Be A Part Of Something Really Cool

 

 

People in the great state of New York are doing something truly worthy of geek recognition everywhere.  For an upcoming Halloween parade, they are going to try to recreate the parade scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. 

 

You know the scene.  The one where Ferris sings The Beatles' song Twist and Shout from atop a parade float, and all of the audience starts to sing and dance along.  Yeah, that one. 

 

But they need help to pull this off.  If you live in near where this is happening, you should totally go and help them out.  Be there for those of us who can't:

 

On October 31st, we are recreating the parade scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off at the Village Halloween Parade. This will involve tens of thousands of people breaking out into the world's largest Beatles sing-a-long.

 

We want the streets to erupt in joy and for it to be one of the greatest experiences of everyone's lives.

 

We will need thousands of secret audience agents to get the ball rolling by imitating the extras in the scene and inspiring your neighbors in the audience to do the same.

 

Man, I really wish I could go to this. What does all of the cool stuff seem to happen in New York?

2 Hours And 43 Minutes

 

That is the officially announced running time of The Watchmen movie, according to director Zack Snyder.  At a special sreening of a few scenes from the film for reporters yesterday, Snyder announced the running time and dispelled rumors of a potential sequel:

 

When asked if the stars' contracts have a sequel clause, Snyder winced. "I don't know, I have to be honest," he told an audience. "That would be interesting but, there can't be a sequel. There can't be a prequel. Not with me involved, anyway. I have no idea if they could find someone to do it, but it wouldn't be me. That's crazy talk."

 

It makes my bitter and shrivled geek heart happy to hear him say that.  Those rumors of a sequel/prequel were downright scary.  Of course that doesn't mean Warner Brothers won't go ahead and make one anyways without him, but at least he has the sense to know that's a bad idea.

 

The article on the scifi wire also has a breakdown of the scenes shown yesterday, including details about what we will see in the opening credits of the film.  However, I'm refraining from posting them here so as not to have potential spoilers showing for anyone who may not have read the comics yet.

 

If you wish to read about the scenes, just click on the above link to the original source article.  The opening credits sound really cool.

 

And to those of you who haven't read The Watchmen yet...what's wrong with you?  Go buy it, right now.  You have until March to read it.  You have been warned!!!

Michael Bay + Twitter = Awesome

 

Some truly awesome person has opened a twitter account under the name Michael_Bay and is twittering as if they were the director who is famous for big and pretty explosions in his films.  The posts themselves are pretty damned hilarious too.  Currently, he's been twittering from the set of Transformers 2 with such comments as:

 

Shia cried more today. Especially compared to yesterday.

 

and

 

Heavens to Betsy, I would hump that tattoo right the hell off Megan's shoulder. Still can't get her out of my head.

 

Or my personal favorite thus far:

 

Took a meeting about Armageddon 2: Armageddoner. It's a Go.

As If Smallville Wasn't Bad Enough

 

 

Don't get your hopes up.  The story I'm about to tell you is nowhere near as badass as the above picture is.  In fact, it's the exact opposite of that poster in its high level of lameness.

 

Variety is reporting that the CW network has announced a new live action series based on a DC Comics character, much like Smallville.  That character...Dick Grayson.

 

Generally, you'd think that a show about Robin would be a fairly cool thing.  But then you'd be forgetting what the live action Birds of Prey series was like.  Remember how crap-tastic that series was?  Ok, well take that and raise the crap bar a little higher.  This series, called The Graysons, is about Dick Grayson's life BEFORE he becomes Robin.  That's right.  No capes, no superheroes, just him and his circus performing family.  And to make matters even worse, he's not going to be called Dick in the show.  Hell, he's not even going to be called Richard.  He's going to be called D.J.  Why the hell they're calling him that, I have no fucking clue.

 

In the one-hour "Graysons," which will be set in modern times, young DJ will face challenges involving first loves, young rivals and his family as he grows up. Souders and Peterson have come up with an original take on the character.

 

They've come up with an original take on the character all right.  They took everything that made Dick Grayson cool, stripped it away, and decided to make a show with what they had left.  Who really gives a fuck about Dick Grayson's life before he met Batman?  Before he became a superhero, all Dick did was hang out with his family and perform in the circus.  How exciting can that be? 

 

What people want to see from Dick Grayson is superhero stuff.  They want to see him dealing with the death of his parents.  They want to see him training for his new role in life as Batman's sidekick.  They want to see him whup supervillain ass.  They don't want to see him parading around and doing tight rope walks and trapeeze stunts.

 

What the hell is wrong with Warner Brothers?  Why the hell do they insist on making their heroes star in Dawson's Creek rip-off shows? 

 

I predict this will last about as long as Birds of Prey did.  And it shouldn't even last that long.  What's next, a show about Bruce Wayne before his parents are killed called "Bruce Wayne: Normal Kid"?

 

Oh, and if you're curious as to what the above poster is, it's a poster for a fan-made fake movie trailer.  The fake movie is called Grayson, and it's about an older Dick Grayson investigating the murder of Batman and I can guarantee that it's about a million times cooler than the new CW show could ever hope to be.  You should check out the Grayson trailer here.  It's good times, and it'll help to ease the pain of the news of this new TV show.

The 12 Coolest Deaths In Science Fiction History

 

 

The good folks over at IO9 have put together a good list of the 12 Coolest Deaths in Science Fiction History.  Overall I'd say the list is pretty good, but I was suprised at their choice of Star Wars character's death scene.  Biggs?  Really?  Sure, having Luke's best friend get killed at the end of Episode IV was pretty traumatic at the time, but after all of the other films have come out, is it really the greatest death in the series?  What about the Emperor being thrown into that big ass pit on the Death Star?  Or what about Darth Maul getting sliced in half?  Those were pretty cool too.

 

I was glad to see the movie Sunshine get a nod on the list.  I love that movie, but no one I know has seen it.  And the death scene they chose from it was pretty damn good.

 

I totally 100% agree with their choice for #1 though.  Spock's death scene is  the most powerful and heart wrenching moment in Star Trek history.  Captain Kirk, the man who can do anything, is forced to sit by and watch his best friend die before him while he can do nothing about it.  And the dialog is superb.  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (or the one).  It's all classic stuff.  This is the hallmark of what an important death scene should be like.  It truly gives weight to the loss of the character and the impact that loss will have on the other characters to come. 

 

Even today, having seen this scene a thousand times before, I still teared up a bit watching the clip.  I'm not ashamed to admit it.  This scene is truly touching.  If you don't feel even a little sad as you watch it, then you're not human.

Why Does This Amuse Me So Much?

 

 

Ok, this is super cheesy, I know.  I'm sorry.  It's a fan made mash up of Star Wars and the Muppets song Manahmanah.  But something about it amuse me greatly.  I don't know what it is.

 

It's almost hypnotic.  Watching this entire video of Vader singing the song is probably one of the geekiest things I've done in a long time.  This goes above regular levels of geekdom.  This is like meta geeking out.  But I don't care.  It's hilarious.

I Didn't Know The Tron Cycles Would Be So Expensive

 



 

Check this out.  It's the new Ferarri motorcycle concept.  It looks a helluva lot like a Tron light cycle.  If I could afford one of these, I would totally get one, and I don't even like motorcycles. I wonder if I could get it in bright green or yellow.

 

Of course, owning this cycle is only cool until the day you come across another person on one too. Then you have to battle to the death. But hey, it's a small price to pay for such an awesome ride.

 

(Original link via ToplessRobot)