HUGE SPOILERS FOR TDK! But if you haven't seen Dark Knight yet, you probably don't even know what a Batman is and got here by mistake, so we shouldn't have any problems.
1. What are we meant to assume happens once the smoke grenade in the bank manager's mouth goes off? Will he die of asphyxiation? Will all the hostages die from some sort of toxin in the smoke? Is it just a hilarious non-lethal Joker gag? Let's scratch that last one off the list.
2. Despite the fact that the Joker is characterized in this movie as a knife-aficionado, he uses a huge variety of weapons, and only uses a knife about three times. His arsenal includes: shotgun, machine gun, rifle, bazooka, lead pipe, poison (by proxy), car bomb (by proxy), high explosives, and most memorably, a nice sharp pencil.
More thoughts and questions after the jump...(the best one is the last one)...
*Also more TDK icon samplers after the jump...click them to link to the creator's page. 3. Harvey is the second DA Rachel Dawes is seen having a relationship with (it's heavily implied in Batman Beyond). Considering she barely seems to know what a RICO case is, one might question what exactly they're keeping her around the office for.
4. At the fundraiser, Harvey asks Alfred if he's known Rachel for her whole life, and he charmingly replies, "Not yet, sir!". Oh Alfred. Just give it a day.
5. As Gnerd contributor Degan first pointed out, after Batman jumps out of the window to save Rachel, the rest of Bruce's guest are pretty much screwed, as they all are still stuck in a penthouse full of recovering thugs and, uh, THE JOKER. Anyone care to guess what happens next to Gotham's high society elite? "As long as I'm hee-rre...I know this KILLER party game." Haw. I suck. Anyone else got a better line? Come on, I know some of you write fanfic.
6. Heath Ledger must have had so many more incredible performances in him. Of course I realized this on my first viewing, but every viewing cuts a little deeper. 7. I didn't see that Joker had an I Believe In Harvey Dent sticker on his nurse's uniform until my third viewing. I'm dumb. But this is an important detail for anyone planning a Nurse Joker Halloween costume. Not that I am.
8. Given the fact that the murder of Bruce's parents is public knowledge, Harvey and Natasha must think him extraordinarily nihilistic to flippantly remark, "I grew up here, and I turned out okay."
9. Batman seems to have forgotten his loophole on villain deaths from the last movie, namely: "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you". And yet he saves Joker from a high altitude death, thereby sealing the fate of, if DC comics are to be believed, THE ENTIRE WORLD POPULATION SEVERAL TIMES OVER. Maybe Bats was trying to pull a Gwen Stacy finishing move, but didn't count on The Joker's insanity-powered indestructibility.
One short of a proper top ten list...I can only hope some other helpful multi-viewer will help me out with another observation/nitpick/question.
To celebrate Independence Day weekend, my girlfriend and I watched all three original Star Wars movies back to back. We'd caught bits and pieces of the Prequels on TV earlier in the week, and I was surprised and thrilled to find her taking an interest in one of my strongest areas of geek trivia.
What follows is a list of the top 30 questions she asked me during our Star Wars marathon, and my unresearched answers (corrections and nitpicks are welcome). A NEW HOPE
1. Are those real people in the Stormtrooper outfits? Most of them - there are leftover clones as well.
2. Imperial senate? Dummy senate. They disband it in this movie.
3. Why does the first droid blow up? Deus ex machina? Expanded Universe would have us believe R5 blew himself up to help Artoo. follow-up: So we should assume R5 believes in the rebellion? I would say a) he probably just wants to help a fellow droid and.... b) maybe he does just want to help the rebellion, which stands for freedom and self-determination, and droids seem like they could hold those values too. I mean Artoo certainly does.
Unwise decisions, questions of motivations, and questionable force powers, after the jump... 4. If Threepio were given a message, would he want to deliver it too? He would want to deliver it if he was told to, but it's not as if Artoo was PROGRAMMED to deliver it. He's doing it because he wants to help the princess. Threepio might kind of forget about the whole thing if he got a new master.
5. Why is Obi Wan her only hope? Cause he's the only Jedi she knows about. follow-up: How does she know who he is? Her step-dad, Bail Organa, knew him and told her about him.
6. Why did Obi Wan put Luke on Tatooine, if that's where Darth Vader is from? Anakin doesn't know he has children; he thought he killed Padme before she gave birth. So there is no reason he would ever go back to Tatooine, in fact he might stay away from Tatooine since it reminds him too much of his old life. Also Shmi Skywalker was part of the Lars family for some years, so Beru and Owen Lars would feel a responsibility to take care of her grandchild.
7. Why doesn't the bar ("cantina" - Ed.) allow droids? is it some kind of racism allegory? Maybe because they don't drink?
8. Why is Obi Wan going alone to disable the tractor beam? He knows that Vader will sense him and come looking for him. follow-up: Why is Darth Vader just wandering around the hallway? Maybe he's on the way to another meeting?
9. Why does Leia appear to know who Luke is talking about when he says "I'm here with Ben Kenobi?" (she only knows the name Obi Wan, I thought) Um. She just hears Kenobi and parrots it back. It's a high stress situation.
10. Why did it take Obi Wan so long to get to the tractor beam? He's been sneaking around corners to get there, and it's a gigantic space station - he could have traveled like a mile.
