Giant Freakin Robot

The words “from executive producer Michael Bay” would usually make me reflexively click away to something else, but the above trailer for TNT’s apocalyptic drama The Last Ship earns a second glance for a couple of reasons. For one, the concept could be a lot of fun. Based on the 1988 novel by William Brinkley, The Last Ship finds the crew of a Naval craft returning from operating under radio silence, only to discover that much of the world has been wiped out in the interim by an apocalyptic event. In the book, it was nuclear war, but for the show it’s been updated to a much more 21st century threat, a global pandemic. The crew of the ship must figure out what to do in a world where most of the planet’s population is dead, and governments are toppling left and right amidst the chaos.

While we probably all agree that Patton Oswalt’s amazing ideas for the Star Wars universe would make for the ultimate approach, even without the Marvel tie-ins, it’s never going to see the light of day. So fans will just have to keep watching other fan-made takes on the upcoming continuation of George Lucas’ saga, minus George Lucas.

What if Episode VII was all about the kids? The best part about J.J. Abrams‘ Super 8 was actually the child actors — a rarity for any film, so it’s not as short-shifted a prospect as one might think. Offering up his own idea of a kid-laden space epic is California artist and puppet filmmaker Sam K. Hale, whose CGI short Yamasong won Best Animated Film at the 2010 Dragon*Con. His credits also include Annoying Orange on Cartoon Network and Bite-Sized Adventures of Sam Sandwich on Disney Jr, as well as projects done for the Handmade Puppet Dreams film series.

We’re well into the final push for J.J. Abrams’ highly anticipated Star Trek Into Darkness, the sequel to his 2009 franchise reboot, and the marketing department over at Paramount is in a full-scale frenzy. The latest offering for the sure-to-be-blockbuster is a character video focused on Karl Urban’s portrayal of the Enterprise‘s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy.

Urban calls his character both “irascible” and “cantankerous.” These two great old-timey words to use, so he gets points for that, but they’re each 100% accurate to boot. You might even call him crotchety, grumpy, perhaps easily exasperated.

Bones often bumps heads with Spock (Zachary Quinto) since the two represent the opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Spock embodies cold, calculating rationalism, while Bones is all about giving in to emotion and passion and doing everything he can to help his friends in times of need. He always seems like he’s on the verge of an emotional breakdown, of really going off the deep end and unleashing tears. And that’s what makes the character so damn much fun, and you can tell how much Urban enjoys himself inhabiting the skin of DeForest Kelley.

Okay, so a Stormtrooper, a Ghostbuster, and a really drunk guy walk into a bar. No, wait, excuse me. This isn’t a joke. This is a deadly serious tale of physical assault that just happened to be directed against two men dressed like a Stormtrooper and a Ghostbuster at the time, respectively. There’s nothing funny about this. Stop laughing, dammit!

These two decent, upstanding citizens — who, again, were dressed like a Stormtrooper and a Ghostbuster (seen above) — were minding their own business and goofing around outside of Portland’s Coast City Comics this past Saturday. As you may have known, that day was the nationally celebrated “Free Comic Book Day,” so this sort of thing was happening all over the country at the time. People being dressed like Stormtroopers and Ghostbusters, I mean. Not the whole “getting assaulted” thing.

Then, for reasons not yet known, a 6’4, 300-pound asshole named Adam Barnes, 31, decided to put the hapless Stormtrooper in a chokehold. But a regular chokehold, not the Force kind. Things escalated quickly from there, with police soon arriving and tasering Barnes, who presumably has seditious ties to Rebellion, or possibly Gozer the Gozerian. Barnes was eventually arrested and charged with “assault, disorderly conduct and five charges of threatening the five police officers.” There is still no motive behind the attack, but we here at GFR theorize that perhaps ‘bustin’ made Mr. Barnes feel good.