I think that one of the best ways for a fan to express themselves is through a personal license plate. I have an Isaac Asimov themed plate, and my wife has one dedicated to The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Yesterday my mother-in-law was riding in her car when her husband spotted one of the coolest license plates ever with a decal above it to match. AT-AT is the perfect license plate befitting a true Star Wars fan. She promptly posted it on her blog, which was forwarded to me by my wife via StumbleUpon. I had to get the full story from the source, and when I did she said she’d send me all 3 pictures. Here they are…
I just recently stumbled upon an interesting site of a girl that loves to make costumes and dress up in them. Quite a few of them are from Sci-Fi, such as The Matrix and my favorite, Star Wars. The Femtrooper costume is probably the geekiest of them all. The stereotypical male costume of the Stormtrooper is ingeniously modified to fit a woman. Of course I don’t know how exposing your stomach would hold up in a firefight against rebels, but it looks good! I wonder what Star Wars would have been like had there been Femtroopers? We might never know except in fan films. There are lots of other pictures on the SithVixen site, check them out.
Sunshine is another movie I noticed on a “must watch” Sci-Fi movie list. The premise of the movie is that the Sun is dying, leaving the Earth in a permanent winter. A group of astronauts are riding on the back of a big bomb the equivalent size of Manhattan island. They are supposed to launch the bomb into the sun to kick start it back up to full brightness. Sounds simple enough, right? (more…)
A couple days ago I was able to visit with some friends I haven’t seen in a few years. After one of them cracked open a bottle of wine, we eventually ended up talking about gaming. One thing led to another and one of my friends asked, “Have any of you heard of Mazes and Monsters?” In mere moments we were watching one of the most horrible acting performances I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t sure if I should be shocked or amazed. In retrospect, the alcohol definitely enhanced the experience. We ended up adding our own commentary, MST3K style. About half way through I regretted that we didn’t start recording our comments to dub in later on. My friend actually had the recording equipment to do it too.
The movie starts out with a scene with a bunch of police cars and fire trucks responding to a missing persons report. A university student got lost in some caverns in a game of Mazes and Monsters that got out of hand. I was battling with trying to figure out if this was supposed to be some type of spoof or just an anti Dungeons and Dragons flick. After watching it all, despite how close it comes to seeming like parody, I think they were actually serious. In the midst of all the no-name actors this guy by the name of Tom Hanks shows up in one of his first roles. I’m sure if you ask him about it today, he’ll try to deny any involvement with this feature.
I’m pretty sure that anyone that has played classic DnD would be amused by this movie. Just watch it with a few friends over a few drinks, and I am sure everyone will have a blast. Here is a clip, it doesn’t contain any real spoilers.