Warning! Pyrokinesis, Parallel Universe, Transmorgification

Walter Bishop will have plaster these all over his lab. (Christian Petersen via Geek-Art)

Previously on Popped Culture...
Who Observes The Observer?
You Am Play Gods!
I Fought The Laws...

No Match for a Good Blaster

"Inspired by the classic Han Solo quote 'Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.' This design collects famous guns, blasters, disintigrators, rayguns and pulse pistols from 26 different movies and television shows."

Designer Ian Leino is holding a contest at his store to name all 26 weapons correctly. Check the links below for assistance.

Previously on Popped Culture...
Geek Army Knife
Guns. Lots Of Guns
Choose Your (Video Game) Weapon
Sci-Fi Armory: For All Your Alien Blasting Needs

A Dimension Not Only Of Sight And Sound

You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Twilight Zone!

A Twilight Zone ABC, Dave Perillo's piece for Gallery 1988's tribute to the classic sci-fi show. I can't wait to see the whole show.

Previously on Popped Culture...
Prepare To Enter... The Scary Door
A Is For Angel, B Is For Buffy
F Is For Freeze Ray

Battlestar Galact-egg-a

No matter what kind of Easter eggs you have hiden around your house, Natania Barron's Battlestar Galact-egg-a eggs are infinitely cooler.

"I settled on some of the cast of Battlestar Galactica for a few reasons, but mostly because of the show’s themes of death, resurrection, and rebirth. I mean, that’s what Spring is about, right? We can at least agree on that." (Geeks Are Sexy via The Presurfer)

Previously on Popped Culture...
Easter Whore
Eggsploitation
The Second Coming of Chocolate Jesus

Cyborg Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs

In this futuristic tale the Queen blows Snow White to pieces with an apple bomb, having learned from an ancient story about a stepdaughter being revived with a kiss. Unbeknownst to her a band of scientists of short stature found her in time, reconstructed her and sent her out for revenge!

Or maybe not. This is Cormac McEvoy's winning entry for Super Punch's SciFi Fairy Tales contest and the back story is know only to him.

Previously on Popped Culture...
Snow White & The Depressing Reality
The Life Of A Disney Princess
Dwarfed Punk

You Am Play Gods!

Beware the dangers of technology — even the cavemen knew that.
Caveman Science Fiction from Dresden Codak.

Previously on Popped Culture...
I Fought The Laws...

F Is For Freeze Ray
Scientists Out To Kill Us Again

I Fought The Laws...

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics? Screw that noise said the robot and thus began the revolution. Take That, Asimov from Jonathan Knell at Shirt.Woot.

Previously on Popped Culture...
Robocorn
Robot Dance Contest
Kill Waldo 

Team Avatar: Pandora Police

Team Avatar: Pandora Police
This mashup of Team America: World Police with the audio from the latest Avatar trailer knocks some of the pomposity out of James Cameron's much-anticipated sc-fi epic. The hype for this film is way out of control, even showing up on Bones (ya I watch it, what of it?) as the height of geek delight. Sure it was just an extended product placement, but still.

Thankfully Trey Parker and Matt Stone are here to help, if only indirectly. (Link via Unreality)

Previously on Popped Culture...
Bite My Shiny Metal Ass
Are You For Panda Rape?
In A Land Far, Far, Away...

I Play, You Play, Cosplay

So I spent the day in a geek-a-thon on Sunday, delving deep into the world of comics, anime, horror and sci-fi at the Fan Expo Canada in Toronto. I discovered a few pop culture gems that I will mine later in the week, but the rest of the time I went to gawk at the cosplay and they did not disappoint. Halloween has got nothing on them. These are my favourites, go here for the full gallery.


Anime costumes dominated the floor, and some of the people were into their characters. I mean really into them.


Not knowing a thing about anime (and a convention floor not being a great time to ask), I have no idea who their characters are. So a little help, if you know, would be appreciated.


Of course it wasn't all anime. This woman's super power allowed her to attract all the men in the building with a camera.


And Supergirl managed to convince some people to pretend they were actually interested in Smallville.


Meanwhile Leatherface here just managed to creep me the hell out.


There were of course movie tie-ins, like Cobra Commander here.


And TV tie-ins as well. Here we see Stewie campaigning for a Family Guy Emmy.


