Disney's 2010 Tron Legacy Film (Picture courtesy of Disney's Tron Legacy Website)
Sean posted a great blog post about the ten things he learned from Tron 1982. I know I’m late to the party, but after just seeing Tron tonight, here are ten things I learned from seeing Tron Legacy
The 8 1/2 Foot Tall 2010 Shooter Family Geek Christmas Tree
I’m sure just about everyone reading this article has some sort of a holiday tradition. Our family has several and usually includes the boys in the family going to see whatever SciFi blockbuster is out. This year our plans are to see Tron Legacy together. One of our other long lasting traditions involve each member of the family receiving a Hallmark Christmas Tree Ornament in our stockings. My mother, Mom Shooter, has been responsible for assembling this gift each year for the past 20 or 30 years. Everyone has one or two series that they follow from year to year. My father, Dad Shooter, has received the Classic American Car series every year since 1991. The girls usually end up with a Disney series ornament. I have received the All American Trucks series off and on since 2000, but each and every year Mom Shooter makes sure I receive some sort of a SciFi Hallmark Christmas Tree ornament. In fact, our family have received so many Hallmark ornaments that we’ve had to add a second full-sized tree in our home to handle all of our favorite ornaments. For those of you that follow me on Twitter, you’ve already seen our “geek” tree, but for those of you who didn’t get the chance, here’s a little tour of the vehicle and ship ornaments on our tree.
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@FakeGrimlock in the Holiday Spirit
Are you a Transformers fan? Do you enjoy reading funny and/or geek-related Twitter streams? If either and/or both the answers to those questions are yes, I wholeheartedly recommend you follow @FakeGrimlock. There’s just something special about an eons-old Dinobot making his entrance to the internet through Twitter. Whether it’s his robot brain damage or semi-ambivalence to humanity, I always seem to get a chuckle from his tweets. Recently, I had a chance to catch up with @FakeGrimlock and ask him a few questions. His answers are in true @FakeGrimlock form.
A classic interview with Cybertron’s favorite son past the jump. Continue reading »
We mentioned in the cast a while back that I had an original Tron movie bit for the arc but it never went anywhere for two reasons, the audio I recorded for it sucked horribly and it wasn’t that funny anyway. So instead, I give you a quick overview of – Ten things I learned from Tron.
10. When planning a major felony chicks in high heeled running shoes always up the ante.
9. Further proof that writing chess programs leads to AI with massive megalomania issues.
8. No matter what the circumstance, anything that happens after the sentence “Bring in the logic probe!” isn’t going to end well.
7. When a computer states “I can run things 900 to 1200 times better than any human.” be afraid.
6. One can lead a rich and happy life only speaking the words yes and no.
5. That is a big door.
4. Never write a bunch of tank programs. In the long run it won’t be good for you.
3. Stealing from someone smarter than you can go south in a hurry if they decide to descend to your level to get even.
2. Lightcycles ya’ll, lightcycles. Nuff’ said.
1. The MCP did have a heart. It actually invented the amber alert system way before its time. Don’t believe me? Check this out, “30-56-99 are correct. Limited 4 and 8 are missing.” What we see here is the MCP’s plan to empower at least 99 operatives to locate bits that are missing. May the users bless little limited 4 and 8 and I hope they found their parent programs.
It’s interesting that after seeing Tron Legacy some of the characters going forward learned the same things I did. Kind’ve makes me proud really.
Confession #1: I watched Caprica out of loyalty to Battlestar Galactica. BSG brought me back to the scifi genre. Somewhere between leaving college and rebuilding my life after my divorce I stopped watching science fiction. Somewhere between the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager television shows simultaneously airing I decided to focus on my career and my post graduate education. Somewhere between Shooter Jr being born and actually paying for cable television I lost track of shows like Andromeda, Farscape, and Babylon 5. But BSG brought me back and I owed BSG, Ronald D. Moore, and everyone else involved to watch Caprica.
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20 Year High School Class Reunion
The GWC crüe has perfect timing. The current high school arc was spot on for me. Like Chuck last year, this summer I had the opportunity to attend my 20th High School Reunion. It was sort of a pain since Mrs. Shooter and I had to drive so far for a very short weekend, but it was worth it. Not everyone from my class of 263 decided to attend, but it was interesting catching up with those that did. Vala Mal Doran (Stargate SG-1 seasons 9 and 10) summed up the experience perfectly in the episode Bounty by saying, “Traditionally, these events entail the bringing together of large groups of people all with a common bond in the past but nothing really in common in the present. Everybody evaluates each other’s lot in life, generally by virtue of a combination of material worth and the attractiveness of one’s date, spouse, life partner.” I set out to see just how true that was.
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Having seen the two-hour premier of the new SyFy series Stargate Universe, I am stoked for what looks like another well-crafted, action-filled sci-fi drama. As we’ve seen in shows like Battlestar Galactica, established actors can bring the skill and gravitas required for a good dramatic series — in this case, Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty, Eragon), Lou Diamond Phillips (La Bamba, Stand and Deliver, Young Guns), and a host of experienced television actors.
Compared to previous Stargate series, SG-U‘s serious and gritty style stands out, more reminiscent of BSG than of the campy humor and geeky in-jokes we’ve come to love, particularly in SG-1. We get colored filters that make the world look gray and inhospitable, and we get shaky cameras. Most importantly we get realistic characters who hook up in the storage closets and people who get wounded (and killed) in action in a way that feels more true-to-life than say, the way Star Trek: Voyager scrubs the deck clean of pesky casualties and carpet stains only moments after an explosion decimates the crew.
We’ve been waiting for it. We’ve marked our calendars and counted the months for the Battlestar Galactica tele-movie, The Plan. Sometime in June SyFy president Dave Howe mentioned it would air in November. However, now the network says The Plan will not air in 2009.
This should come as no surprise.
The 2009 Creative Arts Emmy winners were announced Saturday, September twelfth in Los Angeles.
Please join in congratulating a few old friends in their Emmy win! So say we all!
For Outstanding Sound Editing in a Series
Battlestar Galactica • Daybreak (Part 2) • Syfy • R&D TV in association with Universal Cable Productions
Daniel Colman, Supervising Sound Editor / Sound Designer
Jack Levy, Supervising Sound Editor
Vince Balunas, Dialogue/ADR Editor
Sam Lewis, Sound Effects Editor
Michael Baber, Music Editor
Doug Maddik, Foley Artist
Rick Partlow, Foley Artist
Complete List of Creative Arts Emmys Noms and Winners
The sci-fi film/television production community is surprisingly close knit. Everyone seems to know everyone else, and it would be difficult to come up with two movies or shows that couldn’t be connected “six degrees of separation”-style. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that a lot of sci-fi contains nods to other works in the genre. One of my favorite things to do when rewatching sci-fi is to keep my eyes peeled for robots/ships/props/etc. from other TV shows or movies to make cameo appearances. And believe it or not, it’s actually pretty common. Allow me to be your guide as we take a look at sci-fi past and present to explore some of the coolest — and some of the most well hidden – of these appearances.
Steampunk meets, erm, future punk. Check out this steampunk Boba Fett on Dragon Con Walk of Fame!
Kaywinnit Lee Frye, a.k.a. Kaylee. Beloved mechanic for the ship Serenity. Mal’s girl Friday with an attitude. I think we all love Kaylee in our own way — but is she a good role model? One definition of the term is “a person whose behavior in a particular role is imitated by others.” Do parents want their daughters to behave like Kaylee? Should young adults imitate her? A more in-depth look at Kaylee should answer this question.
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