It’s been quite a while since I’ve been to the theater here in New York because the price of tickets is ridiculous and the quality of many recent films, storyline-wise, has been abysmal. The economy has had me watching back seasons of old shows on Netflix until the new movies hit their play-it-now section so I can watch them at home. That said, I decided to take a chance on a film and see it in theaters this time.

The Battle: LA posters were up in the tunnels here and I’d seen the trailer on Youtube a while back so that was my choice; besides it was offered in normal-vision, AKA not 3D, so I figured they probably spent the budget on legitimate storyline stuff and not crapatar special effects with floating milkweed seeds. I was not wrong. I’m a huge sci-fi fan and an extreme sci-fi critic. I’ve seen it all from the classics to the dregs and I can spot a plot rip-off a mile away. This film has a basic social commentary on the war in Iraq, a well thought out formula plot, and a detailed overview of the actions of troops while on the ground in battle. The script maintains the timeless quality found in most hero-journey films and doesn’t get bogged down with internal moral turmoil, religion, or love interests.

The basic premise is: ET’s drop out of the skies into the sea off the coast of L.A. to force-ably colonize and gain control of Earth’s natural resources – Marines fight back. The plot is found in a variety of sci-fi sources like games, books, and films; but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. The point here is that we humans are put in a pressure situation as the underdogs in a black and white battle for survival. The gray ambiguous psychobabble found in suspense thrillers and chick flicks is stripped away and replaced by a clearly formulated emotionless “bad guy” presented with an obvious solution: annihilation of bad is good. The World War II Nazi regime used to be that film “bad guy” but for years now the media has been struggling with how to make an engaging storyline that presents the blurred lines of combat that our troops are facing overseas. This film cuts through that modern crap and re-establishes the clear cut rules of battle for a much more fulfilling entertainment journey. I was not left wondering what choice should or should not have been made throughout the film. I was not left feeling bad for the “bad guy.” I left the theater with the same feeling I had after watching “Iron Man” – pride. I know there’s probably some consultant for the military whose job it was to make sure this film was presenting the US armed forces with a patriotic flavor, but I don’t care. Patriotism and inherent feelings of responsibility for the safety and well-being of others are admirable traits. The characters in the film have it in spades.

I’m not going to give you plot spoilers. I am only going to recommend the film. The Pg-13 rating is due to “Sustained and intense sequences of war, violence, and destruction; and for language” (and one light erp scene at the beginning) so keep that in mind if you have a featherweight sensibility. This is an edge-of-seat film and will leave you wanting to enlist in the armed forces for the retaking of LA (though likely not for the current war overseas). My personal opinion is that “Battle: LA” is a ray of hope for future sci-fi action movies and hopefully heralds a shift in the industry towards producing high quality stories with good real-life actors instead of only high quantity effects and bumbling blue bodies.

A vast majority of internet critics are panning this film, but I feel they’re missing the pearl here. This is the best action sci-fi film we’ve seen in years, and while it’s not an Oscar film it does have more depth than people are giving it credit for. Sure it’s non-stop action violence and vaguely glimpsed aliens, but isn’t that what has made old sci-fi film monsters into classics? The more you see of the film bad guy the less scary he is. This film isn’t about getting to know the aliens and having their babies, it’s about wiping them off the face of our earth. I think emotional love scenes have been misconstrued by the average populace lately as character arc depth, and if that’s what you’re waiting for it ain’t happening here; something I proclaim as good. The self sacrifice element is much cooler than redundant ridiculously-timed love scenes, trust me.

It’s that time again, time to put my spin on a popular myth for the future of geeks everywhere. The topic is… (drum roll, please) Aliens! Time to construct a classification for these short, tall, fat, skinny, grey, green, pink, purple, hairy, slimy, ridiculously intelligent, monstrous beings from another world that refuse to interact with our common society.

What are Aliens?
For purposes of this article, aliens are classified as any non-terrestrial origin entity. I know that is a broad stroke, but it’s also constrictive and will likely rile up a few scientologists in our midst because the classification implies that any non-terrestrial entity could create, birth, spawn, or otherwise replicate itself here on earth and its offspring would no longer be classified as an alien. It’s an alien immigrant policy for earth, my friends.

Where do aliens come from?
Who cares, they’re not from here and that’s what seems to matter to most people. Keeping in mind that the earth is populated with a multitude of species, and most of those species are scared to death of each other, I dare say that the universe is probably the same. There are probably tons of alien species out there, but unless they’re ultra naive or ultra scary powerful they likely are just as afraid of us as we are of them. It now should make sense why they seem to prey upon the weaker minded people and animals on earth. Think about it. When was the last time you heard of a rocket scientist who got abducted by aliens and “mind” probed; or, for that matter, when was the last case of German Shepherd abduction recorded. Never, because it’s not the smart ones aliens want to mess with, it’s the dumb ones. Mutilating cattle, messin’ with the hill folk, grabbing up seamen who haven’t see land in months… it all makes sense. Aliens are just poking around, but not wanting to get poked back. If I were an alien, I wouldn’t try to integrate with our common society either. Heck, I’m human and I don’t necessarily want to associate with the common earthling’s society.

