Now that he’s been in Doctor Strange and Rogue One, it’s not like Mads Mikkelsen doesn’t have experience or interest in starring in some big ticket, CG-laden science fiction. But apparently even just auditioning for a role in the recent Fantastic Four reboot was too much for the actor.
Discussing bad auditions with Shortlist recently, Mikkelsen briefly described an embarrassing experience while auditioning for Josh Trank’s disastrous Fantastic Four. And then revealed he actually ended up walking out before the audition could end:
You’ve spoken about auditioning for Fantastic Four and finding it an excruciating process. Can you remember any other particularly bad auditions?
I’ve had tons of them. We’ve all been there. We all show up and it’s a little office room with a desk and some books and they want you to do a scene where you have two lines – maybe not even two lines – maybe just “Bleurgh!” or “Get back!” And you’re hiding behind a palm tree that’s not there. It’s like, “Guys, couldn’t you have picked a different kind of scene to this? This is fucking mad.” You feel like an idiot.
Have you actually walked out of any?
I think I walked out on the Fantastic Four one. I think I actually said, “I can’t do it. It’s not about you, I’m sorry, this is wrong.”
It’s not the first time Mikkelsen has discussed his audition for the film—he recently told Xposethat he was mortified at having to flail his arms around like a rubber man for the role—but it’s the first time he discusses actually calling it quits on the audition before it was over. It’s also an intriguing description... was he being auditioned for Doom or Mr. Fantastic? Ultimately, the cast of the Fantastic Four reboot skewed relatively young, even with its take on Doom. Was there a point when we were going to get an older, more traditional take on the team? Either way, it seems like even then Mikkelsen was not keen on the film’s trajectory at all.
The advent of inexpensive Bluetooth headphones has been a net positive, but there’s no getting around it: They’re a pain in the ass to charge.
Luckily, Mpow’s new headphone carrying case includes a built-in 800mAh battery and microUSB cable, so you can recharge your earbuds while simultaneously keeping them from getting lost or tangled in your bag. Yeah, you’ll still need to recharge the case, but this definitely makes Bluetooth earbuds a simpler option while traveling.
These headphones have all the features you’d expect in a good pair of Bluetooth headphones these days: NFC pairing, 20+ hour battery life, and even LDAC Hi-Res audio compatibility. But the secret sauce here is noise cancellation, including a special mode that lets ambient voices through either at all times, or just when you cup a hand over the right earcup. $348's still a pretty penny, but it’s the largest discount Amazon’s ever listed on this model in its 6+ months of existence.
$19 is a very good price for any 20,000mAh USB battery pack. But when you consider that this one includes Quick Charge 2.0 for your Android devices, it’s a no-brainer. You should be able to get 4-5 phone charges out of this thing, making it perfect for sharing during a long flight or camping trip.
Say your wireless router can’t push a strong signal to every corner of your house, or maybe you own some kind of old set top box that needs an ethernet connection, but doesn’t live near the router. A simple powerline adapter is one of your best options for extending a home network, and you can get a great set (with two receivers instead of the usual one) for just $50 today, about $16 less than usual.
If you can’t abide slow internet or modem rental fees, this is the bundle for you. While supplies last, Amazon will sell you a powerful NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 router, plus a blazing-fast 32x8 cable modem (which is capable of download speeds over one gigabit per second) for $250.
For comparison’s sake, the router alone is currently listed for $257, and the modem goes for $100, so you’re basically getting the modem for free. That’s quite a deal when you consider that modems usually pay for themselves anyway.
Bias lights can make just about any TV look better, and you can get a set for just a few bucks today on Amazon.
If you aren’t familiar, Vansky’s LED bias light strips plug directly into your TV’s USB port for power, and stick to the back of the set via built-in adhesive. Once you turn your TV on, the light strip will cast a soft glow on the wall behind it, which can reduce eyestrain when watching in the dark, and improve your TV’s perceived black levels.
We’ve posted deals on these several times now, but today’s $12 (RGB) and $12 (white) price points are some of the best we’ve ever seen. Just be sure to use code CCT8XE05 at checkout to get the deal.
That’s a pretty great price for any Quick Charge car charger, but Nonda’s has some features you won’t find anywhere else. Most notably, your phone connects to the charger over Bluetooth, and every time the connection drops (meaning your car has turned off), a free app will make a note of your location so you can find your parking spot later.
In addition, you can track your mileage for tax and expensing purposes (free for 60 drives per month, $3/month or $30/year for unlimited), and even monitor the health of your car battery if you sign up for a $1 per month premium subscription. Even if you don’t use those features though, this is well worth the $13 for the parking location feature alone.
The past year or so has seen a deluge of Wi-Fi router innovation, and Portal seems to be one of the best newcomers in the space, particularly for smaller dwellings in congested, urban environments.
Portal includes app-based configuration, nine internal antennas, 802.11ac...table stakes these days for a good router. But while almost all home Wi-Fi routers limit you to public channels over 5GHz, Portal also opens up four so-called DFS channels that are typically reserved for military use and commercial radar.
The law allows home routers to use these DFS channels, but they must shift off of them for a set amount of time whenever they detect active radar to avoid interference. Portal does just this, and moves all of your devices off of the busy channel in the background automatically, and shifts them back on when it’s safe. That means that most of the time, these channels are practically empty, so you won’t have to worry about interference from your neighbors’ Wi-Fi networks operating on public channels. This Digital Trends review has a much thorough explanation of the technology, if you’re curious.
This router retails for $200, and has sold for around $175 on Amazon since it launched late last year, but for a limited time, you can try it out for $149. Mine will be here Friday.
If your phone supports Qi wireless charging, it’s a great day to buy some new pads to scatter around your home and office, as Anker’s 5W and 10W PowerTouch pads are both on sale.
Other than the maximum charging speed and a few very minor design differences, these are functionally identical. The headlining feature is an LED light ring on the bottom (which you can turn off, thankfully) which pulses to indicate whether your device is charging. Just note that not all phones can accept 10W wireless charging, and that these don’t include power adapters, so you’ll need to plug them into a USB charging port somewhere.
Amazon’s Fire Tablet doesn’t exactly feature bleeding edge technology, but hey, it’s a perfectly good portable TV screen and web browser for like $50. Today, you can get the upgraded 16GB version (which retails for $70), a case, and a screen protector all for $60 with promo code FIREBUNDLE. Yes, that’s $10 less than you’d normally spend on the tablet by itself.
