) to see The Watchmen

 



 

In a potentially disasterous legal development, 20th Century Fox has sued Warner Brothers over their right to release The Watchmen movie next year.  And what's worse, a court judge has ruled against Warner's attempt to have the case dismissed, forcing the case to go to trial.

 

The ruling is potentially a huge victory for Fox, which could wind up as a profit participant in the film, and could cost Warners millions considering the film’s box office prospects. However, Fox’s legal team says it isn’t looking for monetary compensation and instead wants to prevent the big-budget film from being released altogether.

 

Project, which has been in development for two decades, finally began lensing in September with Zack Snyder at the helm. Warners was set to release the film, which stars Patrick Wilson and Jackie Earle Haley, on March 6 in the same slot in which "300" opened.

 

At the heart of Fox’s suit, filed in February, is the contention that it never ceded rights to the property. And according to the federal Judge Gary Allen Feess, Fox retained distribution rights to the graphic novel penned by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons through a 1991 claim. Furthermore, Feess appears to agree that under a 1994 turnaround deal with producer Larry Gordon, Gordon acquired an option to acquire Fox’s remaining interest in "Watchmen," which was never exercised, thereby leaving Fox with its rights under the 1994 agreement.

 

So if Fox succeeds in their attempt, this could possibly mean that we may never actually see The Watchmen movie.  If Fox does go through with this and stops the film's release entirely, I think it would be public suicide for the company.  A ton of buzz has already been generated by this film and the trailer that has been released.  If the film gets banned I could easily see people beginning boycotts of all Fox films until they allow it to be released.

 

Personally, I think it is a much more likely that Fox will sue to get the film banned, and once they achieve their goal they'll negotiate with Warner to receive a large cut of the profits from the film.  This move would be incredibly costly to Warner, who has fit the bill for the film's production, but it would be better than the other alternative of the film not being released at all and them never making a dime back on their substantial investment.

 

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this story and will update you as things develop.

Just another Muppet...Tuesday?

 

 

I'm really sorry for the lack of posts yesterday.  I was up in San Francisco and spent the day travelling back.  I didn't get home until late last night and I didn't have internet connection for the day. 

 

Which unfortunately means that there was no Muppet Monday posted to cheer you up as you went  back to work.  I feel terrible about that and will remedy the situation right now.  Here's Gonzo leading his pitch perfect poultry in some classical music.

 

Posting today may be a little slow as well since I am catching up with things here at work.  I'll definitely be posting later today though.  There's a lot of stuff I want to share with you guys, so be patient and I'll get it all to you as soon as I can.

 

Enjoy!

Patrick's "Regular Guy" movie review of Star Wars: Clone Wars

 

 

 

This review is the first of a new regular feature that will be found here at Geek-tastic.  It is called “Regular Guy” movie review for a reason.  The purpose and aim of the review will be to focus on what a regular viewer like you and me might think of a film when they go to see it.  I’m no film critic, and I don’t pretend to be.  I couldn’t tell you the name of the type of camera angles that are used to give you certain shots.  I don’t know how proper scene construction is done.  I’ve never taken a bunch of film classes, and so I don’t know all of the technical theory or the history behind a lot of stuff.

 

 

What I do know though is how much fun films can be.  I’ve always been a big movie guy, I’ve watched a ton of films in my life, and in that time I feel that I have at least formed a view of what I believe makes a film good or bad.  So the purpose of my “Regular Guy” series will be to not focus on critical, nit-picky technical things, and focus overall on the grander scope of what an average viewer might think when they go to see a film.  With that said, here we go.  Be mindful that there will be spoilers in this review, so if you don't want anything possibly ruined, stop reading now!!!

 

 

Star Wars: Clone Wars  

 

 

It should be pointed out before I begin that I am a huge Star Wars nerd.  Star Wars was the first film I saw as a baby (I was three months old, if you don’t believe me just ask my parents) and I’ve grown up on a steady stream of Star Wars toys and books.  So going to a new Star Wars movie is sort of like a religious experience, or at least, it used to be.  The prequel trilogy did a lot to hurt my love of Star Wars.  That’s not to say they were all bad, but they certainly did temper my expectations when going to see new Star Wars material.

 

 

Thus, going in to see the film, I already had very low expectations.  I’d heard some really bad reviews, and I expected the film to suck horribly.  It should be obvious to anyone when going into the film what the real purpose of the film is for Lucas.  Upon buying my ticket I was handed a small fold-out poster that showed all of the available Clone Wars toys and merchandise that had been released with the film.  The message this sends to the viewer is so blatant, I’m actually surprised I didn’t see ads during the film that said which characters had toys that could be bought at your local store for only $7.99.

 

 

From the first moment the movie starts, you know you aren’t about to see a regular Star Wars film.  The movie was released by Warner Brothers, not Fox, so the traditional Fox fanfare is missing, and its absence is startling.  Then the theme song hits, but it’s not the theme we know and love.  They tweaked it so that while it is still recognizable, it’s definitely not what we’re accustomed to.  And then there’s no text crawl.  I didn’t actually expect there to be a text crawl, since I seriously doubted they were going to have one at the beginning of every episode of the TV series.  But the choice of narrator leaves me scratching my head.  As the film opens, we are brought up to speed by a narrator that seriously sounds like the narrator from the Powerpuff Girls.  I was half expecting to hear him at the end of the film say, “And once again the day is saved by…The Jedi’s!”

