A to Z of Judge Dredd at Quaequam

In anticipation of the UK cinema release of the new Judge Dredd film on the 7th of September.

I'm highlighting my old chum James Graham who is currently blogging an A to Z of Judge Dredd which is well worth a look.

Keep up the good work Jim.

Cyberpunk: Appendix N - Inspirational and Educational Material

In the Gygaxian tradition here is my Appendix N for Cyberpunk, a list of the books, movies and anime which have inspired my cyberpunk adventures since first encountering it in the very late 80s.  Also available on Pinterest. 

Please do not treat this an exhaustive list of what is and isn't considered cyberpunk, these are just the things which have inspired me, I will probably add to it when I get access to the deep recesses of my cortex.

Cyberpunk - APPENDIX N: Inspirational and Educational Material

BOOKS

• William Gibson - Sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero,  Mona Lisa Overdrive), Bridge trilogy (Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties)
• George Alec Effinger - Marid Audran series (When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun, The Exile Kiss)
• Walter John Williams - Hardwired, Voice of the Whirlwind
• Bruce Sterling - Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (Editor and contibuting author), Islands in the Net
• Ian Hamilton - Fallen Dragon
• Ian Mcdonald - River of Gods
• Cory Doctorow - Makers
• Justina Robson - Keeping it Real
• Charles Stross - Halting State
• John Brunner - The Shockwave Rider
• John Courtney Grimwood -  reMix, redRobe,  
• Jack Womack - Terraplane 
• Jeff Noon - Vurt, Pollen
• W.T. Quick - Dreams of Flesh and Sand

MOVIES

• Æon Flux (2005)
• A Scanner Darkly (2006)
• Blade Runner (1982)
• Dark City (1998)
• Equilibrium (2002)
• Escape From New York (1981)
• eXistenz (1999) 
• Gantz (2010)
• Gattaca (1997)
• Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
• Max Headroom (1985)
• Minority Report (2002)
• Priest (2011)
• Repo Men (2010)
• Returner (2002)
• Robocop (1987)
• Sleep Dealer (2008)
• Southland Tales (2006)
• Strange Days (1995)
• Surrogates (2009)
• Total Recall (1990)
• Ultraviolet (2006)
• Videodrome (1983)
• Virtuosity (1995)

ANIME

• AD Police (1999)
• Æon Flux (1991)
• Akira (1988)
• Appleseed (2004)
• Appleseed: Ex Machina (2007)
• Cowboy Bebop (Series) (1998)
• Ghost in the Shell (1995)
• Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002)
• Vexille (2007)

NSFW Movie Double Bubble - Cobra The Space Pirate and Cockneys vs Zombies

The classic 80s adult themed anime Space Adventure Cobra gets a live action movie directed by Alexander Aja (Piranha, The Hills Have Eyes).  Scheduled for 2013 there are no details other than this sweet poster.  I could be mistaken, but is that David Wenham (300, Van Helsing, Lord of The Rings, Australia)  posing as Cobra, I do hope so, cos he's a great character actor.

Thanks to the Troll Lord Stephen Chenault, for finding the trailer for Cockneys vs Zombies which if you haven't seen it is here.



Michelle Ryan (Eastenders) leads an unlikely ensemble cast including Alan Ford (aka Bricktop), Honor Blackman (aka Pussy Galore) and Richard Briers (aka Tom Goode) in a tale of Eastend bankrobbers going toe-to-stump with the walking dead.  Looks like a riot.

I'm no Eastender but isn't cockney rhyming slang for zombies, Stale Bread ... Walking Dead?

My 10 Favourite Sci-Fi Posters

Thanks to Davis Chenault for his post highlighting the IGN 25 Top Sci-FI Posters.

Here's my top 10 (in no particular order) with some alternate versions thrown in for good measure:


1. MAD MAX

Original Theatrical Poster	UK Poster

I love the graphic simplicity of the original release, but the UK poster (which I remember from my childhood) makes me wanna see the movie NOW!.

2. DUNE

UK Poster

Japanese Poster

The haunting alien vista of the UK poster is infinitely preferable to the car crash of bad airbrush art that is the Japanese version.  Who is Paul Atreides supposed to be kissing, cos it sure doesn't look like Sean Young.

3. BLADE RUNNER

Original Poster

Directors Cut Poster

The crazy angles and harsh edged look to the original composite are given a more sympathetic and dreamlike treatment for the directors cut.  Much better poster IMHO.

4. THEY LIVE

Original Poster

Marc Palm Homage Poster

Rowdy Roddy Pipper eyeballs your "alienness" in the original, but there's a nice subversive edge to Marc Palm's "Hope" version.