Your favorite USB car charger just happens to be the smallest one you can buy, and you can grab it on Amazon for $7 today with code AUKEYCAR. We’ve seen it go as low as $6 on a few occasions, but this is the best deal we’ve seen in a long time, if it’s been on your wish list.
The SoundBuds Slim are, as you might have gleaned from the name, far smaller than the originals. Heck, they look like a small set of wired earbuds; you might never guess there were batteries and Bluetooth radios in there. Despite the size, these buds are still rated for seven hours of battery life, and recharge fully in just 90 minutes.
There was a $6 launch day discount on these a few weeks ago that dropped them to $24, but if you missed out on that sale, they’re slashed to $22 today, no code required.
If you want to keep your furry friends in the backseat where they belongs on your next road trip, these dog seat belts clip into most standard seat belt buckles on one end, and a dog harness on the other.
A few things here: First, these aren’t designed to keep your dog safe in an accident, if that wasn’t obvious. They’re meant to keep her from jumping into the front seat to tell you she loves you while you’re merging onto the highway. Second, use a dog harness instead of a collar, just in case you get into a fender bender or have to come to a hard stop. Third, use promo code N4OQGQAC to get a 4-pack for $7.
To be clear, Leeo isn’t a smoke or CO alarm on its own; it’s basically an internet-connected microphone that listens for your existing alarms. It can also alert emergency services and/or neighbors if you’re away from your phone, and it even operates as a full RGB night light that you can control from your phone or via IFTTT. That’s a ton of features for the price.
Before you go out and flush $30 down the drain on a Yeti Rambler, check out this RTIC alternative for just $10 on Amazon today, within a dollar of the best price Amazon’s ever listed. It uses the same vacuum-insulated stainless steel construction, and according to this YouTube video at least, actually keeps ice frozen for longer. No-brainer.
Note: It’s listed as an add-on item, but if you look on the sidebar for other sellers, you can buy it from RTIC directly with free (albeit slower) shipping, without adding any extra items to your cart.
Update: I screwed up, sorry, you can’t pair separate remote sensors with this model like I thought. It’s still a great thermostat, especially for a smaller home, but don’t buy it expecting to add remote sensors after the fact.
While it doesn’t have the brand recognition of Nest’s learning Thermostat, the Ecobee3 Smart Thermostat one-ups its most popular competitor by pairing with wireless remote sensors that you can place elsewhere in your house, giving the thermostat a more accurate picture of your home’s overall temperature. Plus, it’ll work with Siri via HomeKit, and your Amazon Echo too.
Just note that this is the “Lite” version of the Ecobee3, which doesn’t detect occupancy, can’t control accessories like dehumidifiers, and doesn’t include a room sensor like the Ecobee3. You can still pair it with two room sensors for $79 though, and the combined price is sill a solid $30 less than the Ecobee3, which only comes with one remote sensor.
Here’s a stupid little thing that’ll make your life just a little bit easier. Joseph Joseph’s Double Dish is a clever little invention for eating edamame, olives, pistachios, or any other finger foods that leave behind scraps, and it’s just $13 on Amazon right now.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, you just fill the top bowl with the food of your choice, and drop the remains through one of three chutes into the bottom bowl. At the end of the day, it’s still two dishes to clean up, but it takes up less space on your table, it looks cool, and most importantly, you don’t have to stare at those disgusting olive pits during your meal. Today’s price is within about a dollar of an all-time low, so get cracking.
Cooking eggs isn’t exactly rocket science, but I’d say the ability to make soft, medium, and hard boiled eggs, plus omlettes and poached eggs at the touch of a button is worth $16. The Dash Go is Amazon’s top-selling egg cooker, and carries a truly stellar 4.6 star review average from nearly 3,000 customers, so get it while it’s on sale.
If you feel confident in your dog styling abilities, this cordless clipper set costs less than a single trip to the groomer. If you’re feeling really ambitious, this would pair well with a DIY washing station as well.
I wouldn’t normally post a rotating RGB stage light like this, but hell, it’s $8 and it includes a microphone so it can spin at the same speed as your music. Loan it to one friend for a wedding, and that’s money well spent.
Not only is this bottle of Chevon Techron fuel system cleaner within $1 of an all-time low on Amazon, this mail-in rebate lets you get a second bottle for free. Just buy two bottles in the same transaction, and fill out the rebate form on this page.
Everyone should own a slow cooker, and more specifically, everyone should own a programmable slow cooker. If you’re going to be at work for nine hours, but your recipe only calls for six hours of cooking, these will automatically switch to warm mode at the time of your choosing, so you can walk in the door and enjoy a delicious dinner.
These incredibly affordable solar-powered LED lights do the impossible: They actually look really nice. The glass is cracked in a Pinterest-pleasing kind of way, the bulbs are recessed inside artificial candles, and they even flicker like real flames. At $10 for two, and with basically zero maintenance to worry about, why not class up your front yard?
You need a kitchen scale, and while we’ve seen dozens of deals on cheap kitchen scales over the years, but I think this is one of the best looking ones yet. The entire top surface is a flat pane of glass, including the LCD display, making cleanup a breeze.
Despite its diminutive size, this includes all the same features as the full-sized WeMo Switch, including IFTTT support, Alexa compatibility, and an Away mode that will randomize your lights to deter ne’er-do-wells.
No matter how you prefer to prop up your phone in the car, Anker makes a mount for it, and four different models are on sale today. I’m most intrigued by this $9 dashboard model, which combines the ease and minimalism of a magnetic mount without blocking a vent.
Dry shampoo has become a necessity these days (when used sparingly). Grab a 3-pack of Batiste, your favorite dry shampoo, for only $16 when clip the $1 off coupon and sign up for Subscribe & Save (you can always cancel) and make sure you never have greasy roots again.
While the East Coast is still sort of recovering from the snow fall (with more to come this weekend, of course), Marmot is thinking about getting you outside and get you geared up for less. Take 60% off outerwear, bottoms, layering pieces, and more, for everyone in the family. It’s like Christmas for the outdoorsy people in your life.
Winter had one last hurrah this week, but warm weather is just around the corner, and you can enjoy it to the fullest with this pop-up sun shade.
This canopy is only 50" long when collapsed, but it pops up in seconds, and provides you with 8' x 8' of shaded space. Plus, its included sand bags and stakes make it perfect for the beach. Today’s price is the best Amazon’s offered since 2015, so even if you don’t have an outdoor excursion on the immediate horizon, this might be worth picking up.
