Giant Freakin Robot

The announcement of new Star Wars films was exciting enough, but it went up a notch or two when original trilogy actors Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher all said they’d be game to return to the characters that helped make them household names. Star Wars fans have spent the days since speculating what adventures the older versions of Luke, Han, and Leia might get up to in the new trilogy, but so far we don’t have much concrete information. Still, if you’d like a little help envisioning what Episode VII might have to offer, check out this custom-made action figure. Behold: Old Solo.

With Christmas just around the corner, most of your gifts have probably already been purchased, or are at least those on the forefront of your to-do list. The people left to buy gifts might be those whose interests run perpendicular to yours, which makes proper gift buying more of a chore than a pleasure. Maybe that person is a sci-fan, and maybe a bit of a shut-in, whose electricity bill might not be paid, so he might need help finding things in the dark. Voila! Lightsaber flashlights!

Over the past 20 years or so, science fiction movies have benefited from advances in film technology. The emergence of computer-generated imagery (CGI) has dominated most every big budget Hollywood movie. Although the effects look better and more realistic, many believe that something is just missing when it comes to the tangibility of some of these movies.

Let’s look at the complete Star Wars Saga. These films are not just divided by trilogy, but also by decades of filmmaking technology including CGI and Chroma Key . Below is an image that perfectly sums up the differences between the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy. Which trilogy would you rather watch?

Did it just get colder in here? Are we on Hoth? Well, you may not be hiding on a frigid, snowbound world, but watch this video of DARPA’s autonomous V-bat drone and tell me it doesn’t remind you of the Imperial Probe Droid that the Empire sends out in search of the rebel base in The Empire Strikes Back. Also, try not to wet yourself as you envision a future enslaved by our evil robot overlords. It’s like DARPA is going out of their way to give us horrible nightmares. Thanks guys, I didn’t need to sleep tonight anyway.