11. Why did Obi Wan let Darth Vader kill him? He knows that luke will save the princess, and he can't beat Darth Vader. Also he can come back using the tricks he learned from Qui-Gon.
12. Why does the rebel general say "may the force be with you"? Can regular people use the force? Everyone is bound together by the force, Jedis just can use it in a literal way. Plus Jedi's have probably been kind of canonized as saints by the rebels, since they're all dead.
13. How do we know that Darth Vader is like, the best pilot? He was a good pilot in Episode Three, and when he was 9 he piloted pods, which humans are not supposed to be able to do.
EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 14. Why don't the droids freeze in the snow? They're made of space metal - Artoo can survive in the void of space. Also Threepio did say his joints were freezing.
BONUS COMMENT: "I bet Artoo knows everything that happened in the prequels, and is really uncomfortable right now."
15. What kind of clambake is Vader in? It's a private re-generation chamber.
16. Don't the rebels worry about what happened to Luke when he goes to Dagobah? He can do whatever he wants.
17. Doesn't Yoda know Artoo? He's seen lots of droids before.
18. Can Luke understand Artoo? When he's hooked up to a computer he can, otherwise he has to guess. Artoo may be saying "That's Yoda! He was on the Jedi Council" but Luke wouldn't know.
19. Why is Yoda acting like a drunk? He's testing luke's patience and empathy. 20. How did Boba Fett see the Falcon float away with the trash? Why didn't he tell the Empire? His ship, the Slave I, has great sensors - he didn't tell the Empire cause he wants the bounty.
21. Why does Vader torture Han and not ask him any questions? So that Luke can have a vision of his friends in pain. Anakin only had future visions of his loved ones in pain, so he assumes that's how it works for Luke too (and it does).
22. How does Darth Vader keep up his lightsaber skills? He's already got them - he was super powerful in his prime. He might train with the Emperor too, who beat Yoda in lightsaber combat.
23. Why does Luke try to contact Leia but not Han Solo? Short answer because she's force sensitive, long answer, he's "stretching out with his feelings" to find someone he knows to get him help, and since Han is in carbonite and dead to the world, he can't sense him. and since Leia is force sensitive anyway, he can sense her very strongly and can easily communicate with her.
RETURN OF THE JEDI
24. Does Vader even care about ruling the galaxy? Anakin always thought that he deserved a lot of power, because he was told for most of his life that he was "the chosen one." He talked with Padme about ruling everything so he could have things just like he wanted them.
25. What's Jabba's job? He's like a mob boss - he controls the crime syndicates on Tatooine. Hutts are like gangsters of the galaxies. 26. How did Leia know how to get Han out of the carbonite? She knows what she's doing. She could have asked Lando how to work it. There's just a little switch on the side.
27. Has Leia ever seen an ewok before? She seems not surprised to see Wicket. These guys aren't scared by any aliens - they were just on a sail barge with tons of horrible creatures and a giant slug monster. Plus they work with aliens. They can take a little teddy bear guy in stride.
28. Is Artoo annoyed at the ewoks? He's pretty easy going. He's just going with it.
29. Why can Leia remember Padme? She has force memory past powers. She can remember images, even though she was but a wee baby.
30. Why does Anakin know how to come back from the dead? That's hard; the Emperor told him that his Sith master could bring other people back from the dead, but not himself. So even if the Emperor taught Anakin how to do that, which I doubt he did, Anakin couldn't bring himself back. I think that Obi Wan and or Yoda pulled Anakin's spirit out of the force continuum, which they could do since he joined the light side at the last minute.
It's Cinco De Mayo! Apparently this holiday is celebrated more in the US than in Meh-hee-co proper, EXCEPT for in the town of Puebla, which is right around where my family is from, so there's legitimacy for you. And though Mexico is not particularly renown for it's exportation of geek culture (it's no Japan, I'll tell you that much), I could think of at least five (or CINCO; get it?) nerd icons of Mexican ancestry, and I'm not even including myself. So what follows is a collection of folks both real and fictional, born inside and outside of Mexico, all of whom are totally freakin geeky.
5. Pedro
Pedro Sanchez hails originally from the town of Juarez, where apparently they bust up pinatas that look like real people all the time. The filmmakers never pull the curtain too far back on Pedro's inner-workings; we become well aquainted with Napoleon's specific areas of geekdom, but we never get a good idea of what Pedro's special skills really are. But it's a cool spin on the mixed-race buddy-comedy formula that Pedro's ethnic makeup is never mentioned or possibly even noticed by Napoleon, as the two are united by their shared asbergian deadpan. Sweet.
4. Guillermo Del Toro
Del Toro first scratched the surface of the American geek's concioness with Mimic, which I saw in theaters for some reason. But he really made his mark with Blade II and Hellboy, showing he had a certain flair for adapting geek source material. Now that he has the prestige of Pan's Labyrinth on his resume, he's gearing up for the motherload of nerdy adaptations; Tolkien. He's in post-production for The Hobbit, and is talking a big game about using super-advanced animatronic techniques for the creature effects, racking up some big points in my book. Isn't everyone sick of CG? Filmmakers think it looks real, but it doesn't. You know what's real? Puppets. Puppets and robots. They exist. Del Toro also said in an interview with MTV that he has some European comic book artists in mind to bring to the design team, and all of this makes me think that dude is a serious nerd and will do right my favorite Tolkien book.