Right now, Nordstrom Rack is having a pretty extensive Adidas sale, with discounts on shoes for men and women, bags, and tons of socks, plus men’s activewear, and kids’ sizes. With prices this low, these will go fast, even before the sale itself ends in three days.
It’s not quite Clear the Rack, but it is an extra 25% off select discounted items from Nordstrom Rack (prices reflect discount). This one is a sale full of winter staples, like outerwear, boots, and cold weather accessories, plus some other random pieces thrown in as well. End of the season means discounts, just in time for you pack them away for next winter.
Update 2: Here’s the full list of eligible bouquets. Sorry about all the confusion. If the promo is showing up in your checkout, but isn’t working, try and reenter it.
Update: We’re working on figuring out why the code has stopped working. In the meantime, CHEERFUL still works for 15% off.
The Bouqs is probably the best place to use when sending flowers right now. The bouquets are unique and the blooms are harvested from the side of a freakin’ volcano. And right now, you’ll be able to get double the flowers for free, plus 15% off the entire site. Just choose the Deluxe size of any non-seasonal bouquet, use the codes DOUBLEBLOOM and CHEERFUL at check out and get it for the price of the Original size, plus 15% off.
Another day, another J.Crew Factory markdown. This time, get an extra 30% off all clearance styles with the code EXTRA30. J.Crew Factory is basically always on sale, but it works even better when they have extra discounts, so if you haven’t stocked up on workwear staples and outwear galore, maybe this one will change your mind.
If you have any Disney princess fans in your life, today’s a great day to stock up on birthday and holiday gifts: Amazon’s offering big discounts on Disney-branded apparel and accessories, spanning the timeline from Cinderella to Moana. This is a Gold Box deal though, so make your selections before the clock strikes midnight.
Superbadwas one of the great movies of the aughts, and hilariously helped launch the careers of an Academy Award winner in Emma Stone, and an Academy Award nominee in Jonah Hill. You won’t need a fake ID to get the unrated extended edition for just $7 on Amazon today.
Sphero’s remote-controlled BB-8 droid was one of the coolest toys ever made when it first came out, and it’s stillimproving to this day! Today on eBay, you can buy your own for 94 portions dollars, the best price we’ve seen.
The Xbox One Chatpad makes it easy to enter passwords and type out sick Rocket League owns on the fly, and it’s never been cheaper on Amazon than it is right now. It even includes a headset!
Before you go out and spend hundreds of dollars on a DJI Phantom, you can learn the basics of flying a quadcopter with these $23 toy drones from Aukey. Trust me, if you can fly one of these things, you can fly a GPS-equipped, gyro-stabilized camera rig. And if not, well, it’s not like crashing it will be that big a deal.
Both of the drones below are identical, but one comes with a remote, and the other relies on a Wi-Fi connection with your phone for control.
Hey, listen. If you have a Wii U or Switch, and for some reason haven’t bought Breath of the Wild yet, this is your last day to save 20% on the game by ordering with Amazon Prime. Hell, even if you’re waiting for the Switch to come back into stock, it might be worth buying the game early, since popular first party Nintendo games rarely get discounts until they get a Nintendo Selects release.
Just remember that this benefit is only valid on the physical copy of the game, and you won’t see the discount until checkout.
Ridley Scott and Danny McBride on the set of Alien Covenant. Image: Fox
Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant opens in May, and recently, he’s been showing off footage and talking about the franchise’s future. He made waves saying he’s already got a script for the next film, and even said there could be three more after that. Now, he may have slipped and let us know the title of that next Alien film... maybe?
Speaking to Fandango, Scott said the following when asked about the timeline between Prometheus, Covenant, and, eventually, Alien.
There will be another one before we kind of literally and logically, clockwise, back into the rear back head of [the original] Alien.... It will go Prometheus, Awakening, Covenant... fairly integral where this colonization ship is on the way....
It’s here that, apparently, he was cut off by his Covenant Star Katharine Waterston for giving away too much information. Scott then finished by saying “If this is successful, and then the next one, and then there will definitely be three more.”
So it seems like, maybe, the next film would potentially be Alien: Awakening, which is a cool title and certainly a fitting one to potentially lead into the original Alien. But there are two problems with this exchange. The first, obviously, is that Scott makes it sound like Awakening comes before Covenant. So either it’s a prequel to Covenant (unlikely) or he simply misspoke (more likely).
Then there’s his first quote. Scott says there “will be another one before” linking back up with Alien. Later he said there will be three more after that. Which is it? One more or four more? If I had to guess, Scott himself isn’t sure. Maybe he has a story that he could tell in four movies if there’s a demand for them. But, if there’s not, he could wrap it up in one movie. Obviously, we don’t know for sure. What we do know is any future Alien movies ride on audiences turning out for (and liking) Alien: Covenant on May 19.
Ten years ago, Hugo Award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor was getting ready to publish her second novel. She was thrilled to share her latest work with the world, which envisioned an African country after an apocalypse, centered around a black protagonist. Then she saw her book’s cover.
Okorafor recently took to Twitter to share an experience of whitewashing from her days as a new writer. Right before The Shadow Speaker was set to come out in 2007, she discovered that the publisher, Hyperion/Disney, had changed the ethnicity of the main character on the cover. It showed a white woman in the middle of an African desert, even though there were literally no white characters in the novel. Even worse, Okorafor didn’t get to see the cover until the advance copies had already been sent out and it was being featured on Amazon, as she revealed in an interview with io9.
“How did I feel? Shock, a sinking feeling in my belly, fury, and ‘O-M-G, it’s happening. To me!’” Okorafor told io9. “I started writing science fiction because I wanted to see Africa in the future... This cover erased a lot of that in one stroke. Plus, it was a lie.”
This isn’t a new phenomenon in Young Adult fiction. The public has recently been focused on whitewashing characters in movies, like Katara and Soka in The Last Airbender or Major in Ghost in the Shell, but whitewashing POC characters on the covers of YA books has been going on for years. In 2011, a peak year for YA fiction, writer Kate Hart did a detailed breakdown of representation on covers from that year... only 10% of them featured non-white characters. For example, Kelley Armstrong’s Darkness Rising trilogy featured a Native American protagonist, and The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa had an Asian lead, yet both books featured white women on the covers.
From left: The original cover, the first revision, and the final version.
