I just came across this early draft of the I Am Legend screenplay. It seems to diverge more from the Richard Matheson novel than the final film does. In fact, it starts with no sign of any “zombie” vampires; the first vampire we meet has placed a mannequin in one of Neville’s snares as a trap, and he’s lying in wait with a hunting rifle. At least Neville is a legend for killing their kind.
Early Draft of I Am Legend Screenplay
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008Afterworld
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
Afterworld describes itself as an immersive, multi-platform, sci-fi series:
Sometime between 5 and 6 AM EST, the world as we knew it suddenly, inexplicably, changed. After traveling to New York City on a business trip Russell Shoemaker wakes to find all electronic technology dead and more than 99% of the human race missing. Driven by a need to discover the truth and determined to return to his family, he embarks on a journey to his home in Seattle.AFTERWORLD is the harrowing story of Russell’s 3000 mile trek across a post-apocalyptic America as encounters the strange new societies rebuilding themselves. Along the way, he is forced to confront his greatest fears while unraveling the mystery of what caused this global event.
The site is darkly beautiful, and the “video” content reminds me of how effective a narrated slide show can be — and how “uncanny” CGI humans look.
Pros vs. Joes
Monday, February 4th, 2008Last season, I made sure to catch the Pros vs. Joes segments where Randy Couture submitted the Joes and where Roy Jones pummeled them. As much fun as the football and basketball segments might be, it’s the combat segments that feature the most fear and drama.
This season Kurt Angle talked an intimidating game, but he didn’t punish the Joes with high-amplitude throws. Arturo Gatti, on the other hand, went ahead and knocked out a couple Joes:
Ookla
Monday, February 4th, 2008Years ago — decades ago, really — I had a French teacher — a Turkish fellow — who told a funny story about traveling by train in France and sitting beside a young French fellow wearing a UCLA sweatshirt. “Do you know what that is?” he asked the young man.
“Ookla?” he replied.
What I didn’t realize was that Thundarr‘s Wookiee-like companion got his name the same way:
The show itself was actually the creation of Steve Gerber, creator of Marvel Comics’ Howard the Duck. The name Ookla actually comes from UCLA. Gerber and friend Martin Pasko were having dinner in the Westwood area one night during the time Gerber was writing the bible for the series. Gerber commented to Pasko that he hadn’t yet decided upon a name for the Wookiee-like character the network insisted be added to the series, over Gerber’s objections. As the two walked past the gate to the UCLA campus, Pasko quipped, “Why don’t you call him ‘Ucla’?”
Fight Science
Monday, January 28th, 2008The National Geographic Channel — “Nat Geo” to its friends — has been very good to me lately, first with Fight Club: No Limits and now with two new episodes of Fight Science.
The MMA episode was great, despite the laughable narration, written by someone who clearly does not “get” the sport. Two things really stood out to me. First, Bas Rutten really does punch twice as hard — well, almost twice as hard — as Randy Couture, a UFC champion — and kicks much harder than the Muay Thai “expert” they tested in a previous episode. Second, Couture’s ground and pound strikes were four times as hard as his standing punches.
The Special Ops episode focused on environmental extremes. A Navy SEAL sat in an ice bath for an hour before he started showing negative effects from exposure. He was able to “compartmentalize” his blood flow to keep his internal organs and brain functioning — in fact, his core temperature went up when they put him in the ice water. When they put him through a tactical drill after that, he performed roughly as well as when he was fresh. Then they put an Israeli commando on a treadmill, in a plastic suit, with a fifty-pound vest on, under heat lamps. After they brought his core temperature up to 103-point-something, they put him through his own tactical drill, and he vastly outperformed his fresh run.
The next episode, Fighting Back, looks at self-defense techniques — which might explain the Krav Maga ad during the show.
Del Toro doubles up to direct big-screen "Hobbit"
Monday, January 28th, 2008Del Toro doubles up to direct big-screen "Hobbit":
Guillermo del Toro is in talks to direct back-to-back installments of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” which is being co-financed by New Line and MGM.
[...]
Del Toro has built that goodwill through such films as the Oscar-nominated “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Hellboy,” “Blade 2″ (which was made by New Line) and “The Devil’s Backbone.”
[...]
The December resolution of the Jackson suit, facilitated by MGM CEO Harry Sloan, paved the way for “Hobbit” to get back on the road to the screen. However, because of other commitments that included “The Lovely Bones” and “Tintin,” Jackson could not take on writing and directing roles, opting instead to become an executive producer with approval over creative elements of the pair of films.
Fight Club: No Limits
Sunday, January 27th, 2008Years ago — wow, maybe a dozen years ago now — I went to one of the Dog Brothers‘ Gatherings of the Pack, back when it was an informal meeting in a park near one of the Dog’s homes. I simply had to see live stickfighting, especially since it was “no holds barred” — in the sense that grappling was allowed, and minimal pads were involved. It was an experience.
You’ll note that I didn’t jump in that day, and I didn’t ramp up my Filipino Martial Arts training in order to jump in next time either. Once you’ve seen a guy get hit hard enough that his fencing mask gets stuck on, you have to take the whole thing seriously.
The other night, National Geographic had an excellent documentary on the Dog Brothers, Fight Club: No Limits, which largely — with the exception of an interviewed professor or two — seemed to “get” the ethos of the event:
The “elders” of the pack run the event by these magic words: No judges, no referees, no trophies. One rule only: Be friends at the end of the day. Our goal is that everyone leaves with the IQ with which they came. No suing no one for no reason for nothing no how no way!
One element has changed over the years: the knife fights now use a Shocknife to keep things “real” — and it does hurt, from what I’ve heard. Too bad it’s $500…
Quirkology
Saturday, January 26th, 2008After following a series of links from Wikipedia’s cold reading page, I ended up at Professor Richard Wiseman’s Quirkology YouTube Channel, which includes some fun illusions, like his Corkology demonstration:
Did he really do that in one continuous shot, with no editing and no CGI? Yes:
After the fact, it’s obvious how he does the psychological card trick, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun the first time through:
I also enjoyed the colour changing card trick:
Swing by his Quirkology site to learn more.
Rambo Death Chart
Friday, January 25th, 2008I haven’t seen the new Rambo, but this Rambo Death Chart is priceless:
Understanding art for geeks
Thursday, January 24th, 2008Understanding art for geeks is a lot of fun — at least if you’re both net-savvy and art-savvy.
(Hat tip to Drawn!)
Edit: The owner made the photo set private! Argh!
Lackadaisy Cats
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
Matt from Drawn! lauds the “unbelievably lush cartooning and edible character designs from Tracy J Butler in her webcomic, Lackadaisy Cats” — and I think he’s on to something.
24: The Unaired 1994 Pilot
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008Somehow I haven’t managed to watch 24 yet, but I got a kick out of 24: The Unaired 1994 Pilot.
(Hat tip to Bryan Caplan.)
Life After People
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
The History Channel will be premiering Life After People next Monday (January 21, 2008), and I’m afraid I’m powerless to resist its siren song:
Abandoned skyscrapers would, after hundreds of years, become “vertical ecosystems” complete with birds, rodents and even plant life. One small animal might be responsible for bringing down the Hoover Dam hydroelectric plant. Swelled rivers, crumbling bridges and buildings, grizzly bears in California and herds of buffalo returning to the Great Western Plains: In a world without humans, these would be the visual hallmarks. Our cars would shrivel to piles of dust, our house pets would be overtaken by flourishing wildlife and most of the records of our human story — books, photos, records — would fade quickly, leaving little evidence that we ever existed.
Watch the many promo videos.
This topic has, of course, been recently addressed in The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman.
Rebuilding Everything
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008David Brin prepared a pitch for a reality show I would definitely watch — Rebuilding Everything:
Imagine a “reality” TV show with a more elevated aim and loads of attractive content for the mind… but also heaps of tension and drama.Picture “Survivor” meets “The 1900 House” meets “Junkyard Wars”… then throw in lots of fascinating Discovery Channel riffs… along with a dash of “The Flintstones”. Then add a sensation that viewers are actually learning something of value, becoming a little more capable and knowing about their own culture.
In the ultimate challenge, competitive teams race each other, starting from scratch to rebuild civilization!
Participants begin almost naked, except for a handheld web-communicator device — a top-end, broadband web accessory — that lets them consult with “the gods”… in other words with experts anywhere in the world. Editors will splice these capsule “how to” lessons with contestants’ fumbling efforts to follow the advice.
Instead of just surviving, they must chip flint, make spears and arrows and traps, stitch clothing from hides (no animals will be killed directly by the show). Once the Stone Age has been conquered, the contestants move on to re-invent pottery, weaving and agriculture — then mining and smithing copper ore, then bronze, iron and so on. Any next step must be taken by using technologies achieved at the previous level.
Once they succeed at a task, it is assumed that their “civilization” (their team) has that technology from then on. They will be provided any tools they require from that level, in order to attempt the next. (A ready supply of primitive tools can be found, easily available, from many amateur groups online. And more support groups may be spawned by the show itself.)
Things to Come
Saturday, January 12th, 2008
I recently watched H.G. Wells’ Things to Come, based on his book, The Shape of Things to Come, because I always enjoy a bit of paleofuturism.
A lot is made of the fact that the movie, made in 1935, predicts a second great war, starting in 1940 — off by only a few months — which seems almost silly as a prediction. Hitler and the Nazis take power, make loud threats, and it takes a prophet to predict another great war with Germany? But this makes the point that a second great war was not obviously imminent at the time; it only seems that way in retrospect.
In fact, in Prophets of Science Fiction, which I also just watched, one fellow mentions a conversation he had with Arthur C. Clarke, who saw Things to Come in the theater when it came out. Clarke said that the audience laughed at the scenes of the aerial bombardment of London, because it was so outlandish and unbelievable to them. How could this be? The Germans had already bombarded London from zeppelins in World War I! Odd.
Wells’ predicted war, which features WWI-style trench warfare and poison gas, goes on and on for decades and ends with a plague spread by aerial bombardment. This leads to a scenario surprisingly close to a zombacalypse — a new Dark Age, full of shuffling victims of “the wandering sickness” — and order is restored only when a new warlord ruthlessly exterminates all those wandering victims.
Then the utopian, progressive Wells comes out, as a league of super-scientists comes from the sky to unite the world, against the will of the petty warlords now in charge.
Eventually, in 2036, our super-scientist hero’s descendant sends the first people to the moon, via Vernesque space gun.