News Topic - Harrison Ford
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Indy Jones, fridge replace Fonzie
LOS ANGELES -- Harrison Ford doesn't tell Shia LaBeouf to "Sit on it." Nor does Cate Blanchett's slinky Soviet come running when the crusty 65-year-old hero snaps his fingers.
Canoe.ca – Jul 3, 2008 09:13 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment: Movies
LOS ANGELES -- Harrison Ford doesn't tell Shia LaBeouf to "Sit on it." Nor does Cate Blanchett's slinky Soviet come running when the crusty 65-year-old hero snaps his fingers.
Canoe.ca – Jul 3, 2008 09:13 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment: Movies
Tainted Tie-Ins: Worst Movie Games Ever
: Ever since they first fooled around in the Atari era, movies and videogames have had a troubled relationship.Movies based on games -- like Super Mario Bros. and Postal-- deliver pure cinematic dreck, yet somehow games based on movies up the crap ante. Slapped together on tight development schedules by B-list teams, movie tie-in games rarely crawl out of the hole of mediocrity. Quite frankly, they dream of being mediocre.Adding insult to injury, they sell enormously well. The NPD Group reported in June that the PlayStation 2 Iron Man game was May's seventh best-selling U.S. game.Here's our list of the 10 worst movie-to-game translations in history, with input from a Wired.com reader poll. If it seems heavy on retro games, just remember that things used to be a lot worse.Raiders of the Lost ArkAtari 2600 owners who ripped open their Christmas presents in 1982 were probably doubled over in glee at the prospect of jumping into the fedora of America's sweetheart, Harrison Ford, and going on an adventure as Indy. Instead, what they got was a game that we might charitably describe as "ahead of its time" but after a drink would call "ridiculous."Not only were the graphics completely inscrutable -- can you even tell which of these abstract objects is supposed to be Indiana Jones? -- but the game was impossible to understand unless you pored over the instructions. Woe betide you if they ended up in the trash bag with the wrapping paper."Indecipherably bad graphics, unintuitive 'gameplay' (if you can even call it that) and the worst possible control scheme ever," writes commenter Sakimori.: Star Wars (Namco version)A long time ago (1987) in a galaxy far, far away (Japan), the development house behind Pac-Man decided to try its hand at creating a Star Wars game for the 8-bit Nintendo system. For the most part, it's a mundane side-scrolling game in which Luke hacks away at enemies with his lightsaber and dies a lot. But you know that things have gone horribly awry when he enters the Jawa Sandcrawler after about five minutes of gameplay to find Darth Vader, who transforms into a scorpion.No, really. Luckily for everyone involved, this game was only released in Japan.: Back to the FutureScrewed up though it was, Namco's version of Star Wars was more or less faithful to the movie insofar as Luke Skywalker does, at times, use a lightsaber. If we were to apply the same sort of thinking to the Nintendo Entertainment System version of Back to the Future, we would necessarily determine that the film starred a young man who spent all his time being assaulted on the street by killer wasps, girls with razor-sharp Hula-Hoops and men wearing pink. Back to the Future's controls were so shaky that players felt like they were as drunk as the people who programmed it.Even the jump to 16 bits didn't help the series. "Shonky controls and mediocre graphics were just the start of this atrocity that really did seem like it had traveled through time from the past," wrote an anonymous Wired.com reader about Back to the Future III for Sega Genesis.Back to the Future was just one of the flood of execrable movie-to-game releases foisted on an unsuspecting public by the thankfully dead Acclaim Entertainment. (We'll see them again before we're finished with this dreadful expedition.): Nausicaä Kiki IppatsuThis is another game that only saw release in Japan, but its worldwide impact has been tremendous. The developers at Tokuma Shoten, tasked with creating a game based on animation legend Hayao Miyazaki's breakout smash Nausicaä, turned a film about nonviolence and environmentalism into a vapid shooter.As the story goes, Miyazaki was so enraged by the game that Studio Ghibli never had anything to do with videogames ever again. Sure enough, no game projects have ever been released for any of the studio's later films, like Princess Mononoke or the Oscar-winning Spirited Away. Maybe that's all for the best.: Friday the 13thYes, it's another inscrutably bad movie-to-game translation courtesy of our good friends at Acclaim Entertainment. You all remember Friday the 13th, that horror film about camp counselors who throw knives at Yetis that burrow up from beneath the Earth. At least the Back to the