Okorafor said she refused to allow her character to be whitewashed on the cover, and she worked with her agent to get the cover fixed. The publisher was gracious, albeit a little less-than-forthcoming about the problem. They said it was because there weren’t enough stock model photos of black women, though Okorafor doesn’t fully buy it. It took a few back and forths to get the cover to roughly represent the ethnicity of the protagonist (even if it inevitably failed to capture what she actually looked like, since her character was bald for most of the novel).
The Shadow Speaker coversituation happened at a time when social media wasn’t nearly as pervasive, so Okorafor didn’t have as large a support system to increase awareness. In the following years, we’ve seen more novels changed due to both private and public outcry. The 2010 YA novel Liar had a black woman as its protagonist but originally featured a white woman on its cover; but much like The Shadow Speaker, the cover was fixed prior to publishing. In 2015, author Rick Riordan finally got Dutch and Russian publishers to stop whitewashing covers for his Kane Chronicles series, which stars a young biracial man.
Even though The Shadow Speaker’s revised cover accurately represented the character within the pages, there are those who’ve criticized Okorafor for having wanted it changed. A lot of the arguments are similar to ones that have been used to defend casting Scarlett Johansson as Major in Ghost in the Shell: “You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” “Who cares if it doesn’t change the story,” “You’re racist for thinking ethnicity defines a character,” or (my personal favorite) “White people spend more money.”
This last one is a key issue, as one school librarian showed in a chat with some school kids back in 2013. Publishers and studios often share the belief that white characters sell more, even if it’s more based on comfort than statistics. A 2015 study from UCLA showed that diverse shows and movies are in demand and they make money, but Hollywood is hesitant to follow through. Okorafor said she’s heard all the excuses before, on film and in print, and it all comes from the same place.
“There’s a whole history of racist intent and assumption behind whitewashing. To deny this is just to avoid the discomfort of guilt,” Okorafor said. “People don’t like to be uncomfortable, and seeing something in yourself that you know is problematic is uncomfortable, even painful. So giving the benefit of the doubt when it’s not earned is easier. Pretending you don’t see the obvious means you don’t have to look within. It’s easier to maintain than grow.”
Okorafor’s had several novels and novelettes published since then, including 2016's Hugo and Nebula Award winner Binti, and none of those covers have been whitewashed. She said she, and her publishers, wouldn’t let it happen again. Sadly, The Shadow Speaker is currently out of print, but Okorafor, who’s Nigerian-American, said the experience personally showed her what erasure feels like. It wasn’t a hypothetical situation, or another person’s plight, it was her own life’s work. She said that non-white creators can feel like they’re being personally attacked when their work is whitewashed, because it’s not just their words that are being erased... it’s their own experiences.
“I learned that whitewashing really can happen to me and not to let fear keep me from seeing what it is. It taught me that when the time comes to stand, I must stand. It reminded me of why I write. It taught me that when you speak up, sometimes you will be heard,” Okorafor said.
Note: It’s been pointed out that Katniss’ ethnicity from The Hunger Games is open to debate. She has olive skin, black hair, and grey eyes, but that could mean Caucasian or non-Caucasian heritage. The books never openly state her ethnicity. I decided to remove that reference and added Avatar: The Last Airbender characters, who were whitewashed in their movie adaptation.
We’ll never stop missing Bill Paxton, one reason being our ongoing obsession with his 1996 tornado-chasing classic, Twister. The look on everyone’s face in this famous scene is how we feel at the end of this week. (Everyone including the cow.) How about you?
Imagine a future in which humans can produce a vast variety of foods with all sorts of textures and shapes at the flick of a switch. Just throw a mix into your 3D printer, and, presto, gooey gorgonzola globules! Crunchy candy cubes! Incredible!
That future is not quiiiite here yet. But it could be close.
Scientists at the University College, Cork in Ireland wondered how the 3D printing process might change the properties of an American classic, processed cheese. The end product was substantially different from the cheese they put in, but this was likely the first time anyone had tried something like this.
“To the authors’ knowledge, no studies have focused upon the impact of additive manufacturing methodologies on the structural properties of dairy products,” the authors write in the study published last month in the Journal of Food Engineering.
There are several ways 3D printers print things, including mixingsome fine powder and a binding agent, or by squirting a melted raw product like Easy Cheese out of a nozzle to build up the structure. You can imagine which method they used with processed cheese.
The researchers started with a RepRap Pro Ormerod 1 printer, retrofitting it with a custom syringe to handle cheese instead of plastic. They first analyzed melted and unmelted processedcheeses to compare their 3D printed final products to later. Then, they put cheese into their custom nozzle, and warmed it to 75 degrees celsius (167 degrees Fahrenheit) for twelve minutes. After modeling their end product in design and drafting software, they extruded the cheese at slow (four milliliters per minute) and fast (12 milliliters per minute) rates.
They tried printing cylinders, which ended up looking more like a sloppy circular mess. The mascarpone bear was cute, though.
Image: Alan Kelly et al
A textural analysis showed the final 3D printed products ended up gooier and less thick than what they started with, no matter how fast they printed the cheese. 3D printed cheeses were also darker in color.
Those textural changes likely came from changes to the cheese’s molecular structure during extruding—something we’ll have to think more about if we’re hoping to 3D print more foods in the future. Processed cheese comes from mixing a blend of cheeses with butter or whey, vegetable oil, proteins, salts, and water, explains the paper’s authors. Their original product started with a protein network that keeps the whole thing solid, with spherical dots of fats on the order of ten micrometers interspersed. While melting cheese creates larger spherical fat globs after the heating process, the extruding process changed the cheese’s molecular structure fundamentally. 3D printed cheeses had breaks in their protein networks and large, misshapen, non-spherical fat balls. These differences in structure could have led to the cheeses’ softer textures.
So, no, you probably won’t see 3D printed cheese on your plate tomorrow, since scientists are only now figuring out how printing could alter the structural and functional properties of your food. But hey, if you’ve got a 3D printer, some cheese, and a custom nozzle, we’d love to see what sloppy creations you can come up with.
Video used with permission from Alan Kelly at the University of Cork
Steve Roger’s Hydra reveal is going to bring out all sorts of old and new heroes to fight against his attempt to rule the world—and one of the new ones is going to be the latest incarnation of one of Marvel’s oldest heroes. But could another familiar face be behind the mask?
