Star Wars: The Clone Wars was canceled by Lucasfilm in mid-production, but some of the preliminary story reels of the incomplete episodes are available here: http://www.starwars.com/tv-shows/the-clone-wars-legacy. There are eight episodes available to watch covering two story arcs. Some of the other unused scripts were adapted into other media such as comics and novels. These stories are considered canon, and are worth checking out!
Tim Burton made a very bizarre adaptation of HANSEL & GRETEL in 1982 and need I say more!?! - Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.: "This was all made on a budget of $116,000 and obviously was not what Disney thought they were getting when they gave Burton the money to make the film. It never screened on television again, and only screened a few times as part of a traveling Burton exhibit by The Museum of Modern Art. Thankfully, we live in an age where nothing is truly lost, (except THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED) and the film has been found and uploaded to YouTube for all of us to enjoy. Trust me, it is even more bizarre than it sounds and is a nice piece of film history."
James Cameron, Xenogenesis (1978) James Cameron was driving a truck before he made his first film, Xenogenesis in 1978. He felt inspired (and frustrated) after watching Star Wars, spent a lot of time reading and learning how to use camera equipment, and his experimental sci-fi short was born. He made the movie with friends, and it eventually helped him get a job with famed producer Roger Corman as an FX specialist. We think it’s safe to say the filmmaker has come a long way in that department given the job he did on the CG-heavy Avatar.
After seeing the original Star Wars film in 1977, Cameron quit his job as a truck driver to enter the film industry.[21] When Cameron read Syd Field's book Screenplay, it occurred to him that integrating science and art was possible, and he wrote a ten-minute science fiction script with two friends, entitled Xenogenesis. They raised money and rented camera, lenses, film stock, and studio, and shot it in 35mm. To understand how to operate the camera, they dismantled it and spent the first half-day of the shoot trying to figure out how to get it running.
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While continuing to educate himself in film-making techniques, Cameron started working as a miniature-model maker at Roger Corman Studios.[19] Making rapidly produced, low-budget productions taught Cameron to work efficiently and effectively. He soon found employment as an art director in the sci-fi movie Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). He did special effects work design and direction on John Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981), acted as production designer on Galaxy of Terror (1981), and consulted on the design of Android (1982).[22]
Cameron was hired as the special effects director for the sequel of Piranha, entitled Piranha II: The Spawning in 1981. The original director, Miller Drake, left the project due to creative differences with Ovidio Assonitis. Cameron was hired by Assonitis to take over, giving him his first directorial job. (He had worked previously with producer Roger Corman.) The interior scenes were filmed in Italy while the underwater diving sequences were shot at Grand Cayman Island.[23]
The movie was to be produced in Jamaica. On location, production slowed down due to numerous problems and adverse weather conditions. James Cameron was fired after failing to get a close up of Carole Davis in her opening scene. Ovidio ordered Cameron to do the close-up the next day before he started on that day’s shooting. Cameron spent the entire day sailing around the resort to reproduce the lighting but still failed to get the close-up. After he was fired, Ovidio invited Cameron to stay on location and assist in the shooting. Once in Rome, Ovidio took over the editing when Cameron was stricken with food poisoning. Suffering from his illness, one night he had a nightmare about an invincible robot hitman sent from the future to kill him, giving him the idea for The Terminator, which would later catapult his filming career.[23]
Cameron next began the sequel to Alien, the 1979 film by Ridley Scott. Cameron named the sequel Aliens, and again cast Sigourney Weaver in the iconic role of Ellen Ripley. According to Cameron, the crew on Aliens was hostile to him, regarding him as a poor substitute for Ridley Scott. Cameron sought to show them The Terminator but the majority of the crew refused to watch it and remained skeptical of his direction throughout production. Despite this and other off-screen problems (such as clashing with an uncooperative camera man and having to replace one of the lead actors – Michael Biehn of Terminator took James Remar's place as Corporal Hicks), Aliens became a box office success, and received Academy Award nominations forBest Actress in a Leading Role for Weaver, Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound, and won awards for Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects. In addition, the film and its lead actress made the cover of TIME magazine as a result of its numerous and extensive scenes of women in combat - these were almost without precedent and expressed the feminist theme of the film very strongly.
According to current thinking, the Moon itself formed after a planet roughly the size of Mars slammed into the Earth at a glancing blow. This colossal impact threw billions of gigatons of debris into space. Some of that fell back onto Earth, and some formed a huge disk around the (now once again liquefied) planet. This material eventually coalesced to form the Moon.
For the next 24 hours I am blacking out TheOatmeal.com in protest of SOPA and PIPA. If one of these bills were to pass, this page is what many sites on the internet would look like.
As someone who creates content for the web, earns a living from it, and has had his content pirated, I do feel that we need better legislation against online piracy.
I do not, however, think that SOPA or PIPA are the legislation we need.
Want to help in the fight against SOPA / PIPA? First, go learn about the bills. After that go contact your elected officials. Wikipedia has a handy-dandy page set up which allows you to locate your state representative.
Hugs and jet skis, -The Oatmeal
P.S. Please pirate the shit out of this animated GIF.
In this 11-minute timelapse video, freelance designer Dei Gaztelumendi illustrates a cover for comic book magazine Xabiroi from start to finish.
In a post on his personal blog, Gaztelumendi says that he was given free reign to choose the subject of the cover, and so he decided to add to his “Post-Apocalyptic Kids” series. This kid, he says, is the toughest yet, and fittingly so — the illustration was also made as a gift to a friend who lost his leg in a motorbike accident last year. “This is for him, because he really IS the toughest kiddo yet,” he writes.
Update: 9:45 PM
I almost went back through my blog to find the link for this video earlier to re-post along with this, but things have been very busy around here. However, now that things have quieted down a bit around here, sitting down to power through some chores for a couple hours before bed, I saw that Phil Plait posted this up on Bad Astronomy...
Between Plait's words and the video, it was too much to resist.
If Carl Sagan were still alive, he’d be 77 years old today. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been overly concerned with arbitrary time measurements, especially when based on the fickle way we define a "year", but it’s human nature to look back at such integrally-divisible dates… and Carl was very much a student of human nature.
I’ve written about him so much in the past there’s not much I can add right now, so I thought I would simply embed a video for you to watch…
... love the song and the creativity of the video by Kina Grannis. Shows you what you can do over the course of 22 months (1,357 hours) with 30 people, 2 ladders, 1 still camera and 288,000 jelly beans. Can you ever have too many jelly beans, I think not. #cool
Thanks Mindy, this will be in my mind for awhile now. I've got to show this to my kids. They think I am crazy because I am known to sing this quite often. (Well, that's probably not the only reason.)
