A teaser has been released for the upcoming fan film Star Wars: Uncut. For those of you who haven’t heard about the project, the film consists of 15 second clips by fans in an attempt recreate Episode IV: A New Hope in its entirety. The trailer highlights the variety of methods used to create each scene with everything from Legos and toys, to pets and food. I about died when I saw the hamburger Millenium Falcon take off, making its escape from a cardboard Death Star. Read more…
Amazon has updated their listing for the upcoming Star Trek: The Original Series 365 coffee table reference book. The 774 page hardcover claims to be the most comprehensive guide for the series to date, featuring remastered photos, in-depth episode synopses, interviews with cast and crew, behind-the-scenes and more. While the concept behind the book is similar to that of John Knoll’s Creating the Worlds of Star Wars: 365 Days, the description promises quite a bit more in terms of content. It’ll retail for $29.95 when it ships this September, though Amazon is currently offering a 34% discount off the list price for pre-orders. Read more…
Have you ever wondered what the weather outside would be like if you were in a galaxy far, far away? Well, now you can know, thanks in part to Tom Scott’s Star Wars Weather Forecast. The site uses Yahoo!’s weather service to determine the forecast for any city you choose and presents it to you in terms any true Star Wars fan could understand. If it’s muggy and humid, you’ll get Dagobah. Temperate but cloudy? Endor, maybe. Currently New York City is like Naboo: Read more…
Astronaut Soichi Noguchi (seen on the left) grew up watching Space Battleship Yamato which is well known to American fans as Star Blazers. And here he is on International Space Station making us Earth bound retro anime fans very proud. Here’s the official caption for the photo from NASA which sadly omits the fanboy reference: Read more…
Above: Events like this are proof that you don’t have to be a Superman to make the world better!
If you’re a comic book fanboy who is in New Jersey you may want to check out the Superheroes For Hospice event on Saturday, April 24 at the Livingston Mall. The event which will be packed with professional comic book artists and writers will be a benefit for the Saint Barnabas Hospice and Palliative Care Center. Visitors will have a chance to meet and greet, get autographs and purchase comic books and original artwork for a good cause. Read more…
The charm of a really good internet meme is that they’re so simple that they make you burst out laughing. Like a good bounty hunter I did my best to track down the owner of Jabba the Cat, but alas after going through tineye.com (no results), Google image search (links to several reposts) and then to various Tumblr blogs I still hit a dead end.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 26, 2010 in Animation, Fandom
I was recently very privileged to be part of an Anime 3000 podcast with legendary anime author Helen McCarthy who has written so many vital reference books like The Anime Encyclopedia (with Jonathan Clements) and Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation. Also on the podcast were Tim Maughan and of course Sean Russell who’s really done a great job creating a podcast with the who’s who of anime. The conversation covers everything from Yona Yona Penguin to iPads and is also available on iTunes. Read more…
What do you get when you put Steve Jobs together with a bunch of sci fi shows and movies? I’m not 100% sure but they’re all in the above video from Kelvington’s Parody Channel. By the way it’s amazing to think how much science fiction impacts the world of tech…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 22, 2010 in Fandom, Star Wars
This creative Star Wars themed fruit carving dates back to last year, but it’s still a classic to me! To me the Death Star is a symbol of just how iconic that Star Wars has become over the last few decades — there have been references to the superweapon in every show from the Powerpuff Girls to the anime series Crayon Shin Chan. Read more…
American comic artists tend to love deviantART for showing off their work, however in Japan one of the more favored websites is Pixiv (which is well worth checking out). However the Japanese interface can be a bit much to navigate if you’re not native speaker, so two Pixiv fans mefloraine (who prefers to stay anonymous) and Eugen Rochko have put together a beautifully curated website called PaperDream.net which features an amazing illustration per day from Pixiv.
For his day gig Tommy Williamson professional artist working in the motion picture industry, but for fun he likes to play with Legos: His latest creation is this wonderful Alice in Wonderland tribute. What’s brilliant about his sculpture is how few bricks that he used to capture the likeness of the Mad Hatter and Alice: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Mar 12, 2010 in Fandom, Star Trek
This hilarious fan video is titled Captain Kirk Deals with a Strange Alien Culture. I have to admit that while Kirk’s solution broke the Prime Directive it still shows that he’s the best commander in the whole of Starfleet! By the way the internet meme in the video is Russian singer Eduard Anatolyevich Khil (Эдуа́рд Анато́льевич Хи́ль) giving a performance back in 1976. Read more…
This heartfelt videogame filk song comes from Alex Day who is based in the UK: It’s the first of a trilogy of tunes which also includes tracks dedicated to the other retro gaming gods — Mario and Sonic. Day got his start in music when he sold his deck of Yu-Gi-Oh! playing cards and used the money to buy his first electric guitar — which was followed a year later with his own YouTube channel. I first discovered Alex when he uploaded a Dr. Who song to YouTube and I’ve been a fan ever since — it’s great to see someone celebrate their nerd passions with music. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 24, 2010 in Fandom, Star Trek
This amazing silent 8mm film sheds light on an amazing lost moment in Star Trek fandom: It shows a cast reunion at Chicago convention in late August of 1975. I realize today that doesn’t sound like a big deal but you have to step into the shoes of fans of that era to appreciate this special film. This was an age when the only way to watch an episode of Star Trek might have been if you owned a 16mm film print of an episode. There wasn’t much science fiction on television so desperate fanboys and fangurls wanted Star Trek to come back on the air as much as Beatles fans dreamed of another album. So the ability for fans to see their heros reunite on stage must have been true magic — and it’s because of those fans that not only did the cast return to make several films, but that the series still lives on today. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 17, 2010 in Fandom, Star Trek
In attempt to get publicity for the online Star Trek game Namco Bandai (see you knew there was going to be an anime connection) attempted to organize the biggest gathering of Star Trek fans attired in proper Federation gear. This took place on London on Valentine’s Day, and while the quality of cosplay shown could be slightly dodgy at points the scale of this event impressed me! Although there’s no word on if they succeeded: Read more…
Sure everybody is making a fuss over Google Buzz, but the minute I watched this Emoticon Sushi Roll video by vlogger Taro I knew that I was looking at the next big thing in social media. When he’s not reinventing web 2.0 Taro has a YouTube channel which introduces folks to Japanese cooking. Being an artist my favorite dish is his Edvard Munch tribute: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 28, 2010 in Animation, Fandom
This is the video for the Ichirou Mizuki song It Is Not This! Korejanai Robo! which tells the heartbreaking tale of a child otaku who years from a Gundam toy but whose clueless parents get him a cheap bootleg instead. Of course our little hero isn’t going to take this slight, so he takes his revenge on the wannabe Gundam. But this mecha knockoff has a few tricks up his sleeve. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 17, 2010 in Animation, Fandom
The year is 1985 and anime fandom is buzzed about new shows like Macross: This amazing video shows a cosplay competition from this long gone pre-internet era when fans traded VHS tapes from Japan. Keep in mind that if you had an anime gathering of any sort back then even having a hundred fans show up was nothing short of astounding.
This is a very well done video made by a Minnesota Public Radio show called In The Loop. I think the idea of taking a well known icon like Kermit and making him a spokesmodel for the green movement in Iran is culture jamming at its best!
This video of two Gundam robots slugging it out is from the recent 2009 International Robot Exhibition. I like how the decapitated Gundam continues to dance after defeat…
I’ve often read about many unusually specialized museums in Japan such as the Towel Museum. One of the better known ones that I’ve actually been to is the Shinyokohama Raumen Museum. I’ve noticed various Blogs and Village Voice restaurant critics have called a Ramusement Park, though I’m pretty sure it’s a case of a witty phrase made up by some blogger and cut and pasted around on the net. Hey, convince me otherwise. Read more…
Shown above is the finale of the Hello Kitty Fashion Show held this weekend in Los Angles. This is a wrap up of a larger show which was designed to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the infamous cute cat that has no mouth.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 14, 2009 in Animation, Fandom
The third Bleach musical will take start on January 15th, 2010 and tour three cities in Japan: Fukuoka, Osaka and Tokyo. What makes this show interesting is that it features some of the voice actors from the series. Tickets are 6600 yen and go on sale November 15th. Here’s the official flyer for the show: Read more…
Sure everybody is making a fuss over Google Buzz, but the minute I watched this 