3. Betty Suarez
I don't care what anyone says, Season 1 of this show was some of the best network TV I've seen in years. It's pretty awful now, but nothing good ever lasts, unless it's on HBO. Betty is pretty much everything a leading lady on a prime-time series isn't supposed to be, including not-white and an over-analyzing, socially awkward nerd. Betty is not just a girl with glasses who will one day be made effortlessly into the belle of the ball; she's a overly enthuasitic know-it-all who is fairly confident in her high-functioning brand of nerdery. She's also unabashed about her Mexican hertiage, as seen in the above still and tons of plotlines about going to Mexico or getting hassled by the INS, that sort of thing.
2. Jaime Reyez
The greatest Mexican superhero since El Santo, the third Blue Beetle is the most funny, unique and sympathetic teen hero in comics today. Or at least he was during John Rogers two year run, now that he's done I hope the new writers can keep the spark alive on this book. Jaime protects the town of El Paso, Texas (right next door to Pedro's hometown!) from supervillians and alien invaders, and manages for the most part to have a pretty good, largely angst-free time while doing it. Throw in some hard working immigrant parents, some spanglish speaking friends, and a red and orange texas backdrop, and you've got a book that feels new and authentic, even if it is written by a white dude.
1.Robert Rodriguez
An auteur with an obsessive attention to detail and a willingness to push things right over the top in the name of awesomeness, Robert Rodriguez makes movies for action geeks, horror geeks, sci-fi geeks, and you feel the love of a fanboy coming through every frame. Robert gave American audiences the only great Mexican action hero of the 20th century with El Mariachi. (or does Zorro count? I think he's Spanish. So's Antonio Banderas, of course, but why split hairs.) He's featured Mexicanos in just about every film he's written since then, and gave us one of the greatest poster taglines ever; "Are you a Mexi-CAN or a Mexi-CAN'T?" Rodriguez's films feel specific to what he knows and enjoys, yet their enthusiasm and eagerness to entertain make them accessible to all audiences. Next up from Double R should be a direct-to-DVD version of Machete, the freaking awesome looking revenge flick starring Danny Trejo, which you saw the fake trailer for in Grindhouse. It looks like it's getting held up in production, but I hope it gets made. If anyone can make Trejo a leading man, it's Rodriguez.
That's it! Now go drink Miller Chill and eat chips! Happy cinco!
The Onion AV Club has posted their list of 20 Pop-Cultural Obsessions Even Geekier Than Monty Python. Now, are they saying Monty Python is the geekiest thing most people can think of, or that Monty Python is the zeroed out middleground for geeky obsessions? Python fans certainly distinguish themselves as some of the most quote-happy members of Geeksville, although I think at this point Simpsons fans have surpassed them in that department, as Python fans grow old and lose their memory along with their ability to reel off the Cheese Shop sketch in a horrible British accent (I'm not talking about myself, I've still got it). Here's the Top 20....
Star Trek
Ren Faires
Fantasy Sports Leagues (props for reaching out into non-traditional areas of geekiness)
Michael Jackson (the article makes a good case for it)
Wikipedia
Battlestar Galactica
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Joss Whedon
Meida-Specific Role Playing (like when you and your friends pretend to be Pokemons on AIM. Not that I did that.)
Game-Show Tape Trading (this sounds like something Seth MacFarlane would do)
After this, the list gets really lazy and just starts hitting non-specific branches of nerdery. Hit the jump for the last five and some analysis on what is conspicuously absent. 16. Anime (All anime?! Really?) 17. Cosplay 18. LARPing (not exactly POP culture, but whatever...) 19. Second Life/MySpace/FaceBook (According to the Onion these are all methods of fake socialization and therefore basically the same. But I think we all know SecondLife outgeeks those other two by a mile. SecondLife is made up of the .001st percentile of the geekiest people on earth, serial killers, and Ron Paul supporters. And I'm not saying any of those things are bad, okay!?)
20.Fanfic
The article write-up includes this curious line: "Yes, there are also interesting scripts, like a Home Improvement where Mark gets addicted to drugs, or a Fight Club epilogue that finds Tyler Durden eerily resurrected, but who wants to read that?" Oh yes, those poor outsider fanfic artists who daringly reimagine what might have happened if Tyler Durden came back to life. Now, I have not had the pleasure of reading any Fight Club fanfic, but I'm willing to bet he comes back to life in all of them.
Notably missing from this list are:
Comics Too hot right now to properly be considered a geeky fandom, I suppose.
Star Wars While no one can deny Star Wars has some insane fans, those who start up Stormtrooper garrissons and don't not believe the Force is real, I'm guessing this fandom is too diluted by casual fans and widespread acceptance to get on the list.
DnD I don't care if they do already have WoW and LARPing on there, there is no excuse for leaving off the grandaddy of them all that is still practiced today!
If you haven't already OD'ed on year end Top Ten lists, here for your categorizing pleasure are your Geekanerd Editor's picks for the Top Ten Video Games, Comics, and Movies of 2007.
For the top ten games, keep in mind that Albo's only systems as of the writing of this list were PS2, DS, PC, and Wii.
Albo's Top Ten Video Games
1. Portal - As if you didn't already know from our Portal love-fest, this game knocked me on my socks with its great writing and elegant design.
2. Super Mario Galaxy - The second best reviewed game of all time also takes second on my list. It's great, but doesn't have the originality of Portal.
3. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition - Some may scoff because this game first came out two years ago, but it's still one of the best action games I've ever played and the Wii version is the best version out there.
4. Bioshock - Some minor problems aside, this game plops you down in such a well-developed world you'll wish more developers left the safety net of WWII for their shooters.
5. Guitar Hero III - As I said in my review, I love Guitar Hero and more Guitar Hero loves me.
6. Puzzle Quest DS - While the design itself is a little shoddy, I have to include this for the sheer addictiveness factor.
7. Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass - Controlling Link has never been this much fun, and the care put into the production design (papercraft storytelling!) reassures me that Nintendo doesn't take my business for granted.
8. Mario Strikers Charged - The Wii was lacking a solid non-casual multiplayer game before Strikers came along, and with it came online play! Finally.
9. Hotel Dusk - More of an interactive novel than a game, this one challenged my notions of what a game should be.
10. Odin Sphere - While long-winded and too epic for it's own good, the beauty of the 2D animations in this game made me wish more developers didn't automatically jump to 3D for their games.
AHR's Top Ten Comics
1. Shortcomings - Funny, true, and exceedingly painful. It's been obvious for years that Adrian Tomine is a talented writer and artist, but this is his first masterpiece.
2. Blue Beetle - Somehow John Rogers has discovered a formula for comic book story-telling that ensures I will cry at the end of every issue. Beyond the emotional punches, this series consistently delivers great action and sharp writing with LOL moments to spare. Long live Jaime Reyes. Related: Our reviews of individual Blue Beetle issues.
3. Notes From A War Story - An older book by Italian artist Gipi that was just published in English this year. A crime story about three teens trying to make it big as gangsters in a warn torn country, this book has none of the graphic violence typical of mainstream American crime comics, but is still the most unsettling thing I read all year, with an ending that haunted me for days.
4. Batman - The Batman and Son arc is all well and good, but the highlight of Morrison's 2007 run was his Club of Heroes muder mystery, in which GM once again takes some long-forgotten DC basement bin heroes and turns them into fascinating, true to life characters. Also worth noting is issue #663, a one-shot that consists of page after page of pulp horror prose that gives the reader a deeper look at Batman and the Joker than could have ever been put across in mere world balloons.
5. The Umbrella Academy - A stunning debut from Gerard Way, bolstered by art and colors by top of the field artists Gabriel Ba and Dave Stewart. Funny, dark and exciting with a distinctively young voice, here's hoping this is the start of a long career in comics for Way. Related: Our reviews of individual UA issues
6. Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil - Jeff Smith retells the Capitan Marvel story with sensitivity and artistry, while also achieving a classic, high spirited feeling of golden age DC superheroism.
7. After The Deluge - Jeff Neufeld's non-fiction webcomic tells the stories of five very different people surviving the biggest natural disaster of our lifetime. Neufeld's beautiful single color illustrations manage to capture first person experiences of Hurricane Katrina more poignantly than any article or documentary I've seen. Related: Our past coverage of AD.
8. Welcome To Tranquility - A great new series by Gail Simone, with an memorable cast of characters who we come to know extremely well through highly stylized backup stories told via comic genres ranging from 1920 adventure serials to modern day manga. Inventive and funny, with killer art by Niel Googe.
9. Avengers: The Initiative - You may have gathered I'm not a big Marvel fan, but I loved this series, particularly the first several issues. A low to the ground look at what the future of superheroing could look like in a post-Civil War world, again with a great new cast of characters.
10. All Flash #1 - The one-shot that brought back Wally West as the Flash and introduced the world (or me, at least) to artist Karl Kershel, aka the talent to watch in 2008. Related: All Flash scans in Panel Discussion
(Dis)Honorable Mention: The Irredeemable Ant-Man - Great series with pitch black humor, featuring an anti-hero (get it? ANT?) so deplorable that one of the most enjoyable moments of the series was when he finally gets caught and tortuously beaten by the "villain" of the series. Too bad it had to end, but I guess even Marvel readers can't stand someone who's that much of an asshole.
Albo's Top Ten Movies
1. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters - A perfect movie in every way that comes to mind. Read our review.
2. The Lives of Others - I know this was technically a 2006 film, but I saw it in 2007 and it was too good to not mention.
3. No Country For Old Men - Yes, it's fashionable to like this movie.
4. Children of Men - Another one that came out elsewhere in 2006 but only hit our shores in '07, I can't remember another movie that evoked such an intense sensation of danger in me.
5. Grindhouse - Say what you will about the quality of the two flicks involved, but seeing this four hour schlock-fest in the theaters was a rare experience I'm sorry so many people missed.
6. 300 - The movie that made me dread the Watchmen movie a little less.
7. Juno - Funny with a heart, and the official arrival of the talented Ellen Page.
8. Knocked Up - More babies, good laughs, also with heart.
9. Zodiac - A consistently tense thriller without all the usual gags.
10. Beowulf 3D - If I had seen it in 2D would I have liked it? No, probably not. But flinching from flying debris was really fun. Now everything else seems dimensionally deprived.
AHR Top Ten Movies
1. Sweeney Todd - Smart choices abound; Burton cuts what wouldn't have worked on screen, gets tightly wound, intimate performances from his stars, and does cinematic justice to the most brilliant musical ever. Read my review for lots more.
