Giant Freakin Robot

If you love sci-fi, then at one point or another you’ve probably loved a show that Kevin Grazier has worked on. While his scientific work includes being an Investigation Scientist and Science Planning Engineer for the Cassini mission to Saturn, Grazier has also been a scientific advisor on such shows as Battlestar Galactica, Falling Skies, Eureka, and The Event. Grazier’s newest job title is science advisor to SyFy’s new tv show/MMO hybrid, Defiance.

Defiance is set in a post-apocalyptic St. Louis after an event called an “Arkfall” has reshaped our planet to make it more hospitable to the alien Votan, who are struggling to survive on a ravaged Earth alongside mankind. Sounding like an interesting sci-fi premise in it’s on right (even though it is slightly reminiscent of the War Against the Cthorr series) SyFy has decided to pair the new series with a free to play MMO that weaves in and out of the shows narrative. I got the chance to ask Grazier how active he was as a science advisor on the video game and how smoothly the process was going in fitting those two media together…

 A little bit… I mean I have gone down to Trion Worlds in San Diego, I’ve talked with them. We’re sharing information back and forth and by virtue of it appearing on the screen, it will theoretically feed back into the game, so we are in communication. We have some reconciliation to do because they’ve come up with some back story and we’ve come up with some back story and they’re sometimes different, so we need to rectify that

There’s a lot to like about Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica. Regardless of how you feel about the show’s ending and the pervasive mysticism, it was a show that used the genre to do what it does best: examine the human condition and ask the big questions against a fantastic backdrop. It did, however, have one serious problem. Too damn many colonies. How’s a guy supposed to keep track of all these different colonies when I don’t have a map? Man, if only somebody made a map…

This is such an obvious, and obviously good, idea for a parody that I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before now. A group of Battlestar Galactica fans have gotten together and filmed a Battlestar themed version of Cee Lo Green’s kind of awesome song “Fuck You”. Except, of course, it’s battle star so they say “Frak You!” while singing about Adama and Starbuck. It’s kind of great.

Watch…

The song is apparently sung from the viewpoint of Anders, who more than just about anyone on the ship, definitely has cause to shout “frak you!” in Starbuck’s general direction. The video is pretty well done for a first effort, which apparently this is.

Science fiction films and television programs are heavily dependent on computer generated images to convey the fantastic worlds and technology they depict. Those images, in turn, are dependent upon skilled and creative digital and effects artists who, like all artists, keep portfolios of their work. Sometimes those portfolios end up on the internet and we getting a stunning look at the work of the artists, as with Alec McClymont’s .

McClymont has served as a digital and effects artist on a number of film and television shows, ranging from The Santa Clause 2 and Chronicle to the Babylon 5 movies, and Andromeda. He hosts an online gallery with ultra-high-res, stunning images like these from Babylon 5: The Lost Tales…