Fake Movie Poster: 2001 A Space Jam Odyssey

 

Michael Jordan, Bugs Bunny, A Miles High Slab of Obsidian, and the most powerful Baby of all team up to save the world from imminent destruction.

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Fake Movie Poster: X-Men in Black

Agent K, Agent L, and Agent J respectively.

Fake Movie Poster: Hunt for Red October Sky

#48 Fan says he’d like to see “Die Hard in a Field of Dreams”  Come to think of it that might make a good movie too.

Fake Movie: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures in Babysitting

Ted?

Yes Bill?

We seem to have lost one of the little tykes that most excellent sitter babe asked us to watch.

Bogus

Fake Movie: The Phantom Menace of the Opera

More Photoshop creativity:

Childhood memories that Hollywood has not mucked with yet…

With the hew and cry that has risen over George Lucas’ announcement that he will be releasing Star Wars in 3D. Internet fanboys have decried the Mastermind behind Star Wars as a villain on parr with the Emperor himself for “raping their childhood” I hereby present 10 things from my (and my siblings) childhood that Hollywood has yet to put on the big screen.

Captain Kangaroo
Connect Four
Mr. Rogers
Hungry Hungry Hippos
The Electric Company
Speed Buggy
H. R. Puffinstuff
Mousetrap
Monopoly
Strawberry Shortcake

Nit Picking: Star Trek 2009

We (the P.I.T.s and I) enjoy Star Trek.  That said, we found a few things in the new Star Trek movie that just jumped out at us.  Now mind you we’re big on Trek trivia so some of these are only caught if you’re up on your Trek trivia. 

There’s a lot of non-mistakes because this movie takes place in a different quantum reality.  However some things just jumped out at us.  Don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed the heck out of this movie…

Not a problem #1 – Scotty refers to transporting Admiral Archer’s beagle.  Advanced age for humans in the 23rd century is established in the TNG pilot.  McCoy is still around well into Picard’s time.  Archer would be 140 or so but it’s possible he’s still around.

Not a problem #2 – The Federation was aware of Romulans long before Nero arrives on the scene.  However, the crew of the Kelvin should have been surprised because they look like Vulcans.

Major complaint #1 – I don’t know where in the entire state of Iowa a canyon exists like the one Kirk drives the Corvette into.  OK so this is the future, one could’ve been dug by that time.  However, Iowa has a LOT of topsoil.  You have to dig down pretty far to get to the bedrock.   This also does not explain the mountain range visible behind Kirk when he goes to see the Enterprise and join Starfleet.

Major complaint #2 – Scotty just happens to be marooned.. er posted on the same planetoid that Spock-prime is dumped on and Kirk crashes on.  This planetoid, Delta Vega is positioned near the edge of the galaxy according to TOS episode “Where No Man has Gone Before”.  Now it is in orbit of Vulcan.

Major complaint #3 – Spock is surprised that Kirk is not Captain of the Enterprise.  He should realize that Kirk is too young to be the Captain.  In the Prime universe Spock is still serving with Captain Pike.

Nitpick #1 – When Kirk is making out with the Orion cadet in her room, some of her green make-up clearly rubs off on Kirk.

Nitpick #2 – Spock-prime and Spock are not the same height.

Nitpick #3 – Zachary Quinto’s Spock arches his left eyebrow, Leonard Nimoy’s Spock arches his right.

Nitpick #4 – The female Vulcan Minister is smiling when she stands up at Spock’s hearing for entering the Science Academy.

Nitpick #5 – During the awards ceremony, several flags can be seen in the background, including what appears to be the state flag of California. Towards the end of the sequence, the point of view shifts to Spock Prime watching from a balcony, and the flags are changed to Federation and Starfleet flags.

Nitpick #6 – The Starfleet logo, the distinctive “arrow-head” was originally the assignment patch for crew on the Enterprise only.  Different ships used of different patches.  Using the arrowhead insignia on the Kelvin is a continuity error since the histories of the two time lines are supposed to be identical up to that point.

Nitpick #7 – When Spock is beamed away from Spock Prime’s ship at the end of the movie he is in a sitting position, but when he materializes on the transporter pad he is in a standing position.  Though to be fair this happens a lot on the various series.

Nitpick #8 – When Kirk and crew are devising their plan, Spock says he can board the Narada and “steal back” the black hole device.  When did Kirk tell anyone that the device had been stolen.

Nitpick #9 –  When Captain Robau of the Kelvin says “Polarize the view screen” you can see he is wearing a Starfleet badge.  As he turns and sits down in the captains chair, it has disappeared, but returns again in the next scene.

Nitpick #10 –  During the high altitude parachute jump, Olsen’s altitude call-outs are “fifteen hundred meters” then “twelve thousand meters.”  

Nitpick #11 – When Kirk and Spock beam aboard the Romulan vessel Spock leans down to perform a mind meld on one of the fallen Romulans. Notice the deep scratch on Spock’s right hand, revealing the blood is red instead of green.