2. Juno - As stylized as the script is, the characters in this movie reminded me more of the girls I knew in high school than any movie I've seen. Ellen Page makes the most of the best comedic part written for a teenage girl...ever.
3. Lars and the Real Girl - This movie quickly transcends it's jokey premise with a painfully convincing performance by Ryan Gosling, as a man whose social anxiety takes him to some strange places. Also notable for featuring a small town in which people are believably portrayed as basically good at heart, a rare thing and difficult thing to pull off in a non-hollywood film.
4. I'm Not There - Daring and masterful. While the brilliant/boring ratio is just a hair too close to be totally excusable, breathtaking moments abound, and a three minute music videoesque sequence set to Ballad of a Thin Man was the most exciting cinematic passage I saw all year.
5. King of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters - The most consistently entertaining movie on this list. A careful study of the twin demons of disappointment and ambition, with thrillingly innovative editing and storytelling techniques.
6. There Will Be Blood - Not my favorite P.T Anderson movie by a long shot, but a solid showcase of taught, artful filmmaking that speeds by in what feels like much less than two and a half hours. Daniel Day Lewis's final monologue will be performed by boys in acting classes for years and years to come.
7. The Host - The action movie of the year, that will change how you think about being chased by a monster. The child in peril subplot is almost unbearably grim, but the tension and empathy you feel for these characters must be experienced to be believed.
8. The Lives of Others - This movie actually only reached American shores this year, so I'm putting it on. Hard choices and heroism on display in a way that never feels manipulative, even in the final tear-jerking moments.
9. My Kid Could Paint That - The monster of televised fame reached new heights of horror this year, and this very personal documentary shows how the talks shows giveth and the talk shows taketh away, as a six year old child prodigy goes from celebrated human interest story to suspected fraud.
10. Paprika - Twists and turns without ever losing the thread of coherence. A beautiful challenge to watch.
Honorable Mentions: Persepolis, No Country For Old Men, Grindhouse, 300, Wristcutters, Enchanted, Hairspray.
Has SantaBot snuck up on you this year? Have you found yourself empty handed with visions of crying geeks dancing in your head? Well don't let it come to that, get your ass on the internet and get some genuine geek shit shipped to you ASAP. Mii Figurine - $50-100 Take a picture of your Mii of choice, send it out to these guys and you or someone you love will soon be the proud owner of a 3 or 5-inch replica of yourself/him/herself. And if my overzealous forward slashing isn't enough to make your head spin, these prices ($50 for the 3in., $100 for the 5in.) will. Custom World of Warcraft Figurine - $100 If the Wii isn't your giftee's thing, and he or she is more into, say, World of Warcraft, boy have we got a figurine with his or her fake name on it! FigurePrints is offering great-looking replicas of Warcraft avatars for 100 bones. These things are extremely accurate, down to the low polygon count you see every time you log on. So accurate, in fact, that they'll only construct you with armor and weapons you actually possess in game. Emoticon Magnets - $15 For either the chat addict or Welcome To Tranquility fan in your life. The designers have made the controversial decision to include the "nose" punctuation for maximum anthropomorphization, but at least they didn't include any of those bullshit ones like :# or :$..... I mean, what the hell is that?
GlaDOS Litograph - $35 ($90 Signed) Of course, the more obvious item would be the Weighted Companion Cube toys ($30 fuzzy dice versions available, or $100 bucks for the standard plushie), but I'm holding out for the inevitable solid versions. I mean, plush isn't weighted. Nor particularly cubic. So if you have a crazed Portal fan in your life (and who doesn't), why not class it up and get them some expensive art that says, "I'm obsessed with a four hour video game"?
Original Lettering Overlays - $10 Wanna give the gift of original comic art but don't have hundreds to blow on eBay? Hot shot letterer Todd Klein is offering his original handwritten overlays for books ranging from Batman to Tom Strong. $10 will get you FIVE of these suckers. He actually has a ton of cool affordable stuff available at his store, so check it out.
Threadless.com T-Shirts - $10 T-shirts from Threadless are great gifts for dorks, because internet-cool people will approach the wearer and be like, "Oh, is that from Threadless? I love that site!". Instant cred. Plus there are plenty of geek-oriented shirts, from this saccharine moment of nerd nostalgia to typical nerd refrains.
PacMan Belt Buckle - $13 If you can't get laid wearing this, you're hanging out with the wrong crowd.
Lisa: The rich are different from you and me. Marge: Yes, they're better!
-Scenes From The Class Struggle In Springfield
It's December, and that means it's time for those MBA squares at Forbes to pull out their carefully buried geek cred and run down the Top 15 Richest Fictional Characters and 25 Largest Fictional Companies. As something of an amateur design nerd, I was happy just to see all these fake company logos in one place. I'm a little surprised that Soylent Corp made the cut, though; don't they adjust for future-dystopia inflation? At the top of the list is Scrooge McDuck, up from his third place spot in last year's list, with a net worth of 28.8 Billion. Gold is up, apparently. Cartoon characters made a good showing in the newcomers category, with Mom from Futurama at #4 and Carter Pewterschmidt of Family Guy at #7. Mom is a great addition (although again I have to wonder if they're adjusting for inflation), but I've always thought of Lois' family as being genericly rich New Englanders, and not above the likes of Bruce Wayne (#8) and Tony Stark (#10).