Future games kept epileptic Marty McFly constantly moving toward the goal.Making a failed attempt at nonlinearity, Friday the 13th mostly left players to wander around the identical screens that made up the virtual version of Camp Crystal Lake, listening to exactly four bars of the worst sonic torture ever devised until they died. Technically it was possible to finish the entire game in three minutes, and we feel terribly sorry for anyone who spent the time to learn how."I'm not sure if I've ever seen anyone do anything besides run around and die," writes reader (not the real) Bob Dole.: Seven Samurai 20XXWired.com reader Fnord called this PlayStation 2 game "a generic-to-bad brawler game that was trying very hard to be Ninja Gaiden, shoehorned and chopped and hammered into something that tried to resemble the plot of one of the best movies ever made."We simply call it an atrocity. Akira Kurosawa wasn't even five years in his grave, and already his son Hisao was whoring out his classic films to the highest bidder, allowing Japanese pachinko-maker Sammy to turn Kurosawa's samurai masterpiece into a campy futuristic fighting game. It's embarrassing to even say this game's title out loud, let alone play it.: Total RecallFor all of Acclaim Entertainment's sins of the 8-bit era, perhaps none was so unbelievably ham-fisted as Total Recall. Turning R-rated films into games for children had to have been hard work, but that still doesn't explain why the gameplay of Total Recall consists of a gorilla that is supposed to be Arnold Schwarzenegger being kidnapped by bearded midgets in pink jumpsuits, dragged into alleys and kicked in the knees. To death.Everything about this game is hilarious, except for the fact that children spent actual money on it back when the dollar was worth something. Also, there was no three-boobed alien hooker.: Street Fighter: The Movie: The GameQuick, what's a worse idea than turning Street Fighter II into a live-action movie? Turning said live-action movie into a videogame. Hey guys, there already is a Street Fighter videogame, and it's awesome. We don't need one starring Raul Julia. But Raul Julia we get.Isn't it amazingly sad that this talented actor's final appearance is in a videogame where he (his stuntman, actually) gets to serve as a punching bag for a squad of B-list actors? Besides Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue, there's also Ming Na, and seeing her jump around in a tiny China-doll dress shouting horrifically mangled Japanese catch phrases more than makes up for how preachy Mulan was.Bonus points: When Street Fighter: The Movie came to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, it was so bad that it wasn't even published by Street Fighter creator Capcom. Instead, it carried the logo of -- you cannot make this stuff up -- Acclaim Entertainment.: Enter the MatrixEvery now and then, there's a movie game that is supposed to change everything we know about movie games. This is inevitably followed by the backlash that results when these massively hyped projects turn out to be just as crappy as their predecessors.Reviewers agreed that the only reason to play Enter the Matrix would have been to watch the extra footage from the Matrix Reloaded shoot, a desire that simply watching Matrix Reloaded should have cured. Otherwise, it was an utter mess.Even sadder? In a past life, lead designer David Perry was responsible for one of those rare-as-a-unicorn good movie games: Aladdin for the Sega Genesis.: E.T. the Extra-TerrestrialWired.com readers might not have enjoyed the Raiders of the Lost Ark game, but Steven Spielberg liked the Atari 2600 title enough that he asked its designer, Howard Scott Warshaw, to design a game based on his upcoming film E.T.In time for the film's release. Which was six weeks away.Faced with an impossible deadline, Warshaw sequestered himself away in his Atari office, emerging just a month and a half later with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It's not the single worst videogame ever created, but it lives in infamy as the videogame industry's first high-profile disaster. Again, let us look back at children opening their presents one fine Christmas morning in 1982, and watch as they attempt to maneuver E.T. around the game screen, only to fall into a pit that they cannot escape from, no matter how many times they try. Repeat until tears are flowing steadily and Mom takes the game back to the store.There are many urban legends about E.T., and all of them are true. Atari manufactured 4 million copies of the game and found itself stuck with 2.5 million leftovers, which it buried in a New Mexico landfill. But E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial remains one of the best-selling Atari 2600 games of all time, proving the old adage that people will, in fact, buy any videogame with a movie license on the cover, no matter how terrible.
