Giant Freakin Robot

There are few comedians who work geek culture into their acts more than Patton Oswalt, and nobody does it better. His specials and sets give some hilarious takes on the Star Wars universe. But nothing, nothing, nothing will ever touch his 7 1/2-minute Parks and Recreation filibuster that envisions the most erratic and fucking amazing Star Wars: Episode VII ever conceived. I don’t usually need Greek gods and Iron Man in my space opera sci-fi, but I’ll take it and I’ll love it.

YouTube user iZacLess — who is actually visual effects artist Isaac Moores — put together the wonderful above animation, which gives nearly full life to every one of Oswalt’s whimsical franchise mash-’em-up ideas, from the scroll to the ridiculous amount of characters involved. Granted, most of this is just rudimentary Photoshopping and things of that nature, but an incredible amount of imagination went into the details, especially for something as silly as the “Jedi order.” This visual adventure featuring members of Marvel’s Avengers and X-Men, the gods from Clash and Wrath of the Titans, along with the usual gang of Hutts and Jedi. And it’s all probably easier to understand for people who aren’t familiar with these universes. But then, why would those people care enough to watch this?

Up in Vancouver BC, they’re hard at work on the latest incarnation of everyone’s favorite giant, radioactive lizard, Godzilla. While we haven’t actually laid eyes on the metaphorical man himself, what we’ve seen so far indicates a heavy military presence. Which makes a certain amount of sense. The world doesn’t yet have the giant ass-kicking robot technology from Pacific Rim, so that leaves it up to the military to fend off any massive reptile threats we may encounter as a species.

This latest behind-the-scenes video from the set reinforces what we already knew. It’s mostly just guys in camouflage with M-16s piling out of transport vehicles, yelling, and running towards some sort of unseen threat. Given the circumstances, you can be forgiven for thinking they’re yelling at Godzilla as he stomps through a tall building. That would make us scream, or at least make some terror-related noise. It’s likely there would be some pants wetting involved as well.

Many Star Wars fans were unhappy when Disney gave the axe to the long-running Clone Wars animated series a few months back. While it meant fans were left with some unanswered questions, it was part of an overall restructuring now that the Star Wars franchise is under Disney’s banner. There was a silver lining, in the form of a new animated Star Wars series that was said to be in the works. Now it’s official, and it’s called Star Wars Rebels.

Disney and Lucasfilm announced today that the series will premiere on the Disney Channel and then move to Disney XD in Fall 2014. Rebels will be set in the period between Episode III and Episode IV, when “the Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights as a fledgling rebellion against the Empire is taking shape.” It’s the same period that was said to be explored by that live-action Star Wars series they’ve been talking about for-freakin’-ever. Who knows if we’ll finally get to see that one now that Disney is ramping up all things Star Wars, but this should give grieving Clone Wars fans something to smile about.

Rebels will also be enlisting a Clone Wars veteran, with that show’s Dave Filoni serving as a producer alongside Greg Weisman (Young Justice). Simon Kinberg, who was already on tap to write some of the Star Wars spinoff movies, will write the Rebels pilot.

Stanislaw Lem is one of those science fiction icons that I’ve never really gotten into, in spite of reading the genre pretty much from the moment I could read at all. The Polish writer is also a talent who hasn’t been explored much in the world of film. The two movies based on Lem’s work that you’ve probably heard of are the two adaptations of his 1961 novel Solaris, which was first made into a film by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972, and then by Steven Soderbergh in 2002. Now another of his works is coming to the big screen: The Congress, starring Robin Wright and Harvey Keitel, based on Lem’s The Futurological Congress. You can watch the trailer above, which introduces the basic concept and then drops a whole lot of LSD about halfway through.