Sad news for gamers; Lara Croft is gone, and our favorite video game plumber suffers a triple indignity: first, he's off the list, having apparently divorced from Peach (WHAT?). Second, Princess Peach is on the list. Third, the announcer in this video wrap-up segment pronounces his name "Mer-ee-o." Rough year indeed for Mario, but at least he'll have a chance to expel all that pent-up rage and humiliation when Super Smash Brothers Brawl comes out.
Going to a big Halloween parade? I know I am. And I also know I can't enjoy things outside of a structured context. So, who's up for some Halloween Costume Bingo?
That image is just a taste! Two 5x5 printable game cards, after the jump....
Printable Game Cards
Frequently Asked Questions:
How's this work again? If you see a costume, cross out the space. First person to get a row wins.
What if my opponent lies and says he saw something when he didn't? Both parties have to see the costume, unless you are both unfalteringly honest people.
What if I see a costume I need, but my opponent has it on his game card and I don't want him to get the space? Take a cell phone pic, and show it to your opponent after the costume in question is long gone.
I don't have a cell phone camera. Can't help you.
What happens if I win? The loser has to buy you an Incredible Hulk at a local tavern, and you have to drink it.
What if neither one of us ever gets a row? Then I have failed as a game-maker and whoever has the most spaces wins.
What if I don't see any of these costumes the whole night? That's ridiculous. I'm sure you saw Batman. Little kids and dogs count, you know.
Since the initial post date, Portal Authority has been one of Geekanerd's most popular articles, and since we're still painfully interested in Portal, this page still gets regularly updated. You'll now find the content and updates organized by section. We hope this enhances your enrichment activities. -AHR
Portal. Portal. Portal. Sorry, let me pull myself together. So, Portal, right? We're a little obsessed here at Geekanerd, and we're not alone. It's understandable; the game is only a few hours long, so what are you supposed to do with your new found love and devotion once it's over?
Well, scouring the internet for auxiliary fan content and behind-the-scenes info is a good start, and that's exactly what we did. For hours, and hours, and hours. But our psychosis is your gain; we've compiled a selection of the best Portal detritus on the net, starting with this heartwarming fanart by the talented McGibs of deviantART. Aw. That kind of happy can only come from some sort of hallucinatory psychotic episode, but I suppose if you're a test subject in an abandoned laboratory you welcome the relief of insanity.
Descend further into the murky depths of Portal obsession, after the jump....
07/14/08 MILDLY EXCITING E3 NEWS: A new version of the game for the XBox 360 is due this year, with new levels. You can listen to GLaDOS announce it.
06/10/08 RED HOT NEWS ALERT:
Ooh boy. Grab a napkin, boys and girls, cause this link will make you drool. Kotaku brings us the casting notice for a primary character in PORTAL 2, that's right, the game that Valve has been super tight-lipped about, that they said wouldn't be coming out until 2009. This notice includes a LOT of info about what we can expect from the sequel and one of it's main characters, who is not GLaDOS or Chell. It IS however someone that will ring a bell for crazyfans, but I won't say any more in case you think you can wait a year without getting spoiled about this sort of thing. You're only fooling YOURSELVES, people!
My thoughts on these startling revelations are below, skip over the next three paragraphs if you think you can hold out.
***POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR PORTAL 2 START***
The character description indicates pretty strongly that the writers be using a similar format to the original; it sounds like Cave Johnson will guide you through the game much like GLAdOS does, as she could also be said to go from "sidekick to principal antagonist". I'd even go so far as to guess that we never see him (he is described as "dead", after all), and our only visual clue is portraits like these throughout the game. The fact that he's dead might be intended as a surprise, but whatever, I knew the ending of Portal Classic before I played it, and that did little to dampen the impact of how it all unfolded.
As the Kotaku article says, this sounds like a prequel. I think that's an excellent way to go about expanding the franchise, since both in-game dialouge and the aforementioned website give a ton of implied history to build on. It does present a possible problem in giving us new features of the Portal Gun, since presumably the model we've played with would be the best of all possible Portal Guns thus far. Maybe we'll see an experimental prototype with features that were later deemed unreasonably dangerous. And will we see a bustling new vision of Apeture labs, with labcoated people milling around? I kind of hope not, but we'll see.
And in all of this excitement, wither GLaDOS? And Chell, for that matter. Maybe we'll see in the background of Aperture Science at some point, verifying my personal theory that she's was a janitor. But since Cave is the "principal antagonist", we can assume GLaDOS will be regulated to a secondary role, if not less. I don't know if I can handle that kind of disappointment. But I can't believe the writers could resist the chance to give us a look at GLaDOS in her early stages; as the Aperture website states, she was originally created as an AI unit to run fuel-line de-icers. So depending on how far back in the Portal chronology we are, a glimpse at her first Neruo-Toxin massacre may be too much to ask.
***HERE ENDETH THE SPOILAR***
Anyway, on with the show....
I. THE WEIGHTED COMPANION CUBE
The Weighted Companion Cube has proven to be Portal's breakout star. Here's some fun ways to relive the good times...before all that unpleasantness with the furnace.
Or just buy one! Valve saysWCC toys be available in time for the hollerdays.
Update 12/16/07: They're here. But probably not by the time you read this. Check the Valve Store for availability.