Wired News – Jul 2, 2008 01:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Technology
: Ever since they first fooled around in the Atari era, movies and videogames have had a troubled relationship.Movies based on games -- like Super Mario Bros. and Postal-- deliver pure cinematic dreck, yet somehow games based on movies up the crap ante. Slapped together on tight development schedules by B-list teams, movie tie-in games rarely crawl out of the hole of mediocrity. Quite frankly, they dream of being mediocre.Adding insult to injury, they sell enormously well. The NPD Group reported in June that the PlayStation 2 Iron Man game was May's seventh best-selling U.S. game.Here's our list of the 10 worst movie-to-game translations in history, with input from a Wired.com reader poll. If it seems heavy on retro games, just remember that things used to be a lot worse.Raiders of the Lost ArkAtari 2600 owners who ripped open their Christmas presents in 1982 were probably doubled over in glee at the prospect of jumping into the fedora of America's sweetheart, Harrison Ford, and going on an adventure as Indy. Instead, what they got was a game that we might charitably describe as "ahead of its time" but after a drink would call "ridiculous."Not only were the graphics completely inscrutable -- can you even tell which of these abstract objects is supposed to be Indiana Jones? -- but the game was impossible to understand unless you pored over the instructions. Woe betide you if they ended up in the trash bag with the wrapping paper."Indecipherably bad graphics, unintuitive 'gameplay' (if you can even call it that) and the worst possible control scheme ever," writes commenter Sakimori.: Star Wars (Namco version)A long time ago (1987) in a galaxy far, far away (Japan), the development house behind Pac-Man decided to try its hand at creating a Star Wars game for the 8-bit Nintendo system. For the most part, it's a mundane side-scrolling game in which Luke hacks away at enemies with his lightsaber and dies a lot. But you know that things have gone horribly awry when he enters the Jawa Sandcrawler after about five minutes of gameplay to find Darth Vader, who transforms into a scorpion.No, really. Luckily for everyone involved, this game was only released in Japan.: Back to the FutureScrewed up though it was, Namco's version of Star Wars was more or less faithful to the movie insofar as Luke Skywalker does, at times, use a lightsaber. If we were to apply the same sort of thinking to the Nintendo Entertainment System version of Back to the Future, we would necessarily determine that the film starred a young man who spent all his time being assaulted on the street by killer wasps, girls with razor-sharp Hula-Hoops and men wearing pink. Back to the Future's controls were so shaky that players felt like they were as drunk as the people who programmed it.Even the jump to 16 bits didn't help the series. "Shonky controls and mediocre graphics were just the start of this atrocity that really did seem like it had traveled through time from the past," wrote an anonymous Wired.com reader about Back to the Future III for Sega Genesis.Back to the Future was just one of the flood of execrable movie-to-game releases foisted on an unsuspecting public by the thankfully dead Acclaim Entertainment. (We'll see them again before we're finished with this dreadful expedition.): Nausicaä Kiki IppatsuThis is another game that only saw release in Japan, but its worldwide impact has been tremendous. The developers at Tokuma Shoten, tasked with creating a game based on animation legend Hayao Miyazaki's breakout smash Nausicaä, turned a film about nonviolence and environmentalism into a vapid shooter.As the story goes, Miyazaki was so enraged by the game that Studio Ghibli never had anything to do with videogames ever again. Sure enough, no game projects have ever been released for any of the studio's later films, like Princess Mononoke or the Oscar-winning Spirited Away. Maybe that's all for the best.: Friday the 13thYes, it's another inscrutably bad movie-to-game translation courtesy of our good friends at Acclaim Entertainment. You all remember Friday the 13th, that horror film about camp counselors who throw knives at Yetis that burrow up from beneath the Earth. At least the Back to the Future games kept epileptic Marty McFly constantly moving toward the goal.Making a failed attempt at nonlinearity, Friday the 13th mostly left players to wander around the identical screens that made up the virtual version of Camp Crystal Lake, listening to exactly four bars of the worst sonic torture ever devised until they died. Technically it was possible to finish the entire game in three minutes, and we feel terribly sorry for anyone who spent the time to learn how."I'm not sure if I've ever seen anyone do anything besides run around and die," writes reader (not the real) Bob Dole.: Seven Samurai 20XXWired.com reader Fnord called this PlayStation 2 game "a generic-to-bad brawler game that was trying very hard to be Ninja Gaiden, shoehorned and chopped and hammered into something that tried to resemble the plot of one of the best movies ever made."We simply call it an atrocity. Akira Kurosawa wasn't even five years in his grave, and already his son Hisao was whoring out his classic films to the