5. STAR WARS

Original Poster

Olly Moss Homage

The original is a masterpiece of both composition and oil painting, even if the blasters seem to be firing light-sabre beams.  The Olly Moss homage is an elegant piece of graphic design genius.  I'm officially torn between the two.

6. ALIEN

Original Poster

Polish Poster

The minimalist original has it all, black for space, weird cracked egg with green glowy yolk, scary byeline and alien eggbox landscape.  The poor poles have no idea what they're letting themselves in for with their bizarre blood vessel drawing of what I can only presume is a facehugger?

7. ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK

Original Poster

Special Edition Poster

The Big Apple has gone all to hell in the iconic (if a little cliched) original as the characters are caught in a spot of mid escape terror.  The Special Edition looks like one of Snake Plisken's holiday snaps, posed right after he's brought down the Statue of Liberty in some sort of explosive mayhem.

8. SCANNERS

Original Poster

Italian Poster

In the definitive original, Michael Ironside's about to explode!!!.  But I love the comic book style and vivid fiery reds in the Italian version.

9. GODZILLA VS MEGALON

Original Poster

Alternate Poster

Godzilla is kicking Megalon's butt in the original and classic poster.  In the alternate version The Lost Continent of Mu has been given the boot in favour of a battle on top of the Twin Trade Towers which due to the exaggerated scale makes both these Kaiju look a bit puny by comparison.  Nice idea, poor execution (and the typeography lets it down as well)

10. THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN

Original Poster

Ken Taylor Mondo Poster

The arthouse style original with its dirty steampunk qualities are eschewed by Ken Taylor for a heavily inked composite illustration evocative of a Hammer Horror movie poster. 

Moviewatch: Looking forward to 2012

I know that this is a little "off topic" but who doesn't use movies as inspiration for their games...?  Here's a list of movies I'm looking forward to in 2012

MOVIEWATCH: LOOKING FORWARD TO 2012 

JANUARY

• The Divide - 13th January (USA) - A bunch of survivors are holed up in the confines of their apartment building's basement after a nuclear war.
  
  
• Haywire - 18th January (UK) - Steven Soderbergh directs this story of a female Black Ops soldier who seeks revenge after being set up during a mission.
  
  
• Underworld Awakening - 20th Jan (UK) - Kate Beckinsale dons the leather catsuit again for another outing as Selene in the 4th Underworld movie.

FEBRUARY

• Journey 2: The Mysterious Island - 3rd February (UK) - Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson leads his girlfriends family to a mysterious island in the search for their grandfather.
  
  
• Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - 17th February (UK) - Nicholas Cage returns as Johnny Blaze.

MARCH

• John Carter - 9th March (UK) - Disney adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian hero John Carter.
  
  
• The Hunger Games - 23rd March (UK) - Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) directs this adaptation of the Suzanne Collins novel of a dystopian future. 
  
  
• Wrath of The Titans -  30th March (UK) - Sam Worthington returns as Perseus to battle Hades and rescue Zeus.

APRIL

• Iron Sky - 4th April (FIN) - Nazi flying saucers leave their secret moon base to invade Earth.
  
  
• MS One: Maximum Security - 13th April (UK) - Guy Pearce stars in this outerspace prison break movie written by Luc Besson. - Update: In the UK this was titled Lockout
  
  
• Battleship - 20th April (UK) - Liam Neeson tries to see off an alien invasion with his trusty naval fleet
  
  
• The Avengers - 27th Aril (UK) - Thor, Iron Man, Capt. America, Black Widow, Hawkeye and The Hulk appear in 2012's most anticipated superhero slugfest.

MAY

• The 25th Reich - 10th May (AUS) - Time travel, Nazi Robot Spiders, what's not to like?
  
  
• Sinbad: The 5th Voyage - 18th May (US) - Patrick Stewart narrates this low budget Sinbad tale.
  
  
• Men in Black III - 25th May (UK) - Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones return as agents J and K in this time travelling sequel. 

JUNE

• Prometheus - 1st June (UK) - Ridley Scott directs this Alien prequel which covers the events of an earlier expedition to LV426.
  
  
• G.I. Joe Retaliation - 22 June (UK) - Sequel to the family friendly action movie featuring Channing Tatum backed up by Bruce Willis, Dwayne Johnson and Ray Stevenson

JULY

• The Amazing Spider-Man - 4th July (UK) - Andrew Garfield dons the lycra in this reboot of the spidey movie franchise and faces off against classic super-villain The Lizard played by Rhys Ifans.
   
  
• The Dark Night Rises - 20th July (UK) - Christain Bale returns as Batman to face off against Bane

AUGUST

• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - 2nd August (UK) - Dominic Cooper and Alan Tudyk feature in this adaptation of Seth Grahame Smith's novel.
   
