Revenge Of The Sith Spaceship Landing Drinking Game

After all the recent hubbub over the release of the Star Wars movies on Blu-Ray, I decided to re-watch all three of the Prequels (on glorious plain old DVD). Why would I do such a thing to myself, you ask? I don't know. Self-loathing? A masochistic streak I wasn't aware of? Who can say?

After watching them I came to the conclusion that the movies aren't as quite bad as I remembered them. The most frustrating thing about them is that they're almost good. In the hands of a competent writer and a good director, they could have been great.

Anyway, on to the point of this post. As I was watching the final film, Revenge of the Sith, I began to notice something. At first I thought it was just my imagination, but it kept happening over and over again, to the point of absurdity. What was it, you ask? There are a veritable poop-ton of shots of space ships and shuttles taking off and landing, generally on some sort of platform.

Virtually every time the story shifts to a new location, we're forced to watch the characters enter a ship and fly from one place to another. Either George Lucas doesn't believe the audience is smart enough to figure out how the characters are getting from Point A to B, or he has a heretofore unknown fetish for spaceship landings.

Seriously, if you like watching ships take off and land, you'll find this movie positively pornographic.

Look, I get that this is a Star Wars movie, so it's a given there are going to be spaceships in it. That's great. Bring 'em on. And I know that movies need establishing shots to give the audience an idea of the geography of the movie's world. I just don't think it's necessary to see a ship landing every time the movie changes locations.

Don't believe me? Try using a non-Star Wars example. On Seinfeld, when Jerry and George are sitting in Monk's Diner and then leave, the next thing we see is a shot of Jerry's place (accompanied by some weird guitar music). Then we cut to the interior of his apartment. We understand that the characters have traveled to a new location. We don't have to watch Jerry and George leave the Diner, enter a cab, see the cab pull up to the apartment and the two exit it.

So how many ship landings are too many? Let's examine the film, shall we? Yep, it's time for another obsessively detailed post, which I call the Revenge of the Sith Spaceship Landing Drinking Game. The rules are simple: every time a main character takes off or lands in a ship, you have to take a shot. By the end of the movie you will most likely be dead from alcohol poisoning.

Be sure to watch the convenient Landing Tally in the upper left hand corner. Here we go! Spoilers ahead!

Anakin and Obi-Wan land their fighters in the hangar bay of General Grievous' ship in order to rescue Senator Palpatine. OK, I will accept this scene as necessary to establish a location.

General Grievous blasts off from his doomed ship in an escape pod.

Seriously, George? General Grievous? Yes, I know Charles Dickens used slyly descriptive names for his characters, but he was a good writer. I guess in your case the names Sargent Dreadful and Colonel Heinous were already taken?

Anakin lands Grievous' ship on the planet of Coruscant. This is a very extended sequence, lovingly detailed for the discerning ship landing fetishist.

Here we have the first of the classic platform scenes, as Anakin and Obi-Wan deliver Senator Palpatine to the Senate building on Coruscant in a shuttle. Another ship fetishist's dream. 

This is a perfect example of George's favorite type of landing shot. We see the ship proudly banking through the sky as it approaches the platform, then watch it ever so slowly settle onto the surface as its retro-rockets fire and a complicated door peels open. Then the ship bounces ever so slightly on its air-cushioned shock-absorbing struts. The only thing missing is the "Bown-chika-bown-bow" porno music as the sun glints seductively off the burnished metal of the ship.

Incredibly we then get to watch Obi-Wan depart the platform in the very same shuttle.

You could reduce the run-time of this movie by a full fifteen minutes if you just cut out the shots of ships landing on platforms.

Oh, we're not nearly done! Read the rest by clicking below.

Murray Superman

Everyone knows that Supergirl is Superman's cousin. Well, meet Murray Superman, his great uncle.

Murray was vacationing near Krypton's sun Ra when the planet exploded. When he came home and found out Krypton was gone, he followed the trail of his great nephew's spaceship and settled on Earth. He dropped the family name of El and adopted his relative's name of Superman (although he pronounces it "Soopermuhn").