highest bidder, allowing Japanese pachinko-maker Sammy to turn Kurosawa's samurai masterpiece into a campy futuristic fighting game. It's embarrassing to even say this game's title out loud, let alone play it.: Total RecallFor all of Acclaim Entertainment's sins of the 8-bit era, perhaps none was so unbelievably ham-fisted as Total Recall. Turning R-rated films into games for children had to have been hard work, but that still doesn't explain why the gameplay of Total Recall consists of a gorilla that is supposed to be Arnold Schwarzenegger being kidnapped by bearded midgets in pink jumpsuits, dragged into alleys and kicked in the knees. To death.Everything about this game is hilarious, except for the fact that children spent actual money on it back when the dollar was worth something. Also, there was no three-boobed alien hooker.: Street Fighter: The Movie: The GameQuick, what's a worse idea than turning Street Fighter II into a live-action movie? Turning said live-action movie into a videogame. Hey guys, there already is a Street Fighter videogame, and it's awesome. We don't need one starring Raul Julia. But Raul Julia we get.Isn't it amazingly sad that this talented actor's final appearance is in a videogame where he (his stuntman, actually) gets to serve as a punching bag for a squad of B-list actors? Besides Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue, there's also Ming Na, and seeing her jump around in a tiny China-doll dress shouting horrifically mangled Japanese catch phrases more than makes up for how preachy Mulan was.Bonus points: When Street Fighter: The Movie came to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, it was so bad that it wasn't even published by Street Fighter creator Capcom. Instead, it carried the logo of -- you cannot make this stuff up -- Acclaim Entertainment.: Enter the MatrixEvery now and then, there's a movie game that is supposed to change everything we know about movie games. This is inevitably followed by the backlash that results when these massively hyped projects turn out to be just as crappy as their predecessors.Reviewers agreed that the only reason to play Enter the Matrix would have been to watch the extra footage from the Matrix Reloaded shoot, a desire that simply watching Matrix Reloaded should have cured. Otherwise, it was an utter mess.Even sadder? In a past life, lead designer David Perry was responsible for one of those rare-as-a-unicorn good movie games: Aladdin for the Sega Genesis.: E.T. the Extra-TerrestrialWired.com readers might not have enjoyed the Raiders of the Lost Ark game, but Steven Spielberg liked the Atari 2600 title enough that he asked its designer, Howard Scott Warshaw, to design a game based on his upcoming film E.T.In time for the film's release. Which was six weeks away.Faced with an impossible deadline, Warshaw sequestered himself away in his Atari office, emerging just a month and a half later with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It's not the single worst videogame ever created, but it lives in infamy as the videogame industry's first high-profile disaster. Again, let us look back at children opening their presents one fine Christmas morning in 1982, and watch as they attempt to maneuver E.T. around the game screen, only to fall into a pit that they cannot escape from, no matter how many times they try. Repeat until tears are flowing steadily and Mom takes the game back to the store.There are many urban legends about E.T., and all of them are true. Atari manufactured 4 million copies of the game and found itself stuck with 2.5 million leftovers, which it buried in a New Mexico landfill. But E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial remains one of the best-selling Atari 2600 games of all time, proving the old adage that people will, in fact, buy any videogame with a movie license on the cover, no matter how terrible.
Wired News – Jul 2, 2008 01:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Technology
'Indiana Jones' passes $300 mil
Final data on the weekend's boxoffice for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" shows the Steven Spielberg film crossed the $300 million mark domestically Sunday. The Harrison Ford starrer topped $400 million internationally Friday.
The Hollywood Reporter – Jun 30, 2008 1:06 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment: Movies
Final data on the weekend's boxoffice for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" shows the Steven Spielberg film crossed the $300 million mark domestically Sunday. The Harrison Ford starrer topped $400 million internationally Friday.
The Hollywood Reporter – Jun 30, 2008 1:06 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment: Movies
Spanish royalty and Harrison Ford to mingle at final
VIENNA (Reuters) - The king and queen of Spain will be rubbing shoulders with Hollywood actor Harrison Ford and former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger in the VIP seats at Sunday's Euro 2008 final.
Reuters – Jun 29, 2008 1:28 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment
VIENNA (Reuters) - The king and queen of Spain will be rubbing shoulders with Hollywood actor Harrison Ford and former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger in the VIP seats at Sunday's Euro 2008 final.
