Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 is the latest Netflix-produced series, a fully-CGI-animated anime series based on the 1989 Japanese manga Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow. Directors Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed) and Kenji Kamiyama (Stand Alone Complex) return fans to the “Stand Alone Complex” continuity, not tapped by the franchise since 2006. Familiar badass Major Motoko Kusanagi returns as the star of the series, but this time she takes a backseat to an incredible vision of dystopian Los Angeles and some quirky and more successful robot characters called the tachikoma.
First there was Mad Max in 1979. Then Road Warrior in 1981, the film that put Mel Gibson on the international stage. And the trilogy was complete with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985. Or so we thought. Is another Mad Max movie the sign of the Apocalypse? How about a Mad Max movie minus Mel Gibson, but with Tom Hardy in an origin story for the villain Bane from The Dark Knight Rises? No, that’s not right. Hardy just gets to wear another mask like Bane’s. His agent must really like Tom Hardy in that mask. Check out the first trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road after the break and you’ll see what we mean.
And is it the Apocalypse or post-Apocalypse? Will we get to see just what turns our world into the Australian desert wasteland where only those with 40-year-old muscle cars survive? Mad Max Rockatansky (yep, that’s really the character’s last name) is an Australian ex-cop facing a future world that is as bleak as any post-apocalyptic franchise has envisioned. This time he is joined by a rough and tough Charlize Theron.
At its release it will have been 30 years since we last saw Mad Max meet Tina Turner’s Auntie Entity at Bartertown’s Thunderdome. But George Miller is still making movies and after decades of stops and starts the movie is just around the corner.
In a recent survey of a sci-fi collecting community, I was surprised at how many people had classic cars as a hobby prior to expanding into the sci-fi universe of collecting. Who hasn’t dropped hints to their significant other to try to get their classic Ford or Chevy on Chip Foose’s Overhaulin’ show on the Discovery Channel? Foose has designed vehicles for major motion pictures such as Blade Runner, Gone in 60 Seconds, and RoboCop, and he’s rebuilding cars for nominees on his show. What’s cooler than that? And who doesn’t wish they had Jay Leno’s garage full of classic cars, and his resources to rebuild them?
Decades ago I dreamed of taking an old classic ’57 Chevy Bel Air and rebuilding it into a street rod. So I did it–via a 1:25 scale plastic model kit, first building the model on the box, then sanding it into a rusted mess, then building it back up into a competition orange rod. Lots cheaper than doing it with the real thing. Finding myself wandering a local hobby shop this weekend I noticed several new retro entries in the model car kit category that I hadn’t seen before. I wish I had time to make them all. So check these out, and if you have a car enthusiast, young or old, on this year’s gift giving list, keep these in mind.
Who you gonna call? How about the Ghostbusters and their Ecto-IA hearse? It’s the car Dan Aykroyd bought and thought was just perfect for the team’s new business. It’s from AMT and available for less than $25.
Who doesn’t think Doc Brown’s DeLorean isn’t one of the coolest cars in all of sci-fi? You can pre-order a Back to the Future time machine car fully tricked out for less than $30. It even comes with a flux capacitor.
Do you miss Shag and Scoob and the rest of the Scooby Gang? How about getting your own Mystery Machine? It’s available for less than $20.
The 2000 sci-fi movie Pitch Black alone was a solid thriller, considering it was starring a relatively unknown new action star, Vin Diesel. A dark battle for survival with marooned space travelers on a desert planet, Diesel’s equally dry voice and cool demeanor boosted him into lead roles in The Fast and the Furious series and the XXX series. Pitch Black featured Diesel as a silver eyed mercenary who has the rare ability in this new sci-fi world to see clearly in the dark, along with Red Widow star Radha Mitchell and They Live co-star Keith David.
Four years later Diesel brought Riddick back in an animated film, Dark Fury, and to the big screen again in The Chronicles of Riddick, an amped up and bigger budget film co-starring Judi Dench (Skyfall, As Time Goes By) and Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Judge Dredd). Like Road Warrior took the original 1979 movie Mad Max into new territory, so went The Chronicles of Riddick, with epic Flash Gordon-inspired sets and Lord of the Rings-quality costumes. So will the September release of Vin Diesel’s fourth film entry in the Riddick franchise be a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome blockbuster?
Diesel released the first teaser from the new movie this week on his Facebook page. It’s definitely a teaser–pretty brief–but you definitely get a vibe this will have a lot of action and suspense. Check out the first preview of Riddick:
