Giant Freakin Robot

Guillermo del Toro’s giant creature feature, Pacific Rim, includes two distinct elements we’re rather partial to. The first are big-ass monsters called Kaiju, rising from the sea, and the second are massive combat robots called Jaegers. Things on set have been rather secretive, but del Toro took to the web to drop a few choice details about his robots and monsters. There are also a couple of behind-the-scenes photos to gawk at, like this heavily armed helicopter.

It’s a time for giving thanks here in the States. Well, giving thanks and trampling people to purchase more stuff you can be thankful for next year. We here at GFR are thankful for all the usual stuff — family, our health, the fact that The Walking Dead is much improved this season — but we also, as you might expect, are thankful for big-screen science fiction movies. Sure, Hollywood screws it up as often as they get it right, but there are plenty of times when they have gotten it right. Those times have filled our brains with delight and indelible visions of bike-riding aliens silhouetted against the Moon, Ellen Ripley going mom-o a mom-o with an alien queen, and a dying android wishing he had more time.

You’ll find most, if not all, of those fond memories contained in the below supercut, a six-minute epic that strings together some of the best scenes and most unforgettable images from 100 works of cinematic science fiction. Many props to the possibly insane Redditor who edited it all together. And away we go!

Star Trek #15
IDW Publishing, On Shelves Wednesday

In the wake of J.J. Abrams’ big-screen Star Trek reboot, fans have spent the past three years speculating which stories, characters, or elements from the Original Series might turn up in the sequel, now given the annoyingly colon-free title of Star Trek Into Darkness. What those fans might not know is that the new Trek continuity has been exploring just those questions on the comic page for a while now. This week’s issue of Star Trek gives us a look at nuTrek’s version of one of the franchise’s most iconic elements: the Mirror Universe. Yes, we’ll finally get to see Zachary Quinto with an Evil Goatee, at least in illustrated form. The issue is being overseen by Roberto Orci, one half of the screenwriting team responsible for the new movies.

IDW’s ongoing Star Trek has mixed together original stories and twists on existing TOS episodes such as “The Trouble with Tribbles” and “The Return of the Archons.” Many of these story arcs have deviated a lot from the original episodes, and that’s as it should be. What’s the point of kickstarting a new take on the Trek universe if you are going to do everything the same? Will Spock engage in a heated bout of nerve-pinch-on-nerve-pinch Vulcan action? Will Kirk claim that “it doesn’t count” if he sleeps with all alternate versions of his female crew members? Are most of the Vulcans dead in the Mirror Universe too? We’ve got no idea, but we’ll read to find out.

Spoiler alert! The pixels for the photos atop these stories is generally 578 x 250. Try not to tell your friends. That said, the evolution of the pixel has, in the realm of digital photography, become nearly as interesting as all the high school prom photos being taken with some of these cameras. Now New York’s Stony Brook University has, to put it mildly, blown everything else the fuck up out of the water.