Blogger Michael Climek of Foot2Mouth ponders the appeal of the Companion Cube, and pits it against the only competition for most beloved video game inanimate object of all time: The Ocarina of Time.
UPDATE 3/31/08: Those who have a hard time separating their games from reality may not want to look directly at this next photo, which I stress is not Photoshopped...
Canadian street artist Posterchild is responsible for this bit of mind buggery, click the pic for more photos and info.
UPDATE 6/21/08: Lively Ivy, a Portal fangirl after my own heart, has created these smart ready-to-wear WCC earrings. Hit the picture to link back to her site for DIY goodness.
A search for "chell/companion cube slash fic" yields surprisingly few results, but try to console yourself with this fan art by DeviantARTist saejinoh. I particularly like the heartbroken GLaDOS in the upper left hand corner.
And speaking of GLaDOS....
II. GLaDOS
For those of us who came down with a light case of Stockholm's Syndrome for our omnipresent robo-captor, here's the first of three YouTube vids that compile all25 minutes of GLaDOS' dialogue. At last, no pesky visual stimuli to distract from the enchanting delivery of all those hilarious one-liners about death and torture.
UPDATE 2/07/08: If you're looking for a specific quote, Soundboard.com has put together this handy labeled selection of some of GLaDOS's more choice lines, available for MP3 download and suitable for start-up sounds and answering machine messages. Though they are missing some of my favorite lines such as "Did you just throw that thing-we-don't-know-what-it-does into that Aperture Science Emergency Incinerator Unit?!" I want that as my Empty Recycle Bin Sound.
Ever wonder what those detached pieces of GLaDOS AI are saying before you usher them to a fiery death? As seen in this next video, the Blue Core reels off the ingredients for, guess what, a cake. A cake that includes sediment shaped sediment, fiberglass surface resins, and an adjustable aluminum head positioner.
The Orange Core is apparently responsible for GLaDOS's curiosity AI. As noted by a YouTube commenter, it sounds almost exactly like Gir from Invader Zim, and I half expected it to start singing the Doom Song. Although I'm really glad it didn't.
Here's a compilation of the images that flash on GLaDOS's screen when you finally come face to anthropomorphizied face. The images mostly concern cake, farm animals (an attempt to show her contempt for biological beings, perhaps?), cake paired with a variety of vaguely threatening tools, and a few pictures relating to science - the very first image is the most enegmatic, a group of what look like scientists. I wonder who at Valve was tasked with putting this stuff together, they certainly look like they could be original images.
You can also read a good chunk of GLaDOS' in-game dialogue in Wikiquote's Portal Entry. It's also got transcriptions of the graffiti from the hidden rooms, including those plagiarized poems about the Companion Cube (suitable for away messages and board sigs).
UPDATE 5/31: Ooh, here we go. Don't know how I missed this for so long, but GameFaq contributor Ayelis put together a full game script, which neatly transcribes all the game dialouge in orderly paragraph form.
III. THE MUSIC
The End Credits Song...perhaps the most satisfying moment in the history of video games? If you've played the game, chances are you already downloaded the MP3. The song is by internet superstar recording artist Jonathan Coulton; he's blogged about writing the song for Valve and is even good enough to include the full lyrics and chords.
UPDATE 10/25/07: Okay, the search is over - I just found the best Portal thing on the net. The GLaDOS techno remix. Brilliant. Haunting. Hilarious. The second work of musical genius Portal has inspired. Here's the MP3.
UPDATE 01/18/07: Aussie YouTuber 256byteram sounds a bit embarrassed about his feat of fandom, judging by his video description:"Bah. I liked the terminal theme from Portal so I made it real!" The effect is incredible, despite rough camera work. Note the use of a Commodore 64 Sound Chip. Hard. Core.
UPDATE 3/9/08: Two more exceptional pieces of Portal inspired music:
A voice sample remix in the same class as The Device Has Been Modified, Neurotoxin by Midi the Kid is gobsmackingly entertaining and well-produced. It more or less tells the entire story of Chell and GLaDOS' misadventures, and really captures both the humor and the foreboding atmosphere of the game. Gnerd Editor Albo's personal fave.
There are lots of Still Alive remixes out there, but this one is the best. It's got new vocals, background loops, GLaDOS clips (of course) and it comes with a seal of approval from Jonathan Coulton himself, via his blog.
UPDATE 3/30/08: Jeruselem-based band missFlag offer up a version of Still Alive that departs from the robotic novelty of the original, and instead covers the song as a professionally-produced, alternative rock track.
IV. REACTION and OFFICIAL SITE
Portal is currently rated a mere 90% on Gamerankings, as judged by 21 reviewers who mostly fault it for it's length, or it's lack thereof. However, the Orange Box which Portal is part of is rated at 96%, which means it's the fifth best video game of all time, beaten out by the overrated Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the overhyped Super Mario Galaxy, the bit boring Metroid Prime and... Soul Calibur? Really? On Metacritic it's chalked up a reader review average of 9.7 based on 1195 votes. The most entertaining review comes from Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation, who found himself at a shocking loss for criticism, and colorfully refers to the ending as "balls tighteningly fantastic".