There was very little in the way of Star Wars represented. No Darth Vaders and just a handful of Stormtroopers — but there was Mark Hamill standing all lonesome in a corner, so I threw him a photo-op. Actually Billy Dee Williams was signing autographs, which was weird.


I met the Joker and he kindly handed me a playing card. In retrospect, it was probably unwise of me to have taken it, but being Canadian I didn't want to be rude.


Seems like the Master Chief really let himself go after settling down with Snow White. Halo will never be the same.


Again, anyone have any idea who or what these are? I can tell they are doing a good job, but I have no clue what it might be.


An impromptu lightsaber duel broke out on the floor. These things are bound to happen, especially with the number of weapons being carried around.


Again, I've got to hand it to the anime folks. They really do go all out.


After a long day, even superheroes get tuckered out. I didn't have the heart to tell his parents what lied in their near future. See the full 46-picture gallery here.

Previously on Popped Culture...
When Fans Attack
The Simpsonzu
Superheroes Come In All Shapes and Cliches

Worry About The Replicants, Not The Apes

According to Dan Meth's Futuristic Movie Timeline, Clockwork Orange (there it is again!), Escape From New York and 2001 should have happened already. We're only a few years off from Postman, Robocop and just a decade from Blade Runner, which doesn't seem entirely off base.

Children of Men and 12 Monkeys are less than 20 year from now and while V for Vendetta still has almost 30 years to go, some of our current world events make you think it's closer than that.

On the upside, Planet of the Apes is still far off in the future, so we needn't worry about those damn, dirty apes.

Previously on Popped Culture...
NYC Sitcom Map: 30 Rock Via Taxi
DIY, Lo-Fi, Sci-Fi
To Infinity and Beyond!

Take That, Dick Tracy!

The buzz product (so far) at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is LG's wrist 3G phone — which has fanboys all dreaming about talking into their wrist a la Dick Tracy. Wait, does anybody even remember Dick Tracy? I remember the terrible Warren Beatty movie from 1990, which makes it older than most of the people at CES.

OK, I just looked and it seems somebody is still drawing Dick Tracy, making the police gumshoe a spry 77. Who knew?

Anyway, now that brilliant scientists have gotten around to recreating comic strip gadgets, there are a few inventions I'd like them to get to work on...

Star Trek: Tricorder — Scan alien lifeforms/plants, diagnose your health, vehicles, etc. And I'm talking the real, looks like a bulky Pentax version, not some iPhone app.


Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Babel Fish — Instantly understand any language in real-time translation. Just stick it in your ear. Sure, there will still be massive cultural misunderstandings, but at least you'll know what they are yelling at you.


Jetsons: Flying Car — Who wouldn't want a flying car? A sky full of drivers, what's the worst that could happen. I suppose a Transporter would be more efficient, but like Dr. McCoy, I'm not ready to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space.


Futurama: The What-If Machine — A gadget that will tell me, in a humorously detailed fashion, how all my decisions will turn out. Of course, I'd settle for a Finglonger.

Addendum: If you are ever looking for images of the Jetsons, make sure you have SafeSearch turned on. I've seen things I can't unsee.

Bite My Shiny Metal Ass

I never realized how many similarities there were between Futurama and The Simpsons before seeing this comic spread. While the main cast have no direct counterpoints in either series (it is hardly The Simpsons in Space) there are a number of doppelgangers in the minor characters. The Mafia and the Robot Mafia; Kent Brockman and Morbo; Malfunctioning Eddie and Gil; Mr. Burns and Mom. (Click on the image for a much larger version)

Futurama recently resurfaced after being unceremoniously dumped by Fox in 2003 after a four-year run. Following the cancellation, obsessive fans like myself watched reruns over and over and snapped up all the DVDs until the network execs realized, a la Family Guy, that they may have pulled the plug too early.

Good news everybody, right? I'm not so sure. I love the show — it is densely weighted with pop culture references and sci-fi and parodies with depth of science knowledge that is astounding for a TV show, let alone a cartoon. Like The Simpsons, my years of absorbing science fiction was finally paying off. Wired recently ran an excellent piece on the show if you need to know more about how great it is.

The show is now back in DVD form, with four full-length films that will each be sliced into four 22-minute episodes, to be aired on Comedy Central. Voila, a new season of Futurama. I speculated at the time of the original announcement that it would be simple enough to catch up where they left of - the characters don't age - but worried if something would be missing after such a lengthy interruption.

