This Week in Geek – 1/29/2010 Darth Vader Buttons, Robot Tears, Chinese Mountains and Black Captain Americas

[Pic of the Week by Gizmodo]

Apple announced the release of the highly anticipated tablet computer, called “iPad“, and this was a red-letter day for Steve Jobs’ world conquering company in two other ways. This week, 25 years ago (January 24th 1984), the first Apple Macintosh 128K went on sale becoming the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and graphical user interface. For all you Apple Cultists out there, this week (January 30, 1982) Richard Skrenta wrote the first publicly released PC virus, called “Elk Cloner“, on an Apple computer. One day the company will just make iEarth and we’ll all move in. On with the news…

1. Remember the scene in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith where Darth Vader realized his wife Padme was dead and let out that whiny scream? Well, I could press the “Nooooooooo!” button all day long. [SciFiWire]

   TOSS-UP: Which Chinese to English translation is funnier: Darth Vader’s “Do Not Want!” (A bootlegger’s translation of “Nooooo!”) or “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” (A translation of the video game phrase “CATS has accepted control of all of your bases”)?

2. TOSS-UP: The animation company Pixar has decided to make all their future movies in 3-D. If they go one step further, which would you rather watch in “Smell-O-Vision“: Cars 2 (about a world dominated by cars instead of people) or Toy Story 3 (about a group of living toys looking for their grown up owner).
3. I hate upcoming production news, so let’s get all the reboot movie and television news out of the way in one go:

   * La Femme Nikita – It may be good, but just maybe. Jennifer Garner’s Alias pretty much closed the book on female spy television. [SliceofSciFi]

   * Planet of the Apes – This one just feels desperate, but the idea of doing a quasi-sequel telling the story of Cesar, the ape that led to the world of “dang dirty apes” might be worth seeing. [CHUD]

   * Mortal Kombat – This movie sounds kinda cool, if they keep techno music.

4. Michael Bay says Transformers 3 will feel “very different” from the other two, which means it will have a coherent plot and defined characters.

   ODDSMAKERS: What are the odds that we’ll see a robot cry in TF3?

5. OVER/UNDER: Since J.J. Abrams may not come back to direct the sequel to the wildly successful sci-fi film Star Trek (2009) it’s not going to be as good. Using the sequel profit formula (Sequel gross = Original gross + Gross/2) this film will make exactly $486,595,028.

   TOSS-UP: Which Star Trek villain would you rather see in the sequel: Intelligent reptilian humanoid Gorns or genetically engineered super-villain Khan Noonien Singh?

6. China recently changed the name of their famous “Southern Sky Column” mountains in Zhangjiajie, Hunan province to “Avatar Hallelujah Mountains” in honor of James Cameron’s 3-D science-fiction epic Avatar floating mountains. Next year I’m saving up to go to the “Great Avatar Dark Knight Titanic Blade Runner Wall of China.” [/Film]
7. There’s an inane rumor that Will Smith (Hancock) is slated to play the star-spangled superhero Captain America and now the Internet Movie Database is showing him in the role as “rumored”. While this would be progressive it would ruin the franchise because he could never play Captain America with enough gravitas to do him justice. [ComicBookMovie]

Happy Anniversary

• This week, on January 28th 1813, Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice was published in the UK setting the standard for 19th century novels on class and status.196 years later, Seth Grahame-Smith publishes Pride and Prejudice and Zombies coming soon to a theater near you.
• While definitely not a happy anniversary, this week (January 29th, 1986) the U.S. Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart after lift off, killing all seven astronauts on board. I still remember I was in class when the news broke and it shattered my image of space travel forever as being safe and reliable.
• On January 28, 1958 Lego patented it’s iconic set of bricks. The company, founded in 1932 by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen, has produced over 400 billion bricks since then and millions of fond memories. Interestingly, the name comes from the Danish phrase “LEg GOdt,” meaning “play well.”

What do you think of this weeks news? Let us know in the comments!