• Total Recall - 22nd August (UK) - Colin Farrell stars as Doug Quaid in a remake of the classic Phillip K Dick short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"

SEPTEMBER

• Resident Evil: Retribution - 14th September (UK) - Milla Jovovich makes another outing as Alice in the latest installment in the war against the Umbrella Corporation.
  
  
• Para Norman - 14th September (UK) - The team behind Coraline and 9 return with this animated tale of a boy who can see speak with the dead.
  
  
• Dredd - 21 September (UK) - Karl Urban stars as Judge Dredd in this big screen outing for the 2000AD hero, which will hopefully blow away all the bad memories of the 1995 Sylvester Stallone version.
  
  
• Looper - 28th September (UK) - Sci-Fi thriller where mob hit-man Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets hired to kill his future self.

OCTOBER

• Hotel Transylvania - 12th October (UK) - Genndy Tartakovsky directs this animated tale of a boy falling for Dracula's daughter in an upmarket holiday resort for monsters.

NOVEMBER

• Red Dawn - 2nd November (US) - Chris Hemsworth stars in this remake of the 80s classic as a group of American teenagers attempt to save their town from a North Korean invasion.

DECEMBER

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - 14th December (UK) - Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins in the first part of Peter Jackson's adaptation.
  
  
• 47 Ronin - 14th December (UK) - Keannu Reeves stars in this true story of 18th Century Japanese samurai who take revenge for the death of their master.

SCHEDULED FOR SOMETIME IN 2012

• War of The Worlds: Goliath - Animated steampunk movie sequel to HG Well's War of the Worlds produced in association with Heavy Metal Magazine.  This one has been threatening to come out for a while, hope it doesn't turn into vapourware.
  
  
• Paradox Alice - A rescue mission is despatched to Europa to fetch water for a dying earth but something puts the mission in jeopardy.
  
  
• A Little Bit Zombie - An HR manager turning zombie trys to keep his life together and marry his fiance.
  
  
• Polypore - A young man's hunt for answers to his newly found gift of telepathy uncovers a web of corporate intrigue.
  
  
• Cheech & Chong's Animated Movie - Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong's animated movie based on their Grammy Award winning albums.  Probably has nothing useable from an RPG stance but I like a bit of Cheech and Chong now and then.
  
  
• Vehicle 19 - Paul Walker stars as a foreign tourist who unwittingly picks up a rental car and is drawn into a scheme of corrupt local police.

MOVIEWATCH: Attack The Block (15)

Having been a fan of the cult humour of Adam & Joe for many years, the bar of expectation (good name for a wondrous item, that) was set pretty high for Joe Cornish's directorial debut.  

I can happily report that Attack the Block is definitely well worth seeing and I'd go so far as to give it 4 out of 5 stars.

The action takes place in and around a South East London council estate, where a gang of youths led by Moses attempt to thwart an alien invasion.  The film hangs on the premise that Good can indeed come from Evil when the circumstances dictate it, and the quasi-redemption of Moses (John Boyega) and the rest of his gang is both darkly humorous and thought provoking to watch in light of the recent rioting in London and other parts of the UK.

Cornish's comedic sensibilities shine through and create some genuinely funny moments as counterpoints to the movie's tense and scary undertone.  The creature design is innovative and well executed applying the common sense approach of less is most definitely more when working on a modest budget (for a sci-fi film) of $13 Million.  The decision to cast newcomers to play the youths keeps the authenticity level high, whilst the inclusion of established actors in the shape of Nick Frost (Ron), Jodie Whitaker (Sam) and Luke Treadaway (Brewis) keeps the film accessible.

The only issue I have with the film is that the language used will not be familiar to most, being very specific to South East London gang culture of 2011 and like all similar "gang" films the colloquialisms will be also date very quickly.  To help out here are a few words translated into English.

Endz - Gang territory, the estate.  Originating from the concept that gangs territory is defined from one end of a road to the other.
Bare - Good
Fam - Family or gang.  Abbreviation of Family.
D'ya'getme - Do you understand me.
Snitch - Informer, also used to
Po Po / Feds - Police
Bra Bra Bra - The sound of a machine pistol being fired.

There's some pretty rich material in here for any DM thinking of running an alien invasion one nighter and the setting would quite easily transpose onto any metropolis be it Chicago's Projects, Paris's "Banlieue, Rio's "Favela" or the city-bottom Blocks of Mega City One  

MOVIEWATCH: Gaiking The Movie

If there's one thing that I love about anime it's GIANT ROBOTS!!