What do aliens look like?
Not sure, exactly; this question is a bit like asking what worms look like or, for that matter, what humans look like. A helminthologist could tell you what every worm looked like and what function they had that demanded that particular distinction, but the average Jane is just going to say “slippery and slimy”; not a very good descriptor of what they look like. If every planet that could support intelligent life had as many distinctions between its classifications of intelligent life as we have then describing what an alien actually looks like (even if they all originate from one singular planet out there) is impossible in the grand scheme of things. That said, most alien descriptions offered up by popular mythology seem to indicate that aliens embody the viewer’s own fears; a true monster, if you will. Again, I state that aliens are just as afraid of us as we are of them because they/we are an unknown. For the purpose of this article I’ll just say that beyond the obvious factors aliens are best described as your younger sibling: annoying, mischievous, inquisitive, know-it-all, nosy, sneaky, undermining, copycat, whiny, wimpy, gets cooler toys for Christmas when all you get are socks, and annoying (that’s listed twice for emphasis).

What can aliens do, exactly?
Aliens can mess with sasquatch… we just happen to be the sasquatch in this case. Aliens are possibly in possession of super advanced technology with which they choose to shine lights on us and pick on the funnier examples of our species. Aliens purportedly have super high intelligence with which they integrate themselves into society so well we can’t tell the difference between them and us unless some guy that lives alone in a cabin in the woods posts a blog about it. Aliens could have amazing telepathic, telekenetic, or telephonetic brains that they choose to use to make iphones for general consumption by teen girls everywhere. Aliens are feasibly regenerative which they use to maintain their disguise as Cher. Aliens might also be able to master time and space which they’ve chosen to do in order to help our pitiful civilization reach the pinnacle of it’s existence: couch wars.

Should we be worried?
Heck, yes we should be worried! Didn’t you read that list of what aliens can do!?

How can we kill these invading hordes, Jon?
With water, supposedly (thanks, M. Night Shyamanalonalonalonalanmanaskjdaflkjgfsdll!slkfjgh&*kjfg!!!!). If that doesn’t work, you could just wait for them to die off from infection caused by our zombie hordes… wait wrong topic. Nuking them doesn’t seem to ever work, just FYI for those of you who do live a cabin in the woods and have a stockpile of Russian nukes in your root cellar. I suggest the good ol’ fashion Will Smith approach and punch-em-in-the-face!

If that doesn’t work play dumb and they’ll probably just probe you for a bit and let you go in Alaska somewhere. If you’re worried about your family, don’t be. I’d be more worried about the poor alien’s sanity if they abducted your modern child. Have you listened to kids these days? They’re nuts! The most likely scenario would be like that story about the kidnappers who couldn’t wait to get the kid home because he was so annoying and demanding. Trust me, kids are more annoying than aliens. Wait maybe that’s the big secret: kids are aliens!

Now what?
Why are you still reading this? Post a comment about your outrage and give us your own version of an alien descriptor. I’m sure someone stumbled across this on accident and really wants to know. Just give me a day or so to root through the spam about viagra and other supplements before looking for your post to get approved (it’s instant if you’ve been approved before).

Someone finally asked me the question… Zombies vs. Vampires, who wins? As an addendum to the previous post, here is my take on this relatively new question.

First off, the rules I laid out in the Zombie Apocalypse article stand for the zombies referenced in this post; supernatural reanimated flesh, not a brain virus.  Second, vampires referenced here follow the rules of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” in accordance with U.S. traditional preconceptions, not sparkly Mormon vampires.

Vampires hate zombies. Why? Because a zombie is dumb, dead, destructive, and dry. Most important of that list is “dry” as it indicates the zombie’s utter uselessness to vampire kind. A vampire would seem to be a hero in the zombie apocalypse as they would have none of elements that inherently attract zombies or the fear attached to the concept of dying. The vampire would want to help save human kind in order to continue eating. I know it’s a bit obvious but we humans lose no matter who wins.

Zombies couldn’t care less about vampires. Since vampires are also dead they have none of features zombies perceive as food and since zombies can’t remember things it leaves the vampires free to do whatever they want. What movies rarely overtly show is the attraction of zombies to any loud noise, even their own. That said, as long as vampy vampire stayed quiet he could freely walk the za streets with no fear of consumption… assuming he wasn’t dying of thirst.

So who wins in Zombies vs. Vampires? Aliens. After all life on earth is consumed in one way or another, strip-mining the planet benefits nonresidents only… that is, until the ninja assassins who have trained secretly in mountain caves sneak aboard E.T.’s ship and murder him in his sleep, never to resurrect again.

In this scenario pirates are irrelevant as the ninjas just pirated a flying saucer… yup. You’re welcome.