Murray wore the costume, but he never fought much crime. He didn't like all that dangerous flying about, and would just sort of slowly hover a few inches off the ground to get to where he was going. He never threw many super punches either; usually preferring to lecture his opponents until they gave up or killed themselves. He spends most of his time these days in his Condo of Solitude (located somewhere near Boca Raton),

Favorite quote: "Oy, again my big shot important nephew saves the world from that shmendrik Luthor, but five minutes he can't find to call his feter Murray?"

Murray's another one of those sketchbook doodles that's been percolating for a long, long time. I first drew him a couple of years ago but was never satisfied with it, so I forgot about him. I recently decided to give him another go, and this time he worked (in my opinion, anyway). Sometimes drawings just aren't ready to be drawn.

I tried to make the colors of his costume look faded, as if he's had it for decades. I hope that comes across. He's had it so long he had to sew patches on the elbows!

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.

Here's the original sketch of Murray. It's OK I guess, but I just couldn't stand his face. It didn't seem to have any character in it, or at least wasn't adequately depicting the character I had in my mind.

Here's the hurriedly drawn second sketch. This one captures the character much better. The glasses, stooped posture and perpetually gaping mouth make the character look much more like an old man.

Fall Festival 2011

Well, last week's 2011 Evansville Fall Festival (officially known as the Evansville West Side Nut Club Fall Festival) is now history. This year marked the 90th anniversary of the festival.

According to the West Side Nut Club, the Fall Festival is the second largest street fest in the U.S., right after Mardis Gras. I have no proof to dispute that claim; nevertheless I am somewhat skeptical. It seems hard to believe there's nothing between Mardis Gras' million person attendance and the Fall Festival's 150,000.

Some helpful tips for attending the Fall Festival: If at all possible, teleport to the entrance. Because this is a street festival that's held near a residential area, there is no adequate parking anywhere within miles. A second option would be to buy a home along the Festival street, so you can just exit your front door into the festivities.

Also if possible, go at nighttime. The Southern Indiana sun is a cruel and harsh mistress and she will relentlessly beat down on you, even in October. There is precious little shade, and what small amount there is will be occupied by slug-like beings on mobility scooters.

Feel free to bring your infant children and toddlers to the festival, but don't even think about pushing them around in an average, everyday stroller. Such a puny contraption would never survive the thick Festival crowds. Instead, several weeks before the festival, acquire a large, four person aluminum row boat and weld wheels to its side and a handle on the back. Now you've got the perfect sized vehicle in which to push your young one through the teeming crowds. The other festival goers won't mind you running over their feet or blocking their paths with your elaborate rig, because the comfort of your precious little snowflake is all that matters!

The Fall Festival is an outdoor event, so feel free to smoke to your heart's content-- don't worry about the other attendees. In fact, light as many cigarettes as possible! Hand them out to non-smokers and ask them to join in the fun and light up too! Envelope the entire West Side in a thick, noxious nicotine haze. The crowd's lungs will thank you.

When passing a counterfeit twenty dollar bill to an attendant in a food booth to show a little pride in your work! Print your fake twenties on high-quality archival bond, not cheap everyday printer paper. The attendant will recognize quality when they see it and may even compliment your craftsmanship.

Here are a few shots from this year's festivities.

I took these shots with my ancient ten year old digital camera; steadying it by the high tech method of holding it against a nearby tree to help reduce the bluriness as much as possible.

Here we see an "A-Hole" Smoked Turkey Leg. Seems a bit rude to me. What's that? I'm sorry, that should be "A WHOLE."

 

Just a few of the prizes you could win at the Festival. They're not pictured, but there was a lot of (probably knockoff) Angry Birds merchandise on display this year.

Did you know that if you approach one of the delightful carnies and just ask if you can purchase one of the prizes, they'll usually sell you one? You'll probably end up spending a lot less money that way.

The Fall Festival is known for its unusual food fare. Here we see a genuine "boneless" hot dog. My mind is positively reeling right now with dirty joke possibilities.

By the way, the signature dish of the Fesitival is the world famous mouth-watering Brain Sandwich. Did I say mouth watering? Sorry, I meant violent projectile vomiting. Seriously, people will stand in line for hours to get a brain sandwich. I've never tried one. And I never will.

 

Here I am trying to be arty. 

More artyness. 

Here we see a group of thill seekers riding one of the many carnival attractions. I believe this one is called the Vominator.