The new Patriot look graces the cover for issue two of Secret Empire: Brave New World, a new series by Paul Allor and Brian Level revealed over at Nerdist today. Brave New World will act as an ancillary series for the Secret Empire event, and essentially acts as a series to explore the wider Marvel Universe’s reaction to the fact that one of its oldest, most beloved heroes—a legend—has betrayed them. It’s a reaction keenly felt across the world and the superhero community, pulling together everyone from big hitters like Carol Danvers and Sam Wilson, to members of the Invaders (the superteam that fought alongside Steve in World War II), and even a new version of the Patriot.
There’ve been several incarnations of the Patriot over the years—originally it was Jeffery Mace, who is currently part of Agents of SHIELD on TV. But there was also a second Patriot, introduced in the Young Avengers comics: Eli Bradley, the grandson of one-time Captain America Isaiah Bradley. Still, it seems like the “All-New Patriot” will be someone who’s yet to be revealed.
Pretty sweet bird-glider thing they’ve got going on, whoever it is. It’s almost Falcon-esque. Considering we’ve seen covers for Secret Empire where Sam Wilson is out of his Captain America gear, could it be possible that he relinquishes the Cap mantle after Steve tarnishes the name with his revelation, turning to another identity? The bird motif and the glasses could be a hint, but we’ll have to wait for Brave New World to release in June to see the real identity of this hero.
Welcome back to the Toy Aisle, io9's new weekly collection of the best toys around. This week, we’ve got cosmic Marvel monopoly, adorable Power Rangers toys for toddlers, a gorgeous Blade Runner collectible, and more Star Wars goodness than you could shake a double-bladed lightsaber at.
Hot Toys Death Star Gunner
Hot Toys is back with more Star Wars figures, and this time, they’re desperate to put out as many faceless, helmeted minions as they can. Good job the Empire is more than willing to oblige! The latest 1:6-scale Star Wars toy from the company is one of the superlaser operators from the Death Star, complete with their giant, oversized helmet that pretty much acts as a giant pair of sunglasses for when they’re firing bright green lasers of planet-destroying death. The figure, due out early next year, comes with a few alternate pairs of hands and a single DL-17 blaster to his name. [Hot Toys]
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Monopoly
The septillionth edition of Monopoly, set to hit stores sometime in April, celebrates Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and as with all the other iterations of the iconic board game, this one is all about the tokens. In addition to Star-Lord’s helmet and cassette player, we get Rocket’s blaster, Gamora’s sword, Mantis, and what will undoubtedly be the highlight of the sequel—a tiny version of young Groot. [Merchoid via Nerd Approved]
Re-Edit Modular Iron Man
Sentinel’s latest take on Iron Man is pretty much Iron Man with a goddamn gun emplacement slapped on top of his armor. It’s a little Mobile Suit Gundam meets Iron Man with a dash of War Machine. The bulky Iron Avenger stands in a 6-inch scale, and comes with multiple posable hands and a ton of weapons, from a plasma cannons to a wrist blade for if the giant guns on his shoulders hadn’t quite killed you into next week yet. He’ll be hefty when he comes out in Japan though—current prices are looking to be around $180 for this souped-up Stark suit. [Toyark]
Blade RunnerTomenosuke 2049 Blaster Prop
Hollywood Collectibles Group goes out of its way to avoid calling this prop a replica of Deckard’s blaster from Blade Runner, but die-hard fans of the film will recognize its unique design. Next to Star Wars’ lightsabers, this blaster is one of the most sought-after film prop replicas among collectors, which is probably why HCG is asking $900 for each one when available come June, limited to just 100 copies. [Hollywood Collectibles Group]
Fisher-Price Imaginext Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers
It’s hard to top the 28-inch tall BatBot Xtreme that Fisher-Price revealed at Toy Fair 2017 last month, but the brand’s Imaginext line—essentially toddler-safe action figures—is soon expanding to include even more toys based on the original US version of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Ranging in price from $7 for Squat and Baboo figures, to $35 for the Power Rangers command center playset, Fisher-Price seems to be targeting nostalgic parents, since the current generation of toddlers will undoubtedly be more familiar with the more recent incarnations of the show, instead of the classic iteration. [Fisher-Price]
Figuarts Qui-Gon Jinn
The circle is now complete—that is, if you’re a fan of Figuarts’ Star Wars toys and wanted to be able to fully recreate the duel on Naboo between Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Qui-Gon Jinn from The Phantom Menace. Bandai’s latest figure in the super articulated 6-inch line is none other than Liam Neeson’s Jedi master himself. Complete with his green lightsaber (capable of being hung from his belt or ignited for combat) and multiple hand poses, he’s perfect to square off in a battle to the toy-death with the company’s Maul figure. I wonder if he comes with a hole in the middle of his gut to recreate his death scene? [Toyark]
It’s been a year since composer Hans Zimmer retired from superhero movies, and it looks like we finally know why. He loves Christian Bale’s Batman too much.
In an interview with Inverse, Zimmer went into more detail about why he chose to retire from composing for superhero movies after Batman v Superman. In the past, he said it was hard for him to find a unique musical style for another superhero franchise after doing all three of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. But now, he says it’s mainly because the new Batman, specifically, wasn’t the right fit for him. Not after Christian, anyway.
“I spent months trying to come up with something for Ben. The Batman that I know and the one I learned is the one that Christian did, and Ben plays it differently. And I can’t quite shake that off,” Zimmer said. “The Ben character is more middle-aged, he seems to be grumpy as hell, but I didn’t feel the pain that I felt in Christian’s performance. And it was that pain that made be interested.”
It’s somewhat surprising coming from Zimmer, who previously said he was very excited about Affleck taking up the Caped Crusader mantle. “He’ll be a really good Batman,” he told Collider back in 2013. And who knows, he might still enjoy Batfleck, but it looks like he’s simply too fond of the Baleman to move on. In short, Zimmer is basically Phil Collins, and Bale is that girl who took the train out of town. No matter what happens, no matter what new Batman comes into his life, he can’t stop loving him.
For the past 31 years, the setting of the Legend of Zelda games has mostly stayed the same—until now. The latest game in the series, Breath of the Wild, has transformed the traditional kingdom of Hyrule into something fundamentally different to its predecessors: a world which, now more than ever, is there to be lost in.
Welcome to Worlds We Love, a new io9 series discussing the settings of the series we love—from fantastical kingdoms to entire futuristic galaxies—and why they’re so important to the stories they tell.