Reuters – Jun 29, 2008 1:28 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment
Best Robot Love Stories, From Wall-E to Weird Science
: When cute trash compactor Wall-E first lays eyes on Eve, a flying, laser-gun-equipped fembot, it's binary love at first pixel.Although Pixar Animation Studios' Wall-E takes inspiration from classic sci-fi films, the G-rated galactic adventure that hits theaters Friday is, at heart, an old-fashioned love story. It's the latest roboromance in a long line of on-screen infatuation involving at least one automated being.From Star Wars' classic brotherly droid love between R2-D2 and C-3PO to the computer-generated babe in Weird Science, here are some of the best and -- as with the cybersex hostage in Demon Seed -- worst roborelationships ever to hit the screen.Which unforgettable android affair did we leave out? Submit your faves in the comments below.Left: Wall-ELove-struck Wall-E does his best to wow Eve with his treasure-trove of relics from humanity's reign on Earth -- a Rubik's Cube, light bulbs and even a spork. Though separated by seven centuries of technological advances, Wall-E and Eve find common ground in the quest to save humanity. Sort of like HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but with none of the killer instincts.RoboLove Meter Reading — 4/5: This kid-friendly, sugary-sweet romance should warm even the coldest of metal hearts.: The Stepford WivesWhen Joanna Eberhart (played by Katharine Ross) moves to Stepford, Connecticut, she discovers a sinister secret about the perfectly coiffed, submissive female residents of the sleepy suburban town: They're all high-tech bots. In this 1975 thriller, the men of Stepford -- hoping to quell the early strains of feminism -- have all killed and replaced their wives with engineered robot replicas.Joanna's discovery comes just a moment too late, as she soon falls victim to the same fate at the hands of her husband. The film was updated in 2004 with a version starring Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick and Christopher Walken, but the original won a spot on our list for the creepy atmosphere and genuinely disturbing premise at the heart of the story.RoboLove Meter Reading — 1/5: As cool as the idea of bioengineered human replicas is, this home-wrecking thriller bottoms out in the creepy factor for being too Hans Reiser-y.: I.K.U.This Japanese surrealist sci-fi flick follows Reiko, a shape-shifting sexbot whose job entails racking up as many intimate experiences as possible. Her inner circuitry records each one-night stand, and a large corporation sells the virtual-reality romps from vending machines.It's not long before a rival company seeks to destroy Reiko's popular wares, but before that happens, viewers are treated to eyefuls of kinky, medium-core rolls in the hay ... and in spider webs ... and even in fish tanks.RoboLove Meter Reading — 5/5: A shape-shifting fembot whose entire existence revolves around collecting "data" on orgasms? This fantasy pleasurebot rates high for having a one-track program compatible with any operating system.: Weird ScienceWhen Gary (played by Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) use their computers to design the perfect woman, they never expect her to be more than an online fantasy. But thanks to an electrical storm, a Barbie doll and headgear fashioned out of bras, Lisa (Kelly LeBrock) is suddenly brought to life in their bedroom.Breakfast Club director John Hughes' 1985 nerd classic redefined the ideal geek girlfriend -- Einstein's IQ, a rock 'n' roll attitude and the ability to transform pesky older siblings into amphibian hybrids and materialize sports cars out of thin air.RoboLove Meter Reading — 4.5/5: Even though Gary and Wyatt never actually get home-schooled in the birds and the bees, they receive high marks on our scale for scoring priceless life lessons. And, of course, the shower scene.: Cherry 2000In this 1988 vision of a post-apocalyptic future, sex machines are all the rage, and lovebot Cherry 2000 (played by Pamela Gidley) is in high demand.Unfortunately, a romantic interlude too close to a malfunctioning dishwasher causes a model owned by wealthy businessman Sam Treadwell (David Andrews) to short out. Sam must travel into an intrepid no-man's land of outlaws to retrieve a replacement for his beloved android.RoboLove Meter Reading — 2/5: This movie gets low marks since all that stood in the way of Sam's "happily ever after" with his sex droid was blatant violation of the most basic rule electronics -- avoiding contact with water.: Electric DreamsWhen San Francisco architect Miles Harding (played by Lenny von Dohlen purchases a personal supercomputer called Edgar to help him with a project, he takes home more than he bargained for.After a data overload and a spilled bottle of champagne bring the computer to life, the newly animated device becomes increasingly needy. As Harding ignores the feelings of his machine