At one booth you could win a cuddly stuffed teddy bear dressed in a Department Of Corrections orange jumpsuit. Preparing the youth of today for their futures, perhaps?

 

Here's a photo series of the Freak Out ride in motion. I'm getting queasy just looking at it.

Mmm-mmm good! I'll have a Dirty Diaper, and my girlfriend will have a Chunky Diaper, please!

OK, I know these are intentionally "funny" names for these treats, but dear God, it's made with pumpkin! Pumpkin filling already looks disturbingly like baby poo; you're not going to help your sales by reminding people of that fact.

Another shot of the Freak Out ride.

And the Freak Out sign. Again, I was jamming the camera against the side of a tree to try and steady it for these night shots. Who needs a tripod?

Here are some shots of the gaily lit ferris wheel, or as I call it, the Alti-Spit. Riding this attraction allows you to hawk a loogee on virtually anything you can see in every direction for blocks and blocks.

Leaning Tower Of London

According to London officials, Big Ben (officially known as the clock tower at the Houses of Parliment) has begun leaning at an alarming rate, visible to the naked eye.

The tower first began leaning in 2003, and is tilting at a rate of about a millimeter a year. Officials aren't sure of the cause.

Of course if you're a fan of Doctor Who, you know the reason why Big Ben is leaning:

Yep. It's aliens. Specifically the Family Slitheen from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius.*

Of course it could also be caused by people doing this.

*If you look closely at Big Ben as the space ship is slicing through it, you can see that the clock face has been reversed. The film makers actually filmed the model spaceship crashing through the miniature clock tower heading left to right. Later they realized that because the previous shot showed the ship traveling right to left, the scene would flow better if the action was reversed. They couldn't afford to rebuild the model and shoot it again, so they simply flopped the image digitally and hoped no one would notice.

Things I Worry About

Here we see one of the most iconic images of the last century. This photo worries me though, because I just know it's going to confuse the people of 2511.

Hell, it's probably confusing most of the people of 2011.

Memorable Moments In Whostory: Pyramids Of Mars

Hey, it's another Doctor Who infographic!

This time rather than showcase individual characters, I decided to focus on one particular episode: Pyramids of Mars. I'll probably do more episode specific infographics as time permits. There've been over 200 stories so far (consisting of over 770 episodes), so that should keep me busy for a while.

Obviously you'll have to click on the image and magnify to read the text. Hopefully everyone will figure out how to read it; start at the upper left and follow the arrows.

Pyramids of Mars is one of my all-time favorites. It was the third episode of the 13th season, and Tom Baker's second year of playing the Doctor. It's got everything a classic episode needs: a historical setting, a gothic mansion, an evil enemy and of course, monsters.

The Mummy designs are certainly... unusual, what with their dome-like heads and protruding chest plates. The special effects still hold up reasonably well, especially for a nearly 40 year old show. Some of them are still quite effective, particularly the smoking footsteps of Sutekh's agent, and Professor Scarman's shotgun wound healing.

Tom Baker is absolutely firing on all cylinders here. This is also where we get his famous "I'm a Time Lord. I walk in eternity" speech. Elisabeth Sladen was never more radiant as Sarah Jane Smith than here. Sarah Jane was saddled with some truly regrettable outfits in the 1970s, but thankfully here she's wearing a flattering and subdued period costume. And who knew Sarah Jane could handle a rifle so skillfully!

Bernard Archard is wonderfully creepy as the reanimated Professor Scarman. Michael Sheard is suitably befuddled as Laurence Scarman. Sheard also played Admiral Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back, as well as the U-Boat Captain in Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Hitler in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Oddly enough Sheard has played Hitler three other times! Quite a departure from the meek and bewildered Laurence Scarman.

Sadly there just wasn't room to include all the characters. I had to leave out Dr. Warlock, Collins the butler and Ernie Clements, the groundskeeper. They really didn't figure prominently in the plot anyway. I desperately wanted to include Sutekh's "jackal headed appearance," but couldn't find a way to do so. I tried to include all the major details and plot points, but some items had to go by the wayside for space purposes. Think of this as the Cliff Notes version of Pyramids of Mars.

