Shaun Of The Dead, Total Recall, And More Represented In Nifty 8-Bit GIFs

By Nick Venable | Updated 5 years ago

Earlier this week, I blathered on about how much I love seeing films reduced to children’s book material, and now my second-favorite type of homage has made its way from someone’s brain to my eyes via the Internet. We’re talking about cinematic 8-bit GIFs today, and the Russian website Ugaga recently hosted a series of 16 different images and challenged people to guess what they were referencing, and sci-fi is represented quite well. (From there it went on to Reddit and other places, so while we aren’t sure if Ugaga is the first source, I don’t think anyone is going to come knocking on…hold on, I have to get the door.)

Anyway, whoever made these things deserves a big whomping pat on the back, and then a cattle prod to the neck to make sure they keep delivering. And then maybe we can get a whole squad of like-minded people together, and we can prod them into making actual 8-bit video games based on these movies, because that would probably be more amazing than the tie-in games that Nintendo actually had to offer. (Man, this prod feels really comfortable in my hands.) I believe we all remember playing Hudson Hawk for five minutes before smashing it to pieces with a copy of The Return of Bruno.

So let’s go over them, shall we? As you can see up top, the gang from Shaun of the Dead is perfectly fine just walking around as long as there aren’t any manic zombies running about. Whoever made that one clearly doesn’t have a fondness for Nick Frost, as he’s a fat knob. Below you’ll see one of the most nightmarish bits from Total Recall, when the red-headed woman’s face contorts and convulses as Quaid removes what’s revealed to be a mask. Luckily, this pixelated version doesn’t make me want to break all the mirrors in my house and swear off gingers.

The next two images also come from otherworldly environments, representing Moon and The Fifth Element. Pay more attention to the smiley face machine for Moon if you haven’t seen it. Just saying. Also, quit trying to see if Leeloo’s nipples are showing.

Lastly, here’s a shot from District 9, in which Wikus is presenting paperwork to the aliens that would force them into a wilderness concentration camp. This might be my favorite, as the only movement is blinking, which is a perfect understatement to the severity of the situation.

And it isn’t sci-fi, but everyone needs more Fight Club in their lives. His name is Robert Paulson.

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