Hard Wares: Minimalist Tron Poster

This poster is freaking fantastic.  It has a great feel to it.  I was thinking that this is the way Disney should have gone with the promotion of their groundbreaking CGI video game movie from 1982.  Be mysterious with it, low key... instead of the "computerized Fantasia" they pushed.  Although, thinking about it, the poster feels a bit too 70's, a vibe that would probably have given the public the idea that the movie was dated even before release:

Still though, a great poster, designed by Mark Welser.  You can pick up a print over at Etsy.

For more information on Disney's seminal Tron, consult your local Dot Eaters article.

Imperial Stooges Slam U.S. Death Star Decision

It all started with a petition submitted to the U.S. government via the "We the People" website, designed to give voice to citizens about pressing matters to the people.  Any petition that receives at least 25,000 signatures within 30 days of being submitted will get an official response from the White House.

Of course, the idea of "pressing matters" differs among people, and so a petition to secure funding and begin construction of a Death Star, the moon-sized orbiting battle station first revealed in 1977's Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, passed the response threshold with 34,435 signatures.  Hence, the Chief of the Science and Space Branch of the White House Office of Management and Budget Paul Shawcross issued an official statement of how such an appropriation of funds would be fiscally irresponsible ($850,000,000,000,000,000), not to mention immoral and the results easily destructible by a one-man starship.

Now in response to the response, the official Star Wars Blog has presented a PR release by the Galactic Empire, slamming Earth as primitive and cowardly.  I, for one, think we need to get cracking on updating the International Space Station.  Perhaps Lord Vader could think of some ways of motivating us to get back on a Death Star schedule.

Can This Wizard Save Pinball?

From its modern incarnation with the advent of the flipper after WWII, pinball enjoyed a long run as the go-to electronic amusement pastime.  It lasted until the 70's, when the shimmering graphics and bloop and bleep siren call of video games lured players away from mechanical playgrounds to ephemeral worlds comprised of phosphors on a screen.

Pinball limped along, the market steadily shrinking until a few old warhorse manufacturers remained, companies like Williams, who attempted to resurrect  the genre with a daring video/pinball hybrid system in 1999 called Pinball 2000.  As detailed in the excellent documentary TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball (Two-Disc Set) , this gambled failed, Williams moved to the more lucrative slot machine market, and so pinball has languished as a niche collector's market.

But now former arcade operator and online pinball machine retailer "Jersey" Jack Guarieri has hopes to propel the silver ball back into public consciousness with a new machine of his own design, based on a slightly dated property... The Wizard of Oz.  Guarieri's sense of timing might be spot on though, riding the buzz of the upcoming Disney prequel to Wizard, Oz: The Great and Powerful.  Only time will tell if Guarieri is truly the wizard who can save pinball.

Slate has the story here:

via Digg

Insert Coin. a Dazzling Animation Done Entirely With Coins

Talk about putting in your two cents!  Out of Sweden comes Insert Coin, a 4:27 minute short stop-motion video of coins being moved around to create retro-game images.  It is done by the A/V performance team Rymdreglage aka Ninja Moped, comprised of Daniel Larsson and Tomas Redigh.

The short is startlingly good, with a nifty chiptunes soundtrack.  Their YouTube channel has over a couple hundred other uploaded videos to enjoy as well.

Tron's Legacy Continues

Coming through the I/O Tower is word that Tron: Legacy, the 2010 sequel to Disney's groundbreaking 1982 movie Tron, is itself getting a follow-up.

Legacy created a lot of buzz during its release two years ago, managed to pull in over US$400 million dollars world-wide, and spun-off an animated series titled Tron: Uprising, which airs on the Disney XD television network.  It's little wonder that Disney wants to continue plumbing the Tron universe.  Legacy director Joseph Kosinski has been tapped for the sequel, with Jesse Wigutow in negotiations to write the script.

I liked Legacy when it came out in theatres.  I saw it in 3D, and the movie was shot with 3D equipment as opposed to converted to the format after the fact, and it looked spectacular.  In addition, the story was a bit more fleshed out than the original.  Here's hoping Tron 3.0 continues the upward cycle.

For more information on Tron and other video game movies that mattered, consult your local Dot Eaters entry.

via The Hollywood Reporter

Star Trek Crew Invades the Big Screen, 33 Years Ago Today

Indelibly mixed in my memory with blasting rocks in Atari's Asteroids and shooting Space Invaders at the local arcade, as well as seeing video games coming home with the Atari VCS and the then newly-minted Mattel  Intellivision, is Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was released to theatres in North America on Dec. 7 1979,  33 years ago today.

Detailing the return of "Admiral" James T. Kirk to the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, as a giant cloud menacingly approaches Earth with unknown intent, the film was savaged by critics at the time, calling it over-long, glacially-paced and too full of itself.  The film series righted itself commercially in the next iteration, the rollicking Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, but I've been swayed over the years that TMP is a more pure Star Trek movie.  Later films narrowed plots to episodic TV dimensions, but the original movie seems more true to the idea of exploring the unknown, grandiose nature of the universe.  The effects by visual master Douglas Trumbull also seemed barely constrained by even theatre-sized screens.

Star Trek was my pop-culture obsession before video games beamed in, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a milestone on that journey.