The exterior shots of the Scarman mansion were filmed at a home owned by none other than Mick Jagger. For the scenes at the end where the mansion is on fire, they filmed a large cardboard cutout of the building behind a wall of flames.

Pyramids of Mars is a pretty violent episode; every single character (save the Doctor and Sarah Jane, of course) dies by the end! It features the world's first (and probably only) "Death by Mummy Chest" scene as Ernie Clements, the poacher, is killed by two Robot Mummies who crush his windpipe between their sharp, protruding chest pieces.

Even classic episodes have a few hiccups though, and this one is no exception. Sutekh the Destroyer is so powerful that the Osirans seal him inside a pyramid on Earth, and leave the key on Mars. But Professor Scarman opens Sutekh's tomb in about five seconds with little more than a small crowbar. Seems like there should have been some better security. Inside Sutekh's tomb, he has what appears to be a wide screen high def TV, with which he can observe anything and anyone in the galaxy. He uses it to monitor his possessed slaves and Robotic Mummies, directing their actions to facilitate his escape. Why would his jailers provide him with such a device? And Namin supposedly takes over the Scarman mansion and fills it with sarcophagi full of Robotic Mummies. Where in the hell did he get those? Mummies R Us?

As for the actual drawing and design of the infographic, I changed the layout and rearranged boxes several times until I was satisfied with it. There's no science or formula, I just arrange things until I think it looks right. Drawing monsters and helmeted characters is always pretty easy, because they don't have features, so Sutekh and the Mummies were no problem. I'd drawn the Fourth Doctor before, but I altered his expression here and changed his outfit to the one he wore in the episode. Marcus Scarman proved harder to draw than I thought he would be, probably because he looked slightly different in every reference photo I found. Laurence Scarman and Namin took a little while to get right, but weren't too difficult.

The hardest one of them all to draw was Sarah Jane. I realized this was the first time I'd attempted to draw a female in my "Doctor Who Style." Obviously I couldn't draw her with a giant nose and long skinny head like all the male characters or she'd have looked ridiculous. So I had to pull back the cartooniness quite a bit for her. She proved remarkably difficult to capture. I went through many, many version of Sarah Jane before I got a decent likeness. I'm still not 100% satisfied with her, but she'll have to do.

Very special thanks to my pal across the pond, Ian Ledger, who helped out with editing, text correction and support. Thanks to him I now know what a "ginger moggie" is.

Drawn and laid out entirely in InDesign.

Just for fun, here's what the page for this image looked like in InDesign. I usually place reference photos off to the side and draw the characters there, then drag them onto the page when they're done. Looks like a mess, but it works for me. You can see my many attempts at a Sarah Jane likeness on the right hand side, and several versions of Laurence and Marcus Scarman on the left. I started drawing Sutekh's jackal head on the left as well, but left it unfinished when I realized there wasn't going to be room for it.

DVD Doppelgangers: .45 vs. La Femme Nikita

It's time for DVD Doppelgangers, where I call out art directors who deliberately copy DVD covers of classic and popular movies, hoping to fool the public into buying their knock-off version.

Tonight we have the 2006 movie .45 vs. the 1990 movie La Femme Nikita.

.45 stars Milla Jovovich in something beside a Resident Evil movie for a change, and is the story of "how obsession, addiction and abuse leads a young woman (Jovovich) to execute an elaborate plan of revenge"

La Femme Nikita is a highly influential French film that's spawned an Amercian remake (Point Of No Return) as well as 2, count 'em TWO different TV series (La Femme Nikta and Nikita). It's the story of "convicted felon Nikita, who instead of going to jail, is given a new identity and trained as a top secret spy/assassin."

As soon as I saw the .45 cover in the video store I immediately thought of Nikita. Both feature slender, leggy women in form-fitting short skirts and high heels, slumped against a wall and holding revolvers. They even have the same hairstyles and full pouty lips!

I will give credit where it's due though: the .45 designer, in a bolt of creativity from the blue, reversed the image of his heroin-chic female assassin. So now it can't be called a ripoff (that's a joke, son).

Crazy Commute

For the past few weeks I've been revisiting The Bob Newhart Show on DVD. It was one of my favorite shows as a teenager (yeah, I was a weird kid), and in some ways Mr. Newhart and I are a lot alike. We both have the same dry sense of humor and even temperament (for the most part).