For many years—pretty much as long as I’ve been alive—The Legend of Zelda has been the video game equivalent of a bedtime story to me. Even though the entire franchise has culminated in this wild, far-reaching timeline of different generations and branches, each Zelda game is fundamentally the same fairy tale: one day, a dark evil named Ganon came to the land and threatened the peace and its Princess, Zelda, and a young boy named Link has to rise up to stop him and save her. The structure was, by and large, also the same: you’d go through four or so dungeons in a specific order to get specific tools Link could use in his fight against Ganon, and then you’d go fight him, saving Hyrule once and for all (or at least until the next game came along).
This fairy tale structure pertained as much to the actual world you played the Zelda games in as much as it did the story. While degrees of player freedom have always existed in the games, the structure of the narrative has always made the land of Hyrule still feel like a mostly linear experience for players. It’s a hub world that different “levels” spin off from, and you go to them in a specific order and rarely ever go back over the course of a game. Even though there are a few shake-ups—sometimes the world is a medieval kingdom, sometimes it’s islands dotted across a great sea, sometimes it’s not even Hyrule, in the case of games like Majora’s Mask or Link’s Awakening—the world Zelda lived in has mostly been constrained by that sense of tradition. There was a comfort to the order and structure of how Hyrule existed that was almost as endearing as the staples of the wider series itself. It might not have felt like a particularly cohesive world, but it was a setting with a sense of familiarity and charm.
Hyrule Field as it appeared in
How I felt about Hyrule, however, drastically changed with the arrival of the latest game in the series: Breath of the Wild, which has been devouring all of my time for the past few weekends. Gone is much of the orderly narrative structure of past games, and with it, a Hyrule that feels like a loosely connected set of “levels”—giving way to an open, vast world that is presented to the player as an opportunity to get lost in rather than a specific journey to follow. Instead of being a fairy tale book, a world that’s doled out page by page on a specific story, from practically the get-go Breath of the Wild’s take on Hyrule is laid bare to its audience with a single invitation: go out there and do whatever you want.
My (very cold) Link after climbing his first big mountain in Breath of the Wild. There wasn’t anything up there but the view alone was worth it.
So I have. I’ve climbed mountains, just to see the view at the top. Swam rivers, just to see where they’ll take me. Trotted through forests in the dead of night, picking mushrooms and other oddities to see what food I could conjure up the next time I came across a campfire. You still fight monsters, still clear puzzling dungeons, and the story is still the same as it ever is—Link still has to save Zelda from Ganon’s clutches, as he always has—but the world that story is laid upon is vastly different, as is the invitation to largely ignore it and go off and your own path, and it changes everything for me.
Instead of the traditional, comforting fantasy we’ve seen throughout Zelda’s history, Breath of the Wild’s setting is a fantasy about mundanity. That might sound weird at first—fighting goblins and monsters with magic swords to save a Princess isn’t exactly “mundane” after all, but it’s Hyrule itself that makes that the case. Despite its fantastical trappings, it’s perhaps the most grounded rendition of Hyrule Zelda has ever attempted, even if it’s still filled with bizarre quirks and strange races. It’s packed with little details, and normal people just living their lives without much of a care to what you’re doing as the fabled hero of the story. And the freedom of exploration granted by turning Hyrule into a vast, open setting means the greatest stories Breath of the Wild tells aren’t the actual ones of Link rescuing Zelda, but that time a thunderstorm broke out mid-exhausting climbing expedition and sent you scurrying for safety, or the time a wild mountain goat punted you off a cliff face to your untimely demise. Sometimes, it’s a story about something as simple as climbing trees.
With Breath of the Wild, Hyrule has stopped being a storybook and started being an actual world, one that sparks a sense of romantic wanderlust in me in the way it never could before. It’s a realm where, instead of the story being told to you, you make your own as you go along. In a time when the real world can be immensely depressing to deal with, Breath of the Wild’s take on Hyrule doesn’t offer you a specific, comforting tale to enjoy, but instead a whole world to explore and discover. Right now, it’s a place I’m more than happy to lose my way in.
Living and boning in space—particularly on Mars—has fascinated our degenerate species for decades. Recently, SpaceX founder Elon Musk decided to put his very large amount of money where his mouth is by announcing his plans to colonize the Red Planet. NASA also likes to bloviate about its Journey to Mars in the 2030s, and there are a handful of other, shadier plans to colonize the Red Planet championed by celebrities, billionaires, and even the UAE.
But there’s a big difference between putting a few boots on the ground and setting up a long-term base on another planet. Regarding human colonization of Mars, there are a host of concerns—in particular, how will humans fare, both physically and psychologically, in such a harsh environment? In a paper published recently in the journal Space Policy, Konrad Szocik, a cognitive scientist at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow, Poland, argues that sending astronauts to live aboard the ISS is not adequate training for life on Mars. In fact, Szocik surmises humans will have to alter their bodies in a pretty extreme way in order to physically and emotionally sustain themselves in a Martian colony.
Other Mars enthusiasts, including Elon Musk, disagree.
“My idea is that [the] human body and mind is adapted to live in the terrestrial environment,” Szocik told Gizmodo in an email. “Consequently, some particular physiological and psychological challenges during [the] journey and then during living on Mars probably will be too difficult for human beings to survive. For instance, we should take into account the high risk of health problems during that mission and no direct professional medical support and care.”
In his paper, Szocik explores some of the preventative treatments other researchers have suggested astronauts undergo before heading to Mars. He notes that some have suggested “placing the crew into a coma before the journey,” which could reduce energy requirements, prevent muscle atrophy, and provide extra shielding from deep space radiation, and even “removing the appendix to avoid great dangers.”
Indeed, in 2012, researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) enumerated the potential risks and rewards of performing appendectomies and cholecystectomies—the removal of the gallbladder—before sending astronauts into extended periods of spaceflight. The logic is pretty simple: If someone’s appendix or gall bladder bursts in space, surgery could more worse than unpleasant—it could be impossible.
Szocik also argues that the first crewed missions to the Red Planet could take a heavy psychological toll. Though early colonizers would presumably undergo intense psychological screening, the pressures of isolation in a high-risk environment are daunting. But early results from NASA’s HI-SEAS experiment, which mimics this isolation by sealing off small crews in a dome near the top of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii, are promising. Recently, a crew that spent a year in this pseudo-Martian environment emerged pretty upbeat and positive, despite being trapped among each other’s foul odors and character flaws.