Nitpick #12 – When Uhura walks in on Kirk and her roommate, she says, “I’ve been working on solar systems.”  Only one star system is a solar system, the one that orbits the star Sol, our sun. Normal Star Trek terminology they would be called star systems.

Nitpick #13 – Captain Pike says that Kirk’s father saved over 800 people’s lives.  Kirk’s Enterprise in the prime universe held 400 crew.  So the USS Kelvin is twice the size of the Constitution Class ships?  It sure looks smaller.

Nitpick #14 – When Captain Pike is talking to Kirk in the bar, he says “You understand what the Federation is, don’t you? It’s important. It’s a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada.” Umm that would be Starfleet.  The Federation is the government, Starfleet is the armada.

Nitpick #15 – During the battle between the USS Kelvin and the Narada, the engineer of the Kelvin reports that the weapons are offline, yet in the next barrage of torpedoes from the Romulan vessel, the Kelvin’s phasers are seen firing again.  So Phasers aren’t weapons?

These are what we caught. Did you catch any others?

The View from my Chair: A Shared Universe?

Recently there’s been some talk around the blogsphere about shared universes and continuity porn.  This is something that the VS family has played with for years.  The recent spark of the debate was lit when i09 asked why the Siffy Channel (SyFy) doesn’t have it’s shows all set in one shared universe.

The easy answer to this is that these shows are produced by different companies, unlike the shared universes of Marvel or DC comics which are housed under big corporate umbrellas.  The logistics of having some Go’uald technology show up in Eureka or the teams for Sanctuary and Warehouse 13 teaming up together are pretty insurmountable.  Corporate brand identity and the question of who owns what portion of the story would prevent that from happening.  Witness the failed attempt for a Spidey cameo appearance in X3, Sony balked at the idea because they held the rights to film adaptations of the Spidey-verse.  A shared universe on a cable channel, unless intentionally built isn’t gonna happen any time soon.

That said, we (me and the P.I.T.’s) have long-held the belief that unless explicitly proven otherwise, our favorite TV shows and movies DO exist in one self-contained shared universe.  Obviously the universes of ‘2012’ and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ are mutually exclusive.  But the universes of ‘Mission Impossible’ and ‘Star Trek’ need not be.  (OK I am not even going to throw open the door of the multiple quantum universes postulated by the Star Trek episode ‘Parallels’ or the Heinlein novel ‘Number of the Beast’).

We never quite put it down on paper before but the theory is basically “Unless the world depicted by the entertainment contradicts some other aspect of a different universe, the depicted universes are in the same quantum space.”  Simply put, Agent Mulder has somewhere in his files data on Alf, Mork, Uncle Martin, the unexpected flyover of Los Angeles by the USS Voyager, and Dr. Solomon.  The crew of any Federation starship could in fact through any number of time travel effects have an adventure with James Bond, Spider-Man or the Mission Impossible force.  Indiana Jones could very well be the great-great-(you figure it out)-great-grandfather of Cyrano Jones.  I know the folks at Hogwarts don’t concern themselves too much with the happenings of the muggle-world but would they consider Herbie the Volkswagen and enchanted beast?

What does this mean for your game, creative fiction, night at the movies?

What this means for your game night is that as a GM you can throw in whatever characters you deem appropriate and not feel guilty about it.  Do you want your party of Elves to have an encounter with Spock?  By all means if handled correctly it could be a blast.

What this means for your creative fiction (another means of role play IMHO) is that if you can come up with a “LOGICAL” reason for another character to appear in your story then by all means run with it.

What this means for your geek-gasm night of movie watching is that you can fantasize that the information on the screen of Mulder’s computer is listing of Gordon Shumway’s recent activities (bonus points if you get that reference).  You can hide the smirk or laugh out loud because you know that the gods of Olympus will eventually leave Earth and Percy Jackson  behind and settle on Pollux IV.

Would it be cool if the was one big shared universe?  Yes.  But, then to my way of thinking there already is.

*editor’s note*  The DC Universe and the Marvel universe were revealed to be two separate quantum universes in the Marvel vs. DC limited series.  As such by our theory there at least two combined shared universes; one with DC super-heroes and on with Marvel heroes.

The ABCs of Movies the Vulcan Stev family enjoy

Part of my prescribed therapy for dealing with the curveball life threw this direction is to write.  I still haven’t managed to coax anything creative out of my synapses.  So instead I offer this ABC listing of movies enjoyed by Stev and the P.I.T.s.  Some of these are series and some are single movies.