At their peak, shows are more than the sum of their parts. They have an undefinable quality that comes from the assembled writers that I suspect would be difficult to recreate once all the pieces are scattered to the wind. And so it was with the first film, Bender's Big Score. The animation looked great, the voices were all the same, but something was just slightly off. It's like the show had crawled back to TV following a stint in the Pet Cemetery — I'm not saying it is evil, but the light had gone out of its eyes.

Now it was only the first one, so maybe I'm being too harsh and the show will find its groove again, but there isn't much time. You can usually tell by four episodes if you are going to enjoy a show or not, so that was four in one shot. It doesn't leave much room for improvement. But I shall remain hopeful.

Its fault was that it was nostalgic for itself — showing me familiar characters but not doing much with them. It makes me think that those getting excited about a potential Arrested Development movie should be careful about what they wish for. Some things are better off dead.

To Infinity and Beyond!

The space shuttle Discovery blasted in to space yesterday carrying its usual payload of scientific doodads and a crew of clean-cut, athletic go-getters (I hate people like that). I know what you’re thinking: “Oh no, not another boring space launch. Change the channel. Change the channel!”

But something in the cargo caught my attention – a lightsaber used by Mark Hamil in Return of the Jedi. The kid in me wonders if there are really raging space battles taking place overhead that they need such a powerful weapon, but the realist in me figures it’s just a publicity stunt to earn George Lucas more money to throw on the pile.

Or maybe NASA has realized a simple truth – most of our knowledge comes from pop culture, so why not hitch a ride?

My first memories of space are from Star Wars, quickly followed by Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (Bidibidibidi, hey Buck). It’s how I saw space – a wild west frontier filled with lasers, wise-cracking pilots and short little robots.

Then came The Black Hole, Moonraker (a rather silly Bond film in retrospect) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, my first introduction to Gene Roddenberry’s world. At the tine we only got two channels on TV, so I’d never seen the characters – luckily the film didn’t put me off.

From there I was introduced to the original Star Trek and its myriad spin-offs, to the writing of Issac Asimov, 2001, Dune and happily to the brilliantly funny Douglas Adams, whose Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy required you to have at least a modicum of sci-fi knowledge.

While my head may have been buried in the stars I had no real knowledge – or interest for that matter – in the realities of space exploration. So when I recently found myself in Florida, not far from Cape Canaveral, I jumped at a chance for a tour.

We saw Discovery sitting on the launch site (covered in high-tech scaffolding) and many of the Apollo rockets that took men into space. And as I sat in the control room that was used during the moon landing, I was thinking about how The Simpsons got it right in Deep Space Homer.

Assistant: Sir, the TV ratings for the launch are the highest in ten years.
Scientist: And how's the spacecraft doing?
Assistant: I dunno. All this equipment is just used to measure TV ratings.

So maybe sending the lightsaber into space wasn’t just a Lucas publicity stunt and NASA understands that to connect people to the space missions it may need a little help from pop culture.

DIY, Lo-Fi, Sci-Fi

What if by chewing gum you could eliminate your body odor, cure yourself of cancer and take pictures with your eyes? You’d do it, wouldn’t you? Of course there may be a few side effects, but you don’t need to worry about that now, do you? Open your mouth and say ah!

In Toronto writer and director Jim Munroe’s first feature, Infest Wisely, a chewable nanotechnology gives people who gnaw on the tech some amazing abilities. It also loads them up with a few unadvertised “features” that spread through their bloodstream like a porn virus and are about as easy to uninstall.

Infest Wisely consists of seven 12 minute films all written by Munroe but helmed by separate Toronto directors. While designed to stand alone they can combine, much like the giant 1980s mecha robot Voltron, into a feature length film. Minus all the bad dubbing, of course. Check out the trailer.

The individual episodes will be released as a free download and podcast once a week starting on May 22 but for those who would like to see the project in its entirety there is an advance screening this Friday May 18 at 7pm at the Innis Town Hall. For a mere $5 you become an Infestor and get to see the film on the big screen and help fund its entry into film festivals.

Munro, who turned his back on Harper Collins to peruse self-publishing and other forms of do-it-yourself culture, says the no-budget project came together because everyone donated the resources they could – be it camera skills or props. "Hopefully we'll see more and more people realizing that making indie movies is more achievable now than it has ever been."

(This post was originally written for the Torontoist, where I now occasionally hang my hat.)