I always liked the opening credits, with the catchy theme song and the various shots of Dr. Bob Hartley walking through downtown Chicago on his way home from the office. But after watching the opening over and over the past few days, I began to notice that there's something not quite right about Bob's daily commute. I've only been to downtown Chicago a handful of times, but even I can tell it makes no sense.

Yep, it's time for another one of my incredibly over-analyzed pedantic pop culture posts, that only I care about! Get comfortable!

We first see Bob outside his office building, wearing his patented "70s Businessman" costume. Boy, everything certainly was brown in the 1970s, wasn't it?

We then see Bob walking left to right over an elevated walkway. This is a bit of an odd starting point, especially since it's actually a couple of blocks SOUTH of the office building where he was just standing. Apparently Bob spontaneously teleported to this location, and somewhat disoriented after rematerialization, started walking in the wrong direction, back toward his office.

Also, keep an eye on the building in the central background.

We then cut to a shot of Bob walking on what first appears to be different bridge. It's not. It's actually the exact same one he was just on, shot from a lower angle. He apparently regained his composure and realized he was walking the wrong way, so he made a U-turn and headed in the opposite direction. How do I know this? Because the building at the left is the exact same one he just passed in the previous shot.

Next we see him walking South over one of the bridges crisscrossing the Chicago River, before the camera zooms out to show downtown Chicago in all its glory.

I gotta say, these location shots aren't doing Chicago any favors. Everything looks dull, drab and lifeless. More like some Soviet-era industrial complex rather than one of the most vibrant and exciting cities in America.

So here's a map of Bob's commute so far. To recap: he inexplicably starts a couple blocks from his office, heads toward it, then turns around and walks to the train station (sorry, you'll have to zoom in to read the text).

We then see Bob board a depressingly colorless train.

Bob is then shown removing his hat and settling in with his newspaper, as if he's going to be on the train for several hours. In reality his apartment building is a scant 7 miles from his office. How long could it take to travel 7 miles by train? Maybe it makes a lot of time-consuming stops. Or maybe the locomotive engineer still believes that the human body can't withstand speeds over 15 mph and it travels very, verrrrry slowly.

Next we see Bob has departed the train and is chatting with a member of the KGB at a cheerless brown station. On the DVD commentary, Bob Newhart himself admitted that this train station was actually located in the Evanston area of Chicago, some four miles North of his apartment building.

So why would he travel so far past his stop? Doesn't he know where he lives? Does he not understand how the rail system works? Was he too engrossed in the newspaper to realize he'd passed his home? Did he become confused by all the identical, utilitarian brown buildings?

Or could it be that Bob isn't as befuddled as his senseless commute would indicate? Maybe the Hartley's marriage isn't as happy as we've been led to believe, and he's not in any hurry to get back home to his wife Emily and his annoying neighbor Howard Borden.

Next we see Bob trudging the 4 long miles back South to his grim, bleak apartment building. Hey, it's brown too.

And we finally see him welcomed home by his wife Emily (the incredibly hot Suzanne Pleshette). Wow, even their apartment is brown!

So for the record, here is Bob's entire commute. He somehow starts several blocks away from his office, walks back and forth in confusion for a while, apparently boards the wrong train which takes him 4 miles past his home (even though there appears to be a station a few blocks from his building), then begins the long march back to his apartment on foot.

Presumably he repeats these steps in reverse every morning to get to his office.

And the AMA trusts this man to psychoanalyze patients. A man who can't even figure out how to get to his home. No wonder his patient Mr. Carlin never got any better!

For the record, the Chicago locations used in the show are still there:

Here's Bob's downtown office building, then and now. It's obviously gone through quite a bit of renovation since the 1970s. Thankfully they got rid of most of the brown.

Here's Bob and Emily's apartment building, then and now. Unfortunately it hasn't changed at all. It still looks just as brown, joyless and utilitarian as it did in 1972.

Just for fun, here's a comparison of the view from Bob's apartment window versus the real world view. OK, even I'm not going to be that big a stickler for detail, to demand that the show use the real world view. Besides, it's fairly close. And it's possible that the view might have actually looked like that 40 years ago. I'm just sayin' is all.

