Although disappointing compared to its source comic, I always wished more had come out of Disney's Rocketeer movie in 1991. It had everything: a pre-stardom Jennifer Connelly doing her best G-Rated Betty Page impression, Timothy Dalton as a sneering Erroll Flynn villain, a Nazi zeppelin exploding over Hollywood, and, most importantly, a jet pack. I always wanted a sequel.
Looks like I'm not the only one. Billy Campbell, the titular Rocketeer himself, has somehow tumbled out of obscurity to start giving nostalgic interviews about how much he dug being a retrofuturistic Nazi fighter and how much he wants a sequel.
Not exactly the typical foreign musician to reach American shores, Hiroshi Kyono is the one-man genius behind Japanese musical group The Wagdug Futuristic Unity. This guy is known for singing so loudly and raspily that the audience is in danger of being smacked wetly in the face by one of his bloody lungs.
But Hiroshi's voice is not why I'm posting this video of "Ill Machine." This song may roughly sound like a man drowning in sandpaper, but the video is pure science fiction: It's fifty years from now, and an armada of gas-masked clones wage war against machines comprised entirely of garbage and eager to see humanity dead.
There has been a resurgence in pop-up books over the last year or so: They're not just for kids anymore. Witness the new-ish Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy. Yes, there's a primary pop-up in the middle of each page. But there's one in every corner of each page, too. The design is intricate with pull tabs to make the components (a light saber perhaps) move. Because the book garnered a stellar review in the New York Times Book Review, it was difficult to find a copy during the holidays. More lately, it's been easier and sometimes even on sale. Matt Reinhart, the creator, is a paper engineer who's done similar projects for The Wizard of Oz and Maurice Sendak. The book's a welcome addition to the varied Star Wars canon of books. May the pop-up be with you.
Want to go mano a mano with Yoda for some fisticuffs? Perhaps the strangest happening in video games of this young new year is the announcement of the future appearance of Star Wars characters in Soulcalibur IV. For those who don't know, Namco Bandai's Soulcalibur series combines myth with monstrous and dainty fighters with hundreds of moves each. Placing Darth Vader in the PlayStation 3 version and Yoda in the Xbox 360 version will surely expand the series' reach.
But will hardcore fans of the franchise feel its ever-evolving storyline is being diluted by the Lucas characters, who've obviously never set foot in the SC universe? Judging from the intense way Yoda and Vader look and fight in this brief trailer (via Kotaku), the foisting of Star Wars upon Soulcalibur is weird, but in a very cool way.
Last week, Dan Solo and dWhisper of the Star Wars themed LEGO forum FTFB announced a contest mashing up three of my geekier interests: steampunk, Star Wars, and LEGO.
When we initially posted about the contest, there weren't any entries in yet, but the community has been toiling away, knocking plastic bricks together and painting monocles and handlebar moustaches on the yellow faces of their LEGO men.
Now some of the entries are starting to surface, and they are fantastic. None of them quite feel steampunk, which is all about mottled rust, creaking leather, and burnished copper, not the dimpled plastic face of a LEGO block. But still, it's a noble effort, and I always get misty-eyed when I think of a Star Wars universe populated by Star Destroyer Dirigibles.
One of the comforting thing about Star Trek collectors is that you can be confident that they aren't putting their acquisitions to any deviant purposes.
For example, take this auction for a silver cast of Data's head. The head is originally from the episode "Time's Arrow," which required a simulacrum of Brent Spiner's noggin to knock off and bury underground for 500 years. If only it had been Wesley Crusher's.
But I digress. The head has been dug out of the old Paramount warehouse and is now up on eBay, with a current bid of $500. But what comforts me is the knowledge that whoever will eventually purchase this will be a true Star Trek fan who simply wants a dead-eyed, motionless Data to stare at him from his mantle (and not just some pervert who intends to bore out the mouth and hook up a vacuum hose through the neck).
• John Barrowman, otherwise known as the pansexual Captain Jack on the execrable Torchwood, doesn't understand why other gay actors don't come out of the closet: it's not like it's been bad for his career.
• An adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood appears to be in the works.
• Well, at least some good has come out of the WGA Strike: Michael Bay's Transformers 2 has been delayed.
• A visual tribute to the works of Britain's one and only J.G. Ballard. Incredible work.
• SyFy Portal reports that Ronald D. Moore has all but confirmed that the final Cylon was not in the recent Entertainment Weekly spread for Battlestar Galactica. In other words, it's another nobody.
With the summer movie season winding down and television in a holding pattern before the start of the fall season, it's like the entire scene is taking a collective deep breath and/or a nap in preparation for the next big wave.
Although disappointing compared to its source comic, I always wished more had come out of Disney's Rocketeer movie in 1991. It had everything: a pre-stardom Jennifer Connelly doing her best G-Rated Betty Page impression, Timothy Dalton as a sneering Erroll Flynn villain, a Nazi zeppelin exploding over Hollywood, and, most importantly, a jet pack. I always wanted a sequel.