“It is true that psychological issues (“behavioral health” in NASA’s terminology) will be a major concern,” Mark Shelhamer, former chief scientist at NASA’s human research program, told Gizmodo. “In that sense, the ISS is not a great venue for simulating a Mars mission. ISS is isolated and confined (though not as much as a Mars spacecraft will be). However, crews rotate so that there is a set of new faces every three months, and there is a very robust and effective psychological support structure in place (astronauts can speak to friends, family, physicians, and psychologists on Earth at any time, with no communication lag).”
Overall, Szocik argues that no Earthly preparation can necessarily give someone everything they need to survive Mars in the longterm. “I think that medicine can be insufficient and that there will be necessary some permanent solutions like genetical and/or surgical modifications,” Szocik said, adding that we should use the idea of transhumanism—that by harnessing science and technology, we can enhance ourselves to survive in vastly different environments—to prepare.
This concept isn’t exactly new: futurists have long proposed that humanity will need to use biology, nanotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science to make us more equipped for life in space. But while accelerating our own biological evolution in order to boost our chances of survival on Mars admittedly sounds badass, not everyone’s convinced it’s feasible, ethical, or necessary.
“Already, people have suggested selecting astronauts for genetic predisposition for such things as radiation resistance,” Shelhamer said. “Of course this idea is fraught with problems. For one, it’s illegal to make employment decisions based on genetic information. For another, there are usually unintended consequences when making manipulations like this, and who knows what might get worse if we pick and choose what we think needs to be made better.”
While he admits Szocik’s ideas are interesting, Shelhamer feels they’re ultimately unnecessary. “I think we can give astronauts the tools—physical, mental, operational—so that they are, individually and as a group, resilient in the face of the unknown,” he said. “This is what I’m working on now, but it’s still in the very early stages. What kind of person thrives in an extreme environment? What types of mission structures are in place to help that person? This needs to be examined systematically.”
Would-be future Martian president Elon Musk was even blunter when asked to comment on the idea that humans would have to alter their biology to survive on Mars, calling the entire premise “ridiculous.” “Being in deep space or Earth orbit for long periods is far worse than Mars,” Musk told Gizmodo over a Twitter DM. “Buzz Aldrin is still doing fine, as are the other astronauts.”
Early rendition of a cyborg by Fred Freeman. This appeared in the July 11, 1960 issue of LIFE Magazine.
Even if the optimists in the room are right, and we don’t have to modify ourselves to live out healthy adult lives on Mars, a salient question remains when it comes to colonization: How will we reproduce? Although not nearly as bad as deep space, the surface of Mars receives some intense radiation, owing to the fact that its atmosphere is much thinner than Earth’s, and it has no global magnetic field to deflect energetic particles. This is particularly concerning for women looking to get pregnant, as even small doses of ionizing radiation can have severe health consequences for developing fetuses. In all likelihood, long term settlements would have to be built beneath the planet’s surface to protect folks, particularly the young, old, sick and pregnant, from solar energetic particles and galactic cosmic rays.
“We do not know how reduced gravity and radiation will affect the process of human reproduction,”Szocik said. “We can suppose that this impact could be deleterious.”
Szocik added that in order to maintain a colony that can sustain itself without inbreeding, we’ll have to send a ton of people to Mars, which could be difficult. Therefore, he suggests “taking into account an opportunity of human cloning or other similar methods,” in order to keep the colony going. Hmm.
Stretching humanity across several planets sounds exciting. It also sounds terrifying! Hopefully, upcoming missions like NASA’s 2020 rover will give us more insight into how we can live (and fuck) on such a cold, unfeeling planet.
A scene from the opening of Rogue One. Image: Disney
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is the first Star Wars film not to have an opening crawl. Gary Whitta, the first screenwriter on the film, did write one—but it was never actually in a script.
Earlier this week, Rogue One’s director Gareth Edwards good-naturedly threw Whitta under the bus during a Reddit AMA when asked about the crawl.
“Gary Whitta actually wrote one in the first draft. You’ll have to pester him for it,” Edwards wrote. “I do believe that those opening crawl words are actually floating out there in space somewhere. We just have to fund NASA well enough so their deep-space telescopes can find them, let’s crowdfund it and make it happen.”
We spoke to Whitta soon after that was said and the internet blew up with speculation.
“Gareth misspoke,” Whitta told io9. “It was never actually in a draft of the script. It’s just in a document, like a story document that I wrote.”
Here’s the story, according to Whitta.
“Literally in the very first days working on the film we were asking ourselves those questions. Like ‘What makes these standalones different? Do they have opening crawls? Do they have John Williams music? Do they have all the same furniture and trappings? Do you do the Kurosawa wipes? Or do find your own language?’
Initially Gareth, a hardcore Star Wars fan, was like ‘You’ve gotta have an opening crawl.’ We wanted to have all the things we grew up with. And so as an experiment, purely because it was fun to try and write one, I wrote one. But it was never in a script. It was never actually in a draft.”
Whitta wouldn’t comment on if his crawl was a broader universe thing or just a description of the film’s current prologue, but it almost doesn’t matter. The film he wrote didn’t even have Chirrut Imwe, Baze Malbus, or Bodhi Rook in it. Those characters were all added by the second screenwriter, Chris Weitz. As we all well know, Rogue One changed a lot throughout the production process.
Either way, Whitta believes not having a crawl was the right call to set the tone for this new kind of movie.
As we started to embrace the idea more and more that these films were going to be different, and they didn’t have to be beholden to all the same laws as the original films, we were like, ‘You know? We’re better off without it.’ And I understand there are some people out there that really want things the way they want them, and they’re upset there isn’t an crawl. But I feel like it was a really great way to make the bold statement at the very beginning, literally the very first frame of the film: this is not like the Star Wars films you’ve seen before.
Rogue One hits digital download on March 24 and Blu-ray April 4. The next standalone movie, the untitled Han Solo film, opens May 25, 2018. No word if that film will have a crawl but, since Rogue One didn’t, I’d imagine it won’t.
Renée Felice Smith and Matt Bush in The Realtiontrip. Image: SXSW
Two friends, bonding over a mutual hatred of commitment, decide to take a trip together. On their journey, they still manage to experience all the ups and downs of an actual relationship... and then encounter a puppet, too. This is The Relationtrip.
Written and directed by real-life couple Renée Felice Smith (NCIS: Los Angeles) and C.A. Gabriel, the film recently played at SXSW and our colleagues at Fusion spoke with not just Smith and Gabriel, but co-star Matt Bush (The Goldbergs) and Chippy the puppet as well. Check it out.
The Relationtrip is currently on the festival circuit, but doesn’t yet have a release date.