Just for the heck of it, take a close look at the background of the scene where Bob is riding the train. Apparently the Wizard of Id comic strip was really popular in 1973.

Why I Love Doctor Who

If you're a regular reader of my blog (and frankly, who isn't?) then you know I'm a big fan of Doctor Who. Around here it's always Doctor this, and Who that. I've posted a ton of Who-inspired illustrations as well. It's dethroned Star Trek as my all-time favorite TV show.

One reason I love Doctor Who is because it doesn't take itself as seriously as other shows. Sure it's often dramatic, but it's not afraid to be silly now and then. I also like that Who doesn't get too bogged down in its own continuity. It references past episodes now and then and has multi-part story arcs, but for the most part you don't need to be a Who scholar to enjoy it. You practically needed a degree in Trekology in order to watch the various Star Trek shows.

But the main reason I love Doctor Who so much? Because it's just plain batsh•t crazy.

Current showrunner and writer Steven Moffat packs more concepts and insanity into one episode of Doctor Who than other shows have in an entire season. And just when you think he's done, he crams in some more. He throws ideas at the screen so fast that sometimes I have to replay scenes just to absorb it all. It's all a little overwhelming, but in a good way. I think about Who episodes long after I've forgotten about other shows.

Take the recent episode A Good Man Goes To War. It was the mid-season cliffhanger and promised to provide answers to a lot of questions. And answer them it did, along with bringing up even more. Here's just some of what happened in that episode. Spoilers, obviously.

In the episode, the Doctor's companion Amy Pond and her newborn daughter Melody have been kidnapped by sinister forces. The Doctor and Amy's husband Rory are determined to rescue her. Here we see the asteroid space station where Amy is being held, called Demon's Run. It's currently occupied by the Church's army. In the 51st century, the Anglican Church has its own military force, complete with Clerics (foot soldiers) commanded by Bishops (Officers). The Church is headed by a "female" computerized Pope, called the Papal Mainframe.

Other shows would take an entire episode just to showcase the 51st century Church and it's army, but here it's thrown at you in an instant, and before you have a chance to comprehend what you've just seen, they trowel on some more concepts.

We're then introduced to Madame Kovarian, an evil agent of the Silence, who wears a cool high tech eye patch. She's the one who's been holding Amy and Melody hostage. Those are a couple of Cleric soldiers behind her.

We also get a cool cameo by the Cybermen, one of the Doctor's oldest enemies.

Read the rest by clicking below.

Frankenstein 012: Frankenspock

It's high time I added to my somewhat neglected 100 Frankensteins Project. So here, straight from the final frontier we have a mash-up of two of my favorite things: Frankenstein and Star Trek. It's Frankenspock and his lovely fellow officer... Lieutenant Bride of Frankenspock. 

When I was sketching out this idea, I originally drew the Monster much, much skinnier, similar to the real Spock. The slim build was truer to both characters, but it just looked sort of meh as a drawing. So I decided to forgo accuracy and beef up the Monster's frame considerably.

I had planned on drawing the Bride's leg's wrapped in bandages like the original character, but I ultimately decided against it. I wanted her to look sexy, and bandaged legs just don't look very alluring. 

Unlike a lot of people, I don't like listening to music while I draw. I will sometimes turn on the TV though for some background noise. I had the TV on while I was drawing this and guess what came on? Yep, Bride of Frankenstein! Synchronicity!

About those female Starfleet uniforms: What kind of an organization would make its members wear such a thing? I get the real-world reason why the women on the show all wore ultra-short miniskirts: To boost the ratings among the male demographic. And boost them they did! But that doesn't explain the in-universe reasoning. Starfleet is supposed to be this progressive, high minded equal opportunity organization. These women are all highly trained officers. So why make them dress like cocktail waitresses?

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.

Here's the original sketch. Well, one of them anyway. I did a lot of them. In this one you can see I had the look of the Monster down pretty well, but I wasn't quite sure how to draw the Bride. Probably because she was going to have a somewhat realistic look. It's always easier for me to draw an exaggerated monster than a normal looking human.

Here's a tighter digital sketch. The Bride is shaping up a bit, so to speak, but she's still not quite there. I think the problem was with this pose. I could see it in my mind, but it just wouldn't translate to the screen. So I scrapped it and tried something different.