and pursues his cute next-door neighbor, Edgar (voiced by Harold and Maude's Bud Cort) grows more and more resentful, forming a bizarre love triangle with a disastrous end.RoboLove Meter Reading — 2/5: All Edgar wanted was some love and attention. If Miles, or "Moles," would have worked on the relationship, he could have avoided the whole "pesky attempts on his life" fiasco.: MetropolisIn Fritz Lang's 1927 epic silent drama, Earth is a paradise for the upper class of "thinkers," and hell for the working class. After Freder (played by Gustav Fröhlich), the upper-crust son of the city leader, falls for charismatic lower-class Maria (played by Brigitte Helm), he pursues her relentlessly only to discover that she's a robot, fabricated by a mad scientist intent on chaos.Luckily, the real Maria had been kidnapped, and eventually the two are reunited, helping resolve the inequities and injustice of the futuristic city of Metropolis.RoboLove Meter Reading — 3/5: Although Maria didn't want a bot body double, it served as a great stand-in when an angry mob was hot on her trail. So even though there was technically no android affair, Maria's roboreplica did allow for an emotional reunion with her human counterpart's love interest.: Blade RunnerBounty hunter Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) falls hard for a genetically engineered clone called Rachel in Ridley Scott's 1982 cyberpunk thriller. Although Deckard's primary mission is to assassinate rogue "replicants," he finds the charms of an experimental model (Sean Young) difficult to resist.RoboLove Meter Reading — 5/5: Since all signs indicate that replicant assassin Deckard was likely a clone, too, Blade Runner gets points for cyborg-on-cyborg romance.: Star WarsGeorge Lucas' iconic 1977 space opera introduces us to one of the best examples of brotherly love ever to hit the silver screen -- the comically codependent relationship between R2-D2 and C-3PO. The two droids are rarely apart, and help their owner, Luke Skywalker, with repairs, statistical information and etiquette (when they're not bickering like a couple that's been married for years).RoboLove Meter Reading — 5/5: R2-D2 and C-3PO positively sparkle as they bring the original and most endearing bot "bromance" to the silver screen.: Saturn 3Original Charlie's Angels sex symbol Farrah Fawcett plays Alex, the object of an android's affection, in this 1980 sci-fi film about a pair of scientists who have left an overpopulated Earth to live on one of Saturn's moons.After a deranged psychopath masquerading as a technocrat arrives at their colony with designs to build a super-intelligent, 8-foot-tall robot, things quickly spiral out of control. Once completed, Hector the robot begins a terrorized pursuit of Alex and will stop at nothing -- or no one -- to win her over.RoboLove Meter Reading — 1/5: Hector's supposed to be a highly advanced automaton, but really, he just kills people. He loses major points for not being able to deduce that Alex is just not that into him.: Demon SeedArtificial-intelligence system Proteus IV has a unique molecular makeup that's equal parts microchips, RNA and psychopath psyche. After the system gains self-awareness, it becomes hell-bent on spreading its cyberseed, and imprisons unlucky Susan (played by Julie Christie) in order to do so.This tale of forced laboratory love begets one of the most unsettling images of an infant with an unfortunate gene pool since the demonic spawn in It's Alive.RoboLove Meter Reading — 2/5: As cool as superadvanced artificial intelligence is, Demon Seed rates low on our scale for the whole hostage-and-rape story line.: Buffy the Vampire SlayerThe fifth and sixth seasons of TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured an unusual cast addition: a roboreplica version of Buffy Summers, the vampire-slaying teen created by geek maestro Joss Whedon.Originally created at the request of bad-boy vampire Spike for use as a sex slave, the Buffybot gynoid is later put to use as a stand-in for the real Summers in battle and after her death.RoboLove Meter Reading — 4/5: Billy Idol look-alike vampire Spike's got it bad for Buffy, and since he ultimately uses her robotwin for good, we rank this bot-nightwalker union high on our scale.: Battlestar GalacticaBattlestar's chrome toasters show no love for humans, but the skinjob Cylons are a pack of intergalactic orgasmatrons.Their affinity for doing the robonasty with humans generated a lot of heat when the Sci Fi Channel's re-imagined series got off the ground, and Cylon sexpot Number Six (played by Tricia Helfer) makes such a strong physical and emotional connection with Gaius Baltar (James Callis) that the doctor just can't get her out of his head.RoboLove Meter Reading — 5/5: Revelations about secret Cylons working (and boinking) among the colonists show just how natural human-skinjob love can be. Bonus points for what's been called the "glowing spines of Cylon Lurrrrrve."