Aliens
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
The Chronicles of Riddick
Death Race
Escape from New York
Fast & Furious
Gone in 60 Seconds
The Hunt for Red October
It’s  a Mad, Mad, Mad World
Jumanji
The Karate Kid
Lethal Weapon
Mad Max
National Treasure
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Percy Jackson & the Olympians
Quantum of Solace and the previous 21 James Bond films
Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones
Star Wars (Star Trek gets its own primer later)
Titanic
UHF
V for Vendetta
Watchmen
X-Men
Yankee Buccaneer (and every other Pirate movie in existence)
Zorro

Vulcan Stev family movie review: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Starring:
Logan Lerman …  Percy Jackson
Brandon T. Jackson …  Grover
Alexandra Daddario …  Annabeth
Jake Abel …  Luke
Sean Bean …  Zeus
Pierce Brosnan …  Mr. Brunner / Chiron
Steve Coogan …  Hades
Rosario Dawson …  Persephone
Melina Kanakaredes …  Athena
Catherine Keener …  Sally Jackson
Kevin McKidd …  Poseidon
Joe Pantoliano …  Gabe Ugliano
Uma Thurman …  Medusa
Maria Olsen …  Mrs. Dodds / Fury
Julian Richings …  Ferryman

20th Century Fox * 118 mins * PG * 2010

Synopsis from IMDb: It’s the 21st century, but the gods of Mount Olympus and assorted monsters have walked out of the pages of high school student Percy Jackson’s Greek mythology texts and into his life. And they’re not happy: Zeus’ lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect. Even more troubling is the sudden disappearance of Percy’s mother. As Percy finds himself caught between angry and battling gods, he and his friends embark on a cross-country adventure to catch the true lightning thief, save Percy’s mom, and unravel a mystery more powerful than the gods themselves.

VS: 1.55 pointed ears
Greek mythology has always fascinated me.  When I first heard about this movie I was intrigued, however, part of me wrote it off as a Harry Potter rip-off.  I was surprised to discover that there is in fact a book series upon which this movie is based.  So it can’t be a complete riff on the Harry Potter-verse.  Let’s face it, coming of age stories are coming-of-age stories regardless of the genre or the characters which inhabit them.  Similarities are going to abound regardless.  So we’re going to skip the fact that there’s a trio of heroes (two males and one female).  We’re not going to mention the act that our protagonist knows nothing of the world that he’s going to be pulled into.  And we’re going to gloss over the fact that our hero just happens to be one of the more powerful members of his new-found group.

Aside from a brief mention of the stolen lighting bolt bringing about a war of the gods,very little of e movie is actually devoted to the title piece.  Zeus automatically assumes that Percy (Poseidon’s son) has stolen it.  So naturally every mythological bounty hunter begins attacking Percy in the hopes of recovering it for Zeus.  Doesn’t Zeus lo-jack his lightning?  Persephone allows her pearls to be tracked via the Marauder’s… er a mystical map that Luke just happens to have in his collection.  For an all-knowing god, Zeus seems to be awfully short-sighted.  But the maybe it’s a good thing that Zeus doesn’t have a magical lightning tracer considering where the dumb thing finally shows up.

Percy also seems to be blessed by Fortuna the Geek goddess of Luck.  He doesn’t get in trouble for leaving the camp and embarking on his little solo quest.  Even though he and his friends are the subject of a nationwide manhunt nobody ever seems to recognize them or call America’s Most Wanted tip line.  Nobody seems to mind that Percy and his friends destroy at least one national landmark.  It’s also probably just a coincidence that the casino left the keys in that car.

I see a lot of complaints on the net about Olympus being attached to the Empire Sate Building.  The novels make it known that Olympus attached to the mortal plane a nonlinear fashion instead being anchored to the “Center of Civilization”.  I wish the movie had explained that little feature.  I’m also seeing complaints about the actors not being the age the characters are in the novels.  Director Chris Columbus has been quoted as saying that after Harry Potter, he was NEVER going to work with that many ten-year olds again.  Given the way the Potter actors have aged beyond their characters, I’m not going to fault Mr. Columbus on that one.

If this movie has one redeeming feature.  It is in the fact that both PITs have expressed an interest in actually reading the Percy Jackson novels.  I enjoyed the movie and cannot wait for the DVD.

Pvt Black Spartan: (coming) she’s on an FTX and will get us her review later.

PIT #2: 2 pointed ears
I liked the fact that the writer was able to bring the Greek myths and legends to life in 21st century America.  By using these archetypes there wasn’t a whole passel of exposition that need to be made.  The characters were believable.

PIT #3: 2 pointed ears
I didn’t hear any bad language in this movie.  I liked the fact that there was ZERO kissing in the movie.  This movie had awesome special effects.  I thought it was cool that they got James Bond to play Percy’s teacher.

I was so impressed with this movie that I actually want to go read the novels that this movie is derived from.  I can’t wait for Percy Jackson 2.

5.55 pointed ears out of 6 – A nice popcorn family friendly flick.  Take the time to see it while it’s in theaters but this a definite must-see on video.  Despite my complaints I really did enjoy the movie.  I sincerely hope that 20th Century Fox has the next “Potter” series here.