 

 

Visually, the film really is pretty.  I was really hoping to see some large scale trooper battles and starfighter combat, and the film definitely didn’t disappoint there.  When looking at vehicles or clone troopers in combat, the film does come off as a top notch CG animated film.  However, the chosen art style does have its flaws.  The character models are a very stiff.  Admittedly, Lucas said he was going for a 60’s style puppet show, like The Thunderbirds, so it makes sense that the characters appear like wooden marionettes and move like them too.  But this really limits the characters ability to show emotion.  Their faces were as wooden as the prequel actors who were acting in front of a big green screen.  None of the emotion shown on their faces really stirs up any emotion from the audience.  Add to that the fact that the character’s mouths don’t move perfectly with the dialog, and the whole thing just feels like you’re watching a badly dubbed anime show.

 

 

I think I may be a rare exception here, but other than the tarnished main theme, I actually liked the film’s music.  It was definitely a departure from the original score of John Williams, but I have been getting sick of the Imperial March being used for every single bad guy out there.  The themes of Williams are brilliant, but they’ve become a bit overused.  I had no problem with new music being added to the Star Wars universe.  It’s been badly needed and was, I think, one of the highlights of the movie.

 

 

Where the film really fails is the plot.  As was the problem with the prequel films, the writing here is atrocious.  Flat dialog mixed with hackneyed Star Wars catch phrases like “I can’t shake ‘em” make me seriously miss the days of entertaining bickering between Han and Leia.  The relationship between Anakin and his new padawan Ahsoka has no real depth to it whatsoever.  It felt so rushed and forced on us.  They literally go from meeting to bickering like an old married couple in a matter of seconds.  Near the end of the film Ahsoka says things like “He never listens to me” about Anakin and I’m left thinking “Wait, you only met like twelve hours ago.  You don’t say stuff like that unless you’ve known someone for forever.”  And her calling Anakin “Sky Guy” was so grating it just made me want to punch her in the face.  Thank god though that Lucasfilm had the brains to bring Christopher Lee in to give voice to Count Dooku.  Having him in the film made it more bearable to watch.

  

Then there’s Ziro.  Ziro the Hutt is by far the worst fucking character in the history of the Star Wars universe.  He’s so horribly bad that I can’t even properly express how much his presence taints the entire Star Wars franchise.  To paraphrase Simon Pegg from Spaced, Ziro the Hutt makes Jar Jar binks look like fucking Shaft.  He is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with Star Wars nowadays.  An unfunny, unloveable character that serves no purpose but to be over the top in its stupidity.  His voice is like something out of a nightmare.  He’s a flamboyantly gay, purple Hutt who speaks like a southern belle.  Dear god I wish I was making that up, but I'm not.  I was actually waiting to hear him say the line “I’ve always depended on the kindness of Strangers”at some point during his scenes.  Thankfully, it never happened.  I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that every time he was on screen I wanted to carve out my own eyes with a spoon and shove sharpened pencils into my ears just so I wouldn’t have to see or hear him anymore.  And what makes it even worse is the fact that his entire story arc could be cut out of the film.  He isn’t needed.  If the plot had kept the focus on how Dooku, on his own, was double crossing the Hutts, the story would have worked just fine.  Including Ziro as a traitor to his family was entirely unnecessary.  

 

What really bothered most as I left the film was the realization of its failed potential.  The original Clone Wars animated series by Genndy Tartakovsky was a pearl of greatness in the vast sea of crappy Star Wars projects.  It managed to be stylish, original, entertaining, funny and cool all at the same time.  And at no time did it diminish the name of Star Wars, nor insult the viewer’s intelligence.  It was enjoyable for both kids and adults alike.  I know that a lot of people will point out that Lucas is specifically aiming this film at kids, and that I’m giving it too hard a time judging it by adult standards, and to those people I need to point out that just because you’re making something “for kids” means you have an excuse to make it crappy.  It is entirely possible to make a good kids show that adults will find entertaining as well.  Look at what Pixar has managed to do with their films.  Look at shows like Avatar or the Animaniacs, or the Batman Animated Series.  Those are all properties specifically aimed at kids, and that kids love, but which are written so well that adults love them too.  

 

The Clone Wars does have a few choice moments though that redeem it a bit.  For the first time since the original trilogy, we get to see a ship go into hyperspace from the point of view of someone in the cockpit of the ship.  Lucas had intentionally left that shot out of the prequel films as he said he wanted to save that for the first time we see the Milennium Falcon jump to hyperspace in Episode IV.  I respected that decision, and was happy to see them find other ways of showing ships going into and out of hyperspace in the prequels.  So it was entirely unexpected to see that shot in the clone wars.  But it's in there, about halfway through the film.  It caught my by suprise.  Seeing the stars blur into starlines as the ship Anakin was piloting jumped into hyperspace was so powerful that for just a few seconds I was taken out of myself and I was 8 years old again and watching Han and company jump away from Tattooine. It was glorious.

 

Also worthy of note is the clone troopers themselves.  While figures with visible faces are a little stiff in the film, the masked troopers were awesome to watch.  The ground battles, with lines of troopers fending off hordes of droids, are a sight to behold.  This is where I feel the film really did a good job of capturing the Star Wars feel.  The differences between how these battles looked when compared to the battle at the end of Episode II are very minimal indeed.

 

In the end, the Clone Wars movie is ok.  It’s definitely the beginning of a TV series and not a movie.  Taken on its own, at its best it is average.  It’s a vaguely entertaining film that is worth watching in the theater’s only to see the large battles on the big screen.  Otherwise, this could be enjoyed just fine on the TV screen.  As a series beginner it does an ok job of setting up characters and plot to go forward with.  Personally, I’m hoping the series will actually spend most of its time focusing on other characters than Anakin and Obi-wan.  We know their story, we know how it is going to turn out.  The main story arc has kind of become played out.  If the series happens to focus more on side characters like other Jedi or specific squads of Clone troopers, then the show may actually become something truly amazing.  As it is, it’s a forgettable Saturday morning kids cartoon.

 

 

Final Verdict:  2 stars out of 5