Well, this is an interesting bit of news. I still can’t fully get behind a remake of Escape From New York, one of my all time favorite movies, something that I think is damn near perfect, but if you’re going to reboot a movie, you might as well bring along the original mastermind. John Carpenter wrote, directed, and scored the 1981 classic, and not only has Fox secured the rights to remake the film, they’ve got Carpenter on board as an executive producer.

We’ve been hearing about this do-over since at least 2010, long enough and sporadic enough that it never truly seemed like it was going to happen, but now Deadline reports that things are rolling. Fox’s bid was the top of several offers fielded by StudioCanal, who once planned to make the film with Joel Silver. Before that, New Line Cinema had their eyes on this particular prize, with The Crazies director Brock Eisner at the helm. And if you want to go even farther back into ancient history, Len Wiseman (Underworld and the Total Recall remake) was working on a version with Gerard Butler taking over the role of Kurt Russell’s legendary badass Snake Plissken.

I may not be sure of many things in this life, but one thing I am sure of is that the Japanese posters for some of my favorite science fiction films are straight-up bonkers, and in the very best way possible. Sometimes it’s just that the Japanese lettering plastered all over everything is actually perfectly consistent with the universe of the story, as with this Blade Runner poster.

How come adults don’t get meals that come with prizes? Some of my favorite rituals from childhood involved being elbow-deep in a box of cereal, feeling around for the prize, or dumping all the food out of my Happy Meal just so I could get to the toy. So how come we don’t get a grown-up equivalent? After-dinner mints and fortune cookies don’t count, damn it. I want to be able to finish my snazzy, five-star meal, and then have the waiter bring me out a Rocket Raccoon action figure on a silver platter. Sadly, I will probably never live in such a world, but at least pretending is a little bit easier thanks to these faux Happy Meals that were ripped right out of my Happy Place.

These awesome fake Happy Meals are the work of Los Angeles digital artist Newt Clements. (He mostly comes out at night. Mostly.) His Pinterest is full of a wide variety of crazy projects, but his Happy Meals collection is one of the most extensive. He’s got over 100 of the things by my count, and they’re all incredibly well done. Designing Happy Meal boxes to tie into Doctor Who, Aliens, or Escape from New York would have been worthy of a story in and of itself, but Clements goes the extra mile by imagining what toys might be included with each meal as well. And I don’t care what bounty McDonald’s has on offer, there’s no way it’s cooler than an action figure of Firefly’s River standing atop a pile of Reaver corpses.

Here at GFR, it’s still pretty blasphemous to use the phrase Escape from New York remake, but since Hollywood refuses to give up on it, we’ll just squeeze our eyes shut and hold our breath while saying it as fast as possible. For better or worse, there are rumors that Joel Silver’s production company Silver Pictures has a shortlist of three actors ready to take over the role of Snake Plissken, and none of them are Tom Hardy or Jason Statham. Those rumors also contain details about the film’s plot, which would see Snake heading a team, rather than just beating the shit out of everyone by himself.

But wait, don’t go away moping just yet. According to sources from Starlog, whose news we’re taking with a heaping spoonful of salt, Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam, former The Walking Dead star Jon Bernthal, and Downton Abbey‘s Dan Stevens are all in the mix to take over the role of cinema’s most iconic eyepatch-wearing badass. I’m going to wait a second before going over these choices to talk a little bit about what Starlog’s sources say about the plot.

Sly Stallone and damn near every other aging action star on the planet took to the big screen again this past weekend in The Expendables 3. We can take that franchise or leave it, but we do have to admit we love the concept of uniting a team of utter badasses from assorted franchises we know and love (or love to hate). So let’s eject Stallone, Statham, and the rest and instead assemble the ultimate Sci-Fi Expendables team, the first and only people you need to call if you need some dirty deeds done right (but not dirt cheap). The GFR team put our heads together to figure out who should make the team, and after some arguing, a lot of swearing, and one really undignified slap-fight, we came up with 16 candidates…the same number of folks on the Expendables 3 poster. Here’s who made the cut.

Sarah Connor
When you first met Sarah Connor, she was a meek, mild-mannered waitress just sort of floating aimlessly through her life. Encounters with a vicious, single-minded cyborg from the future, sent back to hunt you down so your son is never born, have a way of changing that. Over the course of the first two movies in the Terminator movies, Sarah transforms into a serious action star, teaching herself all manner of combat and survival skills, actively seeking out any and all knowledge that might help her in her one-woman war against Cyberdyne Systems and a future ruled by human-hunting machines. Basically, she’s a perfect addition to your team of mercs, and will always be working to improve her already ample skill set and add to the team.

Here at GFR we’re all in favor of continuing to play with toys well beyond the age of respectability. After all, what’s the point of getting older and getting a job if not to buy all the cool shit your parents wouldn’t get you when you were a kid? So the idea of new action figures for SF favorites such as Alien, Terminator, and Back to the Future? Sign us up. If you’re similarly enthused, Super 7 and Funko’s line of “ReAction Figures” has you in its laser sights. Well, as long as you don’t mind your action figures being “the proper level of shitty.”

Hey, that’s not me throwing that word out there. Although, admittedly, we were less than impressed by Funko’s Firefly figures when we first saw them last February. In a world where action figures have become ridiculously intricate and detailed collectibles, the Funko Firefly figures didn’t look all that much like the show’s cast, and just generally looked…well, since the word is already out there, kind of shitty. But it turns out we may not have given them a fair shake, as the ReAction Figures are intended to be, according to Super 7 owner/creator Brian Flynn, a case of calculated shittiness.