Posted from Droid

It’s been a couple days since my last update on this project and here’s why…

As always, I took the weekend to go hang out with my wonderful fiancé, Jean, in Brooklyn. While there, and in conjunction with eating pizza, I suddenly realized that I had been going about the project all wrong. I have an idea in my head (which is where I hold most of my ideas) about the shaping and details of the skull, but I am having issues creating the armature in a way that defines the sculpture outcome properly. Due to the sheer size of this project I’ve wasted many hours building up the clay around the current armature only to discover that I have done it wrong. As I said in earlier posts, “this was a shot in the dark”. Well, my “shot” missed the target, so I’m reloading.

Pizza. Everything can be solved with pizza from which I derive my powers. Just kidding… about the powers. Pizza boxes, when unfolded, just happen to be roughly 38″ long from inner crease to crease. Why does that matter? Well, that’s how long this particular skull is. I plan on taking a couple weeks to build up some cardboard supplies (which should be easy with Litte Ceasar’s at the corner) from which to create a fuller armature to build on. I’ll just cut the shapes and slot the thing together to get a better sense of the whole before I add clay to it. In the mean time I have to tear down the current structure and re-mold the clay into usable pieces. Using my handy-dandy study lamp, I’ve found a way to soften the NSP to a workable temperature, so the process should go more quickly than it did two weeks ago.

This weekend is Mother’s Day, thus creating another delay in the process…

Grrr Arrrgh.

ADDENDUM – 5/29/10:

The Alien skull is canceled for now. After much deliberation I’ve opted for finishing up some smaller projects first before my wedding. After which I have to move to a new place and I don’t know if I’ll have much space for large projects or not. I really want to make one still, but it will have to wait.

I was at it again last night. This is getting to be a very heavy project already and it’s not even halfway completed. First step last night was to add a tube down the center of the cavity.

Again, I’m flying blind on this and really don’t know if it’s going to work out exactly as I have planned. We’ll see. I then continued to add clay to the sparse armature. I’m certain there are way to do this that I’m missing, but I don’t have a really good idea as to how thin the skeleton aspects of the design will be so I can’t bulk them up with non-clay stuffs too much as that limits the tweaking I intend for later in the sculpting process.

Basically this is the fat older brother of the slimmed down, cut, final version. I put a guide wire arch in place temporarily for something to aim at. Also, I determined that I’m going to cast the center spine as separate pieces for later assembly.

I’ll just have to create some foolproof method of matching up the pieces later. I’m thinking pegs may do well here. I bulked up some of the “ribs” on one side to see what shape it could take over time.

I do intend on fusing the individual “ribs” in sections for a more plated bone look (see original sketch). This is using an astronomical amount of clay compared to anything I’ve ever made before. I’m not doing anything this large again for quite some time after this, I think.

Since I panicked yesterday, everything has gotten much better.

First off, I tore off the stuff I put together yesterday.

Following some rough sketches I drew up at work, I progressed into adding the foundational clay for the rear segment of the cranial cage.

I got a bit “creative, with the foreknowledge that most of this can be changed as I go.

I can’t depend on painting in “dark” areas like one can with a rubber mask to hide lack of detail since the sculpt will likely be painted in a bleached bone color scheme.

Anyhow, that’s what I did on the project last night. I’ll be working on the “spinal” center structures tonight and hopefully get some sleep. I was up ’till 4a last night and left for work this morning at 8a. I’m definitely feeling it now at 4p.

Last night I stayed up a bit too late trying desperately to figure out what I was thinking attempting this project. It wasn’t until I looked over the pictures this morning that I realized why it felt “off”.

In case you didn’t notice it, the framework for the armature is flat across the bottom; however, the alien head is arched. Sure it sits up there fine now, but as soon as I go to sculpt the underside, I’m going to find a board sticking out along the entire bottom edge of my design and that’s problem #1. I didn’t see this all last night as I was working. Even as I write this, I’m trying to figure out a way to correct the issues without totally starting over.

I cut the spinal board down a bit in length last night to account for where the front lobe cavity would be. I already expect to have a multi-part sculpt/casting process due to my desire to make this replicate-able, but I am still figuring out the “how” of the design. As I look at this now, I think I can just cut the board length down a bit more in front and drop the placement of the skull a bit on the armature so the board will be covered. Hopefully, the interior hollows will still exist. I am aware of the fact that I should remove the boards being used as vertical supports and replace them with a pipe. I just don’t have that pipe right now. Anyhow, I fell asleep at 2:30am after sticking some clay to the structure (clay I now know I will have to sculpt down a little differently, or possibly remove). Oh, well.

I won’t have a lot of time tonight, but I may try to at least modify the substructure if I get a chance.

Every so often in these types of projects it’s a good idea to rough sketch a multitude of variations. These are some of the continued design sketches I roughed out on a notepad during lunch today.

I was attempting to figure out the assembly steps necessary to make this duplicate-able. If I make it once, I fear I’ll have people asking for copies.