An oldie but a goodie; the Aperture Science Enrichment Center's website. A great viral site that'll be a lot easier to navigate if you remember your old MS DOS commands. You can log in with any name as long as you enter the password as "Portal", but you can get more content, such as a brief history of Aperture Science, by entering some info found within the game - username "cjohnson" and password "tier3". Make sure you apply to be a test subject, so you can fill out a questionnaire that reads like a cross between a job application and a psych profile. Only with more questions about your threshold for pain.
In addition to Aperture Science greeting cards, Valve released this holiday video an Easter egg found in the Aperture Science website. The gangs all here; guest of honor The WWC, a lurking turret droid, the gnome from Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2 ornaments, orange boxes, and stockings bearing the logos of the three Orange Box games. GLaDOS's invite must have gotten forwarded to her spam filter.
V. APPAREL
Valve didn't seem to anticipate the explosive success of Portal, as they made only one official Portal shirt, which is of course, totally sold out. You can put in a pre-order for when they restock, or you can check out this unofficial The Cake Is A Lie T-Shirt. Or this one. Okay, or THIS one. Jeezy Creezy, how about some originality, people? I know it's hard to avoid copyright infringement, but did everyone just forget that (SPOILER ALERT) there really was a cake? It was deliciously moist.
Update 12/10/07: The Valve Store restocked their ugly portal shirts! And added new, holiday themed Portal crap! This is the best Christmas ever! Details.
Update 12/16/07: A commenter on this post pointed us to some more sweet fan-made Portal shirts based on more obscure quotes from the game. Definitely the best of the unofficial lot.
Update 01/08: Happy New Year! I'm still obsessed with this game! Valve finally got it's ass in gear and has three great looking official Portal shirts on their site. Also, people have been commenting on this post with other good sites for unofficial shirts with a lot more choices.
VI. EVERYTHING ELSE
A few more obscure items before we close...[MORE obscure? -ed.]
Any Gun Turret fans out there? This one's for you.
UPDATE 2/28/08: Speaking of those lovable Gun Turrets, reader El Ramos left a comment on this post pointing to a video called A Day In The Life Of A Gun Turret, which offers a sort of The Office-esque take on how the turrets spend their days. I had in fact seen this video when it made the rounds in January, but I admit I left it off this page because I felt it failed to capture the unique character, the soul, if you will, of the turrets it depicts. A month later, I've decided maybe I need to loosen up. Hit the link to check it out in high res on Gametrailers.com.
Honestly though, I feel this drawing by Deviant Artist odaleex has more to say on the subject of what turrets are really all about. Click to check out the full res image on it's original DA page.
Update 6/20/08: Portal and Spore. Two great tastes that go great together. Here's a Turret made with the Creature Creator. Even the personality is right! I hope it's as deadly as it is adorable.
A headshot of Alesia Glidewell, the woman Chell was modeled on. The resemblance is definitely there. Apparently Alesia is a freelance filmmaker. Hey, I'm a freelance filmmaker. Sounds like we'd have a lot in common. Sigh.
A Queer Theory interpretation of Portal. It's provoking it's share of hate from commenters, but if you're like me and have a high tolerance for pseudo-intellectual over-analysis and all things lesbian, this is serious paydirt. UPDATE: Here's an even more self-serious interpretation, one that makes some interesting points about those springs Chell wears. UPDATE 2/22/08: Wow, another well thought out reading of the game, this time focusing on the role of GLaDOS as a sort of corruption of the ideal mother figure. UPDATE 4/7/08: Game-ism.com analyzises GLaDOS with the thesis that she's a prisoner as much as Chell, and her goal is freedom either via death or the destruction of Aperature labs. While I personally don't find that this interpretation rings true (my own theories on the importance of GLaDOS's motivations can be found at this Escapist Forum), it's a good exploration of the character and the post is making major waves on Digg, possibly in part because of a bondage-tastic picture of GLaDOS as a human (semi-SFW).
And to top off this Geekåsbord of Portal content, here in it's embarrassing entirety is the actual fan e-mail Geekanerd editor Albo sent to Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director of game development at Valve:
From: tips@geekanerdblog.com Subject: Portal Appreciation Letter Date: October 19, 2007 4:41:43 PM EDT To: gaben@valvesoftware.com
Mr. Newell,
I just finished playing Portal through for the second time in as many days, and wanted to let you know how much I appreciate the amount of careful thought you and everyone involved put into making such a solid, unforgettable game. The last stretch where the shiny surface of the game world begins to crack and fall apart instantly became on of the most memorable gaming experiences I've ever had. It gave the feeling of breaking completely out of the game, not to a new level or even a new game but to a completely new experience, a new level of understanding. Like if I was playing Tetris on my Game Boy and suddenly I realized my thumbs weren't controlling the falling blocks, my MIND was controlling the falling blocks and the falling blocks were controlling my thumbs. I believe they call it a paradigm shift. It was refreshing to play a game that was crafted with so much care. The writing and voice acting, two things that many game developers seem to treat as an afterthought, were among the best I can recall. And ending with a song! After the game is over and you've already won us over and you wouldn't be thought less of if you just rolled the credits and cut to black, you hit us with a song! And not just some throwaway ditty, but a legitimately great tune. For the first time in a while I felt appreciated and respected as a gamer. So thank you for that.
1. What are we meant to assume happens once the smoke grenade in the bank manager's mouth goes off? Will he die of asphyxiation? Will all the hostages die from some sort of toxin in the smoke? Is it just a hilarious non-lethal Joker gag? Let's scratch that last one off the list.
