Author: Nigel G Mitchell
Making your own Star Wars movie is the Holy Grail of many Star Wars fans, and usually the worst thing that happens is you end up looking like an idiot (see Star Wars Kid). But making his own Star Wars film actually cost a Minneapolis police officer five days’ pay.
In our modern world, drugs are everywhere, but are limited in what they can do. However, in the world of sci-fi, any drug you can imagine can exist. Let’s take a look at the made-up drugs that we all wish would be real. Ask your doctor if any of these drugs are right for you. 1. Bacta – From The Empire Strikes Back (1980), bacta is a synthetic solution that accelerates healing in a variety of injuries from small cuts to frostbite. Most famously, after Luke Skywalker was mauled by a snow monster, they literally dunked his entire body in…
[Video from HSHE via YouTube]
In the tradition of Nintendo Entertainment System TV adaptations like Airwolf and G.I. Joe, an enterprising genius calling himself Hot Meteor asked “What if the TV show ‘Lost’ had been a game for the Nintendo Entertainment System? The answer: “It would be awesome.” Check out the portfolio on Flickr for four more screenshots. The only problem with the game is that you have to enter A-B-Up-Down-Left-Right-Select-Start every 108 minutes. [Via Flickr’s Hotmeteor] Would you play Lost: The Game?
The new Green Lantern movie has brought something to my attention. It seems like there’s been some retconning going on with Hal Jordan’s faithful sidekick and best friend, Thomas “Pieface” Kalmaku. Let’s set the record straight.Who’s Pieface?First of all, non-geeks may be asking “Who’s Pieface?” Here’s a quick review: Tom Kalmaku is Hal Jordan’s best friend and sidekick. He first appeared in the second issue of Green Lantern in September 1960. He’s an Inuit from Alaska and a mechanic at Hal Jordan’s Air Force base. He’s also Hal Jordan’s best friend, knows Jordan’s identity as the Green Lantern, and helps…
May 25th, 2011 is the tenth anniversary of Towel Day. What is Towel Day, you ask? It’s a celebration of the life and work of the legendary Douglas Adams. Adams created and wrote the famed satirical science fiction novel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. May 25th is exactly two weeks from Adams’ death on May 11, 2001 (which also happened to be his birthday). Why a towel? Because according to Adams’, “a towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.” Personally, I consider the Hitchhiker’s series to be a landmark in the formation of…
Today’s free scifi category is the 2011 Hugo Award nominees for Best Short Story. If you’re not familiar with it, the Hugo Awards are like the Academy Awards for scifi. Another similarity to the Academy Awards is that you may not be familiar with the nominees. Unlike the Academy Awards, you can catch up on the nominees for free. Here are the four nominees for best short story, along with links to where you can read them online. “Ponies,” by Kij Johnson – A little girl and her talking pony discover how far they have to go to be part…
In 2002, a Congressional candidate from Alabama named Michael Williams caused a stir when he proposed a sales tax on science fiction related material to fund NASA. The idea was that a few extra cents added to any sales of merchandise like Star Trek and Star Wars would go directly towards NASA’s budget. In that way, geeks everywhere would pay for space exploration. Considering Williams was an underdog and technically not even a politician at the time (his day job was bagging groceries at a supermarket), his proposal gained a lot of attention. Lots of people weighed in on how…
On Thursday, NASA came one step closer to creating its own real-life Fantastic Four, which is what we all really want in life. They attached a device called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the International Space Station. It cost two billion dollars, and is the result of almost twenty years of research. NASA claims its boring purpose is to study subatomic particles for antimatter and dark matter. The reality is that it’s scanning “cosmic rays,” that awesome interstellar radiation that spawned so many of Marvel’s superheroes. Now all we need to do is crank that baby up and aim it…
[Image from: Motifake.com ]
With the upcoming Green Lantern movie, the world at large will discover the Green Lantern Corps. An interplanetary police force that spans the entire Galaxy, the Corps draws from every race and creed, and that’s taken literally. In a way, the more bizarre the alien Green Lantern, the more inclusive the Corps seems. That concept of the Green Lantern Corps has allowed artists and writers to get really creative. Over the years, they’ve come up with some truly unique lifeforms to wear the ring. Some of them are beautiful and cool, like Tomar-Re and Salaak. Others are downright freaky. Here’s…
If you’re a voracious sci-fi reader, and your friend or significant other is not, you know the pain. You wish you could share the latest great novel you read, but they just roll their eyes and say, “I don’t read science fiction.” You’ve tried introducing them to the greats like Dune or Neuromancer, but they don’t get past the first page. This list is for them. Most of these novels are so popular and universal, they put them in the mainstream section of most bookstores. Think of them as appetizers. Once they read these, they may be ready for a…