Check out this awesome teaser trailer for Gaiking The Movie, hope it sees the light of day unlike some other live-action anime projects (Akira, Gatchaman, Cowboy Bebop)

Movie Watch: Eyeborgs

Adrian Paul (Highlander TV Series) and Danny Trejo (Machete) star in this cautionary tale of technology gone too far set in a near future Chicago.  

The eyeborgs of the title are mobile surveillance cameras tasked with the surveillance of society for the Department of Homeland Security, but have they been compromised and if so, by whom?  Gunner Reynolds (Adrian Paul) a DHS agent discovers the truth about the real nature of the eyeborgs design.



If you can get past the distinctly "TV Movie" CGI eyeborgs which are nicely modeled but poorly composited, there's a good plot in there and certainly something that hasn't been seen before. The characters, and perhaps Paul's acting, are a little one dimensional but passable and Danny Trejo has the most lines I've ever heard him speak in one movie.

A solid 4 out of 5 for the story and a 3 out of 5 for the CGI.

MOVIEWATCH: Limitless (15)

Little clip here from the movie Limitless starring Bradley Cooper (of The Hangover and The A-Team fame) which somehow managed to slip under the radar here at Rolplay-Geek HQ...



++REVIEW++

Watching this movie was as much a revelation, for me, in how you make a superb superhero movie as was, Akira to animation or Blade Runner to near future Sci-Fi.

If you haven't seen this movie, put it at the top of your list (or at least above Green Lantern) you will not be dissapointed.  Unfortunately I can't tell you anything about the plot in the sameway as you don't talk about Fight Club... it spoils the punchline.

Bob DeNiro is of course playing Bob DeNiro again, but there are shades of Travis Bickle in there which overshadow even Bradley Cooper's utterly believable performance as Eddie Morra, both as struggling writer and limitless hero.

5 STARS!!

MOVIEWATCH: The Adventures of Tintin - The Secret of the Unicorn

Probably the most eagerly awaited movie of the year (well in my house anyway!!), only 7 more months to wait...

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec

Luc Besson is one of my favourite directors and I eagerly await his latest film based on the mid 70s comic books by Jacques Tardi.  Can't wait for this one... and as hits UK screens this month, it looks like I won't have to.

Sneak Peak behind the Hobbit

Peter Jackson shows fans what goes on behind the famous door at Bag End in a 10 minute behind the scenes video.

Tuesday Trailer - Summer Wars

Mamoru Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) returns to direct one of her own short stories in "Summer Wars".

The virtual reality world of OZ is a huge and highly embedded social network, it has millions of account holders who have given it control of many aspects of their modern lives. Unfortunately "Love Machine" an AI starts to take over OZ with catastrophic results. As the boundary between reality and OZ becomes blurred, the only person who can stop Love Machine is a high school teen mathematician, Kenji Koiso.



Possibly more relevant to today's Social Generation than the Tron franchise with it's melange of different artwork styles reflecting the diversity of user generated content which inhabits todays social networks like flickr or myspace.  Is this the future of facebook... only time will tell...

Mars Attacks! Bubblegum Cards on Flickr

Call me crazy but I do love a bit of pulp Sci-Fi every now and then, here's a Flickr set of the complete Mars Attacks! bubblegum cards.

Mars Attacks Bubblegum Cards

Most of you will know that these cards were the original inspiration for Tim Burton's 1996 movie of the same name, But

I've never seen the whole collection before or seen the card backs either so set the slideshow to play, sit back and enjoy a bit of nostalgia.

1884 - A New Terry Gilliam Project

Just in time for Christmas comes the news that Terry Gilliam is producing a steampunk puppet movie.  No details (or IMDB entry) on the production schedule, cast or release date but two videos are available:

Animation Test Video

Teaser Trailer

Makes me want to dust off the old Forgotten Futures rules and get writing.

Troll Hunter

Caught this movie trailer on The Book of Worlds.  

Released in Norway on 29 Oct 2010, but so far no details on when it will be scheduled for release in the UK, I expect it will be straight to DVD.  Enjoy...



I can see this having lots of potential for a modern horror scenario, perhaps Cthulhu Now, Delta Green or Conspiracy X. How about mixing in a bit of Kaiju, Godzilla vs Grimetosser perhaps?

Update: This film was fantastic and everyone should see it.

Iron Sky

After scanning the interweb for Nazi UFO pics I stumbled across some teaser posters for IRON SKY currently slated for a 2011 release.

The basic premise is that in 1945 the Nazis landed on the moon and set up a secret base where they have hiden out.  Cut to 2018 when the Nazi's try to invade Earth in their huge flying saucers and impose a Fourth Reich.  I hope the film turns out as good as some of these images:

More info on IMDB.  Oh those crazy Finns!!