Wired News – Jun 26, 2008 01:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Technology
: When cute trash compactor Wall-E first lays eyes on Eve, a flying, laser-gun-equipped fembot, it's binary love at first pixel.Although Pixar Animation Studios' Wall-E takes inspiration from classic sci-fi films, the G-rated galactic adventure that hits theaters Friday is, at heart, an old-fashioned love story. It's the latest roboromance in a long line of on-screen infatuation involving at least one automated being.From Star Wars' classic brotherly droid love between R2-D2 and C-3PO to the computer-generated babe in Weird Science, here are some of the best and -- as with the cybersex hostage in Demon Seed -- worst roborelationships ever to hit the screen.Which unforgettable android affair did we leave out? Submit your faves in the comments below.Left: Wall-ELove-struck Wall-E does his best to wow Eve with his treasure-trove of relics from humanity's reign on Earth -- a Rubik's Cube, light bulbs and even a spork. Though separated by seven centuries of technological advances, Wall-E and Eve find common ground in the quest to save humanity. Sort of like HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but with none of the killer instincts.RoboLove Meter Reading — 4/5: This kid-friendly, sugary-sweet romance should warm even the coldest of metal hearts.: The Stepford WivesWhen Joanna Eberhart (played by Katharine Ross) moves to Stepford, Connecticut, she discovers a sinister secret about the perfectly coiffed, submissive female residents of the sleepy suburban town: They're all high-tech bots. In this 1975 thriller, the men of Stepford -- hoping to quell the early strains of feminism -- have all killed and replaced their wives with engineered robot replicas.Joanna's discovery comes just a moment too late, as she soon falls victim to the same fate at the hands of her husband. The film was updated in 2004 with a version starring Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick and Christopher Walken, but the original won a spot on our list for the creepy atmosphere and genuinely disturbing premise at the heart of the story.RoboLove Meter Reading — 1/5: As cool as the idea of bioengineered human replicas is, this home-wrecking thriller bottoms out in the creepy factor for being too Hans Reiser-y.: I.K.U.This Japanese surrealist sci-fi flick follows Reiko, a shape-shifting sexbot whose job entails racking up as many intimate experiences as possible. Her inner circuitry records each one-night stand, and a large corporation sells the virtual-reality romps from vending machines.It's not long before a rival company seeks to destroy Reiko's popular wares, but before that happens, viewers are treated to eyefuls of kinky, medium-core rolls in the hay ... and in spider webs ... and even in fish tanks.RoboLove Meter Reading — 5/5: A shape-shifting fembot whose entire existence revolves around collecting "data" on orgasms? This fantasy pleasurebot rates high for having a one-track program compatible with any operating system.: Weird ScienceWhen Gary (played by Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) use their computers to design the perfect woman, they never expect her to be more than an online fantasy. But thanks to an electrical storm, a Barbie doll and headgear fashioned out of bras, Lisa (Kelly LeBrock) is suddenly brought to life in their bedroom.Breakfast Club director John Hughes' 1985 nerd classic redefined the ideal geek girlfriend -- Einstein's IQ, a rock 'n' roll attitude and the ability to transform pesky older siblings into amphibian hybrids and materialize sports cars out of thin air.RoboLove Meter Reading — 4.5/5: Even though Gary and Wyatt never actually get home-schooled in the birds and the bees, they receive high marks on our scale for scoring priceless life lessons. And, of course, the shower scene.: Cherry 2000In this 1988 vision of a post-apocalyptic future, sex machines are all the rage, and lovebot Cherry 2000 (played by Pamela Gidley) is in high demand.Unfortunately, a romantic interlude too close to a malfunctioning dishwasher causes a model owned by wealthy businessman Sam Treadwell (David Andrews) to short out. Sam must travel into an intrepid no-man's land of outlaws to retrieve a replacement for his beloved android.RoboLove Meter Reading — 2/5: This movie gets low marks since all that stood in the way of Sam's "happily ever after" with his sex droid was blatant violation of the most basic rule electronics -- avoiding contact with water.: Electric DreamsWhen San Francisco architect Miles Harding (played by Lenny von Dohlen purchases a personal supercomputer called Edgar to help him with a project, he takes home more than he bargained for.After a data overload and a spilled bottle of champagne bring the computer to life, the newly animated device becomes increasingly needy. As Harding ignores the feelings of his machine and pursues his cute next-door neighbor, Edgar (voiced by Harold and Maude's Bud Cort) grows more and more resentful, forming a bizarre love triangle with a disastrous end.RoboLove Meter Reading — 2/5: All Edgar wanted was some love and attention. If Miles, or "Moles," would have worked on the relationship, he could have avoided the whole "pesky attempts on his life" fiasco.: MetropolisIn Fritz Lang's 1927 epic silent drama, Earth is a paradise for the upper class of "thinkers," and hell for the working class. After Freder (played by Gustav Fröhlich), the upper-crust son of the city leader, falls for charismatic lower-class Maria (played by Brigitte Helm), he pursues her relentlessly only to discover that she's a robot, fabricated by a mad scientist intent on chaos.Luckily, the real Maria had been kidnapped, and eventually the two are reunited, helping resolve the inequities and injustice of the futuristic city of Metropolis.RoboLove Meter Reading — 3/5: Although