There is only one way to remind people that the X-Men are coming back to Marvel’s comic roster in big way, other than liberally sprinkling oodles of X-Men comics among your solicitations. And that way includes copious amounts of the classic X-Men cartoon theme song.
As if the almost ceaseless amount of announcements about them wasn’t enough, Marvel has released a new “launch” trailer advertising the X-Men side of the (still atrociously titled) Resurrxion comic roster. And there’s only one track that could possibly accompany it: an extended version of the beloved ‘90s intro theme from the X-Men cartoon.
I mean, they’re already bringing back the nostalgia factor of corner art and the X-Men Blue/X-Men Gold concept. What’s a little more ‘90s for your troubles? Still, after a few years out of the limelight, it is admittedly nice to see the X-Men become such a prominent part of Marvel’s comic book output once again.
One of the most powerful telescopes ever built—NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope—is set to make its big debut in 2018. But before it starts scouring distant galaxies, or searching for life around at TRAPPIST-1, the telescope must undergo quite a bit of testing. Apparently, during “lights out inspections,” James Webb gets a little creepy.
On March 15th, NASA posted a spooktacular image of the telescope in the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. While the figures in the picture are pretty ghoulish, they’re actually just technicians performing vibration and acoustic testing, which is used by engineers to ensure that everything stays where it should during the turbulent rocket ride up into space. According to NASA, the contamination control engineer used an ultraviolet flashlight to look for contamination after the vibration test, which set the mood lighting for the spooky shot.
“The people have a ghostly appearance because it’s a long exposure,” NASA photographer Chris Gunn said. Since the camera’s shutter was open for a long period of time, it captured the technicians’ movements, making them look like ghosts.
Still, pretty spooky, right?
Image: NASA/Chris Gunn
This spring, NASA will ship the James Webb from Goddard to the Johnson Space Center in Texas, where it’ll undergo further testing. Eventually, the assembled telescope will be shipped to French Guiana, where it’s scheduled to launch next October aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. Considering that October is the spookiest month of the year, this is hardly a coincidence.
When it comes to desk chairs, you typically have two options: spend over $500 or get a featureless right angle. Have a seat, we’re about to tell you how Autonomous is changing all that.
The ErgoChair retails for $249 in seven different color combinations, and from a distance, it’s indistinguishable from products multiple times its price. Almost all of the points of adjustability you expect are present and accounted for here, from movable lumbar support to tweak-able tilt tension to headrest height.
Back in 2012, the IKEA Markus, a $200 chair with zero features, was the only affordable option in Lifehacker’s reader vote, and the same results played out in 2014 on Kotaku. An underrated Lifehacker article from 2013 recommended the only other good sub-$300 desk chair I’ve found, the Tempur-Pedic T9000, which I’ve owned and loved since 2013. It typically goes for more than the ErgoChair, with better build quality but fewer features.
The ErgoChair is very comfortable and supportive, and really great for leaning back in with that headrest. The back of the chair allows for airflow, adjustments are easy, and the cushion is more than serviceable. The only place you’ll really be reminded you got this chair on a budget are the armrests, which while totally useable, feel cheap to the touch. Simply put, it’s the best value in desk chairs.
Autonomous also makes desks and stools which we’ll be checking out soon.
The ErgoChair was a Kickstarter project, so of course there’s controversy.
Autonomous’ Kickstarter campaign was suspended without explanation, and speculation is that Autonomous is simply reselling a Chinese (or possibly Vietnamese) product as something new. We ran into a similar problem with Marie + Merrill Cookware, but since the ErgoChair is already shipping, we’re really not concerned in this case.
For the second time in the past few months, Americans went to the polls and voted in a way that will have half the country scratching its heads. Kicking the classic boot, wheelbarrow, and thimble tokens to the curb, the nation has chosen to replace those classic Monopoly tokens with a rubber ducky, a penguin, and a T-rex.
Throughout the month of January, anyone with an internet connection and an opinion (which is everyone with an internet connection) had the opportunity to vote to either keep the eight current Monopoly tokens, or select from over 50 replacements.
Somehow, only three of the classic Monopoly tokens were voted out. Even that new cat from a few years ago made the final cut. Of all the new token options to vote for, the T-rex was obviously the best choice, so thankfully families will have a fantastic opportunity to get into violent fights over who gets to play with the dinosaur.
But the penguin? And a rubber ducky? That’s an incredible missed opportunity. Even the 1990s bulky cellphone would have been a better choice. So the next time Monopoly lets its fans vote to revamp the game, here are some handy suggestions for new tokens.
A tiny version of the Monopoly board: Everyone liked that Inception movie.
Dumpster fire: To commemorate 2016 to 2024.
Nuclear missile: A hotel can’t collect rent when you land on it and annihilate it, right?
Scrabble ‘Q’ tile: The only time you’d ever get to play it.
3D Printer: Finally useful for something.
Soylent bar: Monopoly games can often last for hours. Gotta keep your energy up! And also possibly shit yourself.
Hoverboard: Slightly more useful than that single, laceless boot.
Eggplant: What? It’s just a vegetable.
A very tiny pair of mittens: Make America great again!
Google Glass: Like the thimble, you need at least one token no one wants to use.
Imagine being midway through a first date that’s actually going really well, when the charming stranger sitting across from you confesses that he’s from the future, and has traveled back in time specifically to go out with you. Flattering? Maybe. Creepy? Oh hell yes.
That’s the premise of Ben Rock’s Future Boyfriend, which contains an outdated “Cubs winning the World Series” joke but is otherwise puts a funny scifi spin on the trials of modern romance. Look for a cameo from erstwhile 3rd Rock From the Sun alien French Stewart, who’s kind of the equivalent of Al in Quantum Leap here.
Dammit, all Darth Vader wants to do is sit down with Emperor Palpatine for a nice chat about squashing the Rebellion, but those darn droids won’t leave Papa Anakin alone.
YouTuber Jack of All Genius recently released a Star Wars parody of the now-infamous BBC interview with Professor Robert Kelly and his not-exactly-invited kids. Although it would’ve made more sense to have babies Luke and Leia interrupting his on-camera interview, like what you’d see with children’s books Darth Vader and Son or Vader’s Little Princess, in this case he gets an unwelcome visit from R2-D2 and BB-8. It’s a fun, short video that harkens back to classic YouTube, when every viral video got, like, 500 parody versions. Also, props for the “Never Forget” poster.