Every week for the next few months, we’ll be creating the ultimate starship crew from the greatest sci-fi characters of movie and TV. When the Dream Team is ready to fly, we’ll be bringing you an original adventure story to bring the Starship “Dream Team” to life. You can help create the Dream Team by voting in the sidebar. Sorry about the delay in the update, but we were really busy with the A-Z Challenge for April. Now that it’s complete, we can finish the Dream Team. For those following at home, here’s the crew so far: Captain Han Solo from Star…
W is for Wonder Twins The “Wonder Twins” kind of suck with lame powers, but, they can suck less. Here’s how. In case you haven’t guessed from our motto, my twin brother and I are big fans of the Wonder Twins from Super Friends. There aren’t many twin superheroes out there, so we kind of jumped on their bandwagon. But in later years, we became aware of the amount of scorn most people have towards the Wonder Twins. Some of it is valid. “Form Of…!” First of all, their powers are kind of stupid. That is to say, half of…
V is for Vader – A little girl named Sariah Gallego was chosen to perform in a Disneyland skit where she was tempted by Darth Vader. Of course, she was supposed to turn away from the Dark Side. Things didn’t go as scripted. [Video courtesy of YouTube’s erndog714] This post is “V is for Vader,” part of the “A-Z Blogging Challenge.” We’ll be posting something on our blog every day in April except for Sundays. The challenge is hosted by Arlee Bird , Jeffrey Beesler, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Jen Daiker, Candace Ganger, Karen J Gowen, Talli Roland and Stephen Tremp.…
T is for TARDIS – Imagine a fan so devoted to the sci-fi series Doctor Who that he was buried in a casket shaped like the time traveling TARDIS. Now imagine two of them. That’s right, it happened twice. In October 2004, long-time Doctor Who fan Tim Haws died of cancer. His brother converted a wardrobe into a replica of the TARDIS for his coffin. In June 2009, Welsh Sebastian Neale was also an avid fan of the Doctor, partly because he had a strong resemblance to David Tennant. After a fatal head injury, Neale was also buried with a…
As many know, Nichelle Nichols almost left the show after the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series until Dr. Martin Luthor King talked her out of it. Now we get to hear, in her own words, how it happened. Fora.tv’s “92Y: Pioneer Women of Television” is hosting an interview with Angie Dickinson, Linda Evans, Stefanie Powers and Nichelle Nichols. A free clip has her telling the famous story of her first meeting with Dr. King. This was an important moment is Star Trek history. Dr. King understood that the show’s depiction of a multi-cultural crew of professionals was unique. We almost lost one…
R is for Revolution – The concept of resistance against a powerful enemy is a recurring theme in science fiction. That’s because good sci-fi is almost always about metaphor, and a futuristic government or an alien race makes a good analogy for the real governments and organizations that oppress us. There have been some truly inspiring resistance movements in sci-fi, and this is our top ten. 10. V for Vendetta (2006) – Based on the graphic novel, the movie portrayed a fascist British government in the near future. One enigmatic man calling himself V leads the people to overthrow their…
N is for Ninja – In the media, ninja are everywhere. What martial arts movie would be complete without a ninja? But the truth is that much of what we in the West think of ninja is based on myths, legends, and flat-out lies. So to educate those who feed most on the ninja mystique (i.e. martials arts, superhero, and sci-fi fans) Myth 1: Ninja were called ninja. – During the fourteenth century, it’s generally accepted that the covert assassins and saboteurs we now call “ninja” came into existence. However, during this period of time, they were never called “ninja.”…
M is for Mace Windu: I love Mace Windu. He made the Jedi more than just stoic philosophers or evil cyborgs. He made the Jedi cool. I also love Samuel L. Jackson, a guy who is not only extremely suave, but also extremely open in interviews. I read a lot about Jackson’s role as Windu, but discovered that all the pieces hadn’t really been assembled into a coherent story. Even Wikipedia and Wookiepedia only had part of the story. So here’s the full story of how Samuel L. Jackson lived the dream of going from just another fan to a…
L is for Lando Calrissian Today, we have a special guest – the infamous smuggler, gambler, and baron administrator of Cloud City, Lando Calrissian. As a well-known ladies’ man and swashbuckler, Lando will be solving your relationship problems in the way only a respectable ex-pirate can. DEAR LANDO: I don’t know why you think you can give advice on women. It’s easy for you. You’re a good-looking guy. No women would look at me. I’m twenty-three, five-foot-seven, and weigh two hundred and thirty-two pounds. What can I do? — SCRUFFY NERFHERDER
NOTE: This post is about the final shot of the movie, Inception. While we won’t spoil it with any specific details, if you haven’t seen the movie, you may want to skip this post. There’s been a lot of talk about the final shot of Inception, and what it means. You won’t see any of that coming from me. That’s because I refuse to analyze the meaning of Inception’s ending. Personally, I don’t think it means anything at all. My theory is that the final shot was put there specifically to get people talking, but I don’t believe the movie…
With the Green Lantern movie on the horizon, the character is enjoying a bit of a renaissance. You may know a lot about Green Lantern, but we’re willing to bet you don’t know everything about how he came to be. Here are 9 of the most surprising facts about the creation of Green Lantern.