Maria didn't want a bot body double, it served as a great stand-in when an angry mob was hot on her trail. So even though there was technically no android affair, Maria's roboreplica did allow for an emotional reunion with her human counterpart's love interest.: Blade RunnerBounty hunter Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) falls hard for a genetically engineered clone called Rachel in Ridley Scott's 1982 cyberpunk thriller. Although Deckard's primary mission is to assassinate rogue "replicants," he finds the charms of an experimental model (Sean Young) difficult to resist.RoboLove Meter Reading — 5/5: Since all signs indicate that replicant assassin Deckard was likely a clone, too, Blade Runner gets points for cyborg-on-cyborg romance.: Star WarsGeorge Lucas' iconic 1977 space opera introduces us to one of the best examples of brotherly love ever to hit the silver screen -- the comically codependent relationship between R2-D2 and C-3PO. The two droids are rarely apart, and help their owner, Luke Skywalker, with repairs, statistical information and etiquette (when they're not bickering like a couple that's been married for years).RoboLove Meter Reading — 5/5: R2-D2 and C-3PO positively sparkle as they bring the original and most endearing bot "bromance" to the silver screen.: Saturn 3Original Charlie's Angels sex symbol Farrah Fawcett plays Alex, the object of an android's affection, in this 1980 sci-fi film about a pair of scientists who have left an overpopulated Earth to live on one of Saturn's moons.After a deranged psychopath masquerading as a technocrat arrives at their colony with designs to build a super-intelligent, 8-foot-tall robot, things quickly spiral out of control. Once completed, Hector the robot begins a terrorized pursuit of Alex and will stop at nothing -- or no one -- to win her over.RoboLove Meter Reading — 1/5: Hector's supposed to be a highly advanced automaton, but really, he just kills people. He loses major points for not being able to deduce that Alex is just not that into him.: Demon SeedArtificial-intelligence system Proteus IV has a unique molecular makeup that's equal parts microchips, RNA and psychopath psyche. After the system gains self-awareness, it becomes hell-bent on spreading its cyberseed, and imprisons unlucky Susan (played by Julie Christie) in order to do so.This tale of forced laboratory love begets one of the most unsettling images of an infant with an unfortunate gene pool since the demonic spawn in It's Alive.RoboLove Meter Reading — 2/5: As cool as superadvanced artificial intelligence is, Demon Seed rates low on our scale for the whole hostage-and-rape story line.: Buffy the Vampire SlayerThe fifth and sixth seasons of TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer featured an unusual cast addition: a roboreplica version of Buffy Summers, the vampire-slaying teen created by geek maestro Joss Whedon.Originally created at the request of bad-boy vampire Spike for use as a sex slave, the Buffybot gynoid is later put to use as a stand-in for the real Summers in battle and after her death.RoboLove Meter Reading — 4/5: Billy Idol look-alike vampire Spike's got it bad for Buffy, and since he ultimately uses her robotwin for good, we rank this bot-nightwalker union high on our scale.: Battlestar GalacticaBattlestar's chrome toasters show no love for humans, but the skinjob Cylons are a pack of intergalactic orgasmatrons.Their affinity for doing the robonasty with humans generated a lot of heat when the Sci Fi Channel's re-imagined series got off the ground, and Cylon sexpot Number Six (played by Tricia Helfer) makes such a strong physical and emotional connection with Gaius Baltar (James Callis) that the doctor just can't get her out of his head.RoboLove Meter Reading — 5/5: Revelations about secret Cylons working (and boinking) among the colonists show just how natural human-skinjob love can be. Bonus points for what's been called the "glowing spines of Cylon Lurrrrrve."
Wired News – Jun 26, 2008 01:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Technology
Brendan Fraser becomes summer’s action kingMove over, Harrison Ford. Brendan Fraser is poised to take your place as the reigning action star, with not one, but two contenders for the popcorn-munching flick of the summer.
MSNBC.com – Jun 24, 2008 6:36 PM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment: Movies
Expectations high in Cannes for Indiana Jones
The new Harrison Ford adventure opened Saturday. It's called Indiana Jones and the Temple of Media Speculation, and judging from the first-day turnout, it's going to be an immense hit.
Canada.com – May 17, 2008 04:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Canada: Ontario
The new Harrison Ford adventure opened Saturday. It's called Indiana Jones and the Temple of Media Speculation, and judging from the first-day turnout, it's going to be an immense hit.
Canada.com – May 17, 2008 04:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Canada: Ontario
'Indiana Jones -- The Adventure Collection'
Keep your 2003 Indiana Jones box set, avoid this commercial for 'Indy 4' With "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" about to return Harrison Ford's beloved swashbuckling archeologist to the big screen, it's no surprise that Paramount is looking to cash in on the original Indy franchise.
Zap2it.com – May 13, 2008 07:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment: Movies
Keep your 2003 Indiana Jones box set, avoid this commercial for 'Indy 4' With "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" about to return Harrison Ford's beloved swashbuckling archeologist to the big screen, it's no surprise that Paramount is looking to cash in on the original Indy franchise.
Zap2it.com – May 13, 2008 07:00 AM [GMT] ¦ comment?
found in Entertainment: Movies
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