The funny thing about today’s post is that it’s a combination of highs and lows. We have what is generally regarded as the greatest sci-fi movie ever made, but it spawned what is generally regarded as the worst videogame ever made. We speak, of course, of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600. It’s hard to overstate how bad E.T. was. It’s not an exaggeration to say that its failure lead to the dissolving of Atari as a company, as well as the crash of the videogame industry in general. E.T. is frequently ranked as the worst videogame ever made.…
The concept of the cyborg, the combination of living tissues and machines into a single organism, is one of the most enduring themes of science fiction. The cyborg can be portrayed as terrifying in the potential for stripping us of our humanity. Or the cyborg can be portrayed as exhilarating in the way it can enhance humanity and give us new powers or abilities. Here are ten cyborgs that stand out in sci-fi.10. Inspector Gadget (Inspector Gadget) – This show introduced the concept of fusing mechanical parts and human flesh to kids. A cross between The Six Million Dollar Man…
If there’s one thing the Internet hates, it’s a vacuum. Christopher Nolan, co-writer and director of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight has been notoriously secretive about his films. Of course, that means the Internet has been rampant with rumors of all sorts of characters and storylines in the upcoming sequel, The Dark Knight Rises. In many ways, it’s easier to say what won’t be in The Dark Knight Rises than it is to say what will. And since we’re all about easy here at Geek Twins, that’s what we’ll do. Let’s put the nail in the coffin to these:…
Every week for the next few months, we’ll be creating the ultimate starship crew from the greatest sci-fi characters of movie and TV. When the Dream Team is ready to fly, we’ll be bringing you an original adventure story to bring the Starship “Dream Team” to life. You can help create the Dream Team by voting in the sidebar. Here are the results of the last poll. With an overwhelming thirty-seven percent of the votes, the winner for our science officer of the spaceship “Dream Team” is Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Star Trek is really loading up…
The new sci-fi movie Limitless is out, about a new drug that allows a writer to access his entire brain, turning him into a super-intelligent business tycoon. Personally, I thought it was a little too familiar, sort of a Flowers for Algernon tale with the twist of making the hero unpleasant. However, what I found more interesting is that the entire movie is based on one of the most popular and unscientific myths out there: that we only use ten percent of our brains. That’s one hundred percent wrong.
The cancellation of The Cape was disappointing, but not surprising. There have been some truly great shows cut off in their prime. Call them one-season wonders. Here are the top ten sci-fi shows that remain great, even though they didn’t last long. 10. The Time Tunnel (1966) – When two scientists get lost in the show’s namesake, they are forced to travel through history at random to find their way home. The series took viewers to a wide variety of places and times, thanks to its use of stock footage from the film library of 20th Century Fox. The show…
The news that NBC will not air the final episode of my favorite show The Cape (it’s going online only) has reminded me of the dilemma of being a fan of sci-fi television in the US. It’s not easy. Whereas the UK will air a sci-fi TV show with a beginning, middle, and an end (like the BBC mini-series Jekyll), most scifi TV shows in the US are created with an open-ended storyline. Every geek has had the experience: you fall in love with a great, thought-provoking, well-crafted science-fiction series with a story that keeps you running back every week…